ninefox | Fine Zinc Teeth

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Fine Zinc Teeth

There was a time Jedao would have said that half a century was barely any time; less than a mortal life, not more than two generations. But the world has changed so much since he first put the Americans' uniform on. Even the uniform has changed - they don't call dance halls dance halls any more, for another thing. But the smell of the place - sweat, desire, alcohol - that much is the same.

He slinks in under a stranger's face, although he doesn't disguise his own scent when he smiles, glittering, at the bouncer: a flashed lure that Fives might not even notice or recognize, let alone pursue. It took a few months to get someone to handle all the things which apparently needed handling for his "retirement", and a few more to track down one particular squad of decommissioned weretroops, out of thousands, mostly paperless, in the busiest city this side of the Pacific. But Jedao did find them.

He dances without keeping track of the time, lets his face slowly slide back to its default arrangement, lets his spine relearn how to hold him up without being army rigid. He has several drinks - people buy them for him, which is nice; one or two of them he even dances with until they can't keep up with him any more. Fives rotates from the receiving line onto the floor as the night wears on and patrons get drunker, and he maneuvers himself into Fives' line of view, always moving, twisting, flashing glances that catch on Fives' eyes as the beat hits. Slowly, as if by the whim of the music, he draws closer.

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"If you never have flowers, part of your brain thinks it's always winter," Jedao says softly. "People weren't meant to live like this, you know, all concrete. The world changes so fast now - sometimes that's amazing. But it's too easy to forget, sometimes. That flowers can be important."

"It does?" Fives frowns. "Maybe we should bring some into the apartment. He'd probably like that."

Fives spins as he walks, looking up at the buildings rising around them. In this part of town, few of them are more than five stories, most of them only three to four, but it's still enough to block a significant amount of the light, and the only green are some scraggly trees and the weeds pushing up from between concrete slabs, or the occasional display of flowers and plants at a shop.

"It is amazing, all the lights and colors, and the different people. Sometimes you can hear seven or eight different languages just walking a couple of blocks. But sometimes it almost feels like being back in one of the training mazes," he adds, more quietly.

"The park's just up around the corner, though?" He perks up and gestures left at the next cross street. "It has a lot of flowers in the spring. And grass and trees and a pond and a playground."

"There's a pond?" he asks, interested and pleased. "All the parks in the old days had rivers, even if it was just little ornamental ones, but here so often it's just trees, without the water element. No balance."

"Yeah. It's not very big and it's a little overgrown with water weeds, but there are fish in it, and ducks a lot of the time. I think the ducks actually like the weeds," he adds, taking the corner and speeding up a little, so obviously enthused by Jedao's pleasure.

"Sometimes people bring food for the ducks and they all gather around pushing each other to try and get the most. And the fish will rise for food thrown into the water, sometimes, to try and beat the ducks to it."

"They aren't weeds to the ducks," he points out, because of course Fives is right. "Only gardeners say what's a weed and they want to grow." And then,

"Do you?" feed the fight between the ducks and the fish, he means. If any city animal has zero concern about the predatory position of wolves, it's probably ducks. Ornery bastards.

"Huh. I hadn't thought of it that way." He grins, brief and bright, then ducks his head a little sheepishly.

"Sometimes, but not often. I probably shouldn't at all, when we need the money, but-" His shoulders twitch a little in something not quite a shrug and he looks at Jedao through his eyelashes. "They're not afraid of me. And they're kind of ridiculous." He loves watching them squabble among themselves, it reminds him a little of his Pack, sometimes.

"If you can afford roast beast for me then you can afford a handful of frozen peas for the ducks," Jedao observes.

"Should I worry?"

Fives looks stricken for a moment when he realizes what he's said. "No! I didn't mean it like that. It isn't the same at all." Rex will kill him if he flubs this which, unlike his brothers' reaction to his awkward flirting, actually does bother him. "Hospitality is different than wasting food on fat little ducks that get fed by everyone." Just because he likes having them waddle up to him and watching them squabble and scuffle.

"I could get anyone to feed me. I'm very charming," Jedao informs him, his voice tart and light, but his shoulders shifting in a way not entirely unlike the ducks when they strut.

"Anyway, they're your neighbors. There's nothing unworthy about wanting to be neighborly."

"You're- our Fox General, we want to feed you," he protests instantly, worried the General might change his mind. And if there had been a bit of hesitation as he stopped himself from claiming him as his General, well, it was a very brief one.

He scrunches up his nose a little at the rest, at the idea of the ducks being neighbors. "Maybe I'll tell Hevy that the next time he says I should be eating them, not feeding them."

"I'm sure Hevy would be happy to give up the occasional lettuce leaf to the cause. Does Cody try to make you have occasional vegetables? He looks like the type," Jedao muses, still keeping pace with Fives, so at the very least still on track to arrive at dinner.

"He and Rex both, you can tell they're littermates." He rolls his eyes at the indignity of it all. "Hevy would definitely contribute all his vegetables to any worthy cause he could drum up."

"Greens are much better for the ducks than bread. Tell Hevy it's a surreptitious disposal plan," Jedao suggests.

"It probably won't stop him from giving me shit about playing with my food, but it'll be something, at least." He smiles in gratitude at the General. "Rex made him and Hardcase stop catching and eating the pigeons that landed on the roof because it bothered Tup. Damn heavy gunners."

He grins for just a moment as he directs them around a last corner and stops to sweep an arm out with evident pride to indicate a moderate sized little city park. It's somewhat overgrown with weeds and perhaps needing a bit more watering than it gets, but there's the promised pond with a small flock of ducks and a pair of disgruntled looking geese paddling idly around it, a playground swarming with small children, their parents mostly watching from the sidelines, and a netless basketball court with at least a dozen teens playing shirts vs skins.

Jedao is about to remark on the taste of squab when the waterfowl come into view. He bounces forward, letting loose a high peal of laughter not entirely unlike a yipping cry, which makes every bird on the lake swivel its neck - most dramatically in the case of the geese - and stare him down. Jedao grins with all his teeth.

"It's perfect."

Fives trots after him, startled into his own pleased laughter by the General's reaction. "I didn't know you liked ducks so much," he teases, grinning, then looks out at the little pond and its denizens. "I don't think the geese are very impressed, the vicious bastards." He loves the ducks, but the geese often seem more trouble than they're worth. Enough so that occasionally he wonders what goose would taste like... and if it would be worth the fight to try and kill one anyway.

"Geese aren't impressed by anything on this green earth except swans."

Jedao's tone of voice sounds like he takes this as something of a challenge.

"You shouldn't let me sneak in the rushes, I'll be a mess and much later than I meant to be." But he doesn't look away from the ducks.

"Oh no you don't!" Fives answers at once, and uses the excuse to wrap his arm around the General's shoulders, even as he flushes, shocked at himself for taking such a liberty.

"I've spent all this time not killing them, you don't get to go and do it now," he teases, still laughing as he tugs the general away. "Besides, Rex will kill me if I show up late, with you all filthy and muddy and covered in blood, plus the children would be traumatized."

"I wouldn't kill them," Jedao protests. "Just chase them a bit. The children would think it was hilarious."

He acquiesces to the tugging, though, even leans into Fives a bit, seemingly content with the arm over his shoulders.

"Well that's different, I suppose," Fives allows, grinning. "But still not today when I'm supposed to be bringing you home for dinner."

He feels the way the General leans into him and it feels like it makes his heart stutter for a moment. He knows he should drop his arm now that they're going the right way, but... the General isn't protesting, and he feels so compactly solid and smells- He smells right in a way nothing but his brothers ever do.

So he keeps his arm where it is and swallows nervously before adding, "But maybe some other time, if you want to come back," and watches the General sidelong for a reaction. "It would probably be best if there were someone there to keep them from calling Animal Control on the wild fox, after all...."

He smiles at the tentative invitation, then laughs at the idea of Animal Control, really.

"They'll be too busy taking pictures. But you can hold my shoes," he adds, by way of a magnanimous excuse.

Fives has to resist the urge to lean in and run his nose along the curve of the General's ear; even he knows that would be going entirely too far. But with him leaning against him like this, so he can feel the ripple of that bright, warm laugh... it's hard. He's not willing to let go, though. Not if the General isn't going to make him.

"Don't be too sure," he cautions, but he's grinning, almost trembling with eagerness at the realization he's being invited. "Have you seen how paranoid human parents are about their children? It's bizarre." Telling them not to climb trees or chase each other across the play structure... or pet the massive, strange 'dog' that's gotten loose and come to play.

"You can't run right up to them," Jedao explains, expansively. "You have to keep scooting away while the kids wander after you, so their parents are all busy yelling at the kids not to bother wild animals. Although that might work better for me."

Since he's actually wild, and smaller, and colorful in the way that makes small children terribly excited.

"... but I want to play with them," Fives protests, and there's definitely a plaintive note to it. Though he has had some luck with that, and so far managed to keep ahead of Animal Control the couple times that someone's called them on him.

"Tag is a game," Jedao points out.

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