“You- your shirt is in the cleaner.” She stood beside the cleaner embedded in the wall of her room, the lid open, a curious sort of shock in her voice that carried over to wide eyes that glared at Alex sitting on the bed..
“Yeah, my jumpsuit is in there too.” He didn’t look up from reviewing the handful of fixes the diagnostics recommended for the drive, and honestly he hadn’t thought much of it... They were sleeping together, after all. Mixing clothes in the cleaner hadn’t seemed like that big a jump. Plus his cleaner was inoperative as its function was tied to the computer core he’d pulled from his room to calculate their impending waveride.
Her jaw worked, still a bit bewildered. “It is inappropriate!”
“It is?” He looked up from his tablet, startled by the severity of the look she was shooting his direction before realization dawned upon him, “oh. This is a Tsla’o thing, isn’t it?”
That was, perhaps, not the best way to put it. Her eyes narrowed and she pursed her lips, large fuzzy ears and antenna pulled down tight against her head. “Yes, it is our way. Males and females do not mix their clothing when it is being washed.”
“Huh.” Alex scooted over and looked into the cleaner, a sliver of grey showing among the black cloth before he reached in and plucked the shirt out. His jumpsuit came next, set over his shoulder. “Didn’t know. I just... every girlfriend I’ve had was wearing my clothes around by the time we were sharing a living space. Don’t worry, it won’t happen again.”
Carbon considered that for a long second, leaning in with wide eyes studying him as he folded the shirt. She waved a hand dismissively. “It is fine, I may have overreacted.”
“You sure? I think I’ve got enough to get... by with.” His words petered out as he noticed the intensely expectant look on her face, the social trespass of the cleaner set aside for the time being.
“Do you really think of me like that?”
Alex reviewed what he’d just been saying. Girlfriend? Did that even cover aliens? Probably. He was sure the dictionary definition didn’t have any restrictions for other sapient species. “Oh. Yeah, I guess I do.”
“Could you say it?”
“You’re my girlfriend?”
Carbon nodded slowly, not quite satisfied. “As a statement?”
He grinned at the request, “you’re my girlfriend.”
Carbon’s face melted into a sublime smile, eyes sparkling happily in the cabin's lights. She didn’t say anything as she got up and hugged him with a gentle kiss on his cheek before resting her head on his neck with a content sigh.
This should have tipped him off, but he was still surprised when she came to breakfast later that morning wearing one of his Civilian Pilot Program t-shirts, a jumpsuit with the sleeves tied around her waist, and cuffs rolled up to her ankles even though she was still wearing boots. It probably would have worked better with gravity, she was practically swimming in the large shirt. She had that look like she was getting away with something again, too.
He suspected that she was, in some way. She had a brief window to elude her duties as Lan - a vacation because there was nothing else she could do just yet. From what Carbon had shown him, she had spent her life earning it.
So, he indulged it as well. “Hang on, that’s not going to work like that.” He said, gesturing for her to come closer as he got up from the table.
Carbon started to protest, even as she approached. “I am just-”
Alex took hold of the t-shirt and pulled it tight around her waist, eliciting a surprised peep from her as she stiffened, not expecting this. He folded all the spare fabric up, very studiously not mentioning he learned how to do this from his last girlfriend, and tucked it into the waist of her jumpsuit-turned-pants. “No loose clothes while working in the shop or performing maintenance on the ship.” He added with a cheerful smile as he tightened the arms of the jumpsuit down and added a second knot to keep them snug while they were acting as a belt, and hiding the excess sleeves under it.
If that had been a social transgression for Tsla’o sensibilities, Carbon didn’t mention it.
They ate, did the repairs the engine needed - mostly minor adjustments to improve the efficiency of the original repairs. It would get them to FTL speeds again, in the best of all possible scenarios. There were parts in the engines they couldn’t fix, durable enough but likely at the end of their lifespan after almost taking a railgun round. Once those failed, that was it. That one shot was all they needed to get far enough away from the Eohm that they wouldn’t pursue them further.
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Carbon started the diagnostics running once more, and that was all they had to do for the rest of the day.
Things got casual, fast. They spent the afternoon sitting on the couch, doing nothing constructive while trading off picking music on the speakers in the mess. Carbon had a few gigabytes of Tsla’o media she had brought, supplementing the heavily curated selection of human music in the ship’s datastore. Right now they were listening to some kind of Tsla’o choral symphony, Alex couldn’t understand a word of sung Tsla, but the music was all right.
“This feels suspiciously similar to my chosen field of study. But I cannot stop.” She squished another brightly colored plastic brick on top of a cluster of them, squeaking it into place. A line of technicolor ships hung over them, all Tsla’o designs except for a scoutship.
“They are a lot of fun.” Alex’s older brother had given him the set just before he had left, ostensibly because they both played with them as kids and had spent hundreds of hours building spaceships and oh look, you worked on a spaceship now. It was just happenstance that his nephew would be old enough to play with them when he was supposed to come back, of course, and what kid wouldn’t want a toy that had actually been to uncharted space and back. Or more realistically, his brother really wanted it.
“Mmm.” Carbon poked through the box for the appropriate size brick. She stopped and leaned back against him. “Rub my head some more.”
Alex had been told quite explicitly that you should never touch the antenna of a Tsla’o. They weren’t particularly sensitive, though they were fragile. But they were still a sensory organ and it was rude, a violation of personal space. You wouldn’t like it if someone just up and tried to pet your eyeball, after all.
Their budding relationship allowed quite a bit of leeway in regards to personal space. In a flight of serendipity, Carbon had discovered that his fingers were very well sized for massaging the intricate group of muscles that sat at the base of her antenna. It had quickly become her favorite thing.
He rolled his eyes and adjusted the fluffy tips of her antenna on his shoulder before kneading into the delicate clusters, sinewy under his fingertips. “Question.”
“Yes?” She went back to work on the Hammerhead carrier she had been working on after nestling down in his lap, digging through the parts again.
“I called you my girlfriend earlier... Is that something Tsla’o have?” Alex was aware that he had no idea how this sort of thing would work with them. She seemed pretty happy about it, yes, but he wasn’t going to assume that they had an exact translation. “It’s not an abstract concept to you that you’re putting up with?”
Carbon laughed quietly at that. “The word is different, atalya. The concept is similar - the female side of a new relationship, usually with romantic intentions, and usually indicating youth. It does not feel abstract at all. Do you find the comparison sensible, atalna?”
Given the same root and different suffix, Alex assumed that was Tsla for boyfriend. “Yes, I do. It is just that... We’re adults.”
She paused her rummaging and pondered what he’d said. “We are, yes. We would not be here otherwise.”
“Wait. You’re not picking up what I’m putting down.” Alex regretted saying that just as soon as it came out of his mouth, another expression he’d have to explain. He continued extremely quickly, not leaving time for Carbon’s inquisitive nature to ask about it, “the words feel diminutive. We’re not children, why are we using words that indicate we are.”
“Ah.” She left it at that as she finished another ship, staring down into the box of parts before plucking out a long plate. “I- Nnh. You have seen my childhood. I do not mind savoring the sweetness of a scrap of the youth I wasn’t allowed, even if it is in the words of another species.”
“Can’t argue with that.” Alex slipped an arm around her shoulders, squeezing her in an awkward hug as he craned his neck to kiss the top of her head, that faint scent of cinnamon filling his nose. “You deserved better. You deserve to be happy.”
She tensed up under his arm. “No one-” The rest of the sentence was strangled as a soft angry sound caught in her throat.
“Yeah?” He didn’t move, yet, not sure where that noise had been directed.
“No one has ever said that to me.” She fiddled with the piece of plastic between her fingers, worrying it as she let out a ragged sigh, her head thumping back against his chest as she went slack in his embrace. “They were all very pleased that I just went along for everything, and... what they wanted of me was what I got.”
“You said you’ve never really opened up to anyone before. Nobody’s had the chance.”
Carbon let go of the brick and wrapped a dainty hand around his, her palm warm against his skin, and squeezed it hard. When she did speak, it was just one plaintive question. “Why didn’t my parents ever tell me I deserved to be happy?”
“Dunno. People get caught up in their own business.” Why didn’t they? Come the fuck on, a parent should at least do that occasionally. “My statement stands. My girlfriend deserves to be happy.”
Her ears perked up and she let out a sad little laugh, squeezing his hand again. “If you insist, I will be.”
“I do insist, actually.” He leaned down to kiss her head again.
Carbon returned to her bricks, running dark furred fingers through the brightly colored plastic. Facing away from him, Alex couldn’t see the smile on her slender muzzle, but he heard it clearly. “Good.”
His eyes caught a bit of motion and darted up to the ceiling where the computer cores were still stuck. One of the lights had flipped from red to green, its segment of the waveride calculations complete.
It was almost time to go.