#and not a...vegas

“I remember agreeing to the rat,” Vegas says, shortly after the third pedestrian Macau glares into submission, “Remind me when I agreed to the second guard dog, would you? You’d think one was bad enough.”

“Who’s a guard dog,” Pete shoots back cheerfully two steps behind them, and Macau just about jumps out of his skin.

…It’s not like he forgot about Pete. Pete drove. Pete insisted on circling the building twice in midday traffic to scope entries and exits before they even parked. But once they got out of the parking garage, Pete fell in behind them and kind of became part of the scenery.

Fucking unsettling.

“Phi,” Macau complains with a glance over his shoulder, very chill and casual-like, “when’d you get good at going invisible? I feel like you’re gonna disappear. You used to be so shit at this.”

Pete’s smile is too loud for his face. “I always made a better guard than a spy.”

“Pete’s not invisible,” Vegas interjects. “Pete. I’m still injured, get up here.”

Crafty hia. Pete, who has a thing about being helpful, hurries to support Vegas with an arm about the waist. This puts him between Vegas and Macau and--as a bonus--lets Vegas sneak a hand into the small of his back.

Unfortunately, they stand out even more as a cluster. Macau finds his next stare-down in an stooped man with a cane and too many amulets around his neck.

It would help, he thinks, if the three of them didn’t make such a clash of opposing aesthetics. Vegas draws the most attention, but making Vegas look less like a snazzy villain on a murder mystery dinner cruise was always a lost cause--he genuinely can’t help being designed for smoky backrooms and dramatic mood lighting. It’s a hell of a lot easier to match his energy.

Pete, remarkably unremarkable in jeans and a t-shirt loose enough to hide the gun in his waistband, apparently missed that memo. Pete doesn’t have a ton of clothes, but he knows how to layer his wardrobe to his advantage and style his hair when he wants to look good.

Maybe he’s just ashamed to be seen with them in public.

Macau wishes for invincibility. He wishes he could hold his head high, taunt the world with their continued presence in it. He wishes he could roll up into a ball and take Vegas and Pete with him. He wishes, shamefully, that he were alone.

It’s a relief to escape into the cheerful narrow aisles of the pet supply store. The store cat, a chunky grey tabby, makes a beeline for Pete. Macau uses the distraction to grab a basket and slip into the stacks of multicolored toy mice and gleaming metal dishes.

He picks his way through the rodent cages, drops a couple puzzle toys in his basket, and runs his hands down the rungs of the tiny animal-sized ladders in the back. He finds Pete again at the end of a display of tunnels and rodent toys, one eye on their surroundings and the other on the cat rubbing up against his legs. He has an empty basket on his arm and resigned concern at the corners of his mouth.

A few steps down the aisle, Vegas stands immobile. He’s staring at a bright blue box labeled in bubbly English letters, “Plastic pipe pet toy: 39 inches of tunneling fun!” Indecision makes war across the plains of his face, regret and a torn sort of longing.

It’s a bit silly, because Macau’s heard whispers about the time his brother pulled the intestines out of a guy’s body and didn’t let him die (with a sick sort of pride, that Vegas is the best at what he does). Macau doesn’t have an instinctive handle on how long 39 inches is, but he’s pretty sure intestines are way longer.

And now the mafia’s favorite butcher is making tormented eyes at a box of plastic.

Macau understands, maybe better than anyone. Gun was his father, too. He strolls up and nudges against Vegas’s arm.

“Hey, bro,” he says. “Tunneling fun, huh?”

Vegas snorts, shifting seamlessly into languid nonchalance. “Just glancing around. Are you finding anything you like?”

Macau taps his basket. “I scouted out the place,” he replies. “Bet the stuff I pick for our rat’s gonna be way more kickass than the stuff you find.”

“Oh, you wanna bet?” Vegas raises his eyebrows.

Macau grins. “I’m souping this thing up to the fuckin’ nines. Nobody’s gonna stop us.”

“Brat,” Vegas says, but he’s smiling back now. He switches to Thai. “Pete’s on my team.”

No more hedgehogs in bird cages. No more accusations of softness, no more pretending a pet is a task and not a living thing. Vegas takes the tunnel off the shelf and sets it decisively in Pete’s basket. Macau lets out a whoop loud enough to send the cat packing. Pete plays up his put-out sigh, but there’s a new bounce in his step.

They loot the store for all the toys that will fit in the trunk, plus an extra bag of treats once Vegas pulls his dumb “nice establishment you’ve got here” routine on the cashier. This works, even though his energy’s visibly flagging. Pete’s ears are pink when he sets the bags down beside the door to the store.

He kisses Vegas’s cheek, hand brushing with what seems like unexpected daring against his hip until Macau realizes he’s just checking for his gun, and tells them he’ll bring the car around.

Vegas opens the GPS app on his phone to watch him go.

“‘Real shame if something happened to this lovely little shop’--you did that to impress P’Pete, didn’t you?” Macau says out the side of his mouth. “That was cringe as fuck, bro.”

Vegas leans his weight against the wall, smiling crookedly. “Worked, didn’t it?”

“I’m gonna tell him.”

“Trust me, he knows.”

They drive home with their trunk full of supplies, and then they gather in Macau’s room and set up the enclosure together--Pete and Macau bent around the cage, Vegas on Macau’s bed issuing directions and making a solid effort not to get cranky about it.

There’s no unified theme, and the colors are all over the place; sleek blacks and reds mingle with natural greens and jungle browns and oranges. Pete’s selections don’t even follow a color scheme--he just thinks the toys designed to look like human furniture are maybe the funniest thing he’s ever seen. (And Macau does not raise his eyebrows at that, not even a little.)

The color scheme is wonky, but this rat cage gets completely decked out. It is dope as shit, a multi-story luxury rat mansion. It has tunnels and bridges and shelves and all the hideaways a critter could want. Shreddables and puzzles strewn about the place. A little rat living room with a rat-sized couch and coffee table. An arguably fake skull to hang out in. Cozy bedding for days.

Macau curls their expandable 39-inch blue plastic tunnel between the hammock and the food dish. Vegas pretends he isn’t touched.

The sanctuary they make of Macau’s room that evening feels tenuous, transient in a way that tightens his chest--but somehow brighter for its fragility. The three of them sit and watch for nearly an hour as their rat explores this home they’ve built for it from all their disparate parts.