Earth Husbands, chapter 10 (Patreon)

Wow... going back to work wiped me out this week, but I am so happy to get back to this universe. I love Rick and Max, even when they're not totally on the same page.

-----------------------

Surprisingly, Rick was not waiting inside the door. Kohei and James were. Xander might be the tallest brother, but Kohei was starting to develop some seriously thick tentacles.

The second Max closed the outer door to the ship, James was tangling around Max’s legs. “Max Father. The compensation was much highly!” James sang happily. “Others like my weapons!”

“Of course they did.” Max carefully stepped over the clump of tentacles and excited offspring under his feet. “You make wonderful weapons. I’ve told you this.”

“James’s weapon changes are not James’ alone,” Kohei said. “Max Father gives idea.”

“I work math!” James trumpeted.

“I able to math. Idea is more valuable,” Kohei retorted.

Max felt like he stepped back in time to a sibling fight between him and Petey, only now Max was playing the role of mother. “Hey, be nice to each other!” Max said firmly. “Kohei, James has a right to be proud of his work. The weapon is his as much as mine, and he never said I didn’t work with him.” James drew himself up a little taller, so Max shook a finger at him. “And you, young sir, need to share credit. Not only did I work with you, but Xander is risking himself to help run this con, so you have to give him credit too. And I know you had him check your math several times.”

James shrank back down, which inspired entire boat-loads of guilt. Parenting sucked. It was the black hole of suckitude. It was weird, but in the shows Max watched, the parents had to deal with slayer kids and werewolf kids and wizard kids, and those parents never seemed ready to pull their hair out. Well, usually not.

“We all did well today,” Max finished. That was weak, even Max knew it. James slid away, and Xander ran after him, leaving Max alone with Kohei. Of all the children, Kohei was the one Max connected to least. Maybe it was because Kohei never needed him, not like his brothers.

“Cut your brother some slack,” Max said.

“He speaks rudely.”

“We’re family. If we can’t be rude to each other, then who are we supposed to be rude to?”

Without a second of hesitation, Kohei said, “Buttfaces.”

Sometimes the kids caught Max so off-guard that he didn’t even have a response. Flying fighter jets required less concentration than parenting. The rules were more direct and the instruments were easier to read.

“If you’re rude to buttfaces, they’re rude back,” Max said. “And sometimes that causes trouble that we don’t want. Family loves us. They have to keep loving us no matter what. So when we’re having a bad day, sometimes we take it out on family.”

Kohei blew raspberries.

“Just don’t assume the worst of your brothers,” Max said weakly. Kohei silently glided away, and Max felt judged. Majorly judged. It dulled some of the pride Max had about how the trade had gone, but on the good side, his fear that he was a shitty father mitigated any apprehension about the con. How did anyone survive parenthood? 

Max headed deeper into the family section of the ship, the part Rick still wouldn’t allow the children into. Rick wasn’t waiting in the corridor either. Max headed up to their shared quarters, and even before the door opened, he could hear a rhythmic banging. His stomach knotted. It sounded like Rick was throwing everything they owned against the walls. Max hadn’t seen that sort of anger out of Rick, and a little cowardly voice suggested he run for the hills. However, Max didn’t run from fights. Well, except for that one time when his ex had thrown all his clothes off the apartment balcony, but Max called that a strategic retreat.

When he trigged the door to open, he braced himself for a shit-throwing fit and broken possessions. Instead Rick was braced on the edge of the bed with a mechanical panel open and he was pounding a piece into the back of it. He didn’t even pause his work to announce, “I reviewed recordings. You are moron.”

“I am a moron,” Max corrected him, “and no, I am not.” He sat on the edge of the bed, and Rick lowered the tool he’d been using and shifted so his eyes were on level with Max’s.

“You lack logic.”

“I can’t argue with that,” Max said with a shrug. His measuring stick for logic was Mr. Spock, and he fell so far short of that mark that it wasn’t even funny. He couldn’t even match a love-pollen infected Spock for logic. No shame in that.

Rick tilted and then rotated to consider Max through multiple eyes. “Clarify your clarification.”

Max grinned. Distraction level: master. Even now Rick’s tentacles were starting to relax. “My first statement is a correction of your grammar. My second statement is truth. I am not a moron.”

“True and illogical is mutually exclusive and you are illogical.”

“I am not.”

“You am too.”

“Am not.”

“Am too,” Max shot back. 

“Awww. Are we fighting?”

Rick froze. For a second he was like a giant stuffed octopus sitting on the bed. Only his eyes moved as they slowly rotated in their sockets. Then his tentacles all twitched. “Nausea, heartburn, indigestion, upset stomach, diarrhea!” Rick bugled.

“You watch too much television.”

More tentacle twitching. “Television truths are still truths.”

Max studied Rick. When they’d talked before, Rick had said he was fine with this plan, but clearly something had changed. Max toed off his shoes and pulled his feet up under him. “Okay, tell me in small, simple words why you believe I am a moron.”

“You are a moron.” Rick sank down onto the bed.

“So you say.” Max sighed. “Clarify. Query. Why do you believe I am a moron?”

“You present you self as violent.” The smaller tentacles curled up.

Max held a hand out, but Rick kept his tentacles to himself. “I can be,” Max said softly.

“You are not at nature violent. You could have given away my program to Hunters. You only are violent with Hunters when Hunters only say threat of violence against offspring.” Rick trumpeted again.

Max was starting to think that Rick’s grammar in his own language went to shit when he got upset. Either that or his accent got thicker or something because the computer really did struggle to get a coherent sentence out of Rick’s more dramatic proclamations. “I see that you’re upset,” Max said slowly. He wasn’t good at handling relationship conflicts. Hell, he wasn’t even minimally competent at it; however, for Rick he had to try.

“You are moron,” Rick said when Max took too long to finish his thought.

“Probably,” Max said. “I missed how much this would upset you, and I regret that.”

Instead of soothing Rick, that made all his tentacles curl. “You planned threat of violence!” The voice was so loud that Max flinched away from the sound. Damn.

“I had to convince them I wasn’t a moron.”

“You are moron! You intent perception violence!”

Max caught one of Rick’s tentacles and worked his fingers inside the tight curl. “They had a certain impression of what humans are like.”

“Correct impression. Morons.”

“Incorrect impression. Harmless. Helpless.”

Rick’s tentacle relaxed a tiny fraction. “The danger is that they will underestimate humans. You saw the television shows from Earth. You know the truth.”

When he spoke, Rick’s voice was as soft as Max had ever heard it. “Soap operas. Science fiction. Westerns.”

It would be so easy to allow Rick to deceive himself, but Max didn’t want to feel like a fraud, not with Rick. “News. Documentaries. War. Atrocities. Pol Pot. Hitler. Rwanda. Riots.”

Rick’s tentacles balled up again. “That humans are not Max human.”

Max sighed. “No, and I hope I never see the sort of violence I’ve watched on the news, but I am trained to fight. My grandfather fought people who followed Hitler, and my family is proud of how many he killed. I’m proud of protecting my family against Hunters.” Max swallowed a knot of fear and asked, “Are you frightened of me because I’m human?” Max couldn’t blame Rick if he was. Television broadcasts of the chaos after the Nish invasion made humans look slightly psychotic.

“No fear.” Rick flowed forward, his tentacles everywhere at once, and Max fell back onto the bed, and Rick’s weight pinned him to the mattress. “I do fear nothing with you. I fear for you.” The computer missed the next bit of whale song. “If others peoples believe humans are to be feared, they will treat you poorly. They hate Hunters almost as much as Uglies.”

“Hidden people,” Max corrected him. “I assume they hate Hunters in part because they hunt. I am not hunting. I am trading.”

“Trading weapons,” Rick said.

Max really wished they had a copy of the trading translator and its ability to translate tone. Without knowing how Rick felt when saying that, Max was a bit in the dark. It was like trying to have a conversation through text—one where the other person didn’t know how to use emojis. The tentacles helped, but there was a wide range of unhappy, and Max wasn’t sure which variation was turning Rick into a side order of curly fries. “Trading weapons brings in resources,” Max said softly. “James helped make those weapons and Xander helped me sell them. I am proud that we’re working together to beat these assholes.”

“I would prefer to hide,” Rick said.

Max spread his fingers and waited while Rick curled tentacles around them. “I will protect you.”

“Who will protect Max?” Rick asked.

Max sighed. It was a serious question, especially when he didn’t understand the psychology and legal system involved. Honestly, Max would be more comfortable if he had someone on his six, and Xander didn’t count. It was Max’s job to protect him, not the other way around.

“Silly rabbit, Trix are for kids,” Rick said.

“I have no idea what you mean by that,” Max said.

Rick shifted around, and Max umphed when he caught a tentacle in the stomach. “Sorries,” Rick said, and then he settled next to Max on the bed. “Meaning. I am not made for providing helping. The Hidden people are best at hiding.”

“Ah.” Max got it now. Fear was a powerful motivator, and it might explain Rick’s sudden desire to bang on the equipment. Max remembered when he’d gone home senior year and told his parents that he’d gotten an ROTC scholarship. His mother had lost all the color out of her face, and she’d been so scared that her little boy would get killed. Funny enough, back then alien abduction had not been on the list of rational fears. “My human family worried about me fighting, too,” Max said.

“Extreme discomfort. They see you as violent—the prepare countermeasures with violence.”

Max sighed. “I know that. I understand that violence is a double edged sword.”

“Violent individual uses sword, but sword is less worrisome than projectile and energy weapons.”

Max laughed. “True.” He stroked Rick’s tentacle. “I will be more careful. I had to change their minds about humans. I had to convince them humans and harmless were not equivalent.”

“Do not work too hard to accomplish that goal,” Rick said. Max could imagine a fearful tone in those belches.

“Coming home to you will always be my first priority,” Max said. He traced circled on the back of Rick’s largest tentacle.

“Perfect.”

“But I would like to make the rest of the universe pay proper compensation, too,” Max added.

Rick made lout farting noises. No doubt that was an editorial comment, but in this case ignorance was bliss because Max had no idea what it meant. And right now, he didn’t care. He’d had a stressful day, and he had time to cuddle in bed with his Rick. That was all he cared about in this moment. He closed his eyes and let the stress of the day fade as he concentrated on the feel of smooth tentacles caressed his arm.