u/Lakeel100

[prev] [First] [RoyalRoad] [Patreon] [Next] 

—

This was possibly the best sleep Tobby’d had in a long… long time. He couldn't remember the last time he felt this at peace either. If anyone asked, Tobby’d blame it on the documentary he was watching, since the narrator had one of those super sleepy voices that could knock anybody out. But deep down, he knew the real reason lay next to him.

The odd warmth and the heavenly scent were such that the intrusive thoughts and vivid memories of killing Clard became but a haze in their wake.

Not the warmth like from his injuries, but a softer, more inviting, and Soapy-shaped warmth the unconscious shi seemed intent on providing. Tobby wasn’t going to argue… how could he? She was still out cold.

As much as he’d give to enjoy this feeling all day, there was one itty-bitty, teeny-weeny problem. It was noon. Tobby’d woken up about an hour ago, but Soapy, with her night-kin sleep schedule, was dead to the world.

Was he going to wake her? No… but she was still wrapped around him, giving him no hope of escaping any time soon. Was he going to tell her that she was an unholy halfbreed of both ugly and messy sleeper? Also no. Because he still valued his life a little. That, and he found her disheveled state absolutely adorable. The cute face of the ‘big bad shi-kai’ that’d been nuzzling him all night was now snore-drooling on his shoulder.

That was the only unpleasant part about this! Wet, cold, drooly shoulder… he shivered.

The sheets were a mess, her mane/hair was a mess, and the less said about the state of both their clothes, the better. What’s worse, every time he tried to move, she squeezed him a little tighter, and his ribs, mildly recovered as they were, did not like that! “Soapy…?”

“Mghh… Zzz….”

“Soapy.”

“Nuh you… Zzz…”

“It's already noon…”

“Yeh... am... spoohn yuh... Zzz…”

It’s hopeless; he could only pray to the patron spirits that he didn’t need to use the bathroom in the next… he glanced over at his assistant. Four hours.

At least that was the plan until somebody slammed the door to his room open without warning. “Hey sluts! I brought lunch!” Cheered a certain pink menace with takeout boxes tucked under her arms.

Spontaneously appearing Pinkys were something Tobby had grown quite used to. Unfortunately, his guard couldn’t have been lower short of him being naked in the shower. So cue two startled, screaming shasians. One was scurrying off her side of the bed to hide, and the other was sitting up and covering himself with the sheets like that somehow did anything.

Pinky, armed with her gym shorts and a ‘captain/ambassador’ badge pinned to the shoulder strap of her tank top, looked mildly confused at first, but quickly slipped into dirty-minded smugness. “Oh~ Am I interrupting or-” She led, glancing around the room before her expression shifted to one of crippling disappointment. “Apparently not... boo,” she pouted.

“Pinky!”

“Don’t you ‘Pinky’ me! What am I supposed to assume when you scream like that? Your girlfriend’s literally hiding behind the bed!” A reasonable question from an unreasonable person! One that would go unanswered as she ducked under an incoming pillow.

“You don't assume shit! Get out!” Soapy hissed, torn somewhere between fury and mortification. He hadn’t seen her that red since... two days ago, actually. Wow, a lot has happened this week…

A sane person would see a livid night-kin and promptly flee for fear of getting their throat slit, but there was a new problem: Someone just told Pinky what to do. Which never flies well.

“Mmmake me!” She challenged, glaring back before side-stepping another pillow, this one thrown by a surprisingly brave Tobby.

“No fighting! Either of you!” Now he was the one giving the orders. “Soapy, she’s not going to tell a soul. Breathe.” He then turned to Pinky. “Pinky, you saw nothing! Understand? Nuh-thing~” He enunciated and even gave a few directed ear flicks towards Soapy to emphasize his point.

Pinky still pouted and gently kicked the pillows back into the room. “Yeah, yeah, I get it. I didn’t walk in on the gang kitty cuddling her favorite toy.”

Soapy’s answer was just to glare, mrowl, and have her pretty white claws unsheathe from her upturned fingers. Tobby swore he heard that ‘shing!’ sound again.

“Soapy… put those away,” he scolded, whipping out the mom voice from the safety of Soapy hopefully considering him too cute to maim. “You know full well Pinky doesn’t mean anything by it.”

“No, seriously, I get it.” Pinky broke back in with a disturbingly unusual degree of sincerity to Tobby. “Jek does the same thing whenever he gets caught being cute, just less claws and more hiding. He was a ghost after Fenna opened an admin comm-channel to my quarters and caught him mid getting lost in the snuggie sauce.”

‘Lost in the snuggie sauce’ was not a sentence Tobby ever thought he would hear in his whole life… but here he was. What's worse is that it felt like a good descriptor for what Soapy had been doing too... Was it a night-kin thing?

“Fortunately, it was Fenna on the other end of the call, so-”

“The snow-kin that was getting her back blown out by the Gatorgi member?” Soapy questioned, ear askew.

“Yeah, her! Must have been amazing too, cause I actually heard her happy sigh yesterday. You have any idea how rare that is for a deadpan snow-kin sciencey type?”

Some part of Tobby’s mind skipped a little there. “Snow-kin? Gatogri member?” He questioned, looking back and forth between the two repeatedly as if context would magically appear.

Soapy’s attention quickly flitted back to Tobby, her claws slowly retracting. “Oh, right, you weren’t there for that.”

“He was busy squeezing his cute ass into those shorts I got him~” Pinky chimed proudly.

“Pinky!” He whined.

“Well, she’s not wrong...” Soapy commented, looking off towards wherever the memory formed in her mind. “Never would have guessed that the nerd who nearly wet himself day one knew how to work a stripper pole. Some people are just full of surprises.”

While he was glad Soapy’d calmed down from her startled awake fury, he felt this story was due some correcting. “I did not nearly wet myself!”

“Did too.”

“Did not!”

"Did too!"

“Daww, you two are fighting~” Pinky giggled before another much shorter figure slid into the room.

Hunched and clad in his doctor’s coat, Dr Meeb slid to a stop, scanning for targets and taking numerous battle poses with a yard-stick he was wielding like a two-handed blade. “Where are they!? Who’s harming my lore-rich patient!?”

The doctor’s priorities were clearly in order…

—

Half an hour later…

“What did you say all this stuff was?” Tobby asked as he looked over the assortment of flimsy black-foam takeout boxes spread atop the picnic table. The spaceport had a little park thing attached to the edge of what passed for a food court. Far enough away from the launching ships to not be deafened when they took off, but close enough to enjoy the street-market the humans had formed from their own parked ships.

“‘Human barbecue.’” Pinky answered, “A copious amount of it, according to the one making it all. He seemed pretty trustworthy on the matter since he was cooking it all over a sawed-open metal drum.”

Dr Meeb looked down at the yay-big and spiced-to-hell crustacean held between his hands. “I have my doubts this vent-crab looking thing is made of human… Unless the humans are secretly flesh-mechs being piloted by cannibalistic crab things.”

“The fact you seem to be considering that reality concerns me.” Soapy squinted.

“Nothing is impossible! Just not very likely.” Meeb cheered before he bit down on the crustacean with a loud, shell-shattering crunch that made the other three wince.

Every single one of Tobby’s teeth hurt at just the idea of biting through a shell like that. His brain may know Zarmians are omnivorous with a bias towards insectivory, thus no issue biting through shells, but his teeth didn't know that. Thank Ardon none of the other food seemed to have shells.

“No, it’s not made of people, unless beef, pork, and chicken are phenotypes of human I've never encountered before,” Movva said as she began browsing her options.

Tobby wasn't going to argue; everyone except maybe Dr Meeb hadn’t had proper food in two days. The issue was what to try first. “Hey, Soapy, what are you picking-” He stopped as what sat next to him was not Soapy, but some ancient spirit of hunger ripping into a rack of ribs like she hadn’t eaten in days... Oh wait...

Pinky looked just as concerned by the sight when they exchanged glances. “I guess she’s hungry.”

On the other claw, Dr Meeb started… crying? Tears rolled down from the corners of his big, closed eyes as he chewed. “I haven’t had vent crab in so looong~” he whined happily, doing a little wiggle. “And this one’s been spiced and boiled~! Ehehehe!”

Tobby looked back at the collection, strange and unknown meat as it was, there were still a few things he recognized. Like the sausages in the mix, much larger than the snack ones at home, but his hunger was defenestrating his concerns one by one.

He reached for it when Tobby was rapidly reminded of his wounded state. As per the doctor's insistence, his shot arm was now resting in a sling, much as Soapy did when it happened to her. On the side of his working arm, though, were the claw wounds in his side. He still had most of his full range of motion, but still winced and hissed when he reached.

Tobby was about to try again when Soapy suddenly broke from her flesh-ripping frenzy to reach over and slide the box of sausages to him.

Pinky looked like she was about to ‘daww~’ at the selfless gesture, if not for the little mrowl Soapy gave her after.

Well, that was nice of her, “Thank-” was all Tobby got out before dark and sauce-smeared claws darted back to yoink one of the sausages. He sighed, for his fate was clear; he’d die of starvation before he died of old age. And he wasn’t even mad about it.

The group feasted like they hadn’t eaten in days, which they hadn't, and didn't stop until Dr Meeb was laid out surrounded by the shattered remains of a half dozen crabs. Soapy had a small mountain of bones mixed with used napkins from how messy her claws got. Tobby was full of mystery meat, and Pinky just looked proud of herself for causing all this.

“I blame you if we all get incurable diseases from this…” Tobby commented, now slumped on the table.

“I know~” Pinky smugged. “But one of the joys of being an ambassador is that I get to sample stuff like this all the time, and I’ve never gotten sick from it. Turns out human hospitality involves a lot of dragging you to local food places. If it ever could get you sick, I’m probably immune by now.”

“Asymptomatic carriers are a thing.” Dr Meeb pointed out with a lone raised hand before it flopped back to the pavement. The poor pink mole thing then proceded to roll onto his side, groaning. “Which Shasian God is in charge of food?”

Tobby, equally stuffed, groaned back. “Depends on the food... But Bonna has dibs on agriculture and animal husbandry… do with that what you will.”

“Got it…” Meeb whined back. “Bonna help meeee…”

“I see everyone’s full?” Pinky asked, looking about the table, seemingly surprisingly unfazed, given she ate about as much as everyone else.

“How are you not?” Soapy asked, idly licking her claws… whether to taste more of the BBQ, clean them, or both… Tobby may never know.

“Magic~” Pinky stated.

Tobby had the real answer, but didn't need to raise his head from the table to give it. “Pinky has one of those metabolisms supermodels would commit genocide for. She’s always been like that. Combine it with all the muscle she's built beating people up, her ample cardio, and some pacing, and she could put away a whole bake sale.”

“Boo~ I was gonna have her guess.” Pinky booed.

“And before you ask, the cardio’s name is Jek.” He added.

“Wow, just wow. I provide you with an obscene amount of meat of mysterious origin, and this is how you thank me? By backing over my fun with an 18 thruster shuttle?” She protested with notable faux indignation. “It's just so hard to find quality friends these days. Humph!” She was really hamming it up, for all the ham it was worth.

Actually, Tobby didn’t want to think about ham anymore…

“Can’t help you there, that market's been pretty dry for a while now, so you're stuck with me.” Tobby may be full, but that only means there’s less room to keep sassy bitch Tobby contained. “And I'm stuck with you, which means I know full well this isn’t the only thing you've planned for us today, now is it?”

“Darn, after all these years I’m getting predictable...”

“So what is it? What magical misadventure are you about to try roping Soapy and me into to fill in the technical last day of the Sabu-Kai?”

“It's a sup-”

“If you say it's a surprise, and take us to some sex shop or a cathouse, I will, Ardon willing, sic Soapy on you.”

At the mention of her name, Soapy’s ears perked up. ‘mrrp?’

Pinky feigned a gasp. “But I thought I was your go-to attack rous. After eighty seasons of loyal service, your just going to throw it all away for the romantic interest who only showed up a mere half season ago?!”

“Yes,” he answered flatly, sitting up enough to fold his arms. “But only because I know giving Jek a list of cute pet names to use would only escalate to a prank war that would leave thousands dead. At least this way, Soapy would be the only casualty.”

‘Mrrp!?’ Soapy trilled louder. “Hey wait a second! Why am I the acceptable casualty?!”

“Ha!” Pinky pointed. "Get casualtied nerd!"

“Because I know that if she does anything to either of us, you’re petty enough to turn it into as much of a blood feud as Pinky is. Mutually assured destruction.” He smiled confidently at his grand strategy. “And when you two are done destroying each other, I'll be left unscathed.” It was the sun-kin way! A strategy as old as time!

Pinky and Soapy both looked to him, then to each other, and exchanged glares as if they were exchanging telepathic insults before Soapy spoke first. “Want to drag him kicking and screaming to the Yukatee theater and force him to rewatch Midnight Sabres 3?”

“The terrible one that tried to compensate by giving the snow-kin lead a great ass?”

“Yeah, that one!”

Tobby blinked… What was happening right now? This inst how the ancient strategy was supposed to go.

“I wanna see it too!” Meeb waved in the background before crawling back up to the table. “I’ve only seen the first two, and as your doctor, I insist on going... For medical reasons.”

“Do I get a say in this?” Tobby asked, raising a claw to object, before he was promptly grabbed by the two shi.

“No!”