Bluestar

Delph put a hand on Thyatira’s shoulder, coming up behind him where he sat. “Lookin’ at the stars?”

Thya nodded, glancing his way. “Yeah…”
“What has your attention tonight?”
“Blue one over there,” Thya pointed.
“That one, huh? Why?”

The young man smiled and sat beside his friend on the bench under the little overhang on their rooftop. Thyatira shrugged.
“Dunno.”

Delph rubbed the boy’s shoulders, then they both fell silent.

“………” Delph put his hands on his lap. “If you want to go back out there–”
“No,” Thyatira shook his head. “I’m happy here. Here is where I wanted to come back to, you know? Come home.”
Delph’s heavy blond hair fell forward as he turned his head.

Thyatira hunched his shoulders, shying away from the gaze.

Delph reached to touch his shoulder again, but Thya shifted down the bench, evading.
Delph sighed. “I can’t read minds, you know.”

Thya hid behind his bangs.

“…I can read you, though,” Delph followed him down the bench, and leaned close, tucking Thya’s bangs behind his ear with a soft gesture. The boy frowned crankily. “Hm? You say you’re happy, but you’re not. You’re thinking about going back out there… about what your life could be, not stuck on this planet.”

Thyatira slowly had a kind of smirk. “Thought you said you couldn’t read minds. – And it’s a moon, not a planet.”

Delph laughed, and embraced him in a loose hug.
“You know space isn’t my thing.”
“Space totally is your thing,” Thya sighed. “That’s why you don’t want to go up there. Again.”
Delph raised an eyebrow. “No, I don’t want to go up there, because of the people up there.”
“Your brothers?” Thya chuckled, looking at him.
Delph rolled his eyes. “Them too.”

Thyatira giggled! “I dunno, they’re not so bad.”
“I’m not the space-station type.”
Thyatira glanced at him, playfully assessing. “…Too busy, or too still?”
“You’re not the space-station type, either,” Delph deflected.
“Never said that’s where I wanted to go.”

Delph sighed, and leaned his head on Thya’s. He looked at the inky sky, thick with constellations he had come to know well.

The wind whispered in the fronds of the overhang.

“……That blue one’s Celaeno. It’s one of the Pleiades.”

Thyatira turned to look at him. He smiled.
“You’ll take me back out there some day?” the boy asked.
“When things quiet down,” Philadelphia sighed. “Once you’re out of school and I know what my big brother’s planning.”
“You mean never.”

Delph laughed. “Maybe someday,” he said, confidently. “If anyone can understand him, it’s gotta be me.”
Thyatira thought, maybe if you tried a little, but he bit his tongue.

The boy had a shiver. “Let’s go inside,” he said, standing.

Delph looked up, then stood also. “Cold?”
“Mh.” He started walking inside, and his older friend followed him.

He put an arm around Thya’s shoulders again. “There’s custard.”
Thya smiled. “Okay…”
Philadelphia gave a little squeeze, and they left the stars behind for one more night.

(fanfiction for a friend’s unpublished opus, Phaedrus)