Chapter 11: He's Got Style

That strange and wonderful journey didn't get any less amazing the second time around, and Nicole swore that it probably would never, ever get old. Once the world of Sarah's living room formed around them, the boxes, the couch and the comfy chair still littered about, there was a collective sigh of relief at having returned to the exact location they had left, albeit in late afternoon rather than late morning.

Nicole twirled round until she fell onto Sarah's living room couch, cheering loudly, “Wow! Wow! I can't believe that! Oh my god! We went to another planet across the universe just after breakfast and now we're back for dinner!” She threw her hands up in the air as if she'd just been on a roller coaster ride.

Sarah observed her surroundings, found and hugged her cat (who really wanted nothing to do with anyone in the group at that moment), then sighed a great breath. “Wow,” she moused, and she looked back over at the tall, human shaped alien standing happily in her living room. He caught notice and wriggled his long fingers at her in friendly greeting.

The shy blond walked back over to him and cautiously took his hands, measuring them against her own. He followed her wishes, measuring his against hers, equally fascinated. While her hands were delicate, small and smooth, his were callused, experienced, large and strong. He looked from her hands to her face, his brown eyes uncertain but curious. Her hazel eyes wondered back at him from behind long bangs.

She inspected every inch of his left hand and stroked his bandaged wrist under his hooded sweatshirt. “You're warm,” she described, a bit short of breath. He blinked several times in quick succession, “Yes, so are you,” he quietly marveled in return. “I can't believe you're a real alien. But you look just like us. ” He smiled, nearly laughing, a bit in need of breath himself. “And you look just like me. I don't understand it myself,” he admitted. “But you don't only look like us, you feel like us too. You even have a heartbeat,” Sarah panted. The mad man chuckled heartily, “So do you.”

Charlie inserted himself and poked Pen's side, causing him to squirm with a sputter. “Ticklish just like us too! Yep, a real live alien! One who invented a teleportation device and can travel around the universe, right here on Earth in your living room Sarah.” The blond nodded her head and looked away as she held onto Pen's wrist, starting to feel a little too overwhelmed. The redhead continued, “We're the first people on Earth to communicate with intelligent life from another planet! And yet he's just like a human in every way!” The spaceman wriggled free of Sarah and backed away a bit from both of them, “Not in every way, I'm sure.”

Nicole quirked her head, speculating. “Not in every way, huh?” Sarah, mortified, fell into her comfy chair and buried her head in its arm. Pen pursed his lips at both of the ladies. “You Earthlings need to get out more. Seriously! Grow up, both of you!” Charlie chortled, “Yeah, really! Anyway, speaking of aliens, exactly what are klaxoborgs and why are they and Etronins fighting?”

The spaceman stopped glaring disapprovingly and turned to look at the redhead. “Oh right! I guess you three wouldn't know about them. They come from the Klatzborgon Galaxy like myself, but they're from a different solar system. The Klatzoborgs are basically a group of warm blooded quadrupedal cyborgs with wings.”

Nicole hummed, trying to imagine. “So, nothing like you I suppose,” she conjectured. “Rather nothing like myself in appearance, I'll assure you,” Pen professed before changing the subject, “Anyway, all of that is billions upon billions of light years away and currently not our problem!” The madman clapped his hands together excitedly, “Now I'd really like to explore Earth, get to know everything there is to know about this place.”

Nicole looked up at him with smiling eyes, “You know what you really need before you can go around exploring?” Pen quirked a brow and licked his lip. “What?” The ebony haired young woman looked to her friends and back to him, arms wide open, “Clothes!”

The spaceman's mouth hung open like he had a bad taste in his mouth. “Clothes?? I'm wearing clothes right now!” Nicole snorted, “Yeah, dirty clothes from yesterday.” Pen sniffed himself, “I'm not dirty,” he contended. She flipped her hair and huffed haughtily, “When you're on Earth, you have to live by our rules. In the United States, we own at least three outfits but more likely seven or more and we change clothes every day.”

Pen gave her a disbelieving, terribly disinterested look, “I've got a whole new planet to explore and the freedom to do so and you want me worrying over clothes?” Nicole shushed him and addressed her colleagues, “Pen here, he's our friend, and we have a responsibility as good hosts and representatives of Earth to make sure he's comfortable, taken care of, knows and follows the rules, and right now he only has one pair of clothes, the one he's wearing now. In order to wash, he'd have to get naked!” Sarah chewed on her finger while holding her breath and looking away.

“So what?? Nakedness doesn't bother me and I had only one pair of clothes for how long, a long while already? And these have pant legs! What more could I want?” In order to illustrate his point, Pen hopped onto the couch and spread his legs out to the point of nearly making a split (exposing the pant legs as obviously just a bit too short for his long legs), a canvas shoe nearly hitting Nicole in the face in the process. “True freedom is in the pants! Robes are so overrated! You all just dress so plainly and it works! And I'm good! Truly good. Don't worry one bit about little me.”

Nicole grabbed Pen's foot and placed it down. “Plainly? You have no idea how humans dress! You're not even wearing socks! And these shoes are so 2K! And a hoodie? Really? Enough said there, and those hideous track pants are for a girl,” she pulled on the thin stretchy black fabric as she stuck out her tongue, “like, a girl 20 years ago. Did the hospital even give you underwear?”

Pen gave her an innocent look, “Yeeeah,” he waffled, “Would it be really bad if I didn't have underwear?” The three humans looked him up and down uncomfortably, and the alien conceded. “Okay, okay! Fine! Let's just get this over with.”

♫

In Charlie's home, the four friends gathered around a big cardboard box stuffed with clothing. “This was all my dad's,” Charlie exposited, “and unlike me, he was a tall, skinny man like yourself, and I'd been meaning to throw it out but my mum tells me it's too expensive to just toss. Dig in.”

The mad genius pulled off his sweatshirt, brushing his uncombed hair upwards and revealing underneath that he was wearing a tight old white graphic T-shirt. After fishing out his PIT device and handing it over to Nicole he tossed aside the old hoodie carelessly and dove right in, fishing out a classic black bowler hat then placing it right on his head.

He was even scrawnier than Nicole had thought. Just looking at him made her want to feed him. It wasn't like ribs were showing, but he certainly didn't have a long way to go before that happened. Though, at least he seemed to have a tiny bit of meat on him in places, like in his mostly stringy arms, just enough for a little definition. Again, she felt a little fat in comparison. She self consciously squeezed her underarm flab and then rolled her eyes at herself.

The alien then got his hands on a rather long and soft red, orange, yellow and green scarf and tied it around his waist before something interesting caught his eye. “Ooooh! What's this?” He put on a pair of thick rimmed black glasses and showed everyone. “Yeah? A pair of goggles, just what I needed!”

Charlie reached for the wanderer's face and pressed a small button on the side of his glasses. “Pen, those 'goggles' aren't goggles, they're glasses, and they're also a computer.”

“Right, of course,” Pen sucked on his lips as he played around with the software. “Object recognition software, very nice. Thing's a little unwieldy though.” The redhead shook his head, “Well, what do you want? It's an earlier model. Seriously, no one uses those anymore.”

Sarah snickered, “Says the guy who drives a 1980 Lincoln Town Car.” Charlie gasped. “That's different! Also, that's a scarf, not a belt.” He undid the knot around the scrawny man's waist and wrapped the scarf around his neck. “Oh, of course,” Pen realized. “Anyone got a mirror?”

Charlie fetched the madman his standup mirror from the bedroom. Once Pen caught sight of himself he gained a surprised sort of look and zoomed in quite closely, checking his teeth and pulling at his hair. “Whoa! I'm a hunk! Except for these freckles! Ew! And my hair! What's going on there?? You guys let me go out in public like this?! Shame on you!” Pen shook his finger at his human friends and then began posing as he tried to fix his hair. Charlie cleared his throat, uncertain as to how to even ask why the alien was so surprised by his own reflection.

“ A bit on the scrawny side, still, not bad!” The fugitive threw off his shirt and attempted to grab at some belly fat multiple times before patting his gut. All three humans watched him in milder disbelief than they probably should have, but at this point they'd just begun to expect his being... odd. He then stripped down entirely and continued to check himself out, prompting Charlie and Sarah to turn around, red in the face. Charlie tugged on Nicole's arm. “Aren't you going to give him some privacy?” Nicole shrugged, “It doesn't seem he cares much about that sort of thing. Besides, apparently it's nothing I haven't seen before after all.” Charlie peeked curiously before turning around again, shaking his head at her. “So?? Then there's nothing to see! Pen, here, put on some pants, will you?!”

Pen was roughly thrown a pair of boxers and he shrugged before putting them on, finally having lost interest in taking in his own features anyhow. “Why is everyone so uncomfortable? Is it my skinniness? Is that putting people off?” Nicole giggled. “No, it's not that, though I suppose you could stand to gain a little weight.” Charlie rolled his eyes. “Just keep looking for clothes, will you?”

The spaceman nodded and continued to search the box for items of interest. He pulled out a few tight looking pairs of jeans, a green suit jacket and a whole collection of bow ties. “What are you supposed to do with these? Bracelets?” Sarah giggled, “No! They go around your neck. Don't wear those, though. But I guess they might work for a mad scientist.” He shrugged and wrapped a loose one around his neck over the scarf, then pulled out a striped tie and put that around his neck too. He then found a leather belt and put that around his neck too.

Charlie pulled out a turtleneck sweater and handed it to him. “Try this on too.” Pen pulled on the neck part curiously and rose a brow. “Humans have such weird tastes.”

He tried on so many things, some of which, like a bright green belly shirt over a tight white long sleeved one and a pair of black leggings appeared to please especially the two women, whereas others, like a combination of mesh and leather shirt and bell bottom jeans made all three point and laugh. He even tried on a pirate outfit from Charlie's father's prop box, but that just didn't work at all.

Ultimately, Pen, with the guidance of his new friends, finally settled on a red and white horizontal striped long sleeved shirt under a brown leather jacket, paired with plain old blue jeans held up by a leather belt and tucked into a pair of calf high canvas kicks, and around his neck was the long colorful scarf.

Author's Note

I'm aware this chapter is a bit weak. I was really hoping to achieve a sense of whimsy and friendship (and a little character development for Charlie and Pen). I feel like I fall just a little short of that.