Maybe it was bold of me to think that I could get up early and surprise Esayr with breakfast. I owed him after all. If you'd given it more than a second thought it was obviously bold. You still don't know what any of the ingredients in the kitchen are and can barely work half of the appliances.

And yet still I found myself surprised when I walked out of the bedroom and found Esayr rummaging through the fridge in our kitchen. I slowly approached him, searching for our bond like I had the last time, to send him some feeling to let him know I was coming, but it didn't come as fluidly to me as it had that last time.

Where before it was as simple as reaching out and following that tether out through space, now I was floundering following that line out into the area between us before coming up against a wall. I was left digging into the mortar between those bricks searching for wherever the crack was that our bond still managed to slip through.

My heart stuttered in my chest at the realization of how closed off I'd become and how I had shoved this blockade between us mentally. Would I ever be able to take it down?

Once upon a time ago, Esayr had said he was uncertain if I'd ever be able to even make a wall...much less maintain it because of the nature of his abilities, and that helped to calm some of the mounting worries that were swirling in my mind. But, there was another part of me that wondered if some overflowing emotions might give me a better glimpse at where it was that our bond still flowed between us.

The space between his shoulder blades was warm beneath my palm. The muscles bunched beneath my fingers. "I had wanted to surprise you, but you beat me to it." My voice was still hoarse from sleep.

Esayr only rumbled out a laugh before joking, "You are certainly not an early riser."

"I was early today!" I stepped up beside him, lightly pushing him to the side so that I could see what it was he was doing.

"Earlier. But, not early." His shoulder bumped into mind jostling me right back.

"If I had an alarm I'd get up earlier!"

He shot me a look beneath his eyelashes, "But, not early."

"Boy, I'll go right back into that bedroom and back to sleep," but my laughing took the sting out of my words. He could get up early for the both of us if he wanted, and I'd stay up late.

Esayr chuckled, "I'd suppose the ship's vibration cycles are harder to adjust to if you haven't grown up accustomed to them. If it offers you comfort, you're neater than me."

"I am?" I'd never noticed, neither that he wasn't neat or that I particularly was, though I suppose being overly conscious of a one bedroom apartment when you're living with five other girls would incline me toward making sure my things weren't all over the place all the time.

Esayr nodded.

"I've never noticed."

There was a sly smile on his face that I'd never quite seen before. "Good."

"Good?" When Esayr didn't offer an explanation, I repeated the question. When he still didn't respond, I resolved myself to having to weasel the answer out of him by whatever means.

My fingers quickly found their way into his side, wiggling and gripping him in a way that became immediately apparent that he wasn't familiar with, despite the fact that I'd done something similar last night when we'd sat on the couch.

He dodged away from me so fast, I'd swear he would have made it across the room before I'd blinked, but instead he just stood mere feet away from me looking shocked, "Have...Esayr...have you never been tickled before? Or before me I guess?"

I watched his face, catalogued the expression of him searching for an explanation for my human word. He only managed to return with, "We don't have a word for that in Vallan."

"Huh." It was odd how things so commonplace amongst humans wouldn't necessarily translate, literally or figuratively to another race. I would hazard a guess that every one on the earth at some time or another was familiar with the concept of tickling. "Maybe it isn't something that happens with Val'Dornn."

"What do you mean?"

"It's a cute thing you can do. Mainly to children, but it works with adults as well. It's a human panic response—"

The look he gave me was priceless, where I had thought he couldn't look any more shocked, it became apparent I was wrong. While curiosity and interest had begun to sneak into his expression, the utter disbelief there nearly had me on the floor laughing. "I noticed you do something similar last night but figured it was due to the exhaustion. You're trying to panic me?"

I laughed then. I couldn't help it. I laughed so hard I could feel tears threaten to track down my cheeks. "God above. That was a bad way for me to describe it. It's a human instinct, but because of how we're raised it tends to lose the fear aspect of the panic response. It's usually perceived as fun or at least funny for a short while until the person getting tickled get's fed up with it."

Esayr watched me closely, as if weary that I'd try to accost him again, "What is it supposed to feel like?"

"It usually makes you squirm and try to get away, but also laugh. I did it as a joke initially, but now I'm genuinely curious. The Val'Dornn are very similar in build to humans. I wonder if you would share similar instinctual responses." I wouldn't tickle him again until I was certain he was willing to put up with it. At the moment he looked liable to bolt, which was such an uncanny thing to see from this male that had always been patient and unflappable as far as I had known.

"That would be a question to ask Kados, though I'm sure you'd never escape him if you expressed an interest into ongoing studies."

It was on my tongue to say that I'd have plenty of time on the ship, but I swallowed it back even though now the thought of staying here for far longer than anticipated didn't hold that same kind of trepidation. There were nerves, but the bite of fear had faded.

Esayr jogged me from my thoughts, "Vailen paged us to come to communications."

"He did? I didn't hear a page."

I watched the hint of a smile tease Esayr's lips when he glanced my way, "Might that be because you were sleeping?" Sensing that the subject change had worked and the threat of my questing fingers had passed, Esayr stepped a little closer to me again.

I bit back my smart comment, which was all well and good because he continued on before I knew it.

"Sian was able to find your device and sent it up." He held out a small item to me that look surprisingly like some kind of wrap sandwich.

I took it easily enough and took a bite. While I watched Esayr finish wrapping his own sandwich I realized that the Addison from before would have probably waited to watch him eat first. It was another testament to the fact that my would might have known the truth before my logical mind had been willing to admit the truth. I trusted this male.

"Do you like it?"

"Yes." I answered without even thinking about it. The sandwich was good, but it didn't compare to the warm feeling I got when I thought about him, that odd feeling of comfort I didn't know I had been craving. It almost made me giddy when my mind wandered to the idea that I wanted to keep him, and he wanted me too. Not to mention the fact that by all accounts I had the right.

"I'm glad. I'm not the best cook for things that aren't fast...or soup."

I laughed around bites of what was essentially a Val'Dornn breakfast burrito. "Get me some Earth ingredients and I'll cook for you. I really only know Italian food, though, since that's what I worked with. Maybe one day I can upgrade to some of these other things," to finish off my point I pulled out something that looked like the love child of a broccoli floret and a noodle. It was delicious regardless and I tossed it back along with the last few bites of my breakfast.

Esayr had a soft look on his face, wistful maybe. "I'd love that."

I laughed through the surge of that simple pleasure, "I'd figured you would. Now tell me exactly what it was that I just finished eating."

"We call it Bira Tagar. You can make it a lot of ways but there are a few staples, usually some outer wrapping and a protein base. It's from the Sumase world as well like the Indira was, but you seemed unsettled by eating the creature so I chose a veggie protein from the Urland and Laoirian star system. It's the fruiting body of a water plant that grows in the marshes during the Sun cycle season on the planets in that system."

"It's delicious."

"It has a texture similar to most meats thanks to it's protein rich secretions during the growth cycle of the fruiting bodies."

I choked back another laugh.

"What?"

"You were doing so well up until "secretions".

I watched as his eyes tracked some thoughts as he rifled through the English language via that translator. "Is that not the correct word?"

"Oh no. I'm sure it's correct. It's just clinical enough to be gross, though."

"What would have been better? Oozings?"

I mimed a gag and the sparkle in Esayr's eyes told me he'd purposely chosen the worst option.

"Get me out of this room and to Vailen before I puke up my breakfast because of you."

I turned to head back toward the bedroom where I knew I could find clean clothes more suitable to being out and about when I heard Esayr's whispered, "Discharge?"

The disgusted noise I made and the face I shot his way had him in a true laughing fit, leaning his long body back against that glorified stove shelf, hands wrapped around his middle.

"Communications. Quickly. Before you have a chance to ruin the rest of the day like you did my breakfast."

***

After all the times that I'd gone to the communications by, I'd found that I'd begun to commit the pathway to memory. It was helpful that the hallways on the ship were grid like, much like most of Saint Petersburg was, so it was fairly simple to navigate.

"I'm just saying, I find it strange that you have so many words for similar things. It's even more strange that some words are more acceptable in certain contexts," Esayr paused thinking as he continued his good natured rant, "at least for words that have hierarchical basis, like terms for respect. Those differences are fairly common across languages in the galaxy. But the fact that damp is acceptable and moist makes you cringe--"

I caught his pointed look when I felt the barest shiver race up my spine.

"—Is quite comical to me, if not also infinitely confounding. Which...is saying something seeing as Vallan is largely made up of other foreign languages."

"That's English for you, ever a problem, both on Earth and off of it." Esayr stepped in front of me at the last moment causing the doorway that led into communications to open. The fact that he stepped aside and let me enter first seemed to insinuate this was the Val'Dornn equivalent of holding a door open for someone.

The first male to greet us was Vailen where he stood looking down at my phone. He only glanced up for a moment before returning to look between a computer screen displaying a list of swirling characters. I managed to swallow my question about whether he ever actually left the Comm Bay, instead filing it away to ask Esayr later.

"Going well?" Esayr prompted when Vailen didn't immediately offer any commentary after we'd stepped up next to him, too engrossed in whatever the technical details on the screen told him.

"We have the phone. Which is good, but that's about where it ends. Addison—"

My head snapped to Vailen, pulled away from the technical jargon that I could read even with the translator, "Yes?"

"Can you unlock your device? I'm hopeful it might give me more insight into it's inner works aside from what I've divined from the code we could pull from it."

"Of course!" I grabbed the phone lightly in my right hand and watched as the lock screen disappeared, revealing a group shot of all of my friends from over a year ago. There was a slight pang of sadness when I saw it that ached deep in my chest. I remembered wishing I had a newer photo only a few months ago, but it had been too hard to get everyone together in an environment where we wanted photos. Now I was just grateful I had it, older picture or not. "It's unlocked." I handed the phone back to Vailen.

He held the phone delicately, as if he thought it might break. I'd dropped the phone more times than I could count, so I was certain it would survive a rough encounter, but I'm sure to these males on this ship that had travelled galaxies probably thought it was something close to archaic. "These are your friends?"

"Yeah," I glanced at the picture again. We were all smiling and laughing. We'd gone out to a bar and grill down town for dinner and trivia and had, had a wonderful night. "They're the closest thing to a Riniere as I would have, I think."

"Then they're your Riniere." There was a smile in Esayr's voice when he said it. I could hear it easily now even when I couldn't see him.

Vailen continued looking at the photo for a moment longer before I had to warn him that the phone would lock itself again if there was inactivity.

At that Vailen returned his attention to the screen, but as the seconds ticked by it became fairly obvious from his expression that he wasn't finding the answers that he wanted.

"If it's a problem, I don't really need to be able to contact home as much as I would like to have that at my finger tips. So if it can't be done it's fine."

Vailen heaved out a sigh, "It's not that I think it can't be done. It's that I think it will take considerable reworking of your device to accomplish it. The technology is outdated, but there are similarities in your phone and our communication devices, which sounds beneficial, but actually makes the process more frustrating. It's similar to the issue with our translators. Languages that are similar will still occasionally get mixed up despite the fact that the technology should make you fluent. All in all, I think I'd need a male more adept with programming the technology than myself to actually get your device functional for communication between planet and ship."

"Can I at least take my phone back with me? There are a lot of things I can do with it that don't include calling home."

"Certainly," Vailen handed me my phone gently, "I'll send a message to our team of technical engineers and see if they might have any ideas."

"Thank you! And like I said, if it can't be done that's fine. I'll just be grateful to have my pictures and everything else on my phone."

I let Esayr tug me back toward the entrance to the Comm bay, my hand lingered in his for a moment and he took the opportunity to grip it just a little tighter. It was one of these moments that had given me the idea to get my phone in the first place. I'd wanted to snap a photo of those cheesy couples photos, since I'd never had the opportunity to indulge in those simple pleasures while back on Earth.

My phone was up in a moment, ready to snap a picture of him, but I hesitated. Do I want the first photo of him to be this one? I couldn't stop the glance that slid down to his strong legs and the way his pants molded to his ass in such a nice way. Maybe...

The phone vibrated in my hand and I almost ignored it, so used to that constant haunting feeling after living connected to socials media and texts, but as an afterthought I checked the screen to see who was trying to reach me, but there was no number. No notification of anything regarding who was contacting me. Only that there was a call coming through on my phone.

I stopped just inside the doors to the Comm bay and turned to look at Vailen who was silently reading through information on his screen again.

Esayr looked at me, quickly when he felt my resistance.

Half of me wanted to just answer it, but the other half knew I should tell one of the Comm team members so that they could do something, whether it was trace the call or something else I wasn't sure. "Someone is calling me." My voice was loud, louder than it ever had been when I was the only woman in a room full of men. And swiftly, everyone turned to me. "There's a call coming through on my phone."

Vailen's face looked sharper when his brows pulled down that way. All the Val'Dornn had sharp drastic lines for their features, but Vailen's sometimes hinted at something feral whenever an expression broke through the placid calm that he always seemed to portray. "That's not possible."

I did the only thing I could think to get to the bottom of the situation before the call ended. I answered it.

I was met with a female voice, "Addison Kane?" The cadence was just a little off in a way that inclined me toward thoughts of maybe some kind of voice distorting technology.

"Yes?"

"It's a pleasure to speak with you. My name is Cecelia, but others have taken to calling me Cece."

*****A/N*****

Hopefully, the fact that this is a longer bit will make up for the fact that I am VERY late (though are any of us surprised at this point tbh)

I wrote the entire first half of this part under the impression that Esayr had never been tickled and had never experienced that sensation before, completely forgetting that literally in the last part Addy tickled him and he didn't react at all as if it were strange. I'm a professional, obviously lmao.

Regardless, I've kind of tweaked the first half so that it makes more sense. In writing this story I'm always interested in how and where like the creation of these separate races would intersect. What would be things that crop up along both evolutionary paths or what have you.

The sensation of like tickling —at least as far as I read years ago— is genuinely a human panic response believed to be a means by which to tell if we have like a bug crawling on us or something. And it's interesting that we've harnessed that sensation to play with children, but that's beside the point. I've noticed that my dog is ticklish, specifically on his feet when I like to touch his little bean toes while he's sleeping just to bother him. So, I guess what I'm saying is: if humans and dogs and other animals can be tickled then goddammit so can these big beautiful men.

I wonder what other instinctual responses would crop up in the Val' peoples. Would Val' babies have the Moro reflex? Or the Babinsky reflex? I'd imagine at the very least that they would crop up in Human/Val'Dornn children. But, wouldn't it be interesting if they cropped up in fully Val' children? It would certainly be cause for possible contemplation as to why those very distinct reflexes might show up I completely different races now wouldn't it?

This part is brought to you by my Psychology Minor, she was expensive and very underused.

Love,

Layla