Police! This Is An Emergency! (for je_nesaisquoi)

[k_o_w_a_l_s_k_i]

She'd been like this for days and Kowalski had finally broken. It was half past five on a Monday morning and he'd gotten up to check on Blanche, only to find her inthe exact same condition she'd been in for the last week. Asleep, hidden in her shell and not eating. So Kowalski had flipped out, left a ton of messages on the vet's machine because the

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[je_nesaisquoi]

Ray had been ignoring Kowalski's freak-out pretty nicely. He had a lot of practice, after all. He had given sleepy grunts and other sounds that basically translated to leave me alone you moron and almost actually fallen asleep again.

And then he felt the cold, under-shell of a turtle.

He made a distressed and not-at-all-squeaky sound and sat up, which caused the turtle to roll onto his lap. Upside down. He glared at Blanche like it was her fault, and set her on the bed.

"What are you doing?!" he yelled towards wherever Kowalski had vanished.

[k_o_w_a_l_s_k_i]

"Where's the phone? Where's the phone?!" Kowalski ran back in, in full freak-out mode, like he had been when his dog had gotten run over. That mutt had been crazy too but at least he'd known what was wrong with it. And he couldn't even take her to the vet like he had done with him.

"There's a reason I got a turtle, Vecchio," Kowalski told him like they were in the middle of a conversation about it. "Two reasons. Three." He was shucking on a t-shirt and tossing clothes at Vecchio. "A, she can't run out in to the road and get made into dog meat. Two, she's biographically meant to live longer than other pets and three, I like turtles. I like turtles." He pointed at her, speech running at a hundred miles an hour, worry all over his face. "Get up! She feel colder than usual to you? Come on, come on!"

[je_nesaisquoi]

Ray just kind of stared at Kowalski, confused as hell.

"What are you talking about?!"

He turned his head to look at the turtle. ...She was still there, right? All he could see was shell.

[k_o_w_a_l_s_k_i]

Practically dressed now, Kowalski rushed back to her but was surprisingly gentle in picking her up. "We gotta go to the hospital now. She's real sick." He backed out of the bedroom to find his keys. Or the Riv's. Whichever was closest.