Requested by and dedicated to Tolkienite3791

~ The Pleasantness Of Pets ~

"Nikki, come here! Look, these are so cute!"

Nikki walked over with a lazy grin on his face. "Look at what?"

I pointed to the little birds sitting in the glass cage.

"Parakeets?"

"Yeah. Let's get one."

"I thought we came here for fish."

"Well, now I want a parakeet."

"So far," Nikki sighed, "we're getting seafood, rats, those lizards, and now it's birds. What's next?"

"Okay, first of all, don't call them that. They're fish, hamsters, and bearded dragons."

"And these ugly little birds."

I hit him on the shoulder. "They're not ugly!"

He laughed and leaned closer to the glass. "Yeah, they are. Look at 'em. All green and yellow."

"Most of them have black, too, and some have blue, so you can't say anything about that."

"They're still ugly. Those tiny beaks couldn't break through a single seed."

"Shut up, Nikki!" I laughed. I knew he didn't mean any of that; in fact, that was his way of saying he though the birds were cute.

It was Saturday, and we were at the pet store to pick out fish for the new apartment we'd decided to move into together. However, I had quickly become enamored with several of the other small creatures, and had talked Nikki into taking them home as well. Say what he would, I knew he liked them too.

We ended up getting all the pets I'd said I wanted to get. Of course, Nikki complained about that the entire time, but I was watching him closer than he thought I was. Whenever I walked a little ways from him, he would stare at the animals with a soft expression on his face, as though he felt affection for them. He even made a soft cooing sound at the birds that he must've thought I didn't notice (when the reality was: I did, and it melted my insides).

We got back to the apartment loaded down with tons of stuff for the pets. We both hated making two trips, but this time it was necessary. In fact, it was only thanks to Nikki's crazy determination that we didn't have to make three trips.

"That's all of it, right?" I asked when we put down the second haul.

"I sure hope so. No, yeah, it is," Nikki said, looking around at all of it. "Now we just set up their cages or whatever."

I nodded, quickly putting out the fishbowl so the fish would have a bit more space to swim. I filled it with water and added some of that solution, then put the fish in there.

"You name yours," Nikki said, "and I'll name mine."

We had agreed that the orange fish and the white fish were mine, while the black fish and white with orange patches fish were his.

"That's Kool," I said, pointing to the orange one, "and that's The Gang."

"Please, no," Nikki said, laughing. "I'll do anything."

I laughed as well and shook my head. "Nah, I'm kidding. The orange one will be Macaroni and the white one will be Sprinkle."

"Really?"

"Yeah, really, and you can't change my mind."

"Fine. Mine are Ew Number One and Ew Number Two."

"You better not be serious."

"No. The black one is Jack and the other is Rainy."

"Let me guess: after Jack Daniel's?"

"Uh-huh. Now come on, we have to name the rest."

After a while of tossing names back and forth, we finally decided on what we considered to be worthy names for all of them. At least, I did. Nikki named his bird Feathers, which I know he did because he couldn't think of anything else.

***

"That's it. I'm taking those damn birds back," Nikki said. We were laying back on the couch, watching some show on the television. The birds had been chirping nonstop for hours.

"You would never."

Nikki made a pained face. "No, I wouldn't. Doesn't mean they're not annoying, though."

"Hey, their chirping is cute. Now shut up, your talking is annoying. I might have to return you."

He gave a loud, long gasp. "You would never."

"I know," I said with a grin, "really though, it's just getting interesting."

I guess it wasn't all that interesting, though, because I ended up falling asleep and waking up a few hours later. Nikki was also sleeping, his arms wrapped around me. I couldn't help but stare at his sleeping face; he looked so peaceful with a little trace of a smile playing about his lips.

I slowly got up, trying not to move too much so he wouldn't wake up. That proved to be harder than I thought it would be, because what I initially perceived as a fairly loose hug was actually a pretty tight one. I managed to wriggle out, then went over to the hamsters to put some food in their dish. After that I sprinkled a bit of food into the fishbowl, then filled the birds' cup with seeds.

The instant I refilled the cup, the birds woke up and started chirping again. And came a yell from the couch:

"Damn birds!"

I turned just in time to witness Nikki kick one leg into the air before throwing himself off the couch and onto the floor.

"I'm sorry!" I broke into laughter, unable to contain it at the sight of Nikki's crazed expression. "I didn't think they'd start making noise-- but what the hell was that?"

"I have no idea," he said, also laughing. He got up and came over to me, still blinking the sleepiness away from his eyes.

After that, we ate a very late dinner, and then went off to bed again. I drifted off into a deep sleep, dreaming of Nikki and his antics.

The next day, Nikki and I went out to the shops (not the pet shop this time, but to see what was new in the world of fashion). We walked around block after block lined with rows of small stores, then into the bigger department stores.

Once we'd gotten bored with what we could call shopping, we decided to go for a walk in the park, seeing as it was a nice day. Nikki put his arm around my shoulder as we strolled through the park on the lanes.

It was nice; the atmosphere was quiet and peaceful, the silence only broken every now and then by Nikki making jokes and pointing funny things out to me.

It was during one of the silences, however, that I heard something worthy of investigating. It sounded like a crying puppy, and it was coming from behind a tangle of bushes.

"Did you hear that?" Nikki asked, stopping.

"Yeah," I said, walking over to the bush. "Come on."

He jogged over and pushed his way through the bush. Hidden underneath was exactly what I had guessed it was-- a puppy. Then I noticed something was very wrong there. It was tied to the bushes with a short rope, and was frantically trying to get away.

"Oh, shit..." Nikki said when he saw that. "Wait one moment, baby, I got you..."

He untied the rope, which had been almost impossibly knotted. He moved to pick it up, but it cowered away.

"Shh, it's okay. I'm not going to hurt you, I promise," he said to the puppy, speaking very softly. He reached out again and was able to take it into his arms.

"It's a girl." I looked around. "And she was obviously abandoned."

"Who would do that? I mean, are you fucking kidding me? She's just a baby, look how scared she is. What kind of sick, twisted fucker-bitch would just tie her there and leave her with barely any goddamn room to breathe?"

"I don't know. But calm down, she's okay now. We found her."

He looked down at the puppy in his hold and his expression softened.

"She's so cute. I really want to know who would abandon her like that. I guess I never will, though. Anyway, can we keep her?"

"Were you under the impression that we weren't going to?"

He flashed me a bright smile. "No, I just thought I would confirm it. But what should we name her?"

After a long argument that continued all throughout the walk home, we settled on the name Holly, after Hollywood. Nikki kept claiming he didn't really like it, but he had been the one who suggested it.

We ended that day the same way we did the day before, but this time there was a little puppy nestled on my lap.

"We have ourselves an entire family now," Nikki said. "Fish, birds, hamsters, and now a dog."

I nodded, staring down at Holly, who was barely keeping her eyes open. I looked back at Nikki, whose eyes were shifting back and forth from me to the puppy in my lap.

"I love you, Nikki," I said.

"And I love you," he said, giving me a little smile. I leaned over and kissed him, but before it could get to anything more than a light kiss he pulled away.

"Not in front of the baby, jeez."

I rolled my eyes before setting Holly on the floor. I lightly patted her rump to get her to trot to the kitchen, then turned back to him.

"Alright, now we can do whatever," Nikki said, shifting forward. And so we did.

***

I'm sooo sorry this one took forever to put up. I didn't have enough data to publish anything, so I had to wait until I got back home. I'm here now, though. I hope you like this one! It's not very full of action or anything but I think it was cute. Just imagine Nikki fawning over little animals... Right, until next time!