Saturday Morning
Dorian brought John his oatmeal and handed it to him on the couch. He told himself this was the only way to get nutritious foods into his human partner and that he wasn't some kind of advanced house butler. John fumbled for the bowl without looking and Dorian had to guide it into his distracted hands.
"What are you watching?" Dorian asked, sitting down beside John and staring at the strange two-dimensional cartoon playing on the lightscreen.
"Looney Toons," John said, spooning a heap of oatmeal in his mouth. He frowned and got up, "Uhg, Dee, this needs sugar."
Dorian opened his mouth to protest but waved him off, watching as John spooned a half-a-cup of brown sugar into his cup of oatmeal, rendering the dish pointless. Instead of pointing it out, he resolved to look up Looney Toons.
"John, this cartoon is from nearly sixty years before you were born. It is over 100 years old."
"So?" John asked, stepping over the back of the couch and plopping down. He shoveled a pile of sugary goop into his mouth.
"I knew you were old fashioned," Dorian said, his eyes on the screen still. He watched a speech-impaired hunter shove a rifle up under a wise-cracking rabbit's chin. The rabbit unflinchingly explained that it was duck-hunting season, not rabbit, successfully convincing the man with the gun to hunt his friend instead.
John laughed as the hunter fired at the duck, forcing his bill to rotate around his head illogically. Dorian furrowed his brow. "Surely this wasn't meant for children."
"Course it was," John said, tearing his eyes off the screen to give Dorian a look.
"This is not teaching adequate gun safety," Dorian said, dismayed, "That duck would be dead. And by the way he's holding it, I suspect that little hunter doesn't have a license and hasn't taken any safety courses. He's in the woods so he should also be wearing something dayglo orange for his own safety."
John gave Dorian a deadpan look, smeared milk off his chin with his sleeve and shook his head, "You're missing the point, captain buzzkill." He gestured to the television, "It's a comedy!"
"Guns aren't funny, John!" Dorian said, "Children need to know that when you shoot someone, their face doesn't spin around and then magically get fixed. They die!"
"Look," John said, his mouth full, "I grew up watching this on Saturday mornings with my old man and you don't see me running around waving guns where I shouldn't be. You don't see me shooting things left and right."
Dorian stared at him, his eyebrow cocked. "Really, John?"
John set his empty bowl down on the coffee table with a thunk, the spoon rattling noisily. He gave Dorian a baleful look.
Dorian laughed and pulled at John's arm, drawing him close on the couch. "At least now I know where you got it from. Silly, old cartoons with your dad." He planted a kiss in John's messy, bedhead hair.
John smiled despite himself and relaxed back against Dorian's chest as the next cartoon started. A large android hand smoothed over John's chest until John caught it and laced their fingers.
The DRN thought it was a nice cartoon until the coyote received a box in the mail full of explosives. "If he can order explosives, why doesn't he order some food?" Dorian asked, annoyed, "And that coyote should have been dead ten times by now." and, "The roadrunner doesn't look like it has a lot of meat on it anyhow."
"It's a matter of pride," John said, rolling his shoulders back against Dorian's chestplate.
Dorian shook his head, another bad example for children. Another lesson John should have learned as a child. He'd yet to meet a man with more foolish pride than his sweetheart.
As if reading his thoughts, John sent his elbow back, slamming into Dorian's side. It didn't hurt but it did make Dorian think about the fact that John so often resorted to violence.
John sat up and pawed for the remote. He wanted to change the channel before Dorian could ruin Foghorn Leghorn, too. He turned the TV off, the lightscreen disappeared.
"Hey," Dorian said, "I want to watch."
"No way," John said, "You don't appreciate it."
Dorian tried to snatch the remote but John bolted to his feet and held it aloft. A curvy grin on his face.
"We're missing it," Dorian complained.
John dropped the remote down the front of his pants. Dorian smiled, his mind shifting gears. He got to his feet slowly, like a cat stalking its prey.
"Meep meep," John said and took off down the hall.
