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It’d become something of an annual tradition, for him and Raven to sneak out on the anniversary of Rubicon’s liberation.
Rusty wasn’t quite sure when it all started. Not the first anniversary, not the second - maybe the third? It’d been so long ago, about thirty years now, that Rusty couldn’t really recall when it had become ironclad tradition for them, but it was a permanently pencilled in part of their calendar now.
It had evolved though, over the decades. In the early days they used to just take their ACs and forge blindly into the wilderness, until they found one of the many pieces of the Xylem that had broken up in the atmosphere and ploughed into the earth. One of them would have brought alcohol, and they’d sit and watch the sunset and the eventual sunrise, with not many words spoken between them.
But a lot had changed since the early days of Rubicon’s liberation. Thirty years was a long time to haul the half-decayed infrastructure back onto its feet, and with the Earth corporations and the PCA being blessedly (yet suspiciously) absent after being chased off, the Rubiconians had managed to reconstruct some semblance of normal life.
Farms, on land now tentatively deemed arable, thanks to the climate warming enough for the ice-melt to come down from the mountains and forge new rivers and lakes. Sustainable mealworm livestock, now that new Coral wells had been dug and secured. An actual, continuously expanding city, forged from the wreckage of one that had escaped the worst of the Fires and the Coral war - Khepri, it’d been named, after some ancient god from the ancient history Earth tried its best to bury in favour of its own narrative.
The city was in its infant stages. There were still periods of blackouts to conserve electricity, and construction work was forever ongoing to try and address the shortage of housing and amenities, but… things were steadily looking up. They’d achieved a lot these past thirty years, and his and Raven’s own, private way of honouring the day of Rubicon’s liberation reflected that.
“We’re here, buddy. C’mon, up you get.”
Raven stirred sluggishly as Rusty patted his shoulder, lifting his head from where it’d been resting against the passenger seat’s window. He looked adorably disorientated, his reddish-brown eyes squinting at the windscreen, where the pick-up truck’s headlights lit up their surroundings partially.
A small clearing on the edge a lake - the lake hadn’t always been there, had formed over the last ten years or so from new ice-melt and heavy rains, but in the centre of it was a piece of the Xylem, rusted and overgrown with moss and vines, some of which bloomed brilliant crimson flowers this time of year, carrying a scent that was sharp but sweet.
It was like a natural monument, in its own way. Eventually this piece would rust away or sink deeper into the lake until nothing remained, but until then… well, it was the closest Xylem piece they could visit without needing to book a several day trip by car, or hopping into their ACs - which they tried to avoid nowadays, since the fuel and energy was better used towards Rubicon’s reconstruction.
“It should be clear skies tonight,” Rusty said as Raven got his bearings. “Maybe we’ll see some shooting stars, eh?”
Raven hummed softly and unclipped his seat belt. The night was warm, but Raven still grabbed the puffer jacket from where it’d been stuffed in the foot-well, tugging it on and zipping it up. Rusty shook his head with a smile but didn’t comment.
They piled out of the truck - an ancient, battered thing that Ziyi had recently revived from the scrap it had once been. With a lack of need for ‘Coral Warriors’, Ziyi had thrown herself headfirst into salvage and mechanic repairs to better serve Rubicon - made quite a name for herself, too. Rusty was just relieved that she had survived the whole Coral War mess, got to live an actual life that wasn’t just shooting corporate scum until she went out in a big blaze of pointless glory.
It was quiet as they prepared for their anniversary. Rusty rounded the back of the truck, pulling the tarp off and checking to make sure the mattress and blankets he’d laid down there earlier hadn’t moved too much and that the alcohol had survived the journey, while Raven took out the fold out chairs and table to set them up by the lake. It was only when they were both seated in the chairs, staring out across the lake towards the rusting Xylem monument, that conversation picked up.
“Apparently, this should be better than last year’s,” Rusty said as he cracked open the alcohol bottle. “Ziyi said, and I quote, ‘it’s so disgustingly sweet it’s like licking treacle’, so, right up your alley.”
Raven harrumphed softly, but there was a faint, barely there smile on his lips.
Rusty poured their drinks, and as they settled back in their seats, he couldn’t help but admire Raven. He looked completely untouched by the passage of time, almost identical to when Rusty had seen him the first time thirty years ago, without a hint of wrinkles or grey in his hair. There were some changes, though: he didn’t look so underfed or bordering unwell, with more meat on his bones, more muscle tone, and more colour to his cheeks. He smiled more too.
Rusty wasn’t much different, either. Aside from finding the occasional grey hair, he looked much the same as he did thirty years ago - as did Uncle, though his age shone through by the increasingly stiff way he’d walk, or how long it’d take him to sit down and stand back up again. Considering he was almost one hundred years old, Rusty was still impressed at how spry and sharp he was.
These augmentations, huh? If the price for them weren’t so traumatisingly high, Rusty would think the longevity worth it.
Raven glanced at him questioningly, his eyes reflecting the lamplight like a cat. Rusty always wondered what caused that - his augmentations, or the Coral? Either way, it was breathtaking: his eyes looked like they held an entire galaxy of Coral stars…
“Mn?” Raven prompted.
“You’re beautiful,” Rusty answered simply. It’d been too many decades for him to feel self-conscious about stating such a simple truth. “Absolutely stunning, buddy.”
Raven’s expression turned wryly amused.
{I know,} he signed, each movement slow and careful, {You tell me everyday.}
“It needs saying everyday,” Rusty said shamelessly. “Though, you’re probably sick of hearing it by now, huh? Not just from me, but from your fan club-”
As expected, Raven made a low, groaning noise of mortification. Rusty hid his smile behind his glass, barely biting back a laugh. He really shouldn’t tease him but, well, Rusty had to endure his own fan club back when he was a Vesper…
See, as the brickwork was laid down for their homes and the stable foundations for a revitalised Rubiconian civilisation, it meant people could focus on things that went beyond immediate survival. A few enterprising Rubiconians had religiously documented everything they could about the Coral war - the ugly, the bad and, of course, the impossible. Raven had a starring role, and the newest generation that had never known war just knew him as the youthful and handsome Raven, that had swooped down from the heavens and helped them liberate their home…
The veterans knew better, of course, but for the peacetime generation? Raven was a source of inspiration, not helped by the fact that he was, in fact, drop-dead gorgeous and mild-mannered in person. Whatever intimidation his reputation garnered was neutralised by his doe-eyes and soft features. Ergo, Raven was beating admirers off with a very frantic stick.
{Do not speak of the club right now,} Raven signed with a distinct air of grumpiness. {They are so annoying.}
“The price of fame, buddy. The price of fame…”
Raven scoffed at him. {Where is your fan club, then?}
“God, I hope I don’t have one, personally…” Rusty mumbled. When pen was put to paper about the events on the Xylem, Rusty had done his best to downplay his contributions, not wanting a microscope on his own actions during the Coral war. He’d been a spy, had killed too many of their own for the sake of maintaining his cover, to claim any hero status. Fading into the background, unknown… that was his preference.
“I don’t deserve one,” he added, when Raven started to sign something. “You know that. What I did as a Vesper… no, I can’t stomach the idea.”
{I killed a lot of Rubiconians too.}
“Yeah, but you were an outsider merc just doing your job,” Rusty said. “You weren’t a Rubiconian born and raised. It’s different, worse, when its one of your own knowingly doing it.”
It was an old argument, one they’d had a few times before with no satisfying conclusion. So it was no surprise when Raven dropped the subject entirely and clumsily shifted it towards:
{Do you want to skip stones?} Raven pointed at the bank, where the lake water lapped amongst the collection of loose stones that looked almost like shale. {I think I will beat you this year.}
“Hm, I doubt that. You lost pretty badly last time.”
{I have been practising.}
Rusty couldn’t help but laugh quietly at that. “Is that where you’ve been sneaking off to recently?”
Raven nodded shamelessly.
“Alright.” Rusty set his drink on the fold out table and stood up. “Let’s see how much you’ve improved, then.”
And that’s how they ended up standing on the lake’s bank, gritty soil clinging to their fingers as they tossed round pebbles against the water’s surface. Rusty was pretty good at it - it was all just figuring out angles and trajectory, and knowing how much force to put into the throw, as well picking the appropriate rock - but Raven…
Well, bless him, was all Rusty would say.
“Four,” Rusty said as Raven’s stone plopped into the water after four short skips. “You have been practising. You only got two last time.”
Raven just pouted, his gaze almost sulky as he glanced at the stone in Rusty’s hand. He didn’t have to sign to get his meaning across: nowhere near as good as you, though.
“Eh, I have the advantage,” Rusty said shamelessly. He supposed he should go easy on Raven, let him win a few times but… that wasn’t how they rolled. Raven would resent being coddled like that. It was a lesson that took Rusty one too many years to learn, admittedly.
“I’ve been skipping stones since I was a brat,” he continued, shifting his weight and gauging his throw. He tossed the stone, watched it skip once, twice, thrice… on and on, until it vanished under the water after the eleventh skip. “There wasn’t much in way of entertainment, and all that.”
Raven bent down and picked up another stone, smoothing away the dark soil with his thumb. His sulkiness had faded, somewhat, his gaze lingering on the rusting Xylem monument. Beneath the pale starlight, the scarlet flowers looked like they had a faint glow to them.
“…so, you’re still catching up,” Rusty murmured. “You never did stuff like this as a kid, after all.”
Raven had told him once, only once, of his past before Rubicon. It had been on the fifteenth anniversary and Raven had been in a strange mood. He had told it through his text-to-speech device, the flat, robotic voice doing nothing to dull the fucked up horror show that had been Raven’s life. It had explained so much, so so much, and Rusty had felt so helplessly angry that such horrible things could happen to someone for no reason, but…
Well, the subject had been dropped and buried that night, to never be brought up again. Rusty honoured it. It’d been so long, there’d be no point exhuming that corpse now.
Raven tossed his stone. It skipped once, twice, thrice…
‘Plop!’ It vanished under the water after the sixth skip.
“Hah! Well done, buddy!” Rusty praised earnestly, clapping Raven on the shoulder. Raven smiled, a small, yet warm and genuine thing. “See? Won’t be long until you’re on my level.”
{I have always been a quick learner,} Raven signed with a quiet exhale that was just shy of a laugh. He wiped his hands clean on his puffer jacket and frowned at his fingers. They were bone-white.
“Cold? Give ‘em here, buddy,” Rusty said, wiping his own hands clean on his jacket. He reached out, and Raven met him half way, clasping Raven’s ice-cold fingers between his palms and gently rubbing them.
“Probably should’ve brought some gloves.” Rusty paused to blow on Raven’s fingers, smiling when his partner squirmed slightly. “S’okay, though. I’ve got hand warmers.”
Once he was satisfied blood flow was slowly returning to Raven’s fingers, he dug in his pockets for the hand warmers - the disposable kind, that only lasted for six hours or so, but emitted enough warmth to stave off the perpetual chill that lingered over Rubicon, even after creeping out of its mini-ice age.
“Here you go, buddy,” Rusty said, after cracking the hand warmers to start its chemical process. “We really need to get you some rechargeable ones. But, man, lithium batteries are hard to come by on this planet…”
Raven hummed softly, clasping the hand warmers between his hands, fingers curled around them. His skin was splotchy, now, patches of flushed pink and corpse-white, making the thin, surgical scars around his finger joints stand out starkly.
“We’ll figure something out.” Rusty murmured, cupping Raven’s hands and smoothing his thumbs over those thin scars.
Back when things were still uncertain and shaky in the aftermath of the Xylem’s fall, Rusty remembered holding Raven’s hands like this. It’d been in less pleasant circumstances though. Probably the sixth anniversary? Thereabouts. He only remembered it so vividly because it had been the first time he’d seen Raven cry - had also been the first time they’d kissed, strangely enough. Funny how things turn out, sometimes.
Raven made a soft, questioning noise, and Rusty stirred from his reminiscing to see reddish-brown eyes gazing at him curiously. They had a subtle glow to them, just like the scarlet flowers clinging onto the Xylem’s rusting corpse.
“Just remembering the first time we kissed,” Rusty said, and laughed when Raven immediately looked embarrassed. “Yeah, it wasn’t my proudest moment either.”
Slowly, he lifted Raven’s hands, pressed his lips to the scarred knuckles in an affectionate kiss.
“But I don’t regret any of it,” he murmured, letting go of Raven’s hands and taking a step back. “You up for some stargazing, buddy?”
They ended up sharing one more glass of alcohol first - it really was sweet as hell - and relocated to the pick-up truck’s rear, where the mattress and blankets had been arranged in preparation for their stargazing. They removed their boots and their jackets, and slipped under the blankets together, staring up at the sky.
It had probably been the ninth anniversary they started incorporating the stargazing ritual. They still used their ACs to travel, then, the roads still too derelict and overgrown to use with conventional transport, and would sprawl out on the hull of one of their ACs. Rubicon had been hell of a lot colder back then, though, so they had to bring blankets and well, over time…
Raven rested his head on his shoulder, using it as a pillow. Rusty wrapped an arm around his waist, keeping him close as they let the ambient noise of nature wash over them. Insects chirped, loudly, something similar to cicadas but more musical, the surrounding trees sighed and creaked with the gentle wind, leaves rustling, and the sounds of something like frogs or small mammals would cry out on occasion.
Slowly but surely, Rubicon was healing, step by step. Rusty didn’t remember ever hearing frogs or insects or small mammals in his childhood, growing up in the burned out remains of a forest, his village clustered around the one remaining Coral terraformer before the PCA came down like the vengeful fist of God… even after enduring the Fires and the Coral war, Rubicon was stubbornly traipsing on, despite it all.
Hah, take that, Earth.
Overhead, the stars twinkled, the brightest thing in the sky with no moon to drown them out. It meant the nights were darker on Rubicon than on, say, Earth, but Rusty didn’t mind it. Shooting stars were easier to see, and sometimes, if the time was right, you could see the PCA’s Eye drift through the sky as it made its circuit around Rubicon.
Though, it’d be more accurate to say Rubicon’s Eye, now that they had managed to break into its control network. Rusty wasn’t sure how they managed that - apparently Raven had helped? - but if the corporations ever came back, they’d have to brave Rubicon’s Eye to get close enough to land, and those that survived the initial blockade rush would find themselves set upon by the remaining C-Weapons that had also come under the RLF’s control - somehow (again, Raven had helped).
Oh, and speak of the devil…
“Look, it’s the Eye,” Rusty said, pointing skyward. The glint of light that heralded the military satellite’s passing flew overhead, vanishing as it continued its path around the planet. “Ah, there it goes…”
There was a rustle of fabric, Raven shifting his weight against him - and the ‘clck, clck’ of him tapping buttons: his text-to-speech device.
«That thing almost blew me up when I arrived here.»
“Same,” Rusty said absently, recalling the truly harrowing crash-landing the Vespers had endured when bumrushing the PCA’s Eye. Their transport ship had actually been severed in half, but Snail had, wisely, ordered them all to get into their ACs before they’s approached Rubicon, and damn him, it had been the only reason any of them had survived…
The first few weeks had been them and the surviving grunts picking through the wreckage for any supplies that had survived, then raiding a nearby RLF outpost to steal all of their shit. After that, they had established themselves and… Rusty grimaced and forced himself to move away from those memories.
«I got sent down in a drop-pod,» Raven continued. «The Eye hit it dead-on, but my AC survived the drop-pod’s breaking up in re-entry. I lost a shoulder mount, though.»
“You’re lucky that’s all you lost,” Rusty sighed, then paused. “Hey, you’ve never told me this before. Your drop-pod broke up in re-entry?”
«Yes. I freefalled from… just past the mesosphere, I think. It was a long way.»
“Goddamn, you have the luck of the devil,” Rusty muttered. “Explains how you survived the Xylem…”
«The Xylem was easier, because I used its superstructure as a shield and»
Raven abruptly stopped typing and paused for a long moment.
«It was just easier,» he finally finished.
“Okay.” Rusty immediately changed the subject. “Hey, buddy, you learn any of the constellations yet?”
«I’ve memorised most of them, but they’re really hard to spot in the sky.»
“What? They’re easy. Look, there’s the Leviathan up there. You start from the brightest star situated at north, then connect that star, and this one, and then…”
«You’re just making random lines.»
“No, I’m not. Give me your hand, I’ll trace it out for you.”
The looming dark mood dissipated. Raven let Rusty take his hand captive, painstakingly tracing out the constellations Rusty had learned as a young boy on his mother’s lap - one of the very few things he remembered from his mother, in fact. There was something bittersweet about it, but it had been over fifty years now… the pain was dull, like a bruise.
Still there, but dull.
The Xylem will probably end up like that for Raven too, one day. Maybe not on the fortieth anniversary, maybe not even the fiftieth… would they even be around for the sixtieth? Possibly. These augmentations of theirs might have extended their lifespans threefold, possibly more in Raven’s situation. Plenty of time for Raven to live and live and live, to catch up on all the things he missed, and finally learn to map out the constellations without Rusty holding his hand and making him look.
“And that one’s the Bluebird, or the Qingniao, depending on who you ask,” Rusty murmured, tracing out the bird in flight amongst the stars. “You know about that bird?”
«It’s a bird that’s blue.»
“Well.” He’s not wrong, exactly. “That and it represents happiness. It’s an old Earth thing that got carried over here, since there was a similar looking bird native to Rubicon when the first settlers came here. I don’t think most people from Earth even remember the bluebirds of happiness, anymore. They try their best to bury their old history…”
Raven made a soft noise of acknowledgement, and Rusty lowered their clasped hands. He rubbed his thumb over Raven’s scarred knuckles, his thoughts lingering on that train of thought. He remembered Uncle…
“There’s an old Earth poem about it - or, Uncle told me a poem that's apparently about it,” Rusty murmured. “I remember trying to look it up when I was on Earth, but it was hard to find. All their history, their hopes and dreams… none of it exists in the public record anymore. No wonder everyone from Earth is so messed up. Their whole culture is just about capitalistic consumption, now.”
Raven was quiet for a bit, then: «What’s the poem? Do you remember?»
“Hmm? Oh, yeah, I remember it. One second… ahem:
'Hope' is the thing with feathers -
That perches in the soul -
And sings the tune without the words -
And never stops - at all -
And sweetest - in the Gale - is heard -
And sore must be the storm -
That could abash the little Bird
That kept so many warm -
I ’ve heard it in the chillest land -
And on the strangest Sea -
Yet - never - in Extremity,
It asked a crumb - of me.
“I think I remembered it right,” Rusty hummed thoughtfully. “But that poem stuck out a lot to me when Uncle told me it…”
«It’s about hope, not happiness, though.»
“They’re two sides of the coin, aren’t they?” Rusty pointed out. “Without hope, there’s no chance of ever gaining happiness, and without happiness, you’re never gonna know how to hope. If you spend the whole time miserable, it’s difficult to ever keep that fire in you alive.”
Raven shifted his weight slightly.
«I can see the logic in that. I never thought to change or hope for more until I understood happiness,» he said. «The bluebird is a very wise brid.»
“Brid,” Rusty repeated.
Raven pinched his arm. «Stop ruining the moment.»
“Ow- okay, sorry, sorry. It’s just rare for you to make a typo…”
They settled down, the mood feeling a little odd but not unpleasant. Raven put away his text-to-speech device and rolled on top of him, peering down with those enchanting eyes of his that held an entire galaxy of Coral stars. He had a faint smile on his lips, the edges of his expression soft with affection and contentment.
To Rusty, he was the most beautiful thing on all of Rubicon.
“You may be called Raven,” Rusty murmured, tucking a lock of hair behind Raven’s ear. “But you’re a bluebird of happiness to me, buddy.”
Sap, Raven’s huff said, but the way his cheeks turned pink betrayed his pleasure. Rusty rested his hand against the back of Raven’s neck, and slowly guided him down, down, down, down, until their lips met in a warm yet familiar kiss.
No matter how many anniversaries passed… it made Rusty’s heart skip, every time.