@greenadidasjumper replied to your post: my screaming about louis’ chart i’m saving largely...
I can’t wait for this fic
i love you! here is an excerpt since i am in kind of a writing funk and frustrated:
Harry, as it turns out, has three cats. The last time Louis was here, he’d only had the one: Porkchop, a cantankerous Tortie in her mid-to-late teens, so large her belly sometimes touched the floor when she walked and always swung back and forth like a pendulum, her face contemptuous in an uncannily human way, looking at you as if she’d like you to drop dead, please and thank you.
She hates Louis, and to be quite honest, he hates her right back. And he loves cats! He does. He’s more of a dog person, but really, he gets along with any animal. Except, apparently, Porkchop, who has clawed him deeply enough to draw blood at least three times. Admittedly, once was because he’d accidentally sat on her, so he can’t fault her for that one, but all the other incidents were entirely unprovoked. She just hates him.
Plus, every time she’s lashed out at Louis, Harry’s been quick to chase after her, stumbling over himself and apologizing before hoisting her up--not actually a small feat, given that she weighs over twenty pounds--and making kissy noises that she responds to by nuzzling her face all over his and purring so loudly that Louis can hear it from across the room. So it’s not just her being cranky and misanthropic, it’s him specifically. He tells himself sternly that it’s stupid to let this cat’s low opinion of him hurt his feelings, but it still stings, much like the inflamed scratches across the inside of his forearm.
(He’s always taken some pleasure in the fact that Porkchop seems similarly indifferent-to-hostile about Nate, who, Harry admits, didn’t really like cats. But--and Louis has to really try not to smile at the thought--Nate’s out of the picture, now.)
In the picture, however, is a pair of three-month-old kittens, whom Louis had discovered sleeping in the bathtub and had had barely had time to stifle his yelp of surprise before they were nosing curiously around his shoes and Harry had come shuffling down the hall, a sheepish expression on his face, rubbing the back of his neck and saying, “I sort of forgot you hadn’t been here since before these guys got here? Um, the black one is Weasel, and her brother is Mercury. I still might change their names, I dunno, I’d like them to go together but I couldn’t think of an animal name for Mercury that really fit him besides Pigeon and that’s too much like Porkchop, so, um. Yeah.”
To hear Harry tell it, the kittens were sort of an accident. Harry’s ex had been totally, steadfastly unwilling to consider adopting more cats--although the reason Harry most often gave to others was that Porkchop needed to be an only cat, and he was worried about her getting jealous--but even Asshole Nate couldn’t say no when Harry discovered, upon going to investigate a strange noise coming from under their compost bin, two almost-newborn kittens, shivering and mewing, their eyes barely open and their mother nowhere to be found. He had called the SPCA, of course, but they had needed some time to find an appropriate foster home, and he assured them that he knew what he was doing (he did, after all--his childhood cat Dusty had had one litter before they had her spayed, and Harry had cried for days when they’d given the kittens away) and brought them inside, made them a makeshift little shelter and gone running out to buy formula and a syringe to feed them, and when he had come back, Porkchop had opened the door separating her from the kittens and she was curled around them, in the middle of bathing the girl, and she had looked at Harry like what and gone back to cleaning them, and, well.
It sort of felt like fate, Harry explains, and before he knew it he was their foster parent and by the time they were old enough to be fixed and adopted out he was in love with them, and he had fought Nate on it, and, a month later, when they split for good, Harry had been so glad to have something to care for, entirely dependent on him.
He winces when he says so, rushing to clarify that he’s not on a power trip or anything, of course he just cares about them as beings, he’s not taking care of them to distract him from the break-up, it’s just that that happens to be a side effect, and Louis bites the inside of his cheek and assures him that he gets it, and doesn’t think Harry’s taking advantage of the cats, who by this point in the conversation are chasing each other around the apartment, the scrabbling of their nails on the hardwood just audible over the low whine of the radiator.
Louis kind of falls in love with Weasel and Mercury immediately. And, to his relief, they seem to like him back--when they sit on the couch to watch a movie, something that won a bunch of awards and that Harry is really keen to see, both the kittens leap onto Louis’ lap and promptly fall asleep.
“They like you,” Harry says, smiling. Both dimples pop. He scratches Porkchop’s head and she closes her eyes, making a rumbling noise that turns into an even, steady purr.
“Yeah,” Louis says. “More than I can say for her.” He gestures to the enormous furry lump that’s taken up residence on Harry’s thighs.
Harry smiles wider and hunches over to plant a kiss on top of the cat’s head. When he talks, it’s with his cat-voice, higher than usual and sing-song. “Miss Porkie reserves judgment on people until she knows them, isn’t that right?” His voice goes back to normal when he looks over at Louis. “She takes a long time to warm up to people. First month I had her she barely ever came out of the closet.”
A huff of laughter comes out of Louis’ mouth unbidden. “She a regular in the ‘stro now?”
It takes a minute to click and Harry rolls his eyes but laughs. It wasn’t a very good joke. It was pretty bad, actually, but Harry still laughed, and Louis is pleased. “No, ever since the Lex closed she’s been talking about moving to Oakland and moaning about how there’s no lesbian spaces in the city anymore.”
“Ah. She’s not a fan of El Rio?”
“Too many kids. She’s a queer elder, y’know. We need to respect her.”
“Is she?”
“Yes,” Harry says. He pauses the movie; Louis realizes he hadn’t been paying any attention to it whatsoever. “But I think she has reasons to be wary about people, y’know? I don’t know what they are, but, like, it’s not my job to judge whether or not they’re good. We just worked slowly on building trust, and she got there when she got there.”
“What about Nate?” Louis says, without thinking about it. It just sort of spills out of his mouth. What had Harry said? Mercury? Something about that? Which planet is at fault for Louis’ insane inability not to say dumb shit all the time? “She just, uh...I mean…”
“They never really bonded,” Harry says. “He wasn’t really a cat person, and it’s a lot of work and patience for an animal you don’t really like to begin with, so.”
“So you’re saying I need to take it slow with her, is that it? Woo her?”
The corner of Harry’s mouth twitches. “Assuming you plan to stick around long-term, yes.”
“Well,” Louis says, “I did sign a lease, so that gives me at least a year. Enough time to play the long-game, I think.”
Louis can’t put words to the look Harry gives him. It only lasts for a second, though, before Harry turns his attention back to the snoring cat on his lap, smoothing the backs of his knuckles down where her spine must be. “Yeah,” he says, with a slight nod and just the suggestion of a shake in his voice, so slight Louis’ 99% sure he just imagined it. “Yeah, you’ve got time.”
