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The engine hummed as the orange, blimp-like space shuttle softly swiveled through the vast cosmos. Stars everywhere, close and distant, decorating the silent void with how they glimmered and twinkled. Seeing them through the cockpit windows made Gus feel a bit better about having to monitor a twin planet without any distractions nearby him. Inky too, of course, the feel-better part. And YAY-OK was helping him with directions and whatnot, so there’s that. Still, he couldn’t help but glance every now and then at the empty seat to his right. Where one buck-toothed, spunky blondie used to sit. Remembering his baby-like giggle was enough to make his eyes burn, and his sight blur. Shit. He vigorously rubbed at his face, trying to muffle the short string of sniveling into his arm. And he quickly turns the other way when the whirling of wheels come up behind him.
YAY-OK rolled up to the monkey’s side, kneading a set of photographs in his hand. “Gus, I went out and took photos of Queygoria-1 and I’ve yet to see…” One glance upwards from the pictures and he was met with Gus’ back towards him, arms wrapped around his body. Looking beyond him, the robot could see crestfallen, puffy eyes faintly accompanying the interstellar array that was space. No reflection or any other spot of light could be seen in those eyes, just ones that were dead and looking off into space.
“Ayy…” the robot let out a huff of exasperated sympathy as he heard the monkey sniff up some mucus, a dead giveaway for what could possibly be up with him. YAY-OK dropped down to the little sliver remaining of Gus’ chair, sweeping his free hand just behind the latter's shoulder. “Gus,” he spoke in a hushed soothing tone, trying to restrain his lowering patience for the simian’s repetition of the same sulking while rubbing circles on his back.
The low, accent-hinted sound of his name prompted Gus to turn over his shoulder. He was met with the familiar, glowing chartreuse monitor that was YAY-OK’s. Dark-lidded eyes gazing down at his fetal position. Every part of him was fighting to keep the tears from falling, as if the two of them didn’t know what he was so miserable for. He inhaled, then exhaled, both coming out in throaty squeaks as he continued to stare at YAY-OK.
“Gus,” the robot started again, “the mission’s only for a couple more days.” He paused to further inspect the monkey’s expression; eyes getting glossier by the second. YAY-OK sighed. It was hard to believe anything could avert the simian’s misery. “And besides, we checked up on Wally a couple weeks ago, remember?”
Hearing his younger brother’s name was enough for Gus to let out wordless whimpers, the tears forming in his eyes finally streaking down his cheeks. His arms flung upwards and frantically wiped the wet sides of his face, below his nose too. At that point, YAY-OK was fed up with the oncoming wailing. And he spun Gus around to face him, giving him a light shake, “Wally’s only going to be gone until the end of the month, okay? We’ve been over this for crying out loud!”
Almost immediately, Gus threw himself straight against the centre of YAY-OK’s chest, arms and legs wrapped around him as he blubbered into the solid, cool surface of scrap metal. The robot nearly choked at the impact, and he found himself dumbfoundedly looking down at the snot and tears staining the top of his torso. He could feel the frustration quickly replace itself with guilt, equivalent to a slap in the face. YAY-OK let his arms slip onto Gus’ back, and hold him as tight as he was being held.
They stood there for a moment, waiting until the sobbing subdued.
As soon as YAY-OK heard the crying dissolve into the occasional croaking, he pulled away from the embrace and looked down at Gus’ tear and snot-filled face. He bent down to his height. “Better?”
He wasn’t looking at him anymore, but he nodded his head slightly, and that was enough for him.
“I’m going to head into the kitchen and cook something up for you for dinner, does that sound alright?”
Another nod.
“You uh… wanna try cleaning up first?”
Gus sniffed up some more mucus. “M’yeah…” he muttered, clearing his throat from the crying. “Yeah, that–that’s probably for the best.”
***
After a few minutes of stuffing his face full with banana-themed food, YAY-OK had blessed him with the opportunity to talk to Wally briefly, of course not without prodding him several times and having to use his whiny voice. “You have to get used to being without him for a little while,” he told him once. And he’s stood by those rules for three weeks. For him, it felt like eternity. And he found the transmitter shaking in his hands as he raised it up to his mouth.
“Wally?”
He could hear his own voice all crunched up, turned to electrical waves, and shot out through space. It was quiet. He was counting the seconds in his head; One… two…
“Gus? Is that you?”
There it was. That higher-pitched, scratchy voice that he’s lived with for many years. The one that called for more tears that couldn’t quite surface yet. Gus coughed. Now he knows the difference of his life with and without it.
“Wally, hey. Yeah, it’s me.” Gus shuffled in his seat, looking out through the front window at the galaxy before him.
“Gus! It feels so good to see you again!” Wally beamed. “Well… I’m not actually seeing you, it’s more of an ‘I’m hearing you and you’re hearing me’ sort of thing. But still!”
“Yeah, well, imagine how I feel…” He can sense the tears forming in his eyes again, from the whiplash of it all. “How, uh… how’s Queygoria-2?”
“Uggh, it’s boring. Nothing’s happened.”
Gus could hear the creaking of the chair pick up on the microphone. “Mm,” he hummed in agreement.
“Is onesies boring for you too?” Wally paused for a second, then giggled. “Onesies,” he repeated. “Do you think I should start calling mine twosies?”
“How’s my baby-bro doing?” The question came out as soon as he thought of it. And the sudden soft, caring tone of his voice was completely
“I’m good!” Wally seemed to answer almost immediately, like he completely disregarded the question he asked earlier.
‘How is it without me?’ he thought of asking. But it was replaced with another hum; didn’t want him breaking into tears because of him.
“It’s lonely, though.” But just like that, Wally had essentially read his mind. “It’s always so quiet when I wake up. Around the ship I’m in, I mean. I miss YAY-OK constantly telling us things we know nothing about, and I miss Inky’s ink drawings all over the walls, and I miss you.”
“...And it sucks that I can’t just go out and see you because we’re too far from each other.”
There was a long pause before Wally broke out a choked sob.
“And–and,” he stuttered, his voice weakening as he keeps going, “I have these dreams where you guys get hurt, and there’s nothing I can do about it because I’m not there.”
Gus freezes. He can hear the room fill with the static sounds of hiccups and quiet sobbing. The same kind of ones he’d hear during the night, over something he had no idea about. The irritating whines that were, more often than not, irritating. The fuss he made about things that weren’t ever going to happen in reality, and he knew that either because YAY-OK said so, or because he just knew. But, that was before.
Now? Here? At this exact moment? Hearing him cry was the equivalent to having a million needles shot through his body. And it stung. It really, fucking stung.
Once again, his eyes began to gloss as he leaned in to speak into the mic. “Hey, hey, Wally,” it came out in a soothing mutter. “Shhh. It's okay, alright? None of that’s happening right now. You’re gonna–you’ll be okay.”
Wally was breathing heavily over his transmitter, it sounded like he was gripping the microphone with the strength he had left, “It just–I… why do they feel so real? Why do I wake up every morning worrying that you’d be dead?”
God, Wal. Gus sucked in a breath, trying to speak over his brother's distinct cries. “Wally, I… I’m here, okay? I’m always going to be here. I’m not leaving, none of us are.”
Another minute passes; by that time the crying was reduced to sniffling and blowing into a tissue.
“...I wish you were here to give me a hug, Gus.”
The time between the last time he spoke and now had probably become a blur along the way; beside Gus was a box of tissues he doesn’t remember having before. And most of them were already smothered in his own new found tears. He shakily leaned forward into the mic again. “Wally,” he rasped, before coughing into the tissue still in his hand, “I know we’re far away from each other and I know that I’m not there with you, but… I’m okay, alright? Don’t cry, it’s okay.”
He can hear Wally trying to catch his wavering breath as Gus simultaneously tries to find his.
“I love you, Wally, you know that? I love you.”
“...Yeah, I know.”
“Okay, good.”
Gus takes one giant breath, brushing his arms against the wetness of his face. It was when he was trying to clear the mucus from his throat that he realized his head was throbbing with pain. Dull, but bothersome. “Does your head hurt?”
“Kinda, yeah.”
“Really?” he managed to blurt out, without fully meaning it. But he also couldn’t say he wasn’t surprised. It was sort of in between. “Wow.” He chuckled, and in the midst of his lower-pitched laughter, he could hear Wally chuckling too. And that was all he needed.
Wally was the first to seize his giggling, allegedly pinning his focus on something else. “Do you think the Queygorias are like us? In some way?
Gus stopped too, blinking slowly while taking the question in; he ran a hand through the back of his fur while staring long and hard at Queygoria-1’s white glowing essence. “...I mean, maybe.”
“They’re both out here, in the middle of nowhere. Like us.”
“Yeah.”
“And they still manage to shine, even if they’re far away from each other."
Gus could only guess that Wally was doing the same thing; focusing hard on the bright giant sphere that glimmered in the same way the stars did, and when it came to twinkling, it sort of went its own path. Blending in, but also not really. He isn’t quite sure what Queygoria-1 was with their twin, but it alone was just mesmerizing, enough to make it hard to look away. “You’re… you’re not wrong.”
“I shine too, don’t I Gus?”
Gus felt a warm grin emerge on his face. “Brighter than anyone I’ve ever known, bro.”
Wally smiled. “Thanks,” he said. And they sat again in silence for a minute, then Wally broke the silence: “Gus?”
“...Yeah?”
“For what it’s worth… I think you’ve brought some sort of light into my world that I don’t think anyone else has ever given me. No matter what sort of fights we’ve gotten into, you’ll always be that little star worth watching to me. I mean that.”
As soon as those words reach his ears, Gus finds himself still. Mouth agape, eyes wide. He sat there for a moment, wondering if Wally actually said what he did. Wondering about the last time he’s heard something like that about him. He's choked up, and his eyes gleam with tears. He planted one hand over his lips, trying and failing to stifle the soft cries.
“Awh, Gus! I didn’t mean to make you cry!” exclaimed Wally, with an expected worry in his voice.
“I know, Wally. I know,” Gus hoarsely blurted out while reaching another tissue. Man, that hit. “God, you just know how to make a monkey ugly cry, don’t you?”
“Huh.”
Gus wiped the last of his tears away, depositing them into the holder beside him. “I mean, maybe you're born with it."
“That sounds like a curse.”
If I could show you a curse, I would, Gus thought, gesturing slightly to himself. It was now that he realized that there were some moments where he’d look at his brother and see a reflection of the galaxy itself. What was physically a monkey was spiritually a colossal, galactic combination of every constellation beaming down at those who saw it. He was the terrifying beauty of the rising sun at morning, and the tantalizing essence of the moon at night. In a span of–whatever amount of years, Walter J. Monkey had managed to be about everything anyone could ever imagine.
And other times, he managed to be just Wally.
He could hear Wally yawn over the microphone, alongside the creaking of the seat he sat on. Stretching, probably. “Whew! All this talking and crying reaally tires a monkey out. I’m gonna head to bed, goodnight bro. Love you. See you soon.”
Gus began stretching as well, and pressed a few switches that turned off the lights of the cockpit, and probably the entire ship for that matter. He gave one final look out the window, remembering that through all those stars, Wally is out there. Somewhere. Monitoring a planet, like he is. Missing him, like he does.
Finally, he speaks into the mic. “Goodnight, Wal. See you soon.”