Friendly Introductions

Not a single thing his sister had said had been correct.

The cat wasn't a cat, it was a human

The human didn't own a dog, he just came in with one in hand??

'No, because seriously, who's dog is that?'

They didn't do anything except for stare at each other for a while. 

More specifically the other guy would stare, and he would look away whenever they made eye contact.

If he didn't know any better, he would've thought the other guy was almost enjoying his reaction to this sudden turn.

But that couldn't be right? They'd just met like two seconds ago.

He couldn't bear the silence anymore and wanted to do anything to cease this awkwardness, and so, forgotten collar in hand, he walked over to the other.

He had to be sure of something.

A small click was heard as the collar was put on the big man

The collar-

"What the fuck?" The man said, understandably confused, nonchalant demeanor disappearing slightly at the sudden enclosing of his neck.

The brunette just stared back at him, deadpan, before walking to the kitchen, grabbing a leash from the 'care package' his sister had gotten him, and latching it onto the man's now equipped collar.

Unfortunately, the collar was a perfect fit, and the leash latched on just as well.

And it certainly wasn't going to fit on that small ass dog.

He doesn't even want to know where his sister got it from and how she knew what size to get.

Or maybe it was a one size fits all type of deal?

'Stop thinking.'

He really doesn't want to know.

"Fuck my life" he mumbles before walking to his own seat and sitting down, wrapping the leash around his hand absentmindedly.

Maybe a little too tightly.

He didn't think about how much more awkward this would make things.

On the other end of things, the man had already regained his cool and was fiddling with the collar a bit instead of just taking it off.

If he had a mirror, the guy would've thought it suited him somehow.

But vanity isn't important here.

Overall, it was a rather strange sight, especially considering they were complete strangers.

It'd be awkward even if that weren't the case though.

And so, now we have two men, sitting in their respective seats, beagle in the hands of one, and a leash in the hands of the other,

It was a situation to say the least and they just sat like that.

For like 10 minutes.

Staring at each other until someone decided to speak first.

…

"...So young master." It was the bigger of the two that began speaking first.

That knocked him out of his stupor.

"Don't call me that." He tried to give a light reprimand, but it came out a bit harshly instead.

'Fuck me.'

He tried to backtrack from that, he wanted to at least be amiable even if the guy was someone his sister had sent.

Ah, her.

She must have nine lives because she keeps testing his patience.

"I have a name y'know, surely you should've heard it from my darling sister."

The other nodded but instead of using his name, he decided to act smart with him

Because why would he make this easy?

"I don't know young master, what could your name be hmm? Why don't you tell me? We've enjoyed each other's company for this long and yet alas, we haven't each other's names!"

He played a pitiful voice, but his facial expressions hardly changed with his "theatrics."

"Y'know, they say it's a virtue to offer up your own before asking for another's..."

Hopefully he wasn't planning a career in acting any time soon.

The brunette didn't want to be the one to bend on this so he deflected the question back at the other,

"You at least have an inkling of mine, I don't even have the first syllable of yours."

The other man pretended to think for a moment

Petting the beagle while rubbing his chin like some sort of cheesy villain in a kids cartoon.

"Sure you do, you used it in the last sentence."

'Now what the fuck was that supposed to mean?"

"Is your name, 'the annoying guy my sister sent to babysit me' or 'the' for short?"

Another puff of air you could hardly call a laugh escaped from him.

"Oo tough luck, you got colder, it's not even in there this time. I'll let you know if you get warmer."

Infuriating.

Contrary to initial appearances he had a sense of humor

A shitty, sarcastic sense of humor .

At the brunette's expense.

If only he had been like a Doberman afterall…

Still and strong, serious and unperturbed…

Silent.

No actually, maybe it'd be worse if he was. At least he could have a conversation with him like this, might even be able to convince him to leave him alone.

'If only he wasn't being so difficult.'

"Give me a straight answer."

"Can you give me a straight answer?"

"Don't answer a question with a question."

"If we're throwing that around, technically you did it first"

"..."

Touche 

'Forget pride, this is getting nowhere.'

"...Let's start over, my name is Julien Ruben, and you are?" the brunette got up and held out his hand for a shake.

"Alright, it's a pleasure to formally meet you." He began,

"My name is Andrew Abadiano. I've been assigned by your family to keep you out of any trouble in the future and to protect you from danger, most notably of the spiteful variety. Not that I'm throwing anything around, but I heard you had a bit of a temper problem. It seems it got out of hand last year so that's what my role is, glorified nanny and bodyguard extraordinaire." The man stood up himself and shook the brunette's hand back.

What the guy failed to mention is that he didn't even need to start until tomorrow.

But he doubts that'll be uncovered.

Julien accepted the rationale behind this, but it's not like he needed it, at least that's what he thought. He'd been going to therapy for his…issues recently and really felt like he'd improved in that regard. Plus, it's not like there are many crazy people like the person from last year's "incident" that'd act out like that.

He shuddered at the thought.

It wasn't a pleasant memory in the slightest.

"Ok…so can you get out now? I don't mean to be rude, but I don't need someone to be watching me 24/7, 365. Besides that, I'm staying home today, and I only really leave the house for school and food. I'm sure you don't even want to be hanging around me all day long no matter how much my sister's paying you, and I certainly don't want someone around all the time either."

Maybe once he gets the guy to leave, he can have a very strongly worded conversation with his sister and terminate whatever agreement they came to.

'Wait, would I even need her to terminate it? She said it was under my name afterall... Or was she talking about something else...'

The man looked at him with his perpetual resting bitch face before cheekily dropping a bomb with his terrible 'acting' skills.

"Oh, but alas," the moment he heard that he already didn't want to hear the rest.

"When I took this job, it was right at the end of my lease! Your sister was ever so gracious as to provide me with residence...with you" he blinked away false tears and looked at me 'pitifully.'

If you can even call that look pitiful.

He's just squirming in place with nearly the exact same expression as when they'd met.

'Gross.'

'The only one pitiful here is me.'

"And where exactly were you expecting to stay hmm? I didn't even know about you until this morning," 

'Or I would've blocked you from coming' he thought

"And I certainly never prepared for anyone. There's nowhere for you to sleep, I only have one bed and you're…" He motions to the bigger man's entire being.

"Way too large to be sleeping on the sofa."

The man stops acting "pitiful" and answers simply.

"Oh, don't worry so much about me, your sister said she'd send anything I needed by today."

He wasn't worried, and he didn't even want the company.

The smaller of the two looked at his very own kitchen counter.

'Don't tell me she got him a dog bed as well.'

He would find the thought hilarious if it wasn't infringing on his home privacy.

He really didn't want this guy in his apartment any longer. 

Turning back to the other, he spoke.

"Can't you like, I don't know, live next door or something? In the neighboring complex? Or down the street would be even better-"

Or he thought he'd turned back to the other, but the guy was already moving past him towards the counter to rifle through the bags.

Julien was already getting tired of him.

'How could a guy that big be as quiet as a ninja...'

That's when he heard panting at his feet and looked down to see their little beagle friend looking up at him with big beady eyes. Deciding he'll forgo thinking for the foreseeable future, he chose to ignore the other for now and distract himself to calm down—

'Maybe if I ignore him for long enough, he'll go away on his own.'

And ignore him he did. He picked up the pup and brought her —at least he thinks it's a she— to the kitchen, where he pulled out a bowl from the cabinets and placed it on the floor before attempting to walk over to the fridge.

Attempting because he felt a pull coming from his hand.

He had forgotten all about the leash attached to his hand.

The other guy was still attached to him by the neck and somehow, he had blocked that fact out of his mind.

He looked over to Andrew who was pulling on the leash a little more roughly now to seemingly get his attention. Before he could turn away to continue ignoring the guy for his own peace of mind, he locked eyes with him. The other stopped tugging on the leash and lifted up a deflated air mattress to wave it around a bit.

At least it wasn't a doggy bed.

Starting to walk away again, Andrew tried to go up the stairs, mattress in hand but only managed to make it to the second step before a tug of resistance was felt around his neck, choking him a bit in the process.

Julien had moved to the other side of the kitchen to finish feeding the dog, going back to neglecting the stranger who had made himself at home already.

And the leash was only but so long.

The man paused and called out to the brunette.

"So, what's with this?" He asked, pointing to his collar and the leash attached to it.

It's a wonder he didn't question it before.

Still ignoring him to maintain his inner peace, Julien started to head upstairs himself in order to grab his phone while the other decided to follow behind him, still bugging him.

"You into BDSM? It's a little early in our relationship to be doing things like this don't you think?" 

'Oh please, be more sarcastic why don't you.'

Grabbing his phone, the brunette finally decided to acknowledge the king of sarcasm himself.

"At this rate I'm never going to have peace again, am I?"

"I don't know what you want me to do about it."

"Get out."

"What about Cello?"

"You named her? She can stay, you can leave, I don't need a babysitter."

'Especially not one that talks like the world will end if he doesn't.'

"No thank you, we grew attached in the time it took for you to open the door for us and now there's no way to separate!" He put a hand to his forehead like a damsel about to collapse and as if on cue, the beagle barked to make her presence known, then he stared at the brunette, deadpan.

And the brunette stared right back.

'Seriously irritating...'

Julien grabs closer to the other's end of the leash and tugs him this time to follow. Surprisingly, he did so obediently, and they went down the stairs, passing the forgotten air mattress at the bottom of the steps, the kitchen, and towards the front door.

The larger man stopped in his tracks.

"What are you doing?"

"Kicking you out." The brunette tries tugging again but the guy just won't budge.

"But I just told you I'm homeless!" He nearly whined out.

"Get a hotel."

"They haven't returned my deposit yet!"

"Sounds like a you problem." He decides to change tactics and opens the front door of his apartment before going behind the other to attempt to push Andrew towards the door from behind, this yields a much better result and he manages to wrangle the guy through the doorway, but not out the door entirely.

He was gripping the frames—

"Do you have no soul!" His nonchalant demeanor completely crumbled at this point as panic started to replace it instead.

"I sold it for some loose change and a pickle a while back." 

All this back and forth, pushing and pulling went on for a bit before Julien's neighbor came by and told them to shut up.

…

"Do you ever shut up? Where's the demeanor of a professional bodyguard?" Julien whispered.

"I haven't even started my work yet so why do I need that right now?"

'This motherfu-'

He took a deep breath—

And decided to just give up. He's going to confront the culprit of all this and kick this guy out the proper way. Julien walked past Andrew and told him one thing.

"...Just be quiet and don't touch anything while I'm out, you can stay the night and that's it."

Andrew zipped his mouth shut with his fingers and gave him a serious face along with double thumbs up.

Giving a halfhearted wave goodbye, Julien began to walk out the door but he forgot one important thing—

"Um, you might want to remove that first." Andrew whispered while pointing at Julien's hand.

It still had the leash wrapped around it.

Face heating up a bit, he unraveled it from his hand, dropped it on the floor, and just kept walking, he had a very important mission to complete. 

"Don't be too late honey our child will miss you~" He heard from behind him and turned around to see his new bodyguard holding up Cello and making her wave goodbye.

'Now he's really fucking with me.'