Archive of Our Own

The bench he was sitting on had been warmed by his presence over the past half hour. He was unused to sitting in one place for so long. The scratch of boredom rearing its nasty claws at the back of his head was a feeling most unfamiliar to him as well. If it were any other toon, any other stupid, boring, useless–

...

Well, the point was, he was here now, and due to a flippant promise, unwilling to move somewhere else to alleviate his rib-crushing boredom.

That left Shrimpo with precious little options to entertain himself.

And Shrimpo HATED being bored.

Even so, his eyes began to wander.

The aquarium floor he was located at currently was vast. It had a massive, open floor plan, doubtlessly made with swarms of shrieking and annoying children obsessed with the ocean in mind. It was another thing in Shrimpo’s unending list of things he HATED – but the children were long gone, and so were the staff members that used to clean the place.

Now that job stood to the only beings that still inhabited Gardenview.

Not him, of course. Shrimpo HATED cleaning.

Scff. Scff. Scff.

The rough sound of bristles scrubbing on brightly colored tile and grout ground itself into Shrimpo’s ears.

And, as with most things in the world, he… He…!

“...CAN YOU KEEP IT DOWN?”

His voice grumbled out, irritation seeping into every word.

The scrubbing stopped.

The cleaner turned to look at Shrimpo inquisitively. Bright eyes with no hint of ire behind them met Shrimpo’s perpetually squinting, angry pupils. And though it really shouldn't surprise him at this point, his chest wriggled unpleasantly when the other fish toon’s mouth stretched into a big, pearly-white grin, one only marred by the off-center gap in his teeth.

“Aw, I’m sorry, Shrimpo! I’m not reel-y sure how I can clean quieter, though. You're just gonna have to bear with it a little bit longer!” Finn replied cheerily.

Coming from any other toon, the reply would've been like a fishhook to Shrimpo’s chest. Something that would've seen him leapt to his feet with his mouth wrenched open in an ugly snarl, ugly words imminent. But this was Finn, and Shrimpo unfortunately knew that the fishbowl’s words were far from a personal attack at all.

No, Finn was far too oblivious for something like that.

“HURRY UP, THEN.”

Shrimpo huffed out, crossing his arms tightly. He shot a glare at Finn – which might as well have been his neutral expression with how often he wore it – who did nothing but chuckle lightly and go back to cleaning the section of tiled wall closest to the bench.

There was never any amusement to be found in riling him up. Finn never took his barbed words seriously.

He snorted roughly and glared at the floor. He didn't even know why he stuck around when Finn had begged Shrimpo to come with him on this useless errand, days in a row. He really had nothing better to do, huh?

These fish tanks had long been bereft of any water, much less any sort of living creature inside of them. It had been years since a staff member had scrubbed down the walls of this floor, or the glass of a tank during nighttime, when the center was usually closed. In Shrimpo’s opinion, it didn't matter that this used to be their floor. Nobody was ever coming back, and nobody except for one of them or one of the other bored toons on occasion would ever enjoy the cleanliness that Finn continued to bring to the area, month after month.

Stubborn pride was supposed to be Shrimpo’s thing.

Perhaps it didn't help that the entire floor was designed to be dedicated to Finn himself, with nothing but a little corner where Shrimpo had been directed to stay at.

It wasn't even a good corner, either.

Shrimpo HATED it.

Ugh. Now he had actually worked himself into a bad mood. He couldn’t even make fun of Finn’s dumb attachment to the area because somehow the fish-themed toon would wrap back around to making some kind of sea-related pun about it.

His eyes darted around.

Stupid little fish ornaments on the wall. Stupid little posters with Finn’s face on it. Stupid glass–

He was staring at Finn, again.

The fishbowl was humming a cheery little tune. How anyone could be cheery while cleaning was beyond Shrimpo, but the fishbowl had a boatload – ugh, he was rubbing off on him – of funny little quirks that Shrimpo couldn't figure out for the life of him.

One of which was Finn’s ‘freckles’. A dumb and inaccurate description for the little dents and bits where the glass had slivered off around Finn’s face. It wasn't anything that could seriously harm him in the long run, past a temporary leakage of ichor. Just little scrapes accumulated throughout the years. Something that smacked Finn’s obnoxiously bulbous head by accident, an errant pebble (or Pebble himself) scraping off some laminate…

From afar, the little nicks looked almost like what humans would call freckles. To the little idiot children of the past, they decidedly were. To Finn, well, anything that made him look approachable, friendly, and stupid – in Shrimpo’s eyes – the fishbowl toon seemed to welcome with open arms.

Just like that stupid tooth gap Finn had been designed with.

…

There was something different, today.

Shrimpo surreptitiously peered closer. He couldn't have Finn noticing that he was examining the fishbowl’s face like a specimen – he would never hear the end of it, or the stupid ocean puns that would come along with all of that – but something about Finn was certainly noticeably off, and he couldn't put a finger on it.

It wasn't the stupid, spiky protrusions out of his cheeks that were meant to resemble some kind of vague sea creature likeness, or the way that the barely visible gills behind them pulsed and thrummed as Finn focused on his task.

So it wasn't until Finn’s eye darted to the side – meeting Shrimpo’s gaze, who glared harder at being caught – and his insufferable face twisted into another toothy grin, that Shrimpo noticed.

His teeth.

Past the gap in Finn’s mouth, where perfectly aligned, boxy and cartoony white teeth should have lied, sharp angles pressed against the fishbowl’s lip.

Even as Finn averted his gaze back to his task, dunking his sponge back into a cloudy bucket of soapy water and working at the tile once more, Shrimpo continued to stare at his mouth, uncaring of being noticed anymore.

What the hell was that?

It was surely a new change. But how? Anybody that could’ve worked on the toons had been gone for years.

His fingers twitched, and he looked away. He pressed his thumb to his own lips, parting them, running his thumb over his blunted teeth.

He had been made to look antagonistic. To be the unreasonable bully that caused problems amongst the cast of the show. He had eyes that felt natural only when they were slanted, downcast and glaring, and claws that the staff had forced him to trim before any public appearances. He had tufts of fur that spiked out in aggressive, triangular angles, befitting of the ‘villain’. But most prominent of all, he had teeth that appeared sharp and angry, that looked more like a shark’s than any breed of shrimp. Upon any sort of further inspection, this illusion would shatter. His teeth were never made with tips that could carve into meat, or edges that could cause any serious damage at all.

Begrudgingly, Shrimpo had come to understand, even if he HATED it. He surely would have bitten one of the children who had dared to yank at the tail on the back of his head in the heat of the moment, and he still would even so many years later. An injury like that wouldn't have been good for Gardenview’s public image.

But all of that only spawned one big, yawning question in his head.

Why the hell did Finn out of everyone here have actual, real, pointed teeth???

And why the hell hadn't he noticed before?!

“WHAT IS THAT.”

He wasn't one to wait for an opportune moment, or mince his words. His finger was poised pointedly, jabbing itself into Finn’s personal space without a care.

Finn had finished cleaning the area they were currently occupying. The thin layer of dust that formerly laid on the decorative tiled wall had been vanquished by his efforts, and the surface was shining with that little bit of water you could never quite dry off with a towel. The fishbowl’s fingers worked to wring said towel of as much liquid as possible, wet fabric twisted between his fingers as he squeezed.

At Shrimpo’s words, Finn turned his head, attention fully seated onto the smaller toon.

“Whuh?” One of Finn’s hands stopped its noble task and met his cheek with a gentle clink of glass against glass. “My face? Betta than it's ever been, my friend!”

Finn’s stupid little smile, even when he didn't even know what was going on half the time, infuriated Shrimpo sometimes.

“NO.”

Shrimpo grunted, finger still pointed forward. Something stopped him from clarifying, a nasty little wiggle in his chest that was made more uncomfortable by the fact Shrimpo couldn't pinpoint what it was.

“Ah… Did I get another ‘freckle’ on my face?” Finn guessed. Shrimpo watched a little too closely as his hand traveled upwards, clear fingertips brushing over the marks that Finn knew were there.

“NO.”

With a hearty grumble, Shrimpo grabbed Finn’s wrist suddenly.

It didn't come as a surprise to the fishbowl toon, who simply let him. Shrimpo could be a very touchy toon, if by ‘very touchy’ you meant only to be extra mean, or enunciate a point, and only ever on his own terms. Otherwise, he HATED it.

A decidedly louder clink was heard as the fishbowl’s outstretched index and middle finger met his own teeth.

“Ouch!” Finn yelped, blinking at the sudden glass-to-teeth contact. It took a few seconds of confusedly feeling around his own mouth for his eyes to widen.

“Oh. Ohhh.” Recognition dawned in his tone. “I knew I forgot to do something today! Mudst’ve slipped my mind!”

Shrimpo HATED when things weren't explained to him. He glared at Finn expectantly, watching as the taller toon lightly skated his thumb against his very pointy, unfriendly and unapproachable teeth.

“I haven't reel-y brought these up before, huh?” Finn had the nerve to chuckle sheepishly, hand moving to scratch behind his glassy head.

He was grinning, again. The same stupid, toothy grin that he always wore. The sharpness in Finn’s teeth was so blatantly wrong now that Shrimpo had noticed it, contrasting so heavily with Finn’s ‘couldn’t hurt a fly unless it was fish bait’ personality.

Something in Shrimpo’s chest lurched unpleasantly.

“Well, I’m not too prowfish of it, but I can't really can’t remember what Delilah said about why they grow like this–” Another awkward chuckle, and another flash of those teeth, “–but I figured it's something ling-ked to why I have these! And these!”

With a cheerful smile and a jubilance in his movements that Shrimpo decidedly did not share at the moment, Finn tapped one of the fins jutting out from his cheek with one hand, and ran his other past the gills nestled behind them with the other.

“YOU DID NOT HAVE THOSE BEFORE TODAY.”

Shrimpo argued, but it was true.

Completely against his will, he would have you know, he had been far too acquainted with the fishbowl’s face to not have noticed an extra-sharp smile before today's date. Even if he hadn’t, he was forced to stare at the ugly posters hanging on the walls of Gardenview, some of which sadly contained Finn’s image. Those didn’t portray Finn with a cutting grin.

“Yeah! I usually file them down!”

Finn agreed, smiling like he hadn't just said something horrifying enough to rival Shrimpo’s usual insults.

“YOU… WHAT?”

The shrimp toon found himself at a loss for words, eyes wide in glaring disbelief.

He surely hadn't heard Finn correctly, right? Filing his own teeth down?

“S’ not as bad as it sounds!” Finn assured with a panic, “I–It doesn't hurt me or any-fin like that! I don't think– I mean, humans sea-ertainly can't do it–” Shrimpo’s eye twitched as Finn giggled, “Our teeth are a bit different from theirs! The handlers just figured blunting them down every so often was less of a halosaur than taking me back to Delilah to fix it! Wouldn't wanna scare any kiddos with it, huh?”

Spite bubbled up in Shrimpo’s tiny chest.

Of course they let Finn have something cool like sharp teeth.

“THAT'S STUPID.” Shrimpo huffed out immediately, fixing Finn with one of his many cold glares. “AND WE HAVEN'T HAD VISITORS IN YEARS. HAVE YOU BEEN DOING THAT THIS ENTIRE TIME?”

Finn blinked. “I… guess so! It just kind of became sort of a halibut for me after all that time!” He shot Shrimpo another sharp-toothed grin.

Shrimpo watched as Finn doubtlessly waited for one of Shrimpo’s signature clapbacks, and Shrimpo felt suddenly small under the other toon’s gaze. He broke off their met gaze, glaring down at the ground.

Whatever. Whatever. If Shrimpo didn't feel like talking, nobody could make him!

“...Aaanyways, I sea-pose I forgot to take care of it for a few days. I usually grind them down when I polish my glass, but I've just been a little preoccupied cleaning up the aquarium the past few days.” He continued, looking around. “Which, by the way, looks great! Thanks for all the help, pal!”

Shrimpo’s ‘help’ had consisted entirely of two days ago, when he was feeling slightly charitable enough to pick up a grand total of three posters that had fallen onto the ground and needed re-pinning.

He hadn’t even done the pinning.

Sometimes, he really couldn't tell if Finn was that stupid, or if he was actively mocking him.

“...WHATEVER.” He huffed, crossing his arms and looking away.

This whole conversation, from the topic, to the way his words stalled at his mouth in a way he was wholly unfamiliar with, placed a roiling feeling in his gut that Shrimpo… well, hated.

Was he… nervous?

Why???

“HEY, FISH-BRAIN. WHEN ARE YOU GETTING DONE? I WANT TO GO RAID THE KITCHEN.”

He blurted out, kicking his legs out. He felt warm and restless all over, all of a sudden, and he knew he couldn't sit here and watch Finn clean as long as they had done so yesterday, and the day before, and the day before that.

“Oh!” Finn let out a surprised little gasp, humming thoughtfully. His sponge was back in his right hand as he had prepared to sweep over a new section; the front of an empty tank that had the slightest bit of cloudiness to its glass, tinted since the last time Finn had cleaned it. “A break would be nice! I've been working us to the fishbone lately, huh?”

Shrimpo knew Finn was grinning again. He refused to look at the other toon.

He felt Finn’s eyes on him from the side and still refused to look even as his antennae twitched wildly without his permission.

“COME ON THEN!” He barked, making a show of leaping off of the bench and balling his fists.

“Okay, okay! Jeez, you're pretty ea-gar today!” Finn laughed. Shrimpo heard the plop of Finn’s sponge dropping into the water bucket as the fishbowl toon scrambled to catch up with him.

He stomped ahead, purposefully going as quick as he could. Though he didn't like admitting it to himself, he… appreciated (urk) that Finn didn't mind his rough-around-the-edges mannerisms that every other toon assumed was tailor-made to piss them off (because it was).

He ruminated on that, and not on the fact that his spine prickled uncomfortably as he heard Finn’s footsteps running quickly up behind him.

It wasn’t a long walk back to the elevator, and then it was an even shorter walk to the main kitchen from there. Gardenview was laid out simply, and there were a lot of bright signage in colorful letters meant for visitors long past that detailed every inch of it if a toon was to get lost. Shrimpo knew the way by heart, though, as did most of the other toons. Eventually, Shrimpo barged open the swinging doors to the kitchen (while Finn made sure they shut securely) and the two toons made themselves comfortable.

And then snacktime went fine. Perfectly fine.

Well, it was objectively normal. It went as well as any other of the times that Shrimpo and Finn went to grab a snack.

Finn was seated at the big, oval table in the dining room perpendicular to the kitchen. The other toons usually gathered here for common mealtimes, but right now, the kitchen and dining area was emptied of other toons. Shrimpo was glad for it. Sprout had officially ‘banned’ him from the kitchen (other than the previously stated proper mealtimes) after he had bitten the strawberry toon’s arm for telling him he couldn’t have any extra crackers last week.

He had to be careful, these days. Sprout wouldn’t actually do anything about him being there, but Shrimpo didn’t really like being yelled at. That was his job, after all.

“WHAT DO YOU WANT?” He yelled out.

He was crouched at the very leftmost one of not one, not two, but three gigantic, toon-sized pantries located in the main kitchen. There was no way those two bakers could ever get through this much food, right? Shrimpo was just helping, the same reason behind all the times he’d raid the kitchen.

Obviously.

“Ooh!” Finn’s voice rang out from past the arched entrance. “Do we have any oyster crackers left?”

Shrimpo shoved past boxes of saltines roughly. One flopped onto the ground, and the telltale crunch of crackers breaking inside echoed in the pantry. He stomped on it too, for good measure. Anyone who liked those boring things deserved it.

His fingers bumped into crinkly plastic. He fished out the torn package; a blue label, with a stupid little anchor on it. It’s the only one he saw, and it looked suspiciously like the snack bag that had got him in trouble with Sprout the week before.

“NO. PICK SOMETHING ELSE.”

He shouted back. As he waited for a reply, he stood up and started rifling through the thick stacks of baking chocolate on the third rack to see if there was anything else with unhealthy amounts of sugar in it.

Eugh. Carob chips.

“Err… Just get me anything, then! I’m not a very pike-y eater!” Finn’s annoyingly agreeable voice responded.

Shrimpo grumbled under his breath. He HATED making decisions. He blindly grabbed at a snack-sized packet of something or other to the left, snatched the brightest colored rectangle of wrapped chocolate he could see, kicked the wooden door to the pantry shut as hard as he could, and scurried his way to the dining area.

Shrimpo avoided eye contact with Finn and tossed whatever he had grabbed onto the table in front of the other toon. He brushed past Finn gruffly and yanked out one of the seats next to Finn. The chair legs made a screechy sound against the tile flooring, and he had to take sort of an embarrassing half-hop to clamber onto it.

“I didn’t even know we had stuff like this!” Finn exclaimed. Shrimpo’s antennae twitched as the sound of plastic snack wrap tearing sounded out loudly.

“SPROUT’S ALWAYS KEEPING THE GOOD STUFF FROM US. BECAUSE HE HATES US.” Shrimpo grumbled, fiddling with his own snack. Small claws tore through aluminum with a satisfying shhhk, and soon enough, the sweet and alluring taste of chocolate was melting on his tongue.

And then the whole thing was devoured within a matter of seconds.

“Jeez! You’re the hungriest shrimp I’ve ever seen!” Finn laughed.

Shrimpo turned his head and shot a glare at the fishbowl. “ARE YOU GOING TO START COMPARING ME TO ACTUAL SHRIMPS AGAIN? I HATE WHEN YOU DO THAT!”

Finn almost looked embarrassed. Shrimpo knew better. He was pretty sure Finn couldn’t feel any sort of shame, at least not around him.

“Whale, it’s just interesting! I mean, normal shrimp are grazers. They eat so slowly! Looks like none of that behavior made it into you, huh?”

Shrimpo rolled his eyes. “YEAH. AND REAL FISHBOWLS DON’T TALK EITHER. SHAME THAT ONE DIDN’T MAKE IT THROUGH.” He snapped, crossing his arms. He HATED it when Finn talked about his similarities to his real-world crustacean counterparts. He did NOT need a reminder of why he was so tiny and the exact biological reason for it.

“You’re so funny, Shrimpo! A toon after my own carp!” Finn replied all too genuinely, talking through a mouthful of food.

Turns out Shrimpo had passed him a pack of beef sticks. Huh. That was odd. Enough of the animal-based toons were vegetarian – Shrimpo knew that much – that Sprout had nearly stopped preparing meat dishes or meat snacks all-together. It was funny to chase them around with a handful of lunch meat, sometimes. It was also the reason why the lunch meat was relocated to the highest point of the refrigerator. A shame.

But something else caught Shrimpo’s eye. His gaze drifted over to Finn’s snack of Shrimpo’s choice. They hadn’t spent any time apart, having walked directly from the aquarium to the kitchen, and Finn clearly hadn’t had any time to file down his teeth. Shrimpo watched, breathing slowed, as Finn wiggled another piece of dried jerky out of the plastic wrapping and brought it to his own mouth. Shrimpo watched as his friend’s sharp incisors tore through desiccated flesh, and with an unpleasant prickle up his spine, Shrimpo realized something was seriously wrong.

It was the same nervous feeling as nearly an hour before, when he and Finn had been at the aquarium. When he had first spotted Finn’s weird, offputting teeth.

“C–COULD YOU CHEW WITH YOUR MOUTH CLOSED?” Shrimpo blurted out.

Finn stared at him, blinking rapidly mid-chew, like Shrimpo had grown a second tail out of the back of his head.

GAH! What was wrong with him?!

He wanted to scream, but even he had enough self-awareness to know he would look insane if he did. Frustration enveloped his mind like an angry storm, and familiar anger coiled itself tightly in his gut. He balled up his fists and willed the pain of his claws digging into the soft white underscales of his palm to make him shut up before he blabbered something stupid again.

“Uh… Yeah, sure!” Finn’s eyes were filled with bewilderment that Shrimpo would’ve loved to make fun of if it was any other situation. He couldn’t rip his eyes away from Finn, even as the fishbowl closed his mouth and finished the bite of jerky he still had in his mouth.

He could visualize it, even though Finn had listened and shut his stupid mouth. He couldn’t get the sight of Finn’s predacious teeth tearing through the meat snack like it was nothing. Like a shark that smelled swirling blood in dark ocean water.

Something in the back of Shrimpo’s mind told him he needed to–

“You know, I never knew you were such a stickleback for table manners!” Finn said cheerily. “Con-sea-der me oh-fish-ally informed!”

“SHRIMPO VALUES MANY THINGS SUCH AS THIS.” He barked out, deflecting on instinct, and crossing his arms tightly against his chest. The pressure cleared his mind for a moment. What was with him? At least Finn wasn’t suspicious.

“Ah. Reel-y?” Finn paused, curiously. “Why’d ya fling peas at Dyle the other day at dinner, then?”

“HE SAID HE ‘HATED SPOTTING PESTS IN THE KITCHEN’ AND THEN LOCKED EYES WITH ME ACROSS THE TABLE. HE STARTED IT.”

Finn snorted, a goofy smile curled on his face. “Shrimpo, I think he was talking a-boat the bugs!”

Crisis averted. Finn could not find out about whatever was happening to Shrimpo right now.

If nothing else in the world, then Shrimpo HATED when he came off as weak.

A loud BANG from the doors being slammed open echoed across the dining room, startling Finn into dropping his snack and causing Shrimpo to look upwards. Ire crossed Shrimpo’s face (more than usual, anyways) as he spotted the incredibly pissed off strawberry toon standing in the open doorway.

“Finn!” Sprout barked, stomping his way over to the table. “I thought I told you to keep Shrimpo,” said with a glare and a hiss over to said toon, “away from the kitchen!”

Finn chuckled sheepishly, briefly sending a helpless look over to Shrimpo. “I guess it must’ve slipped my mind for a minnow there! I don’t sea-pose we could eat our snacks and be out of your hair?”

“Ugh.” Sprout smacked a hand to his face in frustration and Shrimpo smirked at the sight.

Sprout was high on the list of toons that Shrimpo liked to see in any kind of distress, and provoking him seemed like just the kind of thing he needed to take his mind off of recent confusing feelings.

“YEAH, BERRY-BOY. DON’T YOU HAVE SOME CUPCAKES TO GO BAKE?”

He felt satisfaction at the way Sprout’s eye twitched.

Time passed, much like any other day.

Sprout eventually had enough and had gone off to go fetch a broom; Shrimpo didn’t feel like getting swatted again, so he had quickly vacated the kitchen area. After that, Finn, at some point, yammered on about some thing he had planned with Razzle or Dazzle or whichever one it was that could stand to be in the presence of so many aquatic puns without knocking out another one of his teeth. Shrimpo had glared, commented something about Razzle’s forgettable face, and had only kicked over a crate once Finn had left with a little hint of bitterness.

He didn’t understand what the point of Finn hanging out with so many other toons was if Shrimpo was going to get dragged to practically everything that Finn did anyways, but it was alright. Shrimpo was clearly the best toon in Finn’s life if he always came back to him at the end of the day.

Though that night, tucked under the covers, he laid awake. Even after a multi-hours session of hitting the stuffing out of the punching bags in his room, he was still awake.

And he HATED knowing why – he was still thinking about that STUPID fishbowl!

“GRARGH!”

He jolted up, claws gouging ribboned streaks through his pillow. The satisfaction only came with a little bit of regret as feathers shot into the air around him. He sucked in air through his teeth and pulled his blanket a little tighter around himself.

Whatever. He could steal somebody else’s pillow tomorrow.

Or get Finn to ask Dyle to order him a new one.

UGH. Finn, Finn, Finn.

He flopped back down onto his bed in agitated defeat.

Sure, Finn was the only person in this entire museum that Shrimpo could call a friend. And sure, because of that, Finn crossed his mind a lot more than any of the other toons. It was normal. He thought about Finn a normal amount.

But Shrimpo was certain that replaying the memory of Finn eating that snack earlier over and over was not normal.

He didn’t like it. He was sure of it. He missed the sight of Finn’s normal smile - the mouth that didn’t make his heart pound against his chest with a wriggling feeling of wrongness. Wrongness was the only way he could describe it.

At the same time, he couldn’t stop thinking about it. Turning it over and over in his head until he was sure he had burned the image of Finn’s teeth into his brain.

Why?

WHY?!

“AUGH!”

He balled up his blanket as much as he could between his hands and threw it across the room and against the opposite wall as hard as he could. It hit the wall with a gentle plomf and he curled up in a tight ball, shutting his eyes tightly and willing his rapidly dancing heart to slow.

He’d do something fun tomorrow. Something to take his mind off of the day’s confusing events. Maybe he could rearrange all the books incorrectly at the library and watch Brightney short out her light over it.

The texture change of the old, raggy blanket off of him mixed with a soft draft coming from under his door lulled his racing mind into a slower pace.

Yeah. That sounded nice.

In the morning, Shrimpo would awaken with an ardent frown plastered on his face – like most days.

He would leap off of the bed with the type of fervor only a being artificially created to feel as much anger as physically possible could have, and he would spend his morning sprucing up by wailing on the punching bags littered around his room until the thick metal chains anchoring them to the ceiling creaked in ominous protest.

Shrimpo wouldn’t see the neatly folded piece of notebook paper at the foot of his door until almost an hour after he’d awoken.

He knew there was only one toon who would want or dare to pass him notes in all of Gardenview even before he snatched up the letter and read it.

The handwriting was neat, and blocked out in juvenile print with cheap-looking ultramarine-colored pencil. The curves around the letters always reminded Shrimpo of bubbles.

‘Hi Shrimpo!!! Sprout asked me if we could fish up some grub for tomorrow’s supper! Meet me by the lake this afternoon!

…Don’t feel gill-ty if you can’t swim by, though!

Finn’

We?

Shrimpo snorted. As if Sprout would have personally asked for Shrimpo, as well.

The notion of coming home with a fat, lengthy fish, though, and getting to rub it in every toon’s face that they were eating so well because of him was an attractive thought, indeed.

So that was why, somewhat begrudgingly, Shrimpo made his time smuggling candy from the kitchen that morning a whole lot shorter than usual, and found his way to one of the outdoor areas of Gardenview.

He wasn’t sure which lake Finn would be fishing at, but he had his one, lucky guess. There were only a handful of park-type areas where the toons were able to feel a little sunshine on their faces – Shrimpo excluded, he HATED sunshine – and even there, brick walls hundreds of feet taller than the toons themselves still hedged them all in. One of these yards was home to the biggest body of natural water at Gardenview, and there was even a makeshift dock jutting into the water’s side that Finn himself had built years ago.

Against his will, of course, over the timespan of knowing Finn, he had also learned that this specific pond contained the ‘big ones!’, as the fishbowl said. Something about the way that the lake was formed and how the shape helped the fish inside reproduce, or some useless information like that.

Sure enough, the moment Shrimpo’s foot hit soft green grass instead of the pebbled walkway that snaked around the park area, a blue and round face popped into his vision from a distance.

“Shrimpo!” Finn called. Had he already been looking around for Shrimpo? The shrimp’s frown deepened and he rolled his eyes, lazily walking over to Finn as the taller toon waved him over. “I wasn’t sure if you’d actually come today! I’m seal-riously glad you stopped by!”

Shrimpo stopped in his tracks. With unbelieving eyes, he stared straight at Finn’s idiotic, smiling face.

His jagged, shark, dagger-like smiling face.

“YOUR TEETH.” Shrimpo grunted out, pointing a finger accusingly.

Finn blinked rapidly for a moment. The fishbowl stuck his tongue out – a darker blue from the water that splashed inside of his bowl – and traced over the angular edge of his molars.

“Oh!” He gasped in surprise. “It’s not like me to forget about that twice in a row-boat! Agh, and after you reminded me, too… I’m sorry, Shrimpo.” Finn apologized. “Looks like I’ve been a bit of a fish-brain lately!”

“WHY WOULD I CARE?!” Shrimpo snapped, anger biting into his tone more forcefully than he intended. “BECAUSE I DON’T. WEIRDO.”

He crossed his arms and plopped down on the grass next to Finn, while making sure to disturb as much of the grass as possible. His heart was fluttering in his chest and he didn’t know why, only that it was adding fuel to the constant baseline of anger he felt thrumming in his system at all times.

Shrimpo glanced back at Finn after a few seconds of silence, a scowl on his face. Finn looked almost thoughtful, the fins on his face twitching as he met Shrimpo’s gaze evenly.

It was discomforting, and for once, he actually wanted Finn to start talking in that stupid voice of his.

“ANYWAYS,” Shrimpo announced, looking around for Finn’s signature tackle box. He grabbed at the indigo case and flipped the clasps up, digging to find his favorite lure in Finn’s collection. “WHY DOES SPROUT WANT FISH? I THOUGHT COCOA STARTED CRYING LAST TIME MEAT WAS SERVED.” His eyes locked onto his prize and he finagled out the lure he chose, a brightly-colored faux worm that reminded him of gummy worms.

“Well, Cocoa really doesn’t speak for all of us!” Finn chuckled awkwardly. The fishbowl turned to his other side, passing Shrimpo the short, orange rod that Finn had made for him ages ago. “I think some of the other meat-eaters complained about it, too. Eclipse looks shrimp-ly miserable every time our dinner has just been salad or something, lately!”

Shrimpo attached the lure to the end of his rod and stood up to cast his rod into the calm waters. Of course, Finn already had his own (blue-colored, opposite his orange-hued rod) cast into the lake before Shrimpo had even arrived. He watched as his bobber hit the water, sending small disruptive ripples through the calm pond. Fishing was one of the few activities Shrimpo could say he actually enjoyed, and he begrudgingly had to attribute at least some of that enjoyment to the skill he had naturally absorbed by hanging around Finn way too much.

“ISN’T THAT LIKE, CANNIBALISM FOR YOU, OR SOMETHING?” Shrimpo grouched, sitting back down in a criss-cross to await a bite.

Finn made a huh? sound, shooting a confused look at the shrimp. “Fish eat other fish and sea life all the time, Shrimpo. That’s like, the most basic of fish facts ever!”

…

There it was again.

Again!

The buzz of slight panic that flitted against Shrimpo’s ribs, the feeling that had been plaguing him for the past day and a half, it all returned with full force. He had to push back the overwhelming urge to shake.

Shake?!

What was wrong with him?!

His knuckles were white. He was squeezing the life out of the soft foamy fishing rod grip, eyes wide and focused on the clear blue of the lake in front of him and yet at the same time he was far, far too aware of Finn’s close proximity and his searching eyes on the side of Shrimpo’s face and the row of knives sitting in his mouth that could rip and tear at the slightest moment–

Cold glass brushed his knuckles and Shrimpo flinched, back jerking in shock at the touch. Finn’s fingers twitched as if unsure, but his hand settled onto the back of Shrimpo’s scaled hand in a sickening motion of comfort.

“Shrimpo? Are… are you alright?”

Shrimpo wanted to trip and fall into the lake and drown. Finn sounded concerned. And what was worse is that he probably had a good reason to, if even Shrimpo didn’t know what was going on with him.

No. NO! He was better than this. He was better at everything! He wasn’t going to let this freaky gut reaction to his best friend win over his common senses!

He shoved Finn’s hand off of his own roughly, turning to bark at the other toon. “I’M FINE! I JUST THINK IT’S STUPID THAT WE CAN’T JUST EAT CANDY EVERY DAY FOR DINNER!!!”

Silence hung in the air for just a moment.

Relief washed over Shrimpo, cool and refreshing, as Finn’s face morphed into a toothy grin. He kept his eyes rigidly onto Finn’s own ones and fought the violent, squirming urge to look any further down.

“Shoal-ly that wouldn’t be very healthy for you!” Finn joked merrily, both hands out and pointing at Shrimpo in a dumb little motion.

“SHRIMPO DOES NOT ABIDE BY OTHER, LESS IMPRESSIVE TOON’S RULES.” Shrimpo settled onto his back and closed his eyes, shifting slightly whenever the grass started to itch against his scales.

Maybe he also liked fishing because he could nap in-between bites, and Finn would always shake him awake if his rod started to wiggle and he didn’t notice.

Shrimpo didn’t know how much time had passed. He was drifting in and out of that pleasant in-between space of consciousness, the gentle breeze that made it past the high brick walling lulling his mind into rare calmness; an uncommon state of being for him.

Finn’s shriek of excitement tugged him out of it.

“Woo-hoo! I got one!”

His excited voice nearly matched Shrimpo’s usual decibel level.

Shrimpo opened his eyes to see the fishbowl’s spindly arms flexing with strength, spinning the fishing rod’s handle expertly. It always looked effortless whenever Finn was doing it, but Shrimpo unfortunately knew that there was a surprising amount of upper body strength involved.

He watched as the line was quickly drawn in – he never saw fishing line reel in as fast as when Finn fished – and a flopping, fiercely squirming piece of future seafood was tussled onto the grass in front of the two toons.

“Aw! It’s a brook trout!” Finn spoke, picking up the struggling fish. Shrimpo scooted forward, rubbing his eyes of drowsiness as he watched Finn work.

The fishbowl toon carefully removed the large hook lodged into the small trout’s mouth, wiping off errant bits of blood that had pierced its mouth with a sad-sounding tsk sound.

“Sooo pretty,” Finn gushed, running glassy fingers over the trout’s spotted scales. Finn always, always inspected his catches. Shrimpo didn’t really understand it. It’s not like it’s the first trout or even brook trout Finn had ever seen. Still, though, the fisherman toon’s eyes were wide in what could only be described as reverence, delicately fondling the brook trout’s orange-hued fins. “I’m sure it’ll be shad to know it’s gonna be a big part of dinner tonight! But I’ll let it calm down for now. I don’t want it to be scared when it goes.”

Already, the small fish was weakening, its struggles fading quickly in Finn’s cold grip. The sight of this sent an unwanted and deeply uncomfortable shiver to Shrimpo’s core.

Finn was quick after that to gently place it in a large bucket full of lake water that he had procured earlier, and the trout made a small splash as it began to swim around in circles, already calming in familiar-feeling waters.

It had no idea how close it came to death at Finn’s hands, did it?

And, well, it’s not like Finn wasn’t going to kill it. Eventually.

Shrimpo felt dizzy.

“SPEAKING OF SHADS, WHY DON’T YOU TRY AND CATCH SOMETHING BIGGER THAN A FISH THE SIZE OF MY FIST?” Shrimpo grumbled, looking away. If he ignored whatever was happening to him, it would go away. He just hadn’t ignored it enough yesterday. “WATCH AND LEARN FROM THE BEST. I’M GONNA CATCH THE BIGGEST FISH IN THE LAKE AND THEN ALL OF YOU TOONS WILL HAVE TO SAY THANK YOU TO ME!!!”

“You’re on, then! I hope at least one of us can catch a big ol’ bass!” Finn sounded jovial beside him, and prepared to cast his rod once more. It was hard to get Finn into any kind of competitive mindset, but a fishing competition was absolutely the quickest way to do it.

The sun slowly peeked over the eastern brick wall as they spent the morning-into-afternoon fishing.

Shrimpo remained awake and alert, back straightened as he stared daggers into the surface of the water for any sign of a fish biting. No matter how many times Finn told him before that glaring at the water wouldn’t attract any fish to his rod, he was determined to win the challenge he had issued. He was the best, after all.

And soon enough, another fishing rod began to wiggle, but it wasn’t his.

“Ooh! Another one!” Finn cheered, clapped his hands (which made more of a clink than a clap) and moved to reel in his catch.

Shrimpo groaned and rubbed his eyes. They had only been at the lake for an hour, but Shrimpo was antsy for some action! The restlessness thrummed in his veins as he tapped a claw sourly against his lap, glowering as Finn pulled in a fish that was significantly bigger than his last catch.

“Do you remember what this one is?” Finn asked Shrimpo gently, holding up the caramel colored fish. Shrimpo’s brows softened and furrowed in thought as he struggled to remember.

Ugh, how was he supposed to remember which dumb brown fish this one was? Especially with Finn looking at him like that.

Why was he looking at Shrimpo like that?

He hesitated.

“UM… CATFISH.”

“Close!” Finn said encouragingly. His eyes were filled with nothing but adoration as he handled the flat looking fish, almost petting it even as it struggled in his firm grip. The fondness in his eyes didn’t waver even as Finn met Shrimpo’s gaze. “This one’s a black bullhead. It’s a type of catfish, so I suppose you were right!”

Shrimpo felt himself flush.

“Look at these! They’re so long!” Finn spoke, reflective fingers brushing over the bullhead’s mouth. The fish’s mouth gaped at nothing and its whiskers twitched erratically as Finn touched them, and Shrimpo’s pulse quickened when he spotted the bullhead’s fins wiggling in panic.

“BARBELS.” Shrimpo answered automatically. His fingers twitched and rose to his own face.

Finn turned to drop the bullhead in the bucket and swirled back to Shrimpo all in one fluid motion, mouth quirked up at one corner in an odd little smile. He approached the smaller toon and crouched down ever so slightly, hands on his bent knees.

“You remembered.” Finn’s voice held a note of something Shrimpo couldn’t quite put a finger on. Shrimpo’s breath stuttered and stilled as his eyes moved upwards to meet Finn’s. He could smell the oddly synthetic scent of plastic on Finn’s signature life jacket from this close. Why was he this close?

He felt the cold glass on his own, much smaller hand, and Finn squeezed. Shrimpo felt the pressure on his antenna.

“You have antennae though, Shrimpo.” Now, Finn’s tone sounded purely educational. It was a stark contrast to the intimate proximity of the taller toon.

Shrimpo felt like his gills had been drenched in glue, and then it had dried up and his gills were sealed shut and his body was overheating and he was going to rot right here in the heat of the sun, but the emanating chill of Finn’s glassy flesh was the only thing stopping it from happening.

“...I…I KNOW THAT,” Shrimpo spat. He felt rooted to the spot. “FINN–?”

Do something. Do something! Push him away, or something!

His arms wouldn’t move. His legs wouldn’t listen to him.

When his eyes darted up, frantic, quickly, all he saw was those sharp teeth.

He was going to die–

“Ah! Woopsie,” Finn backed off rapidly, releasing his hold on Shrimpo’s hand. “We, uh, gotta get back to fishing, huh? Haha–” His voice pitched off into a nervous giggle.

Shrimpo forced himself to turn away and sit down. He dug both fists into the grass until his fingers pierced wet dirt and he felt crumbled gravel wedge under his nails. His breath was rough, like sharp stabs of ice pressing into his ribs, and he faintly realized he had briefly stopped breathing when Finn had cornered him like that.

But it wasn’t cornering, was it? Finn was the only toon that Shrimpo allowed to even touch him. This happened often. This was normal.

Shrimpo was very aware of Finn’s gaze boring into the side of his skull.

His mouth was dry.

“...YES.” He cleared his throat. It sounded awfully like a gasp for breath. “I STILL NEED TO BEAT YOU.” His voice wavered. He hated it.

Neither of them said a thing about it, but Shrimpo still felt Finn’s eyes on him.

Perfectly on cue, a sharp twang echoed out.

Both toon’s heads swiftly turned to their abandoned rods, still cast out into the blue waters of the lake. Finn’s rod had a small, jingly bell appended to the tip of the rod, so he’d know if he had a catch on the line. Shrimpo’s stout, orange rod, however, had no such signal.

And there wasn’t a jingling in the air right now.

Finally!

Desperate to focus on absolutely anything else, Shrimpo shot forward, hands grabbing onto his fishing rod. As he fumbled to detach it from the rod holder Finn had placed down for him, the upper half of the rod curled and tugged with a banjo-like resonance once again.

“Shrimpo! You have one!” Finn called out, excitement in his tone as he scooted up beside Shrimpo to watch.

“I KNOW I HAVE ONE! I HATE IT WHEN PEOPLE TELL ME OBVIOUS THINGS!!!” Shrimpo screeched, fist on the reeler.

Whatever was on the line was tough, and it was putting up a big fight. Shrimpo’s arm was already sore from the force of having to reel in his rod, and every time the fish yanked back the fishing line, Shrimpo felt his whole body lurch forward in place.

Was he really that small?!

He HATED that!

“You can do it!” Finn cheered, pumping a fist into the air. “Show that fish who’s the bass around here!”

He let out a feral roar as he put all his strength into reeling in the fish. Finn had made this look so damn easy earlier! His tongue pushed out past his teeth in concentration. He was actively pulling the rod backwards so as not to lose it in the lake and handle the crank at the same time, and with some dread he quickly realized he was fighting a losing battle.

“FINN! I– NGH, HATE THIS STUPID FISH–”

His angry shout was cut off by a powerful tug from what he almost expected was an entire shark at this point. He felt the upper half of his body lurch forward, and then his entire body flew forward. A shriek ripped out of his mouth.

Cold gripped his stomach and lifted Shrimpo off of the ground, and then cold was enveloping him completely.

Bewildered, he realized Finn had stopped him from sliding straight into the lake. He did a double take and almost let go of the rod when he realized where exactly he was sitting.

“I got you, pal!” Finn assured him, arms holding him steady. “Focus on the bite! You can do this!”

The bottom of Finn’s fishbowl (chin?) was practically resting on Shrimpo’s head. Everything around him smelled like Finn. Everything around him was Finn.

He grunted with panicked exertion as he reeled.

“GRAGH!”

With one final cry, the fish’s massive head breached water. Determined not to let it best him, Shrimpo reached up and grabbed the loose fishing line, manually dragging the struggling fish up the slight incline until it was mere inches away from them.

Finn sprang into action, gingerly sliding Shrimpo off of his lap and unhooking the creature from Shrimpo’s line.

“It’s HUGE!” Finn exclaimed, wonderment in his tone, holding up the catch to his eye.

Shrimpo blinked and stared at what he had dragged out of the water.

He knew what it was – had watched Finn fight tooth and nail when fishing one out of the water before. It was a sturgeon, and it was almost as long as Shrimpo was tall. Its clay colored scales shone wetly in the afternoon sunshine, the pattern going down the side of it swirling as it struggled in Finn’s grip. The flat, pointed head of the sturgeon was torn and ripped from the struggle, and Shrimpo realized it must have been that close to escaping the hook.

“I… I WON!” Shrimpo spoke, disbelief coloring his tone. He straightened up, peering at the struggling giant in Finn’s arms; even he was having a hard time controlling it.

“You sure did, buddy!” Finn’s voice held nothing but joy – he may have a competitive streak while fishing, but both of them knew an impressive catch far outweighed any disappointment the friendly toon might have felt. “And look – she’s gravid, too!”

Finn’s fingers pushed gently against the massive fish’s underside. Upon closer inspection, it was indeed rather bloated and round where he indicated.

“I THINK THE TITLE OF ‘BEST FISHERMAN IN GARDENVIEW’ NEEDS A READJUSTMENT.” Shrimpo bragged loudly. There was a joyous swelling in his chest, though, and not even one derived from causing misery to another toon. No matter how confusing the last few minute’s events were, Shrimpo loved to feel well-earned pride coursing through his system.

“Now, we could release her back into the lake so she could have her babies, or–” Finn started.

“NO! I’M NOT GIVING UP MY PRECIOUS CATCH! GIVE THAT TO ME!” Shrimpo protested, making a grab at the massive fish.

Finn leaned back, keeping it ever so slightly out of reach. “–or we could have a nice side of roe tonight! Your choice.” He spoke innocently, flashing a grin at Shrimpo, who quit bristling.

Finn yelped in surprise, suddenly.

The sturgeon had been weakening out of the water, but a new wave of fight had entered the mother-to-be. Shrimpo stared with wide, angry eyes as the sturgeon nearly slipped out of Finn’s grasp, the fishbowl having to squeeze tightly with both arms to keep it from getting away.

“KILL IT! KILL IT!!!” Shrimpo cried out, the real fear of his impressive catch slipping away gripping him with an icy fist.

“Uh–” Finn yelped, pushing the sturgeon into Shrimpo’s chest. “H–hold onto her for a second! I need to…” He trailed off and circled in the grass, trying to locate his tools.

The sturgeon was massive, slimy, unpleasant, and most of all, actively fighting against Shrimpo. Adrenaline spiked as he fought to hang onto it. With every strong flex of its massive tail, Shrimpo felt his own body sway at the sturgeon’s movements. Finn rushed back to his side, crawling over to the side where the sturgeon’s flopping head was.

“Hold her still!” Finn directed.

And Shrimpo would have really wished he had missed the next part.

He had seen him do it before. Rarely, but whenever he had fished up something Finn deemed ‘invasive’, whatever that meant, it had happened.

And Shrimpo hadn’t cared then. Honestly. If anything, he thought it was a point in Finn’s favor that he wasn’t afraid to do something like that to a species that he loved.

Finn brought a small wooden mallet down on the sturgeon’s head, striking it right between the eyes. The action made only the softest thunk, not even a crack, most likely due to the hammer meeting the sturgeon’s armor-like scale. The sturgeon fell limp immediately, in Shrimpo’s grasp, totally and utterly quieted by Finn’s one, decisive strike.

Ice filled Shrimpo’s veins. That same fluttering panic seeped into his bones, heightened tremendously. He dropped, no, threw the fish’s corpse to the side and as far away from him as physically possible, and watched as the dead body slid down a few feet and slowed, stopping against a rock.

Unmoving.

“Ah, that one was a struggle, alright!” Finn let out a relieved whew and wiped the condensation off the rim of his fishbowl. He shot Shrimpo a grin. “Kind of familiar right? Pretty funny that you caught the one fish in the whole lake with a temper that could rival even you!”

A fish just like him.

Dead, at his best friend’s hand.

All he saw was Finn’s mouthful of knives, aimed right at Shrimpo.

“G–GET AWAY.” Shrimpo uttered shakily, scrambling backwards. He was clumsy and his arms shook with fear as he mentally screamed at them to work, to get him out of there.

“Shrimpo?” Finn’s fins twitched and his eyes grew large and round with concern. “Buddy, are you okay?” He leaned forward. He looked so worried.

He was still holding the mallet.

He was going to put him down, just like he had to the sturgeon. All it would take was one well placed hit, right between Shrimpo’s eyes, and he would be gone, just like the sturgeon. He felt his gills throb with fear beneath his shirt.

He wanted to live.

With a screech that sounded more like the strangled death cry of a small bird, Shrimpo kicked out as hard as he could with his right leg, aiming for Finn’s hand. Finn yelped in pain, clutching his own wrist, but the mallet thankfully toppled out of his grip.

“Shrimpo! What the heck, man?!” Finn’s voice was accusatory. Aggressive. His sharp, pearly, shark-like teeth flashed in the sunlight as he glared at Shrimpo.

He was going to die.

“GET AWAY FROM ME!!!” Shrimpo yelped, fear paralyzing his upper body. He kicked out, narrowly missing his friend’s head. He aimed again, and his foot stung as he hit hard glass.

“Stop– hey!” Finn sounded angry. “This isn’t funny, Shrimpo!”

Shrimpo’s mind swirled sickeningly, fear flooding his panicked mind. There was a part of him that knew, deep down, that this was all stupid, that some primitive part of him was desperately overreacting to a perceived threat, but then Finn grabbed onto Shrimpo’s ankle when he tried to kick defensively at the bigger toon for a third time, and the action flooded him with adrenaline and panic and the need to run and get away and survive–

Shrimpo kicked out with his other foot, jerking his entire body to move out of Finn’s grip. He felt stunned, frozen, for a few precious seconds, watching Finn advance. He scrambled backwards, ripping up fistfuls of grass and dirt and throwing them at Finn’s face, anything, anything to distract the larger predator.

His knees felt as if they were full of jelly. He couldn’t manage to stumble to his feet, and he kept falling every time he tried. Distantly, through the fuzz of alarms blaring through his disoriented mind, he realized he was well and truly shaking, from the tip of his tail to the point of his antenna. He turned onto his stomach, psyche screaming at the threat now being out of sight, but he had to, he had to, he scrambled up the incline like his life depended on it because his brain screamed that it did and he believed it.

A crushing grip grabbed his ankle once again and tugged him back down the slope easily.

Shrimpo screamed. His body was flipped back onto his back, effortlessly, and he threw his hands out, half to shield him, and half to claw at his assailant. His claws dug into gamey plastic before both of his wrists were captured and slammed into the ground beside him.

He struggled, whipping his head around, trying to protect his neck. Any second, now, needle-sharp teeth were going to bite into his jugular and drain him of all the ichor he was worth. With shame, he felt tears blurring his vision.

Finn was going to eat him.

His head was forced up by a strong, cold hand, and his weak yet overbeating heart pounded quicker at not being able to see what was about to happen to him. His body knew he had lost, and it was over; he was paralyzed by fear, no matter how much he wanted to keep fighting until he couldn’t any longer.

Finn’s teeth felt wet and cold. Shrimpo trembled as they traced over the softer white underscale of his neck. He swallowed thickly and then somehow shook even harder as he felt the bump of that swallowing motion press against Finn’s fangs.

He heard Finn inhale hungrily, pressing more of his cold glass into the crook of Shrimpo’s neck. Finn was smelling Shrimpo. He darted his eyes downwards and immediately wished he hadn’t. Tucked behind his facial fins, the fishbowl’s gills were twitching erratically, and his eyes were blown wide like a cat who had gotten its paws on the juiciest mouse in the whole barn.

Saliva dripped onto Shrimpo’s neck. Finn was looking up, right into his eyes.

Wet muscle licked a slow, deliberate stripe up the front of Shrimpo’s neck. He could feel Finn shiver giddily from on top of him, drinking in the smaller toon’s scent. The first tear escaped Shrimpo’s eye as he trembled, both held and frozen in place.

This must have been how the fish felt.

“DON’T E–EAT ME–” Shrimpo sobbed out, voice dry and breaking halfway through his pathetic plea. He wiggled slightly, testing Finn’s ironclad grip, and felt despair drowning his chest. He shut his eyes tight. He didn’t want to see the ichor come spilling out of him. “FINN–” He heaved, sputtering. “F–FINN–”

The fishbowl toon pressing down on him stiffened, mid-sniff against Shrimpo’s open neck. He felt his own heart beating out of his chest. Finn had stilled completely above him.

“Shrimpo,” Finn breathed out, dread laced thick in his voice. Shrimpo was silent, not even daring to breathe. “Shrimpo,” he repeated, tone urgent. “A–are you– oh my cod, I–”

Finn released his bruising grip on Shrimpo’s head and wrist.

Shrimpo opened one eye, then the other. The momentary reprieve of pressure and the familiar tone of his friend’s worried voice grounded him from zipping up and running as fast as he could away from here.

“I–I… Shrimpo, I’m s–so sorry!” Finn blubbered, face inches from Shrimpo’s. “Y–you just, you smelled so good, you’ve smelled amazing a–all day, and I-I-I–”

His heart was hammering, and his arms were still trembling, and somehow he was still thinking about Finn’s teeth and the proximity of them to his neck and all of a sudden or maybe slowly all day he had realized that the butterfly-fluttering pulse and the heat under the collar of his shirt that appeared every single time he had seen Finn’s shark teeth over the past 48 hours wasn’t entirely negative at all and the proof of that was nudging incredibly insistently against the soft inner part of his thigh, having sprung up and hardened sometime during Finn pressing him down and frightening him half to death.

Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.

He HATED being stupid.

“S–SHUT UP!!!” Shrimpo practically screeched into Finn’s face. He reached up, clasped onto Finn’s facial fins like his life depended on it (which he was still trying to figure out) and yanked the fishbowl toon’s head down to meet his mouth.

It hurt. Finn’s teeth crashed hard into Shrimpo’s and it sent waves of pain through his mouth. Shrimpo didn’t care. He bit down on Finn’s bottom lip; the teeth-on-glass sting of pain sprang fresh tears into Shrimpo’s eyes and he sniffled a nasty word into Finn’s mouth.

He felt his heartbeat start pounding uncontrollably again as Finn’s mouth opened against his and lithe arms wrapped back around his chest, firmly pressing Shrimpo back into the grass. Finn’s tongue was frigid as it tussled with Shrimpo’s. He felt helpless once more, and he trembled when he felt Finn’s incisors brush against his own, significantly softer lips. The voice in his brain screaming ‘YOU ARE GOING TO BE EATEN IF YOU DON’T RUN’ and the piece of meat between his legs throbbing pleasantly every time Finn did something that cemented that instinctual warning voice were at war with each other.

For once, Shrimpo couldn’t feel the constant baseline of mild annoyance to anger that seemed to plague him constantly. And maybe he could deal with feeling like a prey animal marked for slaughter if it meant he could enjoy that a little more.

“Nnnh–” Finn exhaled blissfully, breaking the kiss with a pant. “Sh–shrimpo…” There was a whining lilt to the fishbowl’s voice as he stared down at the smaller toon pathetically, as if he wasn’t the one that was holding Shrimpo down only moments prior.

“WHY’D YOU STOP?!” Shrimpo shrieked demandingly, tugging on Finn’s life jacket testily. He didn’t want to be left alone with his thoughts because he HATED learning new things about himself and he knew the moment he got longer than a few seconds to think rationally the shame of everything that did happen and was happening right now would lead him to claw the scales off of his own body.

“I-I–” Finn stuttered, looking down on Shrimpo with something akin to fear in his stupid, big and wet round eyes. “I don’t want to hurt you, Shrimpo! I’m n–not really feeling like myself, I–”

Finn sounded so sickeningly apologetic and Shrimpo HATED it.

Shrimpo scoffed in his face. His racing heartbeat belied his words, and his pulse stuttered and his mind was still warning him. “T–THERE’S NO WAY YOU COULD EVER POSSIBLY HURT ME. I’M THE BEST, AFTER ALL.”

“But I could, though.” Finn’s voice, still him, still his friend, still sickeningly ashamed-sounding, made Shrimpo feel like a rabbit being cornered by a wolf with those four short words. Above him, Finn’s head lowered, shakily taking up its former spot in the crook of Shrimpo’s neck.

Finn’s voice sounded far too starving all too suddenly. “Y–you, I… Look at me. My fins, my tail, my gills. They made us so, so similarly. Except for one thing. C–can you guess?” Finn chuckled weakly.

Shrimpo’s brain felt short circuited the moment those teeth returned to being inches away from his neck. With his friend’s words however, the memory of hundreds of stupid fish facts and information from all the time he had spent with Finn came flooding back.

He knew it as well as Finn did.

“EVERYTHING IN THE OCEAN EATS SHRIMP.” He shivered at his own statement, and shivered harder when Finn huffed into his neck, muttering an encouraging little ‘mhm-hm’.

“You’ve been acting so weird today,” Finn breathed into him, and Shrimpo felt the vibrations of his words more than he heard it, “--and yesterday. It’s because of my teeth, isn’t it?”

Shrimpo’s heart dropped.

“N–NO.” He lied.

Finn took a long drag of Shrimpo’s scent. It made him shudder and twitch wildly and want to get away all over again.

“Don’t–” Finn warned coldly, reflexively pressing down upon him suffocatingly before immediately softening his grip. “N–no sudden movements, okay? It makes me want to… well, c–catch you.”

Shrimpo felt his face burn. He wondered if Finn even realized how his words were affecting him.

“YOU REALLY ARE JUST A STUPID FISH, HUH?” Shrimpo managed weakly, shifting uncomfortably. He really couldn’t leave unless Finn let him, at this point. The thought felt intoxicating.

“I–I can’t help it,” Finn panted out, nearly whining, “you smell s–so good right now, Shrimpo, just like those f–fish we caught, haha…” Finn sounded almost drunk, even if Shrimpo knew for a fact that the fishbowl never drank anything other than water.

“LOOK AT YOU,” Shrimpo taunted, faux confidence filling his words even as his heart thundered, “YOU COULDN’T LOOK STRAIGHT ENOUGH TO KILL A GOLDFISH RIGHT NOW. YOU CAN’T DO ANYTHING TO ME. THERE’S… N–NO NEED TO WORRY.”

“Shrimpo–”

Finn’s voice was weak. The sharp ivory immediately pressing onto Shrimpo’s lips, next, was not.

He almost choked on his own spit at the sensation of Finn nibbling at him, and his throat convulsed as Finn explored it.

His tongue was so much bigger than Shrimpo’s. Thicker, longer, slimier. This kiss, comparatively, felt like Finn wasn’t trying to hold back anymore, or perhaps couldn’t stop himself in general. It was a lot, even for him, and he felt the lack of air in his lungs start to burn quickly.

He was the one that had to rip away for breath this time, a sticky string of saliva connecting the two toons as he turned his head to the side with a shaky gasp.

He felt cold hands slide under his shirt moments after he broke away. Finn’s hands were clawed, much like his own, and he shuddered as he felt the tips of Finn’s nails scrape at the softest white scales he knew were under there.

“FINN–” Shrimpo choked out, cut off by the overwhelming feeling of sensation.

Finn’s fingers brushed over the gills under Shrimpo’s chest relentlessly, and in return, Shrimpo twitched violently, a full-body shudder that he hadn’t even known he could do. As quickly as he could, he bit down on his own fist, masking the whiny groan he knew was about to slip out. Tears sprang in Shrimpo’s eyes for the nth time that day.

It was too much. His muscles felt sore from his legs kicking out subconsciously; every time one of Finn’s fingers brushed into one of the slits, his mind blanked that much whiter and he bit down onto his hand that much harder and the damp spot pressed into the tent of his underwear grew that much wetter.

“Shrimpo,” Finn panted, delirious, “I–I’ve wanted to… guh–” Finn groaned out against Shrimpo’s mouth, who pulled him down for another kiss. It was breathy, quick, and Finn broke away quickly. “...f–for so lo-ong–”

His face burned and he opened up his mouth to reply. Another brush of his sensitive gills and whatever he was going to say was pushed so far out of his mind and replaced with nothing but Finn, and he hissed his closest friend’s name out like a torrential waterfall.

Those round, pathetic eyes were looking down at him again, pleading with nothing but round pupils.

“Can I–” Finn started, and Shrimpo cut him off almost embarrassingly quickly.

“JUST DO IT.”

Finn’s hands stopped their convergent assault on Shrimpo’s chest, and he didn’t know whether to be glad that his senses weren’t getting overly stimulated or cry because of the emptiness that Finn’s touch left him. He felt his spine shiver as Finn’s hands moved downwards to his waist, and his hand went up to block his mouth once more because the chill of Finn’s hands there almost wrenched a squeak out of him and those were the type of noises he HATED to make.

Up from there, Shrimpo’s hands – er, one hand – worked fervently at the stupid straps of Finn’s lifejacket. He sure as hell wasn’t going to lay there and be the only one picked apart like a sushi tray. Curses fell from his mouth as he fumbled with the buckles and straps.

Above him, Finn chuckled sweetly as if they weren’t currently in the process of irreversibly and fundamentally changing their relationship. Shrimpo pawed at Finn’s jacket impatiently, and somehow, was able to tug at just the right angle for the gaudy orange garment to sweep past Finn’s gangly arms and drop onto the grass beside them. Shrimpo heard a soft groan from Finn as the fishbowl similarly used one hand (the other was still holding Shrimpo by the waist) to unzip and haphazardly peel down his trousers.

Shrimpo felt something wet and slimy and cold flop against his inner thigh. He huffed, face reddening, stubbornly refusing to look down.

“You’re so cute, Shrimpo!” Finn squeaked out, pressing a sloppy peck to Shrimpo’s neck. “I–I’ll try not to bite you!”

He knew Finn’s words were an attempt at consideration but they fueled the steady baseline of panic in his system regardless. He keened desperately into his own hand and hooked a claw into his shorts, tugging down and freeing his cock from its soaked cloth prison.

Shrimpo finally looked down.

It looked pretty. That was the only word he could use to describe it. It unfurled from a shiny slit at Finn’s crotch and it brought to mind the eels that Finn loved so much. Much like Finn’s tongue, his dick was a pretty shade of baby blue, and it seemed about as thick as a soda can at the base before it tapered into a soft, wriggling point.

And it was frilled. And it was pulsing. And it was wet.

Shrimpo’s face probably matched Sprout’s skin color, at this point.

Shit! Don’t think about fucking Sprout in the middle of this!!!

Shrimpo’s heart lurched as Finn manhandled him up, lower half no longer on the ground and instead pressed into Finn’s pelvis. The fishbowl was huffing loudly, and Shrimpo was ever so aware that his friend was sniffing him, that apparently his scent was so appetizing to Finn enough for him to have lost control earlier.

Finn prodded up against him, situated so perfectly against the curve of his ass.

“Nnh– you’re so small,” Finn breathed lowly, nibbling on his own lip nervously. The sight made Shrimpo’s leg kick weakly. “Relax for me, alright, buddy? Can you do that for me?”

“OF COURSE I CAN,” Shrimpo snapped. He HATED being talked down to. “HURRY IT UP ALREADY!!!”

He was distantly aware of the muffle in his voice, blocked by his palm, but he thought if he removed it the panicky little prey-minded voice in his head would make him try and wriggle out.

Finn murmured a little okay into the side of Shrimpo’s head, pressing the tip of his cock against Shrimpo’s entrance. Shrimpo’s breath stopped as he pressed once, twice – slippery against Shrimpo’s tight ring of muscle – and then into him.

Shrimpo felt as if the air got pulled out of his lungs. He let out a choked, dry gasp, blindly biting on his palm until he tasted copper. He was sure Finn could hear the whining moans even through his palm and the thought made his legs twitch frantically and wrap around Finn’s waist helplessly. He wasn’t even fully in, yet, and the slow slide of Finn pushing inside already felt like too much to take. His other hand twitched, unsure whether to wrap around Finn for support or to take care of his own throbbing cock.

“Shrimpo–” Finn squeaked out, long arms wobbling around him.

It was too tight. He felt like he was going to burst. He ground down on Finn’s cock, which only made the fishbowl toon above him groan and press deeper into him. He was being stretched out far, far too much, and his senses were being tugged in every direction he could think of. There was warmth pooling in his stomach that reminded him of the fuzzy feeling of drinking too much ‘soda’.

“URGH. M–MOVE–!” Shrimpo yelped.

He felt Finn bottom out against him, and he distantly wondered how the size of the tentacle he had seen before managed to fit fully inside of him.

Little ‘nnhs’ and ‘haahs’ echoed from above him. He felt Finn attempt to pull out and blanched as his own hole squeezed around him, unwilling to let go.

“Y–you’re so tight…” Finn spoke in a dazed tone. He could hear Finn grunt with exertion as he pulled out, only to press back into Shrimpo near-immediately with a happy little sigh.

Shrimpo felt his muscles scream and tense when Finn pushed back in. His mouth had opened in silent protest but only drool and broken words fizzled out of it. Everything felt like it was going too slow and too fast at the same time, and just when he thought he recovered he felt the tip of Finn’s ribbed dick press into a certain spot inside of him that whited out his vision and disoriented him all over again.

His hand was on his own dick before he could even register what he was doing, stroking himself shakily. Finally, finally. He almost cried at the relief it brought him. It was weeping all over his hand, and he knew there was a wet spot on the fluff of his stomach from where it had been resting moments prior. He didn’t mind the cries falling from his open mouth, forced out of his throat every time Finn rocked against him.

Shrimpo’s head was so pleasantly empty just laying there. He was nearly accustomed to Finn’s size, and the fishbowl was taking great care in not going too fast. Shrimpo might’ve been offended if his brain wasn’t being flooded by gratifying chemicals that rewarded him every time he squeezed his fist and jacked himself off.

He could feel himself getting close. It had been embarrassingly fast. He was no stranger to jerking off under his own bedsheets past when all the other toons had gone to bed, but the feeling of Finn writhing inside of him, stretching him out, and moaning so sweetly over top him had the tip of his cock spurting pre-cum and the tangle in his belly throbbing in imminent warning.

“F–FINN, I–I’M… HAAH,” Shrimpo groaned out, eyes losing focus.

He was so close. So, so close. He was gonna–

He felt Finn grab the hand he was jerking himself with and rip it off.

“WHAT THE FUCK?!” Shrimpo whined, glaring up at Finn. The fishbowl had stopped thrusting into him at much the same time, holding Shrimpo’s struggling wrist firm in a bruising grip. He watched with annoyance as Finn’s tongue flicked out, lapping up the fluids that had gathered on the inside of his palm sloppily. “FINN, I WAS– GHH!!!” His face burned in frustration, and he yanked on his arm hard, but Finn wouldn’t let go. “LET ME–”

He quieted, still staring at Finn. His friend wasn’t responding, and seemed to be sniffing at his palm with the same curious vigor and blown-wide eyes that had overtaken him earlier.

Shrimpo spotted the tiny splotch of inky black on his slick-covered hand, and about a hundred different foul words raced through his mind. The distinct warning bells from earlier rang loud and blaring and an inner monologue of ‘you fucked up, Shrimpo’ piped up that he usually tended to ignore.

“FINN.” Shrimpo started, trepidation thick in his voice. Finn’s tongue ran carefully from the bottom of his wrist, all the way to the indent in his scales where he had accidentally bitten himself earlier. He saw, in real time, how Finn’s eyes dilated when he found the very thing he had no doubt smelled and began lapping at his wound like a kitten with a bowl of milk.

And Shrimpo HATED how the sight went straight to his dick, throbbing needily even as his brain quailed in fear.

“FINN,” he tried once more, voice dipped into pleading, and he almost hoped his friend wasn’t lucid enough to notice his other hand making its way to his abandoned, leaking cock. Every time Finn’s long, textured tongue slid against his cut, he felt his pulse beat with fear and every time that happened he felt his hole flutter and clench around Finn’s dick.

Even drunk on Shrimpo’s scent, the fishbowl’s instincts drove him to move his hips, lazily beginning to thrust in and out of him once more. He could see that Finn’s focus was nearly entirely on his wound, though. Shrimpo didn’t dare to look away, terrified eyes trained on his friend’s predatory mouth.

He knew for a fact that Finn wanted to eat him, now.

The thought made him throb harder in his own hand.

He felt teeth nibbling at his palm and he screeched reactively, flailing his feet and lopsidedly kicking at Finn from the very precarious position of having his legs locked around Finn’s waist. Shrimpo heard a giggle – a giggle! – from up on top of him and very suddenly he felt the warm pressure of lacerating teeth biting into his palm and Finn speeding up at the same time.

Shrimpo felt hot ichor begin to pool where Finn bit into his hand. He wasn’t coldblooded like Finn had said so many times before he should be, like Finn was, and the contrast of his friend’s cool tongue lapping up the ichor that made him function was both terrifying and thrilling. He could see from the ecstatic, lopsided, and carnivorous grin on Finn’s face that his faculties might as well have dropped to the bottom of the lake, and by all means Shrimpo should have been struggling a lot harder to get out.

But every time Finn suckled at the rip in his own flesh and scales to lick at more of Shrimpo, and every time Finn’s hips bucked into him so casually and yet with so much weight behind it, and every time Shrimpo ignored the instincts in his bloodstream screaming ‘HE IS EATING YOU’, shamefully, his cock tightened that much more with the familiar signal of release.

“FINN, ENOUGH.” Shrimpo choked out, just to say something, not really expecting his friend to hear it.

He didn’t even want Finn to listen.

Finn looked positively out of it – he wasn’t ripping, or tearing harder into Shrimpo’s flesh, just enjoying the steady dribble of ichor his teeth had nicked into the smaller toon. Every time Finn jutted forward, little ‘unhs’ and strained groans fell out of Shrimpo’s mouth. His sight was bleary, tears produced purely from instinctual fear masking his sight, and he felt drool dripping out of his half-open mouth.

He felt the pins and needles rising in his belly, and he sniffled, small fist squeezing and rubbing his cock as fast as possible. Ichor stained Finn’s cheek from where Shrimpo’s palm had incidentally rubbed against it. His glassy eyes were trained on Finn’s mouth, and the fact it was his ichor on his friend’s tongue.

“NNGH– F–FINN, I–I…” Shrimpo moaned out, gritting his teeth. His stomach felt like it was on fire. Finn was hitting that small spot inside of him that made his cock dribble onto his hand and forced his brain into a haze,

He was going to–

But it wasn’t enough—

With a cry, he forced his hand out of Finn’s grip and shoved his arm straight into the fishbowl’s open mouth. He felt Finn’s teeth scrape and pierce the scales on his forearm, he felt ichor start to seep from his wounded limb, and most of all, he saw his best friend’s shark-like teeth wrapped securely around his flesh like he had gotten his fins onto dinner early.

Shrimpo sobbed out, fear beating rhythmically in his chest, as white ropes of cum shot onto his own chest. Abruptly, as he came, Finn was suddenly too large inside of him and he was too tight around him and he knew he was squeezing uncontrollably like a vice around the fishbowl’s cock. He felt as if his heart was going to burst out of his chest. His legs were numb and his arms were numb and the only thing he could feel was his climax washing over him in crashing waves as he spilled all over onto the fur of his belly.

He felt a cold liquid flood inside of his ass. He kicked out weakly and sniffled weaker. It pressed and squished against that sweet spot inside of him and it was too much, way too much, he was filled too much and Finn was still pushing deep into him, deeper than he thought he could even go and he felt like he was on fire. His cock was still pulsing, emptied of all it could give, still sending fuzzy shockwaves to his brain as Finn came inside of him.

“STOP, AH, COLD–” Shrimpo hissed out desperately, arm still wedged inside of Finn’s mouth. His other hand tapped the glass of Finn’s chest urgently, claws scraping the laminate of his glassy body.

“Nnh– J–just a little more, Shrimpo, please, aah–” Finn’s voice begged, muffled from behind Shrimpo’s arm. Shrimpo’s face blazed in embarrassment and he ripped his arm out of Finn’s mouth, which only made it sting harder.

Shrimpo grit his teeth and gripped Finn’s chest as tightly as he could. His entire body rocked against the grass as Finn thrusted erratically, his hips soon stuttering to a stop lodged deep inside of Shrimpo. He bit down on his tongue but couldn’t stop a whimper from escaping his throat as he felt the final splashes of Finn’s release settle inside of him.

He was curled so tightly into Finn’s chest, at this point, and he could feel the moment when Finn’s body practically gave out, fighting to keep himself upright and from crushing Shrimpo.

They were both breathing so heavily that Shrimpo couldn’t hear the sound of the soft outdoor breeze weaving through what little trees were around, or the gentle waves of the lake that was just big enough to have waves. Shrimpo felt gross, partially sticky from sweat and his own ichor staining his arm and partially because of everything that had just transpired and everything he had discovered about himself and everything that Finn now knew about him.

Only one thing broke the silence.

“W–well, ha, that was just fin-tastic!”

Shrimpo felt his eyelid twitch. He felt his forearms tremble with a sudden, barely-restrained rage, and he fought off the urge to remove another one of Finn’s teeth with his fist.

“DON’T. DO NOT. DO NOT CONTINUE SPEAKING,” Shrimpo seethed out, wrapping his limbs around Finn tighter, “I HATE YOUR STUPID PUNS AND I HATE THAT YOU SAY THEM AT EVERY SINGLE OPPORTUNITY! YOU WILL SHUT UP IF YOU KNOW WHAT’S GOOD FOR YOU!!!” He screeched.

Finn just laughed and stood to his knees shakily, disentangling his limbs from the now-flailing ball of fur and scales that was aiming for his oversized head.

Shrimpo hissed between his teeth and tongue as Finn pulled out, and his face scrunched up in disgust. He could feel Finn’s spend leaking out of him, already lukewarm instead of chillingly cold, and beginning to collect in a small pool on the ground beneath him.

“Wow! Looks like we’ve got some stuffed shrimp on our hands, huh? Maybe we don’t need to bring those lil’ fishies back to Sprout, after all!” Finn teased.

Shrimpo stared at him.

“You know, ‘cause you want me to eat you and stuff?”

Rage was comforting and familiar to Shrimpo in a time like this, even though his overexerted body complained as he swiped at Finn’s face. When the fishbowl backed away far enough for Shrimpo to have to reach out to bat at him, he instead flopped back onto his backside, huffing for air.

He continued to grouse wordlessly even as Finn scooted back up next to him after a minute, even daring as to give the shrimp a quick hug. He let himself be handled by his friend, and told himself it was because he was tired. It wasn’t far from the truth; Finn knew only to touch him when he was either calm (a state that usually only Finn could identify) or, like now, physically worn out.

Of course, with Finn, it was never just a quick hug. Shrimpo felt himself gently pulled on top of Finn, and soon the cold feeling of glass cuddling into his neck arose.

“Shrimpooo,” Finn spoke softly, just under his ear, “You know I’d never actually eat you, right?”

“I–I KNOW THAT.” Shrimpo snapped, stiffening in Finn’s hold. “IT’S JUST– IT’S JUST BECAUSE I’M A STUPID SHRIMP! I HATE BEING GENETICALLY INFERIOR!”

“Hey! Don’t say that around me,” Finn scolded, shuffling, fiddling with something out of sight, “So what if your instincts overreact every once in a while? You’re still you. And you’re my most treasured fishy friend in all of Gardenview!”

Shrimpo rolled his eyes, huffing. “SHRIMP AREN’T FISH. THEY’RE CRUSTACEANS.”

He felt Finn’s mouth form into a toothy grin and knew he had fallen for his trap. He grumbled and shifted, crossing his arms.

“You remembered!”

Shrimpo flinched, feeling the unexpected sting of alcohol hit his arm. Finn gently passed a wet wipe past the lacerations on his arm, and he breathed a quiet sigh of relief seeing that Finn hadn’t cut too deeply. The wipe came away gray, stained with ichor, and Finn pulled out a fresh one from his tackle box.

“Haha… I really did a lot mora damage than I thought, huh?” Finn sounded apologetic, but not patronizing. Shrimpo probably would’ve punched him if he had.

“YOU’RE ONE TO TALK ABOUT A STUPID FISH-BRAIN GETTING TOO EXCITED.” Shrimpo replied, glaring into the clear blue sky.

“Yeah…” Finn agreed, focused on cleaning. “I promise, I’ll file my teeth back down first thing to-moray. Darn little troublemakers.”

A beat of silence passed. Shrimpo’s chest did a strange little wiggle.

“...YOU DON’T HAVE TO.” “Mmm?” Finn suddenly sounded very interested in the conversation.

“IT’S JUST STUPID!!! NOBODY ELSE HAS TO DO STUFF LIKE THAT!!! THAT’S ALL!!! I HATE YOU!!!” Shrimpo spat, flailing out of Finn’s grasp, who just laughed.

“Okay, Shrimpo.” Finn flashed Shrimpo his signature toothy grin, and instead of a primal urge to run away, even through the teeth, all he saw was his best friend.

And he supposed he didn’t really hate that.