#he's trained! we go on walks and to the petstore and such

[inkskinned]

people have to make their own choices and make their own mistakes and you know that but you're on your third gin cocktail.

she's almost-angry while she talks. "he took the train with me. all the way home. it's an hour in the wrong direction." she's got a bright yellow raincoat and round glasses. she looks cute and thoughtful and like she reads books a lot. she's his type and you know that.

the bartender rolls her eyes and points to you. "he drove this one to her grandma's house. six hours both ways."

you were younger then, hadn't ever kissed a girl yet. were still saying "bicurious" because of your irish catholic family. it was so long ago skinny jeans were still socially acceptable.

and you'd met him, and he'd been perfect. his narrow face and dark hair and his wry self-deprecation. and - okay, yes, the fact he was a singer/songwriter was also hot. you liked the feeling of sundays with him, the two of you noodling through his new songs together while you slowly learned to play bass guitar. you liked writing his name on your converse. you liked his ironic "mom" tattoo and his fancy coffee obsession and his scrappy handwriting.

you didn't know, then, what kind of man he was. maybe he didn't either; he was young too. you say it into your earl-grey-gin-something. "he has... a playbook, i guess. the things he does... he does it with everyone."

she looks at you with wide, beautiful eyes. jesus christ, she's young. "we stood outside in the rain, just talking," she says. "i know that can't be fake. i have a ton of, like. examples here. he's a good guy. you should have seen him. i'm not, like, a complete idiot."

did you play defense attorney with him like this? did you bristle when others warned you about how quickly he leaves women?

you gnaw the thin black straw and stare at the other side of the building, where his band is setting up to play. you have no true rage against him, but it's not fun to watch him ruin other women. "did he get you a little stuffed animal yet?" yours had been a panda.

she stares at you and then nods, just once, stiffly.

you hold out your hand and start listing things, weighing them on your fingers. "did he tell you that he'd never seen someone like you, that you move like a dancer or something?" at her nod, you continue. "buys you ice cream and then drives up to the river to watch the stars? shows up at your place just because he missed your voice? takes you to the pet store to look at the fish?"

the bartender points at you. "don't forget he does that little dog game he does."

you close your eyes. you remember him in his stupid leather jacket, bouncing on his toes. he'd gotten the petstore clerk to allow him to handle a ferret. you had vibrated with joy, wrestling the noodle bodies from hand to hand. and then he'd said we're going to live together. we're going to get a big dog and a big lawn and -

"you get into a fake fight about what you'll name the dog," you monotone.

"chili," she says. she sets her jaw a little higher, and you catch a flash of muscle clenching. "we settled on chili. it's gonna be an irish setter."

the bartender snorts while she maneuvers deftly through making a batch of espresso martinis. "sounds about right. now i've got two rotties, but when that shit happened to me? we chose Portland. and we were gonna get a samoyed." she snorts again. "as if he could afford that grooming bill."

you had actually started that conversation in the pet store. you wanted a big, slobbery dog. a mutt, but a big mutt. something mastiff-like. something that you could walk alone at night with. your family has a tradition of "letting the dog name itself," where you'd write all the potential names on a piece of paper and then throw them. whatever the dog went to, it'd be the dog's name.

but he had said name it something girly since it's so big. he suggested Lavender or Pansy. at the time you'd thought it was funny and cut and sort of sweet. he wanted to pick up a dog from the ASPCA that weekend, he said. i'm gonna go get us Lavender. you hadn't learned yet that he would promise you a river but never even deliver a raindrop.

"it's like this every time, babe," the bartender says, not unkindly. "i'm sorry. i've seen too many like this, and you seem like a sweet kid."

the other woman bristles. "i'm not a kid. thanks for your advice. but." she stands up, slaps a ten down, stalks away.

the bartender looks at you and holds her hands up and shrugs. you shake your head and look down into the drink, stirring it idly.

"do you think he's written her the four lines yet?" the bartender asks, pushing a drink to someone.

you almost flinch, but don't. you'd been in the back shed, practicing together. he said he had a present for you - the beginnings of a new song. really just a couplet more than anything, barely more than 30 seconds. it should have made you feel glorious, feral, glowing.

but you had stood there, realizing you had books of songs about him, none of which he ever agreed to play. the song he'd written you had floated through the room and you felt strange and disconnected and insane all at once - it was such a vapid, stupid stanza he'd made. and then he said that terrible phrase - i love you babe.

and you had been suddenly both very out of your body and also very present, thinking: oh my god this guy is a buffoon and i'm wasting my time. the spiralbound notebook with pages of poems and lyrics and stories you'd written for him is now stashed in some rubbermaid. you'd wanted to burn it at first, but the effort had exhausted you.

the four lines of song are usually pretty banal - something about her eyes, something about her smile, something about how she's special. but they work. they always work, because people want to believe in the magical commodity of love - that it cannot be manufactured.

later in the night you watch that man get on stage and sing punk rock to a thinning crowd. he takes the time out of the setlist to try out a "new song" that goes out to his girl in the crowd, all of 30 seconds of music. he says he likes her eyes and her smile and she's special.

you think about stopping her physically. you think about showing her the group chat of exes in your phone. you think of how young she is - maybe 22? - and how you, at 22, would have told your current self fuck right off. you had believed it too, after all. people need to make their own choices. besides. maybe you're wrong. maybe this time it actually is that precious, starry, once-in-a-lifetime love.

you see her kiss him afterwards, her cheeks pink. it looks like a puppy being swallowed by a wolf. you have to check the floor to make sure no blood was spilled.

[mysterysolver]

FRIDAY THE 13TH POST BLACK CAT. meet the good Sir Bartholomew Bugbee, aka Bug 🐛 he is the very bestest boy and should be known by all.

[taehyungsgrowl]

omg imagine a fluff with duncan and y/n trying to adopt a dog— after Duncan just buys the whole petstore with toys etc for their sweet puPpy bc that’s cute but I don make the rules

sorry its taken me while to reply to this!

but since we were talking about Duncan spoiling reader earlier, why not extend it to his pet as well?

LIKE maybe he’s not even 100% sold on getting a dog. “Y/N.. they’re messy, they stink, and pee every where, shed like crazy. Nope. We’re not doing it.”

“Duncan, c’mon. We can get one that won’t shed and we’ll train it to go outside to pee. Please.”

And after weeks and weeks of begging, he’s finally cave.

Walking into the shelter (because y’all are getting a rescue #downwithunethicalbreeding) y’all would see a little pup who was hiding behind all his siblings, cowarding away, scared of everything - you knew you wanted that one. “Look Dunc, she’s scared.”

You had trouble getting her to come to you, even after you offered her treats. Just as you were about to give up and look for a different dog, Duncan said, “Here, let me try.” He kneeled down and started making kissy noises at her, showing her the treat.

Slowly and tentatively, the little pup scurried to Duncan and licked his hand before taking the treat. Even he couldn’t stop from smiling and rubbing the dogs head.

“I think she likes you!” You knelt down time take a closer look at it.

“Can you blame her?” He teased, making you roll your eyes.

When you finally got home with her, you couldn’t pry Duncan away from the little pup. He had it on his chest, gently petting it. He also played tug o war with one of the toys, rolling around on the floor.

The next day when you come back from work you’d find a table filled of pet supplies. Toys and treats and more. All for your new baby.

“And here I thought you didn’t want a dog,” you smirked, taking the pup from Duncan’s arms.

[blackwaterbubbles]

10 and 20 :)

10. Three of my old pets!My first pet was a peach faced lovebird named Emily. She was amazing, already tame when we got her, and so cuddly! Then my parents bought a parrotlet and PUT THEM IN THE SAME TINY CAGE. They both became horribly aggressive. You’d walk in the room and Emily would lunge at you from 10 feet away… the parrotlet became just as mean. It was like Emily was protecting him or something. So we had to give her away. I’ll never forgive my parents for how that whole thing went down.

My pug! I miss my pug. Her name was Raisin and I picked her out at a petstore when I was 9 years old. I thought she was the cutest fudging thing I’ve ever seen. She lived to be 13 and only died a few years ago. She was the type of dog that was perfectly trained, but would basically -decide- to obey or not. You could see it in her eyes, deciding a treat or to just keep doing what she wanted. And she was a great snuggler, too. I still miss her, and I’ve wanted another pug since we got her. But I know more about their messy genetics and I could never bring myself to get one.

My first betta, Violet. She’s my icon :)I had her for 3 years, I think. Because it was during college, she had been moved from a tank to a bowl to a vase, and back to a tank, etc. And moved from my moms house to mine, multiple times. It was clear she recognized ME, as she hardly ever reacted to my mom during the months she was there. I loved her more than anything, but I took crap care of her. I didn’t understand the cycle exactly. I had a filter but sometimes I used it, sometimes I didn’t. The bowl she was in was a 3 gallon, and the tank was a 10, but I would go a while without water changes. She was always healthy and perky I thought, but in hindsight, I can see the damage it did to her fins. The last months of her life, anything would constipate her. A single pellet would leave her bloated for a week!

One day, I was leaving for class and I stepped out my door. I glanced back at her, and walked up and told her I loved her and I’ll miss her. I just had a feeling it would be the last I saw her. And the by time I came home, she had passed.

20. What age would I allow my children to have their own pet?Probably an age where they can consistently pay for the correct needs. Honestly though, I’ll probably have so many animals, and I’ll just share them lol.

I had this one father at my petstore say he made his kid write an essay on the care requirements of both a hamster and a cornsnake. It helped him decide, and it proved to his parents he could care for it. He was like 8, and seriously knew everything. It was awesome