#matau

For whom would he make a nest either way? He couldn't imagine it, didn't want to imagine it. The mere thought made him nauseous from the strain of shooting down the instincts trying to offer unwanted elucidation on the questions he couldn't help but have. Against his will, he listened keenly.

Scraping. Heavy, scratchy, thumps and cracks like rock upon rock, thuds and creaks of metal forcibly domesticated into comfortable shapes. Must have been for Onewa, his clouded mind concluded as much as he tried to stop it, because those were his elements. (The thought filled him with vitriol.) But no, no, listen: softer, softer, binding and muffling, someplace gentle to lay, someplace sweet. How big could it be, for how many? Maybe for all of them. (Better. Better, but not what he wanted.)

Want? Want? When had he started to want?

The sounds dragged him away from the fluster, the anger, the tugging and twisting of his stomach; back to the nest.

He was hard at work, hard at work like his life depended on it: laboring away on his nest, antsy, almost desperate, murmuring and whining about it all like an architect left to pick up the slack of a whole crew. His claws hissed along the walls of his nest, picked at the stone and steel, turned it, placed it, forced it together, with the careful carelessness of someone who'd never made something like this before but needed, needed, to get it right.

He could hear him - hear him! His voice rough, crackling like a lizard's discarded dried out skin, almost a sob as his mind pushed his limbs into actions he couldn't understand, desperate to find some kind of solace in it all, but what solace is a nest to inhabit alone?

What nonsense. A nest for one alone was his heaven.

(But he craved the touch, the nearness, the knowledge of an Other next to him, alert if needed; and Matau was so jumpy, so physical, yet so quiet, quiet, exactly as warm as he needed him to be, and he was making the nest for himself and for someone, someone, one of them, only one, only one.)

He curled his arms and legs, he struggled, he scraped his head against the ground to drown out the fussing and the thoughts.

(He hated the idea of the nest becoming for someone else. He hated the idea that it wouldn't be for him. He needed to beat the others to it, he needed to stand and find him, slither into place, into the nest. He needed to. Needed to.)

Another sound.

Muffled voices - real voices. Two voices. Speaking words.

Nuju laid and listened, frozen in this body that forced him to want and think and tremble.

He listened to the sounds of the night.