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“who invited
him
to movie night?” toby asks, shaking slightly with fear as he ducks behind aaarrrgh, taken by surprise at the sight of jim’s once-enemy draal now somehow invited to their weekly movie night.
“tobes, relax, draal’s safe now.” jim says reassuringly as aaarrrgh picks toby up by the collar of his shirt, plopping him down on the couch between blinky and draal, with just a smidgen of room between him and the larger of the two trolls. jim smirks to himself as he can practically see toby wince as he’s forced to sit next to draal, quickly choosing a movie from his stack of dvds (and ignoring the sudden lack of vhs tapes that remain in his home) and slipping it into the player. he then stands, clutching the remote, and placing himself on the couch between toby and draal.
“yes, relax, tobias,” blinky says reassuringly. “as master jim said, draal now means no harm to us, since he has deemed himself protector of the lake household.” draal throws toby a smile, but toby only shakes his head, scooching closer to blinky (if that's even possible in whatever space is left on the couch). figuring that he’s heard enough of toby’s reluctancy towards welcoming the new houseguest, jim decides to finally press play on the movie, causing all conversation to come to a stop.
it's soon after the movie starts that toby finds himself still distracted by the whole ordeal, wondering exactly what would lead jim to letting a creature like draal into his home. for whatever reason, he sneaks a glance to his right, only to find aaarrrgh with a comforting large hand around blinky, who appears to be relaxing into the contact.
huh, figured,
toby thinks to himself.
i always thought those two were a thing.
finally, he glances to his left, finding the exact answer to his previous question. like the trolls next to them, draal too has an arm around jim, and, like blinky, jim seems to be perfectly fine with it, tucking himself under draal’s arm, leaning against his chest as the movie plays on the tv screen in front of them.
so
that's
why he’s here
, toby thinks.
jim’s dating a troll.
he sits with that thought for a few moments before it finally sinks in and his eyes widen, shock overtaking him.
“i’ll be right back!” he says quickly, excusing himself to the bathroom, telling jim not to pause the movie just for him.
(later, after he finally collects himself and returns to the couch to finish the movie, he asks jim about it.
“what? i’m not dating him!” jim is quick to say in response. “he’s just my… protector!”
“mmhmm,” toby says simply with a raised eyebrow.
another night, one he spends in the lake household, he catches jim sneaking off to the basement just after he thinks toby’s fallen asleep. toby sneakily follows after him, only to find jim curled in front the furnace, sound asleep. draal lies behind him, holding the human boy close to his chest.
that time, toby does, in fact, take a picture on his cell phone to use as evidence the next time jim denies it.)