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The alarm clock on the night stand read 3:39 AM, and Grawl felt his antenna twitch in frustration. He sighed and rolled over for the third time in as many minutes.
He was exhausted and had been for the entire day; it had only been a day since the alien left in his spaceship on his return trip to earth, and it was a busy one. Everyone and their mother was asking where the alien was, what was his plan, why did he let him escape?! Etc. and frankly it was headache inducing. It didn’t help that for some reason he couldn’t sleep even though he was beyond exhausted, feeling haunted by his own actions; jumping to conclusions about the alien’s intentions even though he hadn’t seen any actual evidence of harmful intent and almost killing his own men in an attempt to stop the alien from brainwashing them and destroying the world.
He flushed slightly in embarrassment, with hindsight it seemed ridiculous that one alien who ran away from threats and clumsily tried to hide from his incompetent soldiers would be enough of a threat to seal the fate of the world, but he had taken that mad doctor at his word and trusted him when he assured that the alien was a threat to all of them. Scoffing in irritation at the thought of the egomaniac, he frowned as he realized he didn’t know what had happened to the doctor after the base exploded, “hopefully he got everything he deserved for putting my men’s lives on the line for the sake of his wild conspiracies.” he thought.
And then there was the alien himself to contend with; “Astronaut”, he corrected himself, “Captain Baker referred to himself an astronaut.” A kind of space explorer as the Korplog boy later explained to him; Baker was meant to explore an uninhabited world and take samples and photos to bring back to his world.
Grawl smiled faintly at the idea of an advanced world that launches their best and bravest into the cold void of space to explore the stars and bring back proof of new worlds to the public. He admired Captain Baker’s bravery in sacrificing himself for lem’s safety, and for going back to save him in the base. Grawl is certainly aware that he had not treated chuck with any respect at that point, and is still faintly astounded Baker bothered to go back for him at all.
The memory of seeing his silhouette appear through the flames and his waning consciousness, feeling himself be lifted and carried through the blazing heat and be gently set down on the cool metal of the seat in his spaceship, and the surprise of opening his eyes to see Baker smiling at him came to mind. The memories almost have a wistful feeling to them, which Grawl briefly noticed as odd but he pushes it aside. With those memories also come the memories of first unmasking Captain Baker, the apprehension of finally meeting this dangerous alien face to face and seeing that he looks surprisingly almost normal aside from the pinkish skin and structure in the middle of his face. One of the more noticeable things about him was his imposing form.
Grawl is widely considered unusually large for most of his kind, but even with that Baker manages to easily meet his height and completely outweigh him in terms of musculature. He posed an intimidating figure for sure, and that’s not even mentioning the fact that his spacesuits adds an extra layer of bulk; Grawl could see why so many civilians were so frightened of Baker when they first saw him.
It only serves to make him feel worse for everyone involved that he stirred the pot with talk of zombie slaves and mind control. This is where he begins to find the root of his restlessness; his guilt for inciting public unrest and putting Captain Baker in danger. He has a sudden thought of his farewell message and realizes that while he thanked Baker for saving him, he never quite apologized for attempting to kill him.
This sudden revelation reflexively makes him sit upright in bed, and as he works through how he would even begin to apologize for all he put the man through, he also realizes that he likely has quite a bit of time before he even has the chance to talk to Captain Baker again. Feeling both relieved and oddly forlorn at the realization, he resolves to get some rest and begin planning for what he’ll say in the morning for once Baker comes back. His chest feels slightly lighter and he lowers himself into bed again, feeling tired now that he’s figured out what was keeping him up and figuring a solution for it. “What was it that Baker said before he left?” He questioned; “Something about throwing a better party next time we get visitors?”. He smiled lightly as he remembered bakers odd charm and strange phrasing as he said his goodbyes; “Next time.” he thought before he started drifting to to sleep.
Next time. “Next time?” He felt himself jolt at the thought, “When is he coming back? It can’t be for a while yet, he would need to let his planet know about us and go through his own line of bureaucratic red tape for permission and budget to come back here. Not to mention the diplomatic procedures they would have to figure out, he likely wouldn’t be alone either, they’d send more officials with him, probably leaders from his world and-“ his hyper thoughts ground to a halt, “would they even bother sending him back?”
Panic that he couldn’t understand the cause of began to take over as he attempted rationalizing it; “No, of course they would send him back, he was the one that made first contact to begin with! Unless-” Grawl’s eyes widen in concern, “By the Rings! Would he even want to come back after what he’s experienced here? I wouldn’t blame him if he didn’t, but I need him to come back-“. He stopped pacing entirely as he considered in shock the desperation in what he had just thought; “I don’t need him to come back, I-I just want a chance to apologize properly, and have a civil conversation with him. Captain Baker seems … intriguing if odd and I’d… like to get to know him.”
While he had finally come down from his panic, the thought of Baker never coming back was setting him more on edge than he had been to begin with, and it was frustrating him even more.
Why did it bother him so much? Yes he deeply regretted treating him so poorly but with how much trouble Baker’s appearance caused him, shouldn’t he be at least slightly relieved at the thought of not seeing him again? Even a little? He growled in frustration and resumed pacing. He couldn’t stop thinking about the astronaut now, it was like the floodgates were opened. Every thought was haunted by him and the bitter ache of something like loneliness at the idea of never seeing him again.
Grawl left his room and decided that at 4:15 in the morning he would be having a cup of coffee and going for a walk to relieve some pressure; unsurprisingly neither worked as intended and seemingly only served to drive his blood pressure up. He felt like he was going to burst if he didn’t find an outlet soon. As much as he resented it as a last resort, he had to talk to someone about this… feeling.
But who would understand? Even now that people knew the alien isn’t dangerous, they still weren’t terribly fond of him. Grawl’s antenna perked up in recognition, there was someone he knew of that knew Baker well and would likely understand the feeling; Lem Korplog.
-
Lem tries his best to be a good person. Chuck certainly taught him to be patient even under extreme stress, but this is new. Lem Korplog stands at his open front door staring confused at a disheveled, exhausted, and flustered looking General Grawl who has yet to explain why he walked to his house at, a quick glance at a clock, 5:00 in the morning.
Lem takes a moment to rub the sleep out his eyes before staring, “if you’re not going to say anything, I’m going to assume I’m having a weird nightmare and go back to bed.” Grawl takes the prompt and steps forward, “I know this is odd but may I speak with you? It’s… about Captain Baker.”. Lem is definitely awake now and shuts the door behind him as he follows grawl outside. Grawl fidgets a little in place before looking at lem and asking; “Bear with me here… are you certain Baker doesn’t have any mind control abilities?”. Lem almost loses it, something manic in him rises and he doesn’t know whether he wants to shout at grawl or laugh in his face so instead he takes a deep breath before answering, “NO. No, he cannot. What’s- is there something wrong with you?!”.
Grawl promptly takes a sharp breath as his hair falls out of place again, “Yes, there is something wrong with me! and I’m trying to fix it so if you would kindly-“ he deflates as he remembers that he isn’t mad at Lem, just frustrated; “… something is wrong. Captain Baker has been haunting my thoughts ever since he left, and just when I thought I solved it, I realized I don’t know if he’s ever coming back and now it’s worse. I just want to know if you know if and when Baker is coming back.”.
Lem blinks in surprise, Grawl looks defeated, out of uniform with his head hung low and his hair out of place, he’s a sad sight and Lem starts to regret losing his temper on him for a second. But then what Grawl said hits him. He’s… pining for chuck?! That’s certainly not exactly what he said but that’s what it sounds like.
Lem truly doesn’t know how to approach the fact that Grawl quite possibly has a crush on chuck and is coming to him for advice even though just a day ago he was trying to kill both of them. That’s not even approaching the subject of saying it out loud to Grawl.
He decides to just answer his question for now and address the rest later, “Actually, I don’t know, i mean the way that chuck talked sounded like he plans on come back but he definitely never said when. I- uh, I miss him too though. We’ll just have to wait and see.”. Curious now that he’s successfully gotten what he’d wanted to say out, Lem glances at Grawl to see his reaction.
Grawl’s face seems pained, his brows pinched and lips drawn tight but then he releases a sigh and looks more forlorn than anything. He attempts to stand up straighter but his antenna are still drooped as he sighs; “Well, thank you for your time Korplog, I appreciate your honesty. I’ll… I’ll go now.”.
As Grawl starts to turn to walk away Lem calls out, “Why do you want chuck to come back?”. Grawl looks at Lem in brief surprise that he stopped him from walking away, at least briefly, and and then begins to look slightly flustered; “Well I-uh” he stops a moment to clear his throat before continuing, “I realized that I never apologized for treating him poorly and jumping to conclusions about his intent, I just wanted to make up for it and uh, perhaps have a civil conversation. He seems… strange but charming? I feel like I should get to know him better.”
And with that last sentence he looks back down at Lem and flushes even more as recognition flashes across his face. “Ah! And I should also apologize to you as well. Mr. Korplog, I am sincerely sorry for my actions towards you and any danger I put you in. I greatly misjudged the situation and deemed you a threat. I’m sorry.”
Lem is faintly amused by the irony of the situation and honestly is just relieved it’s not going the way he thought it would. It would be kinda nice to have someone to talk to chuck about, and neither skiff or neera are overly interested; there’s always eckle but he’s not one for serious conversation. Lem smiles and holds out a hand;“Well, then I’m sorry for blowing up your base. No hard feelings?”. Grawl seems surprised that Lem is apologizing but he shakes his hand with a small smile, glad that he at least hasn’t pushed his last connection with Captain Baker away.
Lem sits down on the steps of the front porch and motioned for grawl to do so as well; “Well it’s gonna be a while before you get to meet him in person again, buuuut I did spend quite a bit of time with him. So if you wanna hear about him, I could tell you?”. Grawl smirked slightly at the smug drawl in the boys voice but sat down anyway, he wouldn’t be getting any sleep anyway and it would be nice to hear about Baker from a first hand source. Definitely just to get an idea of what Baker is like. Definitely just for that reason only.
He gives Lem the go ahead, and Lem starts the story of how he found chuck in the planetarium; “so I was just trying to mop when I hear the curtain fall behind me, and I see this giant reflective helmet rise and stare at me! We both scream and run up the stairs…”. As Grawl listens and laughs along with the story, overhead a red star glimmers in the dark.