Furnado Animal Shelter, Tuesday

[puppy_fair]

Where was Zack?

Who could say, really? There were kittens and puppies, birds and fish and hamsters and rabbits. Up on the roof, as always, there were chickens. Heck, there was even a duck wandering around the floor today that somebody had brought in with a hurt wing, so the vet had splinted it and was keeping an eye on its recovery before seeing if it was okay to be set free.

But Zack?

... Well, if you looked really closely in the puppy playpen, one might catch glimpses of a grown man being smothered under dozing dogs of every shape and size, the surrounding area showing signs of well-used tennis balls and squeaky things and rope-tug toys.

What a way to go.

[OOC: Open!]

Comments

[howareyanow]

Look. Wayne had been told there was a shelter with puppies. The fact that he hadn't already been to this shelter with puppies despite having been here now for three and a half days so far showed that he had clearly put this off long enough. He did consider maybe spacing things out a bit more, what with how much free time he had now that he was here, but not even his first workshops could distract him from a shelter with puppies for too long.

When he got there, though, the only person he could see that could help him seemed a bit preoccupied with a duck at the moment. But he didn't exactly need help when it came to locating puppies, though, and they were right there and he figured he'd just go ahead and take the iniative to head over and pick up the first one that managed to get to the edge of the pen.

And in picking up that puppy, Wayne realized that there was a person in there, too.

...huh.

Well. Not the strangest thing he'd seen around here so far, after all. Wasn't no business of his. He had a puppy now, anyway, so he could ignore it easily enough. And, sure, he understood the appeal of just being surrounded by puppies, being surrounded by puppies would never not be an amazing experience, but fuck, there, bud. Clean it up. Sit up or something and have some fucking dignity about the whole thing.

[puppy_fair]

Nope. No dignity, only puppies.

But Zack did blink up as the pen was suddenly one puppy emptier, because yes, Zack noticed these things. The puppy pen had been scientifically assembled for the perfect puppy-to-Zack ratio, and now that ratio was one puppy off. And so he was blinking, and sitting up - with a few apologies to the puppies as he did so - and looking up at the boy who had picked up the aforementioned pup with a wry smile.

"Uh, hey. Sorry about that. Puppy swarm, you know how it is."

And if he didn't know how it was, boy, was he ever missing out.

[howareyanow]

"...can confirm," said Wayne, but it was a confirmation that came after a bit of a squinty-eyed-at-the-window moment, petting the puppy in his arms that was licking at his face and nuzzling a little, which made dealing with the degen in the puppy swarm a little easier to deal with. Having a pup in your arms sort of made everything easier to deal with, realleh.

He thought about saying more, to sort of explain what he was doing there just picking up puppies, but, honestly, if he was just there to pick up puppies when they had people practically rolling around in the pen, he figured he didn't have to explain fucking anything.

[puppy_fair]

Zack took another moment for himself, kind of carefully extracting himself from under a few more snoozy dogs, before standing, dusting a bit of errant hair from his clothe, and then giving the kid a sheepish smile.

"Can I help you with anything?"

[howareyanow]

Wayne didn't think he was the one in the room that needed the help, there, super chief.

He blinked a little at the window some more, scratching at the puppy's neck a bit.

"I was told," he said, "there were puppies at the shelter that might need some attention. So I'm here at the shelter, giving puppies some attention."

And what a good puppy he was, too. Yes he was, a good bo, such a good bo.

And a licky one.

Wayne didn't seem to mind.

[puppy_fair]

"They'll never complain about more company," Zack replied, smiling wryly as he made his way over to park behind the counter. Girl glanced up at him with perked ears and a soft 'whuff,' and he smiled and gave her a pat on the head. "And I'm pretty sure my turn with the puppies is over now, anyway. There are toys in the pen there, and we have treats if you want them."

[howareyanow]

The fact that Wayne's eyes shifted dully toward the pen to seek out where these treats and toys might be located was the only outward indication of the pure thrill of joy and excitement that went racing through him at this prospect. But so help him if that broad chest of his wasn't getting increasingly more warm and fuzzy right now.

He gave a nod, shifting to turn sharply to be facing the pen now and all the other puppies. There were a lot to choose from and to play with, and that was good, but this one had shown initiative, so this one was going to get a bit more time to really reward him for his alacrity and straight-to-it-tiveness.

He looked down at the dogs, who were looking up at him curiously, eagerly, because Zack was right, they would never complain about more company, especially new company at that.

"Snuggles first," he told the dogs sternly. "Then playtime. Then treats. In that order."

It was important to have a strict plan with puppies. Taught 'em discipline. And obedience.

[puppy_fair]

And Zack, for his part, just settled forward, leaning his elbows on the counter and grinning a little as he supervised this puppy playtime. He didn't think the kid was going to do anything to hurt those dogs, nah, because who in the world would hurt dogs? But it was kind of his job, and all.

"If you need anything," he said easily, "I'll be right here."

[howareyanow]

Wayne nodded again, almost all of his attention going into bouncing the dog in his arms a little and maybe muttering some very quiet affirmations about the state of his goodness and his bo-ness, before putting that one down, scratching behind his ears a little to say good-bye, and then picking up another one to pretty much do the same thing to.

And, eventually, he actually spoke to the other person there. "I don't suppose it'd be much of a problem if I were to stop in a bit here and there to say hello to the dogs, now, would it?"

It seemed fine, clearly, but he wanted to make sure.

Especially since Wayne would be doing this a lot, Zack.

A lot.

[puppy_fair]

"Nah," Zack replied, shaking his head. "So long as the shelter is open, the good boys are here to be played with." He gave Wayne an appraising look. "Or walked from time to time, if you feel up to the challenge."