st_x5_494 | We have this now

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.

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From:

st_arkintern

"Shakes-purr," Peter continues, looking at Alec instead of the mewing cat, as difficult as it is for him to ignore the precious, tiny thing. "Ravenclaw. Pounce de Leon. Tom Pawyer."

From:

st_x5_494

He stared at Peter. "Well now you're just doing it on purpose."

Alec paused, almost saying the first thing out of his mouth, but actually stopping again - see? He was trying.

"I'm not good with names. I didn't even give myself a name. How am I supposed to give a cat a name?"

From:

st_arkintern

Peter turns back to the kitten and scritches it under the chin. It leans in against his fingers. Peter's never had any pets of his own, but he did tend to pet the strays when he saw them.

And Mr. Delmar's cat.

"You only think you're bad with names," Peter says. "Naming yourself would probably be difficult, anyway. But when you're naming something else... you just think about something you like that just fits."

Peter shifts his fingers to behind the kitten's ears.

"Or you just name it after someone it looks like," Peter says. "Mr. Delmar named his cat Murph because he looked like this guy who lived in the apartment complex next door to him when he was a kid. Had the same personality, too."

From:

st_x5_494

Alec looked over at the kitten. He hadn't been lying that the kitten hadn't stopped following him. And then it was raining and it would 'go away' and get out of the rain so finally Alec picked it up.

"How about Peter Junior." His expression remained neutral.

From:

st_arkintern

Peter looks at Alec, perplexed. He's not able to tell if Alec is messing with him.

"Why Peter Junior?"

From:

st_x5_494

He shrugged. "He's young, eager, and can't get rid of him."

It was a little bit of column a and a little bit of column b. Mostly messing.

"Shouldn't this be a name you like too? It's probably going to like you more anyways."

From:

st_arkintern

"You shouldn't be so negative," Peter says, turning away from the kitten to look over at Alec. "There's a reason he was following you."

And it wasn't because he hated Alec, either.

"How about Ace?"

From:

st_x5_494

Alec didn't think he was exactly a good candidate for taking care of living things. He had already gotten Peter into trouble a few times.

"Ace." He looked at the tint creature who was occupied with Peter on his bed. Alec actually looked like he was considering it, despite all the protesting that he didn't care.

"Ace is good." It was strong too and somehow he thought Max, who waa rhe name giver in his life, would even like it.

From:

st_arkintern

It's hard for Peter to hide precisely how pleased he is that Alec agreed so easily. He'd chosen it specifically because it had most of the characters in Alec's name.

"Great!" Peter grins, then strokes Ace's back. "Do you have everything that Ace's going to need yet?" Litter, litter box, food... what else did a cat need?

From:

st_x5_494

Alec blinked. "I told you, he followed me home." Okay, not entirely literally. "The chef makes chicken, so it's not like he's going to be starving."

Alec had no idea what a cat needed.

From:

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.

From:

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."

From:

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."

From:

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.

From:

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."

From:

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?"

From:

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."

From:

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.

From:

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."

From:

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."

From:

st_arkintern

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

"What, did the women pounce on things?"

From:

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."

From:

st_arkintern

"What?"

Peter blinks.

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

From:

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."

From:

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."