Local Cryptid Lover

No-kill shelters TURN AWAY animals. When they’re full - and they often are because most of these no-kill shelters are small - they stop taking them in. While they are “taking their time to find the right homes for every single animal”, many other animals never get in the door. Somehow they don’t count those animals, or track what happens to them. A success for them doesn’t include the ones they turned away. They’re taking their time because they can. 

The No-Kills who brag about 100% adoption rates are the worst, because they tend to reject the most. The animals who will be difficult to adopt out? They just don’t take those. Special needs? Too old? If they’re going to be hard to adopt out, they can claim to be full, even if they’re not. 

They are telling owners they absolutely cannot take their fifteen year old cat because they are full of litters of kittens. Adorable kittens that will turn over quickly, and boost their adoption numbers. So what happens to the fifteen year old cat? After days of being rejected at the shelters they get dumped on the side of the road somewhere, or worse. 

You cannot imagine the VOLUME of animals that a city shelter deals with. The kill shelters are not allowed to turn anyone away. The difficult cases, the special needs, the elderly, the feral. The dog that bites, the cat that pees everywhere. Every animal is going to be taken in and treated with kindness. They are going to be assessed and treated for their fleas and conditions and behavioral problems. They will get their time on the adoption floor. They will get the best chance possible to find a new home. And if it’s not possible, they will be humanely euthanized, and that cage space will go to the next animal who is already waiting for it. It never stops. While you were working on the paperwork to adopt out 1 cat, three people brought in 4 more. It’s a numbers game that you cannot win if you aren’t turning people away.

A lot of times kill shelters get the animals that the no-kill shelters refused to take. Maybe their owners bring them. Or maybe they got literally thrown in the garbage, abandoned, or put in a bag and tossed in the river, when the no-kill shelter said they were full. The police and rescuers will bring these poor injured animals to the city shelter where they will be cared for. The volunteers will spend days and weeks trying to wash the tar out of their fur, or treat their broken bones, or whatever other horrible thing has happened to them. They will feed and house them. They will put most of them in new homes. They will save many many more animals, by orders of magnitude, than a no-kill shelter ever will. A no-kill shelter will brag about dozens or maybe hundreds of  adoptions. Kill shelters are dealing in thousands of successful adoptions, and they still have to euthanize because it just isn’t enough. There are just so many animals to take in.

“Hey Bits. How’d it–Woah.” Jack stops and looks at Bitty’s present-laden hands for a second before he reaches out to grab some bags off Bitty.

“Thanks. Thanks, honey,” Bitty says, relieved. He’s never thought the journey from parking garage to apartment was that long until today. “I trapped my key at the bottom of a bag somewhere. I don’t even know which bag.”

“Yeah,” Jack says slowly, leading them into the living room and dumping the bags on the sofa. “I thought you only had a few more people to buy for?” he questions, turning to Bitty.

“Oh, haha. Yep I did say that but-” Bitty puts his bags down beside Jack’s and starts digging through them to find his wallet “-just about every store was having a sale and I kept buying stuff for people I wasn’t intending to buy for and then even more stuff for people I already finished buying for. Ah ha!” He pulls out his wallet from the bottom of a bag of matching shorts for Ransom and Holster and turns to face Jack with a victorious grin. “Found it.”

“But don’t worry,” Bitty says, noticing the look on Jack’s face,”I bought more wrapping paper.”

“That’s not what I was worried about, bud,” Jack says with a smile, reaching with one arm to pull Bitty against his chest.

“Oh.” Bitty wraps his arms around Jack’s torso and looks up at him. “Well, good. No worries at Christmas, as Moo-maw would say.”

Bitty goes up on tiptoes to kiss Jack’s cheek. “So what do you say, you free for the next hour or so?”

“Sure,” Jack replies easily. “What for?”

Bitty reaches blindly behind him to grab a roll of gaudy Christmas wrapping and waves it like a wand.

Jack laughs and takes the roll from him. “Alright. But I get to choose the music while we do it.”

“Deal.”

-

Jack puts on a She and Him Christmas album and they set up on the dining table with rolls of wrapping paper, tape and labels.

“You know, I was thinking,” Bitty says, navigating a tricky non-existent corner on a soccer ball for Whiskey, “If you want, I’m happy to give these as like a joint present, you know.”

Jack’s focusing intently on lining up the pictures on his wrapping paper and hums instead of giving a verbal response. He’s wrapped about one present for every three Bitty has done and it’s easy to pick whose is whose.

“I know we haven’t talked about it,” Bitty begins to explain, “but I figured we’re probably at that stage where we can do that. Like when I was little I’d get one present from an aunt and uncle together. Like that. So if you want, these can be from the both of us.”

Bitty finally succeeds in covering the soccer ball with wrapping. He sticks a label on it and adds it to the pile, propping it against others so it doesn’t roll away.

“Who was this book for again?” Jack asks.

“Georgia.”

Jack nods and writes it on the label, adding it to the pile.

“So. Jack,” Bitty crosses his arms on the table top. “What do you think?”

Jack smiles as he reaches for another gift to wrap. “I think it’s a great idea.”

Bitty sighs out and smiles. He’s not going to lie, he was a little worried Jack wouldn’t be receptive.

He starts on another present, going for something with a more conventional shape this time. “Okay, great. Because–”

“But I’ve already bought all my Christmas presents this year.”

Bitty blinks. “What? I haven’t seen you come home with a single thing.”

Jack shrugs. “Because I’ve had it done since August.”

The paper Bitty’s in the middle of cutting tears as his scissors run away from him. “August!?”

“Yeah,” Jack says nonchalant. “I’m always busy this time of year so I do it all in the break between seasons.”

Bitty shakes his head. “How did I not know that?”

“I do most of it online so it gets delivered pretty staggered.”

“Oh. Oh that makes sense.” Bitty cuts another square of paper and starts wrapping his present for Tater.

“Hang on. Wait a minute. Does that–Jack.” Bitty puts the scissors down, waiting for Jack to finish taping his paper and look at him.

“Does this mean I might have seen my present already?”

Jack doesn’t say anything but a smile spreads slowly across his face.

“Jack! I signed for some of those! Oh my goodness.” Bitty shuts his eyes and tries to remember the names on the boxes he’s signed for but he hadn’t payed much attention at the time, assuming Jack was ordering in out-of-print history books for himself or more gear for the home gym.

Jack laughs and Bitty opens his eyes.

“Another benefit of doing it early. It’s not on anyone’s mind.”

Bitty pouts.

“But no, you didn’t see yours. I made sure it got delivered when you where at work.” Jack grins and sticks a label on his present with flourish.

He gives the dog a human name like Zack because he thinks it’s funny and he absolutely loves and adores his dog. The Falcs pick up on the fact that Jack really cares about someone named Zack but they’re also curious about who this person is because sometimes Jack says kind of odd or vague things about him.

Then on a roadie early in the season, Snowy overhears Jack say “I love you” at the end of a phone call. Later, Snowy asks who Jack was talking to and he answers Zack. (He was mostly talking to Shitty who was dog sitting for a few days, but because Jack is an obsessed dog dad he insisted on talking to his dog too). Finally Snowy gets it: Zack is his boyfriend but he’s been worried about coming out to the team.

It turns out Snowy is not the only person to come to this conclusion. They all decide to start being more openly supportive of having gay players in the locker room, and asking about Zack more because they want Jack to feel comfortable. Jack is just excited that his new teammates keep wanting to hear about all the runs he’s been on with his dog :)

And then Thanksgiving break happens.

Bitty isn’t going home for the break and it happens to coincide with Jack being on the road for a few days, so Bitty offers to dog sit. He obviously refuses to let Jack pay him for dog sitting, so Jack tries to come up with something nice to do for Bitty. He eventually decides to take Bitty to a fancy restaurant that supposedly has some special, secret pie recipe.

Dinner is great, and Bitty seems happy which makes Jack happy, and he deconstructs the secret pie recipe with great delight which is exactly what Jack was hoping would happen.

Unbeknownst to them, Snowy saw them at the restaurant, all dressed up and laughing about something and comes to the obvious conclusion– Bitty is Zack. He tells the other guys and they decide that since this relationship is obviously serious they should up their support game. So Thirdy catches Jack after practice one day, invites him to dinner, and says he should bring Zack because they’d love to meet him.

Jack of course, shows up to dinner with a dog.

When Marty and Thirdy finally stop laughing they explain that they really thought that Zack was Jack’s human boyfriend. Jack is kind of horrified to find out that like half the team thinks he has a boyfriend, but when he gets home that night and stops panicking about it, he realizes that means a lot of his teammates have been totally cool with the idea of him having a boyfriend. For the first time, Jack thinks that maybe, possibly, he might actually want to come out someday. 

When Snowy finds out that Zack is a dog he laughs and then asks the obvious question, “So who was that guy you were at dinner with?” Jack tells him he was a friend who was dog sitting.

The story ends there for the Falcs, meanwhile Jack can’t stop thinking about Snowy assuming he and Bitty were together, and the Falcs being fine with Jack having a boyfriend.

And all their friends and family are probably expecting them to get married within a year because they're just *like that*. But then anytime Suzanne asks if they've set a date yet, or Bob asks if they've started looking at venues they just go "nope! we're having a long engagement 😌".

*Jack shows Bitty his lattice work*

Bitty: good boy!

Jack: