not!fic | Got Flowers and Lots of Hours | Jon/Ryan | G | ~2100 words
Got Flowers and Lots of Hours
Jon/Ryan | G | ~ 2100 words | unapologetic fluff
Ryan turns into a cat.
Thanks to airgiodslv for giving this a look over. I'm sure there are still a million mistakes, which I take full responsibility for.
Jon walks through the front door, kicks off his flip flops, and drops to his knees.
"Hello there," he says softly, reaching out to try and touch the cat that is sitting in the doorway.
The cat tilts his head then meows loudly, standing up and walking around in a circle, another circle, doubling back, weaving forward. The cat walks around Jon clockwise, counterclockwise, before settling in front of him on the floor again.
Jon touches his hand gently to the cat's head, stroking along its back. The cat stands again, arches, moving each time that Jon pets it.
"What are you doing here?" he asks. He pets the cat again before standing. He calls, "Ryan?"
Ryan doesn't answer.
Jon stands up straight and calls again, but still Ryan doesn't answer. He walks to the kitchen, to the den, to Ryan's bedroom, but there's no sign of Ryan. He sticks his head out the back door: nothing.
The cat is still there when Jon walks back to the entrance.
"Just us I guess," Jon says, curling a hand under the cat's belly so he can carry it with him to the den. "Weird."
--
Three hours later, Jon clicks off the TV in disgust after the Pussycat Dolls' video is played for the third time.
He turns his head, his mouth open, about to say something to Ryan, but Ryan isn't sitting beside him on the couch; there's just the cat.
Jon looks at the cat, looks at his lap, looks at the cat again. The cat looks back at him.
"Shit," Jon says.
--
"Are you sure it's Ryan?" Spencer asks.
Jon tucks the phone between his ear and his shoulder and reaches his hands out to the cat, snapping his fingers.
"Kitty," he calls. "If you're Ryan, will you lift your right paw?"
The cat gives him a bored look and twitches his tail.
"It's just impossible to tell for sure," Jon says to Spencer.
--
"Brendon hasn't seen Ryan either," Spencer says. "Fuck. When did you last see him?"
"This morning," Jon says. "He was going to do some laundry while I went to the store to buy more marshmallows. We finished the bag during our last jonfire."
"Ryan was going to do laundry?" Spencer asks.
Jon nods, even though Spencer can't see him. "I should have known something was wrong," he laments.
"Does the house even have electricity?" Spencer asks. "How was he planning on doing laundry?"
"I got it hooked up again," Jon says.
--
"Spencer tells me that Ryan is missing, presumed to be eaten by coyotes," Brendon says when Jon answers the phone again.
"I presume that he's a cat," Jon says. "For the record."
"What's that?" Brendon asks.
"I found a cat," Jon says. "I am fairly, pretty much sure, of sorts, that Ryan is the cat."
"Maybe he took a potion," Brendon says solemnly.
"Why would he want to be a cat?" asks Jon.
"He has been complaining a lot about not being able to kill the mice," says Brendon. "Maybe he wanted to turn himself into a lean, mean, killing machine."
"Ryan's already lean," Jon says.
"But not too good at killing mice," Brendon says.
"No," Jon agrees. "Not too good at killing mice."
"Do you want me to come over?" offers Brendon. "Me and Shane can come and help."
"It's okay," Jon says. "I'll just hang out with the cat for a while. Either Ryan will show up, or the cat is Ryan, in which case he has already shown, so."
"Let me know if he manages to kill any mice," Brendon says.
--
"I'm going to bed now," Jon tells the cat. They've been sitting on the couch for the last couple of hours, the cat all stretched out and limp, wedged between a cushion and the arm of the couch.
The cat stands up, and Jon waits, frozen. Maybe it is Ryan. Maybe the cat understood what he was saying.
The cat walks in a tight circle, then ducks his head and starts cleaning himself.
"Goodnight," Jon says. He walks past Ryan's bedroom and to the guest room, where he's been sleeping.
--
Jon sleeps until noon. When he wakes, he opens up a can of salmon. After scraping the salmon skin into a little bowl, he sets it on the floor in front of the cat. The cat starts circling the bowl, leaning in quickly to smell the contents, then pulling away just as fast. He comes at the bowl from the other side, smells it again. He walks away, then doubles back, stalking slowly toward the bowl. Eventually he settles in and starts eating.
--
"I think he's practicing for when he's going to kill the mice!" Jon tells Brendon.
"Cool," Brendon says. "Shane just put lunch on the table, so I've got to go, but I'll call you again later."
Jon puts his phone back in his pocket and walks back into the kitchen - he left the room to call Brendon because he didn't want to make Ryan feel self-conscious - and finds that the cat is now sitting on top of the counter and cleaning himself.
If it were one of Jon's cats, who are now technically Cassie's cats, but he it makes him sad to think that he also lost them when he broke up with her, so he tries not to think about it that way. If it were one of Jon's cats, he would grab them off the counter and set them on the floor. Cats are clean, but it's still not a great idea to let them shed all over the place where he prepares meals. It's not one of his cats, though. If Ryan - if it is Ryan - wants to sit on the counter in his kitchen and give himself a bath, that's his business.
Jon finishes eating lunch and sits at the table, moping. He misses the real Ryan, who doesn't actually do much more than blink sleepily at him when they eat lunch together, but still manages to be good company.
The cat comes over and jumps up onto the table, sitting a few feet away from Jon and letting his tail hang over the edge of the table.
It's not the same.
--
"How can it possibly be not be a big deal?" Spencer demands.
"I'm taking good care of him," Jon says, shrugging. He let the cat out and then left the door open so the cat would be able to get back in. The cat did his cat-business, and then came back inside, which further affirmed to Jon that the cat is in fact Ryan. Ryan never lasted very long outside by himself.
"How are we going to make a record with Ryan as a cat?" Spencer asks.
It's a trick question, but Jon's bored, so he says, "We could set out pieces of paper on the floor, and write all the letters of the alphabet on them. Ryan'll be able to walk on the different letters, and one of us can write down his lyrics."
It's not actually all that different from how Jon and Ryan normally write songs together, which involves them getting high together, each with a notebook in front of himself, and jotting down each other's murmured phrases.
"Cats love paper," Jon says. "Don't worry; he'll totally be down for it."
"Why would you say that cats like paper?" Spencer asks. "Cats like string and stuff, not paper."
"Nope," Jon says. "Paper. Paper and keyboards and whatever pillow you'd rather be sleeping on." He laughs and says, "You're totally just mad that Ryan's a cat because you're a dog person."
"Concerned," Spencer says. "I'm concerned. You can't trust cats, anyway. Is a cat going to run for help when you fall down a well? No. No, they're not. A cat is going to jump up on the edge of the well and sit there watching you with its creepy cat eyes. Watch while you drowned. How is that helpful? It's not helpful."
The cat sits on the coffee table, watching Jon. Jon doesn't mention this to Spencer.
--
Jon goes about his business: wandering around bored, mostly. He misses Ryan and feels out of place in Ryan's house, even though he always feels completely at home when Ryan's there. He smokes up a little, but it's not the same when he's by himself. He considers going to the story to buy the cat some catnip.
"Would you like some catnip?" he asks.
The cat is stretched across the windowsill in the living room. Jon reaches out to pet the cat's side, but pulls his hand back before making contact. It's kind of weird to just randomly start petting his friend.
The cat has his head resting on his arms, his little paws crossed one on top of the other. Jon thinks the cat might be sleeping, but after a minute or two, the cat turns his head sharply and suddenly, then jumps off the windowsill.
"Okay then," Jon says, surprised.
The cat stalks away, his tail lifted in a straight line, but curling to the side at the very tip.
"Is that a ... yes? On the catnip?" Jon asks.
--
Jon finds the cat stretched out on the floor by the back door, curled in a little ball on the armchair, lying on the top of the couch.
He gives the cat a handful of Goldfish crackers when the cat walks into the kitchen while Jon's cooking himself dinner, and decides that he'll go shopping for cat food tomorrow.
He cuts off a piece of his porkchop and spends more time watching as the cat works on the piece of meat, licking it and turning his head sideways to gnaw on it. He takes the whole thing in his mouth, then spits it back out.
"That good, huh?" Jon says.
--
Jon doesn't mean to fall asleep. He wandered into Ryan's bedroom and ended up lying down, but he didn't realize that he'd dozed off until he's startled awake by a weight landing on his chest.
He opens his eyes to find the cat peering down at him.
"'m going," Jon says. "I'm going."
The cat just walks in a circle, his tail brushing the tip of Jon's nose, then starts settling in. He digs his little paws into Jon's chest. They flex and relax rhythmically, bunching up Jon's t-shirt, until the cat decides that Jon's been suitably tenderized, and lies down the rest of the way.
He tucks his head just under Jon's collarbone. His whiskers just brush against bare skin, where Jon's t-shirt ends.
Jon's sleepy. He reaches out and, when the cat doesn't move away, starts to pet him slowly. The cat's purring rumbles against Jon's breastbone.
Jon trails his fingers down the cat's back, his fingers bumpbumpbumping over the sharp vertebrae. He can feel the two jutting bones when he gets to the cat's haunch. The cat's fur is soft and sleek, but his skeleton is just as prominent beneath his skin as is the real Ryan's.
Jon can feel the movement of his chest more noticeably under the cat's weight. He reaches and scratches lightly at the downy fur just behind the cat's ears. The cat rumbles happily.
Jon is just about to fall asleep again, when all of the sudden the weight on his chest increases and increases, and before he can figure out what's going on, the weight rolls onto the bed beside him.
Jon opens his eyes, and it's Ryan, the real Ryan who is a human, not a cat.
"You're back," Jon says stupidly.
Ryan's face wrinkles up, and he makes a low noise. He licks his lips before saying, "Yup."
"You okay?" Jon asks. Ryan's naked beside him, but he's also back. Back and human again, and that seems like the most important part.
"I'm good," Ryan says. He lifts up his hands, flexing his fingers. "It's nice to have thumbs again."
"What was it like being a cat?" Jon asks.
"Busy," says Ryan, yawning. He reaches his arms above his head, arching his back, and stretches.
When he settles back into the mattress, he leans toward Jon. He scoots and wiggles until eventually Jon takes the hint and rolls over, allowing Ryan to spoon up behind him.
"Busy with what?" Jon asks.
"Finding the perfect place to nap," Ryan says, his arm tightening around Jon's waist.
Jon says, "Mh hm," and covers Ryan's hand with his own.
Jon/Ryan | G | ~ 2100 words | unapologetic fluff
Ryan turns into a cat.
Thanks to airgiodslv for giving this a look over. I'm sure there are still a million mistakes, which I take full responsibility for.
Jon walks through the front door, kicks off his flip flops, and drops to his knees.
"Hello there," he says softly, reaching out to try and touch the cat that is sitting in the doorway.
The cat tilts his head then meows loudly, standing up and walking around in a circle, another circle, doubling back, weaving forward. The cat walks around Jon clockwise, counterclockwise, before settling in front of him on the floor again.
Jon touches his hand gently to the cat's head, stroking along its back. The cat stands again, arches, moving each time that Jon pets it.
"What are you doing here?" he asks. He pets the cat again before standing. He calls, "Ryan?"
Ryan doesn't answer.
Jon stands up straight and calls again, but still Ryan doesn't answer. He walks to the kitchen, to the den, to Ryan's bedroom, but there's no sign of Ryan. He sticks his head out the back door: nothing.
The cat is still there when Jon walks back to the entrance.
"Just us I guess," Jon says, curling a hand under the cat's belly so he can carry it with him to the den. "Weird."
--
Three hours later, Jon clicks off the TV in disgust after the Pussycat Dolls' video is played for the third time.
He turns his head, his mouth open, about to say something to Ryan, but Ryan isn't sitting beside him on the couch; there's just the cat.
Jon looks at the cat, looks at his lap, looks at the cat again. The cat looks back at him.
"Shit," Jon says.
--
"Are you sure it's Ryan?" Spencer asks.
Jon tucks the phone between his ear and his shoulder and reaches his hands out to the cat, snapping his fingers.
"Kitty," he calls. "If you're Ryan, will you lift your right paw?"
The cat gives him a bored look and twitches his tail.
"It's just impossible to tell for sure," Jon says to Spencer.
--
"Brendon hasn't seen Ryan either," Spencer says. "Fuck. When did you last see him?"
"This morning," Jon says. "He was going to do some laundry while I went to the store to buy more marshmallows. We finished the bag during our last jonfire."
"Ryan was going to do laundry?" Spencer asks.
Jon nods, even though Spencer can't see him. "I should have known something was wrong," he laments.
"Does the house even have electricity?" Spencer asks. "How was he planning on doing laundry?"
"I got it hooked up again," Jon says.
--
"Spencer tells me that Ryan is missing, presumed to be eaten by coyotes," Brendon says when Jon answers the phone again.
"I presume that he's a cat," Jon says. "For the record."
"What's that?" Brendon asks.
"I found a cat," Jon says. "I am fairly, pretty much sure, of sorts, that Ryan is the cat."
"Maybe he took a potion," Brendon says solemnly.
"Why would he want to be a cat?" asks Jon.
"He has been complaining a lot about not being able to kill the mice," says Brendon. "Maybe he wanted to turn himself into a lean, mean, killing machine."
"Ryan's already lean," Jon says.
"But not too good at killing mice," Brendon says.
"No," Jon agrees. "Not too good at killing mice."
"Do you want me to come over?" offers Brendon. "Me and Shane can come and help."
"It's okay," Jon says. "I'll just hang out with the cat for a while. Either Ryan will show up, or the cat is Ryan, in which case he has already shown, so."
"Let me know if he manages to kill any mice," Brendon says.
--
"I'm going to bed now," Jon tells the cat. They've been sitting on the couch for the last couple of hours, the cat all stretched out and limp, wedged between a cushion and the arm of the couch.
The cat stands up, and Jon waits, frozen. Maybe it is Ryan. Maybe the cat understood what he was saying.
The cat walks in a tight circle, then ducks his head and starts cleaning himself.
"Goodnight," Jon says. He walks past Ryan's bedroom and to the guest room, where he's been sleeping.
--
Jon sleeps until noon. When he wakes, he opens up a can of salmon. After scraping the salmon skin into a little bowl, he sets it on the floor in front of the cat. The cat starts circling the bowl, leaning in quickly to smell the contents, then pulling away just as fast. He comes at the bowl from the other side, smells it again. He walks away, then doubles back, stalking slowly toward the bowl. Eventually he settles in and starts eating.
--
"I think he's practicing for when he's going to kill the mice!" Jon tells Brendon.
"Cool," Brendon says. "Shane just put lunch on the table, so I've got to go, but I'll call you again later."
Jon puts his phone back in his pocket and walks back into the kitchen - he left the room to call Brendon because he didn't want to make Ryan feel self-conscious - and finds that the cat is now sitting on top of the counter and cleaning himself.
If it were one of Jon's cats, who are now technically Cassie's cats, but he it makes him sad to think that he also lost them when he broke up with her, so he tries not to think about it that way. If it were one of Jon's cats, he would grab them off the counter and set them on the floor. Cats are clean, but it's still not a great idea to let them shed all over the place where he prepares meals. It's not one of his cats, though. If Ryan - if it is Ryan - wants to sit on the counter in his kitchen and give himself a bath, that's his business.
Jon finishes eating lunch and sits at the table, moping. He misses the real Ryan, who doesn't actually do much more than blink sleepily at him when they eat lunch together, but still manages to be good company.
The cat comes over and jumps up onto the table, sitting a few feet away from Jon and letting his tail hang over the edge of the table.
It's not the same.
--
"How can it possibly be not be a big deal?" Spencer demands.
"I'm taking good care of him," Jon says, shrugging. He let the cat out and then left the door open so the cat would be able to get back in. The cat did his cat-business, and then came back inside, which further affirmed to Jon that the cat is in fact Ryan. Ryan never lasted very long outside by himself.
"How are we going to make a record with Ryan as a cat?" Spencer asks.
It's a trick question, but Jon's bored, so he says, "We could set out pieces of paper on the floor, and write all the letters of the alphabet on them. Ryan'll be able to walk on the different letters, and one of us can write down his lyrics."
It's not actually all that different from how Jon and Ryan normally write songs together, which involves them getting high together, each with a notebook in front of himself, and jotting down each other's murmured phrases.
"Cats love paper," Jon says. "Don't worry; he'll totally be down for it."
"Why would you say that cats like paper?" Spencer asks. "Cats like string and stuff, not paper."
"Nope," Jon says. "Paper. Paper and keyboards and whatever pillow you'd rather be sleeping on." He laughs and says, "You're totally just mad that Ryan's a cat because you're a dog person."
"Concerned," Spencer says. "I'm concerned. You can't trust cats, anyway. Is a cat going to run for help when you fall down a well? No. No, they're not. A cat is going to jump up on the edge of the well and sit there watching you with its creepy cat eyes. Watch while you drowned. How is that helpful? It's not helpful."
The cat sits on the coffee table, watching Jon. Jon doesn't mention this to Spencer.
--
Jon goes about his business: wandering around bored, mostly. He misses Ryan and feels out of place in Ryan's house, even though he always feels completely at home when Ryan's there. He smokes up a little, but it's not the same when he's by himself. He considers going to the story to buy the cat some catnip.
"Would you like some catnip?" he asks.
The cat is stretched across the windowsill in the living room. Jon reaches out to pet the cat's side, but pulls his hand back before making contact. It's kind of weird to just randomly start petting his friend.
The cat has his head resting on his arms, his little paws crossed one on top of the other. Jon thinks the cat might be sleeping, but after a minute or two, the cat turns his head sharply and suddenly, then jumps off the windowsill.
"Okay then," Jon says, surprised.
The cat stalks away, his tail lifted in a straight line, but curling to the side at the very tip.
"Is that a ... yes? On the catnip?" Jon asks.
--
Jon finds the cat stretched out on the floor by the back door, curled in a little ball on the armchair, lying on the top of the couch.
He gives the cat a handful of Goldfish crackers when the cat walks into the kitchen while Jon's cooking himself dinner, and decides that he'll go shopping for cat food tomorrow.
He cuts off a piece of his porkchop and spends more time watching as the cat works on the piece of meat, licking it and turning his head sideways to gnaw on it. He takes the whole thing in his mouth, then spits it back out.
"That good, huh?" Jon says.
--
Jon doesn't mean to fall asleep. He wandered into Ryan's bedroom and ended up lying down, but he didn't realize that he'd dozed off until he's startled awake by a weight landing on his chest.
He opens his eyes to find the cat peering down at him.
"'m going," Jon says. "I'm going."
The cat just walks in a circle, his tail brushing the tip of Jon's nose, then starts settling in. He digs his little paws into Jon's chest. They flex and relax rhythmically, bunching up Jon's t-shirt, until the cat decides that Jon's been suitably tenderized, and lies down the rest of the way.
He tucks his head just under Jon's collarbone. His whiskers just brush against bare skin, where Jon's t-shirt ends.
Jon's sleepy. He reaches out and, when the cat doesn't move away, starts to pet him slowly. The cat's purring rumbles against Jon's breastbone.
Jon trails his fingers down the cat's back, his fingers bumpbumpbumping over the sharp vertebrae. He can feel the two jutting bones when he gets to the cat's haunch. The cat's fur is soft and sleek, but his skeleton is just as prominent beneath his skin as is the real Ryan's.
Jon can feel the movement of his chest more noticeably under the cat's weight. He reaches and scratches lightly at the downy fur just behind the cat's ears. The cat rumbles happily.
Jon is just about to fall asleep again, when all of the sudden the weight on his chest increases and increases, and before he can figure out what's going on, the weight rolls onto the bed beside him.
Jon opens his eyes, and it's Ryan, the real Ryan who is a human, not a cat.
"You're back," Jon says stupidly.
Ryan's face wrinkles up, and he makes a low noise. He licks his lips before saying, "Yup."
"You okay?" Jon asks. Ryan's naked beside him, but he's also back. Back and human again, and that seems like the most important part.
"I'm good," Ryan says. He lifts up his hands, flexing his fingers. "It's nice to have thumbs again."
"What was it like being a cat?" Jon asks.
"Busy," says Ryan, yawning. He reaches his arms above his head, arching his back, and stretches.
When he settles back into the mattress, he leans toward Jon. He scoots and wiggles until eventually Jon takes the hint and rolls over, allowing Ryan to spoon up behind him.
"Busy with what?" Jon asks.
"Finding the perfect place to nap," Ryan says, his arm tightening around Jon's waist.
Jon says, "Mh hm," and covers Ryan's hand with his own.