A little something from a sci-fi setting. Hopefully I get to return to this soon.
A hum left him as he heard her enter their shared office, something she had promised to do later today. Mercury blinked as he noted their son sleeping peacefully in his mothers arms. It brought a soft smile to his lips, the kind of smile that only she and their son ever got to see. It didn’t take an Andramadan’s intelligence to see that she was struggling. Obsidian was almost too large for her to carry now. Given how large he was as a baby it really didn’t surprise him much. It took two steps for him to cross the room and carefully relieve her of him.
It took a moment for him to carefully adjust the boy. Thankfully for both of them he didn’t wake up, that would have been a nightmare. It was hard enough to get him to sleep without him wailing for hours on end. Though, they had come up with a few tricks to help with that over the last four years. Letting him run the energy out of himself was one way of doing that, but it also came with its own risks. Mercury had unfortunately passed on his brittle bones, though it wasn’t as bad with his son.
“I wasn’t expecting you to have him with you.” He stated honestly as he rested his cheek on the top of Obsidian’s head.
“ He was rough housing and broke his arm. I had to take him to the med bay.”
Mercury nodded, her words straight and to the point, but there was also a tightness there. As if she was holding onto something. What it was he didn’t know yet, but he had a feeling he was about to find out. It had to be bad since she was not insisting that he put Obsidian down. That meant that she wanted him to remain calm no matter what she had to tell him.
Teal hues watched carefully as she opened a drawer and pulled out a large file that was paper. An odd thing to have, but not unheard of for someone like his wife. Sometimes it was good to have paper and notes to flip through and look at. Even he had a sketch book full of designs. It was however a very heft file and that made him sweat a bit. More so when she sat down and gave a heavy sigh.
“ Murky, I don’t know how to put this gently so I am going to be straight and to the point. You're half Andromedan.”
He blinked, once, twice and then several more times. His first reaction was to rage, and scream that he wasn’t. But he couldn’t do that while his son slept in his arms. Mercury pressed his lips together as his mind raced and everything got far away. Given the known pitfalls of the Andromedans it did make sense. The brittle bones, the fact that he was nearly seven feet tall. He winced as he was smacked in the face by his own vast intelligence. It also explained why they kept prodding his son with needles. But why? Why would his father keep this from him?
Her voice, though far away, pierced his racing mind like nothing else could. Before his eyes even opened he felt her arms around his waist and her face pressed into the small of his back. The tension that had coiled in his limbs released slowly as they stood there in quiet comfort until he was able to speak.
“ Why haven’t they tried to take him?” It was a very good first question, more so given what he knew about Andromedan policies. Another good question was why they hadn’t taken him, unless… Unless they didn’t know he existed until now, until they had joined the Navy. His father not telling him meant he would never be curious and never blow the secret. It also explained why his father had been so against them joining the navy.
“Aetherius convinced them not too, but if we want to keep him we are going to have to play their game.”
Well, he was going to have to put his big boy pants on and actually be civil with the chief of medicine now. It wasn’t as if he didn’t like Aetherius as a person, he just didn’t like having his son prodded with needles every other week. Obsidian didn’t like it either and that was really what upset Mercury more than anything. If he needed to play their game to keep his son then he would.
“ I was able to negotiate blood draws down to once a month.”
Mercury allowed a smile and nodded. Feeling her breath on his back was distracting to say the least. It was also best that they take Obsidian back to their quarters. He could talk to Aetherius in the morning.
“ He said that I could do blood draws and scans for you because you would likely benefit from the insight, but I think it would be better if you went to Aetherius and got it done yourself.”
The way she said that, quiet at first before getting louder and faster as she spoke, said a lot. She was nervous about his popping off and if he wasn’t holding their sleeping son he would have. Mercury would give her the points she deserved, she knew how to keep his temper leashed when she needed it to be. Though that would save her later when they got to their room. “ As long as you go with me the first few times.”
The soft giggle that escaped her and how her arms relaxed around him before her arms fell away. She went to put the file away before they headed for their quarters.
