“Your markings. Don’t you see it? They’re galaxies.” Jude looked up at Al’s face and searched his eyes. “These markings say that you were destined to travel. Maybe even destined to… you know, come to Earth.”
Al heard what was unspoken:Destined to come to me.
“Jude,” Al breathed. They hadn’t broken eye contact. His entire life he had been told that he had no destiny—no inherent ambition. He was a bad student, a worse miner, and an overall disappointment, but not to Jude. Jude took one look at him and saw galaxies.
How was he supposed to let this man go?
Heart broken and yet also so full, Al ducked down and kissed Jude hard. He tangled the fingers of his upper arms in Jude’s soft hair and used the lower set to support his weight as he leaned over the bed. Jude tensed before giving in to the kiss, and it only occurred to Al belatedly why that might be—he had been so swept up in his own emotions that he had forgotten he wasn’t in human form, and maybe Jude didn’t want to kiss him when he looked like—
“It’s okay,” Jude whispered against his lips. “It’s okay, keep kissing me, just be careful of the eggs.”
That was all the encouragement Al needed. He didn’t care that he was standing at a strained angle, or that they could only go so far with Jude still healing from having laid their eggs. All he felt desire for was to take Jude’s face in his hands and lick into his mouth with hot, heady desperation. A desperation Jude fervently returned.
Al was just about to climb back into bed to be able to kiss Jude more comfortably when the door to the bedroom swung open.
“Hey guys, I think you should know that we have—oh, fuck, sorry, I am definitely interrupting something I could have happily lived my whole life without seeing.”
Al pulled abruptly away from Jude to find Ezra standing in the doorway, his head thrown all the way back so his gaze was fixed on the ceiling.
“I’m gonna assume that’s you, Al?” Ezra asked stucco overhead.
“Yes,” Al said with a sigh.
“Nice. I’m digging the look. You should go full alien more often. Speaking of aliens, I didn’t mean to barge in on you like that, but we have visitors, and they don’t speak English. I think they might be here for you, Al.”
“What are you referring—” Al began, but right then, Ezra was pushed aside as two familiar Darvrokians barged into Jude’s room. Al froze, but from the corner of his eye, he spotted Jude hurriedly move to sit bolt upright and encircle his arms around the eggs.
The two intruders began speaking angrily over each other in Al’s native tongue at such a rapid-fire pace, Al could hardly make out a word being said. Al pinched the bridge of his nose and sighed.
“Jude,” he said over his shoulder, “allow me to introduce you to my parents.”
20
Jude
It didn’t take more than a moment after Al introduced his parents for the bickering to resume, all of it in a language Jude had only ever heard spoken by Al, and so strange sounding, he couldn’t make heads or tails of it if he tried.
So he did not try.
He kept upright, shielding the eggs, and stared down the two new aliens.
Al’s parents were physically similar to their son, right down to the extra set of arms. Al’s mother was slightly smaller and more slender, while his father was quite broad in the shoulders, but there was no mistaking they were all from the same species—scales, head crests, mood ring eyes and all.
Both aliens wore shiny, metallic silver bodysuits that made them look as though they’d walked straight off the set of a 60s sci-fi movie, so Jude couldn’t get a look at their markings, but there was a tiger stripe of darker-colored scales peeking out from beneath the collar of Al’s mom’s suit that Jude thought might mean “do not fuck with me” or perhaps “Iwillcut a bitch, so help me space God.” Jude assumed markings like that meant she was destined for motherhood, although he did not appreciate the way she was currently mothering Al.
Lord help her if she tried to get anywhere near his eggs.
Hiseggs.
Jude had refrained from thinking of them like that, not wanting to get attached, but with a potentially hostile alien standing not even six feet away, he realized that was exactly what they were.
His.
Without thinking, he bundled them up closer to him and glowered at Al’s parents as they continued raging at their son. Jude did not know what he’d do if they came any closer, but he had a feeling it would involve the fleshiest parts of their bodies and his teeth.
From the doorway, Ezra caught Jude’s eye. He looked from Jude, to the chaotic scene in the center of the room, and back again, before shrugging and mouthing what appeared to be, “Above my pay grade, man.”
Frankly, it felt above Jude’s pay grade too, but he didn’t have a choice but to be involved. If he’d just minded his own goddamn business when he’d seen the crash that fateful night, then he wouldn’t currently be making a human shield around a clutch of eggs he’dgiven birth toless than twenty-four hours prior.
