15. Undeniably Sweet

Foxx hadn't started off hating My Boy Lollipop… In fact, he actually had, at one point, found the song catchy… But as he laid there, face buried into Harlow's chest, while the lyrics pierced his sleep deprived brain, he wanted to chuck it, and the thing it was coming out of, into a blender.

"No…" he whined without even opening his eyes.

Harlow chuckled, his chest vibrating with the sound. Foxx protested when the human moved, no doubt stretching to grab his crappy flip phone from the nightstand. Ugh…if anything should get blended up into metal scraps, it was that piece of crap.

"Morning, doves!" Charity's voice chimed out loudly moments later.

Foxx groaned.

"Ah…I can see Foxx is not awake."

"Not awake, and low on sleep," Harlow drawled.

"Well…I do have some possible cases for you two… BUT…Foxx has to go see the Guild psychologist before I can assign any of them."

"Nooo," Foxx whined loudly.

"Aww, I'm sorry, sunshine, but boss' orders. Tony even set you up with an appointment this morning for 9am."

Ugh, he wanted to get back to work. Really, he did… Yet…why did he have to talk to some random ass human before he could? Wait…9am?!

"And he couldn't have set it for any later?" Harlow asked, sounding unimpressed by Tony's thoughtfulness. Yeah, Foxx wasn't feeling that impressed himself.

"Well, I did mention that, but apparently, Johansson doesn't have any later appointments open today. Though, the man also refuses to even consider moving some of his daylight office hours to nights, even if it would be more beneficial to everyone else at the Guild," Charity huffed, before adding mockingly, "He claims he is too important to work so late."

Harlow scoffed. "Sounds like him."

"Anyway, as much as I'd find it funny if you wasted our Guild psychologist's time by not showing up, the quicker you get it done, the sooner you can go back to work, Foxx."

"UGH," Foxx groaned. "Fine. I'll go!"

"Perfect! See you soon! I'm playing secretary today!"

Foxx sighed. Cracking his eyes open, he peeked over at the nightstand to see the clock, frowning when there was a pink gift bag in the way. "What…" His gaze flicked to Harlow.

"Ah, that…" The human scratched his cheek and cleared his throat. "It's…um…something I got you."

Harlow…had gotten him something? That was…suspicious…

"For me?" He raised a brow at him.

"Mhmm."

"Why?"

Harlow rolled his eyes. "Just open it."

Foxx slid off Harlow and sat up. Scooting over close enough to reach it, he grabbed the bag and plucked the single piece of poorly inserted black tissue paper out before dumping it.

Foxx's eyes widened at what fell into his lap. Picking the thing up and looking at it, his heart started to beat faster. It was… Well, it looked like the knitted pink and blue bunny ski mask he had lost when the priests had taken him…but that…

Glancing over at Harlow, he asked, "How…?"

Harlow cleared his throat again. "I found someone online to remake it. I do have your original one, but it's covered in blood. And washing it did not work out so well."

"You…tried to wash it?"

Harlow shrugged. "I attempted to. It did not work. In fact, it may have just spread the blood onto the clean parts." The man chuckled. "You'd think with how many bodies I've dealt with, I'd know how to clean blood out of shit better…"

Swallowing hard, his hands clenched around the face mask as Foxx held back the words he wanted to say. Because the words he wanted to say didn't—shouldn't—fit Harlow…but they did. The man…did and said things that, while usually awkward, were undeniably…sweet gestures.

As if his thoughts beckoned them forward, the words he'd heard Harlow say in the recording floated through his mind. ‘You took my ball of sadistic sunshine. Give. It. Back.'

Words he knew shouldn't make him happy. Ones that he shouldn't have heard at all, or even begin to take seriously…

For fuck's sake, Harlow technically had called him an ‘it'… So why… Why did they…make him want to smile?

Letting a small smile break free, Foxx softly said, "Thank you, Harlow."

"Welcome…I guess." The human cleared his throat once again and sat up. "We should get going… Though…" Harlow smirked. "I have a slight suggestion for you."

"A suggestion? On?"

"Your outfit."

Foxx wrinkled his nose. "You have a suggestion for me on what to wear?"

Harlow snickered. "I can see you're skeptical, but hear me out."

He stared for a moment, trying to see if Harlow was fucking with him. On getting no clues from the man's expression, he rolled his eyes and waved him on.

"I want you to put on the pinkest, girliest sunsuit you have. Because as much as I hate bright colors, Johansson is worse."

Foxx frowned, head tilting. "Why girliest?"

"Let's just say, you being a man and wearing something like that will surely ruin the fucker's day."

"Is he a homophobe?"

"He's gay, so…not exactly, but I'd say he definitely has some sort of self-hatred thing going on. Along with some strict views on gender, and what men should and should not wear." Harlow then explained, "He made Jerry cry once because he was wearing a shimmery pink button down."

"He what?!" Foxx hissed.

"Before you try to kill him, which, mind you, I would be willing to help with, Charity did bitch him out for it. Afterwards, she reported his ass to Tony, even though Jerry told her not to. The man has kept his mouth shut on people"s clothing since."

Girly…he could do girly…but, like, it was so last century to attach gender to clothes. He gasped. "I've got it!" Foxx giggled evilly. "I know just what to wear!"