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In regards to a relationship, a decade felt like an amount of time that was simultaneously an eternity, and not enough.
The first decade Pyke had experienced hadn’t even come close to being enough for him. A time in his life so filled with a whirlwind of emotions and experiences; love and pain, all cut short in a way he never would have wanted. A woman he couldn’t have, a fear that encompassed his entire soul.
A detachment from a goddess.
He was content with that being it for him, he would settle into some dark corner for however many days he had left until that red devil marked him in its ledger, but the fear kept him moving. Stars, planets, people; it all blended together. Pyke Starfall seemed to be doomed to lie in the bed he made.
But fate had a different idea for a particular night. Fate, and a man who swore to himself that his life was his own.
Pyke’s first night aboard the Rhapsody was a strange one. The man– Rett, he had told him– was more than content in carting Pyke to whatever destination he was heading to. But when Pyke’s answer was a simple shake of his head, Rett said nothing else, pulled spare bedsheets from a closet, introduced him to his robopug Hank, and gave him a room. It wasn’t anything fancy, simple metal walls and a less-than-comfortable mattress, but the one thing that caught Pyke’s attention was the window. Rett had given him the room with the largest one, said so himself, that he already knew which one would be his. An act so small, meaningless to most, but it was the first of many that cemented Rett’s importance.
The first few nights had been rough, rougher than they had been before. The nightmares had been easier to handle when Pyke was alone, but the potential of someone else getting caught up in his mess was an idea he wanted to bury far away from his mind.
On a particularly bad night, Rett had found him in the bridge, sitting in his chair in the dark with his eyes on the horizon. He tried to joke, asking him if he wanted to take it for a spin, but Pyke’s eyes were scanning the stars, waiting for them to change. When humor didn’t work, Rett told stories. Places he had been, experiences he’d had, people he met; the only indication he ever got that Pyke was listening was a twitch of his ear every now and then. That was enough.
Rett never pried about anything Pyke was thinking, simply offering space should he need it. Any night after that, when Pyke found himself rattled from sleep and unable to settle, the light above the kitchenette was always on when he entered the lounge.
Eventually, Pyke opened up, giving Rett whatever details about his past he could carve out of himself. Ones simple enough that they didn’t hurt to revisit; the ones that did, he promised for another day, and Rett never pried further. He helped Pyke with a bounty hunter license, made repairs on the Sparrow that he hadn’t even thought of, and let Pyke start making money on his own. For the first time, Pyke felt like the pieces of himself were coming back together, all they needed was a helping hand.
And it turned out, he wasn’t the only one who needed it sometimes.
The first time Pyke had seen the light on in the workshop was a night he told himself he wouldn’t forget. Rett’s workshop felt like a sacred space, a solitary fortress where the captain’s thoughts could come out freely, away from pitied looks and awkward glances. He hadn’t planned on entering it until the cracked door made him stop, ears picking up worried and insistent yips from Hank, and endeavored to poke his head in. Rett was resting heavily against the table, head in one thick hand with his cybernetic arm lax at his side. The hour was late, and Hank had herded Pyke into the room before the Solari had any chance to say otherwise. He took stock of the man, sitting next to him and hesitantly offering his hands to help.
With gruff, yet gentle guidance, Rett guided Pyke through taking the prosthetic off, easing the heavy weight from his aching shoulders. When that was said and done, Pyke asked about the eye, and that only got a dry laugh in response and an alternative of whiskey. Rett explained his struggles with flare-ups, and provided that while Hank was as good of a medic as a doctor from the Empire, it had been a long time since he’d had another body on the ship that didn’t need to be transported somewhere in a cold box. They both learned that night that they were damaged men, and the simplest thing they had to offer was each other; a promise that come hell or high water, they both had a back to lean on.
And that they would take every first chance like it was their last dance, with no regrets.
Months turned into years, just the two of them and Hank, sailing across the stars and taking whatever the world threw at them. Sometimes the world would hit harder than expected, and draw out feelings and tensions that always seemed to settle at the bottom of a glass in late hours; and no matter how uncertain either of them felt, a light would always be on. The kitchen, the workshop, the training gym, it was an open book of invitations to let them lay themselves bare if either of them needed it. Most nights, the call went unanswered, but Rett and Pyke both agreed that having it there on nights when things became too much to bear was the greatest comfort either of them could offer.
The first night Rett let that light go out was the worst he had ever slept in his life. The guilt of Pyke getting picked up by Empire authorities gnawed at him constantly, replaying the call he had left him over and over again like a torturous record. He at least appreciated the small comfort Hank had tried to give, the pug’s eyes glowing in the dark, but shut even that off too. Frankly, he couldn’t remember the last time the Rhapsody was this dark, and if it had been this dark before, he didn’t want to think about how he had bore it before he met Pyke.
Pyke wasn’t any better; trapped in a windowless cell, with the only cellmates that (thankfully) didn’t look to him as their next meal. He found himself reaching for the wall every time they came back for lights out, tapping an imaginary switch on the wall only for nothing to happen. When the blue Raizo woman had asked him about it, he just told her it was muscle memory from home. The ache in his chest became particularly hard to deal with that night, feeling like the new decade he had been given seemingly cut too short again.
The first day out of prison, Pyke was greeted with every comfort he could have ever wanted. His favorite meal, his pride and joy all shiny and new, a fresh pack of cigarettes, and the warm smile of the man he would move Harmony and Agathos for. Rett met Pyke like time had never stopped for them, setting them back into their familiar motion, but not without a few new added details. The new crew members were certainly… something, but took up less importance in Pyke’s mind. When Rett did his last-minute checks before heading to sleep, he found the light in the kitchen on, and felt as though the Rhapsody was complete again.
Years stretched, and suddenly Rett and Pyke weren’t the only ones in their home anymore. What was once a couple of filled bedrooms, some mild furnishings, and two ships in the hangar became 5 occupied rooms, a little something of everybody’s in every common room, and 3 new ships in the hangar. It became a bit more difficult to have time for themselves on occasion, but they both made sure that light never went out again. And soon, Rett and Pyke’s one nightly constant opened up to welcome everyone else, whenever someone needed it, the light would be on, and they were free to talk about whatever was on their mind with someone who would listen.
The only thing that changed was that Pyke never needed a light for Rett’s bedroom, making his presence known with a gentle pink glow, a new light. Just for the two of them. A light that let them curl beneath the covers, pressed close, and be able to talk in hushed voices and gentle laughs. When they were like this, they both could fully see how time had affected them; a few more iridescent hairs on Rett’s head, deeper bags beneath Pyke’s eyes. Pyke would’ve been lying if he said the past fears were all gone, but at least like this, with Rett, time felt like it was more in his hands.
And Pyke wished that the next upcoming decades would last forever.