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The first indication Alex gets that something is off, is Isobel hunting him down in the kitchen to make small talk over coffee.
Well, coffee is an eponymic tic Alex still can’t shake. The drink is made of some kind of synthetic mushroom, ground and brewed into a bitter, hot drink that re-energizes most carbon-based creatures. Honestly, the effects are milder than coffee, as is the taste; Alex enjoyed a few weeks of awed stares as he downed cup after cup, even overtaking Michael’s apparently legendary tolerance. The little perks of his human constitution being utterly alien to his companions provide him with more amusement than he’ll ever let on.
He sips out of his black mug, enjoying the funky, fruity fragrance and watches Isobel curiously as she speaks rapid-fire about her morning.
“Of course now we’ll have to redirect course to a closer Guilded world—I’m thinking level-4 or 5, even 6 if Michael thinks the Airstream can handle the trek—repairs shouldn’t take long, maybe a week on-world, another day or two for transport clearances on each end—I’m begging Antar’s moons that we can make it to Caceaus, they always have the latest Myrcal fashion coming through their ports, huge shopping districts and my closet has been abysmally stale since we left Urran…” She pauses, stirring her mint tea with a bat of her baby blues at Alex. “Do you like shopping Alex?”
Alex buys himself a moment by sipping from his mug again, cogs turning. They’ve been together on this ship for almost an entire Earth-year now—Alex thinks he knows his crewmates fairly well. Isobel is carefully artificial—a Royal through and through—but they’ve been through enough that Alex knows she genuinely likes him, and whenever the crew is in a tough spot Alex and Iz are the ones most often problem-solving their way out of certain death or diplomatic disaster. The chain of command was upset when the crew elected to promote Alex to Captain of the Airstream, though he defers to Isobel whenever the situation requires an ambassador’s touch. He likes to think of them as partners, really, but their relationship is still distanced, professionally respectful. Isobel is self-centered, scarily intelligent, and more compassionate than she crafts her reputation to be—Alex enjoys her critical eye and confidence, he doesn’t need to push for more. Which is all to say, she has most certainly never asked him a direct question about what he likes before, and it’s instantly ringing alarm bells.
“I suppose.” He takes another sip, watching his taciturn answer twist a scowl on her lips.
She drags a finger over the rim of her mug, pretending not to be annoyed. He can sense her mind probing his emotions; a general check, nothing more invasive than a heart-monitor. He never minds this level of her powers, only because he has no trouble emanating pure blankness towards her on cue, which frustrates her greatly. “Oh, and what would you say you… might like to purchase? On these shopping occasions of yours.”
“Well, I haven’t really had to buy anything since I joined the crew.”
A flash of real amusement lights Isobel’s eyes. “Except on Bandabar.”
“That,” Alex says, fighting a grin, “was gambling, although I guess you could say I bought more money with money.” It was Bandabarian shipping coin for rare jewels, technically—but it paid for the entire coast’s new schools and made Alex one again grateful for his comp-sci roommates teaching him all about game theory.
“All the same.” Isobel waves away the tangent, eyes narrowing in focus. “When we’re on-worlds and we have time off, you must buy supplies.” She scrutinizes his plain, uniform dress, as if to say, certainly not clothing, though. Alex once again hides his smile in his mug. “And in these situations, what do you purchase for yourself?”
As Alex opens his mouth to answer, the Airstream starts blaring an alarm, warning lights flashing orange against the ceiling. Alex and Isobel abandon their mugs to rush to the ship’s control room, where Michael is cursing and rewiring on the fly. Their maintenance, it turns out, is much more pressing than expected. As they brace themselves on a choppy course to the nearest Guild planet for an emergency land, the conversation in the kitchen fades as unimportant.
-
The next clue he manages to miss happens shortly after they crash-land on the chilly tundra of Vator-Li, a Guild level-2 planet with sparse inhabitants and little natural resources. Michael steers them close enough to the capitol that they’re hauled into the city without too much trouble, though repairs will take at least an extra week to wait for parts to be shipped to them. Vators are squat, sturdy carbon-based creatures—bipedal with frosted, bluish skin and reptilian features. Their language is guttural and tricky for the translator to interpret, but they’re welcoming hosts, putting the crew up in a nice little inn with running water and thermal heaters, so Alex does his best to be unimposing and thankful despite the communication barrier.
“This sucks.” Michael flops down on the bed, which is really two cots pushed together to try and accommodate their size. His legs dangle off the end at the shins, toes wiggling. The room is small but plush, seating low to the ground and cushioned, walls a glowy cherry wood that catches golden under the light fixtures. The air is thick with warmth; Alex strips to a shirt and boxers after brushing his teeth, and flops down on top of Michael, privately enjoying the uncomfortable, cramped quarters that force them to stick together skin to skin.
Michael instantly opens his arms and pulls Alex’s head over his chest, squeezing himself to the edge of the bed to make room. They slot together naturally, bodies adjusting without words.
“Mm.” Alex says, closing his eyes. “It’s not so bad.”
Michael makes a thoughtful noise, leaning down to kiss the crown of Alex’s head. “I guess. Could be worse.”
“Yeah. Could be Jacop, when we—” Michael’s laughter rumbles all through Alex’s head. “—when we literally slept in mud. Remember the acid rain? The marauders? That sucked. This is… cozy.”
“Ugh, that rain totally stripped the Airstream’s paint job.” Michael shivers.
“And fried your hair.” Alex raises a hand instinctively to Michael’s soft curls, twisting a strand between his fingertips.
“True, but whatever, I’m just saying we were supposed to be on a nice world, with, with sightseeing and shopping and shit to do. I can’t wait to take you on a date to the one restaurant in town that only serves raw meat.”
On cue, Alex’s stomach grumbles. “Yeah, I’m fine with sticking to nutrient bars for a couple weeks.” At Michael’s groan, Alex smiles. “Wimp. You don’t know how good you have it, those bars are better than any MRE I’ve ever had—that includes the macaroni.”
Though the reference is lost on Michael, he still hums in agreement. “I guess. Just… I don’t know. I thought this week was gonna go different, that’s all.”
Alex let’s that settle for a moment, something nagging him as he watches their shadows glide across the far wall. He sits up, dislodging their precariously balanced position. Michael blinks at him.
“Shopping?” Alex asks, a note of suspicion in his voice. “Why is everyone so keen on going shopping all the sudden?”
Michael’s who me? face is convincing, but too familiar to be effective. “I meant for the ship. You know. I like to see what the outer worlds have to offer her for an upgrade, but this snowball doesn’t exactly have cutting edge tech.”
Though fully aware that Michael is hiding something, Alex is too sleepy to push, so he files it away in his always active Royal Siblings Schemes folder and settles back down. Whatever they’re up to, it’s not tripping his potentially explosive sensor, so it’ll probably work itself out.
-
“Alex, can I bother you for a second?”
Alex looks up from his screen, blinking harshly at the sudden light. He’s helping patch code in the Airstream’s system—Michael is all hardware but Alex helps the ship’s software stay healthy. He’s on the floor of the server room, hooked in directly and running fairly standard maintenance. It seemed like the most opportune time, since they’ve nowhere to be and not much to do for another week and a half. Time must have slipped away from him, because as Max stands in the threshold—hand still hovering by the light switch, harsh overhead bulbs suddenly flooding the dark space—he realizes his leg is starting to cramp from sitting on the ground and he actually has no idea how long he’s been down here.
Max grins awkwardly, a half-apology hung on his lips. Alex tips down the hinge of his screen and sets it aside, rubbing at his tight muscle with one hand and gesturing for Max to join him with the other.
“What’s up?” Alex sits up straight and stretches his arms overhead.
“What’s a yule?”
This is a habit of Max’s. Ever since Liz Ortecho reached out directly to the Guild and got hired as a research scientist on Antar, Max’s interest in Earth culture grew exponentially. Liz wasn’t in Roswell during the First Contact, but after the rest of the world contended with their brief interaction with aliens, she wanted to bypass the limitations of Earth knowledge and chase down discovery across the universe. The Guild was suitably impressed by her work and her proposal, so she was hired on, and transplanted her and her whole family on Antar, the leading biological research center of the galaxy. Alex stays in touch mostly through long-distance holos, reading her theories that fly straight over his head with enthusiasm and feeling grounded when they freak out about alien shit together. Max’s immediate, overwhelming crush was hilariously apparent to everyone but Liz—and his Earth questions directed at Alex have been tolerable thus far.
Alex catches a yawn before speaking. “Yule is a winter celebration on earth. It can cover a lot of different cultures or occasions, but generally in America it’s celebrated with Christmas or Hanukkah or Kwanza.” They’ve covered these holidays before, so Alex doesn’t embellish his answer further. “Umm… I don’t know. I think it’s originally a German holiday, or something. Not a word I use commonly.” He shrugs unhelpfully. Max isn’t usually bothered if Alex doesn’t have specific knowledge on whatever random query he has (trying to explain the cultural significance of Cher was one interesting moment) but today he seems disappointed.
Max leans forward. “But what about for your yule time? Do you have any traditions?”
Alex stifles a laugh, shaking his head. “It’s not… I don’t use the term like that. My yule, yule time.”
“Okay, but you do celebrate the Christmas right?”
“I guess I did. Remember how some holidays are more secular or spiritual depending on the person? For me it’s… the trappings were religious but it was like. Going through the motions. I celebrated because that’s what you did, not because my family had special traditions or something.” He considers the question. “It’s like on Antar, your Lights Festival? You celebrate it because it happens around you, right? But you don’t go out of your way for it? That’s all it was for me.”
If anything, the explanation has deflated Max further. His dark brows draw heavily across his eyes. “But I thought the yule was special for humans. Across the globe, people have winter celebrations, no matter how different they may be. Warmth in a time of darkness, that’s what—” Pink stains high on Max’s cheeks, a warm berry blush. “That’s what Liz says, anyway.”
“Oh?” Alex raises his brows. “Really? Talking a lot to Liz now, are we?”
“I’m not—”
“What else does Liz say?” Alex slaps a hand over his chest. “Oh, beautiful, smart, amazing Liz—”
“Okay,” Max says, leveraging himself to his feet as the pink spreads down his neck. “Very funny.”
“—only one of my closest friends as a kid, please tell me everything she has to think and say about the yule— ”
“Alright, goodbye Alex, thank you for nothing.”
“No problem!” Alex yells at Max’s retreating back, grinning wickedly. “Say hi to Liz for me!” In retrospect, this interaction should have alerted Alex to exactly what was going on—but he was left too busy laughing at Max’s adorable embarrassment to allow his earlier suspicions to take root.
-
Despite Michael’s groaning and Isobel’s impatience, Alex enjoys their layover on Vator-Li. Max is a magnet for people in need and spends the fortnight helping rebuild a crumbling bridge, which keeps him happy. Alex, similarly, throws himself into work and gets ahead of schedule on updates with the Airstream, enjoying long hours of coding in peace. The solitude and absorption of the work is a rarity with their hectic missions, so he zens out in the server room most days. By the end of the trip, he’s able to grunt a passable thank you in the native language and upgrade the town’s wi-fi. Even Isobel ends up enjoying herself, connecting with what seems to be the mayor of the city and determining their copper depots are a worthy trade point this far out in the system. Everyone but Michael is fairly content by the end of their stay—he pulls long days on the ship and refuses to let Alex consult on the repairs. Alex tries not to be bothered; mechanical engineering is by no means his specialty, though usually Michael likes to have him around to bounce ideas off of, at least.
They find themselves on their final night on-world. Alex is playing with some new ideas in the server room—nothing he can implement yet but the ship’s AI has some untapped capabilities he’s trying to explore—when Michael crashes in.
“Hey you,” he says, knocking as he lets himself in. Michael immediately reaches over, shuts Alex’s laptop and shushes his offense with a quick kiss. “Don’t be mad. Listen. Come with me.”
Righteous indignation rises up in Alex’s chest, but the excitable smile and chocolate-sweet kiss from Michael are melting it easily.
“With you where?” he asks, already letting himself be pulled up by Michael’s two hands. Michael crowds him against a server rack, cold nose pressing on Alex’s neck, hot mouth steaming against his chin.
“Darlin’—” which is already playing dirty, and Michael knows it, tugging Alex along with a glittering grin “—you’ll have to wait and see.”
-
Alex is led by the hand through the Airstream’s underbelly towards the residence floors above. Their elevator slides open on the kitchen’s entrance. Alex peeks through Michael’s fingers covering his eyes to slants of red light before he gives into the surprise and allows himself to be guided a few steps forward.
“Alright,” says Michael, his voice warming the shell of Alex’s ear, the sweet-mint smell of him overwhelming all other senses. “Open your eyes.”
Michael’s hands fall away, dropping to embrace Alex around the waist. Alex leans back into him, yielding to his body like wax, and blinks.
What they all refer to as the kitchen is an enormous space with their food fabricator, an actual kitchen area with all the appliances Alex is familiar with and more than a few he isn’t, and a sweeping dining space with a huge dinner table and a comfortable couch, groups of chairs and smaller tables to sit and chat at scattered about. They could easily entertain a crowd of thirty with room to spare, and still the space feels full whenever they share a meal together.
The décor matches the rest of the ship, all clean chrome surfaces and sleek overhead lighting. Today, though, Alex can hardly recognize the space from memory.
Smell assaults him first, cinnamon-forward and strong as incense burning, a smoky warmth diffusing the usually oxygen-rich interior. The walls are papered in cut out snowflakes of various degrees of skill. Small bunches of thin green needles dangle from the ceiling, wrapped in little fairy lights and velvet red bows. Artificial snow dusts the floor and counters, a stark white and fine powder, like a giant sneezed icing sugar across the room. Twinkling red, green, and blue lights strobe from the ceiling, all the appliances hacked and wired to reflect the glow. Odd, golden statues of winged-beasts, fuzzy patterned hats, little wooden figurines of animals, and clearly home-made laminate signs declaring Merry Holiday! are placed throughout the room. Something close to a poinsettia plant is set as the centerpiece at every table, showered in specks of silver glitter. Presents are piled high on the kitchen countertops; try-hard curly ribbons and badly wrinkled tissue and impeccably seamless boxes making it obvious who stacked each gift.
It is an evident, painfully awful attempt at replicating Christmas, and in the middle of it all Max and Isobel stand in matching apple-red sweaters with a disturbing depiction of Santa Claus embroidered across their chests. It takes all of Alex's restraint not to snort in laughter. Michael slips away and wrangles on a third sweater, standing between his family as they all stare at him with a dubious look of ta-da!
“It’s been a year now, since you joined the Airstream.” Michael says, his wavering grin belying his worry. “And we thought—”
“Well Liz said at the end of the year most people celebrate with traditions of gift giving and family occasions—” Max pipes up, eyes going soft on Liz’s name.
“And obviously you’re family, but we know it can be hard to be away from home—” Isobel is pouring a rich, chocolaty drink into white and green polka-dot mugs. “We thought—”
“We wanted to do something nice. An Earth celebration, you know.” Michael takes a mug from her and moves toward Alex.
“Or as close as we could get,” says Isobel.
“It’s probably not quite right, but Liz said Christmas can be different for everyone.” Max’s smile is painfully earnest, and hopeful.
“So,” says Michael, as he passes Alex the mug with a crooked smile. “What do you think?”
Alex thinks about the Christmases of his life. Stolen cookies on arid bases, shoving away the uncomfortable pang as his bunkmates tore open care packages and cards. A sad little tree in his apartment, alone on leave. Painfully kneeling for Christmas Eve mass, ears burning at the clap of his father’s hand on his shoulder when he couldn’t recite the hymns right. Icy silence spreading over Christmas dinner, the turkey perfect but never good enough. And—just in a flash of memory, more feeling than picture—his mom’s hands, rings silver as tinsel, pressing his tiny fingers into cookie dough, eggs squishing on the counter, her soft, sugary-warm laugh in his ear.
He takes in the shoddy decorations, paper cut-outs an affront to even the concept of reindeer, the obnoxious red-green-gold motif. The too much of it all. The effort that went into every aspect.
His chest prickles warmly; he looks down, away, bracing himself with a deep breath and clears his throat. “It’s perfect,” he says, smiling widely when he looks up.
Max pumps his fist, fuzzy hat falling askew. Isobel rolls her eyes to say, obviously , but her tiny smile is wholly satisfied as she starts pouring out hot chocolates for them all to share.
Michael reels Alex in as if for a kiss; eyes flinty, mouth curling into a knowing smirk. But he wraps his arms around Alex instead, a firm embrace, head tucked into Alex’s neck. Alex closes his eyes, music rising from the speakers, hilarious renditions of his home world’s Christmas songs, apparently a popular remix genre for the alien music scene. The bones of the melodies are recognizable even if the languages aren’t, and Alex sways in Michael’s arms.
With a brush of a kiss to Alex’s cheek, Michael pulls away. His hands lock at the small of Alex’s back, holding him, swaying with him. “Merry Christmas, Alex.”
Alex reaches his arms up to hang off Michael’s shoulders, taking a second to run his fingers across Michael’s cheek, through his hair. He leans in for a smiling kiss, and whispers, “Merry Christmas.”