#alien!boyfriend

The atmosphere of the food lounge was sleepy at best, Scaly and Beebop had caught themselves some free time and since they wouldn’t have anything to do for a week or so (barring emergencies of course) the two had switched back to their natural, more nocturnal hours. There weren’t many other folks awake at this hour and the ones who might be likely were so because they had something else to be doing, so there weren’t many other patrons dining at this particular time.

This was great for a couple of reasons. The first of which being that the boys’ favourite extra-dimensional doppelgängers had picked this perfect time to visit, and being on ‘vacation’ meant the lizard boys and their slimy blue imp had lots of opportunity to raise some wicked hell together. But it also meant that the lack of other faces in the room made the two out-of-place gingers feel a little bit less like sore thumbs, Rex in particular thankful for the lack of strangers amongst them while he ate.

Humorously, Rex and Scaly were both sat in similar positions at their usually assigned table, their odd anatomy (which they unfortunately couldn’t un-fuck like Bygone thankfully now could) making it difficult for them to sit in the restaurant-style booth any other way. They were near mirrors of each other as they sat sideways along the bench seats, backs against the same wall the table was up against rather than on the backrests as they lounged with their tails out in front of them, running along the entire length of the cushioned benches and even hanging off the ends.

Both also had a matching smaller person using them in place of the seats their bodies were claiming the entirety of. Beebop was wrapped around Scaly’s shoulders like a blue feather boa as he occasionally picked periwinkles off the plate his lizard chaise was holding out for them both to share their snacks on, and Bygone sat atop Rex’s lap, only a little awkwardly as the smaller dino’s one reptile leg was draped over the edge of the seat allowing the currently-human ginger to at least half-sit on the actual cushion.

Though neither minded the odd positioning. At the end of the day they were all sort of the same person, and as they had started visiting their second twin more frequently (it was still so wild to think that there were at least three different universes where Pico had become a dinosaur…) they had honestly started forming a bit of a sibling dynamic and it wasn’t uncommon for all three of the freckled reptilians to lie about in a huge pile of orange hair and green scales, topped by a little blue velvety raspberry on a lizard parfait.

Scaly was about to devour a Scooby Doo-sized comically large sandwich when he noticed Bygone from across the table, the other nearly spilling his drink as his one good eye locked onto something in the distance it apparently liked seeing. Curious, the larger gator’s shining silver sights drifted across the room to scout out what his lookalike was ogling at. He raised a brow at what he saw.

Unsurprisingly the thing Bygone had apparently locked onto was a certain white-streaked head of hair, attached to the body of a (quite beat down looking actually…) living weapon and knife-play extraordinaire. Scaly wished that was as sexy as it sounded, but sadly the scars from these two’s knife-play were unfortunately quite painful and still caused the big lugghead an awful lot of sleepless nights when the weather was bad.

It was Blade.

Or, rather, ‘The Sword’, though all three of the Picos had sort of agreed they didn’t really like calling them that. Bygone had informed the other that apparently where he came from the person who would have been the mirror to the cyborg was named ‘Hanzo’, which Scaly thought was silly at first. Until Rex reminded them all that their shared name was ‘Pico’, in which case Scaly shut his tooth-barren mouth. But after some deliberation the council agreed that among the code names they had apparently all given themselves, ‘The Sword’ would now universally be referred to as ‘Blade’.

But Scaly’s musings were cut short as he instead had a sudden realization that brought a new question to his mind. Blade didn’t need to eat, as far as the lizard knew it wasn’t even something they were capable of doing. Whether it had a stomach or not Scaly wasn’t sure, but from what he’d seen of the other it seemed as though that mask was stuck onto his face pretty good, and the gator wasn’t sure it was even able to come off. He’d certainly never seen it… So then why was it in the food lounge of all places?

As if sensing all the eyes on it (which they probably did) Blade turned its apertures up from where they had been previously viewing the floor, allowing them to land on Rex and Bygone first before then stopping to rest on Scaly. He locked eyes with the weapon from across the room, and he felt something run through him like lightning when he met those shining red sensors. Scaly wasn’t sure what that was, but it made him shiver, something Beebop curiously noticed as he gently poked the lizard’s large chest to make sure he was okay.

Their eyes were stuck locked together as Blade slowly began walking towards the table they were all sat around, as if that were his only current purpose. They seemed to be almost in a trance, and the other two lizard boys shared curious glances with each other as the cyborg approached near enough to get a clear look at.

Their clothes were tattered and stained with now-dried blood, its hair tousled (kind of cutely…) as if they had just been in some wicked scuffle. He looked like a tomcat that just crawled home from a bad night out on the streets, and Scaly had to assume the other must have been doing some sort of combat testing. That would make sense why it was out and about at such an odd hour as this. But that still didn’t explain why they were here in the lounge. Though they all immediately noticed he looked completely exhausted…

Scaly had learned more about the guy since being gently encouraged to do so by both of his doppelgängers. As it turned out not only did ‘Hanzo’ exist in both of their worlds but apparently they both seemed to have a… particular fondness for them. And in doing so the middle child of the lizard trio had discovered that Blade was being horribly mistreated, his ability to regenerate virtually its entire body unfortunately being both incredibly useful as well as making the cyborg seem mostly ‘disposable’.

It hurt Scaly to think about right in his stupid, swollen heart. He couldn’t imagine how much pain and suffering they had been made to endure in all the times they were carelessly allowed to be torn to shreds. Just to regenerate and have it all happen again. It was nightmare fuel. And thinking about the fact this was all happening while the gator man himself was blissfully ignorant to it. He felt so guilty for never seeing it before…

Bygone cleared his throat awkwardly, turning his eye to watch Beebop slurp a periwinkle from its shell like Timon and Pumbaa while he himself loudly sipped his coffee in the hopes the mug would hide the blush on his cheeks. The (currently smallest) redhead had seen that absolute unit in action, and he couldn’t help the way his heart rate increased slightly as it fluttered in his chest. Rex too had paused his eating to stare, something that took a fair bit of interest in order to attract the overgrown-scaly-Labrador’s highly food driven brain.

Scaly was still locked in a staring match with the cyborg as it now stood at the edge of the table, though something told the big lizard that he was more so the one doing the staring as Blade almost… didn’t seem fully there. Whatever they were making the poor guy do before, it sure looked like it had taken a lot out of the ‘weapon’.

The gator sort of didn’t like thinking about the other that way either… The general consensus among the rest of the staff was that Blade was just a cold machine, but really, they didn’t know much about how it was made. Their body was clearly still made of flesh for a reason, surely it had to feel something, right..? If you asked anyone else they’d tell you no, but… Scaly had seen the other at its worst, and that sure looked an awful lot like someone who was suffering to him. He knew what pain looked like.

Scaly was snapped from his internal pity-fest by catching sight of a sudden movement from the aforementioned cyborg. All four of the boys at the table watched curiously as Blade drunkenly climbed over the lizard’s tail, stumbling slightly as its arms shook under its own weight and exhaustion. They had paused for a moment, seeming to catch their breath (something Scaly made a point of noting shouldn’t be affecting them if he was ‘just a robot’) before continuing the arduous ascent over the large lizard’s rotund form.

Eventually the overgrown potato peeler found the spot between where Scaly’s side was resting against the backrest of the seat, using the top of it as an armrest rather than for his back. The lizard made a surprised grunt as Blade slotted himself into that spot without so much as a word. Once they’d taken a moment to adjust themselves, pulling its knees up to rest its legs over one of Scaly’s large thighs and pulling their arms up to their chest in a pose the reptile recognized as ‘conserving body heat’, all four stunned boys watched in utter silence as the cyborg actually sighed, a clear release of tension as he allowed his eyes to drift closed.

A few moments later a small sound was heard in the near dead silence of the room. A tuned-down sort of hum, like someone turning off an old CRT monitor. Did he- did he just..?

“Holy shit,” Rex actually spoke, the current situation exciting enough that the usually mostly mute of the three lizards couldn’t even filter his reaction. Beebop noticed immediately, gasping over dramatically and clasping his face in his hands Kevin McCallister style as he beamed at the voice he very rarely got to hear. Bygone choked on his coffee, dripping half of it uselessly onto the table as he whisper-laughed (it sounded like wheezing) while Rex made a sweet little whine, goofy grin on his face and tail thumping against the bench slightly in excitement. They were both absolutely keeling over internally, it seemed as though ‘Hanzo’ really was meant to find them in every life.

Scaly was a little perplexed by the situation, but… not at all put off by it as he slowly lifted the arm from the back of the seat to place his (currently mostly fingerless) hand gently against a rising and falling back. He could feel the hard bones beneath his palm and it caused a sting in the big lizard’s heart. He was however still hugely confused as he glanced around like a stunned dog, ears pinned like he wasn’t quite sure what to do. What exactly was happening right now?

As if sensing his lookalike’s internally blazing gay panic Bygone chuckled softly while wiping up some of the coffee he’d spilled on himself, smiling warmly at the bigger lizard as he still wore a faint blush on his pale cheeks. “Bro, I think he knew he was about to shut down… they came to find you ‘cause they knew they’d be safe if they did it around you.” The expression the gunslinger wore on his face was sweet, thinking of a certain other pair of ‘Picos and Hanzos’ he knew would also especially appreciate this.

Scaly made a soft whining noise as he let his silver eyes roll down to land on Blade’s apparently ‘sleeping’ form. He supposed that made sense actually, this person had been made to suffer unimaginable horrors both physically and psychologically for lord knows how long, and all the while he’d been made to do it alone and locked in a box while people treated them like they had no soul. The big lizard was the first person to ever look at the other as if they were something other than a tool of destruction, the only one to ever see that maybe there was still a glimmer of human lurking somewhere in that tortured meat prison.

And certainly he was the first person to ever hold the cyborg while he suffered, doing the best he could to comfort him as his entire system malfunctioned. Scaly had to imagine it must be terrifying, he knew how scary it was for Beebop when the little blue monkey had neurological fits, and he’d seen it a few times in Rex as well. Though he had yet to really see it in Bygone he had learned that while the other’s specimen form was truly impressive to witness, it too clearly came bundled with plenty of side effects.

Now his heart was breaking for all of these people he cared for, his ears flat and eyes shining with not-quite-tears but still an obvious wetness. He lifted his head from where he’d been gazing at Blade to turn towards Beebop, giving his partner’s side a gentle rub with the broad side of his snout. The amphibian returned the gesture, chattering softly as he twisted his cat-like body around Scaly’s neck to hug his arms around the big guy’s nose. Bygone reached out one leg to gently kick Scaly’s side under the table, a brotherly gesture of support.

Ever curious, Beebop eventually snaked his way from behind Scaly’s head to clamber down his partner’s chest, landing on his belly next to where Blade was still peacefully resting in standby. Gingerly, like he was reaching out to pick up a baby, the little alien tenderly pulled back the bloodied haori and reached his hands into the slightly open folds of the cyborg’s tattered kimono, feeling the skin beneath. “It’s cold…” he muttered aloud, ears drooped and expression becoming slightly concerned.

“Yeah buddy…” Scaly agreed, he’d noticed it too. The cold was pouring off the other like a stone, and he could feel it practically radiating off of them against his side. The amphibious alien made a pout as he studied the resting face of the frail person, mask still cruelly fastened firmly in its place. He sighed through his reeds, the action causing a cute little whistle, before he made a few circles around the lizard’s belly on all fours like a cat. When he finished ‘making his bed’ he found a spot on Scaly’s stomach close to Blade, curling up against the other like two kittens trying to keep each other warm.

Scaly pulled his chin up slightly in a little pout of his own, that was pretty precious to see… Beebop wasn’t heartless by any means, but he could definitely be possessive of his large lizard companion. Though it seemed even the little biting skink could tell something wasn’t right with The Sword’s condition, he too welcoming the other into the bubble of comfort he knew his Bi-bi could provide.

Scaly’s attention was peeled away from the darling sight of two small bodies curled against him by the sound of a plate scraping the table, his eyes leading his head to the side where he watched Rex slide his discarded sandwich across towards himself. He didn’t stop him. After inhaling the hoagie just as cartoonishly as Shaggy himself would have done Rex fixed Scaly with an amused look on his face. He… was actually laughing, Scaly didn’t know he could do that!

Bygone was also scratching his chin with his fleshy hand in an exaggerated manner, a Dreamworks-esque expression on his face with one brow cocked and a crooked grin on his lips. He couldn’t help but notice that his reptile-shaped reflection looked awful comfy sitting there with his small collection of heat-sappers glued to his person. “Scaly…” he cooed, a knowing tone in his voice.

“Shut up. Not a fucking word.”

Drawing this took years off my lifespan because of how fucking sweet it is

The flat was eerily quiet save for the ever-present sound of distant running water echoing from behind the glass partition that kept the climate contained within the Wet Room and the occasional faint chittering of a certain extraterrestrial amphibian who was feeling rather stressed at the moment. It was very unusual for this particular space to be so calm, typically decorated by items strewn about without care, a pile of oddball lizard boys in varying degrees of ‘freakish and large’ and the chaotic, rambunctious energy of the aforementioned blue alien.

But in this moment things were far too tense to enjoy the rare quiet, as the usually full-of-beans Beebop sat upon the floor in a pile of blankets, knees pulled up to his chest and game controller discarded beside him as whatever game he’d attempted to start playing sat paused on the screen. He looked… not even just miserable, but actually pitiful. Bygone felt as though he was watching a kicked puppy lick its wounds and it just wasn’t right to see the little turd looking so lost.

The reason for his upset was clear, and it ironically announced its presence with an obvious lack of someone else’s. For one of the three ‘lizard boys’ was missing from the ranks. The man of the house himself was distinctly absent from the usual vibe of his own flat.

It was a big enough bummer on its own, Bygone and Rex didn’t really get a whole lot of opportunities to visit their Scaly friend, what with the whole ‘tearing holes in space-time and creating links between worlds which weren’t meant to connect’ situation required for them to do so. Surely that wasn’t ever going to cause any problems at all. But it was also a huge kick in the teeth to see the most joy and whimsy filled creature ever to exist among the stars sitting before you deflated like a balloon and doing his best impression of Eeyore.

Sat upon one of their otherworldly friends’ many beanbags, chin resting heavily on his fleshy palm, Bygone attempted to distract himself from the sadness pouring off of Beebop like a stink by focusing on the repetitive flashing of one of the HUD elements of the game paused on the screen. After some unmeasured amount of dreadfully quiet minutes had passed he was drawn from his space-out by a faint clicking sound coming from behind his blind side. Turning his seeing eye to address the sudden change in the room he watched the third and final of the reptilian trio emerge from beyond the Wet Room doors.

He readjusted his hearing aids, which he’d tuned down to drown out some of the crackling Bee’s chirping was causing, before greeting Rex with a chesty “boof”. It was perhaps not as layered as it could have been, granted he was in his human form at the moment and was doing the best he could with his human voice box, but Rex clearly knew what it meant as he responded with a (much more animalistic sounding) grumble of his own.

The shorter of the three (though not at this current moment) was as uncivilized as ever, clearly having just gotten out of the hot springs as his clothes were half dripping. He apparently hadn’t even bothered to dry off before dressing himself, though it wasn’t all that uncommon for the other to just throw himself in the water fully clothed so it was honestly surprising they weren’t completely soaked.

Moving past Bygone and hobbling his way into the centre of the room like a rusty tin wind-up toy, Rex took a moment to gather up some of the discarded pillows and blankets before arranging them in a somewhat circular pile next to Beebop, plopping down beside the tiny alien and giving the other’s uninjured leg a gentle nudge with his nose. The smaller of the three lizards offered a quiet whine to pull the space monkey from his daze, earning him a pair of sad eyes turning to lock with his own.

Beebop removed one of the hands from his knees to lovingly ruffle Rex’s hair between his horns, appreciative for the gesture of support but still not quite able to offer any kind of smile. The tip of Rex’s tail thumped occasionally beside him, indicating that having a dip in the hot springs clearly hadn’t done much to help alleviate his stress either.

In truth they were all kind of worried. It seemed the boys had either picked the worst or the best time to arrive, considering the current state of Beebop one had to wonder what he would be like if he were on his own right now. But they couldn’t have known Scaly would have been called away to a mission just before they had gotten there, one that according to the very concerned amphibious gremlin seemed to be rather dangerous.

Of course danger came with the territory, Rex and Bygone both knew that better than most, but Beebop mentioned something about this being a ‘special threat’.

All of the boys were startled from their specific trains of thought by a sudden rapping on the door. Three heads whipped around to face it, Rex growling slightly like a dog awaiting the postman to slide the letters through the slot. On instinct Beebop rose in a hurry, tripping over his injured ankle with a small chirp as he made for the entryway. Bygone caught him by the arm as he stumbled, holding him steady as he shakily pried his own crinkly bones off the beanbag he was lying on.

Rex too made to slowly approach from behind on all fours, crouched low to the ground in a defensive stance as he followed behind Bygone while he helped lead the overgrown sea monkey towards the door.

Just as they’d reached the edge of the room said door swung open on its own, revealing a tall, dark-skinned man in a white lab coat. Beneath the coat was what appeared to be a purple and black dress shirt with an oddly clashy yellow tie, and sat upon a head of well styled curly brown hair were a distinctly recognizable pair of flame-shield goggles.

Darnell.

Or, some form of Darnell. This man looked enough like him but appeared to be a few years older than the Darnell that Bygone knew, seeming to be more in his early 30s judging by the ever so slightly forming laugh lines around his eyes and the tiniest smidge of salt in his pepper around the temples. The ginger supposed stress would do that to you, he was surprised he wasn’t more grey himself considering how much his transformation probably aged his body. He sure felt it in his bones…

Rex seemed to be too concerned with the flash of white donning the man before him to realize or care who it was, his previous growling now forming into a guttural gator-like hissing. Bygone placed his free hand atop his lookalike’s head much the same as Bee had done before. “Don’t worry man, it’s just Darnell. He won’t hurt you…”

The look in Rex’s eyes read ‘skepticism’ but he relinquished his growling and instead settled for resting at Bygone’s feet like a guard dog waiting for someone to step too close to their master. His eyes were glued to this ‘Darnell’ imposter like a hawk.

Darnell offered a dashing smile and friendly wave as he let himself into the flat, allowing the door to close gently behind him so they could retain their privacy. “Yooo Beebop! Why so blue, man?” the older man greeted, reaching out a hand to ruffle the alien’s hair. Said alien could not appreciate the joke. He would normally have responded with some fake whine about the scientist squeezing his brain with his big meaty hands, but he clearly wasn’t in the mood for his typical antics today.

“Dar-bi! I worry for Bi-bi!” the poor guy seemed frantic as he tore himself away from Bygone’s gentle hold and practically threw himself at Darnell, scrambling around his back and climbing onto the other man’s shoulders like a weasel. After making a circuit around the scientist’s neck like a satin scarf the amphibious lemur made his way back to the floor to circle around Rex and Bygone, his stress clearly triggering his neurotic tendencies as he zoomed about like an unworked border collie trapped in a kennel.

“He’s alone, and I am here! Why here, why not with him?!”

The older man gave Beebop a sympathetic look, he understood how much the little dude cared for his partner and he was sure being stuck here while knowing the big guy was out there fighting against a kaiju-level threat was really hard for him to cope with. But the E.T. had gone and gotten his leg injured, and the ever-protective Pico was not about to risk taking his boo on a dangerous mission when the other was already hurt.

“He’s not alone, Bee. He’s got Cap with him, plus a whole crew of specially trained men and women watching his back. Hell, even Nene’s there!” the biologist tried his best to comfort the sorry boy by offering some reassurance. Pico was a strong force to be reckoned with, sure he himself had a healthy amount of worrying for his brother’s safety but he also had faith that the scaly bastard would give em what-for.

For the first time since Darnell had arrived one of the out-of-place boys finally spoke up, Bygone sheepishly offering his voice. “If you don’t mind me asking, what exactly is going on anyway?”

The older man scratched his stubbly chin as he processed the question, perhaps trying to formulate the best way to explain. Darnell pulled a pen from his breast pocket and began idly clicking it, probably a stim of sorts while prepping for a serious talk. “Well, we aren’t exactly sure… We started receiving reports of these odd egg-like structures appearin’ near the wastelands at the edge of the city. A team was dispatched to check ‘em out, determine what they were and try to get some samples.”

The flicking of the pen had now become spinning and twirling it around his fingers, his hand movements seemingly becoming more complicated as his thoughts did. “It was found that, at least at the time of investigation, the egg sacs didn’t seem to contain any traces of active life forms. But they were very clearly of organic nature and, frankly, something had to have ‘laid’ them.”

Beebop’s expression was tense as he sat on the floor next to Rex, gently stroking between the experiment’s back plates as the other shook slightly, occasionally twitching even. Bygone however simply nodded along as Darnell continued his tale, looking towards the other’s face but eye not really seeing anything, instead looking through him as his gears turned internally.

Darnell stopped for a moment to cough into his hand before pressing on again. Bygone noted that as ‘interesting’ but filed it away for later.

“Anyway, we found a heat signature coming from what we now believe to be some sort of thermal vent that’s opened up near the desert. Some kinda big nasty must’a crawled i’s way up outta that bitch an’ now she’s out here dropping bastard children left and right.” Darnell clicked his tongue as if to say ‘for shame’. The more he talked the more some of those good old fashioned Nelly-isms started to glimmer through. “But we think we found the main nest. Pico and the Loud Bunch are gone to hit that bad mama where the sun ain’t shine.”

Bygone sucked his teeth as he considered that. That seemed… very reckless. Why would you run straight into the belly of the beast when you’re not even 100% sure what the damn thing is? How do they know there’s not more than one? Question after question swam in the gunslinger’s head as he thought about it more, the loudest of which being ‘who thought this was a good idea?’

Darnell seemed unfazed as he popped the pen back in his pocket, smile still present on his face as he took a relaxed stance with one hand in the pocket of his lab coat. “My man’s got some of the biggest guns we can give ‘em. Whatever’s hiding in there, I hope they like Swiss cheese.”

The other had begun to chuckle at his own words but was interrupted by a soft chiming from within his pocket. Pulling his hand back out with a pager now contained within it, the biologist’s eyes made a back-and-forth motion as he read some sort of text message that had come across it. His expression didn’t change much apart from his smile now becoming more of a straight line, but he pocketed the device back where he’d found it with a gentle sigh before turning to readdress the three boys in the room.

“Duty calls, my friends. If I hear any updates I’ll let you guys know, but I’ve got something I need to attend to.” Darnell licked his lips as he spun around to reach for the door handle, turning his head to throw a quick message over his shoulder before he went. “Everything’s gonna be okay, Bee. Don’t sweat it Lil Man.” and with that he had vanished beyond the door just as suddenly as he came, a humorous ‘later, gators’ directed at the lizard boys as he went.

Drawing a heavy sigh through his nose and scratching the back of his head with his good hand, the currently-human redhead tried to shake the funny feeling he had. Beebop seemed to quiet ever so slightly since Darnell had been to chat with him, though he still wore a sorry little frown on his face as he peered over towards where Rex had moved to lower himself onto the now vacated beanbag, dumbo ears drooped like a sad puppy. Bygone however found himself glancing over at the door, staring into where the older man had vanished beyond it moments before.

He hadn’t really talked with this version of Darnell much since he’d been here, most of the time Bygone and Rex spent here tended to involve some sort of shenanigans and he seemed to be a busy man who didn’t have much time to dilly dally on work hours. The ginger honestly wasn’t sure how much this person was or wasn’t like the Darnell he knew, and given that he’d now sussed out the fact that Beebop was apparently this world’s version of Boyfriend he wasn’t sure it was safe to assume a lot was the same. But he did notice one thing they seemed to have in common.

He knew his best friend to have one hell of a poker face, it was hard to read even for the most seasoned of detectives. But he had one tell that Bygone knew to look for, and that one tiny but super specific wrinkle that appeared next to the corner of his left eye when the biologist was looking at his pager earlier told the gunslinger all he needed to know. Whatever that pager said wasn’t good news and he was trying to keep a straight face about it. That’s what he couldn’t shake.

It was Beebop’s turn to ‘sigh’ this time, though for him it sounded more like someone gently blowing a whistle. The little frog-boy, who was now blue in more ways than one, turned his head to address the other two occupants of the room. “Are friends hungry..? Here smells like Bi-bi and that makes it hurt in here…”

Rex and Bygone shared a glance with each other as Beebop tenderly placed a leathery hand over his heart, emphasizing exactly where it was ‘hurting’. The anguish swimming in his cosmic eyes was enough to shatter even the stoniest of men like glass. Bygone tried to hide the way his hand shook by shoving his organic one in his pocket, thinking back to that look on Darnell’s face again.

Moving to instead gently place his prosthetic one on Bee’s shoulder, he tried his best to form some sort of smile. Though he felt the words waver in his throat as he spat them out like bad lunch.

The flat was eerily quiet save for the ever-present sound of distant running water echoing from behind the glass partition that kept the climate contained within the Wet Room and the occasional faint chittering of a certain extraterrestrial amphibian who was feeling rather stressed at the moment. It was very unusual for this particular space to be so calm, typically decorated by items strewn about without care, a pile of oddball lizard boys in varying degrees of “freakish and large” and the chaotic, rambunctious energy of the aforementioned blue alien.

But in this moment things were far too tense to enjoy the rare quiet, as the usually full-of-beans Beebop sat upon the floor in a pile of blankets, knees pulled up to his chest and game controller discarded beside him as whatever game he’d attempted to start playing sat paused on the screen. He looked… not even just miserable, but actually pitiful. Bygone felt as though he was watching a kicked puppy lick its wounds and it just wasn’t right to see the little turd looking so lost.

The reason for his upset was clear, and it ironically announced its presence with an obvious lack of someone else’s. For one of the three ‘lizard boys’ was missing from the ranks. The ‘man of the house’ himself was distinctly missing from the usual vibe of his own flat. It was a big enough bummer on its own, Bygone and Rex didn’t really get a whole lot of opportunities to visit their Scaly friend, what with the whole ‘tearing holes in space-time and creating links between worlds which weren’t meant to connect’ situation required for them to do so. Surely that wasn’t ever going to cause any problems at all. But it was also a huge kick in the teeth to see the most joy and whimsy filled creature ever to exist among the stars sitting before you deflated like a balloon and doing his best impression of Eeyore.

(Ending note: I’ll probably make changes to this/refine some of the wording when I make a final draft, I usually do lol