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tanoraqui · 1 year

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S&D Tier fic inspired by this video. unedited.

“Kiddo, we need to talk about something,” Alex said, and thought, Oh god, I’m turning onto my father. Parenthood was a mistake. I should scrap this all right now and pretend it never happened.

But Hawk was already abandoning its legos and scurrying over to where Alex stood in its bedroom doorway, looking up at them all expectant and a little nervous. (It didn’t project except deliberately; Alex had given themself zeranid-specific telepathy during the space war, for army-directing purposes, and only ever partly turned it off because being able to read your kid’s moods was really helpful in parenting, especially when your kid was an insectoid war machine that didn’t visibly emote like a human).

(Yeah, it was way too late to scrap this all and pretend it’d never happened. It’d pretty much been too late since Morgan first phrased “keep an eye on my core hivemind war machine” as “babysitting.”)

Hawk had scrambled up their body to perch on their head and peer down at them through bent eyestalks. It loved doing that with Alex, because most people couldn’t hold forty pounds of chitin and lethal claws on their head without wobbling.

“Yeah, yeah, you’re adorable.”

Alex patted it on the shell, then walked over to its bed, gently pried its claws out of their hair, and set it on the skateboard-patterned duvet beside them.

“Now, I know you were eavesdropping on my call with Diego earlier—”

I wasn’t! Hawk insisted, projecting innocence and injury.

“I’m an expert eavesdropper and I saw one of your spy drones in the vent,” Alex retorted. “Learn to spy better if you don’t want to get caught!”

Hawk drew its limbs in a couple inches, sulking. Alex scratched the base of its eyestalks reassuringly. This was why they planned on leaving this sort of Real Conversation With Our Kid mostly to Morgan—Morgan was better at reassuring! But obviously, Morgan couldn’t take this Real Conversation…

“I’m guessing you didn’t hear what Diego was saying too much, though?”

They kept scratching as Hawk begrudgingly shook its head.

I could hear her being angry. Do I still get to play with Ducky today?

Alright, time rip off the bandaid.

“Yes,” Alex promised. “But— Listen, you know how Morgan woke up screaming in the middle of the night last…7am today?” Which was like midnight for Morgan; even parenthood hadn’t changed that.

Uh-huh, said Hawk.

“And you know how you showed them that cool trick with the squirrel a couple days ago, you know, the one you told me about over dinner?” While Morgan looked faintly queasy and didn’t finish their food, man, Alex was kicking themself now; at the time they’d been too busy laughing and enthusing at the gory details and the little dance Hawk did to show how it had puppetted the squirrel corpse.

Yeah! Hawk’s limbs stretched back out and its eyestalks waved excitedly. I’m going to show Ducky at our playdate! I’m going to make one do the Macarena. That’s Ducky’s favorite dance.

“That’s hysterical,” Alex informed it. “Okay, but here’s the thing: you can’t let Ducky’s parents know, and you need to pay attention to if Ducky is getting scared while you show him—you remember what people are like when they’re scared?”

Hawk rolled their eyes both internally and externally. They smell nicer and I want to kill them more slowly.

“Hel– heck yeah,” said Alex. “So, I can’t believe I’m saying this, but if Ducky is getting scared, you should stop your super cool squirrel trick. Even if you haven’t made it dance yet. Because otherwise, Ducky might be the next one waking up with screaming nightmares, and then Diego really would cancel your next playdate, instead of just talking sh– trash.”

What?! Hawk reared up in dismay and affront, hissing in the way quadrillions of people on thousands of worlds had learned to fear. Why?

But it was a smart kid, so it immediately connected the dots—the really important dots in this conversation; no offense, Ducky. It curled back in on itself unhappily. Did I make Morgan have a nightmare?

“Yeah,” Alex said bluntly. “And Morgan is never, ever going to admit it, because they love you so, so much, and they’d literally rather die rather than make you feel bad about anything you can do or want to do.”

Don’t kill Morgan’s parents, they reminded themself reflexively, to counter the other reflexive thoughts. Do not kill Morgan’s parents, do not kill Morgan’s parents, do not—

They gathered Hawk onto their lap and booped it just above the mandibles, to remind it that it was cute and loveable and to make sure they had its full attention.

“Morgan is stubborn like that, but Morgan is also squeamish,” they explained, in terms suited to a six-year-old. “Literally and morally. That means that when they see too much blood or wiggling internal organs or corpses used as toys or…any sort of killing, really… If they see that stuff up close, they start to feel sick. It’s very lame, I know it’s very lame, but that’s just how they are. So, because we love Morgan, there are rules of thumb—rules of claw, for you, I guess.”

Hawk projected rapt attention. Alex had noticed at some point years ago that every random monster they manifested now—not a power they used often, but it could be fun, eg, for space armies—instinctively adored Morgan as a default feature of their existence. It wasn’t a feature they felt any need to change.

They enumerated on their fingers.

“One, try not to take more than about fifteen seconds to kill a single living creature in front of Morgan, and no more than a minute for a group. If you want to take longer than that, or if it seems like you need to take longer than that, either drag your victim out of sight or drag Morgan away and come back later.

“Two, don’t play with or otherwise weaponize corpses for more than, like, casually throwing them at your enemies, in front of Morgan. Otherwise it’s fine! And Morgan doesn’t even mind if they’re watching you fight on tv. It’s just when they have to see it up close that they start to feel sick.”

I don’t want to make Morgan feel sick. Hawk wasn’t quite at the stage where a human child would be in tears—they were a ruthless killing machine, albeit one who was functionally a six-year-old with an increasingly healthy upbringing with loving parents. But it radiated distress, and hid its face in Alex’s midriff like Alex could shield it from every possible bad thing in the world. Which Alex could, obviously.

Can’t you just make them not get sick?

“Believe me, I’ve thought about it.” Alex sighed, and scratched it gently between the eyestalks again. “But then they wouldn’t be Morgan, you know?”

No! said Hawk, confused and annoyed.

“You will when you’re older,” Alex promised, with another mark on the Turning Into My Parents list.

Hawk critter-grumbled against Alex’s stomach. And Ducky will get sick, too?

“He might, he might not,” Alex said truthfully. “He’s pretty young, so he probably can’t conceptualize that you’re killing people yet, defiling their corpses, all that stuff. In which case, it’s way better to show him now, so he’ll get used to it early!”

Hawk sat back on Alex’s lap with a thoughtful twist of its eyestalks. And I can still show you, right?

“Oh fuck yeah!” said Alex. “I can’t believe you haven’t shown me yet! I love flesh puppets! No matter how your playdate with Ducky goes, you and I are going to the park again tomorrow so you can kill as many squirrels as you want.”

Hawk brightened even to the non–zeranid-telepathic eye. It mentally ran through the list of people who were in on the secret of their identity.

Can I show Barnaby and Ohio?

“Totally,” said Alex. “I want to watch you show Barnaby and Ohio. Please let me be there.”

Okay.

“Okay!” said Alex. He scratched the base of Hawk’s eyestalks again, briskly. “Good talk, champ.” Oh god, that was a pure Mom-ism. “By the way, Rule Three is all bets are off if you or Morgan, or Ducky, is in real danger. Then you should kill whoever and however you want until you’re safe—and full! No skipping meals!”

Hawk both telepathically projected and physically dramatized the rolling of eyes again. Alex and Morgan were raising one sarcastic kid. To be fair, the idea of skipping and not skipping meals did come up a lot in their household.

Speaking of…

“Speaking of, you’d better eat lunch before you go to Ducky’s, or Diego won’t get you guys ice cream at the park.” Alex scooped Hawk up in their arms and headed toward the kitchen. “How’s raw hamburger sound?”

Hawk chittered. With the blood of my enemies!

“Absolutely not,” said Alex. “And don’t try to tell me Morgan lets you drink that stuff—even they wouldn’t give Red Bull to a six-year-old.” Plain coffee, maybe, but not that monstrosity.

Yes they do! Hawk insisted.

“No they don’t.”

Yes they do!

“No they— This is a stupid argument.” They planted Hawk on the kitchen counter and spoke firmly. “You can have chocolate sauce on your hamburger, but no caffeine until you’re older.”

Okay! Hawk wasn’t the least bit dismayed by this result. In fact, it was outright satisfied.

Alex hid their proud grin by turning toward the fridge, wherein lay meat and chocolate sauce both. Their intuitive talent for slaughter and Morgan’s cunning—even if its best friend was a baby hero, their kid was going to fuck up so much shit!

#S&D tier #alex stewart #alex s tier #hawk the zeranid #fanfiction #my fic

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