Chapter Text
Xiumin is looking around, really curious about a box full of shiny artefacts he doesn’t know. He never saw things like these before! But he isn’t bold enough to try to grab one. When some of the workers of the company arrived, he hid his hands behind his back, taking the most angelic look he could and without letting them the time to speak, he swiftly took cover under one of the ships. He’s bored. Everything is metallic. There are no plants, or he didn’t see them. The Taalian sits, curling his tail around him, lurking at all those strangers from planets he never heard of doing their tasks under his new shelter. He doesn’t understand everything they say even though he has some solid basis of the Common, but it’s still a bit complicated when people are fast speakers.
He was dozing off when he heard men voices talking about Taali. Home! The nice Astraan girl told him someone will bring him home soon! But soon was pretty long time ago now, isn’t it? Maybe this time it’s really soon. Xiumin was about to get out of his hiding spot when he heard one of them saying something like “I don’t want to have that thing in my ship” and it kind of made him refrain from showing his face. He shrinks on himself, going a bit further under the machine. Thing is not a good word. Quite mean actually when you use it to refer to another intelligent creature. One of the voices took the Taalian’s side, telling his comrade it’s not how you talk about people.
“Where is he, now?” Asks the Minan to the Prime.
Baekhyun looks around and eventually sees the boxes of luxminus, he jogs and take a small one. Jongdae was about to yell at him, but the other pilot puts a finger on his mouth. Baekhyun kneels, looking under the line of spaceships and he can see a cute pastel blue light glow hiding and soon after incredible ice eyes. There he is!
“Hey bud’, I’m Baek! And I’ve a gift for you!” He waves the gem. “Also, it’ll be time for you to go home! Isn’t that cool? Home. You probably miss your people, and your house, right?”
As Baekhyun’s tone is really smooth and gentle, Xiumin gets out, slowly. The Taalian recognized the nice man’s voice too, that helps. He doesn’t really get out of his cover, glancing at Jongdae. The Prime, Baekhyun, tries to distract Xiumin with the gem, and the blue partially covered with scale small alien takes it, delicately, inspecting the rock in all the sides. This is one of the shiny artefacts he was looking at! What is it? How does it work? Why they keep them in a box? He says timidly to Jongdae:
“Aa’m nej thing… Aa Xiumin.” His livid eyes look up for Baekhyun, who nods at him so he continues: “Aa can keep nevelith?”
“Yeah, you can keep the shiny.” He giggles, slowly standing up to not scare the Taalian. He slaps Jongdae’s ass. “I hope you can catch up new languages quickly! Otherwise, three months are going to be really long, honey.”
The Prime takes his leave, whistling happily, he didn’t notice, at first, Xiumin following him, holding the luxminus with his two hands, careful. The other pilot is baffled and confused. Does the small blue thingy know he is supposed to stay with him and not the Prime? Baekhyun turns around rapidly because he forgot something and so Xiumin bumps into him. Baekhyun laughs and Xiumin genuinely smiles, happy. He leans on the Taalian, whispering something to him but Jongdae is way too far to hear them. Xiumin turns his head to look at the pilot who stands, arms crossed on his chest, in the distance. The blue scales of the Taalian shyly glowing under the artificial lights that clearly don’t flatter them have something fascinating. Did the Minan ever saw something looking like that before? Even after traveling into thousands of planets, he is sure it’s the first time he saw something this mesmerizing. Xiumin’s skin is pale, white but with some blue in it. He only has scales on the shoulders, his hands and they fade going up his forearms, his feet and they fade going up his knees. Others scatter all over his body, it looks like random schemes but actually they make sense when you look at them long enough. A harmonious hazardous pattern. His legs seem a bit bend, meaning he can also probably move easily on his four members. Apparently, clothes are optional as he can see the Taalian only wears a really thin leather as shorts… are those shorts? It will be a really long trip.
Both come back to him. Now he sees the tail more clearly. A really long tail. So long that the Taalian has to roll it on itself for not have it hanging down on the floor. Baekhyun has to push him until the cute little blue guy is in front of Jongdae. Then the Prime proceeds to brush Xiumin’s silver hair, trying to show him some support there. He hesitates a moment, the poor Taalian is really confused about everything that is going on. He also really wanted to stay with the nice Prime. He has been nice with him since he arrived here. He gave him nice food. He doesn’t want to go with the scary grey guy with weird pointy slightly fluffy ears. The Minan uncrosses his arms, tilting his head. What now? Xiumin finally hands the gem to Jongdae who is really lost but he takes it anyway. Jongdae was about to thank him when the small one gets on the ground to run inside the open door of the ship. The Prime pinches the Minan, playful, once the Taalian disappeared.
“There you go, honey. He’s in your ship.” He looks back at Jongdae. “One last piece of advice: Keep preciously the gem he gave you. Gifts are really meaningful for Taalians.”
“Yeah, yeah… The price of that shit is way over anything I would ever afford, and you literally stole it for him before he just threw it at me. Bro, I can’t even change my axial pulse core and you…” Jongdae massages his temple seeing Baekyhun pouting his disapprobation. “Alright, alright… I willkeep it.”
“Also don’t be a Solar and don’t gift him anything if you don’t mean it.”
He can see Kyungsoo slams his helmet on Baekhyun and yells at the poor dark blue haired: “What with Solars, bitch? It’s always the same fucking song with you Noctals! It’s not because your side of the planet is bigger that you have to be assholes all the time! Also why are we still here! Fucking schedule Baekhyun! I swear to Araxee if you don-” Jongdae closed the door of his ship before the end of their endless fight. He doesn’t even understand how they can stay the two of them for months without killing each other. This is exactly why he doesn’t want a copilot. Also, why a Solar and a Noctal would consent on working together without being threatened? Whatever. Doesn’t matter. He rubs his eye, letting out the biggest sigh ever. So… Now. Where is the Taalian? The ship is big enough for the alien to hide anywhere but he really hopes his guest won’t do it because he can’t play hide and seek games for three months every time he has to touch down for work. He definitely won’t spend three fucking months being sure his ass is in or not.
Jongdae looks at the console on the wall, not ready to start any games right now. He searches for his passenger’s location. Strangely, the red dot is exactly on his own position. He frowns. “All right, it’s not really the time to fail me, big girl.” He whispers while redoing the command however the result remains unchanged. What? His head leans heavily on the side, then he slowly looks above. Ok… It’s going to be a really long journey. Jongdae raises a hand to the Taalian who seems glued to the vault. What is he? A spider? Xiumin doesn’t take the hand or move.
“Get down.” Jongdae tries his very best to not sound annoyed, letting his hand fall back to his body. “Please?” He can see the tail coils up the pipe as the Taalian uses it to get on the ground. “Good b-boy?” He massages his temple again, tucking the luxminus in his pocket. “I’ll show you around, like that you’ll know where you are, ‘kay?” Xiumin’s tail rolls up on itself again, but he doesn’t answer. “Do you understand me?”
“Yes.”
The Taalian nods, holding his arm behind his back and Jongdae mumbles “Good” as he leads the tour of his spaceship. Kitchen, small living room, a lot of corridors, cables, cockpit, the storage room (here he can’t go otherwise Jongdae will become red and really angry, he said it), his suite (that one too, he’s not supposed to go in) and the Taalian’s suite. All of this, for him? What is this? Xiumin enters the room, touching the objects, making fall some. And every time something falls, he looks at Jongdae, examining his expression. He doesn’t seem bothered, however Xiumin always takes the time to replace what fell down. Not necessarily where it was before, but he tries. The Minan opens a door in the Taalian’s room that leads in the bathroom. Jongdae goes for the bathtub, starts to run a bath. Xiumin stands right behind him, impressed.
“Akti’ka!”
“Ak-what?”
“Small…” He thinks. “Lake!”
“Oh…” Looking at all the stars in the Taalian’s eyes, Jongdae seems confused. “Yeah…? Yes. Aktakika all for you.” He never saw someone this excited about a bath. Ever.
“Ak-ti-ka.”
Xiumin says it again, articulating and accentuating ever syllables so Jongdae can say it too. But the Minan stays quiet a moment. A long moment, in the Taalian opinion. But Jongdae finally gets why he is stilling looking at him and he repeats the word. Xiumin is happy. Maybe be the scary grey guy isn’t that mean after all. Speaking of, he lays a towel and some clothes on the small table in the bathroom and then was about to leave. Because that spaceship doesn’t drive itself. Well, not entirely.
“Amh not wash?”
“No, I do not.”
And what else now? He has to take his bath with him? Not even a in a billion years. But the Taalian sees the thing differently: he trips the Minan with his tail, making him fall in the water. In contact of water, the luxminus scatters in hundreds of small lights, swimming around like extremely tiny jellyfishes. Jongdae was about to scream in anger at that idiotic blue lizard when that same blue pain in his ass dives in trying to catch the glowing shards. Oh, fucking blackhole! That shiny bath costing a billion of credits. The Taalian, though, looks to have a really big time. Jongdae closes his eyes, already exhausted and they didn’t even leave yet. Seeing the look on the Minan’s face, Xiumin put his hand on the pilot’s chest. By reflex, Jongdae grabs his wrist, pushing him away. But the Taalian doesn’t seem frightened, simply curious.
“Amh don’t like water?” Xiumin doesn’t even try to escape.
“Do you know the price of that luxminus?”
“What is luxminus?” He doesn’t know what price means either but one question at the time. Also, Jongdae cut him, so he couldn’t continue to ask questions.
“The thing Baek gave you. The thing you just destroyed into a million of small useless water fireflies.”
Jongdae says, releasing him. He gets out of the bath. Perfect. All of this is so fucking perfect. Xiumin keeps collecting the jellyfishes. He calls out Jongdae with a weird whistle, all the shards in hands. The Minan has done enough social interactions for today, but still, he looks back right in time to see the Taalian reforming the gem. Jongdae comes back, snatches the material of his hands. He looks at it. Turning in all the sides. He can’t believe it. He restructured it…?
“How you did that?”
“That? Luminuz.”
“Luxminus.” His green eyes lay on the Taalian. “How you transformed it?”
“Tran-…?”
“How did you change it back? How you changed the lights into the gem?”
“Taalith.” He’s now wading in the water. “Can aa stay?”
What Taalith even means? He rolls his eyes, letting him play in the water. Whatever. At least he won’t smell weird anymore. He goes to the cockpit, after he changed for some dry clothes, time to go now. He is way behind schedule, and he doesn’t like it. When the engines started, he heard a scream and it made him giggle. He shouldn’t laugh at the poor Taalian but damn this is so good. He laughs a bit more; pretty sure he can hear him swear now. He doesn’t need to be fluent in Taalian to know that. Soon after he can see some blue scales curling at his feet. But Xiumin was in a spaceship when he arrived at the station, so why is he so scared now? He drops his sweater on the wet alien, before to show him the seat next to him. Jongdae didn’t say anything to calm him down. The Taalian sits, hiding in the sweater, all that is visible are his ice blue eyes and some white hair, but he’s looking at the space with some mesmerized gaze. Now he is on the top of his chair, perched pointing at everything he never saw before asking “What is that?” every twelve seconds. Xiumin reminds Jongdae of himself when he first was in a spaceship. Curious about everything. Wanting to see and understand everything. The Taalian doesn’t want to leave the cockpit anymore. In the other pilot’s seat, Jongdae took five minutes to deactivate every command on his side, because he keeps leaning on the consoles to have a “better view”. The Minan gave up the idea of answering all his questions because he asks so many of them at the same time. He just lets Xiumin being an excited Taalian. Nonetheless, the funny part arrived when Jongdae brought him food. He saw Xiumin’s face being distorted with disgusted expressions for half an hour, all of this for asking more once he finished his plate. Now the Taalian is asleep in the seat, wound on himself.
He tucked Xiumin in his bed before to get in his own room. Some sad coo-purring woke him up in middle of his sleep. Jongdae had to throw the Taalian out of his room. Twice. The third time: he gave up. Fine. Whatever.