[Closed] @eidxiety🧜‍♀️🔬

[winterbolt]

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[dyn4m0]

[Well, Ain is awarded more crime time by virtue of just stunning Add into total silence. He isn’t at all expecting to be HUGGED- that’s fucking huge just by a behavioral standpoint, does Ain know what a hug is??- but more than anything, he doesn’t know what to make of it directed at him. He’s left standing there so flabbergasted (and a little flustered), that he’s too late to notice Ain has gotten into one of his filing cabinets.

And what gets to him more than the affection is having his perfect system and organization disrupted.]

Bluhen!! Bad, no-! Don’t mess with that!!

[eidxiety]

Aaa!!!

[But he WANTS to LOOK!!! He shuts the filing cabinet and whines, but otherwise gets up and starts... what else, looking for more trouble. He doesn't touch the computer because machines scare him still, but he does go for the place where the lab supplies are kept and start rifling through that next.

Ooh, gloves... ooh wait what's that—

Ain picks up an Erlenmeyer flask and holds it up to his eye like he's looking through a telescope.]

[dyn4m0]

Why are you such a pain in the ass-!?

[AIN-

Add opens the cabinet briefly to make sure everything is still in its alphabetized, color coded order before he lifts his head just in time to see Ain going for his very breakable lab equipment. He hesitates, because if he startles Ain or tries to force him to drop the flask it will almost for sure shatter into a thousand glass shards and neither of them need that right now. He really just has to hope Ain puts it back down voluntarily but lol lmao-]

I said you could come out, not rifle through the room! What’s gotten into you-?

[eidxiety]

Play!

[Oh no, he has an incurable disease... the zoomies. Ain grabs a second flask, unaware that these are very fragile glass things, and attempts to slip past Add so he can put them in his tank before he plonks his way back downstairs.

He's looting you, Add. He's looting you for your toyes.]

[dyn4m0]

You can’t have those! They’re not toys!

[For being a clumsy creature on land, Ain is shockingly quick. Quick enough that Add isn’t fast enough to stop him from dropping that flask into the tank before noodling away to steal more. He’ll need to get the net to fish that out now, assuming Ain doesn’t hide it somewhere. It truly feels like wrangling a toddler suddenly, until an idea strikes him.

Jumping off the stairs, Add runs to his supply bins and digs around until he finds a mostly empty jar, holding it up for Ain to see.]

Hey, look! You like peanut butter, yeah? You can have the whole rest of this jar if you leave my supplies alone!

[eidxiety]

[Ain is very preoccupied with knowing where the clear toys are... but he does creep over to Add (with a rubber glove in his mouth HOW DID YOU DO THIS AIN) and look at him with big eyes. Ooh... peanut butter...

He sits down on the floor and holds his hands out for the jar, unsubtly crunching on the glove.]

[dyn4m0]

[Where did you get that glove SO fast you’re stressing him out.]

Ah ah.

[Add shakes his head and holds the jar just out of reach, holding his hand out for the glove.]

Spit it out.

[eidxiety]

[Blows air into the glove so it inflates partly... giggles to himself. Oh no he has made a Discovery.

Unfortunately he wants the peanut butter more, so he blows Very Hard and the glove goes pwah! and hits the floor with a heavy, wet sound.]

Have?

[Holds his grippers out again.]

[dyn4m0]

[And just like that, Add stomps on the glove so Ain can’t snatch it back up, passing him the peanut butter as payment for ending his crime spree…for now.]

Here. No more eating shit unless you want to be dissected.

[He picks up the glove and throws it away, sitting back down in his chair for a breather while Ain is hopefully occupied by jar.]

Where did you learn all these words? Did they teach you while I was gone?

[No Add he does in fact listen to you and make connections when you say things enough over time, but directly teaching and working with him has helped yes.]

[eidxiety]

[Ain unscrews the jar and goes to town licking, exactly like a dog would. He looks so happy, though by the way his earfins move, he's definitely still listening to Add. Yes, they did teach him while Add was gone, and Ain's been making more and more connections as he's learnt more words.

He stops, licks his lips, and then points at himself.]

Smart baby!

[so one of the motherly female scientists Definitely got to him yeah]

Diss eckt...? What this?

["This" is still a concept he's working on. "This" and "it" and "doing" sort of nebulously mean the same thing to him.]

[dyn4m0]

…Tch. Don’t worry about what that one means.

[Despite rolling his eyes and still looking high key annoyed, that doesn’t stop Add from reaching out and patting Ain’s head, letting his fingertips brush loosely through his damp hair. It’s not often he touches the Siren with his bare hands, so this is a rare treat for sure.]

Since you’re out of your tank anyway, let’s see what all you’ve learned.

[Add pulls up his chair and sits in it, right in front of Ain eating peanut butter from the jar like a dog. Time to see if he can get him to pay attention for a lesson.

He’ll do a couple things by pointing to himself, Ain, and certain objects asking “what is this” or “who is that”. He’ll also sign words, “Please” “No” “Yes” “Mad” “Sad” “Hurt” “Sick”, to name a few key ones.]

[eidxiety]

[Ain nuzzles into Add's hand as usual and says "good boy" to himself, like he often does. Like no sir you've been a very bad boy you stole two flasks and nearly ate a glove.

Ain is very good at this, though. It seems like he learnt a lot while he was depressed and flat, and that they at least got him to listen to some lessons in an attempt to cheer him up. Strangely he never uses his assigned name that Add gave him, though, stubbornly refusing because he Has a name. When it comes to his turn to say what he is, he clicks out his name, and if Add presses he's suddenly "good boy" and "smart baby", which he has recognized aren't names but endearing forms of praise.

He's very good at signing out emotions, too, and his fins will even flatten or shake depending. "Sad" means he droops like limp kelp, "mad" means he puffs all his fins out and snarls. "Hurt" is harder for him to understand without being hurt, but if Add bangs his hand on the desk or something in the name of science, Ain not only asks him "hurts?" but leans forward to lick the harmed area. Sick is also hard for him without being sick, since Sirens don't display human illness symptoms entirely.

Identifying new objects though... This is where the sillies come in. Ain points at Add's phone and rings. He points at the computer keyboard and imitates keys clacking. The mug from earlier, as well as any silverware lying around, don't have specific names but rather specific miming motions he does to show he's seen humans use them but doesn't know what they're called. Add's pen is Pen, thanks for teaching him that earlier, rocks are rocks. The computer monitor is classical music sounds, and the printer is "no" because he hates it. It's a big loud machine and he hates them all.]

[dyn4m0]

[Add writes these things down on a clipboard as they go, and he finds himself of two minds about Ain’s progress. The first being that he’s very impressed with just how much he’s learned in a relatively short amount of time, just a little over a month now. But the second…

Is this unexplained wave of jealousy he feels over the fact that his coworkers taught Ain all these new words and concepts while he was away, without his input, without really fully informing him until he found out just now. It’s akin to your son learning to walk but doing it in front of a complete stranger.

…except it’s not, right? This is his experiment. He’s not attached to Ain, emotionally, or in any way other than him being a culmination of his life’s work up to this point, essentially. He’s just feeling burnt by having what feels like credit stolen from him. His work and skill is being clouded by this additional data…

He has to shake this off. Any sort of feelings will ruin his work too, he knows that much.]

Good. That’s enough for now. We’ll reinforce your learning and try teaching you some new terms this week. Assuming you don’t end up eating latex before then.

[He’s going to have to start locking his cabinets…

For now, Add reaches out and pets Ain one more time- a reward, nothing more- and stands, gesturing to his tank.]

Back to the tank now, come on. I need to run this report.

[eidxiety]

[Pets for Ain :) happy Ain :) he does not know a damn thing about Add's mental state surrounding this, but he does know he hasn't finished this peanut butter jar off because they were having lessons in humanspeak, and the face he makes says "okay but my snacks". Mmm.

He carefully screws the cap back on and puts it on Add's desk for later as he gets up, then points at it as he shakes his tired legs out. Sitting on them never feels quite right.]

Have.

[This is a command rather than a question, and Ain looks unsure how to phrase "I want to have this later because you promised", so he leaves it at "have" and then proceeds to plonk upstairs into his tank.]

[dyn4m0]

Yeah yeah, you can have the rest later.

[Probably for the best he isn’t eating it all at once anyway, that’s a lot of peanut butter even for a mostly empty jar.

He’ll take the jar and put it away with the rest of the shelf stable foods for Ain before he goes to his desk to start transcribing his notes and writing up his report. There’s a lot of detail to cover, so Ain won’t have to worry about being alone for an hour or two until Add has to get up and meet with his boss in his office in the wake of the storm to go over next steps. They still need a few more weeks to prepare, but it seems maybe in three weeks time they can get a female into Ain’s tank to see if they’ll be able to integrate them into the breeding program. It’ll be a huge success for Add in particular if they do, since the pod has struggled to produce more than one or two eggs a season lately, which is. NOT good for the longevity of the species, as you’d expect…]

[eidxiety]

[Maybe you need to find straighter sirens because uhh???

The weeks from there pass by as normal, though. No more power outages, any rainstorms that come in are normal and don't flood the facility, no sleepovers but Add has normal weekends and Ain doesn't get depressed... Ain plays in the sand, demands treats, and learns more words. He's getting closer to full sentences, although he's not quite there yet, having gotten waylaid by those yucky two-or-more-syllable words. He tolerates exams (he does not cry for approximately one of the like, six they give him) (so he's doing better). There's a small incident where he breaks one of the flasks he stole and cuts himself, and in a panic because he didn't realise they could break he holes up in his nest and it takes Add and two other scientists to coax him out of the tank to get treatment (and also remove the non-broken flask and the glass shards). After that, his flasks are replaced with more difficult to break plastic ones that he can bang around to his heart's content, although Ain ends up using one of them more as storage for his pearls and the other becomes something he regularly crams his tentacles into for ??? reasons, no one knows, this fish is probably autistic—

Eventually, though, week three comes along, and Ain... well, as biological processes would have it, Ain goes into heat. It happens quicker than he was expecting, and he's miserable about it, finding himself lethargic and sad because there's no male in here for him to mate with to solve it. He can get by, he's done it before, but it's also very embarrassing the morning after it happens when Add walks in and just sees Ain lying on his back in the sand with his dicks out because this is just an instinctual process. After that, he retreats into his den and doesn't come out again.

So yeah, he's in heat.

And what do the scientists do about this? Do they leave him alone? No, they don't. Do they give him a male? No, they missed that part. Do they put a female in his tank? Yeah they do that one, and instead of trying to mount her, Ain...

Hides.

He hides, and even goes as far as to use his bedding and the sand to block off the entrance to the cave so she can't come in.

Yeah guys hi he doesn't like women.]

[dyn4m0]

[For what it’s worth, Add actually feels pretty bad about the flasks. He’s directly responsible for not getting them out of Ain’s tank in time before they got broken, and because of that he gets hurt when one does inevitably break. He takes full responsibility too, the chewing out he gets for letting one of the Sirens get hurt so avoidably and all. Fortunately it’s not a serious thing, and Ain seems to be happy with the harder plastic replacements and not traumatized by glass forever (they assume), but still…Ain might notice Add slipping him extra treats that day. At least he seems happy and healthy otherwise.

Well. At least until Add walks in one day and Ain’s dicks are just fucking out the second he flicks the lights on. He was NOT expecting that to be the first thing he saw this morning, but the mating season has begun after all…it’s just nature. Just science. It’s whatever.

(Yeah it’s whatever until you get your hands on the fish but anyway-)

Ain hides himself away, and that kind of behavior is expected when he’s in heat with no partner, which is why a female is quickly introduced. They leave to give them privacy for an hour or so, only to be shocked to find Ain not only still hiding, but having completely walled off his hide so the female can’t even enter it with him.

Uh. Here Add thought he’d love having the company, even if he wasn’t interested in her for breeding…

He’s the first back into the room once they spot this on the cameras, quickly ushering his coworkers back in.]

Take her out. He’s clearly stressed. I’ll see if I can talk to him at all.

[eidxiety]

[Whee! Out she goes! She's going to shrug at the rest of the pod like "they tried to pair me off with the gay one they took earlier" and they're all gonna be like damn can humans not tell that's wild. Ain, meanwhile, hears the hatch opening and the grate being pulled back, and knocks enough sand out of the way to poke his head out and look around just in time to see her being removed. Well, that's good, at least.

He stays mostly burrowed behind his safety wall of packed sand and mud and seaweed, still alarmed and embarrassed and really not wanting to deal with this at all. He watches Add like a hawk whenever he re-enters the room from the back of the tank where his cave is, pupils flexing and dilating like he's tracking prey. This sort of defensive behaviour is to be expected, considering males are supposed to be "protectors" of the pod, but Ain really only has half that instinct and is more interested in protecting himself.

You know. From women.]

[dyn4m0]

[The other scientists are baffled, while Add just figures it’s Ain. It’s just Ain. Ain is a weird one, maybe he’s just not interested in mating period? Sirens can’t be gay, obviously. But more than that, Add doesn’t want to stress out his subject for no reason, so. Back to the pod with ye, woman.

Once he’s seen her out and is sure she’s being taken care of, he’ll walk back to Ain’s tank and come around to the front glass instead of trying to coax Ain to the surface of the water since he doubts he’ll actually come out right now. He can’t actually see Ain in his den because of how he’s built the wall, but he will tap lightly on the glass to let him know he’s there.]

Okay idiot, it’s just me. What’s wrong? Are you “sad”? “Hurt”?

[He signs as he speaks.]

[eidxiety]

[Ain is looking out through the little hole he made... he frowns. He's not sure how to explain it to Add. The scientists don't seem to get what he wants when it comes to tankmates, and he's been relatively okay being on his own as long as he saw Add in particular daily. What he wants is a pretty boy mate to crush him a bit, but obviously that's not happening if he can't clearly explain it.

He hisses low in the back of his throat, the disturbed water spewing bubbles upwards, and then pokes his head out a little further.]

No... [He motions to the top of the tank where the female just was, hoping Add gets that he's talking about her.] No. [He shakes his head.]

Want... [This is difficult. Ain motions very generally to himself, repeatedly, trying not to be crass and swim out and point to his genitals like "I want someone with these thanks".] Want this.

[dyn4m0]

[Add is so smart- possibly the smartest scientist here in this building- but he can’t quite figure out what Ain is asking for. He says he “wants this”, but that doesn’t really answer his question. Wants…himself? He obviously doesn’t want the female but like…

Add shakes his head, rubbing the bridge of his nose.]

You want…to mate. I assume. But also you don’t want to. Was that female not desirable to you?

[They could try a different female, but Ain is already so stressed he doesn’t want to risk making it too much worse.]

We could satisfy your urges via artificial means, but that would be such a waste…

[eidxiety]

[How does he tell you "no booking breastily"... They make this so hard. Humanspeak is so stupid.

Ain swims a little bit further out, above the waist only, then lays on his back and points upwards to the grate.]

No.

[And then he makes vague motions like he's trying to signal breasts. Well.

So much for avoiding being crass.]

Yes.

[Points to Add.]

[dyn4m0]

[Okay, no female, he gets that part. He doesn’t want her, and probably no other female, which makes zero sense to Add ant all but again maybe Ain just doesn’t want to mate? He may not be comfortable doing so, because as far as they know he’s only just now had the opportunity to do so for the first time. He’s still a young adolescent and-]

…huh?

[Ain points at him, and. Add immediately- ridiculously, stupidly- gets clocked so hard by his own internalized homophobia that he blurts without thinking:]

Me??

[eidxiety]

[Ain literally shrugs at that. Like, his shoulders go up and then down in the sand and everything.]

Add. [And then he nods but points to himself again, trying to explain in the worst way possible that any man will do so long as that man comes equipped and is willing to rawdog him against the glass or something.] Or... yes.

[Because he can't say "or me" because it's like. Yeah girl he's jorked it a couple times that's not fixing his issues.]

Or no. [Or no mating and you just deal with him in heat for the next several weeks regardless.]

[dyn4m0]

[Okay clearly something is just being lost in translation here and he’s just not understanding, there’s no way this fish wants HIM. He definitely means to say something else, but the communication just simply isn’t fully there. Ain is trying at least, poor thing…

Add sighs and rubs both hands down his face, taking a moment to clam down (why is his heart racing, what the fuck is his problem) before he steps out for a second before returning with some steaks for Ain. Red meat is the preferred diet for Sirens while they’re in heat to keep their strength up, and Add has no idea yet how bad of an idea this will be.

He’s at least safe today because he just tosses the meat right in, knowing Ain is currently in no mood for games. He should calm down a bit after the first few days have passed.]

Well, we’ll leave you alone for now. So long as you don’t stop eating, you not mating is more disappointing than an actual problem. I’ll talk to my boss about artificial aids later. It won’t give us any results but it will keep you from being stressed.

[Because he can’t do his work if you’re stressed!!]