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"HEY!"

Cody hated people acted like that with him. Yeah he was a kid, but that didn't mean grown-ups were always right and could keep telling him what to do
And telling him that he needed to be taller to do something was a bad move. He just couldn't stand higher because his tail wasn't made to vertically support his weight

Cody was about to be unfair with Marshall, but he was so full of what had happened to him lately he just needed something to vent on. He just felt like he was being made fun at, after revealing one of his biggest fears

In a way Marshall was lucky Cody could no longer stand up to give him a royal push on his chest. A mostly harmless gesture in the pain department, but the landing could endanger the broken arm
Instead he bumped his tail against Marshall's leg, most a warning that a sign of dolphin aggression. Problem was the tail can pack a lot of strength and Cody still had little idea of its limits

Cody just huffed and grumbled, looking straight at Marshall with a not very pleased expression. He really felt like giving him another kick or two, to show him he shouldn't be underestimated just because of his age

"Well duh! it's in the water!!!"

He hadn't remember that Marshall was probably refering to his old duplex, but then again it would make little sense for someone so advanced in the aquatic changes to be still living in one

Sid couldn't remember how long it had been since he'd been out and about, though it was apparently long enough for the patches of normal skin left on him to fade to pasty levels. He had taken much longer to work everything out of his system than he thought, and the worst part was he didn't feel that much better for being clean. All he felt was old, and weak, and annoyed with himself for letting age get to him like that.

He mulled over all that had happened since December as he sat in the darkness. He'd spent the past hour leisurely swimming through the river, if only because he'd have a better chance of avoiding Billy if he stayed away from the lake. Sooner or later he was going to have to apologize, but not yet. Feeling tired, Sid dragged himself out of the river so he could sit on the bank and drip dry. All he had on were the ragged cut off jeans he'd altered, but as late as it was he was hoping no one would stumble on to him. The pale scales on his sides gleamed faintly, just like always, and he idly scratched one patch as he watched the moonlight reflected on the water.

"And you're, like, the Mistress of Tact," Sid said irritably. He looked the girl over. Back in the day he would have been reasonably certain he could remember a fuzzy girl with creepy eyes and horns, but lately even odd features like those were hard to creep track of, which was depressing. He couldn't be that used to it already.

Judging by her reaction she was no one he'd bumped into before, not even given what changes might do to people from one meeting to the next. Her enthusiasm wasn't helping his mood, much less his will to be sociable. "What do you want?"

"What are you, six?" Sid grumbled, but he wasn't quite up to running her off just yet. He glances back at the mention of his tail, flicked it languidly to one side just to confirm he more or less had control over it now. He sighed and muttered 'ah whatever' under his breath before he answered. "That's just how it is," he said, irked more than anything by the fact he still had no idea how to turn off the lights. It was hard to get a moment a long when you shone like a damn beacon for anyone to come find. Worse than that, covering it up just felt hot and uncomfortable. He couldn't win, so he added, "It's a viperfish thing. I'm my own personal goddamn night light."

"Musta misheard," Sid said. That figured. If everything else was going, why not his hearing too? His shoulders slumped a little more at the thought. Sighing heavily, he counted off his problems on his webbed fingers. "If you must know, I almost died not to long ago, before that I almost killed the one person I'd consider a friend on this hellhole, and now I'm clean for the first time in... in years." He shook his head over being unable to remember the last time he'd been clean of all his favorite nasty substances.

"And sobriety is really ******** overrated when you have a set of Ginsu knives for teeth."

"Recently? Or total?" Sid scratched his stubby, misshapen chin as he tried to think about it. "Mostly it was acid and pot in the 70's, back when it was in style. Tried cocaine, but never was much for it. Never did heroin. Tried E once, but I don't get what the kids were making such a big deal about, it's not much of a high at all. And then there was beer... Lots of beer... Alcohol in general really..."

Here was the personal inventory he should have taken back during his failed attempt at a twelve step program, but that would include all the bad things he did to people, too. That list was considerably longer. Sid looked mystified once he'd laid all his vices out in front of a perfect hairy stranger.

"s**t, why am I not dead?" The question was more to himself, and maybe whatever malign forces that had seen to his continued existence.