Earth Fathers, chapter 11 (Patreon)

Max was in the main corridor when Xander appeared at the end of the corridor with the equipment cart. “You ready?” Max called. Xander didn’t answer, but James darted around the cart and came hurrying down the passage. “Max Father, I will go with you!” James announced loudly. The doors at the end opened again and both Rick and Kohei appeared. Apparently they were having a family reunion.

“James is annoying,” Xander blurted in English.

Max ignored the outburst. “I appreciate that James, but you need to stay here.”

“No. I help Max Father.” James stopped, forcing Xander to halt the cart. Apparently James was staging a sit-in. That seemed dangerous given how many tentacles he had and the weight of the cart Xander was controlling. It wasn’t like Xander was too small to retaliate anymore. Max knew he was going to regret letting them watch Earth television. It had really crappy role models for sibling behavior.

Max looked helplessly towards Rick who hurried down the corridor. After a few seconds, Rick slid forward and curled a tentacle around James’s torso. “Max Husband must work without offspring.”

James shoved his father’s tentacle away. “Untrue. Xander goes with Max Father.”

“Xander has talent with language. Xander can assist.”

James aimed his biggest eye at his brother. If octopus could kill with a glare, Xander’s days would have been numbered. James’s tentacles were stiff as he said, “I can assist.”

Rick moved closer to James. “I too wish to go with Max Husband. But my talent is programming, and I am not of help where Max Husband goes. Therefore, I logically stay.”

“My talent is weapons. Cranky female-presenting creature requests help for weapons. Therefore, I go.” With each word, James's voice grew louder. Substantially.

Rick leaned his torso toward Max, which he interpreted as a request for backup. Max moved to Rick’s side. “Hey, kiddo. I wish you could go. In a fair universe, she would listen to your suggestions because you are very good at engineering. I bet you could do wonderful things if you came. But people aren't fair. The universe isn't fair. And if you came, she would not listen to you.”

James’s tentacles grew stiffer. Max had a flashback to Pete throwing a fit because he couldn’t go along on Max’s school camping trip. At the time he’d been five, and he’d thrown a royal fit. Rick might talk about how offspring were born mature, but Max was fairly sure he was full of shit, because James was gearing up for a toddler temper tantrum.

“She ignores Xander,” Max explained. “She is rude poopy face with Xander.”

Xander made bubbly noises of agreement. Max was just lucky that Xander had less of a temper than James did or both their potential client and James would get an earful about just how poopy they were being.

“She ignores Xander because Xander has talent with useless language. I have talent with weapons. With ships.” After James make that proclamation, Xander grabbed at his brother’s closest leg. James grabbed back. Before Max could do anything, Kohei had waded into the middle of the match and started grabbing both brothers. He was so much stronger than Xander and James that he pulled them apart, and Rick caught James and held him to one side.

“Xander, take the cart out,” Max said.

Xander spit at Kohei and said something untranslatable to James before he headed toward the door.

“I could help Father Max!” James said. Max could imagine the wealth of frustration he would hear if they had the fancy business translator. And he got it. He did. As much as he hadn’t wanted to be assigned to active combat, he remembered the frustration of watching other pilots get those positions. He’d railed against the unfairness of never getting the opportunity to prove himself, all because someone had spread a true rumor about his homosexuality where an Afghani translator overheard it. It sucked knowing that you weren’t welcome, and it broke Max’s heart that James felt shut out.

“You are brilliant,” Max said as soon as Xander was safely out of the fray. Hopefully that meant James was actually listening.

“Much annoying with brilliance,” Rick added.

Max grinned at him. “Yep, you make good offspring,” Max told Rick. The undulating tentacles suggested that Rick appreciated the compliment, even if James was all still stiff tentacles. “But kiddo,” Max said, “Carrington has this screwed up idea that your people aren't worth trading with, just like she had a screwed up idea that humans were useless and harmless.”

“You taught her of screwing up perception with humans. Teach her different with Hidden People,” James demanded.

“I am trying very hard to do exactly that,” Max said. Having to look James in his eyes and tell him that the world was unfair—that sucked. Maybe if they could earn enough money, they could reveal the true author of the navigation program and then move to a part of space with absolutely no sentient life. Max was starting to think sentience was overrated. His family and a dog, and he’d be happy.

“Return to waters,” Rick said.

“I’m not dry,” James argued. He was sounding more like a toddler every second.

“Then go elsewhere,” Rick said.

With more gentleness than Max expected, Kohei herded his little brother toward the door that led back into the main living areas. Max watched them go. “I hate this universe,” Max said softly. “Star Trek promised me that space was going to be better.”

“Star lied,” Rick said. “I didn’t know I hated until you showed me reason for much hate. I am unsure whether you should say sorries or I should be grateful.”

That was a pretty damn good summary of the whole fucked up situation. “Maybe both.”

“Logical and illogical.” Rick blew bubbles. “Humans make life odd.”

Max huffed. “That we do.” He held a hand out toward Rick, and he curled a tentacle around it.

Rick didn’t speak for several minutes. “I worry. Carrington is not with trustworthiness. Be very carefuls.”

“I will,” Max promised. “Trust me, I know all these people are backstabbers. They want profit, and they will hurt people to get it.”

“They possibility hurt Max,” Rick corrected him.

“I won’t let them,” Max promised.

Rick tightened his tentacle around Max’s wrist. “Do not make with more violent words.” 

No one could do guilt like Rick. He was a master of the art. Max curled his fingers around Rick’s tentacle and held on. He couldn’t make promises, not when he wasn’t sure how Carrington was going to treat him. Now that he had broken them out of the fallacy of believing humans.

Wordlessly, Rick turned and headed after the kids. Feeling slightly worthless as a father and more stressed than ever, Max headed out into the muggy morning air. This morning, the planet smelled of something overly sweet and earthy, like a strawberry that had gone off. Max sneezed, and Xander’s tentacles flew up in the air.

“Max Father!” he bugled.

“It’s a sneeze.” Some days Max did not understand the family. They’d heard him sneeze dozens of times, and it never failed to freak them out. Apparently the idea of losing control over breathing, even temporarily, ranked right up there with spiders and heights. Actually, none of them could understand the fear of spiders at all, which had turned a night of watching Big Ass Spider into a week-long running joke about human illogic. Max never wanted to see a spider again, because then he would have four obnoxious family members pointing out the ridiculousness of being afraid of one.  “I sneeze all the time.” He started down the empty boardwalk that led to town and the nicer part of the docks. Carrington had her ship in that section.

“Disturbing!” Xander said as he follows

Max ignored the complaint. “I wish you would be more understanding with your brother.”

“James is poop head.”

“James is frustrated that he doesn’t get to help. Look at it from his point of view—you get to help and he’s left behind.”

“Kohei and Rick Father are left behind.”

“And he probably expects them to be just as frustrated.”

“I never acted like poop head when you spend time with James. His work with weapons were of benefit, so I worked my project. I was not a poop head.”

Max stopped and caught the cart to force Xander to stop, too. “Did I ignore you?”

Xander did a quarter turn. “Max Father spent most time with me when I was small. I was not small when Max Father worked with James.”

That was definitely not an answer. “I spent too much time with James, didn’t I?”

“You spent enough time to make James all, ‘Marsha, Marsha, Marsha.’” Xander even raised his voice to mimic a girl’s voice.

“Now you sound like Rick Father,” Max said dryly.

“I sound more like Max Father, who loves human entertainment. My words are still truth. James is spoiled. Kohei never becomes poopy head.” Xander started the cart moving again, leaving Max to stare at his retreating back.

Now Max felt worse. After a second, he ran to catch up. “I didn’t mean to make any of you unhappy.”

“James is unhappy because he is James,” Xander said without an ounce of sympathy. “Max Father does not make offspring unhappy. He is like brother in making happy.”

Max was almost sure that Xander was trying to say that Max spent lots of time teaching them, but that didn’t assuage his guilt. “With humans, parents are supposed to treat children equally.”

“Marsha, Marsha, Marsha,” Xander repeated. “Humans have unreasonableness for parents.”

Max snorted. “Asking parents to treat children equally isn’t unreasonable. And I’ve hurt James, so I need you to be a little understanding.” No wonder Kohei was being so supportive. As the offspring most likely to get ignored, he could probably sympathize. Max sucked at fatherhood. Sucked, sucked, sucked, sucked. 

“Did your parenthoods always treat you and co-offspring equally?”

Max judged the length of empty boardwalk between them and the ships in the posher end of the port. They had time, especially with the cart slowly bumping over the lines set in the walk. “My parents tried,” Max said. “I think my brother was frustrated because I got to do more than he did. He is six years younger, so it frustrated him that I got to go out on my bike and run around with friends when he had to stay with the babysitter.”

“Did he torture the babysitter?” Xander asked.

“What? Of course not. Why would you ask that?”

“In entertainment, the offspring often torture the babysitter.”

“Television isn’t real.” Max was starting to regret letting them watch television. If they hadn’t been hanging out on the edge of Earth space hijacking signals, Xander wouldn’t have screwed up ideas about humans. Actually, he would rather the kids not have accurate ideas about them either.

“Are families together the way entertainment shows?” Xander asked.

“What do you mean?”

“Do genetic relatives gather for celebrations and continue with alliances after reaching independence?”

“Yeah,” Max said. “Of course we do.” The second the words came out of his mouth, he realized that the question implied that the Hidden People didn’t live like that. Xander was implying that he would grow up, move away and never come back. His breath caught in his chest and he stopped dead on the boardwalk. Xander continued for several feet before he stopped. Maybe something in Max’s expression registered because Xander abandoned the cart and hurried back.

“Max Father. Identify wrongness.”

The air burst out of Max’s mouth and he didn’t realize he’d been holding his breath. Xander curled tentacles around Max’s wrist and tugged at him. “Max Father.”

“I just realized you plan on leaving,” Max said weakly. Fuck. No wonder Rick tried to keep his distance. The cute little bastards were going to break their fathers’ hearts, or Max’s anyway.

“Query. Do not human offspring leave? Query. Did not Max Father leave?”

Max sat down in the middle of the boardwalk. The raised seam dug into his ass, but he didn’t give a shit. After a second, Xander inched close enough to rest his leg tentacle against Max’s knee. “I left, but I never meant to leave forever. Before the law-enforcement poop faces took me away from Earth, I called my parents every few weeks.” Okay, that was almost true. Max hadn’t called them often enough, but if six or eight or ten qualified as a “few,” then he managed it every few weeks. “My mom was always asking if I had met anyone I wanted to pairbond with,” Max said, in part as an excuse. When Max had failed at having any long-term relationship work, he’d just started avoiding her. “But I planned to go home for either Thanksgiving or Christmas. I always visited home.”

Max stared at Xander, wondering how he was supposed to react to the idea of losing his little boy. Intellectually he knew that Rick’s people preferred novelty. Intellectually, he knew they weren’t the most affectionate parents in the world. Emotionally, he was an idiot because he had never processed what steps one and two really meant.

“Query. Identify wrongness,” Xander said in a voice that was almost soft. 

“I want you happy, but I don’t want you to go away and never visit. I want to know your happiness. I want to meet anyone you feel is worth pairbonding with. I want to see your offspring. Shit. I’ll never get to spoil grandbabies.” 

Xander rotated, catching Max’s wrist with a new tentacle when he rotated too far to hold on.

Shaking his head, Max pushed himself up off the walk. “I can have a mental breakdown later. We have business to do.”

“Max Father,” Xander said, but Max had to focus. It was like when he was flying into difficult maneuvers—he had to focus on the horizon, on the instruments, on the feel of the engine vibration in the seat and the stick in his hand. He didn’t have enough space in his brain to worry about anything else, so it all just had to wait until after he’d landed the plane.

He strode down the walk, all his attention on the tall, black ship that Carrington owned. He tried very hard to not hear the click-clack of the cart behind him.