Unfinished Untitled SGA Kitten AU
I started this SGA kitten AU months ago, wrote 4K and then promptly stalled out on it. Not sure I'll ever finish it, so I decided to just post what I have.
G-rated. Warnings for cat abandonment by family and humans.
*
When Rodney met John, John was called Shep, and he was already the center of attention. People admired his all-black sleekness; they all wanted to come near him and touch him and muss the spiky ruff on his head.
Rodney's name was Meredith then. Stupid humans. Apparently they found it difficult to tell males from females at five weeks.
*
"And this one's Shep," said one of the food givers, "for shepherd, because he's always herding the others when they wander off. Isn't he adorable? I love his pointy ears. And his fur does this spiky thing on his head, no matter how you comb it."
"What's up with this one?" asked the volunteer, scruffing Meredith up.
"That's Meredith. Her mom was a Manx. She rejected her, though. It happens sometimes, it's so sad. We had to bottle feed her. We don't know about the dad, but he might have had some Siamese in him or something, because she looks like she's getting markings in a colorpoint pattern."
"I'm not a she, you idiots," said Meredith, struggling out of the human's uncomfortable grip.
"You must be pretty brave," said Shep. He, of course, was just draping bonelessly in his human's arms, perfectly comfortable.
"Oh, and why is that," Meredith snarled.
"'Cause you're trying to get out of that human's paws," Shep said, "and they're the only thing keeping you from dropping a long long way to the ground."
"I do have claws, you know," Meredith said stiffly, going rigid in the human's paws to remain as still and holdable as possible. "I'm sure I could catch myself on her clothes."
"Sure," Shep said. He wriggled and flipped over on his back, stretching his forelegs far above his head to bat at a loose thread dangling from the food giver's apron.
"God, he's just the cutest ever," said the volunteer who was clutching - and ignoring - Meredith.
"That's sad, it really is. Why don't you just wag your tail at them like a dog," said Meredith.
"Nothing wrong with dogs," Shep answered, wallowing onto his stomach again.
"Nothing wr-- what kind of cat are you?"
"The kind who doesn't mind dogs." Shep flicked his whiskers in amusement as the humans put them down on the ground again.
"The worst kind," said Meredith, marching away.
*
Meredith didn't talk much to the other kittens, who were almost all very stupid. Most of them couldn't even understand a word the humans were saying.
Though sometimes Meredith wished he didn't understand them either. "She's a Manx all right," said the cage cleaner to the food giver, pointing at Meredith. "Her back legs are longer than the front. She has that bunny hop walk already."
"I do not bunny hop," Meredith protested. "And I'm a boy!"
"She's so chatty, too!"
"For all the good it does me." Meredith thumped down on the rug and stretched up his back leg to groom it, but the human casually scooped him up.
"Time to see the vet," said the cage cleaner.
Meredith landed on a cold metal table, much too high to jump down. The cage cleaner kept pushing him back from the edges anyway. The room smelled astringent and pungent and somewhere under the sharp smells, there was the odor of sickness and blood.
A new human came in, apparently the vet. She prodded Meredith all over and forced his mouth open and stuck him with excruciating jabby things while Meredith howled.
"Oh, you big baby," said the vet, "calm down. Let me look at your tail."
Meredith tried to shy away, but there was nowhere to go. The vet spent a long time pinching his tail and the end of his spine.
"Sometimes Manx cats with a partial tail have spinal deformities," the vet explained to the cage cleaner. "I need to be sure. Cats with these problems often only live a few years."
"What?!" Meredith demanded, wriggling, but the vet just pinned him down and ignored his mews, palpating his back leg joints.
"Oh no! Will she be okay?" asked the cage cleaner.
"He's a boy," the vet laughed. "And I'm not finding any abnormalities. I think he's fine. He might be prone to arthritis in the tail later in life, though. It can really hurt them. Sometimes we dock a partial tail as a preventive measure."
"I'm not sure the shelter's got room in the budget for that."
"Hey! This is my health we're talking about!" Meredith said. "Didn't you hear the part about how it could really hurt? Oh god, I think it's a little stiff already. My tail is going to seize up and feel awful and no one will even know what's wrong because humans are too stupid to interpret my perfectly transparent attempts to communicate."
"It'll probably be okay," said the vet, squeezing Meredith's crippled tail some more. "His tail's a little short, but it feels like it's complete. I doubt he'll have any problems."
"Great!" said the cage cleaner.
"Not great!" Meredith denied. "It hurts right now! Hey, you! Painful tail here!" He gave the vet his biggest, saddest eyes and pawed at his tail illustratively.
"Aw, he's playing with his tail. That's so sweet," said the cage cleaner.
"Yep, he'll be fine," said the vet. "Bring me the next one, I can probably do a couple more exams before lunch."
The cage cleaner whisked Meredith back and dumped him in with the dunderheaded kittens to brood over his agonizing tail pain.
*
Even though he learned more about them every day, Meredith still couldn't get anything across to the humans.
"I'm bored. Teach me about science! No, I don't want to play with the feather wand," he said, although he couldn't help swiping at it regardless. "Stop trying to figure out the plot of Lost! Talk about something more interesting!"
Frustrating as it was, usually the humans' obliviousness was inconsequential. One day, though, as the cage cleaner transferred them to another enclosure so she could clean their usual area, her phone made a twingling sound and she answered it. She kept moving kittens one-handed-- Meredith was swept up and deposited in the new place-- but something she heard distracted her, and as she gasped, "Really?" into her phone, Miko, Lisa and Peter spilled out of the cage and scattered.
"I don't know where you think you're going!" Meredith meowed to them. "The door to the room is closed!"
"Shut up. I bet we can find more food," Peter said, sniffing the air.
"If you ever paid any attention, you'd know they put it away in the cabinet between feeding times. If there were any benefit to escaping, I would have done it ages ago."
"She sees us!" Lisa squealed.
Miko peeped in fear and flattened herself low, hiding under the bank of cages. The cage cleaner turned around and said, "Bad kitties!" and collected Peter and Lisa. Then she cleaned the cage and put them all back into it, gave them food and water, and left.
Shep went to the cage bars. "Miko, are you all right?"
Slowly, Miko scooted out from under the cages. "I'm hungry, and it's cold," she cried. "There's nothing out here."
"I told you," said Meredith.
Miko plunked down and cried some more, but Meredith knew from experience that it didn't matter how much noise they made. No one ever heard them outside that big heavy door.
Shep turned to him. "You're always bragging you know how human stuff works."
"It's not bragging if it's true."
"Can you work the latch?"
"In theory I could," said Meredith, "but look how high it is from here. I can't reach."
"But if you could reach it, you could unlock it?"
"Of course!"
To his surprise, Shep began directing the other kittens off the bedding, and instructing them to help push it over to the cage door. Soon the bedding made an uneven fabric ramp up to the latch on the door.
"There you go," Shep said, headbutting Meredith encouragingly.
"This really doesn't look very stable," Meredith complained, but Shep just looked at him expectantly and gave him another push. "Fine, fine! But if this slips you're going to hear about it."
He took a deep breath, pushed his paw out between the bars and batted around the latch. He'd watched the humans unfasten these latches on the cages across from theirs, and it hadn't looked hard. But of course the humans had bigger, stronger paws. If Meredith were perfectly honest, he might even have to admit that he slightly envied their long dextrous fingers.
Not that he did so bad, even with kitten paws. Meredith pushed here and lifted there and in just a couple of minutes, he undid the latch.
Unfortunately, the wadded bedding under him was pressed against the cage door, and right away the weight pushed the door open, the whole pile crumpling. Meredith yowled his surprise as he tumbled down with it.
"I told you it wasn't stable!" he complained to Shep as the kittens ventured out into the whole wide room.
"Oh, come on. Wasn't it fun?" Shep asked. "It looked like fun."
"Of course it wasn't fun! I fell!"
"Onto a bunch of soft padding," Shep returned. "You're fine. Show me how to undo the latch."
"I don't know if you can understand it."
Shep was already standing on a ridge of bedding, stretched up to examine the mechanism. "Press here? Lift there?"
"Oh. Well... yes, actually. But I had to do it backward! Without being able to see it!"
Shep strode close. For a moment Meredith almost thought he might pounce, or that they might touch noses. Instead Shep gave his shoulder a headbutt and purred at him briefly. "Yeah. Good job."
"Well. Naturally," said Meredith, but Shep was already loping away, making sure the others explored the room safely and that Miko found her way back home.
*
"Hey," said Shep, padding lightly over to Meredith.
Meredith laid his ears back and glared, but the tall curious line of Shep's tail never altered.
Of course, Shep checked in on all the kittens in the enclosure. It didn't mean anything.
Shep bent his head and sniffed Meredith's muzzle. "You're sick," he declared. "What's wrong?"
"They stopped bringing cat milk," said Meredith, too listless to rant about it. "The hard food makes me feel bad."
"You have to eat," Shep said.
"What a remarkable insight," Meredith muttered. "I guess I'll try eating some delicious blanket fluff, since I have so many options."
"We need to let them know that you can't eat this food," said Shep. "How do we tell them?"
"I was hoping my starvation would get the point across eventually."
"You're not going to starve," Shep said firmly. "Can you eat some and then hack it back up? Then they'd know."
"Ew."
"I know, but you can't depend on humans to pay attention. You have to show them exactly what's wrong."
Meredith looked at the clock. "They'll be here in fifteen minutes. Maybe if I do it in front of them."
"Attaboy," said Shep.
Meredith's tail lifted a little, despite himself. "Oh. You know I'm a boy."
"You said so."
"Everyone else forgets," said Meredith. He followed Shep to the food dish and ate some of the dregs of hard food, but one bite and he was already spitting.
"It feels bad," he said. "It makes my tongue feel thick and it itches in my throat."
Shep batted at the half-chewed pieces, pushing them into a spill from the water bowl. "I have an idea."
Fifteen minutes later, the food giver arrived and found Meredith sprawled on his side with a puddle of soggy, half-chewed food near his head. Shep had crunched the food up for him, and they'd soaked it with water and pushed it into a nasty-looking pile.
"Oh, you were sick, poor little guy," said the food giver. She dished out more hard food for everyone else, but she gave Meredith a saucer of cat milk.
Even after all that, they had to do the same trick two more times before the humans understood and started giving Meredith a different kind of food, a squishy, fragrant wet mound. It was delicious.
"Thanks," Meredith told Shep. He hoped the gratitude would be enough and he wouldn't have to share his new wet food. Meredith was still a little weak, so Shep could take it if he really wanted.
"Glad you feel better," was all Shep said, tail high.
*
Eventually other kittens started to notice that Meredith got special food, but by then, Meredith was up to defending his bowl, and to his surprise, Shep didn't side with the mob of kittens he'd guided and protected for weeks.
"No," Shep explained patiently, blocking them with his body and switching his tail in warning. "If you take this, he'll be hungry. He can't eat the other stuff. You can. Go eat that."
"His smells better," Peter complained.
"It's just gooshier," Shep said. "It doesn't taste better and you can't crunch it with your teeth, so it's not as good."
"Maybe they give it to Meredith because he's bad," giggled Callie.
"Could be," Shep said agreeably, his posture easing, and the other kittens wandered off.
"I'm not bad," Meredith said, indignant.
"You're noisy. And you're never happy."
"I am too! I'm happy all the time! Mostly."
Shep eyed Meredith's tail significantly, his own arching up in inquiry.
"Oh, just because I can't put my tail all the way up - !"
"How come?" asked Shep.
"It just doesn't go," said Meredith, with fragile dignity.
"Is it broken?"
"I'm a special breed. We don't usually have tails, and when we have them, they get arthritis. That's a bone disease that hurts a lot."
"Sorry it hurts," said Shep. "That sucks."
"Well. It doesn't hurt all the time yet," Meredith allowed. "But it will. So I try not to move it around or bend it too much." It had been difficult at first, actually, but it was slowly becoming second nature.
"Huh," Shep said. "Explains why your fur's all sticking out around the middle part. You can't reach it, can you." And then he curled up opposite Meredith and licked at his untidy tail.
"You're one to talk about fur sticking up-- Oh. Well. Um. Thank you," Meredith said, and to be polite, he carefully groomed Shep's back feet. They were mostly clean already, but Shep purred anyway, and fell asleep, his muzzle nestled against the tip of Meredith's tail.
*
Somehow, after that, they always seemed to end up curled near each other for naps, and when the kittens were split up from the main enclosure into smaller two-kitten cages, Meredith and Shep were put together.
"Oh good," said Meredith. "I'm glad we're sharing. I know you won't try to steal my food."
Shep flicked an ear in an unreadable reaction, then settled into a ball and dozed.
Soon, the cage cleaners and food bringers were leading a parade of humans past the cages to look at them. On a daily basis, a human would ask to see the all-black kitty, and big thick fingers would undo the latch and hands would dive in and seize Shep.
Shep let himself be handled, but he never looked happy about it. He went as limp as possible and tucked his whiskers back close against his face and narrowed his eyes to slits.
When Shep didn't react to them, most humans put him back in the cage and moved on. A few seemed interested in him regardless, but somehow Shep always forestalled adoption with a well-timed hiss or feint with his claws.
Humans sometimes drew Meredith out as well, but every time he met a new human, he couldn't help trying to get through to them. None of them ever understood. They just asked the shelter workers, "Is he always this loud?" and put him back.
Finally, a human with gray headfur and dark, keen eyes came to the shelter and said, "I'm looking for a pair of kittens that can keep each other company."
"Shep and Meredith are very closely bonded," said the food giver, and brought the man over to their cage.
Instead of his usual lazy, aloof reaction, Shep hopped to his feet and looked brightly out at the man, tail high and shivering a little.
"Come on," Shep said. "This is the guy."
"How do you know?" Meredith asked, crowding closer to the door. "He might want to do experiments on us! He totally looks like he wants to drip perfume in my eyes."
"You're so paranoid," said Shep, and tackled him. They didn't normally play very physically, there just wasn't room in the cage. But Meredith found himself rolling around and pawing back with something like glee.
"These two look cute. What do you think?" the man asked as a woman with wavy sable hair joined him.
"They're very sweet," she said. "I think they'd be perfect."
"Perfect for vivisecting," Meredith grumbled.
"If they're bad, we'll run away," Shep said. "But we won't have to. I have a good feeling."
*
"Surprise," the man said.
Meredith peered up as the cardboard lid opened above them. Looking down on them was the most beautiful human he'd ever seen. Her short blonde headfur wreathed her head like a halo. Meredith sat heavily down.
"Oh, Jack," she said. "They're adorable, but. You shouldn't have."
"You need a little company around here, Sam," Jack said. "Something to remind you to look up from your simulations now and then."
"But I won't have a broken leg forever. Once I'm back on the team, what am I going to do with them?"
"Dr. Weir's ready to adopt them as soon as you're back in action. She was already in the market for a couple of cats, so really, they're hers. They're just on loan to you for a while."
"Well..." the beautiful human looked down at them again. Meredith stared up, mesmerized. "They are awfully cute. Thank you."
"Are they touching noses?" Meredith asked curiously as the humans put their faces close together.
Shep arranged himself neatly, tail wrapping around his paws. "Looks like."
*
After Meredith and Shep were unpacked, fed, watered and introduced to their new litterbox, Sam and Jack swished around strings for them to chase.
"What should we name them? I guess it's up to Dr. Weir, really."
"She said we can name them," said Jack. "She definitely wasn't too impressed with their shelter names. Shep and Meredith."
"I thought they were both male."
"They are."
"I don't like cutesy pet names," Sam said. "Does that one look like a David to you?"
"Well, you've got this easygoing little guy," Jack said, indicating Shep. "And you've got one that's kinda high-strung. The laid back one, he could go by John, don't you think?"
"John. Sure," Sam said brightly. "But if you want to call the other one Daniel, you're in for it."
Jack chuckled. "Nah. He reminds me of a guy I knew in flight school; does he look like a Rodney to you?"
"Hm." Sam clicked her fingers together, beckoning. "Here, Rodney."
Of course Meredith went to her immediately. He'd been staring, awed, trying to figure out how to approach her since Jack took them out of the cardboard box.
"I guess he's Rodney, then," Sam laughed, and petted him.
"Rodney, huh?" said John né Shep.
"That's me," Rodney arched up against Sam's hand ecstatically and purred.
*
For the next few weeks, Rodney passed much of his time with what he liked to think of as "rational infatuation" and Shep called "psycho stalking."
"It's not stalking. We're her pets," Rodney said, trying to climb into Sam's lap again.
"No no. Come on now, there isn't room for you and my laptop. Lay here, Rodney," Sam settled him next to her leg. It was nice, but it just wasn't close enough.
Two feet away, Shep rolled to follow a sunbeam. "Stalking."
Rodney huffed and ignored him in favor of watching Sam's lovely fingers dance over the laptop keyboard. Eventually, much as he admired her, that got boring, so he turned his attention to the glowing rectangle of the screen. The glyphs and markings fascinated him - so pretty and, he discovered as Sam began working through some of her ideas aloud, so meaningful.
"She's smart," he said. "She's really smart. I don't know why she doesn't understand us!"
Shep's body made a careless loop on the sofa. "Smart about some things doesn't mean smart about everything."
*
Sam began opening the curtains and leaving the blinds up for them, and Shep spent a lot of time prowling around on the windowsills, looking outside. Sometimes the window was open and they could smell the whole wide world out there.
"There's a wet dirty smell out there," Rodney said. "I don't like it. Do you think it's a dog?"
"No," Shep said. "It's probably wet dirt."
"But it's kind of musky too."
"Dead plant stuff."
"Maybe," Rodney allowed.
Shep's ears pricked forward, his body tensing, tail curving low. "Squirrel," he said, opening his mouth for the scent and making a funny hack-hack-hack noise.
"Hmph," Rodney said, but he couldn't help following the darting little fuzzball with his eyes too, dropping his jaw and crying to it softly.
"That's your hunting sound?" Shep asked.
"I... guess?" He never had a reason to make it before.
"Weird."
They birdwatched for a little while, but then Shep suddenly blurred in a huge jump down from the sill, bounding across the room and down the hall and into the bedroom to get into the window there. Rodney followed, confused, and clambered up next to him.
"Rabbit!" Shep said, hunkering down like he wanted to launch himself straight through the screen.
Rodney ate the scent from the air and made a face, unimpressed. "Squishy food smells better."
Shep swiveled his ears incredulously, but he was distracted when the rabbit bounced across the lawn and into some decorative plants along the fence, where it lingered.
"Don't you think rabbit back feet look a lot like our back feet?" Shep said. "Maybe we're related."
"That's idiotic," Rodney snapped. "We have nothing in common with rabbits. They only eat plants, we're predators, their heads have a completely different shape--"
The rabbit vanished and Shep straightened, tipping his head to look at Rodney.
"Oh. You were being whimsical."
"Kinda."
Before he could stop himself Rodney confessed in a rush, "At the shelter they said I walk with a bunny hop. My back legs are too long."
Shep leaned and cheekrubbed Rodney's muzzle briefly. "No way," he said. "Humans are dumb sometimes."
*
They were dozing together in a warm huddle among Sam's bedclothes when Rodney opened his eyes to find Shep staring back and startled a little.
"Shep! Something happened to your eyes!" Rodney softpawed Shep's face, turning him toward the light to get a better look.
Shep's tail flipped in agitation. "They changed my name too, you know," he said.
"Didn't you hear me?! Your eyes are different!"
"They're changing color. It's normal." Shep added sternly, "And my name is John now."
"Are mine changing color?"
"No. Yours might not ever change," John said. "I heard them talking about your breed. Your dad was probably Siamese. They have blue eyes a lot."
"Where was I when they were talking about that?" Rodney asked, caught between annoyance that he'd missed it and warmth that John had paid attention.
"Eating." John bent his neck and snuffled at Rodney's forepaw. "They said it's because you're stripey on your legs and tail-tip and your muzzle, and your ears are dark, but you have white feet. It means your dad might have been a snowshoe Siamese cat. They looked it up."
Rodney absorbed the news. "Did they mention if there are any health problems associated with that?"
"No," John said.
"Are you sure?"
"I'm positive!" said John. "Please be less crazy."
"It's a reasonable question! Your eyes look weird now," Rodney added peevishly, and padded off to play with Sam's computer.
G-rated. Warnings for cat abandonment by family and humans.
*
When Rodney met John, John was called Shep, and he was already the center of attention. People admired his all-black sleekness; they all wanted to come near him and touch him and muss the spiky ruff on his head.
Rodney's name was Meredith then. Stupid humans. Apparently they found it difficult to tell males from females at five weeks.
*
"And this one's Shep," said one of the food givers, "for shepherd, because he's always herding the others when they wander off. Isn't he adorable? I love his pointy ears. And his fur does this spiky thing on his head, no matter how you comb it."
"What's up with this one?" asked the volunteer, scruffing Meredith up.
"That's Meredith. Her mom was a Manx. She rejected her, though. It happens sometimes, it's so sad. We had to bottle feed her. We don't know about the dad, but he might have had some Siamese in him or something, because she looks like she's getting markings in a colorpoint pattern."
"I'm not a she, you idiots," said Meredith, struggling out of the human's uncomfortable grip.
"You must be pretty brave," said Shep. He, of course, was just draping bonelessly in his human's arms, perfectly comfortable.
"Oh, and why is that," Meredith snarled.
"'Cause you're trying to get out of that human's paws," Shep said, "and they're the only thing keeping you from dropping a long long way to the ground."
"I do have claws, you know," Meredith said stiffly, going rigid in the human's paws to remain as still and holdable as possible. "I'm sure I could catch myself on her clothes."
"Sure," Shep said. He wriggled and flipped over on his back, stretching his forelegs far above his head to bat at a loose thread dangling from the food giver's apron.
"God, he's just the cutest ever," said the volunteer who was clutching - and ignoring - Meredith.
"That's sad, it really is. Why don't you just wag your tail at them like a dog," said Meredith.
"Nothing wrong with dogs," Shep answered, wallowing onto his stomach again.
"Nothing wr-- what kind of cat are you?"
"The kind who doesn't mind dogs." Shep flicked his whiskers in amusement as the humans put them down on the ground again.
"The worst kind," said Meredith, marching away.
*
Meredith didn't talk much to the other kittens, who were almost all very stupid. Most of them couldn't even understand a word the humans were saying.
Though sometimes Meredith wished he didn't understand them either. "She's a Manx all right," said the cage cleaner to the food giver, pointing at Meredith. "Her back legs are longer than the front. She has that bunny hop walk already."
"I do not bunny hop," Meredith protested. "And I'm a boy!"
"She's so chatty, too!"
"For all the good it does me." Meredith thumped down on the rug and stretched up his back leg to groom it, but the human casually scooped him up.
"Time to see the vet," said the cage cleaner.
Meredith landed on a cold metal table, much too high to jump down. The cage cleaner kept pushing him back from the edges anyway. The room smelled astringent and pungent and somewhere under the sharp smells, there was the odor of sickness and blood.
A new human came in, apparently the vet. She prodded Meredith all over and forced his mouth open and stuck him with excruciating jabby things while Meredith howled.
"Oh, you big baby," said the vet, "calm down. Let me look at your tail."
Meredith tried to shy away, but there was nowhere to go. The vet spent a long time pinching his tail and the end of his spine.
"Sometimes Manx cats with a partial tail have spinal deformities," the vet explained to the cage cleaner. "I need to be sure. Cats with these problems often only live a few years."
"What?!" Meredith demanded, wriggling, but the vet just pinned him down and ignored his mews, palpating his back leg joints.
"Oh no! Will she be okay?" asked the cage cleaner.
"He's a boy," the vet laughed. "And I'm not finding any abnormalities. I think he's fine. He might be prone to arthritis in the tail later in life, though. It can really hurt them. Sometimes we dock a partial tail as a preventive measure."
"I'm not sure the shelter's got room in the budget for that."
"Hey! This is my health we're talking about!" Meredith said. "Didn't you hear the part about how it could really hurt? Oh god, I think it's a little stiff already. My tail is going to seize up and feel awful and no one will even know what's wrong because humans are too stupid to interpret my perfectly transparent attempts to communicate."
"It'll probably be okay," said the vet, squeezing Meredith's crippled tail some more. "His tail's a little short, but it feels like it's complete. I doubt he'll have any problems."
"Great!" said the cage cleaner.
"Not great!" Meredith denied. "It hurts right now! Hey, you! Painful tail here!" He gave the vet his biggest, saddest eyes and pawed at his tail illustratively.
"Aw, he's playing with his tail. That's so sweet," said the cage cleaner.
"Yep, he'll be fine," said the vet. "Bring me the next one, I can probably do a couple more exams before lunch."
The cage cleaner whisked Meredith back and dumped him in with the dunderheaded kittens to brood over his agonizing tail pain.
*
Even though he learned more about them every day, Meredith still couldn't get anything across to the humans.
"I'm bored. Teach me about science! No, I don't want to play with the feather wand," he said, although he couldn't help swiping at it regardless. "Stop trying to figure out the plot of Lost! Talk about something more interesting!"
Frustrating as it was, usually the humans' obliviousness was inconsequential. One day, though, as the cage cleaner transferred them to another enclosure so she could clean their usual area, her phone made a twingling sound and she answered it. She kept moving kittens one-handed-- Meredith was swept up and deposited in the new place-- but something she heard distracted her, and as she gasped, "Really?" into her phone, Miko, Lisa and Peter spilled out of the cage and scattered.
"I don't know where you think you're going!" Meredith meowed to them. "The door to the room is closed!"
"Shut up. I bet we can find more food," Peter said, sniffing the air.
"If you ever paid any attention, you'd know they put it away in the cabinet between feeding times. If there were any benefit to escaping, I would have done it ages ago."
"She sees us!" Lisa squealed.
Miko peeped in fear and flattened herself low, hiding under the bank of cages. The cage cleaner turned around and said, "Bad kitties!" and collected Peter and Lisa. Then she cleaned the cage and put them all back into it, gave them food and water, and left.
Shep went to the cage bars. "Miko, are you all right?"
Slowly, Miko scooted out from under the cages. "I'm hungry, and it's cold," she cried. "There's nothing out here."
"I told you," said Meredith.
Miko plunked down and cried some more, but Meredith knew from experience that it didn't matter how much noise they made. No one ever heard them outside that big heavy door.
Shep turned to him. "You're always bragging you know how human stuff works."
"It's not bragging if it's true."
"Can you work the latch?"
"In theory I could," said Meredith, "but look how high it is from here. I can't reach."
"But if you could reach it, you could unlock it?"
"Of course!"
To his surprise, Shep began directing the other kittens off the bedding, and instructing them to help push it over to the cage door. Soon the bedding made an uneven fabric ramp up to the latch on the door.
"There you go," Shep said, headbutting Meredith encouragingly.
"This really doesn't look very stable," Meredith complained, but Shep just looked at him expectantly and gave him another push. "Fine, fine! But if this slips you're going to hear about it."
He took a deep breath, pushed his paw out between the bars and batted around the latch. He'd watched the humans unfasten these latches on the cages across from theirs, and it hadn't looked hard. But of course the humans had bigger, stronger paws. If Meredith were perfectly honest, he might even have to admit that he slightly envied their long dextrous fingers.
Not that he did so bad, even with kitten paws. Meredith pushed here and lifted there and in just a couple of minutes, he undid the latch.
Unfortunately, the wadded bedding under him was pressed against the cage door, and right away the weight pushed the door open, the whole pile crumpling. Meredith yowled his surprise as he tumbled down with it.
"I told you it wasn't stable!" he complained to Shep as the kittens ventured out into the whole wide room.
"Oh, come on. Wasn't it fun?" Shep asked. "It looked like fun."
"Of course it wasn't fun! I fell!"
"Onto a bunch of soft padding," Shep returned. "You're fine. Show me how to undo the latch."
"I don't know if you can understand it."
Shep was already standing on a ridge of bedding, stretched up to examine the mechanism. "Press here? Lift there?"
"Oh. Well... yes, actually. But I had to do it backward! Without being able to see it!"
Shep strode close. For a moment Meredith almost thought he might pounce, or that they might touch noses. Instead Shep gave his shoulder a headbutt and purred at him briefly. "Yeah. Good job."
"Well. Naturally," said Meredith, but Shep was already loping away, making sure the others explored the room safely and that Miko found her way back home.
*
"Hey," said Shep, padding lightly over to Meredith.
Meredith laid his ears back and glared, but the tall curious line of Shep's tail never altered.
Of course, Shep checked in on all the kittens in the enclosure. It didn't mean anything.
Shep bent his head and sniffed Meredith's muzzle. "You're sick," he declared. "What's wrong?"
"They stopped bringing cat milk," said Meredith, too listless to rant about it. "The hard food makes me feel bad."
"You have to eat," Shep said.
"What a remarkable insight," Meredith muttered. "I guess I'll try eating some delicious blanket fluff, since I have so many options."
"We need to let them know that you can't eat this food," said Shep. "How do we tell them?"
"I was hoping my starvation would get the point across eventually."
"You're not going to starve," Shep said firmly. "Can you eat some and then hack it back up? Then they'd know."
"Ew."
"I know, but you can't depend on humans to pay attention. You have to show them exactly what's wrong."
Meredith looked at the clock. "They'll be here in fifteen minutes. Maybe if I do it in front of them."
"Attaboy," said Shep.
Meredith's tail lifted a little, despite himself. "Oh. You know I'm a boy."
"You said so."
"Everyone else forgets," said Meredith. He followed Shep to the food dish and ate some of the dregs of hard food, but one bite and he was already spitting.
"It feels bad," he said. "It makes my tongue feel thick and it itches in my throat."
Shep batted at the half-chewed pieces, pushing them into a spill from the water bowl. "I have an idea."
Fifteen minutes later, the food giver arrived and found Meredith sprawled on his side with a puddle of soggy, half-chewed food near his head. Shep had crunched the food up for him, and they'd soaked it with water and pushed it into a nasty-looking pile.
"Oh, you were sick, poor little guy," said the food giver. She dished out more hard food for everyone else, but she gave Meredith a saucer of cat milk.
Even after all that, they had to do the same trick two more times before the humans understood and started giving Meredith a different kind of food, a squishy, fragrant wet mound. It was delicious.
"Thanks," Meredith told Shep. He hoped the gratitude would be enough and he wouldn't have to share his new wet food. Meredith was still a little weak, so Shep could take it if he really wanted.
"Glad you feel better," was all Shep said, tail high.
*
Eventually other kittens started to notice that Meredith got special food, but by then, Meredith was up to defending his bowl, and to his surprise, Shep didn't side with the mob of kittens he'd guided and protected for weeks.
"No," Shep explained patiently, blocking them with his body and switching his tail in warning. "If you take this, he'll be hungry. He can't eat the other stuff. You can. Go eat that."
"His smells better," Peter complained.
"It's just gooshier," Shep said. "It doesn't taste better and you can't crunch it with your teeth, so it's not as good."
"Maybe they give it to Meredith because he's bad," giggled Callie.
"Could be," Shep said agreeably, his posture easing, and the other kittens wandered off.
"I'm not bad," Meredith said, indignant.
"You're noisy. And you're never happy."
"I am too! I'm happy all the time! Mostly."
Shep eyed Meredith's tail significantly, his own arching up in inquiry.
"Oh, just because I can't put my tail all the way up - !"
"How come?" asked Shep.
"It just doesn't go," said Meredith, with fragile dignity.
"Is it broken?"
"I'm a special breed. We don't usually have tails, and when we have them, they get arthritis. That's a bone disease that hurts a lot."
"Sorry it hurts," said Shep. "That sucks."
"Well. It doesn't hurt all the time yet," Meredith allowed. "But it will. So I try not to move it around or bend it too much." It had been difficult at first, actually, but it was slowly becoming second nature.
"Huh," Shep said. "Explains why your fur's all sticking out around the middle part. You can't reach it, can you." And then he curled up opposite Meredith and licked at his untidy tail.
"You're one to talk about fur sticking up-- Oh. Well. Um. Thank you," Meredith said, and to be polite, he carefully groomed Shep's back feet. They were mostly clean already, but Shep purred anyway, and fell asleep, his muzzle nestled against the tip of Meredith's tail.
*
Somehow, after that, they always seemed to end up curled near each other for naps, and when the kittens were split up from the main enclosure into smaller two-kitten cages, Meredith and Shep were put together.
"Oh good," said Meredith. "I'm glad we're sharing. I know you won't try to steal my food."
Shep flicked an ear in an unreadable reaction, then settled into a ball and dozed.
Soon, the cage cleaners and food bringers were leading a parade of humans past the cages to look at them. On a daily basis, a human would ask to see the all-black kitty, and big thick fingers would undo the latch and hands would dive in and seize Shep.
Shep let himself be handled, but he never looked happy about it. He went as limp as possible and tucked his whiskers back close against his face and narrowed his eyes to slits.
When Shep didn't react to them, most humans put him back in the cage and moved on. A few seemed interested in him regardless, but somehow Shep always forestalled adoption with a well-timed hiss or feint with his claws.
Humans sometimes drew Meredith out as well, but every time he met a new human, he couldn't help trying to get through to them. None of them ever understood. They just asked the shelter workers, "Is he always this loud?" and put him back.
Finally, a human with gray headfur and dark, keen eyes came to the shelter and said, "I'm looking for a pair of kittens that can keep each other company."
"Shep and Meredith are very closely bonded," said the food giver, and brought the man over to their cage.
Instead of his usual lazy, aloof reaction, Shep hopped to his feet and looked brightly out at the man, tail high and shivering a little.
"Come on," Shep said. "This is the guy."
"How do you know?" Meredith asked, crowding closer to the door. "He might want to do experiments on us! He totally looks like he wants to drip perfume in my eyes."
"You're so paranoid," said Shep, and tackled him. They didn't normally play very physically, there just wasn't room in the cage. But Meredith found himself rolling around and pawing back with something like glee.
"These two look cute. What do you think?" the man asked as a woman with wavy sable hair joined him.
"They're very sweet," she said. "I think they'd be perfect."
"Perfect for vivisecting," Meredith grumbled.
"If they're bad, we'll run away," Shep said. "But we won't have to. I have a good feeling."
*
"Surprise," the man said.
Meredith peered up as the cardboard lid opened above them. Looking down on them was the most beautiful human he'd ever seen. Her short blonde headfur wreathed her head like a halo. Meredith sat heavily down.
"Oh, Jack," she said. "They're adorable, but. You shouldn't have."
"You need a little company around here, Sam," Jack said. "Something to remind you to look up from your simulations now and then."
"But I won't have a broken leg forever. Once I'm back on the team, what am I going to do with them?"
"Dr. Weir's ready to adopt them as soon as you're back in action. She was already in the market for a couple of cats, so really, they're hers. They're just on loan to you for a while."
"Well..." the beautiful human looked down at them again. Meredith stared up, mesmerized. "They are awfully cute. Thank you."
"Are they touching noses?" Meredith asked curiously as the humans put their faces close together.
Shep arranged himself neatly, tail wrapping around his paws. "Looks like."
*
After Meredith and Shep were unpacked, fed, watered and introduced to their new litterbox, Sam and Jack swished around strings for them to chase.
"What should we name them? I guess it's up to Dr. Weir, really."
"She said we can name them," said Jack. "She definitely wasn't too impressed with their shelter names. Shep and Meredith."
"I thought they were both male."
"They are."
"I don't like cutesy pet names," Sam said. "Does that one look like a David to you?"
"Well, you've got this easygoing little guy," Jack said, indicating Shep. "And you've got one that's kinda high-strung. The laid back one, he could go by John, don't you think?"
"John. Sure," Sam said brightly. "But if you want to call the other one Daniel, you're in for it."
Jack chuckled. "Nah. He reminds me of a guy I knew in flight school; does he look like a Rodney to you?"
"Hm." Sam clicked her fingers together, beckoning. "Here, Rodney."
Of course Meredith went to her immediately. He'd been staring, awed, trying to figure out how to approach her since Jack took them out of the cardboard box.
"I guess he's Rodney, then," Sam laughed, and petted him.
"Rodney, huh?" said John né Shep.
"That's me," Rodney arched up against Sam's hand ecstatically and purred.
*
For the next few weeks, Rodney passed much of his time with what he liked to think of as "rational infatuation" and Shep called "psycho stalking."
"It's not stalking. We're her pets," Rodney said, trying to climb into Sam's lap again.
"No no. Come on now, there isn't room for you and my laptop. Lay here, Rodney," Sam settled him next to her leg. It was nice, but it just wasn't close enough.
Two feet away, Shep rolled to follow a sunbeam. "Stalking."
Rodney huffed and ignored him in favor of watching Sam's lovely fingers dance over the laptop keyboard. Eventually, much as he admired her, that got boring, so he turned his attention to the glowing rectangle of the screen. The glyphs and markings fascinated him - so pretty and, he discovered as Sam began working through some of her ideas aloud, so meaningful.
"She's smart," he said. "She's really smart. I don't know why she doesn't understand us!"
Shep's body made a careless loop on the sofa. "Smart about some things doesn't mean smart about everything."
*
Sam began opening the curtains and leaving the blinds up for them, and Shep spent a lot of time prowling around on the windowsills, looking outside. Sometimes the window was open and they could smell the whole wide world out there.
"There's a wet dirty smell out there," Rodney said. "I don't like it. Do you think it's a dog?"
"No," Shep said. "It's probably wet dirt."
"But it's kind of musky too."
"Dead plant stuff."
"Maybe," Rodney allowed.
Shep's ears pricked forward, his body tensing, tail curving low. "Squirrel," he said, opening his mouth for the scent and making a funny hack-hack-hack noise.
"Hmph," Rodney said, but he couldn't help following the darting little fuzzball with his eyes too, dropping his jaw and crying to it softly.
"That's your hunting sound?" Shep asked.
"I... guess?" He never had a reason to make it before.
"Weird."
They birdwatched for a little while, but then Shep suddenly blurred in a huge jump down from the sill, bounding across the room and down the hall and into the bedroom to get into the window there. Rodney followed, confused, and clambered up next to him.
"Rabbit!" Shep said, hunkering down like he wanted to launch himself straight through the screen.
Rodney ate the scent from the air and made a face, unimpressed. "Squishy food smells better."
Shep swiveled his ears incredulously, but he was distracted when the rabbit bounced across the lawn and into some decorative plants along the fence, where it lingered.
"Don't you think rabbit back feet look a lot like our back feet?" Shep said. "Maybe we're related."
"That's idiotic," Rodney snapped. "We have nothing in common with rabbits. They only eat plants, we're predators, their heads have a completely different shape--"
The rabbit vanished and Shep straightened, tipping his head to look at Rodney.
"Oh. You were being whimsical."
"Kinda."
Before he could stop himself Rodney confessed in a rush, "At the shelter they said I walk with a bunny hop. My back legs are too long."
Shep leaned and cheekrubbed Rodney's muzzle briefly. "No way," he said. "Humans are dumb sometimes."
*
They were dozing together in a warm huddle among Sam's bedclothes when Rodney opened his eyes to find Shep staring back and startled a little.
"Shep! Something happened to your eyes!" Rodney softpawed Shep's face, turning him toward the light to get a better look.
Shep's tail flipped in agitation. "They changed my name too, you know," he said.
"Didn't you hear me?! Your eyes are different!"
"They're changing color. It's normal." Shep added sternly, "And my name is John now."
"Are mine changing color?"
"No. Yours might not ever change," John said. "I heard them talking about your breed. Your dad was probably Siamese. They have blue eyes a lot."
"Where was I when they were talking about that?" Rodney asked, caught between annoyance that he'd missed it and warmth that John had paid attention.
"Eating." John bent his neck and snuffled at Rodney's forepaw. "They said it's because you're stripey on your legs and tail-tip and your muzzle, and your ears are dark, but you have white feet. It means your dad might have been a snowshoe Siamese cat. They looked it up."
Rodney absorbed the news. "Did they mention if there are any health problems associated with that?"
"No," John said.
"Are you sure?"
"I'm positive!" said John. "Please be less crazy."
"It's a reasonable question! Your eyes look weird now," Rodney added peevishly, and padded off to play with Sam's computer.