Extraterrestrial Love

A Change Of Pace

"LEE!" Birch's voice shatters Lee's sleep and suddenly he's being shaken in the face of a crying alien. "Lee!" Birch repeats but with such audible relief it's concerning.

"Birch?" Lee asks groggily, confused by the shocking wake up call.

"Lee..." Birch sighs, still tearing up.

"Birch, look at me." Lee says, raising his hand to meet Birch's cheek "What's wrong." For the first time Birch actually relaxes into the touch. It tugs at Lee's heart.

"I..." Birch pauses then glances down at the problem. Bruises where his tail held his legs together, the metaphor of a lasso being painfully accurate. Bruises from a tight grip on his shoulder and chest color his skin as well. (Not to mention the horrific sticky mess half dried to the both of them) "I did this..." he grits his teeth "I hurt you...thought I..." he sniffles.

Lee chases his gaze until they're face to face again "You thought you killed me?" Birch slams his eyes shut and makes a sound that's a mix of whimper and grumble "Hon-er, Birch, I'm still here." Lee says, resisting the urge to pet his cheek or tuck the silver hair behind his laid back ears. "I'm tougher than ya think." he chuckles. Birch breaks his eyes away, once again looking at the evidence that he went too rough. Lee's quiet for a second "Well, I won't lie, it did hurt the slightest bit but I think that's a givin'. But I'm fine now. I'm perfect!" He tries to cheer up his tone but all he gets is a puppy eyed glance in return. "Birch I liked-" he full stops, rethinking the words about to come out of his mouth "I liked...helping you." He's not ready to audibly admit liking whatever the hell happened last night.

Birch grumbles "Need to find a different way to help..." he scans over all the aftermath once more "this is bad."

Lee follows his line of sight, thinking of what could be a different way. "Wait!" A light bulb blinks above his head "So, when it's dark and too cold, that's when ya get like that right?"

The genuine peppy tone in Lee's voice has Birch perked up a bit. He nods.

"That's it then!" He huffs a laugh and springs to his feet "A heat lamp! I used to raise all kinds of baby critters so I actually have one!"

For the first time this morning Birch's ears straighten up. He still doesn't know half of what Lee says most of the time but now he can fit words together like puzzle pieces to a sentence. Heat. Lamp. Then some other thing about babies but that's beside the point! A heat lamp is perfect (if it can stay over 75 degrees).

"Yes!" Birch exclaims at the idea. He stands up beside Lee and immediately switches gears. "Clean first." he puts bluntly as he walks through a busted part of the shed.

"Uh, Birch?" Lee follows, confused on why he's going out the back to clean. He walks out to find Birch dipping his tail in a spring stream he had completely forgot existed. "What are you doin'?" he chuckles.

Birch turns back with his heavy, sopping wet tail in hand. Inside he slings it on the ground and with a disgusted look he begins mopping. He grumbles finding it just as awful as Lee does. "That's how you clean up after yourself?" he mock gags "So thats why your tail is always a matted dirty mess..."

Birch scoffs "Have nothing else!" he opens his arms asking for suggestions on what else he was supposed to do without any cleaning supplies.

Lee nods "Alright, you've got a point." he mossies to the front door before Birch whips towards him with the same concerned face he always has when Lee's about to leave "I'm going to get actual cleaning stuff." he chuckles seeing how Birch stops his disgusting mopping then goes to wash his tail before trailing behind Lee.
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After they both take (separate) showers and Lee shows him how all the cleaning stuff works, he leaves Birch to do the cleaning while he searches his house for the heat lamp and makes a nice setup for Birch to stay in during the nights. He stations it near the fireplace above a cot of heavy blankets, all just in case the heat lamp isn't enough...but does Lee really want it to be enough? He finds himself kind of disliking this idea. Kind of wanting to take care of Birch's problem like they did last night. But of course he shoves those thoughts to the deepest reaches of his mind.