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Jake flicks his knife and drops the body. He didn’t have his pistol when Khonshu came to him with another mission. There’s blood on his hands, and he’s only a little tempted to scrub them clean before Marc or Steven see it. He wipes the knife with the corpse’s clothes and tucks it back in his belt.
He has time. Neither are awake, so he’ll just finish up and go home.
“You are getting sloppy.”
Jake scoffs at Khonshu as he disposes of the body. “So what? I finished the job.”
“Your mind is not all here.”
His mind isn’t just his to do whatever. Not everything revolves around killing for Khonshu (and boy did that take a while to learn).
“I got the job done,” he reiterates, “It’s here enough.”
“Where else could it be?”
Khonshu doesn’t know that the others know about Jake, and he’d like to keep it that way. He doesn’t want them to get caught in this again. Keeping his two worlds separate is a must.
“Nowhere, I just…”
And maybe he should be more forceful with the separation, but he wants to go home and listen to Steven talk about how the Egyptians navigated the desert using stars or Marc about his adventures with Layla. Well, since they're asleep, maybe try and fail to solve Steven’s rubik's cube or stare at the fish all night.
Anything besides standing there next to Khonshu, killing because he’s told to.
A year ago, he would have considered himself soft. Now, he wants to say he’s content.
A shrill yowl snaps him into action. His knife is out, he hides behind the wall, and he creeps closer. He can feel Khonshu hovering behind him, but the bird doesn’t say anything.
It’s a cat. Jake lowers his knife and stares at it. What is it doing?
Its back is arched and its hisses loud. There’s another cat, unimpressed as it pushes past the first and eats what Jake assumes is its hard-won meal. The second cat is a lot bigger, and when the first tries to steal back some of the food, it fends it off easily. One swipe and the first is down.
Jake watches as the second takes the remains and saunters off. Despite the meal being big enough to share, there isn’t a trace left for the first.
Survival of the fittest, he’d say if he didn’t care. Except he does, and he blames Steven for that.
It’s as the cat climbs to its feet when it notices Jake. It launches back into its defensive stance, hissing at him with all its tiny strength.
“We done for the night?” he asks Khonshu. He doesn’t deign to answer, and Jake doesn’t have to check to know he’s gone.
Jake kneels down and holds out a hand. The cat takes a hesitant step forward, favoring one side. It stops just outside of his reach, and he doesn’t know whether that’s an invitation or a rejection.
“I’m not going to hurt you.”
It seems to understand since it doesn’t retreat when he approaches. The cat’s a traveler of the night, right? It’s his job as Khonshu’s (technical) avatar to protect it.
He picks it up. It’s so small and young. So easy to break.
Jake has no clue what he’s doing, and the cat is obviously hurt and hungry. The hour is late, so no animal centers are currently open. If he takes care of it, something is bound to go wrong.
So he does the next best thing. He goes home, cat in tow, and hands it off to Steven.
“Wow, okay, yeah. So you found a kitten while you were outside at 4am for some reason—”
“I was driving.”
“Driving, right,” Steven nods. “Nothing to do with the used and bloody knife in my belt.”
Jake winces and makes a mental note to toss it out. “Can you take care of it?”
“I don’t know, mate,” Steven says, yawning and holding up his arm parallel to the floor. The cat clings to his sleeve upside down and doesn’t seem intent on letting go. “I’m a fish dad, not a cat person.”
“It’s just until it gets better.”
Steven can’t see it that well from the angle, but considering its energy and maneuverability, it doesn’t look injured.
“Seems alright to me.”
“It’s not.”
In better lighting, the scratch is visible. It’s deep and red. No blood, it already licked itself clean. Other than that, it’s missing fur and malnutritioned.
Again, Steven can’t see it that well, but he’ll take Jake’s word for it.
“Oh.”
He sighs and shakes his arm to dislodge it. The cat dodges his attempts to catch it and lands on the floor on all fours. It scampers away, knocking down a chair and a pile of books.
Which starts a whole chain of collapsing shelves and scattered pages.
“I— Jake, why.”
“You act like I’m controlling it.”
“You brought it here,” Steven huffs easily, picking up after the cat. It sits on Marc’s drawer, on top of his jacket. It lifts its tail and—
“Nonono, don’t—! Oh my God.”
He swears, the cat is a smug little demon.
Jake stares at the defiled jacket with him in utter horror. Huh, considering he doesn’t bat an eye at the few horror movies Steven’s convinced him to watch, he didn’t think anything could elicit such a reaction.
He walks up to the jacket. It’s not ruined. It’s salvageable. Whether he wants to touch it, well…
“You… insolent mog!” There are actual insults Steven can use, but he isn’t going to curse a cat for doing cat things. Even if it is making his night hellish. “You’re lucky Marc isn’t awake to—”
“To what?”
“Holy shit, Marc.”
“H-Heyyy, Marc!”
“You’re lucky I’m not awake to what?”
Steven turns away from the jacket and stands in the way of the reflection. “Nothing!”
Marc stares at him from the fish tank, arms crossed and eyebrows raised. He follows the trail of destruction and lands on whatever Steven is hiding behind him. “Righhht.”
“It’s nothing bad. Jake and I were just, uh…”
“He was showing me how to solve a rubik’s cube.”
“That— Yup. We were doing that. Rubik’s cubing.”
Marc smiles, and for a sweet moment, Steven thinks he bought it. “Where’s the rubik’s cube, then?”
“Why are you like this?”
“Me? I just want to know what you two are hiding.”
“It’s nothing. Really—”
The cat chooses that moment to jump on top of the tank. Marc doesn’t look up. He just looks at Steven’s reaction and slowly covers his face.
“Tell me you didn’t.”
“I didn’t,” Steven says too quickly. “Jake did.”
“Wowww, way to throw me under the bus.”
“Well, you did.”
Marc chuckles breathily, face still hidden as the cat wanders the lid of the tank and paws at the swimming fish. “It’s too early for this.”
“Go back to sleep, then.”
“And wake up to cat piss and scratched up furniture? Not a chance.”
Steven sucks in audibly, and Marc squints at him.
“You’ve gotta be joking.”
“We’ll clean it up—”
“Actually,” Steven cuts in, holding out the word as if he’s worried it would offend someone, “I have work tomorrow. I need some sleep, so it’ll just be you tonight.”
Jake snaps his mouth shut. His face is awfully blank as Steven moves to take the cat off the tank.
“Sorry. Donna put me on the early shift again. I can’t just be a tour guide, no. I have to open the gift shop too.”
“I can’t take care of it alone.”
“You won’t be alone, but you do have to take responsibility.”
“I’ll hurt it.”
“It’s a cat,” Steven quips, putting it down. “It’s more likely to hurt you.”
“But—”
“Trust yourself on this,” Marc says. “It seems to like you, at least.”
“Yeah, but… What do I feed it? I can’t— I don’t know how to take care of something like that.”
Steven shuffles over to his room. He pulls out his phone from his drawer and searches it up.
“Besides cat food, there’s cooked poultry, cheese, bananas, oatmeal, eggs, and ooh, spinach. We have all of that. Except the first one. We have raw chicken.”
He hands off control to Jake, who stumbles to take it.
“I’m sure you can figure something out. Now if you’ll excuse me, I”— he yawns and drifts back— “am going to catch some zeds. Laters.”
“Night.”
So, his plan backfired and the cat’s back under his care. Sure. That’s fine.
Jake glances at the tank to where Marc’s watching the cat watch the fish. “You gonna sleep too?”
“Someone has to keep you from burning the apartment down.”
“Your faith in me is astounding.”
Marc snorts and goes quiet. Jake starts on cooking some chicken (there is no way in hell he’s feeding the cat spinach). It’s easy enough. He doesn’t have to add any seasoning or worry about undercooking it.
“Hey, Jake?”
“What?”
“I have a lot of faith in you.”
Jake puts the plate of chicken on the floor and raises a brow. Marc seems serious, so he doesn’t crack a joke in response. “Okay.”
“So, you know, if there’s anything you want to talk about…”
He must have noticed the knife. Jake hasn’t tossed it out yet. “You mean about Khonshu?”
“That, uh, that too, I guess.”
Too?
“Look, I know you’ve been around for a while, and my childhood wasn’t the… It wasn’t the best.”
Yeah, Jake knows. He was there.
“So if there’s anything she did to you, maybe we can, I don’t know, talk it out? Or what happened in Mosul. Or… Or in Egypt.” Marc clears his throat. “Steven wants us to talk, but he doesn’t really get it all.”
“Yeah? Did you talk it out?”
He shrugs. “Some of it.”
The cat ambles over to the food and lets Jake scritch its ears. It even purrs. How can it be so open after what it’s been through?
“Does it help?”
“A little.”
That’s about as good as it can get, he supposes. “Maybe one day.”
A year ago, he would have considered himself weak. Now?
Marc hums and nods at the cat. “Are you naming it?”
Naming something makes it personal, and Jake doesn’t know if the cat should be so close when they hardly have time to care for it. When he can hardly care for it.
He’d meant to treat it enough so it can go back out there and… what, continue its everyday struggle to survive? It’s so small, so young, and the world has so many dangers.
“You’re okay with keeping it?”
“I mean, not really, but you were smiling just now.”
Oh, was he?
“So if you want to keep it, I’m all for it. Just make sure it doesn’t shit on my stuff again.”
The cat bobs its head at the fish tank as if proud of the statement. Jake almost laughs at the face Marc makes in retaliation.
“Yeah, we wouldn’t want it shitting on that scarf Layla made you.”
“Hey, don’t give it any ideas.”
He does laugh this time.
He’s…
He’s happy. It wouldn’t have been a thought a year ago, but now, he’s happy. Truly.
And not just the short kind he gets from driving around or the odd glee of taking a bastard’s life. It’s a pure sense of happiness, of peace, and Jake finds himself at a loss.
He pets the cat and it leans into his touch. His hand brushes against a sticky patch of fur and he gently lifts it to see better.
It needs a bath. But don’t cats hate water?
Jake takes the cat to the sink in the kitchen and gently dabs a wet towel against the dirt and grime. It fidgets and hisses, but doesn’t jump out of his grasp, so he counts that as a win.
“See? You’ve got this. The cat’s alive and the kitchen’s still intact.”
Yup, there’s that astounding faith.
“I’ll be going then. See you in the morning.”
“G’night. And Marc?”
He’s not in the reflection but Jake can feel him lingering somewhere.
“Thank you. For the offer.”
He takes a second to reply, relief clear in his “Anytime, Jake.”
And then he’s gone.
Okay, so now Jake’s alone. It’s just him and the cat.
He sets up some old papers for it to do its business and sits on the couch, making a list of things to get after Steven’s shift with the help of the internet, the cat lying close at his side.
Alright, he’s keeping it. Apparently. Cool.
“What should I call you?”
The cat rolls and snuggles against his leg. Jake sets his list aside, adjusting the cat so it’s resting on his stomach. It curls up, its breathing steady, and Jake wonders what he could have done to gain the little thing’s trust. He’s pretty sure his hands still smell like blood.
“How about, um, Leo. Because you’re a cat.”
It doesn’t sound quite right, though. But he’s not going to name it after a food or something that ends in ‘y.’ He’s not a history buff like Steven, so no ruler of old (looking at you, Augustus and the Queen of Sheba). He’s not planning on using the same sort of inspiration he used for his own name either.
He tips his head back, eyes closed in thought.
Picking a name is surprisingly difficult.
“Or, you know, insolent mo—”
He stops and mouths the word.
“Sol. Like the sun.”
Fuck no, that sounds so dumb.
“Actually, nevermi—”
The cat decides it’s no longer tired and starts running around the room. It knocks over yet another stack of books Jake doesn’t have the energy to pick up.
He gets up anyway because this is his responsibility now. He brought it home, he’s gotta deal.
“Insolent mog it is.”