Chapter Text
He was having the dream again.
Inky black stretching out forever into the expanse both above and below him, glittering with a frosting of stars. Just the boy alone, drifting within that wide open nothing and wondering how it was that all the twinkling lights were so far away.
"Ground control, do you copy?" He asks into the headset inside his helmet, and there's no answer except for a thick and heavy silence until he's no longer sure if he said the words aloud or just thought them.
He can't remember his mouth moving. He can't remember how he even got there in the darkness, floating with his hands reaching out futilely for something to grab a hold of. The thought feels numb all through the centre of him, like holding snow in his bare hands; so cold it burns.
Beyond are constellations no one has named yet, and planets untouched by human civilisation. Spaces in the universe with dead stars bending back the light, or purple nebulas the shapes of horses' heads. Planets where it doesn't snow most of the year, and if it does the snow is diamonds that fall compressed and sparkling against the surface of that alien world. His gaze is fixed on it all, imaging the possibilities with his mouth open in wonder.
It's still only silence from NASA on the headset, but the mission has never been so clear to him as it is at that moment; to boldly go. Craig Tucker never smiles but Spaceman Craig does, big and wide so that all his teeth show, even the crooked ones he hates. When he speaks again it's a whisper to the stars ahead, every word sweetened by the grin spread across his face.
"I guess it's just you and me then."
Just us? The nearest star seems to ask, twinkling pale gold towards him, What about the rest of the world?
"Fuck the world," Craig tells it, feeling he's flying as he opens his arms out like he's readying for an embrace, "I'd rather have you."
The glow grows brighter and warmer as the boy finally reaches it, and he's about to close his arms around its buttery radiance when the dream dissolves around him. The stars fall to static and the calm silence of space is interrupted by the incessant sound of knocking, of someone calling his name.
So it was, that the boy woke up the morning of his seventeenth birthday already wishing he hadn't.