I am weak... So weak....
Dec. 25th, 2006 12:15 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
unavoidedcrisis
I can't decide if it's happy or sad. It's really only a quick little piece. Quality control? What is this?
Title: Christmas Bacon
Author: Me
Fandom: Newsies
Rating: PG 13
Warnings: Fluff and slash. Oh what a combination!
Summary: Blink really really wants some bacon.
Michael ‘Mush’ Meyers awoke to find a cold space in the bed next to him. He pulled his bathrobe off the back of the chair and went out into the main room of the apartment. His lover and live in boyfriend was curled on the couch playing Secret of Mana on their ancient Super Nintendo.
“Hey Blink, you’re up early.”
“’Morning. I wanted to make you breakfast… but we have no food,” Ryan ‘Kid Blink’ Ballatt saved his game and stood up, stretching. He grinned. “Merry Christmas, huh?”
Christmas was two days away and even with Ryan working full time and Michael working two part time jobs, they barely managed to pay the rent on time, let alone do anything for the holidays.
“Speaking of,” Michael said, opening the fridge to find Ryan had not been kidding. There were two Tupperware containers of leftovers and a Brita jug of water. “Speaking of Christmas, we’re going to my parents’ house for dinner.”
“Oh good, your mom bakes awesome cookies…” Ryan looked off into the near future, filled with delicious baked goods. He got a faint, dreamy look in his eyes.
“But we can’t live on the dream of cookies from the future until then. I think it’s time we did some grocery shopping. I have what… about thirty-six bucks in my account and I get paid tomorrow. I think we can buy a few things to last us until Christmas…”
“Food?” Ryan’s eyes lit up.
Michael smiled at him. “Yeah, but we should go now before I think of something else we need more.”
“More than food? Oh Mush, get your head on straight,” Ryan said, smacking him in the arm as he passed by on his way to get dressed.
*
“So… we have thirty-six dollars. What can we eat for thirty-six dollars?” Michael asked, scooping up a flyer.
“Can we buy bacon? I haven’t had bacon in forever…” Ryan said, longingly staring at the bright picture of bacon on the front page.
In the end, they only got the bare essentials- bread, peanut butter, apples, milk, a few cans of soup, cheap cans of dented macaroni, and a package of bacon.
“That all comes to 22.46,” the shop clerk chirped.
Michael grimaced and pulled out his debit card. It was a lot to pay for such a meager looking haul.
“… I’m sorry sir, this has been declined. Insufficient funds, it says. Maybe you used the wrong account…?” The clerk tried to sound polite about it, but Michael could tell she was at the end of her rope.
“”Ahh, no, I only have one account…” Michael turned to Ryan and shrugged a little. “Sorry Blinky, it looks like I had less than I thought.”
Ryan shrugged back and slipped his arm around Michael’s waist. “Doesn’t really matter. Like I said, I haven’t had bacon in ages, it’s not like I even remember what it tastes like well enough to miss it.”
“Miss? Miss?” said an elderly man behind Michael and Ryan in line. “Are these two gentlemen finished? I have to meet my daughter at the airport in forty minutes…”
“Ah, sorry,” Michael said, quickly scooping up his card from the counter. “Is it okay if we just leave this stuff?”
The man touched Michael on the shoulder. “I’ll pay.”
Ryan blinked at him. “You don’t have to do that.”
“That’s what the holidays are all about.” He handed the cashier a fifty-dollar bill. “Keep the change, boys. Go home and enjoy your bacon.”
Before either Michael or Ryan could say anything at all, the cashier was pressing the change into Michael’s hand and the bag boy was handing the bagged groceries to Ryan. The old man tipped his hat and they left, in somewhat of a daze.
“Mushee?” Ryan asked quietly when they were finished putting the groceries away. “Was that guy crazy?”
“I’m not sure, man, he might have been. I think that was really nice of him.”
Ryan nodded and started pulling out the necessary ingredients for peanut butter toast and fried bacon. “It really was. I’m happy.”
Michael kissed him on the forehead. “I’m happy too. Now the only thing we’re missing for the holidays is mistletoe.”
Ryan grinned wickedly and kissed him back. “Fuck mistletoe, we have bacon!” and he squirmed out of Michael’s arms and set to work making brunch.
Okays, so I wrote this one for last winter. I don't think I posted it here. And if I did, shush.
Title: A Bitter Cold Walk
Author: Me
Fandom: Newsies
Rating: PG
Warnings: Slashy and a bit rambly. Like me. ^^
Summary: Skittery and Snitch must walk. In the cold and bitter winter now. And yes, walking and cold. That's all you need to know.
My boyfriend and I are different in a lot of ways. Skittery is done his Christmas shopping already. All the gifts he bought are wrapped and ready to be opened, and knowing him loved and admired because Skittery always gives the best presents.
On the other hand, I’m sitting around at the café down the street from the mall, waiting for him to get off work so he can help me pick out presents for my family. Skittery said he would get off at five and come straight to meet me, but it is five thirty and he’s not here yet.
The bad music on the radio is putting me to sleep and counter acting the coffee I’m drinking. If there is one thing worse then really light acoustic music played really low in a quiet room, it’s really light acoustic renditions of carols played low in a quiet room.
The girl behind the counter had gone into the back room, probably to escape the music or something, so I was alone. As I’m looking around, I sort of noticed that there is nothing more depressing than an empty coffee shop. And by depressing, I mean creepy. And by creepy I mean, dear god, why am I alone please someone save me.
Finally, after what seems like hours, Skittery walks in from the snow and wind. “Hey Snitch, sorry I’m late, it’s just that we had a bit of trouble at the gift wrapping desk.” He grins at me and I forgive him for leaving me in this creepy coffee shop. Damn him for being so forgivable.
“So what happened at the gift wrapping station? Did the old ladies go on a homicidal rampage or something?”
Skittery runs a hand through his emo hair. His ridiculous emo hair that somehow looks good all the time and oh god, he’s gorgeous and what was I saying?
“Actually some lady started bitching at me for not curling a ribbon properly. How do you curl a ribbon wrong? Was there an assembly about proper ribbon curling that I missed?”
I laugh. He grins and sits next to me. “Are we the only ones here?”
“Yeah,” I tell him. “The music scared everyone else away.” He picks up my coffee cup and sniffs at it.
“Figures. What is this?”
I tell him that it was coffee. “Ew. Buy me a latte.”
“But Skitts, you promised to help me pick out presents and the mall closes in four hours,” I remind him. I know it’s going to take me that long (and then some!) to pick out presents. I’m so bad at it.
“Buy me a latte and I’ll have lots of energy to buy stuff with your money.” I could not argue with his logic. The coffee girl comes back and I buy Skittery his wimpy gingerbread latte. Real men drink coffee. I don’t know how many times I’ve told him that.
Mind you, I’m not too upset that he drinks stuff like gingerbread lattes and fruity juice and milkshakes, because it means he always tastes really good…
I pick up my sweet ass black pea coat and button up against the cold that awaits us outside. Skittery hides in his plaid scarf and fingerless gloves which he claims are cool but I think are a waste of time. I mean, your gloves may as well not have any thumbs. It’s all a conspiracy, I say.
Outside is freezing cold and the wind whips snow into our faces. And by snow, I mean tiny razor blades cleverly disguised as snow. Skittery clutches his hot latte to his face to keep warm. I am left to put my head down against the wind (why must we be walking into the wind?) and try to see where I’m going without looking away from my boots. I wish I had a face-hat, or face-mitts.
...The cold seeps into my brain and makes me think things like that, honest! I don’t even know what a face-hat is. I’m going to go out on a limb and say I made it up. I wonder if I can get a patent…?
“Bwa, cold. C’mon Snitch, we have to get to the mall before we freeze. Thank goodness it’s only two blocks.”
Sure, two blocks, he says. Two blocks might be nothing when you’re wrapped up in a fleecy scarf and nerdy gloves and hot caffeinated beverage, but I am freezing my extremities off out here!
“Aw, come here, you under-dressed fool. You know Toronto winters are the suckiest and yet you think you can get away with just a hat and coat.” Skittery takes my hand, pulls me closer, and wraps his arm around my shoulders. His warmth radiates out of his side, right into me. Mmm, warm boyfriend.
Finally, after hours, possibly days, of hiding my face in Skittery’s coat (damn, does he know it smells like him?) he pokes me and tells me we made it to the mall alive.
It takes me a few moments to understand him from the whistling sound of the wind ringing in my ears, and another few seconds of me feigning ignorance and cuddling against him a little more before he hauls me out and brushes the snow out of my hair like my mother might have, years ago.
I realize that I don’t want to go in. Sure, it was a long cold walk, but you can’t beat the company.
And yes. I was about to go to bed, but then I started thinking...
Title: Happy Family
Author: Me still....
Fandom: Newsies
Rating: PG
Warnings: Minorly slashy, majorly fluffy <--hee hee, double entendre.
Summary: Racetrack steals something from work. Oh noes!
“Spotttttt?!” Racetrack called as he elbowed the door open, trying to balance the shifting box of paperwork in his arms.
“Hey babe, you’re home early,” Spot commented. “Need help?”
“Umm, no, I got it now. And yeah, they let me leave early on the condition I did the eight o’clock rounds tonight,” Race smiled. “I figured you would want some help getting ready for tonight and then voila! I also have a ready made excuse to leave Mush and Blink’s place early, before everyone has too much to drink and the stupidity starts.”
Spot frowned. “But I love the stupidity. That’s what Blink and Mush’s Christmas Eve Blowout is all about. It’s the spirit of the season.”
Racetrack stuck his tongue out. “Really, I didn’t come home to get ready. I have to sort all these dumb files. I never thought working at the shelter would entail this much paperwork.” He set his box down and Spot peeked in. Sure enough, it was loaded with mutli-coloured file folders, each about an inch thick.
“What is it all?” Spot asked.
“Histories. Where we got the animals, medical histories, behavioural notes, all that stuff. I am mainly looking at dates right now. These files are all animals from the summer, so they all been adopted and I have to highlight the important bits and then after the holidays, I get to input it all into the computer system. Woo upgrades… At least it all counts as overtime….” Racetrack kissed Spot on the cheek. “I’ll be in the kitchen.”
Racetrack spread out his first folder and got down to work.
**
Blink and Mush’s Christmas Eve Blowout was really the party to end all parties. Every year seemed to top the year before. Racetrack was sipping his eggnog (without rum) when he looked up at the clock. “Crap, it’s twenty to eight…”
“You’re leaving us already, Tony?” Blink’s mother crowed. “Oh dear, you’re really no fun!” Racetrack could tell she had been into the wine. Blink grinned sheepishly from behind her.
‘”Ma, he has to go to work, leave him alone. You’re coming back, right Race?”
“Yeah, yeah…”
Racetrack slid into his car and drove as fast as he dared. He had found a big discrepancy in some of the paperwork. A lady had brought a cat in at the very beginning of September. That cat had been pregnant and had given birth to six kittens in the middle of November. It was now December twenty-fourth and only five of the kittens had been accounted for. Four adopted and one had died because it was too little. Where was the fifth kitten?
Racetrack let all the dogs out into the running pen, feed all the cats, dogs, birds and one otter in the shelter and brought the dogs back in before he set to work finding the missing kitten.
The tiny little thing was in the cat room, hiding in the very back of its cage as scared as anything. Racetrack looked at its tag. It was a five-week-old female, and it looked like a Persian. It had seven more days at the shelter before regulations stated that it had to be put down.
Ractrack had not been working at the shelter long enough to know the protocol on holidays. Were the kitten’s last seven days going to be spent when everyone was on holiday and with no one coming by?
Race made an executive decision. He found the kitten’s file in the main office and flipped through it while the computer was loading.
**
Twenty seven minutes later Racetrack was behind the wheel of his car again, breathless with excitement and eyeing the kitten staring up at him with bright gray eyes.
“Hi pretty girl. Spot’s going to love you. Well… he’s going to yell at me and curse and make the upstairs neighbour call in yet another noise complaint. But he’ll love you tomorrow. You’re going to have the happiest Christmas ever.”
**
“Hi Sean, it’s me. Um… I’m not coming back to the party- no no, everything’s fine. Just tell Blink and Mush I’m sorry I couldn’t make it back and- what? … Yeah. Yeah I’ll be there soon.” He clicked his phone shut.
“Well sweetheart, we’re going to pick him up now… Do you think you should hide in the back seat?”
The cat mewled and pawed the lip of the box she was sitting in. Her little paws barely reached the top.
“You’re right, he’ll need to meet you soon enough.”
She blinked.
Racetrack grinned. “Oh he’s going to flip.
**
“Hey Race, you sure you don’t want to come back- Holy fucking… a kitten. What the… a kitten. Oh my god…” Spot picked up the box and slid into the car. He rested the box gingerly on his knee and stared at the little black fluff in the box.
“I steal office supplies from work like a normal person, you know. I got you a stapler for Christmas… But you stole a kitten. Is it even a kitten? Are you sure it’s not a tribble or something?” Spot stuck out a finger towards the kitten and it batted at his finger with her paws. Racetrack caught Spot’s quick smile and the light in his eyes.
“Can we keep her?” Racetrack asked, looking at Spot with pure sugar in his eyes when they were stopped at a red light.
“…Yeah. But she needs a name. And Mrs. Upstairs is going to freak.”
Racetrack laughed. “That was part of my plan. Can we call her Trixie?””
“Spike?”
“Princess?”
“Rover?”
“Peanut?”
“Ohh, Peanut’s cute, but she’s black, not… a peanutty colour.”
“Blackie?”
“Okay Race, you’re not even trying now. Rainbow?”
“But you just said she was black!”
“I was being ironic.”
“Oh man!” Racetrack nearly shouted. “Can we call her Harry Potter?”
“… You have issues you need to sort out. Oh. Oh, I’ve got a good one,” Spot said, petting the kitten’s head gently. “How about Lucy?”
“She looks like a ‘Lucy’.”
They were quiet for a few moments, thinking,
“Lucy is a good name,” Racetrack said once he was pulling into the driveway.
“So she’s Lucy then?”
Racetrack nodded. “If you think it fits.”
“It does,”
“Good then. Carry Lucy in? I’ll grab the stuff I got for her.”
Spot was more than happy to oblige.
**
The sheer volume of pictures taken the next morning in front of the tree made Blink look sideways out the corner of his eye at Spot and Racetrack, sitting on the floor dangling bits of yarn.
“Wow, it’s like you two have a new baby or something.”
Mush elbowed him, snickering. “Shush, she’s a sweetheart.”
Racetrack pushed himself up off the carpet. “Hey Blink, don’t get cocky. Maybe you’ll be getting one soon…” he wandered out of the room.
Blink looked sharply at Mush. “Don’t. Even. Think. About. It.”
Spot dropped Lucy into Blink’s lap. “Come one, just pet her for a minute.”
“Jeez, it’s like a friggin’ conspiracy,” he muttered, but he started stroking Lucky’s fuzzy little head anyways. “She’s… cute, I guess.”
Mush and Spot high-fived. “Oh man, Mush, you’re so getting a kitten. Can I help name her?”
“You should name it Harry Potter!” came a crowing voice from the kitchen.
“Shut UP, Racetrack!”
--fin--
Title: Christmas Bacon
Author: Me
Fandom: Newsies
Rating: PG 13
Warnings: Fluff and slash. Oh what a combination!
Summary: Blink really really wants some bacon.
Michael ‘Mush’ Meyers awoke to find a cold space in the bed next to him. He pulled his bathrobe off the back of the chair and went out into the main room of the apartment. His lover and live in boyfriend was curled on the couch playing Secret of Mana on their ancient Super Nintendo.
“Hey Blink, you’re up early.”
“’Morning. I wanted to make you breakfast… but we have no food,” Ryan ‘Kid Blink’ Ballatt saved his game and stood up, stretching. He grinned. “Merry Christmas, huh?”
Christmas was two days away and even with Ryan working full time and Michael working two part time jobs, they barely managed to pay the rent on time, let alone do anything for the holidays.
“Speaking of,” Michael said, opening the fridge to find Ryan had not been kidding. There were two Tupperware containers of leftovers and a Brita jug of water. “Speaking of Christmas, we’re going to my parents’ house for dinner.”
“Oh good, your mom bakes awesome cookies…” Ryan looked off into the near future, filled with delicious baked goods. He got a faint, dreamy look in his eyes.
“But we can’t live on the dream of cookies from the future until then. I think it’s time we did some grocery shopping. I have what… about thirty-six bucks in my account and I get paid tomorrow. I think we can buy a few things to last us until Christmas…”
“Food?” Ryan’s eyes lit up.
Michael smiled at him. “Yeah, but we should go now before I think of something else we need more.”
“More than food? Oh Mush, get your head on straight,” Ryan said, smacking him in the arm as he passed by on his way to get dressed.
*
“So… we have thirty-six dollars. What can we eat for thirty-six dollars?” Michael asked, scooping up a flyer.
“Can we buy bacon? I haven’t had bacon in forever…” Ryan said, longingly staring at the bright picture of bacon on the front page.
In the end, they only got the bare essentials- bread, peanut butter, apples, milk, a few cans of soup, cheap cans of dented macaroni, and a package of bacon.
“That all comes to 22.46,” the shop clerk chirped.
Michael grimaced and pulled out his debit card. It was a lot to pay for such a meager looking haul.
“… I’m sorry sir, this has been declined. Insufficient funds, it says. Maybe you used the wrong account…?” The clerk tried to sound polite about it, but Michael could tell she was at the end of her rope.
“”Ahh, no, I only have one account…” Michael turned to Ryan and shrugged a little. “Sorry Blinky, it looks like I had less than I thought.”
Ryan shrugged back and slipped his arm around Michael’s waist. “Doesn’t really matter. Like I said, I haven’t had bacon in ages, it’s not like I even remember what it tastes like well enough to miss it.”
“Miss? Miss?” said an elderly man behind Michael and Ryan in line. “Are these two gentlemen finished? I have to meet my daughter at the airport in forty minutes…”
“Ah, sorry,” Michael said, quickly scooping up his card from the counter. “Is it okay if we just leave this stuff?”
The man touched Michael on the shoulder. “I’ll pay.”
Ryan blinked at him. “You don’t have to do that.”
“That’s what the holidays are all about.” He handed the cashier a fifty-dollar bill. “Keep the change, boys. Go home and enjoy your bacon.”
Before either Michael or Ryan could say anything at all, the cashier was pressing the change into Michael’s hand and the bag boy was handing the bagged groceries to Ryan. The old man tipped his hat and they left, in somewhat of a daze.
“Mushee?” Ryan asked quietly when they were finished putting the groceries away. “Was that guy crazy?”
“I’m not sure, man, he might have been. I think that was really nice of him.”
Ryan nodded and started pulling out the necessary ingredients for peanut butter toast and fried bacon. “It really was. I’m happy.”
Michael kissed him on the forehead. “I’m happy too. Now the only thing we’re missing for the holidays is mistletoe.”
Ryan grinned wickedly and kissed him back. “Fuck mistletoe, we have bacon!” and he squirmed out of Michael’s arms and set to work making brunch.
Okays, so I wrote this one for last winter. I don't think I posted it here. And if I did, shush.
Title: A Bitter Cold Walk
Author: Me
Fandom: Newsies
Rating: PG
Warnings: Slashy and a bit rambly. Like me. ^^
Summary: Skittery and Snitch must walk. In the cold and bitter winter now. And yes, walking and cold. That's all you need to know.
My boyfriend and I are different in a lot of ways. Skittery is done his Christmas shopping already. All the gifts he bought are wrapped and ready to be opened, and knowing him loved and admired because Skittery always gives the best presents.
On the other hand, I’m sitting around at the café down the street from the mall, waiting for him to get off work so he can help me pick out presents for my family. Skittery said he would get off at five and come straight to meet me, but it is five thirty and he’s not here yet.
The bad music on the radio is putting me to sleep and counter acting the coffee I’m drinking. If there is one thing worse then really light acoustic music played really low in a quiet room, it’s really light acoustic renditions of carols played low in a quiet room.
The girl behind the counter had gone into the back room, probably to escape the music or something, so I was alone. As I’m looking around, I sort of noticed that there is nothing more depressing than an empty coffee shop. And by depressing, I mean creepy. And by creepy I mean, dear god, why am I alone please someone save me.
Finally, after what seems like hours, Skittery walks in from the snow and wind. “Hey Snitch, sorry I’m late, it’s just that we had a bit of trouble at the gift wrapping desk.” He grins at me and I forgive him for leaving me in this creepy coffee shop. Damn him for being so forgivable.
“So what happened at the gift wrapping station? Did the old ladies go on a homicidal rampage or something?”
Skittery runs a hand through his emo hair. His ridiculous emo hair that somehow looks good all the time and oh god, he’s gorgeous and what was I saying?
“Actually some lady started bitching at me for not curling a ribbon properly. How do you curl a ribbon wrong? Was there an assembly about proper ribbon curling that I missed?”
I laugh. He grins and sits next to me. “Are we the only ones here?”
“Yeah,” I tell him. “The music scared everyone else away.” He picks up my coffee cup and sniffs at it.
“Figures. What is this?”
I tell him that it was coffee. “Ew. Buy me a latte.”
“But Skitts, you promised to help me pick out presents and the mall closes in four hours,” I remind him. I know it’s going to take me that long (and then some!) to pick out presents. I’m so bad at it.
“Buy me a latte and I’ll have lots of energy to buy stuff with your money.” I could not argue with his logic. The coffee girl comes back and I buy Skittery his wimpy gingerbread latte. Real men drink coffee. I don’t know how many times I’ve told him that.
Mind you, I’m not too upset that he drinks stuff like gingerbread lattes and fruity juice and milkshakes, because it means he always tastes really good…
I pick up my sweet ass black pea coat and button up against the cold that awaits us outside. Skittery hides in his plaid scarf and fingerless gloves which he claims are cool but I think are a waste of time. I mean, your gloves may as well not have any thumbs. It’s all a conspiracy, I say.
Outside is freezing cold and the wind whips snow into our faces. And by snow, I mean tiny razor blades cleverly disguised as snow. Skittery clutches his hot latte to his face to keep warm. I am left to put my head down against the wind (why must we be walking into the wind?) and try to see where I’m going without looking away from my boots. I wish I had a face-hat, or face-mitts.
...The cold seeps into my brain and makes me think things like that, honest! I don’t even know what a face-hat is. I’m going to go out on a limb and say I made it up. I wonder if I can get a patent…?
“Bwa, cold. C’mon Snitch, we have to get to the mall before we freeze. Thank goodness it’s only two blocks.”
Sure, two blocks, he says. Two blocks might be nothing when you’re wrapped up in a fleecy scarf and nerdy gloves and hot caffeinated beverage, but I am freezing my extremities off out here!
“Aw, come here, you under-dressed fool. You know Toronto winters are the suckiest and yet you think you can get away with just a hat and coat.” Skittery takes my hand, pulls me closer, and wraps his arm around my shoulders. His warmth radiates out of his side, right into me. Mmm, warm boyfriend.
Finally, after hours, possibly days, of hiding my face in Skittery’s coat (damn, does he know it smells like him?) he pokes me and tells me we made it to the mall alive.
It takes me a few moments to understand him from the whistling sound of the wind ringing in my ears, and another few seconds of me feigning ignorance and cuddling against him a little more before he hauls me out and brushes the snow out of my hair like my mother might have, years ago.
I realize that I don’t want to go in. Sure, it was a long cold walk, but you can’t beat the company.
And yes. I was about to go to bed, but then I started thinking...
Title: Happy Family
Author: Me still....
Fandom: Newsies
Rating: PG
Warnings: Minorly slashy, majorly fluffy <--hee hee, double entendre.
Summary: Racetrack steals something from work. Oh noes!
“Spotttttt?!” Racetrack called as he elbowed the door open, trying to balance the shifting box of paperwork in his arms.
“Hey babe, you’re home early,” Spot commented. “Need help?”
“Umm, no, I got it now. And yeah, they let me leave early on the condition I did the eight o’clock rounds tonight,” Race smiled. “I figured you would want some help getting ready for tonight and then voila! I also have a ready made excuse to leave Mush and Blink’s place early, before everyone has too much to drink and the stupidity starts.”
Spot frowned. “But I love the stupidity. That’s what Blink and Mush’s Christmas Eve Blowout is all about. It’s the spirit of the season.”
Racetrack stuck his tongue out. “Really, I didn’t come home to get ready. I have to sort all these dumb files. I never thought working at the shelter would entail this much paperwork.” He set his box down and Spot peeked in. Sure enough, it was loaded with mutli-coloured file folders, each about an inch thick.
“What is it all?” Spot asked.
“Histories. Where we got the animals, medical histories, behavioural notes, all that stuff. I am mainly looking at dates right now. These files are all animals from the summer, so they all been adopted and I have to highlight the important bits and then after the holidays, I get to input it all into the computer system. Woo upgrades… At least it all counts as overtime….” Racetrack kissed Spot on the cheek. “I’ll be in the kitchen.”
Racetrack spread out his first folder and got down to work.
**
Blink and Mush’s Christmas Eve Blowout was really the party to end all parties. Every year seemed to top the year before. Racetrack was sipping his eggnog (without rum) when he looked up at the clock. “Crap, it’s twenty to eight…”
“You’re leaving us already, Tony?” Blink’s mother crowed. “Oh dear, you’re really no fun!” Racetrack could tell she had been into the wine. Blink grinned sheepishly from behind her.
‘”Ma, he has to go to work, leave him alone. You’re coming back, right Race?”
“Yeah, yeah…”
Racetrack slid into his car and drove as fast as he dared. He had found a big discrepancy in some of the paperwork. A lady had brought a cat in at the very beginning of September. That cat had been pregnant and had given birth to six kittens in the middle of November. It was now December twenty-fourth and only five of the kittens had been accounted for. Four adopted and one had died because it was too little. Where was the fifth kitten?
Racetrack let all the dogs out into the running pen, feed all the cats, dogs, birds and one otter in the shelter and brought the dogs back in before he set to work finding the missing kitten.
The tiny little thing was in the cat room, hiding in the very back of its cage as scared as anything. Racetrack looked at its tag. It was a five-week-old female, and it looked like a Persian. It had seven more days at the shelter before regulations stated that it had to be put down.
Ractrack had not been working at the shelter long enough to know the protocol on holidays. Were the kitten’s last seven days going to be spent when everyone was on holiday and with no one coming by?
Race made an executive decision. He found the kitten’s file in the main office and flipped through it while the computer was loading.
**
Twenty seven minutes later Racetrack was behind the wheel of his car again, breathless with excitement and eyeing the kitten staring up at him with bright gray eyes.
“Hi pretty girl. Spot’s going to love you. Well… he’s going to yell at me and curse and make the upstairs neighbour call in yet another noise complaint. But he’ll love you tomorrow. You’re going to have the happiest Christmas ever.”
**
“Hi Sean, it’s me. Um… I’m not coming back to the party- no no, everything’s fine. Just tell Blink and Mush I’m sorry I couldn’t make it back and- what? … Yeah. Yeah I’ll be there soon.” He clicked his phone shut.
“Well sweetheart, we’re going to pick him up now… Do you think you should hide in the back seat?”
The cat mewled and pawed the lip of the box she was sitting in. Her little paws barely reached the top.
“You’re right, he’ll need to meet you soon enough.”
She blinked.
Racetrack grinned. “Oh he’s going to flip.
**
“Hey Race, you sure you don’t want to come back- Holy fucking… a kitten. What the… a kitten. Oh my god…” Spot picked up the box and slid into the car. He rested the box gingerly on his knee and stared at the little black fluff in the box.
“I steal office supplies from work like a normal person, you know. I got you a stapler for Christmas… But you stole a kitten. Is it even a kitten? Are you sure it’s not a tribble or something?” Spot stuck out a finger towards the kitten and it batted at his finger with her paws. Racetrack caught Spot’s quick smile and the light in his eyes.
“Can we keep her?” Racetrack asked, looking at Spot with pure sugar in his eyes when they were stopped at a red light.
“…Yeah. But she needs a name. And Mrs. Upstairs is going to freak.”
Racetrack laughed. “That was part of my plan. Can we call her Trixie?””
“Spike?”
“Princess?”
“Rover?”
“Peanut?”
“Ohh, Peanut’s cute, but she’s black, not… a peanutty colour.”
“Blackie?”
“Okay Race, you’re not even trying now. Rainbow?”
“But you just said she was black!”
“I was being ironic.”
“Oh man!” Racetrack nearly shouted. “Can we call her Harry Potter?”
“… You have issues you need to sort out. Oh. Oh, I’ve got a good one,” Spot said, petting the kitten’s head gently. “How about Lucy?”
“She looks like a ‘Lucy’.”
They were quiet for a few moments, thinking,
“Lucy is a good name,” Racetrack said once he was pulling into the driveway.
“So she’s Lucy then?”
Racetrack nodded. “If you think it fits.”
“It does,”
“Good then. Carry Lucy in? I’ll grab the stuff I got for her.”
Spot was more than happy to oblige.
**
The sheer volume of pictures taken the next morning in front of the tree made Blink look sideways out the corner of his eye at Spot and Racetrack, sitting on the floor dangling bits of yarn.
“Wow, it’s like you two have a new baby or something.”
Mush elbowed him, snickering. “Shush, she’s a sweetheart.”
Racetrack pushed himself up off the carpet. “Hey Blink, don’t get cocky. Maybe you’ll be getting one soon…” he wandered out of the room.
Blink looked sharply at Mush. “Don’t. Even. Think. About. It.”
Spot dropped Lucy into Blink’s lap. “Come one, just pet her for a minute.”
“Jeez, it’s like a friggin’ conspiracy,” he muttered, but he started stroking Lucky’s fuzzy little head anyways. “She’s… cute, I guess.”
Mush and Spot high-fived. “Oh man, Mush, you’re so getting a kitten. Can I help name her?”
“You should name it Harry Potter!” came a crowing voice from the kitchen.
“Shut UP, Racetrack!”
--fin--
I bet you thought she'd be the only one who caught the reference.
Date: 2006-12-25 08:17 pm (UTC)*coughLiacough*
Heeheeheehee
Re: I bet you thought she'd be the only one who caught the reference.
Date: 2006-12-27 05:52 pm (UTC)Re: I bet you thought she'd be the only one who caught the reference.
Date: 2006-12-28 04:34 pm (UTC)Re: I bet you thought she'd be the only one who caught the reference.
Date: 2006-12-28 04:37 pm (UTC)Gloves without thumbs, wtf? (Note the 'wtf' kangaroo) I mean, thumbs are one of the most important parts of the hand-- you can't freeze them off! Without thumbs, we devolve. Opposable thumbs are what seperate us from the monkies!
[Take that, creation! I am fighting you with my witty livejournal comments!]
Re: I bet you thought she'd be the only one who caught the reference.
Date: 2006-12-29 10:57 am (UTC)