Ollie sniffled and then sighed dramatically. “It was a nice attempt.”
“It was.” His boyfriend’s smile widened, clearly in humor, before looking back at Red. “Though, speaking of his practice and magic…not to undermine what you said earlier, Red, but Ollie wasn’t completely off base about wanting to use his improved Ceaseless Hunter senses to keep people from sneaking up on him. He can actually train them to automatically activate when someone draws near to protect himself, which wouldn’t be as draining as having them engaged constantly.”
“Yes…” Red conceded, before smugly adding, “But that takes time, and some very specific targeted practice. A lot of it.”
“Oh! OH!” Ollie gasped excitedly, bouncing on his feet, as he beamed at Noble. “Noble, you seem to be really good at accidentally sneaking up on me. Why don’t we just have you purposely do it and see if I can eventually pick up your approach?!”
Noble’s smiledropped at Ollie’s words, as an annoyingly knowing smirk slipped onto the familiar’s face. The cat’s expression read: ‘don’t look at me, you brought it up’.
It wasn’t like he couldn’t help Ollie. While hunters did have a slight immunity to magic, and he was trained to approach silently, he was sure that if he did it in a less than professional way, and tried to pull back his efforts, he could approach in an almost human-like manner of stealth…
The problem was…non-human was sort of his default, and it would take considerable effort, and some practice of his own, to stop himself from slipping into the default Ollie no doubt wanted for himself.
Ollie’s smile dimmed as he remained quiet, Noble winced when the man started to wind his fingers together as he softly, and with clear disappointment, rasped, “Ah…you don’t want to? That’s… That’s fine! Don’t?—”
“No, no, I do!” Noble blurted, cutting the little witch’s no doubt nervous ramblings off. “I just don’t like the idea of purposely scaring you. But I’ll help, I’ll do it.”
His Baby’s smile came rushing back as he giggled happily. “I mean, you likely will scare me a little bit, but it will only help me in the long run, right?!”
He let out a barely audible sigh, before mutedly saying, “Right…”
“Distraction over. Start smelling, Ollie,” Red ordered.
Ollie sighed as he glanced away. Noble couldn’t help but notice that the witch began to squint a bit more as he breathedin deeply, the headache Red mentioned was no doubt very much reality.
After a moment, the man wrinkled his nose and sighed again as he asked, “Would one of the things you were doing today at home happen to be cleaning, Noble?”
Ah, shit… He knew where this was going, mainly as there were a few things he mixed in with the cleaning chemicals that would usually wipe away whatever odors were left behind by his hunter activities, so not even magically enhanced ones could pick it up. “Ah, I started a full scrub down of my house… I didn't finish, but I was cleaning for hours.”
“Well, whatever you used, it’s all I can smell. And I mean, I did smell a bit on you when we met up, but didn’t quite realize how strong and odor blocking it was.”
He winced. “Sorry…”
Ollie’s familiar let out a discontented hiss. “Really,Noble?”
“I would have cleaned on a different day if I had known he was practicing magic related to The Ceaseless Hunter tonight.”
“Red, be nice. It’s not like he knew it would interfere!” Ollie huffed.
Noble was going to keep his mouth shut, and not admit that he did in fact know it would interfere with magical senses, but had unfortunately forgotten all about it until Ollie had brought it up.
Red just scoffed in response.
“Well, since I can’t smell, now what?” his little witch asked, before hopefully blurting, “Oh, does this mean we can head back now?!”
“No!” Red snapped, before grinning viciously. “You have two options. Practice your hearing again, or…”
“Or?” Ollie pressed.
“Stand there silently for the next forty-five minutes.”
The man sputtered indignantly, “Y-you can’t be serious?!”
“You asked. I answered,” Red said with a sniff.
“You know what, for being mean, I am going to NOT practice my hearing, and I am going to SIT instead of standing, because I have free will and my legs are tired!” Ollie sat down on the forest floor with a hmph, arms crossed, but bounced up seconds later with a gasp, “I forgot about grass stains!”
He barely suppressed his smile when Ollie looked at him with his big eyes and asked, “Can I sit in your lap?”
