- Six -
(Hanna is Not a Boy's Name/HiNaBN (c) Miss Tessa Stone - Fanfiction Text (c) L.Q. Coverdale)
(Content: Mentions of violence and language in the text as a whole; chapters may vary in amounts)
The lion poisson clawed unhappily at the edges of its tank. Its powerful tail thwacked to and fro, eyes hungrily watching as Worth bit into a tuna salad taco from a local seaside food stand. Veser was not amused - the poor thing looked like it really wanted a bite - but it had been agreed that no one was to hand feed the fish-cat. Ever. Especially since it had ripped open Hanna's entire thigh. The redhead was still trying to explain to his co-workers at the local Go-Mart that it was not urban exploration that had given him the injury.
Veser wanted to name the aquatic mishmash something cool, like "Ripper" or "King" or "Vlad the Thigh-Paler". (Hanna was not amused at the last one.) Yet, like with Hanna and Cornelius (as the investigator was calling his slightly-decayed friend now), Veser kept flipping back and forth from name to name. While he couldn't keep the lion poisson as a pet - not only did it look freaky, but Veser couldn't fit a fish tank that big in his dorm - he could at least give it some sort of identity. For all intents and purposes, all manner of dignity had been lost when it had been hit in the side by a wimpy tomboy wannabe, dragged by a child in a twenty-four-year old's body to a crackpot doctor's, stuffed inside a tank entirely too small for it, beaten over the nose with a trashy calendar and sedated repeatedly out of paranoia. (Seriously, how much morphine and, when Lamont was late in replacing it, Tylenol, could the thing take before it choked from overdose?)
"I think we sh'call t'e lil' mongrel 'Rex'," said Worth, snapping Veser out of the latter's train of thought. "He's like one o' them sea lion things y'see on a coat o' arms, don't ya think?"
Veser was tempted to make a joke about their thoughts crossing - namely, how long it would take for them to start hitting on the same chick - but he held his tongue. "Yeah, sorta."
"I mean, let's not let Hanna name the d-%& thing, fer Godssakes," said Worth. "O' all people, he'd name the friggin' nightmare 'Fluffy'. Why do they always try 'n' name 'em 'Fluffy', anyways ... ?"