I didn't come up with this character, my friend did but he is the cutest thing in the universe and I just HAD to write a short story about him. I hope you all love Gerald as much as I do!

It was a day just like any other day, the sun was shinning, the air was clear, there was ink all over the place and Jaye was not happy. Gerald could tell because he kicked him out and said, "can't trust you to keep anything clean, can I?"

It was a rhetorical question of course and Jaye knew the answer all too well. He learned the hard way earlier when someone pointed out that he had ink dripping from his coat pocket. His favorite coat. And Gerald's favorite pocket to curl up his long, snaky body nicely and annoy Jaye throughout the day.

So now Gerald was stuck outside in the cold, dark night with nothing to do. He had at lease another four  or five hours before he needed to get his two hour sleep of the night.

Gerald sad coiled up on the front step, staring at the door, knowing it would not but half expecting it to open back up. It was so high us, he wondered how the cats did it.

Finally, deciding to do something besides stay and ink up the front porch, Gerald slithered off the step and down the walkway, into the street. The night was dark and the hard, scratchy gravel of the street made weird noises that sent chills down his spine. Gerald followed his intuition, allowing it to tell him when to make a turn.

Eventually, the small snake found himself in a dark alley way.

"WHY IS GERALD HERE?" He said-well, he more yelled then spoke normally, he hardly ever does anything normally. That and he almost always spoke in the third person when speaking about himself. He always shouts when he speaks but it sounds like hissing to everyone but Jaye. However, the thing is, his shouts sound moe like loud whispering to Jaye.

Gerald's voice echoed slightly off of the alley's walls and he recoiled a bit, startled. "GERALD!" He shouted again, listening to the echoes of his voice.

"GERALD!"

Half way down the street, two large muscular men were chasing a strange creature about the size of a great dane swinging from lamp post to lamp post frantically. The creature looked like a sticky grey slob, leaving a slimy trail of where it was as it left each post. It had one eye and no visible mouth.

It almost made it to the street corner before two more figures appeared on the other side. One was just like the two behind the creature and the other was just a girl in a hood. Yet she looked just as tough as the other three on her team, if not tougher.

"No where to go you little jerk," one of the guys behind the creature sneered. "Might as well give up now."

"The creature froze, its eye dashing back and forth, looking for some kind of an exit. You could see it visibly relax as it realized it was right next to a gap in between two buildings big enough for a vehicle to go through. If it had a mouth, it would have smirked smugly. As it was, it just raised one of it's long appendages to its eye in a salute and launched another into the alley, attaching the suction part at the end to a wall. It sprung away into the dark alley way, leaving the stunned group of warrior like team and ignoring the faint hissing noise coming from the depths of the unknown area.

"Don't just stand there, get after him!" The lady yelled, pointing after the multi-appendaged being. She was about to follow her team mates when she got a feeling to go around the back. With out another thought, she dashed down the street and around the corner.

Gerald was not having a very good night. First he was kicked out by his Jaye then he was nearly run over by a suction cup germ then unceremoniously picked up by a big, beefy hand. Needless to say, he was not happy.

"WHAT ARE YOU DOING!" Gerald hissed, "GERALD DOES NOT LIKE BEING PICKED UP, PUT GERALD DOWN!"

"Look at this Mayhempta," a deep gravely voice said, ignoring poor Gerald's hissing as the corrupted slithered around his cupped hands. "Is this not the smallest corrupted you have ever seen?"

"Put it down, Lagadit, you don't know where it's been," the woman replied, dragging the frozen creature behind her and re-holstering her freeze gun to her hip.

"PUT GERALD DOWN!" Gerald hissed again from the now dubbed Lagadit's hands, getting ink everywhere.

"What is that hissing noise?" A higher pitched voice asked coming over to peer into Lagadit's cupped hands. "That is a tiny corrupted."

"That's what I thought," Lagadit said.

"IF YOU DO NOT PUT GERALD DOWN RIGHT NOW, I WILL INK YOU!"

"Woah, was that the corrupted?" The third voice asked. "It just talked. I think you should put it down man."

"GERALD IS A PERSON TOO!" Gerald said as Lagadit set him down gently. "THANK YOU!"

"Do you ever talk normally?" Mayhempta asked curiously.

"NO!" Gerald shout-whispered after thinking about it for a moment.

"Do you live here?" Another voice asked.

"NO!" Gerald answered. "GERALD LIVES WITH HIS JAYE BUT HE KICKED GERALD OUT!"

"Why?" Lagadit inquired, holding very still as Gerald slithered up his boot and to his shoulder.

"GERALD GOT HIS FAVORITE JACKET MESSY!" Gerald answered with no hint of regret.

"So what were you doing in this alley?" The fourth voice questioned.

"GERALD!" The snake corrupted answered. "GERALD HAS NOTHING TO DO AT NIGHT SO GERALD- GERALD!"

"Why are you shouting your name?" The third voice asked.

"GERALD!" The team shared looks, unsure what to do with these new strange events.

"Can we keep him?" The third person begged Mayhempta, showing how young he really was.

"Only during the night time, I'me sure Jaye would miss him if he didn't show up after a while."

"Yes! Come on, Gerald!" The large, blond guy pumped his fist into the air. "My name is Nickolas and we're going to go on adventures!"

"WHERE?" Gerald asked, intrigued.

"Space!" Nickolas held out his hand for Gerald to slither up his arm then dashed down the street to the space ship, leaving Mayhempta, Lagadit and Kevin (who Gerald does not know yet) to run after them. They were slow coming because they had to drag the creature behind them.

And that was how Gerald became a part of a misfit team of free lancers who traveled through space and went on adventures.

🐍 ⭐️ 🛸 ⭐️ 🐍

Several years later, Gerald was in Jaye's room, in the special ink proof bed the tall human made form him so Gerald's ink leaking eyes would not get ink everywhere. He was impatiently waiting for Jaye to fall asleep so he could sneak out to meet with his team.

"JAYE, GO TO SLEEP!" Gerald hissed at the poor boy laying in his bed.

"How can I when you're yelling at me every two minutes?" Jaye demanded in a tone that suggested that this has happened before.

"SHHHHHHHHH!" Gerald hushed loudly, "YOU ARE NOT LISTENING TO GERALD. GERALD SAYS GO TO SPEEP AND THAT MEANS NO TALKING!"

"You're talking too!" Jaye protested, getting up slightly on his elbows. 

"SHHHHHHH!" Gerald said again. "NO GERALD IS NOT, GO TO SLEEEP!"

"But-"

"SHHHHHH!"

Eventually, finally, Jaye drifted off-with not help form Gerald, who was shushing Jaye at the slightest sound or movement from him.

"FINALLY!" Gerald shouted with out thinking then froze, looking towards his human to make sure he was still asleep. When he didn't move, Gerald relaxed. Making an effort to be quieter, Gerald said, "Now Gerald can leave and go on adventures!"

Gerald silently slithered out of his bed, careful not to get too much ink everywhere and slid out the window.

About two or three miles later, Gerald saw his other family by the space ship and hissed excitedly. "GERALD IS HERE! THE CUTEST TEAM MEMBER HAS ARRIVED!" He shouted cheerfully.

"And he knows it too, apparently," Mayhempta said with a wry smile

"YES, GERALD OVERHEARD KEVIN AND NICKOLAS SAY IT TO LAGADIT LAST NIGHT!" Gerald hissed proudly.

Mayhempta laughed at the sheepish faces of the two large men. "Come on," she said, still laughing. "We have a mission in the Milky Way galaxy tonight."

Merry Christmas to those who celebrate it and Happy Holidays to those who don't!😁

Just so you all know, Gerald will be making cameo appearances in all of my stories somehow so be prepared for more cuteness!

Disclaimer: I did not draw the pictures in the media. deepinker did.