Fic: A Cat and Her Boy. A "Doors" timestamp. RPS. AU J2. G
Title: A Cat and Her Boy (A timestamp for The Doors of Time)
Author: felisblanco
Pairing: Jensen/Jared
Wordcount: 3120 words
Rating: G
Summary:Minna's story
Author’s note: I finally wrote something completely new! Well, part of something old but still, from scratch and not just trying to finish old WIP. This one makes no sense unless you've read The Doors of Time (and some of its timestamps), and since it isn't up anymore I thought I'd just give you a link to the pdf. If you don't have it already.
Beta’d by the wonderful candygramme.
A soft sob blows her into being, like a breeze blows a cloud of dust from underneath the bed. (She doesn’t question how she knows the words for these things, they just are, just like she is, and that’s that.) She opens her eyes, twitches her nose and rolls clumsily to her stubby feet. The sound is coming from somewhere above her, from the bed that rises impossibly high, as small as she is. But impossible is not a word she knows or will ever know; in her world everything is possible, if often difficult and sometimes heartbreakingly hard. One thought and she’s there, sinking into the soft duvet. It hides a small boy huddled under the covers, his breathing wet, his shoulders jumping each time the air in his lungs hitches. Baby-blond hair, face covered in freckles and tears. Eyes squeezed shut. She tumbles over, still not used to existing, and sniffs his flushed skin. It smells like sunshine despite the rain lashing the windowpane. She doesn’t know who he is, or even who she is, but she knows he is hers, just like she is his, and that belonging to someone means you care for them in what little way you can. He doesn’t notice her, doesn’t feel her small tongue licking the tears still rolling down his face, her wet nose nuzzling his heated neck. After a while she gives up and curls up by his ear, in the warm space between his sweat-soaked hair and his shoulder. She purrs. After a while the boy’s hitched breathing slows down and evens out. They sleep.
The boy is lonely. Sometimes he’s content but more often he’s sad. When content, he sits outside in the garden, talking to the flowers and the fairies she is still too small to catch. When sad, he stands staring out the window, watching the rain pour down. She wonders if he knows he is the one making it rain, that if he wouldn’t be so sad, he could spend more time outdoors, in the garden he so clearly loves.
He still can’t see her. She rubs against his ankles, licks his fingers and nibbles at his ear. Sometimes she thinks he has finally noticed her but if he does, he dismisses it as nothing more than a shadow dancing, the caress of the wind, the tease of a fairy. Oh, she really wishes she could catch those little scoundrels. They pull her tail, then flutter away when she swirls around, claws extended. One day. Until then she makes do chasing flies that taste like dirt and butterflies that fade away as soon as she sets her teeth in them. Still, they’re fun and give her something to do when he is reading or sleeping underneath the big oak tree. Like sneaking up on that big spider and- Yes!
“Oh, hello,” she hears him say. “Are you … are you real?”
Heart soaring, she spits out the spider and turns around, but just then the porch door slams open, and the boy’s grandmother yells at him to get moving, it’s time for church. If he did see her, it was only a flash now gone, because he sighs, looking so disappointed it makes her little chest hurt. He gets to his feet and walks slowly towards the house, the slumped shoulders making him look very small and very lonely. His grandmother sneers at him to go wash up, telling him he’s filthy and should be ashamed of himself for digging in dirt on the Lord’s Day. He only nods, flinching when the old woman reaches for the porch door to close it behind them, like he expects her to hit him. Then they’re gone.
She’s left sitting in the soft grass with the taste of spider and disappointment on her tongue. The air once again smells like rain. Moments later the first drops start falling, and she wishes herself inside before she gets wet. It doesn’t let up until almost a week later.
The boy is growing. His legs are getting longer, his cheeks are not as round. His fingers seem to stretch the most, like they’re reaching for something that’s not there. Not yet. She has a feeling … Yes, there will be something. Someday.
The day the boy reaches down and pets her it’s such a surprise she almost hisses at him in shock. “Thought I’d seen you, but you keep disappearing. Where do you go?” he asks. He sounds afraid but also hopeful. “Please don’t go.”
She doesn’t have any words to answer, so she just purrs and rubs against his shins. She’s still so small she can hardly reach his knee when she stands on her hind legs, but just like him she is growing, one tiny inch at a time. He laughs and scratches her behind her ears then glances around with fear in his eyes. When he turns back to her, he gets a startled look on his face, then straightens up, resigned, like this is what he expected.
Oh. So she is gone again. No, not gone, she’s still here, she can see him, but he can’t see her. If only she knew how she could make him see her all the time. But it’s not hers to change, it’s his. Maybe it’s the fear of being discovered, of being punished and yelled at that holds him back. Maybe it’s lack of faith in what he sees. ‘I am real,’ she wants to tell him. ‘I am here. Whenever you need me.’ He sighs and goes to sit beneath the tree, staring up at the leaves that rustle in sympathy, at the fairies that don’t care at all. She curls up in his lap and purrs. After a while she feels him hesitantly stroke her fur. She rolls over on her back to offer her belly, basking in the warmth of the sun and the sound of his relieved laughter.
The boy is furious. She hides under the bed as books and toys and various things fly all over the room, banging into walls and furniture. He screams in frustration and sadness and fear. So much fear. The door rattles, the window glass vibrates, outside rages a storm of biblical proportions. Suddenly she hears the front door slam and feet thunder up the stairs. The boy goes white, the scream dying in his throat. He runs to the door but it’s too late, it’s wrenched open with a loud, “What the HELL do you think you’re doing?”
The boy stands frozen, panic making the whites show in his eyes. He takes a step back, his shoulders and back curling as he tries to make himself as small as possible. “I’m sorry.”
His man grabs his arm, shaking him. “Sorry? You’re sorry? Have you looked outside? What the hell were you thinking?”
The boy shoots a glance at the window, the world outside obscured by the snow still swirling in the air although the manic storm has died down. “I didn’t notice. I’m sorry, Dad. I didn’t mean to.”
“Don’t give me that! You know what happens when you … You know what happens! This time you went too far! Too far, boy! If people died, it’s on you! Do you hear me? It’s on you!” Spit flies from the man’s mouth in his anger. He shakes the boy so hard his teeth rattle, and the boy bursts into tears.
“I’m sorry! Dad, I’m sorry! Please!”
She hisses and runs out from under the bed to attack the man, biting and scratching him as hard as she can, but he doesn’t even notice. His face is blotchy, red angry spots in a face white with terror. Knuckles almost translucent where they clutch the boy’s arm. He lets go so suddenly the boy loses his balance and falls back on the bed before tumbling down to the floor, crying so hard he can hardly breathe. The man stands trembling, breath stuttering in his lungs. Then he turns on his heel and storms out, slamming the door behind him. She slinks slowly to where the boy sits, arms wrapped around his knees, his whole body shaking as he sobs out his fear and guilt. There’s nothing she can do except curl up by his side and wait until he can see her again, can feel her comfort and hear her purrs of reassurance. ‘It’s not your fault. You have been holding back for weeks. All that energy, it had to go somewhere,’ she wants to say, but she has no words, and he can’t read her mind.
The boy is asleep, curled up on the rug, when the man comes back, hours later. He stands watching the boy for a long time then bends down and picks him up to lay him gently on the bed and tuck him in. “I’m sorry,” he whispers. “I just got so scared. I’m so sorry, kiddo.” He strokes the boy’s sweaty hair out of his eyes and kisses him on the cheek. Then walks out and closes the door quietly.
The boy whimpers in his sleep, and she licks his face until the lines smooth away from his forehead, and the soft sounds of distress die out. ‘Next time I’ll bite him harder,’ she thinks and sharpens her claws on the bedpost before lying down, purring into his neck. After all, what use are apologies whispered in the dark, into ears that can’t hear?
The boy is scared. He looks around the black room with black walls and black ceiling and black floor, and everything gone up in flames but him and her and his old stuffed rabbit, saved by the sanctuary of his bed. The air is so thick with smoke she’d be dead if she was alive. He touches the wall gingerly, his fingers coming away black with soot but no blisters; whatever extinguished the flames has left the room cold and dead. He hitches his breath; his face is white in the gray light of dawn. Even the freckles are dimmed, like stars in the early morning hours.
“Oh God,” he croaks out, voice hoarse with smoke. “Did, did I do this?” His eyes suddenly widen in terror, and he jumps out of bed, slipping barefoot on the greasy black floor to the door, wrenching it open. Then lets out a loud sob when he sees the clean, unburned hallway. “Oh God, I thought, I thought …” He cries, and her heart aches for him.
He closes the door and looks around the black void that used to be his room, then walks gingerly to the window and pushes it open, letting the smoke out and the fresh air in. He crawls back into bed, sooty feet smearing a black trail upon the clean bedding, and pulls the duvet up to his chin. Together they wait for his punishment.
The boy is delighted. His laughter echoes in the piano’s belly, runs along its taut strings until they sing with happiness. If she could smile, she would. Instead she curls up on top of the piano and watches him through half-closed lids, how his eyes shine like emeralds, and his smile brightens up not only the room but the whole world outside. How she wishes he was always like this, that his life had been like this from the very beginning. His long fingers stroke the keys, so happy to have finally found their purpose. Not their only purpose, she thinks. She can feel there’s more out there. Something, someone. Someday. Until then she will stay by his side. His only friend in this life of loneliness.
The boy is infatuated. She watches from the shadows. Is a shadow, hiding from the puppy that seems to think he’s entitled to her space. Studies the fumbling kid, the taller than tall man the boy sees in him, the friend, the maybe lover, the love of the boy’s life. The kid doesn’t know he is all these things, is everything. But he is kind, not cruel. Is curious, not mocking. Is friendly. Is a friend, the friend she always hoped the boy would find. Maybe this is him, the someone she thinks the boy was waiting for, without even knowing it. But not yet, not like that. Now he’s just company, comfort. The catalyst to what happens next. The boy’s real life is about to begin, she can feel it. She watches, waiting until the boy is alone to jump into his lap and bask in his happiness, his frail hope for a future he’s not sure he deserves. ‘You do,’ she wants to tell him. ‘You deserve everything.’
The boy is gone. Or she is gone. Gone to where she came from or into nothingness, she doesn’t know. Something went horribly wrong. Not just now but for days earlier there had been such numb sadness and feelings of defeat that no matter how she tried, he couldn’t see her. He was lost to her and so she was lost to him for days upon days where the skies cried and cried and cried. She did what little she could. She purred in his ear, pawed at his taut stomach, nosed at his still and frozen face. Felt her heart break when he surrendered and said his last goodbye to his life, his music, his future, his love. For what, she doesn’t understand. And then they were here, in this place that smells of dullness and despair, and too soon she felt him slip away from her. Or she slipped away from him. She doesn’t know. Something has gone horribly wrong.
The boy is waiting. He stands by the window, staring out at the rain that lashes the thick glass. She rubs up against his shins, and he bends down to pick her up, cradling her against his chest. “I wonder where he is,” he says softly. “It’s been so long. What if he never finds me?”
His voice breaks, and her heart breaks along with it. This future, it wasn’t supposed to be. Not like this. Not this lonely, sad existence. Something went horribly, horribly wrong. She meows in sympathy, and he kisses her on the top of her head then keeps his head bowed, crying into her fur. She can smell the salt of his tears but otherwise there’s nothing. No sound, no movement. Just silent grief. She hears someone come up behind him and fades away before his friend’s arms would crush her where they wrap around the boy’s slight body. He is shorter but stronger, bad tempered but so kind his heart is several sizes too big for his body.
“Please,” he says. “Come eat something. You’ve been standing here for hours.”
The boy nods and turns away from the window, his shoulders slumped. “It’s his twentieth birthday,” he says. “He’s all grown up now.”
The friend closes his eyes briefly, then steers the boy away from the window and into the kitchen. “We can have cake,” she hears the friend say. “Blow out some candles. Who knows, it might work.” She sits on the windowsill and stares out until the rain finally slows down and stops. Some day. It’s still going to happen. It must. Or she fears what will become of him. And her.
The boy is happy. Finally, she thinks as she rubs her cheek against his chin, delighting in his happiness. His exuberant joy as he watches his lover sleep. This is not the life he was supposed to have; after all he is not who he was supposed to be. Neither of them are, he or his love. The love he waited for, for so, so long. Took the kid - the man, the lover ¬¬- long enough but the important thing is that he came. And, after some missteps, stayed.
It’s not all smooth sailing, like waves upon the ocean it has its ups and downs, but it’s a life they have together and that’s all that matters. She watches them laugh and kiss and make music, and her heart expands to the point of bursting. And she watches them sigh and cry and murmur reassurance into each other’s ears, and she wants to sink her claws into Fate for being so cruel to leave them both so broken. But the good days outnumber the bad by a mile and a half, and after all that’s happened she won’t dare ask for more. Even if … yes, she thinks there will be. Something more. Someone. Someone new for her to look after. Someday in the not too far away future.
The boy is grown up. He cradles his daughter in his arms, looking at her with the same reverence as he did the kid when first they met, so long ago. As he does still, when he gets caught up in his love for him, in his wonder that he is here and not lost forever. The baby sighs in her sleep, and his eyes light up, casting a green shimmer over the room, and he smiles, like her breathing is the sweetest sound he’s ever heard. His love is sleeping on the bed beside him, fingers of one hand loosely curled around a tiny foot. She herself lies curled up between them, purring in content. The boy and his family, the kind he should have had from the moment he was born but instead had to hope and search for and finally find, far away from the one he’d been given to.
She feels a slight tug from the shadows, and this time she hesitates. Maybe it is time. But just then the boy reaches out and strokes her head, whispering, “Look at her, isn’t she amazing? I can’t wait for her to get to know you.” With so much hope and wonder but also … fear. Because he’s been handed a gift he does not think he deserves, a life he never thought he’d have, a love he still fears might be an illusion. And so she resists the tug, just like she’s done every time she’s felt it trying to pull her away, ever since the kid showed up. Ever since he decided to stay, and her role in the boy’s life, whatever it had been, was apparently over. She doesn’t care, she won’t go. The boy still needs her, just like she still needs him, and so she will stay. Forever if that’s how it will be. Because she is his, just like he is hers, and belonging to someone means taking care of them. In what little way you can.
fin
Author: felisblanco
Pairing: Jensen/Jared
Wordcount: 3120 words
Rating: G
Summary:Minna's story
Author’s note: I finally wrote something completely new! Well, part of something old but still, from scratch and not just trying to finish old WIP. This one makes no sense unless you've read The Doors of Time (and some of its timestamps), and since it isn't up anymore I thought I'd just give you a link to the pdf. If you don't have it already.
Beta’d by the wonderful candygramme.
A soft sob blows her into being, like a breeze blows a cloud of dust from underneath the bed. (She doesn’t question how she knows the words for these things, they just are, just like she is, and that’s that.) She opens her eyes, twitches her nose and rolls clumsily to her stubby feet. The sound is coming from somewhere above her, from the bed that rises impossibly high, as small as she is. But impossible is not a word she knows or will ever know; in her world everything is possible, if often difficult and sometimes heartbreakingly hard. One thought and she’s there, sinking into the soft duvet. It hides a small boy huddled under the covers, his breathing wet, his shoulders jumping each time the air in his lungs hitches. Baby-blond hair, face covered in freckles and tears. Eyes squeezed shut. She tumbles over, still not used to existing, and sniffs his flushed skin. It smells like sunshine despite the rain lashing the windowpane. She doesn’t know who he is, or even who she is, but she knows he is hers, just like she is his, and that belonging to someone means you care for them in what little way you can. He doesn’t notice her, doesn’t feel her small tongue licking the tears still rolling down his face, her wet nose nuzzling his heated neck. After a while she gives up and curls up by his ear, in the warm space between his sweat-soaked hair and his shoulder. She purrs. After a while the boy’s hitched breathing slows down and evens out. They sleep.
The boy is lonely. Sometimes he’s content but more often he’s sad. When content, he sits outside in the garden, talking to the flowers and the fairies she is still too small to catch. When sad, he stands staring out the window, watching the rain pour down. She wonders if he knows he is the one making it rain, that if he wouldn’t be so sad, he could spend more time outdoors, in the garden he so clearly loves.
He still can’t see her. She rubs against his ankles, licks his fingers and nibbles at his ear. Sometimes she thinks he has finally noticed her but if he does, he dismisses it as nothing more than a shadow dancing, the caress of the wind, the tease of a fairy. Oh, she really wishes she could catch those little scoundrels. They pull her tail, then flutter away when she swirls around, claws extended. One day. Until then she makes do chasing flies that taste like dirt and butterflies that fade away as soon as she sets her teeth in them. Still, they’re fun and give her something to do when he is reading or sleeping underneath the big oak tree. Like sneaking up on that big spider and- Yes!
“Oh, hello,” she hears him say. “Are you … are you real?”
Heart soaring, she spits out the spider and turns around, but just then the porch door slams open, and the boy’s grandmother yells at him to get moving, it’s time for church. If he did see her, it was only a flash now gone, because he sighs, looking so disappointed it makes her little chest hurt. He gets to his feet and walks slowly towards the house, the slumped shoulders making him look very small and very lonely. His grandmother sneers at him to go wash up, telling him he’s filthy and should be ashamed of himself for digging in dirt on the Lord’s Day. He only nods, flinching when the old woman reaches for the porch door to close it behind them, like he expects her to hit him. Then they’re gone.
She’s left sitting in the soft grass with the taste of spider and disappointment on her tongue. The air once again smells like rain. Moments later the first drops start falling, and she wishes herself inside before she gets wet. It doesn’t let up until almost a week later.
The boy is growing. His legs are getting longer, his cheeks are not as round. His fingers seem to stretch the most, like they’re reaching for something that’s not there. Not yet. She has a feeling … Yes, there will be something. Someday.
The day the boy reaches down and pets her it’s such a surprise she almost hisses at him in shock. “Thought I’d seen you, but you keep disappearing. Where do you go?” he asks. He sounds afraid but also hopeful. “Please don’t go.”
She doesn’t have any words to answer, so she just purrs and rubs against his shins. She’s still so small she can hardly reach his knee when she stands on her hind legs, but just like him she is growing, one tiny inch at a time. He laughs and scratches her behind her ears then glances around with fear in his eyes. When he turns back to her, he gets a startled look on his face, then straightens up, resigned, like this is what he expected.
Oh. So she is gone again. No, not gone, she’s still here, she can see him, but he can’t see her. If only she knew how she could make him see her all the time. But it’s not hers to change, it’s his. Maybe it’s the fear of being discovered, of being punished and yelled at that holds him back. Maybe it’s lack of faith in what he sees. ‘I am real,’ she wants to tell him. ‘I am here. Whenever you need me.’ He sighs and goes to sit beneath the tree, staring up at the leaves that rustle in sympathy, at the fairies that don’t care at all. She curls up in his lap and purrs. After a while she feels him hesitantly stroke her fur. She rolls over on her back to offer her belly, basking in the warmth of the sun and the sound of his relieved laughter.
The boy is furious. She hides under the bed as books and toys and various things fly all over the room, banging into walls and furniture. He screams in frustration and sadness and fear. So much fear. The door rattles, the window glass vibrates, outside rages a storm of biblical proportions. Suddenly she hears the front door slam and feet thunder up the stairs. The boy goes white, the scream dying in his throat. He runs to the door but it’s too late, it’s wrenched open with a loud, “What the HELL do you think you’re doing?”
The boy stands frozen, panic making the whites show in his eyes. He takes a step back, his shoulders and back curling as he tries to make himself as small as possible. “I’m sorry.”
His man grabs his arm, shaking him. “Sorry? You’re sorry? Have you looked outside? What the hell were you thinking?”
The boy shoots a glance at the window, the world outside obscured by the snow still swirling in the air although the manic storm has died down. “I didn’t notice. I’m sorry, Dad. I didn’t mean to.”
“Don’t give me that! You know what happens when you … You know what happens! This time you went too far! Too far, boy! If people died, it’s on you! Do you hear me? It’s on you!” Spit flies from the man’s mouth in his anger. He shakes the boy so hard his teeth rattle, and the boy bursts into tears.
“I’m sorry! Dad, I’m sorry! Please!”
She hisses and runs out from under the bed to attack the man, biting and scratching him as hard as she can, but he doesn’t even notice. His face is blotchy, red angry spots in a face white with terror. Knuckles almost translucent where they clutch the boy’s arm. He lets go so suddenly the boy loses his balance and falls back on the bed before tumbling down to the floor, crying so hard he can hardly breathe. The man stands trembling, breath stuttering in his lungs. Then he turns on his heel and storms out, slamming the door behind him. She slinks slowly to where the boy sits, arms wrapped around his knees, his whole body shaking as he sobs out his fear and guilt. There’s nothing she can do except curl up by his side and wait until he can see her again, can feel her comfort and hear her purrs of reassurance. ‘It’s not your fault. You have been holding back for weeks. All that energy, it had to go somewhere,’ she wants to say, but she has no words, and he can’t read her mind.
The boy is asleep, curled up on the rug, when the man comes back, hours later. He stands watching the boy for a long time then bends down and picks him up to lay him gently on the bed and tuck him in. “I’m sorry,” he whispers. “I just got so scared. I’m so sorry, kiddo.” He strokes the boy’s sweaty hair out of his eyes and kisses him on the cheek. Then walks out and closes the door quietly.
The boy whimpers in his sleep, and she licks his face until the lines smooth away from his forehead, and the soft sounds of distress die out. ‘Next time I’ll bite him harder,’ she thinks and sharpens her claws on the bedpost before lying down, purring into his neck. After all, what use are apologies whispered in the dark, into ears that can’t hear?
The boy is scared. He looks around the black room with black walls and black ceiling and black floor, and everything gone up in flames but him and her and his old stuffed rabbit, saved by the sanctuary of his bed. The air is so thick with smoke she’d be dead if she was alive. He touches the wall gingerly, his fingers coming away black with soot but no blisters; whatever extinguished the flames has left the room cold and dead. He hitches his breath; his face is white in the gray light of dawn. Even the freckles are dimmed, like stars in the early morning hours.
“Oh God,” he croaks out, voice hoarse with smoke. “Did, did I do this?” His eyes suddenly widen in terror, and he jumps out of bed, slipping barefoot on the greasy black floor to the door, wrenching it open. Then lets out a loud sob when he sees the clean, unburned hallway. “Oh God, I thought, I thought …” He cries, and her heart aches for him.
He closes the door and looks around the black void that used to be his room, then walks gingerly to the window and pushes it open, letting the smoke out and the fresh air in. He crawls back into bed, sooty feet smearing a black trail upon the clean bedding, and pulls the duvet up to his chin. Together they wait for his punishment.
The boy is delighted. His laughter echoes in the piano’s belly, runs along its taut strings until they sing with happiness. If she could smile, she would. Instead she curls up on top of the piano and watches him through half-closed lids, how his eyes shine like emeralds, and his smile brightens up not only the room but the whole world outside. How she wishes he was always like this, that his life had been like this from the very beginning. His long fingers stroke the keys, so happy to have finally found their purpose. Not their only purpose, she thinks. She can feel there’s more out there. Something, someone. Someday. Until then she will stay by his side. His only friend in this life of loneliness.
The boy is infatuated. She watches from the shadows. Is a shadow, hiding from the puppy that seems to think he’s entitled to her space. Studies the fumbling kid, the taller than tall man the boy sees in him, the friend, the maybe lover, the love of the boy’s life. The kid doesn’t know he is all these things, is everything. But he is kind, not cruel. Is curious, not mocking. Is friendly. Is a friend, the friend she always hoped the boy would find. Maybe this is him, the someone she thinks the boy was waiting for, without even knowing it. But not yet, not like that. Now he’s just company, comfort. The catalyst to what happens next. The boy’s real life is about to begin, she can feel it. She watches, waiting until the boy is alone to jump into his lap and bask in his happiness, his frail hope for a future he’s not sure he deserves. ‘You do,’ she wants to tell him. ‘You deserve everything.’
The boy is gone. Or she is gone. Gone to where she came from or into nothingness, she doesn’t know. Something went horribly wrong. Not just now but for days earlier there had been such numb sadness and feelings of defeat that no matter how she tried, he couldn’t see her. He was lost to her and so she was lost to him for days upon days where the skies cried and cried and cried. She did what little she could. She purred in his ear, pawed at his taut stomach, nosed at his still and frozen face. Felt her heart break when he surrendered and said his last goodbye to his life, his music, his future, his love. For what, she doesn’t understand. And then they were here, in this place that smells of dullness and despair, and too soon she felt him slip away from her. Or she slipped away from him. She doesn’t know. Something has gone horribly wrong.
The boy is waiting. He stands by the window, staring out at the rain that lashes the thick glass. She rubs up against his shins, and he bends down to pick her up, cradling her against his chest. “I wonder where he is,” he says softly. “It’s been so long. What if he never finds me?”
His voice breaks, and her heart breaks along with it. This future, it wasn’t supposed to be. Not like this. Not this lonely, sad existence. Something went horribly, horribly wrong. She meows in sympathy, and he kisses her on the top of her head then keeps his head bowed, crying into her fur. She can smell the salt of his tears but otherwise there’s nothing. No sound, no movement. Just silent grief. She hears someone come up behind him and fades away before his friend’s arms would crush her where they wrap around the boy’s slight body. He is shorter but stronger, bad tempered but so kind his heart is several sizes too big for his body.
“Please,” he says. “Come eat something. You’ve been standing here for hours.”
The boy nods and turns away from the window, his shoulders slumped. “It’s his twentieth birthday,” he says. “He’s all grown up now.”
The friend closes his eyes briefly, then steers the boy away from the window and into the kitchen. “We can have cake,” she hears the friend say. “Blow out some candles. Who knows, it might work.” She sits on the windowsill and stares out until the rain finally slows down and stops. Some day. It’s still going to happen. It must. Or she fears what will become of him. And her.
The boy is happy. Finally, she thinks as she rubs her cheek against his chin, delighting in his happiness. His exuberant joy as he watches his lover sleep. This is not the life he was supposed to have; after all he is not who he was supposed to be. Neither of them are, he or his love. The love he waited for, for so, so long. Took the kid - the man, the lover ¬¬- long enough but the important thing is that he came. And, after some missteps, stayed.
It’s not all smooth sailing, like waves upon the ocean it has its ups and downs, but it’s a life they have together and that’s all that matters. She watches them laugh and kiss and make music, and her heart expands to the point of bursting. And she watches them sigh and cry and murmur reassurance into each other’s ears, and she wants to sink her claws into Fate for being so cruel to leave them both so broken. But the good days outnumber the bad by a mile and a half, and after all that’s happened she won’t dare ask for more. Even if … yes, she thinks there will be. Something more. Someone. Someone new for her to look after. Someday in the not too far away future.
The boy is grown up. He cradles his daughter in his arms, looking at her with the same reverence as he did the kid when first they met, so long ago. As he does still, when he gets caught up in his love for him, in his wonder that he is here and not lost forever. The baby sighs in her sleep, and his eyes light up, casting a green shimmer over the room, and he smiles, like her breathing is the sweetest sound he’s ever heard. His love is sleeping on the bed beside him, fingers of one hand loosely curled around a tiny foot. She herself lies curled up between them, purring in content. The boy and his family, the kind he should have had from the moment he was born but instead had to hope and search for and finally find, far away from the one he’d been given to.
She feels a slight tug from the shadows, and this time she hesitates. Maybe it is time. But just then the boy reaches out and strokes her head, whispering, “Look at her, isn’t she amazing? I can’t wait for her to get to know you.” With so much hope and wonder but also … fear. Because he’s been handed a gift he does not think he deserves, a life he never thought he’d have, a love he still fears might be an illusion. And so she resists the tug, just like she’s done every time she’s felt it trying to pull her away, ever since the kid showed up. Ever since he decided to stay, and her role in the boy’s life, whatever it had been, was apparently over. She doesn’t care, she won’t go. The boy still needs her, just like she still needs him, and so she will stay. Forever if that’s how it will be. Because she is his, just like he is hers, and belonging to someone means taking care of them. In what little way you can.
fin