Mossthorn watched with bated breath as Squirrelflight thoughtfully examined a now much less emaciated Squirrel, her expression one of affection with a trace of instinctual fear. She lay down next to it, carefully reaching out a front paw to stroke one of its front legs and smiling and giggling slightly as it licked her. "He's so cute… Have you given him a name?" Mossthorn paused for a moment before answering her, realizing that she was correct; Squirrel was a… whatever the dog version of a tom was, he had just never thought to think of… him that way. She always had such interesting and intelligent ways of looking at things… "...I call him Squirrel." Mossthorn looked away from her, reeling from shame and embarrassment as he realized that he had just confessed to naming his dangerous, scary dog after her. He looked back up at her after hearing her approach him more closely… she was so close to him… "After me?" Mossthorn smiled at her, hopefully not too sheepishly. "I hope you don't mind." Squirrelflight produced an extremely high and adorable sound that he hadn't known cats were capable of producing until he had gifted her a few feathers that he had found for her nest moons ago, before she had gotten tied up… sometimes literally from the sound of the heavily censored stories she sometimes shared with him after some prompting… with Brambleclaw and started sharing a nest with him, causing Squirrel to perk his ears up and look at her with interest.
She smiled down at him enchantingly, running her front paw along his ear, before turning that amazing look upon Mossthorn and pressing her cheek up against his, catching his breath in his throat. He closed his eyes, praying to StarClan to let this moment never end, before just as quickly opening them as he heard that all too familiar, stupid sauntering gait of Brambleclaw's. He forced himself to jerk away from her so that he could warn her of that foxer's approach, the delay causing him to be too late to do so before he practically jeered her name at her. Apparently he was using Mossthorn's scent to pull his stupid joke off now too…Squirrelflight spun around to face him, remembering to get into that 'appropriately' submissive posture that he liked or at least tolerated more than anything that wasn't her lying down under him after a few seconds. And yet, for all her efforts, he now hardly noticed that she existed, instead gawking at Squirrel, who looked up at him uncomfortably, with the whites of his eyes extremely visible. "That is incredible! Whad'ya call that thing?"
Eventually, Mossthorn managed to force himself to answer him. "...Squirrel." Brambleclaw leaned down to face him, pulling his lip up with a front paw and running a claw along his teeth as if they and he weren't incredibly dangerous and eliciting a growl from him that he didn't seem to notice or at least didn't care about. "Cute name. It's catchy. Nice dog. Big." Hesitantly, as if she was on the same elders' tale as Mossthorn about wanting to see what would happen if they continued to let him anger this huge dog… she probably was, she wasn't exactly incredibly secretive about not liking him… Squirrelflight moved slightly closer to Brambleclaw, shooting the dog a reassuring glance before addressing him. "Shouldn't you be leaving him alone?" Brambleclaw snapped towards her, his prior enthusiasm completely replaced with seething, inappropriate anger… although he still seemed pretty enthusiastic about it… "You're quite the little chatterbird tonight, ain't ya?" Squirrelflight backed away from him, trying and failing to put some distance between them as he stalked towards her like he saw her as prey. "I'm sorry, Bramblecl-" She trailed off, her eyes widening in fear, as Brambleclaw backed her against the base of a tree.
"Sorry, what?!" Squirrelflight pressed herself against it, looking away from him until he forcibly moved her head back to face him with a front paw, his claws unsheathed and pressed up dangerously close against her throat… "Sorry, Brambleflower. Brambleflower. Sorry, Brambleflower." His expression remained unchanged for a moment, lighting up slightly as she flinched from the blood being drawn from her neck before he let her go. "That's better." Just as quickly, his disgusting paw was back on her throat. She looked at Mossthorn with fear and… longing? as he dragged her out of the clearing, and he tried and failed to will himself to jump onto that foxer's back, force him to the ground, and rip his stupid throat out… Said foxer looked back at him briefly. "I'm serious about hangin' out at the lake, lemme know when you're free." With that, they and all of the hope Squirrelflight's miraculous touch had given him were gone. Mossthorn sighed deeply, lying down next to Squirrel and absentmindedly running his front paw along his ear. "Can you believe the way he treats her, Squirrel? She deserves a LionClan cat, not an awful creep like him… He's a total disgrace to the deputyship… I don't know what's going on sometimes… Seems like the whole Clan's going crazy… At least we got each other, right?" He looked around, confused, as he heard a deep and raspy voice. "We suuuuure do, now get me that deputy freak." Mossthorn shook his head in confusion. "...I beg your pardon?" This time, he saw Squirrel's lips move.
"Get me that deputy freak!" He jumped up enthusiastically, towering over him with his full height and shocking him. "Squirrel… you talked! You opened your trap and you said…" He trailed off as Squirrel sighed exasperatedly, lowering his head so that it was closer to him. "How many times do I have to say it?!" Mossthorn backed away from him slightly. "...You hate how he treats her too, huh? Wait… what do you want to… do you want to… eat him?!" Squirrel hopped in his excitement, slobbering slightly. "Sure do! Literal cat food was the only nice thing my longpaw ever got for me." He laughed, finding this to be funny for some reason, while Mossthorn struggled to process what was happening. "...I can't just… kill him… you saw how big he was." Squirrel sauntered closer to him, accidentally straining against his leash for a moment and playing it off. "Doesn't matter how big he is if you get him caught in a fox trap." Mossthorn tilted his head at him confusedly.
"What… there's no fox traps here, what are ya talkin' about?!" Squirrel puffed out his chest proudly. "Yes there is! My longpaw always sets them out at the lake. One of them's hidden in the middle of the group of three oak trees near that huge oak." Mossthorn saw the place he was talking about in his mind far before he was finished describing it, feeling relieved that he had never thought to walk among them and frustrated that Brambleclaw had been right about them hanging out at the lake in the future. "...Yeah… I can get you that… deputy freak… long as you don't make a habit out of it or anything!" He looked sternly at him, not very assured as he nodded in agreement while still slobbering. "Of course. So go git it!" He hit him with a front paw, likely intending it to be a friendly gesture but accidentally knocking him into the base of a nearby tree.