“Holy shit,” Angel gasped as her heart jumped out of her chest, she had heard noise, a tiny squeak, a slight one that barely registered. Looking down to see what it was she saw A little… laying on the pavement, way too close to her shoe. Angle knelt down to get a closer look at the critter, taking a knee as she reached for him, looking around for any other Littles, briefly lifting each foot to check under them.
Desmond scrambled to get away from her, almost tripping over himself to escape. “Getting back to you owner?” Angel asked, plucking Desmond off the ground, “don’t worry little guy, I’ll take you to ‘em.”
Bash, who had agreed to take his stepsister to the skate park noticed she wasn’t beside him anymore, he turned back to see where he’d lost her, “what’s the hold up?” annoyance in his tone. “Oh, you snagged an underbred?” he said, noticing as he walked back to her, “who’s is it?”
“Fucked if I know.” Angel retorted, “He ain’t telling me shit.” Angel looked around before raising her voice “ANYONE LOSE AN UNERBRED?”. There were a few head turns, a boy on the far side looked in his backpack but shook his head as if to say his was accounted for.
“Where’s It’s collar?” Bash asked poking as Desmond’s neck.
“Just put me down and walk away!” Desmond yelled at them, in his head it was on a level war-cries dreamed of being at, intimidating, commanding, even a little powerful. In reality he sounded like a scared mouse on the verge of tears, which is why Bash started chuckling.
Angel pulled Desmond to look closer at him, “are you a stray?” she asked. During her closer inspection she saw his lack of a collar, also the tattered and damaged clothes, he seemed covered in tiny cuts and bruises, not to mention he was filthy. Angel hoped he was a stray, she didn’t want to think a guardian would let their Little get into this condition.
“I’m not a stray, I’m just free.” Desmond declared, with as much bravado as he could muster… which wasn’t much while standing in recently pissed pants.
“You poor thing” Angel replied as if she hadn’t listened, she reached to pet his head only for his tiny hands to harmlessly swat at her finger, though it was enough to make her stop.
“Just leave me alone,” Desmond demanded weakly, this time under no illusions of how he sounded.
“What now?” She asked Bash, not liking that she had to turn to her step-brother for advice.
“You’re the guardian not me,” He retorted, “or does Canadian guardian training not cover this?”
“I.. um” she stuttered, “Right, Genritech, is there anything Genritech around here? Or like emergency services”
“There’s a SEA port” Bash said, pointing across the road.
“Do they handle Littles?” Angel asked.
“Yeah, I’m pretty sure that’s all they handle,” Bash said, pausing for a moment to remember the Canadian equivalent, “they’re like our version of Little’s Aid Society (LAS).”
“No, I’m not going to them,” Desmond declared thrashing around, trying to get out of her hand.
Angel tightened her grip, it took almost no effort for her to restrain him, “Hey now, don’t be like that, SEA helps Littles.” Part of her understood his hesitation, while she figured SEA was meant to help Littles she’d heard countless stories of LAS getting it wrong and giving Littles back to their abusers, she figured SEA would make the same mistakes, another part of her figures this was still his best option, regardless of risk.
Bash dropped his board and rode off, “Text me when you’re done.”
Angel would have preferred he go with her, but, forcing him to come along triggered weaponised incompetence like she’d never seen anywhere else, so she walked alone.
The first thing Angel notices were the guards, armoured and armed, this didn’t look like a place for social workers, this looked like a military base full of soldiers. She passed them with a little trepidation. Inside was much nicer, while there was another guard most people were wearing business casual, the reception was a normal waiting room, mostly vacant. The receptionist was sipping a latte while typing on the computer, he eyeballed Angel immediately, then straightened his posture to better see Desmond.
“I.. um…” Angel hesitated, “Found a Little, I think a stray.”
“Just place him her hear sweetheart,” The receptionist said, sliding a padded tray with paper lining on it across the desk to her,
“He’s a male” Angel corrected him before complying.
“So he is, sorry about that buddy,” the receptionist corrected himself, “we don’t get a lot of males past the five-inch mark.”
Angel hadn’t clocked it, but this was the tallest male Little she’d ever seen, she knew it wasn’t impossible, males tended to be between three to five inches, he was still within that range, she’d heard of some making it to six but never seen it.
Desmond at this point had gone limp, or was playing possum, either one seemed to be his attempt at rebellion, though it made handling him significantly easier.
“You got a name Little?” the receptionist asked, while Desmond refused to speak, the receptionist re-asked the question in ASL but Angel cut him off.
“He was yelling at me earlier,” Angel explained, “he can speak, even freaked out when I mentioned taking him here, I don’t know why he’s doing this”
“He’s resisting.” the receptionist explained bringing a handheld scanner over Desmond, “happens all the time.”
“Can you help him, get him home?”
“Yeah, but he probably doesn’t have a home to return to, according to this he’s unchipped, uncollared, I assume unclaimed, we’ll run his photo through facial recognition software, see if he matches anything in the data base.”
He then slid the tray with Desmond into what looked like a cubby, “We have a doctor here, they’ll give him a once over.” He then handed Angel a piece of paper, please fill this in, where it says guardian licence fill it in if you have one, leave it blank if you don’t, we’ve been meaning to get that updated to have an N/A option.”
Angel sat down with her form, she checked her phone before starting seeing a text from Randall her stepfather:
Bash told me what happened
If you wanna claim it, I’ll fund it.
Another shallow attempt to buy her love, Angel thought with rolling eyes, though the offer was tempting.
Like this a lot!
Thanks.