Kaylyn pets the cats when she’s sad.
It’s the holiday season, honestly. Don’t get her wrong, Kay loves Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Christmas. Halloween’s special because she gets to throw on a costume and sit on the front steps outside her apartment door, a bowl of bite-sized candies in her lap while children race up and down the concrete pathway to greet her. Sure, her costume isn’t the best or the flashiest every year (2016, she dressed as Darkwing Duck and all she had to show for it was a black cape and some sort of crappy plastic duck beak mask), and sure, she doesn’t have the full-sized bars of candy because, let’s be honest, she’s not made of money and the budget’s tight, and sure, she doesn’t always have the world’s best Halloween decorations on display by her windows.
These factors, however, don’t deter her from handing out Reese’s, Snickers and Milky Ways to the next Captain America or Harry Potter that wanders up to her bowl. Kay likes to make kids smile. She likes watching the parents take pictures.
Thanksgiving is a little tougher, but not so bad. Last year, Kay made the mistake of trying to cook her own turkey in the oven and nearly burned her apartment down, so this year, she bought thirty dollars worth of Popeyes and ate it all by herself while she FaceTimed with her brother and watched A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving. Bucky, her retired German shepherd that she adopted when she first joined Steelheart City’s police force, lay his big head on her left thigh and gazed at his owner with large, sad brown eyes until he was inevitably given the handouts he worked oh so hard for. Kay gets to talk to Kaelan and that’s all swell, she can’t really complain.
Christmas, however… Christmas is the holiday that hits her the hardest. It’s the one time of year that Kay misses her parents the most. Her father enlisted in the air force and had been shot down after maybe two years of active duty. Her mother initially survived a collision including her tiny Subaru and a semi-truck, but didn’t make it to the hospital with a heartbeat. Kay’s last family Christmas was fourteen years ago, when she was six years old and her papa gifted her a brand new pair of red sneakers for soccer. Now, her parents are six feet under with only pictures and graves left behind. Her twin brother is off at some expensive college and spending Christmas with some broad that he thinks just might be his true love. Kay’s uncle, who’s not really her uncle but did help raise her, is spending Christmas with his own family in the other side of the country, and Kay couldn’t follow him because, well, she’s a cop, and cops stay home.
Kay decorates her Christmas tree alone. She buys presents alone. She listens to holiday music alone. She sticks a bow on Bucky’s head and takes a picture for social media alone. Before that, however, Kay goes to the pet shop to see if she can’t find anything to buy her old dog for Christmas, and that’s when she usually finds the kitties in their cages toward the front of the store, waiting to be adopted.
So, yeah. Kaylyn pets the cats when she’s sad. She’s sure that she’s bothered the owner by coming in almost every single day for the last week, but she just couldn’t help herself.. “Oh, I’m just taking another look at that collar for old Buck,” she’d say, and then stroll casually over to the cages by the windows and reach through the arm-holes to pet soft fur and fuzzy ears. The owner didn’t have the heart to tell her to buy what she wants and leave, because it’s Christmas, and the only person who can be that heartless on Christmas is Scrooge, and he’s a story. Or at least, Kay’s pretty sure Scrooge is just a story. Oh man, what if Scrooge was based on a real person who hates Christmas, and then saw ghosts? Who hates Christmas, anyway?! Wait, Kay, stay focused. Pet the cats.
A sudden, single spoken word snapped Kay out of her trance of sad thoughts and Christmas ponderings. Blinking her blue eyes, she now noticed that she switched from petting the black and white kitty to petting the brown and peach kitty. The feline’s fur was soft beneath her fingertips. A long-hair, for sure, but Kay had no idea what breed the cat is. The young woman used her free hand to gently tuck her ebony hair behind her ear, and as she did so, she turned her body just slightly to look over her shoulder.
Behind her, only a few feet away, there stood a rather tall man in the petshop’s work uniform. The uniform came with a rather ridiculous-looking bright yellow vest and blue trousers, but the clothes weren’t what struck Kay as odd. It was the hair. The man had vibrant blue hair, and even worse, vibrant blue eyebrows. She couldn’t tell if this employee had dyed his hair such an unnatural color, or if he was born with some horrific color-changing mutation. After a few moments of simply staring at the employee, Kay realized she finally hadn’t spoken yet. In her sudden effort to think of something to say, all she could muster up was,
“The cat.” The man smiled, taking a small step closer to the cages - and by extension Kay - and gestured to the cat the woman was petting with a long, slender finger. “Humbug. That’s his name.”
Kay’s lashes fluttered as she blinked in momentary confusion, allowing her gaze to drift from the employee’s finger toward the cage. The cat sat on the other side, her green eyes now staring up at the woman with confusion, as if the kitty was wondering why the human had stopped petting her. Kay’s brain took a few moments to process what she was being told, and then, finally, it clicked.
“Oh! Humbug!” The woman’s eyes lit up and she began to softly laugh, although anyone could have guessed that her laughter was born from nervousness. “Who would ever give a cat that name? Or any animal?”
Kay let her gaze drift back to the employee’s face, only to notice that the man was smiling a little wider than before. “It’s not the most terrible name to give an animal.” The man’s voice, combined with his appearance, led Kay to believe that he might have been in his mid twenties, maybe just barely shy of twenty-five. He continued, “We once got a rottweiler named Hades in the store. Nicest dog I’ve ever met. I spent ten minutes of my shift feeding him treats while his owner went outside to smoke.”
Kay’s smile, previously faint and polite, soon transitioned to something a little more genuine. She giggled - sincerely this time - and slowly withdrew her hand from Humbug’s fur. “Is that right?”
“That’s right.” The employee nodded. Kay noticed the man’s eyes following the movement of her hand, although his gaze soon returned to her face. Once again, he smiled at her. “Were you considering adopting one of our furry friends, here? Humbug’s the oldest, been here the longest, and she needs a good home.”
“Oh, no, I couldn’t.” Kay immediately chimed, trying to ignore the guilt slowly creeping up the back of her head. “I mean, I’d love to, but, uh… I’ve got a shepherd at home and I’m not sure how well he’d do with cats.”
The employee, again, gave a slow nod, his expression unwavering. “Part of my job here at Elenclaw Pets is to stroll on over to this neck of the store and convince you to adopt, but… that isn’t necessarily why I’m standing here.” Finally, the man’s smile flickered, faltering just slightly. “This isn’t the first time I’ve seen you petting the cats this week.”
Kay could immediately feel every muscle in her body tense up, anxiousness washing through her mind like waves crashing on the surface of a wide, dark ocean. “Are you kicking me out? Look man, I’m sorry, I know I come here all the time and never actually buy a cat or a toy or anything, it’s just…” As Kay trailed off, she suddenly found herself at a loss for words. What was she supposed to tell this man? The employee stood there, patiently waiting for the young woman to finish her sentence. Kay knew she owed the man something, some sort of actual response rather than unfinished thoughts, but… she was left with nothing. Feeling a bit idiotic, Kay slowly rolled her shoulders in a gentle shrug. To her surprise, the man spoke again, his voice gentle.
“I’m not kicking you out.” He told Kay, taking a moment to think and shifting his weight a bit where he stood, as if making himself more comfortable after standing in the same place for so long. He then continued, “I just happened to notice you stop in lately to look. It’s fine for you to come in and visit the cats, God knows they need attention, except… well… most people smile when they pet animals.” The man’s eyes, a much deeper blue than Kay’s own, studied the woman’s face. “I just noticed that you don’t smile when you pet them.”
What the hell is Kay supposed to say to that? Caught between embarrassed and surprised, the young woman hardly knew what words to shove out of her talking-hole. “I, uh…” Kay could feel heat flush her face as a rosish hue dusted her ivory cheeks, a very good representation of her inner turmoil. Finally, unknowing of what sort of response to give the man, she simply swallowed thickly and opted for, “I, uh… guess I don’t.” She lowered her gaze, unable to look him directly in the eye anymore, and instead glanced toward Humbug again. Once more, she reached through the arm-hole of the glass barrier and gently pet Humbug’s fur. Soft rumbling came from the feline’s small body, as if Kay had jump-started a motor that ran on happiness and love. A thought suddenly pierced Kay’s mind, a way to save this embarrassing moment, and she suddenly found herself laughing nervously. “You’re… kinda observant, huh?”
The Elenclaw Pets employee chuckled - actually chuckled, the noise coming from deep within his throat and could have very well been mistaken for a rumbling lion if one wasn’t listening very well - and gave a slow shrug of his shoulders. “Anyone else would have told me I’m creepy.”
“A pet store employee telling me he watches me pet cats every day and notices I don’t smile? No, not creepy at all.” Kay managed to form a good enough sentence to produce a response. Ah, yes, good. Jokes. Jokes is a good way out of any awkward situation.
The employee’s chuckling turned into soft laughter. He settled one hand on his hip and reached out with his other to prop his palm against the wall, eyeing the young woman. “Would it be alright with you if I asked you why you’re so sad?”
Kay shot the man a quick look, “Who said I’m sad?”
“You do. Every time you come in.” The employee shot back. “Every time you wander over to the cats and take a look at them. You don’t smile. You just talk to them, too soft for anyone to hear, and you always look…” The man paused in speech a moment, as if thinking, and then continued, “...forlorn.”
The rosish hue that dusted Kay’s cheeks turned just a little bit darker. Unable to look directly at the employee anymore, she simply stared at Humbug. What could she say to this guy? What could she tell this man, a simple pet store employee, an NPC in her life who’s opinion hardly even mattered? She couldn’t just say nothing, so…
“The same bullshit reason everyone looks sad today.” Kay answered softly. “It’s Christmas Eve.”
A sudden silence fell between the two. For several long, horrible moments, they simply said nothing. Kay kept her gaze on the cat, and she didn’t want to know if the employee was looking at her or looking elsewhere. She knew he was still there - she could see him in her peripheral - but she just didn’t have the heart to make eye-contact.
Finally, after those few moments passed, the employee cleared his throat. “I see.” Was the answer he chose to give her. A few more moments passed. Seconds seemed to stretch by like minutes, and Kay was too polite to walk away and abruptly end an innocent conversation. Just before the silence could be deemed anymore awkward, the man’s voice pierced the air again. “Miss… our shop isn’t usually open on holidays, but… Humbug, here… she gets quite a bit lonely.” He paused. “Tomorrow is Christmas… and by some holiday miracle, the doors might just be unlocked, and if they are, well… I’m sure Humbug could use some company.”
Humbug’s green eyes stared into Kay’s blue ones. Kay hesitated, her hand stilling on the cat’s fur, before the young woman finally mustered up the courage to look up at the employee again. Once more, the man was smiling at her, standing there in his ridiculous bright yellow vest. It was then that Kay finally noticed a set of keys on the man’s belt, and she momentarily wondered if those keys happened to be the ones that opened the store’s doors.
“I… don’t know what to say…” Kay managed. She finally smiled, feeling a bit of happiness bubble up in her chest. “Thank you, sir.”
“My pleasure.” The employee replied. He turned away, just slightly, and lifted his hand off of the wall to instead slightly wave to Kay. “If there was anything else you needed, miss, I’ll be by the reptiles.”
Kay watched the employee turn and begin to head away, strolling down the tile path with long legs. “Wait!” The young woman suddenly found herself calling out, even though she was, like, ninety percent sure her brain didn’t plan that. The employee stopped upon command, and turned to look at her. Kay smiled, her eyes giving the man a once-over. That blue hair didn’t look so bad now. “What’s your name?”
The man cracked another smile. “Lawrence.” He told her. Then, finally, he turned on his heel again and walked off, this time uninterrupted by Kay’s calls. The ebony-haired woman watched the employee walk off, then turned to look at the cats again.
Humbug stared at Kay, the feline’s eyes almost half-lidded with some sort of unreadable expression. “What?” Kay asked. Humbug simply yawned, withdrew from Kay’s touch, and curled up in the corner of her cage to get some sleep. Kay broke out into a ridiculous grin that she simply couldn’t wipe off her face. Shoving her hands into the pockets of her coat, she headed for the doors. Just as she reached the exit, she turned back to look for Lawrence, only to see the employee by the reptile section, looking right back at her. Kay smiled and waved. Lawrence waved back, and the two then turned away from each other, and went about their business. Kay headed to her car, almost a bit reluctantly.
Christmas didn’t sound too bad, suddenly.
A/N: So I got a sudden burst of writing inspiration (I don’t EVER GET THOSE OMG) and banged this out in about an hour and a half, I think. I don’t know, it’s like 11:30 at night and I’m tired. Anyway, these characters are actually based off of two WoW OC RP characters that I have with a very good friend. I love giving modern twists to things, and I figured that I’d like to see my little paladin in a bit calmer of a setting than Alliance vs Horde. So here’s Kay suffering through the holidays.
Context:
-Elenclaw Pets, the name is based off of another character belonging to another RP partner.
-Steelheart is where my character currently lives in WoW. It’s a made-up place.
-Yes, Bucky is adorable and you should love him.
