Consider for a moment 28 Pamplemousse/Sparkle offspring, running riot all over Riverside House. Yes. The miracle of life.
*
Jamie woke to a non-insignificant weight on his chest and cracked one eyelid. Eight beady black eyes set in four scaly heads stared back at him, still shiny and soft, and he thought, Oh good, they've hatched. He had not quite regained the mental faculties necessary to fully comprehend that his household would shortly be overrun.
Beside him, McCoy stirred, causing the leftmost of the four fist-sized dinosaurs to start with an indignant cheep; Jamie quickly disentangled his arm from the bedding and laid a finger on the creature's beak.
It bit him; the other three immediately scattered, slipping across rug and hardwood alike toward a safe haven underneath a discarded pile of clothing. He resisted his first instinct -- to shake the little creature off by force -- and bit back a curse. After spending a necessary moment making pained, fish-like faces at the dinosaur dangling from his finger, Jamie carefully pinched the hinge if its beak just to the front of its cheeks until it let go. It skittered off to join its brethren beneath his -- no, McCoy's -- trousers. Jamie sucked on his finger, tasting blood, and thought a number of particularly unkind things toward the entire brood.
McCoy shifted again and Jamie instantly regretted the commotion he had failed to suppress. Especially when one considered (as he so often did, oh, and how he wished it wasn't so) that McCoy rarely slept well, and never soundly, whenever he stayed overnight in the Earl's room. Most often he would slip off in the middle of the night, both of them pretending that was himself asleep when he did. At least he had stopped claiming that it was undignified for him to sneak back to his own room in the mornings, dressed in a fresh set of Jamie's clothes.
Now, though, he did not rouse completely but instead drew the coverlet more closely around them both and threw an arm around Jamie's chest. Jamie's heart swelled at the motion, though he could not (being after all, himself) resist the tiniest (not actually tiny at all) of satisfied smirks as he settled into McCoy's embrace, intent on also returning to slumber.
DINOSAURS. And beds. And sleeping.
*
Jamie woke to a non-insignificant weight on his chest and cracked one eyelid. Eight beady black eyes set in four scaly heads stared back at him, still shiny and soft, and he thought, Oh good, they've hatched. He had not quite regained the mental faculties necessary to fully comprehend that his household would shortly be overrun.
Beside him, McCoy stirred, causing the leftmost of the four fist-sized dinosaurs to start with an indignant cheep; Jamie quickly disentangled his arm from the bedding and laid a finger on the creature's beak.
It bit him; the other three immediately scattered, slipping across rug and hardwood alike toward a safe haven underneath a discarded pile of clothing. He resisted his first instinct -- to shake the little creature off by force -- and bit back a curse. After spending a necessary moment making pained, fish-like faces at the dinosaur dangling from his finger, Jamie carefully pinched the hinge if its beak just to the front of its cheeks until it let go. It skittered off to join its brethren beneath his -- no, McCoy's -- trousers. Jamie sucked on his finger, tasting blood, and thought a number of particularly unkind things toward the entire brood.
McCoy shifted again and Jamie instantly regretted the commotion he had failed to suppress. Especially when one considered (as he so often did, oh, and how he wished it wasn't so) that McCoy rarely slept well, and never soundly, whenever he stayed overnight in the Earl's room. Most often he would slip off in the middle of the night, both of them pretending that was himself asleep when he did. At least he had stopped claiming that it was undignified for him to sneak back to his own room in the mornings, dressed in a fresh set of Jamie's clothes.
Now, though, he did not rouse completely but instead drew the coverlet more closely around them both and threw an arm around Jamie's chest. Jamie's heart swelled at the motion, though he could not (being after all, himself) resist the tiniest (not actually tiny at all) of satisfied smirks as he settled into McCoy's embrace, intent on also returning to slumber.