Cherry pie.
JOATs, by and large, are nocturnal. Either by accident or design, they largely manage to find themselves awake at 3AM when sleep is impossible and the ideas flow like a madman’s flood and nothing, NOTHING is impossible.
Rael, designed to be useful during most hours of the day, only needed a few hours’ rest in his heated fish tank before being functional once more. He rather liked the, for JOATS, earlier hours of 7AM to 10AM when everyone else was asleep and the JOAT quarter of the Elemeno was relatively quiet.
He should have noted the singing. He should have heard it instead of dismissing it as background noise. He should definitely paid attention to the words. Or the fact that it was coming closer. Or who was singing. With what accent.
He could easily have pretended he was not home. Or tried to. Finding out that Shadow Elementals could home in on people like some banned gene-tracking weapon… well, that had been painful in interesting new ways. He could have easily hunkered under his tank stand and pretended he was resting.
But no. In a fit of absent-minded inattention, he answered the door. And, having answered the door, he’d let her in.
And now it was too late.
Shayde was in his public area, setting up a table and talking about her experiment.
“…cherry pie. Well, it started off as a cherry pie, but then I got tae thinkin’ how all that sugar doesnae have any stayin’ power ye ken. So it turned intae a grunt. Kinda.”
“…grunt…”
“That’s a pie wi’ cake on top. Only I figured tha’ it’s no’ real fair how all the flavour’s under t’ cake so I thought about what went well with cherries, and bingo! Low GI dark chocolate an’ cherry grunt.”
Still relatively hot from the oven. Coated in ganache and decorated with real cream and yet more cherries.
He was really going to have to stop mentioning favoured foods in her presence. Every single time, it resulted in some home cooking taken directly to his door.
“Shayde… we have discussed this,” he admonished.
“Aye, but… None o’ yer reasons make a lick o’ sense to the way I’m goin’. An’ a gel’s got th’ right to try an’ convince the fella, at least.”
“I told you I’m uncomfortable with romance.”
“Aye and I listened. Note the lack o’ heavin’ bosoms thrust in yer direction.” She laid out plates for two. “I also stopped a lot o’ grabbin’ ye. An’… that other thing ye’ dinnae like.”
The kiss. He didn’t want to talk about it and… she didn’t. Barely mentioned, save in discussions like this. “Why do you even like me?” he asked. He couldn’t fathom it, himself. People, especially humans, insisted on being his friend when he did almost everything to isolate himself from the more… overt aspects of society. Like touching.
“Ev'ry time I look at ye, I see someone wonderful,” she said. “An’ I never want half a chance o’ anyone like that slippin’ away. So I’m doin’ everything I can tae… keep on yer guid side.”
Once again, he squashed the rising temptation to tell her he would be at his happiest with her chasing someone else wonderful. It wasn’t that he was scared of her, or what she’d do if he did say it… A worrying and increasingly large portion of himself did not want her to come to harm.
He sighed. “All right. Let’s try this thing.”
She grinned and handed him a knife. “Admit it, I’m growin’ on yer.”
“Never in a hundred years.”
“Oooh, is that a time scale or a bribery amount?” she teased.
“Time scale.”
“Awreet… Standard, B'Dauss or Terran?”
Rael took delight in delaying with a treacherously delicious mouthful. “I refuse to answer on the grounds that it may cause you to cheat.”
“Spoilsport.”
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