And there's Rhea! Food of the day is shortbread cookies. She's not talking to the pigeons right now, although she does look expectantly at new ones that cycle in.

"Hi! Which one is it?"

<One of the ones close enough to hear you. You haven't told anyone about the talking pigeon, have you?>

"Nuh-uh, not a soul."

Aww. Trouble flutters into her lap and coos again.

She beams and snuggles him.

<And you're not going to, right? You already know enough to make our lives miserable. Or short.>

"I won't," agrees Rhea. "I don't want the cult to get you. I don't even know anybody in the Sharing, far as I know."

<I love you,> says Trouble, stealing a cookie out of her hand. It is much too big for him.

<Do you want to help go after the evil cult?> inquires Bella.

"Well... help how? What do you guys do?"

<We're still gathering information. I'd rather avoid toe-to-toe fighting if possible. We can turn into animals, but they have all kinds of resources that make the risk of casualties very high even if we're lions and tigers and bears.>

<Tigers are fluffy,> Trouble contributes.

<Yes,> sighs Bella. <They are. Anyway. Right now one of us is observing the entrance to a cult hideout to see if there's anything worth overhearing. When we know enough to formulate a plan, we can go in, do some damage, go out.>

Coo coo. Trouble is halfway through his stolen cookie.

"So - what would I do? I'm not a ninja or anything."

<I don't know yet. I don't know what I'm going to need. But you already know a lot, and I don't want you getting curious and starting to ask random possible cult members ->

"I would not!"

<Don't interrupt me. You might know that, Iago here might believe you, I need to balance risks as best I can and I don't know you. Right now you know too much and the only benefit is that Iago gets snuggles. You could be an asset, instead of walking disaster potential.>

Trouble coos and snuggles up to Rhea's nearest arm.

Rhea hugs him. "I'm not gonna hurt you guys."

<I'm not thrilled about betting my life on it. But since I don't have a choice about that, I'm trying to see if I can salvage anything useful out of the situation.>

"If you want me to, like, tell you if I notice the Sharing doing... stuff... I can do that."

Snuggle snuggle.

"You're probably not going to turn me into a pooka though so I can't be all that useful."

<I might, if I decide I can trust you, but not instantly just because Iago told you some secrets, no.>

"Are you like the leader pooka?"

<Something like that.>

<Yeah, something like,> says Trouble.

"Complicated pooka social structure?"

<Exceedingly.>

Snuggle snuggle cookie.

<I'm not going to push you into a decision you might reverse yourself on later. You don't have to decide now.>

"Well... that's good, I guess. Can Iago still be my pooka buddy?"

<Yeah,> he says, cooing and snuggling up.

<Yep.> Because "trying to stop him would be an exercise in futility" is needlessly combative.

"...Okay. Oh wow, this is such a young adult paranormal romance novel or something."

Trouble giggles.

"I'll think about it. And I won't tell anybody about you pookas."

<Thank you.>

Snuggle.

So much snuggle.

He considers answering with 'Bite me', but cuddles Rhea instead.

Cuddles cuddles. Rhea dispenses the rest of the shortbread one-handed, feeding more to Trouble whenever he has finished prior offerings.

He is such a well-fed pigeon. Coo coo.

"My mom is home, but she leaves at like two," says Rhea. "Do you want to come over then?"

<Yeah!>

"Awesome. Best pooka. I don't think that other one likes me."

<She's... under a lot of pressure,> says Trouble. <It kind of makes her cranky.>

"You're not cranky."

<I'm not her.>

"That is true." Snuggle.

Snuggle! Snuggle snuggle coo. Iago is the happiest pooka.

Rhea runs out of shortbread. Now she can huggle her pooka with both arms.

Excellent. Excellent and cuddly.

Very both. "I was kinda worried pookas were a one-time thing and you wouldn't come back after owling away," she confesses.

<Awwwww,> he says. <No way, I love you, of course I'm gonna come back.> He beak-nibbles her fingers.

She giggles and strokes his feathers.

He coos.

"I feed them every day, they're pretty tame," shrugs Rhea.

Trouble investigates Rhea's lap for stray crumbs. There's one!

"They only like me for my food," Rhea yawns.

The man looks at them for a moment longer, and at the pigeons still eating the crumbs at Rhea's feet, and shakes his head and moves on.

Snuggle snuggle.

"Was he a cultist?" Rhea whispers when he's out of earshot.

<No way to tell,> says Trouble. <Unless I follow him around for a while to see if he does anything culty.>

"Like what?"

<Culty things. My talking pigeon friend - call her Titania - might get cranky if I tell you the details.>

"She's already cranky."

<Crankier.>

"How's that even possible? What'll she do, hang you from the ceiling of the pooka nest by your thumbs?"

He giggles. <Nah, that'd be fun.>

"Weeeeirdo pooka."

"What would she do? Are you gonna be okay with a cranky pooka queen to go home to?"

<Yeah, I'll be fine, don't worry about me.> He nibbles her fingers.

"Okay." Pet pet.

Snuggle snuggle.

"Titania's the queen, right? Fairy queen? Her and Overlong or whatever his name was?"

<Yeah, from Midsummer Night's Dream, I figured I'd go with the Shakespeare connection,> he says. <Since she didn't pick a nickname herself.>

"Is there a pooka king too?"

<Maybe.>

"Aww." She sighs. "I don't know whether I wanna tell her I'll help. I don't know what she'd want me to do."

<Me neither. We haven't really done that much yet.>

"And it sounds dangerous." She shivers.

<It is.> He coos and snuggles up and gives her tiny nibbles.

She pets him.

<You don't have to do the really dangerous stuff, though,> he says. <Nobody's gonna hurt you if you decide not do so something 'cause you're scared. We're scared too; we get it.>

"I am kinda scared."

Coo. Snuggle. Tiny nibbles.

"If I start walking home now Mom'll be gone by the time I get there, probably."

<Okay.>

She picks him up and carries him home.

Where Trouble, of course, demorphs on her bed.

"That really is pretty gross," she says, not sounding like this has affected her.

He giggles. "I know, it's nasty," he says, and hugs her.

Hugs! Yay.

Snuggly hugs. Mmmmmmm.

Snuggles. "So hey, are you romancing me, do pookas do that, or is this just a snuggling sometimes kissing thing?"

"I dunno," says Trouble. "Do you wanna be romanced?"

"Does that put me in extra evil cult danger so that you have to dump me after a couple weeks for my own good or anything?"

"Nah, it's the same either way."

"And are you any good at romancing?" she inquires cheekily.

"No idea," he says. "Never tried."

"Wanna find out?"

"Sure!" he says. "Oh, but I can still make out with other people and stuff, right? I do that."

"Is that a pooka thing?"

"It's a me thing. I am way more a me than I am a pooka."

"What's 'and stuff'?"

"I dunno," he says, "stuff. Snuggles? Sex? Baking cakes for people? I really like baking cakes for people, I'd bake one for you if I could figure out how to get you and it in the same room afterward."

"Uh, definitely don't mind if you bake cakes for people or snuggle them. The having sex with them is not going to interfere with the young adult paranormal romance novel thing? Because I'm kind of digging that."

"Why would it?"

"...'Cause... it usually would? I don't have a list of why."

"Well, okay," he says, "I'm in love with another guy but he pretty much only wants me for my body and definitely doesn't care what I do in my spare time, and I also kind of have a thing for Titania but she's not into me so that's that, and then there's a girl I hook up with sometimes because we're just that kind of friends. There's nobody waiting around to swoop in and yell at you for stealing their man. So if you don't mind having your paranormal romance with a guy who sleeps around, then I think we're fine."

"Titania? Extremely cranky pooka queen Titania?"

"Yep. I love her. Crankiness and all. And she'd probably fire me out of a cannon into the sun if that's what it took to take out the evil cult. But then, I'd let her."

"...Is that seriously a possible avenue of fighting the evil cult?"

He snorts. "No."

"Okay, 'cause, I don't actually know what I'm dealing with, here, Titania thinks I'm a security risk. Uh, I guess if my mom and dad knew what was going on and got past the whole pooka-cult-etcetera thing they would be like 'but sleeping around causes diseases'?"

He shrugs. "I've been lucky so far. But yeah, that's true."

"I do not really wish to have diseases."

"Me neither. I'm careful-ish. I could be more careful if that'd help. —Uh, and I could quit hooking, that would probably help a lot."

She blinks. "That was not on the list."

"I haven't done it in a while, too busy being a pigeon, so I forgot. But not doing it because I'm too busy being a pigeon and not doing it on purpose are kind of different."

"I guess. Do you even know you don't have anything now?"

"...Not for sure, and I can't go to the doctor because in hiding and also pooka. So." He shrugs.

"Oh, yeah, I guess that's a thing, isn't it."

"Yep."

"Oh well, in health class we did this entirely embarrassing section about, like, Alternatives."

Trouble giggles. "Oooh, alternatives," he says, hugging her.

Snuggles! Are those an alternative or their own thing? They are nice, anyway.

Snuggles are awesome.

So awesome! Kisses are also awesome.

They are. They are that. Mmmmmm.

Rhea is totally digging the romanced-by-a-paranormal-young-adult thing.

Awesome. Because the paranormal young adult in question is totally digging Rhea.

Snuggles. Does he like tummy rubs when he is not a cat?

"Ticklish pooka."

"Yep!" he says, still giggling, and he snuggles up and gives her a giggly kiss.

Tickles. Less accidental tickles.

Giggles! So many giggles.

And kisses. Giggly kisses.

"Best pooka."

Giggly hug! Squish.

Squishy hugs.

Snuggly ones.

And prolooooonged makeouts. Until Rhea checks the clock and says her dad is due home soon.

"Aww," says Trouble. "Okay, I better go." He kisses her one more time, then scoots away to morph - pigeon, since it's still light out.

Rhea picks him up and opens the window and sets him loose out into the sky. "Bye, Iago."

At it, there are Swans. Bella is talking to her dad about what he has picked up from staking out the pool entrance.

Trouble demorphs and finds a bit of couch to flop on. He looks really happy.

"Hello, Trouble."

"Hi! What's up?"

"Nothing best noted for its novelty. How's Rhea?"

"Rhea continues to be awesome," he says, hugging himself. "And pretty good at undercover - somebody came by wanting to know why she was cuddling a pigeon and she handled him without acting weird or anything."

"An admirable save from the situation of public pigeon cuddling. We'll have her turned into a pooka ninja in no time."

The next room contains Andi and Renée.

He keeps going.

Unless he heads for the garage, the house is otherwise empty.

An empty room sounds pretty great to him right now.

After about an hour, Bella comes looking for him.

He's tucked into a corner of Renée's bedroom closet, sitting on the floor between some things and some other things.

"Do you want to talk?"

"Sure," he says.

"I apologize for being sarcastic at you."

"Thanks," he says. "By the way, I needed a nickname for you, so now Rhea knows you as Titania."

"Okay."

Trouble sits quietly.

She sits too.

"So my not wanting someone to know about us wouldn't have mattered to you enough to stop you from telling anyway."

"If you wanna put it that way, then yep," he says. "Absolutely. I didn't tell her about you. I told her about me. It'd be bad if she spilled somehow, but I don't think she will. I think she can handle it."

Bella clenches her hands in her hair. "About how often is this going to happen?"

"Falling in love doesn't come with a schedule," says Trouble. "And if the next person I get all gooey over is another Ethan, I'm not gonna tell them anything unless we - and by we I mean you, me, Robin, Ethan, and Andi - want to bring them in and can see a way to do it without fucking everything up."

"As far as Rhea's personal characteristics go she doesn't seem like a disaster, but if we told everybody whose claim to non-disasterhood was 'not an Ethan', half of Phoenix would know by now, and we'd have screwed up at least once. I don't think who you fall in love with is a useful filter. If you keep doing this, you will screw up eventually. At least once. At most once, you only get to tell the Yeerks that there are morph-capable humans in Phoenix one time, after that you don't have to tell them anything because they win."

"...yeah, but not being Ethan isn't her only claim," he says. "What I'm trying to tell you when I say I wouldn't tell another Ethan is that I'm not telling anybody if I think they're gonna be a problem, and the reason I don't think Rhea's gonna be a problem isn't that I fell in love with her, it's that she doesn't act like she's going to be a problem. I can't give you a list of every single thing she did or didn't do that made me think that, I don't work my shit out on paper like you do, but that doesn't mean my observations are monkey farts."

"Okay," says Trouble.

She leaves.

Trouble waits a little while, to be reasonably sure he won't run into her on the way, and then he owls out of the house to find somewhere safe to sleep for the night.