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“Hey, buddy. What’s wrong?” His father asks as he kneels down next to him. “Didja fall?”
“Yeah,” little Steven says with a sniff as he points at the small toy ship that’s on the ground in four pieces, “it broke when I fell.”
His father pats Steve on the head with one hand and squeezes his shoulder with the other. “Don’t worry about that. We’ll take it into the garage, give it a good once over and then I’ll teach you how to fix it. Sound good?”
Steve wipes his tear-filled, blue eyes and looks up at his dad and shakes his head. “Can’t you just do it for me?”
“You should learn how to fix things yourself.” He gets a comforting smile with the words. “If you’re gonna be the amazing pilot that you wanna be, you should know how to fix up your own bird, right Captain?”
“Yeah…”
“C’mon, Captain. Let’s go patch this up and get you cleaned up before it’s time for dinner.”
-
“Hey, buddy, you alright?”
“Yeah, sorry.” Steve chuckles and runs a hand over his face, praying that the action would somehow sober him up immediately. It doesn’t, of course.
“Looks like you might’ve had one too many.” The man who caught him points out.
“Yeah, looks like.” As hard as Cortez is trying to make sure he isn’t slurring, he can feel it as the words come out of his mouth.
“Funny thing,” they both move over to a pair of stools at the bar and rest in those since Cortez apparently can’t stand up as well as he’d originally anticipated, “I’m pretty damn good in my bird or even workin’ on it. But put a few shots in me and my brain can’t even tell my right foot from my left.”
Steve gives the guy a look. He’s trying to decide if he’s saying that to try and make him feel better or just to make conversation. He’s not sure which it is but he’s easy enough on the eyes that Cortez is willing to keep talking and find out.
“Looks like we’ve got that in common.” Steve holds out a hand for the other man to shake. “I’m Steve.”
“Good to meet you, Steve,” the man gives him a smile worth remembering, “I’m Robert.”
—
He’s still running. His lungs are burning out of protest from it all, his should is killing him from the one shot that- that thing got off on him but he’s still running. He made a promise and, as much as he doesn’t want to, he’s going to keep it.
He sees the emergency shuttle packing in people and he focuses on the arm waving at him, telling him to hurry and get on. And he just barely makes it. The minute his boots hit the solid metal of the shuttle, his knees give out and he falls into the arms of the woman who pulls him in the rest of the way and helps him into a sitting position as they take off.
He stays in that spot the whole time, waiting for tears to come. They don’t. Not yet, anyway. He’s still processing that he’s just lost his husband, the only family he’s had since his parents passed away a few years back.
The galaxy feels a lot more empty right now.