My Animal And Other Families – A Three Shots Comedy
Shot 1: Of Sphinx Cats and Dulux Dogs
Roxas was woken by the alarm clock screaming at him from his bedside table. He rolled over, groaning, and hit it onto snooze thinking that he would get an extra five minutes sleep before he had to start the day. Unfortunately Sora had other ideas, he leaned on Roxas's bed and licked his face until Roxas finally brushed him away.
He looked up into the goofy face of his golden retriever, who's tongue was still hanging out, and wiped his own face on the duvet. Roxas pushed Sora off the bed and stroked behind his ears. Before taking him for a walk Roxas went for a quick shower, which was made ten times harder by the retriever playing tug-of-war with his towel and trying to jump under the water.
Once both of them were dry Roxas got dressed in his favourite 'Sex Pistols' t-shirt, tattered jeans, Converse All Stars and 'skater' bracelets, clipped Sora's lead onto his collar and headed outside. There was another struggle as Sora thought it was a good idea to pull Roxas along the road as he tried to lock the door. Finally the blonde haired teen managed to lock the door and put the keys in his pocket and allow the hyperactive fur-ball to pull him to the park.
When they were safely inside the confines of the fenced off part of the park, reserved especially for people with dogs, Roxas let Sora off the lead and the dog bounded away, happy to have space to vent his energy. Roxas scanned the park until he found the blue haired boy he was looking for, sitting calmly on the bench the two usually sat at.
"Hey Zexion." he greeted his friend cheerfully. Zexion looked up from underneath the fringe covering one of his eyes.
"Hey Rox." The bluenette(1) smiled pulling a packet of Skittles out of his jacket pocket and handing some to his friend. "Where's Sora?" he asked but a loud barking signalled the arrival of the golden retriever, who came running up to them and skidded to a halt at their feet before collapsing on his back on the floor. Zexion laughed and rubbed the exhausted dog's tummy. From under the bench his own dog, Ienzo(2), cautiously came out and sniffed the other.
Roxas took a sweeping look around the park and he realised that most of dogs here looked like their owners: there was Xemnas; a tough-looking sliver haired man with a similarly tough and silver-looking bulldog, there was Xaldin and Xigbar; who's rottweillers had facial markings that looked like the sideburns and eye-patch of their respective owners, and there was Vexen; a man with long, immaculately straight, blonde hair who owned an Afghan hound. He then turned his attention to the two dogs at his feet; Sora's golden, messy coat mimicked his own scruffy blonde hair and Zexion's blue hair and floppy fringe were reflected in Ienzo, a Dulux dog.(3)
"What you thinking Rox?" Zexion asked taking another handful of Skittles. Roxas shook his head slightly.
"You ever think that people begin to look like their pets?" he asked. Zexion raised his eyebrows at the blonde teen and pulled at his lip ring(4) as he studied his friend.
"You've got way too much time on your hands, dude." he said as he slapped Roxas on the back and laughed. Sora had regained some of his previous energy and went bounding off in the direction of a tall mousey-blonde boy holding the hand of a small black haired girl and a rabbit in a travel box, barking happily. Eventually when the pair made it over to the bench (this was made more difficult by Sora trying to jump on them every few steps) the black haired girl held out a tank with a small, but very elegant looking, black fish in it.
"Demyx took me to the pet store and I bought a fish with my birthday money." she beamed proudly. Demyx, Zexion's boyfriend, slumped down in between the two boys and planted a soft kiss on his boyfriend's cheek.
"I tried to convince her to buy something less...wet but she insisted, didn't you Xion. Plus we had to pick up Myde's(5) ear drops." Zexion's younger sister smiled still holding out the fish. Roxas leaned forward to look closer at the black blob swimming in the glass tank.
"So what you calling him?" he asked, the child smiled.
"Oni(6)" Xion replied proudly. Roxas leaned back on the bench and Xion climbed onto his lap. He wrapped his arms around her and she giggled, Roxas had know Zexion all his life and regarded Xion as his little sister too. "And," the child began ignoring the other two boys "Then me and Demyx went the the bakery and he bought me a Yum-Yum(7)it was..."
"Yummy?" Roxas finished making Xion laugh harder. Sora put his head on Xion's lap and stared into the small tank, eyeing the black fish intently.
A sudden hissing sound followed by ferocious barking came from across the park, making the four people and the two dogs look round. The commotion was coming from a bright red cat that was faced up against Xaldin and Xigbar's rottweillers. The rottweillers bared their teeth and sprang towards it making the cat jump in fright and dart towards the bench where the group of four were sitting. The cat sprang up onto the bench, then Roxas's head and tried to bury itself in the blond boy's neck. The rottweillers advanced on Roxas, who hugged Xion tighter as the young girl begun to tremble.
"You wanna keep those animals on leads." came a voice from behind them. The four, who Roxas sincerely wished were sitting somewhere else, turned to see a tall attractive red haired man and a fierce looking blonde woman, with a cat box, leaning against the fence glaring at Xigbar and Xaldin.
"And you wanna keep your nose out of other people's business." Xigbar replied advancing on the two older teens.
"You see," the red haired man began "it is my business because; 1) your animals are scaring this little girl here," he said indicating to Xion, who was still trembling "and 2) that's my cat they're terrorising." Xaldin snorted.
"What you gonna do? Make us leave?" The man and the woman exchanged a look.
"With pleasure." she said and flipped the latch on the cat box she was holding.
Roxas, Xion, Zexion and Demyx watched, transfixed, as a flash of what looked like beige streaked towards the two dogs and attacked; scratching, biting and hissing at the two rottweillers. Both dogs began barking in alarm, which prompted Sora to join the fray creating equal damaged to the fiercer animals as the beige streak did. Realising that they were overpowered, if the other animals joined in the fight, Xigbar and Xaldin called their dogs back and left the park. The streak jumped into the woman's arms and Sora proudly strutted back to Roxas.
"Thanks puppy," the woman said stroking Sora's head.
"Sora." Xion pipped up. The woman raised her eyebrows.
"What?"
"His name is Sora." Xion said. The woman and the man smiled at the foursome on the bench.
"And who might you be cutie?" the man asked Xion.
"I'm Xion and this is Oni." she said, proudly holding out the fish.
"Nice to meet you Xion and Oni, I'm Axel" the red head said smiling a friendly smile. "and this is Lea, got it memorized?" He put his hand on the cat around Roxas's neck.
"No that's Roxas." replied Xion. Zexion laughed.
"He means the cat Xi," He ruffled his sisters hair then extended his hand to the man. "I'm Zexion and this is Ienzo, Demyx and Myde." He indicated the dog, the teen and the rabbit in turn as he introduced them.
"I'm Larxene," the blonde woman stated "and this is Arlene(8)." She held out the sleek animal in her arms. For the life of him Roxas couldn't make out what the hell it was.
"Is it some sort snake?" he whispered to Demyx. Unfortunately the woman heard his comment.
"She," Larxene said sounding annoyed. "is a sphinx cat." Axel started to laugh.
"I'm not gonna lie Lar it looks like a snake." he chocked out. Larxene shot him a dirty look.
"She does not look like a snake, she is a genuine pedigree sphinx cat."
"Whatever." the red head replied.
"Is your cat ok?" Demyx asked as he watched Axel begin to try to coax the cat off Roxas's neck. As he stroked the cat his fingers brushed the blonde's skin making him shiver. He looked at Axel out of the corner of his eye and saw him smirking, almost like he had meant to do that.
"Yeah he'll be all right, he's just a bit skittish when he's around dogs." During this time Sora had stood up on his hind legs, leaned on the bench and began sniffing the red thing buried in his owner's collar. As the golden retriever sniffed at the cat's head the timid animal began to unfurl itself and looked intently at Sora.
"My dog likes your cat." Roxas smiled as the cat climbed onto Sora's head. Axel smiled back at him, he had the sexiest smile Roxas had ever seen.
"My cat likes your dog." The two boys looked at each other, cyan eyes meeting jade ones. Larxene cleared her throat.
"Ax we have to get to the vet." Axel shook his head slightly and picked the russet cat off the golden dog's head. He pulled a pen out of his pocket, took Roxas's hand and wrote a phone number on it.
"That's my number, give me a call sometime and my cat and your dog could hang out." He smiled and with a swift 'goodbye' and 'nice meeting you' he and Larxene left the bewildered four sitting on the bench wondering what had just happened. Demyx was the one to finally break the silence.
"So he gave you his number Rox?" Roxas blushed slightly.
"I'm sure it's just so our pets can see each other again." Even he heard how lame it sounded. Demyx hooted with laughter.
"Oooh little Roxie's got a date!" he sang.
"It's not a date!" Roxas could feel his face redden even more as his friends dissolved into laughter around him.
...TO BE CONTINUED...
Author's Note:
(1) it is a word – I've seen it before...granted also used to describe him but either way it works lol
(2) all the animals have their respective owner's Other name and I know for a fact this is his
(3) for those who don't know a Dulux dog is an Old English Sheepdog named so because of it being the mascot for the Dulux paint brand
(4) yes I know he doesn't really have one but lip rings are hot and so is he!
(5) pretty sure this is his Other name but I'm not 100%
(6) I know this isn't right but you can't call a fish 'no i'...unless it doesn't have any that is
(7) I think American's call these crullers – it's like a doughnut but stick shaped not round
(8) again probably not right but this name anagram thing is hard :(
Until next time :D