Chapter Six
Atentacle drifted in front of Max’s face–a pale, pasty, ugly tentacle that did not belong to his family.
Max grabbed the tip with one hand and punched the meat of the limb as hard as he could.
That was hard enough because the stupid alien bellowed like Jamie Lee Curtis in Halloween. Then the room fell into cacophony.
“It damaged me,” a Hidden one bellowed, and Max muttered a pain-filled, “Good,” but he didn’t think anyone heard him.
Someone kicked Max’s foot, and the pain made him white out for a moment, but then James was next to him, hovering over Max’s leg and bellowing, “He is Max Father, not outsider. He is Max Father, not an outsider.”
Personally Max didn’t care what they called him as long as they got him some fucking pain killers. Or non fucking ones. Any variety of pain killers would work. Falling out of a plane had hurt less than this. Of course, he’d been unconscious for most of that, but his point was still valid.
Tentacles got shoved and belching profanity issued, then Rick was there, touching Max carefully. “Query, damage.” Yep, his tentacly cuddle monster was upset if the translator was regressing.
Max grabbed the large tentacle that whispered over his skin like Max was fragile.
“I think the bone inside my leg has broken. It has to be stabilized, the two ends moved into place so they line up correctly, and the bone locked in place, usually by putting a hard structure around the outside of the leg,” Max explained, but then he rushed to say, “But I need a pain killer first.” Sometimes his family didn’t think things through if he didn’t spell them out, and now was not the time for one of those mistakes.
“We should call a tender of animals,” a Hidden one belched. Max was fairly sure he was offended that they wanted to call him a veterinarian. But if the vet came with a pain killer, he was okay being offended.
“Max Father is not animal!” James bellowed.
Rick straightened, and lifted several tentacles toward James. “Max Husband is not animal. He is mate. He is one I have chosen to swim stagnant water for. He is interesting warrior, egg-carrier contradiction.”
“Pain killers!” Max shouted.
James belched something, and Rick caught their child, tangling several of their tentacles and pulling James close.
While it looked like a human hug, Rick didn’t give hugs.
Well, he did, but they led to things that were not child-appropriate, and this looked more like Rick was trying to keep James from attempting to beat the other Hidden ones to death.
And denied that ability, James descended into profanity so severe that the translator could only catch an occasional “orifice” and “excrement” and “breeder of self.”
“James!” Max shouted. The effort made fire course through his body.
“Max Father. Do not die.” James pulled away from his father and shrank down next to Max, touching Max’s leg with the tips of his tentacles so gently that Max couldn’t feel it.
“I’m not dying,” he said even though it felt like he was. He was not a fan of pain when it wasn’t fictional and involving safe words and expensive leather equipment. “I need an expert in the healing of bones, and I need pain killers.”
“You need to see internal organs of dishonorable, crusted excrement piled on floor.” Behind James, Hidden ones bellowed more words that couldn’t be translated.
“Angry James stop angering!” Rick said. James twirled, his tentacles shaking with rage.
Max grabbed Rick’s nearest tentacle and squeezed until he had Rick’s attention. “I need a doctor of bones.”
Rick sank down, his bulbous head so close that his eyeballs were centimeters away. “Doctor of bones is doctor of animals.”
“If he can treat a bone, that might be best, but if he treats me like an animal, I’ll turn James’s mouth loose on him.”
“If he treats Max Husband as animal, I will denounce. I will condemn. I will proclaim him offender of Rick and all reasonable Hidden ones. I will urinate in his waters. I will preclude him from any invention–”
“I get it,” Max said. “Insult later. Call doctor now.”
“We move to–”
“No!” Max yelled. Rick’s tentacles curled, and Max tightened his hold on the tentacle trying to escape. “No. The broken edges of the bone can rub and break things inside my tentacle if we move me. I can wait here.”
Rick yanked his tentacle out of Max’s grip and raced toward the Hidden ones so fast that they all retreated in the face of his charge. “Retrieve treater of bones. Retrieve now. Retrieve with speed.”
Rick reversed and raced back to Max, arching over Max’s body and lowering himself until he was a shield hovering over Max’s legs.
James stopped his spin-quiver and shrank down into a knot of misery, but Max was in too much pain to reassure anyone.
He tried to breathe through the pain and held Rick’s tentacle and struggled to breathe.
Eventually a Hidden one with pale, beige tentacles and far too many shiny instruments that looked like torture devices appeared at the door. The crowd around Max shifted, and the new Hidden one moved to Max’s leg.
“What has the animal done to damage its leg?” the Hidden one demanded.
“Not animal! Max Father. Max Father disemboweled pirates who threatened James and Kohei Sibling and Xander Sibling. Max Father teaches like sibling. Max Father is best father and I will disembowel any Hidden one who calls Max Father animal!” James was trumpeting his distress and Max would have worried, only James was shrinking away from the larger Hidden ones.
Which was good. If James started writing checks, his tentacles were not going to be able to cash them.
Rick agreed. “Max Husband is not animal. He is sapient, brilliant, boned husband. He forces outsiders to yield to Hidden one trade advantage.”
“Pain killers.” Max was happy to discuss interplanetary political maneuvers after he got some good drugs.
“Provide pain relief or I will denounce you as boob.”
Max hoped that was a weird translation and literal boobs hadn’t entered the conversation.
The doctor belched and pressed a silver disk to Max’s arm, and the pain faded away.
Parts of reality also faded out of existence, but Max was fine with that.
He focused on Rick, smiling at his husband.
“That is so much better. Please tell me the asshole I punched is suffering.”
Rick’s tentacles undulated. “He complains much.”
Max smiled. “Good.” He let his head fall back to the floor.
“Treatment of...” the doctor stopped. “Treatment requires authorization.”
“I authorize,” Rick said. Max floated through the best high of his life–not that he had much experience with the condition. His desire to fly had cut his wild-child years short.
“Authorization must come from one possessing ownership.”
James bellowed and lunged at the doctor, and he might have thrown a few punches, but Rick caught him and wrapped him in a dozen tentacles. “Max Father is not eligible for ownership.”
“Hold obstreperous child,” Rick said before he shoved several long, slender tentacles into Max’s hand.
Max studied the beige tentacles with white blotches and smiled.
That was James. Smart James. So good with technology.
James tried to pull his tentacles free, but Max tightened his hold.
James had been spitting and belching at the doctor, but now he came to Max and settled next to him.
“Max Father should release me,” James said.
Smaller tentacles wrapped around Max’s fingers, trying to pry them open, but Max held on tighter.
Rick had told him to hold their obstreperous child, and that was James.
And Xander. They had a high percentage of obstreperous children.
Max wondered what that said about them as parents.
“Authorization is required.”
“I have declared mating with Max Husband. Authorize that.”
Max giggled. Authorize that. That was funny. Rick's voice disappeared under the mass of belches and roars. Max closed his eyes and held on to the tentacles wiggling in his grip.
“I will file proper authorization!” Rick shouted over everyone. “Max Husband will be authorized or I will take all I invent and I will go away. I will go outside, and none of my inventions will ever see Hidden one waters. I choose Max husband.”
“Outsiders do not know how to mate. Great Inventor deserves mate of excellence if he chooses to swim in stagnant water.”
“Max husband is mate of excellence.”
Max wondered if the doctor was tending his leg. Feather touches teased his foot, but he was too tired to look. He didn’t have the energy to even open his eyes. Alien drugs were great. Way better than the stuff he got in the military hospital. Way, way, way better.
“Outsider is unacceptable.”
“I file license for establishment of pairing.”
“Too late,” Max said with a smile. “We already filed that paperwork. I got married in front of a judge. My parents will kill me for not inviting them to the wedding. We’ll need to have a second one.”
Rick trumpeted in triumph. “Yes, paperwork is official. We are mates in stagnant water.”
“Authorization of outsiders is insufficient.”
“I signed agreement. What is mine belongs to Max Husband. What is Max Husband’s is mine. If he is disrespected, I take husband and belongings of husband and leave.”
“And offspring!” James shouted. “Offspring of brilliance will leave and share no brilliance here. I sell to outsiders. I already make profits and Max Father forces outsiders to respect us and he gets more profits out of outsiders and he helps me like eldest brother would and he saved idiot younger sibling who could not swim when born small and he disembowels those who threaten.”
“Yes. All that. Authorize that.”
The room was oddly silent, and Max pried one eye open.
The doctor was putting a weird silver mesh around his broken leg, which was mostly reassuring.
It did look a little like the sort of thing that would come alive in a science fiction movie and strangle him in his sleep, but he was unbothered by the possibility.
More interesting was Rick who was facing off against the biggest Hidden one Max had seen.
It was a brute with mint skin and even more red banding and tips than Rick.
That meant he was attractive. Max remembered that.
He ignored it because that rule would mean James and Kohei weren’t attractive, and his children were gorgeous.
Perfect. Obnoxious and obstreperous, but perfect in their obnoxious obstreperousness.
The big Hidden one rotated until his largest eye pointed at Max.
“Mates must be mutual authorization of relationship.”
“It was mutual. Multiple times mutual. Very, very mutual with much pulling of tentacle mutualness,” Max said with a huge smile. James’s tentacles went stiff and Rick trumpeted and the big Hidden one made bubble sounds.
Rick moved to Max’s side, lowering himself. “To authorize as family, they require you to declare desire to swim in stagnant water for me.”
“I’m stoned,” Max said.
Rick bugled at the doctor. “You transfigure animate human outsider into inanimate stone.”
The doctor bugled back. “Described transfiguration is impossible. He is not stone.”
Max laughed so hard he got a stitch in his side. “Ow, ow, ow,” he said, since he knew it should hurt.
The large Hidden one moved to a spot next to the doctor. “This is one you describe as sapient?”
“Hey!” Max objected. “I redesigned weapons to make them more efficient. I check James’s design work and Xander’s translations, and I am a pilot and military office back home.
Office. I said I’m an office.” Max laughed.
“I’m an officer. I am very sapient. Usually.
I’m a little...” Max lifted his hand and wobbled it from side to side to suggest his shaky mental state before letting it drop.
“Animals respond strongly to nerve pharmaceutical,” the doctor said.
Rick struck out, his tentacles slapping the doctor sharply enough to drive him back. “Hey,” Max said, “I like him. He has good drugs.”
Rick turned his attention back to Max. “They question whether you will stay in stagnant water with me,” Rick said.
Max let go of the small tentacles in his left hand and captured Rick’s two largest tentacles.
“I will always swim in stagnant water with you. You are so smart and sweet and you tell me when I’m being stupid and I tell you when you’re letting outsiders treat you bad, and we’re perfect together.
” Max hesitated. ‘Except for your habit of turning off the proximity alarms. Don’t do that again.
Disemboweling people with maintenance hooks is messy, and we came way too close to losing our offspring. ”
“I will not do that again,” Rick promised. “You are repetitive when you are unhappy and letting outsiders board the ship caused you to repeat your unhappiness many times,” Rick said in a quiet voice.
Max brought the closest tentacle to his lips and kissed it.
Rick turned a quarter rotation and looked at the big Hidden one. “That is declaration of mates. Certify or I will remove my mate and my offspring and my ship and my brain from this planet of rude ones.”
Max blinked slowly. He lived on a ship of Hidden ones, and they were always loud. They belched and burped and squealed and bubbled and made noises that shouldn’t be able to come out of a living creature. But this room full of Hidden ones was still and silent.
“Rick?” Max asked. Rick tightened his tentacle around Max’s wrist, but other than that, he didn’t move or make a whisper of sound.
“Reluctant acceptance of proposition. Max Outsider is mate of Great Thinker.”
“Acceptable,” Rick answered. Then they stared at each other in painful silence.
After several minutes, Max said, “Can I pass out now?” He didn’t wait for anyone to give him permission before he closed his eyes and fell unconscious.