One shower and a change of clothes later, Thomas was finally clean.

He felt especially great, being glitter-free - his body finally free of the atrocious substance. Well, he thought it was gone, but you can never know with glitter.

Now came the issue of where he was going to sleep.

Looking through various rooms, he found Mr. O’dea, but the man spoke before he could.

“I’m sorry about...the glitter.” Mr. O’dea rumbled, and Thomas shook his head.

“As I said, it’s fine - I’m...clean now and everything, really... it’s not that big of a deal.” He chuckled, and Mr. O’dea relaxed.

“That’s good to hear. Thanks for...taking all of this so well. Ora’s been grounded for what she did.” Mr. O’dea said, and Thomas nodded.

“No problem. Kids will be...kids. But uhh...I just wanted to know where I’m sleeping tonight?” He asked.

“Why, you’ll be sharing a bed with Javqua of course.” The man said.

Thomas’s mind went blank, his mouth opening and closing in surprise, trying to come up with an answer. “I...uh - er…” He stammered, flustered.

“Don’t worry - it’s big enough to accommodate both of you comfortably.” Mr. O’dea continued, and Thomas finally spoke.

“Is she...fine with that?” He asked slowly, and Mr. O’dea nodded.

“If you are. Are you humans solitary?” He asked, and Thomas shook his head.

“No. I...suppose there’s no problem.” He said almost inaudibly.

“Alright - well, good night - I’m going to sleep soon myself.” Mr. Odea said, and Thomas was confused for a second before he remembered that the other species needed a lot more sleep than humans did.

“Well then, have a good night,” He said as he left, still shell shocked as he walked towards Javqua’s bedroom.

He knocked on the door and heard the scrabbling of claws.

“Thomas?” Javqua said, and he answered.

“Can I come in?” Thomas said, and Javqua replied.

“Yeah, come inside.” She said, and he opened the door and walked through. Javqua was absentmindedly looking out her bedroom window, before turning to face him.

“So we’re...uhh...sharing a bed?” Thomas said hesitantly, and Javqua nodded, completely oblivious to his inner trepidations.

“Yeah! I’ve already thought of a good position so that you don’t heat up one side of my body.” Javqua continued, as Thomas nearly choked on his own saliva.

“Here, I’ll show you.” She closed the curtains and lifted her bed covers, lying down on her side and gesturing towards the space next to her.

Thomas reluctantly lay down beside her, his face as red as a tomato, and Javqua poked him.

“On your side!” She said, and Thomas obeyed, barely able to hear her over the roaring sound of blood in his ears.

His heartbeat quickened as she hugged him from behind, sighing blissfully as she rested her snout on his head.

“This feels pretty nice. How about you?” Javqua asked, and Thomas huffed.

“Y-yeah, pretty nice…” He stammered, his mind going a mile a minute trying to comprehend how he got to this exact moment in time.

In all honesty, other than feeling as though his heart was going to explode, he was...enjoying the situation. He did, however, know for a fact he wasn’t going to fall asleep any time soon.

Doing his best not to move around too much, he tried to relax. To be completely clear, he was actually enjoying being the little spoon; he felt safe in Javqua’s firm grasp -

“So, umm...Thomas. Do you want to talk about...Alex?” Javqua asked, and Thomas tensed. Javqua must’ve felt him doing so because she hastily apologized.

“If-if you're okay with that, of course!” She added, and Thomas sighed.

“Well... my brother Alex, he...he was a marine. And he went to fight against the Earth insurgents, and… he survived for a while. But at some point, he went against these...things. They were… I don’t even know. The insurgents made these bio-weapons, and he and the other marines were overwhelmed.” He explained.

“My parents requested footage of his last moments, I guess they wanted to see how their son died - and obviously, I wasn’t allowed to watch it. But I stayed up late one night, searched around on their computer, and found the footage…” Thomas trailed off, still regretful of that decision he had made seven years ago.

It was obvious Javqua understood the implication as she went abnormally quiet, a slight hitch in her breathing. “... I'm sorry…I-what do I say to that?” She whispered, the last couple words nearly inaudible, obviously not supposed to have been heard by him.

“It's okay… it happened years ago, and I’ve had time to come to terms with it. To be completely honest, you'd be surprised by how extensive New Britannia’s mental health therapy is.” Thomas explained, an air of acceptance hidden within his voice.

“Riiiight…” Javqua said slowly, not fully convinced that he had gotten over it. Not really knowing what to do, Javqua pulled him into a tight hug, absentmindedly stroking his hair.

It was so...soft! Technically speaking, Tom was a dangerous being - but instead, he had a warm, caring vibe. It didn't help that everything about him reminded her of some kind of living plushy.

Forcing herself to stop thinking about it, she noticed that Tom had become more relaxed, and she smiled.

“Goodnight Tom.” She whispered.

“Goodnight Javqua… thanks for helping me speak about my trauma - it...it helped.” Tom said quietly, and Javqua’s smile grew.

Then everything became silent, and Javqua drifted off to sleep.

Damnit! Why can't I just fall asleep already! Thomas shouted in his mind.

For the first time in a long time, Thomas felt as though he had actually rested after sleeping. Even if the first couple hours were spent wide awake, contemplating the intricacies of the universe… as you do.

But once his mind slowed down and allowed him to doze off, he was able to sleep with a genuine smile, albeit a small one.

Even now, as he slowly escaped Javqua’s arms, making his way down the stairs and into the kitchen for breakfast - a small dimpled smile rested on his face.

From what he could tell everyone else was still asleep. The day prior, Thomas had asked Nofora, Javqua’s mother, if he could make breakfast in the morning, as he’d most likely be the first to awaken.

She had explained where everything was and how to use it, all there was left was for him to get started. Firstly, he went down to the basement meat storage and grabbed some large cuts. Then he went back up and started preparing breakfast.

As he began to season the meat, history nearly repeated itself as nearly emptied an entire pack of Tyn-laca mokancia onto all the pieces - thankfully stopping himself before doing so.

Instead, Thomas only used the ‘ultimate spice’ on his own food and used the normal, weak arse seasonings on the others.

He then placed them into the oven in trays as he went to look for eggs. Searching around the kitchen, Thomas was able to find a container holding oddly large eggs with light green colouration. Grabbing the eggs, Thomas began to fry them.

Once again, the size of Xeno counters and appliances made him feel like a child - even though he stood at six feet tall, he had to stand on his toes to reach things on the shelves, and he wasn't even going to talk about the top shelves.

By now, the food was ready to be served - cooked to perfection… at least by his standards. Once he had moved the food to the table, he began to hear the shuffling of claws. It would seem someone, or more accurately a bunch of someones had taken a whiff of his cooking and was beginning to make their way down.

“Alright! Breakfast is ready!” Thomas declared proudly, his voice carrying throughout the house.

The scrambling grew louder as the five of them came rushing down, pushing and shoving each other out of the way

“What’s that smell? Is something burning?” Mr. O’dea said, and Thomas died a little inside.

“N-no, it’s my cooking.” Before he could say anything else, Thomas was blindsided by Mrs. O’dea, barely moving back a step to stabilize.

“He can cook!” She all but screamed, “Haha, I knew you weren’t useless!”

Thomas watched as Mrs. O’dea attempted to reach for one of the plates of meat before she was stopped by a small clawless hand gripping her wrist.

“I wouldn't do that, that one's mine, it's basically laced with Tyn-laca mokancia.” Thomas explained calmly, a small smile once again gracing his lips, yet thanks to the context, it came off as a lot more threatening than what he was aiming for.

Nofora was sweating by the time he finished talking… or at least she would have, if not for the fact she was biologically incapable of doing so. Instead, she just chuckled nervously and headed to one of the other seats.

The tension was then broken from Javqua’s giggles.

Once they had all sat down, they began to gorge down on the meat with reckless abandon, all but one anyway.

Nofora would take occasional glances at Tom and watch in morbid curiosity as he happily munched down on his meat and eggs.