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Every morning Basil got up 7:30am, because the budgerigar Wellensittich usually started their singing at this time. He could hear Dorian answer Wellensittich as if the little budgerigar could understand and answer him back. To Basil it mostly sounded like they were speaking simultaneously. He sighed loudly and rolled out of the bed, dragging his feet across the bedroom.
“Basil, you're awake!” Dorian cried from the corner where he was sitting, busy taking selfies as the light in the living room was quite remarkable at this time of the day when Basil opened the door. “Can you feed the children? I'm updating my Instagram!”
Children roughly translated to the five animals plus the can of ants that Dorian had brought home during various points of his life. The reason for adopting more animals was always the same; "But Basil, I don't think they have any parents!". Add huge puppy eyes and Basil couldn't really say no.
Basil sighed once again and walked into the kitchen to feed the cat, Edgar. Edgar had been the first animal to enter the household, since Basil had adopted him from a shelter six years ago. It was actually the only animal Basil had approved of adopting. Edgar was an orange very fluffy cat that was closer to fifteen years old. Since Edgar was the only animal in the home that Basil actually liked, he tended to give it extra much food which resulted in Edgar being a bit bigger than your average cat.
As he was feeding Edgar tuna fish, Dorian entered the kitchen, exclaiming loudly:
“Do you know what Henry wrote on his blog this morning?”
“No,” Basil muttered, but since he did not care about what Henry had written on his blog, he quit listening after that, as Dorian started speaking very quickly.
At the window sill in the kitchen, the can of ants stood. The ants were all called The Beatles as Dorian heard Yellow Submarine the day he found the ants and decided that obviously naming insects after another insect species was a good idea. The Beatles only ate Swedish fish, according to Dorian. Basil had no idea how Dorian had figured this out. He also didn't have any idea that you could actually have ants as pets until Dorian brought this can home last month, saying that all these ants looked like lost children.
“I don't think parents are a concept in the ant world,” Basil had argued in vain.
“That's so sad!” Dorian had exclaimed and since then The Beatles lived on the window sill.
Adrian the turtle was walking around freely in the apartment and was today found sleeping in a pile of crumpled papers in Basil's studio. Adrian had been the first animal that Dorian bought (although, he did buy him for Basil's money but that's another story). They had been inside a pet-shop about two months after they first met and Dorian had found this turtle and started crying because he felt so sorry for it. Since Basil didn't really know how to handle this back then the only solution had been to actually buy the turtle. In hindsight, Basil had realised that this was probably what started Dorian's habit of bringing animals home and that he probably should have put his foot down right there and then because they don't really have the space for the amount of animals currently living in this apartment.
Adrian the turtle only ate organic salad and often left crumbles of this salad all over the apartment, and was also Dorian's favourite.
“And then he wrote that The Smiths ruined the modern music industry -”
Dorian was still speaking about Henry's blog post although Basil hadn't been listening, but as Dorian mentioned Basil's favourite band, he couldn't stop himself from exclaiming:
“What, why?”
“Something about ruining the life of meat-eaters with Meat is Murder and therefore stopping the income that comes from meat industry and therefore… I didn't really understand his conclusion – Anyhow, after that he returned to discussing the situation in Uganda with -”
Basil returned to not listening as 1) he still didn't care about Henry's blog and 2) the budgerigar had started singing very loudly, its peeping almost drowning out Dorian's voice – this is very remarkable, since Dorian always spoke very loudly.
Wellensittich was adopted from Berlin via a budgerigar-adopting-site. Somehow, Dorian thought that naming a budgerigar after the German word for budgerigar was a good idea. Basil thought it was better to not comment this. The budgerigar was quite noisy and annoying but Basil had in fact gotten used to it being around.
The hamster Bill was the last animal to get his breakfast, as the phasmatidae Tilda didn't really eat. Bill the hamster was pretty evil. You usually say that you shouldn't bite the hand that feeds you, but this did apparently not apply to Bill. Bill had just showed up one day.
“How did this come here?” Basil had asked.
“Yes,” Dorian had answered.
“Why do we have a hamster?” Basil had asked.
“He said he didn't have any parents,” Dorian had answered.
“Hamsters can't speak,” Basil had said.
“He said it with his eyes,” Dorian had replied, dead serious. Basil was really scared of hamsters but this apparently did not matter and well, exposure therapy.
After feeding the hamster, Basil asked Dorian, who was still, for some reason, speaking about Henry's blog post:
“Have you eaten anything today?”
“No, but do you know what he said after that?” Dorian replied. Henry's blog post must have been longer than usual – which was remarkable, since Henry's blog seemed to contain shorter novels.
“No, do you want scrambled eggs?” Without expecting an answer, Basil walked out to the kitchen, Dorian following him like he had done all morning, still talking about things Basil didn’t really have any interest in. Dorian immediately went up to the mirror hanging over their small, but quite charming, mahogany dining table.
“You really should read Henry’s blog, Basil darling. I know you have said you don’t like it, or like Henry, but it’s quite interesting to see what he thinks of the world.” Dorian said while carefully fixing his already perfect hair. Basil nodded in response, not knowing if Dorian saw it and without intending to ever read Lord Henry’s blog. He took out some eggs from the refrigerator and started doing his usual scrambled eggs. While adding some herbal salt he sometimes picked up a few words from Dorian, and then started ignoring what he said again as he didn’t see anything of it as interesting enough right at that moment. When the eggs were ready he cut off Dorian mid sentence and said:
“Come over here,” which Dorian did, though still talking, and Basil wasn’t sure if it still was about the blog post as he didn’t think anyone would be able to write that much. Not even Lord Henry.
“Basil,” Dorian said, and opened his mouth so that Basil could feed him some of the eggs. “I just remembered. I don’t have any parents.”
Basil nodded and took a bite of the scrambled eggs himself.
“But you have me.” he said, smiled at Dorian and lifted up one hand to mess in Dorian’s hair. Dorian smiled back, before realising that Basil had just messed up his perfect hair and he rushed back to the mirror. Basil sighed once again, but this time not because he was annoyed. It was a loving sigh and he chuckled at his boyfriend's behaviour before finishing his breakfast.