i wanna be with you everywhere

It’s cold in space. It’s quiet, too, the soft lull of the ship’s machinery the only constant sound. 

“CHARLIE!” 

Well, except for Marcus. “What?” Charlie asks, turning around from where he sits in the copilot chair. To his left, Roderick stays focused on the ship’s controls, looking out into the unending cosmos, the haunting vacuum of intergalactic space. 

Marcus runs down the short hallway into the cockpit, brandishing what looks like a hat and something else that Charlie doesn’t recognize.

“Okay, so you know how a few days ago we were on Terrestrial T-48? In GN-Z11?” Marcus asks excitedly. The excitement on his face is palpable, and Charlie can feel himself smiling a little just from being in close proximity with Marcus’ brand of joy. He knows that if he looked at Roderick right now, he’d be smiling too, even if he wouldn’t admit it. 

“Yeah,” Charlie replies, thinking. “That was the trash planet, right? The one with the weird shit and those girls?” 

These days, there’s a growing number of trash planets. Charlie hates the concept, has ever since he first learned about them. Being on one is stifling, dystopian, with piles and piles of trash that go on for miles. There’s almost never any civilization except for a few Wanderers, and it’s easy to feel alone, easy to slip into the hopeless and isolated mindset that all nomads struggle with. On the Wildedale they stop at each one they see in hopes of finding anything valuable, like ship parts or things that could be traded and sold. Despite his misgivings, each time they land on the surface of one he follows Marcus and Roderick through the airlock, down the stairs and into the sickly air. He thinks that he would follow them anywhere, doesn’t want to let them out of his sight. They offer to let him stay on the ship, lay down for a few hours while they scrounge through the towers of rotten metal, but he could never forgive himself if something happened to them and he wasn’t there. 

Marcus nods enthusiastically. “So, I was going through that bag we brought of stuff that was, like, stuff but not stuff, you know? Like the stuff we didn’t drop off at Archer’s.” He pauses, probably for effect. Marcus’ stories were always winding and timed, peppered with pauses and runs like he was bringing you along, leading you up and down. 

Charlie tries to recall what exactly they left at Archer’s. They tended to always stop at Andromeda’s before they disembarked for longer journeys, and Archer’s pawn shop was one of their main sources of revenue these days. Archer had known them since they were young, and always had a soft spot for Charlie. Probably because he knew his mother. Whatever the reason was, he always managed to sell their stuff at a good rate. Every month or so he would wire the funds to Roderick’s account, since he said he didn’t trust Marcus or Charlie not to buy something stupid.

Marcus continues, “Most of it seemed useless. All the parts we didn’t recognize were too rusty to be of much use to anyone, unless they have one of those de-corrosion thingies. However,” he pauses again, dramatically. Even Roderick is turned slightly towards Marcus, a subtle sign that he was listening. “I found these!” Marcus hoists the hat and the other thing into the air, before shoving the hat onto his head. 

It was truly an ugly thing, but Charlie couldn’t bring himself to hate it simply because of the way Marcus seemed to glow with it on. It looked like a gray monkey, one of those old Earth 1 animals that Charlie sometimes saw pictures of in the old books at Archer’s store. The monkey had a red mouth and ears that stuck out of the main hat. It had flaps that covered Marcus’ ears and trailed off into a braid that ended at about his armpit. 

Roderick snorted, turning back towards the window. “Marcus, that thing is so fucking dumb, holy shit.” 

Marcus rolled his eyes. “Dude, it’s awesome. You wouldn’t recognize cool shit even if it put its whole foot up your ass.” 

Charlie ignored the absurdity of that comment and tried to direct the conversation somewhere else before they doomed him to listening to them bicker for the next hour. “It’s cute, in a weird way,” he said. “What’s that other thing?” 

Marcus’ cheeks were faintly pink as he beckoned for Charlie to follow him. “I’ll show you, it’s kind of cool.”

Charlie glanced over at Roderick, who was fiddling with some of the buttons on the radar. “You still need help?” 

“Nah,” he said, smirking briefly at Charlie. “I’ll shout if we hit any radiation storms or anything. Go see whatever that is.” 

With that, Marcus grabbed Charlie’s hand and tugged him out of the chair, leading him through the main area of the ship until they reached the back corner of the ship, a tight little space that was right on top of one of the main thrusters. It was a spot that Marcus and Charlie liked to sit, both alone and together. It was originally probably for thruster maintenance, but the door into the thruster was rusted shut, and Roderick preferred to work on them from the outside, anyway. If Charlie sat on the ground with his back up against the rusted hatch, there was just enough room for his legs to stretch all the way out, pressing up against the opposite wall. To his right was a window, and to his left was where Marcus would sit, his back up against the opposite wall and his feet a little ways away from where Charlie was leaning. 

However, instead of falling into his place, Marcus dropped next to Charlie, sitting shoulder to shoulder. Charlie liked it when they sat like this, because his feet stretched out a good six inches longer than Marcus’ did and it was fun to tease him. Since he didn’t have anywhere to put his feet, more often than not they ended up resting gently on Charlie’s shins. 

“Okay,” Marcus says, quietly, as if he’s telling Charlie a secret, as if he’s confessing. “Look at this.” He holds up a small black rectangle, something with a tiny screen and a circle underneath it. A long, white wire sticks out of the bottom, connected to two little earpieces that vaguely resemble the ones that Charlie has lying in his bunk right now. 

“What is it?” Charlie asks, accepting it from Marcus. When he brushes his thumb over the circle, the screen lights up. 

“It says ‘iPod’ on the back,” Marcus answers. “I don’t have a clue what that means, but watch this.” He grabs the wire, and slips one of the earpieces in Charlie’s ears, fingers brushing the shell of his cartilage. He puts the other one in his ear and leans his head against Charlie’s shoulder. Out of habit, Charlie rests his head on Marcus’, feeling the unfamiliar fabric of the hat underneath his cheek. Marcus takes the device back and fiddles with it for a moment. After a few seconds, sound starts to filter into his ear. 

I sleep with your old shirts / And walk through this house in your shoes / I know it's strange / It's a strange way of saying that I know I'm supposed to love you.

They listen to the whole song, and Charlie watches Marcus fiddle with the fabric of Charlie’s pants while it plays, inches from Charlie’s hand. 

“Wow,” Charlie says when it ends. He’s sort of speechless, not from shock or awkwardness but rather from the wholeness of the moment, each sense of his taken up completely and contentedly by Marcus, the music, and the silence around them. 

“Isn’t it cool?” Marcus lifts his head off Charlie’s shoulder and smiles at him. “I thought you would like it. I know you listen to whatever they put on the intergalactic channels but it looks like this thing has a ton of songs on here!” He hands it to Charlie expectantly before laying his head back down and closing his eyes. Charlie isn’t about to disappoint Marcus––not in this or anything else––so he scrolls through titles for a few seconds before settling on something random. 

You're just like an angel / Your skin makes me cry / You float like a feather / In a beautiful world / I wish I was special / You're so fuckin' special. 

Marcus is still breathing softly against Charlie’s shoulder but his fingers have stopped moving, palm falling open on Charlie’s thigh. Charlie watches his own fingers twitch, just slightly, a hair’s breadth away from Marcus’. The iPod continues to play music of its own accord, a soft soundtrack of music while the ship continues on its course through one of the darkest galaxies that Charlie has ever seen. 

He watches as the ship passes star clusters, asteroids and meteors sailing past his window, and he looks as far as he can out into the distance, where a whole universe lies in wait. The soft press of Marcus’ warmth against his side is calming, almost overwhelming in the best way. Charlie feels his eyelids get heavier, hears the song in his ears begin to fade out. 

Don't, don't break the spell / It would be different and you know it will / You, you make loving fun / And I don't have to tell you, but you're the only one.

Later, when the ship is on autopilot, the impulse engines pushing them into the next galaxy at lightspeed, Roderick leaves the cockpit and heads to the sleeping quarters, a small room with two double bunk beds. When he notices all the beds empty, he frowns slightly, rolling his eyes. He rips the blanket off the bottom bunk closest to the door and walks to the end of the ship. 

Next to the main thruster, he’s met with a familiar sight. Marcus’ head is resting on Charlie’s shoulder, nose pressing into the skin of his neck. Charlie’s head is tilted backwards, resting against the wall behind him as he breathes through his open mouth. They each have a weird white wire connected to an ear. Roderick follows the wire with his eyes and finds Marcus’ object from earlier clutched in Charlie’s right hand. On the left, Marcus’ fingers are intertwined with Charlie’s, hands resting on Charlie’s leg. Shaking his head slightly, Roderick drapes the blanket over their sleeping forms before returning to the room to sleep in his own bed. In the morning, Charlie will wake up with a crick in his neck and sweaty palms. Somehow, it will be the best sleep he's had in weeks.