by Pixie Unger
I nodded and pulled his arm around me so I could rest my head on his shoulder. “You’re right. I didn’t.”
“Did you think I knew?” he asked nervously.
I flopped on to my back and stared at the ceiling. “I didn’t tell you. I know that I can say no and I will if you do something I don’t like.”
He stiffened, figuring out what I wasn’t saying.
I reached up and cupped his far cheek, pulling his face slightly towards me, but mostly pulling myself closer to him. I kissed his cheek. “Don’t worry about it,” I said firmly. “I’m not unhappy with you.”
----
Breakfast felt awkward. For one thing Tybalt, wouldn’t even look at me, but worse was the staring from the others. Finally, I snapped and put down my fork rather more aggressively than needed. “Okay! Someone explain how this is going to work! You keep saying it's my choice, and I don’t have to do anything, and that large family marriages are normal for you. So, what the hell?”
“Why him?” Tybalt demanded.
The other three looked appalled.
It was Romeo who growled a response. “Because he talks to her! She likes that! You don’t!”
“I do!” Tybalt protested. “More than you!”
Mac leaned back in his seat and interlocked his fingers behind his head. Then he tilted his head back and grinned at the ceiling. It was pretty much the polar opposite of Iago glaring at the floor and clutching his fork like he wanted to stab someone.
Romeo wasn’t done. “You don’t! You expect to get by just because you might have a sister! She doesn’t care! She doesn’t want babies!”
Didn’t I? That was a pretty broad statement. I just don’t want to get pregnant right this second, I thought to myself.
“I noticed her!” Tybalt announced. “I got her food!”
“Mac would have noticed!” Romeo countered. “You made her scared! You made the humans hate her!”
“That’s going a bit far,” I murmured.
Mac covered his face with his hands and his shoulders started to shake like he was laughing.
I don’t know what Tybalt snarled in response, but the other three jumped to their feet.
“Sit down!” I snapped. “Either we figure out how to talk about this like adults, or I’m going to stay with Erika!” They sat with the posture of scolded school boys. It didn’t fit with their over six-foot-tall frames.
I took a deep breath and tried to think of what to say. “I need you to stop thinking like orcs for a moment and try to see this from my point of view. You don’t get to ask for things, but I have no understanding of what you aren’t saying or asking. I need you to talk to me!”
I swear Romeo muttered a sullen, “I told you so.”
“Romeo—” I just felt tired. I have no idea how to handle this. “What do you want?”
He shook his head. “Nothing. You are letting us in. Good for Iago, but good for us, too.”
“Humans only want one,” Tybalt grumbled.
“Maybe no!” Romeo snapped.
“Tybalt?” I decided to just keep going. “What do you want?”
“You!” he barked, making everyone uncomfortable. Then he sagged in defeat. “But he took you to bed when you asked for me. Then you decided you liked him best.”
“Mac?” I asked, ignoring Tybalt for the moment.
“I want to sleep in your bed,” he replied honestly, causing Romeo to give him a shove.
“Iago?”
“I want Tybalt to be better,” he grumbled.
“I want that too!” Romeo chimed in.
“Alright. How do we help Tybalt be better?” I asked. That just earned me a collection of funny looks. “If you want a group marriage or whatever, how does this work for you back home?”
“Badly,” Iago admitted. “You just get rid of anyone you don’t like.”
I frowned. “What? Because he’s grumpy one morning?”
Three nods plus Tybalt glaring at the far wall.
“I’m not doing that. So how do we all work together?” That finally got him to look at me. He seemed cautiously optimistic. I wondered what had happened before I had gotten up that morning.
It was Mac who suggested, “Talk to him? He wants time.”
“I have time,” I hazarded. “What would you like to do, Tybalt?”
He blinked at me as though I had asked him about string theory or something. “You have a game? Iago got it. Can we play?” Mac blurted out.
“Okay. I can teach you some card games.” The cards that Iago got all had roman numerals on them. I wasn’t sure if they knew how to read at all, but those weren’t the standard characters even if they did. “But first, we’re going to have to learn a different kind of counting.”
----
I wasn’t sure if they were letting me win, or if I was just not good at explaining. It didn’t even matter because they were working together to figure out the game, as though I had given them a complex puzzle instead of trying to teach them “Oh Shit.”
Erika and her guys came over and we ended up trying to teach her three, too. We eventually left the seven of them playing, and she and I went to get water in the kitchen.
“So, how are yours all getting along?” I asked.
Erika flashed me an embarrassed smile. “They’re good.” She grinned even wider and added, “Really, really good.”
“Why are you blushing? Did you make the other two take off their pants, too?”
“I didn’t make them!” she protested, giggling.
I rolled my eyes. “Aside from Lucky, who else has gotten lucky?”
Erika was grinning like an idiot, but she still tried to look coy as she shrugged.
“That looks like all three!” I gasped. “How are they getting along?”
“I dunno. They just said to not make a big deal out of it, so I didn’t,” she told me. “Neither did they. How many of yours?”
“None!” I snapped. Erika looked out the window. “Why am I suddenly feeling embarrassed by that?”
“Oh, sweetie!” she said, giving me a hug. “You don’t have to feel bad about it! But if you do, you don’t have to feel bad about that either.” She rubbed my back and assured me, “They’re all pretty mellow as long as they know where they stand.”
I swear the lightbulb over my head went off like in a cartoon. I had been so busy worrying about surviving, that I hadn’t ever thought about how lost they must also feel. I wasn’t letting any of them know where they stood. They kept telling me it was my choice, but I hadn’t exactly made one. I was just letting things happen and reacting.
And so were they.
Yeah, okay, I’m not a total idiot. I could see how that was a bad plan once it hit me in the face.
“I don’t know what to do,” I muttered under my breath.
Erika gave me a hug. “Well, start there and see where it takes you.”
I sagged against her as she rubbed my back and thought of Iago’s response to me touching him. That seemed like a reasonable place to at least start.
----
Erika and I agreed to have morning meetings, but she left after lunch, taking her three with her.
That left me and my four standing around looking lost.
“Who won at cards?” I asked, trying to keep it light.
“I did,” Mac announced happily. I just shook my head. At some point, I was going to need to ask him about that cheating habit of his.
I frowned a little, not wanting to get into that right now. “I need some rules,” I said carefully.
They all straightened up and loomed harder. It was like watching some guys at a wedding, the bride’s family sizing up the groom’s cousins, before the bar opened. When men aren’t sure what to think of the opposing team and are worried about looking weak, they tend to puff up like angry cats. I wasn’t even sure they knew they were doing it, but when I worked at weddings, it was a sure sign we were going to be cleaning sick out of the bathroom when they tried to informall
y drink each other under the table. I considered how to say what needed to be said.
“Have you noticed how Erika and I hug sometimes?”
They all nodded, slowly. “You touch each other a lot,” Tybalt observed.
I blushed. It wasn’t like that. Did he know it wasn’t like that? Was he even implying anything? Time to focus. “We know that it’s okay to touch each other sometimes. I want to know if it’s okay for me to touch you—”
I barely made it to the end of the word before they were all agreeing. Iago was the only one who hesitated.
Romeo elbowed him.
“No,” I protested. “It has to be your choice. Each of you.”
“And you get upset if we twitch or jump,” Iago added.
I nodded again. “Because if you flinch, it doesn’t seem like it’s something you actually want.”
“You want to touch us and not have us react?” Mac asked carefully.
I marvelled at how much better his English had gotten. “Not exactly. I want to know that you will say no if you don’t want it.”
“Why not want it?” Tybalt asked.
Iago growled an explanation, their eyes went wide enough that I briefly saw the whites of their eyes.
Then I really felt embarrassed. “You don’t have to say anything right now,” I explained to the floor. “Just think about it.”
“Do we get to touch you?” Romeo rumbled.
I blinked. Shit. “If I can see it coming and if you’ll stop if I say to, then yeah. As much as Erika does, anyway.”
Romeo awkwardly held his arms out as he gave me a worried look. I smiled softly and leaned in for the hug. It wasn’t a great hug. He was barely touching me. It was more like he was stiffly holding his arms in a hug position and I just happened to be there. I snorted a half laugh and leaned against him.
He didn’t move.
I thought about telling him to relax, but then I realized how that sounded. I straightened up and started to pull away and he instantly dropped his arms.
“Are you okay?” I asked.
“Are you?” he countered.
I nodded. “It will get easier. If you want it to,” I assured him. He nodded. I briefly registered that he had tears in his eyes before he turned and started towards his room.
“Shit,” I mumbled. “Okay. Well, since I have now broken Romeo, I really want to stress that you don’t have to do anything you don’t—”
“You not broked me,” Romeo sniffled, his back still to me. “No one … female touched me like that...” He stopped to try to think. “Ever,” he concluded.
That just made me sad.
He might not be meeting my eye, but the others were all watching me intently to see what I did next. I blew out the breath I didn’t know I was holding. “If we’re all touch-starved, this is going to feel awkward for a while. But we’re all in this together. I don’t want anyone —” I paused, because calling Tybalt out on his temper tantrum was not going to be helpful. “I don’t want anyone feeling left out,” I said, trying to be diplomatic. “If we are going to be a family, then family stuff can’t be something you trade winning at cards for.”
“Because Mac always wins,” Iago growled.
I gave Mac a pointed look; he just smirked and shrugged.
“I’m going to need help,” I admitted. “I don’t know how to make this work for everyone.”
“I feel left out,” Tybalt muttered.
I carefully telegraphed my movements as I walked forward to hug him. Tybalt was better at hugging me back.
----
I was laying on my bed, looking at the ceiling. I could hear the guys in the hallway, but none of them had tried to even knock yet. From what I could see, I had Mac the shit-disturber, Iago the insecure, Romeo the sensitive, and Tybalt the immature.
Tybalt needed to grow up, but I didn’t want to have to be his mom. Mac would be no help. Iago would see my asking for help as a rejection of him. That left Romeo. The problem there was that most of the time it had been me talking to him and him being unable to respond much or at all.
They kept saying that I could get rid of them, but I was coming to realize I didn’t want to. I wanted to make this work. I just didn’t know how when they just all seemed sort of … emotionally stunted. I could even understand that; the stories of their childhoods were so horrible by human standards.
I could hear sounds of them shutting down the house and getting ready for bed. It had been dark for a while. I didn’t have a watch, but it felt like they had stayed up waiting for me. This was the first night in a while that I didn’t have one of them laying next to me. I lay there with my mind racing for a while longer.
Finally, I got up and crossed the hall to the room Romeo shared with Iago. Two orc-sized beds were pushed against the walls with a little space to walk between them. I just crawled in next to Romeo without even asking. I pulled his arm around me so I could rest my head on his shoulder.
“What’s wrong?” he asked, sounding worried.
“I can’t sleep,” I whispered. “I can’t stop thinking about all of this.”
“How can I help?” he rumbled softly.
“I don’t know,” I admitted.
He hummed to himself, then started to gently rub my back.
“That’s nice.”
“Used to do for my little brothers,” he explained quietly. I sighed and relaxed against him. “I can help more,” he offered, so tentatively that my breath caught in my throat.
I snuggled a little closer and buried my face in his chest, listening to the sound of Iago’s regular, even breathing. I could see the self-protection in the way Romeo had offered. If I refused, he would just say he meant rubbing my feet or something.
I wouldn’t mind if he rubbed my feet, but I didn’t think that was what he was offering. But I was in the same boat; I didn’t want to have to say it. I thought way back to when I first started living in this house. Mac had given Tybalt a blow job like it didn’t matter. Just helping a friend. Then again, I didn’t want to wake up Iago and have him see.
I just nodded against his chest. I was expecting him to kiss me, but instead, he hiked me up so that my hand was on his shoulder and I could nestle my face against his neck. The way he was running his fingers up and down my back changed. His touch got lighter and he started tracing complex patterns on my skin, up and down my back, but now also over my ass and thighs.
It was more than enough to get me keyed up, but not nearly enough to get me to cum and relax.
“Romeo?” I whispered as quietly as I could. “Can I just…”
He nodded.
I just shifted a little so I could grind my clit against his thigh, then clenched my teeth at how good that felt. I ran my hand over his chest, but tried to keep my movements small and quiet enough not to draw attention if Iago woke up. Romeo traced his fingers down my chest and I bit back a whimper as he slid them slowly between us.
I reached down and moved his fingers to get his calluses where I needed them, then clung to his chest as my hips bucked in spite of my best intentions. I gasped as every nerve ending in my body ignited, and I tensed, straining to both chase his fingers and somehow get away.
I lay panting on his chest. He nuzzled the top of my head, then brought his fingers to his lips to lick clean. I cuddled in tighter to him, then started sliding my hand downwards, only to have him catch it and put it on his chest over his heart with a little pat.
“Time later. Sleep now.”
I yawned, and, rather more hugely, so did he. God, they had big scary teeth. As I started to drift off, I wondered how I had come in here to figure out what to do about Tybalt only to end up using Romeo like this. I was still going to have to talk to him about that.
In the morning.
Once Iago wasn’t sleeping next to us and I could return the favour.
I was just about asleep when Iago got up and closed the door more tightly. I blushed hotly and squirmed, seriously considering going back to my own room
. Romeo just patted me, and nuzzled my hair again. “Sleep,” he almost purred.
Somehow, I did.
----
Again, I woke to the sound of the bedroom door closing. I sat up a little and looked around. Romeo was still holding me, but Iago had gone. I winced.
“I’ll have to apologize to him later,” I mumbled.
“Why?” Romeo asked, sounding merely curious.
I shook my head. “It’s kind of trashy getting finger-fucked by one guy while another is in the room.”
“Hmmm,” he murmured.
I wondered how much of that he understood. I didn’t really want to explain, but fate wasn’t going to grant me that luxury.
“Should I be better or should he be gone?”
I sighed. “I shouldn’t have been here,” I tried, but he shook his head immediately.
“Yes. Should be here,” he stopped abruptly, then went back to correct himself. “You should be here. If you are unhappy here, then we are doing something wrong.”
“Easy for you to say,” I mumbled.
He sat up to look at me then. He frowned for a moment, then replaced it with a serene expression. “I can not say what is wrong. I need you to tell me.”
That was not the misunderstanding I was expecting. I covered my face with my hands and tried to figure out what was going on in my brain. I wasn’t feeling up to a discussion of monogamy; I was too much of a cynic to try to tell them human’s mate for life. Even if I wasn’t, I wasn’t sure it was something they could or would want to understand. Tybalt had said humans only want one, and everyone else had been really upset by that.
I could understand that. You come all this way, looking for other civilizations, only to have it blow up in your face. Then to top it all off, our social constructs are so completely, well, alien to them.
“Mina?” Romeo whispered, sounding worried.
I peeked at him.
“Am I wrong?” He sounded so afraid and lost. “Did I do wrong?”
My heart just melted. “No, Romeo, you didn’t do anything wrong. I used you. I did wrong.”
“You want. I want. How is that wrong?”
How did I even start? Okay. “Iago didn’t want to be here?” I suggested.
Romeo’s eyes went wide. “Yes. He didn’t want to be in his bed. He wanted to be in this bed.”