What if Kelp was super overprotective of Joy, especially when it came to guys?

Joy and Kelp were dating.

And that was great! Kelp thought. That was amazing! He still had no idea why Joy would ever want to date him in a million years, but she did and that was wonderful and he loved her and the way she smiled at him told him that she loved him to.

There was just... one little problem.

Well, it wasn't really a problem, Kelp would say. More of an issue he had with every other dragon that looked in Joy's direction.

It wasn't that he was the jealous type, of course. He told himself he couldn't be the jealous type because he was confident in the fact that Joy loved him and that she wouldn't ditch him for some other guy, no matter who said hypothetical guy was. So it wasn't jealously, it was just that...

Joy was very pretty. Kelp knew that, of course, but so did everyone else. And even before they had started dating, dragons had come up to Joy, attempting to flirt with her, to ask her out, to compliment her. Of course she scared them all away in the end, but still.

Some part of Kelp had thought that once they started dating, these other dragons would stop. He wasn't sure why, it wasn't like the fact that they were dating put some magical aura around Joy that said "WARNING: I HAVE A BOYFRIEND" but...

But dragons would come up to Joy when she was with Kelp, when they were obviously together, and they would still flirt with her. Joy laughed it off, of course. She'd turn them down, or make it even more obvious that she was with Kelp, but it still bothered Kelp.

How could it not? Joy was his girlfriend. She wasn't single, so all the other dragons that kept asking her out should learn to BACK OFF.

That wasn't too much to ask, right? 

He thought he had taken it too far with Macaw that one time, but then again he didn't really care. Macaw had come up, flirting with Joy as usual, only instead of her just waving it off or turning him down like she did with everyone else, Joy had looked genuinely bothered by him. She was uncomfortable, Macaw was being a perv, and so Kelp beat the shit out of him and yelled at him to stay the hell away from his girl.

He thought that Joy might be upset with him over it, over how harshly he had reacted, or at the fact that he had called her 'his girl'. But Joy had actually seemed...happy with it. She was thrilled he had beaten up Macaw, of course, but when they brought up what he had said, she had blushed bright red and given him this silly little smile he had never seen before and had said that she kinda liked it when he called her his girl.

Kelp made a point to say it more often after that. That little smile was too good to miss.

But if Joy was okay with him getting a bit protective over her when it came to other guys, then it was okay, right?

So he did it a little more. He didn't beat the shit out of most guys like he had done with Macaw, but he did make his presence known. He did yell at a couple of dragons he thought were going a bit far. He did hover a little closer to Joy when she was talking to a dragon he knew had a crush on her.

He didn't think it was a big deal. Seashell called him paranoid and overprotective, saying he was intimidating other dragons for no reason, but Joy said he was cute when he was acting all confident and protecting her.

And what Joy said went, so Kelp didn't stop.

If anything, his overprotectiveness was giving him major points with Deathbringer. He had found out about one particular instance, where a dragon had touched Joy after she had told him not to, and Kelp had sent the guy to the infirmary. Deathbringer had come to the school shortly after to give his personal approval of Joy and Kelp's relationship, and had told Kelp to keep up the good work.

So he was a bit overprotective. So what? Joy lashed out just as bad when girls came up to him. They were together, and everyone who tried to come between them would find out very quickly that that was something you did not do. If you went after Joy, Kelp would destroy you. If you went after Kelp, Joy would shred you.

And so Kelp ended up killing Macaw for it one day, but was that really so bad? Really so wrong?

He wasn't jealous, Kelp told himself. He was protective to a healthy degree. And if that protectiveness meant he had to kill a dragon who looked at Joy a little too long every now and then then so be it. 

Joy was his girl. That gave him the right to beat up guys who flirted with her. And as long as Joy agreed with that, then he was happy to do it.

Cause if there was one thing in life you shouldn't mess with, it was Joy, or a Kelp when he thought Joy was unhappy.