Across the Stars (Atlas and the Stars + NB!Reader)

by armserly

Summary:

(Y/N) helps with their brother Atmosphere getting comfortable for his new job as a Starship Inspector on the Asteropaios Space Station. Unfortunately, trouble ensues and (Y/N) has to go chasing after their brother, which lands them on an unknown planet and no effective way off.

Chapter 1

Summary:

(Y/N) helps Atmosphere get comfortable with his new job, which results in having to chase a human into a weird crack in the universe.

I fly my ship to the loading dock and check on Atmosphere. He's gripping his seatbelt as if I've been hyperspeeding to the space station rather than my brother being stressed about his new job. It didn't take long to go to and from the Asteropaois Space Station, but Atmosphere didn't exactly have a ride. Or any friends willing to take him to and from work twice. I did help set up a room for him here, though, so he'll hopefully not be weirded out so much. 

As I'm landing, I try to think up why he'd get a job here. I know he's been having some trouble finding a place lately, but ship inspector gets you just as much as a fast-food worker does on our home planet. It's just a seasonal job, it's nothing that permanent. Then again, he wouldn't think that long ahead, so maybe he just took up an offer and all of a sudden thought it'd be nice to go off-planet for the major inspection season. 

Atmosphere immediately hops off the ship, and I switch it off before going after him. I note that I have to get some fuel before I forget. 

He sticks next to me, looking at just about everything near us. I show him to the floor he's going to be working at for two or three—maybe four—months. It's not far from the parking I landed at. We walk over to the manager, who I keep forgetting the name of, and help give him a rundown on what's going to happen in the job. 

"I'll just look over you and make sure you do everything right, you won't even notice I'm there," I say. 

"Sounds easy enough!" Atmosphere claims. The manager just rolls his eyes and hands him the clipboard he had in his hands for who knows how long. He pulls my brother aside and says something that rips the optimism right off his face. 

Now I remember why I don't talk to that guy.

He comes back, and I look for the line he's been assigned to. 

"Okay, you're set over... there," I point at a line on the leftmost side of the floor. I take out my mic and set one part of the piece in my ear and the actual mic beside my mouth. I hand him a mic that has his name taped on it. "A few ships are already waiting there, so just go ahead. I'll be right behind you. If you need help, just call in and I'll get you in the right direction." 

I walk over to a computer desk near Atmosphere's station and try to get some work done. I still take some glances to see how he's doing. He's already finished the first ship and is about to inspect a shiny red ship that, even from here, looks brand new. I don't get why the human piloting it looks like they're as stressed as Atmosphere was a few minutes ago. Obviously, they aren't doing something wrong... Unless they are, then we'd have to call the cops. That would be another mountain of paperwork on my end. 

The human steps out and Atmosphere inspects the ship. I go back to working, looking over some reports, complaints, and just about everything related to this space station. A problem with one of the hatches has been addressed about five hours ago, and absolutely nobody has responded to it. 

I wish I went to college. I wish I learned anything useful. But the job's pay is decent, though, and I have a pretty consistent place to live. It's not my favorite job in the galaxy, but someone's gotta do it. It can be fun, but the people I work with can also suck. And make my job suck. And suck the joy out of my life. Then again, I have absolutely nothing better to do other than help Atmosphere through whatever issues he has today. He knows very, very well how hard it is to visit our family, even if it was just one day. 

Suddenly, a scream derails my train of thought. 

"What did you-" 

Everything feels like it has gone silent. I just watch my now blindfolded brother go into a panic and slip into the ship. The human hops into the ship and decides to start flying off with Atmosphere still in the back. 

With absolutely no thought in my head, I get up out of my desk and run straight to the dock my ship is at. The ship has already gotten out of the station by now, but running to the dock is faster than walking to it. All the way to my ship, I'm trying to speak to Atmosphere. Where are you? Are you okay? But he doesn't answer. I just hear people yelling in and out of the speaker.

He just had to drop his mic. Of course he had to drop his mic.

I hop into my ship and turn it on. I fly out of that dock as fast as I can and try to catch up to them.

Red and blue reflects onto the windshield. I'm close behind the red ship Atmosphere and that human is in, I'm just a smidge below them. They speed up, and I try to keep up with them. 

I am not going to willingly leave my brother with a stranger. It could all just be a misunderstanding, and I won't have that much paperwork to do. The human might be questioned, though. Sucks for them. 

The ship does not stop, and neither do I. I start getting messaged by someone back at the space station, but I just ignore them and try to focus on keeping the ship near me. The police are not as close as I want them to be, but at least they're here. 

A crack appears right in front of the human's ship, and, before long, it is an entire open wound in the middle of the dark space. I can't move my ship left or right, it's moving itself. No. 

I'm getting sucked in. 

"Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck..." I repeat out loud, trying to fly in reverse until I realize Atmosphere is still in the ship in front of me and the ship is also getting sucked in. It doesn't look like the crack is going to shut in the next three seconds, so I speed up into the crack right under the human's ship. "Ohhhh noooo..." 

Purple is basically all I can see around my ship. My skin burns and it feels like I'm shifting in and out of reality. 

And then the ship stops, and I smack my head on the steering wheel. 

Chapter 2: Weird Planet

Summary:

(Y/N) lands on a strange planet and decides to come up with a plan in the meantime. As night comes and sleep tempts them, they get a surprise.

I pull myself away from my steering wheel and look at my surroundings. My ship looks okay, but where am...

What kind of planet is that?!

I find myself in awe of this gargantuan planet, with colors seeming to blend into each other almost seamlessly. The red ship has disappeared, probably a speck by now.

Is anyone alive on there, though? Where would Atmosphere and that human be on this planet? Is there any other planet close by?

Where in the galaxy are we?

I put my shaky hands on the wheel and try to breathe. Okay, (Y/N), just think.

I need to land the ship, hopefully before whenever nightfall is on that planet, look for either Atmosphere or whatever life there is already on that planet, and find a way to get that crack back open to get home. I'd rather not think about, I don't know, being stuck on a giant planet searching for my most likely dead brother for the rest of my life. If I do find life on this planet, which it looks like it can handle, I just need to hope that they don't care about a couple of Proselons and a human walking around.

It takes a couple of minutes to actually get to the planet and out under its orbit. I see some buildings here and there, but nothing so big. With how huge this planet is, I'm pretty sure there's going to be something that's going to make me regret following Atmosphere here.

I land the ship after a bit of flying. I found a bunch of mountains a few miles away; one of them even looks like a hand reaching out to the sky, which looks pretty cool. Then again, if kids cartoons ever taught me anything, it's that those kinds of mountains most likely house supervillains. Or very sad people. Maybe both.

I look at the ship's fuel, suddenly remembering the one thing that I thought to do before taking off.

It's almost empty.

Not even enough to get out of orbit, let alone back home.

If I could, I'd kick myself over this for hours. I'd beat myself over it for an entire day. But, no, that's not going to do any good over here.

I shut off the ship before I waste any more fuel and hop out of my ship. I throw my work jacket off and throw it onto the passenger seat before I shut the door and actually take a look around. The place I landed at is pretty dead, save for the bunches of grass. It's actually a pretty cool place to watch the sun set.

And how do I know the place would be a perfect place for a sunset?

The sun is setting. And burning my eyes.

What's even scarier is the fact that there are no stars or planets visible in the night sky. It takes a few seconds for the sun to set simply because I had to take so long finding a decent place to land. It's been a while since I actually had to do a landing on anything other than concrete or titanium. And it sucked.

I just stand right next to the ship. Yeah, I want to move; in fact, I want to run very, very far away.

A few minutes of waiting, I don't know what I was even waiting for, goes by and I get bored. I climb up to the roof of my ship and sit myself down up there. I'm not really going to see Atmosphere or the human a meter in front of me, so I might as well just wait who knows how long for the sun to come up. Atmosphere and that human might have just landed perfectly fine and found a way back, through some weird impossible way my mind can up with. It could take four Galenzar days for the sun to rise for all I know. 

I don't have anything in my ship, other than a change of clothes in case something happened. Whatever devices Atmosphere accidentally left in there most likely won't work, because Internet exists, and communication has a limit. How far away even are we from any satellite? 

"This is going to be pretty damn interesting," I say before looking straight at the dark sky. It isn't really all dark, there's a weird ring that surrounds the planet. It sure as hell doesn't look like dust. "Tomorrow is going to be another day, I guess." 

I close my eyes and feel everything slow down. I haven't slept under stars in a while, not since all my siblings and I went to a camp on a planet I forgot the name of for Troposphere's birthday. 

Before I even drift off, I almost fall off the ship, which is now tilted to the right. I slide off and check my pockets for my taser. 

Fuck my life fuck my life fuck my life... 

I slide the taser out of my pocket and try to calm myself down. Some blue and orange on the other side of the ship makes me jump out of my skin, and it feels like I'm dying. 

"Atmosphere?" 

He looks up at me, confused. 

Notes:

I love Atlas and the Stars and I hope others enjoy it as well!