Bringing up baby

[mo_cara]

WHO: Gamzee and Tavros
TONE: Goofy and silly, later swoony
RATING: PG-13 to R, possibly, depending
WHEN: Feb 9th through the egg event
WHERE: Hufflepuff table in the Great Hall
WHAT: Various egg shenanigans with the boys
STATUS: Ongoing

Gamzee hurries over to the Hufflepuff table - well, hurry is a relative term for him, he ambles a little more quickly than usual - holding a small wooden box close to his chest. Wisps of cottonb stick out every which way, and he sets it down next to Tavros as he spots the other boy, squeezing in next to him much to the annoyance of one of the younger boy's Housemates.

"I got it, bro, check it out!" he declares proudly, setting the box down, where the tiny snake egg is nestled in amongst all the cotton.

Comments

[littlefairybull]

"Woaah!" Tavros ignores whatever griping there happens to be from his housemates about a slytherin invading the hufflepuff table. This is important! They've been given the mighty task of not only caring for this egg but seeing it hatched as well.

So what if it's a snake, Tavros is exceedingly excited about this whole idea.

"It's, uh... smaller, than I thought it would be."

[mo_cara]

"Yeah, isn't it?" Gamzee says thoughtfully, then shrugs. "I guess that just means we got us a bitty snake instead of one of them dude-swallowing ones."

He rubs the egg lightly with his finger, as though lightly polishing. "So what have we got to do with this eeny bro? I don't even see how we be feeding him, there ain't no holes in it to be poking food in!"

[littlefairybull]

"Haha, it's an egg Gamzee! We just.. have to keep it warm, and make sure it doesn't break until it's ready to hatch!"

He leans down so just his eyes are peering over the edge of the container, practically willing the egg to hatch right then. He was way more interested in whats inside. "And when it hatches, it will be a baby that might grow really big!"

[mo_cara]

Gamzee mimics his friend, leaning down to peer at the egg, too. "Do we got to be sitting on it? I seen mama birds all doing that, but I think my arse might have too many bones and not enough feathers to do that right."

[littlefairybull]

"Don't you dare! You'll crush it. We can't... pick it up either or it'll die." He pauses for a moment, thinking. "With normal snakes, anyway. Are these... magic snakes?"

What kind of snakes are these even?

[mo_cara]

"Oh, man, I don't know." Gamzee gives Tavros a wide-eyed look. "We can't be touching it at all? What'll happen, does it fall apart or something?"

[littlefairybull]

"You can but uh... you cant roll it around or, turn it upside down because the baby will die. A lot of reptiles are like that." This time Tav reaches in to gently pet at the egg, already not wanting to think about having to give it up.

[mo_cara]

Gamzee raises his hand, like he wants to pet the egg, too, but seems to think better of it, drawing his hand back and fiddling with the string on his hoody, instead. "I don't want to be killing that little bro before it even gets a chance to be seeing the world," he declares solemnly.

[littlefairybull]

"Then we just have to be, valiant protectors of the egg." He smiles over at his friend. "I bet we'll hatch the strongest, most special snake, who with have great confidence and esteem."

[mo_cara]

"You think so?" Gamzee asks hopefully, looking over at Tavros, then smiling back, because the Hufflepuff knows his beasts - if he says so, it must be true! "Yeah, I bet you're right, I bet he'll be slithering his hissbeast self all around and making all the other snakes jealous of his fine self!"

[mo_cara]

"Tavros!" Gamzee calls excitedly, from his spot at the table in Herbology. The class is just letting out, but the little egg he's been keeping an eye on it starting to move, and he's both worried and thrilled - they're going to see their little snake bro, but Tavros is the one that knows what to do!

[littlefairybull]

"Hey, bro! What's up?" Tavros slides into the seat next to his friend and peers happily down at the egg, then catches a little twitch.

"O-oh my god, did it just...??!!"

[mo_cara]

"Yeah!" Gamzee exclaims, grabbing at Tavros's arm. "What d'we do? Do we got to catch this little motherfucker when it comes out?"

[littlefairybull]

He can see the slit has formed along the top, and he has to keep himself from poking at it. "How longs has it, uh... been doing this?" Snake eggs can take forever to hatch and he cant remember when he's been this impatient.

"It'll probably just... stick it's head out first? I think. I've never actually, uh... hatched a snake."

[mo_cara]

"I don't know how long," Gamzee admits sheepishly. "I was trying to figure out how to trim them viney motherfuckers, and when I went to check on our little bro, he was shaking all around, getting his snakey groove on."

Ooh! A crack! Gamzee leans in to peer at it, seeing something small and dark very slowly poking at it, making the shell bulge out just a little bit.

"Look!" he exclaims, as though the baby will just erupt through the opening instead of slowly making its way free, the way its obviously doing. "He's coming! Or she is! Oh, damn, we don't even know what kind of snake it be!"

Of course, what's also slowly leaking from the egg is a very fine mist, almost imperceptible, that Gamzee keeps getting big whiffs of every time he leans in.

[littlefairybull]

Tavros doesn't even remotely notice the mist as he leans in, and he grabs Gamzee's arm in excitement as he watches the slit tear at the leathery egg. It takes a little while, but a tiny snake nose peeks its way out and stops, just sitting there enjoying it's firsts breaths of air, itty little tongue flicking about.

"Gamzee! Gamzee look!" He's practically bouncing in his seat, not letting go of his friend's arm, so happy that they're both there to witness this.

[mo_cara]

Gamzee laughs, delighted, and possibly for the first time since Shinra left, fully in the moment and not thinking about anything else. The tiny snake, with its little black oil-drop eyes, has entranced him, and he wonders if they can hold it when it comes all the way out. Right now, though he's perfectly happy to just watch the bitty thing flicking its tiny tongue as it starts to slither a little free of the shell.

"He's motherfuckin' perfect," Gamzee declares with great satisfaction, and turns to grin at Tavros, and-

WHAM.

It's not subtle - maybe because there had been a time when he had had a raging crush on his friend, and it had taken so much to actually get past that and move on, to accept that Tavros wasn't into that. And all of a sudden all of that has come flooding back in a great wave, a whallop of emotion: how adorable (and kissable) Tavros looks when he's excited, how the Hufflepuff makes him so purely happy sometimes, high and flying even without the drugs, how he never feels lonely with the smaller boy, ever.

"Oh. Damn."

[littlefairybull]

Tavros is sitting there, trying to devise a way to keep the snakeling. Maybe they could pretend the egg never hatched, or it broke, or they lost it. He had this habit of getting more attached to animals than people so he doesn't at all want to let this baby that he helped hatch. Learning the stabilization and incubation spells to help was worth it though, especially now that he gets to see it come into the world.

He looks over at Gamzee when he suddenly sounds off put, brows furrowed and concerned. "Is something-"

Oh. Oh..

It's never been that Tavros hadn't been interested, he'd just been nervous about the idea of being in a relationship. Scared even. Every attempt at anything had ended so horribly before it even started, he'd got it into his head that he wasn't worth the effort so he gave up trying.

Looking at Gamzee now makes his face turn red and his heart to little flippy things in his chest that he's not even remotely used to feeling. Talk about flying, he's practically soaring all of a sudden.

"...Wrong?"

[mo_cara]

Gamzee smiles, sweet and slow, and shakes his head. "Not one motherfuckin' thing," he declares, then ducks his head briefly before glancing up from under his shaggy fringe. "You did a wicked fine job with the wriggler, there."

His eyes flick back to the snake, and he slings an arm around the smaller boy's shoulders, noting how neatly, how perfectly the other boy fits there, his heart speeding up a little at the proximity. "Do we need to be feeding him or something?"

Gamzee is not really thinking about the snake. Rather, his mouth is running on automatic, and his brain is almost wholly occupied with how Tavros's smells, and how deliciously warm he is.

[littlefairybull]

The look Gamzee gives him, those dark eyes peering out from his hair makes him feel fluttery like he could float away any moment. "N-no not yet. I don't think. I'm not even sure what kind of snake it's going to be."

He swallows thickly but leans in comfortably against Gamzee's side and winds his arm around the other boys waist, curling his fingers into the fabric near his hip in an effort to feel more grounded.

Tav is trying to think about the snake, but's getting increasingly more difficult. "I don't... want to give him back..."

[mo_cara]

"Then we won't," Gamzee decides, since keeping the snake is what will make Tavros happy. Though honestly, he doesn't really need a potion to influence him that direction - he's never paid much attention to the rules unless he's getting in trouble. "Little baby like that, won't be no thing to hide him, come time for it."

Tavros feels so good against his side, he wonders how he could have ever let this go, even if the other boy wasn't into him that way - unrequited or not, didn't love feel grand? He indulges himself, dipping his head to nuzzle at the smaller boy's hair, breathing him in. "Damn, but you smell good. Like motherfuckin' amazing."

[littlefairybull]

Tavros turns his attention back up to Gamzee with a bright, excited smile. He doesn't make breaking the rules a habit, mostly because there's rarely a reason he feels the need to. This seems like a worthy cause. "Maybe we can say, it made a slithery escapee, and we didn't notice?"

When he looks back to the snakeling he misses how Gamzee is leaning in closer, so when he's suddenly nuzzled it takes him a bit by surprise. The grip in Gamzee's shirt tightens as his face darkens. Part of him still wants to pull away out of sheer nervousness, but he stays because it was really nice for once, even if he had to pretend it was anything more than it really is. "I, uh... didn't do anything... different?"

[mo_cara]

"Nah, you always smell really good," Gamzee says happily. "Motherfuckin' edible. We could be saying one of them purrbeasts got to it, too? Like it got all eaten. Then you could keep that little bro as long as you wanted, 'til it gets all fat and strong! Why you blushing?"

[littlefairybull]

Tavros gets all sorts of embarrassed and distracted by Gamzee's admirations that he all but missed what was said about their snake. He turns his head, trying to hide the fact that his face is as red as a beet now, "I'm not!"

[mo_cara]

Gamzee chuckles, soft and low, and slides a finger under Tavros's chin, trying to get him to lift and turn his head up. "Yeah, you are. It's cool, bro, I'm just wondering what that's all being about. You ain't got not one thing to be embarrassed about."