After a long day out
Piper wasn't as happy as he could be. James - the architect - was a lovely enough person, he seemed really into Piper and they had enough in common to keep the conversations flowing. But the click just wasn't clicking and there were some things that were rubbing Piper the wrong way.
His interests seemed to coincide with Piper's a little too closely. Although that had certainly happened before, something about James's body language was just that tiny shade off. Plus, he kept trying to get Piper to play his music or better yet, sing. And something kept telling Piper not to do that.
That something was a rat.
"Smell wrong! Smell like dog!"
"You keep saying that, Rune," Piper said to the rat on his shoulder, "What exactly do you mean by that?"
"Like dogs smell. There is dog and there is whatever dog's been rolling in. Phaugh! Whatever he roll in smell bad!"
Only Piper could hear the rat; her ultrasonic voice was beyond the range of normal human hearing. Many of Piper's rats could speak and were reasonably sapient, but Rune was different even from them. "You don't mean his bodywash, do you."
"No! Is bad smell! Is not-good-for-Hartley smell!"
"Hm." Piper thought for a few moments. "Is it just me or does he seem somewhat... coached?"
"Yes and yes! Not-good man! Stay away and no sing, no play! Play head-song!"
That was an odd thing. Rune was insistant that he not play any tune, save the one that had sung in his head since he was young. He unlocked the apartment and stepped in. The message light on his machine flashed; he listened, rolling his eyes and shaking his head, "I knew he'd be back. They just wasted all that money on a funeral and bought themselves a nest of trouble with that bank robbery..."
He sighed and checked his email. "Aw noooooo... video wars now?" He smiled and shook his head, "I'm going downstairs to the hot tub. It is alright to do that, right? It's just an instrumental."
"Hot tub! We swim?"
"Alright, but let me put the filters in place before you all pile in, this time? I don't want to be picking rat hair out of the pumps again."
But he picked up his cel and dialed a number first.