Puss (7)

[jaded_grin]

No warnings, no labels, no nothing--this is purely to offset the file-muncher! If the sloppy all-over-the-place feel of my journal bugs you, go friend/join my master fic list community, 'cause I can only be tidy in so many places at once :D

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7

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            After some drama getting Kadaj into the car (he rode the whole way to the local “mart” with his face pressed to Reno’s shoulder, trying to wriggle behind his back) and some more drama getting Kadaj shod (hilariously enough, he walked like a cat with tape on both back paws once Reno got shoes onto him, his thin brows drawn down and an absolutely furious expression on his pretty face), they finally made it to the fair.

Rude’s silence was full of more weighty looks and assessing glances, which put Reno on his guard, but the big man said nothing about the way Puss kept trying to walk out of his shoes and smiling up at him, blinking with happy cat-bliss. He was hopeful that he’d emerge from this unscathed and have some time to think about his predicament—apparently, Puss was staying. Reno couldn’t really toss him out now that he’d slept with him, and he’d promised, for whatever that was worth.

            Rude stopped at a booth to buy two wristbands, and Reno scratched his head, asking, “Hey, pal—you forget about the kid? He needs one, too.”

            “This one is for me,” Rude rumbled, holding up one ride-wristband. “And this one is for Tifa.”

            “Aw man!” Reno whined, fishing out his wallet with an unhappy sigh. “She’s coming? Shit, Rude, I don’t want to be your fucking third wheel!”

            Rude directed a pointed look at Kadaj, who was staring wide-eyed at all of the people, clinging to Reno’s arm like he was afraid someone would snatch him away.

            “Don’t,” Reno said, shaking his head. “Just don’t.”

            He bought two wristbands and strapped one onto Puss’s slender wrist, having to double it over on itself just to keep it from sliding off of him. Rude hovered a little ways away, talking on his phone and giving directions.

            “Rrreno, where we is being?” Puss whispered, overwhelmed by all the newness. His jade eyes were huge, the pupils fully dilated, and his plump lower lip trembled a little.

            “A fair, it’s fun,” he told him, snapping his own wristband on. He sighed a little at how scared Puss was, and gently stroked his hair until he got an unwilling but viable purr. “There ya go, pal, it’s okay—fairs are good times, yo, we’ll have fun.”

            “Rrreno, I is not having the fun,” Kadaj said, his throaty voice low. When Rude came over to them the boy scooted up against Reno’s side, his small hands gripping his shirt. Reno figured that if he had been roughly the size of a ladies’ handbag for most of his life, he’d be a little wary of large things like Rude, too.

            “She on her way?” Reno asked, still sour about it—Rude hadn’t mentioned Tifa. She was nice and all, but it irritated Reno to be around her because it got his mother-hen of a partner to nagging him about settling down again. All the old arguments: you’re not getting any younger, so-and-so isn’t going to wait forever, the cost of education goes up exponentially each year so you’d best get started on some kids—shit, who needed a mom when he had baldy?

            Rude nodded a little and, oddly enough, ruffled Kadaj’s hair, which won him a happy smile and a soft trill of appreciation.

            “Cute kid,” he commented.

            “You is nice to P—”

            “You shoulda told me she was coming, yo,” Reno said, overriding Kadaj’s statement. He felt the boy glowering next to him, and excused himself to Rude, dragging Puss back into the crowd and leaning close to hiss into his ear, “You can’t call yourself Puss to Rude, okay? Knock it off!”

            “Why is knocking?” Kadaj asked, perplexed. He pulled a little against the tight hold Reno had on his tiny forearm and added, “You is hurting me.”

            “Sorry,” Reno said, feeling like an ass. “Look, Puss, that’s…our special name for you, okay?”

            “Special?” the boy echoed, cocking his head. He looked fragile and adorable in his borrowed clothes and new sneakers, and his confusion only added to his appeal. He may as well have been wearing a shirt that said, ‘Debauch me’ as far as Reno was concerned—it was like waving a flag in front of a bull.

            “Shit,” he cursed.

            Kadaj’s head cocked the other direction, lost.

            “Come on,” Reno said, tugging on his slender wrist and heading back to Rude, wondering why on earth his libido was suddenly so open to suggestion and perfectly comfortable with his own gender. Its unexpected defection to the other team made him grumpy and a little worried about his own willpower and even his strength of character.

            “Reno! Hi!” Tifa called, waving cheerily. “Who’s your friend?”

            “Uh, this is Kadaj,” Reno said, giving the boy a little shove towards her.

            Kadaj sniffed twice, sneezed delicately, and ignored her.

            “Well…” Tifa said, still smiling, though she seemed a little taken aback. She smiled up at Rude and asked, “Wanna go ride the Ferris Wheel?”

            Rude promptly escorted her away, leaving Reno behind with Kadaj.

            “Well, fuck you, too,” Reno muttered, watching them disappear into the crowd. He looked down at Kadaj, who was staring intently at one of the booths, and said, “C’mon, Puss, let’s go have some fun.”

            Puss tipped his pretty little face up at him and smiled in response, saying, “Whatever you is wranting, Rrreno.”

            He got into the first line he could find, kinda bored and wondering if he would see any of his girlfriends around. If he’d known Rude was inviting Tifa, he wouldn’t have even come in the first place.

            He felt Kadaj’s warm little fingers steal into his hand and close around his first two fingers. He almost shook him off but stopped himself when he saw the kid’s huge eyes fastened on the ride.

            It was something called the Octopus and was even made to look like one, the cars at the end of the “tentacles” all spinning in circles that rose up into the air. It looked pretty nausea-inspiring, but Reno liked rides and thought it looked like fun.

            “Rrreno…we is…” Kadaj whimpered, fingers rhythmically clenching on his own. “We is getting on?”

            “Yes, ‘we is getting on’,” Reno told him. “Don’t worry, you’ll like it.”

            Puss stayed mute with fear, and resisted to the point that Reno actually had to use some force to get him into the car when their turn came around. They were the first ones on the next round, and Puss mewled piteously every time they moved upwards to let other people on.

            “It’ll be fun,” Reno said, and the ride kicked into gear.

            Kadaj shrieked in startled terror, slamming against him as the car spun.

            Reno started laughing, enjoying the air whipping by him and the thrill of being all over the place—it was like flying, only out of his control. He let go of the bar and folded his arm around Puss’s slender body before he latched back on, holding him against his side so he wouldn’t rattle around like a little ping-pong ball.

            Puss’s scared cries turned into burbling laughter, the panic leaving his huge eyes to be replaced by stark excitement and awed discovery. He looked at Reno and laughed with the abandoned, unselfconscious enjoyment of a child, his small hands holding tightly to the bar and his silver hair swirling around his face.

            “See?” Reno shouted over the wind and the roar of the ride. “I told you it’d be fun!”

            “Rrreno!” Kadaj cried, laughing and delighted. “Is beautiful! I is see everything!”

            Reno laughed with him, holding him tight to keep him from flying out of the car altogether. He was almost bummed out when the ride slowed to a stop, but Puss was ecstatic and wanted more of the same.

            They rode almost every ride at the fair, some more than once. Late in the afternoon he took Puss to “use box” and took a piss while he was at it. He decided to get some food afterwards, and bought two smoked drumsticks of some kind of big fowl, one of which Puss practically inhaled. And after he’d finished his own Puss latched onto Reno’s, clamping his sharp little teeth down on it and getting a pretty good mouthful before Reno just gave up and let him have it.

            “You having fun?” he asked, having a smoke while the boy polished off the remains of the meat and sucked noisily on the bone.

            Puss nodded and tossed the bone into the wastebasket before he gave Reno one of his big, blissful smiles.

            “Reno, I is never having day like this,” the boy told him, the words adorably garbled by his horrible accent. He started in purring and cleaned his fingers with his tongue until Reno shoved napkins at him. Puss fastidiously cleaned up before asking, “You is having the fun?”

            “Yep,” Reno sighed, throwing away the used napkins and the butt of his cigarette. He glanced around, idly wishing Rude would show up, kinda hoping he’d find one of his girlfriends so he’d have somebody to talk to. He glanced back at Puss, who was still smiling at him, though he looked a little glassy-eyed and done in. “You tired?”

            “Yes, I is tired,” Puss agreed, nodding. Reno noticed circles under the boy’s eyes, and on the heels of that he saw that Kadaj was really pale.

            “You okay?” he asked, a little worried. He finished off his beer and Kadaj slurped at his soda, giving him an earnest nod. “You sure? You look ready to drop.”       

            “I is tired,” he repeated, and scooted out of his seat. He tried to crawl into Reno’s lap, which didn’t work so well and Reno didn’t want anyway, so he stood up.

            “Here, I’ll piggy-back you, hop on,” Reno told him, and helped Puss get situated on his back, those rather long, coltish legs dangling over his hips. “You comfy? Let’s find Rude and get outta here.”

            “Yes,” Puss agreed, and snuggled against his back.

            Reno scoured the fair site, knowing that Rude would never hear his phone in all of the ruckus. He felt Puss growing more and more relaxed against him to the point that he finally had to stop and swing his light little body around onto his hip for fear that the boy would slide right off. Puss whimpered a little but snuggled against him and quickly fell back asleep.  

            Reno sighed, but if Puss was adorable awake and moving he was a thousand times more snuggly asleep—Reno couldn’t really be a dick about carrying him around, not when he looked so helpless and vulnerable all snuggled to his chest, that soft purr vibrating against him.

            “I’m turning into a softy,” he complained, but there wasn’t any real heat to it. He wondered what on earth he was going to do with a kid living in his house and how things were going to work out, but since he’d ignored that little voice it was all pissed off and unwilling to help him.

            Reno was on his own.

            Luckily, he found Rude and Tifa sitting at some picnic tables next to a booth selling barbeque. Tifa waved at him when she saw him and cocked her head at Kadaj, cooing, “Aw, he’s sleeping!”

            “Aw, he’s heavy!” Reno complained, plopping down to sit backwards so that Puss didn’t tangle him up.

            “You guys been riding the rides?” Tifa asked, not put off by his attitude. Like Rude, she was almost terminally nice only more open about it. It was her nauseatingly chipper attitude that had brought Reno’s first revelation about the lines he drew with the fairer sex—namely that big tits didn’t make everything tolerable. That and Rude’s crush on her had kept Reno safely away from Tifa’s enticing assets. “Stop staring at my chest.”

            “Sorry,” he said, snapping his eyes up. “Sometimes I just space out.”    

            “You drool a little, too,” she laughed, finishing her sandwich and wiping her hands.

            Kadaj stirred against Reno’s shoulder, wriggling against him a little before settling.

            Tifa turned around to sit backwards, too, and a moment later Rude joined them, all three just enjoying the cool evening air and a day spent doing nothing.

            “So, who is he?” Tifa asked, indicating Kadaj with a soft tip of her head.

            “Uh…” Reno had already forgotten what lie he’d told Rude. He only hoped that Rude had forgotten as well. “He’s an exchange student.”

            Tifa laughed. With a smirk, she asked, “And who did you send in exchange?”

            “My sister’s kid.”

            She just sighed and asked Rude, “Is he always such a terrible liar?”

            Kadaj woke then, sitting up in Reno’s lap with the bleary dignity of a startled, confused cat. He rubbed at his green eyes and made a soft, sad little noise, clearly not ready to be awake yet. His skin was still pale and his round cheeks were flushed, and Reno noticed that the sugar cookie smell was stronger suddenly.

            Tifa sniffed the air and asked, “What is that? It smells yummy!”

            She turned her head and told Kadaj, “It’s you. You smell delicious!”

            Kadaj gave her his happy cat smile and chirped, “You is nice to Kadaj!”

            “Aw, you’re such an adorable kid!” Tifa said.

            “And you’re such a sucker for ‘em,” Reno breathed, licking his lips because the scent of Kadaj’s skin was just that much of a trigger. He was even starting to crave sugar cookies now.

            “You look sleepy, kid,” Tifa crooned to him, obviously assuming that Kadaj was much younger than he seemed, probably because Reno had been carting him around like a baby.

            “I is tired,” Kadaj agreed, and defected to Tifa’s lap.

            She made a startled little sound as Kadaj clambered over her and laughingly asked, “I’m sorry, did you want to sit here?”

            Rude shrugged in answer to her confused look, and Reno just sighed as Kadaj got situated, snuggling up on her lap as if he was still a seven pound little cat instead of a one-hundred-ten pound kid.

            “Come on,” Reno sighed, aggravated that he had to keep dragging the Puss out of people’s laps. “Don’t mind him, yo, he’s got no respect for personal space.”

            “That’s okay,” Tifa laughed, shaking her head as Reno put Kadaj on his feet and pulled him back out of the lap-zone. “Did you take him on the Ferris Wheel? We’re going again, I want to see the night view.”

            “That ain’t a bad idea, Tifa,” Reno said, keeping his arm around Kadaj’s waist. “Let’s go, kid.”

            At least walking would keep Puss from lap-sitting strangers…

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1               6                8

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Comments

[glorfindel.livejournal.com]

nawwwww Puss is soooo cute!!!

Can't wait for the next chapter <3

[jaded-grin.livejournal.com]

Thank you! I'm glad you liked it! I try to make him all cute and cat-like, which sometimes collide in some interesting ways. :D

[nivell.livejournal.com]

Oh oh, is Puss's hormones running wild? I want a cat that smells like sugar cookies~ yummy.

[jaded-grin.livejournal.com]

There's a reason for the way he smells, but I can't tell you or that would ruin it :D

[ldyavalon.livejournal.com]

*pets the Kadaj* Cute lil puss!!!

[jaded-grin.livejournal.com]

Hehehe! I try to make him as snuggly as possible :D

[etrix.livejournal.com]

When I was young and didn't have a car, I had to take my cat to the vets on the bus. By the time I got him home I had little puncture marks all over my arm, my shoulder, my chest, my neck.... You managed to capture that 'terrified cat' feel even though Kadaj doesn't have little claws any more.

I like how he just abandoned Reno for Tifa's lap because she seemed like a better mark. And how he just decided, in the middle of all this, that it was time for a nap. What a cat!

I too am curious about the cookie smell. It seems to be having odd effects on the people around him. Hmmm....

[jaded-grin.livejournal.com]

Thanks! Well, Tifa's lap just looked more comfy, maybe--who knows what a cat is thinking? The cookie/sweet smell will play a large part, so I'm dropping it pretty heavy for now. Glad you liked it!

[d0rkgoddess.livejournal.com]

"Puss" is adorable, so is Reno's reactions to him... and crawling in Tifa's lap made me giggle

[jaded-grin.livejournal.com]

Thanks so much! He's so much fun to write, I just adore him :D Glad you liked it!

[white-jenna.livejournal.com]

Oh, I'd forgotten how much I love this series. :D Thanks for the update!

[jaded-grin.livejournal.com]

Thank you!