Welcome to the Journal of Now and Forever. This Journal is a collection of my Star Control and Star Control 2 fiction. Note: Some of this material is, by necessity, extrapolation from the slim information provided by canon sources.

New fiction is posted first at My Livejournal before it appears here. This story is in response to 15 Minute Ficlets' Challenge #55.

"The hell you want a belyaev for?" I ask him.

Dean shrugs, and mumbles something about how it'd be nice to have a pet. Yeah, right. We both put in twelve-hour days on a regular basis. The hell we'd do with a pet?

I'm stuck with this, this, this slacker because of the stupid new rules that nobody should live alone, and now he wants to get a stupid pet.

"Nick?" He looks at me with that "you're scaring me" look in his eyes. "Nick, I think you need to calm down. Don't they say pets are supposed to help with that? I mean... I know you're not keen on how things are and all, but... you're not easy to live with, either."

"You think I don't know that? KORB series are all like that. It's in our genes."

He shakes his head. "No it isn't. You say that, but you can overcome your genes. We all can. I think... I think you have, um, some problems, that you probably don't wanna talk about," he says quickly, hands up in the "back off" gesture. "And that's fine. But – jeez, Nick, you yell in the middle of the night, you're never happy – "

"I say something in the night?" Now I'm nervous. "Like what?" Although I think I know, if my dreams – my nightmares – are any indication.

"I dunno, except it's not Anglic or Latin or Greek or French or German," Dean says. I didn't know he knew that many languages. "Look, if you don't want a belyaev, at least see about maybe getting yourself to a doctor or something, okay? I mean, it's been a few years now, and it doesn't seem to be getting any better."

That long? I didn't know. He never said anything. "I don’t need a doctor, and it's not practical for us to get a pet," I say, noting the snarl in my own voice. Maybe he won't notice what's causing it. "We work too much. It'd be cooped up here all day by itself and start destroying things. We'd have to take care of the thing."

"You said your work should be changing soon, and some places let you take belyaevs with you, if they're trained right, and then it wouldn't get bored." Dean must really want the damn thing, but instead he adds, "Look, Nick... forget I said anything. If you feel this way, all the hostility... forget it." He throws his hands up in the air, except it's like he can't get enough anger mustered up to do it properly, and it looks like he just gives up while giving up, if that makes sense.

"Fine. Glad that's settled." I turn back to the computer we share. I don't feel settled. I don’t like finding out that I'm talking in my sleep. Probably in Farsi or Arabic, and those are pretty uncommon even among Androsynth. I place my hands on the homekeys and resist the urge to ball them into fists – why am I so jumpy, so on edge, all of a sudden?

Dean grabs his hat and opens the apartment door. "Nick, I'm heading out for a while. I'm gonna look for a new roommate, 'kay? Bye." And before I can respond, he's gone, glaring at me with those half-sleepy eyes.

Gone. He doesn't mean it, right? I know I'm no thrill to be around most of the time, but... to leave? It's unheard of, at this point, years after the colony was founded, for people to move out. We only have to live together because of the rules that say nobody should have to live alone – it's not good for us, mentally.

He's not serious, right? But if he is... what do I do?

Comments? Email me: laridian at aol dot com