James belched something, and Rick caught their child, tangling several of their tentacles and pulling James close. While it looked like a human hug, Rick didn’t give hugs. Well, he did, but they led to things that were not child-appropriate, and this looked more like Rick was trying to keep James from attempting to beat the other Hidden ones to death. And denied that ability, James descended into profanity so severe that the translator could only catch an occasional “orifice” and “excrement” and “breeder of self.”
“James!” Max shouted. The effort made fire course through his body.
“Max Father. Do not die.” James pulled away from his father and shrank down next to Max, touching Max’s leg with the tips of his tentacles so gently that Max couldn’t feel it.
“I’m not dying,” he said even though it felt like he was. He was not a fan of pain when it wasn’t fictional and involving safe words and expensive leather equipment. “I need an expert in the healing of bones, and I need pain killers.”
“You need to see internal organs of dishonorable, crusted excrement piled on floor.” Behind James, Hidden ones bellowed more words that couldn’t be translated.
“Angry James stop angering!” Rick said. James twirled, his tentacles shaking with rage.
Max grabbed Rick’s nearest tentacle and squeezed until he had Rick’s attention. “I need a doctor of bones.”
Rick sank down, his bulbous head so close that his eyeballs were centimeters away. “Doctor of bones is doctor of animals.”
“If he can treat a bone, that might be best, but if he treats me like an animal, I’ll turn James’s mouth loose on him.”
“If he treats Max Husband as animal, I will denounce. I will condemn. I will proclaim him offender of Rick and all reasonable Hidden ones. I will urinate in his waters. I will preclude him from any invention–”
“I get it,” Max said. “Insult later. Call doctor now.”
“We move to–”
“No!” Max yelled. Rick’s tentacles curled, and Max tightened his hold on the tentacle trying to escape. “No. The broken edges of the bone can rub and break things inside my tentacle if we move me. I can wait here.”
Rick yanked his tentacle out of Max’s grip and raced toward the Hidden ones so fast that they all retreated in the face of his charge. “Retrieve treater of bones. Retrieve now. Retrieve with speed.”
Rick reversed and raced back to Max, arching over Max’s body and lowering himself until he was a shield hovering over Max’s legs. James stopped his spin-quiver and shrank down into a knot of misery, but Max was in too much pain to reassure anyone. He tried to breathe through the pain and held Rick’s tentacle and struggled to breathe.
Eventually a Hidden one with pale, beige tentacles and far too many shiny instruments that looked like torture devicesappeared at the door. The crowd around Max shifted, and the new Hidden one moved to Max’s leg.
“What has the animal done to damage its leg?” the Hidden one demanded.
“Not animal! Max Father. Max Father disemboweled pirates who threatened James and Kohei Sibling and Xander Sibling. Max Father teaches like sibling. Max Father is best father and I will disembowel any Hidden one who calls Max Father animal!” James was trumpeting his distress and Max would have worried, only James was shrinking away from the larger Hidden ones. Which was good. If James started writing checks, his tentacles were not going to be able to cash them.
Rick agreed. “Max Husband is not animal. He is sapient, brilliant, boned husband. He forces outsiders to yield to Hidden one trade advantage.”
“Pain killers.” Max was happy to discuss interplanetary political maneuvers after he got some good drugs.
“Provide pain relief or I will denounce you as boob.”
Max hoped that was a weird translation and literal boobs hadn’t entered the conversation. The doctor belched and pressed a silver disk to Max’s arm, and the pain faded away. Parts of reality also faded out of existence, but Max was fine with that. He focused on Rick, smiling at his husband. “That is so much better. Please tell me the asshole I punched is suffering.”
Rick’s tentacles undulated. “He complains much.”
Max smiled. “Good.” He let his head fall back to the floor.
“Treatment of...” the doctor stopped. “Treatment requires authorization.”
“I authorize,” Rick said. Max floated through the best high of his life–not that he had much experience with the condition. His desire to fly had cut his wild-child years short.
“Authorization must come from one possessing ownership.”
James bellowed and lunged at the doctor, and he might have thrown a few punches, but Rick caught him and wrapped him in a dozen tentacles. “Max Father is not eligible for ownership.”
“Hold obstreperous child,” Rick said before he shoved several long, slender tentacles into Max’s hand. Max studied the beige tentacles with white blotches and smiled. That was James. Smart James. So good with technology. James tried to pull his tentacles free, but Max tightened his hold. James had been spitting and belching at the doctor, but now he came to Max and settled next to him.
“Max Father should release me,” James said. Smaller tentacles wrapped around Max’s fingers, trying to pry them open, but Max held on tighter. Rick had told him to hold their obstreperous child, and that was James. And Xander. They had a high percentage of obstreperous children. Max wondered what that said about them as parents.
