fandomtownies | Furnado Animal Shelter, Tuesday

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Furnado Animal Shelter, Tuesday

Perhaps unsurprisingly, Zack was dealing with the weird body-shift over weekend in his usual way: Pretend nothing had happened, everything was fine come hell or high water, and grin until people thought he was a maniac.

Only now he had another weapon in his arsenal.

Puppies.

So he'd taken a few puppy playpens out and fastened them together, and had monopolized a good chunk of the space directly outside the front of the store. Then, one by one, he'd relocated about a dozen puppies of every shape and size to the little outdoor enclosure, and had set up a sign.

Welcome to Furnado!
In Need of Some Puppy Therapy?
Feel Free to Stop By And Enjoy the Petting Zoo!

Okay, so it wasn't really a zoo. But he suspected anybody who needed puppy therapy would be happy to overlook that. After all... puppies!

[OOC: Open for all your puppy therapy needs! Or your pet supply needs. Or kittens, if you're a cat person. We don't judge.]

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Anders was in the running for 'Biggest Cat Person Who Ever Cat Personed,' but even he couldn't resist a petting zoo full of roly-poly puppies. He first paused on the sidewalk to watch them, then gave up dignity and knelt on the sidewalk beside the animals.

"You're so cute that you almost make me wish I wanted a dog," he told a little white-haired terrier who tripped over to sniff at his offered hand. "Not quite, but it's close."

"I promise this wasn't meant as a trap to get people to want to adopt," Zack offered, from where he was supervising the puppy playtime not too far off. "... But it would be a great bonus if that actually worked. Hi!"

"Hi," Anders said, smiling up at the supervisor. "I already have two cats in a dorm room, but these guys make me wish I had a bigger place."

He looked at the white terrier again. "Hmm. Maybe Lachlan and Blondie wouldn't mind a roommate..."

They would. They so would.

"Maybe it would be a good idea to bring them over to see how they'd get along with a dog first," Zack suggested, grinning broadly. "They might end up making up your mind for you."

... For better or worse.

"Probably by yowling at the top of their lungs," Anders agreed, with a wince and a nod. "Though I'd hope they're polite enough to keep their claws sheathed."

He smiled over at Zack. "I was just here to top off the catnip supply, but ... puppies are hard to resist."

"There are kittens inside, too," Zack offered, because he was basically the Most Unhelpful. "In case you haven't been tempted enough today."

The kittens were just way more likely to scale the baby gate in a bid for freedom than the dogs were, so they got to stay indoors.

"Or we can just top up your catnip supply. No temptation necessary."

"They probably appreciate visitors, don't they?" Anders asked, as he rose from the ground with a final scritch for the terrier. "I would, if I was a kitten in a shelter. Even if it didn't mean getting a new home."

"Yeah," Zack agreed, giving a little nod of his head as his smile went slightly strained. "Captivity stinks."

A lot.

Gods, did it ever.

"But they do love visitors. People who'll dangle string or just scratch them behind the ears for a while. I try to do what I can, but I'm just one Zack and I only have two hands."

"You're not wrong about that," Anders said, more easy about it than he felt, as he went to ward the store door.

He suspected some personal experience was behind Zack's strained smile, but it was a bit early in their acquaintance to ask. "I may only be one Anders with two hands, but that's still doubling your efforts."

"Well, then, one Anders with two hands," Zack said, his smile slipping back into something much more comfortable as he headed for the door as well, tapping out with one of the members of the vet staff for puppy supervision duty, "we're definitely going to have to introduce you to the kittens. Even if the two you already have aren't super keen on the idea of you bringing home new roommates, you're totally welcome to stop by to play with these ones any time."

You know, for the good of the kittens.

"I might do that," Anders said. "I have spare time, you have cats ... really, it's only sensible."

He glanced around the shelter briefly before heading back toward the kitten wall.

"I mean, it's basically charity work," Zack agreed, ambling along behind. "You're doing it for the kittens, after all."

Who could say no to logic like that?

"That's me, always doing good deeds," Anders confirmed. "Especially good deeds that have kittens."

He paused by the cages, waiting for Zack to let a kitten out. "Who do you think I should start with?"

"I guess that depends on if you want someone to wrestle with, or cuddle," Zack replied, opening a cage with a litter of kittens in it, and then reaching in to scratch one of the sleepy ones behind one ear. "Some of them are definitely scrappers."

He said that approvingly. Zack liked it when the little guy fought hardest.

"It has to be a scrapper," Anders nodded. "Help me keep my reflexes sharp, all of that."

"Well, then you definitely want Bonecrusher," Zack decided, scooping up a little tuxedo kitten who was roughhousing with one of his siblings. "He can chase a string or something around for a bit, and his sister can take a break for a while."

He held the tiny ball of fluff out for Anders.

"Sound good?"

Anders accepted the little kitten with a slightly puzzled smirk. "You named him bonecrusher," he said, and scrutinized the kitten's wee face for clues as to why.

Bonecrusher yawned.

"He has great aspirations," Zack explained, grinning faintly. "And I think he finds it more flattering than any of the dogs' names."

Which so far were variations on 'Mr. Wigglesworth' and 'Madame McBarkyface.'

"I can see that," Anders said gravely, as Bonecrusher swatted at a loose thread on his shirt. He sank to the floor cross-legged, still holding the kitten. "But now I have to ask what the dogs are named."

"Well," Zack said, ticking off finger by finger as he went through the list. "There's Percival Puppypants, Sir Tattletail Sneezebean, Spotty Zuckerbarker..."

It was a terrible combination of Zack being bored, Zack having a lot of animals to name, and Zack just straight-up being bad at naming things.

"Mister Chubbybuns..."

Anders laughed. he thought Zack was fantastic at naming things, which may have said more about Anders than Zack's actual skill.

"I love names like that. I always wanted to name a cat Ser Pounce-a-Lot," he confided. "Then I got Lachlan and he wasn't a pouncer, and my roommate named Blondie. But someday."

"Someday," Zack agreed, grinning. "If you like, next time somebody drops off a litter, I can let you know and you can come in and help name them. There's no guarantee that whoever adopts them is going to keep that name, but that makes it even more neat when they do."

Anders was a bit distracted for a moment, as Bonecrusher had climbed up his shoulder and was batting at his ponytail. It tickled. "Fiend," he told the cat, before turning back to Zach. "Are you serious? Because that would be my favorite job ever."

"Who wouldn't want to be official kitten namer, right?" Zack gave Anders an easy little smile. "I mean, I'm hiring for actual jobs besides, but if all you have time for around school or whatever is coming in now and again to play with the kittens and name them from time to time, that'd actually be great."

Because the kittens were clearly hurting for people to cuddle them, right?

"I'd love that," Anders said sincerely. "And I'll probably be looking for a job after graduation. I'm in no hurry to get off the island."

He had the Magic Box, but that was only once a week. And there were no puppies there.

"You're graduating soon?" Zack turned a curious look toward Anders before scooping out the other kitten, the one that Bonecrusher had been chewing on before Zack had scooped him away. "Well, then you can basically pick your shift, if you want one. I mean, I work Tuesdays, but even that can change. This... is kind of all I do, these days."

It was weird, and it left him twitchy, but at least he wasn't running through the woods dragging a comatose infantryman around while fighting off monsters and the planet's strongest military force.

Also, puppies.

"I'd love one," Anders said. He hadn't walked in expecting a new job, but it was hard to think of a reason to turn one down. Especially not when he had a Bonecrusher happily wrestling his fingers. "Wednesday? I could work Wednesdays. All I have after graduation is the magic shop on Sundays."

"Then Wednesday is yours," Zack replied lightly, setting the kitten he'd picked up on his shoulder. She perched there easily enough; it wasn't exactly a narrow shoulder. "And if you end up needing to change that for whatever reason, just come grab me on a Tuesday or leave me a note or whatever. Easy."

"Of course," Anders nodded, suddenly serious. "Is next week all right to start?"

"Next week to start is great," Zack agreed with a little grin. "I can leave some notes for you about how we handle the stock and the adoption process, all the important stuff. And if I'm not around to ask questions, usually there's a vet on shift, too, since not every animal that shows up here is necessarily in great shape, you know?"

It was, after all, a shelter. And the island didn't seem to have a vet clinic elsewhere anyway. Or at least none that Zack had noticed.

"Oh, and mind the gerbil in the cage by the counter. For some reason, he makes people kind of uneasy." Zack glanced toward Mr. Winkles' cage, and then shrugged. "I guess maybe it's because he had beady little eyes or something."

Or because Mr. Winkles was a murderous hell rodent bent on world domination, if not for the cage and, occasionally, the indignity of the hamster ball.

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Furnado Animal Shelter, Tuesday

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