Jasper Sitwell (goingcommando) wrote in oh_marvelous, @ 2014-05-05 23:03:00 |
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Fair Game
Characters: Jasper, Nick and Raven
Setting: All around town like FedEx
Content: Nick Fury, probably violence (no animals will be harmed in the making of this thread. Simulated goat may be temporarily endangered and/or neglected).
Summary: Nick Fury, America's Most Wanted and a goat walk into a bar...
It all started innocently enough. Jasper even thought he had a plan before he came to stand a very cautious ten feet in front of the goat, not eager to reexamine their relationship after the altercation over his or her age. All of the cages in the shop were distinctly cat sized, and Jasper wasn't even sure where a man would get a goat sized carrier on short notice.
No, this was all right, the plan would still work with only a slight delay, Jasper thought. It was when he showed up at Nick Fury's door carrying a kicking goat and a shivering cat cage dangling precariously off of one finger that he had accepted this was no plan at all.
When he had stood in his deliberate ten foot range of consideration, it had seemed entirely plausible that a dog leash would work for his short term needs. He only needed to transport one goat once across the city, and that would be the end of his relationship with the animal, putting any further transportation issues in its new owner's capable hands. After all, he'd seen people leading goats around by ropes all of the time, and the goats never seemed particularly adverse. This one took some coaxing (after Jasper had taken several readying breaths to gather the courage to even approach it again, only to find it quite uninterested in what he was doing to its neck), but eventually they were walking quite cordially along the avenue, leash in one of Jasper's hands and cat carrier in the other, both animals curious enough about this adventure to go along without much complaint. The plan then was to deliver the goat first, putting that problem behind him quickly, and from there it would be a quick cab to Director Fury's place. The aggressive Craigslist user leaving him expletive laden messages about cats had rung warmly familiar to Jasper, and as much as Jasper wasn't willing to engage the writer in any more conversation, the man had made a compelling case. Director Fury's apartment, though well furnished, felt rather barren, and here Jasper was with all of these cats he only had to visit once a day.
The motley crew got as far as the subway. While there didn't seem to be any transit rule conflict regarding the goat, they did get their fair share of stares, which Jasper took with a nod, the occasional salute and a forced smile. Just a man and his goat, heading downtown, nothing weirder than the usual commute. The animals didn't take as well to the train as they had the fresh air, though. The cat got restless first, meowing plaintively, then beginning to yowl and skitter around in his cage with every shudder of the car. The sharp increase in atmospheric anxiety took its toll on the goat, who tugged at its leash, then wound itself around a pole while Jasper tried desperately to both keep up and quiet the cat, then got into a very awkward altercation with a man who chose that moment to confront him about the hygienic risks of the animals on the subway (which already smelled very much like human urine, Jasper thought better than to point out, but now they were committed to this conversation and Jasper couldn't seem to apologize enough for putting them all in this awkward situation).
When the train came to its next stop and the doors slid open, Jasper saw the goat go trotting out before he realized what had happened. He had to politely excuse himself from his discussion, leaving the man to shout at him through the doors that had just closed around the cat carrier, trapping Jasper for a horrible moment of panic as he tried to tug it through to him on the platform and the cat fairly freaked the heck out. The doors placidly opened again and the whole car complained loudly at Jasper for holding them up, none so much as the hygienisist who stopped the door again to shout some more after Jasper running after the goat up the subway steps, chewed through leash still looped around his wrist trailing after him.
They hadn't gone as far as Jasper hoped, but by the time he had tackled the goat and gotten it into a reasonable hold that Jasper thought he could maintain, he realized he was close to one of his destinations. Without the cat carrier, he would have much better luck with this goat.