AUTHOR'S NOTE -- I get bored writing about myself and my characters....so this chapter's devoted to Dr. D and his doglefox for the mostpart. Hope you like :)
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Dr. Death pulled his pillow over his head, wincing as another high-pitched yap filled his head. He opened his eyes a bit, squinting at the alarm clock. 3:21 in the morning. He had to get up in three hours for work, and thanks to the nuisance outside he hadn't gotten any rest. There was a blessed moment of silence as he let his eyes wearily slip closed again.
YIP!!
He jolted awake, frustrated anger stealing over him as he threw back his bedcovers and yanked his bathrobe on, storming out of the room and into the hallway. Didn't petpets ever sleep?? He reached the door to his backyard and threw it open, to see the doglefox sitting in the middle of the dew-kissed grass and looking at him pitifully as it sat by its dish.
"What??" he demanded to know as he approached the petpet, shivering in the night air. "What's your problem??" the doglefox looked up at him and whimpered. The yellow techo felt his last thread of patience beginning to wear away as he surveyed the bowl, which was still filled with food, and the water dish which was still up to the rim with clean water. He had spent nearly fifteen thousand neopoints on accessories for the troublesome petpet on his way home, including an outdoor pet house (which outdoor pets such as gathows and doglefoxes LOVED, the shopkeeper had assured him) and numerous toys...all of which laid untouched on the patio.
"Do you not like the bacon bits, is that it?" he asked, kneeling and pawing frustratedly through the doglefox's food. "Then don't eat them, eat the kibbles!" He paused, realizing how ridiculous he must have sounded, trying to loudly reason with the small hybrid in the wee hours of the morning. Salvaging what dignity remained in his half-awake state, he stood, brushed the grass from his knees, and walked quickly back inside.
The doglefox whined as it watched its owner disappear back into the house and tilted its head back as the door closed, giving an ear-splitting howl. Almost instantly, the yellow techo burst back outside.
"WHAT????" he asked again. "What do you need??" The doglefox wagged its tail slightly, still whimpering.
"Shut that mutt up, you idiot!!" a familiar voice commanded. Dr. Death whirled to see Jespie leaning out of the top window of his cardboard abode, his massive bulk crammed into a set of striped pajamas that had gone beyond the point of stretched and crossed over into imbedded into his skin.
"Put a negg in it, Jespie!" the doctor snarled.
"I'll call the damn police!" the tuskaninny threatened. Dr. Death rolled his eyes, scooping the doglefox into his arms and carrying it into the house. Once inside, he set it on the carpeting and regarded it a moment.
"Happy now?" he asked it, scowling in sleepy malice. The doglefox responded by yapping once and then galloping past him into the hallway. Already, Dr. Death had a good idea of where it was headed.... "NO!" he barked after it, turning and following the petpet. "No! Don't even think about it!!" he paused in the darkened doorframe of his bedroom and then reached out, flipping the lightswitch. The doglefox lifted its head and looked at him lazily from where it was lounging on his pillow as though it had been there all along and thumped its tail.
For a long moment, the techo simply glared at his pet....too tired to really argue any further with it. "Let's come to an agreement..." he growled, approaching the bed and grasping the small creature, placing it firmly in the bottom corner of the mattress. "You stay there." he warned it as he flicked off the light again and climbed back beneath tbe bedsheets, situating himself into a comfortable position and already beginning to feel himself drifting into a deep slumber.
The petpet waited until the doctor's breathing had become deep and even before quietly getting up from the foot of the bed and creeping up to curl itself up against its owner's neck, draping its tail over his nose as it yawned widely and settled its head onto its paws for what was left of the night.
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Rose sipped at her morning cup of coffee, idly reading through the latest Neopian Times and now and then, picking up the angel aisha cookie she had bought at the bakery on the way to work and taking a nibble. The pound wouldn't be open for business for another half hour and both she and Dr. Death were in the habit of arriving early for their work to clean any messes the hopeful adoptees had made in the night and get the paperwork in order. In fact, most mornings they had synchronized their schedules so well that they ended up walking to work together....well....side by side, at least. More often than not, if the doctor didn't ignore her completely, he had something snide to say to her.
However...she hadn't seen any trace of him this morning which she had found peculiar. Simply assuming he was either running a few minutes ahead or behind her, she had gone on to work and taken care of everything herself. She didn't mind, really, though she supposed if she wanted to be petty about it she could inform Dr. Death that tomorrow it would be his turn.
She sat quietly for five more minutes, beginning to get restless at the absense of the doctor. If he had called in sick, someone would have phoned her shortly after he had done so to inform her he wouldn't be in, but she had heard from no one. She bit her lip as she cast a look up at the clock. Where was he? After a moment of debate with herself, she reached for the desk phone and rolodex of numbers, leafing through them until she found his and dialed it.
The phone rang once....twice....three times. She was about to hang up when it was picked up on the tail-end of the fourth ring.
"Hlo?" a slurred voice asked.
"Umm...you DO have work today, you know." Rose informed him. There was a pause and then some fumbling sounds, followed by a clatter that sounded distinctly like an alarm clock being pulled off of the nightstand and hitting the floor.
"God dammit..." he hissed. "Alright....I'll be in as soon as I can."
"Are you okay?" she asked, cocking a brow.
"I forgot to set the alarm." he replied. "And this damned doglefox kept me up all night."
"Probably just getting used to the place." she offered. "Don't give up on him yet."
"I won't tell you WHAT I'd like to do to him." the techo snorted. Now there were muffled sounds of drawers being flung open and slammed closed again. "I'll be there in a few minutes." he assured her. "Goodbye." Before Rose had a chance to say anything else, he had hung up. She stared at the reciever a moment before laying it back on its cradle and returning to her coffee and cookie.
Not two minutes later, she heard someone running up the walk and watched as Dr. Death burst through the door, breathless and disheveled. She blinked, surprised.
"Goodness!! You're a fright!" she exclaimed as he made a vain attempt to straighten his collar.
"Tell me about it." he snorted, shaking out the sleeves of his labcoat so they didn't look quite so wrinkled. Even from where she was sitting, Rose could see the dark circles under his eyes.
"You weren't kidding when you said you'd gotten no sleep." Rose remarked. The techo seemed to ignore her as he slumped into his chair and grunted, rubbing his temples gently and trying to stave off the drowsiness still pulling at him. "You want to call off work today?" she offered. "I can put a call into the main office for you." Dr. Death debated this idea a moment, highly tempted, but at length, shook his head.
"No." he told her. "I'm fine." She shrugged.
"So what are you going to do?" she asked.
"About what?" he muttered, jolting as he caught himself slouching forward, his head feeling strangely too heavy to hold up.
"About your doglefox." she asked.
"Oh...." he replied. He said no more as his forehead thunked dully to the desk surface and she watched him a moment to see if he'd jolt awake again. When he remained asleep, she sighed, picking up the phone again and dialing.
"Employment Office, this is Arylkia speaking." a melodious voice sounded over the reciever.
"Yes, may I have the scheduling department?" she inquired. Instead of a reply, she was placed on hold, a lilting song from M*Ynci filtering into her ear for a moment before the connection was picked up again.
"Scheduling." a female's voice said.
"I'm calling on behalf of one of the pound personell. He's come to work unfit to perform his duties and I'd like permission to dismiss him for the day." Rose said professionally. As if on cue, Dr. Death jolted into a sitting position again.
"I'm fine!" he exclaimed aloud to no one in particular.
"Mm hmm...and who's calling?" the scheduling attendant inquired.
"RoseMadder. Also a pound employee." there was a sound of flipping pages as an employment roster was leafed through.
"Rose....Rose.....ah, here you are." she stated. There was a scratching of a pen. "And...the only other listed employee I have for that location is a yellow techo....name Dr. Death?"
"Yes ma'am." she nodded.
"Alright. I'll put him in for a day of leave. Do you need us to send you a temp or can you run things on your own?"
"Oh I'll be alright." Rose assured her. "Thank you." She cast a look at Dr. Death as she hung up, clearing her throat loudly. His eyes snapped open again, already threatening to close. "You can head home now." she informed him.
"Did I sleep through my shift?" he asked groggily. Rose, in spite of herself, laughed.
"Your shift hasn't even started yet and I've already called you in." she grinned. "Now go home and rest. Scoot." She half-expected him to rear back and grumble at her some more about being overbearing, but instead he silently pulled himself to his feet again and dragged himself out the door. She thought of offering to see him home, but knew that he would reject her offer hotly. After all, as he had told her many times, he wasn't a child.
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The doglefox was in the process of happily shredding one of the cushions of the kauvara-print sofa in the living room when Dr. Death stumbled back into the house. Instantly, the petpet cringed and tucked its tail between its legs as it expected a lecture or a swat on the rear...but he walked straight past it, not noticing the small canine's destruction. His mind had merged into a single track at the moment....and that track was sleep as he ventured back into his bedroom. He was soundly dozing even before he had collapsed on the mattress, still fully dressed.
The doglefox cautiously peered around the corner of the doorframe, regarding its owner quietly. Sleeping again? Hadn't he done enough of that last night? He must have been lying there for at least a whole two hours....oh well. Deciding to make the most of its free time, the doglefox trotted into the kitchen, thinking it would see what it could find in the pantry. Even as it wrestled a box of neoflakes off of the shelf and began to gleefully scatter them on the floor, Dr. Death slipped into a dream....one he had had many times before, and one that he hadn't gotten to like any better....namely because it was true.
"Glitz, get up and fight!!" a boy's voice commanded. "That shadow usul only hit you once, now c'mon!!" A frail yellow techo cowered on the ground of the battledome as the sleek ebony monster padded closer, leering at him through its glowing eyes.
"Just try me. I'd love to." the usul grinned, showing off its maw of needly teeth. Glitz trembled, trying to summon the energy for just one more attack....one more and then his owner would know he had given it his all. At length, however, frozen by fatigue and fright, he simply laid on his side with a resigned sigh. "Feh....worthless." the shadow usul smirked, scooping up a pawful of dust and flicking it over its fallen opponent before trotting out of the battledome arena.
The techo heard the approaching footsteps of his owner and lifted his head, managing to thump his tail on the ground in greeting to show that he wasn't hurt too badly. The boy's face, however, was sour.
"I'm never going to win any battledome fights with you as a pet!" he complained, grabbing up the techo and slinging it over his shoulder. Glitz sighed, knowing the routine....now they'd head to the healing springs to see if the water faerie could help him and then it was back to that damned punching bag for more training. He didn't want to fight anymore...his muscles ached and never seemed to get any larger no matter how hard he worked out and the only battle he had ever won had been against one of his owner's friends' poogles that was scarcely more than a newborn....and even then, he had just barely come out on top.
Hell, if you wanted to look at it in retrospect, even HE was just a child. He allowed himself to be carried, his eyes closed and head resting on his owner's shoulder. Things would be better later, he promised himself. The shadow usul had been too much for him to try and take on by himself, but maybe if they started smaller....the pant devil, perhaps. He became aware, suddenly, of the distant sound of someone crying. Probably some beggar on the street, he told himself. As he listened, however, the crying got increasingly louder until it seemed utterly overpowering. Unable to stand it any longer, Glitz opened his eyes, startled to find himself at what served as neopia's pound at the time.
A large warehouse-like structure that stank of sawdust and tears loomed before him as his owner approached what looked like a cast-iron doggie door and knelt before it. Glitz had seen how it had worked in the past and knew what was behind it. Behind it were hundreds of upset and crying pets that had been abandoned by their owners. The door was designed specifically to open only one way....inward. Glitz felt his stomach clench as the boy pulled him off of his shoulder and set him down in front of it.
"Well....this is it." he remarked.
"But---But Joey...." Glitz faltered, fishing for the right words. Had it really all come down to this? "Why?"
"Because I need a fighter, Glitz, not a marshmallow. Now go on in and maybe some girl will adopt you and make you her cuddletoy or something." he said with a dismissive wave of his hand. The techo's eyes brimmed with tears.
"But I love you, Joey..." he said in a last attempt to appeal to his owner. The boy simply shook his head and pointed at the door. Tears rolling down his cheeks, Glitz slunk forward and slipped through it, immediately finding himself in a sea of pets....some sobbing, some trying to comfort the crying, and some sitting dejectedly in the corners.
"Why, Marinda???" a red quiggle wailed. "Why'd you leave me here??" A green jubjub stood nearby, trying to comfort her with little success. A door suddenly opened off to the side and the pets instantly surged toward it, choruses of "Please pick me!!" already beginning. Glitz simply watched a moment, unsure of what was going on and still bewildered at Joey's abandonment of him. A figure stepped into the room, wading through the sea of pets....one that Glitz instantly recognized. Joey! He hadn't abandoned him after all! He must have had second thoughts and realized that he was making a mistake.
Trying as best as he could to weasel through the throng of neopets gathered hopefully around his owner, Glitz tried his best to be seen, calling out to Joey and even trying to climb over the other pets. But it seemed Joey couldn't hear nor see him. As he watched, the boy knelt, scooping up a green jetsam and smiling approvingly at it.
"How strong are you?" he heard Joey ask it above the clamor of the other pets. The Jetsam grinned, showing off its fangs.
"We'll grind'em into dust together, kid." the fish winked. Pleased, Joey stood with his new find and turned to leave, despite the disappointed wails of the others. Just as quickly as he had come, he was gone again. Glitz, dejected and hurt, retreated into a corner and sat down to mull over what had just happened. How could Joey have done this? The same boy who had taken him out of the pet stockhouse, fresh from his egg, not thirty seven days ago and promised him they would always be together had left him alone and, to add insult to injury, taken another pet in his place. Around him, the sniffling of the other pets seemed to grow louder....becoming not just stifling but suffocating. It was like an enormous black sea that he was sinking in and couldn't get out of.....their sadness was drowning him.....................
Dr. Death jolted awake with a cry, finding himself in the silence of his own house. God, he hated that nightmare....he wished he could just forget his first owner and be done with it, but something kept making him cling to the painful memories....it wasn't fair. He blinked several times, trying to shake off the last remnants of the dream and clarify that, yes, he was back in reality now. On his nightstand, the alarm clock read 2:06 PM. God, how long had he been sleeping? And in his work clothes no less? He sat up, unshouldering his rumpled labcoat and laying it out over the bedspread as he stood, stretching. As he went about awakening himself, he noticed something out of the corner of his eye on the floor....something that seemed entirely out of place.
Puzzled, he ventured toward it, stooping to pick it up and examine it. It was a scrap of blue cloth, slightly moist, and looking as though it had been torn from its source. He puzzled over this a moment before he was interrupted by the sound of breaking glass in the kitchen. He jolted, feeling the hair on the back of his neck prickle. Someone was in his house. He cast his eyes quickly about the room to see if there was something he could use as a weapon. Finding nothing, he swallowed heavily and forced himself to venture out of the bedroom. He could hear a faint scuffling, though he was no longer sure where it was coming from as he treaded silently through the hallway.
Upon reaching the living room, he understood where the scrap of cloth had come from....his couch was in utter ruins and looked....well....slashed. But why? Who would have done such a thing?? As he contemplated retreating back into his bedroom, locking the door, and phoning the chia police to deal with this, there was another crash from the kitchen. He gritted his teeth, edging toward the sound, very unwillingly, his nerves twanging.
He knew what he was going to see even before he saw it as he poked his snout around the corner....everything was in ruins. Canisters were overturned with their contents spilling out of them onto the counter, cans had been scattered across the floor, boxes had been torn open and the floor was a litter of cereal, cardboard, pasta, and dried vegetables.
What....the....hell??
As he took in the disarray before him, there was a clatter from the corner of the kitchen where the cabinet he kept his cooking utensils in had been opened and a jumble of pots and pans littered the floor. As he watched, a familiar round face poked out of the mess, its tongue lulling happily out of its mouth. The doglefox, its coat dusted in flour and stray neoflakes, gave itself a shake and, not yet noticing its owner standing in the doorway, galloped back across the kitchen to paw open another cabinet.
Even as the cabinet began to edge open and the doglefox began to see what it contained, he found himself suddenly on his back in the grass of the backyard, blinking bewilderedly at the sky. What had just happened? Behind him, he heard the back door slam shut and rolled over, looking at it curiously.
Dr. Death stormed back into the kitchen after tossing the doglefox outside, not knowing where to begin on the shambles his house had been left in. He already could chalk a week's worth of groceries and his living room couch up as completely ruined... He trembled angrily, deciding that this was it. As soon as he was done cleaning, the obnoxious little petpet was leaving. He didn't care where it got placed....either he'd offer it to one of the pets in the pound or he'd take it back to the store, but it couldn't stay with him. Not if it was going to behave this way.
Sighing, he retrieved a garbage bag from beneath the sink and headed into the living room to scoop the remnants of his couch into it.
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It took most of the afternoon and well into the evening to remove the destruction from his house, but the doctor managed, loading nearly eight trash bags with tattered items and dragging his ruined sofa out to the curb for the trash collectors to pick up or for a passing beggar to cart off to their own home. He didn't care, really, as he sat at the kitchen table, making a list of everything that had been destroyed and next to it writing how much he was guessing it would cost to replace it all.
He was vaguely reminded of a stupid movie he had seen when it had been brought in from "Earth", where most of Neopia's residents claimed to have come from and aired briefly in nearby theaters. In it, a policeman had adopted a creature that was reminiscent of a Warf called a "dog" that had utterly ransacked his house and ruined his life for the first half of the movie but then had ended up his best friend by the end of it. What had it been called? Turner And Hooch, he remembered. But at least THAT animal had served a purpose and had helped the policeman track down an evil force.
He sighed as he appraised the ruined kauvara sofa at roughly ten thousand neopoints on the sheet of paper and mentally calculated everything he had listed. The total came to just under fifty thousand neopoints to restock his food, replace his furniture, and have his carpet cleaned. He flinched as the doglefox scratched at the back door, deciding to try to convince him yet again to let it inside since its destructive spree.
"NO!" he yelled across the living room at it. There was a slight pause and then one of its trademarked ear-splitting yips. "You're staying outside." he growled acidly. It howled long and loudly, as though knowing that that was what it usually took to bring him. "SHUT UP!!!" he screamed at it, losing the thin leash on his temper. The doglefox, however, persisted with its noise until he thought he would go mad....and finally, he rose to his feet and stormed toward the glass sliding door. "I SAID, SHUT---" he began, meaning to pound a fist on the glass and rattle it to scare the petpet away from the patio, and instead heard a musical tinkling as it shattered around his fist, two of his knuckles splitting open on impact.
For a moment, there was no pain as warm blood began to trickle down his forearm and spatter the beige carpeting and then, with almost heart-stopping force, it hit, making him grit his teeth and double over as he clutched his wounded hand. The doglefox squealed in fright, galloping quickly across the yard and cowering in the pet house that, up until that moment, had remained unused. He remained immobile for a moment, the pain in his fist not allowing him to move or even think....and then slowly, he began to come back to his senses as he looked at the shards of broken glass littering the patio and carpet....and then at his wounded hand.
Wincing in disgust, he carefully dislodged a small splinter of glass from where it had buried itself in his skin and flexed his fingers. The cuts, though they were bleeding profusely, didn't look very deep and were far from serious....though they were certainly enough of to remind him of how his temper easily got away from him sometimes.
It occurred to him that the glass door was likely going to cost more to replace than any of the damage the doglefox had done and strangely, it struck him as funny as he snickered dryly for a moment. The irony was so thick in the air, he could feel it pressing on him as he picked himself up and ventured into the kitchen, cracking the tap and running cold water over his hand. As the spilled blood washed away, he confirmed his notion that the cuts were not at all serious and only looked ugly. It could have been worse though...a few more centimeters to the right and he might have hit an artery.
The idea made him sick as he turned the water off and tore a paper towel off of the roll, patting the sliced flesh dry and wondering if he had any bandages in his medicine cabinet. Knowing his luck, likely not....and he didn't much relish the idea of walking through Neopia Central bleeding all over himself to buy some from the pharmacy. They'd likely wonder if he had started butchering pets in his home instead of just taking them away. The idea brought another burst of laughter into his throat which he bit off abruptly.
Deciding to at least check, he went into the bathroom and opened the mirrored cabinet, confirming his suspicion that yes, he had no bandages....so much for a doctor always being prepared, he thought sourly as he returned to the kitchen, selecting a clean dish towel off of the drying rack and wrapping it around his hand, tying a clumsy one-handed knot and cinching it with his teeth. It would have to work, he decided.
As he ventured back into the living room, kneeling to carefully start picking the glass shards up and group them into a pile so they'd be easier to clean up, the doglefox poked its head cautiously out of where it had been cowering in its pet house. Its owner hadn't come out of the house to wrestle him out of hiding....that had been good, but unexpected. What was going on? From where it hid, it could see the yellow techo kneeling through the jagged mouth of broken glass his fist had made in the door.
Plucking up its courage, it ventured closer....
Dr. Death heard the faint rustling of grass as the doglefox edged cautiously toward him. Still angry with the animal, he didn't bother acknowledging its presense as he carefully untangled a smaller piece of glass from the carpet and set it on the pile. There was the soft patter of the doglefox's paws on the patio and then a small shadow fell over him.
"Wruff." the animal vocalized, announcing its presense. The techo still refused to look at the petpet, feeling his rage rising again. First thing in the morning, he would find Karma and give the creature back. He was tired of dealing with its trouble and.....his thought trailed off as his mind conjoured up the hundreds of excuses he had heard daily when people came to the pound to abandon, all of them revolving around the fact that since they couldn't deal with the pet, they were dumping it on someone else.
Well, this was different, he tried to tell himself. But was it really? No. It wasn't at all. In fact, he wondered if his blatant mistreatment of the doglefox in its time with him had made him even worse than some of the people he had come to resent for dropping their pets on him. It was a humbling thought that made his anger significantly diffuse itself as he continued to gather up the glass, still not looking at the petpet. He heard the petpet pad around to his other side, and then fall silent. There was silence and then a tugging sensation on the hem of his shirt.
"Haven't you done enough to me today?" he asked the small animal contemptiously. The doglefox whimpered, releasing his shirt from its jaws and trotting around to his side, watching him as he cleaned up the mess he had made. Dr. Death mulled his situation over in his head as he did so. He supposed, if need be, he could always build an enclosure for the doglefox when he wasn't around to keep an eye on it since it seemed simply dropping the animal was going to leave him with a conscience problem.
There was a warm sensation on his wrist, just below the bandage as he looked down to see the doglefox whining and washing its small tongue over his fingers, looking up hopefully as it did so. He paused, fighting to hold onto his anger....he didn't want to give in so easily after all that had happened....yet.....
He dropped what he was doing and picked up the animal, holding it out in front of himself. The doglefox's back legs kicked at the empty air a moment as it eyed him warily. "You are a lot more trouble than you're worth." he informed the doglefox. It stared at him a moment and then leaned forward, its tongue lapping at the air in a vain attempt to lick his nose. A smile pulled at the corners of his mouth, threatening to break his angry demeanor for a moment.
"Now you listen to me," he told the doglefox sternly. "If you're going to live here, there are going to be rules. No more late-night barking, no more destroying my house, and no more driving me crazy. Is that understood?" The doglefox blinked its black button eyes, obviously not comprehending a word he had said. "What am I talking to you for?" he sighed, shaking his head as he set the animal down again and continued to clean up the glass.
After a few moments, when he was fairly sure he had gotten everything out of the carpet, he went about gathering it up in the last garbage bag he had, carefully settling the larger shards in the bottom so the thin plastic wouldn't be as likely to rip when he picked it up and soon it had been left out on the curb with the rest of the destruction.
Exhausted, he slumped into his living room chair as his mind churned, trying to decide what he was going to do. He had the money in his bank account to deal with the damage, but it would take most of his funds to do it. And what if the doglefox did it again in a week or so? As if on cue, the petpet dove into his lap, placing its paws on his chest and licking at his face. Unconsciously, he brought his unbandaged hand up and scratched the small animal between the ears, his expression or posture never changing.
"Well, you knew enough to wreck the house....mind telling me how we're going to fix it?" he asked idly. The doglefox didn't answer, directing its attention to a fly that had made its way into the house. As it buzzed over his head, the small animal made a snatch at the air, his sharp teeth closing with a snap on the tiny insect. "Snap, hmm?" Dr. Death muttered. "Alright...its better than calling you some of the names that have crossed my mind earlier...." The doglefox wagged its tail, yawning hugely...as it did so, the fly buzzed out of its jaws and flew quickly away.
Dr. Death bit his lip and then chuckled at the petpet's misfortune as it wondered where its captive had gotten to. He felt the last of his resentment for the doglefox wither and die as he looked at it. Maybe Karma had assumed right when she had brought the creature into his life. It had been so long since he'd cared for a petpet of any sort that he'd almost forgotten how. "Well, Snap, do you care to go grocery shopping with me?" he asked his pet, standing and carrying the doglefox across the room as he unhooked a black windbreaker from where it hung on the hook behind his front door and put it on, tucking Snap inside of it as he zipped it up halfway. The doglefox wriggled and then poked his head out the top, wagging its tail and obviously pleased with its new perch as the doctor checked his pockets to make sure he had his keys and checkbook before heading out, locking the door behind him.
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"Can we get this?" Yahoo asked, tugging a nearly-transparent blue/white box off of the shelf. Karma read the letters imprinted on the front as "Crystal Crunch".
"How much is it?" she asked as the cybunny searched for the price tag.
"Umm....five hundred neopoints?" he asked, looking hopeful.
"Put it back." she smirked. "We can't splurge quite THAT much yet."
"Hmph..." Yahoo grumbled, stuffing the Crystal Crunch back on the shelf as he eyed the contents of their shopping basket. Wheat Flakes, five tins of olives, several cans of baked beans, and two fresh baggusses. Yuck...how boring.
"How about that then?" he asked, pointing at a box of chocolate moehogs nearby. "Those're only twenty-five neopoints." Karma hesitated and then sighed, pulling the box of treats off of the shelf and dropping them into the basket. "YESSS!!!" the cybunny cheered, punching the air.
"Oh come on, is the food I'm getting REALLY that bad?" the frog asked her pet. Yahoo, instead of answering, feigned gagging in the middle of the aisle, rolling over and kicking his feet into the air. "Yahoo, people are staring." she informed him indulgently as the cybunny hopped to his feet and followed at the side of the cart once again. "I think maybe I'll see what we can find in the soda section and then we'll be done. Sound good?" she asked her pet.
"I guess so." he shrugged, looking about the isle for other things he might be able to persuade her to buy. "Urgh....don't look now, but your boyfriend's here."
"Huh?" Karma asked, not quite hearing what he had said as she turned her head....and then she saw what Yahoo had seen. Dr. Death was standing near the fruit counter, reading the back of a box of juppie mix, not in his normal pound uniform....probably why she had missed him. From where she stood, she could see the doglefox she had given him earlier, poking out of the top of his jacket, and excitedly sniffing the air, taking in the plethora of sights and sounds around him.
"Well?" the cybunny asked.
"Well what?" Karma inquired.
"Go on!" he urged, giving her legs a shove.
"No, he's shopping. Let's leave him alone." she said quickly.
"Don't be such a flightning bug." Yahoo teased. "What's the worst that could happen?"
"He could tell me to leave him the hell alone..." Karma replied.
"Aright, true, but you'll never know until you ask." he said decisively. She groaned...and hated to admit it, but her pet was right.
"Okay, okay....but don't embarrass me in front of him, alright?"
"Can do easy." Yahoo assured her. Swallowing hard, Karma stepped away from her cart and walked up to the doctor.
The techo didn't notice her until she was nearly touching noses with him and jolted a bit when she spoke.
"Hi." she said faintly, nearly making him drop the box he had been holding.
"What do you want?" he asked.
"I just....I wondered how your doglefox was doing." she said awkwardly, forcing a smile. "I can leave if I'm bothering you." He regarded her quietly for a moment before setting the box in his cart.
"You're not bothering me." he told her quietly. "And as you can see, he's fine." he told her, gesturing to the cheeky petpet riding in his coat. Karma smiled a bit.
"Thought of a name?" she asked. He was silent a moment, his eyes wandering to a rack of puntec fruit beside him. Thinking he wasn't going to answer her, Karma prepared to change the subject.
"Snap." he informed her.
"It fits." she chuckled as the doglefox lulled his tongue out of his mouth and gave her a canine grin. "Well, I'll let you get back to what you were doing. I don't want to harrass." she added quickly, turning to walk away, her courage spent.
"He ransacked my house, you know..." the doctor called after her, making her freeze and look slowly over her shoulder.
"Did he?" she asked in a small, guilty voice.
"He did...and at the risk of sounding insane, its one of the best things that's happened to me in awhile. So consider the debt for saving your cybunny paid in full." he told her. He didn't smile, but the cruel edge that was usually in his eyes and voice wasn't there either. Ridiculously, she felt her face grow hot and knew she was blushing.
"Okay..." she muttered, turning again and this time walking away quickly. The doctor watched her go and when she had disappeared into a neighboring isle he returned his attention to his shopping.
"So what do you think, Snap?" he asked the petpet as he looked over what was in the cart.
"Myarf?"
"I think Rose might be right about that girl and how she feels." the techo muttered, no longer directly talking to the doglefox but talking more to himself. "....and how am I supposed to deal with that?" he added, giving the petpet a skritch. Snap gave no answer and only wagged his tail, leaning his head into the skritches. The doctor sighed and shook his head, frankly at a loss. There were precious few people he could go to for advice on matters such as these and he dared not bring it to Rose because she'd make every effort within her to try and shove him and Karma together even if it meant manually doing so with rope and paste.
He decided he and Snap had done enough shopping for one evening as they headed to the front to pay for their purchases.
TBC....
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Dr. Death pulled his pillow over his head, wincing as another high-pitched yap filled his head. He opened his eyes a bit, squinting at the alarm clock. 3:21 in the morning. He had to get up in three hours for work, and thanks to the nuisance outside he hadn't gotten any rest. There was a blessed moment of silence as he let his eyes wearily slip closed again.
YIP!!
He jolted awake, frustrated anger stealing over him as he threw back his bedcovers and yanked his bathrobe on, storming out of the room and into the hallway. Didn't petpets ever sleep?? He reached the door to his backyard and threw it open, to see the doglefox sitting in the middle of the dew-kissed grass and looking at him pitifully as it sat by its dish.
"What??" he demanded to know as he approached the petpet, shivering in the night air. "What's your problem??" the doglefox looked up at him and whimpered. The yellow techo felt his last thread of patience beginning to wear away as he surveyed the bowl, which was still filled with food, and the water dish which was still up to the rim with clean water. He had spent nearly fifteen thousand neopoints on accessories for the troublesome petpet on his way home, including an outdoor pet house (which outdoor pets such as gathows and doglefoxes LOVED, the shopkeeper had assured him) and numerous toys...all of which laid untouched on the patio.
"Do you not like the bacon bits, is that it?" he asked, kneeling and pawing frustratedly through the doglefox's food. "Then don't eat them, eat the kibbles!" He paused, realizing how ridiculous he must have sounded, trying to loudly reason with the small hybrid in the wee hours of the morning. Salvaging what dignity remained in his half-awake state, he stood, brushed the grass from his knees, and walked quickly back inside.
The doglefox whined as it watched its owner disappear back into the house and tilted its head back as the door closed, giving an ear-splitting howl. Almost instantly, the yellow techo burst back outside.
"WHAT????" he asked again. "What do you need??" The doglefox wagged its tail slightly, still whimpering.
"Shut that mutt up, you idiot!!" a familiar voice commanded. Dr. Death whirled to see Jespie leaning out of the top window of his cardboard abode, his massive bulk crammed into a set of striped pajamas that had gone beyond the point of stretched and crossed over into imbedded into his skin.
"Put a negg in it, Jespie!" the doctor snarled.
"I'll call the damn police!" the tuskaninny threatened. Dr. Death rolled his eyes, scooping the doglefox into his arms and carrying it into the house. Once inside, he set it on the carpeting and regarded it a moment.
"Happy now?" he asked it, scowling in sleepy malice. The doglefox responded by yapping once and then galloping past him into the hallway. Already, Dr. Death had a good idea of where it was headed.... "NO!" he barked after it, turning and following the petpet. "No! Don't even think about it!!" he paused in the darkened doorframe of his bedroom and then reached out, flipping the lightswitch. The doglefox lifted its head and looked at him lazily from where it was lounging on his pillow as though it had been there all along and thumped its tail.
For a long moment, the techo simply glared at his pet....too tired to really argue any further with it. "Let's come to an agreement..." he growled, approaching the bed and grasping the small creature, placing it firmly in the bottom corner of the mattress. "You stay there." he warned it as he flicked off the light again and climbed back beneath tbe bedsheets, situating himself into a comfortable position and already beginning to feel himself drifting into a deep slumber.
The petpet waited until the doctor's breathing had become deep and even before quietly getting up from the foot of the bed and creeping up to curl itself up against its owner's neck, draping its tail over his nose as it yawned widely and settled its head onto its paws for what was left of the night.
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Rose sipped at her morning cup of coffee, idly reading through the latest Neopian Times and now and then, picking up the angel aisha cookie she had bought at the bakery on the way to work and taking a nibble. The pound wouldn't be open for business for another half hour and both she and Dr. Death were in the habit of arriving early for their work to clean any messes the hopeful adoptees had made in the night and get the paperwork in order. In fact, most mornings they had synchronized their schedules so well that they ended up walking to work together....well....side by side, at least. More often than not, if the doctor didn't ignore her completely, he had something snide to say to her.
However...she hadn't seen any trace of him this morning which she had found peculiar. Simply assuming he was either running a few minutes ahead or behind her, she had gone on to work and taken care of everything herself. She didn't mind, really, though she supposed if she wanted to be petty about it she could inform Dr. Death that tomorrow it would be his turn.
She sat quietly for five more minutes, beginning to get restless at the absense of the doctor. If he had called in sick, someone would have phoned her shortly after he had done so to inform her he wouldn't be in, but she had heard from no one. She bit her lip as she cast a look up at the clock. Where was he? After a moment of debate with herself, she reached for the desk phone and rolodex of numbers, leafing through them until she found his and dialed it.
The phone rang once....twice....three times. She was about to hang up when it was picked up on the tail-end of the fourth ring.
"Hlo?" a slurred voice asked.
"Umm...you DO have work today, you know." Rose informed him. There was a pause and then some fumbling sounds, followed by a clatter that sounded distinctly like an alarm clock being pulled off of the nightstand and hitting the floor.
"God dammit..." he hissed. "Alright....I'll be in as soon as I can."
"Are you okay?" she asked, cocking a brow.
"I forgot to set the alarm." he replied. "And this damned doglefox kept me up all night."
"Probably just getting used to the place." she offered. "Don't give up on him yet."
"I won't tell you WHAT I'd like to do to him." the techo snorted. Now there were muffled sounds of drawers being flung open and slammed closed again. "I'll be there in a few minutes." he assured her. "Goodbye." Before Rose had a chance to say anything else, he had hung up. She stared at the reciever a moment before laying it back on its cradle and returning to her coffee and cookie.
Not two minutes later, she heard someone running up the walk and watched as Dr. Death burst through the door, breathless and disheveled. She blinked, surprised.
"Goodness!! You're a fright!" she exclaimed as he made a vain attempt to straighten his collar.
"Tell me about it." he snorted, shaking out the sleeves of his labcoat so they didn't look quite so wrinkled. Even from where she was sitting, Rose could see the dark circles under his eyes.
"You weren't kidding when you said you'd gotten no sleep." Rose remarked. The techo seemed to ignore her as he slumped into his chair and grunted, rubbing his temples gently and trying to stave off the drowsiness still pulling at him. "You want to call off work today?" she offered. "I can put a call into the main office for you." Dr. Death debated this idea a moment, highly tempted, but at length, shook his head.
"No." he told her. "I'm fine." She shrugged.
"So what are you going to do?" she asked.
"About what?" he muttered, jolting as he caught himself slouching forward, his head feeling strangely too heavy to hold up.
"About your doglefox." she asked.
"Oh...." he replied. He said no more as his forehead thunked dully to the desk surface and she watched him a moment to see if he'd jolt awake again. When he remained asleep, she sighed, picking up the phone again and dialing.
"Employment Office, this is Arylkia speaking." a melodious voice sounded over the reciever.
"Yes, may I have the scheduling department?" she inquired. Instead of a reply, she was placed on hold, a lilting song from M*Ynci filtering into her ear for a moment before the connection was picked up again.
"Scheduling." a female's voice said.
"I'm calling on behalf of one of the pound personell. He's come to work unfit to perform his duties and I'd like permission to dismiss him for the day." Rose said professionally. As if on cue, Dr. Death jolted into a sitting position again.
"I'm fine!" he exclaimed aloud to no one in particular.
"Mm hmm...and who's calling?" the scheduling attendant inquired.
"RoseMadder. Also a pound employee." there was a sound of flipping pages as an employment roster was leafed through.
"Rose....Rose.....ah, here you are." she stated. There was a scratching of a pen. "And...the only other listed employee I have for that location is a yellow techo....name Dr. Death?"
"Yes ma'am." she nodded.
"Alright. I'll put him in for a day of leave. Do you need us to send you a temp or can you run things on your own?"
"Oh I'll be alright." Rose assured her. "Thank you." She cast a look at Dr. Death as she hung up, clearing her throat loudly. His eyes snapped open again, already threatening to close. "You can head home now." she informed him.
"Did I sleep through my shift?" he asked groggily. Rose, in spite of herself, laughed.
"Your shift hasn't even started yet and I've already called you in." she grinned. "Now go home and rest. Scoot." She half-expected him to rear back and grumble at her some more about being overbearing, but instead he silently pulled himself to his feet again and dragged himself out the door. She thought of offering to see him home, but knew that he would reject her offer hotly. After all, as he had told her many times, he wasn't a child.
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The doglefox was in the process of happily shredding one of the cushions of the kauvara-print sofa in the living room when Dr. Death stumbled back into the house. Instantly, the petpet cringed and tucked its tail between its legs as it expected a lecture or a swat on the rear...but he walked straight past it, not noticing the small canine's destruction. His mind had merged into a single track at the moment....and that track was sleep as he ventured back into his bedroom. He was soundly dozing even before he had collapsed on the mattress, still fully dressed.
The doglefox cautiously peered around the corner of the doorframe, regarding its owner quietly. Sleeping again? Hadn't he done enough of that last night? He must have been lying there for at least a whole two hours....oh well. Deciding to make the most of its free time, the doglefox trotted into the kitchen, thinking it would see what it could find in the pantry. Even as it wrestled a box of neoflakes off of the shelf and began to gleefully scatter them on the floor, Dr. Death slipped into a dream....one he had had many times before, and one that he hadn't gotten to like any better....namely because it was true.
"Glitz, get up and fight!!" a boy's voice commanded. "That shadow usul only hit you once, now c'mon!!" A frail yellow techo cowered on the ground of the battledome as the sleek ebony monster padded closer, leering at him through its glowing eyes.
"Just try me. I'd love to." the usul grinned, showing off its maw of needly teeth. Glitz trembled, trying to summon the energy for just one more attack....one more and then his owner would know he had given it his all. At length, however, frozen by fatigue and fright, he simply laid on his side with a resigned sigh. "Feh....worthless." the shadow usul smirked, scooping up a pawful of dust and flicking it over its fallen opponent before trotting out of the battledome arena.
The techo heard the approaching footsteps of his owner and lifted his head, managing to thump his tail on the ground in greeting to show that he wasn't hurt too badly. The boy's face, however, was sour.
"I'm never going to win any battledome fights with you as a pet!" he complained, grabbing up the techo and slinging it over his shoulder. Glitz sighed, knowing the routine....now they'd head to the healing springs to see if the water faerie could help him and then it was back to that damned punching bag for more training. He didn't want to fight anymore...his muscles ached and never seemed to get any larger no matter how hard he worked out and the only battle he had ever won had been against one of his owner's friends' poogles that was scarcely more than a newborn....and even then, he had just barely come out on top.
Hell, if you wanted to look at it in retrospect, even HE was just a child. He allowed himself to be carried, his eyes closed and head resting on his owner's shoulder. Things would be better later, he promised himself. The shadow usul had been too much for him to try and take on by himself, but maybe if they started smaller....the pant devil, perhaps. He became aware, suddenly, of the distant sound of someone crying. Probably some beggar on the street, he told himself. As he listened, however, the crying got increasingly louder until it seemed utterly overpowering. Unable to stand it any longer, Glitz opened his eyes, startled to find himself at what served as neopia's pound at the time.
A large warehouse-like structure that stank of sawdust and tears loomed before him as his owner approached what looked like a cast-iron doggie door and knelt before it. Glitz had seen how it had worked in the past and knew what was behind it. Behind it were hundreds of upset and crying pets that had been abandoned by their owners. The door was designed specifically to open only one way....inward. Glitz felt his stomach clench as the boy pulled him off of his shoulder and set him down in front of it.
"Well....this is it." he remarked.
"But---But Joey...." Glitz faltered, fishing for the right words. Had it really all come down to this? "Why?"
"Because I need a fighter, Glitz, not a marshmallow. Now go on in and maybe some girl will adopt you and make you her cuddletoy or something." he said with a dismissive wave of his hand. The techo's eyes brimmed with tears.
"But I love you, Joey..." he said in a last attempt to appeal to his owner. The boy simply shook his head and pointed at the door. Tears rolling down his cheeks, Glitz slunk forward and slipped through it, immediately finding himself in a sea of pets....some sobbing, some trying to comfort the crying, and some sitting dejectedly in the corners.
"Why, Marinda???" a red quiggle wailed. "Why'd you leave me here??" A green jubjub stood nearby, trying to comfort her with little success. A door suddenly opened off to the side and the pets instantly surged toward it, choruses of "Please pick me!!" already beginning. Glitz simply watched a moment, unsure of what was going on and still bewildered at Joey's abandonment of him. A figure stepped into the room, wading through the sea of pets....one that Glitz instantly recognized. Joey! He hadn't abandoned him after all! He must have had second thoughts and realized that he was making a mistake.
Trying as best as he could to weasel through the throng of neopets gathered hopefully around his owner, Glitz tried his best to be seen, calling out to Joey and even trying to climb over the other pets. But it seemed Joey couldn't hear nor see him. As he watched, the boy knelt, scooping up a green jetsam and smiling approvingly at it.
"How strong are you?" he heard Joey ask it above the clamor of the other pets. The Jetsam grinned, showing off its fangs.
"We'll grind'em into dust together, kid." the fish winked. Pleased, Joey stood with his new find and turned to leave, despite the disappointed wails of the others. Just as quickly as he had come, he was gone again. Glitz, dejected and hurt, retreated into a corner and sat down to mull over what had just happened. How could Joey have done this? The same boy who had taken him out of the pet stockhouse, fresh from his egg, not thirty seven days ago and promised him they would always be together had left him alone and, to add insult to injury, taken another pet in his place. Around him, the sniffling of the other pets seemed to grow louder....becoming not just stifling but suffocating. It was like an enormous black sea that he was sinking in and couldn't get out of.....their sadness was drowning him.....................
Dr. Death jolted awake with a cry, finding himself in the silence of his own house. God, he hated that nightmare....he wished he could just forget his first owner and be done with it, but something kept making him cling to the painful memories....it wasn't fair. He blinked several times, trying to shake off the last remnants of the dream and clarify that, yes, he was back in reality now. On his nightstand, the alarm clock read 2:06 PM. God, how long had he been sleeping? And in his work clothes no less? He sat up, unshouldering his rumpled labcoat and laying it out over the bedspread as he stood, stretching. As he went about awakening himself, he noticed something out of the corner of his eye on the floor....something that seemed entirely out of place.
Puzzled, he ventured toward it, stooping to pick it up and examine it. It was a scrap of blue cloth, slightly moist, and looking as though it had been torn from its source. He puzzled over this a moment before he was interrupted by the sound of breaking glass in the kitchen. He jolted, feeling the hair on the back of his neck prickle. Someone was in his house. He cast his eyes quickly about the room to see if there was something he could use as a weapon. Finding nothing, he swallowed heavily and forced himself to venture out of the bedroom. He could hear a faint scuffling, though he was no longer sure where it was coming from as he treaded silently through the hallway.
Upon reaching the living room, he understood where the scrap of cloth had come from....his couch was in utter ruins and looked....well....slashed. But why? Who would have done such a thing?? As he contemplated retreating back into his bedroom, locking the door, and phoning the chia police to deal with this, there was another crash from the kitchen. He gritted his teeth, edging toward the sound, very unwillingly, his nerves twanging.
He knew what he was going to see even before he saw it as he poked his snout around the corner....everything was in ruins. Canisters were overturned with their contents spilling out of them onto the counter, cans had been scattered across the floor, boxes had been torn open and the floor was a litter of cereal, cardboard, pasta, and dried vegetables.
What....the....hell??
As he took in the disarray before him, there was a clatter from the corner of the kitchen where the cabinet he kept his cooking utensils in had been opened and a jumble of pots and pans littered the floor. As he watched, a familiar round face poked out of the mess, its tongue lulling happily out of its mouth. The doglefox, its coat dusted in flour and stray neoflakes, gave itself a shake and, not yet noticing its owner standing in the doorway, galloped back across the kitchen to paw open another cabinet.
Even as the cabinet began to edge open and the doglefox began to see what it contained, he found himself suddenly on his back in the grass of the backyard, blinking bewilderedly at the sky. What had just happened? Behind him, he heard the back door slam shut and rolled over, looking at it curiously.
Dr. Death stormed back into the kitchen after tossing the doglefox outside, not knowing where to begin on the shambles his house had been left in. He already could chalk a week's worth of groceries and his living room couch up as completely ruined... He trembled angrily, deciding that this was it. As soon as he was done cleaning, the obnoxious little petpet was leaving. He didn't care where it got placed....either he'd offer it to one of the pets in the pound or he'd take it back to the store, but it couldn't stay with him. Not if it was going to behave this way.
Sighing, he retrieved a garbage bag from beneath the sink and headed into the living room to scoop the remnants of his couch into it.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
It took most of the afternoon and well into the evening to remove the destruction from his house, but the doctor managed, loading nearly eight trash bags with tattered items and dragging his ruined sofa out to the curb for the trash collectors to pick up or for a passing beggar to cart off to their own home. He didn't care, really, as he sat at the kitchen table, making a list of everything that had been destroyed and next to it writing how much he was guessing it would cost to replace it all.
He was vaguely reminded of a stupid movie he had seen when it had been brought in from "Earth", where most of Neopia's residents claimed to have come from and aired briefly in nearby theaters. In it, a policeman had adopted a creature that was reminiscent of a Warf called a "dog" that had utterly ransacked his house and ruined his life for the first half of the movie but then had ended up his best friend by the end of it. What had it been called? Turner And Hooch, he remembered. But at least THAT animal had served a purpose and had helped the policeman track down an evil force.
He sighed as he appraised the ruined kauvara sofa at roughly ten thousand neopoints on the sheet of paper and mentally calculated everything he had listed. The total came to just under fifty thousand neopoints to restock his food, replace his furniture, and have his carpet cleaned. He flinched as the doglefox scratched at the back door, deciding to try to convince him yet again to let it inside since its destructive spree.
"NO!" he yelled across the living room at it. There was a slight pause and then one of its trademarked ear-splitting yips. "You're staying outside." he growled acidly. It howled long and loudly, as though knowing that that was what it usually took to bring him. "SHUT UP!!!" he screamed at it, losing the thin leash on his temper. The doglefox, however, persisted with its noise until he thought he would go mad....and finally, he rose to his feet and stormed toward the glass sliding door. "I SAID, SHUT---" he began, meaning to pound a fist on the glass and rattle it to scare the petpet away from the patio, and instead heard a musical tinkling as it shattered around his fist, two of his knuckles splitting open on impact.
For a moment, there was no pain as warm blood began to trickle down his forearm and spatter the beige carpeting and then, with almost heart-stopping force, it hit, making him grit his teeth and double over as he clutched his wounded hand. The doglefox squealed in fright, galloping quickly across the yard and cowering in the pet house that, up until that moment, had remained unused. He remained immobile for a moment, the pain in his fist not allowing him to move or even think....and then slowly, he began to come back to his senses as he looked at the shards of broken glass littering the patio and carpet....and then at his wounded hand.
Wincing in disgust, he carefully dislodged a small splinter of glass from where it had buried itself in his skin and flexed his fingers. The cuts, though they were bleeding profusely, didn't look very deep and were far from serious....though they were certainly enough of to remind him of how his temper easily got away from him sometimes.
It occurred to him that the glass door was likely going to cost more to replace than any of the damage the doglefox had done and strangely, it struck him as funny as he snickered dryly for a moment. The irony was so thick in the air, he could feel it pressing on him as he picked himself up and ventured into the kitchen, cracking the tap and running cold water over his hand. As the spilled blood washed away, he confirmed his notion that the cuts were not at all serious and only looked ugly. It could have been worse though...a few more centimeters to the right and he might have hit an artery.
The idea made him sick as he turned the water off and tore a paper towel off of the roll, patting the sliced flesh dry and wondering if he had any bandages in his medicine cabinet. Knowing his luck, likely not....and he didn't much relish the idea of walking through Neopia Central bleeding all over himself to buy some from the pharmacy. They'd likely wonder if he had started butchering pets in his home instead of just taking them away. The idea brought another burst of laughter into his throat which he bit off abruptly.
Deciding to at least check, he went into the bathroom and opened the mirrored cabinet, confirming his suspicion that yes, he had no bandages....so much for a doctor always being prepared, he thought sourly as he returned to the kitchen, selecting a clean dish towel off of the drying rack and wrapping it around his hand, tying a clumsy one-handed knot and cinching it with his teeth. It would have to work, he decided.
As he ventured back into the living room, kneeling to carefully start picking the glass shards up and group them into a pile so they'd be easier to clean up, the doglefox poked its head cautiously out of where it had been cowering in its pet house. Its owner hadn't come out of the house to wrestle him out of hiding....that had been good, but unexpected. What was going on? From where it hid, it could see the yellow techo kneeling through the jagged mouth of broken glass his fist had made in the door.
Plucking up its courage, it ventured closer....
Dr. Death heard the faint rustling of grass as the doglefox edged cautiously toward him. Still angry with the animal, he didn't bother acknowledging its presense as he carefully untangled a smaller piece of glass from the carpet and set it on the pile. There was the soft patter of the doglefox's paws on the patio and then a small shadow fell over him.
"Wruff." the animal vocalized, announcing its presense. The techo still refused to look at the petpet, feeling his rage rising again. First thing in the morning, he would find Karma and give the creature back. He was tired of dealing with its trouble and.....his thought trailed off as his mind conjoured up the hundreds of excuses he had heard daily when people came to the pound to abandon, all of them revolving around the fact that since they couldn't deal with the pet, they were dumping it on someone else.
Well, this was different, he tried to tell himself. But was it really? No. It wasn't at all. In fact, he wondered if his blatant mistreatment of the doglefox in its time with him had made him even worse than some of the people he had come to resent for dropping their pets on him. It was a humbling thought that made his anger significantly diffuse itself as he continued to gather up the glass, still not looking at the petpet. He heard the petpet pad around to his other side, and then fall silent. There was silence and then a tugging sensation on the hem of his shirt.
"Haven't you done enough to me today?" he asked the small animal contemptiously. The doglefox whimpered, releasing his shirt from its jaws and trotting around to his side, watching him as he cleaned up the mess he had made. Dr. Death mulled his situation over in his head as he did so. He supposed, if need be, he could always build an enclosure for the doglefox when he wasn't around to keep an eye on it since it seemed simply dropping the animal was going to leave him with a conscience problem.
There was a warm sensation on his wrist, just below the bandage as he looked down to see the doglefox whining and washing its small tongue over his fingers, looking up hopefully as it did so. He paused, fighting to hold onto his anger....he didn't want to give in so easily after all that had happened....yet.....
He dropped what he was doing and picked up the animal, holding it out in front of himself. The doglefox's back legs kicked at the empty air a moment as it eyed him warily. "You are a lot more trouble than you're worth." he informed the doglefox. It stared at him a moment and then leaned forward, its tongue lapping at the air in a vain attempt to lick his nose. A smile pulled at the corners of his mouth, threatening to break his angry demeanor for a moment.
"Now you listen to me," he told the doglefox sternly. "If you're going to live here, there are going to be rules. No more late-night barking, no more destroying my house, and no more driving me crazy. Is that understood?" The doglefox blinked its black button eyes, obviously not comprehending a word he had said. "What am I talking to you for?" he sighed, shaking his head as he set the animal down again and continued to clean up the glass.
After a few moments, when he was fairly sure he had gotten everything out of the carpet, he went about gathering it up in the last garbage bag he had, carefully settling the larger shards in the bottom so the thin plastic wouldn't be as likely to rip when he picked it up and soon it had been left out on the curb with the rest of the destruction.
Exhausted, he slumped into his living room chair as his mind churned, trying to decide what he was going to do. He had the money in his bank account to deal with the damage, but it would take most of his funds to do it. And what if the doglefox did it again in a week or so? As if on cue, the petpet dove into his lap, placing its paws on his chest and licking at his face. Unconsciously, he brought his unbandaged hand up and scratched the small animal between the ears, his expression or posture never changing.
"Well, you knew enough to wreck the house....mind telling me how we're going to fix it?" he asked idly. The doglefox didn't answer, directing its attention to a fly that had made its way into the house. As it buzzed over his head, the small animal made a snatch at the air, his sharp teeth closing with a snap on the tiny insect. "Snap, hmm?" Dr. Death muttered. "Alright...its better than calling you some of the names that have crossed my mind earlier...." The doglefox wagged its tail, yawning hugely...as it did so, the fly buzzed out of its jaws and flew quickly away.
Dr. Death bit his lip and then chuckled at the petpet's misfortune as it wondered where its captive had gotten to. He felt the last of his resentment for the doglefox wither and die as he looked at it. Maybe Karma had assumed right when she had brought the creature into his life. It had been so long since he'd cared for a petpet of any sort that he'd almost forgotten how. "Well, Snap, do you care to go grocery shopping with me?" he asked his pet, standing and carrying the doglefox across the room as he unhooked a black windbreaker from where it hung on the hook behind his front door and put it on, tucking Snap inside of it as he zipped it up halfway. The doglefox wriggled and then poked his head out the top, wagging its tail and obviously pleased with its new perch as the doctor checked his pockets to make sure he had his keys and checkbook before heading out, locking the door behind him.
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"Can we get this?" Yahoo asked, tugging a nearly-transparent blue/white box off of the shelf. Karma read the letters imprinted on the front as "Crystal Crunch".
"How much is it?" she asked as the cybunny searched for the price tag.
"Umm....five hundred neopoints?" he asked, looking hopeful.
"Put it back." she smirked. "We can't splurge quite THAT much yet."
"Hmph..." Yahoo grumbled, stuffing the Crystal Crunch back on the shelf as he eyed the contents of their shopping basket. Wheat Flakes, five tins of olives, several cans of baked beans, and two fresh baggusses. Yuck...how boring.
"How about that then?" he asked, pointing at a box of chocolate moehogs nearby. "Those're only twenty-five neopoints." Karma hesitated and then sighed, pulling the box of treats off of the shelf and dropping them into the basket. "YESSS!!!" the cybunny cheered, punching the air.
"Oh come on, is the food I'm getting REALLY that bad?" the frog asked her pet. Yahoo, instead of answering, feigned gagging in the middle of the aisle, rolling over and kicking his feet into the air. "Yahoo, people are staring." she informed him indulgently as the cybunny hopped to his feet and followed at the side of the cart once again. "I think maybe I'll see what we can find in the soda section and then we'll be done. Sound good?" she asked her pet.
"I guess so." he shrugged, looking about the isle for other things he might be able to persuade her to buy. "Urgh....don't look now, but your boyfriend's here."
"Huh?" Karma asked, not quite hearing what he had said as she turned her head....and then she saw what Yahoo had seen. Dr. Death was standing near the fruit counter, reading the back of a box of juppie mix, not in his normal pound uniform....probably why she had missed him. From where she stood, she could see the doglefox she had given him earlier, poking out of the top of his jacket, and excitedly sniffing the air, taking in the plethora of sights and sounds around him.
"Well?" the cybunny asked.
"Well what?" Karma inquired.
"Go on!" he urged, giving her legs a shove.
"No, he's shopping. Let's leave him alone." she said quickly.
"Don't be such a flightning bug." Yahoo teased. "What's the worst that could happen?"
"He could tell me to leave him the hell alone..." Karma replied.
"Aright, true, but you'll never know until you ask." he said decisively. She groaned...and hated to admit it, but her pet was right.
"Okay, okay....but don't embarrass me in front of him, alright?"
"Can do easy." Yahoo assured her. Swallowing hard, Karma stepped away from her cart and walked up to the doctor.
The techo didn't notice her until she was nearly touching noses with him and jolted a bit when she spoke.
"Hi." she said faintly, nearly making him drop the box he had been holding.
"What do you want?" he asked.
"I just....I wondered how your doglefox was doing." she said awkwardly, forcing a smile. "I can leave if I'm bothering you." He regarded her quietly for a moment before setting the box in his cart.
"You're not bothering me." he told her quietly. "And as you can see, he's fine." he told her, gesturing to the cheeky petpet riding in his coat. Karma smiled a bit.
"Thought of a name?" she asked. He was silent a moment, his eyes wandering to a rack of puntec fruit beside him. Thinking he wasn't going to answer her, Karma prepared to change the subject.
"Snap." he informed her.
"It fits." she chuckled as the doglefox lulled his tongue out of his mouth and gave her a canine grin. "Well, I'll let you get back to what you were doing. I don't want to harrass." she added quickly, turning to walk away, her courage spent.
"He ransacked my house, you know..." the doctor called after her, making her freeze and look slowly over her shoulder.
"Did he?" she asked in a small, guilty voice.
"He did...and at the risk of sounding insane, its one of the best things that's happened to me in awhile. So consider the debt for saving your cybunny paid in full." he told her. He didn't smile, but the cruel edge that was usually in his eyes and voice wasn't there either. Ridiculously, she felt her face grow hot and knew she was blushing.
"Okay..." she muttered, turning again and this time walking away quickly. The doctor watched her go and when she had disappeared into a neighboring isle he returned his attention to his shopping.
"So what do you think, Snap?" he asked the petpet as he looked over what was in the cart.
"Myarf?"
"I think Rose might be right about that girl and how she feels." the techo muttered, no longer directly talking to the doglefox but talking more to himself. "....and how am I supposed to deal with that?" he added, giving the petpet a skritch. Snap gave no answer and only wagged his tail, leaning his head into the skritches. The doctor sighed and shook his head, frankly at a loss. There were precious few people he could go to for advice on matters such as these and he dared not bring it to Rose because she'd make every effort within her to try and shove him and Karma together even if it meant manually doing so with rope and paste.
He decided he and Snap had done enough shopping for one evening as they headed to the front to pay for their purchases.
TBC....