Every step down the hall became heavier than the previous one, Eren’s mind racing as his anxiety continued to rise. His inner voices needling at his insecurities, “Picked a bad bunch, didn’t you.” “You couldn’t even make it twenty-four hours without a major issue.”.
Halfway to the door, Eren felt himself starting to lock up unable to push himself the last few steps. Mind running rampant, “You promised Bucky you would protect him, he probably hates you.” “Those little shitrats will need to be dealt with, the shelter will happily incinerate them.”
“Your therapist did say that they could be used other ways, imagine how much better a little righteous fury would make you feel.” Eren slumped next to the doorway, lightly sobbing, fully gripped in his panic attack.
A sound near the gate at the door draws Eren’s attention for a moment, pulling himself from his thoughts. Jasper asks, slight fear in his voice, “Daddeh, am dat yu? Jaspah need gib daddeh huggies tu take saddies away?”
Confused, Eren sits there in silence for a moment, collecting himself as he thinks, “You need to get control of yourself and of this situation. You don’t know what is on the video yet and maybe this can be salvaged, he does sound genuinely concerned so maybe Jasper isn’t a lost cause.”
Trying to keep his voice an even tone, “Oh, I’m okay. I’ll be right back with breakfast.”, as he gets to his feet and moves back to the kitchen.
Taking a moment to slice the fruit, Eren then heads back down the hall with all the bowls on a tray. Instead of stopping at the saferoom, he keeps talking to place two of the bowls on the dresser in his room before opening the door across the hall and placing the bowls on the ground of an empty room with hardwood floors.
Eren opens the gate at the doorway and calls out, “Jasper, Slater, Breeze…come get breakfast over here.” The three colts quickly made their way across the hall, Lillian trailing behind wanting to follow.
Once the three colts are in the room they quickly go for the bowls as Eren carefully closes the door. Once he turns around he quickly scoops up a visibly confused Lillian. “You and Bucky can eat in my room. Let’s get you settled and then I’ll go get him.”
Sensing something off, Lillian asks, “Am daddeh otay?”
Settling her down as he puts a bowl in front of her, “I will be, I just want to make sure everyone is getting along.”, giving her a short scratch behind her ear before heading back into the saferoom.
Hearing only a soft sob coming from the castle, Eren approaches and drops down low to peek his head inside. “Hey, little buddy. You ok?”
Staying silent, Bucky shakes his head, recoiling back into the corner. He looks to Eren with pleading eyes and squeaks out, “Nu wan gib lickie-cleanies tu otheh fwuffies dat gib Bucky wowsests huwties befowe but nu wan maek daddeh saddies. Nu wan daddeh tu nu wuv Bucky.”
Eren firmly, yet trying to keep his voice gentle, “I don’t care what Jasper or the others say, I don’t want anyone to do that. I brought you all home so you could all be happy and loved as a family.”
Bucky looks up ever so slightly, “Weawwy?”
“Yes, really.” Eren says before Bucky launches himself forward doing his past to hug his daddy’s face, still sobbing heavily.
Flatly, “But I have to ask something important, you said that the fluffies hurt you before. I want you to tell me what happened.”
Bucky lets out an audible sigh before releasing the hug and plopping down on his rump, “Dose otheh fwuffies hewp da munstah fwuffy dat made sisses go huuuuhuuu foweveh sweepies.” looking down at the healing snitches at his crotch, “An dem da ones dat huwt mah speciaw wumps huuhuuuu.”
Reaching his arm in the best he can, Eren strokes Bucky trying to comfort him, “I know it was scary to see them again, I didn’t know. I’m not sure what I’m going to do with them yet but I promise I’ll keep them away from you and they will be punished.”
Slowly pulling back and freeing himself from the castle entrance, “You ready to get some breakfast? I’m sure Lillian is waiting for you.”
Bucky quietly nods as he tries to stop his tears, raising his front legs in an upsie pose and gripping Eren as tight of a hug as he can manage. After a few moments of letting Bucky hug away his sorrow Eren brings him to the bedroom and places the bowl and Bucky next to Lillian.
Eren spends a few minutes letting Lillian know some details to prevent her from worrying before standing up, “I’ll be back shortly, I need to go look at a few things and make some phone calls. I’ll leave the gate to the playroom open so you can play after you eat.”
As Eren steps into the hallway, he can hear some thumping against the door with the three colts, hearing them calling for him, “Daddeh! Daddeh hewp! Meanie doowsie nu wet fwuffies out!”. Taking a deep breath he ignores the cries and makes his way back to the living room.
Grabbing his phone, Eren sees the email from the shelter as he sits on the couch and opens up his laptop. Steeling himself, he opens up the attachment and sits in silence as he watches the security footage. After the third time he closes the laptop and calls the shelter back.
The three colts happily approach the bowls containing various new and tasty smell items and spare no time diving in face first, leaving them obvious to the door closing behind them.
As they enjoy themselves they occasionally lift their heads and offer “Fank yu”, “Dis am gud nummies”, and “Wuv nummies daddeh”.
After a few minutes Slater sits on his haunches and begins grooming himself before noticing the closed door and the lack of Eren’s presence. “Daddeh? Whewe am yu?”
Breeze and Jasper look up confused, “Daddeh…?”
Jasper steps to the door, pushing at it with a hoof, “Wat yu dummehs du?”
Tilting his head slightly, “Was jus nummin’ bweakfast nummies.”
“Weww, get oveh hewe dummehs, hewp smawtie open doowsie.” Jasper says beckoning the other two to his side before they attempt to push and pull the door to ill effect.
The phone rings as Julie looks over, seeing it is Eren calling back, and answers, “Mr. Franklin?”
There is a moment of silence on the line before Eren responds, “Yes, Ms. Julie. I watched the footage and I honestly don’t know what to say.”
“I know it has to be rough to see and we are beyond apologetic about all of this. We understand if you would like to return any and all of them, we promise a full refund. We want to help however we can.” Julie sullenly says.
Responding, Eren asks, “What happens to any of them if I bring them back?”
Taking a moment to think, Julie says, “Well, Bucky and Lillian still have a decent chance at being adopted. If we get their story out on our Fluffbook page they might have a chance of getting picked up together but there is no guarantee and there is no telling who might scoop them up first. Slater and Breeze might have a little harder time. They will need the right kind of owner to tend to both their wounds and any training to correct behavior. All this being said, their time available wouldn’t exactly be long before we have to…follow policy.”
Eren, “And Jasper?”
“He is a self proclaimed smartie and is showing all of the starting warning signs. He’ll have a small window for a possible abuser to take him, some smarties are unlucky enough for that, but most likely he will be quickly disposed of.” Julie speaks with little emotion.
Letting out a loud sigh before asking, “And is there no way to stop him from being a smartie?”
“Outside of some highly risky and expensive methods with extremely low results? No. Once they develop the smartie syndrome it doesn’t take long to end up something vile…wait, I remember reading something recently about smartie-friend training. Jasper is young enough that he might be a viable candidate.” Julie says as she shuffles some papers around and starts loudly typing away at her keyboard.
Curious, Eren wonders aloud, “Smartie…friend? Sounds a bit silly and I thought smarties are universally bad.”
Julie clicks several times with her mouse as she continues, “Inherently, no, but just like with people if given power without proper guidance it will normally end up in corruption. Often it is far too late to give the proper training and even then doesn’t always work. Most people have seen the damage a smartie can do and that is why they are normally just killed off, it isn’t worth the time and effort once it reaches a tipping one.”
Quickly continuing, Julie adds, “I just sent you the information I’m referencing, the work of Mr. Skia.”, pausing for a moment, “I’m sorry if I’m getting ahead of myself. We just don’t often even have people inquire about this.”
Letting out a forced, but light chuckle, “It is quite alright, while I’m upset about all of this happening I don’t want to see any of them needing to get put down if I can help it. I’ll look into it at least.”
Julie ends with “I just wanted to apologize again, this isn’t what a first time owner should be going through, but I also wanted to say thank you. Those fluffies have an opportunity with you that they wouldn’t have otherwise.”
Before hanging up on his end Eren says, “Thanks, I guess. I mean at this point what do I have to lose?”
Pretty much everything I was going for then 