Work Text:
It wasn’t often that Luka got to see the lab Walter worked at, and rarer still that he was allowed inside, but this was in fact one of those rare occasions where he was allowed to sit in the employee lounge area and hope for the sake of his sanity that it wouldn’t be country music playing on the radio for the next three hours.
Luckily, it was a great time to work on his dissertation.
Unluckily, there were plenty of scientists around him, and he felt kind of uncomfortable working on it in the presence of so many people who could poke holes in his thesis.
It was mostly theory, anyway- The legal implications of sentient, extraterrestrial life existing and coming into contact with humanity. He’d spent years thinking about it, how a planet with so many different countries and governments could possibly come together for the sake of interplanetary diplomacy. It was… his magnum opus, as far as his research writing went, anyway.
He’d gone into detail, in a separate document, about possible alien sightings on their planet, just so he could work from more plausible examples than things he had simply thought of on his own. It was this document he was cross-referencing at that moment, as an extremely pale… person who looked roughly his own age entered the building, surrounded by what looked like bodyguards in black suits and sunglasses.
They must be someone important, Luka thought to himself as he watched them walk by.
The person only made it a few steps before tripping over their own clothing, which was hardly a surprise given how excessively frilly it was. The strange thing was…. instead of the normal “thump” that would sound when a human fell, the sound that rang out when they hit the floor was unmistakably that of breaking porcelain.
The noise reflexively turned Luka’s head to look, and the sight he was met with gave him a great shock.
The person’s face- no, mask- had shattered on the ground, revealing pitch black eyes with dull red centres, bluish-white leathery skin, and worst of all… a gaping maw that stretched across their face like a glasgow grin, complete with pointed teeth and a blue tongue.
It was unmistakable. This person wasn’t human.
Unfortunately, they’d also noticed him staring.
He immediately turned his head back to his computer, very pointedly trying to disengage, but this did not deter the alien from prancing over to his seating area to see what he was working on.
“Well well, look what we have here!”
Their voice gave no clues about their gender and even less about their species. Luka tried his best to turtle into his computer, saying nothing to the person who’s frilly outfit was encroaching on his personal space.
“Aliens, hmm? You must have your work cut out for you.”
“It’s for my dissertation,” Luka grumbled, pulling his laptop toward him slightly.
“Oh, a student! How interesting, let me guess- UCV?”
“Wouldn’t you like to know?”
“And you don’t sound local, either… You’re probably an international student!”
“Shut up.”
“I bet you’re from somewhere fancy. Overseas.”
“ Shut. up. ”
“Probably wealthy too, since your laptop’s an expensive model.”
And with that, Luka slammed his laptop shut and stood up to face the alien… who was a good six inches taller than him, even with the platform boots he was wearing.
“ Ta gueule!”
That, at the very least, managed to shut him up. The tall, annoying, pompous, nosy-without-a-nose, frilly alien took a step backward, hissing a response at him.
“I have a feeling we’ll be seeing a lot more of each other, hmm?”
“I certainly hope not.”
They donned a new uncanny porcelain mask before walking backwards to rejoin the mob of suited bodyguards, and left with about as much fanfare as that which they entered.
Luka re-opened his laptop before moving to the couch, opting to just play solitaire until Walter was finished with his work.
~
Eventually Walter walked out the high-security doors, where he found Luka half-asleep on the couch.
Luka shook his head to stave off any lingering drowsiness as Walter lightly “ahem”-ed at him to get his attention.
“Ready to go?”
“Sure, yeah.”
The two patted down their bags to make sure they hadn’t left anything behind, before walking outside to Walter’s car.
“So… uh… do you know who runs this place?” Luka asked, the events of earlier that night still playing on his mind.
“Not particularly. The only name they’ve ever given us is MJ… and even then I dinnae know whether that’s an actual name or just initials.”
“Whoever they are, they must be in cahoots with alien life.”
Walter frowned at Luka’s suggestion, waiting until he was at a red light to turn his head toward him.
“Now what makes you say that? ”
Luka crossed his arms, reflexively getting defensive over his statement.
“…Well, there was a guy in there who was pretty clearly an alien, and they were super well-protected. It looked like they had their own posse of Shoot-For-The-Moon-funded bodyguards.”
“It’s the ‘pretty clearly’ in your statement that concerns me. How do you know they’re an alien?”
“…Walter, they had blue skin and red eyes.”
“Perhaps they were headed to Comic Con?”
“In the lab?! ”
“Well, I don’t know. The other researchers and I have a ‘costume day’ in the lab some time in October, work-permitting. They could just be taking this year’s costume for a test-drive. I’ve seen my brother and niece do the same from time to time.”
A car behind them honked. They had been sitting at a green light for a few seconds. Walter started driving again, with a loud “ Sorry!” for the cars behind him.
“But they were wearing so many ruffles that they tripped! That can’t be up to code,” Luka pleaded.
“They could be someone who works in the library,” suggested Walter.
Luka sighed, putting his hoodie up again, and headed immediately to his room once they got home. It was late, with the crescent moon already hanging high in the sky, so… it was normal to be tired.
Instead of sleeping, though, Luka took something out of the bag from his recent shopping trip to the mall. It was a small poster, one from an old cartoon with a loyal following- although despite that it was still nigh-impossible to find a poster that featured the character he liked even though he was the main heroic antagonist of the show- that showed the cat-and-mouse game between an alien who wanted to take over the world and a paranormal investigator who wanted to stop him.
He sighed a little bit as he got some tape from his desk and affixed the poster to the wall across from his bed with a soft pat.
“One day, I know they’ll believe us both.”