Felicity's Beas Chapter 153: Lolipop’s

Chapter 153: Lolipop’s

Felicity stood in the middle of the apartnt in her bunny pajamas. The contrast would have been stupid if it wasn’t so strange that no one laughed.

Voss paused beside her on his way past, one arm full of straps and rolled bedding. He bent his head and pressed a brief kiss to the top of hers like it was the most natural thing in the world, then kept moving without explaining himself. Felicity blinked once, fingers tightening around the hem of her oversized sleeve.

Lucan was behind her before she could even decide what to do with that, one hand settling low against the small of her back, steady and warm and heavy in the way only he seed to manage. He never grabbed he never clutched. He was just there, always there, a point of contact she was supposed to circle around whether she liked it or not.

She was aware of herself, but not in a way that made her shrink. Her hair was half brushed and half ruined from crying, her face still warm, eyes a little glassy, but she didn’t try to fix it. The bunny pajamas stayed. Soft, bright, completely out of place against n who looked like they belonged in war zones and that was exactly the point. If she looked out of place, the pack noticed, if the pack noticed, they softened, if they softened, they felt better.

Felicity adjusted the sleeve that had slipped over her hand, chin lifting slightly instead of dropping. She wasn’t trying to match them, she didn’t need to. She made them adjust. "I want to help," she said, a little too quickly.

No one stopped moving, no one said no.

Lucan just looked at her.

It was not a dramatic look. That sohow made it worse. His expression hardly changed when he watched people, he just had that corpse still way of looking at sothing until it felt like the world had narrowed down to one point and you were standing in the middle of it. His hand left her back when she moved away, but his attention did not.

"I an it," Felicity added, as if soone had challenged her. "I’m not going to sit on the bed and cry while everyone else does everything."

From across the room, Pope tightened a strap on a pack and muttered, "No one said that."

Kai, crouched on the floor sorting bundles of wrapped tools into two piles, lifted his head and gave her a quick look that was almost amused and imdiately looked away like he’d been caught staring. "You can help," he said. "You’ll just help weird."

"That’s rude."

"It’s accurate."

Felicity frowned at him and turned on her heel before anyone could say anything else. She disappeared into her little space at the end of the room, the curtain half drawn behind her, the soft scrape of things being moved around audible for a few seconds. Lucan’s head turned slightly in that direction and stayed there.

Voss passed him again with another armful of supplies and did not miss it "she’s not vanishing," Voss said.

Lucan did not look at him. "I know" that did not sound like reassurance, it sounded like a statent made under protest.

Felicity ca back carrying two canvas bags full enough to stretch the seams. She held them with determined little huffs, cheeks pink, chin up, bunny slippers scuffing the floor. The room slowed by a fraction as several n noticed what she was doing. She dropped the bags onto the table with a pleased little breath and a small "hmpf" then started pulling things out like a market stall opening for the day.

Apples first. Then fruit juice boxes. Then a handful of lollipops that clicked cheerfully against each other in her hand like the apartnt wasn’t in the middle of a strategic withdrawal. There were packets of crackers, wrapped sweets, dried fruit, two squashed little cakes, and a bag of nuts soone had clearly hidden and thought no one would find.

"There," she said. "You all look miserable." She picked out an apple and put it into his hand before he could object, then shoved a juice box at Tommy. "Hydrate."

Tommy actually looked wrong footed. "Oh."

Sarge snorted from where he was wrapping cord around a bundle of tal rods. "You got parented."

"Shut up."

Felicity had already turned away from him. She held out an apple to Pope. He looked at it, then at her, then carefully took it from her fingers like a boy being handed a flower in front of his friends for the first ti.

"Thank you," he said, it ca out oddly formal.

"You’re welco," she said, equally serious, and moved on.

Kai got a juice and a lollipop because she said he looked like he needed sugar, he opened his mouth, probably to say sothing clever, then seed to notice she was already sucking on one herself, lips wrapped around the white stick, expression distracted and tired and stubborn all at once. His ears twitched going red at the tips. He looked away too fast, "thanks," he mumbled.

Ash was crouched by the far wall checking sothing and Felicity held out a packet of dried fruit and a juice box toward him. He stared up at her from under dark hair, jaguar eyes unreadable for one second too long.

"For the road," she said.

Ash took them. "Blessings upon your light."

Felicity stared at him. "Please stop talking like that."

"Never."

She sighed and moved on.

Snow team were barely even packing properly. Half of it was noise, movent, the appearance of being ready. Everyone knew Victor had already secured space. This was just... sothing to do with the way other people saw them on the road.

The n stalled when she got near them, not on her, on sothing smaller. The lollipop more specifically the way it moved. Slow, absent, rolling against her tongue as she talked, as she handed things out like this was normal, like she hadn’t just been crying, like the world outside wasn’t shifting under their feet. It shouldn’t have mattered, it did.

Thoughts hit it and... slipped just for a second , Enough "thanks." Like they’d missed a step and had to catch up without admitting it.

Rowan took a juice and nearly dropped it when her fingers brushed his. "Sorry."

"You don’t have to apologize for that silly."

"I know," he still looked like he wanted to.

Casper accepted two lollipops because she looked at him and decided he had a two lollipop face.

Sam, younger and less practiced at pretending he wasn’t affected by her, stared openly at the candy in her hands, then at the lollipop in her mouth, then at Lucan who was watching all of this from three paces away like a ghost assigned to guard a shrine.

Lucan’s eyebrow rose once.

Sam took the snack’s and fled.

At this point she had gone from determined helper to tiny roaming disaster of dosticity, her arms full of juice boxes and wrapped sweets, bunny pajama sleeves slipping over her hands. They all looked up when she approached "what are you talking about?" she asked around her lollipop.

Kai looked up at felicity "we are talking about if running in beast form is quicker or if beast man form is quicker

Felicity sucked thoughtfully on her lollipop and looked at all four of them. "Okay, you guys are silly."

Lucan was already moving after her before she had taken three steps, his pace unhurried, his shadow crossing over hers every ti she passed a light source. He did not hover in a fluttery way, he tracked, that was worse.

Sarge and Marx intercepted him near the doorway.

Lucan stopped because making a deal out of it would upset his little bunny, and because neither of them were stupid enough to actually block him unless they intended to see what happened. Tommy had a half eaten apple in one hand and Sarge was trying not to grin and failing.

"You following her everywhere now?" Marx asked.

Lucan’s gaze settled on him with the patient stillness of a predator who doesn’t need to rush. "Yes."

Marx blinked. "That was weirdly easy."

Sarge leaned against the wall beside him. "You’re making the rest of us look under committed."

Lucan’s gaze slid past them to where Felicity was handing a juice box to Luna and a packet of sweets to Frost, kneeling down to their level in the hallway and talking to them in that soft voice she used for cubs and frightened people and tiny things with teeth. Only when he had watched long enough to see both silver fox cubs settle with their treats did his attention co back to the two n in front of him.

"I’m not concerned with what I make you look like," he said.

Marx snorted. "Nah, see, that’s exactly the problem. You can’t be that obvious."

"Why?"

"Because it gets creepy," Marx said.

Sarge cut in before Lucan could answer. "He ans because it makes us want to test you."

Lucan stared at them, "we are not on the sa level."