it's been a couple weeks since you and your co-pilot, engineer, partner-in-occasionally-morally-dubious-but-always-entirely-within-the-law-business-ventures, "bearboibf" Dreughbachus decided to commit to a substantially more romantic form of relationship following the realization that you're both just about perfectly suited to supporting the other emotionally
you've been sleeping in the same bed
which isn't something his people, the Br, do very often
it was just a little awkward at first, having about half the space you're used to
drew's kind of clingy, which you've developed an appreciation for
you never experienced this kind of closeness on earth
the nearest thing you can relate it to is the feeling of a pet trusting and depending on you
but that's not really all that similar when you really think about it
for one thing, the feelings that drew conjures in you are completely new to you
you'd always heard the expression 'to make one's heart flutter,' it didn't make much sense to you
unusually for you, you don't even know where to start in describing it any other way
it's probably his nice, short black fur and the contact you freely share that makes the comparison so easy to make

you've engaged in plenty of "experimentation in each other's preferred sensuality space" as drew put it
and immediately joked at his own expense
"I already said I'm not gonna be the one to write that paper"
some of that experimentation didn't press the right buttons for one or both of you
drew's not a fan of anything that even approaches 'rough'
well, he definitely liked most of it while you were doing it
as soon as he realizes he's going to be even the least bit sore from it
instant regret
it seems like he has a lot of earth fantasies he's built up over his time
they're all a little... high energy
he's hit you with scenarios from places and times you're pretty sure no written records exist on earth
like that one where you're supposed to be some fertility god and he's an actual, no foolin' bear
that you're supposed to be forcing the divine spark into in order to create some mythical figure who taught humans how to fish or something
it's hard to RP when he knows more about the Linear Banded Ware culture's beliefs and deities than you'd ever had the opportunity to know
you'd been trying not to make a big deal about drew's ursine countenance, first on the assumption that he wouldn't know what you were talking about
then coming to the conclusion that it must be insulting, as he hadn't mentioned it himself
maybe it is, and you didn't pick up on it

your own 'areas of research' as it were
were much less complicated
you tried to see how long it takes for you to get tired of kissing drew
longer than it takes for you to cum just from the emotions and the sense of eroticism
it's a strange and exquisite feeling
but you can't say you like it quite as much as direct stimulation
it happens that Br have a habit of 'grooming' the people they care about
for drew it does nothing arousing, being a matter of normal social behavior
for you it's a lewd and intimate experience which provokes fuzzy feelings and tests your ability to restrain uncharacteristic moans and gasps
grooming in this case meaning 'licking of your neck and chest in an erotic fashion'
and occasionally gentle biting as he focuses in on one spot for some reason or another
it's not exactly a mutual favorite
sometimes drew catches himself as he's about to start doing it out of habit
it must be awkward or embarrassing for him to see you enjoy it so much

right now, you're having a nice conversation with drew over breakfast
which for you consists, as it usually has, of beuumwerma
a delicacy of drew's home planet Magraaf
partially because they're easier to punch in to the food replicator than most earth food you tried
but mostly because they're real fuckin' good
if you don't think too much about what they are
hell, even if you do
if Crick-ettes tasted half as good as thunder grubs they wouldn't be relegated to novelty stores, gift shops and 'glasswares distributors'
you've reached the topic of idiosyncrasies in your earliest days piloting
"I'm still a little nervous you'll run up to the controls in some cold sweat of compulsion to send a bunch of 'translate perpendicular, roll 1080' commands" drew jokes
they gave you a barrel roll button, of course you're going to use it.
technically it's an aileron roll
you can't do that in The Scar anyway
you'd end up smeared across 60 some lightyears
"that's why I'm nervous, it's like some latent need in you"
"you were hammering on the emergency macros like you were trying to weave through a gas giant's rings"
"I was pretty sure that huge freighter couldn't handle so many"

If they're for emergencies only
why are they right under your index fingers?
"they're not supposed to be, you hold the yoke like some kind of unhinged maniac"
"I don't know how you fly like that, using your thumbs for everything"
It's not your fault that the galactic standard for controlling spacefaring vessels is essentially an Xbox Duke Controller
or that every function is mapped in such a way that no matter the size of craft, it feels like you're playing the world's most lenient and intuitive arcade style 3D shmup
"I'm going to assume from the word playing, that you somehow have the computing power to simulate travel like this, before you even understand how it works?"
"and that you use that for entertainment?"
we're not even simulating it
it's just a bunch of games made by, probably hundreds of people who have nothing to do with each other
you're just as stumped as drew as to how it is that a bunch of iterative guesses at what's fun happened to coincide with how actual spaceships work
especially considering how complicated the NASA ones are
"you've put vessels into orbit?"
we've sent them to our moon and most of the other planets it's feasible to
and flown by or orbited the rest
why?

"there's no way we could have missed that, we'd have detected the gravity manipulations"
"I guess you could use massive impractical jets of plasma to propel tiny, barely sufficient masses into orbit"
"then wait years on end to exploit a couple gravity wells just to get from one place to another"
"but that's ridiculous, you wouldn't happen to know how you actually do it, would you?"
uh, that sounds about right, drew
"what does? that it's absurd? I tried harder than I needed to, to come up with that, I'm kind of proud, actually"
apparently the truth is just as strange as fiction
you weren't expecting that truism to apply to earth any time soon
"by graaf, you actually pull that nonsense off?"
"I think you've just pointed out a huge fucking hole in our contact doctrine, and proven humanity to be the mockery of all good sense we've long suspected it to be"
"we- I mean you- are going to have a lot of work to do once we're clear of The Scar"
you're not a rocket scientist, physicist, or engineer
you're not going to be able to explain it to The Padishah-Emperor Corrino or The Academy or whoever runs the Federation
also, it's definitely 'we'
you're not leaving drew out of anything anywhere near that important
"no, you're going to have to help the Federation figure out exactly how it makes up for missing first contact for so long"
"and how it does that with a planet that has way too many governments at each other's throats"
he's right, that's definitely a 'you'
you can't exactly be the most effective middle man for disclosure by starting off with
hey everybody, not only am I in a relationship with an alien one day after vanishing without a trace
it's a GAY relationship with a man who looks like an animal