Work Text:
The Mutual Delusion About Cat Ownership
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College life was exactly what you expected: questionable ramen, existential dread before exams, and the constant, low-grade hum of communal living. What you didn't factor in was the cat. A scruffy, medium-sized ball of gray fluff and dirt that started trailing you like a furry, four-legged shadow about a week into the semester.
At first, it was just a fleeting glimpse – a flicker under a bush, a dash across the quad. Then it escalated. It started appearing outside your ground-floor window, a persistent little face pressing against the screen. By dusk, it was a regular fixture on your small patio, a soft, insistent meowing echoing in the quiet evening. One night, feeling a pang of misguided sympathy and a healthy dose of exhaustion, you cracked open a can of tuna you'd been saving for actual human food and offered a small plate.
Mistake.
The cat, which you mentally dubbed 'Gremlin' due to its chaotic energy and questionable grooming habits, decided this constituted as a binding lifelong contract. Every night thereafter, whether you opened the door or not, it was there. Meowing. Paw-patting the screen door with surprising dexterity. More than once, it slipped inside the moment you opened the main door, making a beeline for the nearest soft surface (your clean laundry pile, naturally). You’d shoo it out, guilt warring with annoyance. This was not in the syllabus.
Then came the morning you stepped out for your 8 AM, still half-asleep, and saw him. Remy LeBeau. Smug upperclassman from the apartment building next door, all messy dark curls, infuriating charm, and a devil-may-care attitude you found immediately irritating. He was perched on his porch steps, looking entirely too pleased with himself, while Gremlin happily munched on what looked suspiciously like....rotisserie chicken.
Your sleep-deprived brain saw red. This wasn't just your cat problem anymore; he was enabling it! He was luring him away!
"Hey!" You snapped, sharper than you intended. "What do you think you're doing? You're cat-napping!"
He looked up, that lazy, infuriating grin spreading across his face. "Cat-nappin'? Chère, you're the one tryin' to steal my cat."
You blinked. "Your cat? He's been following me for weeks!"
Neither of you backed down. The air crackled with mutual accusation and the distinct scent of poultry.
“That’s my cat…” Remy said again, his voice low and confident, utterly convinced of his own narrative.
You raised an eyebrow, arms crossed over your chest. “Then why does he sleep on my laundry?”
The Cat Problem had officially escalated into a turf war. And the Gremlin just sat there, licking chicken grease from his paws, the picture of innocent mischief.
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The incident with the rotisserie chicken was merely the opening salvo in what devolved into a full-blown, passive-aggressive Cat Custody Cold War. Gremlin, bless his scruffy heart, seemed oblivious to the tension he was sowing. One night he'd be curled up on the old armchair you dragged onto my patio, the next morning you'd see him sauntering out from under Remy's porch swing. The neutrality of Switzerland had nothing on this feline freelancer.
Your encounters became a daily, albeit irritating, ritual. Seeing Gremlin on Remy's steps would send a spike of competitive annoyance through you. Finding him waiting outside your door again felt like a small, vindictive victory. And every switch-over meant a confrontation.
"Oh, look who's back….." You'd say, spotting him exiting Remy's domain. "Decided to return to civilization?"
Remy, leaning against his doorframe looking deceptively relaxed, would counter, "Just payin' a visit, chère . Can't blame him for missin' the good life."
You started subtly competing for His Royal Gremlin-ness's affection. You bought a small bag of what the internet promised was the fanciest, most delectable salmon pâté wet food known to felines. You left it out, feeling ridiculously pleased with yourself. The next day, Remy appeared on your patio with a ridiculous plush toy – bright red, shaped like a crawfish, complete with dangling little legs. Gremlin ignored the pâté to bat at the crawfish.
Point: LeBeau.
Undeterred, you decided artisanal comfort was key. You spent a frustrating evening attempting to knit, resulting in a lopsided, vaguely rectangular swatch of yarn that you optimistically placed on the patio chair as a "tiny blanket." It was truly terrible. That weekend, a small, suspiciously plush cat bed appeared outside Remy's door.
It was beige, tasteful, and clearly professionally made.
Point: LeBeau, again.
You retaliated by discovering Gremlin had a strange fascination with sparkly hair ties and scattering a few strategic ones around your patio.
You told each other off every single time the cat switched allegiance. The accusations flew fast and furious.
"He spent the night here! Clearly, your 'hospitality' wore thin….." You'd say, gesturing at the cat lounging on your windowsill.
"Nah, he just came back to tell you how much he missed my company….." Remy would retort, pushing off his doorframe. "Besides, he was probably just escaping your terrible knitting."
Remy insisted the cat had come to him first, a stray drawn to his inherent charm and superior snack offerings. You called him delusional, citing Gremlin's initial following- you behavior as irrefutable evidence of your prior claim.
But woven through the genuine irritation was something else. The arguments started to feel....less like actual fights and more like a strange, high-stakes improv game. There was a rhythm to our back-and-forth, a familiar pattern of jabs and parries. His teasing became more frequent, laced with that easy Louisiana drawl. And you found yourself meeting it head-on, sharp retorts rolling off your tongue with unexpected ease.
“You ever consider the cat just likes me more?” Remy asked one afternoon, watching Gremlin knead your backpack strap.
“Oh, I’m sorry…..” I shot back instantly, not missing a beat. “Was it your sock drawer he puked in last week? Didn’t think so.”
He actually laughed at that, a quick, surprising sound. Your cold war wasn't thawing exactly, but it was evolving. From pure rivalry to something……complicated.
Annoying, yes. Competitive, absolutely. But maybe, just maybe, a little bit fun too.
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The cat custody battle raged on for weeks. You were so consumed by your rivalry, so invested in proving Gremlin's true allegiance, that you almost missed the obvious. Or rather, you finally decided to investigate why our supposed prize kept disappearing for hours at a time, only to reappear looking suspiciously well-fed.
One cool evening, armed with a flashlight and a shared, silent suspicion, the two of you tracked Gremlin. He’d trotted off with a purpose that hinted at a destination beyond our battlegrounds. The two of you followed him across the quad, past the library, and towards the glowing lights of the science building. This seemed……odd. Was he attending a late-night lecture on quantum mechanics?
He didn't go into the main lecture halls. Instead, he padded around the side, towards a door marked "Facilities." The two of peeked through the window. And there he was, rubbing against the legs of a man in a janitor's uniform, who was calmly setting down a bowl of kibble next to a small, well-worn blanket.
Your jaws collectively dropped.
"Uh….." Remy said, voice flat. "Is…..is that Greg?"
The janitor, Greg apparently, looked up, saw the cat, then saw us. "Oh, hey there…" He said with a friendly nod. "You two looking for this rascal? He usually hangs out around here in the evenings."
"He's... he's yours ?" You managed, feeling your entire world shift slightly on its axis.
Greg chuckled. "Yeah, technically. Though he considers himself more of a campus resident manager. Comes and goes as he pleases. Gets fed all over, this one." He pointed a thumb towards a small, taped-up sign on a bulletin board near the door. It listed cleaning schedules. Underneath it, someone had tacked a handwritten note: "Please don't feed the grey cat too much . He is getting fat. - Greg."
Another note, clearly from a different hand, was pinned below it: "But he likes salmon? Professor Miller."
Remy and you exchanged a look. A long, silent, hilarious look.
Gremlin wasn't choosing sides. He was running a long con. He was a grifter. A fuzzy, purring, four-legged scam artist working the entire campus. He had Greg the janitor for his home base, us two idiots for competitive five-star dining, and at least one professor willing to shell out for fish. You hadn't been fighting over ownership; you'd been marks in a feline hustle.
Youstood there for a minute, the awkward silence punctuated only by the distant hum of campus life and Gremlin's contented purr from inside the facilities room. The air, moments before thick with territorial tension, felt suddenly light, absurd.
“So…” Remy finally broke the silence, his voice soft with disbelief. “He’s a scam artist.”
You nodded slowly, the corners of your mouth twitching. “We’ve been scammed by a cat.”
And then, Remy laughed. Not the smug, teasing laugh you'd become accustomed to, but a real, genuine, unrestrained bark of amusement that crinkled the corners of his eyes. And you laughed too, a release of weeks of built-up frustration and ridiculousness. You hadn't seen him look this unguilty, this real, before.
A beat of quiet followed, comfortable this time. He looked at you, the laughter fading but a warmth lingering in his expression.
“Still think he likes you best?” He said, the familiar teasing returning, but softer now.
“He likes chicken best…..” You countered easily. “You just happen to smell like it.”
He winced playfully. “Ouch, chère .”
There was a flicker of something warmer beneath the teasing now, a shared understanding that went beyond the cat. Your absurd little war had ended not in victory or defeat, but in mutual bemusement. He straightened up, shoving his hands in his pockets.
“Well……” He said, nodding towards the facilities door. “Guess we got a joint interest in makin' sure his, uh, business model stays sustainable. Want to split the cost of Greg’s kibble fund anyway?”
You smiled. “Yeah. Yeah, I do.”
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A few nights later, the campus was quiet, bathed in the soft glow of lampposts. Remy and you weren't yelling across our respective lawns. The two of you were sitting together on the concrete steps that bridged the small grassy patch between our dorm buildings. The space that used to be your demilitarized zone now felt…..shared.
Gremlin, the architect of our bizarre connection, was draped across the step between you, a gremlin-sized prince holding court over his unsuspecting subjects. He occasionally twitched an ear or let out a soft rumble of a purr.
You were passing a bag of chips back and forth. Your fingers brushed his as he reached for the bag. A small, electric hum fizzed in the air, entirely separate from the cat's purr. It wasn't awkward; it was….easy.
He held out a bottle of soda he’d brought. “Want a drink?”
You took it, deliberately meeting his eyes. A smirk played on his lips, mirroring your own. “Is this a date?”
His grin widened, charming and a little dangerous. “Only if Gremlin approves.”
You both looked down at the cat, the final arbiter of your fate. Gremlin’s nose twitched. He let out a sudden, loud sneeze, shook his head, and with a stretch, hopped off the step and ambled off towards the promise of Greg’s later shift.
You both laughed again, the sound soft and warm in the night air.
It wasn’t your cat. It wasn’t his either. But you’d still been bonded by a furry, manipulative con artist. And now you were sitting here together, sharing the quiet, the lingering taste of laughter, and the understanding that you both fell for the same absurd scam?
Suddenly, you didn’t mind sharing at all. Especially not with Remy. The Cat Problem had unexpectedly become something entirely different. Something that felt a lot like a beginning.
(P.S.: A week later, a package arrived at your door. Inside were two coffee mugs. One said "Cat Mom." The other, "Cat Dad." Remy just winked from his porch.)