Married Couple

Started Sometime in May and Finished July 5, 2017

      The jungle was humid with the rain of yesterday. Trees were covered in a fine sheen of slick water, and the air was heavy with moisture. Bagheera huffed out a breath as he turned his head from watching Mowgli, who was splashing in the muddy puddles, to Baloo's lounging form.

     Bagheera huffed again; annoyance coating his golden eyes. "Do you ever do anything besides laze about. Why don't you try watching Mowgli for once?" Baloo looked over a hint of irritation falling over him before he covered it with a lethargic look.

     "Oh, Baggy. If you would just calm down for one minute then you would see that Mowgli is going to be just fi—" Baloo's eyes widened the white around the brown clearly visible.

     "MOWGLI!!"

     Bagheera turned his body just in time to see Mowgli slip and fall off a tree branch he had been playing on. Baloo stretched out his massive body, his arms reaching out, and caught Mowgli from the air. Bagheera felt his lungs ache with air he hadn't known he was holding in. HIs muscled slowly slackened. Mowgli was fine. He was fine.

     Bagheera calmed himself and sent a thankful, relieved look to Baloo.

     "See he's just fine. I'm watching him. Stop nagging me."

     "NAGGING!! You think I'm nagging!? Just because I care about his life does not mean I'm nagging!"

     "I don't know, kind of seemed like you were nagging to me. I mean, do you ever chill?"

     Mowgli looked between the two of them, his fear from his almost fall sliding away in favor of an inquisitive look.

     "Are you two married?" Heads whipped in his direction. Both Baloo and Bagheera's eyes widen in shock at the question asked with such childish innocence.

     "I mean, the parents back when I was with the wolves acted like that, so I was wondering." Mowgli looked down shyly because of the sudden looks.

     Bagheera looked over at Baloo seeing Baloo doing the same. Neither seemed to know how to respond to Mowgli's question.

     "You-You see....it's like-" Bagheera drifted off, Even he didn't know how to explain the relationship between Baloo and him. Not that it was that kind of relationship...... Though, now that Bagheera looked at Baloo. He started to wonder. Baloo was handsome by most standards and even though he seemed carefree and lazy he really did care about Mowgli and his own safety.... It was stupid, but Bagheera almost wanted to see what a relationship like that would be like with Baloo. Thoughts of how horrifically his past relationship went soon dashed the thoughts.

     Neither knowing how to answer Mowgli, they soon continued on not stopping until night hit, and they settled down to sleep.

     Bagheera watched over Mowgli's sleeping body only turning when he heard the approach of Baloo.

     "Ya know, that stuff the kid said earlier had me thinking...." Baloo hesitated as he chose his words. " I don't really hate you, you know that right?" Bagheera just looked at him. "Riiiight, well, I don't, and...... you're really not all that bad.....I just.." Baloo huffed in annoyance until he finally decided to come out and say what he was thinking. "What the kid said earlier, it made me wondering if you wanted to try out being together...like together together?"

     Bagheera was slightly surprised. He hadn't thought Baloo would ask him something like that. He had believed that the bear would just put what Mowgli said behind him. Bagheera almost said yes until his brought forth his past relationship again.

     "Baloo, did you know that I use to be in a relationship with Shere Khan?"Baloo started the sentence catching him off guard.

     "The Shere Khan? The one that wanted to kill Mowgli, Shere Khan?"

     "I never said the relationship went well. It was before I met Mowgli, anyways. I bring it up because of the fact that the relationship went so horribly."

     "What do you mean?"

     "I guess what I'm trying to say is that I'm afraid to enter any new relationships because of my past one. I don't want to be hurt like that again." Bagheera frowned his eyes downcast.

     Baloo raised his head a little higher before looking into Bagheera's eyes. "Then we can take it slow. Try it out. If you feel like ending it then we can end it. I don't want to confine you to a relationship you're not comfortable being in." Baloo ended his sentence in a softer tone looking hopefully at Bagheera.

     "Alright."