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Phil’s heart breaks a little more with every angry coo. He knows he’s doing the right thing by taking Steve to the vet, but he also knows Steve has no way to understand what’s happening. As far as Steve is concerned, the two giants who give him fancy seed have been lulling him into a false sense of security. They’ve only pretended to be gentle beings. They’re here to trap him in this death box and separate him forever from his beloved Scraggy.
“It’s okay, Steve,” Dan says as the lift makes its slow descent to ground level. Phil’s been calmed by that voice plenty of times. He hopes it works on Steve.
“You’re going on an adventure!” Phil says to the box, trying to match the overexuberance of Martin Freeman's approach to Bilbo. There’s no telling if Steve actually takes comfort in it or not. The angry coos still come from the box.
The walk is short, thankfully. And the day is nice. Phil is looking for any little thing to hold on to here. The vet takes him back and smiles— at least, Phil thinks she smiles. It’s hard to tell with the mask. But her eyes crinkle and he figures that’s the same as a smile. She tells him Steve’s going to be just fine and they’ll call him when he’s ready to be picked up. And he and Dan walk back to the apartment with no angry coos filling the air.
The wait is hell. Dan tries to distract him with Mario Kart and neck kisses and marshmallows, and all Phil can do is try to avoid eye contact with Scraggy out on the balcony. “She knows,” Phil groans.
“Phil…” Dan rolls his eyes.
“She knows Steve is gone and she knows it’s our fault.”
“But she doesn’t know that we’re literally trying to save his life.”
“No,” Phil nods, “I guess not.”
Eventually the vet calls back. Steve will live, minus one toe that was sacrificed in the attempt. It’s great news and Phil really wishes Scraggy spoke any English so he could tell her.
“Do you think he’s mad at us?” Phil asks as they walk back to the flat with a suspiciously quiet box this time.
“He shouldn’t be after they gave him bread!” Dan laughs. “This is the best day of his life.”
“Yeah,” Phil laughs shakily. He’s so afraid that once he lets Steve out of the box, he’ll fly away and never come back. He wouldn’t blame him. If Phil was kidnapped one day by gangly giants he had trusted, he’d never go anywhere near that balcony again.
Scraggy isn’t on the balcony when they get back. Probably off finding a non-kidnappy balcony to become regulars on, Phil thinks. He lays out a pile of seed as an apology. He hopes Steve sees it before just flying off.
He holds the pet carrier up to his face. “I know this was the day from hell, Steve,” he says. He hears Dan stifle a laugh behind him. “I’m sorry I upset you. And took you to a place where they chopped your toe off.” He sets the box down, opens the door and scurries away.
Steve takes a few tentative steps outside. Partly because of the new configuration of his healing foot and partly, Phil is sure, because he expects some other kind of trickery.
But there isn’t any. Just a pile of apology seeds.
Steve makes his way over to it, and Phil grabs the box to get it out of Steve’s sight. And Steve sticks around for much longer than Phil could have hoped he would. Even comes back the next day with Scraggy for their usual feeding.