by Lyn Gala
“You ask for sensitive information,” Carrington said.
“You asked me to assess your security.”
Her neck gills fluttered.
“And this ship is not comfortable for me. It’s far too warm and there is too much humidity in the air, so it makes me cranky.”
“Cranky Max Father says things he regrets later,” Xander said.
Max laughed. “That I do, kiddo. So, what do you say?” he asked Carrington. “If you want me to assess your security, I can. If you wanted a chance to talk to me privately and see if I was as stupid as the government computer said, then I’m happy to leave. No charge.”
The silence went on so long that at least three sweat drops rolled down Max’s spine. “I will introduce you to Tribes fighter,” Carrington said. “You can talk to her about new weapon design and internal security.”
“That sounds like a deal.” Relief washed through Max, but so did a sense of direction and purpose. Sure, Rick and the kids saw him as a warrior, but the rest of the universe had taken the darkest point of Max’s life and judged him on it. They’d labeled him an idiot because he’d had too many moments of flailing panic.
He hated when others looked at him and decided they knew who he was based on some piece of information. When his commander in Afghanistan had pulled him in to talk about the inappropriateness of Max flaunting his sexuality in the Middle East, Max had tried to defend himself, but Colonel Barrington had made up his mind. To that old dinosaur, gay meant flouncy and queeny and flamboyant, and he didn’t want to hear anything that might contradict his dumbass assumptions.
And that was exactly what the universe had done. They had decided humans were odd, panicky, stupid creatures and nothing Max said convinced them otherwise. Until now. Now they were seeing the real him. Capable. A little dangerous. Still weird. Yeah, Max could own that one. He was definitely a little odd.
Chapter Thirteen
Max sighed as the door slid closed behind them. Home. He had never been so happy to see the inside of his little ship. Rick came out of a side room. “You return in sighing,” he said.
Max watched Rick’s tentacles get wavier and floppier as he closed the distance between them. he caught a tentacle in his hand. “Carrington is sending payment over. We helped her people plan for a potential breach attack.”
“Father Max impressed with violence,” Xander said.
Max cringed as Rick’s tentacles stiffened. “Snitch,” Max muttered before he turned his attention to his unhappy husband. “I was not violent to Carrington’s people. I was perfectly polite.”
“Xander says impressed with violence!” Rick protested with a trumpet.
“I impressed them with my theoretical violence against invading peoples. I was not violent.”
Xander blew raspberries while Rick did a little quarter turn. Ignoring the little shit, Max pulled Rick closer. “I was very non-violent. You would have been proud of me.” That was even true if Max ignored the way he had horrified Carrington's head of security with a detailed description of how to use a maintenance hook to disembowel the enemy. That had not secured his reputation as a sane, nonviolent individual, but if Hunters did get on the ship, Carrington's people were now prepared.
Eager to change the subject, Max turned his attention to Xander. “I noticed Carrington was using female pronouns for you. Have I been wrong about your gender?” Guilt gnawed at the idea that he’d spent months calling a girl by a boy name and he couldn’t even tell the difference. Then again, Rick had demonstrated his genital tentacles and they still looked like the tool manipulation tentacles which did not appear different than the foot tentacles. And, for that matter, Rick tended to use all of the above equally well when having sex. So boy versus girl was still a mystery when it came to Hidden people.
“I do not wish to be female,” Xander said. “I do not prefer to spend time on appearance.”
“Whoa!” Max blurted. “Female does not mean spending time on appearance. Where did you even get that?”
“Television,” Xander said.
Max had a flashback to his mother complaining that the “boob tube” was a bad influence on the kids. His father had never done more than grunt unless she got shrill. Then their father would drive them outside to get some healthy air. Their childhood home had been a half mile downwind of a cattle farm. He would not have described the air as healthy.
“All females I observed on television are more decorated. Buffy often moans over the loss of shoes. I do not have time for decoration on my face.”
“You mean they wear more makeup? Women don't have to wear makeup.”
“Okay,” Xander said, and then he started pushing the utility cart down the hallway.
“Wait,” Max called, unwilling to let this misunderstanding stand. Xander ignored him and headed through the door into the main junction. “It’s not like that,” Max said weakly.
Rick tightened his tentacle around Max’s wrist.
Max sighed. Kids. “It isn’t like that. So, how is James?”
“Equally unreasonable.” Rick slid closer. “Query. Define difference male or female.”
“Males produce sperm and females eggs.” Max frowned. Wait. That wasn't true. “Most females produce eggs and some don't produce anything. And males are still males if they can’t make sperm. Sometimes men get cancer or things happen, although most men avoid talking about it. And there are a few women who produce sperm. That's a little less common.”
Rick did a quarter turn, hesitated, and then quarter turned again. Yeah, he could consider Max with every eye he owned, and that still wasn’t going to make a lot of sense. “It’s complicated,” Max finished. And the older Max got, the less he understood. “What do you think the differences are between male and female?”
“Females have less hair,” Rick said with confidence. Max blinked as he processed that. Unexpected and yet more accurate than Max’s attempts to clarify the issue. Rick must have assumed the answer was incomplete because he added, “Although apparently many women attempt to compensate for lacking hair with the growing of more longer with limited hair available.”
“They have hair that they choose to shave off because they like hairless bodies.”
“Query? Clarify.”
“Why women shave? I have no idea. I don't know a lot about women. That’s part of being a gay man.”
“Query. Qualifications of being man.”
Max was far too tired for this conversation. He headed toward the family living quarters, Rick holding his hand and walking beside him the whole way.
“Max. Clarify qualifications.”
Max’s first instinct was to point out that he had a penis, but then he would be right back to that gray area around transgender. As a gay man, Max tried very hard not to disrespect other people's sexes or genders or sexuality, but the minute he took penis and vagina out of the equation, he wasn't sure how to define man. He must've hesitated too long because Rick tugged him to a stop.
“Observation from television. Query. Males are more aggressive?”
That was a loaded question. Max knew the testosterone did tend to ramp up aggression or aggression ramped up testosterone. He wasn't sure which was which. But he also knew that there were plenty of women who had tempers that could level entire buildings. Ditzy Dee had been an aggressive pilot, and there had been a captain... oh God, what had been her name? Something horribly normal like Clark or Smith or Jones. But everyone called her Captain St. Helens. She didn’t need a penis or male levels of testosterone to be aggressive. “I don't think it's that simple. Gender and sex and hormones and social rules all get tangled up. I think males act more aggressive because women who are aggressive... that's not seen in a good light by my people.”
“Like Buffy.”
“What?” Max had missed a conversation turn or two because he was lost.
“Buffy Summers burned down the library, but authorities failed to query existence of vampires before blaming.” Rick tugged Max into m
otion, guiding them down the hall. “They should have queried, but aggressive women are not queried.”
“You're absolutely right,” Max said. “You do realize vampires aren't real, right?”
“Construct of fear, but within fictional universe fictional vampires as nonfictional as fictional Buffy.”
Sadly, Max had followed that train of thought. “You’re probably right. The show Buffy tries to be feminist, but sometimes it proves what a sexist world we live in. On the other side, violent Faith is kinda hot. She almost makes me want to give girls a try.”
“Query. You find violence attractive?”
“No. No, that is not what I meant. I’m into fictional violence.” That still sounded bad. “I like people who stand up for themselves.”
“Query. Why share preference for Faith violence?”
“Good question,” Max muttered. Rick always did get him verbally tangled enough that he said something stupid. Since he couldn’t explain his joke about violent women, he went back to Rick’s original question. “Gender is hard to explain, because some of it is what people expect and some of it is the biology, and it's hard to tell how those two things work together. But, women can be fighters as much as men. One of the pilots who died when the Nish invaded my planet was named Dee. She was one hell of a fighter. She might've been a better pilot than me, not that I ever would've admitted it.”
Max remembered watching the alien fighter line up on her tail. He’d called out a warning to her, but he didn’t know what happened. He had a flash of a memory—a fighter exploding in a shower of sparks, but he couldn’t remember whether he’d seen her blown out of the air or if he was taking the memory of seeing Dan’s jet destroyed and superimposing it over the memory of Ditzy Dee.
“Max.” Rick moved to block the corridor and a half dozen tentacles came up to encircle Max. “Clarify. Sweat turns ugly scent.”
“You sniff me?” Max was mildly horrified. Okay, so maybe he loved the smell of a sweating man, but he generally didn’t announce that to the world.
“Sniff requires nose. Hidden People taste. You scent taste of ugly. Clarify.” Rick tangled his tentacles around Max’s legs so he couldn’t go anywhere, even if he wanted to.
“I’m tired after dealing with Carrington. Maybe we can talk about this later.” He smiled at Rick.
“Later scent is gone. Query. Carrington caused ugly scent.” Rick was upset enough that he trumpeted out a string of untranslatable words that Max assumed were profanities. He had an image of Rick, all outraged, stiff tentacles taking a swing at Carrington. It wouldn’t end well.
Max wrapped his fingers around the closest tentacles. “Hey, this has nothing to do with her. I am remembering the people who died because the Nish tried to dodge around a tiny planet in an unused corner of the galaxy to escape capture. It’s just all so stupid, and good people died because of that stupidity.”
“Earth is perfectly normal-sized.” Rick had a solemnity that made Max snort laughter so hard that he hurt his nose. He felt as if he’d snorted pool water, and Rick hadn’t even said anything funny. Rick tightened his tentacles.
“I miss those guys. Dan-Dan was a shy guy. The nicknames we used, we did this weird opposite thing, so we called him Dan-Dan the man. He couldn’t talk to girls without forgetting his own name, so how he got a woman to marry him... none of us understood. He had a two-year-old girl at home. He had punched out of his jet when a Nish ship tore through his parachute.” Max closed his eyes as his mouth tried to twist into ugly shapes. He fought back the urge to cry. “And Ditzy Dee—she was a damn good pilot. Always had her nose in a book.” Rage washed through, erasing the pain. The fucking Nish and the fucking police chasing them. Good people had died because they hadn’t cared about the people of Earth.
The whole universe was full of assholes who never considered other points of view. Giant fucking assholes.
Rick tugged on Max’s arm. “What inappropriate nickname did they call you?” Rick asked.
Again, an involuntary snort of laughter escaped Max. “Mad Max,” he admitted.
Rick and the kids had seen the movie, and Rick probably considered it more appropriate than the guys back on Earth had. They’d seen him as quiet, polite—on the masculine side of effeminate, but not by much. He remembered Dan asking him where to get a custom tux and a male manicure. He’d assumed Max would know. At the time Max had assumed the guy was being an asshole and stereotyping the only semi-open gay guy in the unit. Now... now Max regretted every second he lost not appreciating the people he’d had in his life.
Max didn’t have the vocabulary to explain any of that. “They saw me as kind and a bit soft,” Max explained. “I trained to kill, but I was not the sort of man who wanted to kill. I still don’t want to kill, but I will. But the fact that I am less violent does not mean I am less male.”
“Humans weird.”
“I can't argue with you there, buddy.”
Rick pulled him closer, pressing their bodies together. Rick was smaller, but Max still leaned into him. For a short octopus, he was sturdy because he held Max’s weight and even tightened his hold. They stood leaning into each other for a long time before Max started pulling back, struggling to get his balance—physically and emotionally.
“Query. Do you consider me male or female or neither or both?” Rick asked.
Max was relieved at the change of topic. “I guess I consider you male.”
“Query. Reason.”
Shaking free of Rick’s tentacles, Max looked around. They were outside the door that led to the private quarters. “I suppose because I'm sexually attracted to males and I am sexually attracted to you. Therefore, I see you as male,” Max opened the door and headed into the soothing colors of the family section of the ship. “I think some of that also has to do with your inability to carry young.”
Rick blew raspberries, and Max turned to poke a finger in his direction.
“Let me be very clear. That does not make me female. Nope. Not even a little. Don't go there.”
“None of my species has capacity to carry eggs of young.”
“Then I would think of your entire species as a planet of males.” Males with very talented tentacles, which would inspire a whole lot of porn if people on Earth ever found out. “Query. Do you see yourself as male or female?” Max asked. It only now occurred to him that he had never asked the question before. If Rick saw himself as female, Max would have to deal with being a little less gay, but it wouldn’t change their relationship.
“I am unclear how human definition and sex interacts.”
“Oh trust me, you are an expert in interacting sex parts.” Max waggled his eyebrows. “In case you didn't catch it that was me complimenting you on your ability to have sex.” This was a far happier conversation, and Max threw himself into the innuendo. If he could get Rick interested in some tentacle sex that would be even better.
“Max weird.” Rick caught Max around the waist and shoved him against the door. The door slid open, and they fell into the elevator in a tangle of limbs and tentacles. Max laughed, and Rick blew raspberries, and for a time, Max pushed all the big questions aside. He had a husband and some privacy and time before he had to get back to his con, and that was as good as it got. Max certainly didn’t need any more than that.
Chapter Fourteen
Max led the way through the public areas of the ship and into the more decorated inner sanctum. “Are you ever going to invite the kids into this part of the ship?” Max asked.
“When offspring no annoy,” Rick said loudly.
Given James’s ability to drive his father up a wall that might take a while. Even Xander tended to pester Rick when he wanted something. Max might have been able to talk Rick around when it came to Kohei, but that would make the other two resent their brother, and Max wouldn’t do that. He wanted the kids to like each other.
They approached their private quarters, and Max stretched. “I am so tired.” Dealing with Carrington stressed him out.
“Query. Max avoid tangling tentacles from tiredness?”
Max stopped and caught the closest tentacles so he could pull Rick closer. “I am not too tired for tentacles. I am never too tired for your tentacles.”
Rick shimmied.
“I am too tired to deal with Carrington,” Max added.
Rick’s tentacles curled up tight. Max sighed. He should have known better than to bring up Carrington or the con in general. Rick was not on board with demanding fairness from the universe. He tugged Rick toward their bedroom. “I could be on the verge of passing out, and the promise of your tentacles would wake me up.” Max triggered the bedroom door. He backed into the room, pulling Rick along with him.
Rick curled his tentacles around Max’s arms, pushing at his clothing and caressing the newly exposed skin. It was arousing as hell, but then Rick could belch and Max found it hot. “Don’t rip my shirt.” Max went to pull his clothes off, and for a second, Rick held onto him, tentacles curling around him and holding him captive. Then with a blurble, Rick released Max.
“Clothing inconvenient,” he complained.
“I get cold far too easily to give up clothes,” Max said. Besides, the rest of the alien species preferred clothing, some of them had quite extravagant clothes. Running around naked when the rest of the universe was wearing clothing felt far too risqué for Max’s taste. Max was a little impressed that Rick was so unconcerned about what other people thought of his unclothed tentacles.
The door closed once Rick had all his limbs inside the room. While Max had his hands over his head to strip off his shirt, Rick slid closer. He ran his tentacles up Max’s bare chest and around the back of his neck. Other tentacles slid under Max’s pants so the waist band became tight with all the squirming tentacles pushing inside.
“Wait,” Max gasped, distracted by fingers questing down his crack. “Let me get the button.”
Rick brushed the tip of a tentacle across Max’s lips, those talented fingers along the underside of it teasing with feather-light touches.
