Chapter Text
The smell of smoke remained hung in the air above, following what had been a rather dangerous confrontation with this Chef character that seemed so hellbent on destroying me and my family, the fire alarms extinguishing the flames which would have made for an even more dangerous situation to be stuck in besides a psychotic chef that made sure to keep a sharp cleaver on him at all times lest he get the chance to dice me.
This chef had not only threatened my life, already creating a brubbling rage within me, but then he endangers my family in an effort to hurt me further.
To say this was invoking an anger in me would be an understatement, it could have made me willing to seriously mangle whoever stood in my path. I had Tentacles poised to throttle that sous chef within an inch of his life… I pull out my arms shaking with rage as The chef squints a shrivels in terror anticipating my wrath…
Inches away from his neck… sweat is pooling down his forehead as he expects the worst…
With my eyes filled of pure malice I prepared myself to create a chokehold that could put a gorilla in hospital…
“… Honey?”
I glance over to my left where the voice came from and see… Scarlet?…
That’s right…
My wife… my kids… my family is here… and safe. There’s nothing to worry about, they’re okay… everything is okay.
My rage sizzles away in an instant, arms lower slightly from their previously poised stance.
… How could I have thought… How could I have thought to hurt someone?… I had my arms RIGHT THERE! I could’ve- No… I wouldn’t have actually hurt him would I?… all that rage, I just wanted to hurt him so badly, I could think of nothing else but how much pain I wanted to inflict on this man in front of me, A man who continues to shiver in my presence.
My expression relaxed into a calmer and more sympathetic tone, this man thought I would have hurt him, he was afraid of me. While I could never have ignored these actions he made against my family, as of now I’m left with sorrow as the man who so relentlessly persued me is left cowering in fear of me.
… I’ll be the bigger man here, even though he is quite literally A bigger man and I am in fact not a man at all…
As I approach he cowers even more.
“NO!! NOOOO-!!”
He stops his anguished yells as he comes to the realisation my arms are placed delicately around he collar in a gesture of a hug. An act of forgiveness from me, the Octopus he so desperately seeked to cut down is now the one hugging and forgiving this ruthless chef.
“… what is happening right now?” He looks at me in confusion, the fact that I would forgive him still not registering within his mind.
“Blubberiby Blubb, Blubbbb blb Blub”
(I can’t say I will ever forgive you, but I am a friend of all human kind no matter what)
The chef seemed to understand my slurred blubbers that loosely mimicked human speech, his eyes snapping open in surprise.
“You… really forgive me? Even for the war?” He asked dumbfoundedly.
“… blubberbla…”
(… I’ll let it pass…)
The chef regains his stature from his cowering position, now radiating with a forlorn look of gratitude and respect.
As the chef stands before me, my son Tommy rushes to my side looking up at the chef with a look of disdain and distrust, the chef sees my boy stands beside me and remarks.
“Your family really loves you octopus, I.. will not bother you again…”
With that, the chef hobbles away to the exit doors, still entrapped in his fish lantern prison. The max Chefs departure brings a sigh of relief I hadn’t know I was holding, I let it the breeze blubber out from my lungs as I take in the sight of the family that stands around me.
My family close in around me, unsure of how to instigate conversation. Scarlet breaks the silence.
“Honey?”
I turn around to face her as Stacy and Tommy stand both sides of me. While I admit it’s nice to be truly seen for who I am, I’m a little sheepish at how revealing I am around my family, not that I’ve any inappropriate parts to worry about.
She looks at me as if searching for the words “So… this news will take some getting used to…”
I can help but look at my wife with a similar expression, finding it difficult to repsond, thankfully she continues.
“But I was expecting MUCH WORSE!” Her expression now reveals her true emotions as she gives the joking response.
“Next time though… tell me ten years earlier?” I couldn’t have said it better myself, if only I’d been more honest about myself to my family, we would never have gotten into half the trouble we usual do. I feel remorse for hiding this truth form my wife for this long and creating such turmoil, if I had only known her reaction would be-
“Wait-Wait-wait… if dad is an octopus… then where did me and Stacy come from?” Tommy butts in with quite the difficult question, at such an unexpected time too.
The hilarity in such questions is made apparent as me, Scarlet, Stacy and Tommy all burst into laughter simultaneously, this continues far longer than it should have given how tame the humour actually was, yet we carried on just soaking in each other shared happiness and warmth.
“Seriously though… what am I an Octohuman?”
Tommy continued with extreme bluntness.
“Erm… well…” Scarlet tries to formulate a response, visibly distressed by the suggestion.
“Blubbiba blar… blubabubo…”
(Well I wouldn’t say… actually wow that’s gonna be hard to explain…)
Oh well, at least we are together, I’m sure we can sort this out as a family.
We’ll just have to wait and sea what happens next…