Chapter Text
It took me a bit to get used to my new housemate. Said housemate has currently made himself, as I’m assuming it’s a he, comfortable on my living room couch. He’s got his lanky, long legs stretched out in front and behind him, spread eagle, and is taking up most of the couch, only leavening about a foot of space for me to sit at one end. Besides being the slightest bit annoyed at him, I let it slide as with the day he’s had, he deserves to be comfy for a bit.
Just a couple of hours earlier, I had had to take my weekly run into the town a few miles away from where I lived to get food and supplies for myself. My house is located on the outskirts of the forest that surround the town and nearby area. Even so, it’s only my one house on the street where I’m located. The nearest neighbors I have are two miles south of me where a small suburb is. That makes my weekly runs a necessity, despite my natural introverted tendencies. While I’m not a hermit, I still prefer to spend my time here, doing my art, enjoying the scenery, and doing the occasional repairs on clients devices that I bring back.
Besides all of that, after I had driven into town with my truck, gifted from my dad upon his death, that I had spotted this little, red thing that was poking out from behind a dumpster in an alley way in town. It’s small body was trembling when I got closer to it for a look. When I saw it, I confirmed that it was indeed what I had thought; a trimming. These small carni that are often found in populated areas when crawl in nearby. This poor guy seemed to be a good size trimming despite that fact that he was clearly starving as evident by how skinny he was.
I found myself crouched down beside the creature, extending my hand out in an offer for him to smell me. He only ended up curling into himself further then he already was, in a ball between the side of the dumpster and wall. I reached out to him and wrapped my hand around a paw, and pulled him closer to me. The pitiful guy just slouched and let himself be carried into my lap. I gave him a few scratches on the neck and noticed that not only was he extremely thin, but that his skin was harder and more scaly then other trimmings I’ve held. So now along with his weight, I’d also have to worry about possible skin infections. Maybe it was possible for trimmings to get mange like dogs could.
But, as per my personality dictated, I wasn’t one to just leave a suffering creature when I might be able to help it. So the strange little trimming ended up nestled up inside of my zipped up coat, clinging to my torso with only his head barely peaking out, as I walked back to my truck to head home.
Now that I’m home, and he’s here, I’ve taken the time to give him some food and look him over in more detail. While I watched him pick around the bowl of deli meats and fruits I put by his head, I pulled my laptop up and started doing some research on trimmings. While I always kept an him in the corner of my eye, I still was hesitant to look away from him because of the state he was in. But, the more I looked, the more I started to realize just how different my little dude differed from the pictures. The other trimmings had six legs, he had four. They had a brighter red, smooth skin while he had a tougher, duller outside. Had also had a nose hole, pointed toes, a short tail, and several other minor differences.
Whatever the case, my my new guy wasn’t like any other trimmings I had seen. Despite his strange looks, I’ve still decided to care for him as my own trimming pet like many others do with trimmings that they find. I’ve heard that their good companions, if a bit lazy, and will eat nearly anything you give them. So that means little exercise is needed, diet isn’t a problem, but my little buddies smell sure is. I hadn't really taken a moment to really acknowledge the kinda dusty, rotten smell that came from him due to other matters, but now, here sitting on my couch, my nose has made sure to point out his aroma. I promptly set the laptop aside, got up, then grabbed the still full bowl from beside his head.
“Well little guy, it seems like its time for you get a bath huh?” I jokingly said to him. Trimmings of course cant talk, but apparently are intelligent enough to recognize some words and voices. He did end up giving me a small chirp in reply along with an adorable head tilt.
I moved on and gave him some more head scratches after putting the bowl of food in the sink, and hefted him up into my arms. The dude one again clung to me like a koala once I had him up in the air. He was quite cute like this. His little, puffy eyes stared up at me while I walked us both to the tub in the master bathroom. It took some maneuvering, but I did manage to unhook his feet from me and lower him into the tub.
“Alright dude, let’s get you clean.” I said mostly to myself as I placed one hand on him and turned on the faucet with the other. I feared that he would try to jump out of the tub or something as soon as the water came on, but he mostly just sat on his rump and watched the flow get closer to him. I made sure to test the temperature even after setting the dials to what my normal hot shower is, albeit a bit cooler, but still made sure he’d be comfortable.
Once the water rose in the tub enough for it to actually touch his front paws he tilted his head, seemingly confused, and lifted a paw to sniff and lick at it. He then preceded to try to drink the entire tubs worth of water before settling. Lucky for me, he seemed to enjoy the warm bath and allowed me to run a washcloth down his back and along his skin to clean him. He just rumbled in a purr like fashion and stretched around so I could better get at him. He even attempted to completely roll over at one point so I could rub his belly, before realizing that that would mean that his head would have been underwater too.
From there, I turned off the tap but kept the bathtub plugged, and continue to scrub at the little guy. In-between all of the scrubbing, I had started to notice how much flaky skin had come off of him. It seemed like his natural color was the typical brighter red, just that he had a lot of old skin and dirt on him. The whole concoction of water, skin, dirt, and oils that came off of him became a goopy slop on the washcloth that I was using to scrub him with.
“Aw yuck,” I said dramatically, “You’ve gotten your goop all over my hand little guy!” I splashed some more water on him as he put his front paws up on the side of the tub next to where I was kneeling. Apparently he deemed it fit to then use his muzzle as a shovel to get me with the bath water. “Aw… you!” This then promptly led to a water fight of me scratching him all over, splashing him, and him splashing me.
“Dude! Now I'm soaked!” He gave a little tail wag and jiggle for me, seeming pleased with himself. “Aw.. you little Goober guy!” He clicked and chirped at that. “Goober guy? Are you my little goofy goober guy?” He let out what could have been mistaken as a bark and continued his now reenergized dancing in the tub. “Who’s my little goober guy…? You are! Yes you are little goofy goober guy..”
I started to baby talk the now very pleased, newly named, goober who was eager to climb into my arms, towel awaiting to dry him nearby. Seeing as I was already soaked, I let him crawl to me and wrapped him in the nearby towel to dry him. Of course more crust came off of him (gross goober), meaning that once he was fully dry, the towel was now in desperate need of a cleaning itself.
After that whole debacle, The both of us headed into the bedroom where I promptly got dried off, changed, and then sat down on the bed with him. Seems not even a day in and Goober already has bed privileges. It’s not like I expected to bring a new pet home today, so its not like I had a crate or food prepared. I didn't think much of that mattered too much though as I don't think that trimmings would like a crate very much as they’re very social creatures. Not to mention that they can, and will, eat almost anything you give them. Unfortunately, it seemed like Goober didn't like any of the stuff I had given him.
“Well Goobs, Hopeful now that you've gotten all of that muck off of you, you’ll be more open to some food ey?” I said to him, the both of us still lying on the bed. “Let’s go see whats in the fridge yeah?” I stood up from the bed and carried Goober off of it too. Now, the bed was a bit to high up for him to be able to jump down on his own, but I didn't want to make him too dependent on me, so I let him on the floor to crawl around. Just as a well attached trimming would, Goober quickly followed after me once I had started to make my way down the hall and into the kitchen.
“Hmm… well. Don’t know what you’d like…” I said, thinking to myself, “Although you guys are supposed to be able to eat everything.” That part was said more under my breath as Goober was once again sat on his butt by my foot, staring up into the light of the open fridge.
I just started to grab different things from it and let him sniff them from my hand. While he was curious of everything I was showing him, He didn't seem to be too appealed by anything. He sniffer the apple I showed him and nothing more, actively turned his nose away from the lettuce that I had, and only managed a single lick from some chicken I had.
“Well, if you like the meat more then the others, then maybe we just have to find the right type of meat for now.” He was still a skinny, possibly sickly, trimming so maybe what he needed was the protein in meat to get him back up to speed. It would make sense then why the only thing he was somewhat interested in was the chicken. I moved on to pulling out all of the different types of meat I had on hand. I ended up showing him a slice of chicken, roast beef, deli ham, and some raw pork. Of all of the things, he did seem interested, but the only thing he actually interacted with besides the chicken was the raw pork.
“There ya go little guy. Finally eating something. Seems like pork dinner it is.” I watched as he swallowed to whole cube of pork I had placed on the floor for him in one bite, and immediately gave him several more cut up pieces of it. He then swallowed all of those too. I hadn't done too much research on trimmings beforehand so I didn't know exactly how much to feed him. I needed up giving him the remainder of the pork slab and called that good. I didn't want to over feed him while he was still probably not used to eating so much, and kept it at that.
I ended up preparing myself some eggs and toast, as it was what I was feeling at the time, and set out a water bowl for him even though he did end up drinking practically half of the bath. Once I had everything set, I walked us back into my room, got us both situated on the bed, and got my laptop pulled up to YouTube for some lighthearted watching of random videos. Goober made circles on the bed, promptly laid down beside my belly, and curled up against me. I allowed myself to wrap an arm around him as he was already comfy, and warm, and settled in for a lazy night with my new buddy.