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"Mixed Blessings a Cat Tail "Written By: Kaeru Shisho Disclaimer: I don't own any part of Gundam Wing
or its characters, nor do I make any monetary profit off this story. Rating: NC 17 Warnings: AU, male/male pairings of a most ridiculous
nature; told from Quatre's point of view, so beware the fluff. Pairings: 1x2, 3x4 Summary: The GW boys are all cats finding their little paws in the big, bad world. For Dyna Dee. A/N: The author needs her head examined, as does
her friend and editor, Waterlily, who suggested it, but I wrote it
just the same in order to make you laugh and as an eleven chapter
gift to Dyna Dee! " Mixed Blessings a Cat Tail " In
the first place: In a cat's eye, all things belong to cats.
(orig. Ernest Hemingway) Chapter 4 - Cat's Meow It hadn't helped that the last words I remembered hearing, before marching off to my laundry room basket, had been Rashid's, telling me about Serval cats. I simply shouldn't have even mentioned them. "I wonder sometimes," I'd said, "if wild cats and domesticated cats are compatible." "Probably not," he'd said automatically in answer to my round-about inquiry concerning them. "The wild cats would eat you." "But what about the smaller ones. Take the Serval for example—" "Let me tell you about those wild cats of the savannas," he'd begun. "Not from the Sahara, but south from there, along waterways, where there are grasslands and forests. Always water, though. They swim." "No!" I absolutely hadn't believed that could be true. "Oh, yes. Great swimmers—" "What?!" Trowa! A cat that liked water?! "- and great runners, too, with the longest legs in the cat kingdom." "Well, I'd believe that, but water?" "You will believe all that I tell you and live a long life like me. But to return to this wild cat... I do not think they would make friends with the house cat. You see, they are nocturnal and solitary by nature." "Solitary?" I had known that meant that they lived alone, but didn't I? "Not in a family? That's not so different, is it? Most cats live with their human companions, not other cats." "You are right, of course. You may live with cats, but not ones of your choosing." "I have friends I chose... oh! They are coming over tomorrow morning." "Not recommended." "It's too late, I've already invited them." "The Mister and Missus are having work done. Do not ask me what. I don't know, but I heard them talking about workmen arriving 'at the break of day'." That sounded awful and terribly inconvenient; still, I had to hope Rashid was mistaken and make the best of things if he was right. "I hope not. It will completely wreck my plans." "Good night, dear one." "Good night, Rashid." I won't say I slept well, what with shining fish crying for help as I dashed through an endless maze of tall grass, chased by snakes and raccoons and cows and, well, one certain other cat. Being awakened from a bad dream by a big parrot didn't go well at all, and, I'm sorry to say, Rashid lost a couple of feathers in the process. "Dear, boy! Watch your claws! Time for a manicure, don't you agree?" "Rashid! I'm so sorry! Are you okay?" "Yes, yes, no need to fuss over a few lost feathers." "I was having a bad dream, you see—" "Your tale will have to wait," he said to me in his fatherly tone. "I'm here to relate your friends' greeting. They await you without." My friends were here already? Reading my mind, Rashid said, "Breakfast has passed." "It's that late?!" I bounded from my basket, flustered by the change in routine. "They're here so soon?" Of course, they did say they'd come in the morning. "Oh! They aren't in the house, are they?" "No. As I reported, they are without." He ran an errant feather through his beak, smoothing over where I'd lashed out at him. "Whatever plans you had with them, I'm afraid, will have to be postponed." "Why?" None of them would like that news! "The workmen are doing their business. Very loud with whining machines. Go outside and you will see for yourself." Oh, that, ugh. It hadn't all been a dream. "Miss Iria hasn't gone has she?" Of course she was probably too busy with the workmen to be concerned about me. "No. She is here to supervise." My dear friends would have to come another time- that was a certainty. They'd be so disappointed! "Don't take that!" I cried out in an attempt to stop him from taking another of Miss Iria's "fabric softener sheets," which she fed to the warm, humming box. "It is just the one." "And yesterday was another. You know she doesn't like that you horde them." "Mind your manners!" He often delivered that line when he was indisposed to arguing. We parted to our different directions, him to tear up the scented sheet and drop the bits on the floor, and me to stop my friends from instigating a disturbance with Miss Iria. Heero was the only one who didn't look unhappy; in fact, I thought he glowed with the sort of pride that comes from purpose, like Rashid. "Odin was here early. You missed him. He gives the orders and leaves the work to his experts." "I'm sorry to have missed him," I said, honestly. "You will get another chance," Heero said barely hiding his delight. "He will return at the project's completion to inspect." I approved. "That's very thorough of him." "He's a professional," Heero concluded. It was just in time, because Wufei appeared about to burst with tension. "How long is this going to take them?" Heero stared at my house for several heartbeats, and then replied, "There are many windows and doors and two floors. The job only just was started. My estimate... afternoon. They take a break to eat, so after that." "Afternoon?" Wufei looked at me. "There will be no time to see the fish, then. Not today." "I'm sorry," I began. I hadn't even had my breakfast and already I had somehow failed my friends. "I haven't hosted a get-together before and I didn't know about this." "And you couldn't have. Geez, 'Fei, give Kit-Cat a break. How's he to know what's in the head of his humans? Howie hardly ever tells me a thing worth knowing." "Shall we try again tomorrow?" I asked, hopefully. Wufei rose to his feet and looked away. "We shall see." Duo hissed and batted at his tail, calling after him, "Don't be a pill!" He licked my ear and purred. "Don't let him bug ya. He'll come when Heero calls, you can bet on that. There's no way he'd miss the opportunity to...ah... see of a bowlful of fish." "Thank you, Duo." Heero missed all this; his attention riveted to the workmen, until Duo asked him, "What'sup?" He gave us what he called "the perimeter tour." I learned all about camera placement, even getting to adjust the angle on one Heero said "would soon be covered by overhanging vegetation." He was so knowledgeable about things like that. Every single window was opened and lined with what I learned were called "wires", not snakes. Heero explained the functions of the security devices and how "the data they collected would be transmitted to a central data center for study." "You know, as fascinating as this all is," Duo said, yawning to demonstrate how apathetic he really was, "I could use some grub and a nap. In that order. See, ya round." I think Heero was surprised and even a little hurt to have him just leave so abruptly, not that I didn't blame him—I didn't blame anybody for feeling let down and leaving. But he let Duo leave on his own. I nearly remarked about the rule breaking and then thought about how I'd met Trowa by being on my own and decided that it wasn't so bad when you knew the neighborhood, and Duo certainly knew the area well. And then my stomach growled. I was beginning to feel my lack of meals- I'd missed TWO—and nearly excused myself, and I would have had Heero not been waiting so patiently for his human to put in an appearance. "Heero. The least I can do is bring us a snack. Please, find a shady spot in the garden and wait. I'll be right back. I promise." He agreed and quietly padded off the patio. I slipped into the house and to my bowl, where breakfast of canned Ocean Delight awaited me, looking well aged. I wolfed it down in spite of the fact that I could taste salmon in the fish mix. I hated salmon and normally would have snubbed it, but I was starving! My other bowl contained dry food for nibbling on during the day. That I pushed across the floor, aiming for the door to the garage. No one noticed what I was doing. The workmen were attracting all the attention, I guessed. Almost everyone. "What are you doing?" It was Rashid, he who sees all and knows all. I didn't need his grumpy beak in my affairs, or want to waste time defending myself, so I'm afraid I might have been a little abrupt with him. "Taking my food outside. You may help or move aside." I expected him to put up a fuss or at least an argument, but instead he rallied round. "Noise disturbs me also. I shall lift this. You open the door." He carried the bowl in his very strong beak, spilling a little, but he managed to get it all the way through the house and garage, where all he had to do was push it out the cat door. "You can assume control of this from here on out, I suspect?" "Yes, thank you so much! I couldn't have done it without your help. You want to come out, too?" "I don't dare," he said with so serious a tone I didn't dare question him about it. Heero dashed to the door to help and we took turns carrying and pushing the bowl across the patio pavers and onto the grass. There we dove in and ate. I let him take the lion's share, having nearly filled myself on Ocean Delight earlier. After emptying the bowl, we cleaned up with a few well-placed licks, and agreed to find a safe place to rest and wait. We circled a dry spot within site of the house, but not underfoot, before settling down for a short nap. Heero had no problem lying close to me and closing his eyes. Don't nap with strangers or in a strange place, no longer applied to me. And it felt a very, very short one to me, having had so little rest the night before. "Cat." Heero nudged me to wakefulness. "Huh?" "The work is done." That meant Odin was here! "Oh! Yes! My, he is tall, Odin is!" "Yes." "He's smiling so the inspection must be going well." "I think so," he agreed. I noticed that Miss Iria seemed very pleased with the job Mr. Odin had done, too. Heero trotted up to the man, who immediately bent and picked him up. I could tell Heero liked him and the man liked him, too. I could hear the purring all the way out to the front of the house, where the man took Heero into his car. There I could see my friend perched on a seat with his front legs on the dashboard scanning the grass line for me. I waved a paw and he nodded; that's all the time we had for goodbyes, and then they were gone. I'd never ridden in a car loose before. Only caged. Only when we moved here or to the... dreaded vet. Lucky, lucky Heero! I listened to Miss Iria worry over my missing bowl as she filled my other one with two - TWO—cans of Turkey and Giblets. I gorged myself to near bursting and then, somehow, hauled my swollen belly up onto my perch by the window and closed my eyes, all the while listening to that mean old bird laugh at me for over indulging. Well, I'd deserved it all, both the food and the teasing. Heero and I had finally bonded. I felt good about that, so it was all worth it. I think I had Duo to thank for the opportunity. He shared his best friend with me. That was my last warm fuzzy thought before falling into a long, much-needed sleep. (o) Regardless of how much I'd eaten before, come dinner time and I was awake and alert and ready to see if Miss Iria had left me more. I tasted it, but it wasn't savory enough to go all out and eat it, so I didn't. I was more interested in testing out a couple theories I'd been speculating on. I actually was hoping that it was Trowa who'd chased away the raccoon. Rashid's words came back to me. He'd told me that Serval cats were nocturnal, and Trowa was partially a wildcat. I'd seen Trowa at night in my garden; would he be there again tonight? Just as I thought! As soon as it was dusk, my mysterious shadowy wild cat, showed himself. "Trowa? Is that you?" I called, although I could detect his particular musky scent, easily picking it out from the cloying flower perfumes in the background. Back when I'd first come outside, I'd assumed the odor was raccoon or opossum or the mix of cats with other animals, but now that I had met him, I knew it was his mark. "Who else?" "I don't know. Apparently, if I believe my friends, I have a secret admirer." "It's not a secret. I told you I was interested in you and I left you proof." "You mean animals you killed, I know. I had to hide the duck. Honestly! What were you thinking? I couldn't eat anything that large, if I could eat anything with feathers—" "-You eat canned chicken. That had feathers." "Not ON it! I'm serious here. If Miss Iria had found the bloody duck body, I think she might have had me put down!" "Why?" He sounded completely mystified. "Why? Because she assumes I'm the guilty cat leaving my kills on her doorstep, that's why! You should have seen the look she and Mr. Tam gave me the other day." "I should have. I don't stick around every time I leave something. I did warn you about the duck." "Yes, thank you. Did... was that story true? Was his mate killed and you just put him out of his misery?" "Mercy killer—that's me. Yeah, it's true. Hey, you want to come up here?" "Not really." That would put me at the disadvantage, because it was obvious he was more at home in my trees than I was. It wasn't that I thought he'd harm me; I was pretty sure he had a good heart, but if he became too persistent or pushy, I preferred to have all four of my feet firmly planted on terra firma. "Why don't you come down to the garden instead?" "Suit yourself." I had the chance to watch his agile moves, his muscles, and long legs catch his leaps and bounds. He was a marvel in motion. I swept the drool off my chin with a quick, raspy lick. He wasted no time with niceties; he stalked right up to me, did his funny head bump thing, and then proceeded to lick my face. I pulled away first, but he did the talking. "My little catling, I do not believe your owners will get rid of a treasure like you. They might, though, keep you locked inside. I shouldn't like that." "Well, no. I wouldn't like that at all either." My head was spinning from his smoothing up against me. "Y-You know, I don't like being called a kitten. And if I was, which I'm not, then you shouldn't be playing with me in that manner." "Catling? It's an endearment. My special name for you who I hold most dear to me." "I am? You do?" Oh, my long and straight, white whiskers! "Very dear. You told me you were two years old. So am I. I'm not even full grown. In another year, I'll be even taller." "Really? You're already tall." "And you are very, very cute—" I swiped him across the face. "—and tough!" he added quickly. "You're growing out your claws, I see." "To defend against sweet-talking cats of dubious background." "I'm a registered breed!" Trowa cried out. I hadn't meant to sting his pride and felt bad that I had. "I'm sorry, I know you are. I meant to say... Where is your house?" "A long ways away. Miles." I could sense that he was still hurt by what I'd said. I had to fix that. "You walk miles to come here? That's amazing and very flattering." "To see you, yeah. You require a little protection every so often." Yes! Just what I'd thought! "You chased away that vicious raccoon, didn't you?" "Well—" "I was so scared! And that alarming sound, like a snake! Was that you, too?" "Yeah—" "You were wonderful! And I never thanked you!" "It was nothing. He was just an old fellow being pushed out of his territory by an upstart and made the mistake of running into me." Had I embarrassed the big, tough, wild cat? He was intensely inspecting a paw, which looked perfectly fine to me. "How fortunate for me that you were there," I said quietly. "I made it a point to be in the neighborhood." "Oh, yes, you'd hinted about keeping an eye on me." "It wasn't a hint—" "-Miles from home... I'm lucky you spare me the time." "I'm not busy right now, so I have plenty of time." Ah, HA! I wanted to know more about him, and now I had manipulated the conversation right where I wanted it to go. "When you are busy, what are you doing?" If I expected him continue to keep his personal life confidential, I was to be disappointed; well, not that more stunned, once again. Trowa was one unpredictable cat. "I perform in the circus," he said, jaw tight, clearly expecting a bad reaction from me. Speechless, I just sat and let the night breeze blow through my fur. I could hear the skittering of small animals in the undergrowth, the scrapings of tree limbs and rustle of leaves. I could hear him breathing, and my heart quickened with no justification. What would happen next? "I do tricks." Let me say that it was the tone of his voice more than his words that sent my heart to pounding. That was his trick, I supposed. "I see." As illustration, I assumed, he jumped into the air executing a backwards flip and landed in a crouch. With continued fluid motion, he repeated the flip several more times. Stop!" I cried. "You're making me dizzy!" When he stopped, it was to fall into a forward roll that brought him to a complete standstill only a body-length from my feet. "Just focus elsewhere," he said, as if that explained away everything. "I do the tightrope and high dive." "High dive? Onto what?" "Trampoline and sometimes water." "Water!" So it was true! "It's not so bad." "You don't have long hair!" I disagreed. I decided that I ought to say something nice to him; he'd come such a long way to say hello. At least I should take an interest in his... activities. "Do you like swimming?" "Actually, I do." His eyes traced around the sky overhead for a second. "Keeps my body in shape." "Yes, it does!" I said with far more enthusiasm than I'd intended to allow leak out, not that I'd given much forethought to what I'd do or say around him, but it was as if a little tiger inside me was roaring to get out and... what? What was my problem around Trowa? I liked him a great deal and for no good reason, except he liked me and protected me from stray animals and helped me find my way home... But he was extremely forward! I did like that, though. Well, I could worry about the little tiger, later. It was time to learn more about the secret life of Trowa, because as sweet on me as he seemed, I believed he could be a very bad boy. And I didn't know why. Trowa purred. His tail fluffed. I had pleased Trowa, which set me to purring, too. "I'm designed for hunting," he told me, not without some pride. "Long legs for reaching into holes, leaping for prey, and I can hear the talk of rodents with ultra-sonic hearing." "Wow!" Okay, I was impressed. As I studied his face, I noticed his eyes move, tracking something over my shoulder and up. I turned to see moths, fluttering in the light from the porch. "They think it's the moon," he said. A small dark thing— not a moth but an animal, from the trace of smell in the air- swooped over our heads. "What was that?" "Bat," he said seconds before I saw him do a most remarkable thing—he leaped nearly 10 feet into the air and caught the night-bird in flight! "Don't hurt the birdie!" He removed it from his mouth and held it to the ground with a paw. "It's a bat. A flying mouse." He was right! It wasn't a bird at all. "It hasn't feathers, but... it has no tail like a mouse either." "It's a bat." "Let it go," I demanded, and he did. The ungainly looking thing flopped around before finally crawling up the side of a tree and from there, flying away. Trowa stayed until the bat was out of sight, although I'm certain he hadn't lost track of its whereabouts and could have retrieved it in a second. "See you 'round." He closed in on me and leaned his face very, very near to mine. I could see the green flecks of color in the low light and then my eyes closed of their own volition. His rough tongue flickered over my lips and nose and eyelids, finishing up with a very sweet head nuzzle. Warm, sleek fur over hard bone, ummm. He pulled back, leaving me trembling and eager for more- the next day. "Oh, yes. I do want to see you again! My friends are coming over tomorrow morning, aaaand you are invited, too. You could meet them." "You mean the coon-cat and his shadow? I'll pass." "Duo and Heero are their names and there is also a Siamese named Wufei. You'd like them, you really would!" "Uh, huh. You have a good time—catling." He leaped up... and was completely out of sight. I barely heard him alighting on the fence; in fact, the landing would have be soundless had a wood slat not been loose and rattled. I couldn't think of anyone but him that evening, even passed on dinner. Rashid scattered it around the floor. "See? I'm concerned for you. I cover for you." "There's nothing to cover up, Rashid." "No? No appetite? Miss Iria might think you are ill and take you to the v—" "Don't say it!" I cried out. "Vet." "Euww!" "There. I say it. You need to think, though, what you are doing." "I'm not doing anything wrong." "No? Then why this?" Rashid used a wing to sweep away more of the abandoned food. "I'm not sure. I have friends who want to see my house and a friend who protects me. I'm happy, basically." "Not ill?" "Not at all! I'm fit as ever." "Then you are in love, my little one." In love! Oh, my whiskers! TBC
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