Notes: Oh my god, this story got lost in the heat of summer and only now have I resurrected it, I'M SORRY ROBBIE AND WYL! I'm SORRY!

Anyway, have a second chapter, lol.

Title: The Beyond: Chapter Two

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ChapterTwo

Photo by Engin Akyurt

Robbie never knew whose dreams he was havingwhen he slept these days.

That he dreamt was undeniable andunavoidable. From the moment he shut his eyes at night, his brain was hijackedby the creature inside of him.

At first, it had careened through hismemories, hag-riding his subconscious until it had unearthed every moment fromRobbie’s past that he still held onto, most of which he barely knew were stillin there. It conjured up visions of his mother from when he was just a child, awoman with constaltly raw, weeping spots on her hands from handling toxiccomponents for the ships she helped build. He was placed back in his father’sarms the day before the man lost his leg in an industrial accident, the lasttime he’d ever seen his father smile and play with him. He felt the cold ofcryosleep, saw only darkness but somehow heard the hiss of failing lifesystemsall around him.

It especially loved to revisit the deathshe’d seen. Robbie had killed people during his time in the Marines, too manypeople, but the parasite far preferred to experiment with how much devastationRobbie could feel about the people he’d lost. His parents and grandparents…friendsfrom the service…Jane, god, he hated remembering how Jane had died…Wyl, whenWyl froze to death and they barely brought him back in time—

That one had been so bad it had wrenchedcontrol back from the parasite, which didn’t like being sidelined by Robbie’swill. It had steered clear of most of the memories of Wyl after that, branchingout until Robbie was back in Redstone, killing people he didn’t even know.Those had to come from Rory, one of the de facto bosses of the prisonerpopulation in Redstone, the murderer who shared the same old blood as Robbie,and who’d inadvertently shared his passenger as well.

All of it? Some of it? By his own volition,or had the parasite forced him to do it? Robbie didn’t know, and he wanted to.Needed to, honestly. He needed more information about the parasite, as much ashe could get, and most especially how to get it out of him.

A thick flow of suffocating satisfactionoozed through his brain. Never. You never will. No one tastes as good asyou, Old Blood.

Robbie’s shoulder was shaking. Wyl waswaiting for him. He had to wake up.

So sweet, so rich, so dirty with ancientworlds and ancient ways. You are delicious, Old Blood. Even the cleansingdoesn’t change that.

The cleansing…Regen. Robbie knew it wasRegen; he’d learned a lot of the parasite’s phrases by now. It was alwaysquietest after he’d been injected with a fresh dose of Regen. Wyl had wonderedif he should make it a daily treatment, but there was evidence contraindicatingthat for health after a while. Too much renewal, forced on a body with no otherway out, could lead to horribly novel diseases.

“Robbie. Wake up.”

He needed to get up now. It was time…pasttime. He needed to be back with the man he loved. Robbie strained against thehold the parasite had on his limbic system.

Mine…don’t forget. He’ll know it as well.The thickness in his mind receded, and Robbie breathed in deep and opened hiseyes. He looked at Wyl…

And Wyl startled so badly he jumped to hisfeet. “Fuck!”

“What?” Robbie asked.

“Your—it’s still—” He made a gesture at hiseyes.

For shit’s sake. “Get out of there,” hesnapped, and the tension receded further. “Sorry,” he said to Wyl, who shookhis head in an effort to make light of it.

“No no, it’s fine,” he said. “Who’sbothered? Not me.”

Robbie knew better than to push when Wyldidn’t want to be pushed. “Of course not.” He shifted around and placed hisfeet down on the floor, making sure he had a good sense of it before he stoodup. His balance had been suffering a bit lately as the parasite’s presence inhis mind deepened. Run into a wall once, and your husband doesn’t leave youalone.

Wyl watched him being careful, but when hestood and didn’t sway, his shoulders relaxed a bit. “Do you want a shower?” heasked. “There’s enough fresh left in the tank for you.”

“Fresh” was a misnomer, given that the waterhad been recycled so many times after being on, in, and around each of themthat it was permanently cloudy. Technically clean, but cloudy. This ship’s recyclingsystem wasn’t the best, and it was low on the list of things to improve giventhat their crew was about to get smaller. Robbie shook his head. “I’ll waituntil we get to the station.”

“About that.” Wyl leaned against the wall bythe door, arms crossed against his chest. It was his defensive posture, one hehad stopped taking for a long time with Robbie that had come back in the pastfew years. He hated seeing it, hated knowing that there was nothing he could doto reassure his husband that things were going to be fine, that he was allright, that he was here with him and was going to stay that way.

They both knew there was no guarantee ofthat. Not yet.

“Are you sure you can manage the approach fromthis side? It’s busier than normal—the pulsar’s kicking out heavier gravitywaves than expected.”

“It’ll be fine.” This was the preferredapproach for Cloverleaf Station if you were coming from the Beyond because itminimized exposure to radiation—the asteroids were just too big, and theytended to be large, some as large as moons. They could extend a shield’sprotection for hours, long enough to get into Cloverleaf’s anti-rad fieldgenerator, an innovation installed just last year that had completely changedhow the station operated.

It was still a dangerous location, but forships within a few hundred kilometers could take advantage of the massivemagnetic field the station produced—as long as they shut their engines downcompletely once they were past the asteroids, which meant following thestation’s instructions for docking with extreme precision. Once you were closeenough, a specialized drone would come out, attach to the nose of your ship,and pull you into the station itself. They only worked within a very specificrange of speeds, though, and if you overshot the station too fast, you had towait until you were out of range of the artificial magnetic field to try again.

“All right.” That was apparently enough tosettle Wyl. “Let’s get some food into you, then we’ll set out. Hopefully we’llget through the approach before we have to eat again.”

“Hopefully,” Robbie agreed. “I’ll join youin a minute.” Wyl nodded, and Robbie headed for the bathroom.

He didn’t need to use it. That was somethinghe’d been keeping to himself lately, because he knew it would scare Wyl, but hedidn’t actually need to use the bathroom anymore. His body had becomeincredibly efficient in that way, leaving nothing for him to excrete. He didpee from time to time, when he drank too quickly for the parasite to keep up,but if he stayed relaxed with his intake…nothing. No turnover.

It would be a weird thing to confess, onemore in a long line at this point, and so he didn’t. He washed his face, thenchecked his reflection for any sign of the parasite in his eyes or lips—placesthere the skin was thinnest. Nothing. Good.

He didn’t want to call attention to himselfbefore he had to.

He dressed in clean clothes, simple spacerfare—blue shirt, gray pants, and long socks with hardened soles, all skin-tightand temp controlled, then put a larger hoodie over the top. The hoodie datedback to his marine years, and was the last piece of clothing he had from whatmight be termed his “youth.” It was threadbare and the words had long sincefrayed off, but it was the most comforting thing he had to wear, and itgrounded him in his body like only touching Wyl did, and he couldn’t have Wyltouching him while he was navigating the asteroid field.

He stepped into the hallway and almoststepped into Isidore, who was emerging from his room with a smile on his face.His silver eyes were bright—they always were, given the reflective lenses, butthey were particularly lively right now, and Robbie knew why. “I take it you’vechecked your messages from the welcoming committee.”

“Pence is ready for us,” Isidore confirmedas they walked one-by-one down the hall to the mess. The ship was tight—twopeople couldn’t fit side by side in it.

“Good.” Ready for you, you mean.

“And he’s arranged a face-to-face meetingwith Kathryn Blake, too.” Isidore said it with the air of someone delivering ahuge surprise, and it was merited. Robbie froze and turned to face him,incredulous.

“Over a comm?”

“In person,” Isidore clarified, grinningnow. “She’s using Cloverleaf Station as her base of operations this season. Shejust got there two days ago. Pence had to share some of your research with herto get the meeting, but she’s really interested to talk to our crew now.”

“I bet.” Yeah, their research wasinteresting—it was unprecedented, because Robbie had the parasite swimmingbehind his eyes, showing him mysteries in the Beyond that either no human hadever plumbed before or none of them had bothered to share. Wyl had uploadedtheir videos to a repository on the station, one designed to be shared withGarrett in the event they went missing, but Pence had access to them as well.If he thought they were needed to get this meeting, then he was right.

“Blake is at the station?” Wyl demanded fromthe entrance to the mess. “Are you serious?”

“As a knife to the heart.”

“Such a sweet talker.” He was grinning nowtoo, though, the merriment spreading, and Robbie was grateful to see it. “That’samazing, though. She’s the Alliance authority on the Beyond. Over adozen universities are funding her team, not to mention the mining interestsfunding metallurgical studies. Holy shit. Holy shit.”

“You’re welcome,” Isidore said smugly rightbefore Wyl tackled him in a hug.

Robbie skirted around both of them andheaded for the coffee pot. He poured himself one careful cup, stopping a fullinch shy of the rim because it felt right there. He never overate these days,never overindulged in caffeine or liquor. Not that he had often before, but hisbody had become a finely-tuned machine.

Too bad the tune it was dancing to wasn’this own. It burned Robbie that he couldn’t even be there for the meeting withBlake, or at least not all of it. Wyl had to be able to ask questions withoutthe parasite knowing what they were, after all. He trusted Wyl with his life—ofcourse he did—but he wasn’t used to giving up control. He hated it, in fact; itmade his skin crawl, but…

“Hey.” Kyle raised his own cup from where hesat at the table, and Robbie seized on the distraction.

“Hey.” He sat down beside him. “You readyfor the approach?”

“I won’t be the one navigating it.”

“You’re my backup for a reason,” Robbiereminded him. Wyl was an amazing shipbuilder, and Isidore was practically adoctor with how well he understood the human body, but Kyle was the only onewho had reflexes anywhere close to what was needed to thread their ship throughthe asteroid field. It was about more than dodging chunks of rock; there wereradiation mitigation efforts to make, long-term radar to take into account, anda trajectory to calculate and confirm before they entered the station’smagnetic field. “I’ll get us there if you handle reentry.”

Kyle nodded. “I can do that.”

“Good.” Robbie took a long, slow sip,savoring the bitterness of the coffee on his tongue. He took another mouthful,letting it wash across the back of his tongue, rich and strong and—

He choked, leaning forward and sputtering ascoffee sprayed across the table. Every eye in the room turned on him, andRobbie waved their concern away even as he reached for a hand towel. “Just wentdown the wrong tube,” he said. “I’m fine.”

He wasn’t fine. That wasn’t the wrong tube,that was a forceful rejection by the parasite. But why? He’d been drinkingcoffee with this thing in him for years. He wiped his mouth, then briskly wipeddown the table.

“I’ll get you some more,” Wyl said, reachingfor the pot.

“I’m fine,” Robbie interjected. “Still havesome here.” He cleared his throat, then stood up. “I’m going to prep the engineand get us moving. We should be there in about four standard hours.”

Wyl held out a meal bar. “At least eat thisfirst.”

Robbie extended his arm warily, then relaxedas he was able to close his fingers around it. “Thanks.” He forced a smile,then headed into the cockpit.

The sooner he got things underway, thebetter.