I am not your load to bear - Chapter 5 (Early Access) (Patreon)

Dillan

It wasn’t a romantic gesture that had their hands entwined. Dillan was on the verge of full body shakes. There was a competition inside of him between his anxiety and excitement - both fizzing and buzzing in his stomach so hard he almost felt sick.

The long metal ramp was familiar as they trotted along, hand-in-hand, but where it met the ground was a whole new land. A new culture. A new species. He hadn’t been permitted to get this close to real human territory since take-off. The ships had departed from Earth, but all the Ailu’t crew members had been transported to a base there and then immediately transferred to their new ships for departure. Technically, he had been on Earth - had stood on the human’s origin planet. In reality, he had walked from one spaceship to another through a metal tube with a building in between. Never touched the earth of Earth. He would still boast about it when he got home. The logistics documentation officer that had never worked on, or with, space crafts had been one of the first of his kind to Earth.

And now he wanted to see everything. But everything was overwhelming.

Dry dirt met his boots as he stepped off the ramp. It clung to the bottom halves of buildings in a light brown powdery stain and occasionally swirled in the breeze around people’s legs. The humans that bustled past weren’t interested in yet another spaceship docked in their tiny port, but they did give Dillan a few extra glances. Little expression, just mild interest. Then they were gone. Tristan wove them through the multi-directional pedestrian traffic with part skill and part force. Away from the main road that seemed to loop all the buildings, and ran parallel with the port, he pulled Dillan between the brick walls. In the narrow roads between them, there was bright colour and lights and less movement.

There was patchy cover from the nearby sun in the rectangular pieces of cloth that were stretched over small seating areas. Mini eateries were spread a few feet apart with kitchens dug into the buildings, displaying the cookery inside to all who walked past. Each business had only a few tables and a couple of people manning them with trays of food and drinks. Steam and strange scents squeezed through the alley and then floated up and away in constant wafts. Dillan recognised none of the flavours that surrounded him, but he grinned his excitement up at Tristan. Anything he recommended, Dillan would try.

The hand in his continued to pull him forward. With less space either side, and more obstructions tucked against the walls, Dillan pressed in closer to Tristan’s big body. More humans stared at him as they got deeper into the narrow passage. Wide-set, sweaty men shaking food on metal pans over open flames watched him as though waiting for a reason to yell.

Tristan slowed and glanced down at him. “You want to try real human food?”

Dillan nodded.

“The most popular food in my country, and maybe even the whole planet, is hamburgers,” he advised, nodding at his own wisdom. “And you can get them anywhere you can find humans.”

He turned them into one of the eateries and greeted the man in the kitchen with a nod and a confident grin. The man nodded back, but his eyes were drawn immediately to Dillan, and a scowl twisted his face.

Tristan put his arm around Dillan’s shoulders. The grip of his hand at Dillan’s forearm was tight and reassuring. “I’m looking to introduce my friend to the best food humanity has to offer, and you look just the man to make it.”

The man scoffed but waved a woman from inside the building to scurry out and offer them a table and a pair of papers. She had what the human's called 'ponytail' springing from the very top of her head. Humans liked to name hairstyles after animals and their tails. The woman had a thin layer of powders and creams on her face and as she approached, he could see small streaks where her sweat had disrupted it. She placed one paper in front of each of them, and they appeared identical. When she retreated, she didn't turn, keeping her eyes on him like the man who was cooking inside.

Dillan did his best to smile politely every time he felt either of their eyes on him. With few other customers, it felt they had nothing else to look at but the alien in their midst.

As he settled into his seat and adjusted to the background rumbles of intimate conversations and occasional loud bursts of laughter, Dillan began to notice other noises and oddities that he was too stimulated to take in before. Sizzles brought mild burning smells, and scrapes turned over sharp tangs that tickled the back of his tongue.

“This is a classic burger.” Tristan tapped at the paper beside one of the lines. Each line contained at least two words Dillan had never seen before. Speaking English was much easier than reading it, but at least reading it wasn’t as daunting as writing it. Regardless, Dillan was lost staring at the list before him.

“I thought you said we would have ham and burger?”

“There are lots of types of hamburgers. This is the most common.”

Dillan nodded. “Okay. I will have classic hamburger.”

Something tweaked a half-grin at the corner of Tristan's mouth. “And I’ll have the super spicy sizzler because it turns out those shitters on the ship can handle some destruction.”

It was impossible to fight the frown that Dillan knew he was now pointing at Tristan. "I don't mean this to sound... not understanding... of your culture, but why do humans talk about their 'asses' and 'shit' all the time?" His barely restrained disgust was definitely noticed by Tristan.

"It's more of a guy thing than a human thing." He shrugged. "Men just find turds funny, I guess."

Dillan nodded without understanding. Tristan grinned again, this time at his visible confusion.

"Ready to order?" asked the woman who had offered them the seats. She spoke directly over Dillan's head, locking her eyes solely on Tristan.

"Mind if I go first?" Tristan asked, teasing with his toothy grin. Dillan nodded, sudden shyness overtaking him. "A super spicy sizzler burger for me - extra spicy if you can." He winked. The woman liked that. Her cheeks were round and pink around her smile as she scribbled on her notepad. "Your turn, Dillan."

Halfway through his preparatory breath, the woman squealed, freezing Dillan in his seat with mouth half-open.

"They have a real person name?!" She stepped to the side, no longer hovering at his back, and looked him over with renewed interest. "That's so cute, like when people call their dog Gerald or Barbara!"

"He is a real person," Tristan replied a little stiffly.

She batted his words away with her free hand. "You know what I mean. Their real names are probably like numbers and letters or something."

"My real name is Dynasty, but my human friend gave me the nickname Dillan," Dillan explained.

"Dynasty?" Tristan repeated, at the same time that the woman began cooing.

"Your English is so good!" she said with extremely slow enunciation. When she spoke to Tristan again, her speech returned to its normal speed. "I thought you were the translator or something."

"How about you let the guy order?" Tristan's tone had sharpened, and his posture slouched a little wearily in his seat.

"You're a boy?" she squeaked down at Dillan, as far as he could tell she was pleased by this revelation.

"Yes?" he answered uncertainly.

"Are all the boys on your planet as cute as you?"

Dillan thought about the question for a moment, but that was too long for Tristan.

"Dillan, tell the lady what you'd like to eat," he ordered.

"A classic hamburger, please."

The woman wrote in her notebook again, murmuring, "Oh, he's precious," with a side glance at Tristan, who didn't return her pouting expression.

When she left the table, promising to bring them a jug of water, Tristan sighed and shook his head. "And we wonder why other species have waited this long to interact with us," he said with an awkward smile.

Dillan suddenly realised that Tristan felt the woman had been rude to him. It wasn't the impression he had gotten at all. She was intense in her interest, but Dillan wasn't offended. "I'm sure we would be the same if a human turned up in town to eat," he assured him.

"But these entrepots all agreed to be part of the Alliance trial, so they were expecting to see a few of you."

"True. I don't think any training could prepare me for first meeting your people, though. It is completely surreal to come face-to-face with something that was only... a story?" He couldn't think of the English word for concept. "You were more... an idea to us."

"Same here. Little blue men from space are something humans thought they dreamed up."

His words tickled Dillan more than they should have. As he laughed, he asked, "Am I a little blue man?"

"You fit the criteria to a T, Dynasty."

The way Tristan said his name sent a flutter to Dillan's stomach, joining the nerves already broiling there. An awkward shrug was his body's reflexive response before he could think about how to respond verbally. He had grown very fond of his new human name, so much that he preferred it to the translation of his real name. It didn't feel like something he could admit aloud yet.

A plastic jug of water was dropped between them with two cups. They murmured their thanks to the woman and she left again.

Tristan was watching him. Curious eyes bright and his head tilted just a little. "It's a fancy name - any story behind it?"

"Story?"

"Like a reason behind why you were named that?"

"My family have kept hold of the name for many generations. My grandfather died shortly before I was born so the name was given to me."

"That's a shame."

Dillan nodded slowly, unsure what else to say. "Not many people of my generation are using the name. It is considered quite...." He shrugged. "Old and out of the times."

"What's a name that's hot right now, then?"

Dillan thought for a few moments. It was difficult to say if you didn't travel to many regions to see if a name was being used. But in his work, there were certain names that he came across more frequently than others.

"I would say Gratitude is in high demand. And there is one that doesn't translate very well but it is like... a feeling of luck?"

"So the trend is to choose names with more positive meanings?"

"Maybe. But I did meet a young woman named Consequence while in training for the Alliance trial, and that was a name I had never heard before. It is also not very positive."

Tristan's face had twisted into a strange expression. His brows were raised, his mouth pinched and his cheeks high and round. "I feel like it's against some Alliance rule to laugh at names like that," he gasped. "But I need you to know how bad I want to."

"Thank you for your restraint," Dillan replied, knowing he was grinning.

The woman reappeared balancing two large white plates that didn’t look like the plastic of the cafeteria. Food was stacked upon them, literally. Tristan rubbed his hands together and thanked her when she placed the plates on their table. His bright blue eyes were sparkling even more than before as he scanned his meal.

Dillan took a moment to squeeze his eyes shut and take a quick breath before he let himself inspect his own lunch. If a higher power could hear him, he may need rescuing from his own poor decisions shortly.