"I thiiink it has to do with them being sessile but I could be making that up."

"I'm picturing them just like. Growing that shit out like ivy, hoping it runs across a girl."

 - he sporfles helplessly.

"Well if they're sessile, right?"

"Mm-hmm!" he squeaks, as he gets himself under control.  "It only makes sense," he giggles.

"I'm gonna be so disappointed when I learn how barnacles actually work and it's not that."

"I was getting tempted to look it up on my phone, but I'll refrain, for you," he says.

"Thank you for letting me keep my penis ivy illusions." Pause. "What a sentence."

Snort.  "It's a pretty good one."

"I make those occasionally!"

Smiiiile.

" - um," he says, eloquently.  "Do you have more nature facts other than the duck penises that you were avoiding scandalizing the slendermins with?"

"...well there was one time you said you had a sketchy bug fact and I was wondering if it was the same sketchy bug fact I was thinking of..."

"I have at least a few bug facts of variable sketchiness.  Do you want to say yours or should I pick one of mine...?"

"I forget what kind of bugs it was—was it cockroaches? It was one of the icky kinds—but apparently they get up to some really wacky stuff."

"I don't remember thinking of a cockroaches fact.  I remember a bedbug fact and a certain kind of like... recursively parasitic mite."

"Bedbugs are pretty icky, it might be the same bug fact. Wait, does recursively parasitic mean they parasite each other? That's like that scifi book where the only things alive in the frozen wasteland are people and snow monsters and all they eat is each other..."

Giggle.  "No, recursively parasitic means they parasitize an animal that itself parasitizes another animal.  ...Which sci-fi book is this?"

"I forget. Lenore was complaining about it. Something something that's not an ecosystem that's a suicide pact... anyway do bedbugs have horrifying sex lives?"

"Bedbugs... hmm.  I should say, this is worse than the duck penises.  And the barnacle penises, and probably a lot of sorts of penises this conversation is likely to encounter."

"Okay yep I'm pretty sure that's the same bug fact."

"That male bedbugs," he clears his throat, "just fully skewer female ones on their penises?"

"Yep that's the one all right!" She laughs, a little self-consciously.

Bryce also Laughs A Little Self-Consciously.

"For a while I was mixed up and thought bedbugs were hermaphrodites who penis-fenced each other, but apparently that's flatworms, and bedbugs just do the traumatic insemination."

"Oh yeah, the penis fencing ocean squiggles! Those are so cute..."

He sporfles again.  "It would not have occurred to me to call penis fencing cute!"