Sir Tikk stops grooming at all the announcements.  His gaze darts from Rikerg, to Leonie (and her quick retreat, and she left him here!), to Red and bounces off the others.  To cover his surprise he starts coughing as if he has a hairball.

Aisling thought she'd prefer Rikerg to any of the others, but dark fae weren't into sexual joinings unless they were getting something else out of if.  Strangely, she often had the urge to pet him, more than anything else.  Of course, she rigidly clamped down on such silly thoughts.

Humph.  So, no show, then...  Probably just as well.

Listening to Red cooing at Rikerg had Peter sitting suddenly on one of the porch benches and stuffing a fist into his mouth to keep from making a sound that might be misinterpreted as rude. The situation had taken a weird turn a bit ago, but it was now in No Man's Land. Why he hadn't considered that Rikerg might have an eager libido made him a little ashamed.

Leonie was about to answer Roy when Rikerg made his announcement.  She squeezed her eyes closed as a vision of Rikerg and Red together forced itself upon her consciousness.  Her whole face worked itself into a wince.

"Um, I think Roy's taking the other option," she said, as soon as she could speak without hysterics.  "You don't have to do anything right now, Roy, I've got to read up on the procedure first.  Let me just go get my books --"  And she fled upstairs and into her room.  As soon as the door was shut, she flung herself on the bed hit it with her fist as she broke down into fits of horrified giggling.

"You take a man's kids away, it don't matter how strong he is or what kind of firepower he's got on him at the time. If he wants that kid back, there's a good chance he's gonna make an admirable effort." Akuma replied. They paused and considered before adding, almost as an afterthought slipping out of the corner of their mouth, "Ain't much gonna keep a father away from his kid for too long if he can help it any."

The silent was doubly heavy, as though somehow there was a hidden weight to their final words that they weren't willing to share. Or perhaps there was nothing to say; there was a definite sense of finality to Joe's words. It was the way the world had become after the war, and - in many ways - the way it had been before, and probably would continue to be so long as humans were alive to crawl around on this crumbling rock.

Quietly, the pair moved through the shaggy fields of razorgrain and tatos toward the farmhouse. The closer they got, the more Akuma was certain that it had been abandoned. The weathered front door, which was white once upon a time, swung lightly back and forth in the light wind that seemed to have been roused from its sleep in the golden crop. When another tendril of a breeze trailed through the fields, Akuma raised his head slightly and took several sniffs of the air. With their respirator, the scents were pretty heavily filtered, but they watched as Susana did the same and huffed deeply in her throat. In a fluid motion, the masked stranger took the safety off their pistol and slunk toward the decaying front porch.

"Something's dead in there," they rumbled as they passed Joe. Lightly, they tapped Susana's haunches with the tip of their boot.

"G'head", they grunted. The yao guai gave Akuma a sidelong glance over her shoulder before shuffling forward. The steps of the front porch groaned under her weight, but did not - by some miracle - collapse. She pushed the door in with her nose and ambled into the building. When the sounds of her shuffling faded and there were no gunshots or shouts of alarm, Akuma rose to their full height. They gave Joe a single look before they moved forward after their animal friend.