Chapter Ten
Max hopped on one foot as a tangled mass of tentacles nearly tripped him.
Rick’s people didn’t understand the concept of personal space, and Max was getting a little cranky about it.
Another Hidden one with an almost yellowish tint pressed close, and Rick used the loop of tentacle around Max's waist to tuck him closer.
Max considered complaining, but the two enormous doors of the ballroom were feet away, so hopefully the crowd would spread out once they were inside.
Right now he felt like he was seventeen and stuck in a mosh pit. An alien mosh pit. And here he thought Hidden ones had some common sense, or at least more than he’d had at seventeen.
“Stupid symmetrical offspring of jellyfish,” Kohei bellowed as a Hidden one with burgundy tentacles careened into Rick and Max.
“You are supposed to be my nice child,” Max objected.
Rick blew raspberries with glee. “No child of ours is nice.”
Rick might have a point with that. “Considering how nice you are, it is surprising how mean all three children have turned out,” Max agreed.
“Not mean. Honest,” Kohei objected and he used the athletic strength that had made Max name him after the greatest gymnast of all time to shove another hapless Hidden one to the side. Rick ushered them six inches closer to the doors.
“My lack of meanness does not prevent children from being as mean as children choose.” Rick was always quick to defend his children's right to be whatever they wanted, even if they wanted to be assholes. Then they were at the ballroom doors.
Enormous lighted pillars rose thirty feet into the air, figures moving slowly along the surface.
It took a second for Max to realize they were multicolored alien jellyfish glowing in tall aquariums. They were beautiful.
.. all except for the one pillar with a sparkly, pink alien jellyfish tearing chunks off a teal jellyfish.
The prey was dulling and the waters around them growing murky with blood and ick.
Max was grateful that Hidden ones considered balls and dinners as separate events because jellyfish cannibalism did not do much for his appetite.
Max shoved a stranger’s tentacle out of his way so he had room to put his second foot on the floor.
Max tried to push forward into a gap, but Rick had him too firmly by the waist and they didn't move fast enough. A Hidden one with mint green skin that almost matched Rick’s pressed into the hole, and Kohei's tentacles curled at the ends.
Max could relate to his child's frustration.
“Rick. Light of my life. Husband of my soul. Either push forward or let's turn around and go back to our rooms.”
Rick tilted his head so more eyes were aligned with Max. “Returning to rooms is preferable.” Rick turned, but then Kohei was there, his own tentacles tangling with his father’s.
“No!” he bellowed. “Rick Father will be honored. Rick Father deserves honor. He is great and mighty thinker.” Kohei shifted so his largest eye was pointed at Max. “Max Father will not prevent Rick Father from being honored.”
Max opened his mouth, but then closed it again without saying anything. He wasn't sure what he should say given that he was fairly certain his son was threatening him. At least if the fisted tentacles were anything to go by, he was.
“Right,” Max said, "let's get into the ballroom.” He took a step forward and brought his heel down as hard as he could on the trailing end of someone's walking tentacle.
There was a bellow and Kohei shimmied with malicious glee and shoved his way into the narrow gap Max had created.
With a grunt of either unease or unhappiness, Rick followed.
“You do deserve to be honored,” Max told his husband.
“I deserve to be in space with Max Husband discussing the best time for the fathering of more children.”
Max lost his balance and stumbled. He might've fallen to the floor and been crushed by a hundred Hidden one tentacles gliding over him, only Rick still had a firm grip on his waist.
“We haven't even raised our first set of children yet.”
“Children appear raised,” Rick said as his large white eye centered itself on Kohei.
Despite what Rick said, Kohei was only three quarters the height of any other Hidden one in the room, and his head was half as bulbous.
Max was tempted to call him a skinny little shit. And he was the tallest of the children.
“Human children take twenty years to raise,” Max said.
Rick blew a raspberry. “I will be tempted to end a being of my own genetics if I am required to live with them twenty years.”
“Now sweetheart,” Max said with a sarcastic grin, “you know how I feel about killing our children. Just because we want to, it doesn't mean that we can.”
Rick dragged him past a wall of windows that overlooked a rough sea with a sky dark and purpled with clouds.
The whole room was a monument to the Hidden ones’ love of all things asymmetrical.
Some aquarium pillars stood as wide as California redwoods, and others were as narrow as a fist. One wall had a concave surface, and another rippled.
Lights illuminated islands of pinks and blues and purples and greens and everywhere were little pinprick spotlights of red.
And all the colors slowly rotated and undulated about the space.
Rick pushed in front of Kohei, his walking tentacle undulating madly with his own Hidden one version of marching across the room, darting between clusters of Hidden ones deep in conversation as he made a beeline for the windows. Max had to run to even keep up, and Kohei trailed behind them.
Since Hidden ones lacked actual faces, Max struggled to recognize individuals based on the tentacle patterns and height and girth, so he had no idea who it was that Rick charged toward, dragging Max along with him.
But he appeared important because he was the center of a cluster of happily gossiping alien octopi.
“I appear for recognition of public and will leave soon,” Rick announced loudly.
Given the way their audience's tentacles curled up, Max guessed that had been rude. Exceptionally rude. Even Kohei seemed frozen in shock, and he had grown up with two brothers who knew one or two things about rudeness. Apparently Rick had surpassed them.
Max looked from his husband to the other Hidden ones and wondered if there was something he was supposed to be doing to smooth things over.
His mother sometimes did that. When his father drank too much, he developed an unpleasant streak of honesty.
His mother would laugh and explain away his father's words while subtly dragging him away from whatever party they were at.
Max had only seen it once or twice because his father knew that he was a bit of an ass when he drank and avoided alcohol because of it.
He still had vivid memories of his father's cousin's wedding where his father had informed his great-grandmother of all the reasons why the rest of the family thought she was a homophobic, racist piece of shit.
His mother had sailed into the middle of that battle with a plastered-on smile and a million excuses, but Max didn't know how to do that. And he didn't want to embarrass Rick by calling him out on his behavior.
The Hidden one in the center of the group straightened up, his tentacles unfurling, although they were now too stiff to be called comfortable.
“The Hidden ones honor the great engineer who hides our planet from outsiders.” He rotated his head ten degrees and the tentacle closest to Max shriveled.
Yep, he was suggesting that Max was an outsider, and Max now recognized this as Percy.
This was the “official of senior ranking” that Rick had already expressed his displeasure toward.
Rick pulled his tentacles closer to his body. “I am also husband of Unbalanced one who offers new method of trade to avoid outsider unfairness.”
Percy rotated until a cluster of eyes were aimed at Max. “Hidden ones do not require trade of outsiders.”
“Outsiders possess many resources. Hidden ones hunt in rich waters,” Rick said firmly. Max never thought that he would see someone worse in politics than him, but Rick managed it.
“Make announcement of return, and then we shall return to our ship,” Rick said in a belchy tone. “Unbalanced one Dee is alone with children of much chaos. We must return.”
Max gave Rick credit for plausible excuses, just not for having good timing. They’d arrived, and Dee had been with their chaotic offspring for two days now. The tentacles around them turned to curly fries of distress as Rick showed his utter disinterest in being at his own party.
Max curled his arm around Rick's tentacle and gave it a teasing little tug. “Maybe we can be nice,” he suggested.
“Nice requires not abandoning Unbalanced one Dee with children of chaos,” Rick said.
“Okay, you have a point there. James’ experiments can get a little dangerous, but I trust Dee to put her foot down if he's in danger of blowing up the ship,” Max joked.
In reality, he didn't think James needed a babysitter. It’d been a good month since he proposed any weapons testing that could have compromised the integrity of the ship’s hull.
“Is the second offspring of the Great Thinker so reckless?” Percy shrank down on a tentacle that curled.
“No!” Rick bellowed.
Max immediately recognized his mistake. “Unbalanced ones use humor and exaggeration,” he explained.
“If there is a small flaw, we exaggerate it into something large and ridiculous that no one is expected to believe. James likes his weapons testing, so I exaggerate that to say that he would place the ship in danger when he would not. It is Unbalanced one small talk.”
“It lacks smallness,” Percy bellowed, and Max could not argue with that. Hidden ones had no sense of humor about potential life-ending events, and he’d known that.