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10251985-D2 was not a place that Emmett made a habit of visiting.
Orbiting a white dwarf star that collapsed in on itself an eon ago, it’s the only planet in its solar system with tolerable surface temperatures. When the Federation had first set out on the decades-long project of engineering a habitable atmosphere and breathable air, they’d expected it to become a trade center, not somewhere one would ever consider living. A perfect place to set up shop due to the system’s close proximity with neighbouring super-city planets like Hillux and Vallenova.
They’d been right, in a way, merchants and customers came from all over the galaxy to exchange goods here. But the questionable legality of those exchanges, coupled with the severe crime rate… whatever the Federation had been expecting, it hadn’t been this.
It didn’t even get a proper name, still only using its planetary denomination. Most folks say ‘D2’ and call it a day.
The Lyllan in front of him flashes a warning, double row of serrated teeth on full display.
“Y’understand if this isn’t what we ordered, we will find you.”
Emmett gives a gesture of agreement he hopes does not get misconstrued. “Of course. I’d expect nothing less.”
The Lyllan pushes the bright yellow box over, and their claws brush against Emmett’s as in return he slides the small box filled with broken pieces of metal from the scrap box in his lab. Not that they’ll know any better, not until they attempt to use it. As far as they’re concerned, this is the silent, undetectable bomb they’d wanted him to build.
He hopes that when they attempt to sneak it into the Federation and use it, they’ll be caught.
Bidding a curt goodbye, he takes his leave, ducking under the entrance flaps of the shop and out into the brisk D2 air. Star 10251985 shines, a great big ball of white light stark against the lavender sky. Emmett hears the locals call it ‘Clayton’, apparently named after someone who was travelling to Vallenova and accidentally flew their ship directly into it some millennia ago.
Behind him, a scuffle begins, shouts rising into the air of varying vocal tones and types, clicks and roars and barks and chirps surprised alike. His frills rise on end as the volume increases and the conflict turns more frantic.
“Hey, hey, stop!”
“Get it, don’t let it-”
“Somebody grab it!”
“Stay away from me, you alien——children born to unjoined parents!”
That last yell makes Emmett pause for a second, his translator buffering for a moment. Curious, such an event is rare. That only happens when a translator is dealing with a new language, and new languages are few and far between. He wonders what that insult was meant to be.
But one does not let curiosity guide them on a planet such as D2, especially not after conning a group of smugglers that could well make Emmett’s life very painful before leaving him a mere pile of soot. So, with the intention to get off planet and as far from this solar system as possible before they realise, Emmett keeps his head down and walks away.
Whatever is happening there, it is not his problem.
The DeLorean is Emmett’s pride and joy, despite being such an unreliable hunk of junk.
Yes, it takes much longer than he’d hoped to get off of D2, but he’s used to his old ship and the on-site repair and maintenance that has become routine.
Still, she runs smooth and has never failed him mid-trip, even if she has the tendency to fail to start. Emmett does not relax until he has long since exited the solar system, and even then does not truly believe he is yet in the clear.
If all goes right, he should have enough fuel to get him to the other end of this quadrant of the galaxy without stopping. He has more than enough food and water for the trip as well. A brief stop off at a refuelling station, and then he continues his straight shot as far from D2 as he can lest that group of Lyllan smugglers find him.
Double, triple checking his radar, he flicks on the autopilot and lets the DeLorean’s navigation system take the lead. He shouldn’t need to control the ship again for at least another few days, when he hits the Delgado Asteroid Belt.
As he walks the halls of his ship, the claws of his feet clacking against the cold metal floor, he listens to the steady tick-tick-tick of the engine. For many, the noise had been the most unbearable feature of this particular line of starships. To Emmett, it is the only company he has amongst the stars he traverses.
Tick-tick-tick-thunk.
He stops walking.
Slowly, he drags his gaze upward to where the noise had come from, and his tail twitches in vague suspicion. The out of place sound continues to echo for a moment, and there’s a telltale groan of metal before all returns to normal.
Emmett stays and listens for a good moment.
If that was the DeLorean’s reactor, he’s not going to be happy. Actually, if it was any crucial part of his ship, he’s going to be majorly upset.
He doesn’t have time to fix anything at the moment, let alone stop planetside for parts. He needs to continue getting as far from D2 as he can.
Huffing, Emmett continues on down the hall to his living quarters, which consists of his tiny kitchen, a singular table and chair, and a small worn couch. He makes his way to his refrigerator, suddenly hungry after what must have been more than a day without eating. Alas, his body has never been very good at sending those hunger signals when he’s focused on something.
Once the fridge is opened, he pauses, tail flicking again.
That’s… odd.
He thought he’d placed his spapples on the top shelf, with his other fruits. He would never have left them on the shelf with his vegetables.
Well, he supposes that he must have anyway. Perhaps in his rush he’d simply placed the bag of the round, pink fruits in the wrong location.
Taking one in his hand, and pulling out a pack of ribs from the freezer, he gets to cooking. The smooth, crisp flesh of the spapple tides him over while he seasons and prepares the ribs, and just about gets him to the time when they’re done and ready to eat hours later.
Not bothering with a plate, Emmett takes the slow cooker out of the oven and directly over to his table, which has dozens upon dozens of burned and stained rings from where he has done much the same on days past. Adding to the dark brown circles, Emmett places the cooker down and takes a seat.
He’d be lying if he said it didn’t get lonely at times. On this ship by himself, just him and the DeLorean against the world. The hum beneath his feet zings up through his scales, a constant reminder of the machinery both keeping him alive and hurtling him through space at faster-than-light speeds.
Perhaps he’d be more hard-pressed to find a companion, or even just an employee, if he weren’t content with being alone. Yes, he gets lonely. But he works well by himself, and why fix what is not broken? Relationships with others require time and effort, and between ship maintenance and piloting and his inventions, he simply wouldn’t have the time.
He is satiated before he is completely finished, and he leaves the remainder of the ribs in the pot to cool for a little while before he places the leftovers in the refrigerator. Of course, this is not a necessary action, they are sufficiently cool enough by now that there is no risk to warming other foods, nor would condensing moisture be an issue… but his mother used to be so insistent that food cooled completely to room temperature before being refrigerated and Emmett simply cannot bring himself to do otherwise.
So, he leaves for ten minutes.
When he returns, the leftovers are gone. The pot itself has maybe moved a few centimeters to the left, but Emmett is much more concerned with tomorrow’s lunch’s disappearing act than he is potentially animate cookware.
He looks around, rather pointlessly, for any trace of the missing food. There is none, but upon closer inspection, his pot seems much cleaner than it had when he’d left it, as though licked.
Sighing, Emmett resigns himself to the unfortunate fact that he must have picked up some sort of pest while on D2. Of course, he has traps, but he’s never been much of a fan of having to kill animals, regardless of how inconveniencing they can be.
He sets the trap up anyway, leaving sliced-up spapples in the middle, hoping to attract and at the very least capture the little thief, though he hopes the snapping mechanism does its job and kills the poor thing. The last thing he wants is it having to suffer in pain before dying.
The trap goes untouched for days, and Emmett finds himself questioning if his leftovers really had just disappeared that evening. Perhaps he’d eaten them and forgotten, goodness knows he has enough on his mind for that possibility to be non-zero.
He makes up a soup one evening and does the same as he had before, leaving it out to cool a little. When he returns, it’s gone.
Eye twitching, his lips pull back into a displeased show of teeth, frills ruffling. Oh, that is annoying.
The next evening, he cooks again, making up a full dish that would have made his mother proud, and determinedly leaves the leftovers in the trap.
When he next goes to check on it, the trap has been dismantled, and the food is gone.
“Oh, you clever little thing,” Emmett mutters as he picks up the remaining pieces, some broken fully and others carefully pulled apart at their weak points. The annoyance is suddenly replaced with curiosity, because there are very few vermin in this part of the galaxy with the intelligence to do something like this, and Emmett would very much like to know what it is.
Alas, he’s at Delgado, so the plan to capture this thing must wait.
Still, while navigating through asteroids, he can’t help but map out plans for a convoluted trap that will capture his little stowaway. Perhaps, if it is intelligent enough, and not too feral, he could train it. He hasn’t had a pet since Copernicus all those years ago, and though he hadn’t intended on another, he finds he is not opposed to the idea.
The vents above him creak, and Emmett’s plans burst into a web of possibilities and machines and blueprints. He risks a glance upward in-between one asteroid and the next, and his claws tighten around the controls, ears pricking up in amusement.
You sneaky little scoundrel.
He just barely misses the next asteroid, yanking hard on the yoke and pitching the DeLorean so harshly to the right that his seatbelt strains.
And as he does so, he hears something in the vents slam into the side with a resounding clank.
Giddy. Emmett is giddy.
Drawing up the blueprints had been a blast, more so than many of his most recent inventions.
Of course, glancing over to the yellow lead-lined box and the many stacks of papers and notebooks beside it, it doesn’t quite beat out all of his most recent inventions. But this is easily the most fun he’s had in a while.
Setting up the trap proves a tad difficult, the plans still a little haphazard and thrown together despite his careful deliberations and preparation.
It’s interesting, his new ship-mate. Whatever it is, it isn’t consistent. Emmett has been leaving some food out for it, and it doesn’t always take it. Only sometimes.
And that is fascinating. He can only ponder what decision making is going on inside the animal’s head, because it’ll reject a meal it had eaten just the day prior, which is abnormal in every sense of the word.
If Emmett could just find the pattern… well, soon enough, he’ll have it captured, and then he can study it as much as he’d like. He’s no biologist, but he could surely figure something out.
He claps his hands together after he screws in the final bolt, taking a step back to admire his handiwork. Yes, yes, this will work.
Maybe.
The creature has already proven it doesn’t always want to go for food, and there isn’t much else he can use as bait. However, he’s certain with enough time and patience, his efforts will be rewarded.
Fleeing across the galaxy with little else to do between now and the arrival at his destination, Emmett has time and patience to spare.
Rewarded his efforts are.
It takes a week, his guest avoiding the trap entirely for the duration of that time, but when he hears the echoing yelp and snap of the net springing into action come from his kitchen, Emmett knows he’s succeeded.
He does not run, but the click-clack of his claws do occur at a pace much faster than his usual walking speed, eagerness pushing him along. Excitement. Anticipation. It’s all so new and interesting.
He sees already that parts of his trap were dismantled, rather methodically if the points of failure are to be trusted. Rounding the corner into the living space, Emmett looks up to see a human captured in his net.
The noise he lets out is neither dignified nor becoming, but he doesn’t believe the human notices or cares. Startled, Emmett flails as he takes an instinctive step back and slips on a discarded piece of his meticulously crafted trap.
He lands with a thud, but cannot take his eyes off the wide, vibrant blue that stare back at him.
There is a human in his net.
Savage, terrifying creatures made of the nightmares that parents warn their children of. Persistent, aggressive, and nigh-unkillable.
And there is one in his net.
“I’ll bite you if you touch me,” the human says. It-
It says?
“Pardon?” Emmett responds, voice small.
The human squirms, and as his hearts begin to slow after the initial shock, Emmett realises it’s a lot smaller than he’d ever expected a human to be in life.
“I said I’ll bite you,” it repeats, “if you touch me.”
It continues to roll around, trying to free itself from the binds Emmett has put it into, and in a moment of what must be pure idiocy, Emmett makes a terrible decision.
Carefully, he pulls himself to his feet, and starts to move toward the release hatch for the net. The intention had been to subdue his stowaway first before using it, but given the slew of new information he’s just attained, that likely will not be happening.
The human freezes momentarily as Emmett starts to move, and it gets louder, thrashing more in the net and getting itself all tangled up. “I mean it! I’ll kill you! I’ll-”
“I am not going to touch you,” Emmett says slowly, “I’m going to get you down, because I cannot imagine you’re particularly comfortable up there.”
That seems to satisfy it somewhat, though it continues to look at Emmett with watchful eyes.
He pulls the latch, and the human falls to the floor in a heap of rope and limbs with an oomph. It takes a few moments to untangle itself, and then it darts away.
“Wait!” Emmett calls after it, “I want to speak to… you…”
It’s gone, and Emmett hears the rattle of metal and numerous loud clunks as it evidently returns to his vents.
Great Scott…
Emmett does not attempt to capture the human.
Of course, he still attempts to lure it out into the open. He’d love to have a conversation with it at the very least; so little is known about their species, and up until it spoke, it had been hard fact that they were not sapient in the slightest.
‘Mindless’ was an oft used descriptor, and picking up the carefully pulled apart pieces of his trap, Emmett thinks that couldn’t be further from the truth.
He talks to it. A lot. More than he should, probably.
While he’s working, he’ll narrate what he’s doing, why he’s doing it, what he’s making. As he scribbles down calculations, what was previously the crazed mutterings of a man lost in the world of calculus and applied physics becomes a fully articulated explanation, comprehensible or not. He moves his workbench close to the vent so that, hopefully, his voice carries and the human can hear him wherever it may be.
He’s halfway out of the galaxy before it finally talks back.
“What’s the… thing? You’re holding. It looks like a screwdriver,” it asks, voice echoing. Looking up, Emmett can see the flash of eyes behind the vent slits above him.
“It is a screwdriver.”
“Doesn’t look like one I’ve ever seen.”
“I don’t suppose your planet made a habit of intergalactic trade?” Emmett responds, “I believe it makes rather a lot of sense that though the purpose and use of this tool is analogous with the one you are familiar with, it would be almost unrecognisable. It was invented and developed separately of yours.”
It doesn’t say anything else. Emmett doesn’t mind.
The language it speaks is interesting. It is not the high-pitched, rapid-fire squeaks and clicks of his own language, but instead deeper, more bark-like. Similar to the Lyllan’s language, but much more fluid, syllables melding together before suddenly enunciating with hard stops and sounds. Such a wide range of noises, much more than he’d been expecting.
Once, Emmett heard it trying to imitate him, clicking back. It had been hard to keep his ears down at that, because it was endearing in a way that almost made him forget he was sharing his ship and his food with something that could probably kill him with ease if it wanted to.
Something tells Emmett that won’t be happening, though.
He leaves portions of each meal he makes out for it, and the pattern to what food it’ll take finally emerges; if it has seen Emmett eat it, or it’s individually packaged, then it will eat it. Otherwise, it seems to avoid the risk of being poisoned or drugged, and though the expectation is disheartening, Emmett does understand the caution.
Whenever he isn’t working on his magnum opus, the project he’s been working toward for nearly three decades, he’s whittling away at some old wood scraps he has. Carpentry and woodworking isn’t his best skill, but he’s crafty and a creator at hearts, so it works.
Eventually, there is a second chair for his table. When he dishes up his food, he makes up a plate for his guest and leaves it in the new spot.
When he leaves the room for an hour and comes back to find the chair moved and the plate empty, his ears rise in a smile that this time, he can’t hold back.
It takes a month.
Emmett is sitting at the table, eating across from the empty seat, and the human peers around the corner. He doesn’t often see it outside of the vents except in occasional flashes of fabric and pale skin.
It eyes the plate set out for it, but does not come closer.
Emmett tries not to stare at it. “You know, I didn’t use plates much before you came along.”
There isn’t a sound except for the scraping of Emmett’s fork against metal as he eats, and though he can still see the human hovering in his peripheral vision, part of him worries speaking will scare him off.
“I know,” it finally responds, “I saw.”
His hearts speed up. This could be it, it might decide to come-
The human disappears back down the hall. It’s hard not to be disappointed. He has to remind himself that that was progress.
Part of Emmett is afraid that it was a one-time occurrence, nonetheless. He wants to be hopeful, but it’s hard to be when the human is so skittish.
However, the next evening, it happens again.
“If I come in there,” it starts, hovering in the doorway again, “you aren’t going to try to grab me, right?”
“I had you in a net,” Emmett says, and it stiffens. Perhaps it’s the wrong thing to say, but he’s always been known to be rather blunt. “If I wanted to capture you, I wouldn’t have released you in the first place.”
The human shuffles a little, and then it seems to muster up enough courage to come fully into sight.
Now that he can see it properly, Emmett notes it really is much less threatening than imagined. It stands much shorter than he, with big wide eyes and brown fluff atop its head mussed up in a way Emmett could dare say is cute. Almost like Copernicus had been when he’d first gotten him.
The clothes it is wearing are torn and dirty, hanging off of its thin frame, and there are patches of green and purple and yellow discoloration all along its pale limbs.
It warily takes a seat in front of Emmett, never taking its eyes off him. Even as it takes its first bite, it doesn’t look away, missing its mouth initially and smearing sauce across its face.
Not knowing what else to say, Emmett introduces himself. “My name is Doctor Emmett Brown.”
It stares at him.
“I’m sorry for trapping you,” he adds on, for good measure.
“… I’m Marty,” it says, swallowing. “So are you a guy or a gal or… like, something else? I don’t really know how you alien people work, and I’ve been calling you an ‘it’ in my head.”
“I am a male member of my species, though I will warn that there are numerous species across the universe with more than two sexes, and for many it is not tied to identity in the slightest. I know of one from my home planet with thirty-two distinct sexes,” Emmett stops for a second and clears his throat, glancing away nervously as he realises he’s rambling. “Apologies, ah, may I ask the same of you?”
“Huh? Oh, I’m, uh. The same. Also a, uh, male member of my species,” Marty parrots. “Your cooking is good.”
Emmett smiles, purposely raising his ears higher to try to seem more friendly, “Thank you.”
“Is that your happy face?” he asks, and Emmett falters slightly. Right, of course the human would be unfamiliar with other species’ body language. “I noticed you do it a lot when something goes right. Like when you were trying to get those pieces to stay together on that thing you were making for hours yesterday and they finally did.”
“It was not hours.”
“No, it totally was.”
“Well, regardless, you are correct,” he says as he raises his ears again, “this is, in fact, my happy face.”
Marty hums, and then he bares his teeth at him.
Though the action is not accompanied with a growl or any aggressive-seeming gestures or posturing, Emmett still flinches back, frills straightening in alarm.
“This is my happy face,” Marty says through grit teeth, pointing at himself, “you can tell ‘cause the edges of my mouth are up.”
Emmett blinks. Oh, what an unfortunate smile, to be a near-universal symbol of aggression. He forces himself to relax.
“It would do us both well to discuss facial expressions and body language further, it seems,” Emmett says, and Marty hunches in on himself, faux smile falling as he tilts his head downward.
Marty twirls the noodles around his fork with a deft hand, and Emmett cannot help but watch.
Despite his best efforts to convince the human otherwise, when the meal is finished, he returns to the vents.
In the following days, Marty does make himself known. Sometimes, Emmett will find him lurking a few paces behind him, staring at whatever activity he happens to be partaking in at that moment. Others, the human makes conversation.
“So, what is that thing,” becomes the question of the week, Marty’s curiosity about what must be a strange new world endless and insatiable.
Emmett responds with the answer to the best of his ability every time, without fail.
He asks questions of his own, on occasion, hoping to map out a little more what humans are like. Little things about their diet and their life and what his home planet is like.
Marty, to his credit, answers most of the time. Emmett learns a lot in that time, about the range in climates on ‘Earth’ and that their timings for days and weeks and months and years are coincidentally similar.
Then, he accidentally oversteps.
“I’m fourteen,” Marty says, shifting a little. Emmett’s eyes go wide.
“Fourteen months? That is much too young to be out in the world by yourself, even for species with short childhoods!”
Marty blinks at him. “Fourteen years, Doc.”
“Ah,” Emmett holds a hand to his chin, “I see. It’s generally standard to use months. Where would that place you, developmentally?”
The human changes position again, a movement Emmett now knows is associated with nervousness or thought. “I’m, uh, basically an adult.”
Such an odd turn of phrase. “I fail to see what is basic about that.”
“I’m an adult, yeah, but just barely,” Marty says with a bit more confidence, eyes trailing off to the side as he speaks.
“So, humans reach adulthood at around 168 months of age?”
Marty seems to do the math in his head for a second, and then very hesitantly nods his head up and down. It takes Emmett a moment to remember what that gesture means.
“Wonderful. Are there any biological processes I should be aware of going on at this point in your development?” Emmett asks, and the human stiffens. Ah, understandable. Emmett nods his head back at Marty, the motion stilted and unfamiliar. “I am aware that these topics of conversation can be awkward, especially for those on the younger side. A very old friend of mine used to refuse to discuss metamorphosis while he was going through-”
“There’s nothing,” Marty interrupts, words coming fast and seemingly leaving him breathless, “no ‘biological processes’.”
The human seems to take a couple cautious steps away from Emmett.
“I assure you, there is no need to be embarrassed. Your biology is simple fact, there is nothing to be ashamed of-”
Marty picks up a nearby wrench and lobs it at Emmett, bolting away a moment later. Emmett holds a hand to his face, which is surely bruised and he’s certain he heard some kind of crunch when the wrench had made impact.
Staring at the spot where Marty had been standing, Emmett can’t help but wonder what that was all about.
Marty doesn’t come back.
Not even for dinner that evening, or the next, or the one after that.
The lack of company leaves Emmett feeling isolated and alone, despite the state being what he’d been used to for decades. Marty had been a whirlwind of chaos and emotion and restless energy, and the sudden absence leaves the halls feeling haunted and infinite.
Not even the steady tick-tick-tick of the DeLorean fills the human-shaped space left behind.
He takes to talking into the vents again.
“I do apologise for whatever I may have said to upset you. It truly was not my intention.”
Unlike those tentative few weeks before Marty had decided to make himself known, Emmett does not receive even a creak of the vents in acknowledgement. There is not a question hedged, no amused observations made by his onlooker when he messes up.
The ship feels empty again. If it weren’t for the disappearing food and the occasional thunk or clank from the vents, Emmett would believe Marty had somehow vacated the ship entirely.
One evening, the ship lights dimmed to a circadian rhythm supporting glow and the DeLorean reduced to a quiet hum as they cruise through space, Emmett hears whimpering. The noise itself is unmistakable, humans are animals and there is a consistency when it comes to noises of pain or fear, sharp and pathetic and miserable regardless of the species it comes from.
That, and Emmett hasn’t heard Marty make that kind of sound before. Or perhaps he has, and the quiet conditions of this night are all that have made it audible, the usual tick-tick-tick and accompanying purr of the DeLorean’s engine no longer drowning it out.
Either way, it takes far too long to locate the source, echoing through the vents and audible from multiple different locations across the ship. Eventually, though, he finds him, and Emmett carefully removes the vent cover.
The vent cover itself is already loose, and Emmett is greeted with the sight of Marty curled up into a ball in what appears to be a nest made up of different articles of clothing- some of which are definitely Emmett’s- at the junction of multiple vent shafts. Marty fits far less than Emmett had expected him to, considering how well the human seems to get around, folded up and crammed against the sides in a way that cannot be comfortable in the slightest.
Marty holds one arm around his knees and the other vaguely grasps at his chest, squirming a little in fitful sleep. Emmett stares for a moment, unsure of what to do; Marty has made it categorically clear that he does not want Emmett touching him, and as far as he knows, that must just be a human trait.
Then he spots a little device, the one that Marty had attempted to name before getting frustrated that the translation was coming through as ‘man that walks’. Marty had talked about it with such reverence and adoration that Emmett had been somewhat afraid to question it further. It is connected by a wire to another device that is made to sit atop Marty’s ears.
Carefully, tentatively, Emmett reaches in and pulls the device out. As Marty curls further into a ball, he stretches his arms to place the ‘head-transmitters’ over his ears, attentively avoiding touching the human as best he can.
Fumbling with the device, he presses multiple buttons before one finally makes faint sound float up from where it seems to be playing directly to Marty. Marty himself jolts for a moment as the noise begins, but then relaxes minutely.
The whimpering dies down, and the hand Marty had bunched up in the fabric of his shirt loosens. Emmett puts the man-that-walks back where he’d taken it from, and draws in a deep breath. He steps back, replacing the vent cover and leaving Marty be.
He may now know what portion of his vent system Marty sleeps in, but he has no intention of using that information.
Tinny noises can be heard throughout the ship, faint and distorted and indiscernible. He thinks it is meant to be music of some kind, but whatever sounds are able to leak out of the device do not indicate such.
The ship goes back to the still peace that he is used to, and he pauses to stare into the abyss of vast space outside, ever distant stars fading as they move away at speeds once thought unreachable.
He wonders how Marty feels about the seemingly endless expanse that is the universe. If it is as mind boggling to the human as it is to Emmett. If it makes him feel just as small.
Emmett sets out on a new project that evening, as unlikely as it is that Marty will utilize it. The option to use an actual bed and choosing otherwise is better than not having the option at all.
It perhaps should be frustrating that he continues to be sidetracked from his main project. Somehow, he doesn’t find himself minding all that much.
He wants Marty to come out again; despite his defiant insistence that he doesn’t need companionship, he misses the young human’s company.
Patience, Emmett, patience.
It is true that he had considered once or twice taking on an apprentice, weighing the pros and cons of having a second person onboard and a second set of hands to help out around the ship and with projects. He’d rejected the idea every time with the thought that they’d prove more a nuisance than not. He doesn’t have the time for another person. He’s happy alone. Or, he was.
“Doc,” Marty says the next morning, standing in his doorway again. Emmett jumps nearly half a meter into the air, hand over his hearts in shock.
“Goodness, Marty, you scared me!”
The human kicks his feet a little, scuffing the ends of his shoes on the floor. From what little Emmett has learned of his facial expressions, Marty seems rather miserable, eyebrows knit and corners of his mouth twitching downward.
“Don’t ask me about that again,” he commands and leaves no room for arguement.
Emmett tries to reason with him regardless, mainly with the aim to calm him down. “There really is nothing to be ashamed of. All species go through developmental changes in their lives.”
Marty bristles, shoulders hitching up and nose scrunching in what Emmett knows is anger. He takes a step back, away from Emmett.
“It isn’t shame!” he yells, “It’s you alien assholes constantly trying to cut me up to see how I work!”
He shuffles backward a few more steps, hiding half behind the doorway, chest rising and falling rapidly. He eyes Emmett with all the caution of a cornered animal, hand once more hovering above his chest and abdomen, and Emmett feels as though a bucket of ice water has been dumped on his head.
“Marty…”
“I’m not telling you shit about my ‘biology’,” he seethes, “if you wanna know so bad, you’re gonna have to catch me and strap me to a table and find out for yourself, Doc.”
“I’m not going to do that,” Emmett insists, “and I know you don’t trust me, so at least trust that I’m a physicist and not a biologist, so I wouldn’t even be able to hope for meaningful results if I were to.”
He watches as Marty seems to fight some kind of internal debate. The human’s hands open and close into fists at his side.
Then, the tension seeps out of his body and he wipes at the water leaking from his eyes, making a noise that sounds almost like amusement. “You’re awful at this.”
Emmett’s ears flick upward, gleefully taking the tentative truce being offered. “So I’ve been told.”
“Don’t ask me again.”
“Duly noted.”
In the following weeks, Marty doesn’t go back to the vents except to sleep, and Emmett finds he is significantly more touchy-feely than he’d been expecting. Always hovering too close over his shoulder and sidling up to him on the broken old couch he has, tapping on his arm to get his attention or, once, ‘hugging’ him. The embrace had been a shock, but not an entirely unwelcome one.
Emmett’s kind are not known for being physically affectionate, but apparently humans are. Marty seems to pet and run his hands along surfaces at random, and will rub his own arms or hands at times.
But Marty will not let Emmett touch him. He will happily drape himself over Emmett, but even so much as reaching out to the young human causes immediate distance and, in some cases, objects thrown.
It’s hard.
It’s very, very hard, because Emmett has found himself caring for Marty in a way he hadn’t expected, and at times it feels like walking on eggshells around him.
They’re about a month away from the Peabody System, where Emmett is aiming to do some maintenance on the DeLorean and sell a few machines he’s made. A glance back at the yellow box fills his mind with the image of serrated teeth, and he considers that perhaps they should speed this up. They’re going to find out that bomb’s a dud eventually.
Still, they’re making good time. After stopping planetside to restock on the food that Emmett hadn’t been expecting to go through quite so quickly, he’d also been able to pick up bedsheets, though Marty has yet to choose to use the bed he’d made for him.
Marty had wanted to join Emmett down on 11051955-G6, but had accepted ‘no’ for an answer when he’d explained: the planet was uninteresting, used primarily for storage, with select areas made as a rest stop. There were some stores, mainly for food and necessities, and multiple refuelling stations, but that’s it.
Not worth the risk of someone seeing through whatever disguise they could put together and calling the Federation on them.
That said, Marty had been pleasantly surprised by the new clothes Emmett bought for him, for though they were a little big on him, they fit him far better than Emmett’s clothes had (and the old lot… Emmett had wanted to incinerate those, though Marty hadn’t let him).
Marty helps him put the perishables in the fridge and freezer and the rest in the pantry.
“Could you put this in the top cabinet, please?” Emmett asks, handing Marty a box of prepackaged food.
Marty then begins to climb onto the countertop, and stands to reach the top shelf. Emmett, realising the mistake in his request, tries to position himself to be able to catch Marty if he fell, but doesn’t want it to look like he’s approaching him, so he ends up doing an awkward half-step half-reach toward him.
Hopping back down, Marty eyes Emmett’s position, and the corners of his lips turn upward slightly. Emmett is always so shocked by how expressive Marty’s face is.
“Apologies. I forget that my kitchen is designed for my kind, not yours. Please do not climb on my countertop again.”
Marty puts his hands on his hips. “It’s not my fault you’re like seven feet tall.”
“What a strange unit of measurement,” Emmett mutters, glancing down.
Errands around the ship have become much simpler with Marty around, who is eager to help in any way he can.
Double checking that everything is set for them to leave, he recalls that now would be the best time to dispose of their accumulated garbage. Their food waste gets composted and should be as simple as dropping it off at a designated disposal site, but he should also make the rounds and empty out the other trash bins while he’s thinking about it.
Most are fairly empty already, except for one he rarely uses, tucked away near the engine room.
It’s full to the brim with various bits of trash that could only have come from Marty. Emmett begins to transfer its contents into the bag with the rest of the ship’s garbage, and stops himself halfway through.
Putting the bag onto the floor, he reaches down and shifts through and fishes the offending objects out.
“Marty?” he calls out, hoping the human will hear him from wherever he may be on the ship right now.
There’s a steady pitter-pat-pat of Marty’s footsteps fast approaching, and Emmett turns to face him.
“Marty, what is this?” Emmett holds up the ribbons of bandages, dried crusty black-brown with what he dearly hopes is not old blood.
Marty’s face goes white.
“I, uh,” he stutters, “I needed to clean something up.”
Lifting further bandages out, all similarly covered, bits of the dried substance flake off at Emmett’s touch. There are dozens here, each progressively less dirtied. “And you used my bandages to do that?”
“…Yeah,” he says, shrugging.
Emmett stares long and hard at Marty, who falters slightly under his gaze. “You were injured.”
Marty’s eyebrows furrow. “I’m fine now,” he says, confirming Emmett’s suspicions.
“This is a lot of blood, if it is blood,” Emmett drops the bandages back into the pile, a little disturbed. “That injury could have gotten infected, and there is little I could have done about it if it had because I was not made aware of its existence.”
“Well, it didn’t get infected, and I’m fine. I’m not just gonna let you patch me up anyway,” the human waves his hand, trying to brush it off. “I can handle it myself.”
Emmett can read exactly what Marty is implying, and doesn’t like it. It was fine when it came to things that didn’t really matter, but not this.
“Have I not proven I am not going to hurt you?” he tries to keep the hurt out of his voice and focus on getting across how serious this could have been.
Marty, though, just tenses.
“You could just be trying to get me to be cooperative. The other aliens who had me complained about that a lot, ‘cause I wouldn’t just let them do whatever.” Marty says, arms crossed over his chest. “Once I could understand them, I heard them say that the translator was supposed to make me easier to study, or something. I don’t really know how that works.”
He elects not to tell him that intracorporeal translators shut down the higher functions of the brains of animals without the intelligence required for translatable speech, leaving a complacent vegetable. Even incorrect installation can do that; it’s a miracle they just so happened to connect it to the right regions of Marty’s brain.
“And you’re real nice, Doc, I’m not trying to be mean. But it’s all risk-reward. If I’m right to trust you then I get a friend. If I’m wrong, then I’ll get vivi-viv-visi- cut up again.”
Again.
“I understand, Marty. I really do. I’m just worried about you,” he says, “I don’t want anything bad to happen to you just because you were too afraid to ask for help.”
Though his words clearly make sense to the young human, Emmett can see he’s still going to refuse and deny.
“I’m not gonna tell you every time I get hurt,” Marty says, as expected, “but if it’s life threatening I will and you can tell me what I need to do to help myself.”
Emmett closes his eyes. Baby steps, Emmett, baby steps. “I can work with that.”
Marty nods, and Emmett gives a small nod back, motion increasingly less unfamiliar.
Space is beautiful, of course.
Gorgeous, extravagant glory stretching out ad astra. When Emmett was just a boy, he used to stare at the night sky and dream; one day, one day, he’d travel from solar system to solar system, perhaps even galaxy to galaxy, and he’d invent strange and wonderful things that people would buy on various trade planets.
His parents were appalled by the mere notion. Not only did Emmett deny his birthright to follow in his father’s footsteps, he dared to wish to go out into the world, the world which, by their mighty and solely correct opinions, was still ravaged by the war that had ended two centuries prior.
Having worked briefly for the Federation before he had the money and the means to go off on his own, Emmett can attest that despite its flaws, it is leagues better than the corrupted conglomerate that the whole of the galactic community worked to overthrow. It is by no means perfect, but it is not the power-hungry money-driven oligarchy it had been before, and most communities have since fully recovered from the hardships the war had placed on them.
His parents had been wrong. Perhaps they’d simply wanted him to stay, but Emmett’s a wanderer at heart. He’s not made to settle down.
It is not certain what the Federation would do if they got ahold of Marty. Emmett has no doubts that the human would be taken care of, but whether they would attempt to return him to his home planet, ‘Earth’, or rehome him elsewhere, he does not know. And he is certain Marty wouldn’t want to take the risk, not with people more concerned with paperwork than quality of life.
Marty would be taken care of, but there is no guarantee he’d be listened to.
No guarantee he’d be happy with the result.
Emmett finds him sitting in the cockpit, staring out at the stars. His eyes are leaking again, though Emmett has refrained from asking what the cause of that is.
“Hello,” he greets, striding into the room. He takes a seat beside Marty, careful not to get too close.
Marty scooches over to him immediately, arm pressed against his. He sniffles.
“It’s pretty,” Emmett says, gesturing outside, “the universe.”
It is. Objectively, the sight was one to behold, unmatched, cold beauty.
“I’m so far from home.” Marty says, not taking his eyes off the view.
Emmett had told him about a week ago that Earth and its galaxy resides in a portion of the universe that is strictly off limits due to being severely underdeveloped, too dangerous to traverse.
To get there would require somehow bypassing multiple monitored borders, not to mention the year at least it would take to even travel to the ‘Milky Way’ in the first place. After that, they run the risk of the uncharted space killing them before they can arrive to his solar system, a stray asteroid or simply running out of fuel or food enough to spell their doom.
Marty leans his head on Emmett’s shoulder. Slowly, Emmett raises his arm and places a hand in Marty’s hair. The human lets him.
He gently cards his claws through the hair as he had used to do with Copernicus, gingerly avoiding scratching his skin.
“I miss my family,” Marty says, shoulders beginning to shake as he speaks. The words don’t sound quite right, coming out thick and watery. “I want to go home.”
For all his life, Emmett has only looked forward. His biggest invention’s purpose is to see beyond his time: the future. Through the space dust and nebulas and dotted arrays of stars ahead of them, he realises there are infinitely as many behind them.
Marty will likely never see his family again, a vast uncrossable ocean separating them.
The human makes a strange hiccuping noise as he breathes in, and the water from his eyes seems to fall ever harder.
Emmett holds him closer, and Marty finally tears his gaze away from the vacuum beyond to bury his face into Emmett’s chest, clutching at his lab coat.
“I will do my best by you, Marty,” he whispers, “and we will make your future a good one.”