Earth Fathers are Weird, chapter 12 (Patreon)

“I think I'm going to call you, Xander,” Max told his the little friend that was clinging to his hand. Offspring number three was so small that he could hold on to the base of Max's pinky or the base of his thumb, but he wasn't large enough to stretch all the way across the palm from one to the other. 

“I don't think you guys get Buffy the Vampire Slayer out here, but you seem like a Xander.” That was stretching the truth a little, but he went on to explain. “The other people on the show all had powers, but Xander had this grip on life. It was like he never gave up.” Max moved is hand a little faster, and the baby held on tightly. “No matter what got thrown at him, he kept plugging.

“Now I'm not saying he was the brightest member of the Scooby gang, because he wasn't. He once showed up for a fight with a vampire carrying a rock.” Max realize that vampires weren't real, but if they were real, showing up for a vampire fight with a rock just seemed a little stupid, and the older Max got, the stupider that moment seemed. “However, Xander kept plugging and he never gave up on life, and he never gave up on his friends. That's what you have to do now.”

Max slowed his movements as ran his hand through the water. Rick insisted that's all Xander needed. As long as Xander had the warmth of Max's hand and help moving through the water, everything else would eventually fix itself.

“You just have to channel your inner Xander and not give up. And maybe things are hard right now, and maybe they're going to be hard for a while, but I saw you on that scanner. I saw you swimming for all you're worth when you were behind your brother. You're not the sort to give up easily.”

Max turned and tried to find Offspring Two. He didn't seem to have any sort of middle child inferiority complex. He definitely was not one to stand on the edge of things—or in his case float—and go Marsha Marsha Marsha. Nope. Rick's middle child was determined to explore the far reaches of every bit of the pool. At one point, he'd even tried crawling out.

If Max hadn't been busy with Xander, he probably would've gone after the idiot. Luckily, the idiot in question decided that he was not quite ready for the air and he quickly got back into the pool. Max needed to come up with some great explorer or adventurer's name for Offspring Two. He knew there were plenty. Some human had been the first to get the bright ideate idea to go to the North Pole or the South Pole. Those would've been great names, only Max was far better television characters than historical figures. So for now, the kid was just going to have to stay Offspring Two.

“I bet I'm breaking about a million taboos by giving you nicknames,” Max told Xander. The warmth of Xander’s body against his palm was a great comfort. “Before going overseas for my first assignment, we got this whole lecture about cultural sensitivity. They told us how some people would never encounter an American other than members of the service, and so we had to become ambassadors of a sort.” Max snorted. That had stressed him more than live weapons training.

“That’s a lot of pressure for twenty-four-year-old kid. I signed up to fly airplanes not be an ambassador. And then they told us how it was even more important for officers to be culturally sensitive. They explained how whatever we did, the enlisted would take that as a signal that they could do something three times more. So if we were doing something particularly bad, they would do something three times worse, and it would be our fault.” Maybe Max was bored or maybe he just liked having an audience who couldn’t understand him, but he found hanging out with the kids incredibly cathartic.

“That was a lot of pressure, and I was really glad I didn't get stationed somewhere isolated enough that my lack of cultural sensitivity would lead to some international incident. I'm pretty sure my officers were nervous about me being gay because there are parts of the world where gay does not go over well. However, my point is that if my training officers saw me doing culturally inappropriate things like naming somebody else's children,” and at this, Max brought Xander close to the surface of the water and made puffy faces at him, “they would probably go back in time and flunk me. Funny thing though, I'm not entirely sure I'm ever going to get home, so I think I need to stop living my life like I will be. So who's going to tell me that I can't name you guys?”

Max lowered himself until his mouth was underwater, and he blew bubbles at Xander. Several of Xander’s tentacles waved, and then Xander pushed off from Max’s hand and swam madly for Max’s face. His stubby tentacles caught at Max’s lips, and Max blew more bubbles. Xander’s tentacles danced across Max’s cheeks and reached up into his nose. 

Max snorted and caught Xander in his hand. “Okay. No snotty tentacles for you, sir.”

Xander wrapped his tentacles around Max’s thumb and pressed his belly to Max’s palm. In that short swim, he had already cooled significantly. “If your father told me that he was upset with me giving you names, I would stop,” Max said. “Of course I named your father after a belching cartoon character and he doesn't actually seem to mind. You have a pretty laid-back father, but he was still awfully worried about you.”

Kohei swam up and caught Max by his left wrist. “What's the matter? Are you tired?” Max slowly waved his arms as if he were jogging in slow motion.  Kohei’s grasp was viselike, especially when Max compared it to Xander’s light grip.

“You're welcome to hitch a ride for a while,” Max told Kohei. It wasn’t like he was going anywhere, not with Xander needing him. “You get so crazy with your gymnastics that I'm hardly surprised that you wear yourself out. You have to learn to pace yourself.”

The doors opened, and Rick came in with his hat back in place. He looked better than he has. Considering he had been on the verge of exhaustion, it didn't require much to look better than half dead. “Query. Did you manage to get some sleep?” Max asked.

Rick slid toward the pool. “I slept 2.37 hours.”

That was not helpful. “Query. What is considered a normal amount of sleep for your species?”

“5.2 hours.”

So he hadn’t slept long enough, but Max couldn’t blame him. “Well at least you got some sleep. But both of us need to pace ourselves so that we don't get too tired. The kids need us both rested and fed. Query. Did you get some food?”

“Not yet. I shall. Rick came into the water until it was halfway up his walking tentacle. Max lifted his hand so that Rick could see Xander still cradled in the palm of it. “The offspring are fine, but I'm not giving them back to you until you've eaten. You need to be strong.”

Rick came closer, his tentacles reaching out toward Max and the kids. “You have tended them long enough.”

“I had a long sleep. I feel wonderful, so you need to take enough time off that you feel wonderful before you take over. All the children are fine. Offspring Two seems a little overconfident, but Offspring Three is fine and healthy.

“Query. Clarify overconfident.” Rick started to rotate, and he only stopped once his main eye was pointed at the far corner of the pool. Offspring two was busily sticking one of his tentacles out of the water like a flag. When Max turned, Kohei launched himself toward his brother.

“Bold. Reckless. He crawled out of the water before deciding that was a bad idea,” Max explained. At this point he was almost more worried about their little daredevil than he was about Xander. Daredevil. Huh. Matthew Michael Murdock was the original Daredevil. Max wondered if that would be a good name for the wild child.

“Offspring must learn boundaries,” Rick said. He turned back toward Max and reached a tentacle out toward Xander. 

“I agree. I just hope he doesn't break something before he figures out where those boundaries are.” It  was probably a good thing that Rick's people didn't have bones because Max was fairly sure that middle child would've already broken a couple. He was certainly precocious for a one day old.

Rick ran a tentacle along Xander’s back, and Xander reached for his father without letting go of Max’s hand. Rick might have a warm body, but his tentacles were far to chilly to keep Xander healthy. That’s why Rick had to hold his son close to his belly.

“Query. Are humans born with full cognitive abilities?” Rick asked.

Max snorted. “No. Not even close. Humans are born with the potential for intelligence, but we pretty much just roll around, cry and eat for the first several months.” He frowned. “Actually, we can’t even roll for the first few weeks. And then it takes years before real cognitive processing skills develop.” Max had to assume Rick was trying to make a point, so he waited for Rick to continue.

“Query. How long is required between birth and attainment of cognitive processing skills?”

“Query. Clarification. Any cognitive processing skills or reasonably well-developed skills? Because those are going to have very different answers.”

Rick floated closer. “The people are born with cognitive skills, but they lack experience to contextualize a general knowledge of the universe.” He curled his tentacle so it surrounded Xander.

“Are you saying they’re born smart? I mean, are they born able to understand cause and effect?” Max asked. 

“Yes.” Rick shifted his tentacle away from Xander and curled it around Max’s wrist. Max let Rick take control. He used his tentacle to wave Max’s hand through the water to keep Xander fed and healthy. Truth be told, Max appreciated the break. His muscles were starting to protest the endless movement. “It makes the people unfamiliar compared to other beings,” Rick said, and Max realized that Rick was trying to explain his species as a whole. “Others believe in raising young, but our young only need protection in order to learn context and language.”

Max studied Xander as he clung to Max's ring finger and pinky. No matter what Rick said, Max refused to think of Xander as anything other than a helpless child.

Rick didn’t say anything else, and Max started feeling like he was letting his half of the conversation down. “Okay,” he said. Rick kept using his tentacle to move Max’s hand.

“I wish to contextualize information on human preference.”

“Query. What sort of preference?”

“Preference regarding entertainment.”

Max seriously helped that Rick was about to ask about some inconsistency in the Star Wars movies. Max didn't remember the prequel nearly as well as he should have, so he had no doubt that he'd screwed up any number of details. However, if this was about to turn sexual, Max would rather avoid any inappropriate conversations, and that went double when children were present or when Rick was feeling all touchy. 

Rick continued. “Query. What prerequisites are required for the activation of the reproductive system?”

Shit. This is exactly where Max had been hoping the conversation wouldn’t go. “Query. Why do you require this context?” he countered.

“I wish to understand why I activated the reproductive system the time I touched you for implanting of offspring eggs.”

Max closed his eyes. The universe hated him. It really did. However, he didn’t want to verbally strike out at a guy who had suffered one seriously shitty week. “It's like I said. If I'm in pain, you're not going to be able to activate the reproductive system because I won't enjoy it. I don't like being in pain.”

“Avoidance of pain is a universal trait.” Rick seemed remarkably sure of that, and Max chose to not strip him of his illusions. Avoiding pain was definitely not universal. Sometimes it scared Max how many people liked trading a little pain with their sex. 

“Well then, you have your answer. The required prerequisite is the lack of pain.”

Rick didn’t answer for some time, but he also didn’t let go of Max’s wrist. “Query. Is there no other prerequisite?”

“What you mean? That was a query, by the way.”

“If one of the law enforcers on the ship had put a tentacle inside your body, would that have activated your reproductive system?”

Max so wanted to avoid this. And if he couldn’t, he wished he could treat the whole thing like a joke, but his words about being an ambassador echoed in his head and mocked him. He was an officer. He had an obligation not to fuck this up royally. That meant he had to choose his words to be precise and honest. “Hell no. I didn't understand what was going on, and those guys were rude. They yanked me out of my plane and then acted like I was unreasonable for requesting that they put me back where they found me.”

“Query. Why would law enforcers remove you from your mode of transportation?”

“There was something about my plane being about to blow up.”

Rick’s tentacles all twitched, and the one holding Max’s wrist jerked hard enough to pull Max through the water a short distance. Now he and Rick floated mere inches apart. “Query. You wished to return to the plane before it blew up?”

“No. But I wished to be in my plane and not have my plane blowup. I wished I was still on Earth. I wished many things, and the law enforcers were not good at explaining anything.

“Query. Clarification. Pain and confusion preclude the activation of reproductive system.”

Max had never thought of it that way, but it was weirdly accurate. “Yes.”

“Query. Are any other conditions required?”

Max sighed. He didn’t normally reflect on feelings this much. Being gay meant he had a freedom to opt out of certain manly activities. Peer pressure had never convinced him to play football or engage in middle school games that involved punching friends. However, Max was as guilty as anyone of avoiding emotion. And when he didn’t avoid it, he sucked at it. The military hadn’t exactly discouraged the trait. “You're asking me a question I can't answer. Human beings are all different. Some people's reproductive systems turn on for different activities or in different circumstances. I can't give you an answer for why a human's reproductive system turns on.”

“I do not ask about humans. I understand individuals are different within a species. I ask about you.” Rick kicked his tentacle and shifted so he was right in front of Max. “Are there other prerequisites for turning on the reproductive system of Max?”

Max wished he could hide his face in his hands. “Query. Why are you asking for the reasons my reproductive system turned on?”

“I require context. I do not understand Max Davis.”

Max snorted. “Join the club.”

“Query. Clarify club.”

“Sex is not easy to explain. I dislike that my sexual reproductive system turned on that first time. You should not have to deal with me spilling genetic material.”

“Query. Would that be gross?”

Max laughed. “Yes. It was gross. And I am old enough that I should not be gross.”

“Query. Does that imply you were in pain or confused when I examined you for implantation of offspring?”

Max pulled at his hand. Rick held on for a time before letting go. Max did a one-armed backstroke to retreat from the area, but Rick just followed. Worse, Max couldn’t get out while he had Xander. Kohei swam over and hitched a ride on one of his father’s tentacles, but Rick ignored him. Max stopped near the water filtration island and held Xander in the currents.

Rick floated a few feet away. “Query. Did I harm or confuse you?”

“No,” Max answered quickly.

“Query. Would you want reproductive entertainment again?”

“What?” Max spun around to stare at Rick with horror. “Why would you ask that?”

Rick floated and stared at Max so long that Max thought the lack of a “Query” marker in front of the question confused him, but then Rick said, “I am without context.”

“For our sex? Simple, the computer mistranslated nanny for surrogate and you did things that caused my reproductive system to turn on.” And that was the unsexiest description of tentacle sex Max could manage.”

“Confirmation. You said humans enjoy sex.”

“Yes,” Max said, feeling a little like he was walking in a minefield. 

“Clarify. Query. Why would you avoid sex if you enjoy it and I meet the prerequisite conditions?”

Max closed his eyes and leaned back. Lord help him. He was about to lose his mind trying to explain shit that should be repressed and forgotten. However, Max wanted to avoid miscommunication. Besides, if Rick’s people found their way to Earth, he didn’t want them all offering sex based on Max’s unhelpful descriptions.

“Sometimes sex is all about the body. When I'm only thinking about how body parts fit together, it's quite easy for my reproductive system to turn on. But that sort of sex doesn’t get talked about.” 

“Query. Why would entertainment involve silence?”

Max opened his eyes and tried to figure out how he was supposed to explain shame and Puritan ideals and parents and guilt and all the garbage that went along with “easy” sex. And then there was the more complicated issue of gay sex. Without pregnancy to worry about and with the free-love sixties still driving the youth culture, a whole generation of men had rejected the idea that they should feel shame, and the lack of birth control in a population that literally didn’t have to worry about birth had contributed to the AIDS epidemic. Max had barebacked once, and the guilt had turned into a hard, crusty edge on his conscious for months. And that was still better than some of the guys he knew who insisted AIDS wasn’t any big deal. They barebacked and never got tested and pretended the seventies and eighties never happened.

How did Max translate any of that into terms that made sense for an alien when he didn’t understand it himself? “Answer. I don’t know,” Max said. He expected Rick to demand answers, but he just floated next to Max. They were silent for a long time, and Kohei let go of his father and started swimming toward his brother who was, once again, experimenting with walking in the shallowest part of the pool.

“However, sometimes sex involves how bodies fit together and the emotions that people feel for one another. That sex becomes complicated, and turning on the reproductive system too quickly can be a problem.” At least it had always been one for Max. His relationships went into two categories—short, hot, and likely to die faster than an advent candle or long, messy, and emotionally damaging. “Emotions are harder than allowing the body parts to just line up.”

“Query. Does that imply you feel emotions?”

Now the universe was just mocking Max. “Yes.”

“Query. Positive emotions or negative ones?”

Max sighed. If he were honest, he would say both. He liked that Rick listened and that he explained and he wanted to know about Max. He appreciated the care he used around Max. He respected Rick as a father and felt sympathy for the way he’d suffered. But he also had a big dose of fear that he was getting too involved and that Rick didn’t understand how much he was asking of Max. He was fucking terrified that he relied on Rick too much, and he had no idea what would happen when the time came for them to separate. And under that, he didn’t want to hurt Rick because Rick had made enough comments about the shittiness of the universe in general that Max recognized how fragile he was. And that last convinced Max to give the simple lie instead of the more complicated truth.

“Positive emotions, Rick. I feel positive emotions.” 

Rick floated near him, his tentacles barely moving to keep him from drifting off in the current. 

“Now go get something to eat and take at least an hour or two to recover before coming back and giving me time to get some food.”

“Yes.” Rick turned and swished all his tentacles in exactly the same way Xander did. It shot him across the pool and Rick hurried toward the exit.

Max looked down at the baby clinging to his hand. “What am I going to do with your father?” he asked sadly. The worst part was that he suspected Rick was going to take far fewer emotional hits than Max would, in the end. Well, he could only handle one day at a time. The rest would have to sort itself out.

Chapter 13: https://www.patreon.com/posts/earth-fathers-13-23591315 

Chapter 14: https://www.patreon.com/posts/earth-fathers-14-23693389 

Chapter 15: https://www.patreon.com/posts/earth-fathers-15-23715331 

Chapter 16: https://www.patreon.com/posts/earth-fathers-16-23798161 

Chapter 17: https://www.patreon.com/posts/earth-fathers-17-23902574 

Chapter 18: https://www.patreon.com/posts/earth-father-18-23938595 

Chapter 19: https://www.patreon.com/posts/earth-fathers-19-23961630 

Chapter 20: https://www.patreon.com/posts/earth-fathers-20-24034384 

Chapter 21:  https://www.patreon.com/posts/earth-fathers-21-24119410 

Chapter 22: https://www.patreon.com/posts/earth-fathers-22-24165545 

Chapter 23: https://www.patreon.com/posts/earth-fathers-23-24253737 

Epilogue: https://www.patreon.com/posts/earth-fathers-24266071