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I swear he’s like a cat sometimes.
Rocky appears in my bathroom like we haven’t been over the subject of privacy a dozen times before, honing and completing his understanding of it until I could share a spaceship with him without feeling watched all the time. I run my hands over my head to rinse the shampoo from it—or the Eridian equivalent of it, anyway, something vaguely herbal that lathers less than what I’m used to but seems to clean all the better for it—and I spot a brown blob through the steam and the transparent divider that shields the rest of the room from the spray.
I don’t even startle. Honestly, at this point, I don’t even mind it. Maybe I should, considering that I know he remembers what I’ve told him about human discomfort and is deliberately ignoring it, but I can’t help but feel like there’s a mutual understanding that we’re past that kind of stuff. Rocky’s seen me in more vulnerable states than simple undress. He’s dragged my unconscious, bleeding body through a ship that’d narrowly escaped the decaying orbit of Adrian mere moments prior. He’s heard nearly every bathroom visit I’ve ever had on the Hail Mary, and there hasn’t been a night since our reunion that I’ve spent unguarded by him, letting him witness every sleeping breath I take. Besides, it’s not like my clothes ever did much to block his vision.
So, as soon as I become aware of his presence, I poke my head around the clear xenonite and squint my eyes to better make out his shape.
“You know, on Earth this would get you locked up,” I tell him. “Breaking and entering is a serious crime.”
“Nothing broke,” Rocky says, propping two hands on his carapace to imitate a gesture he’s learned from me. Of course, as someone who does not have hips, it makes him look goofy as heck. “And I built this house. Is mine to enter and exit as needed.”
“Wow, that makes me feel so loved and welcome. Didn’t know I was a guest in your Earthen vacation home.”
“Now you know,” Rocky says. There’s joy in every bump of his carapace as he approaches, every movement of his legs. It’s an easy thing to be happy about: the fact that we can talk like this after half a dozen incidents should’ve knocked either of our lights out for good. The hunger, the fishing. The fuel situation, or any of the issues we faced with the Taumoeba, from minor mishaps all the way to the fact that our selective breeding nearly totaled the Hail Mary, and then we both would’ve starved in space.
It’s refreshing to joke about smaller, everyday things. It’s absolutely glorious to find a new stupid bit every day, exchanging teasing in equal doses, and all of it with a layer of affection underneath.
“Human brain weak,” Rocky says, slipping into the xenonite door to better be a nuisance. He may not hear me any better this way, but he knows that I’m more susceptible to whatever attitude he brings when I can see him up close. “Maybe you forgot that I brought you as guest. You no live here. You stay here in house I built until your spaceship is ready to go home.”
It’s funny because we both know that’s not happening.
“Okay, screw you,” I say anyway, because that’s what we do. I take the shower head off its holder and aim it at Rocky, dousing him in water. I’m not sure how Eridians feel about rain—because there is rain on Erid, it’s just really hard for me to see from my dome—but I bet the spray is real freaking loud on his xenonite suit.
Instead of screeching his displeasure, though, or turning to flee the shower and leaving wet footprints everywhere, Rocky straightens his legs, startled. He just stands there, frozen, and for a moment I’m worried I’ve hit a nerve or something, that the sensation scrapes against something primal in his brain, like cold, wet caves back when Eridians didn’t yet know how to build shelter. I’m about to put the shower head back.
But then, the moment I’m no longer spraying him, Rocky turns around and all but shoves his carapace in my direction.
I’m perplexed, mustering him with the water aimed away from him, and Rocky stomps a claw against the tiling.
“Oh,” I say, grinning. I turn the spray toward him again, and Rocky gives a shuddering hum of pure glee. “You like that, huh?”
“Yes,” he says, wiggling from side to side like a tortoise rubbing its little butt on a bristle brush. “Like like like.”
For a moment I’m concerned about his life support, wondering if being covered in water like this will inhibit his breathing at all, but Rocky’s smart enough to have taken that into consideration when he built it. I’m sure he’d feel it if anything was wrong, considering that pleasantly hot to me is freaking freezing to him.
Rocky tiptoes from one claw to the other, making little clinking noises against the tiles of my shower. Though he has no front or back, three of his legs are stretched out in front of him, tilting his carapace at an angle that allows me to spray the sides of him.
What a freaking weirdo.
I sigh, a familiar warmth blooming in my chest. My weirdo.
“Are you gonna tell me what you came here for?” I ask, but I’m met with a chirrup that’s half-blissed out and half-annoyed.
“Later,” he says. “No stop.”
Well, my hands are tied, then. It’s not like I have bills to pay anymore, so I’m content to continue standing there and water my alien friend like a bush of roses, half-rinsed shampoo in my hair where it hangs wetly down my forehead, my hands turning pruny as water runs down the shower head.
Rocky, enjoying himself more than I’ve ever seen him do before, does a happy little dance as the water bounces off his suit, interspersed with tiny, trilling notes that have no meaning beyond sheer sensory delight. I guess I’ll never stop learning new things about him. Not that I’d have it any other way. It’s insane how quickly I’ve adapted to this new life of mine, an endless stream of breakfast and lessons and showers and meetups with the person who’s become more dear to me than my own hands—or whoever else feels like coming by that day, seeing as most of my students have managed to talk their parents into letting them visit for further questions they may have.
The human mind is nothing if not adaptable. After nearly a year of living in quiet contentment, it almost feels like nothing bad ever happened to me. The worst problems I have are small cuts I get while cooking—because yes, it turns out I do like cooking, just not the planning and shopping that goes into it—and stubbing my toes on furniture that hasn’t moved since my arrival. The worst inconveniences I face are that I have to put my shower on hold to give an alien an indirect back rub.
When I finally get too cold and put the shower head back in its holder, Rocky cries his disappointment and makes a point to plant himself between my feet, eager to catch whatever water drips off of me while I try to finish what I started before he broke into my—or his—or our—home. I didn’t realize Eridians enjoyed water so much.
Or maybe it’s just Rocky. Maybe he’s lacking a certain kind of instinct that warns him of fluid entering his vents, and he’d happily throw himself into the nearest river if he could.
Maybe not quite a cat, then. Just my alien friend being his strange, perfect self.