Tavros fidgeted in his blue plastic seat, looking from the whiteboard to the clock on the wall and back again. It was 2:20. Only ten more minutes. But it seemed more like ten hours when he was struggling to wrap his head around the hellish concept of trigonometry. The page that his notebook lay open to had started off well - a title and a date and a few basic notes on the lesson of the day - but it was all downhill from there. The middle and bottom sections were both covered in doodles, cats and dogs and birds all rendered with a stunning degree of mediocrity. 2:25. He leaned back in his chair, sighing and drumming his mechanical pencil against the edge of his desk. All that Tavros could think about was leaving, escaping to his job and recovering from what had been a fairly stressful day already. To most people that would sound strange - who would look to their job as a source of comfort? Well, Tavros did, and with good reason.
The bell rang right as he was sliding his math binder into his backpack, zipping it up and becoming just another head in the sea of highschoolers straining to exit the building.
Once he was safely out and in the parking lot, Tavros looked around and quickly found his car, a compact roundish thing with two doors and a coat of shiny bronze paint. He tossed his backpack into the passenger's seat and climbed in, taking a second or two to check his reflection in the sideview mirror before leaving.
Tavros wasn't particularly attractive, at least in his own mind. He was only about 5'7" and teetering on the border between average and pudgy. A dark brown mohawk lay in an unstyled stripe down the middle of his head, and his face was a refuge for dozens of freckles. They blended in somewhat with the olive skin that went from his head to his upper thighs - everything below that was metal and plastic. It wasn't the result of any accident, Tavros had simply been born without the majority of his legs. It wasn't something that really hindered his daily life, even if he did get jealous of people with toes on occasion.
It was a short drive from the school to his work, a small animal shelter called Haven. He pinned the shiny nametag identifying him as Tavros Nitram to his chest before going in and getting started. Tavros was a general helper and a gofer at times, spending most of his time at the shelter refilling water bowls or bathing the animals. Today, however, he was at the front desk. In the front room of the shelter there was a small store that sold locally-made dog biscuits, toys, beds, and the like. Most people who came in were just there to pick up those items, but occasionally someone with adoption in mind would to look at the animals. Those were Tavros' favorite customers.
He was in a bit of a daze thinking about all of that, but was brought sharply back into reality as the bell above the door rang, signaling a new visitor. Tavros stood up straight, giving a practiced smile to the person who had walked in - oh.
Oh, no.
There were very many people that Tavros was unwilling to sell pets to. After all, he wanted to be positive that they were going to good homes - and, if what he had learned about druggies from television was accurate, then Gamzee Makara did not have a good home. But the bright blue adoption pamphlet in his hand was unmistakable, it even had the shelter's logo printed on the front.
Okay. Deep breaths. Managing to maintain his smile, Tavros looked across the counter at Gamzee. "Can I help you?"