Fic: What You See Is What You Get Part 1 (TSN)

[a_jejune_star]

Title: What You See Is what You Get
Pairing: Mark/Eduardo
Author: a_jejune_star 
Rating: Hard R‌? Soft NC-17‌? For PR0N!
Words: ~16,000
Summary: “Mark’s vaguely amused as he watches Eduardo nest. That’s what it has to be. Mark’s seen bears less maternal than this guy.” Mark and Eduardo adopt a litter of orphaned kittens. Angst and pseudo domestication ensues.
Warning: Untimely feline death :(

Notes: I don’t know what the hell this is. All I know is that my neighbor’s cat had kittens, and I wanted to cuddle them, but she’s kind of crotchety and greedy about that kind of thing, so I wrote this instead‌? Pure self-indulgence. I don’t have anyone to read this through or give feedback/beta, so please excuse any errors or leave me a comment, if you have the time to spare‌? I’ll cuddle you like a kitten!
 

Part 1  |  Part 2

*

So there’s this cat.

She hangs around Kirkland, and Mark knows this because her beady eyes follow him with his every exit and entrance into the building.

She’s feral. Some of the students have tried to catch her, cages and bait set out that she’s too clever to take. Instead, they leave her bits of food on the steps. Disgusting stuff, like day old noodles and stale pop tarts, because that’s how most of them live.

Mark doesn’t like the way she looks at him. Her eyes are weird and un-cat-like. They are wise eyes, and Mark’s not sure why this unsettles him, but whenever he locks eyes with the thing, he walks a little faster.

“It probably has diseases,” he says to Dustin one day. Her black fur is dirty and matted in places, and Mark can see her bones.

She’s gross.

Dustin answers, “She was here first.”

*

Someone’s girlfriend names the cat Sassy. Really, plenty of girlfriends have given the thing names, and there’s no reason this particular name should stick, seeing as how there had been far more creative choices, but it does.

She doesn’t look like a “Sassy” to Mark.

She doesn’t look like the kind of cat you could name at all.

You don’t name high-risk animals.

It means you’ve become attached.

*

Everyone’s attached.

*

Sassy doesn’t have a meow. Mark saw someone feeding her once, just some old scraps of pizza, and she opened her mouth to meow, but all that emerged was a breathy rasp.

Everyone feels bad for Sassy. They say things like, “That poor kitty,” and “I just want to give her a hug,” and “Who’s a pretty lady‌? Who’s a pretty little kitty, girl‌? Pretty kitty hungry‌?”

That last one is Dustin, of course.

Everyone pities her, but not Mark.

It’s survival of the fittest. Sassy is the best con in all of Massachusetts. Just points her beady wise runny eyes to the nearest passerby and bam.

Instant dinner.

Mark never feeds Sassy.

*

Eduardo always feeds Sassy.

*

He doesn’t throw her shitty molding scraps, either. Eduardo buys these fancy cans of pate and when he pops the top, it’ll echo through the whole damn campus. Sassy will always appear, as if materializing from thin air, prancing in a circle in the distance.

She’ll sit there and wait for him to retreat before inhaling the food.

Mark says, “Why bother buying the good stuff, it’s not like it tastes anything.”

Eduardo answers, “Because I want to.”

*

Mark knows whenever they eat and the leftovers begin piling up on the counter where it’s going to.

Chris takes her scraps every morning.

Sassy is the best fed cat in the state.

*

Later, Mark will put two and two together, but for a moment, he’s puzzled as to how Sassy had gone from obese to skeleton in the span of a week.

Disease, he thinks.

Chris gives her water.

Dustin gives her the heels of a loaf of bread.

Eduardo gives her a five dollar can of food.

Mark gives her a wide berth.

*

Sassy dies the next day.

Mark knows it because he’s there when it happens.

Kind of.

He’s going into the ComSci building and he sees her in the distance, just perching on a curb. Her beady wise crusty eyes peer at Mark in a way that makes him feel cold.

When he comes out of the lab hours later, Sassy is in the street and she doesn’t meow anymore.

The cars don’t even bother dodging her.

*

Someone’s girlfriend cries and someone else gets Sassy off the street, and Mark watches for no particular reason as they put her into a black trash bag.

The fleas have already fled her cooling body.

Mark figures it’s the first time Sassy has ever been without fleas.

He thinks she’s better off.

*

“Have you seen Sassy around‌?” Dustin asks that night, frowning. “I’ve got some prime Chinese here, and we’re leaving tomorrow. I thought I’d-” Dustin lifts the box of takeout he’s only eaten half of, and Mark doesn’t say anything.

He should, though.

He should tell Dustin, Sassy went and got squished. Because animals don’t look both ways and that’s what they do, they die.

Mark keeps coding.

Blame it on holiday spirit.

Chris knows. Mark knows Chris does because he says to Dustin, “I think someone finally caught her. She’s probably living it up next to a fireplace.”

Dustin looks hopeful and disappointed all at once when he drops the box into the trashcan.

*

Mark’s awake before the sun’s even risen, not that he ever went to sleep. They’d been up late, since Chris and Dustin are leaving for holiday break, and Mark’s-

Mark is staying.

So he was up late and now early. He only goes out into the freezing subzero of Harvard in Winter because he’s running low on Red Bull and the convenience store is best at this time of morning, when no one’s there to look at him or talk to him.

Mark hears something.

He’s sure it’s a bird at first.

Mark’s so sure, he ignores it and walks to the store, buys seven Red Bulls, and makes the trek back to Kirkland with his hood pulled up, because it’s snowing.

When he hears it again, he pauses-realizing there are no birds. All the birds left months ago, flew south, and now there are birdish sounds and it can’t birds.

He tracks the birdish sounds around the building and it gets louder. Like squawking or wailing. High pitched. Panicked.

He ducks his head and finds the source, all nestled between the dumpster and the brick wall.

Kittens.

Dirty loud cold hungry kittens.

Mark turns and walks back to the front, enters the building and climbs the stairs to his room.

*

Chris leaves first, and Mark’s sure Chris will hear the kittens and take care of it. If not Chris, then Dustin, who leaves next. If not Chris and not Dustin, then someone, or someone’s girlfriend.

By noon, the campus is practically deserted, and Mark’s sure someone’s taken care of it by then.

He dicks around on the internet. There’s some asshole on a forum he frequents who thinks that, somehow, Access is better than SQL. Mark argues with him for hours, not necessarily because he really cares, but because sometimes, arguing on the internet is fun, and come on.

Access.

By the time the sun begins setting, Mark’s exhausted. He keeps his laptop open because he might go back and tell the Asshole just how much of an Asshole he is if he wakes up to take a piss.

He collapses onto the bed and closes his eyes.

There’s a huge pile of clothes by his door and a clock ticking in Chris’ room and the T.V. is off and no one is talking and Mark is comfortable.

He gets up.

He puts on his shoes and pulls his hoodie over his head, walks out of the room and down the flight of stairs.

As soon as the door opens, a gust of wind hits him that chills him to the bone. Mark hates that about the north. Hates how the cold gets under your skin and settles there, into the very depth of you, until you’re certain you’ll never get warm again.

Mark circles the building and listens.

He doesn’t hear anything.

He stands before the dumpster and stares at it, eventually turning on his heel, the gravel under his feet crackling loudly.

They explode into shrieks, one clearly louder than the rest, cutting through the clean white of the snow and disturbing the earth.

Mark ducks his head again and sees them milling around, no discernable path, just crawling in circles and crying.

He can just barely reach them.

The loud one is first. When Mark picks it up, it screams with such ferocity that no sound even emerges.

He stuffs it into the pouch of his hoodie, goes back for another, and then another, and then he is stomping up the flight of stairs of the Kirkland building with three wailing newborn kittens stuffed into his sweater.

*

They are loud.

They are so loud that Mark thinks he might go insane. It’s piercing and unsettling, like hearing a BIOS beep-like something is just so wrong that everything stands still until it’s seen to.

Mark covers his ears with a pillow, and when that doesn’t work, he brings his laptop to his bed, puts on his headphones, and blasts Nine Inch Nails.

He sleeps.

*

Mark’s jarred awake by something physical. Someone’s shaking him, which is odd, because no one’s here.

Except Eduardo is, and he’s looking at Mark with a face.

A face that says, What the hell is going on‌?

Mark makes the same face back.

A quick removal of his headphones confirms that the kittens are still doing their best impressions of a blowhorn.

“Why are there kittens on your floor‌?” Eduardo thrusts a finger at them, as if Mark could ever forget their presence.

“If I put them on the bed, they might fall off,” Mark explains.

Eduardo looks vaguely annoyed, but then, it could be all the noise. “Where did you get them‌? Why are they here‌?”

“Aren’t you supposed to be in Miami‌?”

“My flight got delayed because of the snow. Mark. Mark. There are kittens.” Eduardo looks down at them and squats, pets one on the head with the tip of a finger and makes a shushing noise. “Where’s their mommy‌?”

Mark says, “Got squished,” and Eduard makes another face.

A very sad, understanding face.

“They’re Sassy’s babies,” he guesses, and Mark shrugs. “They’re starving,” he adds, and Mark shrugs again. “Well we have to feed them something!”

Eduardo stands up and there are all these lines of distress in his face, like he’s just sponging it up from their shrill cries and weak little panicked circles on Mark’s grimy floor.

“We don’t have any milk,” Mark supplies.

“Kittens can’t eat milk. They need, like, special formula or something. And bottles.” Eduardo pats his pockets and eyes his jacket like he’s already halfway out the door.

“I was thinking I could just call someone. Campus security or whatever. They’ll deal with it.”

“Deal with it?‌” Eduardo freezes, face puckered. “What if they have them put down or something‌?”

“I don’t think they euthanize infant kittens, Wardo.”

“So what, only when they get old enough‌? That’s no better.”

Mark shrugs.

Survival of the fittest.

Eduardo changes his tack. “It’s holiday break anyway. It’ll take days, maybe the whole week before someone gets out here. They have to eat in the meantime.”

Mark had considered this, to no real end, and is sort of powerless to stop him when Eduardo leaves, presumably for supplies.

He groans and flops back onto the bed, covering his ears once more.

*

Eduardo’s on his computer because Mark really wasn’t in the mood to research this. They call it vacation for a reason.

Mark stares at the kittens.

They are so ugly. Their ears are flat against their big, wobbly heads, and their skinny limbs sprawl at all angles, like a broken table. There’s a black and white one, a solid grey one, and one that he doesn’t have a name for. Calico, he guesses. Multi-color patches here and there.

The black and white one is the worst. Maybe the others are weaker and have already expended their energy, or maybe the black and white one just has ridiculous lungs, Mark’s not sure, but this thing is so fucking loud.

Mark pokes it.

It screams in earnest.

“Okay,” Eduardo announces, turning. “Okay, so. We have to get the temperature just right. And the hole in this nipple can’t be too small or too big. I should have bought more.”

They heat the first bottle in a bowl of hot water, because apparently microwaving formula is bad. Eduardo squirts some onto his wrist and decides it’s too cold, so they put it back in. Then he squirts more on his wrist and decides it’s too hot, so they leave it on the counter for a few minutes.

Mark thinks if they’re that hungry, they won’t really care how hot or cold the stuff is.

When the time comes to feed them, Eduardo stares down at their little pulsating heap and looks overwhelmed. “Who’s first?” he asks.

Mark points to Loud Mouth and says, “Shut him up,” so Eduardo gets on his knees, ducks down real close to it, and gently eases the nipple into its mouth.

As hungry as Loud Mouth is, it doesn’t like the bottle. Eduardo keeps sticking it in mid-scream and it just keeps wailing. Mark decides Eduardo is being too delicate, keeps chasing its mouth around with the nipple instead of-

Mark snatches the bottle from his hand and pinches Loud Mouth’s nape, tilts his head back and shoves the nipple in. He gives the bottle a squeeze. White formula oozes from each corner of its mouth.

The kitten sputters and Eduardo’s about to yell at Mark, but then it latches on, like a vacuum or something.

Mark hovers in an awkward position above the thing, one hand pinching its skin, the other holding the bottle. Its flat little ears twitch along to the bobbing of its throat as it suckles.

Eduardo looks at Mark and laughs. “You’re like the kitten whisperer.”

*

Eduardo makes another bottle and mimics Mark with the other two.

They are easier.

Loud Mouth’s still eating, even after they’ve both fallen asleep.

Eduardo refuses to relieve Mark of the duty, meaning that Mark’s still perched in his awkward squatting position until the thing has had its fill.

It’s so quiet after.

*

Eduardo decides, “They must only be a few days old. See, their eyes aren’t even open yet and this one still has its little umbilical thing.”

Mark stares impassively at the T.V. The kittens were quiet for all of ten minutes, and now they’re awake again and Loud Mouth is being an asshole.

“That means they have to bed fed, like-every two hours.”

Mark turns around and gawks at Eduardo. “Every two hours‌? Nothing eats that much, clearly your source is shady.”

Eduardo shakes his head. “Nope. Every website on here says so. And you have to… er… stimulate them so they can go to the bathroom. Maybe that’s why they’re crying‌?”

“I have no idea what that means.”

“It says here the queens-those are the mothers-they lick their bottoms and tummies and consume the excrement.” Eduardo looks up from the screen and mirror’s Mark expression.

They chime in unison, “Gross.”

“I’m not doing it,” Mark says, and that’s that. Those things will explode like overinflated balloons before Mark stimulates them to the point of excretion.

“This is a lot,” Eduardo says next, pushing the laptop aside. He runs his fingers through his hair and puffs out a long breath. “I’m going to have to cancel my flight.”

“What‌? That’s irrational.” Mark can’t see someone ruining their entire holiday over a litter of crummy kittens. As for Mark, well. He’d stayed purposefully. If he went home, there’d be people everywhere and he’d be forced to socialize and be nice.

Two weeks in an empty dorm with no schoolwork is like basically Mark’s idea of heaven.

But Eduardo isn’t like that.

He looks at Mark and puts his hands in the air. “If I leave them with you, they’ll die.”

Mark’s not sure if he should be offended or not. On one hand, he’s not a moron, but on the other, he really doesn’t want to deal with them. He’ll probably pass them off to someone else. Some lady at the convenience store, someone in the admin offices, whatever. Someone equipped to deal with them.

Mark promises as honestly as possible, “I solemnly swear to do everything in my power to prevent them from perishing.”

Eduardo says, “Yeah right, Mark. They need fed every two hours. You can’t even feed yourself every two days.”

“I can, I just don’t always find it necessary.”

Eduardo continues, “They need burped. They need affection and attention. And they need to be warm like all the time.” There’s a sudden spark in his eyes and Eduardo looks both worried and enlightened. He says, “Be right back,” and returns seconds later with a towel.

He puts it-

“No,” Mark says. “No. Wardo, no. You are not even thinking of putting those things on my-“

Eduardo places Loud Mouth Asshole smack dab in the middle of the towel, which is draped over Mark’s laptop keyboard.

It immediately silences.

*

The calico is active. Eduardo keeps putting it back in the middle of the keyboard and it keeps crawling away, sprawled legs heaving it across the towel. The solid grey one is entirely calm. Lethargic, even. Mark thinks it might be close to dying if the other two are his basis for comparison.

LMA (Mark’s decided that an acronym is not technically a name) is, as always, the most difficult one. It can tell time, and Mark knows this because exactly two hours after their first feeding, LMA awakens and makes sure everyone knows just how he feels about it.

“I don’t like that one,” Mark announces. “It’s an asshole.”

Eduardo is appalled. “You can’t call an infant kitten an asshole, Mark.”

“I call it like I see it and that thing is a fucking asshole.”

It won’t eat for Eduardo. Mark doesn’t know why, maybe it craves the cold dispassion of Mark’s nape pinch or the way it can annoy Mark by merely existing, but either way, it won’t eat for Eduardo, only Mark.

Mark is tired. Really, he’s so exhausted Mark’s not entirely certain he hasn’t been hallucinating this whole ordeal.

Eduardo doesn’t let him sleep-not until LMA is satisfied, because as Eduardo says, “That’s the nature of parenting. You sacrifice your own wants and wellness for the sake of your young.”

“I’m not a parent,” Mark insists, “and I don’t have young.”

When he finally passes out, he dreams of his mother.

She’s giving him a look not at all unlike the one he gives LMA.

*

He wakes up at four in the morning. Nothing is to blame but Mark’s bladder, thankfully. He passes his laptop on the way to the bathroom-gives it a longing look, but keeps walking. He figures Eduardo might get mad at him for evicting the kittens just so he can troll the internet.

He takes a nice long piss and ends up standing in front of Eduardo, who’s asleep on the couch.

Eduardo’s got his jacket draped over him and his knees pulled up to his chest, like he’s freezing.

He probably is.

Mark crawls back into the bed, tucks the blankets up to his chin and closes his eyes.

He opens them ten minutes later, climbs out of bed and goes back to the couch to drape his extra blanket over Eduardo.

It’s only in the haze of almost-sleep that Mark realizes he could have just given Eduardo Dustin or Chris’ bed.

*

Mark has to stay alone with the kittens the next morning. Eduardo ventures out to purchase some sort of heating apparatus that is not one thousand dollars worth of Mark’s precious electronics.

Mark dozes on the couch, absently capturing the wayward calico when it wanders off the keyboard and he actually notices. If he sporadically opens his eyes to see if the grey kitten’s stomach is still rising and falling, then it’s only because being responsible for something’s life is kind of weird.

Eduardo returns with a hot water bottle, baby wipes, spare nipples, and a large cardboard box for the kittens.

Mark’s vaguely amused as he watches Eduardo nest. That’s what it has to be. Mark’s seen bears less maternal than this guy.

Eduardo fixes the box up just so. He fills the hot water bottle with steaming water, wraps it up and tucks it beneath the towel lining the box. He checks its temperature with the back of a hand at least five times before gingerly placing them inside. This rouses LMA from what was a gloriously quiet slumber, and annoys Mark quite a lot.

He covers the box with a towel and stands there, appearing pleased.

They’re quiet for the remainder of the afternoon.

Mark and Eduardo have another argument about Eduardo cancelling his holiday plans and he keeps saying, “But Mark, Mark I should be here. I should be here.”

And Mark thinks, Oh. Oh.

Maybe Eduardo is ‘like that’ after all.

He ultimately says, “I get it,” and Eduardo looks relieved, like the burden of an entire vacation under the thumb of his father has been lifted from his shoulders.

*

Loud Mouth Motherfucker gives them until evening before squealing. It’s a slight improvement, but it wakes Mark up again. Eduardo, to his credit, is trying to feed the thing, but it just-

Mark gets up and stomps to the box, swipes a bottle from the floor and shoves it into the thing’s mouth.

It suckles happily.

“I think it likes you,” Eduardo muses of LMMF, but Mark thinks it’s just the opposite. “We should probably sex them,” Eduardo adds, prodding beneath the calico’s tail.

“Calico’s can only be female,” Mark supplies, because he’s tired enough to miss a really ripe window of opportunity that only happens when someone says “let’s sex kittens.”

Eduardo appears surprised to hear this-maybe just because it’s coming from Mark.

He rolls his eyes, “It’s like the most cliché high school biology project ever.”

Eduardo then fiddles with the grey one, face all screwed up in concentration. “I don’t see anything.”

“Does it have balls‌?”

“I don’t think kittens ever have balls. They have to like, you know, drop or whatever.”

“Just compare it to the calico. If it looks the same…” Mark stops himself with a huff. “Not that it matters. We won’t have them long enough to care.”

Eduardo’s kind of quiet after that.

*

Mark catches him calling the grey one coração, and the calico “Callie.” He has to stop himself from sarcastically saying, “Oh because there’s never been a calico named Callie before…”

Mark doesn’t care if their names are unoriginal or not.

That night, Eduardo tries to sleep on the couch again, but Mark thinks this is hardly sensible.

“There are two unoccupied beds in this suite. Three if you consider the fact that I won’t sleep all night. Just choose one.”

Eduardo seems to consider this while stimulating LMMF and eventually decides, “Yeah, you’ve got a point.”

He chooses Mark’s bed.

*

The grey one’s demeanor begins improving over the next day-if you can call ear piercing squealing and increased movement an improvement.

Eduardo does. “She looks better, doesn’t she look better‌?”

Mark doesn’t. “She sounds louder.”

He’s not listening to Mark. Eduardo is tickling her tummy with a gentle fingertip. Her legs keep folding up to protect the semi-exposed pink skin there. “You’re such a scrawny thing, aren’t you, coração‌? Yes, you are, runt of the litter.”

He’s also smiling pretty big.

Mark observes, “They’re ugly,” but Eduardo’s smile doesn’t even falter.

“You’re not ugly, you’re just a little baby. Mark’s a real prick, huh‌? Yes, he is.”

So Eduardo does that. That thing where he talks to the kittens, but half of everything directed at them is in the form of a question he’ll just answer himself.

That’s probably some form of insanity.

Mark doesn’t talk to them.

*

The grey one’s umbilical thingy falls off that night,

Mark is totally grossed out.

Eduardo keeps talking to her, sometimes in mostly Portuguese. Mark suspects it’s done specifically so he can’t goad Eduardo about what’s being said.

Not that it matters.

The croon-y, singsong voice it’s always said in is quite enough ammunition.

*

Eduardo likes charts. Mark’s always known this, of course. Mark likes charts and organization too, only he prefers it to be dynamically generated from a virtual database as opposed to seeing it scrawled over the dry erase board Eduardo’s dragged from beneath Dustin’s bed.

So Eduardo makes a graph. It’s a little ridiculous how thorough he’s being about this. There’s a row for each feeding interval (times three) and columns for the amount consumed, their demeanor at the time, and one for whether or not they… excrete.

He has the fucking thing color coded (LMMF is black. The calico is orange. The runt is green).

Mark’s eyes are almost sore from all the rolling. “You’re getting way too invested in this, Wardo.”

Eduardo’s busy erasing lines and redoing them so that they’re distributed evenly and perfectly straight. “You put on a pretty convincing face, but I know,” he says. “I see the way you look at that little loud one.”

Mark scoffs, “With derision and resentment‌?”

“Yep. You love him.”

“Do not.”

“You do. You want to cuddle him.”

“Now you’re just being ridiculous.” Mark has never cuddled anything. Not even when he was a kid. Not even when he’s sick. Not even when there are kittens.

Especially when there are kittens.

*

They fall into a routine. Eduardo takes the daylight hours. Mark was somehow tricked into doing the night shift.

He’s not sure how it happened.

He knows there were Twizzlers and Snickers, some potatoes O’Brien with scrambled eggs and crumbled sausage, and then Eduardo touched his shoulder and suddenly-

He’s sitting in front of that damn box all by himself.

Mark doesn’t stimulate anything but his appetite and, once when it was really quiet and he was super bored, his own dick.

Eduardo keeps saying, “Mark. Mark. You have to fill in the chart, okay‌? I have to know how much they’re-“ Blah blah blah.

Mark is putting his foot down.

He will not stimulate and he will not fill in the chart.

*

Loud Mouth Motherfucking Asshole’s eye is opening. It’s just this weird little circle in the corner of its eye-slit. Mark peers at it and wonders if it can see anything but distant blocks of light. It flails as he inspects the eye hole, little paws clawing at his skin for purchase.

It opens its mouth and shrieks right in Mark’s face, all curt and toothless.

His eyes narrow. “Look here, you little shit. All this angst is unnecessary and if we’re being entirely honest, pretty futile. I’m bigger, have opposable thumbs, and most notably don’t need the assistance of a skinny Brazilian to make a bowel movement. I will win every time.”

LMMFA smacks its lips and, in a clear show of resignation, lets its legs dangle helplessly from between Mark’s fingers.

In black marker Mark adds to the dry erase board, “Eye’s opening.”

It’s not technically filling anything in.

*

Eduardo, like, freaks out.

“How cool is that‌! He’s developing early. They’re not supposed to open for another day at least.” He spends most of his morning on Mark’s laptop, convinced there’s some kind of post-eye-opening care he’s missed.

Mark is distantly mournful of all the time he’s losing not-trolling.

By the next morning, LMMFA’s right eye is more than halfway open, and the left one has a hole, too.

His eyes are really blue.

*

On day eight, Eduardo informs Mark that their feeding intervals are being increased to every three and a half hours.

In celebration of either this, or the fact that it’s Christmas Eve and they’re too Jewish to do whatever it is non-Jewish people do on such an occasion, they get drunk.

“I’ve never been a cat person,” Eduardo admits with beer-flushed cheeks. He’s sunk into the couch, a bottle in one hand and a kitten in the other.

It’s that runt.

She’s clearly Eduardo’s favorite. He coddles it most of all three, sometimes handling the thing when it isn’t even time to feed it. Mark can’t understand why he’d get so attached to that particular one. Her eyes are only just now starting to open and she’s skinnier than the rest.

If he’s going to get attached to one, then Mark figures Eduardo should choose the one least likely to die.

LMMFA is obviously the most genetically superior.

Eduardo continues, “It’s just-dogs are friendlier. They actually seem excited to see you. You know‌?”

Mark shrugs. “I hate all animals equally. Except maybe snakes.”

“Why snakes‌?”

“They eat small furry things.”

Eduardo’s jaw drops and he clutches the kitten to his neck, rocks it a bit. “Don’t be mean! These are like… our babies. Our foster babies. Or something.”

“Stop dragging me into your downward spiral of attachment, Wardo. I never wanted anything to do with them. This is just until the holiday is over.”

Then Eduardo says, “If you don’t care about them so much, then why did you bother saving them at all‌?” He’s got these big, shiny eyes and Mark’s a little dizzy because it makes everything so inexplicably intense when he looks at Mark like that.

Mark makes a frustrated, inevitable sound in the back of his throat. “I don’t want them to die. I just wish they were not-dying somewhere else. With someone else.”

“I don’t buy that,” Eduardo says, dropping a delicate kiss onto the kitten’s forehead. He looks at her and croons, “Mark’s just afraid everyone will find out he has a heart, isn’t he‌?”

Mark fights the urge to vomit.

*

“When’s the last time someone kissed you‌?” Eduardo asks. “Like a real kiss. With tongue and stuff.”

They’ve made a drinking game. Every time a kitten meows, take a shot. But it’s only beer and the kittens are warm and recently fed enough to be quieter than usual, so they’ve upped the ante and are currently playing some bastardized version of Truth or Dare (minus the Dare) and Never Have I Ever (minus the Never).

Mark’s losing. “Graduation.”

Eduardo beams. “Mine was two months ago. Drink up!” After Mark’s turn (When was the last time you ran a virus scan‌?) Eduardo goes again, “What was she like‌? The girl you kissed.”

He wants to win this one and Mark thinks he probably will. “She was about six feet tall, dark hair, a little chunky and also had a penis.”

Eduardo laughs at this, maybe thinks Mark’s joking, until he’s suddenly not laughing anymore. “Wait. You kiss guys‌?”

A shrug. “If I deem them worthwhile.”

“And this dark haired chunky guy was worthwhile, huh‌?” Eduardo starts laughing again.

He feels something weird when Eduardo takes a shot, because it means Eduardo either hasn’t kissed a guy before, hasn’t since he graduated, or doesn’t at all, ever. Mark’s getting the rules fuzzy, but it doesn’t really matter.

It’s kind of a cross between relief and disappointment.

*

Eduardo ends up in Mark’s room that night, after all the lights are out and all the kittens fed and all the beer ingested. “It’s freezing out there, scoot over.”

Mark’s only half conscious as he obeys, but then Eduardo slips under the blanket beside him and his feet are there and Mark hisses.

“Get your icicle toes away from me.”

Eduardo jokes, “Warm them up,” and he keeps touching Mark with them, and Mark keeps kicking them away.

For no particular reason, Mark’s smiling.

Eduardo says, “If you warm them up, they won’t be cold anymore.”

Mark can’t argue with logic and since he’s still quite drunk, he doesn’t protest much when Eduardo wedges a foot between his calves.

“Mmm, you’re warm.”

Mark’s staring into the dark, awake and sobering up way too fast. “This is kind of gay,” he observes.

“Only kind of‌?”

Mark adds, “You’re drunk.”

“What exactly makes someone worthwhile‌?”

“Of being drunk‌?”

Eduardo laughs softly. “No, of being like the chunky guy from graduation.”

Mark’s very confused. “Uh, I don’t know. The usual, I guess.”

“Usual‌?”

“Aesthetically pleasant, intelligent, enjoyable personality, etcetera.”

Eduardo’s voice is suddenly very close. “So why haven’t you ever made a pass at me‌?”

Mark does what he always does when he’s nervous; he says the first thing that passes through his head. “You’re not gay, and also apparently lack modesty.”

Eduardo kisses him. It’s not a great kiss, logistically. It’s dark and he misses, ends up sloppily pressing his lips to the corner of Mark’s mouth and then readjusting, and Mark just lies there, frozen.

When his lips are gone, but his breath is still right there, Mark repeats, “You’re drunk.”

Eduardo kisses him again. When his lips part, he tastes like beer and that familiar flavor of someone else’s spit which should be gross, but in these cases never is.

Mark’s not sure what’s going on. He’s puzzled and his head is fuzzy, but he’s also not stupid enough push him away, so he puts his fingers in Eduardo’s hair and pulls him closer. He presses his tongue into Eduardo’s mouth and makes these soft, grunty sounds in the back of his throat that he just can’t even begin to stop.

Eduardo fists Mark’s shirt at his chest and rolls him on his side until they’re facing each other. But then Mark mounts him and starts pressing down into his hips, and Eduardo’s breathing so so so loud.

Eduardo’s dick is hard.

Mark’s grinding against it, but Eduardo’s grinding back, and it hurts how close their bodies are, bones digging into other bones and sometimes, soft tender places.

Mark ends up coming in his boxers, face buried into Eduardo’s neck as he breathes into his skin and gasps, “Fuck, Wardo. Fuck.”

Eduardo is still bucking his hips into Mark’s and he says, “Come on, Mark, admit it. We all know it. You think I’m cute.” And he squeezes Mark’s ass.

Mark’s panting, “You’re more than worthwhile,” and Eduardo comes, makes a sound into Mark’s hair that’s both laughter and whimper.

*

Having a hangover on Christmas morning is bad.

Having a hangover on the Christmas morning following drunken sexual relations with his best friend as three hungry kittens shriek at him is Mark’s version of hell.

LMMFADH (the Dick Head addition came when he awoke Mark, claws scratching loudly against the cardboard) is in his lap, ears twitching merrily along to the soundtrack of his suckling, and Mark wonders.

He wonders how in the fuck he ended up spending his vacation like this.

He had plans, and granted, to most those plans would seem boring and maybe a little juvenile, but to Mark, it signified everything a vacation should be. Laziness. Pornography. Not changing his clothes for a week straight.

Instead he’s sprawled on the floor with this thing. It’s suckingsuckingsucking. Like a vampire or a parasite-only it’s got these ears that twitch, and these paws that knead into Mark’s wrist, and these eyes that watch Mark scowl down at it.

Eduardo won’t look at him.

LMMFADH’s eyes start falling. His suckling dwindles to an almost-stop, but then-as if jarring himself awake, his eyes pop open and he begins suckling in earnest once again. Determined to get it all in before he’s forced to succumb to exhaustion.

It reminds Mark of how he gets on a really long coding binge.

He decides he’s going out as soon as he has the chance.

*

Mark doesn’t lie to Eduardo-not exactly. He says he’s going out and he’ll be back, and if he omits where it is he’s going and how long he plans to be there, then it’s because Eduardo isn’t his mother. Mark doesn’t have to say.

He takes his laptop to the library. There’s a little booth in the back that is prime real estate to just sit down and veg out for however long he wants.

Mark is grinning as he lifts the screen of his laptop and boots her up. He’s got two cans of Red Bull in his sack and a Doritos Big Grab.

He could stay here for days.

He checks his email first, ends up chatting with a few acquaintances and sending off some replies before checking back into the forum with the Access Asshole.

The thread has already been knocked all the way back to page four.

Mark growls in frustration.

It doesn’t take long though to find another argument. People are always arguing on the internet. Someone’s always wrong, someone always thinks They Are Definitely Right, and Mark loves watching circular debates most of all, because the obstinacy is fascinating.

He fights with some guy about SEO marketing, in between bugfixes for Course Mash and updates to his music software. He wires in and listens to music and when Mark says “LOL”, he really truly is laughing out loud.

He doesn’t get tired.

He doesn’t get bored.

He’s never disturbed.

*

Mark knows he’s in for it before the door even closes. Really it’s not rational. Eduardo has no say over what Mark does. He’s an adult and a free citizen. If he wants to spend thirty four consecutive hours in the library, then he can do it.

Before he can even walk totally inside, LMMFADH is screaming and Eduardo is there, seething. “Do you have any idea how long I’ve been looking for you‌?”

Mark drops his bag, shrugging.

“Twenty four hours, give or take. You know I was one hour from calling campus security‌?”

“I was just in the library.”

Eduardo’s face grows impossibly angrier at this. “Damn it, Mark, I was worried! And the kittens-“ He thrusts a finger at the box. “I’ve been here dealing with them alone the whole time. You know he won’t eat without you-”

“If he gets hungry enough, Wardo, he’ll eat for you.”

“He won’t, Mark! How is it possible for one human being to be so selfish‌? Don’t you think of anyone but yourself‌?”

Mark’s getting angry now, too. Eduardo is yelling and the kittens are crying and this whole thing is stupid.

“Well, don’t you have anything to say for yourself‌?” Not that Eduardo gives him a chance. He begins ranting, “Did it ever occur to you that maybe, just maybe, I’d like to get out of here for a little while, too‌? Did you ever think that maybe this isn’t my ideal vacation either‌?”

“So go. I won’t stop you.”

Eduardo randomly bursts, “You never fill in the chart!”

A sigh. “Here we go…”

“Yeah, here we go. You never fill in the chart and you never help them go potty. Did you know Cora is constipated‌?”

Mark says dryly, “I could actually go on living without that information and be totally fine.”

“I do everything around here-“

That’s hardly fair. “I feed that Loud Mouth every single time-“

“Not in the last… what‌ Forty hours‌? He’s starving for fuck’s sake, listen to him.”

LMMFADH is trying to get out of the box, which is ridiculous, seeing as how he can’t even stand yet. His claws scrape futilely against the cardboard as he screamscreamscreams.

Eduardo’s quiet as Mark heats a bottle, but Mark knows better. Eduardo is pissed off, probably still cussing Mark out in his head, and Mark just doesn’t see how it’s fair.

He snatches LMMFADH from the box and stomps to his room, slams the door behind him and drops onto his bed with a huff. The kitten’s climbing his arm, begging Mark with his big blue eyes and his panicked shrieks, tail stick straight in the air.

Mark says, “I don’t really think your circumstance merits this degree of self-entitlement. Just so we’re clear about this, because in the future you’ll find high expectations will only result in disappointment, you’re not special in any way.”

The kitten opens his mouth and cries in response.

Mark finally stuffs the nipple into his mouth and he attacks it, a violent suckling. His eyes look angry as he works his mouth around the nipple, stopping in brief intervals to sigh before resuming with renewed ferocity.

*

Mark doesn’t really want to face Eduardo. He has this way of making Mark feel like a ten year old again. Like he was out after the streetlights came on and missed supper or something.

The kitten is still on his bed. It ate an astonishing amount of formula and Mark’s briefly afraid it might shit or piss on his blankets. Instead, it just crawls into the space at the bottom of Mark’s pants and sleeps there, right against Mark’s ankle.

This means, of course, that not only is Mark confined to his room, but he’s confined to his exact position unless he wants to risk waking the thing up and hearing his entitled little asshole cries.

Mark lays back and falls asleep. Mostly by accident, but a little because he just spent thirty something hours in the library and he’s just tired.

Eduardo wakes him up. “Where is he‌?”

Mark has like, a moment of panic. He probably rolled over on the thing and suffocated it, no telling.

“Oh my god, you don’t know where he is, do you‌?” Eduardo’s expression can only be described as aghast.

“Of course I know where he is,” even though Mark’s half asleep and drawing a total blank.

Something tickles his ankle and Mark suddenly remembers, might breathe a sigh of relief if he thought Eduardo wouldn’t notice.

Mark pulls up his pant leg, exposing a sleeping ball of black and white fur.

Eduardo’s face visibly softens. “Oh. That’s… kind of cute.”

Cute or not, “I’m tired, so unless you want to see what he’ll look like after ten hours of my tossing and turning on this shitty mattress...”

Eduardo gets the hint and gently plucks the kitten from Mark’s pant leg. He takes the bottle and says, “Sorry. About before. The yelling and stuff.”

Mark knows he’s looking for a reciprocal apology by the way his eyes get all big and shiny again. He settles for, “I lost track of time,” which is both genuine and good enough.

Eduardo must agree because he presses the kitten into his neck and he’s smiling at him and singing, “I knew you wanted to cuddle him.”

Mark groans, shoving a pillow over his head.

*

When Mark wakes up to pee an indeterminable amount of time later, he pauses at the dry erase board.

He scribbles in black marker under the only empty box for the last interval, “50 CCs.”

Eduardo says, “Thank you,” and Mark grumbles.

*

He sleeps for more like twelve hours. Eduardo’s asleep on the couch again when Mark wakes up.

They don’t acknowledge Christmas Eve. They’re always acknowledging Christmas Eve. You understand.

At least he has Chris’ blanket this time.

Mark stands in the middle of the common room eating a bowl of cereal, idly wondering what he’ll do today. He’ll stay in the dorms, but not because of Eduardo and definitely not because of the kittens.

Mark peers into the box.

The girls are sleeping, but WYSIWYG is awake. Mark’s decided if he’s going to keep mentally referring to the thing by an acronym, it should at least be pronounceable and somewhat nameish-sounding.

Nameish sounding acronyms aren’t technically names.

Mark’s surprised he’s milling around in the box, because he’s being so quiet. Mark didn’t think that was possible for him-being awake and quiet all at once-but he’s just crawling around, silent.

He’s also noticing how fluffier they look. Before, their fur lengths all looked the same, but now it’s clear that WYSIWYG and the runt are going to be longer-haired than the calico.

Mark watches, shoving spoonfuls of Fruit Loops into his mouth as WYSIWYG tries shakily to stand up.

He ends up just wobbling over onto his side.

Mark quietly puts his spoon into his bowl, reaches down into the box, and touches his head.

WYSIWYG erupts into sudden, excited wails.

Mark freezes.

He scrambles to the edge of the box and tries to climb it, and the other two, who are apparently light sleepers, quickly join in the frenzy.

Mark looks wide-eyed toward the couch and Eduardo’s watching him. “Uh…”

“It was time for them to eat anyway,” Eduardo stretches and his shirt rides up, revealing a black waistband of fancy boxer briefs.

Mark colors and says, “I’ll heat the bottles.”

They feed them in relative silence while watching a stock report on some channel Mark never surfs to.

“Have you ever heard of Harry Harlow‌?” Eduardo asks. He’s slouched into the couch, the calico resting on his chest. “He did these experiments on infant monkeys. Took them away from their mothers to simulate an absence of affection.”

Mark gives a noncommittal sound.

“The monkeys who didn’t have any emotional bonds were found to have long-term psychological and physical problems.”

Mark hedges, “Okay.”

“I just mean-” Eduardo plucks the grey kitten from the box and puts it next to the calico on his chest. “You should spend more time with him. If you want to. You don’t have to wait until it’s time to feed them.”

“I’m forced to touch him once every three and a half hours, Wardo. I find it hard to believe an urge in excess of that exists.”

“I’m just saying, it’d be beneficial to his development. Your attention could add like five years on his life or something, you don’t know.”

“Neither do you.”

Eduardo continues petting the girls and WYSIWYG is in Mark’s lap, looking for the bottom of his pant leg.

*

WYSIWYG is always looking for the bottom of Mark’s pant leg. Every time he’s done eating, he’ll push himself around Mark’s lap, using his nose to prod at the fabric of whatever Mark’s decided to throw on that day.

Mark says wryly to him once, “At least something wants to get into my pants,” and he thinks he hears something in the kitchen, like Eduardo’s half laughing, half choking.

Mark tries to talk to it less.

*

Eduardo doesn’t come to his bed again.

*
-- Part 2 -->