Chapter Text
Robin walked through her base for the tenth time. She held her PDA in her hand, pretending to manage her beacons while secretly watching for her companion's movement in the halls. She held back a snicker as she adjusted the PDA settings, feeling like a spy for the mischief she had planned.
And then, there he was. Out the corner of her eye, she spied Al-An following her, head ducked comically to pass through the hallway because he was so tall.
Something was up with Al-An lately. It was as though he could hardly stay separate from Robin when they were around each other. If Robin was out mining for titanium, Al-An would come with. If she was searching for eggs, Al-An was helping her collect them. And of course, when she was exploring one of the many alien facilities.. Al-An had to be with her. He had many logical excuses, of course - he had to accompany her for safety's sake, or perhaps to increase their efficiency while working.
Robin, however, didn't believe him.
Her hypothesis.. was that he was feeling a little clingy to her lately. And why shouldn't he? He'd been disconnected from his people for a long time now.
So. The xenologist decided that she would observe and collect her evidence and prove him wrong.
Robin set her PDA down, balancing it conveniently against her now-functional fluid analyzer as she turned around, sitting on her table. The PDA had been set on record-mode so Robin could catch their interaction on camera for later, though Al-An wouldn't notice - she had flipped the screen to her beacon manager. It would be funny to torture him with this, embarrass the Architect.. and it'd be a fond memory for herself, too.
"Robin."
Robin smiled. "What's going on? Do you need anything?"
The Architect thought a moment, the colors of his body shifting between purple and soft blue.
"No, not in particular."
"All right, then," Robin stretched her arms above her head, her back producing a satisfying crick! "You were following me again, so I was curious as to whether or not you wanted something."
"A fair assumption." Al-An did the little thing, the inquisitive head tilt Robin found adorable. "I am slightly curious as to.. what you are doing?"
"I'm.." Robin picked up a book on basic xenobiology lying on the table next to her microscope. "..I'm reading!"
Al-An looked around. "Inside the laboratory? That is atypical. Usually, you and I read together in your sleeping chambers at night. Or, you will read within the observatory."
Robin rolled her eyes. "Well, today, I need to read in the lab, silly." She searched her mind desperately for an excuse. The Xenobiologist's eyes settled on the glass alien containment tank, the one containing the newest batch of creature eggs she'd found.
"I've… got to.. keep an eye on the eggs!"
Al-An turned to look at the creature eggs. "Ah," he said, another human thing he'd picked up. "Understandable. The creatures will need care."
Looking around, the huge alien nodded (a motion he'd learned from Robin) a little awkwardly.
"Robin, I have a query."
"Yeah?"
"Does this.. mean that we will not be reading tonight?"
The question hit her by surprise. He was worried about that?
Of all the things to be worried about.. well it was their nightly ritual. Every single night, they would lay together and Robin would read her book to them both, and when they finished a book, they'd pick a new one.
It was something they both enjoyed, just lying there, snuggled warmly to each other, reading out loud until they were tired enough to fall asleep. Al-An enjoyed earth literature a lot from what Robin could tell, and he made frequent comments to her about his own culture, or would simply initiate a little conversation about some thoughtful topic.
"Robin?" the soft voice startled Robin out of her thoughts. He sounded tentative, a little disappointed or anxious. Now she started to feel really bad - his facelights were dimmed, and he was holding his hands together - was she really making him this worried? Or, from what it looked like - sad?
"Al-An, hey." She hopped off the counter and put her arms around Al-An's torso. "Of course we'll be reading tonight," she soothed.
The alien's facelights lit up again, going from a dark worried purple to a bright electric blue, a color Robin was glad to see. "We will continue, then? Fahrenheit 451, page 86, chapter-"
"Chapter 5." Robin finished the sentence, smiling.
Al-An looked back at the creature eggs, ethereal-looking spheres of thin, wavy, pale blue membrane that glowed and slowly pulsated. Robin suspected they were the eggs of the Ghostrays living in the Lost River.. but she couldn't have been entirely sure until they hatched. They'd been buried in between the roots of the Brine-Trees which made up the Lost River's caverns. If they hatched into River Prowlers.. that was going to be an unpleasant surprise. But she needed to wait - the bio-monitor had predicted three days or so of gestation.
"Would you prefer it if I left you alone? I require more nickel ore for fabrication of electrical systems, and will need to make a trip for it soon."
Robin thought a moment.
"No, actually.. you can stay if you want. It's almost sunset already, and it's dangerous to go out in the dark."
"You forget that my body and yours are quite different, Robin. I will be able to evade the Ghost Leviathans and River Prowlers which-"
"Al-An." She interrupted him, her face growing solemn. "I want you to stay. We'll go for the nickel together, in the daytime."
The Architect's facelights flickered faintly. His color relaxed to a calm blue. "The Lost River is obscured from the atmosphere and therefore any environmental light. Therefore, the time of day will not affect our foray. However, if you insist, then I will remain. I, too, have other work to conduct here until then."
"'K, good," Robin said, burying her face into her xenobiology book as Al-An left reluctantly. She didn't remember Al-An being this.. well, this clingy to her.
…Or maybe she had just been oblivious to how close they had gotten.
She and Al-An had been practically attached to each other, quite literally when he had taken residence in her head. It had reduced considerably since she had bult him a body; sometimes, Al-An would leave for a few days at a time to acquire components for the ship he was fabricating, as would Robin (though she also left to study the fauna within the Crater).
But there were those obvious times, when they would read, or sleep (they slept together because of how cold it got sometimes.. and because the habit had never died out after that), or sometimes just.. talk after a long day's work. And sometimes, when Robin really missed Al-An, she would let him connect to her mind again to hear his voice in her head. Not just to talk to him, but to feel his presence, to know that he was there.
No wonder he missed it. It was so comforting sometimes. Perhaps that was because she'd been alone from human contact, too.. but she wasn't truly alone. She had Al-An, and he had her.
The time flew as she flipped through her xenobiology book, the beaten-up cover and raggedy pages a testament to how long she'd kept it. There were still parts she hadn't read in the huge book, and all of it fascinated her. And this was the only paper copy book she'd still had.. the rest of her literature was available on the PDA, anyways. And she had uploaded plenty before coming here.
There was a soft shuffling in the periphery of Robin's sound, but she didn't pay much attention to what it was. It sounded like Al-An, bending over to walk in and out of the base's rooms, dragging something along the floor. Robin was okay with Al-An doing as he pleased when it came to their home- er, their base. She trusted him enough and knew he wasn't going to sabotage her or something.. he'd had plenty of chances, and from what she could tell, he was even more organized than her a lot of the time.
After a few minutes, the shuffling-dragging was joined by the sound of a soft thump and the familiar buzzing hum of the Habitat Builder. Robin turned around in her swivel chair to see just what Al-An was doing, and her eyes widened in shock seeing his handiwork.
"Ah, Robin," the Architect greeted her as he motioned to the set-up he was making. "Do not worry. I am almost finished, and these structures can be easily removed if you find them to be bothersome."
"Oh, Al-An.." Robin couldn't take her eyes away. Al-An had fabricated a complete sleeping arrangement for them, blankets piled cozily on the floor, a mattress fabricated from gel sacks and creepvine fiber, and even the star lights Robin had set up in their bedroom, hanging from the ceiling.
With a wave of one mechanical hand, the lights in the habitat dimmed comfortably to how Robin would set them in their room before they slept.
"I am aware that you will need to stay here to monitor your organisms," Al-An said matter-of-factly with a wave of his claw. "As such, I have made sleeping arrangements so that you may be properly rested."
Robin blushed. "Al, you didn't have to.."
"I merely found that it would be optimal."
Hopping up from her chair, Robin tossed the book casually onto the seat before stretching. Now that he'd done all this, and for her comfort.. she couldn't say no to him!
"All right," she said, "lemme go put on something comfortable, okay?"
The Architect affirmed and kneeled slowly, seating himself on the mattress as Robin left to change into her pajamas: soft grey shorts and a grey tank top. The fabricator didn't have any choices for color unless she got dye for the clothes, and, well.. she didn't feel like looking for any Ghost Leviathan Blue. So.. grey would do just fine.
She turned off the "record" feature of her PDA, smiling inwardly. She had gotten all of it. Even his shenanigans in fixing up the room for the both of them. If it didn't have much a use in studying.. she could at least use it to embarrass her alien friend. And, as she had thought before, it would certainly make a fond memory.
Robin returned, Al-An already settled on the mattress. He slept usually in a position akin to a deer lying down, legs folded comfortably and upper body on his side so he could spoon Robin. Though.. occasionally he favoured lying on his back with Robin resting atop his torso. Today he had chosen the former, and was tangled patiently in the blankets to wait for her.
"You ready, Big Guy?" Robin burrowed her way under the sheets, her upper body exposed from the covers as she leaned against Al-An's warm body, propping her neck on him to read. Her PDA dimly lit the space between them.
"Yes. You may begin."