Happy Birthday to doll_revolution!
I know, a day late and a dollar short. Sorry. Life has been crazy. This is the ficlet that my Muse wrote for you, when you made a request for a kitty drabble. I started one, too, and then it turned into an epic, so it will just have to wait. In the meantime, enjoy this one...Happy belated b-day!
Untitled Kitty Drabble
Author: Muse
Pairing: Spencer/Ryan (GSF)
Rating: G
Word Count: 1,040
Summary: Part of the (I’ll Be)The Only Thing Between You And The Stars At Night universe. Quark is smuggling illegal Earth animals aboard the station…
For doll_revolution, because she wanted a kitty drabble with Spencer and Ryan.
"I don't know what you're talking about." Quark said indignantly.
Spencer stifled a sigh. The Ferengi didn't feign affronted innocence well, but he was nothing if not dedicated to his story, and it could be hours before he finally made a slip Spencer could glom onto and use to extract the truth. Constable Odo had it down to a science, it seemed; three to five minutes of seemingly innocuous questioning, and Quark would find himself confessing before he knew what he was saying. It was a standard to which Spencer privately aspired, but he didn't really see it coming to fruition today. Lately he'd been having some luck with stony glares and silence; sometimes it paid to play to your strengths. He crossed his arms over his chest and settled in for the long haul.
It was at about that moment that the bar mewed.
Quark's eyes darted back and forth and he chuckled nervously. "Oh, those unregistered animals." He stooped and lifted a large-ish box onto the bar. It wiggled as something inside moved. "Holding them for a customer. He said he had to go fetch some paperwork from his shuttle and that he'd be right back."
"Did you happen to get a name?" Spencer pressed.
"Didn't say." Quark offered a pointy-toothed grin, but nothing else.
"What did he look like?"
Quark affected to examine his fingernails, "Couldn't say. You know, all these Hu-mons look the same to me. Of course, he might not have been Hu-mon. It's so hard to tell sometimes."
The baleful glower Spencer shot at Quark didn't seem to faze the Ferengi particularly. He had little choice now but to spend the next few hours looking through docking schedules and cargo manifests for an imaginary human-or-humanoid that had been carrying animals of some sort while Quark turned a tidy profit getting rid of the evidence. Or…
"I'm afraid I'm going to have to confiscate these animals to assure public health and safety."
Quark's slack-jawed astonishment almost made up for the fruitless data scans that lay ahead. The Ferengi recovered in an instant, though, and arrested the progress of the box as Spencer slid it toward him. "I assure you, officer, these animals represent no hazard. They've been given a clean bill of health by one of the most reputable vets in the Federation."
Spencer raised an eyebrow, "Which you know because… I suppose your possibly-human-but-then-again-maybe-not customer gave you his word of honour?"
"Why, Officer!" said Quark, all astonishment, "I'm surprised you think I'd agree to keep an alien breed in my establishment without first demanding to see all the proper documentation. I'm a reputable businessman, you know."
Spencer kept his thoughts on that matter to himself. "Let's have a look," he said crisply, and when Quark made no move to open the box, Spencer lifted the lid for himself.
About half a dozen small creatures stopped whatever they had been doing and swiveled their heads to look up at him. They were barely longer than his hand from front to the tips of their long, twitchy tails, and covered with stripy grey and black fur with big, triangular ears atop their heads. Each one regarded him with impossibly big, bright, alert eyes. The effect was startlingly like being appraised by six Brendons all at once.
The moment passed, and the little creatures returned to the business of jumping on one another's heads. All in all, they did look pretty innocuous, which was enough in Spencer's mind to verify that they would very soon wreak havoc on the station's environmental equilibrium. Adorable, big-eyed havoc, but havoc nonetheless.
"Hey, Spence. I thought you were still on duty," Ryan's voice sounded from behind Spencer. Spencer locked eyes with Quark to let him know not to slither away and turned to face his lover.
“Professional call," he said. "Mom trying to remind you that there's life outside the shop?" Ryan had been noticeably absent the past couple of days. Things had settled down over the last year and a half between Ryan, Spencer, Jon, and Brendon into a comfortable rhythm. So if Ryan got into one of those obsessive headspaces where he absolutely had to work out whatever it was that had seized a hold of his imagination, the other boys knew it was pretty useless to try and lure him away.
Of course that didn't mean they didn't miss him terribly all the while. Or that Spencer or his parents would occasionally lay down the law and insist on Ryan getting some sleep or sustenance or interaction with another living being.
"Yeah. Mom hid my soldering iron and sent me out for lunch. What are those?" Ryan said with decidedly less bile than such a pronouncement would normally inspire. Instead he seemed strangely transfixed. Spencer wondered if lack of food and natural light (well, simulated natural light) were beginning to play on Ryan. Then he realized it wasn't so much a daze as something had caught Ryan's attention. Spencer followed Ryan's gaze to where one of the creatures from the box had climbed out onto the counter and was gingerly investigating its surroundings.
Quark smiled effusively. "They're called 'kittens.' Why don't you come have a better look?"
Spencer wanted to say no, he really did. But Ryan stood beside him, pressing his shoulder companionably against Spencer's own, and the kitten made a playful leap toward Ryan's outstretched hand, and Ryan's smiled like he was a little kid. Well, not like Ryan had smiled when he and Spencer actually had been kids, because there had been little enough cause for smiles growing up, and on the rare occasion when he did, it was always a tentative, fragile thing like he had been afraid that if he really let himself go, he'd be punished for it. This smile now was that of the childhood Spencer suddenly wished Ryan could have had.
So instead, he turned back to Quark and said, "I'm confiscating this one to make sure these animals are actually certified safe to be on this station."
"Of course, officer," Quark replied smoothly. Spencer tired not to notice how smoothly he also replaced the lid on the box and returned the box to its former hiding place beneath the bar.
Untitled Kitty Drabble
Author: Muse
Pairing: Spencer/Ryan (GSF)
Rating: G
Word Count: 1,040
Summary: Part of the (I’ll Be)The Only Thing Between You And The Stars At Night universe. Quark is smuggling illegal Earth animals aboard the station…
For doll_revolution, because she wanted a kitty drabble with Spencer and Ryan.
"I don't know what you're talking about." Quark said indignantly.
Spencer stifled a sigh. The Ferengi didn't feign affronted innocence well, but he was nothing if not dedicated to his story, and it could be hours before he finally made a slip Spencer could glom onto and use to extract the truth. Constable Odo had it down to a science, it seemed; three to five minutes of seemingly innocuous questioning, and Quark would find himself confessing before he knew what he was saying. It was a standard to which Spencer privately aspired, but he didn't really see it coming to fruition today. Lately he'd been having some luck with stony glares and silence; sometimes it paid to play to your strengths. He crossed his arms over his chest and settled in for the long haul.
It was at about that moment that the bar mewed.
Quark's eyes darted back and forth and he chuckled nervously. "Oh, those unregistered animals." He stooped and lifted a large-ish box onto the bar. It wiggled as something inside moved. "Holding them for a customer. He said he had to go fetch some paperwork from his shuttle and that he'd be right back."
"Did you happen to get a name?" Spencer pressed.
"Didn't say." Quark offered a pointy-toothed grin, but nothing else.
"What did he look like?"
Quark affected to examine his fingernails, "Couldn't say. You know, all these Hu-mons look the same to me. Of course, he might not have been Hu-mon. It's so hard to tell sometimes."
The baleful glower Spencer shot at Quark didn't seem to faze the Ferengi particularly. He had little choice now but to spend the next few hours looking through docking schedules and cargo manifests for an imaginary human-or-humanoid that had been carrying animals of some sort while Quark turned a tidy profit getting rid of the evidence. Or…
"I'm afraid I'm going to have to confiscate these animals to assure public health and safety."
Quark's slack-jawed astonishment almost made up for the fruitless data scans that lay ahead. The Ferengi recovered in an instant, though, and arrested the progress of the box as Spencer slid it toward him. "I assure you, officer, these animals represent no hazard. They've been given a clean bill of health by one of the most reputable vets in the Federation."
Spencer raised an eyebrow, "Which you know because… I suppose your possibly-human-but-then-again-maybe-not customer gave you his word of honour?"
"Why, Officer!" said Quark, all astonishment, "I'm surprised you think I'd agree to keep an alien breed in my establishment without first demanding to see all the proper documentation. I'm a reputable businessman, you know."
Spencer kept his thoughts on that matter to himself. "Let's have a look," he said crisply, and when Quark made no move to open the box, Spencer lifted the lid for himself.
About half a dozen small creatures stopped whatever they had been doing and swiveled their heads to look up at him. They were barely longer than his hand from front to the tips of their long, twitchy tails, and covered with stripy grey and black fur with big, triangular ears atop their heads. Each one regarded him with impossibly big, bright, alert eyes. The effect was startlingly like being appraised by six Brendons all at once.
The moment passed, and the little creatures returned to the business of jumping on one another's heads. All in all, they did look pretty innocuous, which was enough in Spencer's mind to verify that they would very soon wreak havoc on the station's environmental equilibrium. Adorable, big-eyed havoc, but havoc nonetheless.
"Hey, Spence. I thought you were still on duty," Ryan's voice sounded from behind Spencer. Spencer locked eyes with Quark to let him know not to slither away and turned to face his lover.
“Professional call," he said. "Mom trying to remind you that there's life outside the shop?" Ryan had been noticeably absent the past couple of days. Things had settled down over the last year and a half between Ryan, Spencer, Jon, and Brendon into a comfortable rhythm. So if Ryan got into one of those obsessive headspaces where he absolutely had to work out whatever it was that had seized a hold of his imagination, the other boys knew it was pretty useless to try and lure him away.
Of course that didn't mean they didn't miss him terribly all the while. Or that Spencer or his parents would occasionally lay down the law and insist on Ryan getting some sleep or sustenance or interaction with another living being.
"Yeah. Mom hid my soldering iron and sent me out for lunch. What are those?" Ryan said with decidedly less bile than such a pronouncement would normally inspire. Instead he seemed strangely transfixed. Spencer wondered if lack of food and natural light (well, simulated natural light) were beginning to play on Ryan. Then he realized it wasn't so much a daze as something had caught Ryan's attention. Spencer followed Ryan's gaze to where one of the creatures from the box had climbed out onto the counter and was gingerly investigating its surroundings.
Quark smiled effusively. "They're called 'kittens.' Why don't you come have a better look?"
Spencer wanted to say no, he really did. But Ryan stood beside him, pressing his shoulder companionably against Spencer's own, and the kitten made a playful leap toward Ryan's outstretched hand, and Ryan's smiled like he was a little kid. Well, not like Ryan had smiled when he and Spencer actually had been kids, because there had been little enough cause for smiles growing up, and on the rare occasion when he did, it was always a tentative, fragile thing like he had been afraid that if he really let himself go, he'd be punished for it. This smile now was that of the childhood Spencer suddenly wished Ryan could have had.
So instead, he turned back to Quark and said, "I'm confiscating this one to make sure these animals are actually certified safe to be on this station."
"Of course, officer," Quark replied smoothly. Spencer tired not to notice how smoothly he also replaced the lid on the box and returned the box to its former hiding place beneath the bar.