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"Ahuh. I guess you would have to use your spooning in the prenup, considering the constant state of being hobo levels of poor."

They snarked at each other, but that was just how they were: comfortable enough that the barbs weren't sharp and the score didn't matter.

Taym's errant hand prompted a barked "Alphas eat first, you know." Snickering as soon as the words left her mouth (a constant state of laughter, of motion, of kinetic energy), Clerise snagged his arm by the wrist. She brought it (and him: all of that lean smugness, the confident shell around something & someone softer than she was permitted to talk about) closer with a forceful yank. Almost-gently biting into the flesh of his thumb, red eyes flicked to Taym's face as she dragged her lips down his wrist to kiss his pulse point.

"Can't even say it with a straight face," she muttered, and valiantly attempted to scrub some of the lipstick from his skin with mild success, releasing him from her grip as fast as she'd grabbed him.

(She felt his pulse thrum, betraying him in ways he could not yet stifle. If she had her way, he would never master it.)

Clerise smugly pulled a wetwipe out of a pocket-- which one, even she didn't know, part of raising a child was keeping methods of staying clean on your person at all times-- and wiped at her mouth, removing the last stains. A moment later, with Hello Kitty compact mirror (from Her) and tube of lipstick ( from Him) in hand, Clerise reapplied her cherry red.


"Yeah yeah. We still got a ways to go, don't we? You'll get it off." She offered him a wipe, but only after his failed attempts of removal. His failures, when harmless, were entertaining. "You'll probably still get off tonight, don't be such a dragggggg." Clerise squinted. "Don't do the mysterious gentleman thing, I've seen you in the morning with your unattended to scruff and before your casually muss your hair."

A pause. "You should be commending me for my willpower. I want to noogie you something fierce. Anyway. What should you have waited for?"

"Hey!" Clerise barked, "I just said that I wanted to, not that I was going to." She folded her arms with an exaggerated gesture, tucking her hands away in a show of good faith. Taym's preciously not-styled hair would remain safe and sound.

"I'm not suggesting, Mister What-the-Cat-Dragged-In. I'm saying. There's a difference you know, and-- ohh."

Without a word, her presence and energy shifted. Barbs-and-teasing melted into reassurance-worry, and it was difficult to quash her desire to shield Taym from the world, especially from himself. "What are we gonna do with you."

Clerise opened her arms for a hug, deliberately looking away and biting her tongue. He'd declined her before and he'd do it again, and he might now, but the offer was there. The offer was always there.

"It's too late," she chirped, more content than a cat well on its way to getting the cream, and removed from another mysterious pocket a tell-tale glasses case that was the same, glittering blue as the glasses themselves--

But, his distraction tactic was an effective one; Clerise was always down to talk about the Prodigy. "Dunno, I saw him looking sharp, but. Lost sight of him, with him being a midget and all." She squinted, her suspicion (and curiosity) sufficiently piqued.

"All I taught him was that 'Disney s**t' you hate. Be true to yourself, find your inner courage, blah blah blah." She grinned, and was possessed with the urge to go chase him down for a high five-- but the last thing Clerise wanted to do was c**k-block anyone. Unless you were Taym, who probably deserved it. "It works, you know. Don't worry, though, I'm sure some day your Lady-Prince will come."

"Ohhh."



Why would he do that. With her? She was pretty cute, at least, definitely a looker, but...

"Well," Clerise said, slowly, the cogs slowly turning, "I hope he knows her terrible behaviour is a cry for help he's not fully equipped to handle yet."

Clerise waved a hand.

"Nah, dude. Sounds like you have his virtue covered as a top priority. You better go be his white knight, my friend, for I am sure neither of us have ever been teenagers who have made poor decisions."

"It's not anyone's job, Taym," Clerise explained, as if she had had this conversation many times before, with him or with others. "He's eighteen years old, if he desires to stick his tongue in crazy-- because not everyone thinks sex is a casual thing, and that's fine--"

Christ, the urge to put the glasses on was almost overwhelming.

"We cannot always step in. Trust me when I say that he's made of sturdier stuff than she is: Otto isn't damaged, just over-protected. If the girl's psyche is a coyote, it's a bedraggled one that's starving for attention."