Otterbabble

<snip>"Sorry I'm late." She smiled. "I didn't realise we would have company..." She grinned impishly, trying to get Alex to smile.</snip>

“Hi.” Alex flashed her a brief, tight, smile and returned his wary gaze to Max, as if worried the little boy might disappear at any moment. Jade accepted her coffee from the furry Starbugs barista, murmuring a grateful thanks.
“Sorry,” said Alex “I didn’t know- Katrina asked-” He hiked a thumb towards the little boy, who was sat on the stool next to him, cute in his striped jumper and a mini pair of dark green cords.
“You want me to leave, so that you two can do boy stuff?” Enquired Jade, still mischievous.
“No!”
She smiled at the panic in Solvay’s voice.
“No” he repeated, more calmly. “Stay. Please.”

The vendor placed a cup in front of him. “There we go, sir! Another Caramel Macchiato.”
“Cara what?”
“Caramel Macchiato.”
“I just wanted another plain, good old fashioned coffee. What’s this fancy shit?”
The vendor, confused, paused and pondered the mix up.
A tiny, polite, voice rose to accuse Alex.
“… You said a swear.”
Alex stopped glaring at the vendor to look down at the little boy; He couldn’t recall ever having heard him speak before.
Max stared right back at him.
“… No.” Alex said, after a while of cool, mutual, scrutiny. “You heard wrong. I said ‘ship’.”
“You diddun’t.” Max insisted. “You said a swear.”
Jade’s eyes gave away her smile, over the top of a mouth-raised hand. Alex’s, still on Max, narrowed in thought. Max copied, narrowing his own up at the straight-faced Solvay.
“You’re right,” Alex admitted eventually “I did. I’m sorry.”
Max nodded solemnly. “Don’t do it again.”
Alex shook his head. “I won’t do it again.”

Coughing her laughter away, Jade smiled at the little one. “Would you like a drink, too, Max?” He nodded.
“Burger place.” Suggested Alex. “They do proper milkshakes.”
“All right,” Jade nodded “I’ll send Katrina a message to let her know where we’ve gone.”
They got up and made to leave.
“Excuse me” the mouse barista interrupted “do you want this or not?”
“Yeh.” Alex grunted, taking the coffee and turning to walk away. He noticed Max was watching, large-eyed, and turned back to the vendor.
“Thank you... Very much.” He forced a polite smile over his lips and nodded his head slowly.
The mouse didn’t realise it was forced, and smiled cheerfully in return. “Have a nice day, folks!”

---

Carrying drinks and food from the counter, Alex felt like he was back on Earth in a regular burger joint. Well, a regular burger joint on Earth which happened to be staffed by oversized rodents in stripy aprons and hats.
Quite odd.
Quite nice.
He almost relaxed a little.
He reached the table and the kind lady doctor and the sweet little boy smiled up at him from their squidgy bench-seat. It sent a pang of… something… through him. He coughed to cover it, as if somehow his feelings were being advertised on a billboard.
“Here.” He put the stuff on the table.
“Fank you Mr Frowny” said Max.
Alex double took. “Wha?” He looked at Jade “You teach him to say that?” The cheeky duo nodded, pleased with themselves.
To Jade’s, and somewhat his own, surprise, Alex’s face broke into an easy smile.
He sat down, shaking his head.
“Wallies.”
“Oh, ‘wallies’ is it?” Jade chuckled, making Max giggle too. “That’s not very nice, Mr Frowny, is it Max?”
“No! ‘Snot verynice!” Reinforced the small one.
Giving them a raised-eyebrow-slightest-of-smiles combo, Alex took a bite of his burger.
“Silly Alex” claimed Jade.
“Silly Alec” agreed Max.
Alex chewed for a while. “Alex” he corrected.
“Alec” said Max.
“No. Alex.”
“Alec.”
“No. Alex.”
"Alec."
"Alex."
“Mr Frow-“
“Fine. Alec.”

Max happily ate his meal, swinging his legs and getting ketchup around his mouth. The whole thing was surreal in its bizarre normalcy.

A family of otters entered. One of them, the father, was especially aesthetically pleasing. It spotted them and bounded over.
“Ahhlex?” It was the otter who Alex had once been forced to team up with, along with a bunch of other woodland type creatures, to rescue Seymour, Cass and Jay from some evil pervy simulants.
Alex got up to greet him. “Ottiver?”
“Yas yas yas! HEehlo!” He gave Alex a hug around the middle, causing Alex to feel, and look, very awkward indeed. “Yeh, all right” he patted the creature on the head.
Thankfully, the otter finally stood back. “Ahlex your hair. It GROW!”
“Yep." He nodded at the others "That your family?”
“Yes. Dis Lena, Mena, Pena and Gina.” Ottiver waved a proud paw at a pretty lady otter and three scampy, kitten-cute child-otters.
Alex nodded to them. “All right.”
“Who?” Ottiver enquired of Jade and Max.
“F… Friends. Jade. Max.”
Max’s mouth was hanging open. Apparently he was awestruck by the three adorable otter children.
“They play?” Ottiver gestured to a nearby play area.

“Oh, I don’t know about that.”
“Alex” said Jade, gently, “it’s about a metre and a half away from us. He’ll be fine.
Alex was hesitant. “No. Sorry, I-“
Ottiver laughed. “He be good, proms. Come littel one!” Beaming, he held his arms Maxwards, in a welcoming gesture.
Max looked up at Alex, checking, like a good boy. Alex double checked the distance and nodded. With a squeak of delight, Max scampered over to the three otters who were also squeaking, and rolling about in a sandpit with some weird animal toys. There were also several plastic constructions and abacuses to one side.

Ottiver winked. “Okay hoomies. Enjoy meal.” He swayed off, even his walk was pleasing to behold.

“We’ve already fed him when he’d just had ice cream, now we’re letting him play with otters. Katrina trusted me” Alex said, voice low.
Jade laughed. “Those are not bad things. What do you think’s going to happen? You think the otters will suddenly develop a taste for human flesh?”
“They wouldn’t?” Alex’s chair scraped as he got abruptly to his feet.
“Ha ha! Calm down! Look, he’s happy as anything. Do you need me to prescribe you something relaxing?”
He gave her a look and sat back down, grumbling. “Very funny.”

They sat in silence for a while, watching Max play happily in the sand just like any other regular kid. It was soul-soothingly therapeutic.

After a while, Alex remembered the reason for their meeting and turned to Jade. “I like your top” he began, as a truthful ice-breaker, at the same time as she said “Enjoying your milkshake?”
They chuckled, awkwardly in Alex’s case.
“I like your top” he repeated.
“What, this old thing?” Jade joked. She was dressed casually. Casual but smart, in a grey wrappy roundy jumpery thing and trousers.
Alex was considerably smarter than usual himself, in a faded green henley shirt and dark jeans. He'd bothered to shave, too.
“Yeah, I like it. And yes, the shake is good. No idea where they get the milk from, though” he shrugged, repeating what Katrina had said at Starbugs. He looked at his burger, momentary concern rippling across his features “or the meat, come to that.”

There was another silence, broken only by happy squeals from the sandpit.
“Listen, Jade.”
“Hmm?”
“They say-“ he grunted and stopped, it was a horrible thing to have to discuss. Jade tilted her head. He took a breath and tried again. “They say I hit you. If I did, I’m sorry." He looked at the table and fiddled with a napkin. "You gotta believe me, I am not a lady-hitter.”
“Alex, it’s okay. You were half out of your mind” she considered this “Completely out of your mind” she amended. “You were ill, hallucinating. Think nothing of it. Really. I coulda been anyone. You thought I was a haruk.”
Still guilty but relieved to some extent, he lifted his downcast eyes and nodded. “… ‘Kay. Thanks.”
He took another slurp of milkshake to try and steel himself for the next apology. “And uh… Your note.”
“M’yes?”
“I don’t-“ he paused again, wanting to say ‘read too good’, but couldn’t, just could not bring himself, to utter it aloud. He settled for “know what happened there”.
“Well like I say, terrible handwriting.”
“You should see mine!”
She smiled. “That it?”
He nodded.
“Well, you didn’t have anything to apologise for anyway.”
“Not how I saw it, but thanks.” Alex said, getting his fags out, clocking the children and putting them away again.
“Now then, what’s all this ‘Dear’ business?” Said Jade, echoing her message “I thought we were friends.”
Alex looked at her. “Friends. I don’t… do friends. Don't want them, I mean.”
“Oh really? Well I’m pretty sure I just heard you telling that otter over there that Max and I are your friends.”
He gave her a look. “Bit hard to explain to an otter that you’re... Y'know, messed up.”
“You think you’re messed up?”
“Yeah.” He blew air through his lips, then looked into her eyes, his own suddenly focused. “Wait a minute, don’t you start all that psycho-thingy business on me.”
She grinned and held up her hands. “Hey, I wasn’t.”

Wiping his paws, Ottiver approached, an impressive belch slipping from his whisker-adorned snout.
“Oh! ‘Scuse I! Now you comes childplays, yes?”
Alex jutted his bottom lip. “What's ‘child plays’?”
“Big place for pups and growns have lots fun. Vermin don’t stop play when get big! We all play with childses in activities, burrowings and climbings. Yes? You understands?”
Alex’s eyes opened wide as he processed the otterbabble, and realised that Ottiver was inviting them to join his family in a big centre where adults and children alike all played.
“No. Nope. Thanks but we gotta go now... Nice to see you. Come on Jade" he flustered.
Jade looked at her watch and palm-puter. “No we don’t” she grinned. “And Katrina’s not finished yet.”
“But you’ve been ill” Alex pointed out, “you’ll be exhausted.”
“I’ll be fine!”
Max and the three baby otters had gathered around Alex’s legs and were now tugging at his trousers.
“Pleaase” Max pouted up at him.
“Oh my Gods” Solvay groaned. “I thought I was just going out for a quick, quiet coffee.”
“Pleeeasse A-lec?”
Solvay raised an eyebrow.
“… s” Max added, trying to charm a yes out of him by saying his name correctly.
“Moowwwrr!!!” Cried the otter babies. The cacophony meant that other patrons of the joint were starting to look.
Alex put a finger to his lips. "Shh!"
They did not shh. If anything they got louder.
"Hey. Shush!"
"MWOOORRWW!"
"PLEEEEAAAASE?"
Alex sighed. “Will you be quiet, if I say yes?”
They all nodded furiously.
He clicked his neck.
"... Fine."

---

Many, many, hours later. A small, grassy triangle, topped by a statue of Chutney the fat ferret, with benches around it, not far from Starbugs:

Katrina strode over to Jade, grimacing.
“Jade, so sorry I was such a long time. Things went on for far longer than I expected.”
Jade shook her head and smiled to reassure her. “It’s okay, it was fun.” She hiked her head “And I think all the playing did him some good.”
Katrina smiled gratefully, and followed Jade’s gaze over to the bench where Alex was slumped low, Max leaning against him, both sound asleep.
Her smile evolved, into a wide grin.

“Ha! Which one d’ya mean?”

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