"Look at that." A man with orange hair elbowed his sister and pointed at the scene across the room. A pizza delivery woman had just handed a box to a tall, dominant looking, piercing eyed man, who gave her a handful of cash and took the pizza into his office and closed the door. "Boss Cyrus ordered a pizza again. How much you wanna bet he'll end up throwing half of it away like he usually does?"
A teenage boy grabbed a fried poultry leg out of the bucket he was sharing with his parents. He took a bite out of it, chewed and swallowed, then shrugged. "I can probably finish it for him...after I'm done with this combusken."
"WOW. Mars, Saturn, you better be taking him to the doctor to see if he has a tapeworm!" The man, named Zavier, laughed between bites of his burger. He turned to his sister. "Right, Zoe?"
"I seem to recall when you were his age, your stomach was a bottomless pit too." Zoe said.
Saturn smiled and ruffled his son's hair. "Just eat what we have here, Merc." Merc pulled away from his father, his red eyes rolling in typical teen fashion.
Zoe smiled. "Hey, if he can stop the boss from wasting food, let him. Growing boys need to eat."
"Key word is 'if' though." Mars took a piece of the fried feeder combusken out of the bucket, looked at it, and gave it to Saturn. "Here." She didn't eat wings, they were too tough and bony for her liking. Saturn loved them though.
Saturn blinked. She had made eye contact for a bit too long there, what was going through her head? Did he even want to know? "I'm good, thanks. I'm full."
"That's the last piece in there, speaking of wasting food..." Mars took the wing back. "Somebody has to eat it." She paused, then smiled at Merc. "Maybe you can take it to Cyrus and trade it for the rest of the pizza."
"He actually gives it to me for free if I just pop into his office and ask him if he's going to eat all that. If last week is any indication."
"Oh, that's why I didn't see any pizza in the trash last week?" Zavier chuckled. "I guess I can take it. This burger was kinda small. Where's the beef? Seriously. I think they gave me a kids meal on accident!"
"It's a wing." Mars said.
"So? As long as it's edible I don't care." Zavier took the wing and popped it in his mouth. After he was done with it, he spit the bone out into the takeout container his burger came in and got up to throw the trash away. Meanwhile, Merc got up and headed toward Cyrus' office.
Zoe shook her head and smirked. "That burger looked a decent size to me. I think he's STILL in the bottomless pit stomach stage." She looked at Mars. "I swear, all the men here are going to eat us into a famine."
"Hey, I'm still here!" Saturn snapped.
Zoe shrugged. "Yeah, maybe not you or Cyrus. But that son of yours just might if he keeps this up. He has an excuse though. That brother of mine doesn't."
"Yeah, well, I highly doubt there'll be a famine. Quit exaggerating." Saturn said in an unamused tone.
Zoe finished her burger. "Oh, nothing to be offended about. Just teasing." She got up and threw her takeout container away, then followed Zavier to the TV and game room of the Galactic hideout.
"Slater..." Mars nudged Saturn playfully. He looked at her with a raised eyebrow. Something was up if she was calling him by his birth name instead of his Galactic admin space themed name.
"What, Marion?" He used her birth name to reply. She nudged him again in the ribs, this time harder and with a smirk on her face. "...What?" He repeated.
"Wanna play hide the sausage? I've been in the mood since before lunch."
He blinked. So THAT was what the extended eye contact was for. Since his vasectomy when Merc was seven, they had been somewhat regularly intimate. He'd had some of his "love juice" cryogenically preserved in case they ever wanted another kid. There had been way too much drama over Merc existing because Cyrus wasn't thrilled with the idea of a "little brat" running around. He tolerated him now, but neither of them wanted to risk that again, so they'd made that decision. He had to admit, it was nice to have risk free intimacy when they could find a time to do so.