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“What’s the catch? What are you playing at?”
Well, that’s not the reaction one hopes for when one gives a gift. Commander Peepers gripped the small plainly wrapped package in his hands, alternating from squinting at it to glaring at you.
“There’s no catch. It’s your birthday, stupid.” You said, resisting the urge to roll your eyes.
“No it isn’t, my birthday is the eleventh.” He rolled his eye at you.
“Today is the eleventh. Has been all day. In fact, it’s almost over actually. Wander didn’t get you a present this year?”
“Wuh, no! And I think I know what day of the month it is thank you very much, and today is obviously the ninth, I’ll prove it-“
You pulled out your phone and showed him the date. The commander blinked at it and sighed loudly.
“Ah.”
Commander Peepers was notoriously bad at celebrating his birthday. If it wasn’t for Wander knowing every watchdog’s birthday and throwing parties and giving presents, he’s sure his birthday would’ve been completely forgotten every year he worked on the Skull Ship. Lord Hater certainly never remembered.
“Happy birthday, Peepers.” You said, pushing the present closer to him.
“That’s Commander to you. If this is a trick I’m going to throw you out the airlock.” He threatened.
You snorted and rolled your eyes.
“Just open it.”
He threw one last glare at you for good measure and carefully started to peel back the wrapping paper. You watched him excitedly as he finished extracting the box, letting the paper drift to the floor. Peepers pulled out a small object, and let out a small indistinguishable noise. It was a compact audio recorder, colored red and black with a little lightning bolt on the back. His initials were carefully lasered on the front cover. One glance at the object told him it was incredibly well made and expensive.
You watched as his eye glittered in the harsh overhead lights of the ship. He turned your present over and over in his hands, simply looking at it.
“I know you like to make recordings of your thoughts. I made sure it had the maximum amount of memory, and you can even set several passwords on it. Do you like it?”
“You…you put a lot of thought into this, didn’t you?” Peepers would be lying if he said he wasn’t touched by the very thoughtful and personal gift. This was the kind of thing lovers gifted to one another. He flushed at the thought, shaking his head to try and clear it.
A lot of things about you suddenly made sense.
“Thank you,” He said your name for the first time without screaming it in frustration. “It’s….acceptable. You got the theme right at least, that’s one thing now that you’ve done right.”
Of course he will have to check and see if you bugged it, if anyone ever said the commander was a trusting person they’d be a liar. Despite himself, he really hoped it wasn’t.
You gasped and smacked him for his comment.
“Aw, shut up Peepers. Happy birthday. See you later!”
You waved goodbye and he watched you go, wishing he could say something, anything to make you stay a little longer.
Once you were out of sight, his eye dropped back down to your gift. Peepers smiled as he picked up the paper on the floor, taking everything back to his room. On his way back he passed two watchdogs on their patrol, ignoring them completely.
“Woah. Did you see that, Terry?”
“Yeah! The commander’s pupil was a heart! I wonder who he was thinking about.”
“I think I saw the human here earlier. Do you think it was them?”
They looked at each other before bursting into laughter. Terry wiped a tear from his eye as he giggled.
“Oh as if. Can you imagine that? The human, and the commander?”
Their laughter continued and echoed down the hall.
For once, the commander didn’t hear it.