the minutes spent without calico dragged on like hours as babs tried to amuse herself with what was left in the room. at this point, none of their stuff strictly belonged to one or the other -- aside from personal effects, everything was theirs now, or a gift from ruby. it suddenly felt strange to her how easily she had settled down with another person, and how seamless the transition had been from living alone to living with calico.
when the pink haired woman returned with the blanket and milky, babylon immediately snuggled into them both. her head rested on calico's shoulder while the rest of her body was swallowed into the softness of the toy's udders. she didn't much care for the film that was playing, only that she got to spend time being so close to the person she loved.
"there's... what?" she looked up to the screen, assuming something interesting was happening that calico wanted to talk about. nothing on the screen however seemed to be any more exciting than the last explosion that happened. "do I need to rewind it?"
she yawned and lifted her head to look at calico directly. "everything ok?" now that the alcohol wasn't completely clouding her mind, the headache had started to kick in. only a dull, distant throb at the back of her skull at first, but it was enough to keep her distracted.
her eyes searched calico's for any sign of something being wrong, though she never had been the best at reading people. all that she could see in a person's eyes nowadays was fear or anger, and it didn't appear that her girlfriend was expressing any of those. at least not outright. babs pouted, tilting her head to the side like a confused but optimistic puppy. "are you sure you aren't hungry? what did you have while I was out?"
"i'm fine." calico lied, unconvincingly. she smiled at babs before she leaned in closer to her, having tried her absolute best to make it seem like everything was perfectly normal. "like i said earlier, i'm just worried about some things. a lot of things, actually. but it's fine, it can wait until the morning." she had to pause for a bit because she felt herself wanting to blurt out everything in one go which was apparent from the anxiousness in her voice.
"you know i love you, right?" she continued after a while. her words sounded earnest because she meant them, though they still gave off a small hint of anxiety.
her girlfriend's food question caught her a little off guard, but she tried her best to seem casual about it. she could simply just lie and say she had takeout. it's not like babs had a way of checking if she was honest. it was really just a matter of how nonchalant she could be about lying.
"i had takeout. i'm not hungry, i promise." there, she finally said her lie. surely babs won't try to poke further. calico really didn't feel like admitting that her diet was soley going to consist of blood from now on.
it felt genuinely horrible to have to lie to she person she loved and cared about the most, but outright telling her everything would have been incredibly stupid and calico was smarter than that. she also felt like a hypocrite for having been so insistent on wating to have a talk about what babs was doing while she actively hid her arguably life-changing secret. calico had never been the pinnacle of morality, but lying to her girlfriend of all people felt like the worst sin of them all. questionable life choices aside, she still cared about those close to her and wanted the best for them.
