Chapter Text
“Are you kidding me right now!?”
The yell of disbelief echoed throughout the entirety of the hospital, but Dr. Harlow seemed completely unaffected by it, his ears only flicking slightly at the sudden outburst.
“Now, Felix, there was no reason to yell. Everyone here can hear you perfectly. And please sit back down,” Dr. Harlow said in that infuriatingly calm voice.
Felix huffed and flopped back down into his seat, his tail flicking around in irritation. He couldn’t believe what he was hearing from Dr. Harlow. It was completely mad.
His eyes flicked around the room, noticing that the others either looked incredibly awkward about this conversation or downright fearful.
“Dr. Harlow, are you certain about these—” Nurse Lily cut herself off, her tail dropping even further if that was possible. She seemed to be the most scared of what the doctor was suggesting.
Harlow just smiled patiently. He wasn’t wearing his usual mask for this meeting, which was already odd as he was always wearing it around them.
“Now, no need to be so harsh. Like I said, the Animal Corporation and myself have been trying to find a way to either find a cure for the anomalies or, at the very least, domesticate them.”
Harlow paused there, letting that sink in once more, probably thinking that if he said it again it would somehow make them all feel less tense. Felix scoffed internally, his ears flicking every few seconds.
“Sadly, we have yet to find a cure, but we have luckily been able to domesticate a few of them. To test that further, four of them will be working here with the rest of you,” Dr. Harlow said with a smile that actually seemed genuine, which was, again, odd.
“And what if they lose control? What if they hurt a patient? Or worse, what if they eat one of us?” Felix couldn’t help but speak up at the nonsense Harlow was spouting. It was like the man had absolutely no concern for the rest of his employees.
Everyone else nodded in agreement with what he had said. They didn’t want to die or for their patients to get hurt, and they certainly didn’t want to babysit “domesticated anomalies” who could lose control if Harlow was wrong.
Dr. Harlow gave him a look that essentially told him to shut up.
“To answer your question, Felix, the interns will be doing no such thing. We have already tested that much earlier, so you can all be assured that they won’t be attacking you or your patients.”
As soon as he said that, everyone started talking at once, the room quickly growing louder.
“How can you be certain they weren’t just pretending to be domesticated!?” Jeremy exclaimed.
“What if they start eating the organs we get for surgery!?” Damian yelled, his hooves scratching through his fur nervously.
“Do they even know how to work with other people?” Angelina asked calmly, probably the only calm one other than the Lucian, but Felix was beginning to think calm was simply his only emotion.
“What do they even eat if not animal flesh!?” Parker yelled frantically, his hooves messing with the fur that sat on top of his head, though he was quickly calmed down by his husband, Eli.
The questions continued on and on, getting louder and louder, more angry and more fearful, and Felix sat there with a smug expression. He wasn’t the only one who thought Chris was going crazy in his old age. Not that he was actually that old—he was probably only in his mid-thirties—but what did he know?
Harlow suddenly slammed his hoof down on the table, making everyone flinch, including Felix himself. Every single person immediately snapped their mouths shut. Harlow looked around at everyone with a disappointed expression before clearing his throat.
“Now, I had hoped you all would act with some dignity and not like a bunch of children at this wonderful news.”
Felix scoffed loudly at that, and Chris turned to look at him with an exasperated expression.
“As I was saying, you all will be acting nicely toward the new interns, and I will know if any of you have been mean to them. Don’t test me.”
Harlow looked directly at Jeremy and then at Felix, which, rude.
“Alright then, if you have any questions, ask me now. Calmly, no yelling, and one at a time, please. I will do my best to answer them all with the time that we have.”
~:3~~:3~~:3~~:3~
Surprisingly, the meeting ended on a more cheerful note, if he could even call the context of the meeting cheerful to anybody but Chris.
The rest of the shift was spent dealing with tiring patients and a bunch of obvious anomalies. Thankfully, he and Jeremy made quick work of those.
Another good thing was that they wouldn’t be meeting the anomalies—ahem, interns—until tomorrow night. From what he had gathered from the questions Harlow answered about these “domesticated anomalies,” there were a few things he learned.
One: they didn’t eat other animals. Instead, they were omnivores, which was strange for bunnies.
And that led him to question two: the four interns they were getting were all bunnies and all related. Quadruplets, to be exact.
Three: they kept themselves sane by either eating sweets, specifically chocolate, or drinking coffee. Which, to be fair, was what the rest of them did too, but he hadn’t realized other sweets worked to keep them sane as well.
Well… you learn new things every day, even if you learn those things from anomalies.
Four: yes, they did know how to work with other people, and they apparently had incredibly good manners. Though one of them had trouble communicating. Supposedly, he’d always been like that, even before becoming an anomaly.
Other than the more minor questions, like their dislikes and likes, which Felix found a bit unimportant compared to the other four that Chris answered, he liked to think he’d gathered enough information on them.
He was shaken out of his thoughts by the ding of the coffee machine.
Felix looked down at the watch Chris had given everyone to track their sanity. How it worked, he hadn’t a clue, but looking at it now, he noticed his sanity had dropped to forty percent.
Thank God the coffee had finished brewing.
Felix immediately made his way to the main office, passing a few nurses who had just started their shift. He walked inside, the door already wide open, and nodded at Eli when he waved hello, noticing Parker wasn’t there. He had probably clocked out already.
He poured himself the last bit of coffee that had been left in the pot and eagerly took a sip. His tail swayed in contentment as the familiar bitterness settled on his tongue. He licked his lips before sitting down beside Jeremy in the security section of the office.
“Long night?”
Felix looked up at him and simply nodded, one ear flicking slightly.
“Yeah. Luckily I’m clocking out in a bit. You?”
Jeremy nodded before taking a sip from his own mug.
“Sadly I can’t. Not yet anyways.”
He huffed, his ears drooping.
Felix nodded in understanding. Jeremy was the only security guard besides him who worked the night shift.
The others had either died or quit.
He took the last sip from his mug before glancing up at the clock hanging on the wall.
5:20 a.m.
He sighed and stood up, stretching his sore muscles before walking over to the clock-out box. He pressed his paper into it before saying his goodbyes to Eli and Jeremy.
Walking outside, he headed straight for his car, a black Rolls-Royce. He pulled his keys from his pocket and unlocked it with the press of a button.
He opened the door, climbed in, and let his head fall forward onto the steering wheel.
He and the others were meeting the interns tomorrow.
Felix grimaced.
He was so not looking forward to that shit show.
Still, he couldn’t wait to prove Harlow wrong. Anomalies couldn’t be domesticated. It simply wasn’t possible.
Sitting back up, he started the car and pulled out of the parking lot. He messed with the radio for a bit before finding a station he liked, turning the volume up as he began the drive home.
~:3~~:3~~:3~~:3~
He arrived at the apartment complex that he was currently staying in for the duration of his mission. It wasn’t anything fancy. Despite being pretty high up in the agency, he wasn’t liked much by his superiors, probably because he was a black cat.
He sighed before getting out, locking the car after shutting the door. He looked up at the pretty average, kinda dingy-looking building that he had been staying in for the last six months.
Well… he couldn’t really complain.
The last time he had a long-term mission, he had been forced to sleep in his car.
It had been an incredibly awkward and uncomfortable experience. His ears flattened at the thought while his tail flicked in irritation.
Trying to curl up in the back seat without waking up with a crick in his neck had been nearly impossible. More than once he’d woken up with his tail trapped underneath him and every joint in his body aching in protest. He was usually used to sleeping in smaller spaces, but he wasn’t built for sleeping in a car for almost a year and a half.
He shook himself out of those thoughts and walked inside the building, where he was immediately hit by a wave of cold air. He shivered slightly and rubbed a paw down his arm.
That was another good thing about this place.
The building actually had air conditioning, while his car had to stay turned off unless he wanted to waste gas.
Felix walked over to the stairwell since, sadly, the elevator hadn’t worked since he’d gotten here. Taking two steps at a time let him reach the second floor a little faster.
Lord, he couldn’t wait to just lay down in his bed and sleep the morning away.
He could make a report about Dr. Harlow and his “domesticated anomalies” later.
He didn’t get paid enough to care anyway.
He arrived at his apartment and quickly unlocked the door. Stepping inside, he shut it behind him before leaning back against it, letting out a sigh of pure exhaustion.
Working the night shift at the hospital was rough, especially because they were so understaffed. He supposed it was a good thing Harlow was bringing in those interns, despite them being anomalies…
Probably not.
Pushing himself off the door, he loosened his tie and pulled it off in the process. He headed straight for the bathroom, taking a quick shower to wash away the sweat and grime that had settled into his fur throughout the night.
Once he finished, he dried himself off with a towel before heading into his bedroom in search of some clothes. Pulling on a pair of boxers, he flopped face-first onto the bed, letting out a muffled groan into the mattress.
After a moment, he rolled onto his back and immediately disappeared beneath the warmth of his cozy blanket.
He stretched an arm toward the bedside table, feeling around until his paw found the TV remote. He switched it on and flipped through the channels until he landed on some random reality show.
Keeping the volume low, Felix let his eyes drift shut.
Within minutes, exhaustion claimed him, and he slipped into a deep, dreamless sleep.