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My grandma used to say that the mother of all idiots is always pregnant.
Thirty years into my life, and I had yet to find proof she was wrong.
Age, gender, wealth, job, nationality... none of these factors mattered: idiots were a constant in the universe, always present like fleas on a wild dog.
Even coming from another planet wasn’t a guarantee of immunity from the idiot gene, as the message on my screen was currently and unfortunately reminding me.
“FUCK U COME HERE YOURE SPAWN’S SPITTIN GREEN I’M GONNA KILL U”
Why me.
I put the phone back in my pocket and kept walking my cart down the vegetable isle; going alone grocery shopping was one of the few ways I had to enter a zen-like state of mind, forgetting momentarily about the various mistakes of my life, the biggest and most recent being the moron alien-shaped one who was currently roaming freely in my house holding my firstborn who was apparently doing his best exorcist impression.
Picturing the state I would find the house in upon my return actually made me walk slower, prompting the old woman behind me to cease her attempts at being inconspicuous and surpass me, stealing my wallet in the process.
I passively watched her feigning interest on the canned tuna ahead of us, marveling at the speed a woman seemingly a decade younger than Tutankamon could reach with the only help of a wooden cane, then I grabbed an apple from my cart and threw it at her head. The old crone actually turned around at the last second and used her cane as a baseball bat, hitting the apple and sending it flying toward the unexplored depths of the supermarket.
I looked at her.
She looked at me.
My phone received another text, probably full of threats of impending doom if I didn’t return home soon, but it would have to wait.
I had a score to settle.
Half an hour later I parked my car in front of my house, bringing as spoils of war my wallet, my groceries and a denture.
In the end I didn’t check the last text, but considering that the roof was still in its place I supposed it wasn’t that urgent after all.
Now I just had to make my way inside.
Simple.
Easy.
I sighed, resting my forehead on the steering wheel.
For some reason, this was not what I was expecting when I started fighting aliens for a living.
At the beginning it was all like I had imagined it: a man in black like organization that got rid of troublemakers that broke the mutual non-attack pact between humans and visitors from other planets; not that aliens were a secret, everyone knew about them.
Then I met him.
Nakiir.
Or whatever his name actually was, since when he pronounced it he made sounds that were probably not supposed to be present in any vocabulary of the Universe.
Nakiir came from a planet that evidently wasn’t far enough from Earth, and his language was something that could be heard if you decided to listen to a satanist song backward while high on a mix of weed and acids, and even my high-tech translator at first gave me confused screeches when trying to decode his words. Fortunately for my ears, he actually learned my language pretty soon, starting obviously with the swearing, which in any case kept on being the 60% of his dialogue anyway.
He was humanoid, an inch or two taller than me, with four black eyes, white hair, gray skin and very, very sharp teeth.
He was a bounty hunter, a job that constantly put him on my radar since he had the very obnoxious habit of killing the people I was supposed to apprehend and bring to justice, not to mention that he himself was top tier on my list of targets, since his job was surely not going to lend him between the candidates at Nobel Peace Prize.
We kept going at it for over a year, stealing each other's targets and fighting like two dogs over the same bone, until Nakiir realized that no matter what, my private life would always come first. Even if I was in the middle of fighting with him over a criminal, if I received a call from school because my son was sick, I had to stop everything and go pick him up; I still had a home and a family to care about, and that meant go grocery shopping, pick up my child at school, have nice dates with my husband and generally have a social life.
Me and my sweetheart had both full-time jobs, so we took turns with chores and baby-duties. I couldn’t just fight crime and pick fights with my archnemesis all day.
For some reason that, above all else, was the concept Nakiir, the alien bounty hunter currently living on a different planet than his, found hard comprehending.
He actually started acting offended because I put my private life above fighting with him. He said I wasn’t taking him seriously. And that’s how I ended up explaining to a grown-ass borderline criminal why trading blows with him could not possibly be my only preoccupation in life.
Yep. That’s something I actually had to do.
Go figure.
Then... something happened. And that something was Nakiir actually intruding in my life so that I would have more time to fight with him. How? Well, let’s just say that one morning I woke up to find a plastic bag containing raw meat on my doorstep, and it just went downhill from there.
Here I was, trying to keep him away from my family because I thought he would hurt them, and one day I came home and just found him in my kitchen sipping tea with my sweet innocent hubby. That alone was enough to nearly send me to my grave.
Now, a considerable amount of time later, he was babysitting my seven years old son. And cooking for us. And possibly courting my husband.
Yeah, things actually did get a bit out of hand.
After all, little did I know when I started butting heads with him that his people were polyamorous and held anyone who dabbled in medicine in high regard. Like my better half, for example.
Will was a paramedic and also everything I wasn’t, which was kind, calm and patient. And also damn good looking, with his delicate asian features and sexy glasses.
Nakiir got this stupid smile on his face every time he interacted with him, treating him like he was a freaking princess. I thought he would try to pull off his Alpha male bullshit and get in a dick-measuring contest with Will, and instead he acted cheerful and courteous, since for his culture Will would be the head of the family.
Not because he was male, not because Nakiir was intruding, not even because the rare times Will actually got angry he could throw a death stare able to make a hungry wolf cower.
No, it was because he possessed the great power of medicine, and so he was the most respected member of society.
I, a lowly warrior, was consort but also protector of the medicine figure, a role that brought me great honor but also inevitably put me lower on the social order.
Riiight.
And that was where we were right now, juggling this strange family dynamic where Nakiir was a wild card that came at random times, helped out around the house without complaining, pampered Will and made rude gestures at me when Will’s back was turned.
Oh, and of course that didn’t mean he quit his day (and also night) job; he still took great pleasure in fighting tooth and nail with me over his right to kill criminals for money.
Why me.
My phone started ringing again, only this time I actually answered because that was Will’s ring tone.
“Hi, you’ve reached the House of Intergalactic Vomit, how may I help you?”
On the other end of the line his soft laughter answered me. “I guess Vic is still sick then.”
“You’re spot on, mister. My sources said he’s apparently spitting green like a fountain and I’m starting to think letting him taste that valcronian delicacy was not such a great idea. But on the other hand I’m not the one on the line of fire, soooo...”
“You know what they say, hindsight is always 20\20. Don’t worry hun, he’s going to be fine.”
“Oooh, I know he is. Our floor, not so much. I just hope that idiot had the good sense of bringing him into the bathroom.”
Will paused for a moment.
“There are precious samples of biomatter there right now, don’t you remember?”
...
Well, shit.
“Now I really don’t want to get inside. Is it too late for me to simply drive away and become a monk on the Himalaya?”
“You’d have to shave your head to do so, hun.”
“But you would love me even with my head shaved.”
“You’d have to abstain from sex too.”
“... that could be arranged. My foot is already on the gas pedal, so you’d better come up with a solid reason why I shouldn’t renounce to all worldly possessions soon.”
“You wouldn’t be able to eat strawberry pie anymore.”
...
“Damn, you win. Okay, okay, I guess I’ll have to deal with the possessed gremlin who puts everything he finds in his mouth after all. Oh, and with our son too. I hope you’re satisfied now. Did you call only to trash my spiritual dreams or there’s an actual serious reason?”
“Honey, you know what day it is today, right?”
I stared blankly at our front door, turning and twisting my brain in search of what holiday or special occasion I was forgetting at the moment.
After a thorough interrogation of my memory involving three rounds of good cop\bad cop and one death sentence, my mind just gave up and sent me an error screen.
“Uhm... no? Look, we both know that you’re the brain in this relationship, I’m just dumb muscle that gives you amazing sex.”
“That’s not right, you also gave me a son with a remarkable talent in projectile vomiting.”
“That’s true. So, what day is today?”
He audibly sighed. “It’s Samkar day, hun.”
I immediately felt my face scrunch up in distaste.
“Why are you telling me?”
“You know why.”
Ugh.
“Didn’t we decide last year to not do this again?”
“You decided it, I actually had fun.”
“Yeah, I bet you did. Why did you remind me? Now I’ll have to be kind to him. This suuuuucks. You suck.”
“That was last night hun, no need to bring up the past.”
“Party pooper.”
“Yes I am. Can I trust you two to be civil until I come back home?”
“Define *civil*.”
“I’ll take that as a yes. See ya later honey, love ya!”
And with that, he hung up.
Damn him and his absurd requests of mature behavior.
Grumbling under my breath I finally got off the car.
My day just kept getting better and better.
One hour, a lot of mop abusing and much swearing later, Vic had finally stopped being sick and was now napping in my lap with his head on my chest while I sat exhausted in the kitchen. He was covered in sweat, and so was I, but he looked more serene now, so I hoped that the worst was behind us.
Nakiir was making hot tea while muttering in his language, dressed in a strange mishmash of mine and Will’s clothes since his own were currently having a much needed time out in the washing machine.
I sure hoped my son’s strange stomach juices were not corrosive on leather.
... then again, maybe I kinda did.
“Do I want to know what you’re saying or you’re just trying to summon a demon inside the house?”
“Now I know why my second mother told me that parenting a child is more dangerous than going into battle. How the fuck can something so small spit out so much? Where was he keeping it?”
“First, language, second, you don’t ask this kind of things about human children, okay? You just accept that they are strange creatures that work in ways our mind simply can’t comprehend.”
He grunted and handed me a steaming cup of tea, which I accepted while making sure my first and only child didn’t slip headfirst onto the floor.
I carefully blew on it, since Nakiir was famous for liking his tea just a shade less hot than the molten Earth’s core. “You’ve always been here the last few days, is the cutthroat business not providing jobs anymore?”
He gave me the bird while showing me his sharp teeth in a halfhearted show of aggression, but it was clear his head was somewhere else entirely.
Damn, and here I was hoping he’d forgotten what day it was too.
Well, considering Samkar was a holiday celebrated on his planet, it had been a little too optimistic of me.
Ooookay, looked like it was time.
After gingerly standing up, I brought Vic in his bedroom and laid him down on the bed, caressing his soft hair off of his forehead. After making sure he was covered with a blanket I made my way back to the kitchen, where Nakiir was absently washing the cups.
Oh, for the love of-
“Will is going to like whatever you’re planning to say to him, so quit fretting over it like a love-struck teenager. And for the record, I still can’t believe I’m saying this to someone who’s mooning over my husband. So, what’s your plan, exactly?”
Samkar was kinda like Valentine’s Day, only with less chocolate and more eternal declarations of undying loyalty and affection. It was a celebration where bonds of any kind were reaffirmed through heartfelt speeches and a lot of saccharine good feelings; last year, for example, I had to sit through interminable minutes of Nakiir swearing his upmost affection toward Will and his intention of supporting and helping him and blah blah blah, the respect he felt for me as a fellow warrior and equal and his intention of honoring our battle bond by not going easy on me since that would have been disrespectful and oh my god just shut up!
Will had found the whole thing marvelous for some reason and had insisted on celebrating it as well, going on one knee to proclaim his love for me and Vic and the gratitude he felt to have us all in his life.
Mois, being the great poet I’d always been, had answered with a never old yeah I do too and then swore to never do it again in my life.
But the funny thing about holidays was that they came back every year, so here I was again, looking at the big bad alien assassin blushing like a schoolgirl at the thought of speaking about his poor tender feelings.
Somebody kill me now.
Nakiir finished drying the last cup and faced me, his expression strangely solemn.
“I have feelings for Will.”
I blinked.
Uhm, duh.
“You’re kidding, right? Who the heck could have guessed it? It’s not like you’ve been frequenting this house for more than a year now, looking at him like he’s Shangri la and you a lost adventurer.” I said pinching the bridge of my nose. “Seriously, why are you telling me this now?”
“Because you’ve always been bitching about the fact you’re monogamous, so I fucking waited and didn’t make any move.”
That was actually true; during all this time he had never put hands where they didn’t belong or made advances of any kind. He just... kind of adopted himself into the family and slowly made himself cozy in our routine.
“Of course you didn’t make moves, I’d have shot you between your eyes before you could even breath strangely at him.”
I expected him to smirk and accept the challenge. The old Nakiir would have done it.
But it wasn’t the old Nakiir who was confronting me now.
Without my full knowledge, at one point during the last months the jaded bounty hunter who cared only for his job and picking a fight with me slowly was replaced by a strange and sometimes (often) moron-shaped family member.
Who still loved to pick a fight with me, but still...
Why was I realizing it only now?
“There’s no need to shoot me, I’d never hurt him” he answered sounding almost offended, but keeping anyway a cool demeanor.
To bad his tough guy persona was a bit ruined by the duck-patterned T-shirt he was currently wearing.
At least his heart was in it.
“I know, moron. So what? Today you’re going to change your don’t touch policy?”
“No, for fuck’s-...”
He actually paused and made a visible effort to not send me to hell.
Okay, now I was actually concerned.
I hastily made my way toward him, putting the back of my hand against his forehead to check if he was actually sick like my son, but he gripped my hand with an irritated expression.
“Now what are you doing?”
“You can’t stop mid-swearing and expect me not to worry about your health.”
“Fuck you.”
“See? That’s much better.”
He rolled his four eyes, which was actually interesting to see, and put his hand, which was still gripping mine, down.
“You were right. Family is important. I came here to search for cash and someone stronger than me to give me an epic fight and then kill me, and instead I found you three. Will is my light, Vic is my little pride...”
Of course he was, my little gremlin already knew how to swear in three different tongues and use a blast gun to make holes in the trees in front of our house.
“... and you are my home.”
Wait, what?
Did I just have a stroke and wasn’t earing things clearly?
I looked up at him, searching for signs that he was actually joking to see if I would fell for it, but he was actually serious.
His hand tightened slightly around mine, and I started feeling as if the temperature in the room had gone suddenly up.
“... what?”
“As I was saying before someone fu-freaking interrupted me, I have feelings for Will... and for you. In case it wasn’t obvious enough.”
“Wha... no it was not! How in the seven circles of hell could that have been obvious?”
He looked at me like I was the stupid one. “You’re like a sister warrior for me, it’s only natural.”
“Please please rephrase that.”
“What I feel when we fight can not be replaced by anything else, and you were the one to show me what having a home and a family truly feels like. This family anyway, since I had one back at home too when I was little. I would like it very much if you and Will would let me stay as more than just a... how do you say it? Plenic companion?”
“Platonic” I said mechanically as the full meaning of what he was actually saying sank fully inside my already abused brain.
For all this time he had been courting me too, just in a different way.
I took for granted that the way he was with Will was how he acted when he had the hots for someone, and I didn’t take in consideration the freaking fact that Will was a “medicine man” and I was a “warrior”, so of course the courtship methods were going to be different too.
“Yes, platonic. So, these are my feelings for you, laid down as per the tradition of Samkar. What is your answer?”
I actually opened and closed my mouth a few times, completely taken aback.
I... him... Will...
He slowly brought my hand up and grazed the back of it with a light kiss.
“What kind of cheesy romantic novels have you been reading lately?” I asked as I felt blood rushing to my cheeks.
“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
Yes he did, I could see it in the way the corners of his mouth were desperately trying to not turn upward in a grin.
“Don’t look at me like that, I didn’t say yes.”
“Yet.”
“Fuck you.”
“Language.”
In the end, once Will got home, we sat all down to have a nice long talk. Things were discussed, decisions were made.
Of course it couldn’t all change in one day, but we decided to give it a try.
Nakiir had become such a fundamental part of our daily life that taking it a step further went actually more easily than I had anticipated.
We still had many things to solve, like buying a bigger bed or making Nakiir stop calling me “sister warrior”, but I was sure that, in the end, all would turn out fine.
After all, I was an idiot just like the two men I loved.