Work Text:
It was another sleepy Sunday evening.
So sleepy, in fact, that Zuke could barely find any motivation to practice on his drums. He was getting pretty frustrated, too. It seemed the world moved too slowly for him to throw a beat, or do something with his drumsticks.
Argh, I hate Sundays.
He could always ask Mayday for some help, after all, he was more used to following someone else’s rhythm for inspiration, but she took off a few hours ago, something about seeing her grandmother.
He tossed his drumsticks on the beanbag in the corner of their practice room. He needed a breather, he sat there for almost an hour now. So…. what would he do now? He doubted there was anything good on TV, and he was not in the mood for going out to eat.
TV it is.
As he was walking over to the sofa, he heard something strange coming from the storage room.
Scratch scratch.
He paused for a moment, only to chalk it off as some rat looking for warmth.
Then he heard it again, only louder.
SCRITCH SCRATCH SCRATCH.
…
Okay. Whatever that was sounded way bigger than a rat.
He thought for a moment.
Do I... open the door? No, that’s stupid.
Before he could come to a conclusion, a huge crash sounded, making him jump.
And the scratching stopped.
Whatever that was is probably hurt now.
Without another thought, he pushed the door open with difficulty due to the boxes having tumbled in front of the door.
Only to find a tiny scaly tail under an open fish box.
As he stepped over stray boxes and packages, Zuke cautiously crept up towards it, and the box slightly shuffled away from him.
He got closer, and it got further again.
Eventually, the creature got fed up and knocked the box off to run away, suddenly flopping on the floor, much to her dismay. His eyes were wide. It was a sewer gator! He didn’t think these really existed in the city!
He went from nervous to kind of excited in moments. He knew exactly how to handle gators, and this was a baby!
Why isn’t it running away, though?
He started analyzing it. Judging from her snout, she was most likely female… and she was barely a foot tall… she must have been young.
What he also noticed was her foot. It was infected.
Did she get hurt from all those boxes? It doesn’t look like a fresh wound.
She must have gotten hurt from the rough cement in the sewer.
Then he heard someone climbing down the ladder.
Oh no.
“Zuuuuuke? I’m baaaaaack,” she shouted from outside the makeshift door.
In a panic, he rushed out of the storage room and slammed the door behind him.
“Woah. What’s up?”
Think.
“Heeeeey, uh….”
She looked at Zuke, then behind him, then at his face again.
“Is there... something in there?”
“Nooooooooo.”
“...”
“...”
“Lemme see,” she almost shoved him out of the way to open the door.
“Wait, nonononononono-”
She opened the door, and immediately slammed it as soon as she saw the intruder.
“Zuke.”
“...Yeah?”
“What is that?”
“It’s an alligator.”
“I know what it- why is there an alligator in our storage room?”
“I don’t know, she must have been swimming in the sewers and found it. It is exposed to the aqueduct.”
“Okay, so let’s get it back in the water!”
Zuke put an arm in front of her to stop her
“She’s hurt. And hungry. She’s probably stressed out of her mind, I don’t think that’s a good idea.”
This was the first time Mayday saw him this upset besides the day she met him.
“Okay, sooo… what do we do then?”
“Let’s just leave her a place to rest. You still have that lamp?”
…
After setting up a pillow and lamp next to her, Zuke gave Mayday a small list of things to buy.
“Jeez, since when were you so smart about gators?”
“I took care of some with my brother,” he stated as if it was common knowledge.
“Wait, huuh? Really?”
“I’ll tell you all about it later. Just please get what I wrote down.”
“Yessir!”
As she left, Zuke took more liberty to inspect their guest. She was worse for wear. Her skin was riddled with old scales, and she was panting, probably due to her injury.
Being as gentle as possible, he slowly picked her up and placed her down on her “bed”. She was too exhausted to protest.
How did she even get in the sewers in the first place? Did she get sucked in or something?
His questions faded away, however, when he noticed how calm she was despite what was going on.
Well, she is just a baby…
Wait. She was just a baby. Would it really be okay to let her on her own after she healed?
Maybe if-
“BAM! I’m back!” Mayday practically kicked the door down.
“Shhshshshshsh! She’s sleeping!”
“Oops. Sorry.”
“You got what we needed? All right, let’s get to work.”
Zuke proceeded to methodically clean the gator’s wound as Mayday gave him the supplies, which was easy due to her small size. All she would do was open her mouth to bite, only to give up and try to weakly slither out of his hands.
By the time they were done, she was asleep again.
“All right, now we just need to wait. Since the infection was pretty small, it should only take about an hour.”
“Aah, good. Then she’ll leave?”
“...Probably.”
“Welp, I’m going to bed. It’s almost midnight. You coming?”
“Yeah, yeah… give me a sec.”
Mayday shut the door, and Zuke stayed there, sitting on the cold pavement.
He couldn’t help but feel sad about this. The alligators back home would be fine on their own, but the sewer was no place for one.
He sighed and got up to go to their room. Maybe he would figure out what to do once he slept on it.
…
The moment he opened his eyes, Zuke bolted out of bed and went straight to the storage room, and-
She was gone.
“Oh.”
As she walked over to see, Mayday instantly felt bad about his reaction.
“I’m sorry, man, I woke up and she was gone. I… I know how you felt about it. I didn’t mean to be so harsh.”
He just scratched his neck and smiled.
“Naaah, I get it. She’s a wild animal. We can’t control her.”
Something told her he wasn’t truly okay with it.
“You know what? How about we go to Natura? You like all that uh… fancy stuff, right?”
“Oh, rea-”
“WAH!”
They both jumped.
Then looked down.
It was the sewer gator!
“AH! She’s back! She LOVES us!” May was over the moon.
“I didn’t know th-”
“Zuke she loves us, this is huge.”
“I thought you didn’t like her?”
“I was scared of her. But look at her!,” She widely gestured to their new friend. “Zuke, do you know what this means?”
“Uh… I think?”
“It means she trusts us! WAIT! We should name her!”
Zuke wasn’t too sure how she made that connection, but… for once, he decided to roll with it.
“What are we gonna name her, then?”
“Hmmmmmmmmmm……… Ellie!”
“Ellie? How come?”
“Cuz Elliegator, duh!”
Zuke chuckled.
“Okay, Ellie it is.”