Oh To Be A They/them Aristocrat With A Penchant For Starting Drama

oh to be a they/them aristocrat with a penchant for starting drama

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when the autism is being an actual mental health problem instead of making me obsess over fictional characters again:

Written in the Stars

(And now for my trademark! A bit of angst after a sweet moment.) @spaus-week

Antonio was a simple man who had one simple habit between duties on the starship. He would come once more to this corridor, staring through this window, the pulse of the engines outside humming. Antonio couldn't help but stare and be one with the universe. It felt like his very core would sing along to this song. Whatever song the stars seemed to sing, anyways. The song reminded him of a certain performer he had met on a distant planet.

The song was gentle and sweet, just as the flowery dialect it had been composed for. Antonio thought he would win the lottery before he could see that man again, but fate had put in a good word for him.

The man who composed it, a self proclaimed conservationist, was traveling with them. He was opting to use anything except the fare that would have been charged to take him on a comfortable journey. He thought about what it was like to live so carefully, but not only did he refuse to honor that thought, it had been interrupted by a few words from the door.

"What's so enticing out there? Nothing new, right? I've already looked." That voice. Those words. Antonio nearly didn't understand them. He was so entranced. "Hello? Can you hear me? You seem like you might as well be lost out there." Ah, what he'd give to be lost in that voice forever.

"Sorry, Rodrigo." Antonio grinned as he looked in the composer's direction. "I've been looking at the stars. They're so pretty!" Much like the visitor he now gazed upon. "You may have looked, but have you seen them yet?"

"I don't see them often, and in all honesty, I suppose I need to take a better look." Roderich stood by his fellow man. "They inspire a lot of my work. Dangerous, overwhelming, but pretty." The composer had a strangely serene look on his face. Pale as the moon of earth, eyes shimmering in a color almost like the void of space had been lit up in flame, those same eyes reflecting the light that those distant stars had been emitting for ages longer than any man had existed.

"Wow..." Antonio sighed, but he didn't look out the window. His own green eyes were fixated on the features of this strange man. He looked so put together, but like a mess the more he was paid attention to. A truly remarkable and vulnerable artist, one of the last of his kind by trade. Antonio hadn't seen music on things with strings and keys before meeting Roderich.

To meet someone so connected to the past in this age of the stars was incredible.

"I need to-" Antonio caught himself. "Could I get to know you better?" His own tanned face was surprisingly flooded with enthusiastic blush.

"Anton, was it?" Roderich asked. "I'd love that. You seem like you enjoy art. I know of a nice gallery you may enjoy, it holds some pretty extravagant exhibits."

"Well, I guess that's that!" He didn't bother to correct him. "I'll meet up with you sometime later, maybe after our ship makes it through the system after this one?" Antonio offered.

"Do you promise?"

And then Roderich woke from his slumber, a bed of beautiful yet modest luxury beneath his aching joints. He remembered that man so fondly, having met him some more times before that ship had made its final journey.

In spite of his promises, poor Anton hasn't been heard from in a while. The artist, the conservationist, the composer and musician, wrote a song in his name. Roderich had a hope that somewhere, somehow, Antonio would hear it. Their time together was as short and sweet as the song's cry for forgiveness. A curse to lady luck and a promise to see him again, even though extreme means.

Roderich wanted to be wrong. But even in spite of their bond, the tragic ending of this symphony was already written in the stars.