Seeking Roomate

Together, the move from Wick's old apartment to Percival's went smoothly. Soon enough Wick was flopping onto his bed with a big sigh, it'd been a long morning and afternoon. Right when he thought he could maybe take a short nap his nose caught the whiff of something wafting from the kitchen. The skunk sat up and felt his stomach roll with hunger, Percival had been kind enough to have made enough food for breakfast when he showed up with his first car-load of boxes, then lunch as a break before they had to move his mattresses. Whatever the collie was cooking for dinner sure smelled good and those thoughts about a nap quickly got overridden by thoughts of filling his belly. He couldn't even remember the last time he'd eaten anything homecooked, he could barely muster up a proper sandwich, much less a full meal.

Wick snuck out of his room to peek out, his nose following the smell of food most eagerly. Percival was standing near the island, on the stove behind him there were four burger patties being cooked in a skillet. Wick watched, keeping quiet as the collie carefully measured out the seasoning for each of the patties. He had a few open glass jars, small ones, laid out in a row on the counter. He picked through one at a time, measuring out pinches he gathered into the center of his palm. With this he sprinkled and kneaded the ground beef with the seasonings, and somehow watching the blind male do this gave him a new respect for the collie.

Wick quietly returned to his room, gathering a change of clothes, as well as a towel to grab himself a shower before dinner.
===
A month passed and the first set of bills came with the mail, Wick was still having to check his old apartment's mailbox since a glitch in the system went and had his mail still being sent to his old address. When he stepped through the door, his fur still smelling of sun and the sea, Percival greeted him as usual, with a glass of cold iced tea.

"Was hoping you'd be in soon, Wick. Bill day today, your hours are still getting cut, right?"

Wick's ears wilted and a heavy sigh escaped him, "Yeah..but I'll pay my half, Perc. I don't back out of an agreement."

The collie grinned and poked the skunk in the chest with a pair of fingers, "Well, that's too bad. I sent the bills off already, so I'll tell you what. You've taken classes and training, right?"

Wick tilted his head, still having to get used to the fact that his roommate wouldn't be able to see these little things, such as waving. "Yeah? You want to learn CQC?"

The collie furrowed his brow, but nodded a bit, "Yeah...the main reason I never leave the apartment is because..well, I don't really know how to. You know, protect myself, if I need to. I know it sounds paranoid..."

Wick grinned, chuckling, "No, it isn't paranoid. That's good thinking, okay so once Spring starts and I got a full set of hours...I can borrow the time to pay you back by teaching you hand to hand?"

Percival nodded once more, tucking his ears into his hair, something Wick found to be a cute and rather innocent expression. The skunk sipped his tea, overly sweetened just how he loved it, and still cold. "You got it, but after that /I'm/ paying the bills, alright?" He wouldn't be dead weight, his new friend was way too kind, not to mention he didn't want to put the roof over his head in jeopardy of being yanked away.
===
Fall and Winter passed by excruciatingly slow, then Spring rolled around and Wick held up his end of the deal, despite the added stress of Spring-breakers out on the beach either acting stupid about swimming safety or other lewd issues him and his fellow life-guards shared horror stories of. Percival came around to be a much more agile person than Wick, where he focused on his strength and height to get an upper hand, he was only a few inches taller than the collie and so had to actually start working at beating him in their little spars. They had gotten comfortable around one another over the months to start betting, the loser of their spars would have to agree to what the winner wished, luckily Wick always came out on top and he only wished a belly-filling meal which Percival was more than eager to comply with. Despite losing.

Spring gave way into Summer, Wick was hardly at home more than enough hours to eat, sleep, then get back to work. Aside from continuing to train his roommate, he was put in charge to oversee training for new life guards, adding more to his stress.

Then came one evening that Wick, who off and on had either remembered to actually land dirty clothes into the hamper or missed and forgot in his rush in getting to work. Percival was on his way in for his shower, when his foot caught onto the folds of a shirt that was left on the floor. The collie found himself meeting the floor nose-first before he could even think to put out his hands to break his fall, he was just thankful that he didn't bean himself on the hard counter of the sink or tub. The sound in the bathroom made Wick rush in to see what the issue was, and seeing Percival getting up from the floor made his eyes widen.

"Hey, you okay, Perc?"

"Yeah...you forgot your shirt. Again." The collie slowly sat on the floor, his hands feeling over his muzzle, smelling blood he was just making sure he hadn't broken anything.

The skunk frowned and snatched his shirt off the floor, throwing it into the hamper roughly, with enough force to make it teeter about momentarily. "Sorry, Perc...I can't remember everything. Maybe you just need to be more careful!"

This made the collie pause, furrowing his brow. "Whoa, where did that come from?"

Wick paused and closed his eyes, shaking his head. "Sorry. Sorry, there's just been alot of stress at work and.." He trailed off, knowing that was no excuse to snap at his friend, especially the friend who just got hurt because of a blunder he made.

The collie stood up slowly, before he stepped over closer, a soft smile on his lips. "C'mon." His hands carefully setting on the skunk's shoulders to get him to turn around, then push him out of the bathroom.

"Huh?" Wick, obviously confused, just allowed himself to be turned and pushed over toward the living room. He plopped onto the couch, watching at the collie settled at his feet.

Percival grabbed one of Wick's legs and his nimble fingers began working into the footpads, working to realign the bones here without being too rough. "So what's got your boxers in a bunch?"

This was perhaps the first time they'd gotten this close to one another, and personally speaking Wick had somewhat of a foot fetish. He shifted uneasily on the couch at the touch to his feet, but managed to keep his voice as even as he could manage. He talked about everything that was stressing him out, from work to everything else that mattered, keeping the more personal stuff he'd been dealing with still to himself. Before he knew it, he felt alot better, getting to sleep that evening was easier, not to mention waking up to head in to work, instead of grumbling about it.