#anyways i hc that sampo became so fond of jarilo and belobog cuz he had a childhood a lot like the kids in the underworld

[shoezuki]

Sampo has taken him to dozens of planets at this point, massive ships the size of celestial bodies and burnt out stars that have turned lush with discolored plant life over billions of years. Massive, writhing metropolitans and quaint, warm planets with people who gawked at their appearance. He's seen massive astral leviathans' open maws that span galaxies and ingest stars, phantom ships made of wood and bone slice through shimmering fogs. Planets composed of intertwined living beings, made of twisting and layered plant matter, places where the stars speak low sharp words and dance over his closed eyelids and make him dizzy.

But he hasn't take Gepard to his home planet.

Gepard assumed it was inevitable; he had known a while before Sampo had taken him off Jarilo-IV that Sampo wasn't from Belobog. He'd suspected it but been unsure long before Sampo mended him back to health. It was a partially spoken truth now, while Sampo divulged more information about every aspect of the universe to him.

"When are we going to your home planet?" Gepard had asked, openly, one night they spent on a waterlogged planet with specks of land, watching as the ocean jumped up and strange aquatic creatures swam through thick air.

Sampo had scoffed, Gepard watching him stand and look out over the horizon with his arms crossed. "My home planet? Please, no need to go to that lump of rock! Trust me, it's the worst planet out here. I've walked on gas giants and burning sun's that were better than that place."

"You came from it," Gepard said softly, maybe thinking Sampo would understand why there's something clinging on the inner walls of his heart that make him want to see where Sampo came from so bad. "It can't be that horrible then, right?"

Sampo doesn't speak, but he shakes his head. "Do you wanna go out? Do you think we could swim in the water... sky... thing?" He grins and Gepard let's him change the topic, content to follow Sampo.

He doesn't talk about his planet without Gepard pushing him. He doesn't talk much of anything about where he came from, how he grew up, why he apparently spent years jumping across planets long before he ended up in Belobog. Gepard asks, sometimes, when he feels maybe he can coax a response from Sampo. But he always deflects, gives vague or contradictory answers, or only responds with tame non-answers.

Sampo acts as usual; he talks constantly, about little things or memories or stuff he wants to show Gepard. When he's not talking, he's humming, tapping his fingers against the glass control panels of the ship, kicking his foot absentmindedly against his chair with a constant metallic thunkthunkthunkthunk. He always grins wide when he looks at Gepard, sometimes grabbing Gepard by his face and pressing kisses against every inch of skin so rapidly it's almost overwhelming.

Sampo talks to Gepard when he thinks he's asleep. Gepard, every time, pretends not to listen.

"I don't want to take you back."

Their bed is small, more like a cot made for one person. Gepard had offered it to Sampo the first time they'd investigated their stolen ship but Sampo had just laughed and pulled Gepard to lay with him. Every night Sampo holds Gepard, arms locked around him and keeping his head pressed to Sampo's chest, or his own body weight draped over Gepard like a weighted blanket.

Right now, he hooks his chin over Gepard's shoulder, running fingers through his blonde hair, one hand over his side. Sampo's hand ghosts over his ribs, burning through Gepard's shirt, directly over the rough, newly healed scar.

He's quiet, so painfully quiet, and gentle, with his touch faint and entirely for Sampo's own gain. Gepard nearly drifted off, but now he keeps his eyes closed, his breathing soft, hoping Sampo doesn't feel how his heart jumps when Sampo brushes a finger over the shell of his ear.

"I don't want to take you back," he repeats softly, his words dark and low with the confession, "I'd keep you in this... stupid little ship, in the stars with me forever. If I could. If you wanted. Only if you wanted."

Gepard does want it: to keep waking up to nothing but stars and Sampo's sleeping face or exhausted grin; to listen to Sampo drawl on about all the stars and planets and strange celestial lifeforms they pass with knowledge that feels bigger than Sampo himself; to be dragged from planet to planet, Sampo's hand searing new marks into his own palm and finger prints, his excitement electric and tangible.

Gepard does, deep down, want it. He wants Sampo to himself, too. To give himself entirely to Sampo. But a part of him will always be in Belebog. They both know it.

Sampo is quiet, the next morning. More than quiet--he's subdued, faraway, as if locked inside himself. Even when Sampo isn't speaking he's loud, his presence always drawing and begging for Gepard's attention. Now he seems small, curled in on himself in the piloting seat.

"Sampo?" It feels rude, wrong to break the silence with his own voice, but Gepard does. "Are you okay?" Sampo turns his head, barely, to look at Gepard where he stands against the wall. He shoots him just a smile, but says nothing. It makes more concern coil and simmer deep in his gut.

Gepard has no clue where they are now, in the vast impossibility of space. The universe is foreign to him, but Sampo treats it like an old friend, like he knows it intimately. Gepard has let Sampo take the reigns, guide them to wherever he wants to go. It had stressed him out, at first, the lack of knowing, the unfamiliarity of new worlds. But now more than ever, he's content just being with Sampo. He'd go with him anywhere.

Where they are now, though, feels different. The outside space is dark, swirling celestial bodies of black and grey and bloody reds and browns the colour of bruises. The terrain is made up of fragments of comets, rocks, shattered formations and debris. The debris varies from collections of dust to meteors larger than their ship, jagged and broken apart like Qlipoth had shattered them open with his hammer. Gepard sees the metallic glint of wrecked ships, metal shards embedded in rock and flayed among it all.

He hates this place. Gepard doesn't know if it's him, or if it's some sort of cosmic effect, but there's a heaviness pressing on him. Maybe it's something real, tangible, or maybe it's the way Sampo navigates the wreckages and meteors with a stiff ease in his shoulders.

Gepard walks up to him, quiet behind him. He wants to touch Sampo, feel the heat of him against his palms, but for some reason he feels like he can't. Instead he places his hands on the back of Sampo's seat, his fingers barely brushing against Sampo's back.

"Sampo, are you okay? If... if something is the matter, you can tell me--"

"What d'ya think?"

Gepard blinks, finding himself shocked by the weight of Sampo's gaze suddenly on him. His eyes always have a dull quality to them, the shine underneath his pupils gone save for when Gepard whispers against his skin or presses his lips across his face. Now, though, his eyes are dark, all consuming. They absorb the light and snuff it out, making the small ship feel cold. "I... what?"

"This place," Sampo hums, turning back to focus on navigating. His smile is a practised, stiff line. "It's lovely, isn't it? Or do you find it creepy? Messy? I mean, it's a lot of destruction. There's a good reason no one but ol' Sampo comes around here anymore."

Gepard frowns, feeling like Sampo's having a conversation he's not a part of. "What do you mean? What is this place?"

"There used to be a planet," he pauses, making a noise in the back of his throat, "actually, a few planets. Small ones. They'd been under the IPC's control for a looonnng time. Until they abandoned 'em after clearing all the minerals out and leaving the planets hollow."

His mouth is dry, his fingers digging into the back of Sampo's seat harshly. Sampo's voice is light, conversational, like he's explaining one of the allegedly 'boring and lame' planets they'd passed before. "The planets were basically just rocks, before the IPC made them into mining projects and shipped a bunch of people to work away there. They left the workers when the mines dried up.

"Rivet Town looks almost exactly like the mining planets did, back then." He clicks his tongue, shaking his head slightly. "The people who'd scrounged up enough money took off, taking everything they could with them. Mine supervisors left behind their working families and their kids and went back with the IPC while the planets starved slowly."

The ship slows, between asteroids and at the edge of a vast, whirling expanse of debris. It swirls around out and around a burning, black body of... of something, within the center of a shattered planet light years away from them. Gepard stares, and the sight of it burns into his eyes.

"D'you know how Masked Fools recruit people?" Sampo says it with a giggle, not waiting for a response. "Sometimes they just whisk kids away from happy families before they can remember anything. Sometimes people go to the taverns themselves and try and choke down the drinks, but that's not often. Most often, though, the Fools find hopeless, little planets and whisk away orphans seconds before... boom! Planet gone! You never forget the popping noise a collapsing, imploding planet makes."

He cackles, laughter loud and echoing off the metal walls. Gepard's hands are shaking, staring out into the ruined abyss, the remnants of planets and lives and a past Gepard can never, ever see or understand. His eyes burn and his heart aches.

Gepard lunges forward, pressing himself harshly against the chair as he wraps his arms around Sampo. He circles his chest and presses his face into the curve of his neck, holding him so tightly as if Gepard is trying to squeeze Sampo into his very being. Sampo's laughter becomes broken, wet and frantic when Gepard holds him tightly. He shakes under Gepard's tight grip, the shine of tears of Sampo's face as he continues to stare into ruined space. Sampo bites his lip, hard, to stifle himself.

"Come home," Gepard exhales, pressing his words into Sampo's skin, "come home with me. After-- after all this. I don't care how long we're out here or where else we go but please. Please come home with me. I'll copy the key to my apartment. I have enough room in my closet for you. We can--I can buy you wigs and dresses and whatever the fuck you want. Anything."

"Why?" It's a whisper, barely a question. Sampo lifts his hand and grasps the forearm pressed over his chest. "Why?"

"Because Natasha probably still needs your help, and Seele will gut me if you don't return, and Hook without a doubt misses you, and Serval pretends she hates you but still asks me how you are when you text me, and I'm in love with you." He sucks in a breath; saying it always makes him feel airy, lightheaded. "I'm in love with you, and I want you there. Why else?"

There's silence for some moments too long, Sampo still shaky in Gepard's grip. He starts to worry that he's suffocating, that it's too much, but when he tries to pull away Sampo grabs his arms and holds them there, stopping him from moving.

"... but my criminal record's gone," Sampo whines, the faintest bit of humour in his voice. He tilts his head back, eyes still red rimmed when he looks up at Gepard with a searching smile. Gepard, having spent so long with him at this point, knows what he's really saying.

"I'm sure you'll record will be as long as it was before in no time." Gepard grumbles, wrinkling his nose and letting his conflicted feelings into his tone. But he lets it drop away with a sigh, shaking his head and feeling fond. "... as long as you try not to give my Guards too much grief, Koski."

Sampo doesn't say anything, but when he smiles and laughs, when he pokes into Gepard's cheek and says that the Silvermane Captain better not go soft on him, his eyes are shining.