Brio crept into the hatching bay at the Abstract Destiny with his head down and his tail actually tucked down between his legs. Urnaess was in there, settled amidst the fifteen eggs she'd laid and he'd sired, and she lifted her head when he came in. Her expression was hard to read-- what with no eyes and hair in her face and all-- but it looked... neutral, maybe. Not cold, exactly, and not angry, but she wasn't smiling, didn't look glad to see him, or anything.

Well, why should she? After gestation, he'd pretty much left her to her own devices, popping in now and then to say hello but not to do much else, and once to see just how many eggs she'd made. Next to somebody like Frux, he probably looked like a really rotten mate. Maybe he was. He just hadn't thought about it.

After his little fight with Frux, Brio had done a lot of thinking. He wasn't normally an introspective person and, in fact, would rather think about anything but himself and how he was feeling or what he was thinking. Thinking too much usually led to all sorts of problems, usually particularly unhappy ones, so he tended to avoid it. It was yet another thing Frux didn't like about him but, well, Frux wasn't him, and when Frux thought too much he didn't wind up at problems.

But whenever Frux actually lost his temper at him and told him off like that, Brio wound up thinking, anyway. Though he'd never say as much, Frux meant a lot to him, and though he knew he always came off badly to the Askan, he wished he didn't. It was like Frux brought out the worst in him, without either of them even trying. The one time he'd actually tried to talk to someone about it, his sortof-sister Pebai, she'd mused that maybe it was because he tried too hard and cared to much, so he tripped over himself and fell back on habit. Brio didn't know about that; Pebai wasn't known for being the wisest person.

Still, though, he did always wind up thinking a lot after being really yelled at by Frux.

This time, that thinking had brought him back to the mate he'd left behind to pay more attention to other, more fun, and more new things. That hadn't been right, and if he was going to be a father, he'd have to at least make that right. Or try.

Because no matter what Frux said or thought, he did want to be a father, too. He'd not just forgotten that flights led to babies. He'd even thought about the hatchlings, imagined what they might be like when he was idle, imagining them perfect, but just assuming that he'd pick one up come hatching-time and it'd be fine. He'd even toyed with the notion of sire-piercing the lot, just like his father had done, him. The idea that he ought to be hanging around and helping simply hadn't occurred to him, until Frux told him he'd been doing it.

Lots of things hadn't occurred to him. Like maybe he'd be a really bad father. And that scared him.

That was why he didn't do so much thinking, when he could get away with it. He always wound up thinking things like that, sometimes a lot of them.

So rather than thinking more when he got to that point, he decided to do what he did best: act. Even if the things he did weren't always the right ones, he was much better at doing something than thinking about it. First things first, too, and he went to see Urnaess.

"Hi," he said shyly from the doorway after a long and kind of uncomfortable pause.

"Hi," Urnaess said, back. There wasn't much inflection in her voice, either.

There was another awkward pause, and Brio looked at his toes. "I'm sorry I haven't been around much."

All Urnaess did was sniff a little at him and turn her face away, looking back down at her eggs. Their eggs, which he'd stopped in to see once, count, and then flounced off again. Brio thought this weird feeling might actually be guilt. It was a new sort of feeling. He squirmed unhappily in the silence and tried again.

"I'm gonna b-be better," he promised hopefully, and internally damned his stutter.

An ear flicked at him. What kind of an answer was that? Urnaess was paying the eggs more attention than him, rolling one over and putting her nose to another. Brio resisted the urge to stamp his foot and demand she answer him. It was an awfully strong urge, though, and he might even have done it if he hadn't just been yelled at by Frux for childishness the day before. Stamping of feet and demanding things was part of the problem, right? At least, that's how he figured it.

Brio crept closer, down the last few of the stairs and onto the fuzzy stuff they lined the floor with. "Can I help?"

"You want to?" Urnaess asked without looking up.

Brio took a deep breath and said, "Yes."

Urnaess finally brought her head back up, ears skewed, to put her muzzle in his direction like she was finally looking at him, even though she couldn't "see" exactly. "Then you can start by going and getting me dinner," she said. "There's a neat little takeout place Frux gets me things from, called Bright Lights? Get me their number six order, no sesame seeds."

A little taken aback, Brio blinked at her, but dutifully repeated, "Bright Lights, number six order, no sesame seeds."

"Yes," Urnaess said. "Get me that...." She paused and ducked her head, as if suddenly shy. "And we'll see about the rest after."

Brio blinked at her again, smiled a little shyly, then scampered to go find her take-out place. Being sent on an errand was much better than being yelled at again, he thought.