Star Side

Chapter 1

Oh lord, it was him. This was because of him.

Murder would have to wait, as egg four came, smaller than the other three, and I finally fell sideways off the toilet and onto the floor. My alien's scratching became frantic to the point the scratching became the screech of metal.

"Jo! Jo? Jo!"

His panic made my nickname sound like the yips of a dog.

The textured metal floor of the bathroom swirled in a slow circle. A high ringing filled my ears. Slime coated the insides of my thighs and my stomach felt loose and sore. Tears blurred what bit of my vision wasn't coated with black.

Then maroon, clawed hands, with only three fingers and a thumb, pulled me up.

The sudden switch made me nauseous.

I must have passed out for a bit, because when I became aware of my surroundings again I had a towel over my midriff and thighs, my pants done away with somewhere, and had been laid on my side on my fluffy bathroom mat.

And there were the eggs, all four in bright blues and purples, tucked against my toweled stomach.

The familiar, clawed hand was delicately combing at my hair, like I'd done for him so many times. A heavy purr vibrated from where my head rested on his chest, which had been maneuvered around so I could use him as a pillow, or perhaps a bed. He sprawled out on the bathroom floor like a demon lord on his throne, not a freaky alien comforting the woman he had just parasited eggs into.

"You did good," he said, the human words barely recognizable amidst his throaty crooning and purring.

I swallowed hard. The nausea had come back.

"You knew?"

His hand paused, trembled, but then went on grooming, as though comforted in the old ritual. His expression, which had always been hard to read with his yellow goat-like eyes and stiff mouth, was even harder yet, though I saw his hourglass pupils slit to thin, thread-like lines.

Good. He should be scared.

"I...I did not...want you to hurt them out of fear..."

Fury snapped me upright, making both my alien friend's spines shoot up in panic and the tortured muscles of my stomach and thighs scream in protest. His wings tightened against his back.

"And it wouldn't scare me to suddenly POP OUT EGGS?" I had never yelled this loud and my vocal cords cracked painfully because of it.

At least he had the decency to flop back down, baring his thick neck and vitals in an automatic show of submission.

"I thought I could convince—I thought you'd want—"

"HOW THE HELL DID YOU EVEN PUT THESE IN ME?!" Scratch that. I didn't even care anymore. "WHO THE HELL DO YOU THINK YOU ARE!?"

This confused him greatly, I could tell, as an alien uneducated to many human idioms. But he didn't allow his confusion to raise him from his man-bed pose. I did see his eyes flash to the eggs in worry.

"You said...you said we were friends, that you were mine. Friends work through disagreement and offence, all. All upsets. Can this also—"

"YOU DON'T JUST STUFF BABIES INTO PEOPLE!!!"

"Babies?"

"THOSE, YOU BASTARD!" I pointed at the eggs, just as I felt his long, serpentine tail flick around from behind and try to protect them from my anger. Even in my blinding rage it offended me that he'd even think I'd attack something innocent when he was the one I needed to kill.

"You call your eggs babies?"

"WE DON'T HAVE EGGS!!! That's the—" I swayed, vision popping black again. I either had forgotten to breathe in all my roaring or I'd literally given myself an aneurism. I never had been this angry before—if you could even call this emotion anger. It seemed so much more acidic, hot, and corrosive. It was almost like I had a bad case of strep and heartburn crawling up my throat. I wouldn't have been surprised if fire started pouring out my mouth.

He had the decency to catch me, though that didn't make up for the rest of his lack of decency. Like not making a freaking chicken of someone before at least asking, or at least warning them ahead of time.

"Jo, Jo, kurrlongi, I will protect, I will make happy, you are precious, my most precious—"

"Shut up," I pushed at his face, not caring that I hit a bit of fang and got slobber on my hands. "Just take your eggs and go."

And if I need any more verification that they were indeed his (though it wasn't like there were any other alien life forms on this station), he morosely scooped up the eggs to his hard chest using both arms and his tail and retreated, stepping over the remains of my bathroom door as a last insult. We didn't have a damn engineer and it took months to years for non-digital posting to get here. Fixing that door would be such a headache.

For not the first time since arriving I wondered if my life was just one big Texas sized joke.

The moment I could no longer hear his heavy footsteps, I gave in to the shakes. The bathroom spun about me. My breathing came sharp and short. My chest ached and seized as knives scuttled up my stomach to leave my mouth as blood striped vomit, which spread out across my face and the floor, but I couldn't find the strength to sit up.

For the first time in my life, my sturdy body was failing me.