“Authorization is required.”
“I have declared mating with Max Husband. Authorize that.”
Max giggled. Authorize that. That was funny. Rick's voice disappeared under the mass of belches and roars. Max closed his eyes and held on to the tentacles wiggling in his grip.
“I will file proper authorization!” Rick shouted over everyone. “Max Husband will be authorized or I will take all I invent and I will go away. I will go outside, and none of my inventions will ever see Hidden one waters. I choose Max husband.”
“Outsiders do not know how to mate. Great Inventor deserves mate of excellence if he chooses to swim in stagnant water.”
“Max husband is mate of excellence.”
Max wondered if the doctor was tending his leg. Feather touches teased his foot, but he was too tired to look. He didn’t have the energy to even open his eyes. Alien drugs were great.Way better than the stuff he got in the military hospital. Way, way, way better.
“Outsider is unacceptable.”
“I file license for establishment of pairing.”
“Too late,” Max said with a smile. “We already filed that paperwork. I got married in front of a judge. My parents will kill me for not inviting them to the wedding. We’ll need to have a second one.”
Rick trumpeted in triumph. “Yes, paperwork is official. We are mates in stagnant water.”
“Authorization of outsiders is insufficient.”
“I signed agreement. What is mine belongs to Max Husband. What is Max Husband’s is mine. If he is disrespected, I take husband and belongings of husband and leave.”
“And offspring!” James shouted. “Offspring of brilliance will leave and share no brilliance here. I sell to outsiders. I already make profits and Max Father forces outsiders to respect us and he gets more profits out of outsiders and he helps me like eldest brother would and he saved idiot younger sibling who could not swim when born small and he disembowels those who threaten.”
“Yes. All that. Authorize that.”
The room was oddly silent, and Max pried one eye open. The doctor was putting a weird silver mesh around his broken leg, which was mostly reassuring. It did look a little like the sort of thing that would come alive in a science fiction movie and strangle him in his sleep, but he was unbothered by the possibility.
More interesting was Rick who was facing off against the biggest Hidden one Max had seen. It was a brute with mint skin and even more red banding and tips than Rick. That meant he was attractive. Max remembered that. He ignored it because that rule would mean James and Kohei weren’t attractive, and his children were gorgeous. Perfect. Obnoxious and obstreperous,but perfect in their obnoxious obstreperousness. The big Hidden one rotated until his largest eye pointed at Max.
“Mates must be mutual authorization of relationship.”
“It was mutual. Multiple times mutual. Very, very mutual with much pulling of tentacle mutualness,” Max said with a huge smile. James’s tentacles went stiff and Rick trumpeted and the big Hidden one made bubble sounds.
Rick moved to Max’s side, lowering himself. “To authorize as family, they require you to declare desire to swim in stagnant water for me.”
“I’m stoned,” Max said.
Rick bugled at the doctor. “You transfigure animate human outsider into inanimate stone.”
The doctor bugled back. “Described transfiguration is impossible. He is not stone.”
Max laughed so hard he got a stitch in his side. “Ow, ow, ow,” he said, since he knew it should hurt.
The large Hidden one moved to a spot next to the doctor. “This is one you describe as sapient?”
“Hey!” Max objected. “I redesigned weapons to make them more efficient. I check James’s design work and Xander’s translations, and I am a pilot and military office back home. Office. I said I’m an office.” Max laughed. “I’m an officer. I am very sapient. Usually. I’m a little...” Max lifted his hand and wobbled it from side to side to suggest his shaky mental state before letting it drop.
“Animals respond strongly to nerve pharmaceutical,” the doctor said.
Rick struck out, his tentacles slapping the doctor sharply enough to drive him back. “Hey,” Max said, “I like him. He has good drugs.”
Rick turned his attention back to Max. “They question whether you will stay in stagnant water with me,” Rick said.
Max let go of the small tentacles in his left hand and captured Rick’s two largest tentacles. “I will always swim in stagnant water with you. You are so smart and sweet and you tell me when I’m being stupid and I tell you when you’re letting outsiders treat you bad, and we’re perfect together.” Max hesitated. ‘Except for your habit of turning off the proximity alarms. Don’t do that again. Disemboweling people with maintenance hooks is messy, and we came way too close to losing our offspring.”
