Rick rotated, his tentacles barely moving in the water as he did a full three-sixty and considered Max out of each of his various eyes. Max waited, willing Rick to trust him with this. Max would never choose sleep or personal comfort over the life of the child. Never. But he didn't have the vocabulary to explain his moral compass to an alien.
And he suspected that Rick’s spaceship-sized inferiority complex didn’t help. Several times he had told Max how much other aliens disliked him. That wasn't easing the way. But with the little one’s life on the line, the big moron would either agree to a co-parenting plan or Max would make him.
Chapter Twelve
“Ithink I’ll call youXander,” Max told his little friend who clung to his hand. Offspring Three was so small that he could hold on to the base of Max's pinky or the base of his thumb; he wasn't large enough to stretch all the way across the palm from one to the other.
“I don't think you guys get Buffy the Vampire Slayer out here, but you seem like a Xander.” That was stretching the truth a little, but he went on to explain. “The other people on the show all had powers, but Xander had this grip on life. It was like he never gave up.” Max moved his hand a little faster, and the baby held on tightly. “No matter what got thrown at him, he kept plugging.”
“Now I'm not saying he was the brightest member of the Scooby gang, because he wasn't. He once showed up for a fight with a vampire carrying a rock.” Vampires weren't real, but if they were, showing up for a vampire fight with a rock seemed a little stupid, and the older Max got, the stupider that moment seemed. “However, Xander kept plugging and he never gave up on life, and he never gave up on his friends. That's what you have to do now.”
Max slowed as he ran his hand through the water. Rick insisted that was all Xander needed. As long as Xander had the warmth of Max's hand and help moving through the water, everything else would eventually fix itself.
“You have to channel your inner Xander and not give up. And maybe things are hard right now, and maybe they’ll be hard for a while, but I saw you on that scanner. I saw you swimming for all you were worth when you were behind your brother. You're not the sort to give up easily.”
Max turned and tried to find Offspring Two. He didn't seem to have any sort of middle child inferiority complex. He was not one to stand on the edge of things—or in his case float—and wail Marsha Marsha Marsha. Nope. Rick's middle child was determined to explore the far reaches of the pool. At one point, he'd even tried crawling out.
If Max hadn't been busy with Xander, he would've gone after the idiot. Luckily, the idiot in question decided that he was not quite ready to live in the open air, and he got back into the pool. Max needed to come up with some explorer’s or adventurer's name for Offspring Two. He knew there were plenty. Some human had been the first to get the bright idea to go to the North Pole or South Pole. Those would've been great names, only Max was far better with television characters than historical figures. So for now, the kid would stay Offspring Two.
“I bet I'm breaking about a million taboos by giving you nicknames,” Max told Xander. The warmth of Xander’s body against his palm was a comfort. “Before going overseas on my first assignment, we got this whole lecture about cultural sensitivity. They told us how some people would never encounter an American other than members of the service, so we had to become ambassadors of a sort.” Max snorted. That had stressed him more than live weapons training.
“That’s a lot of pressure for twenty-four-year-old kid. I signed up to fly airplanes not to be an ambassador. And then they told us how it was even more important for officers to be culturally sensitive. They explained that whatever we did, the enlisted would take it as a signal they could do something three times worse. So if we were to do something heinous, they would do something worse, and it would be our fault.” Maybe Max was bored or maybe he liked having an audience who couldn’t understand him, but he found hanging out with the kids cathartic.
“That was a lot of pressure, and I was glad I didn't get stationed somewhere isolated enough that my lack of cultural sensitivity would lead to some international incident. I'm pretty sure my officers were nervous about me being gay, because there are parts of the world where gay does not go over well. However, my point is that if my training officers saw me doing such a culturally inappropriate thing as naming somebody else's children,” and at this, Max brought Xander close to the surface of the water and made puffy faces at him, “they would probably go back in time and flunk me. Funny thing though, I'm not entirely sure I'm going home. Ever. So I think I need to stop living my life like I will be. I’ll stick around and name you, if you don’t mind.”
Max lowered himself until his mouth was underwater then blew bubbles at Xander. Several of Xander’s tentacles waved, and then Xander pushed off from Max’s hand and swam madly for Max’s face. His stubby tentacles caught at Max’s lips, and Max blew more bubbles. Xander’s tentacles danced across Max’s cheeks and up into his nose.
Max snorted and caught Xander in his hand. “Okay. No snotty tentacles for you, sir.”
Xander wrapped his tentacles around Max’s thumb and pressed his belly to Max’s palm. In that short swim, he had already cooled significantly. “If your father told me that he was upset with me for giving you names, I would stop,” Max said. “Of course I named your father after a belching cartoon character and he doesn't seem to mind. You have a pretty laid-back father, but he was still awfully worried about you.”
Kohei swam up and caught Max by his left wrist. “What's the matter? Are you tired?” Max waved his arms as if he were jogging in slow motion. Kohei’s grasp was viselike, especially when Max compared it to Xander’s light grip.
“You're welcome to hitch a ride for a while,” Max told Kohei. It wasn’t like he was going anywhere, not with Xander needing him. “You get so crazy with your gymnastics that I'm hardly surprised you wore yourself out. You have to learn to pace yourself.”
The doors opened, and Rick came in with his hat back in place. He looked better than he had. Considering he had been on the verge of exhaustion, it didn't require much to look better than half-dead. “Query. Did you manage to get some sleep?” Max asked.
