Disclaimer: Slobberingly not mine.
A/N: Originally part of As Deep as the Sky, but it got too big. It also has a sequel that'll make an appearance in a couple of days. I really do have a chronic inability to shut the hell up, especially when I should be doing other things than writing fanfiction.
Puppy Love
© Scribbler, January 2009.
Someone, help me, help me please!
Is the answer up above?
How can I, how can I tell them
This is not a puppy love?
-- From Puppy Love by Donny Osmond.
"Aw, but he's so cute!"
Anzu held tight to the leash with her left hand, and her left shoulder with her right. The small tan puppy seemed determined to wrench it from its socket – when he wasn't wrapping said leash around her legs in an attempt to topple her like a sawed tree. Delighted yaps filled the air, as did a great deal of slobber. How was it possible for such a small mouth to generate that much spit? Ugh.
"Cute?" she echoed. "Do you understand just how much destruction this guy can cause? He shredded my new wedge-heels in under a minute. It took me six months to save for those. Six months. Now all they're good for is … is … nothing! There's nothing they're good for anymore! They're ruined!"
Yuugi looked up at her, crouched low and an inquisitive nose investigating the palms of his hands. His fingers caressed the puppy's face and fondled his ears without Yuugi himself needing to look at them – carelessly, unthinkingly gentle even though, as far as Anzu was aware, he'd never owned a dog in his life. Very Yuugi. "But look at how cute he is."
"Yuugi!" Anzu exclaimed.
"Who's a likkle diddums, den?" Jounouchi looked up, as though he'd actually heard the scrape of Anzu's eyelids as her expression shifted to one of wide-eyed disbelief. "What? I'm not allowed to have a sensitive side?"
"I'd have expected Shizuka or some other girl to go all gooey, but not you!" Anzu shook her head. "I'm in the Twilight Zone. It's got to be that. Or a parallel dimension. Or you've all been hit by some magic spell that made you weird and took away your Y chromosomes."
"Calm down, Anzu," said Honda. "It's just a puppy."
"They were Manolos!" she said desperately, and then groaned at their nonplussed expressions. Apparently the girlification, which could make a tough ex-gang thug gooey over a waggy tail, hadn't extended to teaching her friends about footwear and the relative expenses and kudos thereof. "Oh, just forget it. Pet him. Stroke him. Rub his belly. I'll just stand here until he mistakes me for a telegraph pole and pees on my feet again." She grimaced and shook her left leg, mentally consigning yet another pair of shoes to the dustbin. You could put sneakers in the washing machine, but no way could you clean Rocket Dog pumps that way. The irony of her precious pink Rocket Dogs being wrecked by the urine of a Pocket Dog did not escape her.
"You surprise me," Jounouchi declared. "I thought you were the motherly type. You collect small fluffy things – fuzzy pencil-toppers, stuffed toys, Yuugi -"
"Hey!"
"Sorry, dude." He raised his palms. "I speak only truth."
"My fuzzy pencil-toppers, my stuffed toys and Yuugi have never shredded a toilet roll and then spread it all over the hall and my bedroom. And I've never stood in their poop in my bare feet, first thing in the morning, andhad to clean it up from the kitchen floor."
"Uh, Anzu? You might want to rethink that statement."
"Huh?" She thought about it, turned scarlet and bowed her head so she wouldn't be able to see Yuugi's face. Stupid dog. Stupid Mom wanting a pet. Stupid article about pets helping to lower stress. Stupid, stupid, stupid –
A small wet nose snuffled her fingertips, and a small pink tongue licked her hand. Anzu looked down and met the puppy's eyes. It gazed adoringly up at her, raising itself on its haunches and pawing the air like it was asking for her first prom dance.
"Aw, look!" Jounouchi cried. "He's begging!"
"He likes you, Anzu," said Yuugi, ignoring the terrible reference she'd made about him being house-trained.
The puppy barked and continued to gaze at her, ignoring every else who actually liked him in favour of the one person who radiated dislike.
Despite herself and her poor, cowering shoe collection, Anzu felt her heart melt a little.
"So … what's his name?" Honda asked suddenly.
"Good point. You never told us that," said Jounouchi.
Anzu bowed her head again. On cue, the puppy barked and wagged his tail so much that his entire hindquarters waved from side to side. 'Introduce me,' he seemed to say. 'It's what you brought me out here for, isn't it? Well, that and to stop me peeing on the one bit of the rug not covered in newspapers.'
"Anzu?" Yuugi prompted.
"It's not my fault," she replied cryptically. "My mom overheard me talking to you on the phone, Yuugi, and she liked the name so much I couldn't convince her not to use it without doing a whole bunch of explaining that I really couldn't do -"
"What?" Jounouchi frowned. "What the hell is his name?"
"He's not called Yuugi, is he?" Honda stared down at the puppy. "Because that'll get really confusing really fast."
"He's not called Yuugi."
"Then what's his name?"
"Mrrf."
"Anzu?" Yuugi said tentatively.
Anzu sighed. "It's Atem."
The puppy barked, twisted around in a circle, and lay down on her feet with a happy yawn.
Fin.
A/N: Those who have read Fish Out of Troubled Water (www. fanfiction. net/s/3365168/1/Fish_Out_of_Troubled_Water) will recognise Atem the puppy, though this time he's made an appearance in a more canonical storyline. I just can't leave the little guy alone, it seems.