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Sollux Captor is not someone that one considers predictable. He works on impulse, mind focusing and distracted all at once as he tries to both work and procrastinate. He is quick to go from snippy and aggravated to placated at the drop of a hat, and then back again, before doing a complete emotional pirouette of the fucking handle.
Despite the unpredictability, however, Dave Strider has gotten to expect things from the bifurcated troll. He expects to come home to find his entire living room set up as a maze of haphazardly placed computer parts with the Gemini place precariously among them without an article of clothing to be found on the gray skin. Maybe to find Sollux stowed away in a corner, curled in a tight ball as he burrows in a nest of blankets and pillows, many of which Dave didn't even realize he owns. Not to mention the various OCD's the troll had, often times leaving Dave to watch as Sollux rearranged and cleaned, just out of impulse alone.
Dave had come accustomed to expect unpredictable things from his alien boyfriend. So much so that one could hardly call in unpredictable anymore. Just slight changes to a routine they had become so used to.
So when Dave came home from a long night at the club, thoroughly worn out from the DJ'ing, he certainly didn't think twice to expect anything out of the ordinary.
He also didn't expect to come home to a tiger on the living room couch with his honeyblooded troll curled up against it, television blaring.
“Thup?” Sollux say as if though this wasn't anything strange, not even bothering to lift his head from the tiger's stomach as he flipped through the channels, trying to find something to watch.
Dave shakes his head, blinks, and has to step out of the apartment and walk back in just to make sure he's seeing this right.
“Captor. Where the FUCK did you get a tiger?” you can't help but to exclaim. Tigers aren't even a thing in Texas, save for the zoo.
Ohhh, Dave hopes Sollux didn't break into the zoo just to take a tiger.
“No, no. Don't answer that. I sure as hell don't want to know if you committed some crime or another. What should be happening here is you return him.”
Both the tiger and Sollux lift their heads in unison to look over at the protesting human. Sollux quirks an eyebrow, pursing his lips, still flipping through channels as he stops on the news. “Firtht off, hith name ith Thathleth. Thecondly, I didn't thteal him. I found him on the thtreet. Thee? No crime committed.”
It takes Dave a second for it to sink in what Sollux had just said. “Zazzles? Really now? That shit's not even ironic.”
Sollux just flips him off as he settles his head back on Zazzles belly, but Dave continues.
“Not only that, you're a terrible liar. Wild tigers aren't found in Texas, babe. Where did you get him?”
Sollux lets out a slight growl of annoyance. “Well, clearly he'th not wild if he'th thnuggling.” he quips. Zazzles just gives a grunt as he shifts, Sollux shifting with him.
Dave's about to argue the point that there is no way Sollux could have gotten Zazzles right off the street when something on the television catches his eye. Something on the news, a story that Sollux is suddenly fumbling to try and change, but he drops the remote. By the time he's managed to remember about psionics and hit the buttons on the TV, it's already too late.
Dave already knows about the tiger that escaped the zoo.
So maybe it wasn't implausible that Sollux found the six hundred pound cat and brought him home.
The human looks over at Sollux with a smirk, only to be countered with a wibbling bottom lip and heterochromatic eyes opened wide.
“Pleathe, Dave! Don't make me take him back!” the troll pouts and Dave is cursing his weakness for the pleading look. “I already named him! Hith name ith Thathleth... becauthe he'th tho thathy!”
Dave has to take a deep breath and sigh, thankful for the shades that hid the fact that he was trying, oh so hard, to avoid eye contact with the troll.
“Sollux, even if you could legally keep him, there is the tiny matter of having a tiny apartment.” Dave is quick to point out. “Tigers need space to eat and run and fight crime or whatever shit it is tigers do. Also, sorry babe. I don't like the thought of being tiger dinner.”
Dave's eyes settle on Sollux's and godfuckingdamnit that wibbling pout was going to be the end of him.
“Pleathe, Dave.”
“No.”
“Pleeeeathe.”
“We can't.”
Sollux lets out this tiny little whine, and Dave is done for. He hates this. He hates how Sollux can be a conniving little bastard and just play him like that.
“Fine. Fine. We can keep him here a couple of days, but after that, he HAS to go back.”
Dave is hating himself more and more for caving in like that.
Sollux sits on that couch, thinking about it, then sighs, his lanky frame hugging the large orange and black monstrosity of a cat on that couch, the troll flashing Dave a fanged grin, smug.
“Alright, but no thooner than Friday.”
Dave huffs out a long breath. There was no chance he had in winning this, not against a troll determined to have pets that could consume him whole. The moment he walked through that door, he was going to be trapped with a tiger for a week.
“Alright, no sooner than Friday. But if he eats me, I'm haunting your skinny ass.”
“Deal.”
Dave smirks.
“Deal.”
“Tho get your ath over here.”
For the moment, Dave figured things would be alright. He goes over to that couch, settling on the floor as he rests his head against Sollux's stomach, the troll's long, thin fingers playing with the white locks.
Dave doesn't get that much sleep that night, however, finding himself squished between a wall and six hundred pounds of adorabloodthirsty.
Captor's damn lucky I love him. Dave is quick to thin as he turns over to try and sleep.