A Pain in the Neck

He was sat up there again, the there being the top of Dan's wardrobe and the he being his newly adopted neko, Phil. Honestly if he wasn't so skinny that thing would have collapsed already, it wasn't the most sturdy of structures.

"Phil, could you please just come down." He called up exasperatedly to the neko, simply getting a hiss in return. Dan knew it wouldn't be easy taking on Phil but he couldn't stand back and let the poor thing die. Phil was tall for a neko, almost as tall as Dan himself, and his ears, well ear and a half, were shiny back. He had a messy black fringe that hung over his eyes, although he must have found some way of dying it that way because he had a few brownish roots coming through. His eyes were bright blue and that often switched colour during the day as light changed and contrasted sharply against his pale skin. His tail was also black but had a sort of mottled ginger tip which Dan guessed would have also showed on the tip of his left ear had it been there and two sharp canines showed when he opened his mouth. Some people found these 'kitten teeth' cute but on a neko as large and scratched up as Phil they looked a little threatening.

As far as Dan knew Phil had been a stray for quite a long time and absolutely despised the idea of being someone's pet. He probably got in quite a few fights on the streets judging from the scars across his neck but they never really seemed to bother him, in fact he seemed rather proud of them. Rescued nekos were always shown to be shy but sweet on the many rescue adverts on tv, they could be violent at first but they could almost always be tamed and taught how to be a proper pet. Dan could already see that that may not be the case for Phil. From his short time in the shelter he could see that, like cats, nekos could be temperamental, passive aggressive and quite frankly rude but unlike cats they had it beaten out of them. Phil was a stray; he'd never had anyone do that to him, well at least he hadn't for a long time, and had grown up headstrong and independent. Unfortunately, this sort of attitude doesn't usually go down well with owners so the shelter found themselves with no other option than to put him down, well that was until Dan stepped in.

He'd only gone in looking for a hamster or a cat maybe, not a huge commitment but something to keep him company. Nekos were quite rare and expensive, not to mention really hard to care for but he saw Phil sat on a tiny chair in the corner of the room in a cage far too small for him and he just looked so sad, he couldn't just leave him there to die. He had a decent job he could afford to keep him and it would certainly stop him from being lonely. If he left Phil wouldn't be adopted, Dan knew that. He'd already been sentenced to death and nobody was going to come along and save him. People didn't like nekos who spoke their mind. They reminded people that what they were doing to these essentially people was wrong but Dan had always thought of nekos being a lot more human than people were willing to give them credit for. They were smart and aware; they could speak and even read and write if they were taught, not that many people bothered though. He found it sad that they were so often mistreated and used like slaves. Apart from the ears and tail and teeth they looked and acted a lot like humans, well lazy ones anyway. They slept a lot and were often more childlike and attention seeking than humans their age but that was usually because it was ingrained into them to act that way.

It only took a few hours for Phil to be his. The shelter were so desperate to get him adopted they were willing to skip a few of the more time consuming tasks such as house check which was a little irresponsible on their part and Dan was glad a more horrible person hadn't set his eyes on Phil or else it could have ended badly. Phil spent this entire process huddled in the back of his pen, violently hissing if anyone dared so much as come near him, he wasn't scared though. His ears remained firmly pointing forwards and he stood up straight when he had the space. His tattered ear a proud reminder of his time on the streets, a battle scar of sorts. He was smart as well. The staff had warned him several times to be careful when locking windows are door as he was quite the escape artist. Dan took note of the giant padlock that had been fastened securely to his cage. Once one of the members of staff managed to get close enough to clip a leash to his collar he stood up obediently, however the dirty glares he shot at everyone in the room told Dan what he though of them. He may have looked menacing, glaring at everyone who came close, but he did do as he was told. For a moment Dan thought the hissing and defiance was all a bit of a method of keeping people away but problems seemed to occur however the moment they got back to Dan's apartment.