The Cover Says It (Shifty X Handy)

Chapter Fourteen

" Hey look, an ice cream cart." Shifty said, pointing to their right. " And the playground." Handy then said, looking to their left. It's been about ten minutes now since they walked into this park. So far, not one person they saw were any of the people they associate with. Some of them came here with families, and the amount of times people mistaken them as one were stupidly high.

But their journey was worth the take as they finally reached to this section of the park. Just as Handy was about to take a deep breath, a source of a cry suddenly came nearby. So close that Handy and Shifty looked down to find out Cub was the one wailing. " What's his deal?" Shifty raised his hands in question.

The beaver moved Cub away from his chest, " I don't know, he's been behaving well until now.." Handy stare at the baby dumbfounded. He lifted him a bit higher to check if the diaper were sagging between his legs. It was a lucky day when it wasn't the case, though wasn't lucky enough for Cub to stop crying. Lowering him down, the two adults begin to speak to each other, " Then do something about it, make him shut up."

" Watch the tongue stripe. Taking care of a baby isn't that easy." Handy said while soothing the baby the best he can. " Stripe?" Shifty inquired and glanced at his tail then back at Handy in annoyance, " Oh, very funny."

Suddenly, they heard a small growl coming from Cubs stomach, his cries reached attention from strangers around the park. If Handy wasn't holding Cub at the moment, he would give himself a facepalm right now. But his expression was ample to conveyed his absolute disappointment to Shifty, " You didn't feed him did you?"

Handy refused to made eye contact, " I was supposed to until you almost ran him over. I completely forgot about his bottle back at home." His arms swayed side to side as Cubs cries were getting desperate. There was a pause in their discussion with Shifty holding his chin with his hand, " Well, can babies eat ice cream?" Handy gave a small shrug, " Definitely not, but i'm not sure with Cubs case."

Shifty nodded and insert his other hand into his pocket once more, " I'll take that as a yes." After that, a wallet was clutched in between his fingers. At first, Handy thought he was being purely generous here until he noticed something strange about the wallet.

" You're not going to use that money are you? " Handy deadpan, wondering why he was still holding onto that little hope towards the felon. Shifty took out a buck, " What's wrong with my money?" Handy raised a brow, " Your money?" His partner answered confidently, " Yep, my money." Another glanced at the wallet, still skeptical, " Impossible."

" What gave you that idea?"

" You won't have the heart to own a pink wallet."

Shifty paid the fox behind the ice cream cart regardless, not caring whether it was his own cash or someone else. She then exchanged it with two cones of ice cream, one was a strawberry and the other was a vanilla, " Here you go sir!" The fox chirped afterwards. Shifty placed the pink wallet back into his coat pocket before his hands were full with two ice creams.

" Which one do you think he like? Vanilla or strawberry?" The raccoon questioned, " Cub isn't a picky one right?" Handy was miffed, still clinging onto his talked with Shifty. However, he felt obliged to answer, internally begging for the cries to be put to an end, " Strawberry."

Shifty hand the strawberry up to Cub's face. Instantly, Cub stopped wailing and went suddenly quiet. The two men watched the baby's reaction as Cub hold the cone and started to taste the flavor of his ice cream. He seemed content from his gift as Handy finally felt in ease, like a tired mother had been trying to put her five babies to sleep.

" Here."

An ice cream reached towards the beaver, Handy blinked and stare up to the raccoon, " What's this for?" Shifty didn't look satisfied from his response, " Does everything need to have a reason for you?" They both never seem to catch a break from their quarrel. " I don't like vanilla moron. Why don't you just take it instead?"