Work Text:
You work in The Magnus Cat Cafe. It's a quaint little cat cafe in London, owned by someone named Jonah Magnus. Odd name, but a decent enough guy.
Your job is to take care of the cats in the cat cafe. You make sure they are comfortable, happy and healthy, which is a pretty tough job considering cats are really good at hiding pain if they want to and this whole bunch of cats seems to attract trouble in this small shop.
Like Martin right now, who seems to have managed to dig a hole in the shop's backyard and unleashed a swarm of worms upon himself. He has cornered himself to a wall and is now meowing pitifully at you to save him.
You crossed the swarm of worms easily enough, they aren't really moving towards anything. The ginger maine coon is just easily scared for a cat his size.
"Come here, you silly boy," you whispered to Martin as you scoop him up. He immediately nuzzles into your shirt as you walked back into the cafe.
You let Martin jump off of you to let him run straight to Jon, a black cat who is more grumpy than friendly and almost exclusively occupies the top shelf of the cat cafe, refusing to be pet. Jon and Martin doesn't exactly have the greatest relationship so it's a a surprise to you when Martin came barreling to Jon he just lets him cuddle in his favorite cat bed. Jon even gave him a pointed lick on Martin's cheek and left him to have a worm-induced nap.
You decide not to think too much into it. They're cats. And you still have to clean Sasha and Tim's litter boxes.
---
The cafe is not too busy, like always. The cats came out to socialize, especially Tim. That little bengal cat is always hungry for attention and is now belly flopping on a young man's lap who has been spending the last 15 minutes baby talking to all the cats that passed by him.
You make yourself a little bit unnoticable but still keeping a watchful eye over the customer, especially younger ones who can be a little rough with the cats.
You hear a little meow and looked down to see Sasha walking with a small rat plush on her mouth. You smile a bit and crouched down to scratch her neck and happily throw the toy again for her to chase.
Sasha is a dark brown tabby persian cat who is really sweet and smart. She doesn't really get herself in trouble as often as the other cat and if she does, she can usually handle it herself. You watched her bite and kick the rat toy with adoration for a bit before pulling your focus back on watching the shop.
You're not really sure when it happened, but the young man, who turns out to be named Michael Shelley, ended up adopting Sasha. Maybe it's when he figured out Sasha would stand up on her hind legs and chirp if you dangle a toy out of her reach for too long. Or maybe its when Tim immediately bolted out of his lap to beg for pats from a new customer.
Either way you're happy that Sasha got a loving family now. Things like this is why you keep coming back to the job, seeing cats adopted by someone who clearly loves cats.
You got everything set up quickly and waved Sasha goodbye as Michael walked outside of the shop.
Ah maybe the cats will miss her. They seem to like her a lot.
---
It's only two days after the adoption before Jonah swings by the shop to drop off a cat who looks eerily similar to Sasha. It's not Sasha, this one is unchipped and has slightly different coloration. The cats immediately liked her, even Jon, which is a bit weird considering it usually takes him a while to adjust to a new cat. It's as if he still thinks that it's the old Sasha.
You jokingly called her Not Sasha to your co-workers. They seem to like the nickname and began calling her that too.
But while Jon seems to accept Sasha just fine, he's suddenly at odds with everyone else. With Martin, it's the usual hissing at his attempt of grooming or playing.
With Tim though, it's new. Tim has been hissing nonstop at Jon and you wonder why. They're usually civil enough but now you have to separate them to prevent injuries.
It's bad enough now that Elias, Jonah's cat, is here. That little devil is plotting something, you know it. He's just up there perching on the empty cage that has been transformed into a lavish cat castle while Jonah is away on a trip.
You got paid a lot to take care of him though, so you're not really complaining. But those eyes of his. Pure evil.
Elias is always watching intently as Jon picks fight with Tim and Martin. He would then grace them all with his presence, which is making them all even more anxious, before going back to his castle and licking himself clean.
You swear he's doing this on purpose to cause chaos. But he's your boss' cat and there's nothing you can do about it. But now the cats barely play with each other and you swear the mood got worse if Tim and Jon is in the same room.
The customers does not notice. But you do. Maybe you've been spending too much time with cats.
Martin has resorted to almost exclusively play with Annabelle, the spider that has taken a residence behind Martin's cage. Jonah has said to clean it up but no one actually did because you swear on your life that Martin will be sad if Annabelle isn't around anymore.
And no one really wants to make Martin sad.
Things got more and more intense until Jonah came back and picked Elias up.
You were tasked to clear out Elias' cage and pack up his things that were brought from Jonah's house. It was then you found Jon's and Tim's favorite toys hidden underneath his bed.
That motherfucker.
You decide not to tell Jonah about it but he glared at Elias on his way out. You swear he looks so smug at everything. Like his plans are working out.
Luckily, your mood is lifted a bit when an older gentleman came to adopt Not Sasha. His name is Jurgen and apparently he's also a regular on the cat cafe, just not on your shift. He looks so serene and you don't doubt that Not Sasha will have a peaceful life with him, poor girl looked so stressed watching two cats fight each other, one other cat mopes in the corner and one evil cat orchestrating all of this.
You give her one last boop on the nose before closing her carrier and send her away to her new home.
---
Things calmed down a bit after that, Jonah managed to get a hold of another cat in less than a month. You really don't know what his process of selection is. You just assumed that he spots a cat that he likes and if it's not owned by someone then it's free game for the cat cafe.
He showed up with an orange tabby which he named Melanie. What's up with Jonah and naming cats human names anyway? You think that Moonpie is a great name for her but you're just his employee.
But she's a real ferocious cat. Absolutely takes no shit from any other cats. Especially Jon.
Speaking of Jon, he seems like he's still at odds with Tim and he's just getting more and more stressed because of the stray cats that appears in the backyard. Two cats, one a snowshoe cat and the other a flamepoint siamese.
They must be hanging out here because Jonah has been feeding the strays in the alley. As much as they bothered Jon, you can't help but be fond of them and you know that Jonah has named them and it's only a matter of time before he takes them to the vet and make them a new addition to the gang.
You sigh and draw the curtains in the cattery to settle Jon a bit. He's been getting jumpier these days, even more than Martin.
Not that you can't see why. He's been getting into several bad streak of luck. First he dipped his paws into Jude's scalding coffee when she wasn't looking. Then his favorite cat shelf broke down because of the rusty screws and he fell down.
He's okay, because of course he is. He's a fucking cat.
But he's been real jumpy. Especially after Nikola visited and got attached with Jon. He didn't get hurt but he did got followed by a handsy toddler with a ringmaster onesie and loud squeaky shoes. You had to go over there to tell Nikola how to pet a cat without scaring them but there's only so much you can do when you have almost zero experience with toddlers.
Luckily his father, Gregor, came to the rescue and picked up the screaming toddler away from the stressed out cat. He apologized profusely for letting his eye off of his kid and quickly left the cafe.
You really hope Gregor will teach Nikola how to be more gentle with cats. They seem like a good bunch and you know he's been eyeing Tim for a while now. An outgoing cat will certainly fare better with toddlers than the more aloof one like Jon.
True to your prediction, Gregor came back a week later, carrying Nikola in one arm.
You can see Nikola's eyes lit up when she spotted Jon in the top shelf but didn't bolt out right away. Instead she looked up and slowly asked Gregor if she can go and play with the cats.
Gregor smiled and says that Nikola can play with Tim instead when they're back home.
You swear Nikola's eyes grew two times bigger and she started jostling around in Gregor's arm. Babbling something along the line of 'thank you, daddy' and 'i love you so much.'
Tim got in the carrier without much fuss and you stared at him fondly. The more cats that got adopted, the harder it gets for you to hand them off. But it must be done, it's for the good of the cats. Still you can't help but miss the time where it's just you, Sasha, Jon, Martin and Tim in the cattery, sneaking in a little nap when Jonah wasn't looking.
You hand him off to Gregor after he finished signing the papers and paying the adoption fee. Nikola coos at Tim and he purred back.
What a lively family they will make. Tim wouldn't have a shortage of affection from Nikola and Gregor. You're sure he will be happy with them.
---
Jonah remains predictable by showing up with two familiar cats. It's the stray cats that were hanging out in the backyard and terrified Jon shitless.
The snowshoe cat is named Basira and the siamese is named Daisy. Everyone decided that they're girlfriends because they're inseparable.
It's all fun and games until Jonah announced that he'll be on another trip with his husband. You fully expected them to drop off that evil cat Elias but instead they dropped off a big fluffy ragdoll with a permanent disinterested face named Peter.
"I know you all miss Elias," Jonah says as he petted Peter. "But he's coming with me on the trip and Peter keeps throwing a fuss when he's near Elias so we had to make a choice."
You honestly don't really care. As long as that evil cat's not back.
Or that's what you thought.
Peter has been singling out Martin ever since he's here. You swear you can see Martin going to play with the rest and then Peter will come along, block Martin off and then shepherd him to a corner to play with a toy by himself.
What is up with Jonah and evil cats?
You swear you're not imagining it and even if you lock Peter up in his cage, you'll see Martin walking to play with Melanie or Jon and then stop himself in his track, look at Peter's cage and then turned back to go sleep or play with Annabelle again.
You try to distract yourself by wrangling Melanie into a carrier and hand her off to Georgie, your co-worker who really bonded with Melanie since Jonah brought her in. You're really happy that Melanie found a home in this person who you knew loves cats very much and will treat her right. While you're not really close with Georgie, you know that she's really diligent and usually will be the first to know if a cat is feeling a little off or needs a vet. You have no doubt that Melanie is in good hands now.
---
This isolation of Martin goes on for days until Jon chased Martin down and very clearly displayed that he wants to play with Martin. It's all going great until Martin blatantly ignored Jon's effort of asking him out to play.
Why!? You thought. Martin has always been the most excited to play with Jon. What is it that Peter did that made him isolate himself like this?
Did Peter bring some kind of virus in here? Did he infect Martin? The routine health check-up says otherwise.
And worst of all, no one cared about this little problem you have.
"They're cats," your friends says, exasperated. "They do that."
No! They don't understand! Martin doesn't do that! He's this big loving cat who can make Jon play even when he's in the foulest mood ever.
But anyway it's just you versus Jonah's evil cat now.
You tried your best in getting Jon and Martin to play together but Martin just avoids Jon and Jon is usually off sitting on a windowsill with Daisy. Sulking.
This goes on for a little while more until Jonah came back to pick Peter up with Elias smugly walking in behind him wearing a harness and a leash that Jonah is holding.
Seeing that bald cat again makes your blood boil but you give your boss a smile and promised to take Peter out.
Or so you tought.
The moment Peter and Elias got a good look of each other, the hissing match began. Peter's fur got all fluffed up and he looks twice as big now and Elias, even though he's bald and looks the same, still hissed at the ragdoll.
This goes on for a while until Peter runs back and forcefully pushed Martin along with him. Just where the hell is this bastard taking Martin.
Just when you're about to go ahead and pick Peter up. Jon came barreling and attacked Peter.
What came next is a whole lot of yowling and yelling. Martin hid under a shelf and Peter got out of the fight with some bald spot in his previously pristine fur.
"That's it! I quit! And I'm taking Jon and Martin with me!"
You don't know when you yelled that but the whole shop was instantly quiet. Jonah's husband, Mordechai or something, managed to wrangle Peter to a carrier and get him out of the shop.
The process was surprisingly fast. Jonah wasn't really bothered with you quitting or losing Jon and Martin from the cafe. He's probably happy the cats that messed up his award-winning ragdoll cat is gone from his sight.
But now, you are heading home with two cat carriers in your hands.
You think about the first time you worked in the cafe and giggled a bit at the time when Martin purposefully sat in front of a door to let a stray dog in and the overly friendly dog spooked Jon a bit. Or when Jon dug up Martin's worm hole and got worms attached to his and Tim's fur and he had to pick them off one by one. Or when he found Martin in Jon's cage when he was feeling down.
These two cats have a lot of love in them, you know it. You relax a bit as you see both Jon and Martin dozing off in the carrier. You're really happy now that you can give them a better place to thrive and you will make sure that they are happy and very loved in your home.