STARDUST, aurora rising | f. de seel

□ Chapter Twelve

Scarlett’s sleeping off an apparent headache in our room, and Aurora, in a perpetual state of exhaustion, has collapsed in the same room. Catherine’s clearly still suspicious about her, and has taken to watching Scarlett sleeping dutifully with Zila ready on the disruptor pistol.

Catherine's continuous glaring at Aurora has made me exceedingly uncomfortable, so I've taken to draping myself over the couch by Finian. He tried suggesting I sleep in the room, but I'm comfortable enough on the couch by his leg. Besides, he had teasingly offered to show me how to actually dance on a date- joke or not, I decided to hold him to it.

I can hear him prodding at Tyler and Kaliis with half-assed jokes about having Tyler’s first born named after him.

I slip into a doze before I feel Finian shuffle on the couch. “Sorry,” He murmurs, voice low. “Can you move over so I can put my legs up? They're killing me.”

I wake up, vision bleary. My gaze lands on Finian’s legs wedged between the couch and a box of tech with a console stacked on it. I sit up, and he mutters a thanks as he slips his legs behind me, balancing on his hip to lean forward and continue typing away at the console.

I'm too tired to care that I'm in such a vulnerable state around him. He could fire off a round of insults or sass, and I wouldn't even be able to compute. Though somewhere through the sleep haze in my brain, I manage to process the fact he wouldn't do that to me.

I tuck my head under his outstretched arm and curl into him, face in his chest. Dariel’s room temperature regulator seems to constantly be set a couple of degrees too cold, and still wearing my jumpsuit from earlier it's nice to have some warmth.

Finian doesn't say anything, he tenses himself back into the couch, but gives up, struggling to type at the same time.

I fall asleep.

I wake up with utter bewilderment and confusion as to how I was asleep on the couch curled up to Finian.

I sit up, blinking my eyes and rubbing sleep from them.

“Welcome back from the land of the dead,” Finian remarked, groaning as he sat up and stretched. “Maker, I was wondering if you were going to let me move.”

I do a quick once over of the room. Zila’s uninterested as usual, on her uniglass and curled into a ball on the couch besides Tyler and Kaliis. Aurora’s made her home sitting cross-legged on the table. And Scarlett is sprawled over Catherine’s lap in the remaining chair.

I can feel my face positively burning. I clear my throat, trying to act casual as I rub sleep from my eyes with my thumb.

“Here, Scarlett- or Aurora- I'll move over.”

Scarlett stands instantly, and hardly gives me a chance to move over before she sits besides me and forces me back into Finian’s side.

“Goodbye movement,” Finian grumbled, squashed between the arm rest and me.

I'm nearly in Scarlett’s lap trying to give him space. I feel bad for having surely been a solid wall between him and his work. Scarlett nudges me off her knee.

“Anyway. So I have good news, then excellent news,” Finian declares. He's plugged his uniglass into his suit, just over his forearm. “Then absolutely terrible news.”

“Oh… great,” I mutter, still in the process of waking up. I rub my palms against eyes before sitting up straight again.

“Good news first,” Tyler implores.

I glance at Finian's uniglass. It glows brightly in the gloom of Dariel's quarters. Rows of binary numbers and data and other things that were too techy and not sciency for me to understand.