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There has never been a time in Andrew Minyard’s life that has felt like this. Imagine, if you will, a collection of carefully curated and cared for plants, accompanying you through the years, the ups and downs, the highs and lows. Through the first paycheck in Columbia to the windowsill of Fox Tower and then to the apartment of here and now, a home big enough for he and Neil and more besides. Imagine, too, a cat named Sir and another one called King, both part of the family but both demons all the same.
Andrew admits to having been excited at the idea of having cats. He’d looked forward to warm fur and intelligent eyes, rumbling purrs and the satisfaction that comes from taking care of another living being.
However…
“King!” Since no one is home, Andrew is free to raise his voice, and it comes out higher than he will ever admit to being able to go as he lunges towards one of his fucking cats, all of that stickball practice in the goal actually being useful for once (will miracles ever cease) as he barely manages to catch the tiny potted succulent before it crashes and breaks against the floor.
King with all of his black fur and large, limpid eyes looks to be some sort of sentient, eldritch void, blinking back innocently before raising a paw as if to swipe at what’s in Andrew’s hands. He takes an automatic step back, clutching his plant to his chest protectively. From his seat on the dresser, King sits back and lets out a plantitive meow, acting pitiful.
Andrew is not so pathetic as to be taken in by his lies. (He’s not Neil.)
Taking a breath and letting his heart calm down, Andrew finds a new place for his succulent somewhere on the windowsill next to the salvia. He turns around and glares at the criminal.
“A plague upon my house,” he mutters to himself testily, wondering again just why he had gone along with Neil’s suggestion of adopting these cats. Could it have been the big blue eyes, the way his voice had risen in excitement, how he’d taken Andrew’s hands in his and asked that familiar question, their question?
No. Of course not. He’d obviously gone along with it because Andrew is a fucking idiot. (He’s learned this lesson more and more over the years. It may have started with Neil, but he’s begrudgingly accepted the fact that he is a fool all the same.)
Suddenly, there’s the sound of glass crashing against the polished, clean wood of Andrew’s well maintained apartment. He slowly turns around; there, scrabbling gracelessly against the wall as she tries not to fall down is Sir, the culprit of the aforementioned noise, and the one he had assumed was sleeping in the living room. Well, not any more.
He looks down. Ah. There’s the remains of what used to be a beautiful and healthy succulent, now ruined and left to rot amongst the debris of its former home. Potting soil and shards of glass are scattered around like the last remnants of Andrew’s patience. He inhales. Keeps inhaling. Tries not to be devastated yet again by another act of aggravated assault on his flora. He fails.
“Demons,” he hisses to them. He’s absolutely losing it, and soon it won’t be his problem anymore. “Just wait until your favorite gets home. We’ll see who’s laughing then.”
Does he sound unhinged talking to his cats like this? Undoubtedly. Does he care?
Is Aaron taller than him? (The answer is no.)
After shooing the gremlins away and closing the bedroom door, Andrew cleans up the scene of the crime as well as the body of the innocent succulent. He quickly re-pots it in a spare lying underneath his bed (no doubt one of the cats rolled it there) and spends his remaining time alone scheming.
Usually he’d be in the kitchen making dinner around now, but obviously there are more important matters to attend to. It’s fine, he’ll just order pizza or something. Neil’s had worse.
“What’s wrong?” Neil asks him, beside him on the couch as they have their shameless takeout dinner while watching TV. King is curled into his side, still vibrating faintly even while asleep. Who the hell knows where the other one is - Andrew just hopes she stays there.
He stays silent and takes another moody bite of his pizza.
Neil leans back and gives him a look. Andrew caves immediately.
“Your fucking cats committed a murder today.”
Neil has the audacity to laugh. “What, another one? How many is that now?”
Andrew glares. “Ten.” It’s obvious that Neil does not understand the gravity of the situation or even sympathize, but he hadn’t expected that from Josten in the first place. When it comes to the demons, they’re not enemies or allies so much as two people who take turns foisting blame whenever King or Sir cause trouble.
“Discipline your demons.” It’s a demand, blunt and pointed.
Neil raises a brow, incredulous. “Oh, so they’re mine now? How convenient.” His lips keep trying to twitch into a smile, but the rabbit manages to rearrange his mouth into a straight line.
Andrew ignores him, tearing his garlic crust into little pieces and then devouring them one by one. It won’t be long until he sets his eyes on Neil’s plate. (He could, of course, just get seconds from the boxes, but half the fun of ordering take out is stealing Neil’s food.)
“And what do you expect me to do?”
He furrows his brows and gives a long, expectant look towards his idiot. “Anything. As always, you find new ways to disappoint me.”
Neil snorts, the sound ugly and real. It tugs at his heart and makes him feel all warm and fond; gross. “You should know by now that it’s impossible to get them to do anything they don’t want to. Feel familiar?”
No. Not at all, in fact. Andrew sneers, snatches the last piece of pizza off of Neil’s plate, shoves it in his mouth and then books it out of the living room, away from Neil and how unhelpful and annoying and irritating he is. Fuck, Andrew hates him.
He trips over Sir on the way and smacks his head against the wall, falling to the floor so dramatically he thinks pre-Neil Andrew would have been proud. Well, no, that’s a lie. Pre-Neil Andrew would have just burst out laughing. But pre-Neil Andrew laughed at everything, so. Anyway, one could say he makes quite a ruckus eating shit.
“Andrew?” Neil calls, sounding mildly worried. Only mildly, because he knows Andrew’s tough.
“Fuck off,” he calls back, and tries not to bust his ass this time in place of his head as he glares hatefully at the Devil, who incidentally is a white and grey cat named Sir creeping closer to his feet. Probably to trip him, because she’s evil like that.
Andrew decides, staring straight into the pitch black darkness that is the abyss of her eyes. He decides very emphatically and with great determination.
“That’s it,” he declares, getting properly outraged now as he stands back on his feet and looks down on her both metaphorically and literally. “This ends now.”
Sir merely tilts her head and meows back. Andrew can’t stand these fucking cats.
He starts spraying all of his plants with pure lemon juice, feeling quite proud of himself and also quite stupid for not having had the thought of doing this before. Oh well, you live and you learn, and by that he means if you live long enough to survive cats you tend to learn how to minimize casualties. He remembers when King and Sir were first brought home, scrambling under furniture and hissing, watching he and Neil so intently that it took weeks to settle them both. There’d been nothing to do but give them time, and it had been worth it the very first time King crept closer to Andrew on the couch, sniffing at him cautiously. Maybe he should have expected it, but when he tried to offer a hand out for pets, King had startled and scratched him, drawing blood before running off back to his companion and leaving him there to nurse his wound. He hadn’t blamed the cat for it then, and he doesn’t now. He’s glad the shelter they found King and Sir at didn’t declaw them.
Still, he heaves a great sigh of relief now that he’s found a way forward without broken glass and destruction. Right on time, he hears the sound of paws scrabbling at the locked doorknob, just as he’d planned. He knew that the one sure way of getting a cat right where you wanted it was saying that they couldn’t do something; they are contrary, spiteful creatures, and he would have admired that about them if they hadn’t made the mistake of setting themselves against him.
Sure enough, Sir and King both unlock the door and push it open, little heads swiveling towards him as they rush towards his legs, purring and rubbing on his skin like they haven’t seen him in forty five years. Andrew is unmoved.
Slowly, ever so slowly, he grabs the lemon scented pot of calathea he’s been trying to grow from its place on his bookshelf and dangles it between the two demons, who perk up and mrrp in curiosity. Sir unwinds herself from King and sticks her face into the leaves to get a good sniff before sneezing.
Andrew feels himself start to smile.
And then, to his dismay and horror, she takes a bite out of his plant before turning to look him right in the eye and taking another. Then King, assured that it’s edible, goes up beside her and consumes his own serving of calathea.
Citrus scents being a deterrent his ass. Andrew can’t believe this. He clenches his fists and exhales through his nose, watching as his two cats try to devour his houseplant. He picks the pot up and takes it away, King and Sir both meowing indignantly as they follow after and try their best to get underfoot in a casual attempt to assassinate him.
“You’re so stupid,” he scolds them, scowling. “Who just takes a bite out of random lemon scented plants? You two, because you’re both so stupid.” Despite his threatening tone, they stop looking at the calathea and instead go back to bribing him with affection, meowing in response to his voice as they twine around his legs. He hates them so much.
They’re lucky that calathea are non-toxic to cats. With these two, he can picture all too easily one curious bite from something they shouldn’t have eaten causing harm. But of course, Andrew planned ahead. (He’s always wanted cats. He’s always gotten pet safe plants. They’ve never been in any danger, but his heart still skips a beat every time one of them tries to eat the foliage.)
Frustrated, he finally manages to put the plant somewhere safe before he bends down to pet the stupid cats.
“Idiots,” he tells them, but they don’t care. They just purr louder.
Bee doesn’t believe him, but he is convinced that the eldritch beings inhabiting his and Neil’s shared apartment exist solely to cause his misery. She says that cats are just mischievous and playful by nature, that in time they will settle down and relax. It’s been two fucking years already, he didn’t bother to say. The point stands. No, he knows that the entities known as Sir and King will never stop. Will never be satisfied.
Example one: Andrew taking a nap on the couch after a long day of practice, completely done with both social interaction and stickball. After finally being able to do absolutely nothing, what does he wake up to but the round ball of fluff that is a cat, snoozing on his chest. Terrifying. Horrifying. He gingerly moved to get up, but froze once Sir started to stir, dropping back down immediately and closing his eyes, feigning sleep. Just in case. She nosed in closer before purring, the beast not yet awoken. He breathed a silent sigh of relief, only to wake up later that night with both cats sleeping in his and Neil’s bed with them. He thought he was safe. He was wrong; he is destined, it seems, to be plagued with two other creatures that will take any chance to catch him off guard.
Example two: His plants. His plants and the long standing vendetta between them and the cats, one that is simultaneously harrowing and heartbreaking (for him). No matter what he tries, King and Sir somehow always manage to best him. Lemon spray? Oh, what tasty water, the cats say. Hiding the plants away? Foolish human, we will uncover every hidden crevice of this territory and bring it to ruin. (He still mourns the loss of his prayer plant.) Even locked doors aren’t safe.
Andrew is truly at a loss, but he doesn’t give up. He’s stubborn enough and petty enough to keep going even when all previous efforts point to a grim future. So he decides to make traps around his plants.
As one does.
The first effort isn’t terribly creative, just a ring of noisemakers in a circle around (and a few sprinkled amongst the leaves) a potted sword fern. Squeaky toys, cowbells (leftover from a Palmetto campus pep rally he and Neil had been threatened into attending years prior), a couple jack in the boxes that will pop out as soon as they’re touched (he had to actually go out and buy these; this had better be worth it), a few genuine alarms meant to scare off squirrels, and of course he would be remiss in not including a battery operated talking cat, left to sit in front of the fern, guarding its fellow annoyances. It honestly looks like one of those god awful set pieces for a horror film, all big eyes and wide smiles.
Perfect. Let’s see how those menaces like it when they’re the ones being stared at. Andrew settles in, and waits. He turns around and faces the window, because obviously nothing’s going to happen if he looks right at it. There’s a nuance to these kinds of things.
Sure enough, after not reading a riveting article extolling the benefits of kale sent by Kevin, he hears the pitter patter of two sets of paws - they’ve arrived. His heart speeds up, and it’s all he can do to play it cool, leaning against the wall, not daring to move. His head turns, ever so slightly, just enough to be able to glance towards the demons. Excellent, they’ve taken the bait. King is approaching the circle, while Sir sits close to a jack in the box, watching it patiently. Then, her ears twitch as she hears her companion hitting a bell. It rings out in the room, and then there’s a moment of perfect silence before total chaos ensues.
Sir, ever devoted to following after King’s footsteps, decides she wants to cause trouble as well - she leaps straight at his poor sword fern, sending it toppling to the ground, right on top of half of the circle of noisemakers. Immediately, there is a chorus of circus jingles from the jacks in the boxes, bells ringing from the cowbells, and squeaks going off, all simultaneously. Andrew, of course, rushes over to save his fallen plant, only to realize that he’s made a mistake as he sees King under his feet.
He trips, and falls down onto the floor, his body the last thing hell needed before it could be unleashed: the rest of the circle goes off, but this time they’re painfully out of tune with the rest, and Sir and King are meowing during all of this too, rushing around and wrestling with the entirety of the dollar store’s meager offerings of children’s noisemakers. His head pounds. His back aches. The fern is still on the floor.
And then, the squirrel alarms start going off, and both cats start yowling and hissing back while Andrew lays there lamenting his existence.
Fuck, he says, but he can’t even hear himself over everything, and so he raises his voice, going through every last swear he think of as he scrambles to get up, red faced and sweating from stress and defeat. Sir leaps onto one of the alarms and sends it straight into the path of the wall, where it audibly breaks, debris flying everywhere. King, meanwhile, is chewing contentedly on one of the fern’s leaves.
Trying to wrangle both the cats and the trouble they’ve caused leaves him out of breath and panting by the time someone bangs loudly on the front door, with enough force that Andrew briefly considers whether they’re actually trying to knock it down. It had better not be the FBI; he’s had enough of them to last a lifetime.
Both Sir and King get locked in with the squirrel alarms (two of which are still going off) as he just shovels everything else into the hallway closet, some of it still making noise but fuck it. He has a headache, he’s nearly had another plant casualty, and those fucking cats are still too fucking smug. He doesn’t have it in him to be social too.
He rips the door open, hears their neighbor’s voice start to rise in a tirade, exclaiming about there being enough noise to ‘murder somebody’, scoffs, and then slams it in their face, but not before calling out a, “Fuck off.” He stomps away, ignoring their annoying voice and the cats yowling both, going into the bathroom to get medicine for his head. With a shot of water, he swallows the pills and then does emergency surgery on his fern left in the hallway, repotting it (although it will need some new soil) and putting it out on the balcony. Then, he lets the cats out, who both immediately bolt off running. Glaring, he exhales as he takes in the state of the room: dirt everywhere, including the wall and toys, along with one small leaf taken as a trophy from his plant. Andrew takes one look at it all before opening a window and lighting up a cigarette, wondering if he can somehow make all of this Neil’s problem instead.
When Neil comes home, he finds Andrew asleep with a pillow half over his head in their bed, covers rumpled, an empty bag of chips and snack cake wrappers littered on the floor. Then he finds the open hallway door, and stops in his tracks.
“What happened here?” He asks incredulously, stunned. He doesn’t think he’s seen chaos like this since the Foxes’ last night out at Eden’s, where Allison got arrested and he and Renee had to go bail her out, and where Kevin got drunk enough to start singing God Save the Queen (not the anthem, but an actual song by some band he doesn’t remember the name of).
He figures the cats probably got into another one of Andrew’s plants, and it seems he took the loss particularly hard this time. He can’t help but smile, a little fond and a little endeared. He can’t help it; when it comes to Andrew, he’s always like this.
Neil cleans up, and then he makes a simple dinner, opting to let Andrew sleep in just a bit more. As he passes through the hallway on the way to the bathroom, though, he hears the oddest noise. He stops, and turns towards the closet. Silence.
When he opened the door, he was not expecting to trip under a flood of party novelties, but that is indeed what happened. He barely manages to catch himself against the wall, staring down with wide eyes at old cowbells (we still have those?), some of King and Sir’s squeaky toys, and what appears to be a genuine jack in the box. Neil stands there bewildered for just a few more seconds before separating everything into like minded piles where it all fits back into the closet nice and neat, with room enough to spare for the linens, who might have otherwise had to fear being driven out of house and home.
He passes back through their bedroom, finding Andrew still asleep, and so he softly calls out.
“Drew,” he says, and Andrew gradually opens his eyes. “Supper’s ready.” And he must be looking particularly in love, because the blond heaves a sigh.
“What did you make?”
Neil grins. “Your favorite. Or, well, I tried.” That’s enough to get Andrew out of bed, looking well rested and actually like he’s in a good mood.
“Acceptable,” he says, and the corners of his lips turn up too.
The next time, Neil is there to witness the event from start to finish. He watches as Andrew, all of a sudden, gets up from the couch and abandons both him and the documentary they were watching. “Andrew?”
He’s not worried, because he knows what it looks like when his partner is tense on a bad day. Drew looks the same as ever, blank faced and bored, but if you look closer (if you care to) then you’ll see that Andrew’s back is straight as he walks, that his steps are loud when he stomps out of the room, his eyes gleaming intently. Neil puts their movie on pause to get up and follow.
“What are you doing?” he dares to ask, because it always gets him an interesting answer. Facing away from him, Andrew just keeps moving towards the kitchen.
“Trying out creative solutions to my problems,” the blond says wryly, the words a punchline to a joke Neil’s not privy to. He can infer.
So he keeps quiet and just enjoys being here in this moment with Andrew. It wouldn’t matter where or when - just as long as they’re together, Neil thinks he could be happy. He feels a smile curl over his mouth, content and curious. It’s a good thing Andrew’s back is to him, because otherwise he might have been threatened with bodily harm.
(The warmth that thought brings would be confusing at best to someone else, but as it makes perfect sense to them, Neil settles in with it and lets it be.)
It’s only when Andrew grabs some catnip from the kitchen cabinet (the one up high, where they both have to stand on tiptoes to reach) that he begins to understand exactly what’s going on. “Ah, another revenge plan,” he observes. Drew ignores him, next heading to where one of his plants is. Then Neil does a double take because they certainly didn’t have a surplus of indoor sprinklers yesterday, or at least he’s pretty sure they didn’t. Apparently he’s been out of the loop.
Andrew takes one of the cats’ toys and inserts the catnip into it with a finality so firm it reminds Neil of those days in the dorm where Drew would just silently stare at someone until they finally left the two of them alone.
“Is this plan number three, or ten?” He asks, finding it funny. Andrew does not; he levels Neil with a glare promising violence (no kisses) unless he shuts up.
“If you’re going to be here, then you can turn on the sprinklers when I give the signal.”
What is this, a James Bond movie? He wants to snark, but just rolls his eyes instead even as he nods. “What’s the signal?”
Andrew signs, like Neil’s presence in his plan is a heavy burden. “You’ll know,” is all he says, vaguely ominous. Great.
Neil gets handed a remote controller that apparently is connected to all five of the sprinklers (Where does Andrew even find this stuff? Do people actually build and then sell cat deterrent related technology? What a niche market). He gives up questioning any of this when the other man starts taking a bottle filled with vinegar and spraying it on the plants. It doesn’t smell that bad; Andrew supplies the fact that it’s ‘apple cider vinegar’ rather proudly, which Neil finds suspicious.
Shaking a bag of treats, Andrew starts putting down a trail of them leading from the hallway into the room. Neil hears the distant clicking of claws against the wood flooring, and he has the foreboding sense that this is not going to go the way Drew thinks it will. He tries to be positive, however; what’s the worst that could happen?
“Places,” Andrew demands, despite the both of them not going over any actual preparations beforehand. As he watches the blond move over to the wall in a practiced lean, Neil awkwardly shuffles off somewhere away from where the sprinklers will turn on but where he can still see any possible signals Andrew gives.
Through the open door come the stars of the hour: King and Sir, both gobbling up their treats like they haven’t eaten in five years. Neil just fed them lunch a little while ago. Indignantly, he watches them look up and sniff around for more, before focusing on their humans being here as well. Bounding over, King meows up at him for attention while Sir decides to investigate the sprinklers.
Neil reaches down to pet King, only to be surprised by how eager he is; the black cat jumps up on his hind legs to reach up and paw for Neil’s face, and that’s when the remote slips out of his grasp and onto the floor with a resounding crack that suddenly resounds through the empty room. He can feel Andrew’s eyes on the back of his head, and he quickly picks it up while fending off their affectionate cat.
It’s hard to multitask while being besieged by love, but Neil manages to look over the remote enough to where he’s reasonably certain that it’s not broken, just a bit chipped. It should still work. He gives a thumbs up over where he thinks Andrew is before straightening back up, free from King’s clutches.
Sir is currently batting around the catnip laced toy, eyes large and engaged. Andrew is looking at him judgmentally, and Neil just raises a brow back in a silent conversation that doesn’t really go anywhere but gets the point across that is Andrew really the one who wants to look at Neil like that? What number plan is this, again? Twenty?
They’re taken out of their bickering by the sound of one of the sprinklers being knocked over; Andrew rapidly makes eye contact, and Neil decisively presses the green button on the remote, only for all of the sprinklers to start spraying water out in every direction, including on Neil and Andrew. The cats yowl as they get soaked, and Neil suddenly has regrets. Drew blankly marches over and snatches the remote, presses the green button again, then a different one - the sprinklers start up a gentle stream of water in front of them, but it’s too late; the cats are hungry for revenge. King and Sir both pounce on a sprinkler and take it down with them, rolling around and biting metal like they’ll be able to kill it if they just try hard enough.
With enough time, they probably will.
“So.” Andrew says, standing next to him as they both watch the carefully curated destruction of yet another room lost to a cat related scheme.
“So,” Neil replies, the space between them heavy. A minute or two passes by in agonizing slowness. Water seeps through his clothes and onto his skin, where the coldness soaks him from head to toe. He shivers, and notices Andrew doing the same.
They both give the cats a bath, which is an entirely different sort of hell, but they manage. And then they step in the shower, too tired to do anything but wash off the day’s failure. At this point it’s past seven in the evening, and they’ve both gone without dinner.
Hungry, tired, and defeated, Neil still finds the energy to ask if he can wash Andrew’s hair. “Yes or no?”
That familiar question, their question hits Drew right where it’s meant to; he stills, and then swallows, hazel eyes softening. “Yes,” he answers quietly, sounding like he needs it just as much as Neil does.
Soft and sure, he lathers up Andrew’s hair, letting his hands take their time running through the strands. They’re the only point of contact connecting the two of them, and yet it feels unbelievably intimate. The blond relaxes back into his touch with closed eyes and a sigh that takes all of the tension from his body with it.
“Do you think I should stop?” Andrew asks him after a while, and Neil hears everything Andrew doesn’t say - do you think this is weird? Am I wrong for putting so much effort into this when I can hardly bother with anything else?
Neil already knows the answer. “Do you want to stop? Because that’s the only reason that matters.” He gives Drew a moment, and then continues. “Are you having fun?”
It doesn’t take as long as Neil thought it would before Andrew responds. “Yes,” he says, hesitant and unsure. Like he’s afraid of even admitting to it. Neil’s heart aches in response, and even though there’s nothing he can do for the boy that Andrew was, at least he can be here for the man that Andrew is.
“I had fun,” he reassures him. “And I know King and Sir did too.” Up and down, up and down, he runs his fingers through Andrew’s hair, scritching at his scalp every so often until Andrew turns around and faces him.
It will never fail to disarm him, how much Andrew gives him. He bares his vulnerabilities like they’re knives, but Neil has never been afraid; he just looks back and waits. It’s gotten easier over the years, but there will always be scars. They’re still learning how to be gentle not just with each other, but with themselves as well.
In that soft silence, Neil smiles and says, “Will you wash my hair?” He turns around when Drew answers, and it feels like all is right within the world, with those hands on him. Firm and careful and callused, familiar and warm as the hot chocolate that comes after nightmares.
He’s gotten better, at asking. He’s learned that Andrew likes taking care of him just as much as Neil likes being taken care of.
“Idiot,” Andrew breathes out, and it sounds like nothing more than 'thank you’ and ‘I love you’.
Neil’s so fucking proud of him.
“Can we watch the game during dinner? Kevin won’t shut up about it otherwise.”
Andrew scoffs. “No.”
Neil laughs, because either way, he knows Andrew will take Kevin off silent just to pick up when he calls, only to then hang up in the middle of a rant. “You know, you remind me of the cats sometimes.”
A hand flicks him on the head. “Don’t test me, Josten.”
Neil grins. “Me? Never.”
They end up on the couch, eating cup noodles while the cats cuddle up to their sides, all of them entangled in blankets and each other. Before he dozes off, Neil has the inkling of an idea hit him all of a sudden, but he falls asleep before he can tell Drew about it.
Andrew carries him to bed and curls around him protectively before quickly falling asleep himself.
Andrew escalates, because of course he does. It’s not enough anymore to simply use one room for his schemes, no - he starts cat trapping the entire apartment.
Because the results of the apple cider vinegar were inconclusive, he just goes ahead with spritzing the rest of his plants in the vain hope that it will do something. But he doesn’t stop there - oh, no.
He ties bundles of jingle bells on a string around doorknobs so that he’ll be alerted every time one of the demons opens a door. He buys a metric fuck ton of shelf paper so that he can put it on the walls and around the floor of the plants, sticky side facing up. He goes out and buys room dividers, feeling very smug and certain that there's no way they’ll be able to destroy his livelihood now.
Andrew goes all out - because fuck it, right? He wraps yards of ribbons from wall to wall to create little fabric mazes around his plants, to the point where it gets a little hard to water them (or move them). He gathers a bag of pinecones from a local park only to put them in amongst the potted soil to deter any thieving, digging paws. He sets up motion activated alarms, safely installed high enough up that they won’t be breaking any time soon (they were a pain in the ass to do). Every day, he stands in front of the bathroom mirror, putting on eucalyptus scented lotion with a blank face, feeling absolutely ridiculous.
Andrew’s never been one to care what’s considered normal. He doesn’t give a shit about what people have to say about him. But he’s never really been able to be so… silly before.
To play without consequence. To have fun without worrying if it will last. To let himself be happy and believe that it’s real.
It’s so stupid. He’s in his mid twenties re-enacting Spy Kids, and it shouldn’t be something that feels so satisfying. He thinks of Neil and knows that he’d be excited right along with him, that dumb smile on his face.
And yet, Andrew has never felt so free in acting so young.
He thinks that no name kid who tried so hard to be nothing would have loved this, and for once he finds it doesn’t hurt to think of a childhood he can’t forget.
Andrew takes a breath, and then he sets his plan in motion; he takes his phone out of his pocket, and responds to the texts Neil sent him earlier. His idiot certainly has a way with words; by the time King and Sir’s arrival is heralded by the bells, Andrew feels completely settled. It won’t be long until the rabbit’s back from his run- best to get things started now.
“Glad you could make it,” he taunts the cats from behind the partition. On the other side, they both eye it warily; eventually, Sir comes up to investigate, batting at it with a paw. When it doesn’t move, she meows, and that's when King, not to be left behind, leaps at the divider with a determined fury.
He watches for over ten minutes as the demons try and fail to get past the partition, clenching his fists in victory.
“I’ve outdone myself,” Andrew dryly remarks as Sir yowls upon being smacked back by the wooden bars.
Finally. Finally his plants will be safe, and all it took was losing most of his mind and trapping the whole apartment with terrible items of mass annoyance. He should have done this sooner. Andrew feels the corners of his lips turn up, feeling light, amused as King takes his turn smacking against the partition. These poor, stupid cats. He almost feels sorry for them.
Almost.
He takes a seat in a convenient nearby armchair, right by the window, and feels the sunshine that falls through the curtains and across his face like warm summer evenings. His eyes start drooping all on their own, and he starts nodding off despite wanting to stay awake. Content and calm, it only takes a few more minutes he’s completely asleep, dozing there as the cats still try in vain to defeat the evil that is the room divider.
Andrew jolts awake at a sudden, loud bang, and looks up from his chair only to find that the room has descended into a chaotic hell - the partition has fallen over, King and Sir are chewing on the ribbon maze, the wall alarms are all going off at once (putting multiple in the same room suddenly doesn’t feel like a particularly smart decision), and Neil Josten has fallen onto a wall full of sticky paper, quite stuck as he mutters quiet curses, struggling to free himself without pulling out any hair.
A lone pinecone rolls across the floor as he stares, and that’s what breaks him, in the end - Andrew starts laughing, quiet at first but then it just gets louder the more he looks at the tableau in front of him, tears coming to his eyes because holy hell, his life is ridiculous and he can’t say he would want it any different. Neil looks up, surprised, before his whole face goes soft and he smiles that one smile, the one that says, ‘Oh, it’s you.’ Andrew still can’t stand it; he doesn’t think he’ll ever get used to it.
“Welcome home, idiot,” Andrew manages between breaths, still laughing.
Neil starts laughing too. “Hey, this is still your best plan yet.”
Andrew knows. He’s still a bit proud of it; at least he knows now that it would in fact stop a burglar, if not any cats. He should be hired for security. In retrospect, Andrew thinks that this whole thing very quickly became not about stopping King and Sir, but about letting himself have fun and enjoy it.
Andrew Minyard has never been called silly, but he thinks that just this once, it would indeed be a fitting word for himself. He smiles and gets up from the armchair, and then he goes over to help his idiot get untangled.
“And how did you manage this?”
Neil replies so shamelessly that Andrew almost doesn’t register it. “I dove for the cats but spun out and then tripped over that fucking pinecone. I’ve been stuck here for half an hour.”
His lips quirk. “What am I going to do with you, rabbit?” He cups Neil’s cheek, thumb tracing over a dimple.
“Just let me know when you booby trap the apartment next time,” Neil says with good humor, leaning into his hand. Andrew leans down and presses a kiss to his forehead, soft and sweet.
“Alright, let’s get you off the wall.”
They bicker through getting Neil unstuck and all the way through rounding up the cats and cleaning up the rest of the traps around the apartment. By the end, they’re exhausted and sitting at the kitchen table, both nursing cups of coffee.
“How are you going to top all this?” Neil waves a hand through the air to emphasize the entirety of Andrew’s latest scheme. He snorts.
“I don’t think I can.”
Neil hums. “Are you done, then?”
Andrew closes his eyes and then opens them, hazel on blue. He knows whatever he chooses, Neil will support him, because that’s just the way he is. He could tell his rabbit that he wanted to go on a cross country roadtrip with no prior warning and Neil would still come with him. He could say he wanted to quit exy, and Neil would still be here.
Andrew could do anything, and he knows that Neil will be right beside him if he ever wants company.
He’s never been lucky once in his life, and he still doesn’t really believe in the concept of luck, but he has to admit that Neil was the best mistake he ever made. You can’t be a Fox if you get what you deserve, but Andrew has always held on too tightly to ever let go.
“For now,” he answers, and Neil accepts it like he does with everything Andrew says. He feels a sudden rush of the disgusting feelings Neil always provokes in him, and he asks, “Yes or no?”
Their question settles between them like a bookend curling around all their edges. It feels like home.
Neil says yes, and Andrew kisses him there in their apartment, with their demon cat children winding around their ankles under the table, meowing for attention.
Andrew reaches a hand down to pet them, and gets a wet nose sniffing at him before a soft little face with thin whiskers is being rubbed against his wrist.
He smiles.
“Alright, here’s the real test,” Neil mutters, holding the planter in his arms as he brings it in from outside. It’s finally finished growing after a few days, bright green and perfect. He has no doubt the cats will devour it.
A day after Andrew’s failed plan, Neil excitedly told him about an idea of his own for containing the demon’s destruction: an offering of cat grass, easy to grow and easy to regrow once it wilts. So they’d ordered the seeds online, and only had to wait a little bit before they arrived, and Neil immediately took great delight in planting them. Andrew had felt warm at being able to share one of his hobbies with Neil, and he’d also liked being able to give him tips and steer him away from overwatering.
And now, the cat grass was finally ready to be deployed. With held breath, Andrew watches as Neil lowers to the floor in the living room, King and Sir stalking over with their tails high, flicking curiously as they spied something new.
Sir sticks her head in the grass - then, she takes a bite and starts eating it. King follows suit in succession, and Andrew lets himself sigh in relief.
“It worked!” Neil turns to him with a smile, and Andrew huffs.
“Who knows if the little devils will be satisfied with this or not, but at least they won’t be able to eat one of my plants whole anymore.”
“We can always get more seeds,” Neil says, and that’s true enough. Andrew hums in response, and the two of them leave the cats in peace with their feast.
By the next day, the cat grass will be missing a third of its mass and Andrew’s plants will all be safely accounted for with no missing leaves or obvious damages. He retires the need for any cat related schemes, but reserves the right to bring them back out if the demons decide to test him. All in all, he feels that he was the victor, which is what truly matters.
On the bookshelf in the living room, a little battery operated talking cat salvaged from one of his earlier schemes sits in a place of pride, guarding the family. Occasionally it will let out a random, half broken meow, and either King or Sir will meow back.
Andrew, curled up with Neil on the couch, laying his head on his rabbit’s chest, ear to heartbeat, listens to the noise of his home and realizes he’s happy. With a hand in his hair, Neil gently scratches at his scalp, and if he could, Andrew would be purring right now.
When he wakes up, this won’t be a dream, and that’s maybe the best part of being loved.