Dylan was in a panic. Frost was injured and bleeding on his bathroom floor and he had no idea what to do. He didn’t want to touch her in case he did something wrong and made things even worse. He picked up his phone and stared at it, thinking. He could call FluffLink, the fluffy care and veterinary hotline. No. Wait. They’d ask him what her chip ID was. If they thought he had a feral, they might send the AFP to investigate. Shit! He couldn’t take her to clinic. They’d scan her chip and he’d probably wind up getting fingered as an abuser or abductor. Double shit! He needed to get her help but he didn’t want to get busted and fucked over in the process. That left only one option.
Emrys.
It was late and Emrys Haden was sitting at the desk in his study with a glass of whiskey, reviewing his task list for the following day. While his orchard was relatively small, there was an unending amount of work to be done in and around the property and only himself to do it. There were no two ways about it. He needed to hire some help soon. When he first quit the IT business and pissed off to live as a homesteader, he never thought he’d turn out to be pretty decent at it. Sure, it sucked during the years it took him to get his feet under him, but now he had a more or less self-sustaining food and energy supply, thriving orchard, apiary, gardens, and a fledgeling meadery. Not too shabby. It was all somewhat manageable at first but shortly after he started his fluffy project there just didn’t seem to be enough time in the day for him to take care of it all. The fluffies in particular required almost constant attention.
It was while he was going over his list that the phone on his desk rang. He glanced briefly at the caller ID. Dylan Roberts? Emrys frowned. What could he want at this time of night? Tapping the answer button, Emrys put the phone to his ear.
“Hey, Dill. What’s up?”
“Em! I need help!”
Emrys narrowed his eyes and leaned forward over his desk. “Okay. What’s the problem and how can I help?”
Dylan had first met Emrys when they worked together in the early days of their IT careers many years ago. Emrys was good with technology. He was good with a lot of things, really. He could pick up new technologies in an instant, triage emergencies in a blink, and there was no technological problem that he couldn’t deliver a solution to. The only thing Emrys was bad at was people. He hated being social, couldn’t stand office politics, and defied authority at every opportunity. For those reasons, Emrys never stayed employed at any one place for very long. He was brilliant at his jobs but he couldn’t be controlled by management. They had worked side by side for only a short while, but made fast friends. Dylan, somehow, had managed to meet Emrys’ standards for a co-worker.
Though their career paths diverged enormously, they kept in touch through messaging clients and occasionally met up in person for beer nights. Dylan enjoyed nursing his drinks while Emrys would drink excessively and rant about everything that was wrong with anything. The one thing he seldom talked about was himself. Through mutual acquantainces, Dylan learned that Emrys had rage quit the IT game and sold everything he owned to purchase a plot of land further north of the city. He’d started living in a caravan on the property where he’d planted a fruit orchard. It came as no small surprise. Emrys never discussed his personal life with anyone. Hell, he barely talked to his co-workers outside the scope of the tasks he had to complete with their assistance beyond the occasional off-handed pleasantry. Dylan had been meeting up regularly for beer with him for years now and he still knew very little about the man himself aside from a bit about his farm projects. There was one thing he did know, though. Emrys always came through.
Two hours after that phone call, Emrys emerged from Dylan’s bathroom. Dylan was pacing nervously in the kitchen, finally pausing when Emrys entered and pulled off the latex gloves he was wearing. “She’s asleep for now. It’ll be a while before she shakes off the anesthetic. She’s in rough shape but she’ll pull through.”
“How rough?”
“Besides what I suspect is a skull fracture, she seems to have suffered a spinal injury in the fall. I did what I could with the supplies I brought with me but there’s probably going to be some long-term damage. Having said that, for as fragile as these things can be they have a remarkable ability to bounce back. We just have to wait and see what happens. She’s stable right now but she’ll have to remain under observation. I’m going to need to take her back to my place. I’ve got a fluffy clinic on the property and a local vet I can call in tomorrow.”
Dylan winced at the prognosis, feeling the knife-twist of guilt in his gut. “Okay. Is it safe to move her?”
“I brought an immobilization box with me. That’ll keep her from getting jostled during transport and it’s best we do it now, while she can sleep through the trip. Seriously, though, why didn’t you take her to an emergency vet clinic or call the damn FluffLink number?”
“I told you. She’s not mine. They’d want to know her chip ID or scan her and know I wasn’t her owner.”
“So? You could have made up a bullshit story or something. Fuck. You always wanted one of these things, Dylan. You had a trial run here and really fucked up the ‘do right by your bio-pet’ part.” Emrys said before stopping himself and holding up a hand, something he normally did to calm himself lest he wind up ranting. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. “Doesn’t matter. Hell, I know I’ve done worse to the things, albeit intentionally. What’s important now is getting her better treatment and making sure her babies are okay. I’m going to take her and head out. Did you want to come with?”
“You…? Uh… yeah, If that’s okay with you.”
“Sure. We’ll get her situated and then we can hang out for a while. I don’t have any beer at my place but I’ve got whiskey and mead. We’ll treat this fluffy then get shitfaced. Or get shitfaced then treat her.” Emrys paused for dramatic effect, then smirked at Dylan’s expression of discomfort. “Yeah, that’s what I thought. Come on. You can crash on the couch and I can give you a lift home tomorrow.”
With Frost secured in the immobilization box, snoring lightly, they climbed into Emrys’ truck and headed out. Emrys said very little on the drive north down dark, unlit rural roads. While steadying the wheel with one hand, he retrieved his phone with the other and cued up a music playlist that cut the silence, coming through the truck’s paired speakers. “We need something to lighten the mood,” he commented.
As they drove into the night, Morrissey’s voice crooned through the truck’s speaker system.
Girlfriend in a coma, I know
I know it’s serious
Girlfriend in a coma, I know
I know it’s really serious
“Seriously?”
“Couldn’t help myself.”
Eventually, Emrys pulled onto a range road and, further up, onto a gravel driveway outside a farmhouse. “Here we are,” he announced and killed the engine before climbing out of the truck, taking the immobilization box containing Frost with him. “Come on. You can check out the clinic.”
Leading the way with Dylan in tow, Emrys navigated the dark property towards a small-ish outbuilding, fished out his keys and unlocked the door then let them both inside. The interior was fairly simple. It was a no-frills examination room for small veterinary operations. Emrys turned a dim set of lights on and quietly carried the box in his hands to a side of the room where there were several enclosures. Dylan could hear the occasional stir of what sounded like fluffies mumbling sleepily. He couldn’t see what Emrys was doing with Frost but he could hear the man speaking a few unintelligible words in a comforting voice before he reappeared with the empty box. Setting it down on a counter, he held a finger to his lips and motioned with his head, leading them both back outside.
“Sorry. Didn’t want to wake the other fluffies in there. She’ll be comfortable for tonight.”
“How many fluffies do you have, exactly?”
“Enough to need an onsite clinic. I’ll show you the whole operation tomorrow if you want. I’ll show you what I’ve been up to out here these past few years. Anyway, enough about fluffies for the time being. Let’s go grab a couple bottles and relax.”