Barret Gets A Fish
It was a quiet day at Tifa's 8th Heaven Coffee Shop. All had been quiet since the defeat of Meteor and Kalm was no exception. Jessie, Biggs and Wedge had been resurrected at Aeris and the insane author's request, but all was still quiet. Too quiet actually, until Barret stormed in.
"Damned Shinra, they be at it again!"
"What do you mean? We killed them off already!" asked Tifa, who was behind the counter.
"You're right, I just needed something to gripe about." Barret sighed then sat down at the counter. "Gimme a double-tall mocha."
Just then, the Karaoke machine in the corner dipped below the floorboards then rose again with Jessie on it.
"Hey all!" she greeted cheerfully. Barret incoherently grumbled. "…well, good afternoon to you too."
Barret snorted as he finished the last of his mocha, then stormed out the door and onto the busy streets of Kalm. Jessie sighed and sat down at the counter.
"Damn, what's his problem?"
Tifa shrugged. "High strung I guess…"
"He needs something to cheer him up…and I know just the thing!" and with that, Jessie ran out the door.
"Ooooh boy. I don't like the way she said that."
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Jessie skipped down to the Kalm pet store and walked in the door. Inside were rows upon rows of fish tanks, reptiles, dogs, cats and a few birds off in one corner of the store. She went straight to the unusually large selection of fish.
"Oooh…pretty."
She awed at the fish. Very nice. There were corydoras, tetras and platies…swordtails and guppies and the occasional cichlid. Jessie wasn't looking for some bland tropical fish. She wanted a fish with personality. She headed on over to the goldfish section. There she found a wonderful assortment of exotic goldfish. There were lionheads with their raspberry-like heads and celestial's with their eyes pointing to the heavens above. She flitted around the aisles like a humming bird, browsing the tanks until she came to one. It contained a beautiful red telescope eyed goldfish. It 'grinned' at her and swam up and down in the tank.
"Awww! He's so cuuuuute!" Jessie cooed. She hurried on over to the clerk desk and practically dragged the cashier over to the tank. "Could you hold this fish for me?"
"…uuh….okay." He took out a post-it note and wrote a note saying that it was being held. Jessie grinned to herself as she skipped over to the aquarium section. She chose a very nice 20-gallon aquarium with a black hood that was on sale. After she had bought it, she went back to Tifa's 8th Heaven Coffee Shop and set the box down.
"What's that ya' got there?" asked Tifa as she scrubbed down the corner.
"Just a little something for Barret, where'd he go."
"He called on the PHS, said he wouldn't be back 'till later tonight."
"Great! Now, give me a hand with this…"
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Hours later, the aquarium was set up on its fancy little stand and all of the accessories had been hooked up. The aquarium itself had light blue gravel for the aquarium substrate with a piece of plastic driftwood with plastic plants glued to it. There were other plastic plants decorating the tank along with a hollow broken pot/tree stump decoration and a little plastic pink diver that bobbed up and down on his treasure chest. Jessie and Tifa stood back to admire their work.
"Looks great, but what kind of fish did you get him?" inquired Tifa.
"That's a surprise, but it is the cutest little thing"
"Oh?"
"Yup." Jessie grinned, then she ran out the door to the pet store. Tifa threw a black tablecloth over the tank so that Barret wouldn't notice it as much.
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"That'll be 220 gil…" said the store clerk as he rang up the goldfish. The fish was happily swimming back and forth in its little transport bag. Jessie took out a 300 gil coin and the clerk gave her change. Jessie hurried back to the 8th Heaven and put the fish in a fishbowl along with the water from the store.
"Aren't you going to put it in the tank?"
"Naw, I've hand him the bowl first, then I'll put him in the tank."
"Whatcha gonna name him?"
"…hmm…I'll name him…Google."
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The sun was setting when Barret came back to the coffee shop. Biggs, Wedge, Cloud and the rest of the AVALANCHE crew were enjoying dinner when Barret stomped in, sighed and sat down. Fortunately enough, nobody really noticed the black lump in the corner nor had noticed the faint noise it made.
"Hi Barret!" Jessie greeted him cheerfully.
"What are you so damned happy about?!"
"…nothing."
"…well, then shut 'er trap. Not all of us can be as happy as you."
Jessie got up and disappeared behind the counter and into the back room.
"Well, that wasn't very nice of you." Commented Red.
"What's it to you, ya' puddy tat"
"I'm not a puddy tat"
Jessie came back with the bowl with a cloth thrown over it.
"Happy un-birthday Barret!"
"…"
Jessie set the bowl on the table and pulled off the cloth.
"…what's this?"
Google 'grinned' at Barret.
"It's a goldfish. I've read something that said watching fish reduced stress. He's for you, his name is Google."
Jessie took the fishbowl over to the black mass up against the wall and flung the cloth off of the tank. She opened the lid and floated the fishbowl on the surface of the water.
"This tank is for all of us and for the customers too. It makes this place a little more interesting."
"Groovy." Commented Biggs as he gulped down his coffee.
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A half an hour later, Jessie released Google from his fishbowl prison and he was allowed to roam freely in his new home which was bigger and a lot less crowded than his pet store home. After Jessie had given Barret Google, he had calmed down considerably and watched Google swim around often. The regular customers also enjoyed watching him and Jessie soon purchased a few more goldfish for the aquarium. These included Tweedle Dee the white lionhead and Tweedle Dum the blue lionhead, Spork the black moor and Jessie, a calico fantail that Biggs named after her.
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((Rabid Ostrich's Notes: This fic is so incredibly stupid. This was another of my bored fics. I wanted to write something, I didn't know what and I wanted to write something that has never been touched by another author before. That's just me for you ::Shrug::. As you can see, I am a aquarist. If you don't know what one is, see below.))
And now for Rabid Ostrich's handy, dandy list-o-terms ©:
Corydora: Type of catfish. It is a bottom feeder that is favored as a scavenger among aquarists.
Aqurist: Aquarium hobbist. One who raises fish as a hobby.
Swordtails, Platies, Guppies: They are livebearers, meaning they give birth to live young. Very colorful tropical fish.
Cichlid: A type of aggressive fishes (not all species, but a lot of them…like the Oscar for example. Those things are meaner than a junkyard dog)
Lionheads: They are goldfish. They have no dorsal fins (fin on the back) and have a double caudal fin (tail fin). Their heads are covered in a warty like growth, called a wen.
Telescope: A goldfish with VERY large eyeballs that protrude from the head.
Black moor: The only truly black goldfish. It is a type of telescope, although the eyes don't get quite as large.
Hood: The thing that covers the tank. Usually houses a light and sometimes a power filter depending on the brand you get.
Substrate: The bottom of the tank. Gravel is what is mostly used in a freshwater aquarium and wildly available.
Little plastic pink diver that bobs up and down: Aren't those things cool?
Google: He's one of my fish in real life. The other 4 goldfish are also real. I own them all! HAHAHA!