Sleep was something that didn't come easily in general, let alone on a hundred year old spaceship flying through the depths of space. It wasn't uncommon to find a straggler or two wandering about the common room of the Astra after lights out, messing around until eventually inevitable sleepiness gripped them and forced them back to their cabin. While it tended to rotate nightly as to who would find their way into the head of the ship in the depths of what would be night, if not for the fact that there seemed to be a constant state of night in space, one thing remained consistent, and that was Ulgar's tendencies to never stay in his cabin past the mid mark of night.

The lithe boy found his way to a bench in one of the windows located at the end of the hall in the cabins, the direction leading towards the back of the ship. It wasn't ideal, but after having found Kanato present in the head of the ship, he didn't want to stick around long enough for the other to notice him and try to strike up a conversation. Ulgar didn't have any words for Kanata, or much of anyone else aboard their ship, and he never wanted to be put into a situation where he'd need to offer more than a few bits of information. Though, he did have to admit, loneliness was a battle he didn't quite enjoy fighting.

It has been several years since Finn's passing, the soft ache of loneliness never eased in pain. It's what kept Ulgar from sleeping soundly, if at all, having to stand being confined to a room without the sound of anything other than his own breath and the hum of the ship. It wasn't as if he wanted to seek anyone out either- during the day, it was rare to find him conversing at all with the others...but he still kept close. Close enough that he didn't feel alone, but far enough that he wasn't establishing any attachments- for the most part. Finn had been his sole confidant, and without him there to listen to Ulgar, the jet-haired boy wasn't exactly sure there was anyone else who wanted to listen. Truly listen, not just listen out of pity. He'd dealt with pity too much from anyone who was aware of any aspect of his life and he was entirely over it. The round, sad look in the other person's eyes and the slight, awkward frown that told him they didn't really want to be here, they were doing it for him. They were doing it to make themselves feel better, about their own lives or about how they were treating someone less fortunate with their kindness. It was this abundance of knowledge of cues in body language that told Ulgar how someone was truly feeling that left him confused when his mind landed on a specific set of eyes.

Looking down the hallway, Ulgar almost flinched when he saw a small, shadowed figure. However, as soon as it was present that his attention had shifted to this person, the other boy made himself known.

"Ulgar..? It's- well, I don't know...whatever time it is, it's late." A mumbled, sleepy voice came from the short body that stumbled in the lengthy boy's direction, prompting him to sit up.

"And?" Ulgar responded curtly to the familiar voice and figure.

"And you should be asleep.." Luca yawned as a sliver of light shone through the window Ulgar sat in, illuminating his tired expression as he reached up and rubbed his eyes that Ulgar took a quick glance at.

Luca was an interesting case to Ulgar, he was one of the few people that didn't entirely annoy him when in his general vicinity, and it was his eyes that were a large portion of that, "I could say the same." The boy snorted, turning back towards the window and looking out at the endless advance that was space, directly outside this window, he held his hand up to it for a moment, knees drawn to his chest, pressing his back firmer against the wall behind him, fingertips feeling to coolness of the window through his gloves, just barely. It was amazing, how endless it all was...it looked the same, all of it, darkness with little dots of light..

"I couldn't sleep.." Luca mumbled with a tired sniff, moving to lean against the wall of the window bench, tilting his head back to look up at the other boy, lavender hair gently falling back and landing gently on the other's knee.

Ulgar hated how much he focused on the feeling, so light and barely noticeable, the light touch of the other's hair on his leg. It wasn't a lot but the contact was enough to make Ulgar shift slightly, everywhere but his knee, which he kept deadly still. He looked down at the shorter boy, surprised to find him looking directly at him, he almost looked away, but Luca began speaking before he could.

"Do you do this often..?" Luca's voice was soft and genuinely curious, cocking his head slightly and causing his hair to fall off of Ulgar's knee.

The disappointment the dark haired boy felt with the lack of feeling on his knee was a bit concerning to himself, "Yeah, I guess." Ulgar looked away, back to his window.

"Really? Like...ever night..?" Luca sat up slightly, turning towards Ulgar by a bit, "Don't you get tired?"

Ulgar shrugged with a squint, "Sure."

"You're not much for conversation, huh?" The lavender-haired boy tilted his head back again, gently touching Ulgar's knee.

Ulgar seemed to relax slightly, "I just don't really have a lot to say, I guess."

"You guess?" Luca yawned, eyes half-lidded, "If you've got words, if you can say them, I don't bite, Ulgar." He snorted quietly.

Ulgar huffed, "Well, what do you want me to say?" His voice was snappy.

"Geez, calm down, are you sure you've gotten enough sleep, dude?" Luca slowly got to his feet and stretched.

"I can run fine off of two hours, I-"

"Two hours!?" Luca's eyes widened, "For how many nights have you been doing that?!"

Ulgar flinched, "Calm down, we might not be sleeping but everyone else is!"

"Wow, it almost sounded like you cared for a second there." Luca looked smug, cocking an eyebrow with a small smirk.

"You should be sleeping too." Ulgar flushed, looking down slightly.

"Well, so~ should you~, why aren't you sleeping?" Luca leaned against the wall, looking over Ulgar for a second too long before looking away with a change in expression.

"It-" Ulgar felt his heart twist a little bit, it was a feeling of endearment, that even if Luca was teasing him, he wanted to know what Ulgar had to say. It wasn't as though he was going to spill out every possible truth, about how absolutely, entirely deafening silence is when you're the only one in a room, how not having a one-on-one conversation with someone in years has made this one so much more meaningful and makes him want to talk about how he feels, though he knows he won't and can't. How missing Finn makes everything so much worse and- "It gets lonely." Was all that Ulgar said.

What should have been a simple statement made Luca sit up and look at Ulgar with a change in attitude.

Ulgar avoided looking at him for a moment. He didn't want to see it, the look of pity that had been burned into his mind from a hundred different faces. However, as he'd thought before, the silence was deafening, he couldn't take it with Luca too, and this prompted him to look up. He was surprised, however, to find something different. In Luca's eyes, it wasn't pity- it was sympathy. He wasn't frowning, he was actually smiling slightly, just a gentle curve up lips and a squint that contained pain, but not pity.

"Yeah, I'm not a big fan of it myself." Luca breathed out, this time taking his turn to look out the window, eyes shining with thoughtfulness.

Ulgar's eyebrows lifted slightly as he followed Luca's gaze at the stars, "Yeah..? You seem to be sleeping just fine-"

"I'm up right now, aren't I?" Luca smirked in amusement, folding his arms over his chest but keeping his gaze trained outside.

"I- you're..not wrong." Ulgar snorted. There was a long bout of silence before the boy spoke up again, "So, you're up because you felt...lonely?" He awkwardly shifted, he wasn't exactly in good practice of having proper conversation with someone other than his father, and even that really could hardly be considered a conversation.

"Eh, sorta." Luca shrugged, rubbing his arms slightly, "Loneliness sucks but I mean, I can usually find sleep eventually, nightmares on the other hand...can't really control those." The boy seemed to grow uncomfortable.

Ulgar began to inwardly panic. What the hell am I supposed to do now? He seems uncomfortable- is that my job to fix? Is he going to- keep talking? Am I supposed to talk? What do I say? These thoughts whizzed by a million times a minute before the lithe boy cleared his throat and sat up slightly, "You can talk about it if you want- just don't bore me or I'm..taking the loneliness over that, okay?"

Luca lit up, eyes shining with endearment before assuming an amused expression, "You do~ care about us, don't you?"

"I will go back to my room." Ulgar started to get up as if it were a threat, standing across from Luca now, leaning against the adjacent wall.

"No, no! Come on, man, I can find it cu- sweet." Luca flushed and looked at his feet, squeezing his arms.

CuTE?  Ulgar's face heated up, Was that what he was about to say? Sweet- sweet was good- but cute... Ulgar slightly shook his head as if the physical motion would clear his inward thoughts. This was extremely confusing and it wasn't the first time Luca had...confused him. His eyes...constantly found their way into Ulgar's line of sight- how could they not? They were ever changing and never looked at him with disgust at any moment..

"Anyway," Luca giggled nervously, "It was nothing, just- I keep imagining if like...you guys like left me alone on the ship...like, in my dream- I keep waking up, in the dream, and searching all over the ship, only to find a note that everyone left without me-"

"How would we do that?" Ulgar interrupted, "Get off the ship and have it keep running with you in it-?"

"It's a dream, Ulgar, not all of it has to make sense." Luca rolled his eyes with a snort, "It's the feeling that counts- I wake up and like, how am I supposed to differentiate reality from that dream? It's...why I walk out here and just kinda...check up on things..."

"Check that we didn't leave..?" Ulgar murmurs, looking over Luca's now saddened expression.

"You said it yourself, it gets lonely in our individual bunkers-how am I supposed to know I'm not alone?" Luca seemed to grow increasingly more uncomfortable at admitting this.

"Well, I'm usually out here..but uh, I wander the ship sometimes." Ulgar shrugged in an offering way.

Luca smiled bashfully and Ulgar felt his heart twist up in a way that made him look anywhere but at Luca.

The shorter chuckled, "Thanks...it's just the association of waking up and just- there's nothing, nobody is there and-" Luca's eyes grew dark.

"Hey, um- it's..chill, it happens-" Ulgar coughed, "Not fun but yeah-"

"You ever feel that way though, like...waking up alone and it's just this sucky feeling weighing down on your chest..?" Luca glanced up at Ulgar with a small wince.

Ulgar looked thoughtful before nodding, "Mhm.."

"Yeah..what do you do about that?" Luca looked up at Ulgar.

Me? Why would I have- Ulgar focused before he let his brain spiral. He hadn't really found a solution other than choosing solitude, rather than being subjected to it...but..with Finn, he never felt this way- but nightmares had always existed, like Luca had said, they couldn't really be controlled, and.. "Finn...and I.." Just saying the name was something that felt so foreign on his tongue out loud, "He'd let me crash in his room sometimes..or he'd crash in my room- not often, if even more than once, but it..never felt..bad after that." The lengthy boy shrugged.

"Oh- I-" Luca shifted on his feet, "I mean, you're welcome to come over and uh- if you're suggesting-"

The words traveled in through one ear and out the other of Ulgar's brain before they seemed to click. Heat traveled from the center of his cheeks to his ear tips, "Oh- I uh- I meant-"

"Well, come on-" Luca stood up on his feet and nodded towards his room, "My room or yours?"

How was Luca saying this so simply, as if this proposition wasn't entirely wild and out there and- why was Ulgar gravitating towards him. His lips moved, "I don't mind-" WhY did yOu sAy ThAt- Ulgar kept a straight face, he might have even had his usual scowl on, but his mind wouldn't still in this moment as his feet took him towards Luca, who was already walking towards his room.

"You can take my hug pillow if you uh, if ya' want." Luca hummed as they walked down the hall, Ulgar trailing a few feet behind while continuing to inwardly panic.

"Sure." Ulgar grew quiet, though he wasn't sure if it was intentional or not.

Luca glanced back at Ulgar once before stopping in front of the door that led to his bunker, pressing his hand to the door's button, opening it with a woosh, he looked over it bashfully at the clothes strewn across the floor, he began to kick the clothes under the bed present in the small room, "Sorry, I..wasn't expecting anyone-"

"You're fine." Ulgar snorted, entering quietly and flinching as the door closed behind him. They were now alone together- and this was entirely a new type of alone.

"Obviously we're both...ready for bed..since um, we both woke up and-" Luca offered an arm towards the bed, "You can just uh- I can lay on the floor and-" The boy took one of the pillows and plopped it onto the floor as Ulgar went to sit on the edge of the bed.

"I can take the floor-" Ulgar began.

"Absolutely not, this is my room and therefore you're my guest, I can take the floor." Luca nodded.

"But- we're on a spaceship, that can't be comfortable- I can just- I could go back to my ro-"

"No!" Luca shouted too quickly, causing a long pause where both boys' faces turned red, "I mean...you're already here- so-"

"We could share it-" Ulgar murmured quickly before he could take the words back, which he almost instantly wanted to do.

"Wh-What?" Luca swallowed carefully.

"The bed um- it- I mean- it's supposed to be for one person but-" Ulgar silently scooted towards the side of the bed closer to the wall, leaving half of it open, "Just don't- touch me or something-"

"It's a twin size bed, I don't think I can.."

"Suit yourself." Ulgar mumbled briskly, turning his back to Luca to hide the growing blush on his face and the twist of embarrassment in his chest at having suggested it in the first place.

Minutes dragged on into what felt like an eternity as Ulgar laid silent, hearing the shifting of Luca on the ground. He felt guilty and nervous and- sweaty? He'd have to take Zach up on his recommendations to take a shower on the ship sometime. Overall he just felt like he was going to be sick- this definitely was not what it was like when he used to sleep over in Finn's room, and was not helping him sleep. All he could think about was the guilt in his chest that Luca was being so humble to him, after everything, he still..

Fumbling sounded behind Ulgar and the bed dipped beside him. In a matter of seconds, there was warmth radiating from something behind him, and Ulgar knew that Luca had taken him up on his sort-of offer to lay down on the bed. The lengthy boy lay entirely still, not daring to disturb the other out of...respect...for him.. he also didn't want Luca to know he was awake and tolerating this. Ulgar wasn't sure why he felt like his heart might jump out of his stomach, but what was even more unsettling was that he didn't entirely dislike this feeling, which unconsciously made him ease his back ever so slightly to relax, unintentionally causing his shoulders to rest gently against the shorter's chin. He knew Luca noticed this because he felt the boy stir from behind, and in a matter of seconds, bury his face in Ulgar's shoulder blades. The taller forced himself not to stiffen up, causing him to twitch slightly and beg that Luca didn't notice.

Luca sure as Astra did notice, and smiled at the situation he was in. It wasn't uncommon for him to tease Ulgar, but this was a completely different playing field, not only could he accomplish teasing the other, but knowing that Ulgar was pretending to be asleep, he knew the other couldn't bite back. Taking advantage of the situation, Luca gently placed an arm on Ulgar's side, snaking it down to his stomach and gently pulling himself closer.

Ulgar was sure his entire body was on fire at this point but despite this...something about this situation felt...relaxing. It made his heart beat a million miles per hour yet still managed to make him sleepy. Luca began to gradually move closer, nuzzling the back of Ulgar's neck, causing goosebumps to form on the taller's neck and prompting him to involuntarily curl closer to the shorter just as he lost the will to object to what his muscles were doing, and sleep overtook him.

The following morning was filled with warmth and bliss. Ulgar felt his muscles at ease as he curled closer to that of what he was holding close to his chest. He dipped his face deeper into the soft texture under his nose and relished in the comforting scent. A small smile graced the edges of his lips, and it almost felt foreign to have it not develop into a smirk. His focus on the content feeling of his legs tangled up in a way that kept them from thrashing about in his sleep, and the gentle pressure on his back that kept him in place was fantastic. His mind was a blur but he didn't entirely mind- until snickering could be heard from a few feet away. Blinking sleep from his eyes, Ulgar was surprised to see...purple..as he awoke.. a soft shade that looked calming as he leaned back and felt his back lean into a gentle touch that gripped him tighter as he moved slightly away. Eyes focusing at this better angle, Ulgar felt his heart drop into the pit of his stomach. A whirlwind of emotions hit him as he looked over the still frame of the boy curled up into his chest, face half hidden as he cuddled impossibly closer to the lengthier teen, eyes closed and relaxed, with his arms held tightly around Ulgar's torso, legs in a tangle with the others and bodies pressed contently together. Ulgar wasn't sure if his abundance of blush was from the fact of being flustered, or enraged as his eyes landed on the group of people at the entrance to the bunker.

"You two sure slept in quite awhile." Kanata grinned in utter amusement at the two.

Ulgar began to get up, "You absolute fuc-"

A whimper came from Luca as Ulgar shifted, prompting the shorter to nuzzle closer to the other and let out a sigh of relief as he once again got comfy.

Ulgar blushed furiously but couldn't help but allow his heart to melt at the sight of the shorter boy so cozily up against him. He looked up at Kanata and the others that crowded behind him with giggles and murmurs, "I have a gun." Ulgar growled.

"Not right now you don't~" Quittere smirked smugly.

"I will murder all of you, leave." Ulgar was deadly serious.

"Someone's already doing that, dongus." Quittere rolled her eyes, stepping back as Kanata pressed the button to lose the door.

"Just don't slack off on work when you're done snuggling with your boyfriend, Ulgar~" Kanata cooed teasingly with a wink as the door closed.

"We are not- he isn't my-!" Ulgar growled as the door closed.

"Ulgar..?" Luca mumbled sleepily.

Ulgar looked down at Luca with a beat red face as the boy looked up at him.

Luca giggled tiredly, "You're...blushing~"

"Shut up or you're going to end up like them too-"

"Mm~ Lemme stay in your arms first.." Luca mumbled as he cuddled back up to Ulgar's chest.

Luca..wanting him..The taller boy scowled, but after a few moments of relenting, he placed a stubborn arm over Luca's torso. He could deny himself a lot of things in the name of isolation- but right now..?

Not this.