[Closed] @eidxiety🧜‍♀️🔬

[winterbolt]

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[dyn4m0]

[It's really much of the same for the next two weeks. Add gets to learn a lot of new information, not just about Siren pod behavior as a whole, but Ain's behavior with other Sirens. He notes...that he's a very social creature, perhaps even moreso than a lot of his kin, and he's the happiest when he's with a group. He's more anxious than he lets on, as he definitely seems more extroverted when he has other Sirens to play with. Otherwise, when alone...he becomes sad, and despondent. Or, he becomes overly clingy with his human caretakers, Add in particular.

Add takes special care of Ain, feeding him apart from the other Sirens, as promised. About half a week in, they all get their own coconut to eat and play with, so Add gets to watch the Sirens bounce coconuts and their shells around in the water for the next couple of days afterwards.]

[eidxiety]

[The Sirens eat coconuts like you'd expect them to, which is to say: some of them jam their thumbs through the shell to drink that way before it all spills into the water, some of them take their coconuts to the air pocket above to crack them together and slurp that way, but all of them eat the meat by scraping it out with their teeth or claws. And yes, the shells become toys for them to bonk together, like playing instruments.

This is Add's week, and the week after that. And then one day, before Add comes in in the morning, Ain decides to Do A Crime.

He has not forgotten that Add wants cake, and he wants to say thanks for the coconuts for everyone, so Ain and his crafty bones sneak out. It's just as the sun comes back on but before Add usually comes in that Ain squishes himself through the grate at the top of the tank through that hatch he's usually fed at, shakes off, and plonks around on his bare feet looking for clothing. He can't find the hospital scrubs they gave him, but he does find an extra labcoat hanging in this room and puts that on. He understands how buttons work thanks to seeing them so many times and manages to button it up, but the coat is a little too large on him and gives him slight sweater paws as a result. Oh well, he can work with this.

From there, Ain discovers that the door to this containment unit doesn't exactly open... so he shrugs and squishes himself flat under the door. Reminder that he has octopus genes—

Now that he's outside, he can at least open the door if he needs to, but he does a little spin and then directs himself down the hall to where the cafeteria is. No one questions this, no one asks where Add is, they all just look at him like "yeah I guess you have permission to do this???". Like usual, Ain politely stands in line (there isn't much of a line this early in the morning) and when he gets to the front, he asks the woman running shop here, very seriously:]

Cake for Add??

[Little does Ain know that Add has to like, pay for meals and that this will be charged to him lately, but he receives a little square of chocolate cake in a clamshell case and plonks down the hallway to go wait for Add. He can't get under the door again with this, but luckily he sees Add coming and runs (read: big steppies very fast) to catch up.

His sweater paws hand the cake over.

He has no idea that he's three seconds from being yelled at.]

[dyn4m0]

[Giving all of the Sirens coconuts was...both a good and bad idea. Good, because it gives him a lot more information to note down for his notes, and bad because...well, it's noisy. Even underwater, the clatter of coconut shells against themselves and rocks and other things are very, very noisy. And he has to BE in here all day for work for a while...but it's fine. He's made the fish happy, and happy Sirens are better all around.

Anyway! Add absolutely has no idea what's waiting for him that next morning. He was just expecting to, you know...go to work like normal, feed the Sirens like normal, do his work like normal...

So it's probably a good thing he's not mid sip of his hot morning coffee as he slugs to work and swipes his ID card at the door to clock in, pivots on his foot, and looks up just in time to see Ain Rapidly Approaching him wearing a lab coat and holding a piece of chocolate cake in a plastic takeout container.

It's also a good thing his instinct is to grip his cup tighter and crush it ever so slightly, instead of dropping it in alarm.]

Wh-!? Ain??! What are you doing out!?

[eidxiety]

Got cake!!

[He says this in full humanspeak in case anyone is around and continues holding this in Add's face like, you said you wanted cake so? take cake??? hello????? Then in click language, he continues:]

You said you wanted cake, so I got you cake! I crept out through the top of the tank and under the door and the nice woman who serves the food gave it to me when I asked for cake for you. This is thanks for getting everyone coconuts.

[GIRL]

[dyn4m0]

Under the-?!

[Add stiffens, remembering himself at the last second, and comes in closer so he can hiss-whisper:]

You went under the door?? How did you even do that?!

[Oops guess who hasn't fully documented this behavior in Sirens yet!!! And it's also slowly dawning on Add that he also was able to easily escape the tank this way...

Oh dear.]

You're not supposed to leave without me here!

[eidxiety]

[Holds onto Add's hand and plops the cake into it since he's not taking it... smh.]

But I wanted to surprise you with cake... I can't surprise you if you're there. [Duh.] And I don't understand the question. I just went under it. Do you want to see?

[Not all Sirens can do this, like, that orca alpha definitely cannot... but he could also crush that top grate and break the glass if he wanted to. The Sirens are in there because they want to be. Free food and soft sand and temperature-controlled waters are basically a luxury Air BnB to them.]

[dyn4m0]

[He's holding the cake now...it's not that he isn't happy to have some cake, it's sweet that Ain got it for him, but him ESCAPING is of higher concern and priority right now. His eye twitches, but he can't press his fingers into the bridge of his nose because he has coffee in one hand and cake in the other.

Hoo boy.]

...show me.

[eidxiety]

Okay~.

[And Ain big steppies back to the room, oblivious, while the people around them are genuinely like "oh this must have been for enrichment, nods, makes sense". When they reach the door, instead of Ain doing what he was planning to do originally and see if he couldn't get the keycard unlock to work for him, he just

flattens himself on the floor

and squishes under the crack like an octopus, despite a) having relatively solid bones and b) his tail being kinda chunky and c) his fins being all frilly and fragile-looking.

He's just under there.

He will wait until Add's back in the room before he says anything.]

See? Not all of us can do that, but I can.

[dyn4m0]

[Add watches with a mixture of horror and shock as Ain just slips underneath the door like he's made of some kind of liquid, and the few employees who happened to be standing around to witness this all gasp and clamor to the door to get a closer look, even though Ain has already squished himself through to the other side.

Oh, this is bad. This is fucking BAD with a capital B. Not only did an entire room of people just SEE that, but they're also witness to Add being a terrible caretaker because his Siren escaped and he's going to get his ass fucking fired. He might never get to see Ain again, if that happens, and the thought makes his mouth go dry. He can't even focus on the people trying to ask him questions as he disassociates his way into the room, gesturing for Ain to go back into the tank.]

J-just get back in the tank for now, okay? I know you didn't mean it but- We'll talk about this later.

[eidxiety]

[Ain deflates when Add looks upset, somehow looking distinctly flat like he didn't just squish up under the door and become literally flat. Did he do something bad...? He doesn't understand, but it's not like he can talk to Add about it right now, not with other people in the room.

He just very sadly takes off the lab coat and climbs back to get in the water, squishing down through the grate. The other Sirens do notice that he's suddenly Depressed and Anxious, though, a couple of the larger males coming to squish him flat while the mothery Siren asks a bunch of questions.

Ain's conclusion is that he got the wrong type of cake because he didn't understand what it was enough to know better. She pats his head and joins the pile of flat Sirens.]

[dyn4m0]

[Add feels bad about it, but he can't explain because there are still a hundred people in here asking HIM questions he doesn't really feel like answering. He's quickly becoming overwhelmed as he spirals, actually, and he just wants to leave-

Until he suddenly feels his walkie buzz at his hip, prompting him to pick it up quickly to answer. It's his boss, unsurprisingly...she's asking to see him in her office.

Yep, here it comes, he's being fired.

He shoulders his way through the crowd after taking one last look back at his sad, confused Siren before he leaves. Ain won't see Add for an hour, at least, as he talks to his supervisor about what just happened. He immediately launches into an attempt to explain himself, but she's laughing and waving him off before he can get much of a word in edgewise. She explains that she saw the whole thing from the cafeteria, and Ain obviously was just trying to do a nice thing by getting cake for him. He said "cake FOR Add" after all. Never mind the huge discovery they've made with Sirens being little escape artists. For safety- theirs and the safety of the workers- they will need to devise a more secure tank closing mechanism for them...but for now, it's harmless.

A little bit alarming, perhaps, but harmless.

Add feels like he's going to pass the fuck out, but he'll leave after that and head back into the Siren's tank room, thankful that it's empty save for the Sirens themselves. He'll stiffly walk up to the tank where the Sirens are flat, putting his hands on the glass.]

Ain? You can come out.

[eidxiety]

[They are all so flat in there. They ate breakfast, but no one was there to hand-feed Ain, so the pod alpha had to make sure he ate something while he was being depressed. Ain sort of ate his breakfast with his face mushed into the sand like he does when he's upset and hasn't moved since, but when Add calls to him, he'll at least extract himself from the pile and swim up to the hatch for Out.]

Are you mad at me? Did I get you the wrong kind of cake? I don't know anything about cake, so I tried my best to surprise you because I love you and I want you to have cake.

[He is so sad and wet and anxious please help]

[dyn4m0]

I'm not mad. You didn't get the wrong cake, it's fine...

[He'll join Ain up at the top of the tank as he exits, sitting on the platform so Ain can flop beside him.]

You surprised me when I found you outside of the tank. [Duh, he was TRYING to do this.] We didn't think you could get out of the tank on your own, much less leave through closed doors. I thought my boss was going to fi- ...make me leave because you got out.

[eidxiety]

Oh, that's right... they take humans away when they do things wrong. [That's not... quite it, but Ain can't comprehend this sort of law-following, social-taboo-following structure humans have. This is as he understands human rules to be, which means not messing things up because you'll be taken away forever. He doesn't quite understand where the "away" is, but he supposes it's like banishing from a pod...] But that's not your fault. I just wanted to get you something to eat.

[He flops fully across Add's lap with his whole torso, the rest of him curled up around the man. No legs for now, he is fish.]

Was what I did bad...?

[dyn4m0]

[Sighing, Add reaches up to put his hand on Ain's head, brushing his fingers through his hair.]

No. You didn't know better. But Sirens aren't supposed to leave the tanks without a human supervising them...so don't do that again, okay?

[Even if his boss ended up being okay with it, he knows this will create problems for the future until they're able to more securely lock down the enclosures. It really isn't just because they fear the Sirens, exactly, but because a Siren could leave and hurt themselves on something just by being curious about it, like how Ain broke his glass beakers and cut himself by mistake.]

[eidxiety]

...okay. I won't. But I don't know how to get you gifts if I can't leave...

[Somehow, he gets... flatter. How has he gotten so flat.]

I'm not good at gifts. It's not like I can find much for you without going out. I don't know how else to court you, though.

[dyn4m0]

[Ain...]

You don't have to court me. We're already together?

[Pat pat. No be flat.

Add sighs, twisting at the hips so he can grab something from behind him and pull it into view. It's the cake from earlier, still uneaten.]

Here. Have this with me and stop looking so sad, would you?

[eidxiety]

I have to court you because that's respectful!!

[So THERE. Huff... but he'll push himself up when Add pulls the cake out, looking quizzical before he curls up into a snakelike sit.]

Okay. We can have the cake, if you want to. But you have to eat at least half.

[He got this FOR YOU.]

[dyn4m0]

I was gonna. Why do you think I held onto it this whole time?

[Huff huff. He even pulls out a fork he brought, using it to cut off pieces so he can eat them. Ain, on the other hand, he imagines will just pick up chunks of cake with his noodles, which is fine.]

Another thing is the food in the cafeteria isn't free. Remember when I told you about how things cost money for humans? I'm going to have to pay for that later.

[eidxiety]

...that's stupid. You can just go outside and get food.

[Ain, love, cake does not grow on trees and bakers should be paid for their professions.

Anyway yeah he's noodling the cake, but he finds that cake is very, very difficult to hold so uh? Eating chunks of cake off his tentacles it is. He's not expecting it to taste like this, though, and initially makes a face while his tongue calculates the bittersweet of chocolate. What is this...

Licks frosting off his tentacles.]

[dyn4m0]

[Despite all of his anxious grousing, deep down, Add is still pretty touched that Ain bothered to get him this at all. His boss seemed to think it was sweet too, even though she...doesn't fully understand the scope of its meaning. She just thinks Ain has grown very attached to his handler, and uh, yeah. He's grown attached alright...

He looks at Ain sidelong as they eat, frowning while reaching for a napkin he stuffed into the inside pocket of his coat.]

You're getting chocolate all over your face, you big baby.

[Here let him wipe you-]

[eidxiety]

[Mlehhh— he tries to lick Add's hand. He winds up licking napkin instead.

Tragic.]

This is hard to eat. It's crumbly and falls apart too easily.

[And it's sticky, which he minds less, but like??? ?? How do you eat this. With FORK? That's lame, eating utensils are stupid. Ain is trying his best to lick cake crumbs and chocolate off of his suckers though. Thank god his tongue is long and can fit into weird places or else he'd be screwed here.]

[dyn4m0]

Duh. That's why we eat with these.

[He gestures with his fork as he cuts off another piece of cake to put in his mouth.]

If you'd let me teach you how to eat with them properly, you'd be able to eat anything you wanted no matter how crumbly or slippery.

[Add just slowly continuing to domesticate his fish.]

[eidxiety]

...maybe next time we go to get food.

[He will try... to learn how forks work... he will be so good. He's learnt to put clothes on (kind of), he will have to figure out utensils. He's becoming rapidly domesticated.]

We can try it then. 'Cause I'm almost done with this now, so there's no point, is there?

[Nom. The last few bites of his half are polished off, and boy, his entire mouth and lips are very chocolate-tasting. This is a strong flavour.]

[dyn4m0]

[With the cake eaten, Add closes the plastic container and puts it aside so it can be thrown away later.]

Guess not.

[From there he'll sigh and look down into the tank where the other Sirens are. There's the same kind of mesh grate with a door, which is different from Ain's tank which just has the grate...but he's realizing now that this is useless for keeping the Sirens in. Even this much is too much leeway. Would they still be able to get out if it was completely sealed with a lock or something, he wonders?]

If you guys could leave all this time, I'm surprised you just...haven't.