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She hisses as the boxes she had been hiding behind are pushed away, frozen in place. A young human looks down at her, eyes wide. The human looks to the side, to a taller human with spiky hair.
“Daddy-”
“Trucy, you really shouldn’t be-”
“But it doesn’t have a collar! Can we take it home with us? Please ?”
“Uhhh…”
Spiky Hair looks at her, startling as she bares her fangs and hisses. Yet the younger human doesn’t hold the same fear, taking off the pink fabric around her shoulders and wrapping it around her instead.She moves to scratch at the girl, but hesitates. This does feel rather warm and comfortable.
Spiky Hair still looks unsure, but Girl beams, picking her up in her arms. “Aww, you’re adorable!”
“...I suppose we can take it home.”
“Really? Yippee!”
If a cat could frown, she certainly would be doing so now. But… she looks up at Girl, who’s excitedly talking to Spiky Hair, arms wrapped securely around the bundle of fabric and cat. Maybe this isn’t that bad.
“Okay, Bullets! We’re going on a walk.”
She looks up at Girl, ears perked and head tilted to the side. Girl is looking directly at her, a leash in hand.
Bullets? Is that her? The name given to her by Girl?
She decides she likes the name. The same can’t be said about the collar and leash that are soon attached to her.
Girl becomes Her Human. Spiky Hair stays as Spiky Hair, and soon is joined by Red Suit. There’s a giant, old dog called Pess that she refers to as, simply, The Dog. She hisses anytime he comes close and yet he doesn’t care, laying down next to her, and eventually she stops hissing at him.
She doesn’t stop hissing at Spiky Hair or Red Suit. You’d think they’d learn after the first three times they try petting her and get their hands scratched in return. Only her human is allowed to pet her.
Her human comes home with something she hears Spiky Hair call a cast, her face still pinched in pain.
Bullets lays under the couch, listening to Spiky Hair and Red Suit talk. Someone attacked her human, before Spiky Haired and another were able to stop them. She’s overheard them talking about similar things before, of Despair, though she doesn’t understand what it means, and of people getting hurt. She hadn’t expected her human to get hurt too.
She sneaks out of the living room, unnoticed by the humans, and creeps into her human’s room through a barely cracked open door. She looks at the girl, who’s already asleep, and then jumps up onto the bed.
Bullets curls up next to her, eyes on the door. Guarding her human all night.
Her human isn’t here. That’s not unusual. Her human is often gone for hours at a time, but she always comes home. So Bullets waits, like always, for her human, as the sun moves through the sky.
Bullets watches Spiky Hair fill her water dish. It’s dark out now and her human is the one to do this, every day, not Spiky Hair. He reaches out to pet her and she hisses, swatting at his hand. He winces, quickly drawing it away. She keeps hissing, meowing, demanding to know where her human is, but of course humans can’t understand cats. Spiky Hair just frowns before walking away.
She paces around the apartment all night, meowing, trying to find her. The Dog sits outside his human’s door, looking sadly at her.
Bullets does not leave her human’s room. Both Spiky Hair and Red Suit attempt to get her out, coaxing her with toys and treats. They get scratched hands for the trouble. The only time she leaves is at night to get food, so late that the only one who might still be awake to see her is the Dog.
It takes weeks for them to move her stuff entirely into the room.
Hidden under the bed, she can’t help but think that her human would’ve done that the first day. Her human always understood her.
Bullets sits on the arm of the sofa, looking at Spiky Hair. It’s late, and usually he wouldn’t be here. She looks over at Dog, who simply meets her eyes before laying his head back on the ground. She turns back to Spiky Hair. He has an arm thrown over his face, covering his eyes, and is still wearing a blue beanie.
Cats are perceptive. She had heard him crying earlier, just like how she’d yowled the night her human hadn’t come home.
They both miss her.
Bullets jumps off the arm of the sofa, landing lightly on her feet, and quietly returns to the room she’s been hiding in for weeks. She leaps onto the bed and curls up on the pillow, where her human always slept, and keeps her eyes on the door.
Waiting for her human.