A/N: This is the second draft. The first draft is quite different. I might put it up if anyone's interested, I have a certain fondness for it.

Anders is possibly growing to be my favourite character ever of any book/show/movie. He's certainly the most intriguing one.

When Anders was three, he wanted a rabbit. They were fun to pet, and he liked to watch them munching on a carrot. Mum said no, he wasn't old enough to be responsible for it. Anders thought about it for a moment, then dumped his cereal on the floor. He spent the next hour mopping the house.

When Anders was five, he wanted a killer whale because they were huge and way cool. Mike said Dad and Mum would never say yes. Ty just yawned and drooled. When even cousin Olaf, on one of his flying visits, agreed that they didn't have anywhere to keep it, Mike looked irritatingly smug. Anders sulked for quite a while until he accidentally dropped Mike's toothbrush in the toilet bowl, and then he felt much better.

When Anders was six, he wanted a horse. He'd been watching TV and decided that he needed a horse to be a proper hero. This time he timed it very carefully and asked a week before Christmas. Even that didn't work.

When Anders was eight, he wanted a guinea pig. This time he actually got it, mostly because he bought it off a classmate for a dollar and brought it back home after school. Mum screamed for a while then gave him a box to put it in. Ty asked what he was going to name it, and Mike laughed his head off when Anders announced he was calling it Carmelita. Carmelita was brown and white and dopey, and Anders played with her every day. About a month later, he woke up to find her dead. Anders promptly burst into tears. Dad was off on one of his trips, so Mum ordered Mike to bury it because Anders wailed even more when he overheard her whispering to Mike to chuck it in the trash. Ty only sucked his thumb and looked solemn, but a few days later Mike caught him trying to dig her up so he could give her back to Anders and Anders wouldn't be so upset anymore, right Mike?

When Anders was nine, he wanted a hamster. They were quiet and furry, and they never got too big to be cute. Also, girls loved hamsters. All you had to do was bring one and they'd crowd around you. He wasn't dumb enough to make the mistake of bringing a mouse instead like Johnny Carlson from down the block. But Dad said no because he hated rats. When Anders tried to explain that hamsters weren't rats, he only got a long rant on the damage a single rat could do onboard a ship, and the remainder of Dad's beer.

When Anders was eleven, he wanted a cat. Cats appealed to him. He liked the way they didn't care. People could be yelling and throwing things and fighting and crying, and a cat would just stalk out with its tail held high. Cats didn't do anything unless they wanted to. He didn't ask for one though. Mum was busy being angry and Dad was busy being gone.

When Anders was sixteen, he wanted a dog. A great hulking dog, the sort that someone only two-thirds wasted would mistake for a bear, a big savage beast he could sic on people. Mike said don't ask in front of the kids again. They didn't have the money and they didn't have the time. Mike was holding down three jobs and refusing to go back to winning money at the tables; Anders had school and a job and the housework; Ty had his hands full between school and taking care of Axl plus whatever housework Anders hadn't finished; and Axl was still waking up in the night crying for Mum. Anders pointed out that a dog would be a good distraction for Ty and Axl. Mike said shut up and take the groceries. Mike was even more irritated because Axl refused to budge from where he was plastered against the pet shop window and Mike had to carry him off bodily.

So when Anders was twenty-two and had finally scrounged together enough money to get his own place, he bought a dog. A medium-sized puppy that would grow to be a medium-sized dog. But Mike was right. It wasn't in Anders to love a dog wholeheartedly, it wasn't in him to deal with the complete adoration a dog gave, and it certainly wasn't in him to feed and clean up after it day after day. After the fourth time the puppy ruined his carpet, he got rid of it. At a profit, of course – he wasn't Bragi for nothing.

And then he got himself tropical fish. They were quiet and undemanding, and they were the only things he trusted himself to take care of properly. He stayed away from Axl because it was too easy to get impatient with his baby brother, and he stayed away from Ty because it was too easy to screw him over. His fish didn't need anything except food and clean water, and those he could handle. His fish were quiet and undemanding and they stopped him from being the only living thing in his apartment.

He loved his fish.