theattic | Weird-looking, half blind, spook wrangling world-walkers that smoke.

Ginko gave a quiet, startled sound of amusement, tilting his head back a little. When he noticed where JW was reaching, that got another alarmed laugh. He didn't make any effort to stop him - though he might have been more inclined to were he aware of what had changed back there in the past few minutes.

At first, JW teased him, finding the back of his shirt and shoving one hand up it, feeling along Ginko's spine. But then it wandered back down. He wasn't feeling mischevious enough to just shove his hand down the man's pants but he did give one of Ginko's cheeks a honk--sound effect included.

But then his fingers encountered something and for a fraction of a second, his hazy mind thought he'd found something else--something particularly firm, and that stupid little part of his brain let him form half a laugh before the rest of his brain caught up.

WAIT JUST A COTTON PICKIN' MINUTE HERE.

Jarred, JW's hands retreated and he recoiled, still straddling the man, and staring down at him with wide confused eyes.

"UHM?" Was all he managed, his voice broken with surprise.

So maybe JW had made a comment once that Ginko acted like had a stick up his ass when he got into his serious sulky moods but. But. ?????????????

JW's sudden movement backward pushes Ginko immediately from embarrassed laughter to startled silence.

"Wh-what?" He moved to sit up - then winced when he put weight on something at the base of his spine that was definitely not just a bruise. "--Uh."

He reached behind his back, poking experimentally at his lower back... and then his fingers brushed over fur, and he froze.

"...Um."

There were several terrible-feeling seconds where JW feared he'd had one of his rare non-arm-based sensation hallucinations. Normally they were contained in the arm that he pressure wrapped and the sensation was predictable and annoying--pain. But maybe once or twice in a year he would feel as though he were holding something--a fork, a coin, a card, something between his fingers. He would feel the pressure of this imagined object as well.

But then Ginko made that face and JW was relived. But that relief was short lived because that meant that since his brain did not ruin their romantic moment, something was Up.

Like an awkward spider, JW clambered off of Ginko and stood by anxiously.

"What is it?" He didn't remember asking the question but there it was out in the open.

"It's... I think..." He kind of didn't want to say it. Partly because it sounded impossible, and partly because if it was true, then something was very wrong.

But he got his fingers around the thing protruding from his spine, and pulled it out over the waistband of his pants. And then he just kind of... stood there. Staring at it.

Staring at what was definitely a tail, covered in short white fur with a tuft of longer hair on the end.

"That's... that isn't normal."

Thanks, Ginko, JW probably realized that.

When the tail finally appeared, JW had a hard time processing it at first. Not because he couldn't understand what he was seeing, but because he didn't want to. Because if he accepted that Ginko sure enough had a tail that wasn't there a few moments a go sprouting out of his backside, that meant he knew exactly what was up.

He looked to the branches overhead like a rabbit looking for a circling hawk.

"We have to get out of these woods."

Ginko looked up from examining the newly-discovered appendage, worry crossing his face.

"...Okay. Is this, uh... a faerie thing?"

He mind jumped back immediately to the brief encounter from before. Shit.

"A classic."

JW hurried to gather up his bags and overbalanced himself, falling right on his own ass. Which he instantly felt of to make sure there weren't any surprises waiting for him there. There weren't. Once on his feet again, bag on his shoulders, he remembered something.

"Shit!"

He dropped his bag, yanked his over shirt of, and put it on backwards.

Ginko clambered to his feet as well, brow furrowing slightly as JW turned his shirt around.

"Should I do that, too?"

"Yes! Yes! God! They're mean but they're stupid, they won't be able to follow us! This is my fault, I should have been paying closer attention to where we were walking!"

Paranoia was not going full blast have fun Ginko.

"Alright."

He pulled his shirt over his head, then paused, frowning, as JW kept going.

After a moment, he pulled his shirt back on backward, trying really hard to ignore how that stupid tail was swishing back and forth. "Actually, I... think it might have been me."

"You? What could you have done? I was watching you the whole time." JW fretted more loudly and nearly stumbled from his bag swinging as he ran. "Maybe they just hate white hair. I should have known that! We could have dyed it!"

"No, you weren't." He sighed, then winced a little and reached forward automatically in case JW fell. It was starting to occur to him that he may have really screwed up back there.. "I went off on my own, remember? I saw something weird while I was gone, and went to look at it... maybe they didn't like that."

JW stopped his wobbly jogging long enough to give Ginko his full, wide-eyed attention.

"What did you do PEE on one?" No, JW. He ran his boyfriend's words back through his head a second time. "What...did you see?"

"Wh-- no, of course not!" JEEZ JW what do you take him for!!

He frowned, thinking back over it... and scratching his head behind one ear. He didn't really want to think about why his ears itched. "It... looked like a really small room in a tree hollow? I didn't touch anything, I just looked for a couple seconds..."

IN JW'S DEFENSE Faeries could easily disguise themselves as flowers and trees and you never fuckin' knew. The antlered man set his teeth and let out something that was a half whine, half growl. He marched a few paces back toward their original lounging spot and shouted into the trees.

"Hey! You twinkly fuckers! Leave 'em alone! He's got no quarrel with you, it's me who's got the kick-me sign!"

The woods only chirped and croaked and whistled in reply.

--Okay that didn't strike him as a good idea.

"Hey--! JW, c'mon." He grabbed the back... well, front of JW's shirt, tugging him back away from the woods. The itch in his ear had progressed to something like an ache. "Probably don't want to make the situation worse, right?"

One of the (very few) good things about dating JW was that when trouble was a-brewing, you could pick him up and remove him from the situation. The lanky man staggered as Ginko tugged him away from harm. He blinked rapidly and stared at the shapes the sun was making on the ground.

He was too high for this.

"Rrrrright. Shit. Let's scram."

Ginko let out a quiet breath of relief as his boyfriend didn't proceed to launch himself directly at some kind of malicious otherwordly beings. With another, gentler tug, he started away from the woods again.

He cupped his free hand over his ear, wincing. "So, what... what do we do about this?"

JW stumbled one more time before following.

"I don't know, I don't know, lemme think, lemme think."

JW put a hand to his head. Had he forgotten to nail up poptarts? He probably had! An offering. They needed an offering.

"Strawberry," was all that made it out of his mouth.

"...Strawberry?"

For a moment, he almost forgot about his ear... until he realized it was feeling awfully fuzzy under his hand, anyway.

"What do you mean?"

"Strawberry toaster pastry! The store brand! They love that shit!"

JW rubbed his face furiously and tried to clear his head. Since he thought nothing but a day of lazing around in a clearing and some fooling around was ahead of him, he'd sort of overindulged.

"I put out offerings for 'em. Keeps 'em outta my hair."

When he gave up knocking himself out of his haze, he took to just staring at Ginko with something like a forlorn expression. He was going to thaw out eventually and feel really dumb for freaking out. The thin man blinked. Then he blinked again and pointed to the side of Ginko's head.

"So... do you think that might get them to undo this? Or even stop it." Because, as he was rapidly realizing, the tail didn't seem to be the end of it.

Speaking of which. When JW pointed at him, he just sort of... nodded, dropping his hand by his side. "Yeah, I... I've noticed." His ears flicked forward and then back.

The odd-eyed man continued to stare at the fuzzy new additions to Ginko's head. And then, slowly, he reached out for one of them. It looked so soft.

HE HAD TO KNOW IF IT WAS AS SOFT AS IT LOOKED.

...JW that is not even remotely helpful. Ginko blinked, his ear twitching in surprise in JW's hand.

It was, however, very soft.

"JW. Did you hear what I asked."

And, y'know. Actually process it.

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