Hawkins sighed. "That could've gone better."
Cecilia nodded. "Becca said she could be a little overwhelming..."
"She didn't say anything about paranoia, though. Was it something I said? Or...is it the mask, do you think?"
The gynoid shrugged. "Becca probably hasn't seen that side of her," she said. "And it might be a little early to call it paranoia...I dunno. Maybe we should've noted that Becca sent us first off. So...do we press the issue, or what?"
The masked agent shook his head. "No. If she's skittish, that'd only make it worse. We'll probably have to ask Becca to be a go-between, at first...damn. I wanted to have all of them together this evening..."
Steven wasn't really on-board with the idea of going out while she was like this, let alone with Ben - or, really, any boy. It wasn't that she expected him to do anything - he'd seemed to take it to heart when she'd explained that she didn't want to be treated as a whole different person just because she'd changed - but...who knew what might happen? What if there was some new development with this fruiting thing? She didn't know what to expect, and she had even less idea how he might react to it.
However, her mother was insistent. There was, after all, nothing wrong with her, nothing that would prevent her from doing absolutely anything, and Ben had already showed up. So out the door she went...
Being a rat, Ben had a keen sense of smell. He'd already noticed the floral scent that he remembered as belonging to Steven, but from outside the house it didn't seem out of the ordinary, except for a little bit of a change in its character - but maybe that was just ordinary variation? He didn't know, he hadn't spent enough time around Steven as she was now to be sure.
It was still odd, for him, to think about what had happened to his friend. That Steven had become a plant-girl thing, and more than that, that Steven actually had been a girl for some time before it became visibly apparent enough that she was forced to admit to it, and he'd never suspected...but then, that very fact was pretty strong support for her insistence that she was the same person she'd always-
The front door opened, and the scent suddenly hit him in full force. For a moment it was almost overpowering, until he adjusted to it. "Whoa!" he exclaimed, whiskers twitching. He turned to see Steven standing in the doorway. He could tell that the scent was hers, and although it was a little different than usual, it was still, to his nose, clearly a product of her own body, since it didn't have any of the chemical smells that humans didn't quite realize perfumes had. It would, therefore, be an incredibly stupid move to blurt out something like "Dude, are you wearing perfume?" to her.
Unforunately, he only reached that conclusion the moment after he'd said it. He smacked his palm to his forehead and gritted his teeth. Steven flushed a little. "What? No!" she said sharply. Ben winced. "Sorry, sorry, stupid question," he groaned, teeth still clenched. He looked back at her, and blinked in surprise - was she wearing earrings? She'd wear jewelry, but she was embarassed by the idea of perfume? This time, however, he had enough presence of mind not to say anything about it.
"No," Steven said, less annoyed but still firmly. "It's just...this thing that my body is doing right now...that's why these are there, too..." She indicated the earrings, and on closer inspection Ben realized that they were some kind of little fruit. "...Oh," he said. "Huh. This just started happening, then?"
She nodded. "My mom doesn't think it's anything to worry about, it's just a thing that's probably going to happen now and again."
There was a pause. "So, uh," the rat-boy said at last, "wanna get going?"
