Prompt 3 (Drink Yourself Silly): Pop up shops are a dime a dozen in Destiny City this time of year, and for as much weirdness as they cause, there’s still something alluring about them. Walking through the city, you happen to come across one that seems particularly cozy and is decorated in such a way that you just know they’re trustworthy. The menu only has a few items but there’s something for everyone.

Maybe it’s hot chocolate, maybe it’s coffee, maybe it’s some chilly winter sweet--whatever it is, it’s delicious. And magic, but you didn’t know that when you ordered it. It started with an itch at the back of your throat, but what happened after that was anyone’s game. Some of the drinks turn into a tickle in your nose, and now you’re suddenly sneezing snowflakes for the next hour. Maybe you finish your drink and you suddenly feel warm--like you’re in the middle of summer. (Do you even need your coat? It’s so hot! --Or is that a fever?) Or, the itch turns into something else--and suddenly you feel the urge to sing. It’s compulsive, you can’t help yourself, you must sing. It’s like you’ve forgotten how to communicate in any other way. It fades an hour after you finish the drink, but still…

Given the recent adventure with the Grouch and the easy access they had to each other, Tanwyn had decided to spend some of his limited personal energy on niceties. Probably a waste of effort given how bent on rage Gremlin was, and Tanwyn really didn’t have the mental fortitude at present to waste on mad cats, but this was a rare opportunity.

Gremlin had saved his life. Tanwyn knew he owed the Mauvian something. Pizza and drinks at minimum, something more sincere if he could manage it.

He’d taken the cat’s demands and gone to the small pizzeria down the block, picked up Gremlin’s order of an everything pizza and then slunk into the shop next door for warm drinks. Didn’t know the name of the place, didn’t know what Gremlin liked, didn’t care. It was for the gesture.

When Tanwyn arrived back at the house, he smacked the pizza box down on the coffee table, called for the Guardian to come down.

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’Tick clack tack click,’ came Gremlin’s overlong claws as he clambered gracelessly down the wooden stairs of the general’s house. There weren’t many who could expect to summon him simply with a shout, Tanwyn included, but the bright lure of greasy pepperonis wafting up through the house meant that Gremlin would follow that smell. No food was off limits to him, regardless of who brought it in.

(There was, of course, that temptation to simply not show his face specifically because he was being called, but it was hard to ignore food.)

He reached the bottom of the stairs, vaulted through theliving room entryway and bounded up onto the coffee table front and center, skidding a bit from his momentum. Gremlin paced the surface, looking over the offerings with a critical eye. The pizza he’d wanted, for sure, and he hoped Tanwyn understood it was for Gremlin only and not anyone else.

The drinks…

His eyes narrowed, his tail flicked. “What’re these?” Smelled sweet, but it hadn’t been anything he’d asked for… Though Gremlin absolutely could not express enough how much he would never turn down something he could successfully ingest. It was just strange for there to be more than they’d bartered for.

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It was such an unbelievably hideous cat, appearance and mannerisms.

With a soft sigh, Tanwyn dropped to the couch, leaned back, and picked up one of the warm cups full of sweet cocoa. “Drinks from the little shop next to the pizza place,” Tanwyn answered, blowing a breath to disperse the steam from the small hole in the cup’s lid. “Thought it’d be nice to grab something to go with the pizza.”

“…And to let you know I appreciate you calling for help for me. I didn’t think you would.” It would’ve been all too easy for the cat to abandon him, to bounce and say nothing until someone was curious about where Tanwyn was and how no one had seen him.

It was expected that Gremlin would allow any human to perish, if given the opportunity.

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It was for him. The cup was actually for him that someone- a human- had brought him as a gift of gratitude. It was suspicious. No one bought Gremlin things unless he demanded with threat of violence or bartered with his services. But it smelled nice and it was his, and- and chocolate was such a weird drink to go with pizza, but between that and nothing, he wouldn’t argue.

He hooked one gnarly claw under the lid and popped the top with practiced effort, letting the warm steam waft up and graze against his face. His crimped whiskers twitched. When he afforded the same treatment to the box, the pizza too, was still warm, with bubbly cheese and pepperonis that served as hardly more than grease bowls, peppers that looked grill-charred and strings of onions, bulbs of sausages. Smelled really good. And he deserved it! He had saved this stupid human’s life, when it would’ve been much easier to just leave him.

“Don’t get used to it,” Gremlin warned. “Your abilities are so pitiful, it’s hard to expect you to be able to do anything on your own, even just take out a stupid bird. I’m not going to be hanging around to help you out every time you get into a shitty situation.”

No admitting that it was his fault they’d been attacked. If he hadn’t bolted, maybe they would’ve been fine.

But honestly, maybe they wouldn’t have been, so was it really his fault, then?

Besides, Rakovanite would’ve been in a way if Tanwyn had gotten dead and Rakovanite had ever found out Gremlin had been the one to abandon him to his fate. Probably wouldn’t be getting a warm place to sleep and all the free meals he could eat if one of the general’s subordinates died under the Mauvian’s watch. And it hadn’t been that much effort, and he’d gotten a pizza and a cocoa out of the deal, sooo?

Seemed to work out fine to him.

In honor of how fine it worked out, he lowered his muzzle directly into the center of the pizza, and picked at the oozy cheese and toppings with his teeth, pulling a whole slab of just topping toward the front of the box so he could eat in peace. His pizza. No one else’s.

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“Wouldn’t dream of it,” Tanwyn grumbled dismissively.

So much for nice gestures. He’d known what to realistically expect, but Tanwyn had still hoped for maybe a little gratitude? A little warmth? They were two living, breathing creatures that didn’t have very many reliable connections, and it shouldn’t be so difficult to just be happy someone else was there…

But not with Gremlin. The cat was impossible. Wouldn’t even share the large pizza Tanwyn had brought over, as if the little mongrel could actually eat the whole thing. Whatever.

He sighed, sat back against the couch with his cup, and took a careful slurp of the steaming liquid.

“Pretty typical, that, then?” He offered offhandedly. “That huge owl-thing? Comes around in winter? You hardly seemed to know how to handle it, yourself, considering how you practically begged for it to chase you.”

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Gremlin could practically slurp up the cheese. He hardly had to even chew until he came upon some of the more solid toppings, like the meats. This was a good pizza place! Sauce was runny and cheese was gooey, and the crust had a crispy edge sprinkled with parmesan. Gremlin was entirely into it.

And food was really and truly the only reason he performed any tasks that would aid a human. He did not want to make friends out of this lot. If he was lonely, he could watch other Mauvians from afar (because they wouldn’t want to be bothered by him, he would never want to disturb another Guardian), and that would sustain him while he dealt with human rabble. Yeah, yeah, Tanwyn was nice enough now, after doing him a favor, but Gremlin knew he was just a cat to the human. His life worth about as much as any animal.

He wouldn’t risk allowing himself to think anyone thought more of him than that. These were not his friends.

“Pretty typical,” Gremlin grunted back, swiping his tongue across his teeth and dragging a paw across his whiskers. “Not always an owl. Lots of bizarre s**t pops up in the city around this time of year- and summer and Halloween. Probably get a couple months of peace before it starts up again.”

He sneered and hopped from the table to the couch as he prowled to Tanwyn’s side. “Got it away from you for a bit, didn’t I?” He snapped back. “Woulda come after both of us, if it hadn’t seen me running through the snow, and unlike your newbie a**, I can get out of a shitty situation with a quick teleport. Watch your mouth and show some respect, ******** human trash.”

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Tanwyn’s powdery blue eyes widened slightly as the cat advanced toward him. Gremlin’s temper and hatred weren’t things he knew intimately well, but he’d definitely heard the ugly goblin snapping at Basyl and demanding things from Nataniel. If anyone was ungrateful here, this cat fit the bill. But that was expected.

It was expected that this Mauvian thought he deserved respect he wouldn’t give out, deserved treats he would never share or offer the same to anyone else, deserved praise for his abilities and finesse, regardless of anything else he got in return.

Tanwyn had hoped to make something of an ally with his offering of pizza and drinks, but God knew he didn’t want this one, and as if the yelling made some emotion swell in him, his throat tightened, and he decided he didn’t have the energy to fight this battle with this cat. He gave a slight cough to clear his throat, a tiny shrug, and said, “You’re right.” Figured that would be the end of it. They wouldn’t have to interact more.

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This guy… Gremlin’s eyes narrowed in suspicion. He hopped from the cushion to the back of the couch and prowled along the edge until he could jump down onto the armrest at Tanwyn’s other side, warily observing the p***y human trying not to get into any scuffles with him. No fire, this one.

Fine. Gremlin was happy to be right, regardless of how insincere it sounded. He had pretty much everything he wanted out of the encounter, so no need to make it into a fight if no one else was looking for one.

With a dismissive snort, he jumped from the armrest back to the table. He pulled the rest of the toppings off the pizza with his teeth, dragging them in a messy trail toward the top of the box that served as his plate. And once he’d devoured all of those, leaving just a thin layer of sauce over a crispy crust, he turned back to his drink. Still a weird choice to go with the meal, but it had cooled enough for him to lap up a couple sips, and he enjoyed the cinnamon notes in the chocolatey drink.

It was nice, given the inhospitable temperature outside, and Gremlin did deserve a reward for the harrowing adventure they’d been on, thank you very much.

Only seconds after his first sips, his nose itched- from the steam, most likely- and then it built into a sneeze (that Gremlin didn’t bother trying to keep off the pizza). He gave a vigorous shake of his head, ears flapping as he felt another sneeze coming.

And another.

This time, he opened his eyes to see spit flying through the air, and- Or was it spit? It almost looked like teeny, tiny snowflakes…

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Tanwyn was mannered enough that he wouldn’t laugh at an unfortunate situation, let alone one that was as… gross as this one was, but maybe there were dregs of adrenaline in him, still. Or maybe his mind just needed to find anything amusing, given the situation of the last several months.

Regardless of the reason, at the third sneeze, as the Mauvian’s giant bat ears smacked the cat in his own eyes, Tanwyn couldn’t suppress a little bubble of laughter.

It wasn’t even funny, but a rumbling chortle of a laugh escaped him all the same.

And then his own throat tickled, and he was sneezing too, one after the other, and still laughing, to the point where he was starting to not be able to catch his breath, his chest hurt, tears stung his eyes, but he still felt insanely, strangely happy. Little snowflakes littered his legs as a few escaped the cup of his hand as he covered his mouth, but that, too, he found pleasing and amusing.

Snowflakes! A man like Tanwyn would sneeze up snowflakes.

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Gremlin thought nothing of it, at first. The steam from the drink was warm, tickling against his whiskers and nose, and maybe the whiff of cinnamon had something to do with it. It was natural to sneeze, and he usually had two or three in him for one burst, anyway, so this seemed normal, initially.

But they kept coming, sometimes with enough time for him to breathe in between, but sometimes not. And each little sneeze erupted in a tiny flurry of little snowflakes spread out across the table.

Tanwyn laughed at him, and then the <******** disrespectful human was sneezing too (served him right).

But why? Why? It was at the point where it was becoming uncomfortable and worrisome, and his throat was going raw, and his chest was becoming sore. This wasn’t a pleasant experience, and Grenlin was starting to wonder if it was premeditated. They’d faced the owl, maybe something in that thing’s claws was infectious. Maybe it spread disease when it flapped its wings, the stupid bird.

Or the drinks. They were sharing those now, but that would imply that Tanwyn hadn’t known enough about it to be wary. He was drinking one too!

“You’ve poisoned us,” Gremlin seethed. Either by patrolling too close to that owl’s territory or by giving them spiked cocoas!

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“I didn’t!” Tanwyn insisted in between a little chuckle and another sneeze of his own. As if he would simply decide to choose this for himself, but he could see that the Guardian had already made up his mind.

Maybe it did leave him a little breathless, maybe his chest hurt and he could feel the pulse of a headache coming on, but Tanwyn still felt… happy, somehow. They’d lived. They’d drank now questionable drinks together. This, even if it was encroaching on a dangerous amount of sneezing and laughing, didn’t feel as harrowing as psychopathic murderers, harrowing battles with aliens, monsters erupting in the night. This just felt like… a harmless accident in the comfort of his own home.

Even if it was the drinks, the holiday stall probably hadn’t meant anything maliciously. Probably, maybe. Or Tanwyn was too stupid to think otherwise. But he didn’t feel so bothered as to call it ‘poison.’

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Gremlin did. Gremlin absolutely thought this constituted as poisonous, malicious intent, and how dare Tanwyn bring this upon him? Gremlin didn’t want to sneeze himself into a coma or have some combination of spit and blood (from the vicious amount of sneezing- his poor nose!) and snowlflakes erupting out of him practically at random for the rest of his (potentially very short) life!

Unacceptable!.

With an aggressive spit of a hiss in Tanwyn’s direction, Gremlin clambered from the table, landed with a sharp sneeze and quick shake to try and further clear his head, and then bolted for the kitchen. Water would sustain him. Or drugs in the medicine cabinet, maybe. He didn’t know what kind, but there’d be something in there, he was sure! NyQuil. He didn’t have to last long.

If this didn’t go away on its own, he only had to make it until the doctor was back home. Basyl would know how to cure him so that he didn’t die or whatever poison Tanwyn had subjected him to. This was the absolute last time he did anything for a human. He’d learned his lesson! Didn’t matter who it was or what he was rewarded with after, humans were all conniving bitches bent on doing him harm!