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Interesting.
Javier’s eyes narrow as he watches a familiar face enter the shop with a small “ding” sound once the door has been fully opened. Let's see, he thinks to himself.
The man waves to him and sends a crooked smile his way and, before Javier can even return the gesture, the boy is already scramming towards the live animals section. Just like he always does.
Except this time Javier silently gets up from his chair, leaves the counter behind him and follows the man in his step. Just to confirm his suspicions, that is.
And to anyone not observant enough it would look like the brunette is just petting the hamsters, his arm down one of the glass cabinets. But the small movement (and a small squeak) in his definitely-too large sleeve of a hoodie gives it away - confirms what Javier had suspected for the past few days.
“Okay, the jig is up. What the fuck do you need all these damn rodents for?” He speaks up, his voice making the man jump up, a small hamster falling out of his sleeve. The hell?
He looks at Javier as if he will burst into tears the next second (cute, he catches himself thinking), but suddenly, his eyebrows furrow and he points an accusatory finger at him.
“Not your business! Besides, all the animals at pet stores are absolutely mistreated and just plain sad,” he squeals, crossing his arms and raising up his chin at him, “and I’m doing them a favor.”
Javier sighs and crosses his arms at his chest, mimicking the seemingly younger boy. “Dude,” he says, not even knowing where to start. “Listen. Look at the cabinets for them,” he gestures at the glass cages where the small rodents are gathered at the glass, as if watching the argument. “Look at it real close. Do they look mistreated to you?”
The boy takes a glance at the hamsters and scans the enclosure as if searching for something, anything, that would show that the little animals could be, indeed, unhappy, but he doesn’t find anything. He bites his lip and looks the other way, avoiding Javier’s eye contact.
“Well? You gonna tell me where you hid away, like, half of the horde I had just a month ago?” Javier asks, the question feeling more like a command.
“Hid away…” the brunette repeats, Javier raising an eyebrow at him. “I mean, sure. I can just… Show you. After your shift?”
“And, by the way, I’m David.”
_
Javier makes David stay in the store until his shift is over, too suspicious of the sly boy to let him go. Once he’s finished with making sure that the lock on the front door is in place, David is already bouncing up and down on his heels. So impatient, he thinks to himself.
“So, David…”
“Oh my God, come on! You’ve kept me in there for like, the whole day!”
David grabs him by his shoulder and starts dragging him towards, probably, his hideout. Hideout? Do supervillains steal hamsters, or do they start at people?
Before he can expand on this thought there’s David’s face centimeters from his, shouting at him to “hurry up, or else I will cut both your legs off since clearly you don’t need them” and Javier grins at that.
“Yeah, I’d like to see you try,” he mutters under his breath. David rolls his eyes and drops his hand from Javier’s shoulder, continuing walking in a set direction.
After around 5 minutes of a calm stroll, David suddenly stops in front of an average looking house, Javier almost walking into him. He was expecting a wooden shack or a place hidden in a cave. And to think people who steal hamsters live among us, in society…
Without a word, David opens the door (which, for whatever reason, is unlocked) and throws off his shoes in a random direction. Javier follows, taking off his shoes and putting them neatly next to eachother. He wants to ask David where he can put his jacket, but the second his mouth opens, the boy is in his face gesturing for him to stay quiet.
“If he hears you,” he whispers, “it’s over.”
Javier furrows his eyebrows and before he can whisper back “who the hell is he”, the question answers itself. A small figure pops out of one of the hallways and, seeing them, a small smirk starts dancing on his lips. “Whoa, David, bringing home yet another one?”
“Shut the fuck up, Martin,” David just sighs, takes a hold of Javier’s shoulder and starts forcefully dragging him up the stairs. He can hear a fading conversation of the said Martin with somebody else in the background.
Before Javier can ask if David actually brings home men every single day for his roommates to be acting like that, David leads him into, he supposes, his room and he stands there in deep shock.
“Okay,” he starts, his jaw still hanging open, “how many fucking pet stores did you loot?”
The room is huge, but there's almost no free space left. The entire thing is full of glass cabinets, enclosures and cages of various sizes - it’s honestly impressive. Javier mindlessly starts walking around the thing, careful to not step on various items laying on the floor.
“Well… Only yours? I bought the rest of these, or got them as gifts. Or adopted.”
Javier finally finds the enclosure with his hamsters and counts them. They’re all here. “Well,” he leans down, starting to pet a brown-furred one. “I’m happy you took great care of these little guys, but, could I have them back?”
He hears David sigh behind him and footsteps approaching, the man leaning down next to him. “They’re yours. On one condition, though,” David smiles and bumps his shoulder into Javier’s one. “You’ll let me visit them, yea? Got attached to them already.”
Javier lets out a breathy laugh and hangs his head down, a grin spreading on his face.
“Yeah. Deal.”