[S&S] your voice still echoes in the hallways of this house [Kendrick]

It was a lovely Saturday, the ones with bright blue skies and candy floss clouds, vibrant wildflowers in thick beds of grass. It was a day meant to be seized, to enjoy, to revel in. But no amount of siren calls from the beautiful day could beckon Jonathan to come out. Instead, he was sprawled on the cold, hardwood floor, covered in dust and fur. He supposed he should move soon, but he was sorely tired, despite having started his cleaning duties just an hour ago. He was also pinned by several critters: a fat calico was on his chest, kneading him until he felt comfortable enough to curl up and nap. A few pups that they had just adopted were all over him, jumping on and over his arms, licking everything until he felt covered in an inch of filmed saliva.

A pygmy puff just bounced on his face, its fur tickling his nose and causing him to sneeze. Of course, that was when a black lab puppy decided that was the best time to lick Jon’s face, and the young man gagged at tasting the mix of his own bogeys and puppy drool.

‘Get off, get off!’ Jonathan barked, shoving the animals away, ignoring the yelps and hisses as he rose up to grab a towel, wiping away the slobber that quickly built on him during his minute-long break. The shop was mostly clean, although he knew Leo or Ophelia would nag him about having bodged his chores if he tried to open Sugar and Spice looking like it did. But Jonathan wasn’t particularly skilled with scouring charms. Give him a broom and he could charm it to just about anything. But to spell it so that it could sweep on its own? Somehow such basic home spells eluded his generally excellent wandwork. Either the broom was too tepid or too vigorous, and Jonathan constantly had to re-cast the spell to make sure the broom didn’t wind up whacking the cute animals that zipped about the shop.

He did one final round, checking that the cages were scoured free of shed fur and droppings, that the floor and rugs had no dust, and that the animals were still clean enough to be cuddled and pet by visiting patrons. Although if Jonathan didn’t keep an eye on that black lab, that puppy would lick everything to a slime.

Jonathan looked at the clock, which showed that they didn’t need to open just yet. But Jonathan frowned. He’d been expecting someone that morning. Perhaps he’d forgotten? Pouting slightly, he brushed his hands on his work apron and walked to the door. He opened the top half of the Dutch door, knowing the animals would try to escape to the gardens the moment he opened the whole thing. But his face brightened as he spotted a figure on the lane.

‘Morning, mate!’ Jonathan called out. ‘Glad you could stop by! I may have to abuse you for a bit, mind, so hope you’re all right with a few cleaning charms!’

@Kendrick Silverman

It was settled, really. Beauregard was far too formal and far too stuffy for the ball of fluff trotting next to him, and quite frankly, so was Beau. He'd let Jo have it (mostly because he couldn't exactly think of anything better), but Kendrick had promptly informed her that he was spelling it Bo. Besides, it was cute next to her nickname. "You match!" he had exclaimed excitedly to his long-suffering wife, who seemed to think about it for a bit and then decided she was okay with it, for the puppy and his adorable face. Everyone was okay with just about anything when it came to him, especially when he wagged his tail like he was doing now. Kendrick had, somewhat embarrassingly but mostly shamelessly, reverted to sometimes using baby-talk for him. "Awww, who's a good boy? Who's the best boy? Yes you are, you absolutely are!" Looking up, he realized he'd made it to the cafe. Looking down, he realized he was a tad late.

Clearing his throat, he attempted to put on a face more suitable for talking to adults. "Sorry Jon, he didn't want to put on a leash." Kendrick shrugged, spreading his hands in a wide what-did-you-expect-me-to-do gesture and following up with a huge grin. "Isn't he perfect?" This was the first time that Jonathan was meeting Bo despite the fact that Kendrick had told him the first day about him. He might have been trying to milk for visitors so he could show him off, but this would do just as well. "Jonathan, meet Bo, Bo, meet Jonathan!" Bo bounded curiously up to the younger man and started sniffing the bottom of the door, since he couldn't reach the top half where Jonathan actually was. Kendrick laughed. "That's not him, but sure, good enough. Honestly, he probably just smells all the other animals. It'll be good to meet some friends, won't it, Bo?"

Looking back up, he made a mock-pout. "I'm sorry, I thought you wanted the great gift of your friend's presence. What am I, the next housemaid?" He made a sad attempt at looking cute before laughing. "Anyway, it's no problem, although I will warn you that Jo doesn't trust me to clean the bathroom and I usually clean manually. But I did have to clean rather a lot of unidentified goop after some hack potioneer--definitely did not have the proper cauldron from the Guild--exploded his entire laboratory the other day, and I will tell you I wasn't about to touch that with my hands." He shook his head in disgust. The marriage of a particularly viscous candy-floss-colored potion with a rather puke-colored one had really produced some particularly stubborn globs. It had taken about ten minutes and some real Vanishing creativity to get the last of that off. He hated when the accidents were magic-resistant.

Reaching the door, he looked past Jon to the critters inside. "Can I come in, or am I going to have to conjure a barrier around this thing before it's opened? I can probably fit through this opening, but it wouldn't exactly be comfortable," he said, eyeing it dubiously.

Jonathan beamed as Kendrick approached, especially when Jonathan noticed a furry friend trotting alongside the Auror. He nearly fell over the bottom half of the stable door trying to both wave at and beckon the little guy to come. Kendrick had been talking about this dog for eeeeever, but no matter how many invitations Jon gave, the other man always had something or other to prevent him from bringing Bo. Granted, Jonathan’s own schedule had been properly maddening of late, so it was great that both of them could make this date work.

Jonathan brushed off Kendrick’s apology. ‘Don’t worry about it mate. Most of the animals here roam freely about the house and the garden, anyway.’ Jonathan bent over to scratch at Bo’s ears, not minding the film of saliva forming all over his hands as the dog licked with every excited leap.

‘Eeee, you don’t need a lease do you, Bo!’ Jonathan cooed, mimicking Kendrick’s infantilised tone earlier. ‘Because you’re a good boy! Aren’t you! Yes you are!’

Jonathan paused his fawning to look at Kendrick, and smirked. ‘I think my cousin Meredith left her apron behind. You’d look really cute in lace!’

Jonathan laughed heartily, even moreso when Kendrick mentioned his latest work tale. He had heard gossip about Kendrick’s case, and was glad his own job didn’t entail messy accidents with foul-looking liquids. Granted, Sugar and Spice was full of messes to clean, but at least all the perpetrators were cute and easily forgiven. Jonathan also only worked select weekends, and most times, his visits to the shop were more to play, leaving the bulk of the work to his cousins to do. Unfortunately, Kendrick caught him at his work rotation, so he was going to have to put his friend to use for a bit.

At Kendrick’s jest, Jonathan gave him a quick raspberry, but he did straighten up to open the latch. He instinctively pivoted to block the other animals from rushing past, scooping up the puppies that saw their chance of freedom and playing in grass and mud. He let Kendrick and Bo in, and swiftly latched the door back shut. Taking the shop pups further in, he finally dropped them onto an area rug in the middle of the play area.

‘You lot have to stay in for at least another hour! We can’t have you filthy before customers show up!’  He turned to his friend, introducing him to the batch of pups. ‘Kendrick, Bo, meet Mindi, Mandy, Manny, Minnie, Mickie, and Steve. They’re black labs, and we’d just gotten them last week. The other dogs are elsewhere around the shop, hiding from these little devils.’

Jonathan gave the litter a warning look, then turned to his friend. ‘The shop will open soon, and my cousins will take over after that. It’s just my turn to do the morning prep this weekend. After that, we can relax a bit more.’

Jonathan grinned mischievously and flicked his wand toward the kitchen. Immediately, a ridiculously frilly apron zoomed in and fell limply on his hand, which he stretched outward for Kendrick. The apron had lace upon lace, with patches of cute kittens and puppies and cartoon unicorns decorating the front. ‘We can’t have your clothes all a-muck now, can we? We’ll get started with cleaning out the rest of the dog pens, then a sweeping to get rid of the Pygmy Puff droppings. Then it’s just having the bowls filled with food and a checkup on the unicorns. Easy enough! Then we can play! Right Bo?’

Bo's happiness was infectious, and it had been infecting Kendrick for weeks. Everyone at work had noticed how happy the 30-year-old was, the big 3-0 he'd recently suffered notwithstanding. He was rather glad to see it infecting someone else other than him and Jo, as well. He laughed outright at Jon's tone of voice, which was just as cute and excited as his had been earlier. "I swear, they'll be the death of us by mortification. Just don't reenact this for Percy or I'll never be taken seriously again, okay?" Kendrick was friends with Percy's older brothers and of course with his parents, it came on par with Order involvement and he'd gone to school with Bill and Charlie--well, Percy too, but he'd been younger--but he still hadn't totally forgotten Percy's behavior after the Ministry's fall, even though he was now his boss. Go figure. He seemed to have mellowed out a bit, but in some ways he really hadn't at all.

"Joke's on you as usual mate, I've got two lacy aprons at home," he winked. Of course, they were both Jo's, and the lace was extremely minor, but Jonathan didn't need to know that. Slipping in through the door as Jonathan let them in, he stared at the mess of black labs rolling on the floor. "Jon, there are so many of them...wait, Steve? Reckon you should have named him Mevie at this rate." He mimed dubbing the tiny puppy, who was already sneaking to the edge of the area rug, with his wand, then looked down to find his own pup. Bo had bounded up to the other puppies immediately, but then drew back for a moment, seemingly unsure in face of so much new company. "Go on, they won't bite. Hard," he amended, knowing that nips in the name of play were bound to happen. Bo started sniffing one--Mindi? Minnie? Manny? and within a few seconds they were jumping on one another. Kendrick laughed, relieved, and turned back to Jonathan, his brief concerns assuaged.

He was greeted with a very frilly apron. Kendrick frowned. "Isn't your cousin Meredith fifteen or something? I feel like I've seen her before. Come on man, buy her nicer aprons, I know your salary's bigger 'n mine," he joked. "You know, it's kind of cute..." One of the unicorns scampered around the front and returned to its static position. "Okay, but I have to see what happens when you try to run the charms yourself. I can't believe it's that bad. One for one, I'll fix it if you mess up, you know I'm used to it," he laughed. Peeking into one of the dirtier pens, he flicked his wand. "Evanesco!" That was for debris, and "Scourgify!" for scrubbing. "Let's see it," he said, turning to Jonathan with a smirk.