HONEYBEE | open, wt + jericho needed

[jericho]

Jericho has a habit of tuning out everything around him when he works.  The ginger tabby's mind always tends to get lost in his surroundings and thoughts, his white paws moving on their own and his head somewhere completely different from where his body lies down on earth.  He's spent the morning in the greenhouse, weeding and watering and checking on his plants to make sure that the seeds are ever-slowly beginning to sprout and that the flowers are healthy, and after padding along the beach he's inevitably found himself in his shop.  As much as he wishes for free time to spend he nearly always finds it expended on work, though work he adores.  Jericho gets lost in the flowers that line his shelves and tables, pruning and propagating and organizing and organizing again.  The little tabby knows that everything is in its place — gods above know he's checked a thousand times — and yet he looks again, inspecting for any excuse to allow him to waste the days away in a place he loves so dearly.

He gets so absorbed that he doesn't hear Pierce's approach — he hardly even hears his call.  The orange tomcat, his fur brilliantly aglow beneath the midday sun, ignores it as simply another voice in the masses that occasionally pad past him in their way through town.  He only glances up when the creaking of a wooden floorboard beneath the serval's weight somehow manages to catch his attention, ears pricking and head lifting and turning to better angle himself towards his unexpected visitor; it dawns on him rather swiftly after that it's Pierce, a clanmate with which he's familiar, and Jericho hurriedly rises to his paws.  "Oh!  S-Sorry, did you need me?" the Helion responds hurriedly, the words seeming to tumble from his mouth hastily in his embarrassment.  He appears sheepish, his cheeks turning rosy red beneath his pelt, honey-hued gaze flickering about in the vague direction in which he senses the Sunbearer standing.  Perhaps it's his rushedness or perhaps it's the other flora that surrounds them covering up the scent of Pierce's gift, but Jericho shows not even an inkling of awareness that the other male comes baring gifts at all.  He's beautifully oblivious, so pleasantly unaware.