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Callahan was a reindeer hybrid. He quite liked being a reindeer hybrid, there were a lot of fun benefits, and as painful as shedding and regrowing his horns every year was, he wouldn’t change it for anything. He loved his hybrid traits.
That didn’t mean he didn’t recognize that sometimes his traits could be creepy as hell.
Case in point: shedding velvet.
For a large part of his antlers’ life cycle each year they are covered in a soft velvet that his friends love to touch and mess with. So long as they didn’t rip it, he generally didn’t mind. It was pretty cool that they liked his hybrid features as much as he did.
But for a couple cursed weeks each September he began shedding that velvet. The velvet came off in long bloody strips that left his antlers bright red for days. It was a big bloody mess that often freaked people out. It didn’t help that typically he ate the scraps of velvet that came off. In his defense, the velvet was extremely high in nutrients and actually delicious. It made the perfect snack while he was shedding, and honestly one of the only decent things about shedding.
Therefore, when the first bit of velvet started peeling off, Callahan usually took a month off to fully shed the velvet and clean off his horns. He didn’t want to freak anyone out and explaining what was happening was always a huge pain when he couldn’t, y’know, speak. Self imposed exile for a month was better than dealing with the drama that would happen if someone caught him.
That became a little bit harder when he moved to the Dreamsmp and became their assistant admin. As it turns out, disappearing for an entire month to shed was an unsustainable solution when he’s needed frequently to deal with server issues and other general shenanigans.
So he started cutting his month short. Started staying out later than he should, until the velvet was nearly falling off in his friends’ hands when they reached up to touch the soft velvet, until he was tearing off the last little bits of fuzzy skin just to get back to work faster, until he returned halfway through the month with bandanas on his antlers to hide the bloody mess still peeling away.
The more people that came to his new home, the less time he had to spend by himself for shedding. After a couple of sheds he realized it was so inefficient that it would literally be more efficient to actually tell people about the shedding.
So, when his velvet began to shed, he didn’t disappear. He stayed right where it was. When the velvet began to itch and beg to be peeled back, he scratched at it and tore it off in long bloody strips, not ignoring it as he once might have.
Alyssa was the first one to see him doing it, but thankfully she barely even questioned it. At first. Not even Alyssa’s chill could withstand the sight of Callahan popping a piece of his own bloody velvet in his mouth like it was a tasty snack.
“What the hell Callie?”
Callahan shrugged and signed “tasty snack” at her.
Alyssa stared at him for a moment before sighing and continuing with what she was working on, “Alright. Glad you’re feeling more open with us.”
Unfortunately not everyone took it as chill as Alyssa did. Most of his friends were pretty chill, but a lot of them were human, or raised in the overworld with humans.
“Callahan your antlers!”
Callahan winced as he came down to prime path, hearing Dream shout to him. Yeah, they were kinda bloody today but was it really that big of a deal? They’d been tearing for several days at this point.
“Nothing to worry about. just shedding.” Callahan signed at them, hoping they would drop it.
“Nothing to worry about, Callahan have you seen them???? You’re bleeding!” Dream said, reaching up to touch them.
Callahan leaned into the touch, having gotten a bit itchy due to the shedding, but signed back “This is what always happens. Normal. Safe.”
Dream looked doubtful, but ready to accept the explanation, until suddenly Dream’s oh so gentle fingers caught on the edge of a little bit of velvet Callahan had been working on peeling away but couldn’t quite reach. Callahan silently groaned in relief and turned to scratch the antler harder against Dream’s hesitant fingers. A week worth of tension seemed to drop from Callahan’s shoulders at once as Dream’s fingers managed to pull that velvet away from where it stuck. Callahan practically collapsed against Dream, ignoring his friend’s concerned noises as he reveled in the feeling of that itch finally being scratched.
Callahan signed a shaky reassurance to Dream and gave him a grin, “thanks, I couldn’t reach that bit. Would you help me get some bits on the back?”
“I’m… yeah sure fine, get over here.” Callahan put his admin screen away and shuffled closer to Dream, letting him pick away at the bits of velvet.
“You should ask Bad to help you out with this at some point, he’s got a lot of practice from his wings shedding. Skeppy could probably help too.” Dream said softly as he picked away.
“I’ll think about it.” Callahan signed back.
And think about it Callahan did. Often. He needed to tell them eventually, and Bad had a lot of weird Nether stuff he did, they probably wouldn’t think it was weird. But still that innate terror of showing off his strangest hybrid traits wouldn’t leave. It was hard to tell Dream just about the shedding, he didn’t even mention the eating thing.
In the end Callahan didn’t really have to choose to tell them about it. Instead they found out similarly to Alyssa.
Callahan sighed as he peeled off another bit of velvet. He was nearly done shedding for the season, which was good because he was starting to get tired of trying to explain that there was nothing wrong with his antlers. Tommy had screamed at him, which wasn’t fun. He honestly wasn’t close enough to Tommy, trying to explain what was wrong was just really awkward and exhausting.
“Hey Callahan!” Callahan turned as he heard a familiar voice further down the prime path. Skeppy and Bad walked up together, giggling over something or another.
“Hi you two.” Callahan signed, still holding that bit of velvet in his hand.
“Ooh you gonna eat that?” Bad asked as he got closer.
Callahan paused. Was Bad asking about..?
“This?” He signed, point at his velvet strip.
“Yeah! Were you gonna-”
Skeppy elbowed Bad, “bad I don’t think he was gonna eat that. You know how overworlders feel about eating themself or others.”
“No no!” Callahan signed back, holding out the strip of velvet, “I was actually but I’ve had plenty, I can share!”
Skeppy smoothed over the horrified look on his face and nodded, “oh that’s cool. Alright, sorry then Bad.”
Bad took the velvet from Callahan and grinned at him, “thanks Callahan! But since when have you been producing shed to eat?”
Callahan shrugged, “normally just hide it. Most people don’t like seeing me eating the velvet. Why are you cool with it?”
Bad flared his small dragon-like wings, “It’s a demon thing, my wings shed too! It’s tradition to eat your family’s shed.”
Callahan blinked at the implication. Bad considered him family..? Bad was throwing too many curve balls at him today. But still… the action made him feel like being soft in response.
“May I have some of your next shed?” Callahan asked.
Bad grinned and pulled Callahan into a hug, “of course you can you silly muffin! All you have to do is ask.”