6. THALIA

Ahane kicked the inner door closed with one foot. It clicked, hissed, and then he gently set me down.

I rolled my head back on my neck to take it all in, and then slowly wandered through the kitchen. Ahane followed and did not say a word.

“This is exactly what a shitty dive kitchen looks like on Earth.” The kitchen was grimy and even allowing for the last cook had been gone a while, that cook had never been invested in cleaning. Pots, pans, implements, a stove, an oven—all the Gestalt versions, and made for someone Ahane’s size. There was even a service window, and a proper diner with bar, counters, and grimy windows.

No space-rats, though. Or cockroaches.

Had I walked through a portal back to Earth? Did I need to wake up?

I bapped myself on the nose with my fist.

Ahane grabbed my wrist. “What are you doing?!”

“Ow.” I rubbed my nose. Nope, still on an asteroid a bajillion miles from home.

“Of course it hurts,” Ahane said in a brittle tone. “What did you expect?”

“To wake up back on Earth.”

“You can teleport?”

“No! No—never mind. It’s stupid anyway.”

“Yes. Punching yourself in the face is stupid. So is thinking you can teleport.”

Wouldn’t have been stupid if it’d actually worked.

Ahane looked around the small diner. “It is not much.”

It was a hell of a lot if you accounted for how similar to Earth it was. It clearly was not Earth, and not just because beyond the sidewalk outside there was pure blackness. Not every table was intended for a taproot to sit at—there were some of those, but there were also a few low, square tables, and a strange table that attached to a kneeling type chair. In addition to the basic stools cozied up to the counter. The stools were square, not round, and intended for bigger asses than Humans had. The counter had strips laid into it to create ridges along its length, but the purpose those served wasn’t immediately clear.

Ahane added, “The sleeping arrangements are even less… much.”

He guided me back through the main kitchen, then into the prep/storage area, and indicated a small door tucked between two stacks of large sacks. Beans? Something bean-like from the contents spilling out.

Something skittered in one of the dark corners. I jumped, and three green eyes peered at us from the shadows before skitter skitter! and it was gone.

“And there’s that,” Ahane added. “I don’t know where the damn things are coming in from.”

“Vermin?” I asked.

“Vermin. This way.”

“Right. Because what’s a space diner dive without some space-rats…”

The door opened onto a small room with a single light bolted to the ceiling. There was another little door that opened up into a room just large enough to house a toilet. No sink. The sink was in the “bedroom.” There was a single bed with some folded linens, one pillow, and one blanket.

There was no room for another bed. There was no room for anyone to sleep on the floor, either.

I may have spent the past…however long… as some Grey test subject, but I had had a nice bed. A private bedroom (insomuch as possible) and soft pillows and all the blankets I’d wanted.

This was infinitely less posh, but the distinct lack of invasive medical procedures placed it solidly in the I’ll take it! category.

“I will sleep on the floor,” Ahane said.

“Where on the floor? Under the sink?” The room was basically you got out of bed, took one step, and were looking at the toilet. Or the sink. Or the door

“I can curl up,” he said.

“So I have to crawl over you in the dark to go pee?”

His scales flushed utterly purple. “Of course not!”

I tilted my head back to take in the very tall ceiling. If the job listing had included an advertisement of the size of the accommodations, joke was on whatever poor bastard responded to the ad. All the square footage was up there.

Ahane followed my gaze.

I discreetly gave my pit a sniff while he was distracted. “So… where do we… you know… bathe? You do bathe, right?”

Maybe he was like a cat and licked himself clean. Or his tail could turn into a sponge and he’d just dip it in the sink there. Maybe he sand-blasted himself to keep those scales shiny.

I was filthy: layers of grime and dust from the facility on my skin and in my hair and that gritty feeling in my buttcrack was probably more sweat and dust.

Gross. My goods had been right under his face and I was like this?

How had he smelled so fucking amazing when he was so unwashed? Was he covered in billions of little cleaning nanobots that scrubbed his scales to perfection?

Or space-lice like eyelash mites?

His tail went from bangle-jangles to pointy nubbly club. “Of course I bathe.”

“So where do we wash the exploding asteroid and medical procedures and near-certain death off us?”

“On asteroid installations like this, there are central rooms. It is actually a luxury we have that.” He pointed with his tail to the toilet closet.

The damn thing was almost as small as the one on the smuggle-bus that had brought us here. I could fit in to it, but I had no idea how Ahane would manage. But it wasn’t my business how he did his business. As long as it wasn’t mason jars that he kept in the corner, my standards had been met.

My standards were pathetic.

Space waifs couldn’t be choosers.

He moved closer, bringing with him a sensation of dusk and dawn, like the sun itself had decided to stroll down the hills to have coffee with me. His gaze flicked and slid and smoothed over me like light rays, and he had to stoop slightly due to our height difference to get a look at whatever it was he was looking at.

He held out one large hand.

I placed my hand in his palm. He studied my filthy palm, turned it over, examined my fingers. He held the crystalline talon that was his sixth digit away from contact with my skin. His nails—which were more like claws—were gentle, his grip tender.

My nipples tried to get a look at the sun-colored dragon-alien through my top.

He released my hand. His scales swirled like the surface of the sun. “Wait here.”

He squished past me and I bumped into the bed as he headed for the door. “Where are you going?”

“To make sure it is safe.” He caught himself on the doorframe, back tense, and then added, “And to wash. While I am there.”

“Right. Sure. While you’re there.”

“That is what I said. While I am there.”

Clearly, sarcasm was lost on this guy.

He stared at me.

I stared right back. My neck was getting a crick from looking up at him. His tail loomed somewhere around my hip level while we engaged in our little staring contest of supreme awkwardness.

“I need to make certain it is safe for you,” he finally said, his voice soft but full of a thousand concerns and worries.

“Why do you care so much? No one is going to ask if I disappear, and I’m nothing but a problem for you.”

“You won’t survive on your own.”

“How is that your problem? Kick me off the asteroid and be done with it.”

He bent so that his eyes were level with mine. His gaze was the sunset, his eyes a thousand shades of Earth sky. His iris pinched slightly in the center, giving it an hourglass appearance, the pinch tightening tiny shreds by tiny shreds as an intense shade of red clouded the base of his beautiful scales.

“Stay here.” His voice seemed soft and impossibly loud at the same time. “Stay in this room.”

His shoulders moved as if he was going to reach out, but he caught himself, and I jumped as his tail—now a soft feathery plume—brushed the back of my thigh.

He snapped his tail away. It transformed back into bangles and bashed into the side of the room. He yanked it back towards him.

He stepped backwards out of the room and disappeared through the kitchen.