“Remember, Hidden ones believe in exile. If they drop you on some isolated rock in the middle of this enormous ocean of theirs, I'm not sure we would ever find you. Correction, I know we would never find you,” Dee warned.
Max scoffed. “Rick would never stop looking until he did.”
“Avoid putting him in that position. Your father-in-law might be an ass, but your husband doesn't seem the type to condone murder.”
“No promises,” Max said. The elevator at the end of the corridor opened, and Rick glided out. His tentacles had unfurled, but now they were so stiff that it was clear he was exerting every ounce of self-control to keep them from curling. Xander was behind him, and his wavy tentacles suggested Rick had confessed at least part of the truth.
Max felt a little better about blabbing to Dee. When Rick had kicked him out of their room, Max had felt the need to blurt the whole story out to someone, and Dee was a good listener.
“Are you both coming?” Max asked, avoiding any discussion of where they were going or why.
Xander had his largest eye firmly fixed on Rick.
“Yes,” Rick trumpeted at such a volume that Max winced. He triggered the door and charged down the gangplank without waiting for Max, his smaller tentacles waving unhappily. Xander paused at the top of the gangplank and rotated his large eye towards Max.
“Be careful with your father's feelings,” he told his child. “Your grandfather is a twisted individual. Do not let his weird ideas get into your head, and do not say anything stupid in front of Rick Father.”
Xander shrank down on his walking tentacle. “I will not, Max Father. Rick Father is good father. He never limited us as bad Rick Father who is father of Rick Father did.”
“Oh no,” Max said firmly. “Do not assign him any variation on the name Rick. Rick Father is my husband. Father of Rick Father is Einstein.”
Xander was better at English than either of the other two children, and his tentacles immediately uncurled a little, andhe chittered a laugh. “Irony. Sarcasm. Einstein is often applied to sidekick character who is most opposite of Einstein. Like Sherlock. No shit Sherlock. Applied to character least likely to exhibit deductive thinking.”
“Exactly,” Max said, grateful that at least one child understood him. Now he had to hope that James didn't say something amazingly stupid and put all his tentacles in his mouth all at once. That was a big ask from James, and quite frankly Max wasn't sure how Kohei would take this. He liked to think his eldest had a good head on his tentacles and would understand that this was not Rick's fault, but he also knew this was a screwed up situation. The children had to be unhappy at being born in the middle of the Hidden one equivalent of incest.
Actually, sleeping with yourself took incest to a level beyond incest. It was incest squared. Not just twice as disgusting, but exponentially so. And Max knew that sometimes the children reacted before they thought.
Hell, so did he. But if his kids had one unkind thing to say, Max would tie their tentacles into knots.
Xander headed down the ramp after Rick, and Max followed. “Have fun storming the castle,” Dee called after them. Rick’s love of pop culture was rubbing off on her, but before Max could say as much, Dee triggered the latch to close the hatch and secure the ship.
The ship. That's why the police had thought the ship was stolen. It had belonged to Einstein, but ship controls unlocked with genetic codes. Rick had stolen his father’s ship by using their shared genetics. When they got back, Max was giving his beautifully devious little octopus husband the best blow job ever. Way to screw over his asshole father. Who knew Rick had it in him.
Max felt like cackling as he considered how frustrated Einstein must've been. He had created his own nemesis, anenemy capable of stealing everything he owned by virtue of having the same genetic code. That was delicious karma, and Max made a mental note to teach Rick the word schadenfreude.
The alien car was parked near the steep ramp that led to the exit, and Xander had gotten in the rear of the vehicle, leaving Max to sit next to Rick. Max had barely gotten into the car when Rick touched the navigation screen and the door slammed dangerously fast as Max jerked his foot into the vehicle.
Max wanted to reassure his husband, to offer some wise words, but he didn't know what those would be. Instead they drove in silence, each of them staring out at the storm rolling in. Thick black clouds with purplish streaks lumbered across the sky. It was beautiful, but it also felt like an ominous warning. It was the sort of weather that movie directors like to use to suggest that the big showdown was on the horizon.
Max hoped this was the sort of movie that ended with the heroes living happily ever after. Otherwise, he would disappoint Dee by breaking all Einstein's tentacles.
The ride took almost an hour. Individual houses littered the hills, no two the same. One reached for the sky with pointed roofs and tall towers. Another was long and low and curved like a snake. The car raced down the empty ribbon of road, rain visible in the distance as long streaks against the gray sky. Xander was fidgeting in the back seat before Rick pulled off the paved road and onto a narrower path between hills and through an arch.
“Are we here yet?” Xander asked. Rick didn’t answer. He stared ahead as the car glided through an archway and came out the other end in front of a building that looked as if a fantasy castle and a postmodern art sculpture had a baby. For creatures who found beauty in the asymmetrical, this place must be the epitome of beauty.
“This is home of parent,” Rick said, his voice stressed. The winding road had a cliff on one side and dense forests on theother. The land must see serious storms because the trees were all bent and twisted.
“Did Rick Father grow here?” Xander asked.
Max hoped not. This place was isolated enough that Einstein could've raised a dozen clones and no one would've been any the wiser. The idea of sweet Rick growing up this isolated and alone made Max hate Einstein a little bit more, and Max's hatred was already pretty damn high.
“Yes. I grow here.” Rick’s voice didn’t invite any further conversation, and Xander pressed himself into the corner behind Rick’s seat, pulling all his tentacles under him so nothing would be visible from the driver’s seat.
Max had always envisioned meeting the in-laws and asking the father about what he did for work or what his hobbies were while studiously avoiding the mother. Mothers had always scared him a bit. Never in his wildest dreams had he imagined an alien parent with a penchant for self-fucking. There was wrong and there was Einstein levels of wrong.
The car stopped, and for long seconds, all three of them sat staring at the wavy patterns in the stone and the irregular patterns of color streaked through it. Rick flung his door open so hard that the hinge made an ominous pop and Max jumped. However, Rick got out and followed a narrow and inconspicuous path on the forest side of the enormous structure, darting between irregular pillars and through what appeared to be a flower arch before disappearing.
Max scrambled to follow, and he heard Xander right behind him. Max wanted to call for Rick to wait, but he was also afraid of alerting Einstein to their presence... assuming he didn’t already know. However, if Einstein was anything like his son, he wouldn’t notice pirates climbing in the hatch of the ship, so they might still have surprise on their side.
