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Y'know, preggers! Eatin' for two? With child? ... Bun in the oven?

[???]

Trollth can't procreate with one another. I mean, like- jutht one another. We need a Mother Grub.

[???]

Wait--huh? I mean, wait, you said that, but I just thought... [Honestly, TJ didn't know what he thought.] The hell is all the 'genetic material' for then?

You put it in a bucket. You give the bucket to an Imperial Drone. The drone giveth it to the Mother Grub, who taketh it in, mixeth all the material of the race together, and then popth out eggth.

[You know, like you do.]

[NO, THAT IS NOT LIKE YOU DO.]

... Shit, man. [TJ shook his head, letting out a profoundly deep breath. The hell, Psii.] Trolls are fuckin' complicated.

It'sth totally thimple- okay, come on. [He thwacked TJ in the shoulder.] If you and Amal wanted to produce thpawn, how would you do it? Which one of you carrieth the bun or whatever the hell you were talking about?

[TJ returned the thwack, along with a long, prolonged groan.]

Okay, man, there is so much wrong with that statement. I dunno about trolls, but two dudes ain't got the required interlockin' parts. [He paused for a beat.] I mean, they interlock, but it sure don't lead to a baby.

To have a kid, it takes a dude and a chick. Like, there's adoption n' stuff, but dude n' a chick have to be involved at some point along the assembly line.

Weird. Why do you need a dude and a chick? That thounds complicated to me.

[Get two trolls together, regardless of gender, and wham bam, you can contribute to the slurry. So simple.]

We don't got the parts. [With a vague gesture that covered just about everything from the rib cage down, TJ shrugged.] 'Least I don't. Babies grow inside people, n' they only grow inside people with the right functionality.

So not me n' not Amal, for starters. [TJ liked kids, but there was no repressing the slight crease in his brow at the thought. That would be a weird looking kid.] You're sayin' trolls all got the same parts?

They grow inthide you? Eeeeeeeewwww.

[The response is slightly exaggerated, but still. Gross.]

All trollth can produce material together to put in a bucket, gender hath nothing to do with it.

Hey man, not all humans are down with the creepy fetus thing, either.

[Not that the idea particularly rankled him, but he'd known more than one girl in his life who curled up like a pillbug at the mention of a sentient growth inside them.]

Guess that's... kinda cool, actually. So does that mean it ain't a thing who you're with?

Well, I mean, it can be- like, if you hook up in the red with your thapde'th moirail, thit ith gonna be awkward, and perthonally, I don't think a romance between a highblood and a lowblood will ever really end well...

...Are you talking about thomething elthe?

[For a guy still getting used to the jargon, TJ took a hair longer to parse the inter-complications Psii was describing.

Though, when his friend called attention to the issue at hand, he couldn't help but shrug sheepishly. It was kind of an odd question, but hell. He was curious.]

I jus' meant like, is 'gay' even a thing with y'all?

I'm getting the dithtinct feeling that meanth thomething different in human language than in Alternian, becauthe all that'sth coming to mind ith, like, obnoxiouthly bright or cheerful.

Well, it means that for us, too. But it also means like, two dudes or two ladies doin' the nasty. [A beat.] Or just like, any romantic shit at all.

You guys don't have a word for that?

You do?

[So no.]

A matesprit ith a matesprit, no one giveth a fuck about gender, and that goeth for the other quadrantsth too. I mean, thome people have a preference- Dolo wath a ladykiller, believe me, but it'sth like having a preference for bigger hornth or whatever.

Huh. [TJ flopped back against the pile of khaki, his dreads splaying around his face like some sort of strange lumpy halo.] That's gotta make some things easier.

[Not that he, specifically, ever had too much push back but that certainly couldn't be said for the guy who'd stormed out not too long ago.]

Then again, you have the whole fucked up blood system so 'easier' don't really apply.

Yeah, not really.

[And- he sort of wanted to talk about it. Talk about how this didn't feel too different from Alternia at all, and he wasn't sure how to feel about that with the reactions of so many other people. How Anna had learned about some of what happened there, had talked about wanting someone should have risen up, how bitter he felt about that.]

[How much he missed Signless during times like these. Dolorosa. Disciple. All of them.]

[But it was TJ's torture and death that was playing on the network, so he shoved the thoughts out of his mind. Obviously this ridiculous human needed more attention than he did.]

Feel a little better?

[The few beats of silence between Psii's words sparked a kernel of curiosity in TJ. He turned, just slightly, brow furrowing as he looked at his friend in the increasingly dim TSO shop floor. The sun was nearly set... how long had they been laying here.]

Y-Yeah, dude. [He studied him a beat longer.] How 'bout you?

I'm fine. [Which was a lie.] But we thort of got thidetracked by a certain thomeone exploding and then talkth of your weird alien reproduction, tho I wanted to know if you were cool going back to all that.

[Pursing his lip, TJ wasn't quite sure how to answer that. He'd enjoyed the distraction, talking about anything and everything other than his face being detached from his body for everyone to see. There was some embarrassment there. Considerable embarrassment, actually.

Rolling onto his side, facing Psii, TJ let out a breath.]

Can't we just keep talkin' about your planet a while?

...We gotta talk about it thometime, man. [He looked right back, brow furrowed a bit in unavoidable worry.] Before I leave, we gotta talk about it.

[Because, no disrespect to all the humans he'd met here and become fond of, but their race as a whole was generally a bunch of delicate losers. If TJ was a troll, "it doesn't bother me" would be a lot easier to believe. But as it was... Even with what TJ had told him, he was still worry.]

We can keep talkin' about Alternia if you want, but we need to talk about your deal at thome point. Okay?

[The vulnerability in TJ in that moment, splayed out in a pile of beige, was uncharacteristic of him. No smile danced across his face, there was no joke on his tongue, just a heavy look in his eye that seemed to be staring at anything but the shop around him.

Sliding his glance up to Psii again, the most immediately apparent thing was that he wasn't high at all. The second was that his eyes were still red as hell.]

Don't got a deal, man. Don't got no more deal than you've got. I promise.

[And the thing is, he did promise. No lies. Just honesty.]

All I want right now is to go t'sleep n' have you tell me about somethin' sweet from back home. [He paused, remembering that 'sweet' and 'Psii's life' didn't overlap much.] Anythin'. Don't even have to be sweet.

[Psii very obviously couldn't believe that, not with the way those eyes were red and the worn down way TJ had been ever since he'd stepped through the door. But what could you do? He wasn't an expert on this. He wasn't sure if now was the time he should push.]

[Well... When in doubt, listen to what they say. He took a breath.]

Anything ith pretty fuckin' vague, TJ. At leatht gimme a vague direction to go to here.

[They were learning. Like teenagers testing the boundaries of a friendship that was new to both of them. It was hard, but it was important, too. It was the necessary steps to building something great.

Psii's complaint made TJ smile, genuine.]

Aight, ass. Tell me... tell me about you n' your friends. Back home.

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i want to read a field guide to earth as written by psii

"do not hold an earth human'2 hand or el2e you wiill be mated for liife, apparently"

HE'LL LEARN, PSII. HE'LL LEARN.

"they partake iin gro22 2melliing drug2, try not to choke on them, ii 2ure a2 fuck diid"

omfg

is that towards the field guide or the story

both

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