A Dangerous Friend

Ears Looking At You, Kid

Hi, back again. A little something for the weekend.

Many thanks for reading (assuming anyone is still reading), I appreciate you taking the time. The 'alternate' version of this story is currently on hiatus, as apparently their ship has hit an iceberg - one of the characters has acquired a real life boyfriend, much to their dismay. But Jori fans are old hands at this, we've weathered worse storms and still come out afloat.

Although the boat's leaking and we've lost quite a lot of the crew...

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"Well, that was fun," Tori said brightly, as they made their way home.

"For you, maybe."

"Don't be such a grouch. I like your dad. He makes me laugh."

"Yeah. At my expense. I told you he'd embarrass me."

"Oh, come on. You know what dads are like."

"Well I do now," Jade muttered. "Mine's a sarcastic, middle aged sadist, and yours is a sports-obsessed maniac who wants to use my ass as a dartboard."

"He was only kidding."

"Thank God for that."

"I mean, he doesn't even play darts," Tori said. "He's more into baseball. He wouldn't need your ass for that." She scrunched her face up, thoughtfully. "Although I guess he could use it as a giant pitcher's mitt, maybe, or-"

"Hey! What do you mean, 'giant'?"

"-or a bat rest, or something."

"Look," Jade said, "much as though I love discussing the use of my body parts as sporting equipment, I think you should shut up now." Tori fell silent. "And stop looking at my ears."

"I wasn't!"

"Yes, you were. I could hear you."

"Wow. That's some hearing. Is that how you track your prey in the wild?"

"I was not raised by wolves."

"Okay, okay. Down, girl. Heel."

"Stop that. You know, it's kind of difficult maintaining an effortlessly cool persona when you and my dad keep talking about ears. Ears aren't cool."

"Wolf ears are."

"Shut up."

"Anyway, why do you need to maintain an effortlessly cool persona? There's no one here."

"There's you."

Tori stopped walking. "Me?" she said in surprise. "Why would you need to keep up a persona around me?"

Jade stopped too, and realized with a start that she couldn't actually think of a reason. "I don't know," she said, lamely. "Practice?"

Tori sighed, and carried on walking. "You know," she said, "sometimes I despair."

"You spend too much time on the internet."

"I mean of you," she said. "You are allowed to have emotions, you know."

Jade bridled. "I have emotions."

"Really? Name two."

"Okay, um, angry and... horny."

"'Horny' isn't an emotion."

"It is so," said Jade. "It's like angry, only with more sex."

"Great. So angry and horny are your top two emotions."