One of those posts.
We first saw Arioch at the shelter, when he was a small kitten. Not as tiny as Tarod, but he was still pretty small. He was pretty feisty, but we already had Tarod and Asi, and three cats seemed like a lot, and he was small. So, we walked out. A couple months later, they opened a satellite branch of the shelter downtown, so we went to check it out. And there was Arioch (named Lionel, then), still waiting. So, we decided that three cats was probably no more trouble than two cats, and he came home with us.
When we got him home, we left him in his carrier to get used to the other two. Now, he was about half the size of Asi at that time.. in fact, we have a picture somewhere of him standing full height underneath Asi. But as soon as we opened the carrier, he tore out of there and chased Asi around the house. It was crazy, but we knew he'd be able to hold his own in our household.
At first, he was Eric's buddy. Eric would sit in his recliner and watch tv, and Arioch would sit next to him, propped up and sitting just like Eric. It was pretty funny! But Eric makes a lot of trips, and at some point Arioch decided that I was his.
He'd sleep on my chest every night, unless, of course, I left clean sheets out :) In that case, he'd sleep on my chest until I fell asleep, and then move to the sheets. When Eric would go on a trip, he'd take over Eric's pillow for a bed. There would always be a bit of alpha struggling for the pillow when Eric would get home. Eric would get up to use the restroom or brush his teeth or whatever, and when he'd get back, Arioch would be there on his pillow :)
Well... you know how this is going to end, don't you? We were out of town this weekend, and Arioch was up hiding in our room. He didn't come downstairs until he was very very sick. The emergency vet gave him a "cautiously optimistic" diagnosis on Monday morning before we left, but he was gone before we got home. I don't know.