Edwin Brzezinski was a big man. Bald, burly, and unusually tall. He looked like he might have been a strong man for a circus in another time and place, sporting a bushy mustache, lifting impossible weights, and bending iron bars. Though he was nearly thirty years his senior, he made Alex seem slight and simply eclipsed Carbon.
He was also a really good person. Alex knew this first hand, Ed had been his mentor for the final phase of pilot training. He was one of the best in the Program and probably one of the most respected personnel on the station. He had been doing this for a long time and loved his work. In retrospect, it was clear they’d chosen Ed because of his unrelentingly high standards. Not only towards the profession, but in how he treated people. A lesson he only had to impart upon Alex once.
But right now, here in the back of the only clothing store on the station, Ed was confused and a little bit surprised. He stood there, holding a crisp white button down shirt, and wearing an expression that said he did not know why this little alien thought she knew him or why she was speaking English. His eyes traveled down to Carbon’s badge, lingering there for a long second before a glimmer of recognition lit them up. Ed was good with names.
The pleasant smile that graced Carbon’s short muzzle melted away, her face registering something just short of horror for a moment. She regained composure before he looked back up, a faint smile returning. She still shrank away from Ed as she did this, ears and antennae pressed down as she took a step back and shifted a half step further away from Alex.
Alex registered that to mean that he was right. Carbon did not actually know Ed in person, but was recalling his memories, and that they had probably been getting a little too comfortable in public for people trying to not obviously be involved with each other. His brain spun, trying to come up with a cover story that made sense to him, let alone Ed or anyone else. The little ONI shield on his badge was not turning him into a clever spy. Maybe he should buy some time to think. “Hey Ed, how's it going?”
The words came out a little too fast, a little too loud. Ed looked up and the confusion that was leaving his face came back instantly. “Doing well, just picking up some new shirts.”
“Me too.” Alex nodded and laughed, breaking out a smile that was more nervous than he would have liked. James Bond he was not.
He still looked confused and Alex knew that he did not like being in that state. ‘Confusion is detrimental to operations.’ Ed would just keep asking questions until he was satisfied he understood what was going on, and he was good at honing what he asked to get down to answers that made sense. “Shouldn’t you still be out in the deep?”
“Yeah. There was... Uh, we ran into some-” Alex stopped himself and blanched. He was going to have to ask Dae for some advice on how to deal with situations like this. “I don’t think I can talk about it.”
Ed inspected him for a moment, gears turning behind his eyes. “What do you think about that ring that showed up a couple of weeks ago?”
Alex visibly winced and sucked in a breath through his teeth. “Eeeh... What ring?”
“So that was you.” The tone in his voice said that something had just clicked into place for him. “Nobody told me you’d been brought back in, I suppose I can understand why now... You still should have stopped by Training and said hello.”
“Yeah, things have been kind of hectic since we got back. Lots of people want a lot of stuff, had a job transfer and all that.” He rubbed his neck and shrugged, feeling more guilty about not looking Ed up before now.
“Ah, I see Naval Intelligence got you.” Ed held up a hand, eyes closed. “Let me guess, Section 7?”
“Yeah. They do that a lot?” That reaction was unsettling. How many times had this happened before?
“Often enough. Makes me want to ask you a different load of questions I know you can’t answer, so I won’t.” He nodded over at Carbon, who had quietly shuffled a little bit further away while looking as casual as she could. “Are you ever going to introduce me?”
“Thanks, questions are really hard to answer right now anyway.” Alex didn’t think Ed thought anything was up, aside from the transfer to ONI... Or he was just doing a good job of hiding it. Alex wasn’t sure if he’d always been this paranoid or if it was new. “Ed, this is Lan Tshalen... Lan, Edwin Brzezinski.”
Ed stuck his hand out at Carbon with a warm smile, affable as he’d always been. “I’m sorry we didn’t meet when they launched the Kshlav’o, I am sure you’d been notified I had been called away on a family matter. I assume Alex has spoken well of me?”
Carbon’s hand disappeared into his and she smiled back. “Please, call me Carbon. He always spoke very well of you, and in great detail.”
He laughed with an affable smile. “As you wish. Well, can’t say I was expecting to see either of you today. You guys want to grab dinner? Even if we can’t catch up on what you’ve been doing, I do love to hear myself talk.”
There was a moment of silence before Alex and Carbon both started to answer at nearly the same time. Carbon managed to start first. “Oh, I do not-”
Alex was much more enthusiastic as he unintentionally cut her off. “That’d be great! Where are you thinking?”
This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.
“The usual, Noonan’s. As long as you both have clearance for it?”
He was fully unaware of the wide-eyed stare from Carbon that clearly said she did not approve of being interrupted or the idea of having dinner out. “We do, that sounds perfect.”
“Alright.” He checked his watch, “six? Should be plenty of time to get all that to your quarters and back.”
“We’ll be there, the usual spot?” Alex hadn’t felt excited about anything this mundane in forever. It was fantastic to feel this way about something that hadn’t been a life or death threat.
“Of course. I need to get going, myself.” He gave them an almost fatherly smile before picking a second shirt off the rack and turning towards the check stand. “See you two later.”
“See you.”
“Yes, we will.” Carbon echoed his reply but there was a certain coolness in her voice now.
Alex lifted a black belt off the rack and coiled it in his hand. “Suppose I have enough here for a while. We should get going.”
“That would be good.” Her words were crisp, the easy quality of how she’d been speaking since they met up after work tightened up, the look in her eyes was... professional.
Well, he’d fucked up. “Alright. Let’s go.”
Ed was already out the door by the time they got to the counter. The lady behind the check stand was polite and kept it quick, transferring everything from the basket into a bag sitting on a scanner, the register beeping as each item passed into its limited zone of awareness. Alex tapped the card he’d had delivered from the Navy Credit Union, collected his things, and left.
There was an uneasy quiet between the store and Alex’s quarters. They walked in silence, an argument already boiling beneath the surface. It even seemed to chill the other conversations in the elevator.
Carbon spoke first after the door to his quarters closed behind them. Her voice low and sharp, antennae pressed down tight against her head and body tensed for a fight. “Why did you do that?”
“What? Why did I agree to have dinner with a friend? With a man that I respect as a mentor? Gee, I don’t know.” He dropped the bag on the table and tossed his arms out in frustration. “Doesn’t make any sense to me, either!”
Her lip curled up, sharp white teeth gleaming, an accusatory finger leveled at him. “You spoke over me.”
Alex smoothed himself out, trying to remain calm as he explained himself. “I was excited. I haven’t done anything since we got back except deal with work and hide. And apparently I’m not even good at that.”
Carbon made a derisive noise and glared at him. “Do you think that it has been pleasant for me?”
“Of course not! If anything, it’s been worse for you! You think I’m that stupid?”
“No. Not stupid.” She took a moment, teeth working silently as she crossed her arms over her chest and shook her head. “Inconsiderate and coarse.”
Well, the ONI wanted some insights on how their social structure actually functioned. Time to see if he was living in it already. “Did you expect me to behave like I’m Tsla’o?”
She looked away for a moment, her jaw working. The question seemed to ease the tension in her body, and when she spoke it was with just a hint of guilt. “I sometimes forget you are different. Despite all of this.” She gestured widely at the room, probably at the rest of the station. Possibly at the entirety of Humanity. “You feel familiar to me already, and it is not because you embody Tsla’o ideals, even if there are more in you than I expected.”
He had no idea what exactly Tsla’o ideals were. That was something he’d want to dig into later for personal edification at the bare minimum. For now, though, the matter at hand had not been resolved. “I am not supposed to make plans off the cuff like that? I don’t know enough about how Tsla’o do stuff to not... do the wrong thing by you.”
Carbon blanched and shook her head. “It is fine that you did so, and it is wrong of me to get mad at you for talking over me. I am not used to mixing personal, romantic relationships with professional, certainly not to conceal one. They compete in my mind, the reactions clash, and resolving them is... difficult.”
She pulled a chair out from the table and sank into it before continuing. “Was I to respond as a romantic partner? We would have asked for a moment, talked about our reply. Humans have a tendency to want answers immediately, but a Tsla’o who knows of a relationship would expect that aside. That is the opposite of our ongoing deceit. As professionals on the scoutship? Would that be interpreted the way I had initially considered you, as a - what was it, Chauffeur? Even then I should not have been angry. You do not treat a subordinate like that. You do not treat someone of equal station like that.”
“Alright, that’s a mess, yeah.” Considerations he could not have known started to slot into place, Ed’s dislike of confusion fresh in his mind. “So, when we are out, we are of equal station. Coworkers. That is how it would be between a Pilot and Engineer on a scoutship, which is what most people will know us as. It says so right on your badge.”
A faint smile crossed her lips as she toyed with the thin plastic of her ID. “So it does. I am sorry, Alex. I was upset at myself and confused with a situation that I have never had to navigate before, and I am not yet comfortable with these feelings.”
“Apology accepted. I’m sorry I just cut you off like that, it was rude. I would still like it if my Engineeer came to dinner. You know Ed nearly as well as I do, you know how much I respect him.” Alex had intentionally avoided mentioning her knowledge of Ed through the mind link thus far. “I think you’d like him on your own.”
“Thank you. Yes, I remember quite clearly. As I said, it was very vivid, unusually so.” She sighed softly and relaxed, rubbing her eyes. “I do not know...”
“Please? I know it’s stupid, but I want to actually go out with you. We’ve been a thing for what, a month now and we haven’t gone out once.” Sure, they’d been trapped in places where going out was an impossibility for the majority of that time, but he still counted it as time in a relationship. A wry smile crept across his face. “It’s not unusual to see personnel working on scoutships socializing outside of work, you know.”
She glanced up at him with bright cerulean eyes, a flicker of mischief in them. “Were I not hungry, I would hold out longer. I find I have come to enjoy your flattery.”
“Mmm. I’ve noticed.” He walked over to her with a roguish grin, leaning down to kiss her before grabbing his clothes off the table. “Let me get into something a little less depressing and we can get going.”