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“I can’t believe you’d do this to me,” Gerry said flatly. “I can’t believe you’d do this to us."
Jon rolled his eyes as he finished filling out the paperwork. It wasn’t until he caught sight of the faint alarm on the employee’s face that he realized how that might sound from the outside. “He doesn’t mean that,” he informed her.
I do, Gerry mouthed silently over his shoulder.
“He agreed to this,” Jon said dryly. “He spent the last weekend reading customer reviews on various food brands—”
“You said you liked the spreadsheet I made.”
“I did, very much,” Jon assured him. “His exact words to me this morning were come on, Jon, time to pick up your new girlfriend—”
The woman behind the counter laughed, her fears assuaged. “That’s good. You wouldn’t believe how many couples think it’s a good idea to ‘surprise’ each other with animals.” She took the completed paperwork from him, beaming. “Congratulations on your new family member.”
From within the carrier, the Soothsayer stared out at them with lamplike yellow eyes.
Gerry stared back at her, fighting a smile. “Hello, homewrecker.”
“I’m just saying, this is such a you thing to do,” Gerry remarked fondly. He was sprawled on the couch, black hair spilling over the cushions every which way as he watched the proceedings. Jon was sitting crosslegged in the middle of the carpet, treat bag in hand. He’d already set out several of them in front of him, and the Soothsayer had even deigned to eat one, but at the moment she was far more interested in investigating the cat tree by the window.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Jon asked, carefully tossing a treat closer. The Soothsayer dropped back to all fours and snatched it up eagerly.
“It means you could’ve gone for Snowflake,” Gerry replied. “Remember Snowflake? The one that tried to lie in both our laps at the same time? You could practically hear the wind whistling through her empty skull?”
“Don’t be mean to Snowflake, Gerry.”
“I’m just saying!” he said again. “Idiot sweetheart cat was right there, and here you are with a cat with the soul of a crotchety old man. Not a criticism, it's just very you."
“The Soothsayer is a lady,” Jon retorted in the snottiest voice he could manage. The effect was ruined when the lady in question climbed halfway through a hole in the tree and sat there, tail whisking lazily until Jon cooed. “And she’s only four, you egg.”
“I said she had the soul of a crotchety old man.”
“It’s beside the point anyway,” Jon went on. “I talked to some of the workers. Snowflake’s been at the shelter for two months, and she already had three potential owners lined up. The Soothsayer didn’t have any, and that’s after… well, you know.”
“Yeah, I know.”
The Soothsayer, satisfied with her thorough inspection of the cat tree, trotted over to investigate the treats. Finding them to her liking, she consented to fifteen full seconds of careful petting before she wandered off to explore the rest of her new home. Her path took her past the couch, close enough for Gerry to reach out to her. His fingertips brushed one of her battered ears. She didn’t dodge away, but nor did she pause for more attention.
“She’ll settle in alright,” Jon said fondly. “She just needs to go at her own pace.”
“I wish I could be surprised about your cat choices,” Georgie remarked. “But… I’m not.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Jon asked, zooming in on the video recorder. The Soothsayer perched at the window, lashing her tail and clicking at the crow on the windowsill. The crow stared back, unmoved.
“That you have the same taste in cats that you do in men.”
Jon stared at her. “What.”
“Excuse me?” Gerry called from the kitchen.
The Soothsayer, Gerry decided, was not a touchy-feely cat.
She did not trot over with eager meows whenever he or Jon walked into the room. Nor did she readily crawl into anyone’s lap or rub up on anyone’s leg or make those paw pressing motions that Jon insisted were called “making biscuits”. She allowed them to pet her once in a while, but Gerry always got the impression that petting was something she allowed and tolerated rather than enjoyed.
There were two exceptions. The first was that time Gerry woke up to find her curled up in the crook of his arm, and it barely counted because Gerry had to go and ruin it by sneaking a belly rub. (One scratched hand later, he knew not to do it again.)
The second was the time she went up to him and rubbed her chin on him while he was reading. He wasn’t sure if that one counted either, because the eager round of Googling he did afterward informed him that it wasn’t an affection thing so much as a “this is mine, nobody else touch it” thing.
He mught have considered it high praise all the same, if she hadn't done the same thing to his book, the leg of the couch, and the toilet.
“Not everyone likes draping themselves over the people they love as much as you do,” Jon said when he brought this up. “Cats can have likes and dislikes too.”
Gerry, currently draped over Jon, gave a contented hum. “Can’t relate. She doesn’t know what she’s missing.”
“She doesn’t seem like she knows the difference,” Jon observed. In the middle of the floor, the Soothsayer was attacking a puzzle toy with what Gerry could only describe as laser-like focus. Her ears were pricked forward, her tail switching to and fro.
“Yeah, that cat is having the time of her life .”
Jon hummed in agreement. “With a toy I picked.”
“I picked the treats we put in it.”
“True.”
In spite of Jon's best efforts, it didn’t really sink in until one afternoon a month after they got her. Jon was off at work, researching a statement that could be Vast-flavored if it wasn’t a fake, and Gerry was working off his nerves by painting in the living room.
He was doing that a lot more these days—painting and drawing, for himself for once. His more recent artwork had a noticeable dearth of eyes. At the moment he was attempting to paint a horse from memory—he couldn’t quite recall why, maybe Jon bet him that he couldn’t? Horses were a bitch to draw—when the sound of purring drew his attention.
The Soothsayer was stretched out on the couch, on Gerry’s usual spot no less, belly on full display. She was fluffy as anything, her formerly ragged tabby fur now grown out and groomed. As Gerry watched, the Soothsayer blinked slowly at him and stretched, claws shooting out and catching on the couch cushions.
It hit him, then. This wasn’t the only room in the flat, nor was it the only room with things for her. She had several cat beds strewn about the flat, along with the actual human bed where she also liked to sleep and steal pillows. But here she was, in the living room where he was.
“So you don’t like to be touched so much,” he remarked. “But you do like to hang out.”
The Soothsayer rolled over on her back, flashing more of that tempting belly.
“Alright, I see how it is. I can respect that.”
He abandoned the horse—it wasn’t going well anyway. With a fresh page in front of him, he took a second look at the cat.
Always better to have a reference.
“Careful around the cat,” Jon cautioned, the first time Martin came to visit their flat. “She isn’t aggressive, but she tends to be skittish around strangers and she doesn’t like to be touched without warning.”
“Thanks for the warning.” Martin stepped inside, carefully wiping his feet on the mat. “And for, you know, having me.”
“We’ve got another friend coming as well,” Jon informed him. “Her name’s Georgie—you’ll like her, I think.”
No sound heralded the Soothsayer’s arrival; she simply appeared around the corner, tail raised and bent at the tip.
“Yes, hello, dear,” Jon greeted her, letting her pass unhindered. “Please be polite, he’s a guest.”
Martin held carefully still at the Soothsayer’s approach. “What do I do?”
“Just let her smell you,” Jon replied. “If she doesn’t like you, she’ll just leave.”
“Alright then,” Martin murmured. Slowly he stooped, offering a hand for the cat to sniff. The Soothsayer bypassed her usual greeting and headbutted his knuckles instead. “Oh!” Startled, Martin gave her a pet, and was rewarded by a rusty purr.
“You’re an absolute menace,” Jon complained to the cat. “You’ve made a liar out of me.”
“It’s not her fault!” Gerry called from another room. “You just had to go and civilize her.”
A laughing Martin crouched down, and the Soothsayer purred her way through a full minute of gentle attention.