If there was one thing that Michael really wasn't good at – keeping in mind there are actually many different things he isn't good at, but to choose just one – it would be caring for things. After all, it wasn't as if he had ever had the greatest role models for caring about things. His mother had never cared about him enough to even entertain the notion of actually raising him, and his father only ever cared enough to get drunk and hit him, so it wasn't like he had exactly been dying to become the caretaker of some animals that needed his complete attention. By contrast, Trevor had always been the one that had cared far too much, and so whenever they had a tag along or needed someone who was good at actually giving a shit on occasion – as long as the thing was cute – that job fell on his partner in crime, and not on Michael. The bobcat was pretty much always fine with that, wholeheartedly only caring about himself, Trevor, and whatever path they were going to take to get out of the next shitstorm they inevitably encountered. He didn't need anything else to occupy his mind, and for the most part, nothing did.

That was why him coming upon the rats most definitely wasn't an intentional decision. He hadn't meant to end up with a container full of rats, it had sort of just been a matter of circumstance. He had been trotting from house to house along the line of the sandy beach, attempting to find a place for he and Trevor to stay – since he didn't want to intrude on Roxie and Roan anymore, and Trev wasn't even allowed inside thanks to the smell of gasoline that clung to his pelt – when he came upon one that looked promising. It was a small hut, yes, but it wasn't falling apart, and it looked downright homey from the outside, so Michael had been feeling pretty pleased when he padded up to the front door, pushing it open and heading inside. However, his satisfied grin quickly turned into a look of horror when he placed a paw inside, and suddenly several rats were scattering in different directions, squealing and howling in fear. Michael ended up stumbling backwards, letting out his own howl of fear and practically falling on his ass in his attempts to get away. After that, catching the rats had been... well, it had been a matter of pride, more than anything. For one thing, he wanted them out of the house. For another thing, they had made him look like an utter fucking fool, and even if nobody had seen him fall back on his tailbone, he still felt the need for some sort of revenge. So, the bobcat had ended up prowling slowly around the house until he had eventually caught all of the rats that he had seen – six of them, to be exact. Six different rats, all of whom had presumably been calling the house their home before Michael had decided to arrive and spoil their fun.

In all honesty, Michael wasn't sure what his plan had been for the rats after he had caught them. He hadn't wanted to kill and eat them, since he doubted they were very clean or tasty, so he supposed that maybe it had been to just toss them out of the house. However, that plan had now been long forgotten, as Michael sat out on the porch of the house, staring down at the large plastic container that all of the rats were now in. He had made sure to poke several holes in the top, and while doing so he had noticed... well, the rats were pretty damn cute. They were fluffy, and had big bright eyes, and were constantly chattering away or sniffing at something... it was adorable, and he didn't really want to get rid of them. Shit. He had never really thought about caring for anything else before, but... they were just so tiny, and it wasn't as if they had known that anyone was going to end up moving into the home they had decided to occupy. It would only be fair if he let them stay, provided he had some sort of control over them so that they didn't wreck everything.

Michael's thought process went from one thing to another, and before long the male was just sitting on his porch, looking down at each of the little rats while trying to decide on name's for them. There was a little light gray one, with dark brown beady eyes that Michael came up with a name for rather quickly, "Kenny..." Next was a dark chocolate brown colored one with a cream white stomach. "Cocoa..." After Cocoa was a rather plump orange and white one, with dark eyes and a soft pink nose. "Princess..." Princess was quickly followed by a thin dark gray one with pink ears, affectionately named, "Splash..." The next was a black furred one, with blue eyes and a sort of goofy look on his face. He immediately made Michael smile as he mumbled fondly, "Wade..." The final rat of the bunch was a small one, with a mixed pattern of gray and white fur and huge pink and grey ears. One could practically hear the laughter in Michael's voice as he finished off, "And... Trevor. Version 2." Once he had finished up naming them, Michael found himself just smiling calmly down at the group of rats he had acquired, looking over the party of all boys and one girl. He murmured softly to himself as he glanced around, his teeth worrying the inside of his cheek, "Guess I'll have to figure out what I can feed you guys..."

Octavio was a product of neglect. He wouldn't consider his childhood to be bad, and it took a third party pointing out to him that it was, indeed, bad. It wasn't abusive, Octavio considered bad parents to be beatings and starving you and all the stuff from the Holonet.
His therapist pointed out, though, his childhood under the marble and gold lined ceilings of the Silva mansion wasn't perfect by any means. His dad had custody and left his mother, and the maid was his mother for all intents and purposes.
Such neglect led to a need for attention. He just wanted his dad to pay attention to him, at least for a few minutes. Getting him a rabbit instead of a puppy was a good example of this, rabbits were cheaper and didn't "require as much." He was so emotionally detached from his father by 24 that talking to him after blowing off his legs didn't even cross his mind until hours later.
Navi, the little scamp, had been so good. Octavio would never know the warm, loving embrace of his father, but he would know the feeling of a cold, dead rabbit in his hands for years. The rabbit was part of his brand, now. Octane had plushies and build-a-bears of himself as a rabbit, and it was on a few of his banner cards.
He had thought about getting more, though. It helped out his public persona, owning a rabbit made him more approachable and cute. Caustic had, more than once, recommend he get his own hobby to obsess over.
So, watching someone tend to little rodents peeked his interest. Octane didn't know this bobcat that well- he looked too flashy and the jewelry adorning him reminded the cheetah too much of the life he left. The rats though? They looked cute! Octane had no choice but to approach! "Hey hey heye! What's up? Aren't you the guy who tried to set a house on fire the other day?" He climbed onto the porch, lanky form tumbling along, his metal legs making a different sound on wood from his fleshy ones. "I'm Octavio, by the way. Everyone calls me Octane though," He sat now, splaying out his metal legs in a way than was more human than animal. Brown eyes stared at the rats, pupils wide and tail flicking. "Who are the rats? Really cute. Are they yours?"

It wouldn't have made sense, for Michael to just expect that he would be left alone to his own devices with his new pet rats. After all, it wasn't as if he was hidden away within the privacy and safety of the building behind him. No, instead he had chosen to sit out on the porch with his container of rats, somewhere that was very much public and visible. Despite this, the bobcat still found himself jumping slightly when Octane approached, hurriedly taking an uncomfortable looking seat on the porch nearby. Half of this was because of Michael's focus on his new companions, and half of it was because of his lack of warning systems from the left side, his blindness and accompanying deafness on that side of his body making it difficult to tell when others were coming, especially through the sand. One of his front paws instinctively shot out protectively around the container of rodents, his short tail twitching apprehensively behind him as well, before the criminal actively forced himself to calm down. Octane's voice was high and excited, and he seemingly provided little threat in his current state. Michael was just so used to needing to constantly be on guard over anything that he treasured or cared about that his first instinct was that the cheetah was coming to yank his new children away from him. It was a silly instinct, but his body stubbornly clung to it, screeching that he would lose everything if he ever fully let his guard down.

Taking a deep breath inward, Michael forced his fur to flatten and his paw to pull back, allowing Octane to see the container fully once again. In order to ignore the rish of anxiety that came with the action, he focused fully on what the cheetah was saying, both ears perked forward although only one could truly process any of what was being said. However, the bobcat soon found himself freezing up when he heard the words falling from Octane's lips. Octavio? Like, the Octavio that Caustic had spoken about on Valentine's day? The idea that he would encounter Caustuc's "lab partner" here seemed so laughably farfetched that he just found himself staring with startled blue eyes at Octane, silent. The tension in his body skyrocketed, as if he were petrified that Caustic was going to step out from the shadows and drag him away. However, he once again forced himself to relax, hastily shaking his head before he spoke, "I... what? No! I wasn't tryin' to set the house on fire, I was tryin' to bake a cake. And I'm... I'm, uh, Michael. Michael De Santa." Looking down at the container he had sitting in front of him, he followed up dryly, "And yeah, these are my rats. It's kind of a jew development, but... they're real fuckin' cute."

It was at this point that Roxanne came over, his sister a bit slow in her step thanks to the children.that were rapidly approaching their birth date. Just her presence was enough to make him settle further, returning to his usual casual state. He gave her a little smile before he chuckled, nodding his head at the both of them, "Yeah, I did. They were livin' in the house I was lookin' at and it just seemed a little rude to evict 'em and throw 'em out..." He then continued, lifting up one of his bandaged front limbs to start pointing at each of them, "The two of you can say hello to Kenny, Cocoa, Princess, Wade, Splash, and Trevor, Version 2. Er, do either of you know what rats eat...?" Michael knew full well that rats could survive on pretty much anything they decided to scavenge, but he wanted to know what to feed them if he wanted them to actually be happy and healthy.

Octane started laughing as the bobcat tried to make excuses for the stunt the other day, his legs scraping against wood and digging small scratches into the material. "Sure, sure, amigo- just invite me next time you wanna start a fire, alright? Way more better ways to do it." Oh, the possibilities were endless. The roof of the huts made amazing tender, but the air was humid here and depending on the last rain, it would take it a little kick. His tail flicked wildly at the idea of using explosives, a warm thermite in his hand would be so nice- oh, the rats! He leaned over, rolling his shoulders and moving again, legs pulling to what would have been a crouch. Octane struggled with the vehicle his soul inhabited every now and then- it was a confusing, lanky form, but man was it fast. The cheetah lowered, getting in Micheal's way to lean over the container and take up all the personal space- "They're cute," he commented, placing each rat with the name Micheal had given them. "Normally I'd recommend like, the pellets and stuff? No, that's low quality- uhuhghg-" He hummed, a paw pulling to his face on instinct. "Vegetables and stuff should be fine, but they're rats, they could eat about anything."