Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

“Billy Gibson is a witch.” 

The three of them were at the pub after a long day at the office. John, who had just returned to the table with a fresh basket of chips, levelled a stern look at George. “That is not a kind thing to say.” 

“I don’t mean it in a mean way,” George protested. He grabbed a handful of chips from the basket that John had yet to set down on the table. “It’s the truth.” 

“Do you have evidence?” Edward asked, also helping himself to some chips. John, giving up on gaining control over the situation, abandoned the basket to the two of them and sat down. 

“He turned his boyfriend into a toad, for one thing,” said George.   

“You don’t actually believe that,” John protested at the same moment Edward said, “Is that why they broke up?” 

“They broke up?” George exclaimed delightedly. “Edward! How do you know that? Have you been gossiping?” 

Edward shrugged and ate a chip. 

“Excuse me,” John protested, “but how does the word of an angry ex-boyfriend mean that he’s a witch?” 

“John’s right,” Edward said, selecting another chip carefully. “Did you actually see the transformation take place?” 

“Well, not with my own eyes, but I heard—”

“’S not evidence, then,” Edward said around a chip. “Doesn’t count.” 

“I think the real reason it doesn’t count is because people can’t turn other people into toads, Edward,” John said exasperatedly. 

“Mm,” George hummed sympathetically. He patted John’s hand. “I’ve been very inconsiderate, haven’t I. Witchcraft is blasphemy, isn’t it? John, dear, you might want to cover your ears for this next part.” 

John spluttered. “I don’t care that it’s blasphemy, it’s just not something that happens!” 

George and Edward both looked at him. “You don’t care that it’s blasphemy?” George said in a soft voice. “John, are you feeling alright?” 

John felt his face go red. “This is ridiculous,” he snapped. “You’re both being ridiculous. Ask anyone in this pub if they believe that anyone can turn someone into a toad.” 

“They wouldn’t admit it, would they?” Edward said in a reasonable voice. “No one likes witches.” 

“Billy’s alright, though,” George said thoughtfully. 

John looked skyward and gave up.

The next day, John went into work determined to prove George and Edward wrong about Billy. 

Billy Gibson was their office manager. He handled the front desk, incoming phone calls, the copier, the fax machine, and making appointments for maintenance and service requests, like that one time a squirrel chewed through a sprinkler, flooding the utility box and putting them without power for three days. 

You didn’t want to be on Billy Gibson’s bad side. 

It was generally accepted that Billy only tolerated the rest of them because he was paid to be there. Yes, he could be a bit terse—but he was polite to clients on the phone and competent at his job, so was a lack of interest in small talk really such a character flaw? John himself didn’t much like the “how was your weekend, how’s the wife” small talk that generally took place around the water cooler, either, he reasoned as he entered the building. Just because he and Billy had never exchanged more than the requisite number of words to do their jobs didn’t mean they couldn’t get along!

“Hello, Billy,” John said cheerfully as entered what passed for a kitchenette in their office. Billy was drearily stirring sugar into a cup of very black coffee. John squeezed past him so he could shove his lunch into the office fridge. “Good morning, isn’t it?” 

Billy looked down at him. John closed the fridge and awkwardly backed up a few steps. It really was a very small kitchen, and Billy was very tall. 

“Hello,” was all Billy said in reply. Then he looked back down at his coffee and gave it another stir. Come to think of it, were the bags under Billy’s eyes darker than usual? 

John was trying to think of what to say next—he was remembering why he hated small talk so much—when he caught sight of something on the already crowded kitchen counter. 

“Is that a rat?” 

The rat was in a small, clear plastic cage. The cage had a bright pink carrying handle and holes punched in the top. A hand-written sign was taped to the cage. It read: FREE. Not FREE TO A GOOD HOME, or RAT - HANDLE WITH CARE, just: FREE. 

Billy glanced at the rat. “Yes.” 

“Why is it in the kitchen?” 

Billy shrugged. “Cornelius and I broke up. I brought in some of his stuff to see if anyone wanted it.” 

As if the rat knew they were talking about it, it scrabbled furiously at the wall of its prison. Now that John was paying attention, he could see a few other items piled on the counter around the cage: some old DVDs, plus a few battered books that had seen better days from the looks of things. 

He had a faint memory of Billy’s now-ex-boyfriend, a short, slim man with a goatee and a secretive smile. Cornelius often sat on the front desk and teased Billy. He’d stay there, swinging his feet, until either Billy or Mr. Crozier kicked him out. 

“Are you sure he wouldn’t want his pet rat back?” John asked tentatively. He had heard of vengeful exes throwing out former lovers’ belongings (something he’d never experienced himself), but surely taking away someone’s pet was going too far. 

Billy snorted. “Either I’m taking care of it or someone else is, and I’m done with it.” 

“Ah,” John said, watching the rat make a solid attempt to dig a hole through the plastic. He was torn between the desire to let it out and the strong temptation to leave the room so he didn’t have to watch it struggle. It was bigger than John had expected; he’d had some idea that rats were sort of the size of mice, but this one’s body was about the length of John’s hand if he laid his fingers flat. It had smooth, reddish-gold fur and a little pink nose. Seeing John watching, it stopped trying to break through the wall. It regarded him with intelligent black eyes. 

“I’ll take it,” John said with conviction. This statement was surprising to both himself and Billy; he hadn’t realised he wanted a rat until he said it. 

Billy glanced at the rat dubiously, but he shrugged. “He’s yours.” 

“What’s its name?” John thought to ask before Billy left the kitchen with his coffee in hand. 

Billy turned to look at him. He looked at the rat in its cage. Billy smirked. “I’ve been calling him Rat.”

Edward knocked on John’s door—or he would have, if John had had an actual office and not a cubicle. Instead he gave a sort of rap with his knuckles on the plastic edge of the cube. “You ready for lunch?” 

“I can’t,” John said without looking up from his computer. “I have to go shopping for my new rat.” 

The rat—John refused to call it Rat, since even rats deserved better names than that—had calmed down considerably once John had taken out of the bright, overstimulating kitchen and into his nice, dim cubicle. He had spent most of his morning researching how to take care of a pet rat on his work computer. The rat had spent most of its morning watching him do so through the wall of its cage. John would normally spurn the thought of using office resources for non-office related functions, but he felt that the care and keeping of a living being was more important than that quarter’s expense reports. 

“Your what?” 

“My pet rat.” John hit print. He had assembled a rather lengthy shopping list. Thankfully, there was a pet shop nearby. He was fairly sure he could collect everything he needed on his lunch break. 

“John,” Edward whispered in tones of horror, “you didn’t catch it, did you? If we’ve got rats, Mx. Fitzjames will have a fit.” 

John shot him a look. “Of course not. It belonged to Cornelius.” 

Edward’s face scrunched up. “Who’s Cornelius?” 

John didn’t particularly want to argue with Edward about Billy again, so he just said, “I need to get going,” and grabbed his coat. He was at the opening of his cubicle when he turned on his heel and looked sternly at the rat. It looked back at him. “Be good,” said John. Then he brushed past a stunned Edward and departed.

Getting the rat and all its new accoutrements across town, up the three flights of stairs to his flat, and down the hall proved more arduous than John would have liked. 

By the time he finally got everything spread out on his available flat surfaces—those being the counter, the kitchen table, and his bed, which were all conveniently only a few metres from each other—the rat had worked itself up into another frenzy. 

“It’s alright,” John told it for the nth time as he tried to attach the top of the new wire cage to the bottom. “I promise your new home will be worth it when I’m done.” He was sweating and had his sleeves rolled up. For a purchase proclaiming “easy assembly, no screwdriver required,” this was rather a lot of work. 

He finally managed to get some secret latch in just the right spot and the whole thing popped into place. “There,” he breathed, wiping his forehead with the back of his hand. “Let me get you some food and water and then you can move in.” 

When it was finally time to make the move, he took a deep breath. He was strangely nervous. He had never touched a rat before. He’d watched a video about how to properly hold rats while Mr. Crozier was in his third meeting of the day, but suddenly this seemed a momentous task. 

“You can do this,” he told himself, and then he reached into the little plastic cage and picked up the rat with both hands. 

The rat squirmed violently. 

“It’s okay, I’m not going to hurt you!” John protested as it attempted to wiggle free. He tried to shove it into the new cage, but it was making every effort to make that impossible. There was a sudden sharp pain in his finger. “Ow!” he exclaimed, and with a last effort, he managed to shove the rat into its new cage and latch the door shut. 

He examined his finger. Bright red blood welled up from the tip. “You bit me!” He pointed his finger at the cage, where the rat seemed to be trying to squeeze its head through the bars. “Look at what you did,” he told it sternly. “You bit me, and it hurts. Bad rat.” 

The rat did not look impressed. 

Muttering to himself under his breath, John went through the motions of cleaning the wound (thoroughly, with disinfectant—he had a vague idea that animal bites could be bad) and bandaging it. When he had a plaster securely in place, he returned to the kitchen. 

The rat was drinking eagerly out of its new water bottle as if nothing had happened. 

“That was very naughty of you,” John told it sternly. It eyed him but didn’t stop drinking. “See what a nice place you have now? There was no need to be so upset.” 

The rat sat back on its haunches. It began to clean its long whiskers. 

“I suppose you’ve had a hard day,” John relented. “It’s been a long one for both of us, I think.” The rat stopped cleaning itself and looked at him curiously. John took this as an invitation to say more. 

“I’ve never had a pet before,” he admitted. “I’ve been nervous all day. I don’t think I got any work done. But you’ve had to move out of your home, and your—well, your parents split up, I suppose.” John bent down so he was eye to eye with the rat. “I’m sorry you had to hear Billy talk about you like that. Do you miss your other dad? Cornelius?” 

The rat abruptly ran in a circle. 

“Oh,” said John, disappointed. He straightened. “I’m sorry, I don’t know what that means. I’m still learning.” He paused. The rat’s tail was twitching. It seemed to be agitated again. 

What would have calmed John down if he were a rat? He supposed someone talking to him in a soothing voice would have been a good start. Especially calling him John in a kind voice...

“You really need a name, don’t you?” He chewed on his lip. What did people call rats? “Jerry?” he ventured, vaguely remembering a cartoon. The rat’s tail lashed out. “Maybe not Jerry, then.” 

Every name he could think of seemed either too human or too silly. Some people had pets called Spot, but the rat didn’t have spots, and that name wasn’t dignified enough in his opinion, anyway. 

“If only you could speak to me,” John said. “You should be able to name yourself, if you want to. Or at least tell me what you like. I suppose I could...” His eyes lit up. The rat was staring at him intently. John grabbed his keys and his coat. “I’ll be right back.”

The bell over the door to the toy shop jingled as John entered. He only knew the shop existed because Edward spent most of his time here—when he wasn’t at work, anyway. John had been strong-armed into helping Edward pick out toys for nieces and nephews for months before he’d found out that Edward was dating the owner. Edward didn’t work at the toy shop, though more than a few customers had mistaken him for an employee. At this point, he rarely bothered to correct them. 

“How can I help you?” a pleasant voice asked. 

A man emerged from the back room. He had black hair combed across his forehead and brilliant blue eyes. John shuddered lightly. If anyone was a witch, he thought, it was Thomas Jopson. The man’s eyes practically glowed in the dark. 

“I am looking for your collection of boardgames,” John announced. 

“Of course. Right this way.” 

Jopson led him to a low bookshelf near the door. If John had had a minute more to look around, he could have found it himself. But he thanked Jopson politely and breathed a sigh of relief when the man left him to browse in peace. 

It took him a few minutes to find what he was looking for. There was only one, and it was buried at the bottom of the last shelf under several versions of Monopoly. But there it was. Box in hand, he approached the front desk. 

Thankfully, Jopson was not at the front desk. Instead, it was manned by the very reason Jopson had probably been in the back room when John first arrived. 

“John?” asked Edward, his eyebrows knitting together. “What are you doing here?” 

“Good to see you, too,” John said, smacking the box down on the counter. Really, he set it down lightly because he didn’t want to break it, but he hoped his tone communicated how much he would have liked to make a dramatic gesture. “I’m making a purchase.” 

“I can’t actually take your money,” Edward said apologetically. “Tom just asked me to watch the shop for a second.” 

“I can see that.” 

But Edward had caught sight of what John was there to buy. “John,” he said slowly, picking up the ouija board and examining it as if it might transform into something else if he looked at it long enough. “Are you sure you want to buy this?” 

John glared at him in answer. Before Edward could ask any more pointed questions, Jopson swept out of the back room and took his place behind the cash register as if he’d never been gone. He glanced at the box without apparent interest and rang him up. 

“Ten-pound fifty, please.” John pulled out his wallet. 

“Are you really sure about this?” Edward asked worriedly. “I mean—you know what this is used for?” 

“I’m not damning my soul by buying it,” John said irritatedly. “Make yourself useful and wrap it. How much for gift wrapping?” he asked Jopson. 

Jopson smiled blandly at him. “Fifty p, sir.” 

John paid while Edward slowly pulled out the wrapping paper. They watched him fastidiously measure and cut the paper, then fold it very carefully over the box and tape the edges. John was regretting asking for gift wrapping. But it was a gift, if an odd one. 

“Nicely done,” Jopson said softly as Edward finished it all off with a ribbon. Edward beamed at him. 

John snatched his purchase from the counter before they could return to whatever depraved things they did in the back of the shop when business was slow. “Thank you,” he said loudly to remind them he was still there, then stomped off, his purchase under his arm. 

Chapter Text

When John returned to his flat, he found the rat peering out between the bars of its cage as if it had been waiting for him. “I brought you a gift!” John said, brandishing the wrapped box in his hands. “Would you like to open it?” 

He lay the package flat on the counter beside the cage. He opened the cage door and watched as the rat fearlessly scampered outside. It inspected the wrapping paper and ribbon, which John belatedly realised might not be safe for rats. “Let me help you,” he said, and undid the ribbon. When he started ripping open the paper, the rat darted forward, grabbed the edge of the paper, and pulled hard. It ripped off a strip of paper. 

John laughed. “Nicely done!” 

Between the two of them, they made short work of the wrapping paper. The rat looked very cheerful when it was surrounded by the tattered remains of its prey. John flipped the ouija board face-up and lay it flat on the table. The rat looked at it. 

“What do you think? I thought maybe you could tell me what name you’d like. You can use this”—John showed him the triangle of wood that came with the board—“to show me what you—oh.” The rat had already darted onto the board and was sniffing it with great concentration. John quieted. The rat crept closer to the start of the alphabet, then—

“Oh, dear,” said John. The rat had just done a poo on the C. “That’s one way to show me, I suppose. But I was thinking that you—” 

The rat darted farther along the board and dropped another black pellet on the H. 

“No more of that,” John said sternly. He picked the rat up around the middle with both hands. “I won’t have you using the Lord’s name in vain, even if it is the start of your proper name. I’ll just do my best to guess from here.” 

The rat thrashed in his hands, though seemingly more out of anger than fear. John hastily returned it to its cage and latched the door shut. The rat immediately pressed its nose through the bars and squeaked at him. 

“Be patient,” John said crossly. “I have to clean this up first. But C, H, understood.” 

By the time he’d carefully disposed of the poo—rat faeces were easy to clean up, at least—and disinfected the board, the rat had calmed down somewhat. “Now then,” John said, looking at it sternly, “I’ve been trying to think. What could you have meant? Christian?” 

The rat squeaked indignantly. 

“Hmm. There’s Saint Christopher?” 

The rat wiggled its nose at him, though not quite as angrily. 

John paced his small kitchen. He hadn’t had much occasion to name anything before. When no other ideas immediately sprang to mind, he sighed. There was nothing for it.  

Me: What are good names for a rat? Has to start with CH. 

George: Charles

Edward: charley

George: Chuck

Edward: chuck e cheese is a mouse

George: Are you sure? 
George: Many Muridae are more similar in appearance than you’d expect
George: In fact, they’re mainly classified as ‘mouse’ or ‘rat’ based on size! You’d think that all mice would be genus Mus and all rats Rattus, but that actually isn’t the case 
George: So the real question is whether Chuck E Cheese is large enough to qualify as a rat by taxonomic standards 
George: Or is he small and just zoomed in, do you think? 

Me: George. 

George: Sorry
George: Crisp

Edward: that doesn’t start with ch
Edward: Chip

Me: No food names, please

George: Chris P Bacon

Edward: that’s a food name
Edward: and it’s not a pig

George: Why would you call a pig Chris P Bacon!! Sometimes I wonder about your sense of humour Edward
George: Why does it have to start with Ch anyway?

Edward: good question 

John sighed. He did love his friends, but in retrospect, asking them to help with this particular problem hadn’t been the best idea. 

Me: Thank you for the ideas. I will ask him what he thinks and get back to you. 

John silenced his phone just as his screen filled with variations on, You’re asking the RAT?? from his two friends. 

“No luck,” he told the rat. It looked at him with its little black eyes. “I’ll sleep on it and see if something comes to me.”

It took John longer to fall asleep than usual. One of the websites had said that rats were nocturnal, but he hadn’t known that he’d be able to hear his new friend quite so clearly. It was certainly active, rustling around in the bedding or sipping on its water bottle (the loudest of its activities, since the metal ball in the nozzle made a quite audible clicking sound). Occasionally it would make some slightly concerning chewing sounds—concerning, because it didn’t exactly sound like it was chewing on its cardboard chew toys. 

Eventually, though, John drifted off to sleep. 

When he woke up the next morning, he yawned widely and rolled over. The sun was shining. He checked his phone—nothing of interest, though he spent a few minutes scrolling through the news—and then sat up. 

The first thing he saw was the rat cage on the counter. He blinked and it all came rushing back: he had a pet now. 

The second thing he saw was that there was no rat. 

He leapt out of bed and rushed to the cage. Somehow—he had no idea how it was possible—the rat had managed to open its cage door during the night. He looked inside all the little cardboard hideaways in the cage, but sure enough, the rat was gone. 

He turned immediately to the door to his flat, but it was still firmly shut. The gap under the bottom of the door was barely wide enough for a sheet of paper; there was no way the rat had escaped that way. 

Perhaps...perhaps the rat was still in his flat. 

At this thought, John froze. He looked carefully down at his feet. The rat, which had seemed quite large when he’d held it in his hands, suddenly seemed altogether too small. He could easily step on it. What if—what if it had crawled under the covers, looking for somewhere warm, and he had crushed it in his sleep! 

After he had done a few rounds of breathing exercises, he was calm enough to cautiously move around his kitchen. He was just about to check under the table when he noticed the ouija board still laid out from last night. He peered at it. 

The rat had pooped all over it. 

He was just about to pick it up and dump it all in the rubbish bin when he noticed something odd. Each poop was over precisely one letter: 

C, E, I, L
N, O, R, S, U 

Perhaps it was an accident, but it looked very intentional. Unbidden, his eyes were drawn to the “Goodbye” printed at the bottom of the board. He was relieved to see it was unmarked. 

“Seal Norsoo?” John tried. “Cecil—No, I’m sorry, I have no idea.” If nothing else, clearly the rat was getting enough to eat. 

With a sigh, John gave up and dumped the contents of the board into the bin. “Well, I have to call you something, and Christopher’s the best we’ve got, so Christopher it is.” He waited to see if this little speech would produce a rat. 

It did not. 

“Christopher?” he repeated softly. Nothing. 

“If you were planning on waiting until I open the door to escape, you’re out of luck,” he informed the empty room. “It’s Saturday. I don’t plan to leave my flat all day.” Perhaps that wasn’t something to be proud of. But, well, there it was. 

“I think I’ll have breakfast now,” he announced. “And maybe, if a rat were to make an appearance, I’d give him some of my banana.” 

He saw a twitch of movement by the rubbish bin. 

The rat finally deigned to show itself once John was halfway through the banana and threatened to finish it off. The rat—or rather, Christopher, because John had to get in the habit of thinking of him by his proper Christian name now—managed to climb onto a chair. He let John feed him pieces of banana right out of his hand. 

When they were done, John returned Christopher to his cage. The rat watched with a slightly irritated expression as he sanitised the ouija board (again). When he was done, John told the rat sternly, “Edward was right. This board isn’t doing us any good. I’m putting it away.” 

The rat scrabbled angrily at the side of the cage. 

“No, you’ve lost all privileges with it,” John informed him. “Don’t give me that look. The websites were very clear that rats are intelligent, and you can be potty trained, so—no! Stop that.” 

The rat, which had begun gnawing on the bars of the cage, gave him a steely-eyed stare. 

“As I was saying, it seems all I’ve managed to train you to do is to go potty the one place you’re not supposed to. So the board is going away until you can better behave yourself.” 

With a last angry chew on the bars, the rat turned tail and disappeared into the depths of his cage. 

Chapter Text

John expected that Christopher would hold some sort of grudge against him for confiscating the ouija board, and perhaps even attempt revenge; but though the rat did sulk for several hours, the revenge never materialised. 

John spent the rest of his Saturday as usual. He did his callisthenics until the urge to morosely stare out the window subsided. He studiously avoided the stack of books he requested every year as gifts from his siblings (mathematics, philosophy, history, religion) and then never read in favour of scrolling through his phone. He scrubbed the bathroom down with cleaner until both he and Christopher were sneezing and he had to open the windows to the London rain. 

But the gloom that loneliness usually cast over his solitary weekends never fully made itself known. Every time he found his gaze straying to his phone, hoping for a message from George or Edward, he’d end up distracted by Christopher. Christopher, despite his nocturnal activities, was very active. He was often rustling around in his bedding or picking through his food bowl whenever John was nearby. John had not known rats were so obsessed with cleanliness: he always seemed to be carrying clean bedding to and fro, and if John didn’t immediately clean the corner of his cage where he did his business, the rat would alert him by rattling the bars of his cage until they squeaked in a very irritating manner. 

That evening, John regarded the rat in his cage. Christopher looked back, the picture of quiet attentiveness. “If I let you out while I watch telly,” John said slowly, “Do you promise to not go exploring tonight?” He still had no idea how the rat had managed to get out of his cage, but he wasn’t eager to repeat the experience. “And if you need to go potty, just...let me know right away.” The rat looked at him unblinkingly. John sighed at himself; it wasn’t as if the rat could understand him. He would just have to look for the signs. “Right,” he said, mostly to himself. He squared his shoulders: his finger still smarted where the rat had drawn blood. “Now, don’t bite me,” he said, and slowly reached in and picked up the rat with two hands. 

As if Christopher understood, he did not struggle. He let John carry him over to the couch—though the moment John released him, he leapt down to the floor and began to investigate. John, who suddenly realised how many nooks and crannies there were for an enterprising rat to hide away in, and how many electrical cords were available for chewing, hovered nearby. But Christopher seemed content to look, and he completely ignored the electrical cords after an initial sniff. 

After Christopher had satisfied his curiosity—which took several minutes—he leapt back up onto the couch. He looked at John expectantly. 

John laughed softly. Of course; it was time for telly. “I think Billy underestimated your intelligence,” he said. The rat, he thought, looked very pleased. 

To John’s surprise, the moment he settled himself on the couch, Christopher climbed into his lap. The rat seemed completely uninterested in John, despite using him as a cushion, and he cleaned his whiskers while John found the latest footie match. Christopher yawned widely, then curled up in a circle and tucked his nose under his long rat tail before he went to sleep. 

As the game wore on, the rat’s little body became heavy with sleep. John barely dared breathe lest he disturb him. But at one particularly exciting goal, Christopher twitched awake. He uncurled himself and stretched luxuriously along the length of John’s thigh. He resettled himself with his head facing forwards, as though he had decided to watch the game after all. 

Tentatively, John ran a finger over Christopher’s head between his ears. 

Rather than biting him, as John half-expected him to, Christopher relaxed beneath his finger. His red-gold fur was very smooth, and warm. Emboldened, John continued to pet him. He watched in awe as Christopher’s chin slowly dipped lower, and lower, until it touched John’s thigh and rested there. 

By the time the programme ended, Christopher’s eyes were closed in bliss and it seemed every muscle in his body had relaxed. John gently stroked a finger from forehead to rear end over the pancake that Christopher had become. The rat’s breathing was deep and even. John’s heart gave a feeble thump. All creatures great and small, he thought, and his chest warmed as Christopher’s pink nose twitched in sleep. 

“Billy, I need to talk to you.”  

Billy looked up at him in astonishment. His surprise wasn’t altogether unwarranted. John was in the office very early for a Monday morning. John was always punctual, but he wasn’t usually early. However, he had woken up that morning with a mission in mind, and after letting Christopher nibble on his toast, he had walked briskly to the bus stop.

However, as the silence stretched, John realised that he was looming slightly over Billy at the front desk. “You can be a bit intense, John,” George had told him once. John sheepishly took a step back. “When you have a moment, that is.” 

Billy relaxed marginally. “Is this about...” He licked his lips. “...Rat?” 

“Christopher, yes.” At Billy’s uncomprehending expression, he clarified, “I’ve named him Christopher. Is now a good time?” 

Billy’s expression cleared. “Yes, now is fine.” He stood, unfolding himself from his chair. He paused with his fingers on the surface of his desk. “You haven’t...heard from Cornelius, then?” 

John stared at him. Why would he have heard from Billy’s ex? Did the man have his number? Had Billy given John’s number to him for some incomprehensible reason? “No, should I?” 

Billy made an expressive gesture, half shrug, half shake of his head. “You wanted to talk, you said?” 

“Right. Yes.” John glanced furtively around the partly-lit office. It was too early for most of his coworkers to be in, though there was a light down at the end of the hall under the closed door that led to Mx. Fitzjames’s office. They and Mr. Crozier usually arrived together, though the door to Crozier’s office was firmly shut without sign of life, as usual. 

Just in case, John lowered his voice. “I was wondering, have you heard from...Cornelius? I mean, he must miss his pet?” 

Impossibly, Billy seemed offended at the question. “No, I have not heard from Cornelius. And he doesn't.” 

John frowned. This did not sit right with him at all. The rat was so sweet. Who would willingly give him up? And, well—John was becoming rather fond of Christopher. The thought of the rat’s rightful owner snatching him away just when they’d made so much progress made his stomach squirm. 

“I suppose I could take him off your hands,” Billy said with an exhausted sigh. “He’s really become that troublesome already?” 

“What? No!” John exclaimed. This must have been too loud, because there was a grunt from somewhere down the hall. John glanced at Crozier’s door, then lowered his voice. “It’s the opposite. How can you be sure he won’t want the rat back?” He found himself wringing his hands. “I’d really prefer not to get into—well, some kind of custody argument later. Especially not over a rat, of all things,” he blustered at the end. A flush rose to his cheeks. 

Billy was speechless for a few seconds. “I promise there’s no danger of Cornelius taking him back,” he said in an odd, slightly choked voice. 

“I would feel better if I could talk to him about it myself.” 

Billy’s eyebrows rose. “You want to speak to Cornelius?” 

“Well—yes.” John frowned. He didn’t see what was so hard to understand about this. “I know things must have ended ba—well, that things must be awkward...” He trailed off. In truth, he didn’t know anything about their breakup. Hearsay from George and Edward wasn’t much to go on. “What I mean is, you don’t have to talk to him if you don’t want to. But if you could put me in touch with him, I’d appreciate it.” 

Billy shrugged. “Alright.” He held out his hand for John’s phone. A moment later, John had a contact that read, Cornelius Hickey. 

“Thank you,” John said. As he walked to his cubicle, he texted rapidly: Hello! My name is John. I know this must seem strange, but I work with Billy and I have adopted your rat. Is that alright? If it isn’t, please let me know and we can work something out. 

But though he checked his phone several times between meetings, Cornelius never responded. 

By the time John got home from work, there was still no word from Cornelius. However, he did discover that Christopher had shredded every single cardboard tube in his enclosure. 

“Those were for playing in,” John said in dismay. He ran a hand through his hair, putting it on end. “I thought you might chew on your toys a little, but this...” The rat had decimated them. He had methodically shredded each tube into identical little pieces. “Did this take you all day?” 

From the murder in the rat’s little eyes, it had not occupied him nearly that long. John suspected he had been unoccupied for several hours and was now plotting what to do next. 

“I don’t know if you’re angry that I left, or you thought I’d abandoned you, or if you were just bored, but this is not acceptable.” The rat, in answer, turned his tail on him and began to kick up his bedding for no discernible reason. In a moment, the scraps of cardboard were indistinguishable from the shredded paper on the floor of the cage. 

John had planned for this eventuality—or at least, he had planned for an eventuality, which was that Christopher would get bored of his toys and John would delight him by producing all kinds of entertaining activities from the plastic bags hidden inside the cupboard under the sink. Unfortunately, he had gotten rather overzealous on Sunday after watching a video about rat enrichment, and all the best toys were already in the cage with Christopher. All that was left was a baggie of rat treats, which clearly were not the thing for this situation. 

It was just as well. John suspected “delight” was not a likely rat emotion at this juncture. 

He swore inelegantly under his breath. There was a pet store within walking distance of his flat. It had always struck him as rather grimy and rundown, but he didn’t have time to get something better before everything closed for the night. Clearly, Christopher wouldn’t last another workday without sturdier entertainment. He grabbed his keys and struggled back into his coat, well aware of a pair of beady rat eyes on his back the entire time.

Chapter Text

Thankfully, the pet shop was still open. A large golden bell clanged as John pulled open the glass door. He froze in place as the door clanged shut behind him. It was unusually warm and bright in the shop after the chilly dark outside. More unsettling than that was the many pairs of eyes that landed on him as he entered. Animals in cages lined the walls. Nearest to the door, an enormous white cockatoo looked back at John with unblinking eyes. 

It took John a moment to register the man behind the counter. He was tall, with broad forearms and dark hair. He glanced at John, then returned to the magazine in his hands. John opened his mouth, for once actually wanting some assistance, then closed it. Well. He could find the rat section himself. 

There was no rat section, but there was a small rodent section. He was sweating slightly by the time he finally spotted the promising image of a guinea pig on a label. Nearby hamsters scurried about in circular tunnels. The shop was small, but it had an odd quality where every time he went down one aisle, he seemed to end up in a different aisle he hadn’t seen before. He could only assume the disorientation was a side effect of the fluorescent lighting, which was giving him a headache. 

He frowned at the options. Anything made of cardboard was out. There were a few plastic toys, but those made him nervous: he had no desire to subject either himself or Christopher to a vet visit. Besides, many of them required treats to work. If he depended on treats to keep Christopher entertained, he had a feeling he’d be dealing with a rodent the size of a football before long. He finally found something promisingly sturdy buried behind several soft fabric toys: a collection of colourful wooden blocks tied together by twine. 

When John slung his purchase onto the counter, the man at the till lowered his magazine and eyed it doubtfully. Behind him, a trio of cockatiels hopped from perch to perch and chirped at each other. “Is that all?” 

“Yes,” John said stiffly. “Thank you...” He looked at the name tag sewn into the man’s shirt. Hoar, it read. John coughed. “Mr. Hoar,” he managed to say. It was a perfectly normal word, he reminded himself as his face heated. It was only the uncommon heat of the shop and the odd lighting that was making him think of other things. There was “hoarfrost,” and—and— 

Mr. Hoar took his money without further comment. The moment John had his purchase safely in his hands, he fled. He did not know which was worse in the moment before the door slammed shut behind him: the indignant squawking of the cockatoo, or the jangling of the bell.

John hastened back to his flat with his purchase. After the cold and dark, he was looking forward to the warmth of his flat. 

But when he flicked on the light, his heart nearly leapt out of his chest: Christopher was staring at him with beady eyes from across the room. 

John cleared his throat and closed the door behind him. “I don’t see what the fuss is all about,” he said sternly. He slung the plastic bag onto the table. “Surely you’ve been left alone before. I know the idea of sitting at a desk in a cube must be foreign to you—and to be honest, isn’t the most...exciting...” After a significant amount of rustling, he produced a crumpled receipt and his purchase. He sighed and snipped the tag off the blocks. “But unfortunately—” He turned, toy in hand, to find Christopher gnawing at the bars of his cage. “Stop that!” Christopher fixed him with a gimlet eye and withdrew—though not, John felt, without a certain amount of ill intent. 

The trick, John had found after installing various toys inside Christopher’s cage, was to open the lid as fast as possible, shove whatever it was through the gap, and then slam the lid shut before Christopher could scamper more than halfway up the thick rope that connected his (now demolished) cardboard tube to the next layer of his abode. 

This time, however, the moment he unlatched the cage, Christopher took a flying leap. 

“No!” John shouted. He barely managed to catch the rat, though only by dropping the collection of coloured blocks unceremoniously in to the cage. Christopher squirmed violently in his hands. Sensing his fingers were again in danger, John quickly dropped the rat into the hammock at the top of the cage, then slammed the lid shut on the rat’s stunned face. 

“There,” John announced, panting slightly. The blocks had ended up draped over a sort of shelf that Christopher sometimes napped on, so they dangled below. Christopher looked disdainfully at them, then regarded John with glittering eyes. The disturbing thing about the hammock, John thought, was that it brought them almost eye to eye. “To think I was just telling Billy how well-behaved you were.” 

Christopher flinched. 

John immediately felt bad. He didn’t really think Christopher was so terrible just because he was being a little difficult. “I suppose I would be upset if I thought I’d been abandoned, too,” John relented as Christopher turned away. The rat climbed slowly down from the hammock to the rope below, every movement drenched with self-pity. John tried to force some cheer into his voice. “But see? If you would only be patient, you’d get a nice toy like this one. And if you’d been patient a little longer, I could have hung it up properly. You’re meant to climb on it, to get some of that energy out.” 

Christopher ambled over to the dangling collection of blocks. He sniffed them. By stretching to his full length, he could just reach the twine secured to the lowest block. Actually—

“Christopher!” 

The rat, unrepentant, chewed faster. The twine snapped. The first block thudded to the ground. Christopher climbed onto it and stretched himself to a truly impressive length before gnawing at the twine tied to the second block. “No, no! You’re meant to chew on the wood, not—” 

Another block fell to the ground. “Christopher,” John growled—but before he could decide what to do next, his phone, which he had abandoned on the counter, simultaneously vibrated and made a sound like rubbing two bamboo stalks together. 

They both jumped. 

Christopher, twine still between his teeth, slowly turned to look at John. He released the twine and gave John his full attention. 

Heat crawled up the back of John’s neck. He had completely forgotten it made that noise, and to have it make that sound with a witness of all things—! “Sorry,” he said, as if the rat knew what the sound meant, or cared. “I must have unsilenced it somehow,” he babbled. He snatched his phone from the counter. 

He glanced at the notification. He had matched with someone named “Dundy.” His thumb hovered over the notification to delete it, but he changed his mind and quickly hid his screen. He switched the phone on silent. 

Later. He would think about it later. 

He looked up from his phone to find Christopher staring at him intently. Not just staring; his entire body was pointed at John from nose to tail, like a little arrow. Since he was still perched on his pile of conquests, it was particularly unnerving. 

“None of your business,” John said primly as he pocketed his phone. Christopher’s ears twitched. There was something curious in his little eyes. “It was just—a notification. Anyway,” John said, his voice shrill. “More to the point, you’ve been very naughty. You can destroy this toy for all I care, but it’s the only one I’m getting you this week.” 

Together, they regarded the collection of colourful blocks suspended from the cage—Christopher with a certain doubtful air. “Right,” said John with false confidence. “That should keep you entertained for a few days.”

John did not sleep well, tossing and turning over whether he should message Dundy and what Christopher was doing in equal measure. When his blaring alarm got him out of bed, he discovered that Christopher had continued his disassembling project during the night. Now that the toy was missing most of the blocks from its centre, it looked less like an opportunity for climbing exercises and more like a child’s mobile. 

But doing so seemed to have made Christopher more sedate. During breakfast, as John fed him bits of his customary morning banana through the bars, Christopher regarded him with a thoughtful air. John couldn’t say he felt good about leaving for work, but he was less certain he’d come home to destruction on a biblical scale. 

When he did come home—not rushing, he told himself, just being prompt—he found that Christopher had not destroyed anything. In fact, he seemed to be using his pile of newly liberated blocks to build something with an uncanny resemblance to a staircase. This, John disassembled in an overabundance of caution. But even then, Christopher hardly seemed upset, simply watching the proceedings from the safety of his hammock. 

After that, things between them eased. John still came home to his share of destruction, but they were on a smaller scale, as if Christopher had taken apart one of his toys as a project rather than out of pure rage or revenge. For his part, John found himself becoming more lenient with Christopher. A disassembled toy was hardly a disaster, as long as Christopher wasn’t using it to escape. 

They also found that the rat was very fond of apples. John would cut up a quarter of an apple into matchsticks for Christopher before he left each morning and when he came home in the evening. It gave them both something to look forward to. John also found the preemptive reward worked a lot better than angry words after the fact. He rather enjoyed watching Christopher chomp the slice of apple methodically until it was completely gone. 

The snacks became more elaborate. John got in the habit of making Christopher little meals, sometimes with the fruit and vegetables carved into trees or houses. He even bought a set of willow China made for a doll house. He enjoyed arranging the fruits and vegetables on the plates and watching Christopher eat while he cooked his own dinner. Christopher always cleaned his plate down to the last bite and was a fastidious eater. If he got anything on his whiskers, he cleaned them carefully with his little paws. 

It was, John felt, a bit like having a flatmate.

Chapter Text

John was chopping up ingredients for a salad while Christopher watched from his seat on an overturned yoghurt container. This was their custom most evenings: Christopher watched John cook, and John fed him bits of whatever rat-friendly ingredients he was using that night. 

“They should be here soon,” John told Christopher. Christopher’s whiskers twitched. He craned his neck towards John. John paused in his chopping of a cucumber. “Sorry, did I not tell you? Edward and George are coming over. You’ll like them,” he assured him. “Or, well, I suppose you’ve already met Edward.” 

Christopher went very still and looked at him intently. 

“What?” John frowned. He looked at his half-assembled salad. “You don’t think this will be enough? There’s lasagna, too, you watched me bake it earlier.” He nodded at the plastic carton of raspberries by the sink. “And we’ll have fresh fruit for dessert—” Just then, there was a knock on the door. He hastily dried his hands. “That’ll be them now.” 

He opened the door to find both his friends beaming at him. “Come in, come in,” John said, holding the door open. 

“Thanks for having us, old fellow,” George said cheerfully. He produced a bottle of wine. “Here’s a red—know you don’t drink much, but thought we might indulge.” 

“Very kind. You didn’t have any trouble finding it?” he asked anxiously. 

“No trouble at all,” Edward assured him as he started to pull off his coat. 

“Though parking was a beast—OH MY GOD!” 

John spun around. A wiggling rat bum was visible just above the edge of the carton of raspberries. Both George and Edward were yelling now. “Calm down,” John said loudly, but neither of them listened to him. Christopher’s tail whipped back and forth, and then his head emerged. Raspberry gore dripped from his jaws. 

Edward shrieked. George yelled, “Oh God, I want to live!” while he and Edward clutched at each other. Startled, Christopher leapt out of the carton, landing on the floor and scattering raspberries every which way. 

“It’s fine!” John shouted. Christopher darted under the table, but finding his exit blocked by unfamiliar pairs of feet, he ran in alarmed circles. “He’s my pet! It’s fine!” 

“IT’S GOT A KNIFE!” 

“He’s a rat, he can’t use a knife,” John said crossly. But it was true that a paring knife had been knocked to the floor in the commotion. With raspberry remains smeared across most surfaces and little pink paw prints all over the white linoleum, it did look a bit like the site of a massacre. 

“I’ve got it!” George shouted, raising his foot as one of Christopher’s crazed circles brought him within reach. 

“No!” John shoved George off balance. 

“Let me kill it!” Edward shouted. Clutching at George with one hand, he groped along John’s coat rack for a likely weapon with the other. Since his coat was half down his arm, it hampered his attempts somewhat. 

“Stop!” John shouted. He shoved them toward the door. “Both of you! Out, now!” 

“But—” 

“Rat infestation—” 

“OUT!” John bellowed. George and Edward stared at him. His shoulders heaved; he had never said anything so loudly in his life. “You both just tried to murder my friend,” he said fiercely. “You are not welcome here. Get out.” 

“But we’re your friends, John,” George protested. “That’s a rat, not a friend. No matter how much you might like it.” 

John glared at him. 

“Come on,” Edward said, wisely pushing George towards the door. It took them a few seconds of fumbling before they got it open. The door slammed shut behind them with a final sound. 

“You forgot your bottle of wine,” George’s voice called faintly from the other side. 

“Another time, George,” Edward said. Their footsteps receded down the hall. 

John took a deep breath. He looked around. The room truly was a mess—raspberry everywhere, plus cucumber peels. He could just make out the twitch of Christopher’s whiskers behind a table leg. 

“They’re gone,” John said in as calm a voice as he could muster. Even to his own ears, he still sounded furious. He picked up the paring knife from the floor and placed it safely in the sink. Then he crouched down. “It’s safe now, Christopher,” he said softly, and extended his hand. 

The twitching pink nose gradually emerged from the shadows. Then, with a sudden burst of speed, Christopher ran across the floor and leapt onto John’s palm. 

John scooped him up and held the tiny, warm body to his chest. Christopher pressed close to him. He was breathing very fast. John stroked one finger over his small head, smoothing back the fur between his ears. The rat pressed his jaw against John’s chest. John’s own heart was beating rapidly; he felt as though he’d run a long distance. He hoped it wouldn’t upset Christopher. 

“It’s alright,” he murmured. “You’re safe now.” Overwhelmed by a great mingling of emotions, he pressed a kiss to the top of the rat’s small, warm head. 

The rat buried his nose in the safety of John’s hands. John held him close and stroked him soothingly for a long time. 

He wiped as much raspberry off Christopher as he could with a paper towel. He then left the rat to clean the remaining pink spots off of himself in his cage. 

After John finished scrubbing the kitchen floor, he found that his crisp white shirt was hopelessly stained with pink paw prints. He looked at them with no more than a sign. He thought that Christopher would be worn out, but when he returned from the bedroom in a clean shirt, he found Christopher pressing his nose against the bars of the cage. 

John set a finger gently against Christopher’s nose so he could sniff it. “You want to sit on the couch and watch Two Weeks Notice with me?” he murmured. Christopher scrabbled at the bars with his claws. John obligingly lifted him out and carried him to the couch, holding him tight to his chest as he did so.

“I hate to tell you this,” George said over lunch, “but I don’t think your rat is...normal.” 

“It’s too smart,” Edward agreed. “It looks at you with those little eyes.” He stared intently at the far well to demonstrate. 

John frowned. “Rats are very smart. You can teach them tricks. Like dogs. The websites all say that.” 

It was true, though the websites had not quite prepared him for Christopher’s level of intelligence. He got the impression that Christopher could recognize human faces, watch and understand films, and read English. Either this was a sign of some higher-order level of thinking the websites had not captured, or John was so lonely, he had gone past the point of projecting onto his pet rat and straight into delusion. He preferred not to think too hard about this. 

“And then there was the...dinner incident.” George stirred the straw in his lemonade. 

John’s eyes narrowed. “We’ve talked about this. It was all just a misunderstanding. You scared him! He never—” 

“Behaves like that, you said,” George said gently. “John, have you considered that your rat might be...jealous?” 

“I beg your pardon?” 

“Some animals can be territorial,” Edward put in. “Neptune acts a little weird when Tom comes over.” 

John frowned. Neptune, famously the most laid-back dog he’d ever seen? “Neptune, the one your mum almost stepped on that time because she thought he was a rug?” 

Edward shrugged. “Dunno. He always barks when Tom comes in the door. Tom gives him this kind of look until Neptune stops. I think the two of them have some things they’re working out.” 

John filed this away for later. 

“It’s just, John...” Edward continued tentatively. “Sometimes you talk about that rat like it’s a person.” 

“His name is Christopher,” John said, stung. George and Edward exchanged a look. “What? Edward, don’t you think of Neptune as a person?” 

“Sort of,” Edward said slowly. “He’s kind of like a roommate. Who depends on me to feed him and take him for walkies.” 

“But you really take it to another level, though,” George said. “I mean, you bought your rat a hammock.” 

John frowned. “Yes? Rats enjoy that sort of thing.” He barely stopped himself from adding, That’s what the websites say. He didn’t need the advice of websites to know such things anymore; it would be obvious to anyone that Christopher loved climbing up into his soft little hammock and looking down on the world. It was his favourite place to watch John cook while they listened to podcasts together. 

“And you give him free roam of your flat.” 

“Neptune gets to go where he pleases,” John pointed out. His shoulders were climbing towards his ears. “And I’ll have you know I’m feeling unjustly attacked over here.” 

“No one’s attacking you,” Edward said earnestly. “It’s just—do we need to stage some sort of intervention?” 

“Edward,” George hissed. “You aren’t supposed to tell him we’re going to stage an intervention.” 

“Why not?” 

While George and Edward bickered, John looked down at his hands. They wanted to take Christopher away from him. He did his breathing exercises. They didn’t help very much. 

“We’re just worried about you,” George finally said as he emerged from his conference with Edward. “I’m worried about you. Have you had any luck on the dating apps I told you about?” 

“No,” John said glumly. George had sent him some well-meaning “dating for Christians” articles, but they had quickly veered off in a direction he didn’t like. Grindr, for all its failings, didn’t expect him to remain celibate until marriage. 

But truth be told, he couldn’t remember the last time he’d been on a date, through Grindr or otherwise. He had tried, when he was a junior accountant at his first job, eager and wet behind the ears. He’d gone on date after date, hoping to find the one. His memories were crowded with coffee he didn’t like, awkwardly bumping knees on too-small tables, stumbling over conversations about nothing. Dates that ended with mutual tepid smiles and nothing more. 

“I just think you need more human companionship,” George continued. John winced. He could tell George was trying to say this as gently as he could, but none of them were known for their social graces. “Not necessarily of the carnal kind, if that’s not what you desire! I hate to say it, but you need more friends, John.” George looked at him pleadingly until John met his eye. “Edward and I are wonderful, we know that, but there are some things you just can’t talk to us about, aren’t there?” 

John dropped his eyes to the table. His heart squeezed. It was true, though he hadn’t expected either of them to notice. Had they known this whole time? That John didn’t feel entirely comfortable telling them his true fears and desires? 

“We aren’t offended,” Edward assured him. “And if you don’t want to date, that’s okay, too. But Tom—” 

“I know things are wonderful with Tom,” John burst out. “And of course I want to date! I—” He slapped both palms flat on the table and looked at them, bright-eyed. They both looked back at him in surprise. “I hate dating,” he announced. “I hate it. But I do want a companion, and you’re right that if I want one, I have to do something about it.” He stood up and got his coat from the back of the chair. “Good day, gentlemen.” And he swept out of the room.

When John was safely in his flat, Christopher cheerfully click-click-clicking on his water bottle nearby, he settled himself on the couch and opened his phone. 

He angled it so Christopher wouldn’t be able to see it—ridiculous, he knew, but he always felt as though God were looking over his shoulder when he opened this app, and the second pair of eyes in his flat was a little too real for comfort. His face heated as he swiped to his second home screen, then opened the folder he kept the app in, and pulled up Grindr. 

He didn’t go on Grindr often. He also hadn’t met up with anyone from it in a long while. It was hard to say if he’d had any conversations on the app lately, either: messages usually began with winky faces and sweating eggplants, which were enough to make him turn bright red and close the app without hope of an intelligent conversation. 

But sometimes it was nice to look, and pretend. 

Yes, there were a fair number of faceless torsos with washboard abs (Photoshopped, no doubt) clearly looking for very little in the way of dating. But with a bit of luck and a lot of scrolling, he could occasionally find someone willing to show their face and provide more then their height and gym habits in their profile. 

He scrolled through the offerings today. One of them caught his eye, familiar. His scrolling slowed.

Dundy, 35. The same person he’d matched with a few weeks ago. 

Dundy’s profile photo had enticed him with his smouldering gaze and amused mouth. He had his chin tilted at the camera in a rakish way, and from what little background was visible, he appeared to be on a beach somewhere tropical. His age and decent hairline suggested the grey in his hair was premature. But it gave him a look of maturity generally lacking in the men who were interested in John and close to his age. 

John hovered over his profile, then clicked through on impulse. It was short but tantalising: a brief summary of what he was looking for (“Dinner or a drink or meet at yours - up for anything really”) and a few words to describe him. It was these that John stared hard at. 

Adventurous. John hadn’t gone backpacking in a long time, but he’d been interested in it when he was in uni. The beauty of nature, the fresh air in his lungs, the thrill of completing a dangerous stretch of trail: he wouldn’t mind doing that again. 

Always up for trying new things. John hesitated. He wasn’t exactly one to step outside his comfort zone in the other areas of his life. He liked coming home to his simple life in his simple flat. But he was trying to be more “out there,” as George put it. And wasn’t this why he still had the app on his phone, after all? Because he wanted to try new things? 

He started a new message. 

Hello. Nice to meet a fellow adventurer.

John put Christopher to bed (which involved filling his food and water dishes, spinning his rat wheel a couple times to make sure it didn’t need greasing, and turning out the kitchen light), brushed his teeth, and had just settled into bed with a good book when his phone vibrated. 

He picked it up curiously. George and Edward knew better than to text him this late, and he rarely heard from anyone else. 

It was Dundy. Dundy, 35, with the smirk. 

His heart beat fast in his chest. He’d messaged him back. 

Cheers. Love the monkey ;) reminds me of a friend of mine

John stared at the message, uncomprehending. Then he remembered that one of his profile photos was of him with a Capuchin monkey perched on his shoulder. It had been taken at the zoo. Even though it was slightly blurry, Edward had insisted he use it because it was the only photo he had where he was genuinely smiling. 

Thanks, he quickly typed back. Small and fond of peanuts? 

Chatty and vain 

John found himself grinning helplessly at his phone. Not only had Dundy messaged him, but he was talking to him. He racked his brain for something intelligent to say back. 

Then he caught sight of the time. He sighed. I need to get up early for work. 

Working man, eh? I’ll leave you to it, then.

John bit his lip and smiled down at the message. 

As if on cue, Christopher began to run on his wheel. Squeak, squeak, squeak. John scowled and turned off the light.