The interior of the trunk was awfully cold by the time Roadside Assistance bothered to come and get Yeti’s new friend out of the ditch he’d spun into, but Yeti did not complain. He knew better than to talk inside the sorry box–he’d been taught much better than that as a calf. Still, he was mighty uncomfortable.
And it stank. Some time ago, the fluffalo just wasn’t able to hold his poopies anymore, and now the opposite side of the sorry box was coated in them. He sighed as he watched the vile mess congeal in the frosty temperature, udderly disappointed in himself. He would be even more so once the nice man opened the box and screamed at what he saw.
“So sowwy, nice mistuw,” Yeti mooed, head hung in shame. “Yeddeh nu mean to.”
The man was trembling with fury now, a fury he simply could not and would not contain. His morning alarm had been set to PM, making him late for an important meeting. Then, as he was rushing as quickly as he could in the unsafe conditions–fuck this job, honestly–he saw what he THOUGHT was a lost toddler in the middle of the street! He swerved to avoid the child and fell into a fucking ditch, damaging his baby’s rear bumper… and if THAT wasn’t undignified enough, he realized it was actually just some stupid ratpig! He could’ve run it the fuck over! Now, as the coup de grace of this horrible, awful day, his baby has frozen SHIT all over it. He had NO idea how he was going to clean it, but he knew EXACTLY what he was going to do to feel better about it. His chest heaved as he grasped the fluffalo by the scruff, digging his fingernails in just for spite. Using his and its weight for leverage, he slung it into the yawning darkness of his garage, the final resting place of many a fluffy, with every ounce of his might.
Yeti landed neatly on his hooves. It wasn’t a great throw.
While his gobsmacked new friend took a moment to process, the fluffalo took a moment of his own to appreciate his surroundings. The space held a kind of gloomy darkness that made it seem much larger, but the fluffalo was in no way eager to explore it. Dark stains splattered the stinking walls that smelled metallic and wrong. Nailed into them were rusted-over metal tools that glittered in the little light the painted-over windows permitted. Crunching under the fluffalo’s hooves was a filthy tarp that may have once been a color.
Yeti would have had something to say about the horrors surrounding him, but the man’s heavy footsteps thudded toward him from behind, wiping his mind blank with fear before the thought could be fully formulated.
“I’m gonna teach you a lesson today, boyo,” the not-so-nice mister growled, reaching down to grab Yeti by the scruff. With a strength fueled by rage, he lifted the creature up until it was forced to stand on its hind legs, pissing all over its snow-white fluff in terror. “You think you can run around like you own the fucking road? No more!”
In a sudden, brutal motion, an act of surprising strength for someone so heavily exerted by dragging an overweight fluffalo around all morning, the man slammed Yeti onto the workbench behind him. The fluffalo bellowed in surprise as it collapsed beneath his forcefully thrown bulk, dragging the enraged man down with him.
“S-So sowwy mistuw…” Yeti mooed pitifully under the man’s sweating form, trembling with fear. “Yeddeh nu mean to…” He had never in his life met someone so angry, and had no idea why or what to do about it–something told him that huggies weren’t really on the table right now.
With a snarl, the man rolled off the fat white pseudo-beast, leaping to his feet with a grunt. His chest rose and fell with each ragged breath, his eyes burning with a wild fury. He ripped tools off the wall with wild abandon, pelting the fluffalo’s soft fluffy bulk to the tune of its pained 'oof!'s. “Stop your goddamn whining!” he bellowed, his face contorted in a snarl of anger and frustration. He threw another tool, a heavy wrench that clanged loudly off Yeti’s soft horn upon impact, eliciting a pained ‘huuu’. “I oughta skin you alive!”
He snatched a pair of garden shears from the wall, bearing down on the cowering fluffalo with murderous intent. “Whaddya got to say now?” he demanded, holding the sharp gardening sheers menacingly above his head.
Yeti sniffled, withdrawing his big hoof from his face and peered up at the angry man through the long bangs of his white mane. “Yeddeh wub yu,” he choked, the fat tears pouring from his mane-smothered eyes staining his face-fluff a sickly off-white.
The man snorted derisively and brought the shears down on Yeti’s shoulder, intending to mutilate the pseudo-beast. Unfortunately–well, fortunately for Yeti–the shears were not particularly effective. The man had not cared to sharpen them. Until now, he had no need for sharp tools! Fluffies were not sturdy creatures. In the hands of a determined enough wielder, a dull butter knife could pillow one.
Well, Yeti was not a fluffy. He was a fluffalo, and a fat one at that. He had layers. The man’s dull and rusty garden shears were not prepared.
Yeti sniffed at the useless metal grinding painfully at his shoulder joint. “Wut mistuw doin’?” he asked, his voice tinged with the lingering sadness and fear of his brutal earlier punishment. “Is mistuw gibing Yeddeh owies?”
The man threw the garden shears against the wall, screaming in frustration. If his formidable shears weren’t enough to tear through the fluffalo’s bulk, it was unlikely that any of his other tools would be either. He slumped to the floor with his head in his hands, reeling from the throbbing migraine claiming his frontal lobe. He damaged his car, he might lose his job, and he couldn’t even fuck up a fluffy properly. This day… could not have gone worse.
He peered through his fingers as a heated weight draped itself across him. All he could see beyond the protective barrier of his hands was white.
“It otay, nice mistuw,” Yeti cooed, the babylike quality of his voice making the man cringe. “Yeddeh gib yu huggies. Aw bedduh now.”
The man groaned, feeling the fluffalo’s weight settle atop him. Great. Just great. Now he had a fat, furry ratpig sitting on top of him, cooing sweet nothings in his ear. He closed his eyes, trying to block out the sound of the stupid fluffy thing’s voice. “Just go away,” he muttered, his tone bitter and resigned.
“Otay,” Yeti said, sliding off the exasperated man and clopping toward the open garage door.
He paused at its precipice to sniff cautiously in all directions–he had no idea where he had been taken, after all, and was now well and truly lost. Still, there was hope. His sensitive nose detected cooking food and happily trotted in its direction. His family had been cooking when he was put in the sorry box. Surely that was them.
He’d be home soon! He was certain of it.