Chapter Text
Introductions
He can pinpoint the moment he knew he was fucked down to the second. He’d looked up from his dossier to introduce himself to the last of his new crew and been faced with the saddest looking man he’d ever seen. His uniform looked to be at least two sizes too large- the jacket’s cuffs were completely covering his hands- and the cigarette dangling from his lips looked more like a permanent fixture than a temporary indulgence.
Dallas had extended a hand and muttered, “Gilbert Kane?” while he’d given the new Officer a once- over, and the deep-set lines in the man’s face were suddenly accentuated by a nervous smile. The hand that shakes with him is ice cold, and Dallas has to suppress a hiss at the temperature difference.
“Thomas,” The newbie had rasped around the cig, “But nobody calls me that, either.”
“Just Kane, then?”
His new Executive Officer nodded, longish hair flopping over his forehead, and parroted, “Just Kane.”
The quip had slipped out before he could stop it, “Welcome aboard the Nostromo, ‘Just Kane.’”
Kane had giggled at that. Honest-to-god giggled and slipped past Dallas to explore the ship. The Captain watched him go, eyes drawn to him automatically and unwillingly. Dallas scrubbed his face with one hand, shoulders heaving with a defeated sigh.
“Gonna be a long trip.”
Awake
“Captain?”
Dallas grunts and shakes his head to clear some of the post-hypersleep fog, bleary eyes rolling to the left to find the source of the voice. He catches a glimpse of long legs in his periphery and does a double take, instantly awake. There’s Kane, leaning against the kitchenette counter, head lolled backward in the midst of stretching. He’s seen his crew practically naked in the cryopods, but this is something else entirely. The robe leaves little to the imagination, stopping just above Kane’s knees and actively falling off of one boney shoulder. Dallas’ eyes trace a line from Kane’s chin down to his chest. He’s pulled from his stupor when the Officer repeats himself a bit louder.
“Hmm?”
“Coffee?”
“If it’s goin’ yeah.” Dallas mumbles, flapping a hand at the percolator.
Kane grins and chirps, “It’s brewing!” but as he turns to confirm this, he realizes that the carafe isn’t even in the machine. The Officer lets out a soft, displeased squawk and scrambles to locate the carafe, knocking the thing off of the counter in his haste. Dallas moves before he can consider why he’s doing it- darting around the dining table and grabbing the pot just as Kane’s bending forward to retrieve it. Cold fingers brush his and then hastily retreat, their owner muttering a surprised, “Oh, I’m sorry-” and straightening up again.
“S’fine…”
He can’t help himself- his eyes trail up the length of Kane’s lanky form while he stands back up, and he’s never been more painfully aware of the fact that he’s dressed only in his hypersleep boxers. He offers the Officer the carafe, but the man doesn’t make any move to take it from him. Dallas has to bite back a laugh when he finally gets a look at Kane’s bright red face. He’s unabashedly ogling, dark eyes darting between Dallas’ face and chest. Feigning ignorance, the Captain leans over to put the carafe under the spout, mumbling an insincere apology when his chest brushes the Officer’s shoulder. The redness only worsens, spreading down Kane’s neck and blooming up toward his temples.
“You alright?” Dallas quietly inquires, knowing damn well what the man’s answer will be.
“Y-Yes… I… Um-”
Kane sputters for another ten seconds before evidently giving up on answering. He wheels around to face the counter, hastily tugging the dishevelled robe up and over his shoulder, and his hands visibly tremble as he locates a bowl and starts to pour cereal into it.
“I’ll pour out-”
“Oh, no!” Kane chirps, lips quirking into a nervous smile, “I’ll get the coffee. You… You go sit. Over there.”
The smaller man points at Dallas’ usual chair and pointedly avoids looking at him as he does it. Dallas presses his lips together to suppress the grin that threatens to appear, nods once and mutters, “Sure thing,” as he wanders back into the dining room. Ripley and Lambert are already seated, talking about the significance of having dreams in hypersleep, and both women pause when Dallas passes them. Ripley makes a show of looking between him and Kane and raises an inquisitive brow. She scoffs at the warning glower that he sends her way, and Lambert hides a giggle behind one hand. I’m screwed. I’m completely and utterly screwed.
Secret Santa
Saturn’s atmosphere is bright and brisk as usual, and the wind bites Dallas’ nose and cheeks as he fast-walks through the open-air market. He nestles a little further into his uniform jacket, feeling his ears burn with the cold, and weaves through the crowd toward the tea vendor’s counter. He pulls his hands out of his pockets as he goes, clasps them together and blows warm air into them in an attempt to get some feeling back into his fingers. He’s just made it up to the counter and started to browse when the last person he wants looking over his shoulder pipes up from behind.
“Always took you for more of a coffee man, myself.”
Shit. Dallas glances over his shoulder and is getting ready to make up an excuse to get Kane to leave him to do his holiday shopping, but the words die in his throat upon seeing his Officer’s current state. Kane’s also in his uniform jacket, but he’s buried beneath a scarf that must be at least fifteen feet long. It’s dark green- very obviously homemade- and looped around his neck and shoulders so that it covers the lower half of his face. His gloves match it, and Dallas briefly wonders if the set was a gift from a family member as Kane tugs the scarf down and speaks again.
“Hope you don’t mind,” The XO mumbles, glancing between Dallas and the counter, “Wanted to restock while I had the chance-”
“No, no. Just the guy I wanted to see, really. I, uh, want to get into this stuff, and I don’t know the first thing about it.”
Kane eyes him confusedly, and Dallas prays to a god he’s never been on friendly terms with that the man doesn’t see through the lie. The smaller man seems none the wiser, face lighting up with an eager smile that deepens the lines around his eyes. He steps forward to get out of the way, shoulder pressing against Dallas’, and the Captain finds himself at the receiving end of a barrage of questions. Roast, color, flavor profiles- all things he’s never considered. Once you get used to the slop that Weyland-Yutani refers to as coffee, any semblance of preference also goes out the window. He’s completely at a loss, and after prattling on for the better part of five minutes, Kane seems to realize this. He pauses in the middle of another question and gives Dallas an embarrassed grin, ducking his head and letting his gigantic scarf cover his reddening cheeks.
“Look,” The brunet chuckles, gesturing toward the array of sampling tins in front of them, “How ‘bout you find a few of the real nice ones and I’ll tell ya what I think?”
It takes only ten minutes for Kane to go through all of the teas and describe the ins and outs of them to Dallas. Time slows and drags on in the best of ways. The last tin is filled with something that looks like peas at first glance, but upon closer inspection, he sees that they’re individual leaves that have been rolled and pressed into spheres.
“Oh, this one’s lovely,” Kane chirps, swirling the canister and offering it to Dallas, “Smell that.”
The Captain hesitantly leans forward, gaze flicking between the tin and the XO’s eager face, and carefully inhales. He’s no expert, but whatever’s in there smells soft, fresh, and mildly grassy. His eyebrows raise, and he lets out an interested hum.
“Not bad.”
“And they’re hand-rolled, too. Hard to come by these days- the stuff at the supply depot is less like real leaves and more like dust that wishes it was tea.”
“You’re really into this, aren’t ya?” Dallas chuckles, plucking the tin out of Kane’s hand and doing his damndest to ignore the tiny shockwaves that emanate from where their fingers brush.
The officer’s ears turn a pretty shade of red, and he awkwardly gestures toward the counter with both hands as he sputters, “Well, you know, when you’re stuck on a… on a ship with coffee that tastes like… like…”
“Like someone ate the beans and shit ‘em back into the bag?”
Kane’s caught off guard by the quip and dissolves into a fit of raspy, hacking laughter, planting a hand on his own chest while he gasps for air. Dallas takes advantage of the distraction and starts to haggle with the shopkeep for a half pound of the tea, and Kane tries to argue while catching his breath.
“I’ve got… got my own paycheck, you know-”
Dallas holds up one dismissive hand without turning away from the salesman and digs through his pockets with the other.
“Call it an early Christmas gift.” He mutters, counting out exact change in credits and slapping the chips into the shopkeep’s waiting hand.
He turns to the XO and rests one hip against the counter while they wait for the tea to be measured out, stuffs his hands back into his pockets and shivers. Kane’s lips part around a soft, concerned, “Oh,” as he takes in the Captain’s red cheeks and nose.
“Christ- don’t you have anything for this sort of weather?”
Dallas grins, foggy breath pluming out before him with an embarrassed huff, “You’d think I would, bein’ from a place where the temp regularly goes below zero in the winter.”
The Officer’s head tilts to the left, and his eyes light up with sudden interest. He waits for Dallas to collect their quarry before he asks where the Captain is from. The two of them weave through the crowd while Dallas describes what he remembers of the wide, flat plains of eastern Montana. After losing each other for the third time in a row, he feels gentle, hesitant fingers curling into the back of his jacket.
“Don’t want to get run over back here!” The XO shouts above the din, flashing him a self-conscious smile.
Something in him gives a nervous little thrill at every brush of the man’s knuckles against his back, and he does his best to ignore the heat creeping up his neck as he guides them through the crowd. He waits until they’re almost out of the market before announcing that he forgot something and leaving Kane to get back to the ship on his own. It takes less than five minutes to return to the tea vendor, and he doesn’t even bother trying to offer the salesman a good excuse as to why he’s suddenly back and buying a second, different tin of tea.
Night Shift
“You never told me where you were from.”
He says it gently, not wanting to disturb the peaceful atmosphere of the bridge, but he still manages to startle his companion. Kane flinches like a spooked horse and bangs both of his knees against the bottom of his monitor, and Dallas has never had a harder time keeping a straight face as the XO cradles his injured legs and leans forward to rest his forehead against the flickering screen, eyes screwed shut against the pain.
“Ooooh Jesus- I think I’ve broken something-”
“Doubtful,” The brunet snorts, “But I brought you this. Maybe it’ll cure ya.”
He sets a steaming mug on top of the Officer’s station, and the man perks up at the smell of his precious green tea.
“Might just,” He sighs, “If I hadn’t run out of cigs, I’d say things were looking up for me.”
The Captain scoffs at his XO’s plight, circling behind the console to settle into Lambert’s seat. He sets his own mug on top of her monitor and pats himself down ‘til he finds his long-unused ration of cigarettes. The pack’s been in the side pocket of his uniform pants for the better part of three months, but he’s fairly sure the things don’t ever expire. He tosses the pack into Kane’s lap, and the man murmurs a shocked, “You sure? I don’t want to-”
Dallas cuts him off with a dismissive wave of his hand, “They’ll go to waste if somebody else doesn’t smoke ‘em before we get home.”
Kane lets out a delighted hum as he tears the plastic off of the pack. He takes a careful sip of his tea and deftly pries the box open with his free hand, nimble fingers plucking a stick out of it before he lets the pack fall onto the armrest between his seat and Lambert’s.
“Couldn’t remember how much of that stuff you’re supposed to use,” Dallas mumbles, gesturing toward Kane’s tea, “Sorry if it’s too strong.”
In truth, he does remember. He’s listened to the leaves rustle as Kane put a single heaping teaspoon of them into the same stainless steel tea ball every morning since the day they met, followed by the preparation of his first cereal bowl out of three, but to reveal that would come off as more than a bit creepy, so he settles for feigned ignorance.
The XO shakes his head with a dissenting grunt- mutters something about the tea being perfect- and Dallas feels a faint inkling of pride take root in his chest as he takes up his own mug of coffee and settles further into the navigator’s chair. It takes Kane a moment to remember the Captain’s original line of inquiry, but once he does, he launches into a detailed description of his childhood home. The idea of growing up in rows of quaint brick houses and hedge-lined neighborhoods is completely alien to Dallas, and he soaks up the information with interest, pausing every few minutes to pull up a systems readout on Lambert’s monitor. He watches the man drink and smoke in his periphery and grins to himself as he remembers that second, secret tin of tea that’s wrapped in festive paper and hiding beneath his bunk. For the first time in years, he finds himself looking forward to Christmas.