by SA Payne
He led the pet back to the bed room and got him sitting on the corner. The creature instantly
tensed up again but when all Ichi did was towel out the worst of the damp and start tackling the
knots, the shoulders in front of him slowly unknotted. He'd have to think about only letting the pet use the vibe shower, even if it meant denying him the pleasure of the hot water. It took some
effort but he eventually got it untangled and quickly braided it back into a thick plait.
"There we go, now off the bed." He shooed and eventually the pet understood and moved to sit along the wall. Ichi made the bed with the pet watching, and found he was growing more
accustomed to being watched. With his morning chores finished, Ichi moved to go to his lab and
found the pet following.
He stopped and sighed. "Stay." He ordered but softened his voice. "I'll be back at lunch to check on you." It was to sooth his own guilt and it didn't work. With the grey eyes fearful, Ichi let his apartment door shut with the pet inside.
"Hey," Will called out as he came unannounced into Ichi's lab. "How's things?"
"Tell me again why the only way a lab door can be locked is in the case of an emergency?" Ichi muttered out not looking up from his close up shots of the nest weaving.
"Ah, because that's rude?"
"So is being disturbed twenty times in six hours."
Will just laughed and sat next to his friend. "People are just curious to hear how last night went.
I've heard stories all day, I'm dieing to know which of them are true."
"It slept soundly, ate, bathed, nothing interesting."
It didn't take being a psi to know more had happened, Ichi's ears were tinged just a shade too
pink. "For someone so good at bluffing at cards, you're a horrible liar."
He stabbed at the pause button and put his notes down. "Maybe it's because unlike some people
I like my private life to be private."
"That good huh?"
"Will!"
"Hmmm, you didn't get laid, you're too crabby for that."
"Nothing happened, nothing is going to happen, but you were right, it did try to come on to me."
"He, not it."
"Whatever."
"Did you name him yet?"
"Not really."
"But you've an idea."
Ichi sighed and folded his arms over his chest. "You'll laugh."
"It can't be worse than Fluffy."
He mulled the advantages of staying silent or letting the name he'd been toying with all afternoon
slip out. "Rimose."
"Reyemoos." Will extended the name as he let it roll around his mouth before grinning wickedly.
"Have you been studying his cracks?"
"You promised!"
Will held his hands up in defeat. "So I did. Rimose, adjective, full of crevices, chinks or cracks and proof that my dear friend Ichi never had a childhood. You didn't name the poor thing, you
classified him, not sure why but you did."
"He's skittish, like something fragile that was broken."
"Cracked."
Ichi nodded and waited for the snickering.
"It's better than Fluffy, if a touch technical and cold." Will nodded thoughtfully. "Rye it is than."
"Not Rye," he tried to protest but than remembered he'd have to explain his reasons to Rimose to
everyone. Avalon folk took names seriously and if Will circulated the shortened nickname it
would save Ichi a lot of awkward muttering. "Guess I can't stop a nickname."
"Rye is way better than Fluffy."
A week, and then two slipped by and life fell into an easy pattern. Ichi woke, showered, had his
coffee while Rye showered and than untangled the long hair. The pet then retreated to his crate
to crunch on kibble while Ichi downed his coffee and ate some oatmeal. He'd leave for work,
ordering the pet to stay behind, and find Rye sitting near the door when he returned at lunch to
check on him and again when he came home from the lab. Ichi would eat to the sound of shy
crunching from the crate and try to catch up on his scientific journals that he was hideously
behind on, or watch the headlines from the newscasts. He'd eventually say goodnight to Rye and
fall into his own bed to sleep soundly.
He only had to scold the pet about a dozen times in the first weeks for offering himself sexually
and each time he did, it was longer between when he had to scold him again. Each time he
refused, some of the uneasy skittish fear fled the eyes. And as the fear dissolved, it became
more difficult to think about finding a new home for the pet. Ichi found he was actually getting
used to having something else alive in his rooms and growing accustomed to the pet the way he
would a new painting or end table.
Sixteen days after the pet's arrival, Ichi came home early for lunch with fabric tossed over his
arm. He'd talked Mary into tossing together new kilts for Rye and she'd happily agreed when he'd
explained. The pet seemed cold most of the time, running about half naked but Ichi liked his
rooms at a temperature that was comfortable with clothes on. And he'd worried about the plain,
almost rough woven fabric against Rye's obviously oversensitive skin. Mary had grinned like a
fool, or a matchmaker, and happily agreed.
It had taken a few days but she'd quickly made a set of modified kilts. They'd found double
woven flannel in the stations stores, in pale green, that felt luxiously soft to Ichi's touch and she'd made the set from the original kilt he provided her. It would attach around Rye's hips the same
but it would reach well below his knees and help keep him warm. He was so pleased with the
results that he left the lab before his normal time to show the pet.
"Hey, Rye, I'm home." He called out but the pet wasn't at the door. "Rye?" He glanced around the
living room and still saw nothing. It was the first time, ever, he'd come home and not found the
pet waiting.
Worry flashed through him. Maybe Rye had managed to hurt himself, he had the dexterity of a
human and just because he was trained to touch only a few things didn't mean he couldn't have
broken something or cut himself. Or, worse, he suddenly feared the pet had gotten out of the
apartment and could be wandering lost on the station. Most of it was finished hallways, perfectly
safe, but some areas were just catwalks or rough tunnels.
He moved to make a search of the apartment, suddenly fearing the worst, only to quickly find the
pet in his bedroom. Between tending to Rye and watching his swarm, Ichi had fallen behind on
his chores. His dirty clothes bin was filled and he hadn't had the time to toss the bin into the
washing unit. For some reason, Rye had dumped his dirty clothes out onto the floor and sat in
the center of it all. He'd even managed to wiggled into one of Ichi's loose cotton shirts that he
tended to sleep in. The sight would have been comical if hunks of dark red hair hadn't lay strewn
about.
"Rye, there you are..." He tried to keep his voice steady but the sight confused him.
Grey eyes went wide in fear and the pet scrambled to his feet. He ran full speed and pushed past
Ichi. Before Ichi could turn around, Rye had dived into his crate, still wearing the pilfered shirt.
Ichi held his ground and frowned, confused. He crossed to the pile of laundry and found it was warm to the touch so Rye had been laying in it for a while.
It was the pulled hairs that shocked him. It wasn't just a strand or two but sections lay about.
Some of it looked chewed off, gnawed on or twisted until it broke and other sections looked like
they'd been pulled right from Rye's head. It was so obviously self mutilation that it confused Ichi.
Animals self mutilated from neuroses, but Rye seemed to be growing more comfortable, more at
ease, not less.
He dropped the new kilts on the bed and moved to the living room. Rye was still hiding in the
back of his crate, curled up into as small a ball as possible but Ichi could see him through the
mesh of the crate. "Come here." Rye didn't move. "Heel!" He demanded.
Slowly, Rye crawled out and came to sit in front of Ichi. He hung his head and trembled in fear.
"Stop that, I'm not going to hurt you." He sighed and wished they'd trained the pet for that command. He reached out and ran a hand over the dark head, comfortable now touching the pet
as he would running his hand across the back of his sofa. There were definitely angry spots, one
or two bloodied, where hair had been yanked out. When he slid his hand down to the thick length
he found ragged ends still damp from having been chewed on.
"Why would you do that?" He folded his arms across his chest and tried to think. When he'd walked in, Rye had looked content, even, maybe happy. There was no sense that the hair pulling
was done from desperation or depression. So why would a pet chew off and pull out it's own hair
if not from a desire to self mutilate.
The idea he stumbled on seemed too human, too basic. Ichi knelt down and threaded some of
the long length through his fingers. "Do you not like this?" He asked knowing that Rye didn't understand and couldn't answer. "Let's find out."
Ichi stood and had to rummage around to find the old pair of scissors, they weren't overly sharp
but they'd get the job done. When he knelt again the grey eyes followed the blades with worried
acceptance.
"Here, now, see?" Ichi picked up the tips on one section of hair and snipped it off. "See?" He knew he was testing the limits of the pet's intelligence but not it's dexterity. He pressed the
scissors into Rye's hands and guided him to repeat the action. "If you want it shorter, you can cut it shorter." He helped the uncertain hand form another cut and than sat back a few feet away and watched.
Rye sat silent and serious, his eyes glancing from the scissors in his hand to where Ichi sat near
by and than down to the hair that had fallen away. Slowly, one hand rose up and gripped a thick
length of hair and with eyes firmly on Ichi, Rye steadily cut the entire handful away. As the length fell to the floor an unsteady flicker of a relived smile danced across Rye's face. It wasn't the look of glee at destruction, but the look of someone long denied the power of choice.
"It's okay." Ichi whispered softly. "You can do it."
Another handful, another cut and more of the dark red length fell to the floor. Rye gained
confidence now and quickly moved to snip the length away, cutting the thick hair to a ragged
edge around his shoulders. It left feet of the hair severed and coiled around him and when the
last cut was made, Rye set the scissors down and shook his head with obviously delight.
For the first time, Ichi saw a real smile on the pet's face. Even though he'd been told it was just a natural reaction and didn't denote emotion the way it would with a human, it still thrilled him to
see it. "Better?" He asked and gathered up scissors and hair. Insanely, he wanted to keep the length and he wasn't sure why.
When the bulk of the hair was gathered into a loose tail in his hand, Ichi glanced up to see Rye
still tugging at the shoulder length hair. "Shorter still, huh?" He reached over and plucked at the shirt the pet wore. "Can't get a hair cut wearing a dirty shirt."
Grey eyes went wide again and Rye quickly twisted his way out of the shirt. He hunched down
and offered the garment back to Ichi. When Ichi moved too quickly to retrieve it, Rye flinched
even lower toward the floor.
"Hush now, I'm not mad, you looked cute in it." He smiled and petted the now shorter hair before he stood up. "Come on..." he patted his side and Rye had learned his mannerisms well enough that he followed. He picked up one of the new kilts and tossed the dirty shirt into the pile of
spilled clothes in the corner. Rye moved to gather up the laundry, trying to quickly shove it back
in it's bin.
"Stop that, I'm not worried about the clothes. Here, change." He ordered and handed the new kilt to the pet.
Rye took the fabric and turned it around a bit until he found the same clasps. He stripped out of
the thinner, shorter kilt and wrapped the new one around his hips. The soft fabric glided across
his skin and his eyes lit up. His hands petted the fabric and another real smile darted across his
face.
"Better, huh?" Ichi smiled too, even if how Rye was petting himself was oddly erotic to watch. To distract those thoughts he moved to his clean clothes and dug in it to find a shirt that was loose
on him so he knew it would fit Rye. "Here, change." He said softer, offering the shirt.
Rye took the fabric and studied it for a moment before raising it to sniff. He made an unhappy
face and stepped forward, closer to Ichi than he'd been in a week. The taller pet leaned forward
and sniffed lightly at Ichi's hair and than stepped back to sniff at the shirt. He frowned, dropped the fabric and retrieved the dirty shirt from the pile.
Ichi was trying to focus on the memory of seeing his swarm feed in an effort to not become
painfully hard. Rye was wearing his dirty clothes not for warmth but because they smelled like
him. It was, oddly, the most romantic thing he'd ever seen and he knew he was being absolutely
stupid for thinking that.
"No, you can't wear a dirty shirt." He managed to tease and replaced the dirty one with the clean shirt.
Rye sniffed the clean shirt and again frowned.
"Of course it smells different, it's clean and not all stinky. Wear the clean one."
There was only a pause this time, no more sniffing, before Rye wiggled into the shirt. It amazed
Ichi, pets weren't supposed to know how to managed anything more complicated then their kilts
but Rye didn't seem to have the slightest trouble getting the shirt on. He'd have to think about
leaving some of the bigger shirts out for the pet. It would certainly be easier on him not to have
the fellow running around half naked.
He tapped at his side again. "We don't need the leash, right? Heel." He ordered and was
confident enough in Rye's training that he didn't even glance behind him to see if the pet
followed.
Half way to the community kitchen, Ichi did glance back to see, not if the pet followed, but how
he was reacting to being outside of the apartment for the first time since his arrival. Rye followed silently on his bare feet, head down, eyes locked to the back of Ichi's legs. He neither glanced up or around and he stayed at almost exactly the same distance behind Ichi even if the pace was
altered. It kind of disappointed him, he'd been hoping for more of a reaction, but what could be
expected of a pet after all.
There were only six people in the main kitchen for lunch, Will and Amanda among them, but the
conversation was loud enough for several times as many people. Ichi led Rye into the common
room and the entire room went silent. All eyes turned to them and he considered that this might
have been a bad idea. Only, a glance to the pet showed that Rye didn't seem to notice the
situation and certainly was less embarrassed than Ichi was himself.
He cleared his throat. "I'm sorry, I could use some help. Rye, he wanted to cut his hair but, it's rather ragged." He glanced up and than had to look down, remembering that he hat
ed being the
center of attention almost more than having to speak to a crowd. "Could someone help us?"
Five people hopped up and swarmed around them, all talking at once and Ichi felt ready to run to
escape it all. Some of the women started talking about the new kilts and one of the men wanted
to know how Ichi trained Rye to wear a shirt. It was too much and he almost was ready to walk
them back to the apartment and risk styling Rye's hair himself.
"Enough!" Amanda teased and laughed over the small crowd. "We're scaring them both. Ichi, dear, leave it to us, can you get him to come in and sit down?"
He nodded, happy that she'd stepped up and wrangled the group into some order and led Rye
into the room. He patted a chair. "Sit, Rye."
The pet sat on command but kept his head bowed and eyes on the floor. Ichi let Amanda shoo
him off and he found himself sitting at a table to the side, accepting a mug of tea from Will.
"Bunch of harpies." Will laughed as scissors were fetched and a debate was started about styles.
"I'm grateful for the help."
"Poor fellow looks scared." The women had lifted Rye's chin to get a better idea of how to trim up his hair and the grey eyes had instantly sought out Ichi.
"I'd be scared too in the middle of all that."
"A wise man knows were not to tread." Will nodded toward the pet. "New kilts huh? And he's wearing a shirt."
"He put it on by himself. I came home and found him in a pile of my laundry, wearing a shirt."
"Aww, that's sweet, he must like you."
The idea he'd been rolling around in his head for a while solidified. "Will, I think someone owned him before me."
"Oh?" He didn't glance over, afraid if he saw the gentle look Ichi wore every time his friend's eyes met Rye's he'd be an ass and tease him about it. "What makes you think that?"
"Just, things, I don't know. He seemed conditioned to someone else's habits. It's pretty clear that he's frightened of being harmed. Whenever he thinks he's done something wrong he's so upset
he trembles. The hair too, he wanted it shorter, it almost looked like he was casting more than
hair off when he cut it."
"When you cut it."
"No, Rye cut it, I just gave him the scissors."