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“It’s so beautiful from up here,” Tweek sighs. His hands are pressed against one of the few windows in the space station, and his breath is starting to fog up the glass. Craig stares at him.
“Yeah. It is.”
They’ve been disconnected from Houston for a week now. Blackouts happen, and Craig is fully prepared, but Tweek should not be here. He’s not even remotely sure how Tweek got here. He ignores it in favor of floating to the control room again.
Their current route has them locked in orbit around the Earth, a safe distance from debris and other satellites, but close enough for observance. Craig doesn’t say anything about doing any of this alone, but when has he ever needed anyone but himself.
He hears Tweek making noise still, nearby and comforting, as Craig adjusts their path on the computers again. He has to redo his math twice, one of the numbers just not lining up. He corrects it and checks a few systems before he makes his way back to the common area. He still has a job to do.
The space station runs most of its own tests, but Craig has to watch over most of them and study what the results actually mean. Tweek follows him around for most of this. They don’t talk very much, other than Tweek asking for clarification on a few of the papers Craig lugs around, but Craig likes it that way. The stars stay outside, and the sun quietly warms him from underneath his arm.
He tries to contact Houston again each morning. Every day, he checks every radio and sends out an emergency broadcast for people to answer. He doesn’t get anything. He doesn’t tell Tweek.
Another week passes before something bumps into one of the outer dishes attached to the station. Craig knows he has to repair it, but he’s nervous. He puts it off.
Tweek doesn’t say anything about it, even though they’d both felt it. He watches Craig, stone-faced as ever, continue working. His notes become more disorganized, but Tweek doesn’t do anything. Craig doesn’t care, as long as Tweek stays with him.
He tries Houston again. The radio blinks back at him, whispering soft static against his cries for help. Tweek just leans against his back, warm and jittery. His hands twitch twice against Craig’s chest before he puts the radio down for the day.
Another week passes before Craig decides he has to fix the broken antenna outside. It’s been interfering with results, and he can't return home with bad research. Tweek isn’t the happiest.
“I need to go outside, Tweek,” he says, calm. He’s scared too but if he shows that to Tweek, it’ll just make him feel worse. “It’ll only take a few minutes.”
“Yeah but- agh! What if you get knocked off?” Craig watches as he pulls at the skin on his hands before he grabs them.
“I’ll be fine. I trained for this, remember?”
“Hn. Okay.”
Craig knows he isn’t convinced, he didn’t sound too convincing either. He places his helmet on anyways and secures himself to the various life support tubes in the air lock. Tweek closes the doors to the inside and opens the bay doors.
The sight of space isn’t new to Craig, but it’s still shocking just how dark it is. So many stars litter the sky that he’s never seen from Earth, he almost wonders if it would be worth it to chart them. He makes his way to the damaged antenna and hooks himself to the station instead.
It doesn’t take him that long to fix. He replaces a few pieces, grateful it just came loose rather than being shattered by something big. He unhooks himself and turns back to the airlock doors, shooting a thumbs up to Tweek. Except, Tweek isn’t there.
Craig isn’t worried. Tweek doesn’t have to wait by the airlock doors for him. But Tweek isn’t visible even when Craig is inside the airlock and letting oxygen back in. Craig can’t even see Tweek’s bright yellow hair floating from the sleeping pods.
Frantically, Craig tries to open the doors to the station. He knows slamming his hand against the keypad doesn’t speed them up but his heart is pounding in his ears and he can’t quite think correctly. The doors aren’t even fully open before Craig sees Tweek again, floating right in the center of the space station.
His face is relaxed, almost peaceful. He’s holding a stack of Craig’s notes and he’s almost upside down and Craig can’t help but yell.
“What the hell was that?!” he shouts. Panic leaves him, replaced by anger and a cold sweat. “I- I thought you- How did you do that?” Tweek looks at him, surprised.
“Do what?”
“Hide! I couldn’t see you from the- I thought you’d-.”
“Craig, honey,” Tweek says, sweetly. He lets go of Craig’s notes, his life’s work floating about the space station. Tweek floats up to him and places a hand on each of Craig’s cheeks and it’s so uncharacteristic Craig almost flinches. “Look outside.”
Craig is scared now. All the anger, the panic, every hurtful emotion leaves him in a rush and is replaced with dread. He knows the blood drains from his face, he can feel it sinking in his stomach.
“Why?”
“Just look.”
Tweek lets go of his face. Craig pushes himself towards one of the few windows of the space station, and notices how clean it is. There’s no handprints, no smear of fog. He presses a shaking hand to the glass as he looks down to where Earth should be and sees stars.
He turns around, whipping back to face Tweek, but there’s nothing there. The space station is empty and dark, and papers are floating everywhere. Craig is suddenly hit with memories of an incident, something hitting the space station. He knows if he looks inside the sleeping pods there will be 3 immortalized bodies, and he knows if he tries to turn on his radio nothing will happen.
Craig calls for help one last time, before he goes to bed.