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“So, like, what’s up with your guys’ dads?” Jessie and Yumyulack looked up at the question, confusion on their faces. The girl who asked it was named Stacey, but she had a stutter all through middle school and she still had some pretty serious headgear, so the Staceys decided her name would be Sarah instead.
“Our... Dads?” Yumyulack squinted, frowning.
“Yeah. Last night my mom and dad were arguing. Uh, again. Anyway, my dad mentioned your dad for some reason.” She shrugged, fidgeting with the milk carton on her lunch tray. “He said your dad was happier ‘cause he’s not married.”
“My parents said they’re living in sin.” That addition was from Ruth, a quiet girl with notoriously religious parents. She wore ankle-length skirts and turtlenecks all year. “I told them I wasn’t sure if aliens could sin and they sent me to my room.”
“What does it matter if Terry and Korvo are married?” Jessie asked, head cocked to one side.
“You call your parents by their first names?” The third human at their table, Kevin, asked incredulously. He had a shaved head and a vaguely aggressive demeanor, but he meant well, most of the time. And when he didn’t, Yumyulack thought it was awesome, so it worked out fairly well for them.
“What else would we call them?” Yumyulack responded with a little sneer.
“Uh. Dad? And... Other dad?” Kevin responded with his own sneer in turn.
“Green dad and Blue dad?” Sarah suggested.
“Can they both be dads if they’re not married?” Ruth chimed in.
“They’re not really Dads,” Yumyulack went on, ignoring the discussion. “They’re more like the raw material from which we were clon--”
“Are they even together?” Sarah interrupted, leaning forward over her lunch.
“Uh, yah,” Jessie answered with full confidence. “Right Yumyulack?”
“I don’t know what any of this means!”
“When a man and a woman love each other, they connect under the holy covenant of matrimony, and promise themselves to one another.” Ruth spoke with more confidence here than she did most things, for some reason.
“It doesn’t have to be a man and a woman,” Sarah answered with a frown. “Plus, most people go on, like, dates and stuff first. That’s what being together is, like, being boyfriends, you know? They kiss and go on dates, and most people fuck.” Ruth frowned at that suggestion, but they continued over her.
“Usually people kiss and fuck before they have kids, ‘cause fucking is how you make the kids,” Kevin explained, “but your dads are gay, so I guess you’d be adopted?”
“I already told you, idiot, we’re clones.”
“You’re an idiot, idiot! Don’t even know what marriage is!”
“Why would I care about--”
“YUMYULACK.” Jessie stomped her foot, glaring at her brother. “Are Terry and Korvo together?”
He blinked at her, snapping out of his stupid argument. “I dunno. Does it matter?”
“Uh, yes! That’s what people do when they love each other, and you know they love each other.”
“Do I know that?”
“You should totally set them up,” Sarah suggested, chin resting on her hand and elbow on the table. “Like the parent trap, or something.”
“If you’re cloned from a gay dad, does that make you guys gay?” Kevin pondered. The rest of the table ignored him.
“Set them up?”
“Yeah, like, trick ‘em into going on dates with each other, so they realise they’re in love and then make out and stuff.” The bell rang through the cafeteria, and the five misfits stood from their table to dump their trays. Yumyulack looked unconvinced. “It’ll totally be fun.”
Jessie leaned closer to her brother as they walked. “Maybe humans think we're weird because we don't have proper dads! It’s about the human experience, Yumyulack. We just gotta make them dads. You know they'd be great lifemate material and they're totally both into each other, we just gotta actually make it happen."
“Plus, they’ll owe you one,” Sarah piped in. “Like, big time.”
Yumyulack perked up a bit at that. Jessie never seemed to be un-perked.
“I’ll text you some ideas later,” their friend promised. “And you gotta tell us how it goes.”
---
Korvo squinted up at the console he was under, gently jiggling a part between his fingers. He clicked his tongue. Of course. He should have known hours ago that a loose falorian tube was what caused the hardware failure. All this time on earth was making him lose his edge. Maybe it was the semi-poisonous air.
While he pondered his own failures, he heard the door to the ship hiss open, and shoes walk across the tiles. The gait was too short for Terry, and the shoes didn’t click enough to be Yumyulack’s. “Jessie! Perfect timing.” He kept his hand on the jiggly part, but extended his other hand out so the replicant could see it. “Could you hand me the clockwise systems wrench? It’s the blue one, it should be on the counter over there.”
Her shoes padded across the room and hesitated for a few seconds before returning, placing a wrench in his hand. He pulled it under the console to look at it, smiling at the girl’s competence. “Thank you. I asked Terry to get me a tool last week and it took four tries for him to give me the correct instrument.” His brows furrowed in frustration at the memory. Stupid Terry. Wait, the tube. He was tightening the tube.
Once it was attached satisfactorily, Korvo slid out from under the console, sitting up and dusting his hands against each other. It didn’t really help get the oil off his fingers, unfortunately. Jessie was sitting on the chair Terry usually sat in while he was ‘helping,’ nearby the console but out of the way. She kicked her feet in front of her, since they didn’t reach the floor.
“Are you done fixing the ship?”
“No. But hopefully I am done fixing this small problem with this one piece of the ship.”
“Oh.” Korvo stood, brushing off his knees with his hands, which was another vaguely useless gesture. “What if I told you I could help you fix the ship?”
“You did help me fix the ship,” he pointed out as he walked around the console to tap at the screen. The hand that wasn’t tapping at the screen moved to scratch his cheek, leaving a smudge of oil. “You handed me the correct wrench. And you and Yumyulack help the mission by going to school and staying out of trouble.”
“Not like that!” Jessie hopped out of her chair and followed Korvo behind the console. “I meeeeeean, I met someone who can help with all your science stuff!”
He looked doubtful, but Korvo leaned back from the screen to look at her. “Who do you know who could help with ‘all my science stuff?’”
“Uhhhhh. My... science teacher?” Her tone earned her a suspicious squint, but she continued. “He’s new! I told him about your--our mission, and he totally wanted to help.”
“Why would he want to help with the destruction and recolonization of his planet?”
“Scientific curiosity?”
Korvo put a hand to his chin as he thought, humming audibly. It sounded unbelievable, but he supposed if he lived on a planet as crummy as earth, he would probably sacrifice it in the name of scientific curiosity as well.
“Alright. I will meet this teacher of yours, and see if he is as competent as you seem to believe.”
“Awesome! It’s a date!” Jessie grinned, shoving a piece of paper in his hand. “Meet him at this restaurant at eight! Dress nice!” She didn’t give him a chance to respond before running off, shouting at him over her shoulder.
“A... Date?” He frowned down at the address in his hand. He didn’t like the sound of that.
And what’s wrong with his robe?
---
“Twenty-six, twenty-seven, twenty-eight, twenty-nine, thir--oh, fuck.” Terry was laying on the sofa, one leg kicked over the back and the other hanging over the arm, smacking a ball on a string with an attached paddle. He was doing it over his head, though, so when one of the swings missed, the ball came back to smack him in the face.
He rubbed his face for a second before Yumyulack spoke from where he’d been standing on the landing of the stairs. “What are you doing?”
Terry startled, juggling the paddle between his hands a few times before clutching it to his chest. “Nothing! I dunno! What are you doing?” Yumyulack rolled his eyes, descending the remaining steps as Terry sat up on the couch. “Actually, what are you doing? I haven’t seen you or your sister since you both came home from school and ran upstairs.”
“I had a lot of homework, get off my case,” the replicant snapped, sitting on the sofa next to Terry, who threw the paddle over his shoulder. The Pupa immediately snatched it up and started chewing on the handle.
Yumyulack flicked the TV on, starting to click through channels, but Terry talked over it anyway. “Soooo, how’s schoooool?”
“Fine.” Click.
Terry pouted.
Click.
“Makin’ some friends?”
Click. “Yep.” Click.
“That’s cool.”
“It really is.” Click.
Terry flopped back on the couch with a huff, and Yumyulack barely concealed his smirk.
“Are you bored?”
“Yeeeeeeeeeeeeessssssssssss,” Terry groaned, sliding deeper into the sofa. “Korvo is ignoring me and all my favourite reality shows are off until summer and it’s so boooooring.”
“What do you wanna do?”
“If I knew what I wanted to do, I would be doing it already--wait.” Terry squinted, pointing a finger. “You have a plan.”
“Maybe.” Yumyulack let the smirk through, kicking his feet back and forth. “Maybe I know a totally hot chick who wants a date with you.”
“A date? With me?” The prospect seemed to confuse him a bit. “How do you know someone who wants to date me who I don’t already know about? Does she just wanna do sex stuff? ‘Cause, like, I’m down to do sex stuff, but a lot of humans seem to have pretty wild imaginations about what sex stuff with an alien entails--”
“Terry!” Yumyulack seemed pained by his father-figure’s rant, hand to one side of his head. “Please, stop talking about sex stuff.” Tongue sticking out, he shook his head, as if attempting to rid himself of the thought. “Urgh, no. It’s my new friend’s mom. Her parents are divorced and she saw you and Korvo at the last PTA meeting.”
“Oh. And she liked what she saw?”
“Ew. Sure. I guess.” Yumyulack hopped off the sofa to dig around in his pockets for a second. “She just wants a date, I think. No... anything else.” He eventually found a crumpled piece of paper and threw it at Terry. “Show up at eight, wear something nice or whatever.”
“Thanks, Yumyulack!” Terry yelled at his sort-of-son’s retreating back, eyes on the paper he’d carefully un-crumpled. Time to turn on the charm.
---
The addresses led to a nice restaurant, the most expensive one on the list of suggestions Sarah, Kevin and Ruth had put together. Jesse had made a reservation, telling the maître d' that it was for a blind date she’d set a friend up on. He was suspicious of a child setting someone up on a blind date at one of the nicest restaurants in town, but her credit card had been enough to convince him.
Jessie and Yumyulack set up a table in a secluded corner with a candle in the center, conveniently nearby the decorative fern display they’d chosen to hide behind. They were there well before eight, knowing Korvo’s tendency to show up stupidly early.
“Why did you bring your backpack?” Yumyulack asked her with a judgemental quirk of his mouth.
“A contingency plan,” was Jessie’s answer. She took it off and pulled a thick book from it, putting it on the floor and flipping through the pages. “I found this book of Schlorpian customs in Korvo’s things.”
“You went through Korvo’s things?”
“No, if you ask him you want to read a book he gives you free reign. It’s mostly repair manuals.” She stopped at a page she’d marked earlier, pointing to a small picture surrounded by text. It was a jumble of vines surrounding a brilliant red and orange flower, with petals arranged in two halves, like puckered lips, or two Schlorpians kissing. “This is called a worplesnap. Apparently they bloom very rapidly and fairly rarely, and if a couple sees one, it’s a sign that they’re destined to be lifemates forever.” She said the last bit with a dreamy smile on her face.
“So? They don’t grow on earth, and even if they did, there isn’t one here.”
“Or is there?”
Yumyulack looked around, frowning. “...No!”
“Or IS there?”
“Jessie!”
“I used the information in the book to make one in the Quantum Injector. It should bloom as soon as I bury it in this dirt,” she explained, pointing at the fern’s pot.
“Huh. Not bad. You know, I didn’t expect--”
“Shh! Here comes Korvo!”
They both peeked through the branches of the earth-plant to watch the blue Schlorpian enter the restaurant. He still had his robes on, unsurprisingly, and he looked a bit out of his element.
“I’m, uh, supposed to be... meeting someone here,” he told the maître d'. “At eight.”
“You’re a bit early,” the man pointed out. Korvo just kept frowning at him, so he continued. “Well. Right this way, sir.”
He led Korvo to the designated table, where the kids watched their stuffy father-figure sit stiffly to wait. He sat still for a minute before starting to fidget nervously, straightening his robes and checking his watch--seven forty-five.
They waited for the fifteen minutes until he was supposed to show up, then five minutes more. Korvo was clearly getting impatient. Five minutes more passed before Terry showed up, in his tuxedo t-shirt and black shorts. Ten minutes late was pretty good for Terry, actually, but it was still long enough to make them feel tense.
“I’m here for a blind date?” He had his hands in his pockets and a cool posture, but the rising lilt in his voice betrayed that he was out of his comfort zone as well. “Should be, like, a super-hot babe waiting for me?”
Jessie and Yumyulack shared a look behind the plant as Terry was led to the table, both of them imagining how it might go. Maybe seeing each other in the candle light, they would finally realise the feelings that had been under the surface all along, and--
“Korvo?” Terry was standing stick-straight, face awash in confusion.
“Terry?” Korvo, on the other hand, looked a little angry. “Was this one of your pranks?”
“What? No! I was supposed to be here for a date.” He put his hands on his hips, looking around. “Maybe she’s not here yet?”
“Well, I was supposed to be meeting a colleague in the pursuit of science. But I’m starting to think they might not be coming.”
“Aw, dude, did you get stood up?”
“I did not get stood up, Terry.” He put an emphasis on the other Schlorpian’s name, frowning up at him. “What about you? I don’t see your date here either.”
“Uh, ever heard of fashionably late?” This time, his voice was convincing, but his face betrayed his lack of confidence.
“Jessie,” Yumyulack whispered. “It’s not working.”
“I see that, Yumyulack.” Jessie hurriedly retrieved a large plant bulb from her backpack, hefting it with two hands into the fern pot.
“That’s a big bulb.”
“It’s a big flower, I guess.”
She used her hands to push some dirt onto it, but she didn’t even get close to covering it before it started to wiggle down into the dirt on its own.
“Well that’s ominous,” Yumyulack pointed out.
“Shut up, shut up, shut up!” The replicants looked up again to see Terry with his hands over his ear-holes, and Korvo standing with his hands planted on the table.
“Maybe if you helped out once in a while--”
“I’m the pupa expert, I’m taking care of the pupa!”
“And where is the pupa tonight, hm?”
“I left him with food and water and an extended cut of the Lord of the Rings series!!”
“Terry, hold on, shut the fuck up, do you--do you hear that?”
Jessie and Yumyulack stared in horror as the bulb disappeared into the pot, the fern it was intended for quaking slightly. It was quiet for a few moments before the pot shattered from the bottom, thick roots unfurling and spreading quickly across the floor. They skittered across the hardwood and wiggled their tips between the seams of the floor’s planks, forcing their way through the surface and into the foundation beneath. Tables and chairs clattered to the ground as the roots dislodged the planks, knocking patrons off their feet and sending Korvo and Terry stumbling backwards.
The pile of dirt that used to be inside the pot was quaking as well, the fern fallen aside as the plant’s vines burst from the top--about six inches wide, dark green shot through with veins of orange. There were at least six of them, twisting and furling higher and higher until they hit the ceiling. The Replicants stared up at the ceiling in horror, watching the vines smash through a fancy skylight, completely oblivious to the slightly thinner vines curling up from the dirt.
Jessie was the first to yelp as a vine grabbed her around the ankle, yanking her off the ground in one fell swoop. Yumyulack shouted her name as she was pulled into the air, her little green hands holding her dress down so it didn’t flip over her head.
“Jessie--?” Terry was distracted from the plant immediately when he saw his daughter, and distracted even more when he saw Yumyulack bounce up from behind as well. “Yumyulack?”
“What are the replicants doing here? Terry, what are the replicants doing here?”
“I don’t know, man, what’s a giant fuckin’ plant doing here either!?”
The plant wrapped a tendril around Yumyulack next, curling around his waist. Before it could lift him, though, the auto-kill on his suit turned on, shooting a long spike out to sever the vine and release his feet. The plant hissed, its wound leaking orange sap, and Yumyulack stepped back on shaky feet, patting his hips for the gun he always stashed there.
Before he got to it, though, the plant reared back again, wrapping two vines quickly and firmly all the way around his body, pinning his arms to his sides and knocking the gun away. The suit shot out a trio of spikes, but the plant didn’t react to the wounds, lifting the little bounty hunter off the ground. The spikes tried to retreat, but the sticky orange sap hardened around the spikes, holding him firm and immobile in the air.
Two other vines grabbed two human patrons of the restaurant before the six largest vines parted, making way for something even bigger to start shifting from beneath the dirt.
“What the fuck is that thing?" Terry shouted over the confusion. "It doesn’t look like anything I’ve seen on Earth before...”
“There’s no way,” Korvo said, shaking his head as they both backed away from the scene unfolding before them. “It--It looks like a plant from Schlorp, but how would it get here?”
“Was it something we had a sample of on the ship?”
“I don’t think so--”
The large protrusion in the center burst upwards suddenly, unfolding itself to its full height--a huge flower, so tall it’s head almost bumped against the ceiling, with large red-orange petals surrounding a horizontal seam in the center.
“Oh my God, Terry. It’s a fucking worplesnap.”
The flower split open along its seam, revealing monstrous teeth and a damp orange tongue. It threw one of the humans into its mouth and snapped it closed, giving a pleased purr.
“Korvo, it’s going to eat the replicants!”
“I see that, Terry!” Korvo already had a blaster out, shooting at the vines. The laser shots didn’t seem to be doing a ton of damage, but at least it was something. Terry hadn’t considered it necessary to arm himself for what he thought would be a date, though, so after a few moments spent glancing around the restaurant, he ran to grab the busboy’s cart to fill his hands with cutlery.
“We’re sorry,” Jessie cried from her position dangling above them. The vines had shifted to her waist, so she no longer had to hold her dress up, but she was still hanging sideways so her tears dripped straight to the floor instead of rolling down her cheeks. “It’s all our fault!”
“Shut up, Jessie!” Yumyulack snapped, wiggling in his stranglehold. A fork flew from Terry’s hand and lodged itself into the vine wrapped around him. “Hey, watch it!”
“If we’re gonna die they should know it’s not their fault,” the green replicant wailed, one of her little pink shoes slipping off her foot. Korvo’s laser barely missed it, singing the vine a few feet below her.
“You are not going to die,” Korvo insisted. As soon as the words left his mouth, one of the thick vines swiped the floor, hitting both the adult Schlorpians in the gut and sending them flying across the dining room. Korvo’s gun slipped out of his hand and smashed against the floor, with enough force to shatter. The last of the humans scurried through the kitchen doors just as Terry and Korvo hit the adjacent wall, with a matching pair of grunts.
“This isn’t working,” Terry panted quietly, a hand clutching his stomach. He glanced around for an idea. He was familiar with worplesnaps, sure, but more as an old wive’s tale rather than an actual threat. He’d never seen one in person before... After a moment of thought, he grabbed Korvo’s forearm. “Come on.”
Together, they ran into the kitchen, the doors swinging behind them.
“There’s gotta be something in here we can use,” Terry explained, releasing Korvo’s arm to start searching through cabinets. “You knew what that thing was, do you know how to kill it?”
“Electrocution is the safest way,” Korvo answered, going in the opposite direction to search the other side of the kitchen. “But it’s a simple rooted plant, there must be more ways to kill it...”
“Woah-hoh, jackpot!” Terry held up a contraption he’d pulled from under the dessert station--a canister with a tube on top, and a trigger. He flipped the trigger to activate it, causing the contraption to produce a small flame from the tube. “Well, that’s a bit disappointing.”
“Well, yeah, they don’t torch baked Alaska with a flamethrower. It’s a good start, though...” Korvo trailed off, a plan forming in his head.
“You have a plan! What’s the plan?”
Korvo ignored him, glancing around the room. After a moment he saw what he was looking for, and scrambled across the kitchen towards the employee restroom. Terry was visibly confused, but he didn’t have time to ask a question before Korvo returned with a floral-printed aerosol can in his hand. Terry’s visible confusion remained as Korvo approached him, gently taking the torch from his hand.
“Trust me, Terry.”
Terry stared into his eyes for a moment before nodding. “I always trust you, Korvo.”
Korvo nodded in return, then ran back towards the dining room, his partner close behind.
The roars and hisses of the plant easily heard through the door amid the screams of humans, Terry grabbed a serrated knife off the magnetic knife strip on the wall and the pair gave each other one more understanding nod. Steeling themselves, Korvo readied the can and torch as Terry kicked open the door, the two of them rushing back into the dining area.
The plant turned towards them when it sensed their presence--or, more accurately, smelled it, probably. It bared its teeth, and as Korvo and Terry started to run towards them, the plant swung a vine out in a wide sweep to trip them up. Terry dropped to the floor and slid under it, aiming to get as close as he could to the vine holding Jessie. Korvo, on the other hand, leapt over it, landing in a cool dramatic roll that Terry almost got distracted by, honestly.
Korvo pointed the floral spray-can at the flower head, sneering a bit. This is where Terry would want a witty quip or one-liner, but he wasn’t really... good at that sort of thing. But when else would he get a chance like this.
“Prepare to be... Grilled, weed!”
Well, now Terry was trying not to snicker. “Grilled? Really?”
“Shut up, I’m under a lot of pressure!” With a huff, Korvo pushed the button valve down on the aerosol can, spraying a cone of air freshener towards the flower. Then he flicked the trigger of the torch, lighting the whole can into a stream of curling flames, aimed directly into the worplesnap’s mouth.
Meanwhile, Terry was jumping up to grab the vine that held Jessie, pulling it closer to the ground. He stepped on it so he could move over and grab the spike of Yumyulack’s suit, yanking his vine closer to the floor as well before retrieving the knife he’d swiped from the kitchen from where he’d stowed it in his belt.
The plant hissed, thrashing backwards, and Terry had to tighten his grip on the vines lest they be yanked away from him. He looked over at Korvo once he was sure they wouldn’t get away, and grinned. “Dude! That’s cool as fuck!”
“I know!” Korvo replied, adrenaline giving him an uncharacteristic grin. “It’s merely a reaction of the highly flammable propellant gas within the aerosol--”
“Korvo, look out!”
The blue Schlorpian snapped out of his excited explanation and dropped to the floor, narrowly avoiding the swing of another vine. He shot another tongue of flame after it, burning through the meat of the vine and causing the tip to drop to the floor, writhing.
Terry let a huff of relief, then turned his attention back to the replicants. He dug the kitchen knife deep into the flesh of Jessie’s vine, wiggling it back and forth with his tongue stuck out and brows drawn together in concentration. After a moment of wiggling, he pulled it back out--not without considerable effort, mind--and turned the metal teeth of the blade towards the vine instead. He started sawing, pulling the blade from the vine every few moments to wipe the sticky sap off on his cool tuxedo tee shirt before slotting it back into place to continue sawing. The vine thrashed a bit, but the plant was obviously focusing more on Korvo’s flame cannon, so holding it still wasn’t quite a herculean task.
The plant’s petals were clearly singed, and Korvo burning off another vine left it several weapons short. It made a terrible screech as Terry finished severing the vine he’d been sawing and moved on to start freeing Yumyulack. Clearly whatever intelligence this beast had was realising it was losing, as it decided to pull out all the stops--with a groan and a series of crashes, the bulk of the plant began to rise, pulling the roots from where they’d dug holes into the foundation. Terry was lifted off the floor, clinging to Yumyulack’s vine, as the worplesnap extracted its roots to use them like feet in an attempt to skitter away.
“Oh no you don’t,” Korvo muttered, breaking out in a run towards the plant. He heard Terry yell out his name as he ran headfirst into danger, but he ignored it, focused instead on aiming his aerosol spray towards the exposed bottom of the plant. In a move similar to a quarterback diving into the endzone, Korvo dove under the plant, arms fully extended as he pressed both triggers to shoot flame point-blank into the plant’s core.
The flower-mouth opened wide in a silent scream, flames licking up its throat and past its tongue. All that came out was a hiss as the life left the plant, sending Terry and Yumyulack plummeting toward the ground. Thankfully, the spikes of Yumyulack’s suit caught in the floor, keeping the replicant from any impact other than Terry landing on top of him.
“We’re alive!” Jessie pointed out cheerfully, once she was sure they had both survived the fall.
“No thanks to you,” Yumyulack snapped. He was still wrapped in his vine, even though it was dead. Terry slid off him to start sawing away at it.
“How was I supposed to know it was going to turn into a giant plant monster? It looked like a normal flower in the book!”
“The picture in that book was taken from miles away; few rarely survive getting any closer. We’re lucky that it didn’t get the chance to grow to its full size,” Korvo snapped from across the room. Terry paused his sawing to stand up and look over at him. Apparently when the worplesnap had died, it had also collapsed, conveniently right on top of Korvo’s legs. “Do any of you wanna, you know, maybe help me out here?”
Terry handed the knife off to Jessie. “Cut your brother free. And no stabbing.” He gave them both a finger-point of seriousness before walking over to help his partner free.
“And we will be discussing this further at home!” Korvo added, still shouting from across the room.
“So much for owing us a favor,” Yumyulack grumbled at his sister, once he’d left.
“But in the end, we’re all closer together?..”
---
“You were trying to ‘set us up’?” Korvo paced back and forth in front of the couch, where Jessie and Yumyulack sat. Terry stood nearby, arms crossed loosely over his chest.
“The other kids think it’s weird you’re not married,” Yumyulack explained.
“The other kids think we’re weird because we’re aliens, they don’t even know if we’re married or not.” Korvo pinched the skin between his eyes, where the bridge of his nose would be if he had stupid human facial features.
“We just wanted you to be happy,” Jessie piped in, frowning down at her feet. “We wanted to be like a real family.”
“Jessie,” Terry sighed, arms dropping to his sides as he stepped forward. “We are a real family. Just because we don’t fit the human definitions of what is and isn’t a family doesn’t mean we aren’t one, and it doesn’t mean we don’t love you.”
“Yeah...”
“Your heart was in the right place, though,” he added, giving her a fond pat on the head.
“You’re still grounded, though,” Korvo continued, after stopping his pacing to give them a stern frown. “Two weeks with no television and no ray guns.”
They paused long enough for both replicants to groan, Yumyulack giving an “aw, no fair!”
“Now go to your room, it’s a school night.”
“Sweet dreams!”
Again they paused, waiting quietly to hear two pairs of feet run up the stairs, and the door of their bedroom slam. Then Korvo gave a tired sigh, and Terry’s face dropped to a frown.
“That thing ruined my nice shirt,” he lamented, looking down at the dried sap on his tuxedo shirt.
Korvo rolled his eyes, moving to start closing the blinds. “We’ll get you a new one. I’m exhausted.”
“Me too,” Terry agreed, walking to the kitchen to flick off the lights. He scooped the Pupa up on his way by, pleased to see that he’d finished his movie marathon just in time for bed.
“Bagginses!” Pupa chirped, happily raising his hands into the air.
“Hell yeah, little dude. You ready for bed?”
The Pupa yawned, rubbing his little eyes. Terry smiled at him, then smiled at Korvo’s back, following him up the stairs. He cracked the replicants’ door to drop the Pupa off for the night, then ducked into his own room, closing the door behind him.
Korvo was washing up in the attached bathroom already, so Terry stripped off his shirt in the main bedroom, flinging it towards the laundry basket and walking to the dresser. It was probably ruined, but maybe they could try washing it anyway.
“Can you believe they tried to get us with that antiquated tradition?” Korvo asked from behind him.
Terry shrugged, feeling his face flush a little. He kept his back to Korvo, so he wouldn’t see it. “I dunno, I think it was sweet. And I always thought that tradition was kind of romantic...”
“It seems a bit less romantic once you’ve seen the actual plant.”
“Well you said they were usually far away,” Terry pointed out.
“That’s true.” Korvo dropped his robe off in the laundry basket, then stooped to grab Terry’s shirt off the floor and drop it in as well. “Still. If we got together, it would be because we wanted to, not because of some dumb plant.”
If we got together? Terry grabbed his sweatpants out of the drawer, mind spinning. “That’s true. You know, if we... decided to. Do that...” He scurried into the bathroom, hoping Korvo wasn’t paying enough attention to see the blue flush his cheeks had taken on.
Of course, Korvo was always paying attention. Especially when it came to Terry. He folded the blankets back and sat on his side of the bed, wondering if he’d been too forward. He hadn’t really considered it before, being lifemates with Terry. Obviously his partner had more attractive prospects, for one thing. Plus, Terry was clueless, and obnoxious, and overzealous. But he was also sweet, and thoughtful, and enthusiastic...
Meanwhile in the bathroom, Terry leaned on the sink basin, staring at his face in the mirror. Was Korvo just expressing a disapproval for those old ‘destiny’ traditions, or was he actually suggesting...? There was no way smart, cool, hunky Korvo would actually want to be his lifemate. Right?
He shook his head, banishing the thoughts from his head, then pushed away from the sink to change into his sweatpants. It was Korvo, for goodness’ sake. He didn’t imply things. Did he? Maybe he’d been implying things all along, and Terry had just never noticed.
Putting on his most nonchalant expression, Terry returned to their bedroom, tossing his shorts into the laundry basket on the way by. He was oblivious to Korvo’s eyes on his bare chest as he climbed into his side of the bed, and when he looked up his blue partner was focused on a book in his lap. The familiar routine helped him relax a bit--Korvo would read a boring book or manual or something, while Terry played a dumb game on his phone. At some point after about an hour one of them would yawn, and the other would take that as the cue to turn the lights off and go to bed.
Terry only played his game for about ten minutes, though, before speaking again. “We could, you know,” he said, without looking up from his phone.
“I’m sorry?”
“I said, we could. Be together, I mean. If you wanted.” He shrugged, pretending not to care about what Korvo’s response would be. “Apparently the replicants would be okay with it.”
Korvo hummed, closing his book. “I wouldn’t want us to be together just because the replicants want us to,” he answered after a moment. “Or if you didn’t want to.”
The screen-tapping finger slowed down as Korvo spoke, eventually stopping altogether, but he didn’t look up. “I mean, I never said I didn’t want to.” He gave the game a cursory tap. It was a shitty move, but he wasn’t really paying attention.
“Terry.” Korvo’s voice was stern, so Terry put his phone down to look at him. It was really hard to keep eye contact, since his partner was being so intense, but it felt important. Korvo’s face was a deeper shade of blue than usual, too, which was pretty cute. “What exactly do you mean by ‘be together’?”
Terry rubbed the back of his neck, face warming to match Korvo’s. “It can mean whatever you want it to mean, Korvy--”
“Terry.”
He sighed. “Lifemates, I guess. But maybe also some human stuff? Kissing seems pretty nice...”
“Seems? I had assumed you’d had human lovers, with how you talk.” A bit of jealousy seeped into Korvo’s voice.
“Yeah, I mean, I’ve done finger stuff for a few humans, sucked a few dudes off, but I never really went all the way.” Terry shrugged. “It never felt right, you know? And a lot of them could tell...”
Korvo’s brows furrowed. “Tell what?”
Terry’s face turned an even deeper shade of blue, and he broke eye contact to look anywhere else. “They could tell that I, uh. Sort of was into someone else.”
“Oh?” Korvo cocked his head. “If you’re into someone else, why would you want to--”
Terry sighed as his partner spoke, and before Korvo could finish he reached out to grab him by the shirt and yank him into a kiss. Korvo was stiff at first, but he relaxed after a moment, letting a hand settle on Terry’s bare chest. It was awkward, of course, but they read each other well and reacted accordingly, falling into a nice rhythm.
They kissed for a few moments, until they heard a quiet slap behind them. Breaking apart, they both turned and shouted “Go to bed!” at the high-fiving replicants in their doorway.
As they scurried down the hallway, Korvo yelled an addition: “You’re both still grounded!”