6. The Worst Thing That Can Happen

6

THE WORST THING THAT CAN HAPPEN

Galent made Pinks walk in front of him.

"I don't have a map," Pinks protested, Zarrie wrapped in a soft, loose blanket in his arms. "I don't even know where we're going!"

"I'll tell you to turn when we need to turn."

"Yeah, you just like telling me what to do," Pinks said under his breath.

Galent rumbled. When Pinks glanced over his shoulder, Galent's eyes were dark, his mouth curved into a smirk.

It shouldn't make Pinks' heart thump.

Pinks flipped him off and turned back to the sidewalk, frowning when Zarrie reached over his shoulder and babbled at Galent.

She'd been doing that ever since Galent stepped into the safehouse, looking in Galent's direction even though the bathroom door was shut. When Pinks had set her down so he could pee, Zarrie had followed him to the bathroom, except instead of crawling toward him, she'd turned and tried to grab Galent's stone knee in the shower.

Did she... know that Galent had been cursed?

And could she help him? What if the curse ended up hurting her? She was so small and defenseless.

"Guh guh wa," Zarrie said to Galent, spit dribbling down her chin.

"You're really cute," Galent said.

"Don't give her any baby talk," Pinks said. "I'm trying to teach her as many words as I can."

"Even ‘fuck'?"

Pinks turned around to scowl, and almost tripped.

A split second later, Galent was in front of him, strong hands grasping Pinks' arms, holding him steady.

"All right," Galent murmured. "No ‘fuck's."

Pinks glared daggers at him. Except it only made the giant smile wider.

"You're cute when you're mad," Galent said. "Spicy. I like that in a mate."

"I'm not your mate," Pinks growled.

"Not yet."

"Fuck off." Yes, Pinks got the irony.

Galent released him, laughing quietly. He leaned in and said to Zarrie, "You've got a great dad. Don't smack him too hard, okay?"

Zarrie babbled and reached for Galent again. Galent shook his fingers at her, and Zarrie wriggled excitedly.

Galent made it really difficult for Pinks to stay mad. Unsure what to feel about it, Pinks walked faster to put more distance between them.

Except Galent kept up easily with his long legs. His pants were so short, his calves were exposed, and it wasn't even a turn-off.

They reached the department store some time later. Pinks eyed the shoppers flocking into the store, backing up to stand closer to the giant.

"Don't turn into a rock," Pinks muttered.

"I'll try not to."

A shopping cart wobbled nearby, one of its wheels bent off the ground. It seemed to contemplate joining the eager carts speeding toward the shoppers, except it turned back, as though hoping that Pinks might want it for himself.

Pinks melted.

There was magic in metals. It existed as wisps of energy in metal ores. As the ores were refined into pure metal, the energy gathered and grew, moreso when metal was shaped into movable objects such as locks and faucets. Over time, as the moving parts interacted, the magic in them caused the objects to turn sentient. It was how shopping carts could race around in grocery store parking lots, following ice cream trucks that played the sounds of jingling coins.

Unlike kidnappers, shopping carts were pure and innocent. Kind of like dogs.

Pinks turned Zarrie around to face the cart. "Look, Zee. This is a shopping cart. We use it to hold all our groceries."

The shopping cart flipped its wheels excitedly.

"Here." Galent crouched next to the cart, grasping its bum wheel. With sheer brute strength, he bent the wheel back so it was touching the asphalt. "How ‘bout that? Can you move better now?"

The cart rocked back and forth, flipping its wheels again. Galent grinned.

Pinks' heart swelled without his permission. He patted the cart's handle and pushed it toward the department store entrance, trying to ignore the warmth in his cheeks.

Galent brushed his hands off on his pants, following behind. "I guess you know where to go now."

"I'm getting some food," Pinks grumbled. "And you're paying."

"Sure."

"I'll get anything I want."

Galent checked his wallet. "Sure."

How could he be so flippant about how much money Pinks made him spend? Pinks frowned, grabbing a random box of croissants and putting it in the cart.

"Mmm, croissants. Good choice." Galent licked his lips. And he put a second box into the cart. "We should get some peanut butter for the croissants, too. There wasn't any in the kitchen."

"Peanut butter? In your croissant? " Pinks spluttered.

Galent stared at him. "Do you not eat peanut butter with your croissants? You've been missing out."

Pinks shook his head. "I'm afraid to find out what other kinds of weird food you make."

The giant grinned. "I'll show you."

"I'll try to be excited," Pinks said dryly.

He pushed the cart down the aisles faster than he would have liked. But the fact was that the longer they stayed out, the more chances they had of being attacked.

He scanned the produce section, grabbing extras of the things he planned on feeding Zarrie—meat, vegetables, fruits. All the things they'd run out of back at the safehouse.

"Why wasn't there any fresh food in the kitchen?" Galent asked, his voice almost a growl. "Don't Mav and the rest bring you food?"

Pinks squirmed. "We ate the last of it today. I was trying to stretch it out; I feel bad asking them for food all the time. It's not like I'm paying for any of it."

Galent narrowed his eyes. Then he straightened his shoulders and puffed out his chest. "Their loss. I'm buying you food. And whatever else you want."

"Even a new phone?"

"Even a new phone," Galent said. "And underwear. Nice cute panties."

"We're not at that stage yet," Pinks spluttered, his insides growing warm.

"Yet." Galent grinned. "But at some point I'll hold you down and put my big, thic—"

Pinks smacked his hand over Galent's mouth, flushing when a couple stopped talking next to them. The young Asian lady stared at them with wide eyes. The older man with her huffed, turning back to the ice cream.

"Are you going to put peas in my ice cream again?" the man said to the lady.

"Only when you're not looking," she replied. "But this time I'll wait for your ice cream to melt, and stuff them all the way inside."

"Why's she allowed to make sex jokes?" Galent asked, his breath hot and damp against Pinks' palm.

"She's not making the jokes at me," Pinks grumbled, pulling his hand off Galent's face before the giant decided to lick him.

Galent looked Pinks in the eye and slipped his tongue out of his mouth, its flat, pink shape growing longer, thicker, pointed at the tip. His tongue was bigger than Pinks' cock.

Heat jolted between Pinks' legs.

"I can do that with other parts of my body," Galent said casually as they continued down the aisle. "Take parts of my other shape and merge them with my human shape."

Pinks was not thinking about how that affected Galent's cock.

Galent grinned knowingly.

"I have a baby here," Pinks hissed.

"I said nothing terrible." Galent's innocent expression looked extremely fake. "Are we done with the food? I need to grab a few shirts; we can go home after that."

Home. Pinks sighed. He wasn't sure where home was, anymore.

He picked up his pace, grabbing everything that sounded good on the way to the clothes section. He threw boxes of sugar cookies into his cart, honey mustard pretzel pieces, sour cream and onion potato chips—all the things he hadn't had the luxury of buying before.

Pinks kept expecting Galent to stop him, but Galent only added other flavors of the snacks he picked.

"Are you trying to give me variety?" Pinks asked.

"I'm picking out the things I like. Since we're going to be holing up in the house."

Huh. "Get some TP. I heard about a universe where toilet paper was running out in stores, and people were stealing them from other people's shopping carts." Pinks shuddered.

Galent frowned disbelievingly. "People steal TP?"

"Yeah. It was really weird."

They finally arrived at the clothing section. There weren't many clothes that fit Galent; when he found a T-shirt that did fit, he yanked off his too-tight shirt in a stunning display of rippling muscles, and pulled the T-shirt over his head.

"Finally," Galent sighed. "My pecs have room to breathe."

"They had room to breathe before," Pinks pointed out. "Since you were walking around with your shirt half-open."

Galent's smile grew. "You were watching?"

"I was trying to keep my eyes from landing on your offensive... everything." Pinks waved at Galent's chest. But the skip in his heartbeat made it crystal clear that he was lying.

Smugly, Galent dropped more shirts into the cart. Then they reached the pants section, and Pinks covered his eyes. "Please don't take off your pants in the middle of the store."

Galent looked around. "No one's watching."

"Oh, gods!"

"Look, I left my underwear on." Galent gestured at his bulge.

Pinks was so glad that Zarrie was looking over his shoulder now, at everything that wasn't Galent.

Because wow, that was a lot of skin.

And a big, heavy bulge.

Pinks remembered peeking at Galent's naked body when he was a statue. In the shower, Galent's cock had rested gently against his balls, big and thick even when he wasn't erect.

But looking at Galent's rock-solid body had felt a touch removed from reality, because everything was stone-cold. Unlike now, with Galent's boxer-briefs stretched tight over his warm cock, leaving nothing to the imagination.

Galent's length flexed against his underwear. Suddenly too aware that he was staring, Pinks looked up, only to find Galent grinning smugly.

"See something you like?"

"No!" And there Pinks' heart went, skipping again.

"That was a lie." Galent's smile grew. "You shouldn't be lying in front of a baby."

"I'm not going to talk about your—" Pinks waved vaguely at Galent's hips "— that in front of anyone!"

"But you'll talk about it in bed?"

Pinks tried not to think about it.

Galent stepped into his new pair of pants; Pinks couldn't stop watching the way Galent's bulge lifted with his movement, bouncing a little as it caught against the open fly, before it dove under the coarse fabric. A whimper almost escaped him.

"I'll show you more later," Galent murmured.

"No!" Pinks spun away, his entire face burning.

When Galent was finally decently dressed and there were all kinds of clothes in the shopping cart, they headed for the checkout stands.

"This was the most dramatic shopping trip I've ever had," Pinks said, ready to crawl into bed and do unspeakable things with his right hand.

Galent grinned. "Shall I make it more interesting?"

"Please don't."

They joined the shortest queue, holding onto their cart so it wouldn't race in circles around them. Zarrie babbled and tried to grab Galent again.

Amazingly, the giant twisted his body away so Zarrie couldn't even touch his shirt.

They were about to step forward when Pinks realized that Galent had completely stopped moving. And that Galent was rapidly turning into stone, all over again.

"No!" Pinks groaned.

But Galent couldn't hear him. In fact, his wallet and phone had both frozen into stone along with his clothes, and there was no way Pinks could pay for their overflowing cart.

When the shopper in front moved to pay and Galent still remained a rock, Pinks did the only thing he could think of. He turned to the old man behind them. "Would you like to go ahead of us?"

The man thanked him and pushed his cart around Galent. Pinks shifted his weight from one foot to the other, watching with dread as the cashier rang up all of the man's items, and he began to pay.

So he turned to the plump lady behind them with a wince. "Would you like to go ahead?"

She looked curiously at Galent's rock-solid body, before moving her cart to the empty spot in line. "Thanks!"

Pinks clutched Zarrie, remembering the times his parents had left him queuing while they dashed off to grab something at the other end of the grocery store. Just that Pinks had a baby now, and his source of cash was an awkward statue in the middle of the line.

Pinks let another ten people go ahead of them, glancing around anxiously. Some of the shoppers were watching him—of course they would. It wasn't every day that a statue showed up at their store. But this made it difficult to tell if anyone actually meant them harm.

Besides, how long could this go on before the meat in his cart spoiled? Would a manager kick them out for obstructing traffic?

Was there a special spot on Galent that had to be pressed to turn him back?

Pinks was about to implode from all his uncertainty when color returned to the statue.

"Oh, thank gods," Pinks breathed, thunking his forehead against Galent's stony arm. "Ow. Fuck."

"No cursing in front of babies," Galent said, glancing around them. "How long did I give you the... cold shoulder?"

Pinks groaned. "Shut up, that's terrible." He shoved Galent forward so they could finally start unloading the cart. "You were stone-cold for too long."

Galent sighed, but he began placing everything on the conveyor belt, discreetly studying the other shoppers.

They were buying so many things that the cashier took forever to ring them up—including the clothes on Galent's body. Pinks took one look at the total and fully expected Galent's credit card to decline the transaction, but it went through.

Galent and the cashier put everything back into the cart, and then they were finally out of the store.

Away from all the watchful eyes.

Pinks heaved a sigh, relaxing. "I can't wait to get home."

"Yeah? Want to fill me in on what I missed?"

"Just a lot of awkward queuing. People staring. I don't suppose your parents ever left you to wait in grocery store lines when you were little."

Galent smiled lopsidedly. "There were no grocery stores like the ones we have nowadays. Hell, I think my mom sent me to the market on my own to buy the things she'd forgotten for dinner."

Pinks shook his head. They were halfway across the parking lot when Zarrie sneezed.

Instead of a normal sneeze, tiny round feathers burst into existence around them, and her wings popped out under her blanket. Pinks cursed and fumbled, trying to hide how the fluttering shapes were, in fact, part of his daughter.

Galent glanced sharply at them. "Are those her own feathers, or do they come from nowhere?"

"I think they're hers. I don't know," Pinks groaned. "It's not easy to count her feathers when she keeps beating her wings!"

"Don't you have anyone to ask?"

"No," Pinks admitted, shame-faced. "I've never seen anyone else like her other dad. And he's disappeared off to gods know where."

"Motherspanking dishrag," Galent said.

Pinks stared. "What?"

"No ‘fuck's, remember?" Galent's mouth curved.

Pinks bit his lip. "That was actually a pretty good one."

Galent puffed out his chest. Before he could speak, a strange movement caught Pinks' eye.

He slowed down and stretched out his hearing, picking up several sounds—people walking, kids talking, cars moving all around the parking lot.

But there, from three cars down, came a strange clicking noise.

Galent had stopped, grabbing their cart to hold it in place. "What's wrong?" He followed Pinks' stare, then cocked his head and went stiff. His tone changed. "Take Zarrie and go."

"I'm not leaving you here," Pinks hissed.

"I can't fight properly if I'm worried about your safety."

They glared at each other, saved from arguing when a large, spindly thing unfolded itself from between the cars, heading straight for them.