Nicole stepped out of the hover taxi, scratching her head and heading down the elevator to her cave.

“Hey honey, how did it go?” Vinn asked.

“Great.” She said coldly.

“You don’t sound like it went great.”

“No it went great, I just feel weird. I didn’t sleep very good and I think I’ve had too much caffeine to compensate. I feel like I was in that waiting room for hours but I also feel like I just went right in and then an hour passed.”

Oh you never get right in, they make you wait forever. You probably dozed off. It could also just be the weather, my head is pounding for some reason. So what did Gizzy say?”

“She said the paperwork should take about 2 weeks and then I can have my old name back, and we’ll be legally un-married.”

“And you can go back home and forget all this nonsense. Hopefully we can still be friends.” He sighed.

“VINN! I’m not breaking up with you, dumbass. I’m just getting back my right to choose. And my name, I hate the name, I’m sorry it’s just so bad. I don’t want to feel like I have to love you because I’m stuck with you, I wanna get to know you and see if I really do, or if it’s just an exciting fling. I hope we fall so deep in love that it doesn’t matter, but it has to be real and sometimes it’s just not. That’s why we take time, why we date, why we move in for a while at least on my world. I’m a slower burning fuse, humans are indecisive emotional creatures and we need our time to understand ourselves first.” She explained.

“That’s fantastic because I sort of thought you weren’t coming back.” He smiled. She strolled to his side and hopped up into his lap. “You gotta do something really shitty or turn out to be a jerk for me to give up that quickly. Do Delmarians ever just sit on the couch and watch movies together?”

“Yes…that’s why I bought a big couch and a huge TV. That’s why they make those here, they’re just way bigger couches.”

“You ever see the movie Seven?”

“I never saw the first 6.” He shrugged. She giggled and got comfy, swiping her phone to the selection menu. “You’re gonna love the ending. It’s so fucked up.”

Vinn woke, sat up, reaching over to find Nicole missing, and then he remembered her heading to work and him rolling back over on the couch. Days off don’t have the same appeal when your partner is gone. He had his breakfast, fed lil Reeves, tinkered with the stone cutting laser a bit, normal as can be. A gentle buzz from his phone got his attention, expecting to see either work related or Nicole related, since that was basically his whole life, but to his surprise it was an unknown number with the text reading simply “Go outside, asshole.” Naturally he made his way up the freshly placed steps and opened the door. Silence. He took a few steps and his ears perked up to the sound of rustling to his left and the moment he took a step in that direction something struck him in the back like a cannonball. He turned to defend and paused in confusion.

“HEY DICKHEAD!” hollered a very familiar looking Delmarian, throwing playful jabs at him.

“Kraken?” he asked, looking perplexed. “Why are you on this moon, and how did you find my home?” he asked.

“More like how has it been, you doin good, still alive bro?” Kraken shrugged.

“Sorry, I was really distracted and been working a lot, Just didn’t expect to see you or…anyone from the core.” He admitted.

“Yea well the war ended pretty damn fast so we all went somewhere. I’ve been hopping place to place and doing some odd ‘under the table’ jobs myself, and they offered me a security gig here for some big convention in a few weeks. Next thing I know I hear someone talking about “Vendetta” getting building permits, and I thought, no way it’s the same bastard I knew from the core. Looked you up, sure as shit here you are. I had a hell of a time finding the place, your listed address was just a square hole so I asked the cube moving services if they recently did any air lifts and they gave me this shitass map on a napkin. You went WAY offgrid.”

“Yea I wanted to get away from the planets that had a habit of conflicts, so I figured I’d try some small mining moon, they always need demo guys.”

“You always were a pyro. I bet you got about 400 pounds of expired explosives somewhere for shits and giggles.”

“No actually I used most of that opening up the house.” He gestured.

“Oldschool spiral dugout, classy. Chicks love the traditional undergrounds. Man it’s impossible to get any serious tail with a military brand nowadays. Nobody wants to settle down with our kind.” He huffed, rubbing his nose ring.

“So you cut the beard down I see. I barely recognized you, I almost just attacked you thinking you were some kinda weirdo trying to rob me. I didn’t expect some kinda weirdo wanting to chat.”

“Like it would make any difference, I could kick your ass blindfolded. You carrying heat?” he asked.

“It’s a gun-free in city limits kinda place.” Vinn noted.

“Yea not for security, but when I clock out they pat me down and shelf the cannon. Like damn, just shelf my dick while you’re at it. Amiright?”

“Sure.” He nodded, noticing Jack strolling down the path.

“Oh my god the Delmarians are multiplying. Someone send help.” He joked.

“Friend of yours?” asked Kraken.

This is Jackson Greene, carpenter and handman on my crew.” Vinn noted.

“Yea I heard this place is a pretty diverse moon. Like the high council is half aliens now? Weird. Anyway I’m Kraken, old core buddy of Vendetta’s from the war we were supposed to be in. Construction and de-struction. You build shit, and he burns it down or what?” he jabbed.

“Well, it’s a mining moon and basements are popular, this damn greystone is so hard to cut you’re better off getting a guy to blow a hole in it first.” Jack yawned.

“Yea ol Vinn here can sure blow, right? Ah I’m just kickin your balls around. It’s a core thing. So you guys building a dugout together or ya got a crew on it? Kraken asked, scratching his groin without hesitation, like a classy gentleman.

“Just Vinn. He insisted on doing it alone. Tradition or something.” Jack shrugged.

“Oh, really? Vinn, you lookin to settle down, get the big flex home on your own, start shoppin for a wife. Good luck on a moon this size, there’s probably 8 available pieces in the whole town and 4 are ugly. You got a target in mind or is this a general mission of salvage anything worth havin.” Kraken played.

“Actually, I’ve been married for 4 days now.”

“No shit…and you don’t even have the place done yet? Here I am giving you tips like the sergeant of scoring ass that in am, and you’ve graduated to General right over me. How the hell did you bag a bride with that face, construction wages, and a cave full of debris and plans?” he chuckled.

Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

“Well we just met and things…transpired…in very unexpected ways.”

“Waged war on that ass so good she just didn’t care what you were building hu? You use my tips? You did the thing didn’t you? I told you the flip-and-go gets them every time. They’re like what the fuck, confused and then BAM you got her hooked. Never thought the move was good enough to propose with though.” He said punching Vinn in the arm a little harder than anyone would have expected.

“It’s not like that. My crew did some work on her place and I thought she seemed interesting, so I made a move and she responded.”

“Oh I get it. That’s fucking brilliant. You get on a construction crew, buncha integrated aliens with fancy Osirian tech, start cranking out these massive nice places, doing ‘favors’ for the ladies in the shitty housing, and they know before you even start that you can finish the job. Even if you don’t have the money for a nice place yet, you got guys that can work for cheap and connections, Damn you’re smart. You didn’t even have to have the home, you just showed your capability and pulled a team effort. I gotta try that. You guys need a security guard? I can carry stuff and get supplies.”

“I think we’re actually reducing some guys, the market is down a little.” Jack said, winking at Vinn because he could already tell he was more annoyed than he was already.

Well if you change your mind, I’m staying at the cube complex down by the tower, here’s my cell. I’m not forklift certified but with these shoulders, I basically am the fork lift, know what I’m sayin?” Kraken chuckled, giving jack a playful arm slap that almost knocked him over. “Seriously, though, this scam is brilliant.” He said, heading on his way. Vinn waved and smiled.

“What was that about?” Jack muttered.

“I dunno, I hate that guy. 50 people in my division, and someone finds me here…had to be that one. Not Socket, or Left Lung or Bones…had to be Kraken.”

“Where do these nicknames come from exactly. Every Delmarian has a random nickname.”

“Well no other species can pronounce our legal names anyway so they started giving us titles, The Eridani all have nicknames so we thought it was a good idea for communication. Getting a title used to be a high honor thing back in the old world so we just went with it. It’s better then having every alien stare at an ID card for a minute and then blurt out some nonsense that could potentially be like a third of our names equally butchered. Awe, man, Butcher was cool. Why couldn’t he have dropped by instead of Kraken? I liked that guy.”

“So where did Kraken come from? He doesn’t look very aquatic.” You’d be amazed. He’s the only Delmarian I know that can swim. Most of us sink like a rock. And you know the totem bead I gave to Nicole? He used to have this beard about a foot long and about 30 of those beads just down in rows. He said he was gonna have so many wives that he may as well keep a stash on hand. He wasn’t even joking, he was serious. It looked like a bunch of tentacles that waved around when he turned his head.”

“Weird. And Vendetta? How did that happen?

“I used to be really hotheaded and held a grudge. Some of the guys thought it would be funny to hold me down and saw off one of my antler. Gave it back like a gift with a bow on it.”

“And I guess you got even and took one of his horns?”

“No, I…sharpened it and stabbed him in the leg while he slept. Delmarian core is fairly brutal, it’s not the kinda place for the weak or the passive. It’s kinda like prison except instead of sodomy, it’s just like twice as much stabbing. If you don’t dominate, you get trampled.”

“Shit. No wonder you went so far away when you got out.” Jack said, rubbing his shoulder. “Damn he hits hard.”

“I just don’t wanna kill people and live every day training to kill people. I liked food. The food was good.”

“How does a guy bred to fight and genetically enhanced to fight more, spend most of his life in a violent training camp and end up like you…nice?”

“I dunno. Maybe they forgot to give me the rage injections or something. I just never hated anyone quite enough to want to kill them. Stab them in the leg maybe, steal their gun and hide it so they get in trouble. You’d have to hate someone pretty bad to wanna kill them. Nobody ever did anything to me that unforgiveable, let alone some soldier I don’t even know. I was so relieved when the war got canceled and they had to downsize the army. Kraken was just pissed off. He wanted to kill something. If another war breaks out, he’ll volunteer immediately just to get back in the action. You couldn’t pay me enough to go back.”

“Well, I’m sorry you just didn’t fit in with a bunch of roided up assholes who live to murder, I’m sure that hurts. But you fit in with a bunch of drunk assholes who build houses and seem to actually enjoy life. So there’s that. I noticed you dodged the Nicole topic. Kinda stood out since usually everything you say is about her and how great she is and this guy congratulated you on the wife and you don’t even say her name.”

“Nicole is not a very Delmarian name, that would have been a huge shitstorm. He’s a purist. Anything not Delmarian is basically trash. Your life is destined by the gods to conquer and earn your riches and then have as many foofs as you can crank out with however many wives that requires to build the clan. Multiply, expand, conquer, multiply. It’s like an infinite loop of accumulation. Why not have one great home and one great wife, maybe a few kids you actually have time to raise because you have 2 instead of 12 of them? Seems way more simple and sustainable. Most of us have abandoned the old ways but there’s a lot of purists still out there, some on the councils, a LOT in the core, that’s kinda the brainwashing at work. Hopefully he’ll just stay busy on his security job and go away soon.”

“Oh that’s a shame. I was really getting to like him. And if I don’t show up at work tomorrow just tell them I fell and dislocated my shoulder.”

“I gotcha covered.” Vinn nodded.

Nicole came home with an energetic skip, looking around at the progress and trying to find Vinn, who was asleep on the couch. He opened one eye as she leaned closer.

“Long day?” she asked.

“Ran into an old…war associate.”

“Oh visit from a friend?”

“Not what I said, honey. Anyway I’m too worn out and mentally fried to finish the stairs.

“Well, you did have to redo them since I can’t get up the steps you made the first time.”

“Standard Delmarian step height, I was not thinking about shorter legs.” He said feeling stupid.

“Well, now you can think about them.” She said plopping down almost on top of him and showing off her fancy stockings. How about I get you an energy drink and we do something fun?” she winked.

“Is it one of the sponsored ones you have like 200 of that you’re required to have visible when you stream any live games. The ones you probably drink too many of?”

“…yes.”

“Okay fine, mint chocolate chip. The rest are horrible. He admitted.

She strolled past and handed him one, continuing past him and up to her little human alcove. When she returned she was dressed in an entirely different outfit.

“What do you think?” she asked, coyly lifting one knee and giving him a spin.”

“Looks great, Are we going out somewhere with a themed dress code?”

“No, it’s just for here. I’m not wearing this outfit outside unless there is a fire in the cave. It’s a costume for indoors.” She hinted.

“Well it looks incredible, If you wear stuff like that on stream I definitely understand why you have so many viewers.”

They don’t get skirts this short, and they only get angry gamer Nicole, or sweet girl smiling for donations Nicole. Sweet girl Nicole is done for the night, and I’m sick of gaming.” She said seductively, sitting on the coffee table.

“I like where this is going but what Nicole is left exactly?”

“Dangerous Nicole.”

“I highly doubt that. You don’t even like to kill bugs and your only bladed weapon is a plastic LARPing sword.

“You don’t know some of the terrible things I’ve done. I may seem nice, but I’ve been a bad girl lately. REALLY bad.”

“What did you do? I can’t imagine anything too serious.”

“Lots of things. Terrible things.”

“Can you be specific, I am getting concerned.” He pondered.

“It doesn’t matter, the punishment is the same.”

“I doubt it. It’s probably something very forgiveable but anything meriting punishment would deal with the legal system. Do we need to get a lawyer?”

“No, we don’t need…Maybe you should just arrest me and get it over with.”

“Okay, I guess…No TV for a week?”

“Ya know, Sometimes I can’t tell if you’re a virgin or just an alien…or both. I’m trying to roleplay with you.”

“With just two people? We don’t even have matching costumes or cameras. I don’t know the backstory. Shouldn’t we try and find a gathering somewhere? Oh I bet they have some online grou-”

“SEX…I’m DOING SEX STUFF! Apparently Delmarians don’t do roleplay sex?” She said tossing her hands up in frustration.

“Nope. Does it require any special dice or boards?”

“Maybe you need to start watching porn, I’ll make a playlist or something. You know you can also throw in something you like. There has to be some kinky Delmar stuff you’re into. We gotta make a comparison list. There’s gotta be some overlap and some established boundaries. We gotta make this fun or it’s just going to be scary. We’re way too culturally far apart to just wing it like I usually do. Any human man would know what’s going on if his new wife showed up in this outfit holding an empty charcuterie board and a can of whipped crème. I even got vegan whipped crème for you. It’s non dairy.”

“I just thought you were satiating your guilt with a snack of some kind. I was worried that you did something terrible. I thought you were being sexy to soften the reveal of your guilty crime.”

“You know what, we can’t be the first human Delmarian couple in existence, there has to be some kind of book or video on it we can watch together.”

“Yes…we keep telling you these resources exist. I already downloaded the hologram.”