Chapter 18 #2
“It’s a little dark, but I think its cool anyway—Indi is really sweet, they even hung up some of my art!” Joon said, mouth going a mile a minute as they opened the door with a flourish.
If they hadn’t told me before, I would’ve known now that Indi had spearheaded the decorations for the rest of the house because their room matched perfectly. It was the same deep green as the front hall, with a matching bedspread and a large fireplace in the middle of the far wall.
“It’s original,” Indigo said from behind, leaning in the doorframe as they followed my eyes. “I tried to keep as much of the house’s charm as possible.”
“It shows,” I praised, earning a big grin that made my knees feel weak.
Along the far wall was a small shelf, stacked to the brim with comics and records.
The player sat on top, the protective plastic casing pulled down to keep the needle dust free, and above there were a few thin shelves displaying what I immediately assumed were favorites of Joon’s.
There was no way that Indigo loved L-OV enough to front face all three of their albums.
A large tank sat on one of the dressers lining the interior wall, filled with large logs, plants, and a fair bit of substrate. A sunlamp beat down onto a low dish filled with water and part of the log, offering a warm place for a familiar knot of dusky rose scales to rest.
"Is that Potato?" I asked, walking towards the snake.
"Uh-huh," Indi said, following me over. “I moved her back out of the office, I don’t think she liked the lights much.”
"How long have you had her?” I asked, trying to remember when they’d first shown the beautiful little pink snake on stream.
“A few years.”
“What? You only told me about her a couple months ago!” I tried not to be offended since they obviously weren't required to tell me anything, but we’d been friends for a long time, and I was sure I hadn’t heard about the snake until pretty recently.
"It's not about you," Joon said, like they’d read my mind. "They were keeping her a secret from everyone.”
I turned to Indi with a pointed look, waiting for an explanation.
"Cameo has a strict no pet rule," they said with a sigh. "But when I saw her in the store, she looked so bummed out in that fuckass little glass box they had her in? I couldn’t just leave her there.”
"So, what?” I asked with a laugh. “You bought her and just didn't tell anyone?"
“Didn’t need to. She’s basically silent, and doesn't leave the room. And she's too small to eat mice yet, so it’s just worms. I keep the live ones in the fridge in the office, and the rest are freeze dried… Kept the information to myself so Cameo wouldn’t find out, you know?”
I nodded, still not a hundred percent on how the hell Indigo managed to get a tank this size into the house without anyone noticing. "I'm assuming he knows now?"
"Yeah,” Joon said with a guilty laugh. “That might’ve been my fault.”
“Might.” Indigo rolled their eyes, pinching the omega’s side and making them squirm. “Absolutely was, you mean.”
I grinned at their antics. "What did you do?"
Joon wriggled away from Indi’s fingers, huffing. “Well, when Indi brought me over, obviously they told me about her.”
“Not much hiding her if you’re in the room, I fear.” Indi laughed.
Joon shot the alpha a look to tell them to stop interrupting, and they mimed zipping their lips with a shrug.
“As I was saying,” he said, rolling his eyes. “I was under strict orders not to tell anyone about her, and I didn’t! But I felt bad that she was cooped up all the time, and let her hang out with me while I was drawing sometimes… One day I got a little too into it, and lost track of time, and…”
My eyes widened, hand covering my mouth in horror. "You lost her?"
“She’s small!" Joon whined. "And I didn't realize she could get through the crack under the door. The second I realized I couldn’t see her, I tore the room apart."
"It was a fuckin’ mess," Indi chimed in, earning a smack in the arm from Joon.
"Anyway,” he continued, with a pointed look at the alpha, “I started searching around the house for her, trying to be subtle. But I was digging around Cameo's room when he found me."
"What did you tell him?" I asked, barely stifling a laugh.
Cameo didn’t seem like the kind of alpha that took well to people going through his stuff.
"I tried to make something up, obviously. But the stupid alpha saw right through me, it’s honestly the most annoying thing about him—”
“So he cracked, like immediately,” Indigo interrupted.
“Are you telling the story or me?”
“Sorry, sorry,” Indigo said, opening the top drawer to pull out a tin and pair of tweezers.
“I told Cameo the truth because I’d only been dating Indi for like four months, and I couldn’t kill their pet!”
The little snake unfurled at the sound of the tin, slowly slithering to the front of the glass enclosure to the sliding door. Her little little snoot pressed against the side of the tank, red eyes curious.
"Where did you find her?" I asked, coming close to watch Indigo.
"She was curled up in a box I'd left in my closet," Indi said. "Didn’t even leave."
I couldn't help it, I doubled over and started cackling. "Stop! So you told Cameo for nothing?!"
"It's not that funny," Joon complained.
"It's pretty fuckin’ funny, butterfly," Indi said, unscrewing the top of the tin to reveal a bunch of little black bits that I couldn’t quite make out in the low light of the room.
"I'm assuming Cameo changed the no pet rule?"
"No, he tried to get me to get rid of her for a long time."
"What finally convinced him?" I asked as Indigo reached into the tin with the tweezers.
Joon cleared his throat, drawing my gaze.
"I just asked really nicely,” he said, offering me a suggestive smile that told me there wasn’t much talking involved.
“So it all ended—” I started, looking back towards Indi and narrowly stopping myself from letting out a shriek at the bug waiting at the end of the tweezers, jumping backwards and accidentally knocking into Joon.
“Well,” the omega chuckled, catching me around the waist. “You aren’t scared of bugs, are you, Eva?”
“Terrified,” I mumbled, feeling a little silly. “I fucking hate them.”
“That’s hilarious,” Indi said, dropping the bug into Potato’s tank and closing the lid on the tin before stowing it away again. “Don’t worry, doll. All gone, see?”
The little snake was after the bug in a flash, barely letting it touch the bottom of the tank before she snapped it up. It was almost comforting; at least if there was a bug in here, I could trust that the world’s cutest exterminator would be quick to make sure it wouldn’t be for long.
“Why is that funny?” I asked, narrowing my eyes at the alpha.
“No reason,” Joon said quickly, giving his alpha a dirty look. “Want to see Indi’s office?”
“You could meet the girls!” Indigo said, smiling so wide, that I decided to let the weird moment drop.
Stinking cute alpha, how was I supposed to worry about anything with them throwing around pet names and smiling like that?
“Bathroom is through there,” Joon said, motioning to the door to the side of their bed. “And this way…” they walked backwards in the direction of the fireplace, waving for me to follow, “is where the magic happens.”
“Shouldn’t that be the bedroom?” I asked, earning a pair of heated looks.
Indigo’s hand wrapped around my waist, lips brushing my ear as they pressed into my back. For a moment, my world collapsed into that single point of contact, heat blooming over my chest and up my neck.
“C’mon, doll. I think we all know that it can be both.”