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It had started out with something totally understandable. They’d been talking about getting a dog for years, and never gone through with it because it never quite seemed like the right time for it. It was Phil’s idea, of course, to head over to the animal shelter - just to look! They’d walked past all of the dogs, discussed each of them in depth and decided none of them were right for them, and it was only as they were about to leave that Phil spotted the rows of cats in the other building.
“Come on, Dan, let’s just have a look,” Phil said, his eyes wide and pleading.
“But- I- ugh, fine,” Dan sighed, unable to resist that look. “But we’re just looking, okay?”
Phil nodded hastily, an excited grin filling his face. He practically skipped across to the reception, returning quickly with the volunteer who’d let them into the kennels earlier.
“Thinking about a cat, eh?” she said, unlocking the door and holding it open for Phil, who immediately darted inside.
“No, we’re just looking,” Dan said, giving her an apologetic smile as he slipped past her as well. “He just can’t resist.”
“Oh, I understand,” she said, letting the door swing shut. “Give us a shout if you need anything, and let me know when you’re leaving, okay?”
“Will do,” Dan said, with a nod. “Thanks.”
Phil was already at the fourth cage along, his breath fogging up the window as he pressed his face up against it, searching for its occupant.
“This guy’s hiding, Dan,” he said, as Dan came up behind him. “I think he’s shy.”
“It’s a she,” Dan said, reading through the information on the door. “Her name’s Meg. Oh, she is shy- hey, look, she’s back there.”
“Where?” Phil said, glancing around eagerly.
“There,” Dan said, pointing at the domed cat bed near the back, where he could just about see the tip of a black tail sticking out.
“Ohhhhh,” Phil said, pressing himself even closer to the glass.
Dan smiled to himself, leaving Phil with Meg as he moved down the row. Most of the cats were sleeping, but a few were watching him curiously as he walked past. Rounding the corner, he was confronted by a pair of yellow eyes, staring intensely at him through the glass. The cat grumbled a soft meow, curiously low-pitched, and Dan smiled.
“Hello,” he said, crouching down in front of the cat. “I’m Dan.”
Mrow, said the cat. It sounded like a seventy year old chainsmoker.
“What’s your name?” Dan asked, lifting his gaze to check out the cat’s information. “Dinky, huh? That’s a bit of a silly name.” Dinky meowed disapprovingly. His long black fur was lightly flecked with grey, and Dan glanced back at the sheet to check his age.
“Thirteen, huh?” he said, lightly touching one hand to the glass in front of his face. Dinky regarded it for a moment, before pressing his face into the glass. Dan smiled reflexively, feeling like his heart was swelling in his chest. “You’re an old man, aren’t you? Who abandoned you here, huh?”
Dinky meowed again, his voice low and grumbly.
“Made a friend, have you?” Phil came around the corner, a soft smile on his face.
“Yeah,” Dan said, smiling at the cat. “Not sure about the name, though.”
“Dinky?” Phil said, with a laugh. “Yeah, I guess not.” “You can go in and meet him, if you like.” A volunteer - not the same one as before - had appeared beside Phil, clutching a large bag of cat litter. “Let me just find the key.” He balanced the bag of litter on one leg, wobbling a little as he hunted through his pockets before producing a ring of keys. “There you go,” he said, reaching across to open the door. “Don’t let him out, though. He’s a bit of an escape artist.”
“Oh, I’ll be careful,” Dan said, slipping inside and immediately kneeling on the floor next to the cat. Dinky started purring immediately, the sound rough and loud like an engine in desperate need of some oil, and rubbed his head against Dan’s knee.
“Aw, he likes you,” Phil said, reaching down to scratch behind his ears.
“Yeah, he does,” Dan said, a warm smile lighting up his face as the cat flopped over in his lap.
“We could keep him, you know,” Phil said, carefully petting his exposed tummy as his purring revved up, vibrating through Dan’s whole body. “He does need a home.”
⁂
“Do you think he gets lonely?” Their cat, rechristened Franklin after they’d decided they couldn’t keep the name Dinky, was sprawled across Phil’s lap, looking supremely relaxed.
“We’re basically always here, Phil,” Dan said, rolling his eyes as he reached across to scratch behind his ears. “He doesn’t have a chance to get lonely.”
“Well, yeah, but there aren’t any other cats here,” Phil said, gently smoothing down his fur. “He might miss having them around.”
“Maybe he likes the peace and quiet.”
“Well, maybe…”
⁂
Three months after adopting the first cat, they were up to three cats. Phil may or may not have been right about the first one being lonely, but they’d agreed to try out another cat, on the understanding that if they didn’t get along they’d be sticking with just the one. At the shelter, Phil’s attention had immediately been captured by a pair of brothers, six months old, who had to be adopted together. Their names were Tyler (mostly white, with black patches) and Bobby (mostly black, with white patches), and Franklin had immediately taken to them like they were his own kittens.
“Three’s a normal number of cats, right?” Dan asked, watching Tyler crouch, his bum wiggling in anticipation, as he prepared to leap on his brother.
“Yeah, three’s totally normal,” Phil said, moving his glass of water away from where Franklin was sniffing curiously at it. “Loads of people have three cats.”
“Hm,” Dan hummed, watching Tyler and Bobby wrestle playfully. “It’s your turn to clean out the litter trays.”
⁂
They’d always planned to move to a house, eventually. Somewhere a bit more suburban and family-friendly. Dan just hadn’t expected the reason to be needing more room for their cats to run around.
“I don’t know, it’s kind of a busy road,” Phil said, glancing between Dan and the estate agent, a charming middle aged lady whose name Dan had immediately forgotten and was too embarrassed to ask again. “What if one of the cats got hit?”
“They’re indoor cats, Phil,” Dan said with a sigh.
“Well, now they are,” Phil argued. “Don’t you think it’d be nice for them to go outside?”
“It’s too dangerous,” said Dan, giving Phil a meaningful look. We’ll talk about this later, it meant. Which, in turn, meant I’ll explain why we’re doing it my way later.
“Okay, we’ll look inside,” Phil said, giving Dan his own look. “But I’m not sure about it.”
⁂
They settled on a house, eventually, with a decent-sized garden for something still in London. Dan immediately started building something like a rabbit hutch, eventually hiring a man who could recognise the right end of a hammer to help complete it. It was, as he explained to Phil, a catio, and would allow the cats to spend time outside without wreaking havoc on the local wildlife.
Phil was somewhat bemused by the whole affair, but he’d been beaten into submission by Dan’s extensive and well-researched arguments about cat ownership. Dan had definitely taken on the role of their primary caregiver, and Phil was more of a favourite uncle who gave them too many treats.
All three liked to sleep on their bed, usually gathered around Dan, and were only shut out of the bedroom when Phil’s allergies were making it hard to sleep. He’d started taking a regular antihistamine when they’d first gotten Franklin, and he’d been mostly fine with them, but unfortunately continued exposure didn’t seem to be diminishing his reaction. And, to be honest, he only seemed to have a problem when he insisted on burying his face in a cat because it was, to quote him, just too cute.
⁂
The little white cat started showing up after they’d lived there for about a month. It was about half the size of Tyler and Bobby, now both a year and a half but still gaining weight, mostly around the middle. Its fur was thin and matted, and you could feel its ribs through it. Phil had brought out a bowl of food as soon as he saw it, ignoring the offended glare Franklin was giving him through the window. It was shy at first, but once it had realised there was food on offer it became extremely friendly, rubbing against Phil’s legs and purring loudly.
“Oh, you poor thing,” Phil said, gently stroking it while it scoffed the food as fast as it could. “You’re just skin and bones, aren’t you?”
“We can’t keep it,” Dan said, the moment Phil looked at him. Phil’s eyes turned pleading, but Dan shook his head. “We have enough cats, babe. The boys would probably bully him, I mean, look, he’s tiny.”
“They might like him,” Phil said, his voice turning whiny. “Come on, we can’t just leave him out here all alone.”
“We’ll take it to the shelter, okay?” Dan said.
“It’ll be shut.”
“In the morning, then.”
“And leave him out all night?” Phil’s eyes were as wide and pleading as Dan had ever seen them.
“Okay, okay, we’ll bring him in tonight,” Dan said, with a sigh. “But we’re not keeping him.”
⁂
A trip to the vet revealed the little white cat was a she, about six months old and severely malnourished. She ended up staying there for two nights, while Dan and Phil argued over whether to keep her. Eventually, they decided to take her home while they looked for someone who could keep her, provided that the boys got along with her. Somewhat reluctantly, Dan agreed to call her Susan, on the understanding that it was a temporary name while they looked after her.
Susan spent her first night in the Howell-Lester house curiously exploring their study, which Dan had set up for her, while the boys meowed at her from the other side of the door. Phil kept getting up in the night to check on her, and eventually ended up moving her into their bedroom instead. She settled down between Dan’s legs and didn’t move until he had to get up to go to the bathroom.
It took two weeks for the topic of finding her a new home to be dropped completely. The other cats took to her easily, accepting her into their small monochrome group, and the collective noun for Dan and Phil’s cats soon became ‘Susan and the Boys’. Dan had tried to pitch a new name for her, but Susan had stuck, much to the amusement of everyone in their Instagram comments. There had been a lot of all-caps comments when Dan had posted a picture of them all curled up on their bed with the caption susan and the boys, although some of that was more focused on the partly visible object Dan had left in shot. It was actually a cat toy, but he enjoyed Phil’s panic when he thought Dan had left one of their toys on display in a public photo.
⁂
It took four weeks of continued growth for them to realise that Susan’s middle was growing significantly more than the rest of her. Sure enough, a visit to the vet confirmed their suspicions: poor Susan was due to be a teen mum. Dan immediately began researching every aspect of maternity care for cats online, taking his new role as a father - or grandfather - very seriously. Phil was over the moon at the prospect of kittens, and Dan had to remind him that they wouldn’t, of course, be keeping them. Phil agreed to that a little too easily for Dan’s liking.
⁂
The kittens were born two weeks later. There were four: a ginger, two mixed ginger and white, and one solid white like Susan. Dan made an attempt at sexing them, but decided to leave it to the vet. They all seemed to be healthy, taking easily to feeding as Susan licked them all clean. The video Dan posted to his Instagram story included background audio of Phil’s voice entering registers only the kittens would be able to hear, and the response was a mixture of cooing over the kittens and laughter at Phil.
The vet confirmed that Dan was completely inept at sexing cats, and informed them that the pure white kitten was a girl, while the other three were boys. Dan reiterated the point that they’d all be getting new homes while Phil picked out temporary names for them. The ginger boy was called Norman. The two mixed ginger and white were called Stanley and Oliver, although Phil had difficulty telling them apart for the first two weeks. Dan had suggested calling the girl Susan Two, but had been overridden by Phil, who wanted to call her Maggie.
“People are gonna think we’ve got a whole brood of children,” Dan commented.
“They are our children,” Phil said, looking at him reproachfully. Tyler and Bobby were curled around each other in his lap, their bodies beginning to slide off onto the sofa.
“They’re cats.” Dan rolled his eyes, the effect ruined slightly by Norman attempting to climb onto his head. “Besides, we’re not keeping them all. Eight is too many cats.”
“Sure, babe,” Phil said, watching Dan dangle a toy for Stan. “Sure we’re not.”
⁂
Of course, Dan knew that the kittens could leave their mother at ten weeks. They reached twelve weeks without him mentioning anything, and by the time they were fourteen weeks, he’d given up correcting Phil when he called them their kittens. After all, it seemed cruel to separate them, and the others seemed to like them as well. Eight cats didn’t really seem like so many, after all - they had plenty of space for them all, with just the two of them in the house. But eight was enough. They absolutely weren’t getting more than that.
⁂
They’d begun to get a bit of a reputation in the neighbourhood. Of course, Dan hadn’t expected their neighbours to think they were normal - any chance of that had gone out of the window basically the moment he’d started dating Phil - but he’d never thought their reputation would be for owning an excessive number of cats. They both tried to keep to themselves as much as possible, but it was impossible to hide the catio, or to stop the cats from sitting in the windows, staring at passersby.
It was late at night, and rain was tapping out a gentle rhythm on the windows. It took a moment for Dan to realise there was an additional knocking sound, coming from the door. Frowning, he tried to remember whether they were expecting anyone, as he lifted Norman out of his lap and placed him on the floor. Whatever he was expecting, it wasn’t the young man he vaguely recognised from next door, his hair slicked down with rain and his german shepherd dog looking miserably up at Dan next to him.
“Oh, hi,” Dan said, shifting awkwardly.
“You’re the cat guys, right?” He couldn’t have been more than nineteen, his gangly frame an indication he’d grown faster than his body could keep up with.
“I, uh, I mean, we have cats?” Dan blinked, taken aback by the question.
“I found somethin’,” he said. It was only then that Dan noticed the bundle of cloth he was cradling. “Can’t take ‘em home, not with the dog. D’you think you could take ‘em?”
“Oh, I, uh,” Dan said. “Do you want to come in?”
“Nah, we better get home,” he said, nodding at the dog. “This all right?”
“Oh. Sure, yeah,” Dan said. The boy carefully transferred his bundle into Dan’s arms. It was damp, and wriggling.
“Cheers, mate.”
He disappeared back down their path, and Dan let the door swing shut, sinking to his knees as he carefully lowered the bundle of cloth to the floor. It was loosely knotted, and it took him a moment to figure out how to open it. He’d expected the cat inside, a bedraggled looking tabby, but he hadn’t expected the the two kittens, their eyes not yet open. Looking up at him with wide, frightened eyes, the mother cat mewed softly. Whispering platitudes softly, Dan gently stroked her head.
“Phil?” he called, quietly, trying not to frighten her. “Hey, Phil?”
“Was that the door?” Phil asked, appearing from the kitchen. “Oh, shit. Is that one of ours?”
“I think she’s about to be.”
⁂
They named the mother cat Harry, inexplicably but with great certainty. Her two kittens were also tabby, a boy and a girl, and after a great deal of debate, they were named Luke and Leia. This time, there was no talk of finding someone else to adopt them. Dan considered it, for a moment, as Franklin glared down at them from the top of the fridge, but his fears were assuaged when he hopped down and gave one of the kittens a gentle sniff. He was fourteen now, his joints stiff and his fur thinning, but he still seemed as fond of the little ones as ever.
⁂
“Eleven cats is enough, right?” Dan asked the darkness, his legs weighed down by several small furry mounds.
“Yeah, I think so,” Phil replied. “Why? Were you thinking of getting more?”
“Well,” Dan said, smiling to himself. “Not yet, anyway.”