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Jean was slumped over the counter, staring at the oven’s clock, drumming his fingers nervously, and occasionally glancing over at where his, Eren’s, and Marco’s phones were charging.
The very fact that Eren’s phone was there was an incredibly irksome, yet painfully predictable facet of their living together; there was rarely a time when Eren actually remembered to bring his phone with him on outside excursions, and the habit only seemed to have worsened since they’d all moved into their shared apartment. Typically, this was something Jean was grudgingly willing to put up with, but not today. Not when it was going on twelve hours since Eren had said he’d get home.
Marco passed through, on his way from the bedroom(where he’d grumpily locked himself in a few hours earlier, muttering about letting off steam, and had been pounding on his electric keyboard ever since) to the bathroom, looking considerably less frustrated than he had before and chirping a greeting. Jean only grunted in response.
Stopping in his tracks, Marco squinted at Jean. “Did you even move while I was in there?”
"Yes, of course I did," Jean replied shortly, gesturing to the plate and textbooks laid out in front of him. "I ate something, I studied awhile, what more do you want?"
Marco pursed his lips, leaning in towards his boyfriend. “Eren’ll be back, you know. He probably bumped into someone at the store and decided to hang out. He does that.”
"He’s never gone this long without at least calling us! Not even when he -"
Before he could continue, the sound of heavy footsteps - Eren’s footsteps - on the stairs outside drew his attention, and both young men jumped up. “About fucking time,” Jean growled, stepping up to their front door and wrenching it open just as Eren arrived on their landing, lugging a cardboard box, two grocery bags dangling on his wrists.
Eren’s eyes brightened when he saw Jean. “Oh, hey! Here, hold this,” and with that, the box was in his hands. Jean looked down and felt his gut twist with terror.
Inside the box were five adorable, fluffy, tiny baby cats.
The only thing he could bring himself to say was, “We’re too fucking broke for this.”
-
The largest one was a boy they’d nicknamed Sir William Cattington, or Billy for short. He walked like he hadn’t only been doing it for a week, with his head and tail both high in the air, prim, proper, and already pretentious as fuck. When Sasha had visited, she’d taken a liking to him.
Connie had stuck a claim on the dark brown female that had somehow been tagged as “Babycakes” without anybody knowing for sure who’d come up with the name(It was definitely Jean. Just saying).
Despite their concerns about the heavily antisocial female Lacey, who had crossed eyes and a very loud mew, she’d become quite close with Annie within five minutes of meeting her. Marco mused that it was because they were similar in temperament, and after some hemming and hawing over whether she had the space, Annie decided she’d take the cat.
The kittens were all still staying with Eren, Jean, and Marco, of course. After consulting with the veterinary school, they’d learned about how important it was to keep them with their mother - which was an unlikely feat, as Eren had waited an entire day to see if she’d come back to no avail - or at least with each other until they were eight weeks old, and since they were estimated to be about four or five weeks at the current moment, they were confined to the trio’s bathroom for a few weeks more. It wasn’t a bad arrangement - at least until attachments started to form.
The worst part was that the three of them were divided in their opinion - Eren and Marco had both fallen for the runt of the litter, a green-eyed black-and-grey tabby asshole that they’d lovingly dubbed Geoffrey, while Jean was desperately trying to convince them how much better an idea it would be to keep the sweet, quiet, brown-eyed, pale brown tabby that they called Toffee. To his sheer dismay, even despite the fact that Geoffrey had a tendency to (very painfully) climb their legs with his tiny claws and gnaw at their fingers when given the chance, his boyfriends found him hilarious, endearing, and vastly more appealing than Toffee.
"Look at this," Jean whispered urgently, gesturing to the kitten asleep in his lap. "Look at this cat. Look at her. She is the type of cat that will laze in sunbeams and politely headbutt you when she wants you to pet her. That one?" He indicated Geoffrey, who was currently chewing emphatically on Eren’s big toe, a wild look in his wide green eyes, "That’s the one that’ll ambush you from atop the refrigerator."
"Maybe so," Marco conceded from where he was sitting on the edge of the tub, bottle-feeding Babycakes, "But Geoffrey has his sweet moments, too."
"Maybe with you,” Jean grumbled. “He only likes you because you’re his mommy.”
Eren snorted. “Yeah, man, he does like you better than either of us.”
"You could always try bottle-feeding them instead of just chasing them around until they fall asleep," Marco hummed passive-aggressively. Glancing up, he added, more gently, "Jean, we can’t keep two cats. We don’t have the money or the space. It’s two against one."
Geoffrey leaped away from Eren, tumbling over himself and poking his head over the edge of Jean’s lap, pausing his hyperactive dashing to gaze at his sister for a moment. Just when Jean felt his heart soften - he was a kitten, after all, and he clearly cared for Toffee - Geoffrey’s paw darted out and batted Toffee on the nose.
On instinct, Jean grabbed Geoffrey’s scruff, lifting him to look him in the eye. “Little fuckface,” he growled. Geoffrey tried to swipe at him, but he held the kitten away from his face.
"Oh, stop it," Eren interceded, reaching forward to take Geoffrey in his own hands, leaving Jean to his inspection of Toffee - no scratch marks, thank god, but she seemed thoroughly miffed by the encounter. She hopped off of his lap and headed toward Billy, who was rolling over himself and playing with his own tail.
"Couldn’t you try to like him?" Marco begged, laughing just a little, "Take a look at him - when he gets all riled up like that, with those big green eyes, don’t you think he looks a little like Eren?"
Eren scoffed. “I may love the little buttface, but I take offense to that statement.”
-
In the end, there was no clear winner to the debate. They asked all of their friends, acquaintances, even teachers, if they had room to spare for a kitten, but their eighth week of life came and went without anybody volunteering to take Toffee in. Despite the financial and spacial complications involved with this, Jean couldn’t help but gloat.
"Oh, my little Toffee," he cooed in his best(and worst) baby voice as he sat in bed, cradling the kitten, with Eren and Geoffrey already draped over the pillows next to him and Marco across the room, changing into his pajamas. "My little kitty girl. What a good little baby."
"Stop," Eren droned, half-asleep.
"Stop," agreed Marco, finally changed and sliding into bed on his other side.
"Never gonna stop. Never gonna let you forget this."
Marco rolled his eyes, smiling, and reached over to switch off the light. “I think the cat herself is reminder enough.” He pressed a kiss to Jean’s cheek. “Night, night.” Leaning over Jean, he kissed Eren, too, and was lightly swatted in response.
"Gross," Eren mumbled, "Germs."
Marco just chuckled and snuggled up to Jean. Within minutes, he was out like a light, leaving Jean to his thoughts.
If Geoffrey was like a cat version of Eren, he thought, then Toffee was a cat version of Marco - sickeningly sweet, intelligent, all that hullabaloo that made Marco, well, Marco. He pondered this for a moment.
He’d tried living without Eren, and he’d tried living without Marco; eventually, it had become clear that one was not enough, not without the other. It was hard, sometimes, and it often seemed like there was just no way it would work - but hey, they’d done it, and it was a thousand times better than going one or the other.
Jean gazed down at Toffee, cuddled on his chest, close to where Marco’s head rested, then turned his head upward to see Geoffrey practically sleeping atop Eren’s face. He felt a smile melt across his face.
Yeah. He could never go with one or the other.