revivalproject | Something, Something... Little Yorkmaid

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Something, Something... Little Yorkmaid

WHO: Reeve, Richie, York / OTA
WHERE: ~~Atlantis~~ Underwater Temba
WHAT: Various Posts
WHEN: Mermay
WARNINGS: York

[Integer = 3] - for Reeve & Richie

The nice thing about having tentacles is that he can grab onto things with more than just his hands. It's great, finding different ways to hang around the hotel, both literally and figuratively. York's found a fun spot to hang out from by way of the curtain rod in the hotel room he shares with Richie, catching little worms and other tiny creatures to feast on.

"I'm just keeping the room fucking clean," he'll point out as he slurps it down before jet propelling himself across the room, aiming for the door. "I'm gonna go see if I can poke some lobsters off of the hotel or something."

Search Function Active - OTA

With the tentacles as a bobtail squid, getting around was interesting. Water was interesting with his circuits, but it kept him cool and York likes that. He's left his hoodie and shirt back in the room he shares with Richie, leaving his body on full display. The LED on his chest is bordered by lines of specks that almost seem to glow as light catches them. His pale skin looks scarred at his abdomen, like when someone rips fabric apart, and it's simply white.

York doesn't remember what happened.

He's out in the square, exploring around while he can. Mostly trying to keep away from Reeve and his damn nesting habits and also to see if there's anything worthwhile to find on the ground. Everyone else was so worried about swimming that they didn't check out anything down here. He has to dodge a snippy lobster before finding a stick to smack it away with a shout. The audacity of that bullshit, he'd kill those fuckers!

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"You are such a worrying barnacle, I. will. be. fine." York fixes Reeve with a glare before another idea crosses his mind. If Reeve was so scared of the small cephalomer getting stuck somewhere...

"And if you're so worried about me being alone out there, then come with. Get out of this room for a change." York ducks down and attempts to swim under.

Of course he worries. York's been hurt before. Twice. Reeve wants to reach out, to touch him, to remind him. But instead he just has a fretting energy, the spines along his back shuddering with his tension.

"I suppose that's an option. I could always deal with any threats with shocks."

He was, after all, a very magical mer.

Twice, of course. That's actually pretty good luck for York. He doesn't want a repeat of that, of course, but that's just how life worked or some philosophical bullshit. He leans to the side to glance at Reeve's back, then up at his face.

"Why are you so stressed out about this? I won't even leave the square. You'll be able to watch me from the windows." He nods with his head towards them as if the guy hadn't noticed them. "But if you want to come with, I won't say no either."

Because Reeve probably won't give him a choice in that at least.

If only he could put into words why he's so stressed. But the truth of the matter is that Reeve can't. He doesn't know what to say, and even if he did, that doesn't mean he would have the proper words to describe why it was so important to him.

"I just wish you to be kept safe," Reeve decides at last. He holds a hand out and of course Mini comes from where he's been hovering under the table. The feline wraps its tail around Reeve to hold onto the arm.

"We shall go out together then. So I can be certain you do not get into trouble.

York doesn't move as the hand extends towards him, wondering if his dad was going to do something fatherly like cup his cheek or something. But instead, the smaller one realizes it's an offering for York to latch onto. Oh.

"You know, even if you're with me, I can probably still find trouble." But he grins as he says it, and goes to wrap carefully around Reeve's outstretched arm. He's slow to do it, making sure none of the suckers get attached to the tender flesh they're wrapped around. "Lead on, dad."

There it was. Reeve chuckles before slipping from the room.

"He's gotten so fussy lately," Mini grumbles, abandoning the accent he preferred completely look at York.

"I'm being protective of my family," Reeve counters, sounding half offended.

At least he's finally out of that room, even if he had to coax Reeve to come out with him. No matter. He could slip out in a bit. "Fussy is right," York agrees, latching onto the teasing Mini gives him. Weird how he doesn't have the accent though. Where did that go?

No time for a comment, as Reeve pipes up with his own counter. "Over-protective. I wasn't planning to go that far. Maybe catch a couple of lobsters and bring them back for you and Richie." One of his tentacles swishes in time with his own hand, like an extra hand trying to gesture to emphasis his point.

"There are probably sharks out there," Reeve repeats. Because of course he was stressed. "I'm supposed to protect my little guppies."

Mini is the one to roll his eyes, even as he inches his way backwards just a bit to shoot York a 'can you believe this' behind Reeve's back.

"Well yeah, but they don't eat creatures like me. I shove my appendages in their noses and they get mad and shake me off." And then York swims away and camouflages himself. Perfectly safe.

He grins at Mini and nods behind Reeve's back.

Then thwacks the older mer with a tentacle. "I am not a guppy. Richie is, but not me."

Don't they though? Don't they eat anything? He's got to protect them and be careful with them.

"Do sharks have noses?"

Surely they had to so they could smell blood in the water. But Reeve isn't sure it's that so much as tasting it.

"You are my guppy, no matter how old you are. You both are."

"Shark's breathing goes in one nostril, into the nasal sac, then out of the other nostril, so yes, but not like our noses," York informs. How does he know that? Weird. York doesn't think about it too much.

The moment Reeve calls York a guppy, he starts squeezing with the tentacle curled around the older mer. "Don't ever call me that again, got it? Or I will run off and you won't find me, Reeve."

"But gills," Reeve says, because he's really confused here. But he's definitely heading outside. York is winning in a way.

"Ouch. You've got claws, York, in your own way. And pet names are normal in families."

"Not the same kind of system, Reeve," he counters with, easing his grip. "A pet name isn't calling me a guppy. Sounds like I'm a cowardly runt or some shit."

Now he moves the tentacle he had gripped with, frowning in the hopes he didn't leave any marks. He probably did. York had a tendency to hurt despite not meaning to. It was something he was still working on. "Look, I know we're a family unit and all that stuff, but you don't think this is being a bit overprotective?"

A cowardly runt? Hardly.

"No. It just makes you small and mine," Reeve counters. But that's his job, to care about his son. The son he chose. "And I feel like I have to protect you. It's so... deep in me. It's hard to think."

"I'm not that small. Not enough to be called a guppy." Man, he really wasn't taking to that name well, was he? Not that York's really been a nice mer at first meeting... But he does like Reeve and Richie, along with Mini too (who was something like a younger sibling now).

He huffs through his gills. "I don't need protecting all the time. Is it an instinct of yours to protect me this hard? Seriously, you're making me want to swim out the door in the middle of the night if you're gonna be smothering, Reeve."

Reeve snorts, because he clearly doesn't agree. This is his guppy. His child. Someone he was protective of.

"It is very powerful," Reeve agrees as he keeps them up on the path outside. "And it is upsetting to me to have you say that. I know it's not fair to you. I'm doing my best."

He huffs and a slew of bubbles come forth around him from it. "I know you're doing your best. You are being a little smothering. I've lived this long without having someone loom behind me like a surveillance camera," but what was a camera? The word is there and gone before York can think too hard about it.

"Just... ease up. Not saying I'm going to disappear for fucking days or anything just maybe an hour or two. Three maybe at most. Someone's gotta find food for you guys."

Find food for them? Reeve looks a little shocked at the very idea of it.

"Have you been worried about how much we were eating, York? Oh dear."

"Something wrong with me trying to contribute?" At least Reeve didn't seem offended or getting huffy at being told to ease up on how much he was hovering over York. Slowly, like he's trying to be sneaky, York's unfurling one tentacle at a time so that he can just swim next to Reeve instead of being attached to him.

"Also didn't say I was worried. Just that I can go find food just as well as anyone else. By myself," he adds on for good measure just in case.

"Nothing," Reeve says. "I just... It is very kind of you to care about us like that."

Though Reeve isn't likely to let him go far on his own just yet.

York doesn't move to go anywhere, instead choosing to swim under him so he isn't seen from above. "Of course I fucking care about you guys? Why wouldn't I? We're family, Reeve."

Which was a lot, coming from York. York, who'd been so skeptical of humans and their motives for such a stretch of time since coming to Temba. So distrustful of them that he had lived out in a decrepit warehouse instead of someplace safe like the hotel. Now he lived in the hotel with Reeve and Richie, viewing them like the dads he really had back home. Viewing them as trustworthy.

"You're not used to people caring about you, are you? Just like I'm not used to emulating the emotion to actually reciprocate that care back."

They are family. And York doesn’t know how important that is. How little of that Reeve’s had in a long time. But the thing was that he was the one to fail his parents back then.

“People caring about me, truly caring, have often been the exception in my life and not the rule. My parents, of course, but I haven’t seen them in so long. Some of the team I worked with to save my planet, but of them only Barret and Yuffie check in on me often, though Vincent’s been less distant lately. And some people in the last place that took me, but they’re long since lost to me.”

York does know how important that is, because he understands from other androids how humans need their social circles and others close to them. He knows this, even if he doesn't understand it entirely. Or maybe he does understand with how he's stated that himself, Mini, Reeve, and Richie are a family.

"Isn't that how it works? People connect, they disconnect, they move on. Some people stay longer than others. Some are there for years, others just minutes." He wiggles his tentacles loose and just swims with Reeve, keeping safe by moving under him so no one would see him from above. "I guess you're just gonna have to get used to having people caring about you as a new rule and not an exception now."

Oh York, if only it were that simple.

How had he described it to Vincent? Feeling like a rock left behind in the river of time. But he sighs and doesn't protest York releasing him. Even as stressful as it feels.

"I have lost those I love in bad ways. But often because I fail them."

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Something, Something... Little Yorkmaid

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