hurrhurr Let's try posting a multi-chapter fic before I'm actually done with it for once like a normal person.

Should be just 3 chapters, but we'll see. I'unno. I write better than I run, but alas, I can still manage to trip and fall. Less on my face, and more on my motivation. And other times I rocket past the finish line by mistake.

I just wanted to see Oh try to crab walk but this happened instead. How. Why. Shame on me for getting distracted and running away with it. lol

~Ny

1. The Blackberry Bush

It's a lesson everyone learns: life gets in the way of things. Sometimes it gets in the way of taking out the trash or missing a new episode of that TV show you love. Sometimes it feels like there's just never enough time in the day, and sometimes appointments overlap. Sometimes it means squealing to a halt in front of your neighbor-down-the-road's house with a puffy pink bundle in your arms, a few rushed breathless words, and burning rubber a moment later, with that pink bundle left behind on that neighbor-down-the-road's doorstep.

At a loss, Tip stared down at the pink bundle with a mess of golden locks on top. The pink bundle stared up at her.

Left so abruptly in her care was a tiny petite pasty-skinned blonde preschooler. Her name was Sasha, or maybe Shasta, and she was four years old. Maybe. Tip wasn't sure. The tiny kid was bundled thickly in excessive amounts of pink and glittery stars.

Before Tip could gesture her in, there were tears welling up in the preschooler's eyes, and she looked down the road in the direction her father's red pickup truck had zoomed off. A noise stuttered out of her quivering lips and Tip knew if she didn't do something right now, this kid would start bawling like she'd been completely abandoned.

"Do you like cookies?" Tip asked awkwardly, and reached out for Sasha's shoulder. But before she could guide her in, the kid turned and ran.

Sasha nearly made it to the steps when Tip caught her by her puffy coat and practically drug her back inside out of the chilly spring rain.

The preteen bolted the front door for good measure. It was a heavy old bolt, like a beefy toilet stall latch, for an equally old door. The farmhouse they'd given up their apartment in favor of was an antique by Tip's standards. She couldn't believe that they'd barely unpacked and already she was being used for a babysitter. She must look trustworthy or responsible or something. If only the neighbors knew the Tucci family harbored an ex-criminal alien…

But a subconscious desire to be viewed as normal in their new home had kept her mouth shut about her unusual best friend and kept him hidden like Quasimodo. The silly Boov was too attached to stay at his own place in the city with his Boov roomies, and had followed the Tuccis to their place like a lost puppy and settled in with them. Tip didn't mind. Her mom minded a little, but she'd learn to love the little guy, Tip was certain of it.

Oh knew that whenever there was company, he wasn't to make an appearance until someone signaled him the OK. So far, that time had yet to come. Not everyone liked the Boov after what they'd done, and even though Oh had saved the world in the end, the hillbilly with the shotgun down the road would argue that it was him and his kind that caused all the trouble in the first place, and then spout something about freedom. So to be on the safe side, Oh reluctantly kept a low profile.

Knowing he was sure to be watching like a sneaky purple hawk from the top of the stairwell, Tip brought the little guest to the living room. She wasn't sure what she expected of the kid. If it was take off her coat and kick up her feet, it sure wasn't what she got.

The little girl just stood there like a pink marshmallow in the center of the room. They had another quiet staring contest, and Tip was the first to break eye-contact with a muttered, "Umm…" The little girl moved then, fidgeting her feet and looking towards the TV and shelf of DVD's and VHS's beside it. She didn't have to point a pink-gloved hand to the movies for Tip to know what was on her mind.

"Movie?" Tip said, and felt like she were asking a dog if it wanted a biscuit, and tried to change her tone. "So what kind of movies do you like?" she went on unnaturally. She'd never babysat before. She'd only ever kept to her own age group or older, so she wasn't sure how to interact with this tiny person.

Sasha didn't answer. The kid just went up to the shelf and stood up on her toes to pull out a dusty The Little Mermaid VHS and open it up. It seemed weird for a minute that a kid this young these days would even recognize a VHS, but Tip supposed it might have something to do with practically no one in this rural neighborhood having TV or good internet service due to the ludicrous cost of it. They only had the old tapes because her mom was raised on the stuff.

Pushing the tape in the player, Tip could feel the eyes watching her back. Once she knew it was playing, she crept away to join Oh at the top of the staircase along one wall of the living room. The fourth step from the top creaked, and she wondered for the umpteenth time if it would give way one of these days as she sat down on the sandy-tan shag-carpet steps. She ducked her head to see Sasha on the couch a little better from Oh's usual lookout point.

The Boov's humid breath ruffled her hair and gave her the willies as he stooped closer to see past her. "She is very small," Oh murmured. "And very pink."

"It's a girly thing," Tip explained absently.

"Girly?" he hissed back, a little bit offended, and then scoffed, "Color hasn't any gender."

"She sure is quiet."

Tip threw a reflexive glance back over her shoulder when froggish fingers curled around it like blunt claws.

Oh's eyes flicked from hers and down to Sasha. "Is there something wrong with that?" he wondered. "All the other humans I have met – they have been noisy. Especially the young ones. And they moved more. Do you think she is sick?"

"No…," said Tip with uncertainty. "She's probably just shy. I mean, her dad just dumped her off at a stranger's house, and she's probably not used to meeting new people, so…" She shrugged. "I'unno. Her dad gave me twenty bucks to watch her, though, so I should get back down there…"

Oh's hand tightened on her shoulder, and he gave her a sad bug-eyed look that pleaded silently to let him go down there and meet her. Tip scowled back at him. Her scowl had no effect on his pout. And then his pout stretched into a toothy grin as he whispered, "Pllleeeassse?" He batted his eyes (something he must've picked up from TV in the city), but seeing as he had no eyelashes, the flattering affect was lost.

"Maybe later, but not yet," said the babysitter, and she descended the stairs. Through the living room and down the hall, to the kitchen.

She fished a handful of lemon sandwich cookies out of the cookie jar, a fat ceramic calico that always seemed cute until you had to remove the head-lid to get your snack. Whoever designed it must not have put much thought into it, or else had an awful sense of humor. It had been a housewarming gift Oh had picked up somewhere, and for some reason they were actually using it, beheading lid aside.

Tip was turning around, popping one entire cookie in her mouth, when she was faced with Oh. She startled and almost spat out the tart treat. She would have snapped at him for passing through the living room in plain sight had she not remembered there was a rickety unfavorable staircase that lead to the laundry room in the back.

Oh smirked, knowing he had given her a spook and alarmed her in more than one way. He crossed his ropy arms over himself and rocked back on his stumpy legs. "Girly girl is in the out," he twittered matter-of-factly as Tip tried to hurriedly chew her mouthful of cookie. "Pig cat saw her, and she saw Pig, and she followed Pig out the cat flapper."

Tip wanted to snap at him, "And you didn't stop her?" She might have snapped something else too, if she didn't have a dry mouthful of lemon-flavored mush.

The handful of cookies meant for Sasha was abandoned on the kitchen counter as Tip dashed from the kitchen and to the laundry room. Sure enough, the back door was open.

Not counting Oh, Tip was home alone. Her mother was at work, but Tip wasn't about to tell a wild-eyed stranger at the door that. She'd hadn't been given a chance to say no before he'd left her in charge of his little angel so he could race to a county over to where his wife was in labor at the hospital – and he'd said something about not having the booster seat – and Sasha is really a little angel – and she wouldn't be any trouble at all.

Well, Sasha was trouble. Trouble for Tip. She'd never been in charge of any living thing besides Pig and a $3 betta fish she'd failed miserably with. The first thing that came to mind was how deep of trouble she'd be in if Sasha got those nice new pink clothes muddy.

Tip looked both ways out the back door. No sign of Sasha.

She scanned the evergreen woods that climbed the slope behind the house. No Sasha.

So Tip ran counter-clockwise around the house, calling her name, only to find the little girl crouched at the last corner, closest to the back door. The one Tip should have rounded first. She groaned inwardly as she approached the pink marshmallow squatting beside the untamed blackberry bushes growing against the house.

As she neared, Tip saw the preschooler picking carefully at the thorny vines. "You shouldn't touch that," Tip warned. "You'll get poked, and then I might – I'unno – get sued or something."

Sasha glanced up at Tip, and Tip realized she was pointing into the brambles now.

Tip crouched down, hunching over to see from Sasha's level. It was dim outside, being cloudy and drizzly, and so extra shadowy in the labyrinth of thorns, but Tip made out a sort of tunnel running along the ground, the dirt in the tunnel worn from traffic. The brambles funneled up to a busted ground-level window. Pig glared out from it with his amber eyes locked on Sasha, his ears flattened down.

Pig had met little kids before. They had a tendency to pull his curly pug tail a little too straight. Oh had done it too for a while until he'd learned his lesson, which Pig taught with his claws.

The calico tom hissed now in warning when Sasha leaned forward, as if she were about to actually try crawling through that little prickly tunnel.

"Nice job, Pig," Tip congratulated. "You discovered we have a basement. Keep up the good work." She saluted the cat, and pulled Sasha up by the arm to tow her away.

Alright, I know one really cares probably maybe but I finally got Smek for President in the mail the other day and read it within 12 hours and whowie I was dying with joy the entire time. Good stuff maannn good stuff. I had some indecent thoughts on character design but they were humorous indecent thoughts because I'm uber mature. I rambled on tumblr. I showed my near-blind Dad. I read to my older sister at 3am and put her to sleep. I photoshopped a couple pictures. Spammed the friend who bought me the book for my 23rd birthday last month and then some others who also had no idea what I was going on about. I cried to another sister. I cried to my cat. Then I opened the book and started reading it all again. What's a life?

~Ny