James’ tentacles relaxed. “We are in floor 107.”
“On,” Max corrected in a distracted tone. That explained the G forces. Max gave the Hidden ones kudos for efficiency, but even the military wouldn’t approve of this place, and Max had found the military embodied the whole ‘what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger’ ethos to the point of stupidity. He would find stairs on the way out. Maybe. If the choices were walking 107 flights of stairs or risk being flung down an elevator shaft, Max might take the risk. That was a decision for future him. “Right. Let's go find Rick Father.”
“You should call Rick Father Rick Husband or you will confuse stupid excrement orifice government officials.” James sounded so earnest that the profanity almost made Max laugh.
“And you will offend the same officials if you call them excrement orifice,” Max warned.
“But I intend insult. I do not believe you intend confusion,” James explained. He did have Max there.
James slid away down a wide corridor that seemed to widen and narrow randomly. That and the dark iridescent windows casting shifting shadows made the hallway feel like it was an underwater passage. If Max’s stomach weren’t still trying to slot back in place under his ribs, he would've thought it was cool. James led the way to an arch and Max followed him into a windowless, dimly lit office space with dozens of curving desks of different sizes and dozens of shocked Hidden ones.
“I demand to speak with takers of Rick Father,” James bellowed into the silent room. Max straightened and stared back at the multitude of eyes that were all focused on him.
“Rick Father,” James said louder.
His son was getting frustrated, and a frustrated James could lead to some interesting profanity, so Max took a step into the room. If everyone's attention was on him, then he would take advantage of it. “I demand to see Rick Husband, the father of James who is young enough to be financially supported by his egg layer.” Max coughed, his throat sore from bellowing the words out in his best imitation of Hidden one tone. It seemed to work. A pale green Hidden one larger than most of the others slid forward.
“Designation Rick is in room of greeting,” he said.
“Query. Clarify. Location of room of greeting,” James demanded.
Max had no idea why the computer was falling back into the more formal and stilted language of its early communication, but Max suspected it wasn't good. Either James was shouting to the point that the computer was having trouble identifying the words, or James was saying something less polite and the computer was trying to capture the stilted odd cadence.
The computer sometimes did that when the others were using the Hidden one equivalent of irony or sarcasm which for them seemed to include choosing old-fashioned words. Rick hadexplained it was a way of saying that someone was old and out of touch and incapable of handling modern life. Normally Max determined whether his children were being offensive by seeing whether the others shrank down on their walking tentacle. However, since these people were all pretty shrunken the minute they saw Max, it was hard to judge the emotional tone.
The Hidden one who had spoken to them kept his walking tentacle straight as he slid straight toward James. He detoured at the last second, veering slightly left which took him to the far side of James and away from Max.
Max followed James into the watery corridor and down a half-mile of hallway before the Hidden one stopped at a new room. This one was enormous with a giant pool in the center and padded benches set in rings around the pool. Max spotted Rick immediately. He knew every splotch, every spot, every red tipped tentacle on his husband's octopussy body, and he broke into a run.
“Rick,” he called.
Rick sat taller, his walking tentacle braced on the bench he rose and twisted to look at Max out of his largest eye. The large gathering of Hidden ones reacted, some shrinking down at the sight of an alien, but strangely, some of them stood taller. Max was almost to his husband when the lizard part of his brain recognized danger.
Max slowed it to a walk, but before he could say anything, a large arm tentacle struck Max in the lower leg so hard that Max collapsed to the ground with a scream of agony.
“Max!” Rick screamed, and normally Max would want to comfort and reassure Rick whenever he heard that tone; however, he was too busy screaming over what he was almost sure was a broken leg.
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, butthen 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.
