Dragon Games update

2.01k word update, picking off from the last one. 

“Okay,” Cassidy replied. “I got it, Jim,” she said when he made to help her. He was left sitting there like a forgotten child as the Garchomps moved around him, the mother coming in with her hands black with soot, she must have been putting out their fire.

It felt like hours went by before the male Garchomp said that dinner was ready, Jim taking the seat next to Cassidy. The father took the seat on his right, and the mother sat across from Jim. The pig looked like it had been dipped in some kind of glazy sauce, the parents surrounding the main course with baked potatoes and steaming condiments, the sight mouth-watering

He wanted to dig in, but he waited patiently for one of the Garchomps to begin, so he wouldn’t look rude. The father eventually picked up a huge knife and a spoke, jabbing the tools into the pig’s belly and beginning to cut.

“Thank you for the meal, guys,” Jim began, his eyes darting from the beaming mother to the frowning father. “Where did you get the whole animal from?”

“Farms,” the father replied, destroying Jim’s attempt at making conversation. Ironically he preferred the surly father’s attitude than the mother’s, she was constantly smiling at him from across the table like a deranged killer, aren’t her cheeks sore by now?

“Daddy drives out of the city every once and a while to get one,” Cassidy explained. “Says its cheaper than going through a butcher.”

“They upcharge the cost for delivery,” the male Garchomp added. “Plus they let me choose from their stocks.”

“Good thinking,” Jim said, but the dad didn’t reply, slicing a piece of pork into chunks. He speared them, adding them to the mother’s plate, then Cassidy’s, the females glazing their meat and veges with sauce. When Jim thought the father wouldn’t cut his meat, the Garchomp proved otherwise, though he didn’t look happy to do it.

He piled on his own sides, plucking a few extra pork slices from the main platter, but he couldn’t hope to match the appetites of the Garchomps. The father had a quarter of the pig alone on his plate, Cassidy and the mother only slightly less than him. They were wolfing down their meals like they’d been starved for days, their sharp teeth slicing through the meat with ease. Jim felt like they were only using cutlery for his sake.

“Now this is delicious,” Jim said, biting into a tough, but crumbling piece of crackling. “You’ve done a good job, Mrs…!” He still didn’t know their last names so he just called the mom that.

“Thank you,” the mother replied. “and please, call me Cheryl.”

“You’re only going to thank her?” the male dragon added. “we all made it.”

“Oh, I-I yes, thank you too, uh sir.”

He didn’t offer his name, huffing as he returned to his meal. Jim could have reached up with his knife and cut the tension, that’s how thick it felt. For a while the only noise was of forks clinking against plates, and even though Jim was no stranger to silent dinners, it was worse being with two adults he didn’t know.

“Daddy,” Cassidy said after a while. “Could you pass the gravy please?”

Trying to diffuse the tension, Jim made to grab the sauce cup, but Cassidy slammed her foot down on his own underneath the table. He rammed his fist into his mouth to stop himself from howling, the father looking at him warily.

“Everything alright?” the dad asked him.

“Peachy!” Jim answered, his leg throbbing with pain. “Just, uh, went down the wrong hole.” He pointed at his throat.

“Cass tells me you’re into a lot of sports?” the mother, Cheryl, asked, sipping at a glass of wine. They’d brought a bottle of Shiraz to the table, but none was offered to the young couple. “Theron, you were proficient an athleticism in your youth, weren’t you?”

“Yes,” the father answered.

“He wasn’t so fussy about points and balls,” Cheryl went on. “I remember when we first met, he was in a cross-country endurance run for Ground types, and I was one of those people who holds out the water bottles during the route.”

“That was a long time ago,” Theron, the father, added. “My legs aren’t what they used to be.”

“But you still hike, though, right?” Jim asked, the father watching him suspiciously. “I was looking at one of your photo’s over there, you’re all up on a mountain.”

“Ah, that one,” Theron mulled. “Yes, I still go for walks from time to time. Marathons and triathlons truly build your longevity, and not just temporary bursts of speed, like competitive sports do, for example.”

Jim felt like that was a dig against him, the Garchomp giving him a bad case of side eye as he returned to his meal.

“-Well judging by that gut maybe you should-” Jim began to mumble some obscenity under his breath, but caught himself before he finished the thought. He didn’t want to insult Cassidy’s parents, not right in front of her at least.

“People have different preferences, dear,” Cheryl muttered as she sipped at her glass. Cheryl was starting on her third glass, the father on his second.

“You should have seen him the other day, daddy,” Cassidy added after a few bites. “Jim ran the entire length of the field in like twenty seconds, and that was only during training! Then there was that, ahem, tussle with the Charizard during the last game. His sport’s made him athletic as well as tough,” she added, reaching over to rub her paw on the inside of his elbow. Jim shifted in his chair, her delicate touch making his toes curl.

“So you’re volatile? My daughter sure knows how to pick them.”

Cheryl chocked on a bit of wine, covering her snout with a claw, still all smiles even as she sputtered. Jim’s eyes flicked from the mother dragoness to the daughter.

“You remember the first time I visited the theatre club?” he whispered, Cassidy nodding. She seemed meek, always glancing at her father as though expecting a verbal reprisal. “I’m getting a lot of Kendra vibes from your dad.”

“He’s just being protective,” she replied in a low voice. “Always has been, don’t let it get you.”

He chewed his lip, not convinced but not wanting to say anything. He picked at the edges of his meal, Theron muttering something to Cheryl in a low voice. That was fine by Jim, he didn’t want to talk to the old man anyway.

He put his fork in his other hand, reaching over and scratching at the thorn poking out Casidy’s bicep on this side, grinning stupidly as the dragoness twitched under his touch.

“Jim…” she cooed. “that tickles, quit it!”

“I like your outfit,” he said, teasing her as he drew circles across the spot where the bone met her scales.

“This is just my home wear,” Cassidy said, shivering as he moved to the other thorn. “We might have worn something special, but we weren’t going out, so I just threw something on. Dressing up for a home meal wouldn’t have really worked.”

“If you wore something that exposed your arms, anything would have worked.” He continued running his nails up and around her thorns, his eyes on his food, using just touch to guide his attentions.

“Jim-!” Cassidy whispered. “stop, my parents are right here!”

“And? Look at you, regretting telling me about those nerves in your horns yet?”

Despite her complaints she wasn’t putting up much resistance, reluctantly chuckling along with him. He must have squeezed one too many times, as Cassidy started tickling him back, reaching over and jabbing her claws between his ribs. Not enough to hurt, but still running along the channels between the bones where he was just as sensitive as she was.

The two soon devolved into a play-fight of gently growing intensity, forgetting table etiquette and present company as they giggled like children.

His discarded cutlery clattered as a fist was brought down on the table, Jim flinching as he turned to see Theron had risen to his feet, his eyes narrowed to slits. Jim felt tiny in his oversized seat, doubly so under the Garchomp’s venomous expression.

“Is it not enough that you must touch my daughter right before me?” Theron spat. “I knew it was a mistake, all of this! How dare you act this way in my own home?”

“I-I’m sorry, sir,” Jim began, oblivious to the source of the outrage, but as Theron went to reply, Cheryl put a hand on her husband’s arm.

“Theron, dear, calm yourself,” she said. It was the first time Jim had seen her not smiling. Theron looked enraged, his demeanour just slightly lifting as he met the eyes of the matron Garchomp. His anger withered a little, chuching a napkin he’d been holding onto his plate.

“Excuse me,” Theron mumbled, his chair squeaking against the floor as he pushed it out of the way. He walked away with his head down, moving to the back door and pushing it open with a fist, disappearing into the night.

“Theron!” Cheryl got to her feet, but before hurrying after, she turned to the two youths. “Forgive him, Jim, he’s been troubled these past few months. Cass, make Jim feel at home for a while.”

She hurried after her husband, Jim and Cassidy watching her go, before man and dragon slowly turned to look at each other.

“What did I do?” Jim asked.

“Nothing,” Cassidy sighed. “he’s just…” She trailed off with a resigned shrug. “Come on, I think I’ve lost my appetite.”

“Yeah, me too,” he replied, following her lead as they stood up. He followed her down one of the hallways, turning up a short flight of stairs. At the top, Cassidy pushed open one of the doors on the left.

“This is my room,” she said, Jim moving into the doorway after her. Even though he didn’t know what to expect, what he saw still surprised him. She had a desk stacked with textbooks and notepads to one side, it looked like it had just been plucked out of a librarian’s office, messy and yet organised at the same time. On the opposite wall was a pile of pillows and blankets arranged in a rough circle, the mix of reddish cloths all scrunched up and as messy as, well, his bed. There was no mattress, though, the pillows laying on a big, plush quilt.

“Well well,” he said, appraising the room with a whistle. There were posters lining all four walls, depicting famous musicians and their album covers, as well as actors in the movies they were famous for, all posed in dramatic, Hollywood fashion. “Hey look there’s your uke.”

In the corner was a black instrument case, the lid open, Jim plucking the ukelele out and admiring it. “They say you can learn a lot about a person from the room they grew up in, and… well,” he said, looking around. “this doesn’t really tell me much.”

“I didn’t grow up here,” Cassidy reminded. She gestured to a stack of moving boxes in the corner.

“Oh. Man, sometimes I surprise myself with my own stupidity.”

She laughed, walking over and watching him pluck at the strings on the instrument, the notes coming out flat and bland. “How the heck do you play this thing anyway?” he muttered.

“You’re not holding it right,” she said, taking his arms into her hands. “rest the bottom against your forearm. Yes, like that. Now put your fingers on the waist. Good. Rest your thumb on the back of the neck, no the other way, there you go. Now just strum.”

“Strum what?” he asked.

“Anything! There’s no limits to music.”

He ran his thumb across the strings, a pleasant series of notes filling the room. He grumbled in frustration as he tried using his other hand to pluck out specific notes, Cassidy chuckling at his displeasure with the instrument. His notes sounded like record scratches, but after a while he managed to sound out part of a melody Cassidy was happy to teach him.

He reached the point she didn’t have to shadow him, the Garchomp watching him with covetous eyes as he strummed out a little beat.

“Hey this isn’t that hard,” he said, tapping his foot. “So is this your only instrument or… why are you taking off your clothes?”