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Ever, at least, wasn't her boss, something that would become immediately clear -- by the confused way he looked up at her, by the battered state of near-shredded jeans, by the rumpled and unprofessional messy tumble of his hair. He looked up at the sound and blinked at the stranger, swiping bangs out of his face.

This wasn't really working with animal, not today, so much as it was cleaning up after them. A handful of cages, a shift of beasts from one to the other, and Ever was already well into it.

He hadn't, clearly, been expecting help.

"Is that a name or a title?" He sounded bemused. Certainly confused. Leaning against an already-empty cage.

Ever pointed, sideways, to the other cage -- and there, at least, were minipets for her to get a good look at, a bouncing mass of them. Some were cute, and some were grotesque, but all were definitely strange, And all seemed, in this moment, excited. Understandably so. A break in their routine had to be viewed as something spectacular.

"Mid cage cleaning. You have to take them out and then mop it up and then, eventually, start putting them back where they all belong. Welcome to the team." Surely there were aspects of minipet duty that didn't involve sweeping or mopping. Ever, however, had not yet been a party to those.

"I wasn't expecting any help at all, so." He shook his head and, after a moment's pause, stepped back. It meant setting aside his scrub brush and his bucket and, cheerfully, fishing out a pack of cigarettes instead. It wasn't meant to be newbie hazing, not as such, it was just -- well. She was here, and Ever had done a good half [maybe more like a third] of the work anyway, so let her take over for a bit.

"I think it's just us. Have at." He tapped one cigarette out into his palm.

"At the cages." There was a note of exasperation in his voice as he rolled a lazy hands to the work: and that was, really, all the help he was going to offer her. It wasn't that he minded giving more instructions. It's just that Ever wasn't in charge. And, anyway, he'd figured it out all on his own.

Eventually.

"I'm going to stand here and have a smoke while you take over." This was more patient, but it was also, just faintly, sarcastic. It was an obviously, as he pulled out his lighter to kindle the end of his cigarette.

Altogether, it left Ever bemused -- if in large part because he wasn't at all used to people doing what he told them to, especially without an argument. So he stood back and smoked without asking if she minded, arms folded across his chest and eyebrows raised as she did the worst of several cages. In truth, he wasn't going to slow her down, nor step in to take over the duty again. He'd tapped out, and Joy was going to have to tap back in, eventually.

Ever kind of hoped she'd forget, though.

As the cigarette burned down, he leaned in against the wall and fished out his phone to, briefly, check Twitter.

Ever, in the meantime, had relaxed into his position -- sagging sideways in place to consider the way Joy worked through her duty. It was, for sure, more thorough than he had ever done. And with more gusto, enthusiastic thing that she was.

She could share duty with him any time.

"Now we have to put them all back." He pointed, absently, to the cage in the corner -- where the minipets were pressed up against each other, the space not quite enough for them to be comfortable. And, as if they noticed the attention turned that way, they all started making sound at once.

"They're all made of the same stuff." He squinted at the little beasts, instead of at her -- head cocked to the side and polishing off the last of his cigarette in this moment. Ever snuffed it under one toe and then stepped in to get a better look, gesturing vaguely at two minipets of roughly the same size and shape, if different colors.

"Usually I put the ones that look the same-ish together, and so far no one's complained."