Pets

Author: Dark Star

Email: eternity_ds@hotmail.com

Websites: Dark Star's site

Summary: Well, we think it’s okay to keep pets – so why shouldn’t something else do it too?

Disclaimer: Joss Whedon is creator and owner of all things Angel

Rating: Vaguely naughty. 13 +

Warning: This is seriously silly…

Pairing: B/A

Category: Humour

*

“Is that a new pet, Marl?”

Marl placed the box on the table, and carefully pulled open the lid. Flak looked inside; the small creature lay stretched out on the floor, tapes binding it to keep it safe for transit.

“It’s very small,” Flak said, doubtfully. “Is it a child?”

“I don’t think so,” Marl replied. “I think it’s a female – look, it has two fleshy …” he winced as his companion thrust a finger at the creature.

“Ow!”

“Sorry,” Marl apologised. “She doesn’t like to be prodded.”

“Well,” Flak grumbled, “It isn’t very polite.”

“No,” Marl agreed, opening up the cage in readiness for its new occupant. “She is a bit aggressive.” He got out his long tweezers and plucked her from the box, before carefully putting her on the bottom of the cage. Flak held her still with a second pair, and Marl carefully snipped off the tapes. The creature started squeaking.

Worried he was frightening her, Marl speeded up and removed his tweezers from the cage. Flak followed, but the little creature moved incredibly fast, scrambling up the tweezers to get out of the cage. Alarmed, Marl smacked it and she fell backwards with a thump. The cage was duly locked and they stared at it in curiosity. “Is it all right?”

The female scrambled up and waved her arms at them, squeaking furiously.

“I think so.”

The female then began to look round her new home. Marl was very proud of his cage. He had never kept a human before, but he had done a lot of reading, and had tried to furnish it very nicely. There was a pretty exercise wheel and he had even got a very upmarket chemical toilet and washing area for her, and not a litter tray, as most keepers used. The floor was soft carpeted, and it had a nice sleeping area, complete with a soft cloth to drape over the top. It was to this that the female made her way, and she pulled the cloth from the bed.

“What’s it doing?” Flak asked, puzzled. The creature was winding the cloth around her white and hairless body, and realisation dawned. “Oh!” said Marl. “She’s cold. I wonder if I should get her some adornments?”

“Adornments?”

“Yes,” Marl replied, trying to sound knowledgeable, when in fact he had only read about the upkeep of humans that afternoon. “They like to add cloth adornments to keep out the cold.”

The female then went exploring her new home, pulling and pushing at anything that looked like a way out. Marl had heard that humans were really good at getting out of things, but he hadn’t expected them to be so fast or strong. Finally, the female gave up, and they left her to settle in.

Over the next week, Marl experimented with his new pet. She loved the wheel, and he was very surprised at how fast she could make it go. He bought some colourful adornments for her, and although some of them looked like a big sack on her, she was able to tie knots in some of them to keep them up. He very soon learnt to buy little things to adorn her with, and it seemed to please her. He tried out all kinds of food for her, and sometimes she did odd things with it, like taking it to the wash area to clean it. She liked the fresh fruit and vegetables best, and he occasionally tried some of the commercial treats, too. Her favourite was a very rich little bar made from cocoa beans, and she always made a nice little happy squeak when she received one. He liked her little squeak and so gave her lots of them, until oddly, she started refusing them and patting her bottom. He decided they were giving her a tummy upset, and stopped them for a while. She had also got a bit bigger and he hoped that she might be having babies. But nothing happened, except that her wheel got used more than normal, and she got smaller again, so maybe it was something that humans did every so often. His friend Mayla had a pet that was enormous and liked huge piles of food, so it was possible that humans just came in a variety of different shapes and temperaments.

But the baby thing started him thinking about a mate for her, and he began to look around for one. He bought a nice little blonde male that looked a bit like her, and popped him in the cage. He sat back and waited for them to mate. And waited. But nothing happened, and he was confused. So he decided to just leave her be, and observe more of her strange little ways.

She hated having him clean the cage out, and there was a terrible scene every time he tried. One day, he accidentally left the cleaning bits in the cage and she did it herself, so that was kind of cool. After that, he left the cleaning bits in the cage and she did lots of cleaning, and she seemed happier after that. He discovered that if he forgot to give her cleaning equipment, or food, she'd rattle the cage and squeak loudly at him until she got what she wanted. He found it very endearing, because she never seemed the least bit scared of him even though she was so tiny.

He then read an article that said that humans like to choose their mates, so Marl returned the male to the shop, and went to see a human breeder that he knew. He borrowed several, and tried each one in turn. All of them were rejected, and so he asked the breeder what he could do.

The breeder hired out his stud human, at great cost, and said he was very good at making the females have sex. Surely, Marl thought, she would like a male that had mated with over two hundred females?

She didn’t. The male was very aggressive, and tried to force her to mate with him. Marl knew what was going to happen but he couldn’t get the stud out fast enough. The poor thing was whimpering pitifully when he finally dragged him out of the cage. He studied the human male in alarm; the breeder was going to make him pay for the stud’s vet’s bills, he was pretty certain of it.

But he was upset, because his human seemed to be upset, too. She was making a strange noise and her face was wet. Cautiously, he rubbed her back with his finger; she now allowed him to touch her, as long as he didn’t make any sudden movements or attempt to pick her up. Maybe she just didn’t want to have any babies, and he was rather fond of her, so he decided to give up and not try again.

Then one day, Flak arrived with a box. “Present for you,” he said.

He opened the box and found an adorned human male inside. “She won’t like him,” he commented.

“Well, give it a try. He was really cheap.”

“Cheap?” Marl stared at him suspiciously. “What's wrong with it? Is it damaged?”

“It’s shy.” Flak replied. “It won’t come out in the daytime, so nobody can see it to buy. It looks in reasonable condition, and it’s quite large for a human.”

So the large and shy human was put in the cage with the female. Nobody moved, until the female said, very quietly, “Squeak.” The male then said, “Squeak.”

They moved toward each other, and then they were rubbing against each other. Well, this was promising. She hadn’t let the others get anywhere near her. Then she started making that nice little sound she did when he gave her the cocoa bars, and he knew that she liked the other human.

Marl went to bed very happy, dreaming of pretty little blonde babies. But they didn’t seem to be in any hurry to mate, and the male was acting very strangely. Every day he would go and hide in the darkened sleeping area, and he didn’t seem to want to eat anything. Maybe that was why the female didn’t want to mate with him – she could tell he was ill.

He tried to tempt the male with everything from cocoa bars to nice big plates of vegetables, but he still refused to eat, and actually began to look very ill. He began pushing the female away, too, and Marl found that curious. Maybe he should take it to the vet?

Then one day he was watching them, when the female suddenly stripped off her chest adornment. Oh! Maybe it had been some kind of mating ritual? The male tried to push her away, but she wouldn’t allow him to, and he abruptly pushed her round to lay her on the bed. Marl was very excited. Finally! A mating!

The male had her pinned down by laying on top of her, and appeared to be kissing her neck. They were both making very odd noises, which Marl supposed to be mating noises. She seemed to like it – she was making no attempt to push him off. Then the male moved away, and Marl felt vaguely disappointed. Was that it? No wonder the female hadn’t been all that interested with the other humans, if that was all a mating entailed. But no – it wasn’t over. The male pulled the female to him, and appeared to be fumbling under the adornment over her legs; she was making some very… intense noises, and wailing a lot, but then she lay quiet. They both seemed very happy, and she didn’t seem to mind that he'd kissed her so hard that her neck was bleeding.

The male looked much healthier after the mating, and it made Marl smile to see them so happy together. He had grown very fond of them in the last few months.

Then one day, he went down to the cage to feed them. The cage appeared to be empty, and when he had a proper look – he found that there was a hole in the cage behind the sleeping area, and because he never went into the cage to clean, he hadn’t seen them working on it.

Sadly, Marl cleared away the cage and all the human paraphernalia. He was going to miss his little blonde human and her large, dark mate.

End.

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