Welcome to Gaia! ::

Zac really shouldn’t be here. This wasn’t how he wanted to spend his day off but he couldn’t just leave Todd. So, begrudgingly, he’d driven over to the jail to pick him up. Soleiyu could fix the legal issues of all of this, he could probably just erase them and make them go away. Getting Todd out was the most important thing right now.

He wasn’t afraid of Todd running, so he’d paid to bail him out, and he’d crossed his arms and tried not to look too suspicious while the officer went in back to get him.

If something had gone wrong–if his glamour had been compromised, or if he was in real trouble, Zac was sure that they wouldn’t have been so causal about releasing him.

He’d gotten part of the story, but he wasn’t going to wait to hear the rest of it here. Todd could fill him in once they were out of this place. In the car, maybe. At home. Maybe over lunch in the park.

Oh–oh, s**t, he was crying. At least when Evan did it he tried to hide it and not be noticed. Maybe because Zac tended to give him a hard time for it. Well–no, that was in the past. He’d been trying to be better. He had been doing better.

“No, it’s fine,” Zac sighed, and tried to force himself to sound more relaxed than he was. “You’re okay. We’ll get Soleiyu to get your record clean, you don’t have to worry. There are a lot of rules around here, of course some of them are going to get missed. You were hunting–what was it, a rabbit? Are you hungry? I can stop and get us something on the way home. It’s okay.”

Zac was grateful for the red light that let him glance over at Todd and take in his appearance. Ah, ********. He looked so small. He looked so beaten down. It wasn’t like him, he should be sticking his head out of the window and enjoying the breeze.

“Wow, they sound like dicks.”

That probably didn’t mean much to Todd.

He seemed like he’d curled in on himself, and if he were being honest, Zac had seen the way he did the same thing before–when he felt overwhelmed or nervous or startled. Except, he was usually hugging his tail.

Obviously couldn’t have that out right now, just in case. Ugh, maybe. Todd was trembling, too. It didn’t feel that cold outside.

The light was taking forever to turn and he sat there quietly for a few seconds before he sighed and wiggled in his seat enough to pull off the zip up hoodie he’d shown up in. He passed it over before the light turned green. “Here, you can hold this. If you put it on, it might cover your ears, nobody’s going to see your tail in here. You’ve mentioned having a hard time with that phone.” Like sixty times. “When we get home, we’re going to find Soleiyu, and we’re going to tell him that you need a new one, okay? I want you to sit down with him and tell him all the things you like so he can make it for you. And if you don’t tell him, I’m going to guess, so you’re better off working with him to get something you’ll actually like instead of whatever I come up with.”

Traffic was light and he had a good pick of just about any restaurant he could think of right now. “I can’t get your rabbit back.” And even if he could, he wasn’t sure it was even edible at this point in time. “It’s a waste. I’ve never eaten rabbit before. You want a steak? I can call it in, we’ll go pick it up. Find somewhere quiet so you can calm down, maybe. Food makes everything better. Honest. Evan used to get spooked by things all the time.”

It was a bit less now, but he was still jumpy and worked himself up. He was sure Todd had picked up on that just by living with him. “Food always calms him down. He likes cheese, though.” Also something he supposed Todd knew, he was just talking to fill the silence. “Maybe there’s a place in town that sells rabbit dishes. If I find them, you want to try that? They might cook it weird, different than what you had in mind. We should get you some barbeque ribs, you ever had those? Real good. Messy, you eat them right off the bone.”

Todd was at the top of a very short list of people who thought he was good, and there was a powerful, self-loathing voice in the back of Zac’s mind that told him he should correct him. Instead, he bit his tongue. Todd would figure it out eventually, but for now it was probably a good thing that he was calling Zac to come pick him up and not anyone else. Evan would probably have shown up in such a panic that they booked him for being on something, and Talia had so much going on, he knew she had the weight of the world on her shoulders.

No, this was fine.

Zac had seen him hug his tail. He’d heard the whimper but hadn’t known what it was for. His eyes left the road for a second, just enough time to see the way Todd had dug his nail into his skin.

It wasn’t Todd’s fault. He’d seen behavior like that before. Even if Evan had gotten better, he still caught himself checking for fresh marks.

“Ribs it is.” Another red light meant he could pull out his phone and press a few buttons to pull up his last order on the app. Doubling it was easy enough. His order would be ready for pickup in fifteen minutes, so the timing was good; they’d be there in just about as much time. His phone was away before the light turned green and he kept his eyes on the road.

“I don’t know much about getting a hunting license, but I’ll see what we need for it. Maybe a fishing license, too. I’m not much of a fisherman, myself, but I heard it’s supposed to be relaxing. When you get stressed out, do you do that often?” he asked, tilting his head towards Todd’s wrist. He didn’t tell him that he didn’t like him hurting himself; he didn’t want to come down on him while he was already upset from earlier. “There’s a stress ball in the glove box.” Well, he didn’t know if Todd knew what that was. “The little drawer right in front of you. I use it when I’ve got a lot on my mind and need to take it out on something.”

He didn’t want to explain road rage to Todd right now, either.

“You should try it, see if it helps. Maybe we can find something else for you to do so you don’t hurt yourself.”

Zac pressed his tongue against the roof of his mouth while he listened. He knew conversations like this were usually delicate, and he knew he wasn’t. He wasn’t the best person to deal with things like this, much less talk about feelings or anything.

“Yeah,” he said after a moment. “I’ve heard someone say something like that before.”

There were times that he was so frustrated or upset he just had to hit something, no matter what it did to him. He wasn’t sure if that was about breaking something or giving himself a reason to hurt, but it’s not like it was a topic he’d ever really chosen to bring up.

Now wasn’t any different. This was about Todd, anyway.

“Sometimes you’ve just gotta let it out, I get that. But if you’re going to scratch, I’d rather get you a scratching post, not make you use your own arm for it. We’ve got a whole list of things to look into, don’t we? Soleiyu and your phone, getting you a hunting license. Seeing if we can find a better outlet for you. I know change is hard and all, I’m not going to force anything on you. But if there’s a way you could work things out when you're feeling too much, so you aren’t getting hurt in the process, I think that’ll work out better in the long run. We’ll figure it out, it’s not like you have to do any of this alone.”

Todd deserved someone better than Zac, who was currently biting his tongue and trying to wrack his brain for something good to say. ‘Cheer up’ and ‘You got this’ didn’t really convey what he should be saying. His palms were sweating as he gripped the steering wheel, but it was pretty good luck that his permanent resting b***h face conveyed none of the thoughts boiling over in his mind.

“You are strange,” he said. “You’re not human.”

It wasn’t an insult. “So what? The only reason you have to pretend to be is because the people here are too small minded to understand the bigger picture. That’s not your fault. You don’t have to do all the things we do. You’re interested in your own things. Earth’s just not equipped to handle everyone. I mean–hell, the people here can’t even get along with each other. That’s not your fault. Don’t apologize for who you are. So you’re a mess, big deal. You’ve been through a lot. I can’t say I’d take it well if our roles were reversed.”

He’d find a way to survive, sure, but he didn’t know if he’d be happy about it. He didn’t know how to give up and couldn’t imagine a situation where he just gave in but he could admit it was a daunting task, anyway.

“And what was that all about--you’re not a bad dog, I don’t know where you heard that. Evan’s dog is spoiled as s**t and all he does is shed and jump all over people and I’ve never heard anyone call him a bad dog.” No, Evan had gotten lucky with a dog with such a sweet disposition. So what if he begged or wanted to lay all over you or was happy to see you come home.

“And you think you’re a burden? If you’re going to compare yourself to a dog–you know we have to walk him, right? Because he’d get lost if he didn’t have someone with him. And we have to clean up after he does his business in the neighbor’s yard. And he can’t feed himself, and–you know? No one’s ever called him a burden. So you’re definitely not. Even this,” he nodded to the road in front of them.

“I’m getting ribs out of this. Which means this isn’t a burden, either. Maybe you’re homesick. When was the last time you went back to your world?" He didn't know if he was just talking to give Todd something to listen to or if he was saying anything that stuck. "Maybe we should see about going up there and see if that helps."

Maybe, if Todd was up for it.

"What do I need to do to help you not be so hard on yourself?”

Zac’s eyes briefly darted to Todd before they returned to the road, and he gripped the wheel a little tighter.

“Hey,” he said, sternly but not unkindly. “Todd. Stop, you’re in my car. You’re safe. You don’t have to go anywhere you don’t want to. You’re learning, I’m learning. This is new to us both. Do you need me to pull over for a minute so you can get some fresh air?”

The food could keep for a few minutes, but he was worried Todd might wind up panicking if they stayed in the car. Not that he wanted to let him out and have him run off into the woods like any other scared dog might have, but–

No, Todd wasn’t a dog. Zac knew that. It was just his baseline for predicting his behavior. He didn’t know what he was doing.

Todd was more than that, he was more complex.

“Take a deep breath. You’re safe here, you’re with me. I’m not going to let anything bad happen to you. Not here, not anywhere.”

He didn’t know why he was protective of Todd, maybe it was just because he seemed to put so much faith in Zac. Or because he was trying to be better.