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Chosen didn't like looking up.
Don't get them wrong; it wasn't like they were actually physically or psychologically averse to looking in a certain direction. That would be stupid. Hell, right now, as they leaned against the door to their bedroom, they were facing the ceiling, head tilted upwards. They didn’t quite care about that.
It was just when they were outside, the giant skies of monitors… unnerved them at times.
They wished there were stars. There weren't any when the skies darkened. There weren't any blinking little lights that peeked through the pitch.
This was a thought that plagued them, time and time again. Something that crept into their mind as they did menial tasks that didn't keep their mind busy. When their mind drifted as they failed to read a book. When their focus was lost, watching water boil.
As they waited for Dark to unlock the door to the bedroom, over a surprise that better not be spiders again, cursors damn it, Dark, if it’s spiders again you’re sleeping outside, their mind once again conjured the thought: they wished to see the stars.
There were stars, of course, they could be seen if one went closer to more stick-inhabited places. Where reality shifted from code to life, where the residents shifted from programming to living. Chosen knew there were real stars brought on by the birth of a civilization.
It just… required civilization. People. Other people, not just Chosen and Dark—and while the two of them had been keeping the grass green and the sky's horizon blue, it wasn't enough to bring on stars. They needed more. A town, a city— And Chosen wasn't sure if they wanted to trade the comfort of isolation for a pretty picture they couldn't keep.
Chosen didn't want to move into the city, just for stars. Chosen didn’t want to move into the city for anything. They knew the feeling was rather mutual too; there wasn’t a stick on the internet that really wanted Chosen or Dark near them.
That didn't mean they didn't want to see them, though. They desperately wanted to see the stars. They looked up and tried to use the supervision they only might have, depending on the day, and they wanted to see—
Why did this bother them?
Chosen wasn't sentimental. There were far better things to do than be sentimental, in their opinion. They didn't care for these things. Things like these earned a passing thought, usually. The desire to taste something they never could, the desire to do something they never would; to listen, to smell, to perceive life in all the things they'd thought of before, each stolen piece of life a victory, but each missed opportunity never dwelled on. The stars were just a passing curiosity, weren't they? Why did this matter more than the rest of them?
Chosen didn't know. It wasn't like it would be anything better than what they had seen in pictures. There would be no purples, blues, or oranges. It would just be black and white, darkness and bits of light looking through. Light pollution, or so they’d read, on the Wikipedia page on stargazing, trying to glimpse it. If there were sticks to generate it, there would be lights that would cloud it too. They wouldn’t be able to see them.
There was a moment, where Chosen thought they could see it. Dark had forced Chosen to come out camping with them–something about examining bug anatomy (Chosen did not want to question it. They loved it when Dark got excited about things, but–oh, of all the things to be utterly, illogically terrified of…) when they’d stayed out close enough to other sticks, and far enough to not scare them off. Chosen had seen a glimpse . A shooting star, to cut through the night.
It wasn’t enough. Chosen wondered why it wasn’t enough. Why it was never enough. Why freedom wasn’t enough to stop the feeling of the shackle on their leg from fading. Why the person so ready to listen wasn’t enough to let them speak? Why their name wasn’t enough to help them save themselves, from whatever was plaguing them.
Why wasn’t it enough?
“Chosen!” Chosen startled, pushing off the door just in time for it to open, Dark standing in the entrance, “I did it!”
“...did what?”
Dark grinned, giddy, and shook their hands off from the fire that was still smoldering at the fingers, and pulled them inside, closing the door. It shut the pair off from the light of the hallway and forced them into the darkness of their shared bedroom.
The should-be darkness of their shared bedroom.
Chosen looked up. Plastered to the ceiling, ever so carefully, like thought-out constellations, were glow-in-the-dark stars. Stickers, that glowed green. They weren’t white pinpricks, the ceiling wasn’t grand and open. It wasn’t anything like the pictures. It couldn’t even come close.
“Oh.”
Dark laughed, because Dark knew them too well, and Chosen’s eyes were wider than they’d ever been, and because– “I know it’s not much, but I thought you’d like them.”
“You were right… How rare.”
Dark scoffed, kicking Chosen in the ankle in the way that annoyances do, like rebellious cats or little brothers, or people who know too much about you; like people who care for you enough to painstakingly hold a fire up to a sticker because they’d forgotten the stars needed light to glow. It was such a simple gesture, but reminded them that it was free from chains, “You’re such a jerk. Honestly, I don’t know why I do anything for you–”
“Thanks.”
Dark blinked. Chosen could see it highlighted in the dim green, how they were momentarily caught off guard.
“‘Course, Chosen.”
It wasn’t enough to mimic the stars in their entirety. It wasn’t even enough to be called mimicry, really. A facsimile, perhaps; a parody. They were stickers on a bedroom ceiling, they’d fade by the morning, no doubt. Cheap, replaceable, and not even shaped like real stars. It wasn’t enough to stargaze.
It was enough to let Chosen tilt their head back and be unafraid of the sight of the false sky.