“The ship will wash and dry your clothes?”
"Right. Yes, of course,” she said, feeling silly. "Good ship."
Bundling her wet things, she handed them over. He shoved them through the panel as well.
He turned and brought his hand up slowly, pressing two careful fingers to the bridge of his nose. The wince was small and controlled, but it was still there.
"I need to get this sorted." He scooped Barnaby off the bed one-handed. Barnaby made the sound of a creature deeply wronged and then went boneless and cooperative because being carried was still being carried. "Come."
She followed him back into the corridor, padding along behind him in bare feet on warm carpet.
The door at the end of a shorter corridor opened onto white. All of it, sharply, uncompromisingly white — walls, floor, some pale composite that had the sheen of marble and the practicality of metal, the ceiling blazing under harsher lights than the rest of the ship.
She knew what it was immediately. Medical. The smell wasn't quite the same as a human clinic, but it had the same aggressive cleanness, the same nothing-organic-lives-here energy. A wide bed sat in the center of the room, and around it, suspended from the ceiling, hung a ring of white metal.
Thyaar set Barnaby on the bed. That was his first mistake.
Well, no, his first mistake had been having the audacity to wake Barnaby from a nap.
The big ginger tom looked at the ring of metal overhead, then at Thyaar with an expression she’d seen many times before. It was the expression he used when she put his bowl in the wrong spot, or bought the off-brand food. It was the expression of a cat who felt he had been personally insulted and wanted that on record.
Barnaby jumped off the bed and stalked away.
Thyaar sighed and picked him up, dropping him back on the bed.
She hid her grin. Bless him, he actually thought that was going to work?
Barnaby turned to glare at the big alien, jumped off the bed again, and walked away. Not in a huff—Barnaby didn't do huffs because huffs implied the other party's opinion mattered—he was just done. He stalked to the other side of the small room and sat with his back to Thyaar, washing the fur where Thyaar had touched him with venomous swipes of his tongue.
"You're just pissing him off, you know?" She leaned against the wall and folded her arms as Thyaar approached Barnaby again. “But by all means, carry on. This is the best entertainment I’ve had in months.”
4
Thyaar made a long-suffering sound and reached for Barnaby again.
Oh bless him, he learned slow.
Barnaby finished washing the insult off his fur and started in on his back paw with the careful attention of a cat who was ignoring idiot humans… err, aliens. Thyaar's hand closed around his middle and the cat went limp the way cats do when they want to lodge a formal complaint — every muscle suddenly liquid as his whole body sagged in protest. Thyaar straightened up with what was now about twelve pounds of disgruntled spaghetti, deposited Barnaby on the bed, and stepped back.
Barnaby sat. He looked at Thyaar with the indignation of a cat who had been wronged. Then he jumped off the bed and walked away. Again.
"Oh, for—" Thyaar pinched the bridge of his nose, wincing when his fingers found the bruise. Letting his hand drop, he turned to her. The look on his face was almost funny. He'd kicked her door in like a one-man invasion force, slung her over his shoulder while she screamed the building down, and carried her halfway across a city without breaking a sweat. And one fat ginger tom had reduced him to standing in his own medical bay looking like someone had kicked his puppy.
She bit down on the inside of her cheek.
“Oh… fine," she said, pushing off the wall. "Move."
He moved. Possibly faster than he meant to — she watched his eyes flick to her face and then away, and there was something about how careful he was being not to crowd her that didn't fit the way he'd just kicked in her door.
Interesting.
Crossing to where Barnaby had settled with his back turned, she crouched and held out one hand. He recognized the gesture and sniffed, making her wait. He always made her wait. After a measured pause he no doubt felt was the correct amount of disrespect, he stood, stretched, and trotted over with his tail up.
"Traitor," she muttered, scooping him up against her chest.
He bumped his head under her chin and purred. Of course, he did. He’d wanted to be picked up the whole time. He just hadn't wanted Thyaar to be the one doing it.
She straightened up with him in her arms. Barnaby was about the weight of a small bag of cement, and she felt every gram through the soft warmth of the borrowed shirt. He nestled in like he intended to take up residence. Climbing onto the bed because there wasn't anywhere else to sit, she settled Barnaby in her lap, and looked up at Thyaar.
