Bite Marks

Part 8: I feel fuzzy

You turned slightly as you shut your alarm off, just barely glancing over at your closet— only to be reminded of last night by the sight of your closet doors open, a bed made of a folded quilt half-shoved into a box in the doorway.

Badger clearly hadn't wanted to sleep on your bed— you didn't want him there either, to be fair. You were evidently quite rowdy in your sleep, what if you accidentally squished him?! —and you didn't think he'd like sleeping next to your alarm clock on your nightstand, so you compromised. It was halfway in the doorway as well, just in case the closet doors decided to close on their own or something.

And back to the topic of last night; it was.. cozy, for lack of better words.

Badger hadn't managed to stay up as long as you normally did, practically mesmerized by your methodical sewing. It was also terribly adorable when you had to wake him up so you two could get his new sleeping arrangements together, you could barely stop yourself from punching a wall just so you didn't accidentally squeeze him or anything.

Now that you thought back on it with a weirdly much wiser "morning mind," you often had a strangely severe overreaction to cute things.

Should I get that checked out by a therapist or... doctor or something?

You spent a couple groggy moments thinking it over.

Nah. Expensive.

With a barely-audible creak of your bones— or what you wanted to assume was your bones. Who knows. Could've been, uh.... your... something.... —and a much more audible squeak of your mattress, you finally got out of bed.

You left your door open as you went to the kitchen to relight the stove's fire, hoping to brew some coffee to start your day.

Also to make some breakfast, you reminded yourself. You may not have much of a habit of eating breakfast, but you wanted Badger to wake up to some actual food, unlike his first night.

You subconsciously wondered where he'd gone as you watched the flames spark and grow. Did he mean the raccoons? You hoped the bastards hadn't given him any trouble.

Though, it's kind of what you get for oh-so innocently feeding one when you first got here. Then feeding another. Then a few more. Then you had to go through the torturous process of getting them to leave you alone. They still haven't left the area, and every other night you could hear them running through your trash in the dark.

You were gently brought out of your reminiscing by the tiny sound of bones tapping against your floor. You turned from the stove to the kitchen doorway to see Badger's poor attempts at sneaking in without you noticing.

"Did my alarm wake you?" you asked, chasing away the silence and placing a kettle on the stovetop.

The edgy jumped slightly before laughing nervously, rubbing the back of his neck, "Not really... been awake for a little while.."

He stopped at one of the legs of the table you were leaning against, looking up with... concentration?

You hummed in acknowledgment at his response, before crouching down and extending your hand to him.

He looked at it, looked at you, before huffing and mumbling, "I can do it myself."

You were about to interject, because— well, you didn't think his little pin-prickly claws were... pin-prickly enough to catch on the wood —until he started climbing.

All you could muster out as he somehow climbed to the top with ease was a slow, "Huh."

You stood back up and began warming your hands. The heat of the fire had started pouring out from the stove, making you finally realize how cold you were.

"So, what's with all the scratch marks?"

His question caught you off guard. Scratch marks? You didn't remember anything doing that. Did he mean outside? Wait, did he go outside?! It's too cold for the clothes he was wearing!

Before you could spiral any further, you followed his gaze down, down— oh.

There were little marks near the bottom of the walls, along with some on your doorway. How had you never noticed that?

"I'm guessing it was the raccoons," you shrugged, "I used to let a few inside to stay warm, but that was until they started messing up the place and I had to kick them out."

Badger took a few moments to process your answer, giving you the chance to take the kettle off of the stovetop and put it on the counter, steeping it through about a cup of coffee grounds into a f/c mug. You then started preparing some breakfast; b/c was simple enough. Even with the half-empty cupboards, you probably had all the ingredients.

"You had raccoons here?" Badger finally asked.

You hummed in confirmation, "The things were basically less moody cats to me. They were really polite, too!" You made a look toward the wall, in the opposite direction of the bitty, "Well, at first. Then they got a little annoying and, er, destructive, so now they're not allowed inside."

"Huh," the response was quiet, unintentionally making you worry slightly. Did you upset him?

The concern felt irrational, but you couldn't help but convince yourself to take a quick glance at him, just to make sure.

The edgy looked fidgety, giving the wall a dirty look. Your gaze softened at the sight.

You decided to take a blind leap.

"You wanna help me make breakfast?" you asked.

He snapped out of his gaze and whipped over to you, eyes wide in surprise. You wanted to guess the reaction was because he wasn't trusted to help a lot in the past, but that was simply a wild guess.

After a second, he responded, "Sure."

You stuck the landing.

a/n: ayyyyy metaphor time
anyways apOLOGIES FOR DYING AGAIN I GOT SOOOOO DISTRACTED
guess who's into the owl house now??? >:DDDDD
diS GUYYY!!!