We have this now - Peter

[st_x5_494]

Alec had gotten back to the room about an hour or so before the other world closed up. It felt a little weird to be going back to a place with far less freedom and far less things to do. It was almost like choosing to go back to prison.

He pushed any of those thoughts aside. There was no time to dwell.

He was currently taking a shower, but there was a peculiar addition to the room. On Peter's bed was a little kitten that was currently pouncing at the small hills made from the bedding and bounding up and down the bed itself as if chasing some imaginary assailant.

Comments

[st_arkintern]

"What about a litter box? Litter?" Peter might not have ever owned a cat, but he at least knows the basics of what a cat needs. "We're going to have to make sure he has a place to use the bathroom."

Probably the most important part, but still, there's more.

"What about something to scratch? Or toys?" Peter frowns, thinking. "We might be able to make something for him." They still needed to worry about the litter box and litter, though.

[st_x5_494]

"Can't he just..." Alec gestured vaguely toward's the window. "Go outside and do his business?"

The only cats Alec ever saw where alley cats. He supposed Ace was not like those kind.

"What kind of toys? I thought dogs had toys."

[st_arkintern]

"I mean, you can try taking him out on a leash," Peter begins. He had seen it before. "But I don't know if he'll like it." Cats seemed to like litter boxes well enough.

"Stuff like, a little fishpole with a bit of feather attached to the end of a string."

[st_x5_494]

There was clearly more to cat ownership than Alec realized.

"Okay... Well, you tell me what he needs and I'll try to find stuff." He could probably kill a bird for some feathers.

"I don't want to put it on a leash." Alec was anti-leash... Unless maybe if it was in the bedroom.

[st_arkintern]

Peter turns to face Alec. "Him," Peter corrects. "Not it."

He looks back down at the kitten. "I'll take care of finding something that'll work as a litter box," he says. "I don't know what we'll do about litter, but I might be able to ask someone what we can use as a substitute."

[st_x5_494]

"Him" He looked at Peter, but the stare wasn't as curmudgeon as it normally was.

"How about sand. Are litter boxes basically big sandboxes?"

[st_arkintern]

Peter snaps his fingers together in realization. "That should work," he says, flashing Alec a smile. "It doesn't clump very well, so we probably need to be pretty diligent about changing it, though."

[st_x5_494]

There was, apparently, a lot of work.

"Are you sure we can't just teach him to use the toilet?"

Ace let out a loud mmeeeeoowww and then suddenly seemed to run toward some sort of prey... And promptly off the bed.

A look of worry crossed Alec's expression. "Is he okay?" Which came out sounding a little more worried than maybe he normally did.

[st_arkintern]

"I've never heard of anyone being able to teach a cat how to use a toilet, but... maybe?" Peter sounds skeptical that this is something that can be done.

But before they can discuss this further, Alec meows and leaps off the bed. Peter watches Ace with interest.

"Yeah, he's fine," Peter says. "Sometimes cats just do this kind of stuff. Mr. Delmar's cat mostly lays around all day, but whenever he sees anything small run around outside, he's on it in an instant."

[st_x5_494]

He watched the kitten for a moment and then seemed to un-tense when it looked like Ace was okay.

"Thank God I don't have that urge." He'd be who knows where. "Max and the other female X5s got the short end of the DNA deal with that."

[st_arkintern]

Ace is still pawing at something in the corner of the room.

"What, did the women pounce on things?"

[st_x5_494]

"They would probably have preferred that." He thought about some of the questionable choices Max had made, including trying to sleep with him. "They go through heat about twice a year."

[st_arkintern]

"What?"

Peter blinks.

"They couldn't just... edit that out?"

[st_x5_494]

He shrugged a little. "It only showed up by the time they hit puberty. By then it was too late. They fixed it in the X-6es. Probably wasn't worth it if they could. We used to get this other disease - progeria. Was killing us off until they fixed that."

[st_arkintern]

Peter's glad that Alec doesn't have progeria.

"You know, it's really nice of you to bring Ace home with you," he says. "You could have left him there."

[st_x5_494]

"like I said, he followed me home." He made an effort to look serious and grumpy about it.

[st_arkintern]

Peter doubts that the events went down exactly as Alec describes, but...

"You could have sent him back home," he says. "But you didn't."

[st_x5_494]

He shrugged. "I thought you could use a friend." A change in tactics now. It waa definitely not because Alec felt for the abandoned kitten.

[st_arkintern]

"But you're my friend."

[st_x5_494]

"Am I?" For a moment he kept his expression neutral, then sighed and gave in. "Fine, I'm your friend. But this one... Has a tail." And is adorable and fuzzy, but those words couldn't seem to leave his mouth.

[st_arkintern]

"You're just as an effective friend without one."

[st_x5_494]

He crossed his arms stubbornly over his chest. "I could just let him go outside and be wild." Which would never happen, but he bluffed it anyways.

[st_arkintern]

"You wouldn't do that," Peter says. "Because you're a good person."

[st_x5_494]

"I am the one who almost got you and your girlfriend arrested." And therefore, somehow, he was a bad guy.

[st_arkintern]

"We could have said no, but we didn't," Peter shoots back.