Chapter Text
The kitchen smelled of something savory—onions and garlic sizzling in butter, a promise of comfort to come. Five-year-old Petey sat at the table, his legs swinging back and forth beneath his chair, too short to reach the floor. His mother, Grace, hummed as she stirred, her sleeve riding up to reveal dark script etched into the fur of her inner arm. Petey had seen those markings before, but today, they seemed to call to him like a mystery waiting to be solved.
"Mama," Petey said, his voice small against the rhythmic tap of the wooden spoon against the pot's edge. "What are those words on your arm?"
Grace's humming paused. She set the spoon down and turned to face her son, her smile gentle but tinged with something Petey couldn't quite name—something adults carried that children had yet to learn. She pulled up her sleeve further, revealing the full inscription: “I've been waiting my whole life for you.”
"These are special words, sweetie," she said, running a finger over the script. "They're the first words my soulmate will ever say to me."
Petey's ears perked up. "What's a soulmate?"
Grace pulled out a chair and sat beside him, the dinner momentarily forgotten. "A soulmate is someone the universe connects you to. Someone special who understands you better than anyone else ever could."
"Like best friends?" Petey asked, his tail swishing with interest.
"Sometimes like best friends, sometimes like... more than friends. But it's always someone important," Grace explained. "Soulmates share things that nobody else shares. They can feel each other's feelings, even from far away. If one gets hurt, the other might feel a twinge of the same pain."
Petey's eyes widened. "Really? That sounds scary!"
Grace chuckled. "It can be surprising, but it helps soulmates find each other and know when the other person needs them." She tapped Petey's nose playfully. "They can even hear music the other is listening to, like a private concert just for the two of them."
"Music in your head?" Petey giggled at the thought. "That's silly!"
"It might seem silly, but it's actually quite beautiful," Grace said, her eyes drifting to some distant memory. "And most important of all, the very first words your soulmate will ever say to you appear right here." She traced the words on her arm again. "They show up when you turn six, like a birthday present from the universe."
Petey sat up straighter, a sudden thought occurring to him. "Are you and Dad soulmates? Is that why you got married?"
Grace's smile faltered for just a moment—so quick that anyone but her observant son might have missed it. "No, sweetie. I never found my soulmate."
"Why not?" Petey asked, genuine confusion in his voice. In his five-year-old mind, if soulmates were so special, why wouldn't everyone wait for theirs?
Grace turned back to the stove, giving the pot a stir before answering. "Sometimes... sometimes people fall in love with someone who isn't their soulmate. That's what happened with your father and me."
"But if your soulmate is special and perfect for you, why did you marry Dad instead?" Petey pressed, the question innocent but piercing.
Grace paused, searching for words a child could understand. "Finding your soulmate isn't guaranteed, Petey. Some people search their whole lives and never meet them. Others find them too late. And sometimes..." She took a breath. "Sometimes people make choices based on what they need at the time, not what might have been."
Petey nodded, though he didn't fully understand. Adults were complicated creatures. His attention shifted to his own arm, and he pushed up his sleeve, examining the blank fur underneath.
"Why don't I have any words?" he asked, a note of worry in his voice.
Grace's smile returned, genuine this time. "Because you're still five, silly goose. The words appear when you turn six."
Petey gasped, his eyes lighting up. "My birthday is next month! Will I get my words then?"
"That's right," Grace confirmed, ruffling the fur between his ears. "Soon you might discover what your soulmate will first say to you."
"What if they say something nice? Like... 'You're the coolest cat ever'?" Petey struck a pose that made Grace laugh.
"That would be wonderful," she agreed. "Or they might say something simple, like 'hello' or 'excuse me.' Sometimes it's the ordinary words that lead to beautiful connections."
Petey spent the next several minutes bombarding his mother with questions. What if his soulmate lived in another country? What if they were much older or younger? What if they didn't like the same games he did? Grace answered each one patiently as she finished preparing their dinner, her responses sometimes trailing into thoughtful pauses.
As Grace set a plate before him, Petey looked up at her with serious eyes. "If you could meet your soulmate now, would you?"
Grace's hands lingered on the edge of the table. She met Petey's gaze with a softness reserved only for him. "That's a complicated question, sweetheart. But I wouldn't trade the life that brought me you for anything in this world."
Petey nodded, satisfied for the moment, and dug into his dinner. Grace watched him, love mingling with a quiet melancholy in her eyes, as outside the kitchen window, the day began its slow surrender to evening.
———
The night before his sixth birthday, Petey wore a path in the carpet of his small bedroom. Five steps to the window, pivot, five steps to the door, pivot again. His tail twitched with each turn, an anxious metronome keeping time with his thoughts. Tomorrow, the words would appear—his secret message from the universe, a preview of his soulmate's voice. The fur on his arm tingled in anticipation, as if the letters were already forming beneath the surface, waiting for midnight to make themselves known.
"What if they say 'You have beautiful eyes'?" Petey whispered to himself, examining his reflection in the small mirror on his dresser. His eyes were ordinary enough—green just like his mother—but maybe his soulmate would find them special anyway.
Petey flopped onto his bed, staring at the glow-in-the-dark stars his mother had pasted on his ceiling. Each one represented a wish he'd made, and tonight they seemed especially bright, as if sensing the importance of tomorrow.
"Maybe they'll say my name," he mused, rolling onto his stomach and propping his chin on his paws. "Or something funny. Or maybe just 'hi.'" The possibilities sprawled before him, endless and perfect.
He imagined meeting someone who would always understand him, who might feel the same flutters of excitement he felt now, someone who would hear the songs he hummed to himself when he thought no one was listening. It seemed like magic—better than any of the fairy tales his mother read to him before bed.
A crash from the kitchen snapped Petey out of his daydream. His ears flattened against his head as raised voices filtered through the thin walls of their house. His father's voice—sharp and cutting like the edge of a knife. His mother's—softer, pleading, trying to defuse whatever had ignited his father's temper this time.
Petey sat up, his heart hammering against his ribs. His first instinct was to run to the door, to peek out and make sure his mother was okay. But her words echoed in his memory from the last time, "When you hear angry voices, you stay in your room, Petey. Promise me. No matter what."
He'd promised. He always kept his promises to her.
Another crash, louder this time, followed by the unmistakable sound of breaking dishes. Their good plates—the ones they only used for special occasions. His birthday dinner tomorrow was supposed to be on those plates.
"You think I don't work hard enough?" His father's voice, not bothering to stay contained. "You think it's easy dealing with your expectations?"
Petey couldn't make out his mother's response, just the muffled tones of her trying to calm the storm. It never worked. The storm always broke through.
A dull thud, then a cry of pain that made Petey wince. His paws clenched the bedspread, claws digging into the fabric. He wondered if his mother's soulmate, wherever they were, could feel an echo of her pain right now. Did they sit up in bed somewhere, rubbing their arm or side, confused by the phantom sensation? Did they know someone connected to them was hurting?
If they did, why didn't they come find her?
The shouts continued, rising and falling like an awful symphony. Petey tried to imagine his mother's soulmate—what they looked like, what kind of person they were. Would they have been kind? Would they have thrown plates and used words as weapons? He couldn't understand why his mother had chosen his father instead of waiting for the person the universe had picked especially for her.
"She fell in love," he whispered to himself, repeating her explanation from earlier. But the love he witnessed seemed nothing like the soulmate bond she'd described—no shared feelings, no comforting presence, no private concerts in their minds. Just anger and fear and broken dishes.
Another crash made him jump. This one was followed by the sound of the front door slamming so hard the walls of his bedroom trembled. The house fell into an eerie silence that somehow felt worse than the shouting.
Petey sat frozen, straining to hear any movement, any sign that his mother was alright. A soft sob drifted through the walls, quickly muffled. Then the gentle clink of broken pieces being gathered—his mother, cleaning up the aftermath as she always did.
His tail curled around his body protectively. He wanted to go to her, to help her pick up the pieces, but he'd promised to stay put. Promises to his mother were sacred things.
Instead, Petey pulled his blanket over his head, creating a small cave where the sounds of the outside world couldn't reach. In this fabric fortress, he could pretend they lived in a different house, with a different father, or maybe just the two of them—him and his mom, peaceful and safe.
"Tomorrow I'll get my words," he whispered into the darkness of his blanket tent. "And one day I'll find mom’s soulmate for her."
The thought was comforting enough that when sleep finally claimed him, it was gentle—carrying him away from broken plates and angry voices to dreams of birthday candles and magical words appearing on his arm like invisible ink revealed by morning light.
But somewhere in those dreams, a worry took root—a tiny, nagging thought that maybe soulmates weren't always the blessing his mother had described. Maybe sometimes they were just another promise that could be broken.
———
Sunlight poured through the gap in Petey's curtains, painting a golden stripe across his eyelids. He woke with a jolt, the significance of the day hitting him before his eyes had fully opened. Six years old. Today he was six years old, and somewhere on his arm, words would be waiting for him. He scrambled out of bed, not bothering with slippers, his bare feet pattering against the cool morning floorboards as he raced toward his parents' bedroom.
"Mom! Dad! I'm six!" Petey announced as he burst through the door, his voice carrying all the excitement that had built up through the night.
The room wasn't as he expected. Only his mother sat there, perched on the edge of the unmade bed, already dressed but with the distinct shadows of sleeplessness beneath her eyes. She looked up at his entrance and managed a smile that didn't quite reach those tired eyes.
"Happy birthday, my sunshine," she said, opening her arms.
Petey ran into her embrace but pulled back quickly, scanning the room. "Where's Dad? He didn't forget my birthday, did he?"
Grace smoothed the fur on top of Petey's head, her touch gentle. "Your father went away for a bit, just to cool down. He... he had some things to sort through."
Petey's ears drooped slightly. The memory of last night's shouting match still felt fresh, like a bruise that hadn't yet shown its colors. "So he won't be here for my party?"
"About that," Grace said, her tone shifting to something deliberately brighter. "I was thinking—instead of having a regular party at home, why don't we do something extra special? Just you and me?"
"Like what?" Petey asked, curiosity beginning to edge out disappointment.
"How about..." She paused dramatically, "...a day at the beach and all the ice cream you can eat?"
Petey's eyes widened. "Really? All the ice cream? Even the kind with the sprinkles?"
"Especially the kind with the sprinkles," Grace confirmed, tapping his nose playfully. "Now go get dressed, birthday boy!"
Petey scampered off to his room, the absence of his father temporarily forgotten in the promise of sand, waves, and unlimited frozen treats. As he pulled on his favorite long sleeve shirt—the blue one with a rocket ship—he nearly forgot to check his arm. When he remembered, he yanked up his sleeve eagerly, expecting to see dark script against his orange fur.
There was nothing.
He checked his other arm. Nothing there either. He twisted and turned, examining every inch of both forearms, then even checking his legs and chest, just in case the universe had made a mistake about the location.
But his fur remained unmarked, a blank canvas with no message, no clue, no promise of connection.
Still, maybe it took a while to appear. Maybe it happened later in the day, at the exact time he was born. That had to be it.
By the time they reached the beach, Petey had almost convinced himself that the words would appear by sunset. The day was perfect—one of those late summer days where the sun warmed your fur without burning, and the breeze carried just enough salt.
Grace had packed a small picnic, and they sat on a blanket patterned with faded stars, sharing sandwiches and juice boxes. Petey built an elaborate sand castle, complete with a moat that the tide slowly filled as it crept up the beach. His mother helped him decorate it with shells and bits of driftwood, turning it into a fairy tale fortress that the sea would eventually reclaim.
It was while digging a new tower for his castle that Petey suddenly remembered. He dropped his plastic shovel and pulled up his sleeve again, heart pounding with renewed anticipation.
Still nothing.
"Mom?" His voice was smaller now, uncertainty creeping in where excitement had lived all morning.
Grace looked up from the shell she'd been examining. "What is it, sweetheart?"
"My soulmate words aren't here yet." He held out his arm, the empty fur seeming to mock him. "You said they'd come when I turned six. I'm six now."
Grace set the shell down carefully and moved closer to him, taking his arm in her gentle paws. She examined it with a furrowed brow, as if she might spot something he'd missed. But there was nothing to find.
"Sometimes," she said after a moment, choosing her words with care, "these things can be a little late. Like packages in the mail. Maybe your words are on their way and just got delayed."
"But everyone gets them on their birthday," Petey insisted. "You said so."
"Most do," Grace admitted. "But not always. Sometimes they come a little after."
Petey stared at his arm, trying to imagine words forming there, appearing like magic while he watched. But the fur remained stubbornly wordless.
"Will they still come?" he asked, a tremor in his voice.
"Of course they will," Grace said, but there was something in her tone—a note of uncertainty she couldn't quite hide. She pulled him into a hug, her chin resting on the top of his head. "And even if they take their time, you're still my perfect birthday boy."
Petey nodded against her shoulder, wanting to believe her. They spent the rest of the day as promised—building sand sculptures, splashing in the shallows, and finally, sitting on a boardwalk bench with ice cream cones that dripped faster than they could eat them. Petey chose a cone with rainbow sprinkles that stuck to his whiskers and made his mother laugh as she wiped them away.
But every few minutes, his eyes would drift to his arm, waiting for words that never came. By the time they headed home, the sun setting behind them and casting long shadows on the road, Petey had checked his arm twenty-seven times.
And twenty-seven times, he'd found nothing but his own unmarked fur staring back at him.
———
Twenty years had transformed Petey from a disappointed child into a self-proclaimed supervillain with a laboratory full of half-finished doomsday devices. His latest invention—a mechanized mail man designed to replace all mail carriers with robots programmed to misdeliver packages—sat abandoned on his workbench, metal parts scattered like the broken pieces of his life. Another day, another scheme to destroy Dog Man, another distraction from the emptiness that had taken root where hope once lived.
Petey adjusted the sleeve of his pristine white lab coat, ensuring it covered his arm completely. The garment had become as much a part of his identity as his evil laugh or his elaborate plans—not because it made him look scientific, but because it hid what wasn't there. No words. No promise. No connection to anyone. Just blank fur where others displayed their cosmic fortune like badges of honor.
"World's Most Evilest Cat," he muttered to himself, tightening a bolt on his invention with unnecessary force. "Doesn't need a soulmate. Doesn't want one, either."
The lie had become comfortable over the years, worn smooth like a stone in a river. He'd repeated it so often that sometimes, in his more convincing moments, he almost believed it. Almost.
But there were nights when the silence of his lab pressed in on him, when the emptiness of his arm seemed to spread outward, hollowing him from the inside out. On those nights, he'd work until exhaustion claimed him, designing increasingly convoluted devices to capture, outsmart, or humiliate his canine nemesis.
Dog Man. The very thought of him sent a wave of irritation through Petey's body, followed immediately by something else—a flicker of... fondness? Petey blinked, confused by the emotional whiplash. This had been happening more frequently lately—these incongruous feelings that seemed to belong to someone else entirely.
Sometimes he'd be in the middle of plotting Dog Man's demise, cackling over blueprints for a particularly ingenious trap, when suddenly he'd feel a rush of warmth, like sunlight breaking through storm clouds. Other times, a sense of concern would wash over him while he was doing something entirely mundane—as if someone, somewhere, was worried about him.
"Mood swings," Petey dismissed, wiping a paw across his forehead. "Comes with the territory of being a misunderstood genius."
He straightened up, wincing as a dull pain radiated around his neck. Another strange occurrence that had started a year ago—brief flashes of discomfort around his collar area, despite never wearing anything there. The pain was never severe, more annoying than debilitating, like a phantom sensation of pressure.
"Hunching over blueprints too long," he rationalized, rolling his shoulders. "Need better posture. Or a better chair."
He glanced at the clock—almost midnight. Another day wasted on a scheme that probably wouldn't work any better than the last dozen had. Dog Man always found a way to foil his plans, usually through some combination of dumb luck and slobbery heroics. It was infuriating. It was predictable. It was... oddly comforting in its consistency.
Petey shook his head sharply, banishing the thought. He wasn't supposed to find comfort in his enemy's victories. What kind of villain thought that way?
He turned back to his workbench, determined to finish at least one component before calling it a night. As he reached for his soldering iron, the first notes drifted through his mind—gentle, melodic piano music, as clear as if someone were playing in the next room. Except there was no piano, no next room, no explanation for the music that had become his nightly companion.
It was always piano, always around this time, always the same type of melody—something classical but with improvised elements, as if the musician was playing from memory and adding their own flourishes. Tonight it was something that reminded him of moonlight on water, delicate and reflective.
"Earworms," Petey grunted, though he knew earworms didn't typically last for hours, night after night, with different compositions. "Just some song I heard at the supermarket."
But supermarkets didn't typically play Chopin at midnight, and they certainly didn't add original variations to classical pieces. The music continued, a private concert for an unwilling audience of one.
Petey had tried everything to block it out—earplugs (useless against music that wasn't coming from outside), meditation (he always fell asleep), even sleeping pills (which just meant he dreamed about the music instead). Only one method worked reliably, fighting fire with fire.
He reached for his sound system and cranked the volume knob to maximum before hitting play. The lab exploded with the sounds of heavy metal, guitars screaming and drums pounding at a volume that would have the neighbors calling the police if he had any neighbors idiotic enough to piss him off.
The effect was immediate. The piano music vanished, cut off mid-phrase as if someone had slammed a keyboard lid shut in surprise.
Petey smirked in grim satisfaction. Though something in his chest twisted uncomfortably, as if he'd just slammed a door in someone's face.
He turned the music down to a more reasonable level and returned to his project, deliberately focusing on the mechanical details rather than the implications of what he'd just experienced. If hearing music that no one was playing meant what he thought it might mean—what his mother had once told him it meant—then somewhere out there was a soulmate who could hear his music too.
But that was impossible. The universe had made its decision twenty years ago when his sixth birthday came and went without a soul mark. No words meant no soulmate. No soulmate meant no shared feelings, no phantom pains, no music in his mind.
It was just stress. Or insanity. Either was preferable to hope.
"Don't need a soulmate," Petey repeated to himself as he worked, the metal pieces clinking together beneath his claws. "Don't need anyone."
But even as he said it, in some quiet corner of his mind where truth still lived, he knew it was the biggest lie of all.
———
The coffee in Petey's mug had long since gone cold, forgotten beside his latest blueprint for Dog Man's destruction. Two years into his reluctant role as both creator and father figure to Li'l Petey, he still hadn't mastered the art of completing a project with a five-year-old clone underfoot. The smaller cat sat across the workbench, crayon in hand, drawing what appeared to be two stick figure cats—complete with flowers and a shining sun. The domesticity of the scene made Petey's whiskers twitch with discomfort.
"What's a soulmate?" Li'l Petey asked, the question dropping between them as casually as if he'd asked about the weather.
Petey's paw slipped, sending a crucial gear from his latest death ray skittering across the table and nearly into his cold coffee. He caught it just before it took the plunge, but his concentration was thoroughly shattered.
"What did you say?" Petey asked, his voice sharper than he'd intended.
Li'l Petey looked up from his drawing, crayon paused mid-stroke. "A soulmate. What is it?"
Petey set the gear down carefully, buying himself a moment to compose his face into something less revealing. "Where did you hear that word?"
"When I stayed with Dog Man," Li'l Petey explained, returning to his drawing as if the conversation were entirely ordinary. "He has words on his arm, tiny ones, right here." He pointed to the inside of his own arm. "When I asked about them, he said they were for his soulmate. Then he didn't say anything else about it."
Petey felt as if someone had simultaneously emptied a bucket of ice water over his head and punched him in the stomach. Dog Man had a soul mark? Since when? The implications tumbled through his mind like loose parts in a broken machine.
Dog Man wasn't originally a dog-man. He had been created after Petey himself had blown up Officer Knight and his dog Greg. The surgeons had attached Greg's dog head to Officer Knight's human body, creating the hybrid that had become Petey's nemesis. So which part of Dog Man had the soul mark—the head or the body? Had Greg the dog somehow inherited Knight's soulmate when he got his body? Or had the mark appeared after the surgery, suggesting that this new hybrid being had been assigned its own soulmate?
And who in their right mind would be the soulmate of that slobbering, mixed-up mutt anyway?
"Papa?" Li'l Petey's voice broke through Petey's spiraling thoughts. "Are you okay?"
"Don't call me that," Petey said automatically, the denial worn smooth with repetition. "I've told you a hundred times—I'm not your father, I'm your creator. There's a difference."
But the admonishment lacked its usual heat. Petey was too distracted by the revelation about Dog Man to put much energy into correcting Li'l Petey's terminology.
"So what is a soulmate?" Li'l Petey persisted, undeterred.
Petey sighed, setting down his tools. There was no way he was getting any more work done tonight. "A soulmate is... someone the universe connects you to. Someone who shares certain things with you that no one else does."
"Like toys?" Li'l Petey asked, eyes widening.
"No, not physical things," Petey clarified, finding himself slipping into the rhythm of explanation his mother had used with him long ago. "Things like feelings. If you're happy, they might feel happy too, even if they're far away. If you get hurt, they might feel an echo of your pain."
Li'l Petey looked down at his knee, which sported a Band-Aid from a recent tumble. "That doesn't sound very nice."
"It's not that bad," Petey said, surprised to find himself defending the concept. "It's usually just a hint of what the other person is feeling. And there are good things too. Soulmates can sometimes hear music the other is listening to, like a private radio station just for the two of them."
"That sounds neat!" Li'l Petey's tail swished with excitement. "And the words? What are those for?"
"Those words," Petey said, his voice growing softer despite himself, "are the first words your soulmate will ever say to you. They appear on your arm when you turn six, so you'll recognize your soulmate when you finally meet them."
Li'l Petey's eyes grew wide. "Do I have a soulmate? Will I get words too?"
The question hit Petey like a physical blow. Li'l Petey was his clone, created from his own genetic material. There was no reason to think Li'l Petey would be any different from him—any more deserving of a cosmic connection than Petey himself had been. But the thought of telling this child, with his hopeful eyes and innocent curiosity, that he was doomed to the same markless existence that had embittered Petey for decades... he couldn't do it.
"You might," Petey said carefully. "Most people get their marks when they turn six."
"But I'm five!" Li'l Petey bounced in his seat. "That means I'll get mine next year!"
Petey nodded, unable to crush the enthusiasm lighting up the younger cat's face. "Maybe you will."
"Where's your soulmate?" Li'l Petey asked, the question as innocent as it was devastating. "Do they live far away?"
Petey's throat tightened. He could lie. He could make up a story about a soulmate who lived on the other side of the world, or who had died before they could meet. He could spin a tale that would preserve both his dignity and Li'l Petey's hope.
Instead, he slowly rolled up the sleeves of his lab coat, first the right, then the left, revealing what he normally kept hidden from everyone—the unmarked fur of his inner arms, the blank spaces where destiny had forgotten to write.
"I don't have one," Petey said simply. "Not everyone gets a soulmate. The universe... it didn't give me a mark."
Li'l Petey stared at the bare fur, confusion creasing his brow. "Where are the words?"
"There aren't any," Petey said, surprised by how steady his voice remained. "Some people just don't get them."
"But why?" Li'l Petey asked, the childish insistence on understanding making Petey's chest ache.
"I don't know," Petey admitted. "Maybe the universe decided I wasn't worthy of one. Maybe there's nobody out there who would match with me. Or maybe..." He trailed off, unable to voice the third possibility that had haunted him for years—that his soulmate had existed but was now gone, lost before they could ever meet.
Li'l Petey slid off his chair and came around the workbench. Before Petey could react, the smaller cat had wrapped his arms around Petey's leg in a fierce hug.
"That's not fair," Li'l Petey declared, his voice muffled against Petey's fur. "You should have a soulmate. Everyone should."
Something in Petey's chest cracked open at the simple declaration—at the unquestioning belief that he, the self-proclaimed most evilest cat, deserved connection like anyone else. He hesitated, then rested a paw lightly on Li'l Petey's head.
"Life isn't always fair, kid," he said softly. "But you learn to live with what you get."
Li'l Petey looked up at him, determination in his young face. "If I get a soulmate next year, I'll share them with you."
The offer, so earnest and impossible, made Petey's throat tighten again. "That's not how it works. But... thanks."
They stayed like that for a moment, an unexpected pocket of peace in Petey's otherwise chaotic existence. Then Li'l Petey climbed back onto his chair and resumed his drawing, adding what appeared to be a third cat to his domestic family portrait.
Petey returned to his work, the silence between them comfortable now rather than strained. Neither spoke, but as the night deepened around them, the soft notes of piano music began to filter through Petey's consciousness—the nightly concert he'd grown almost fond of despite himself.
Tonight, for the first time, he didn't try to drown it out. He let the gentle melody flow around him as he worked, aware of Li'l Petey watching him with curious eyes. Tomorrow, they would go back to their routine of schemes and counter-schemes. Tomorrow, Dog Man would foil his plans again, and Petey would seethe and plot revenge.
But tonight, in this quiet moment with the child who called him Papa despite his protests, Petey allowed himself to wonder—just wonder—what it might be like to finally see words appear on his naked fur, or hear that long awaited voice.