“You idiot!” Zane hissed, collapsing into a chair at Antarctica’s research centre. “How on earth could you bring THAT thing accidentally?!”

His research partner glared back into him with exhausted eyes, unable to formulate a response.

“I can’t tell whether you’re incompetent or a menace…” Zane said through gritted teeth. “… but you’ve left us both in a curious predicament.”

Both of them turned to root of “the curious predicament”, which was hopping about the floor.

“Well, Zane, I didn’t deliberately try to bring the bird with me, did I?” Hugo, his partner, finally responded.

“How on earth did airport security fail to detect the winged creature in the luggage anyways?” Zane muttered to himself, ignoring Hugo. “Surely it should have showed in the scans…”

“It’s a little one,” Hugo commented, crouching down beside the little bird. “Probably only a baby. Poor fella.”

Zane sighed, eying the two. Zane and Hugo were the only researchers present, sent on an expedition for 2 weeks.

Communication was limited with the countries across the sea, and he was not particularly keen on messaging the boss that there was an accidental pigeon stowaway that had infiltrated their luggage.

To make matters worse, this trip was their first independent expedition. They were meant to be responsible and impressive, not faced with embarrassing problems.

“You gonna tell them?” Hugo asks, his eyes stilled glued on the pigeon. “Boss’ team, I mean.”

“No. We’ll just keep this a secret, okay?” Zane tried to say calmly, though his twitching facial muscles betrayed him. “Everything. Is. Fine.”

“Well, we’ve gotta take care of it,” Hugo said, picking the bird up carefully. “We’re only here for 2 weeks anyways.”

“Are you serious?” Zane scoffed. “Antarctica is not the correct climate for a city pigeon! How could we possibly take care of it?”

“Well, it wouldn’t hurt to try, would it?” Hugo snapped back angrily. “I’m going to go give ‘em some food. I’ll name ‘em Pig, for pigeon.”

“That’s a stupid name,” Zane grumbled, watching Hugo storm off into the centre’s kitchen with the bird between his palms. “It’s not even correct syllabically.”

—

Days had passed. Zane took an unsurprising interest in leaving the centre for extra outdoor research, leaving Hugo to stay with the destructive pigeon.

They had quickly discovered that Pig was a rather hungry bird. A very hungry bird. And Pig often caused a flurry of destruction in their path to make it known to the world.

Hugo’s love never faded though, feeding and talking to Pig daily. Zane never paid any attention to the two. He distanced himself, telling Hugo that the pigeon was not his concern.

Though, one day, during Hugo’s shift to collect data outside, Pig started to act a little more reckless than usual. Zane was seated on the sofa, though suspiciously glaring at Pig, across the room.

Pig was crashing into furniture repeatedly, and Zane started to feel an uneasy feeling watching. But he was not sure why.

He told himself that he didn’t care about that poorly-named bird.

But in spite of himself, he found himself standing up and approaching the bird quietly, saying, “Hey… hey… calm down…”

Pig, in response, darted their eyes at him briefly before resuming his chaotic activities.

“Woah! Hey! Don’t break that—“ Zane said, strained.

CRASH.

Zane sighed.

“Hey. Pig.” Zane said. “Want food?”

The word, whether is was the use of the bird’s (bad) name, or the word ‘food’, somehow triggered a reaction from the pigeon. It stopped its activities and started edging towards Zane.

“Fine, follow me,” Zane said to the bird, walking in great strides. Though, he quickly learned that the bird was not a fast walker. With a great sigh, Zane reached down, and picked the bird up gently. “Okay, Pig. But don’t bother me later.”

They walked to the kitchen, with Zane murmuring, “Pig’s such a bad name. Should’ve at least been Pidge or something, to sound more like ‘pigeon’…”

Zane placed the bird down onto the kitchen counter and started looking for food in the cupboards that would satisfy the tiny bird.

“What on earth does Hugo even feed you?” Zane pondered aloud. “And… why am I even bothering to feed you?”

Regardless, he continued searching through the cupboards, and found a packet of nutmeg.

“Do pigeons like nutmeg…?” Zane asked, holding out the packet.

Pig hopped over to him, eagerly.

“Okay, okay, fine.” Zane said, outstretching a hand of the nutmeg. “Here.”

—

Hugo rarely gets surprised.

He is a very laidback guy.

But when he returned to the research centre, a wave of astonishment hit him like a brick upon noticing the living room.

Zane was sleeping casually on the sofa, with cute little Pig comfortably sleeping beside him.

It was so cute. Perfect time to take a picture—

Until Zane woke up.

“Hey, Hugo!! Don’t!”

“Haha!!” Hugo said, bolting down the corridor out of reach whilst poor little Pig woke up.

“What did you even do to get Pig to warm up to you?” Hugo laughed as Zane chased him.

“Nothing!” Zane yelled back, though internally, he thought, “I guess pigeons do like nutmeg…?”

(This is was fun to write :] partly inspired by a story I saw online, about a fearsome duo having to care for a little baby, with them caring for the baby by the end, ahah)