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There is someone slumped against Milt’s door. Kerry thinks it’s a man, maybe a few years older than him. He’s pale, and way too thin, like he hasn’t had a good meal in ages. His skin is covered in bruises, some old, some new, and Kerry recognizes the kind: he’s been beaten up. He is naked except for a pair of ratty jeans, and Kerry would bet he lost the rest of his clothes in the fights that got him those many bruises. There is blood at the corner of his mouth, and tickling out of his right ear. Kerry is fascinated by the ear, because it’s not a human ear, it’s a cat ear. Covered in fur black as the stranger’s hair, Kerry would have missed it, if not for the blood. It twitches weakly as rain falls on it, a sluggish reflex. There are other particular features on the stranger, like his tail, limp and lifeless between his legs. The boy is sagged sideways, allowing Kerry to see where the boy’s skin slowly transforms into fur as it forms the tail. Last notable thing is his left arm: it’s a heavy piece of cyberware, military grade, crudely sewn into his flesh. The chrome flashes with the neon’s sign flickering above them that says there is a ripper’s clinic here.
Kerry lives in the building above the clinic with two of his older sisters, and the boy is literally on his way to access the back entrance, which he prefers to use. Crouching in front of the young man, Kerry extends an arm to brush the tip of the fur-covered ear. It twitches again, evading his intrusive touch.
Biting his lower lip, Kerry makes a decision.
Five minutes later, Kerry is back with Milt, the ripperdoc.
“Damn”, the man whispers and it doesn’t reassure Kerry.
“Is he gonna be alright?”
“I dunno. Help me get him inside.”
The boy is heavier than he looks, so it’s panting and heaving that they push him on the medbed. Diagnostics start to run as soon as Milt turns on the scanner. Kerry looks at the monitor and the cat person intermittently.
Milt mutters about dehydration and undernourishment, about broken ribs and concussions. He straps an IV to the stranger and injects a cocktail of meds and stim to go with the fluids.
Then, the doc starts looking at the arm.
“Arasaka,” he says, more to himself than to Kerry. Hanging around his neck are dog tags, or well — cat tags, Kerry supposes.
“RJL-20.103”,” the doc reads.
“Is that a code or something?" Kerry asks.
"Designation. Company and platoon, probably,” he explains while pointing to the two numbers separated by a dot, “and then his personal ID.”
“No name?”
“Don’t think they give them names...”
Kerry lowers his eyes. Cat people were first engineered by the army, to combine human intelligence with the agility, strength and endurance of big cats. Later, when the war was “won”, they sold the patent to interested private corps, which birthed them for commercial purposes, mostly for the pleasure business.
The boy is obviously military oriented, the tags are a clue if the arm wasn’t sufficient, and if he’s here alone, then that means he escaped.
“Deserted” would have been the term for any normal soldier, but cats are not citizens, they are property of the army, or the Corp which birthed them. They don’t get the same rights, their purpose is to live and die on the battlefield. There is an entire army corp with just cats, and they get deployed in the most dangerous zones. They are used as cannon fodder, and stay simple soldiers all their short lives since the officers' positions are given to humans.
Kerry watches as Milt tenderly moves a lock of hair away from the boy’s cheek, and remembers the doc’s son enlisted some years ago, and that Milt has had no news ever since. Kerry doesn’t remember how the conversation went, but he knows Milt and his son, Cody, parted in anger. People that enlist nowaday are guaranteed a good position, the field work is mostly done by cat people, so ambitious young folk try their chance at war, thinking themselves safe from harm in command tents. The doc was opposed to his son enlisting, but Cody felt the army would give him better, and easier prospects than staying here to learn his father’s practice.
Milt sighs, says they now have to wait and see, and goes to fetch a blanket. Kerry watches over the stray. He is filthy, but Kerry can tell he would be real pretty usually. They almost always are, with genes handpicked for their purpose. That one got long dark lashes, the echoes of a smirk on his thin lips, and the beginning of a beard. He can’t be over twenty.
Kerry brushes his fingers behind the cat’s ear, stroking the soft fur, fascinated by the creature resting on the bed.
Kerry fell asleep on the couch, lured by the warmth and the regular beeps of the medical equipment of the clinic. He came back after dinner to see if their rescue was awake, but was informed by Milt there had been no change. He practiced on his guitar for a while, and then the tiredness of the day caught up with him. Since he turned eighteen, his sisters have asked Kerry to help them with the rent, saying he’s now a man and has to do his share: he can’t lay around all day just playing guitar, since that doesn’t pay for food. Yet. Kerry has big dreams.
Dreams that are violently interrupted by an aborted shout, followed by a growl. He opens his eyes in time to see the catboy jump/fall from the med bed, tearing up at the tube Milt linked into him and kicking the equipment around in his wild thrashing.
“Hey, wow, calm down!” Kerry speaks while getting up. Intense dark eyes zero on him before the young catboy crouches, ears flattening on his skull. He stills, body brimming with tension except for his tail which is swishing slowly behind him. Kerry raises his hands in the air.
“It’s ok, you’re safe here. You’re in a ripperdoc clinic.”
The catboy’s head wipes around, maybe searching for the doc, or just finally realizing where he is. It doesn’t relax him in the slightest, but he looks less ready to jump at Kerry.
Milt appears in the doorframe, probably alerted by the ruckus. When the stray sees him, he finally relaxes and rises slowly to his feet. His ears perk up, although one stays bent toward Kerry, as if keeping him in check while his attention is focused on the doc.
“You’re awake, good.”
Milt comes forward, outwardly relaxed. The catboy follows him with his eyes.
“I can remove this,” the doc indicates, pointing to the tube and cable he linked to his patient for diagnosis.
After a moment of hesitation, the young soldier leans against the med bed and extends his arms. Milt removes the IV, and the wire connecting to the chrome arm.
“How do you feel?” he asks, but gets no reply.
The catboy is looking at Milt very intently and Kerry even catches him taking a sniff. He swallows, glances at Kerry and nods to himself like he’s reached a conclusion.
He hops on the bed and takes off his left boot. Kerry sees him manipulate the heel until a small compartment opens. He tips the boot and something falls into his waiting palm. Too curious, Kerry approaches and the cat’s gaze pins him for a second before deeming him as no threat. The experience is still jarring, but Kerry is no chicken so he comes closer anyway.
It’s another set of dog tags, and these ones are more classical, displaying the soldier’s last name, the initials of his name, blood type, the acronym “USMC” and a religious preference (which indicates “none”).
The catboy hands it to Milt, who looks at the tags with shock. Kerry takes a better look and feels his stomach fall, because the last name reads Nauman. The doc takes the little metal plates with trembling fingers and reads the rest of the data. His mouth parts around a silent sob, and it’s all the confirmation Kerry needs.
Cody was about five years older than Kerry, and he dated one of his sisters for a while, so the young man remembers him fondly. He had no musical sense, but he could talk about the history of music for ages. He was one of the coolest guys Kerry ever knew and his death feels strange. Like an impossibility.
On the bed, the catboy looks sad. His head is bowed, eyes hidden from view but his ears and tail telegraph his emotion clearly. Beside the obvious grief, there is something else on the stranger's face. Regrets, anger, guilt… A mix of all three. It distracts Kerry from his own emotions until he hears Milt’s harsh breathing.
Both young men catch the tears on the doc’s face, silently running as he continues to look at the tags, and they tense, unprepared to deal with such display of emotion. The soldier in particular looks absolutely terrified, eyes widening and panicking as he finds himself caught in the grief of a father.
“Thank you,” Milt breathes, barely hiding the sob in his voice. “Thank you for bringing me this I… How…” He stops, closes his eyes and turns away. “I’m sorry,” he mutters, before practically running out of the room.
Kerry and the catboy look at him go, helpless to help. Kerry feels tears stinging at the back of his eyes and blinks furiously. The news hasn’t really sunk yet, but it feels like a gaping hole opened inside his chest.
He is pulled out of his grief by the stray putting his shoe back on. Kerry looks at him doing it with empty eyes, and it’s only when the young man jumps on his feet that he reacts.
“You’re going?”
The other nods warily, looking at him with suspicion.
“You can’t go yet, Milt… Milt will want to talk to you, you… What happened? How did it happen?”
The cat looks distinctly uncomfortable, his face is closed off but his ears are back to being flat against his skull and his tail is rigid between his legs. He eyes the door and tension fills his body gradually, like he is seriously thinking about bolting out.
Kerry catches his wrist tightly, making the catboy twist toward him with a snarl. Startled, the other boy released him with a gasp.
“Sorry,” he mutters as fresh tears rise to his waterline. He lowers his head to hide them, chest feeling tight, like the rejection is breaking something inside of him.
The cat sighs and fidgets before circling back to the med bed, hovering uncertainly. The strange feeling inside Kerry settles, and he looks back to where Milt disappeared. He lives upstairs with his wife, and Kerry supposes he will need time alone with her to process the news.
The two young men look at each other in awkward silence, when suddenly, the catboy’s stomach grumbles loudly. Kerry smiles faintly and turns to take his guitar back.
“We should find you something to eat, c’mon.”
He gestures for the other boy to follow, and after a moment of hesitation, he steps behind Kerry.
The catboy took a tour of the flat while Kerry reheated the pasta his sister Emma made earlier. She works the night shift as a dispatcher for the trauma team’s med center, so she cooked before going to work. Kerry ate with his oldest sister Malika while the stray was still sleeping, eager to get back to watching him. The moment the leftovers are served on a plate and put in front of the stranger, he seems to forget all about his wariness and digs into the plate with abandon. It’s a bit obscene to watch, but Kerry can’t tear his eyes away; he really must have been starved. After a few bites, he slows down and Kerry can tell it’s at the price of a great effort but he seems to know that eating too fast will just make him sick. He frequently glances at his host, and during such instances, Kerry gets a better look at his eyes. They are of a rich dark brown, but the pupil is slit like one of a pet cat, and the young guitarist feels a bit like a mouse when that gaze stares at him intensely.
Kerry drinks his Nicola in silence, and can’t help but note that the catboy won’t touch his, but he drinks the tap water from the jug next to the can eagerly. In silence, Kerry observes his various bruises and wounds. Some look really gross, still an angry red, even though they can’t be that recent. Those around the arms are the most impressive: the skin there looks tender and sensitive, but not in a good way. He is also really dirty, with stripes of dry sweat visible on his torso, and he smells really bad too.
“What about a shower?” Kerry offers once the plate has been mostly cleared. The catboy tenses, looks around, seems to weigh his options before nodding with a displeased expression. Obviously, he’s not super keen on the idea, but he’s also pragmatic: he doesn’t know when the opportunity will present itself again.
Kerry shows him the bathroom before going to his room to fetch clothes: a sweatpant and an oversized shirt. Even if the cat is really underweight, his frame speaks of military training and his shoulders are wider than the average male of his age. When Kerry reappears in the bathroom, the other boy hasn't moved an iota, struck looking at his reflection and touching his jaw length black hair like he doesn’t recognise it.
“Here, that should suit you. C’mon, I’ll show you how the shower works.”
He gets the water on slightly hotter than he prefers, and steps back when he thinks everything is set. Turning around, he loses what he wanted to say, looking at the catboy standing naked under the shitty light. He is fucking hung!
Kerry’s mouth opens in surprise and he can’t tear his eyes from the tableau; they really make them perfect. The stray smiles slyly when he catches him looking and his expression deepens when Kerry blushes and averts his gaze promptly.
“Ok, I’ll leave you to it,” the host declares, passing by his guest, only to be yanked back and pushed into the shower. He stammers, winces when his head collides with the tiles, and sputters when the hot stream hits him in the face.
When he finds his bearings enough to open his eyes and takes stock of the situation, the catboy is still holding him fast against the wall of the shower, and he growls when Kerry tries to disentangle himself.
The sound prompts a shiver to run down Kerry’s spine, and he forces himself to relax, hands going lax on his sides. They look at each other for a moment before the catboy relaxes somewhat, but he still holds Kerry firmly against the wall.
“Ok,” the young man breathes, “ok I’m staying,” he says and the other nods like he’s happy he made himself clear. Kerry doesn’t really understand what happened, but sure, he can stay here, it’s just super uncomfortable in his wet jeans.
Meanwhile, the boy is back to looking at the door, like he expects to be attacked any minute and Kerry finally understands: he’s here to watch the stranger’s back while he is in a vulnerable position.
“Can I just get rid of my clothes?” he asks and after a glance and a moment of hesitation, the cat steps back.
Kerry keeps his boxers on like they are a last barrier against the strangeness of the situation, and pours shampoo in his hands before slowly raising them to his guest’s hair, stopping with a questioning gaze.
Again, there is a moment of hesitation before the young ex-soldier lowers his head a fraction and Kerry starts massaging his scalp. He keeps an eye on the door for a while, but before long, Kerry sees his shoulders drop in relaxation. Huffing out a small laugh, Kerry continues his massage and even chances to rub the boy’s nape.
It takes a small minute, but Kerry suddenly realizes there is a soft vibration under his fingers and he stills. With the shower running, he can’t hear it but he is pretty sure the boy is purring. He starts his massage again, trying to act like nothing happened, persuaded that remarking on it would make the cat stop.
Slowly, the boy raises his head and lets the water wash the shampoo away, allowing Kerry to wash the rest of his upper body. His gaze looks hazy, a far cry from the previous tension, even if he jumps a bit everytime fingers brush against his scars.
Shyly, Kerry stops when he reaches his guest’s waist, and the other boy seems to get out of his trance. He smirks and raises a challenging eyebrow at Kerry, who colors even more with a mix of embarrassment and anger. He accepts the challenge and wash the rest of his guest’s body with jerkier movements than before. He takes mean pleasure in grabbing his cock a bit too tight and even stroking it once under the pretense of cleaning it. The catboy’s expression is smug, even if he blink and jerks forward when Kerry gets to his cock.
“There, all clean,” the host declares with a glare, taking the shower head to rinse him, and making sure to direct the stream right in his face. The ex-soldier sputters and growls, but Kerry can tell he’s not really angry. They get out of the shower and dry themselves in silence.
With a head movement, Kerry brings the catboy to his room.
“This is my sisters’ room. They’re not here. Emma is working and Malika is out with her boyfriend,” he explains as they pass the door in the corridor.
At the mention of Malika’s name, the boy perks up.
“Yeah,” Kerry says sadly, “she and Cody were together for a while. He told you about her?”
The catboy nods and continues looking at the door with something of a sad expression.
“You liked him?”
A shrug, but Kerry can tell they were close, maybe a bit like what Cody used to have with Kerry. The thought brings a fresh wave of grief to Kerry, who swallows thickly and continues to his room. He will deal with the emotions later, he doesn't want to right now.
In Kerry’s small bedroom, the two guitars he owns have a prime position. The one he had downstairs is his most recent acquisition. His sisters think he bought it thanks to doing more hours at Caliente, but in truth Kerry klepped it. His sisters understand nothing about music, so they didn’t recognise the quality of the instrument. The other one belonged to his father, also a good brand, though that one is really vintage. Both are electric, and there is an amp waiting in between.
The cat immediately takes an interest now that he is not in survival mode, and Kerry wonders if he can play. He sits on his bed and pats the spot next to him before grabbing his father’s axe.
The boy sits gingerly next to him, still taking in the rest of the room, but his attention zeroes on Kerry when he starts playing. The first notes of Depeche Mode’s Enjoy The Silence float in the quiet of the flat, and despite the amp being set to medium, it sounds really loud.
The boy listens intently, ears perking and tail tense as he looks at Kerry’s fingers on the guitar’s neck.
“You know how to play?” Kerry asks, never stopping to play.
A swish of tail, and then a tiny nod.
“You know that one?”
Both ears twitch back, like he is hesitating again.
“Take the other one if you wanna,” Kerry offers and that seems to decide his guest. He grabs the axe and takes his time admiring the quality of the work. Kerry can tell he is impressed and he grins, recognising someone who knows his guitars.
When he starts playing, it’s obvious the cat is skilled: his technique is good, the rhythm is perfect, and he even adds some personal style to it. Kerry is mesmerized, and he’s clearly not prepared for what happens next.
The boy starts to sing.
His voice is low and rough, like he hasn’t spoken in a month or two, and it waivers as he tries to find the right pitch. It’s unequal, and the process looks painful but he plows through it and it’s the most beautiful thing Kerry has ever heard.
As the chorus nears, Kerry snaps out of it and starts playing again, even joining him in the singing. When they finish the song, they both linger on the last notes and Kerry can’t help but grin.
“You can speak.”
The catboy smiles smugly and winks.
“I’m Kerry,” the host says, realizing they never exchanged names.
“I know. Cody said you were like a little brother to him.”
Kerry looks down and bites his lip.
“Yeah, he really was the big brother I never had.”
His voice is rough again, sorrow making the words difficult to get out. The cat shifts on the bed, uncomfortable. When Kerry glances at him, he seems lost in thought, sorrow threatening to take him under, too.
“He was my captain. Only decent officer ‘round. He really cared about us.”
His voice is but a whisper, and when he finishes, his tail swish back and forth nervously, like he’s said too much.
“Do you have a name?” Kerry asks next, trying to bury the sadness.
The boy shrugs.
“RJL, that’s how they referred to me. But Cody called me Johnny.”
“Johnny,” Kerry repeats and the other young man stares at him intensely, a small smile lifting his mouth. The host’s expression rises to match, and the smiles transform into grins, reflecting the elation they both feel for reasons they can’t yet explain.
The moment is interrupted by the doorbell chiming. It’s Milt, asking to speak to Johnny. Taking a deep breath, the catboy accepts, ears low and tail curled around his leg. Two hours later, Johnny climbs the fire escape to knock on Kerry’s window, tells him Milt wants him to stay with him for now, until they can make him papers by taking advantage of Night City liberal regulations about cat persons. For lack of a better option, Johnny said yes, he would stay, but just for a while.
Kerry was already in bed, tossing and turning, so he scoots back to give some space to his new friend, and ignores his heart when it races as the other boy lies down next to him. They talk until the wee hours of morning, avoiding the painful subjects and concentrating on music, until Johnny falls asleep under Kerry’s attentive gaze.
In hindsight, Kerry will know this is the moment he fell in love. But right now, he knows nothing about the pain and trials they’re gonna face, together and alone. He knows nothing about what Johnny will accomplish for cat people and the world, and how extreme he will get to achieve his goals. He knows nothing about the depth of the emotions he will experience for Johnny, and the destructive devotion he will endure for him. He knows nothing about how the intensity of his love will be matched, though nearly never acknowledged by his friend. He knows nothing about how dark some days will get, but that in the end, it will be worth it. For now, Kerry just watches Johnny sleep, watches his ears twitch as he dreams, his tail curled around his friend’s waist possessively.
Vows are spoken
To be broken
Feelings are intense
Words are trivial
Pleasures remain
So does the pain
Words are meaningless
And forgettable
All I ever wanted
All I ever needed
Is here in my arms
Words are very
Unnecessary
They can only do harm