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"He means well," Ahim said to herself. She didn’t sound as convincing as she wanted to sound. She sighed, walking out of her room with the offending object in her hand. Her boots click-clacked on the wooden floor of the Galleon.
Luka looked up from her magazine, and threw up a hand. "Men," she said, with irritation.
At the same time, Ahim said, "Humans."
~~~~~
They had a range of different customs on board the Galleon, based on all of their various backgrounds, biological needs, and preferences. For the most part, they worked through these with only the occasional blip. Sometimes there was a general acceptance of one person’s wishes, especially when there was a hygiene or safety issue, and sometimes they compromised.
Sometimes Marvelous got involved, and sometimes, of course, Marvelous was the problem. Especially if you listened to Don after the pasta incident.
(It was difficult not to listen to Don after the pasta incident. He wailed in everyone's faces, and also stuffed helpful little pamphlets all around the ship for their information, just in case they forgot.)
1.
Gai was asexual. Marvelous’ response to that had been a bemused little ‘huh’, then Don – pre-pasta incident – had helped him look up information about it.
Joe sipped his tea and continued to read his newspaper at the table, noting to himself that he was quite lucky that he didn’t have Marvelous-inspired digestive problems.
“You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to,” Marvelous said irritably, because really, of course he didn’t. Gai should know that already. “The rest of us won’t have sex around you unless you say it’s okay, but you’ll have to deal with it if there’s kissing. You don’t have to be kissed if you don’t want, but sometimes there will be kissing, and you’re part of the group even if you don’t want to be part of the kissing.”
The tiniest little squeak. “I don’t, er, mind kissing? Marvelous-san?”
Gai was bright red. Joe put down his cup, and grabbed Gai’s wrist and hauled him up out of his seat. Someone had to rescue him.
“I don’t like sex either, don’t worry about it,” he muttered, dragging Gai out of the main cabin.
“Joe doesn’t like sex!” Marvelous shouted helpfully after them.
“Thanks, Marvelous,” Joe groused, hauling Gai around a corner and into his own room. Gai stumbled a few steps as Joe kicked the door shut behind them. “Look, it’s not bad to talk about these things, but Marvelous is. . .”
Joe couldn’t think of a polite way to finish that sentence.
“- is Marvelous-san?”
“Yeah, that’ll do,” Joe said thankfully. “Everyone’s different, but I think you know that already. We all have different preferences. If you want to have sex or kiss or sleep next to someone or whatever, there’s usually someone who’ll say yes, and if you want to say no to someone who asks you or to someone who’s doing things next to you, that’s okay. Got it?”
“So I’m truly part of all of you?”
Joe nodded, wondering what it was about Gai’s hopeful little face that made him simultaneously want to fondly scruff his hair and lock him in a cupboard. The problem with being Marvelous’ second was that he had to balance Marvelous’ supreme disinterest in people skills, so he had to repress the second impulse more often than he wanted to.
2.
“Luka-san?”
She tapped again.
From the other side of the door, there was a cranky, “What?”
Ahim folded her hands together in front of herself primly, wishing she could at least do this with Luka’s face in front of her. It was much easier to gauge Luka’s mood if she could actually see her.
“It has been the same number of days since you last sequestered yourself, and I think by the length of years on your world. . .” Ahim swallowed. Perhaps it was better without being able to see Luka’s face. She did not want to make her angry. Or, worse, make her sad. “I was wondering, is there some kind of tradition?”
The door cracked open, and then she was abruptly in Luka’s arms.
“Family,” Luka said with difficulty. “I know you’re not my sister, but it’s about being with family.”
Oh.
Oh. “I would like to be your family.”
She saw Don over Luka’s shoulder as she gently pushed herself and Luka back into Luka’s room. A few minutes later, she found a tea tray left on the floor outside Luka’s room.
A few more minutes later, Ahim left the far lighter tea tray outside – and a long yellow-clad arm grabbed Don and hauled him into Luka’s room, too.
3.
Don stopped short. Gai was mouthing something over the saucepan as he plunged it into the bubbles in the sink again, and he was completely ridiculous, and this was also incredibly touching.
“Left finger this way, then look up to the ceiling,” he said with a gulp. “It doesn’t actually help.”
“But it feels better, right, Don-san? So I’ll do it, too!”
4.
Joe went down hard, before the pain even bloomed in his side.
“Stay down!”
A red-black blur leapt lightly into his blurry field of vision, landing across him.
Joe thought to himself that he’d never seen anything as reassuring as Marvelous’ thighs as he blocked every single blast that came Joe’s way.
When he woke up again, he had a tube in his arm, which was never a good sign. He inspected it muzzily. There was a blurry shape with a yellow puff of hair fussing around that side of him.
“For pain,” came a voice from his opposite side. “Thump me if you need anything.”
“Marvelous? You don’t have to stay.”
Marvelous harrumphed. “I’m your shara-esthra, right? Can’t say I know everything about it, but I know that means I stay and you need silence. So you should shut up and heal.”
“Tell him if you need anything.” Don’s hasty voice from the door this time. When had he moved? “I’ll be back in a few hours to check the dressing, unless you need Reassuring Thighs-san to do it.”
. . . just how much had he said while he was semi-conscious?
~~~~~
Ahim found Gai dangling off the side of the Galleon. He was dangling because Luka had him by one ankle. He was squawking because he was Gai.
(Well. He was dangling because he was Gai, too, she supposed.)
She would have been concerned, if she hadn’t known he was entirely capable of managing if Luka should drop him. Accidentally, or otherwise. She tucked her shawl more securely around herself. It was quite windy this far above this country – what was it? New Zealand?
“We’ve told you before,” Luka said. “Being connected to the earth of her home planet doesn’t mean she needs potatoes!”
Ahim inspected the one he’d left in her bed this time.
Gai nodded, or was perhaps shaking.
“A plant would be of more help,” she called down to Gai, and he nodded again. His eyes were wide and his face was quite white. Ahim was not entirely sure if that was common amongst humans.
Luka made an irritated face. “I suppose that’s all we’ll get out of him.”
She leaned back, and Gai squawked with relief as he tumbled onto the deck of the Galleon. Ahim knelt next to him, and gravely handed him the potato back. He gave her a tremulous smile as he panted for breath.
“I just think they’re neat,” Gai said eventually, weakly. “I’ll buy you a potplant, okay? We have lots of them on Earth. So you can still have earth around you, even if it’s not your own planet?”
Luka took his hand, and hauled him to his feet.
“Men,” she said.
“Humans,” Ahim agreed.
They pulled him into a hug.