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It’s one of those perfect, lazy days that don’t happen all that often; the kids spent the night in the tribal village with Croach’s parents and won’t be back until dinner, town’s been quiet enough Red went off to the station by herself, and Sparks and Croach went back to bed after breakfast and ain’t fixin’ to get out of it anytime soon.
They don’t get to do this that often, so Sparks probably shouldn’t ruin it.
“You ever thought about havin’ more kids?”
“The Red Plains Rider and I only discussed having two younglings. We were not expecting to have them at the same time, but it was always two.”
Sparks almost says ain’t just you and Red anymore, but he bites it back. Ain’t no way to say that without soundin’ petulant.
“You ain’t ever asked me to use protection or anything, I figured you might be open to the idea.”
“It is very unlikely that you could fertilize me, Sparks Nevada.”
That ain’t what he expected to hear. “I did it before. Sort of. You thought I did, at least.”
“And I was wrong,” Croach says. After a long pause, probably waiting for Sparks to argue with him, he gives Sparks’ shoulder a brief squeeze and goes on. “Family, of both the relational and onal kind, is very important to my people, and to Nah Nohtek. My Nah Nohtek makes it easier to fertilize me when I am in a stable family unit and prepared to bear offspring, and nearly impossible when I am not. I believe it was so easy for The Red Plains Rider to fertilize me because we had been discussing the possibility, and so our Nah Nohtek did not need to prevent it.”
That...stings a bit. “Ain’t I part of your stable family unit?”
Sparks shouldn’t’ve asked; talkin’ like this with Croach always lays him a little bare, and he was just after a little reassuring, but it takes Croach long enough to answer it has the opposite effect.
“You are,” he says, finally. “Of course you are. I am not sure what you are trying to get me to say.”
“That you, y’know, wanna have my babies, and stuff.”
“I am not going to say that.”
This ain’t really the time, or the subject, to start an argument over, but Sparks can’t really think of anything to say that wouldn’t have that effect, so he just shuts up and listens to Croach’s heartbeat.
“You were the first being to stimulate my egg sacs,” Croach says, after a long pause.
“Really?”
“Yes.”
“You should’ve told me.”
“I was not in the habit of revealing intimate information to you, Sparks Nevada, and you were certainly not in the habit of accepting that information respectfully.”
“Fair. Still.”
Croach trails his fingers up and down Spark’s spine, from the base of his hairline to the small of his back. His exo-skin’s startin’ to feel kind of plastic again; he’ll be molting soon. One of his hearts is beatin’ steady under Sparks’ cheek, the other under his hand. He’d thought it’d be easier to talk like this - he and Croach ain’t never been any good at sayin’ things to each other, but they’ve gotten pretty good at sayin’ with their bodies what they can’t say out loud.
“I was afraid,” Croach says. “I do not think I have ever told you that.”
“At the mission?”
“When I was carrying the Jupiter spy’s offspring.”
Sparks puts a lot of effort into not tensin’ up or gettin’ out of bed. He knew this would come up. Hoped it wouldn’t, but knew it would.
“I was not used to my emotions then,” he says. “I thought perhaps they were left over from sharing my consciousness, and I would stop feeling them eventually, but I was afraid. The Red Plains Rider was gone, I did not believe you would really stay, and I did not want to return to my tribe with a half-human youngling to care for.”
The heartbeat under Sparks’ hand speeds up, and it takes a second for the pulse under his cheek to catch up with it. Croach usually has better control of himself. Sparks ain’t regretted anything in his life the way he regrets this, but he can’t figure out quite how to say it. Maybe Croach just needs to get it out.
“I know that time was hard for you, as well. But you rid an entire planet of outlaws for The Red Plains Rider when you believed her to be carrying your offspring, and you could not look me in the eye when it was me. You wanted her to stay close so you could care for her after the spy took the youngling, but you did not consider whether I would need care after he took mine.”
Croach’s voice is soft and even; it’d be easier if he yelled. Easier if he was Red, goading him into a fight about it so they could get it all out of their systems in one painful go. Croach is still rubbin’ Sparks’ back like they’re just havin’ regular pillow talk.
“I will not go through that again,” Croach says.
“I wouldn’t make you,” Sparks says, quieter than he means to around the lump that’s showed up in his throat. “I’m sorry.”
“I know,” Croach says, and slips his arm free so he can get out of bed. Usually Sparks runs away first; he ain’t sure if this is progress or not.
*
Croach kisses them both goodbye, and Sparks might be imaginin’ things but he thinks Croach holds onto him longer than Red, a little tighter. They ain’t talked much, at least not about anything important, since the other afternoon, and Sparks still feels a little raw around Croach.
“You sure you don’t want one of us to stay?” Red asks, for the fiftieth time.
“I will be fine,” Croach says, also for the fiftieth time. “You will apprehend the criminals and be back before long. It is important for you to have time out of the house. Together.”
His eyes slip towards Sparks when he says together.
Red leans down and kisses him from her horse one more time. “We’ll be back before you know it,” she says, against his mouth, and then she’s off.
“That is not possible,” Croach says, and the serious set of his mouth paired with the baffled scrunch of his eyebrows has Sparks laughin’ for a pretty good chunk of the ride.
It wears off quicker than he’d like. The three of ‘em have always slotted together like puzzle pieces, bumpin’ up against each other until they get settled just right, and Sparks can’t shake the feeling he’s upset the puzzle again.
Last time he did that, he wound up where he is now, though, so he probably shouldn’t worry too much.
Red doesn’t like to talk when she’s riding, likes to focus on the plains she named herself for and start plannin’ for the end of the trail. Sparks does what he can to stop worryin’, shut his brain off and follow her lead.
He manages better than usual, but it’s still a relief when they make camp for the night and he can start pushin’.
“Did he ask you to talk to me?”
Red rolls her eyes as the kindling catches and the fire springs to life. “He didn’t have to. He did, though, he’s worried about you.”
“Sorry, he’s worried about me?” It’s one of the worst things about lovin’ Croach, if Sparks is honest, that he can go back to some of the hardest parts of his life, parts that’re mostly Sparks’ fault, calmly tell him all about how it’s his fault, and then worry about him. Croach is entirely too easy to injure, and Sparks is entirely too clumsy.
“You’ve been mopin’.”
“I don’t mope.”
“You don’t do nothin’ but mope, Nevada,” Red says. “Can this wait until after we eat?”
Sparks grumbles, but sets about cookin’ up some chili for them. Red teases him about the time he takes seasoning it just right, glares at him ‘til he washes up all the dishes, and takes a good long time kissin’ the taste off his lips before she settles enough to really talk to him.
“Croach’s people don’t do feelings, Nevada, which means they don’t do hurt ones. It’s all onus to them - break a betrothal to run off and find yourself, onus. Repay that onus, you’re square. Call someone disgustin’ a couple hundred times, onus. Pay it back and it like you ain’t never said nothin’ at all. But you and me don’t do onus, so he had to figure out how to deal with that. Reckon you and I were the first beings to ever hurt Croach, and that ain’t an easy thing to fix.”
“You managed to fix it.”
Red laughs, a little, rubs at the back of Sparks’ neck. “Eventually. I had to work at it, though, and you run off anytime somethin’ you should work on comes up.”
“Sorry, you’re gonna lecture me on running off?”
Red rolls her eyes and stops rubbin’ his neck so she can give it a good thwack. That...was fair.
“Croach gets upset at me, I yell at him a spell, go off to ride a bit or shoot a bit, and then I come back and talk to him. You just get all weird and quiet until he leaves you alone.”
“I was awful to him, Red.”
“I know.”
“When I do somethin’ to you, you yell at me, and I can yell back, and we can fight it out, and then it’s okay. I do somethin’ to him and he just...tells me.”
“When I left the tribe, I swore up and down I’d never speak to another Martian again.”
“So we’re done talkin’ about me now?” Sparks asks; he braces himself for another slap, but Red just squeezes the back of his neck, gentle, affirming.
“Can you imagine me, thirteen years old, wild as I was, surrounded by folks that would just sit there, calm as anythin’, and list out everything I’d done wrong that day? Puttin’ me under onus for it, and more onus if I couldn’t control myself and got angry?”
“It’s a wonder they’re all still alive.”
“Exactly.”
Sparks rests his head against Red’s shoulder, doesn’t bother to respond. Talkin’ about his mistakes with Croach just makes him feel small and ashamed, even now, even after everything. Red understands, at least, even if she ain’t ever been as bad at Croach as Sparks is.
“He loves you, Nevada.”
“I know that.”
“When he’s layin’ out all your sins like that...he ain’t tryin’ to hurt you, he’s just tellin’ you what y’all need to move past.”
“My onus,” Sparks mumbles, into her sleeve. He’s always felt small out on the trail, gray-black sky and desert far as the eye can see, but it’s settlin’ on him different tonight. More lonesome than small, colder than he oughta be all the places he ain’t pressed up against Red.
“Yeah,” she says, and he can hear the little smile in her voice. “Just fulfill your onus.”
“Easy for you to say.”
“You know it ain’t.”
“I know.”
The fire’s cracklin’ low, and they’ll need to get an early start in the morning if they aim to catch up to their quarry and get home in time to send the kids off to bed. They must be asleep now, for a couple hours at least, and Croach too, takin’ advantage of their absence to sprawl all over the bed. Red’s warm and soft against him, smellin’ like smoke and sweat and space dust, and they’ll fall asleep in one sleeping bag, her nanotech keepin’ ‘em both warm.
It’s unfair to want more than this, but he does, and damned if he ain’t fixin’ to fight for it.
*
Sparks is on duty at the station, letting Red and Croach have some time with the kids, when the solution hits him. Well, an idea hits him, but he’s pretty sure it’s the solution. He’s cleanin’ out a decade’s worth of crap in the former sleepin’ quarters turned storage space, taking advantage of the quiet and the lack of people who’ll make fun of him for tidyin’, when he finds a box.
A box of streamers, a couple noisemakers, leftovers from settin’ up hands-down the worst party ever attempted. It’d been sitting on Croach’s desk after he left, until Sparks couldn’t handle lookin’ at it anymore and tossed it in a closet, where it must’ve lived until he cleaned out the closet by movin’ everything back here.
“I don’t think this is as good an idea as you think it is,” Red says, when she shows up later to ride home with him. Sparks hardly needs an escort, but Red goes a little nuts if she stays in the house all day and he’s happy to be an excuse if she needs it.
“What if I throw in the word ‘onus’ somewhere?”
“Nevada.”
“I’m not sayin’ it’ll fix everything, Red.” He does, though, a little bit. He definitely spent most of the afternoon imaginin’ all the ways Croach’d be overcome with joy and various other feelings conducive to babymakin’. “But it’s something.”
“What do you need me to do?” she asks. Probably just so she can say she told him so on the very small chance this doesn’t work out, but Sparks ain’t in the habit of lookin’ gift horses in the mouth.
*
Red packs the kids up after lunch and heads out for the tribal village, which is good ‘cause her eyes must be tired from rollin ‘em every time Sparks says or does anything. Ovarth’s been followin’ her around, as usual, rollin’ his own eyes even though he can’t possibly know why. Sparks did him the courtesy of not laughin’ at the overly serious set of his face.
At least Ezra helped, sittin’ on his shoulders to get in the way of hangin’ streamers anything but crooked.
But they’re gone, and he can set up in peace, and he ain’t payin’ no mind to Red’s voice in his head askin’ for the thousandth time if he wouldn’t rather just talk to Croach.
Felton shows up early, before Red gets back. “I brought the ‘Congratulations’ banner even though you didn’t tell me what we’re congratulating.”
“There ain’t actually anything to congratulate about yet.”
“Then ain’t it a bit premature to have a party?”
“It’s just a gesture, Felton.”
“Ain’t it a bit premature to have a gesture?”
“Just help me hang this,” Sparks says, ain’t in the mood for an argument. Felton looks like he ain’t quite done, but then he shrugs and helps Sparks finish setting up in relative quiet.
The door bangs into the wall when Red comes in, like always. “If our young’uns give Caretaker a heart attack, it’s on your head, Nevada.”
“They in a mood?”
“We’re havin’ a party, with cake, and you sent ‘em off to the village to spend time with my eight hundred year old stepdad, so yeah, a bit of a mood.”
“They love Caretaker,” he says, and risks leaning in for a hello kiss.
“They love cake,” she says, and lets him.
“I don’t want it to be too chaotic.”
“I know. Howdy, Felton.”
“Howdy, Marshal Red. Ain’t this a bit premature, seein’ as there ain’t nothin’ to congratulate about yet?”
“It’s just a gesture.”
“A premature gesture.”
“Try tellin’ him that,” Red says, with a smirk and a pointed look at Sparks.
“I did!”
“Like talkin’ to a brick wall, ain’t it?”
“I can hear you,” Sparks points out.
“I think leaving your door open like this is just invitin’ trouble,” says Mordecai’s voice from the entryway.
“Usually Red opens it so hard it bounces back and closes itself.”
“I knew you were behind me, Mordecai, I was bein’ courteous.”
“Well then, it’s appreciated,” he says, and steps into the living room. “So what’s the occasion? You weren’t exactly clear in the invite.”
“Ain’t no occasion,” Sparks says.
“Then why ‘congratulations’?”
“It’s a gesture,” Red and Felton say at the same time. Sparks is startin’ to regret inviting anyone at all.
“Does Croach know he ain’t actually bein’ congratulated for anything?” Felton asks.
“Reckon he’ll figure it out pretty quick.”
“I’m pretty sure he’ll get it right away,” Sparks says. “It’s a real good gesture.”
Red rolls her eyes. Sparks is gonna be so smug when this fixes everything, he ain’t even gonna invite her to the babymakin’.
“I guess we’ll see soon,” Mordecai says, “’cause he’s comin’ up the walkway now.”
Sparks is weirdly nervous considerin’ how certain he is he’s on the right track. “Places, guys!”
“You didn’t assign us places,” Felton says.
“Well, just hide, then.”
“Where?”
Mordecai ducks behind the curtain, which means he’s totally visible from the walkway if Croach happens to look at the window. Red’s too busy laughin’ at Felton to move. This is great.
“Marshal!”
“What now?”
“What’re we supposed to yell?”
“For the love of - surprise event, Felton, it’s surprise event.”
“Bagropa,” Croach says, from the doorway. Red’s laughin’ so hard she might hurt herself. Good.
“Surprise event!” Felton bellows at the top of his lungs, as Mordecai steps out from behind the curtain.
“That could’ve gone better,” Sparks says, and turns to face Croach, who’s looking at the ‘Congratulations’ banner with his eyebrows furrowed.
“What is the occasion?”
“It’s a gesture, apparently,” says Felton, always helpful.
“Who is being congratulated with this gesture?”
“I’m under the impression it doesn’t work like that,” Felton says.
Sparks should’ve just gone ahead and invited Alloy Roy.
“Are you alright, The Red Plains Rider? You seem to be having difficulty breathing.”
“I’m great,” she gasps, clutchin’ at her chest and tryin’ to get herself under control.
“I brought snack mix,” Mordecai says.
“I see that.”
“This is not goin’ the way I hoped,” Sparks says.
“You are attempting to make up for the surprise event you ruined?”
“Yeah.”
“This is only the fifth worst party I have attended,” Croach says, with a smile that’s a bit more pitying than Sparks would prefer. “So you have succeeded in improving on it.”
Shaky start aside, Croach seems, if not happy, at least a little bit amused by the whole endeavor, and it’s kinda nice to have a night with just adults. Like old times, but better, on account of all the ways their lives just keep gettin’ better as they go.
By the time Felton and Mordecai leave, it’s later than Sparks expected, and Croach’s dozing off with his head in Red’s lap. She stopped payin’ attention to anything but him when he lay down, lookin’ at him with a tenderness Sparks wouldn’t’ve thought her capable of not really all that long ago, idly strokin’ his head.
“I hope he molts soon,” she says. “Feels like sandpaper.”
“I think you get your ‘told you so’ now,” Sparks says. Ain’t no reason to wait around for it.
“I ain’t gonna say it,” Red says. “I still don’t think it was the right idea, but it was nice.”
“Yeah.”
“Nevada, I want you to think about what you’ll do if he never wants this.”
“I ain’t fixin’ to do anything. I’d rather have you guys than a baby.”
“I need you to be sure about that.”
“I am!”
“Because I will hunt you to the ends of the universe if you say that and then wind up leavin’.”
Sparks shifts on the couch so he can look Red in the eyes, tries to focus all the seriousness this deserves in his eyes. “Red, I’m sure.”
“I trust you,” she says; Sparks doesn’t miss how much less skeptical she sounds than when she usually says that. “Let’s get this one to bed, my legs are fallin’ asleep.”
*
“You stopped jumpin’ in front of bullets after you died,” Red says, quiet, probably tryin’ to avoid waking Sparks or the kids. They’re still sleepin’ soundly, for a little while, anyway, but Sparks woke up when she slipped out of bed and hasn’t been able to get back to sleep.
“That is not the same thing.”
Sparks probably shouldn’t lurk in the hall and listen in on this, but he doesn’t want to go back to the empty bedroom and doesn’t want to interrupt.
“Close enough,” Red says. “And your options are pretty much the same. Don’t take the bullet, you won’t get hurt and Sparks’ll get over it. Or jump in front of it and see what happens.”
“I have been shot since then.”
“I know,” Red says. “How’d it feel?”
“It was good to know Nah Nohtek, praise be it, was back to normal.”
“I ain’t gonna push either one of you either way, Croach, but I think you know what you want to do.”
Sparks stepped into the kitchen, then, wasn’t quite sure he could handle Croach’s answer. Croach must’ve finally molted, his skin’s a touch brighter than usual and he’s wearin’ the soft pajamas that irritate the new skin the least. Red’s eyes are tired, hair soft around her face. Sparks wonders, more than he should, about how well off they’d be if he’d never come back, never interfered, never let them invite him in to this.
Red smiles, soft and reassuring, when she sees him. “I was hopin’ you’d be up soon. You okay stayin’ with the young’uns if I take Croach to the station today? There’s been some rumblings about a gang on the outskirts of town, might take two of us.”
“Yeah,” Sparks says, “alright. You two have fun.”
*
Croach is home when Sparks and the kids get back from the little playground he and Felton have been buildin’ near the town square, sittin’ out on the patio and starin’ out past the little clutch of cactoids buzzin’ out at the property line.
Ovarth refuses to walk under his own power when he’s tired out, and Sparks ain’t quite as strong as he’d like to be, so he drags a protestin’ Ezra behind him to put ‘em down for a nap before he joins Croach.
“No outlaws?”
“I do not know,” he says, from his perch on the table. “The Red Plains Rider made me leave. I was making her anxious, apparently.”
“You do seem kinda fidgety.”
Croach nods, and shifts around to face Sparks. “I believe we need to talk.”
“Guess so,” Sparks says. He almost suggests they move inside, take this to the bedroom, or the couch, somewhere he can tuck up against Croach’s side and do this without havin’ to look at him, somewhere he can let his hands and mouth take over if it gets too hard and he needs to get Croach on a more entertainin’ track.
He doesn’t deserve the effort Croach is puttin’ into this if he tries that, though, so he just sits, looks up at Croach, and waits for him to start.
“When I was a youngling, my progenitors often told me they anticipated I would be designated Croach the Father, and live like the small elder with many younglings and a foot covering as a domicile.”
“Wouldn’t’ve thought your people had that particular story.”
“The point, Sparks Nevada, is that the desire for more offspring is not the problem.”
“So...you just don’t want ‘em with me. That’s - that’s okay. It doesn’t have to - “
“I wanted them with you, once,” Croach says, so quiet Sparks almost misses it.
“ - happen, not if you don’t want it. Sorry, what? You, uh, what?”
“I wanted it.”
“You wanted it. Back when - back then?”
“I have possessed the feeling designated love for you for a long time, Sparks Nevada, since before I understood what it was.”
“Me too,” Sparks says, feelin’ his cheeks heat up a little. He’s gonna make it through an entire conversation, though, all the way to resolution, even if it kills him. No more gestures. Talkin’ time. “For longer, probably.”
“It is not a competition,” Croach says, but the quirk of his lips says he’s tryin’ real hard not to give in and make it one. It’d be so easy to just argue a bit, circle away from this. “And it does not matter. The point I am trying to make is, once I got over the shock, it seemed nearly ideal.”
“You got excited.” It ain’t a question. Sparks remembers.
“I believed you would be a devoted father, and a good partner. I knew it would be difficult for you, but I did not anticipate the extent of that difficulty, or how unwilling you would be to overcome it.”
“I would’ve gotten there.”
“Maybe.”
Sparks sighs and rubs his hands over his face. He’s getting a headache, getting frustrated, itchin’ to start fighting or go off somewhere until he gets his head in order.
“I don’t know what you want from me, Croach,” he says, finally. Easiest to just admit he’s lost. “I can keep workin’ off this onus, or I can drop it. I ain’t that good at droppin’ things, but I can drop this.”
“You are not under onus to me.”
“What?”
“You repaid that particular onus some time ago, Sparks Nevada. It is not about onus.”
“Okay,” Sparks says, lets his breath out slow, tries to get a hold of himself. If there ain’t nothin’ he can do, that’s that, and things can just get back to normal around here. “You just don’t want it. That’s okay.”
“Sparks Nevada,” Croach says, weird shakiness to his voice Sparks ain’t sure he’s ever heard before. “I would like for you to fertilize me. I would like to bear your offspring. I have no good reason to object. Only feelings.”
“You’re afraid.”
“I am.”
Not touchin’ each other so Sparks could focus on what he was sayin’ and what Croach was sayin’ instead of trying to transmit information through strategic touchin’ was a good plan at the start, but it’s outlived its usefulness. Sparks reaches up to pull Croach in for a kiss; he’s already on his way. It’s a wonder he doesn’t tip right off the table, but Sparks’ll focus on the physics of it all some other time.
Croach is clutching at Sparks’ shoulders in a way that’s entirely un-Croach-like, kissin’ him more desperate than Sparks is used to. He just holds on to the back of Croach’s neck, kisses him through it, stays with him ‘til he pulls away and rests his forehead against Sparks’.
“It’s okay if it never happens, Croach, I mean that.”
Croach’s head shifts a little; Sparks can’t tell if he’s nodding or tryin’ to get comfortable.
“It is going to happen,” he says, more serious than he’s ever been, which is saying an awful lot.
That shouldn’t be the end of the conversation, there’s got to be more to it, but Croach kisses Sparks again and that’s that.
They can figure out the details later.