Chapter 9

9

“Oh fuck no,” Darcy growls, and fire ignites in his eyes again.

I think it might be a consequence of some emotional upheaval, in which case, “You should probably do some meditation or yoga to calm down and keep your chill.”

Darcy shoots me a dirty look. “I’m calm.”

“My dude, your eyes are literally on fire, so maybe check that before claiming emotional cool,” I suggest, reaching up and patting the little flink on my shoulders. “Hey baby, you really need to go home. I like you visiting, but you need parental permission first, and I don’t think you have it when you pop in here without them. I could have been doing anything, you know? You might’ve needed brain bleach.”

“ Chirrup-chirp-chirrup-chi-chi-chi… ” Those last syllables sound like laughter.

Darcy glares at the baby. “Go home. Remember what I said before?”

Pop-Boom!

And I’m on the space station again. The baby went home, but they took me with them. Being a favorite perch is a challenge, isn’t it?

Mom and pop flink spot me as they’re wringing their hands and searching through the space station. As soon as they see me, they spot their baby and rush over, chirping at me.

“Sorry, I don't speak your language,” I apologize, crouching down so they are close to eye level with their baby.

They don’t make any move to take the baby off me, but they do chirp at them in a rather pleading way. I understand not wanting to do anything to harm your kid, especially when having them is so hard, but this might interfere with my own life. I don’t know, maybe I’ll be able to go to class with a baby on me, but what about showers and hygiene and things like that? “Maybe I can wash my hair around them.”

The parents suddenly stop chirping, and they stare at me, agape with horror.

One of the onlookers gasps. “You can’t wash a baby flink! They’d drown!”

I didn’t know that, but I guess that means no showers as long as the baby's on me. On the plus side, I don’t have to take off my pants again until this situation is resolved. “No problem. I won’t bathe while they’re perching. But baby, you’re going to have to let me go for showers at least. I can’t go to class dirty, and classes start in a couple weeks. Also, you’re not going to be able to just take me on cool adventures, ya know? I’ve gotta finish my education.”

The alien I met before with the orange and striped skin skips to a halt beside me. “The human’s back! And no Darcy. Come on. While baby takes a nap, why don’t we have a drink? There’s some sweet coffee over at one of the shops down the way.”

The parent flinks both deliberately nod at me, turn on their… hands, and start leading the way to the shop. My new friend helps me to my feet, the baby starts snoring, and I follow them to the shop.

It’s a Starbucks.

I’m not even lying. I swear on my own grandmother’s heart, it’s a Starbucks.

I get a toffee nut frappe, and the four of us sit together in some comfy arm chairs.

“What are you studying?” the orange guy asks.

“I’m a business major. Thinking I want to be an entrepreneur when I grow up. Start a boutique that caters to things that would be helpful for people with disabilities to have. I do a lot of creating to help myself out, and I bet I could sell some of the stuff I’ve come up with.” The coffee’s just as Starbucksy as it is on Earth. That’s kind of comforting—no matter where in the galaxy you are, Starbucks tastes like Starbucks.

“Are you disabled?” the orange alien asks.

“What’s your name? I’m Elijah, by the way.”

“You can call me Brad, I think. My name isn’t really a noise humans can make.” Then he growls, and I get the impression that’s his name.

“Cool. Brad’s a great choice. I lost a foot when I was a baby in a freak accident,” I explain, and the flink parents rub their hands together like little villains looking for a way to exploit my weakness. I bet they’re just trying to communicate their understanding and/or sympathy. I get sympathy a lot.

“Practice and experience would give you a lot of good ideas for selling to other disabled humans. Are there a lot of humans with missing body parts?” Brad asks curiously.

“Yeah, it happens all the time, but I wouldn’t say it’s common, ya know? Most people die with all their limbs intact. About point six percent of the population of humans have lost a limb through disease or trauma. I don’t know if that includes people who have toes and fingers amputated or if it’s just major limbs.” I never really cared about how the stats were being manipulated; the group leader of the support group I went to when I was a teen ingrained that number in us so we would understand we weren’t alone.

“Even still, point six percent of nearly eight billion is a lot of humans. It’s a wonder you haven’t figured out limb regeneration yet. Don’t some of your animal species regenerate their tails and legs?” Brad finishes his drink (a large concoction of sugar, caffeine and whipped cream), and stands. “I’m getting another. Anyone else?”

Darcy appears on his array with an angry scowl on his pretty, made-up face. Huh, I bet whoever bags him when he finally decides to stop being lonely is going to be one of those sort of boring people who gets involved with a feral goth queen for the excitement. If I was into chicks, I’d totally go for a goth queen with black lips and a blacker heart.

“I just figured out my heterosexual type.”

Darcy’s glare morphs into confusion. “Your het type? What does that even mean?”

Brad grimaces, and instead of going for another drink, he walks right out of the shop. I guess he really doesn’t like Darcy.

“I was just thinking, if I was going to go for a girl, she’d have to be one of those feral goth queens, because I don’t think I’d ever be into a girl next door type, ya know? You’re hot, by the way.” He probably doesn’t need anyone stroking his ego, but he’s had a hard day, and the guy he was planning to fuck has been adopted by a flink who needed a nap, and that’s gotta be a splinter under his nail if there ever was one.

He smirks, stepping off his array.

The flinks suddenly start chirping like crazy, and the two adults jump up and down on their lower hands excitedly, except maybe they’re also a little afraid.

Darcy chirps back a couple of times, and the entire shop goes silent. He rolls his eyes. “I’m not going to hurt anyone. I’m just here to find out what the fuck is happening with Elijah,” he explains loudly. “And I will take a mocha frappe with an extra shot.”

The barista on the other side of the counter pulls a cup and writes his order on it, and someone else scrambles to the counter to pay for it. Honestly, that’s nice of them, but buying his drink out of fear—they look afraid—is not a good precedent to set.

“Nah, dude, this guy already owes me for dinner, I’ll buy the drink,” I say, getting up to intercept the poor alien trying to pay for Darcy’s drink.

The alien bows to me, so I bow back and then we get into a bow cycle until the alien gives up and I hand the barista my debit card. Huh, it totally works in space. That’s something to remember. The barista runs the card, then hands me the drink, and I take it over to Darcy who’s sitting where I had been. I sit on the arm of the chair, handing him the drink.

“How long are baby flink naps, anyway?” I ask curiously, reaching for my drink.

I think maybe I should learn not to mention the baby, because every time I do, I end up somewhere different. This time, when I pop back into existence, the planet has purple grass and little dragons flying around, buzzing like bumblebees from flower to flower. I mean, they look like dragons, but they’re about the size of my hand. One of them immediately lands on my shirt, clinging with its claws to the front of it over my belly button.

“This is a nice planet, baby. But we need to set some boundaries. Remember what we talked about before your nap?”

“Hey! Hey! You! What are you doing in the dragon fields? You can’t be there!”

I turn toward the voice shouting at me, and yep, it looks like the baby transported me into the middle of a fenced off field. The person looks like a furry version of a human, two limbs, two legs, face with wide set, but forward facing eyes and a nose—no bridge—with a mouth under it with large lips. Bigger than you’d usually get on a human face. Their ears are on top of their head and swivel a hundred and eighty degrees. They’re not wearing clothes, but why bother with clothes when you’re covered in fur, right?

“Hey, sorry. The baby flink brought me here. Is it ok if I walk out of the field with this little guy attached to me?” I point to the dragon. Another one lands on my pant leg. I point to that one too.

“Uh, yeah, just be careful not to trample any of the flowers. The dragons will eat you if you fuck with their flowers.”

I like that fuck is a universal sort of word. It’s comforting.

Carefully I walk through the field, making sure to step lightly and around all the flowers. I gain four more dragons on my clothes as I walk, but I make it to the fence where the person is without causing any damage to the flora. They help me get the little dragons off and then I climb the fence and offer them my name. “I’m Elijah. Sorry about the disturbance. This baby here likes to take me on adventures, and it’s illegal for me to take them off because it could kill them.”

“Jay,” the person replies. “No. Jay.” They look disgruntled. “Jay is not my name, it’s Jay. What the fuck?”

“Well, there’s a translation spell, right? Maybe it’s making it sound like Jay because that’s what I understand? Not sure why you would be hearing the wrong name, though.” That’s a mystery.

Jay sighs. “No. It’s not the translation spell. It’s my own damn fault. I can’t decide on a name and I keep changing it, but yesterday I thought I wanted to be Jay forever and I guess I forgot to update the magic about the name change. You can call me Jay. I’ll update the archive later.”

“Cool. Mind telling me your pronouns? I’m he/they.”

“Oh, I haven’t chosen pronouns yet. I got to get my name right before I can decide on pronouns. How did you choose yours?” they ask curiously.

“I was born with a penis and everyone called me a boy, and it feels comfortable being a he, so I never changed it.” I’m one of the lucky ones whose parents got it right.

Jay shudders, and looks over their shoulder. “That sounds horrible. I think I would have eaten my parents if they tried to gender me like that. So, you should probably get out of here. The—” whatever they say isn’t translatable into human. “And if you don’t leave you’ll likely die with no fur.”

“Baby, take me home, would ya?” Just as I finish saying those words, a hand grabs me from behind. And then the baby teleports us back to my apartment.

I look over my shoulder at the person who grabbed me. It’s Darcy, of course, and he has one of those gargoyle people holding his hand.

“Good job, baby. Now go on home to your parents,” I pet the baby gently to praise them with more than just words.

The baby chirps and disappears from my shoulders.

The gargoyle person—this one is wearing a black and white suit that wouldn’t be out of place dancing the Charleston—salutes me with a grin and disappears much less thunderously than the flink does.

Darcy shakes his head, eyeing me up and down like he’s trying to decide if I’m healthy and whole. “I don’t know why I keep chasing you.”

I laugh, running my fingers through my hair to tame it after the baby nested in it. “It’s because I’m pretty and you want in my ass.”

Darcy looks me up and down again, this time with a decidedly lecherous undertone, and a slow smile splits his lips. “The simplest explanations are the best.”

I point to the couch. “Sit. I’ll lick your lollipop until you come. Then you can do whatever and meet me back here to fuck me before you take me out for supper.”

Darcy responds by walking over to the couch, dropping his skinny jeans to his thighs and sitting with his huge dick right there, ready and waiting for my mouth.

“Excellent.”