I don't know whether to knit it a sweater or sprinkle it with holy water
I also don't know why I'm getting this weird feeling that that cat would be impossible to kill somehow Something about those wrinkle folds screams immortality
It's probably kind of weird that's one of the first places my mind goes, but Trust me, it's a logical starting point if you've spent any time at the gas station
I genuinely do not know. Maybe it's weirdly cute-psychic. Like it's ugly, but when you look into its eyes it somehow hypnotizes you into thinking it's cute?
I'm not necessarily saying we should go with that one, but If we did Yoda would be too obvious of a choice, so I'm ruling it out on principal.
It could be a Parvo because it kind of feels like it could look straight into a dog's soul and conquer it with eye contact without lifting it's little paw
or
Macaroni Because it kind of looks like the way macaroni sounds
It's... what's on the inside that matters? That feels like the right answer.
Well, good news, I don't think there's one hair on that cat so I guess it's disqualified
I know what you mean Like, Jerry took a bullet for me and still took longer to grow on me than that cat This was a 5 minute turn-around time
Don't get me wrong, I'm still a little horrified, but the ratio of uncomfortable to adorable has shifted dramatically very abruptly
But maybe just to be safe we should actually Meet it or something first? Is that a thing you do with cats? Is there like an overnight visit situation? Just to see if it tries to claw our faces off or siphon our soul energy in the night?
should I have said a WHISKER too morbid, did I miss the dad joke of the century there depressing
okay I'm glad to know I'm not alone
and yeah I think you can make an appointment to meet it or like foster first or something let me send the shelter an email you can blame me if it siphons our soul energy that'll all be on me
Don't worry, I probably don't have any soul energy left anyway, I'm like a dried up raisin inside. That one's a more You concern. The face clawing is probably the more Me one.
Should we I don't know Preemptively buy some supplies? Go cat supply shopping? Is that too soon? That's too soon, isn't it. This is still a completely hypothetical cat. It's more the concept of a cat than an actual cat yet. Man, I wish they had What to Expect When You're Expecting: Cat Edition or something
That might be the weirdest sounding nice thing anyone's ever said to me, thank you
I have nothing but confidence in you If it's cat-related research I'll probably spend all night on google anyway, so maybe I can feed you knowledge through cat relative osmosis If it's like actual work related research I'm useless good luck with that
oh man, I'll probably spend half the night on google too, honestly I tend not to sleep for more than a few hours at a time so I have a lot of awake breaks, as I like to call them
the research I was thinking of is work-related (I ended up splitting between research and investigations) but I can clear it pretty fast if I put my mind to it
but I still welcome your cat relative osmosis learnings
[It really hadn't been as tough as she'd expected to get the shelter to let her foster the cat for a couple days and see if she falls for him. Back home, the shelters had had such impossible asks - nuclear family, long term relationship, backyard, the whole nine yards. Things seem a lot more relaxed here, maybe because they're living in Central Horrorsville USA.
So here she is, carrying a cat in a crate who she has already mentally named Macaroni (at least for now) and is half in love with, pushing the door of her apartment closed with her foot. Putting down the crate, she crouches in front of it, eyes on the cat for a moment, voice soft as she speaks to it.]
Are you gonna claw my face off, baby?
[Whipping her phone out, she shoots a text off to Jack.]
( He's pretty sure the wait is exactly what expecting fathers feel, and he's only like 40% sure he's exaggerating. He's not even the cat dad, he's the cat uncle, but still. He's got a shameless appreciation for all things warm and fuzzy — or... warm and hairless, and he's particularly invested in this one.
When the text comes in, he swipes a reply quickly and doesn't even notice the autocorrect. )
Iguana
( Translation: I'm on my way.
Annnnd like forty seconds later he's Kramer'ing his way into her apartment like a classic episode of Seinfeld, mindful to shut the door behind him quietly so he doesn't spook it. )
Aww, it's- a crate.
( A crate that he stoops down in front of to peer into the dark. Two lamplight eyes peer back at him. )
[Abby isn't startled when Jack just shows up in her house, mostly because she's a little paranoid so she knows his footsteps, and she just glances up at him with a big smile on her face.]
We were waiting for you. I thought you might want to be here for the big reveal.
[She shuffles a little bit to one side when he comes over to crouch down beside her and peer into the depths of the crate.]
Hah. I just asked him if he was gonna claw our faces off, but his answer was pretty difficult to translate into human speak. Unless you know what "myawww" means.
[A little elbow jostle, and she puts her fingers on the catch of the door.]
You wanna get behind me when I open this, just in case? I think my luck's a...whisker better than yours.
( A whisker; Jack shakes his head and makes the sad trombone sound. That's the worst, absolutely terrible. )
Nah, I'm one eye patch away from being full-blown pirate, I'll take my chances.
( He'll settle in eagerly beside her awaiting the offical Cage Door Opening.
Once it's open, Macaroni blinks lazily at them, then slowly makes his way from the cage. First thing's first: a casual, leisurely stretch featuring some downward-facing-cat, followed by a soft mrow, a purr, and an attempt to rub his hairless body up against whatever appendage of Abby's he can reach.
There's a silent pause, and then Jack factually declares: )
I had to use it after missing out the other night, okay?
[She gives him a gentle jocular elbow in the upper arm, and leans in to look at the cat again as he comes in closer and declares that he's going to risk it. So she opens the door, because he's an adult and can make his own eye-related choices, and Macaroni comes out of the cage.
The cat looks like a wrinkly demon spawn, but he stretches and meows and purrs and rubs his little hairless body on her hand, and the immediate instinct is to scritch him behind the ears, which just elicits more purring.]
Oh. Oh no.
[Tilting her hand, she gives him a few under the chin scratches and he lifts his head to expose his neck.]
Oh no, look, he trusts me with his neck already. I would also die for this cat. Oh my god. I'm so glad we got that laser pointer.
( Yeah, okay, making up for the missed pun opportunity (oppuntunity? opperpunity?) gets a pass this time — that's what his expression seems to suggest, anyway, in that last flickering second before they both turn their eyes to their new bundle of joy and... skin flaps.
He reaches out to give the little guy a soft pet down his spine — feels weird, but not in a bad way. )
Oh shit, I forgot about the laser pointer. I might actually get diabetes from that.
[Well, at least she gets a pass on that one. The least she could ask of her closest friend here.]
Right? This cat is gonna love it so much.
[There is so much she's not considering right now, like the fact that ADI housing doesn't allow pets or how she's going to pay and take care of a cat or anything else, and she could not care less, looking at this cat.]
And I'm gonna love this cat forever.
[The little cat starts to venture out of the crate, curious, sniffing at the ground and their hands.]
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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look at it!
it's wild
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I also don't know why I'm getting this weird feeling that that cat would be impossible to kill somehow
Something about those wrinkle folds screams immortality
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I did some more googling and this kind of cat needs to wear sweaters sometimes because of the whole no fur thing
gonna be honest I never really thought about how hard to kill it would be
then again I don't have your track record with pets so that's valid
I still can't decide if it's cute or hideous what the fuck
the most important question though
would you still love your cat nephew if it turned out to be a hairless wrinkle demon
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Trust me, it's a logical starting point if you've spent any time at the gas station
I genuinely do not know. Maybe it's weirdly cute-psychic. Like it's ugly, but when you look into its eyes it somehow hypnotizes you into thinking it's cute?
I'm not necessarily saying we should go with that one, but
If we did
Yoda would be too obvious of a choice, so I'm ruling it out on principal.
It could be a Parvo because it kind of feels like it could look straight into a dog's soul and conquer it with eye contact without lifting it's little paw
or
Macaroni
Because it kind of looks like the way macaroni sounds
It's... what's on the inside that matters? That feels like the right answer.
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yeah yoda seemed too obvious to me too
parvo I like though isn't that the name of an illness that actually kills dogs
macaroni is appropriate, he kinda looks like a bowl of cooked macaroni
okay be honest
do you hate him?
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I hate that I don't hate him
I feel like I should hate him
But
Look at him
He's adorable. Ugly-adorable. Ugdorable.
Do YOU hate him?
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but only one hair
I think that puts us back to macaroni
I did like queen elizabeth too even though it's a boy cat
no I kind of love him
I hated him at first but now I kind of love him
those EYES
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I know what you mean
Like, Jerry took a bullet for me and still took longer to grow on me than that cat
This was a 5 minute turn-around time
Don't get me wrong, I'm still a little horrified, but the ratio of uncomfortable to adorable has shifted dramatically very abruptly
But maybe just to be safe we should actually
Meet it or something first? Is that a thing you do with cats? Is there like an overnight visit situation? Just to see if it tries to claw our faces off or siphon our soul energy in the night?
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depressing
okay I'm glad to know I'm not alone
and yeah I think you can make an appointment to meet it or like foster first or something
let me send the shelter an email
you can blame me if it siphons our soul energy
that'll all be on me
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Don't worry, I probably don't have any soul energy left anyway, I'm like a dried up raisin inside. That one's a more You concern. The face clawing is probably the more Me one.
Should we
I don't know
Preemptively buy some supplies? Go cat supply shopping? Is that too soon? That's too soon, isn't it. This is still a completely hypothetical cat. It's more the concept of a cat than an actual cat yet.
Man, I wish they had What to Expect When You're Expecting: Cat Edition or something
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and to be fair I think a face clawing is probably a both of us concern
I would 100% buy that book if it existed
I'm so nervous excited
I mean
maybe it's too soon but even if we don't get this one we're gonna get one so maybe we could go cat supply shopping
are you free tomorrow?
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I'm free after work, if you wanna go in the afternoon?
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I should be free then
I have some research to do but I think I can get it all done in the morning if I don't sleep in until noon like usual
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I have nothing but confidence in you
If it's cat-related research I'll probably spend all night on google anyway, so maybe I can feed you knowledge through cat relative osmosis
If it's like actual work related research
I'm useless good luck with that
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oh man, I'll probably spend half the night on google too, honestly
I tend not to sleep for more than a few hours at a time so I have a lot of awake breaks, as I like to call them
the research I was thinking of is work-related (I ended up splitting between research and investigations) but I can clear it pretty fast if I put my mind to it
but I still welcome your cat relative osmosis learnings
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sleep is a pretty weird problem for me too
Okay cool, well I think it's my duty as the uncle to your cat to encourage you to make good work-related choices so
Do that, I guess, and just let me know when you're ready to go tomorrow
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thanks Jack
I should be ready around 1-ish, I'll give you a shout
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...a couple days later.
So here she is, carrying a cat in a crate who she has already mentally named Macaroni (at least for now) and is half in love with, pushing the door of her apartment closed with her foot. Putting down the crate, she crouches in front of it, eyes on the cat for a moment, voice soft as she speaks to it.]
Are you gonna claw my face off, baby?
[Whipping her phone out, she shoots a text off to Jack.]
guess what
I have a cat
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When the text comes in, he swipes a reply quickly and doesn't even notice the autocorrect. )
Iguana
( Translation: I'm on my way.
Annnnd like forty seconds later he's Kramer'ing his way into her apartment like a classic episode of Seinfeld, mindful to shut the door behind him quietly so he doesn't spook it. )
Aww, it's- a crate.
( A crate that he stoops down in front of to peer into the dark. Two lamplight eyes peer back at him. )
So, you think he's gonna claw our faces off?
( Same brain, the two of them, apparently. )
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We were waiting for you. I thought you might want to be here for the big reveal.
[She shuffles a little bit to one side when he comes over to crouch down beside her and peer into the depths of the crate.]
Hah. I just asked him if he was gonna claw our faces off, but his answer was pretty difficult to translate into human speak. Unless you know what "myawww" means.
[A little elbow jostle, and she puts her fingers on the catch of the door.]
You wanna get behind me when I open this, just in case? I think my luck's a...whisker better than yours.
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Nah, I'm one eye patch away from being full-blown pirate, I'll take my chances.
( He'll settle in eagerly beside her awaiting the offical Cage Door Opening.
Once it's open, Macaroni blinks lazily at them, then slowly makes his way from the cage. First thing's first: a casual, leisurely stretch featuring some downward-facing-cat, followed by a soft mrow, a purr, and an attempt to rub his hairless body up against whatever appendage of Abby's he can reach.
There's a silent pause, and then Jack factually declares: )
Wellp. I would die for this cat.
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[She gives him a gentle jocular elbow in the upper arm, and leans in to look at the cat again as he comes in closer and declares that he's going to risk it. So she opens the door, because he's an adult and can make his own eye-related choices, and Macaroni comes out of the cage.
The cat looks like a wrinkly demon spawn, but he stretches and meows and purrs and rubs his little hairless body on her hand, and the immediate instinct is to scritch him behind the ears, which just elicits more purring.]
Oh. Oh no.
[Tilting her hand, she gives him a few under the chin scratches and he lifts his head to expose his neck.]
Oh no, look, he trusts me with his neck already. I would also die for this cat. Oh my god. I'm so glad we got that laser pointer.
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He reaches out to give the little guy a soft pet down his spine — feels weird, but not in a bad way. )
Oh shit, I forgot about the laser pointer. I might actually get diabetes from that.
( Totally worth it. )
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Right? This cat is gonna love it so much.
[There is so much she's not considering right now, like the fact that ADI housing doesn't allow pets or how she's going to pay and take care of a cat or anything else, and she could not care less, looking at this cat.]
And I'm gonna love this cat forever.
[The little cat starts to venture out of the crate, curious, sniffing at the ground and their hands.]
Hi Macaroni.
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