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wolfcha1k · 4 years ago

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It’s Our Nature

["You know, Grug. Eventually, Eep and Guy, they're going to want to start their own pack. Just like we did, it's our nature."] Grug is confused about when his little girl stopped being so little, perhaps its time Gran and Ugga tried reminding him it wasn't too long ago he was just like Guy and Eep are now. [Pre!A New Age, contains Guy/Eep and Grug/Ugga fluff/One-Shot]

You can read it here on Fanfiction: https://www.fanfiction.net/s/13785964/1/It-s-Our-Nature

Ao3: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28525908

Please leave a read and a review ~ Thank you ~It was really hard sometimes for Grug to accept his little girl wasn't so little anymore. She'd always been stuck like tar to his side and would demand stories as a young child. The old cave walls were filled with tiny hand prints he never realized had grown bigger until Guy came along and forced him to be reminded Eep was indeed a woman. She was nineteen summers old and the fact wasn't lost on anyone who had functioning eyes in their head.

Fathers only saw with their hearts though and inside Grug's his daughter was still that rambunctious sweet little girl who needed him to protect her. That also included suitors.

"Grug you're brooding again," he heard Ugga say from behind him.

"This is just my face." Grug shifted his weight from where he sat lounging against his favorite rock.

"Trust me, I can see them just as clearly as you can."

Grug couldn't help but stiffen at her call out of his snooping. Was it really spying though if the two were out in the open? They were together by the beach with Chunky playing third wheel. The demanding feline squeezed his way between them when he felt they were being too touchy. Or maybe it was just Grug self projecting, his cat generally liked being the center of attention. Guy and Eep were fishing by hand in the water but it soon turned into a game of seeing who could out run the tide first whilst trying to knock the other down. Chunky kept getting confused by this activity as he shook droplets off his wet paws.

Eep was in the lead by at least seven points, it wasn't like Grug was keeping track though. "Why didn't you tell me sooner Eep was all grown up?" Grug side eyed his mate who just laughed at him.

"She's up to your shoulder and gives you a hard time like every teenager, I thought it was obvious." Ugga nudged him with her elbow, her small hands were busy threading a bone needle with sinew as she sewed new clothes for her family.

"Well… she was always a stubborn girl and big for her age," he quipped as he crossed his arms.

"And then she got that doe-eyed look when mister-you-know-who showed up." Ugga batted her eyelashes playfully in emphasis and folded her hands beneath her chin a moment. It was hard to keep a straight face, Ugga quickly laughed it off. Grug set his jaw in a very uncharacteristic pout.

"Never should have stuffed him in the log," Grug said with less heart than he actually felt. Sure, he enjoyed roughing the kid up sometimes and making a big show of being upset seeing Eep with Guy but in truth he was fond of the… guy. It was still his job as a dad to scare Guy a little.

"Oh don't say that, he's practically our son now."

"Does that mean I need to protect him from Eep then?" He kept the edge of hope out of his voice the best he could as he faced his mate.

Ugga rested her chin on her fist thoughtfully, she put the needle safely away as she watched the two lovebirds chase one another on the beach. "You might, honestly," Ugga said with a warm voice. "She's a handful."

He heard a startled yelp from the shore and got to enjoy the sight of Guy yet again face planting in the sand. Eep pounced over his toppled form, he was spitting sand from his mouth.

"Gotta be faster than that!" She shouted with a victorious smile.

Guy mustered the energy to mockingly look at her like he was bothered but the toothy grin that spread on his face afterward said otherwise.

"Lovesick idiots," remarked Gran as she hobbled over to join them. She watched Eep and Guy fondly despite her toughness. "What I wouldn't give to be their age again. Especially with a boy like him, where was he fifty summers ago?"

"Ugh, I don't need that mental image," Grug mumbled with a shudder, his face surly.

"Aw Grug. Don't you remember what it was like to be young and in love?"

"I do, and that's why I'm worried!" Grug jutted a thumb behind him and caught the confused blank stare Guy gave the group at catching their gossip. "Young and hot blooded, Ugga."

Eep went over to haul Guy back up by the scruff of his neck. She shot Grug an embarrassed and irritated look that was muffled by her wild mane of red hair. "Ugh… Dad, we can hear you!"

"Good! So keep your hands to yourselves! You don't want little Eeps!" Grug paused. "I don't want more little Eeps, one of you is plenty!"

Guy gaped at them like a suffocating fish, Gran guffawed and shook her head. "Let them be, lunkhead. Not like they'll do anything in front of us, eh?" The two younger children of the Croods clan, Sandy and Thunk, looked up in confusion from where they were busy playing with Douglas a short distance away.

Eep pulled the curtain of hair over her eyes and wished for the ground to swallow her. Guy rubbed the back of his neck at the narrow eyed look Grug shot him.

Ugga rolled her eyes and began to try shooing the old woman off. "Mom, please."

"Come now, it's my generational right to tease the youngsters." Gran reached forward with her staff to hook it under the back of Grug's pelt shirt. She jerked it up with more speed than a lady her age should have, causing Grug to choke a moment as he grabbed for the shirt collar. "See? Like that! Sides, I got plenty of blackmail about you two turtledoves too. Grug was pathetic."

Grug eyed her with a pointed glare once he was free of her pesky walking stick. Gran was unbothered, only grinned a toothy smile as she flopped comfortably onto the sand. She glanced towards Eep who perked at the potential to embarrass her father for once. It was hard to miss the mischievous wink she sent her granddaughter. Grug didn't like the curious glint in those green eyes as his spunky daughter practically skidded to seat herself near Gran. Guy followed clumsily as she had a vice grip on his hand. How Eep hadn't pulled his shoulder out along the way, Grug would never know.

It wasn't long until the entire family were seated in front of Gran. Thunk had Douglas in his lap and Sandy was curled around Belt who cooed at the attention. Ugga gave her mate a look that was screaming 'you brought this on yourself', Grug resigned himself to his fate out of pride. Real men didn't run from such things and as the patriarch he refused to be cowed by silly stories of when he was courting Ugga.

"What was dad like with mom?" Eep asked as she leaned forward, grinning. She looked at Grug who just huffed.

"Like I said, utter mushy rotten fruit. You think Guy is tooth rotting, you should have seen your father in his day." Guy pouted at being the butt of the joke as usual, he cast his dark eyes at Grug. He smirked as if to boast at the boy, smug that he wasn't going down alone in this evening razzing. "I wanted to chuck a rock at him every time he came to see Ugga."

Some of Guy's pride was built back up again though when Eep fondly rubbed shoulders with him. Grug began to wonder if it really was self-projecting this time when Chunky nosed his way between the young couple for a snuggle. Guy looked startled whilst Eep just scratched the Macawnivore between the ears.

Ugga decided to play traitor this night. "Mom how about you tell the kids about that time when Grug went on that big errand you gave him."

Grug couldn't help but wince and gave Ugga a scowl. The little minx had the nerve to grin innocently at him despite the betrayal.

"Big errand?" Guy echoed, he was barely visible from under Chunky's massive form.

"That story is my favorite," Gran cackled with a devious gleam in her eye. "And see Guy, back in our day if you wanted to court a woman you had to do something for the head of the family! Gramp was dead so I got to pick the task. Bless that heart attack he had."

Eep and Guy shared a look before both teenagers gazed questionably at Grug. He fidgeted before rolling his eyes. "That was Yesterday stuff. Besides, Guy saved us from The End with all his weird ideas so… consider the tab paid off."

"That brain thing of yours is really useful," Eep agreed with a girlish tone.

Guy blushed red at the compliment but didn't shy away from it. If anything it just made him glow proudly. "There's more where that came from," he quipped and knocked his knuckles lightly against his temple.

Grug almost wished he'd missed the bright, lovesick smiles the two shared despite Chunky barring them apart to the best of his ability. The desire for his daughter's happiness won out though, luckily for Guy who beamed. Even protective fathers and clingy Macawnivores weren't enough to stop true love it seemed.

"Anyway… it's no secret I didn't like your dad. So I came up with the most impossible task ever to earn Ugga." Gran licked her dry lips as she grunted, "Of course Grug had to go and actually do it."

"What did you make dad do?"

"Told him to go get a hair off a naked molephant."

Guy blinked. "But naked molephants don't have hair."

"Well, this is Grug so of course the nincompoop found the one blasted molephant that had hair." Grug let himself puff his chest out like a peacock preening its feathers.

"Yeah, well, you should have known better when you set me out on a job, Gran." He gave his mother-in-law a catty grin, for now he could relish in a past victory that smarted her way back when.

Eep looked at her grandmother mischievously. "So… when does the story get good?"

Ugga snickered, by now she had abandoned her sewing to sit between Thunk and Sandy. Thunk leaned against his mother as the woman combed her fingers through his scruffy mop of hair. "When he came back with his tunic ripped apart by a tusk," Ugga interjected.

"Wow," Thunk said in awe, turning his eyes to stare at Grug. Grug appreciated at least one Crood wasn't laughing at him. "How'd you do that?"

Gran cocked an eyebrow with a chuckle. "Yeah Grug, tell them."

Grug crossed his arms moodily. "Just for the record, it was a real life or death battle getting that stupid hair."

"Ugga was sewing his left buttocks for weeks," Gran said with a slap to her knee, the memory made her lifetime, really. She lifted her bony hands up to gesture with those old curled fingers of hers a measurement. "He's got a scar like this—"

"—ANYWAY! Like I was saying," Grug grumbled. He turned his attention back to his family. He scooped up a clump of sand and clay from the ground below and drew a vaguely person-like shape into the rock he had been lounging on. Then he drew a beast with tusks and a long nose next to him. "It was a battle of life and death, there I was, twenty two summers old—"

It was pure spite that kept him going hours after setting forth into the desert. Gran was convinced he couldn't win her daughter as his mate, and so when the old lizard raised the stakes he was determined to prove her wrong. He would get Ugga, she was something special and worth more than daylight itself.

He loved her and if it took getting a stupid molephant hair to be with her then so be it. Gran had been making him jump through hurdles since the day he'd met Ugga, it was no secret they shared a mutual loathing for each other. It also came from the same selfless affection the two had for Ugga, though Grug would have thought knowing he made her daughter happy was enough for her. Growling under his breath, he wiped the sweat from his brow.

There was still a good five knuckles before the sun would set, he'd find it before then. Either that or he was going to face the dangers night brought—

“You? Staying outside at night?” Eep sounded doubtful.

“...yes,” Grug huffed.

“See? Big mush,” Gran interrupted.

"Can I finish? Nobody interrupted this much back in the cave," he grumbled moodily.

—He was sure the beast was around here somewhere as he took a cautionary sniff of the dry, dusty air. Grug could see footprints inbedded in the barren and broken ground that sand didn't cover yet. Running onwards, he pressed his knuckles into the ground as he paced himself.

Grug crossed the desert quickly and ignored the aching in his palms and feet from the hot tough earth. He was built strong and a little pain wouldn't stop his pride. He paused when the scent grew stronger, flaring his nostrils he climbed up a nearby tree to survey what was around. The sun was strong against his eyes and Grug strained through the bright rays of light to see a dark speck in the distance. In a nearby canyon below, Grug finally found what he was looking for—

"What about never being afraid?" Thunk asked his father.

Grug looked at Thunk before settling his dark eyes on his beloved Ugga. "I was afraid," he admitted with a chuckle. "But I wanted to impress your mother more. Being stubborn and hormonal is a terrible mix."

"You stubborn? No!" Eep exclaimed with a teasing grin. Guy gave her a playful look from where he was walled by Chunky.

Grug made a vague gesture with his hand and he relished in the confused faces Eep and Guy made when Chunky pressed his full weight against both of them. Guy yelped for mercy as Eep tugged on the cheeky feline that was crushing him into the sand.

"Grug! Please call him off!" A large paw cuffed his head, Guy's words quickly muffled.

"Dad!"

Grug suppressed a grin as he went back to his story. "I found the molephant so what was next was getting the hair—"

Grug couldn't say how long it took climbing down that cliff wall to reach the level the molephant was at. It was risky and went against what Grug practiced in his beliefs. Caution and fear kept him alive this long, yet here he was about to go harass an molephant for some hair it might or might not have. Dread pooled in his belly and made him cold, going after more beasts was not how he wanted this to go. Breathing heavily through his gritted teeth, Grug crept as quietly as he could across the canyon. There were many tall and small rocks around that would provide cover should he need to hide.

Grug didn't have a brain, cavemen didn't use those. At least he didn't and it showed when he found himself running full speed away from a rampaging molephant. He relied on his gut instinct to weave and dodge its massive tusks that were swung at him. Grug scrambled and whenever he managed to get close, the creature stomped it's way towards him with a vengeance.

He bit back a curse when a tusk just barely ripped part of his tunic at his chest—

"—so this is when the story gets to the best part," Eep interrupted with a cheeky hum. She'd since rescued Guy from the weight of Chunky and had him cuddled protectively in her arms. She rested her chin on his mused up brown hair. Guy idly stroked one of her hands that were interlocked at his neck and chest.

"I thought it was always at the best part," Thunk quipped in a confused voice to his sister.

"If I say anything else I'm worried I'll become Macawnivore food," Guy said and tipped his head to the side with a huff.

Ugga smiled at her children as Grug shot them a look to be silent. "Look if you want to laugh at me can I finish this up then first?"

Gran reached her staff out to bop Eep over the head, her bushy red hair cushioned the blow. "Yeah, hush your tongue."

Eep huffed when she felt Guy trying to muffle his grin into her arm. Grug shook his head at the sight, feeling a fond nostalgia swell within him despite the protective instinct. He looked at Ugga and she just arched a brow at her mate. Grug turned back to telling the story, large fingers drawing more on the rock.

"The molephant was putting up a good fight but your old dad was better—"

—He was swearing aloud and screaming as he hung onto the tusk by his shirt. Grug was glad he didn't feel wounded but this was just a disaster waiting to happen. Even the molephant seemed dismayed at the fact he now had the man stuck on his face. It kept rampaging and Grug strained against the beast in order to sink his feet forcibly into the hard earth. Dust filled the air and with his innate strength, Grug managed to swing his body around to grab it by its tusk. The molephant slowed and leaned back to buck, swinging Grug off after a lot of effort.

He was thrown through the air and scrambled to find his feet as he rolled like a big boulder. Dazed, Grug just barely got out of the way of the molephant as it charged him. Panting, Grug finally saw the hair on its angrily swishing tail. It groaned in frustration and Grug realized the molephant had gotten its massive body stuck between two rocks. Panicked and running strictly on adrenaline, Grug reached forward to yank off a clump of hair from its tail. It trumpeted its distress, Grug began to rush away but there was the sound movement. He dared to look behind him, yelling out he did all he could to escape the incredibly pissed off beast.

It only took one stupid stumble to find that in that split moment he was thrown into the air. Pain flowered under his back and rump. The last seconds felt like they were slow motion as he landed harshly into a patch of huge, prickly brambles. Everything went blurry and before he knew it, there was nothing...

He'd awoken to darkness and the scent of blood in his nose. He was tangled upside down in a bramble bush and covered in an uncomfortable amount of burrs. There was also pain in his rear end and back, Grug noted with a groan. However the panic he felt for that hair won out his concern for his current state. He couldn't go back without that blasted hair!

He froze his struggling at a sound in the distance and cowardly he hunkered down the best he could whilst suspended in the air head facing down. However, it soon turned into a voice. "...Grug! Grug?!'

"Ugga?!" He whispered harshly and in the moonlight he saw the cavewoman trotting cautiously on all fours. "I'm over here!"

Ugga hurried towards him and gave him a worried once over. Grug grinned at her concern until she scowled, harshly tugging on his ear like he was an impudent child. "Are you asking for a death wish, Grug?! Look at you! I can't believe you took mom seriously!"

"...it's good to see you too, Ugga," he grunted, pressing a hand to his ear to drown out the headache she gave him.

Ugga circled him with careful gray eyes as she tried to figure out how to get him down. "You are lucky no hungry predators sniffed you out first before I did," Ugga continued to scold.

Grug stiffened at the mention of such a risk and reached an arm to grab her shoulder as if it would protect her. "You shouldn't even be out here," he grumbled back.

"I know but after hearing mom laughing it up with the tribe about this stupid errand I needed to find you," Ugga hissed, pulling away to give him another stink eye. "I'm so mad at you right now."

"Yeah well once I find where that dumb hair went I'll be the one laughing at her!" Grug exclaimed, wiggling in an attempt to dislodge himself.

"Would you hold still? You're just going to make yourself worse," she complained and began to tear at the thicket with her strong, calloused hands.

Grug, being the stubborn man he was, continued to squirm this way and that. "I can get down myself," he huffed.

Ugga threw her hands up in frustration before yanking at a cord of bramble. "You have a head made of rocks, Grug."

Grug opened his mouth to argue back before suddenly falling. He cried out when his head hit the ground, grabbing at his neck in pain of the impact. Nursing a bump that felt like some giant goose egg, Ugga examined his tunic.

She made a noise through her teeth in fret. "How are you not dead right now?"

"I don't know!" He said with a growl, shuffling to sit up. Everything hurt from his skull to his toes that spread out in the pulse of his blood. "But between you, your mom and that molephant, all of you are really trying to bury me!"

Ugga rolled her eyes and spun him around, she pulled up his shirt before Grug could even protest. "You're lucky," she sighed, relief warming her voice. "That molephant tusk missed a major arterie. Really ruined your tunic though."

He softened and reached a hand out to touch her arm. "I got other shirts."

"It's probably going to scar. Can you walk?" Ugga faced him once again, he couldn't help but frown as he watched her wipe her bloody palm in the sand. My blood, Grug thought with a pained wince.

The adrenaline of the moment and even beyond it was wearing off, Grug really wanted to go back to his cave to nurse his wounds and ego. "I think so. Um… help balance me?"

A smile lit up her face and Grug wondered if it was the blood loss or her that made him sway breathlessly. "Sure." Ugga offered her arm to him which he took.

However, he stopped with a groan. "Ugh… wait. The hair, I'm not going back without that hair!"

"Forget the hair, Grug. Mom will get over it."

"Oh no! Ugga, I'll never hear the end of it if I don't give her that stupid hair!" Grug let go of Ugga to try peering through the darkness on the ground, crouching on his knuckles.

Ugga put her hands on her hips. "What is so important about getting my mom this hair? Naked molephants don't even have hair."

Grug just stuck a finger at her triumphantly. "Yes, yes they do and I swear to the sun it's not just me getting loopy from all this blood loss."

"Grug, you're scaring me," Ugga said in a deadpanned tone, brows arched.

"That old lizard can't keep us apart anymore after this," he continued to ramble on and on.

"Grug…"

"If it's a hair that ancient fossil wants in order to get her out of mine for good then so be it," he continued.

"Grug!"

"What?!"

"If you want to be my mate so bad why don't you just ask me yourself?"

Grug stopped his frantic search and stiffened up like a ribbit being hunted by a liyote. He turned to face her and saw she looked disappointed, arms crossed over her muscular chest. "Um… excuse me?" He wanted to kick himself for stuttering, he wasn't a boy anymore.

"I'm not something to trade for, and the fact you actually went through with it astounds me." Ugga shook her head with a sigh.

Grug shuffled his weight uncomfortably, he'd never been good at addressing his feelings out in the open like that. Even if it was for Ugga whom he loved dearly. "I know you're not an object, Ugga."

"Then why ask mom?"

"I… I don't know. I guess… I got tired of her talking badly about, you know… us." Grug looked at her with a frown, uncharacteristically vulnerable.

Ugga reached out to cup his cheek in her hand as she stood in front of him. "Mom says a lot of things, you really need to tune her out."

He turned his head to brush his nose against her palm in a fond gesture, slouching. "She always says I'm no good for you, Ugga."

"Well, lucky for us mom isn't the one you have to court. It's me." She leaned back on her heels, still stroking his face with a gentle touch for a woman as fierce as Ugga.

"I'm just saying, getting her to shut up would be a win win to this mess." Grug shrugged his shoulders in a dismissive way, a small grin on his face.

Ugga rolled her eyes at him. "You and your manly pride are going to get you into trouble."

"If I'm already in trouble I might as well finish up," he quipped. Grug found his molephant hair amongst the broken debris the molephant had left in its rampaging wake, he’d lifted it up triumphantly in the moonlight. Ugga shook her head. “Okay, now, we can go back!”

When they returned, the sun had started to rise over the desert as dawn chased off the night. Gran had stood outside the dwelling she shared with Ugga, her scowl etched deep into her wrinkled features. The other families were creeping out of their dens in preparation of the morning hunt and foraging, their curious eyes were shocked to see Grug limping back into the canyon with Ugga supporting his hulking mass.

Grug shoved the wad of hair into Gran's face with a low growl, "Here's your stupid hair!" The old woman took it with muted shock for once, gaping mouth wide as she looked between Grug and Ugga. With a burst of adrenaline and pride, he looped his massive arm around Ugga's waist to haul her over his shoulder.

She gave a startled laugh, lightly smacking her fists into his back. "We're going back to this tradition, are we?"

"I gotta make sure your mom doesn't try anything again, you're as good as mine now," Grug huffed, limping with his Ugga secured in his grasp like she weighed light as a feather.

"You're too much, Grug."

"You've never complained before," he shot back with a grin.

"C'mon big guy, I think all that blood loss is affecting your head. Let me patch you up."

Grug headed for his cave, merry that he'd gotten Ugga and at the same time shut that awful lizard of a mother-in-law up. It costed him his pride, he noted, it was hard to ignore the snickering of the families around them. He only bared his teeth at them which seemed to work for the moment. Once his back was turned the whispering and giggling continued.

Ugga merely pressed her forehead into the back of his neck and it made everything better… least until Gran moved in but that was a different story for another tomorrow.

Grug finished his story with flourish, loosely drawing what seemed to be a lopsided circle around the two images presenting Ugga and himself.

"I like that story," Eep said, a bit dreamily as she looked at the pictures. "It wasn't really embarrassing though."

"It was if you were there," Grug scoffed as he wiped his clay covered hands on his pelt.

"Well, it still makes me laugh at least," Gran said from where she sat, cackling.

"You laugh at anything that has me getting beat up," he pointed out, surprisingly with a much more amiable tone.

"Not true, now that you learned some jokes I laugh at other things too."

Ugga smiled fondly at her mate, letting Thunk sit up so she could go wrap her arms around his bicep in a hug. "Thank you," Ugga said, rubbing her nose into his cheek.

Grug softened and felt his ears burn, giving her a small smile. His eyes fell to his audience and he couldn't help lingering on Eep who still had Guy draped in her lap. They were gazing at one another like nobody else existed around them for the moment, Guy lifting a finger to fondly boop her nose.

Ugga shook her head. "Let them be, you remember what it was like still." She patted his arm fondly with a knowing smile.

Grug huffed but said nothing, just reluctantly looked away from the two lovestruck teenagers. "I've been lounging around too much anyway." He tried shrugging off the blatant teenage romance going on right in front of him. "Since they're busy, dinner duty is on me now." The plan had been fish but he knew that failed disastrously from the word go.

He grabbed Thunk by the shoulder and the boy protested a moment, Douglas scampered between their legs as Grug lead the way towards the woodland hugging the beachfront. Ugga watched Grug go, sighing like she was a girl of twenty summers old again. She reached down to grab Sandy who wiggled in her arms, Ugga tucked her under her elbow without batting an eye over the feral snarling. She cast one last look at Eep and Guy before walking off herself, intending to put Sandy down for a nap.

"C'mon you little scamp," Ugga told her daughter. "You need all the rest you can get for when Dada comes back with food."

"Hey… where did everybody go?" Eep found a moment to look away from Guy to realize the clearing had been well… cleared out. Only one that remained was Gran, the old battle ax of a woman rolled her eyes.

Guy lingered his gaze on her still. "I don't know but you are still here so it's not a problem yet for me."

She fought off a smile best she could but failed at his widening one.

"About time the two of you joined us back in this world," she grunted in a teasing tone, her joints creaking as she pushed herself to her feet.

"Oh, hey Gran." Guy waved a hand idly in her direction.

"What's that supposed to mean?" Eep inquired, huffing.

"Oh, you know very well what I mean," Gran replied, stretching a kink out of her back. She gave a satisfied sigh at the pop, leaning comfortably against her stick. "Anyway lovebirds… I want my afternoon nap now. Laughing at Grug really wipes an old lady out."

"Hold on a second!" Eep exclaimed, springing up to her feet. She unceremoniously hefted Guy up in her arms as she did so, his dark eyes only startled for a second. "Why is that story your favorite, really?" Eep asked with a squint.

She put Guy back on his own two feet though clung to his bicep. He leaned against her solid form without a thought, it came as easy as breathing air. "You and Grug didn't seem to have the best relationship," Guy added thoughtfully as he looked at her.

Gran huffed through what was left of her teeth, shaking her head. "It reminds me of how foolishly in love you two are," she chuckled at the matching blushes on their faces. "Being so devoted that you go and do something stupid to prove it. I'd watch your back Guy, Grug knows he can get you to climb in Chunky's mouth if it means Eep is your reward for it."

"Eep isn't a thing," he sputtered.

Eep couldn't help but playfully jab his ribs. "I'm not a catch then?"

"Of course you are!" Even at her most gentle, Eep knocked the wind out of him and he was wheezing.

"See! That is what I mean," Gran cackled as she reached out to pat Guy fondly on the shoulder. "Lovesick idiot. Eep has you down pat. That's okay though, us ladies like a man who's easy to boss around." She winked at Eep and Guy.

She heard Eep's disgruntled scoff as she turned away, a mischievous grin tugging her old lips. "Do try to behave yourselves. Well, I'll say ta-ta for now, loves." Leaving the two to their own devices at last, Gran began to hobble off after the direction her daughter Ugga had gone.

Guy stared at the pathway until Gran was a mere speck and turned to look at Eep. "Am I easy to boss around?"

"Behave ourselves," Eep said, pouting. "She's acting like we have no restraint!"

Guy chuckled with a teasing grin, leaning down to brush his lips against the hinge of her jaw. She immediately melted. "Maybe she's kinda right about that, at least," he mumbled against her chin.

Eep nuzzled herself closer to him, feeling his breath fan her neck. “We probably shouldn’t prove her right, you know how Gran is.”

Guy just huffed and began to pepper her neck and face in kisses, Eep had no complaints despite her playful refusal. Rebellion just came with being young, even if the old codger would relish in teasing them later for it.

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