Earth Fathers, chapter 23 (Patreon)

Max studied the pattern of hickeys that crisscrossed chest. It looked like he’d been attacked by a swarm of tiny mouths, each one leaving a dime-sized red mark. Max ran his thumb over one that crossed into his areola. The skin was sensitive and hot.

Rick walked up behind Max and touched Max’s bare side. “Query. Have I damaged you?”

“No. Human lovers often leave marks like this. We call them hickeys.”

“Observation. We have much different internal structures. You are rare boned-tentacle species. Of contrast, we are very sexually compatible.”

“Yes, we are,” Max said with a smile. He grabbed his shirt from the floor. “I enjoyed that a lot.”

Rick gave a little full-body shimmy. Rick followed Max and this time he wrapped several tentacles around Max's left arm. “Query. Why do you fear to be hurt?”

That pretty much killed the afterglow. Max let his right hand fall to his side. He considered running for the hills, only the ship didn’t have hills. Worse, Rick would never understand it if Max fled. He would assume he had done something wrong. Finding out that Max really was a warrior had clearly thrown Rick, and there was a certain insecurity there. Max desperately didn’t want to poke any emotional holes. “I think sometimes relationships are more complicated than people can handle,” Max said slowly. “And I think this relationship is complicated because we don't always understand each other.”

“Clarify. Complicated.”

Max huffed. He knew he had programmed that word, but he’d defined the way it applied to a control center having too many buttons or a diagram too many lines. But really, it wasn't that much different with relationships. They had too many differences between them, and wanting this to last forever didn’t change any of the obstacles they would have to overcome. Right now Rick was probably impressed with himself for getting a warrior into his bed, but sooner or later he was going to want to tangle tentacles with someone who actually had tentacles. Max spread the fingers of his left hand and the tips of Rick’s tentacles wound between them. “Clarify,” Max said, “complicated is having too many working pieces to watch all of them at once.”

“I have many eyes. I can watch many pieces.”

Max let out a bark of laughter. “You do have many asymmetrical eyes.”

“Thank you.”

The smile faded from Max’s face. “I don't know if even you have enough eyes to watch all the potential problems with the relationship.”

Rick was silent for a long time. He stood with his bulbous head resting against Max's shoulder and little tentacle fingers stroking Max's left arm. “I understand,” he said eventually. “Relationship between species requires ignoring of unpleasant attributes.”

“Query. Like my symmetrical eyes?” Max asked.

“I overlook the flaw because you cannot prevent unfortunate symmetry. I remember much your intestines,” Rick said in a serious tone.

Max really had nothing to say to that. He'd had lovers with fetishes in the past, but never had someone cared about intestinal tract. Sure, as a gay man he’d played with his butt, but he saw his intestines more as a shortcut to the prostate than an attractive feature in and of itself.

“Query. Is there some trait of me that you cannot overlook?” Rick asked. He started to withdraw some of his tentacles.

“No!” Max tightened his fingers around Rick’s tentacles. “Right now, you seem like the perfect lover. And that's what scares me. Because when we figure out why this isn't going to work, it's going to hurt to lose you.” A surge of emotion slammed into Max.

“You are warrior.” Rick pulled onto the bed.

“Query. Why say that now?”

Rick wound a few more tentacles around Max’s arm. “Warrior seeks to identify dangers. It is the nature of warrior. You seek trouble and danger in relationship. You can look and look and look and look and look and when you see I will not leave, then you can stop feeling warrior fear.”

“I…” Max stopped. His mother used to tell him that he borrowed trouble from the future, that he was unwilling to even wait for disasters to come before he anticipated them. And he had taken a lot of emotional hits in the last year or so. Too many. A human psychiatrist would probably tell him that he needed time to recovery before he made big decisions, like deciding a relationship was doomed just because one half of the couple lacked bones in their tentacles.

“Query. You enjoy entangling tentacles.”

If Max didn’t know better, he would say Rick was manipulating him by changing the subject. “You are a sex God. That was the best orgasm of my life, and I enjoyed the sex so much that I have no right to be negative.” Hopefully Rick understood that was an apology.

“Feelings exist. The others have feelings about asymmetry. Illogical feelings. Query. Would you dislike me if I had an even number of tentacles?”

“Of course not.” Max hadn’t ever counted the tentacles.

“Logical.” Rick gave a little bounce.

Max shook his head. Aliens. So weird. “I do have one question about staying, though.”

Rick stilled. “Query. You doubt staying?”

“No. No I will stay. But I have one query. Query. Will you give me the information and authority to make sure that no one ever gets on the ship again?”

“Query. Clarify to circumscribe request.” Rick tilted his head to the side.

“Clarify language. Explain the parameters of the request,” Max corrected him. Actually, he corrected the computer that provided the actual translation. “Clarify request. I need access to any security you have on the ship because it is clearly not enough. Someone got on the ship and I didn't hear a single alarm.”

“Alarm interrupts difficult mathematical calculations.”

For a second, Max lost the ability to form words. After several false starts, he demanded, “Are you saying you turned the alarms off?”

“Alarms are distracting.” Rick leaned away.

“Okay. That is not going to happen again,” Max said firmly. He shivered at the idea of floating through space with absolutely no warning system. “We can reroute the alarms so that I get the alarm, but if someone docks with this ship, I need to know.”

“Acceptable. I underestimated the ability of others to detect my movements.”

“Yes. You did. In fact… query. Do we have some sensors that would tell us if another ship was near?”

“Query. Clarify near.”

Max’s military training kicked in and he started wondering about the operational specs of the weapons enemies might use. He had learned to fight in airspace defined by gravity and the physics of propulsion systems in Earth atmosphere. The underlying understanding of strategy would be similar, but all the specifics would be different in space. “I don't know how near. I need to study warrior information in the ship's computer. I need to know what species are out there and which ones are dangerous. I need to know what weapons are most common and which ones will give me horrible burns in close proximity.” Max’s arms tingled. “I need to know the vulnerabilities of various spacecraft and of different species. If I am going to protect my family, I need information, and I need you to let me make changes required to protect this family.” Max braced himself for any number of counter arguments. After all, humans didn’t even possess space technology, so giving Max that sort of information could be seen as irresponsible.

Instead, Rick simply said, “Acceptable.” Rick walked out.

Max dashed after him. “Query. Clarify. Acceptable. What part are you accepting?”

“All. I am not warrior. You know warrior needs more than I. I will open all information and resources so you may be warrior.”

“No questions?” 

“You may ask questions,” Rick said as they got in the lift. “But I have no warrior skill. You should not trust my words on warrior craft. I am good with computer command systems.”

“Yeah, I figured out that first part,” Max said. He still couldn’t believe Rick had turned off the damn alarm. Rick had no tactical sense, none at all. The lift doors opened, and Max followed Rick as they headed toward the control room.

“Computers in upper ship give access unallowed to…” The computer lost the last word, but it confirmed Max’s assumption that the area below the control room was for the hired help or maybe paying passengers. “Computer in the room of Max or rooms of study on levels will give full warrior information.” 

They passed through the control room and headed toward the pool room. “Why is the pool in the area with less access?” Max asked.

“Offspring are small. They cannot learn skill for compensation now. They will want to swim in faster waters faster than they should.”

“Awwww. You’re an overprotective father.” Max shoulder bumped Rick.

Rick curled his tentacles around Max’s arm. “You are father even more overprotect. Earth fathers are weird.”

“You’ve said that before.”

“Is worth saying multiple times,” Rick said. He pulled Max close enough that Max’s legs brushed his tentacles with each step. When they walked into the pool room, Kohei and Xander were swimming, but James was nowhere to be seen. The boy was probably off exploring or getting himself in trouble. Or both. He was going to give Max gray hair before he was grown.

“Rick father! Max father!” Xander called. He zipped to the edge of the pool. “Come swim with us.”

“Come swim,” Kohei echoed.

“What do you say, Rick. Query. Would you like to swim?” Max asked.

“Yes.” Rick blasted the air with whale song, and James’s head appeared out from behind a large pipe.

“Reduce the volume,” Max said as he stripped out of his shirt. Maybe the fabricators in the upper level would be able to turn out a shirt that actually fit. Max could always ask James to help out. He was good with computers, although making shirts was not going to keep his interest for long.

“Many sorries for soft, symmetrical human ears,” Rick said as he waded into the pool and reached for Xander.

“Asshole,” Max grumbled.

“Asshole!” Kohei repeated in a far louder voice.

“Don’t say that.” Max pulled his pants off so he could swim in his underwear. Rick threw Xander up into the air. When Xander splashed down, he made a squealing noise and flailed all his tentacles.

Kohei swam to the edge of the pool. “Max father said it.”

“Max father says things you shouldn’t.” Max stopped ankle deep in the pool. “Shit. I’ve turned into my father.” While Max was distracted with the horror of that, Rick swam up and caught his ankle. In a heartbeat, Rick pulled Max’s leg out from under him. Max fell backward and had a half second to imagine bashing his head in on the edge of the pool. Then Rick wrapped him up in tentacles so Max splashed safely down in the shallows.

“You asshole!” Max shouted. He splashed Rick with both hands, but Rick just blew bubbles and pulled him deeper into the water.

“Save Max father,” James cried, and then he flung himself into the pool and started slashing madly. The boy had the worst aim because most of the water went straight up into the air and landed on him. However, Kohei joined the fight, and he could kick up huge amounts of water. Max turned his head to the side to protect himself from the deluge.

After releasing Max, Rick jetted toward Kohei. Abandoning his attack, Kohei fled toward the water filtration island. Rick chased. Laughing, Max watched them dart around. James got into the middle of it, but Max couldn’t tell whose side he was on. He seemed to just like random splashing.

“Query. Max father leave for home soon?” Xander asked as he climbed Max’s arm to settle in on his shoulder.

“I’m not leaving at all,” Max said. “This is home.” 

For a moment Xander didn’t stir a tentacle, but then he flung himself down into the water and gave a miniature version of his father’s whale song. The translator missed most of the message, but it did spit out “Max” “stay” and “father.”

James and Kohei stopped. After a few seconds of listening to their little brother, both swam toward Max. But instead of catching him up in a bear hug, all three offspring began singing and splashing Max violently enough that Max could only shield himself as he laughed so hard that he had trouble even catching his breath, much less retaliating.

“I protect Max!” Rick loudly announced, and then he slapped up a tidal wave that drenched everyone, including Max.

“Watch the friendly fire!” Max yelled as he used one hand to shovel water in the general direction of the boys and Rick. 

Max was badly outgunned in this fight, but somehow, he didn’t mind. Maybe he hadn’t chosen to get dragged into space, but if he ever found that alien ship that had invaded Earth’s atmosphere, he was going to buy them a good bottle of whatever passed for beer in these part. Without them, Max never would have figured out where his real home was.

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