Chapter Text
Despite the fact that it was over freezing for the first time in a week, Nene was convinced that the only reason she was out of the house today was because God was testing her. That was to say, she was completely ignoring the fact that going out shopping after she and her friends got their first big group paycheck in a while was her idea.
Whatever. As much as she wasn't looking forward to stepping back out into the chilly late-winter air, she had picked up a cute new outfit - mostly just to garner some compliments from Girlfriend - and supposed she could be happy enough with that.
Besides, her travel partner of the day was Darnell, who was practically a walking furnace, fittingly enough. He was a cuddlebug, too, at least to the point where he wouldn't complain. Points to her for accidentally thinking ahead.
Eager to get to the point of embracing the warmth of her friend, she stepped out of the store, paused a moment as the chilled wind briefly snatched her breath (ugh), and made her way over to the bench Darnell said he would wait at. She'd never understand why he thought sitting out in the cold was better than his legs getting a little sore.
The second she saw him, the scene in front of her gave her pause. To be fair, though, she wasn't even sure she was surprised at that point. Almost accusingly, she asked, "whose cat is that?"
Darnell glanced up. In his lap lay a thick-furred tortoiseshell, though mostly black, looking absolutely blissed out of its mind as Darnell stroked its back. "Dunno. She doesn't have a collar," he said casually, returning to petting her. As Nene stepped closer, she could hear the thing purring like a motorboat.
Again, she wasn't surprised. For as long as she'd known him, and heck, probably longer, Darnell had been an animal magnet. It was always something with him. A butterfly deciding to land on his hoodie. A "nervous" dog bounding up to him for scritches. A flock of birds descending upon wherever he was sitting, even if he didn't have food, seemingly content to just hang out.
She joked that it was because he had Disney princess charm, mostly out of jealousy. What, was she supposed to not envy a guy who could get a hummingbird to land on his finger?
"Well, I'm not sitting around in the cold all day because of your weirdass superpower," she huffed, already feeling the chill seeping into her bones. She could never understand how her friends were winter people. "Come on, it's gonna get dark soon."
"She's sleepin', though..." Darnell said, frowning. He was clearly more concerned with the comfort of this random cat than his childhood friend clearly freezing to death in front of him. To emphasize his point, he lifted his hand up to stroke her head, which she subconsciously leaned into, ear flicking as it was freed from under his palm. She somehow started purring even louder. "If she doesn't have people, she doesn't have a place to sleep."
Nene pouted. What was this, an ASPCA commercial? If you're cold, they're cold, let them steal your only source of heat in the unforgiving world?
For as content as Nene was to complain, though, the cat did look really happy. And she wasn't so heartless that she would want to infringe upon the joy of a comfortable, purring kitty.
With a deep, exaggerated sigh, Nene decided to let go of it. For now, anyway, she could still take advantage of Darnell's body heat.
The millisecond she stepped forward, though, the cat's ears perked, quickly followed by lifting her head to see who was approaching. They locked into a brief staring contest, both unsure how to proceed, before Nene made the mistake of allowing a single twitch - the cat was up and bounding into an alley before Nene could process it.
"See? Think she's wild," Darnell commented idly. Evidently having been sitting there a while, he winced a little as he forced himself to stand.
"Seemed friendly enough with you," Nene grouched, folding her arms across her chest. How come street cats never wanted her to pet them? Darnell made it look so easy.
A smug grin instantly crossed Darnell's face, suddenly distracted from his stiffness. "All cats like me, Ne." She rolled her eyes, slinging her bag over her shoulder and starting to leave without him. He took a brief jog to catch up. "Don't take it too personal. Me and Peeks are street cats, anyway. They just get us."
"If this street cat knows what's best for him, he'll keep his mouth shut before I decide not to pay his bus fare," Nene snapped. She was pretty sure she was joking, but it was hard for even her to tell sometimes. She could do without the reminders of her comparatively "cushy" upbringing, regardless.
"Heard," Darnell responded simply, not willing to press it any further. That was another good thing about hanging out about Darnell. Not nearly as stubborn as the others.
"It's always so hot in your apartment," Nene remarked the moment they stepped into the door. Darnell was used to her less-than-positive commentary, mostly because he was pretty sure she wasn't aware she was doing it.
"Not my fault you always wear, like, eight layers of clothes," Darnell responded casually. He set the energy drink he'd grabbed from some vending machine aside, preparing in his head for the usual farewells.
"You're one to talk," Nene said. Her perpetually annoyed expression eased into a smile at the jab, always delighted by mutual teasing. They'd stopped at a few more places before heading back, Nene mostly only stopping by his apartment to further procrastinate the hike upstairs to her own a few minutes longer. "Have the other three enlisted you for their moving process yet? They haven't called me, so I assume it's on you.”
“Nah. they haven’t bugged me about it,” Darnell said, though as he spoke, he pulled his phone out of his hoodie pocket just to make sure. As expected, nobody had tried to contact him while he was out. The others were even too busy to be in the polycule group chat. “Sure it’s only a matter of time, though.”
“Oh, definitely. I need to get these dropped off and my clothes in the wash before they even think about it.” Darnell pursed his lips. Odds are the other machine wouldn’t be available for his own clothes, though. They had a schedule, though no one used it. “See you around?”
“Yep,” he replied absently, barely processing that she was actually leaving until the door shut behind her. And then there was Nell.
He proceeded to let out a massive sigh, grateful that he could finally leave the pleasant attitude at the door. God, he was tired.
His phone was haphazardly shoved back into his pocket. He wasn’t sure he’d describe himself as unpleasant when he was alone, more… nothing, he guessed. Certainly not the sort of guy he would want to hang out with, if he were a separate person. Just a husk of a dude.
Didn’t matter anyway. He had an energy drink, he had a phone to listen out for in case someone else demanded his time, and he had Netflix. It was a good time to be a husk of a dude, all things considered.
For as much as things had slowed down, lately, Darnell was feeling pretty stressed. Which he must have realized a dozen separate times by now was just his baseline. Pretty stressed. He’d be hard pressed to remember a time he wasn’t at least a little wired in, like, eight years. God, had he really been an adult for two, now? Didn’t feel like it.
Boyfriend, Girlfriend, and Pico had finally gotten a place. He was kind of impressed that they talked Pico into moving in with them. It was hard enough to talk the redhead into literally anything, let alone sharing a living space with two people, even if he loved them.
Darnell had seen the new place in pictures. It was quaint; low-income, just like all their current places. Two bedrooms, a bathroom and a half. Roomy enough living space. Even had its own washer and dryer, lucky bastards.
It was really weird, thinking about how Pico wouldn’t be living over his head anymore. He was sure Nene felt the same about them no longer being next-door neighbors upstairs, so he tried not to complain about it too much, especially since he knew it was stupid anyway, but man. It was fucking weird. He wasn’t sure he liked it.
Okay, he was certain he didn’t like it. It made him feel like he was losing something, when he wasn’t. Even if he was, he was losing it to a twenty minute walk down the street. But his feelings on the situation didn’t matter, really. It wasn’t a big deal.
In the past couple years, Darnell had taken to buying paper towels just to burn them. As much as he liked to think about literally everything else, he didn’t like to think about the motivation behind that. Was just grateful that the second the urges started whispering to him, he could reach over and have something to immediately satisfy them. The dopamine hit smoothed over whatever his brain was doing seconds earlier. What had he been talking about, again?
Lately, his usual stand-by activity was drudging through the absolute worst of what Netflix had to offer using one of many throwaway immediately-cancelled free trials. Usually just to find things to recommend to Pico with a “you've gotta try this dude, it sucks”.
Even if he was a bit in his head about things, getting a simple text back of “Darnell.” that somehow managed to sound disappointed was beyond tempting enough to drag him out of it. He started scrolling the catalogue.
He wasn't sure how long sat there mindlessly scrolling, humming something to himself to pass the time, when he heard a weird noise at his door.
It sounded like… scratching? He stared at the door for a minute. Almost as soon as he'd noticed it, it had stopped. And so for a moment, he was content to think he'd just imagined it.
And then there it was again.
Narrowing his eyes, he stood. A part of that genius-level intellect told him he was better off not even going near it, knowing his reputation around here, but Darnell had never been one to ignore an impulse of well, let's see what happens.
He did keep his still-hot lighter on him, though. Pretty easy to disarm someone by jabbing scalding hot metal into their eye.
Peeking through the peephole on his apartment door, Darnell couldn't see anyone there, which could either be a good or bad sign. Good, it might have just been a twig or something. Bad, someone just armed his fucking door with an explosive or some shit.
So to get a better idea, he pushed back his ever-closed (if slightly burnt) black-out curtains, peering outside to see if he could get a glimpse of anyone. When there was nothing at human height in the hallway, he looked down, and–
Wait.
Bewildered and once again beholden to impulse, Darnell immediately walked back over to his door, unlocked it, and opened it.
On the other side sat a mostly-black tortoiseshell cat, looking up at him with the biggest amber eyes he'd ever seen.
“The hell you follow me all the way here for?” He said to… the cat, he guessed. Not his coolest moment. Especially because it was a somewhat genuine question. He'd never known cats, even the ones that really liked him, as most tended to, to be the sort of animal to follow a guy halfway across town.
As if it answered all his questions, the cat proceeded to walk straight up to him and bump against his leg, rubbing her face along it while audibly purring.
Yeah. Okay.
From that point onward, he couldn't be surprised that the cat, brushing her tail along his leg, entered his house and began wandering around like she was scoping the territory. Thoroughly resigned to his fate, Darnell let the door shut as he tentatively followed along.
It was mostly out of an instinct to make sure that she didn't get into anything she wasn't supposed to, but by his own admission, there wasn't much for her to get into. Darnell kept his place pretty desolate by design.
Even then, the place still reeked of smoke. He was used to it enough, as were his friends, but he couldn't grasp how a cat didn't seem bothered by it.
He definitely hadn't been wrong about her doing a thorough case of the place. The living room, the kitchen, the bedroom, the bathroom. After accomplishing… whatever she was trying to get from that, she walked right back over to Darnell and bumped against him again, new goal apparently being getting some attention.
Still terribly confused but in no place to ask what was even happening, he leaned down to pet her. The cat immediately learned into the touch, purring immediately.
New thought: this cat had to have people. There was no way a feral cat was this nice. Even to him.
Before long, she asked to be let back out. He wasn't sure which hypothesis that action better supported, but for now, he was just grateful not to have to continue worrying about an uninvited guest in his apartment. He shut the door, locked it.
Tried to think of anything that could sufficiently distract him from the thoughts he was having. Proceeded to fail.
For once, it wasn't anything fire related. The curiosity that needed to be sated was, ironically, in regards to a cat. He didn't know a lot about what to do when one finds a lost cat, especially one with no collar. Who lets a cat without a collar even get out of their house, anyway?
He started with the usual suspects. That's to say, he googled it. Was slightly annoyed he had to make a Facebook account just to look at a group dedicated to it, and was surprised to find himself willing to do so. He wasn't winning at the poor impulse control thing today.
So he looked on Facebook. Twitter. Even the local newspaper’s website. No one was looking for a shaggy-haired tortoiseshell that looked like she hadn't experienced a single thought in her life.
Along the way, though, something mentioned luring the cat in with wet food, since it was probably hungry, out on the street. It was in regards to keeping the cat around long enough to trap it and take it to a vet, but he wasn't sure he could afford that. One step at a time, he guessed.
The local corner store had missing pet posters up, too. Nothing picturing the cat he'd seen. Unable to locate any wet cat food, he bought a few cans of tuna and hoped that would be good enough.
As he walked home, he was hit hard by the realization - or more so, the full brunt of something he'd been half-aware that whole time - that he had zero idea why he was doing this. Some random cat wasn't his damn responsibility.
Still, he took the tuna home and set it in his cupboards, not sure if he was grateful or not that BF hadn't actually texted him asking for help moving yet, it sure as hell would take his mind off things for the evening. It was good for a guy like him to be a few distractions deep.
That nagging thought didn't wind up going anywhere, though. He wasn't bothered enough to straight up volunteer for it, and mindless or not, he had been doing something before he'd been so strangely interrupted. It had been a weird day.
Thankfully, he was allowed peace for a majority of the evening. The sun went down without incident, aside from a few burnt paper towels and napkins that he hoped he could be bothered to clean up later if he wasn't going to now.
It was more so boredom than anything else that made him want to turn in early for the night, as was usually the case. He went about shutting everything off, ready to crawl into bed and do nothing but think until his thoughts turned into background noise enough for him to sleep to them.
And then he heard a familiar noise.
The scratching at his door was less frantic this time, more like a firm knock to be let in. He couldn't help but be a little bewildered that this cat knew how to ask to get in in the first place, though he supposed he rewarded the behavior the first time. Fair enough.
With a sigh, he walked over to the door. It was a cold night; he might as well let her sleep inside if she was going to ask. Processing in the back of his mind that he'd need to make some approximation of a nest for her to take up, he opened the door without much hesitation.
He was forced to take pause, however, when he was greeted by not just one visitor, but two. Or maybe more accurately, one and a half - as the second was nothing more than a small bundle of wriggling fur scruffed in its mother's careful grasp.