As soon as he had left his brother to stew in his loneliness, Ruben regretted doing so. He regretted stealing his pants even more, but that was for another reason. Leaving Jacques while he was in his cuddly moods felt like leaving a crying baby. He was not as obvious with his insecurities as some were, but he was just as terrified as everyone else of going to the surface, even if he was also confident that he would survive it. Everyone saw that Jacques was chronically pissed off, you'd have to be blind and deaf or exceptionally stupid not to, but they did not know that it was just the way he handled any emotion, whether it was worry, fear, sadness or actually anger, he defaulted straight to getting pissed and lashing out at others. At least it was better that it was Ruben than someone else who did not know how to deal with him or could defend themselves if he got physical.
“Good morning, Ruben!” came the cheery voice that Ruben had learned was that of his brother's little partner in crime for his surface trips and he turned to smile warmly at her in greeting; a smile which only widened when he saw how bright the smile that lit up her face was, “How's it going?”
“Morning to you, too, Pheebs,” he said softly, choosing a shorter version of her name that he could at least somewhat pronounce without completely butchering it. His thoughts of Jacques were momentarily pushed from his mind.
Before he could answer her question, though, the young redhead spotted the pants that Ruben had balled up in his hands and since this was not the first time he had been so short-sighed as to forget Jacques' complete lack of tact and modesty, she immediately knew that they belonged to the wilder brother, "I, um... am I going to be seeing Jacques naked again?" she questioned warily. Ruben tried not to notice how she could not quite roll the first syllable of Jacques name corerctly; it was a commom thing for english speakers, but at least she tried.
He laughed softly, holding out the pants in front of him as if to study them, "I was just considering giving zem back to 'im," he informed her with a hint of humor to his soft tone and not bothering to supress his accent like he usually did; she never seemed to mind it, anyways, "but I am sort of afraid to. Last time 'e bit my shoulder. I still 'ave ze marks," he halfway explained, halfway joked. He decided not to mention that not only had Jacques been waiting in ambush for him to return the pants, but he had also not been in his human shape when he sunk his teeth into his shoulder, but rather in the shape of a pitbull. It was always a sore subject for other people when Jacques acted more animal than human. It was the same with his scars; people knew he had them, but they had no idea that Jacques was responsible for far more than half of them. He also decided not to mention that he saw the man naked almost every day and that, on several occasions, he had attempted even sleep in the nude; which would have been fine if he had not curled his naked form against ruben's side. He had even once pounced him, like one would expect a cat to do to a playmate, while not wearing clothes, but when Ruben had responded by slamming him into the wall with enough force that Jacques had needed to go to Wendy for a healing session, the slightly older twin had learned not to do so again.
Without allowing Phoebe time to really muse over the fact that Jacques would actually bite him like that, he quickly added, "He is cat right now. Petit et velu – small and furry," and Jacques would likely punch him in the arm for calling him that, "but I zink 'e wants to go to ze surface today."
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Meanwhile, Jacques had decided that he was not going to kick Ruben's ass for taking his pants, again, and briefly wondered why the hell he even kept taking them. It had never ended well for the slightly younger twin and it likely never would. Even if Jacques was relatively unbothered by nudity, whether it was his own or somebody else's, he knew that other's were highly bothered by it.
So, in a rare case of actually giving a damn about someone that was not himself and to some degree his brother, he pulled on another pair of pants as soon as his skin stopped tingling after the change. The pants were Ruben's and he made a point of not putting on underwear first, but at least he would not strut into the lounge in nothing but boots and hat again. The dark pants fit him rather snugly, since he was more muscular than his brother and he felt a pang of guilt go through him when he felt the cold metal of the zipper that was sewed into the left pant leg high on the thigh. He decided to steal one of Ruben's shirts, too, for good measure and slipped on a white wifebeater that was an even tighter fit than the pants. He considered taking it off, but he was more stubborn than he was uncomfortable.
Pulling his boots on his bare feet and grabbing his worn, old cowboy-style hat, he headed out of their room. He had two choices; he could either go find Ruben and punch him in the shoulder or go to the surface without telling him so. Since the latter was as unimaginable to him as the Crusaders dancing the waltz, he breathed in though his nose deeply, searching for the familiar scent that belonged to, well, himself.
Otreas
