Welcome to Gaia! ::

He'd debated shifting back to his civilian form in front of the little furball but bringing the drama that Sodom's aura would herald upon his not-even-a-year-purchased-house seemed far more worse. So, with a sigh, Sodom was quick to leave the scene, stripping him down to normal, jeans-wearing Paul Jones who still donned a small furry yapper on his broad shoulder.

Making it back to the house had been easy enough. Noah hadn't picked up his cell - probably on a business call, Paul'd guess - so he shot the redhead a text, mashing thick fingers against the tiny keys.

Found someone who knows s**t about the magical bullshit

Paul was never really one for being sneaky - he was doing good just to keep things as subtle as he was already trying to make them.

Taking him to the house. Meet us there when you can.

And then, for good measure.

What do you wanna do about dinner?

Priorities, priorities.





Once inside the house, the hairy beast was put on the kitchen counter, as Paul had no other idea as to where it should go. It seemed best to keep it away from furniture - it was hairy, after all - so it left either the bathroom or the kitchen.

"So uh."

He scratched the back of his head, glancing around. He might as well savor the moment while he was still in the house - god knows his kiddo might just boot him out (along with the cat) once he discovered who this "informant" happened to be. He'd brought the first aid kit out from the bathroom, but assumed it would be more host-like to address the fleabag before tending to his wound.

"Do you want a.... drink? Or something?"

When Noah was with a client his phone was switched to silent, not even vibrating to alert him when he got a call or a text. As was the case when his spouse was attempting to contact him about suspicious things.

In fact, the younger Jones didn't even get the messages until nearly an hour later and when he did, well he was certainly perplexed.

A text was shot back to his husband.

[Text to ******** Paulie: The ******** are you talking about? Don't bring guests over without clearance.]

Ten minutes passed as he was cleaning up to head home.

[Text to ******** Paulie: Be home in fifteen. ]

Suffice to say, Noah wasn't exactly pleased with the cryptic and nonsensical texts from his husband and was going to make as speedy of a trip home as possible.

Itsuki understood the man's given name was Paul, but perhaps the incredible respect that came with the honorific of -sama was lost on the gruff man. It wasn't for Itsuki's lack of explanation, but that Paul had tuned out much of the nonsense the cat was babbling on about to fill the hour of time they had to wait before husband Noah returned. It was difficult, but Itsuki managed to keep correcting himself to drop the -sama for the next half hour or so.

By then, it was the cat's turn to correct Paul, who was mid-beer in a marathon of frayed nerves. "Itsuki! Like..." Wrapping his toe beans around the key necklace he wore, the cat held it up as an example. "It's key! It means, that moon~. But it's okay, Paul. I've had to learn a lot too! In fact, I'm learning some Japanese from native speakers! Can you believe that? One is a Sailor Senshi and an amazing leopard that--"

Oh, Paul was very afraid of his husband.

Itsuki blinked and was silenced. Best behavior? He was always on his best behavior!

Tilting his head, the Mau trotted across the counter to sit by where Paul was leaning heavily, trying to comfort the beefy large man. A paw went out to touch Paul on the arm. "Don't worry! I use the toilet, just like you do, so you don't have to worry about not having any litter. That stuff's gross anyway."

He felt his heart drop into his stomach the moment grey eyes settled on Paul and their guest. Which was good, considering his ferocious appetite had found itself quelled at the realization that things were about to get potentially nasty between them.

Noah wasn't having any of it, clearly already determined to end this meeting before it even had time to take off. Without thinking, thick fingers shot out to stop the hand reaching for the furry chatterer, who'd conveniently gone silent for the moment. His hand wrapped around the slender wrist and forcibly cut him off from grabbing the beast in question.

"Stop."

It was a shame that Paul was a s**t writer because he had a feeling Noah wouldn't give two craps about writing him a proper obituary after he'd been murdered right there in his own kitchen.

"This isn't a goddamn joke and I'm not a dumbass." His lip curled into a snarl, his broad chest hiding the wildly beating heart beneath the surface. Stepping to wedge himself between his spouse and the feline, he shook his head as he worked to form the words in his head before they had a chance to leave his mouth.

"The ******** thing talks, okay? It -- kiddo -- this could be the explanation we need for all this... this bullshit."

Not the most articulate reasoning, but it was reasoning nonetheless.

Violet eyes softened and he released his hold of his husband's wrist. Memories of the snake-b***h tossing Gomorrah against the brick wall and the sickening thud that had come of the impact continued replaying itself over and over again in the back of his head. The screams that had echoed in the alleyway as teeth had sunken into his flesh, the reality that he'd almost lost the love of his life that day was all too ********' real.

He needed answers. They needed answers.

"You know I'm not stupid enough to intentionally piss you off." His voice was still rough but there was a softness to the tone. "Please, I'm trying here."

When Paul's thick fingers wrapped around a relatively slender wrist, Noah's scowl worsened and he yanked his had away immediately. The things that his husband said to him made him grit his teeth, his desire to snap at him and to just storm off was growing.

Somehow, the redhead kept a lid on it and stayed in place.

"Don't--" he started, ready to cut Paul off before he started rambling and then, against all laws of earthly nature the ******** cat started talking.

To Paul he said, "Knock that s**t off. This is too far for some idiotic joke, even for you." Gray eyes cut across the kitchen, looking for some hidden person who could have been lending their voice to the furball he wanted out of his house.

Except...

Except Paul's pleading tone really suggested the older man wasn't ******** around. "Why the hell are you talking like that, you trying to be cute? It sounds ******** stupid. The ******** kinda name is itsoomkee?" He asked the cat, clearly not a fan of being called "-san."

Glancing at his husband he held up three fingers. "Furbag has three minutes to get talking and explain itself. I swear to god Paul--"

Three minutes?

That wasn’t a great deal of time…

...but if Itsuki was anything (aside from annoying and furry), he was resourceful. And even before that, he was a complete chatterbox.

The trick would be, could the two men keep up?

Itsuki nodded once to the glowering Noah, and once to Paul (who looked like he was considering jumping out a window to escape his husband’s wrath) before taking a deep breath to begin. Standing back on his hind legs, Itsuki gestured wildly while his lips flapped at fifty-seven thousand miles per hour.

“Yes you are Pages and Pages awaken spontaneously so you don’t need a cat like me but you have ranks just like the Negaverse does and they are Page, Squire and Knight and I’ve never really talked to too many Knights since I woke up - because Mauvians awaken spontaneously just like you do - so it’s really a pleasure to talk to you and the reason you can change forms is because your starseed has been awakened to its latent magical powers! Your starseed is in your body like your soul in a physical form and you tap into that power to change from Paul into Sodom and vice-versa and when you’re Sodom, nobody knows you’re Paul because there’s a magical glamor that protects your identity so don’t power down in front of people you don’t trust!!

I’ve never actually seen one up close but Pages get items just like Negaverse officers do but they change as you gain more power and more power comes from more experience and one day you’ll power up and be a Squire but I haven’t seen it before, I just read that on the Headquarters computer! We Mauvians usually stick around Senshi and Senshi are like allies to the Knights and they too have latent magical power in their starseed that they tap into when they want to transform! My Senshi is Sailor Themisto and he’d probably get along very well with you, Paul but anyway--

I noticed your outfit has the Saturn symbol so that means you’re a Page of Saturn and you have a special place on Saturn that you can visit but the most important thing is that you have the power to help stop the Negaverse when you’re in that other magical form! The Negaverse is a terrible organization filled with people who have special starseeds too but they’re full of Chaos and darkness and they’re the ones bringing all the monsters into the city and causing trouble! Those monsters are called youma and that lady that tried to kidnap me is a Captain of the Negaverse and they can teleport so that’s really bad and sometimes they have their own monsters they command like pets and they can pull people’s souls right out of their body so you have to be very very careful when you’re out as Sodom and I highly recommend patrolling with other people because safety in numbers! The Knights and the Senshi are trying to stop the Negaverse from taking over the city so everyone can live in peace but it’s not easy because the war has been going on for many years and I’ve heard that the Negaverse has a hold of the media and that’s why you see Senshi and Knights portrayed as terrorists when really it’s the Negaverse doing the damage!

When you’re out as Sodom you can feel other people who have magical powers and ones like me and Sailor Themisto will feel friendly while the Negaverse officers and their corrupted senshi and youma will feel really bad so you have a radar to protect yourself and---”

Running out of breath, the babbling ceased and Itsuki slumped over for a moment. His three minutes were up and he figured… if Noah was to toss them both out of a window, now was the best time to get a drink of water from the dish Paul had put on the counter for him. “Whew. How did I do?”

Paul simply stared.

The mouth jabbered on and on and on but the words leaving it seemed like babble, not in any English terms he knew. Talk about things like senshi, Negacurses, Knights, You-mes and, <********> - it was way too much information to be spilled out all at once and Paul didn't know why he hadn't been concerned about this at first.

He quickly looked to Noah for deciphering the foreign language of Mauvianese but the redhead actually seemed less pleased than he had upon first walking into the ******** clean the goddamn countertops, Noah," he argued almost exasperatedly. It was more than obvious that dinner was off the table (or countertop, in this case) and that he had nothing to lose in his argument because he'd probably be denied access to the bedroom on top of everything else. "So we talk to The-mister, whoever he's with. Someone has to know what's going on because there's s**t out there that'll hurt us and I want to know what we're ******** dealing with here."

Absentmindedly, his hand moved out to rub across the gauze, pressing the bandage in an attempt to seal it better around the cut. "I'm not going to ********' lose you to some other snake woman that comes around - or whatever else is out there with better weapons than what we've got."

It took Paul's pleading concern to get Noah to put down his prickly outer skin for a moment. Stormy eyes watched his husband's face, the very real display of concern, and his fingers pressed harshly into the lines of his dress shirt. "You're not gonna lose me Paulie," he said quietly, stepping towards the burlier man.

It was only then that he noticed, thanks to the fidgeting, the poorly done bandage.

"You still don't know how to bandage a wound, ********, how did you even survive those jobs before me?" He asked, ignoring the fact they had a furry guest as he undid the poor wrappings of Pauls and started messing around with the first aid kit and his husband's arm until he was fixed up.

"Fine," he huffed after a moment, thumb gently running over the bandaged arm before he looked at Isimoo.

"Alright cat--" It was yabbering away and then--

Okay the pulling something out of nowhere was neat but the tuna was subpar. "Get better tricks." He pushed the tuna over and leaned in, finger waggling in the mauvian's face. "You're gonna introduce us to someone who can explain this s**t better than you but if you make a mess in my house, we're gonna make a fur gloves out of you. Got it?"