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For it being the first week in a zombie apocalypse, Flux thinks they've settled into things very well. Having a promising base by the end of their fourth day is not a feat to be underestimated.
It's a great location as well, easy to defend, with plenty of space for nurturing crops (that Stella gal mentioned being good at farming, didn't she? Hopefully, her word holds true, that's such a useful skill to have) and open enough to have a perfect view around them, not to mention up to the sky.
It's not necessarily a strategic advantage to have an unobstructed view of the sky, maybe it will be if what he heard about zombies hating sunlight is true, but honestly, it's a personal preference. Yes, having a cover is important to deal with harsher weather, but on clear nights like these... he likes looking at the stars when he can't sleep.
Fluixon can't sleep.
Maybe he's still too wired after how disastrous last night ended up being, with that stupid church and its lackluster defenses.
Maybe it's the intermittent pain in his left arm that ebbs and flows without any pattern of time he can manage to keep track of.
Maybe even it's the uneasy feeling of so many people around him- it's just three of them, Thomas, Stella and Magic, but it's been a long time since he's shared a safe place with a group. Groups can be good for survival, or they can be awful. It's a coin-toss for how the personalities will meld together and how a stressful situation will impact the balance in the dynamic. There's too much he can't control, that he'd rather avoid, but even he's not independent enough to ignore the truth of their situation.
Surviving alone looks close to impossible.
Surviving just with his new... friend... Thomas looks even harder, too much of his focus being split on both of their safety.
A small group is the best bet, having other people take care of areas where his attention would stretch too thin to properly cover.
It doesn't mean that this doesn't scare him. Or at least unsettle him enough to rob him of sleep.
They had decided to sleep in shifts, Thomas insisted on taking the first gyarding shift after Stella said she'd be taking it and, after a bit of back and forth, they settled on sharing the shift to more efficiently control the perimeter.
Magic is probably getting some rest right now, but Flux just can't. It's terrible. Even if he's on a bed more comfortable than ones he's used to, even if there's a bone-deep sense of exhaustion in him, his mind doesn't drift away, it stays stubbornly aware even as he closes his eyes.
He opens them, giving up the fight.
It's not so dark around, given the light sources they've installed around their base- you can never be too sure in this place. He silently sits up, his eyes scanning around to see his… friends? Teammates.
Magic is in the nearby bed, seemingly in an uneasy sleep given the frown on her face.
Stella is sitting near the border, to his left. He can't see her face, but her posture seems tense.
He can't see Thomas, but he can hear the faint footstep pattern he's already started to confidently associate with the young man, the guy must be on the farthest side of the base, behind the elevated platform.
Quietly, Flux stands up from the bed, walking to the small platform in the middle of their base. Stella turns to his direction, alarmed, when she hears the light noise of someone climbing, but she's quickly relieved to see it's just her teammate.
The two share a nod of acknowledgment before focusing back on what they're doing.
Once on the smaller roof, he lets his sight glide over the whole base, quickly checking for anything out of place, then lies down on the concrete surface once satisfied with the state of order their homebase is in.
Purple eyes turn towards the night sky.
He's spent many nights like this, the stars shining down on him a little more blurry than they did when he was a kid, when both his eyes were working as they should. Sleep has rarely come easy to him, if it ever did then it was more likely to be exhaustion, dehydration, sickness, anything but the peaceful lull towards dreams.
And his mind is doing anything but drifting off right now, firmly anchored to the floor, or far under it, to every noise echoing in the deadly city below him...
That's probably the only reason he didn't notice a hushed conversation happening nearby, nor the following footsteps getting close, only snapping back to place when startled by a question.
"Is everything alright, Mr Flux?"
Thomas.
Flux turns his head just enough to see the student leaning on the border of the platform, arms crossed on the concrete.
"I'm fine. It's hard to sleep."
The brunette hums in agreement, making the scavenger think he'd turn away back to patrol, but that hope is short-lived as the young man climbs up properly, laying down on the roof close to him, to his left.
Not close enough to be considered "Next to him" a part of his brain notes with quiet relief, but he still instinctively draws his injured left arm to his chest.
"You should be patrolling, it would be unfair to leave Stella on duty alone" he tries to say, but the other quickly shakes his head.
"It was her to tell me to check on you actually. She wasn't confident enough doing it herself, but to her you seemed... distressed."
"We're in a zombie-infested city, everyone's distressed."
Thomas shrugs his shoulders and Fluixon can't tell if it's an agreement.
Silence stretches for what must have been a couple of minutes before the student, the absolute blubbermouth than he is, breaks it.
"How much do you know about stars?"
"Not much."
He can feel brown eyes locked on him.
"Wanna know about them?"
It's his turn to shrug now, but it doesn't deter his companion, who turns his head back towards the sky.
"I read a lot about them and space in school, I could talk about them forever! But also... I don't want to bore you with a long-winded explanation Mr Flux. So I'll do my best to make it brief."
Flux feels like it won't be so brief.
"Basically, stars are giant balls of hot, burning gas, held together by their own gravity because they are so big. They look tiny to us over here, but it's because they're incredibly far away! All these teeny tiny ones we see at night are outside of our solar system, the sun is the only one in our solar system"
The scavenger hums, filing the information away as useless. It is interesting, but he doesn't need it. It's fascinating, but he doesn't have time for it. He didn't have time for space before, he certainly doesn't have it in Paradise City, no matter how loud his childish curiosity calls.
"What's a solar system...?"
The call in his mind won out. He doesn't need to turn towards Thomas to imagine the grin splitting his face as he speaks "It's what scientists refer to all the things revolving around the sun as! Like our Earth, or the other planets, the moon, even comets. It's one big system around the sun, our only star. All the other ones are super far away!"
"Any more facts you want to share?"
He actually hopes there are.
"If you ask so kindly... look, you see that one star? Looks brighter than all the others?"
Flux has to squint a bit to understand what Thomas is pointing towards. The other seems to feel his struggle because he shifts closer, shoulders touching, to more accurately point somewhere in the sky. He pretends to see, hoping this will make the student move back, but that doesn't happen- he can barely concentrate on the words when his mind is freaking out from on him- and for what, it's such a small contact! It shouldn't matter that he can feel Thomas's warmth so close to him, it's weird that he even notices, he's not often so close to someone to notice-
"- it doesn't mean that the other stars move though, it's just that the North star is aligned with Earth in such a way that we see it in the same spot all year! The other stars instead seemingly move around, which is why there are different constellations visible in different months of the year."
Fluixon just nods, the first part of the explanation completely missed to the spiral of his own mind. This is awkward, this sucks, he hopes Thomas didn't notice... better ask another question, that seems to distract him enough.
"Do you know many constellations?"
Turning towards the other was an awful idea why is he so fucking close why why why-
"Uhm... actually I don't? I can only point out two visible in February... one's the little dipper, which is easy to find because the north star is in it..." His hand shoots up to point at the sky again, slowly tracing a shape Flux's eyes can't quite perfectly grasp but he understands at least the position of now.
"And the other is the Orion's belt, which is easy because it's only three stars" the student's finger points to another spot and, yeah, the scavenger is fully lost again.
It must show on his face, because Thomas just smiles at him... then confidently takes Flux's left hand in his warm ones, gets it to a pointing position and moves to point it to the sky for him.
Fluixon wants to scream. He bites his tongue not to. He tries following the mysterious line in the sky to avoid thinking too hard and... "Is it those three? They look close together enough."
Thomas grins, he must have got it right, and lets go of his hand. It feels cold now. This is a nightmare. He needs an out, immediately.
"Shame that you don't know any other... I should probably try going to sleep ag-"
"I know a few if you want...?" A weak voice interrupts his excuse, belonging to none other than their teammate, Magic, who's peeking at them from the border of the platform.
When did she wake up?
"That'd be great! Come on, join us up here!" Thomas answers before he can, leaning over to give the newcomer a hand to climb up.
And then she promptly lies down to Flux's right, great, having another person so close by is exactly what he needs to be able to focus on anything. He almost wants to ask her to move away, but when he turns to see the shaky smile on her face the words die in his throat. She was definitely having nightmares earlier. Even he's not mean enough to tell her to leave.
"It's not the easiest to spot, but Gemini's already visible in February. It's a zodiac constellation. You can easily see it if you spot the two brightest stars..." Her voice wavers off as she scans the night sky, then excitedly gasps when she finds what she wants "Look, those two! Pollux and Castor, the head of the twins!"
Thomas immediately finds what she's talking about, letting out a small "Wow...", but Flux lags behind again, eyesight betraying him, so Magic grabs his right hand to point at the spots, mirroring what happened earlier.
Magic's hands are really warm too. Are his own the only cold ones? Do they feel his chill seeping into their bones like he can feel their warmth? Do they mind it?
The stars sparkle so brightly that they appear as smudges of light to his right eye.
"You know, one of my old friends is a Gemini and she's, like, such a Gemini." Magic laughs. Her eyes sparkle when she laughs.
Thomas laughs along. His eyes sparkle too.
Do Stella's eyes sparkle?
Could his own sparkle if he was happy like them?
"Myself, I'm a Cancer! What about you two, what's your zodiac sign?"
Flux elects not to answer her question, just shrugging, even if Thomas playfully shoves his shoulder for it "Come on Mr Flux, stop being so cagey, it's not cool or mysterious- but anyway, I'm an Aries!"
Magic nods thoughtfully, as if this information explained some universal truth to her. The scavenger doesn't understand a thing. Are zodiac signs an important thing you should know? Like your blood type? Is it bad he doesn't know his own?
He's thankful that Magic shifts her attention somewhere else, standing to her feet and going to one of the sides of the platform "Hey Stella! What's your zodiac?"
A few seconds of silence follow, before Stella's voice chimes back "Not telling!"
Magic huffs, stomping her foot down "Oh come on, Thomas is the only one that indulges me here! Zodiac signs are fun!"
"If we're talking about symbology, I'm partial to flower language over the zodiac… but I enjoy stargazing too." light footsteps draw closer.
Before Flux knows it, all of the small team is on the platform. Magic is back to his right, talking away to Thomas about how such an Aries he apparently is. The student is to his left, listening attentively to every word. Stella is sitting cross-legged behind his head, chuckling at their other two teammates. Flux looks up for only a moment. Her eyes sparkle too.
When he stepped foot in Paradise City, he had a weird hope in his chest... that in a ruined place like this, everyone would be on his same level.
The bottom of the food chain is a lonely place to be.
He may not be on his own there anymore, but there's this distance, this gap he just discovered that he doesn't know how to bridge.
Even in these dreadful circumstances, his allies- his... friends maybe- they can still smile so brightly, he sees them as blurry as the stars above.
His soul has been decaying for his entire life, he doesn't know if he can ever smile like them again.
But as the warmth and friendly banter take over his senses, he drifts off, even the pain in his arm forgotten for a peaceful moment.
The last thing he notices before sleep claims him, is Stella's face splitting into a cheeky grin as her hand reaches down to his black hair, gentle fingers carding through surprisingly soft locks.
Her hand is warm too.
When he wakes up, it's morning. They didn't wake him up for his guard shift. The closest they go to acknowledging this is Magic shrugging at his questions, replying "I got some sleep during the first shift, but you didn't. Couldn't have you collapsing while on lookout with me."
They don't talk really about what happened, about how weird he probably was, how out of place he is in a group like this. They don't say any of it. Instead, they ask what the plans for today should be, like he should have a hand in deciding, like they just... trust him to have ideas worth following.
He's not sure he does.
He sure hopes he does.
Because, now, a part of him won't rest easy if the sparkle in those 3 pairs of eyes ever fades.
He's already dead inside, his soul more decayed than a zombie's, but theirs aren't. And, by God, someone has to make sure it stays that way, right?