fandomtownies | OrangeShoeSevenAide, Late Morning (Post-Jerries)

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OrangeShoeSevenAide, Late Morning (Post-Jerries)

Rikku	Okay, she kept meaning to come down here and see the Crazy People Store, but she forgot. Today, though! Today she was totally going to. Today ... Today there was a sign scotch-taped to the door. Gone? They were just ... gone? So much for that, Rikku thought, sitting down again on the steps.
Retarded Kitten Oracle	It was quiet. It wasn't usually quiet. Usually, there were wig-people who (astonishingly enough) fed him and played with him and screamed and hid from him. Which was totally because he was Very Scary and not because they were insane. He had been napping in the basement, which was why the wig-people hadn't even realized he was there. Oops? He didn't like it when it was quiet. He yowled. And mrowled. And humphed.
Rikku	Rikku bounced up again, stepping into the abandoned OrangeShoeWhateverPlace. Hopefully no one would mind? It sounded like ... "Hey there, kitty," Rikku said, kneeling down in front of him. "What are you doing in here?"
Retarded Kitten Oracle	The Retarded Kitten Oracle rorwled. He was here with the wig-people who were funny and happy but now they weren't here, feeding him. It was Food Time! It was always Food Time! The wig-people shouldn't miss Food Time! The Retarded Kitten Oracle rurmphed sadly and then headbutted the fingers she held out.
Rikku	Rikku giggled. "Yes, you're very cute," she said, scritching the top of his head. "Do you have a home? You don't have a collar or anything."
Retarded Kitten Oracle	Yay, head-scritchings! He liked head-scritchings. There should be more of those. He licked her fingers happily and nuzzled.
Rikku	"Okay, you're adorable," she laughed. "I can't just leave you here, can I? That wouldn't be right. You need someone to look after you."
Retarded Kitten Oracle	Of course he did. He was very, very dim. The Retarded Kitten Oracle hopped onto the girl's lap, then stretched out, purring. She had a nice lap. He liked it.
Rikku	"Oh, I can't keep you," Rikku said, melting a little. Okay, a lot. "I don't think you'd get along with Crookshanks." She considered. "But ... I can take you back with me and help you find a new home?"
Retarded Kitten Oracle	The Retarded Kitten Oracle weighed her words seriously. Nope. None of them sounded like "food." But he liked her anyway, so he began chewing on her fingers. Nicely.
Rikku	"Awwwww." Melting a whole lot. She slid one arm under his belly, trying to figure out if she could lift him with the other still in a sling. No, he seemed to be too squirmy for that. "Do you have a name, kitty? I can't just call you 'Hey, You.' Or 'Buttlicker.'"
Retarded Kitten Oracle	Sure she could. He, the Retarded Kitten Oracle, was above any names mere mortals could give him, and thus answered to any of them equally. Besides, he did lick his butt.
Rikku	"Well, I shouldn't name you, since I'm not keeping you," Rikku said, nodding a little to herself. Because she still believed that. Which was sort of funny. "But I have to call you something in the meantime. So maybe ... you can be Cuban Pete?"
~~Retarded Kitten Oracle~~ Cuban Pete	The Retarded Kitten Oracle mrowled happily. It was a good name. And she smelled like food. All in all, he felt pretty good right now.
Rikku	Rikku snuggled the kitty close. For the first time in a little while, so did she.

(OOC: Yes, this is the loose end. Forgive me, I couldn't resist, especially after the month she's had. Expecting someone.)

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Valentine had some time yet before he had to be to class, so he figured he'd take a walk around the town. It got him out of his big, rather empty room, and, so long as there were no fur traders about, it was generally a good place to be. Talking about fur traders, there was a sign on the door of OrangeShoeSevenAide, and Valentine, being as attention-deficit as usual, had to go to investigate.

They'd left the building? Okay. So, who was that moving about inside, then?

He strained to see through the window, and then grinned a little to himself. Familiar faces - hairdos - whatever he recognized about people without proper faces - weren't an unwelcome sight, after all. He pushed open the door and stepped inside, wary of any sardines that might fly his way.

"Rikku! Good morning!" .... "I see you've found a sphin-" No, not a sphinx. "Cat. A cat."

"Valentine!" Rikku smiled, and went for a nod instead of waving. Waving was kind of hard with one arm in a sling and the other a chew toy for a retarded kitten. "Hiya. I, uh, probably shouldn't be in here, huh?"

She looked at the kitty again. "Cute, isn't he?"

"Cute by cat standards, or cute in general?" Valentine looked around the shop. "I'm kind of surprised to see that Jerry and Jerry left him behind. They practically had him on a pedestal in SpleenCarrot- whatever it was class."

Valentine could only focus on one thing at once, here. He'd notice the sling eventually, honest.

"He was theirs?" Rikku looked at him, then shrugged. "I don't know. Maybe they couldn't keep him, or maybe they're coming back for him. I was gonna hang on to him for a few days, see if I could find someone to take him."

Cuban Pete mrorwled at Valentine. Hee. Mask. No, he didn't remember him from class yet. He was dim.

Valentine leaned over to inspect the kitten. Yep. Just as retarded as ever.

"I can't see them coming back for their Retarded Kitten Oracle, really. If you haven't met the Jerries before... Trust me. Between the two of them, they don't even half a half a wit."

"Retarded ... what?!" she asked, blinking a few times. "He's ... I thought he was just a kitty."

The Retarded Kitten Oracle mrowled happily at the boy. Hey! That was his name! His other name! Before! And MaskHead totally looked familiar and did he have any food? Fooooood. It was FoodTime.

"He is just a kitty. The Jerries were nuts." Valentine reached down to pet the cat. "At least, I think they were. And between you and me, I think they were right at least about the 'retarded' part. This cat is a little slow."

Nope, no food.

"He might be hungry," he suggested. Sphinx always made that sort of noise when they wanted to eat you.

The Artist Formerly Known as the Retarded Kitten Oracle sniffed Valentine's fingers and mrrred happily, rubbing against them. Hello! People petting him! That was the best thing ever and almost as good as --

He said hungry! He did! Hungry was a word that meant food! Food?

Rikku laughed. "I've got some beef jerky, but, uh. Can you feed that to cats? And I think you're right about him being slow. But gosh, he's cute. He keeps licking me and then chewing my fingers."

The Artist Now Known As Cuban Pete demonstrated for Valentine.

Valentine was not melting at the Retarded Kitten Oracle's retarded finger chewings. Much. At all. Really.

"Cats eat meat, don't they? I don't think a little jerky could hurt. Naminé has a cat, you know. I could ask her how to take care of one of these things."

Not that he was totally thinking that one of the two of them needed to take care of this cat.

"Hermione's got a cat, too," Rikku said. "So I can't keep him. I mean. Even if I wanted to, he probably belongs to somebody and he and Crookshanks wouldn't get along and, you know, I don't ... need a cat or anything."

Cuban Pete mrred at her. She was being silly. Everybody needed a cat.

Jerky. Right. Rikku reached down reflexively before remembering she couldn't. Stupid sling. Her right hand was dominant, thus, the leg-pouch was on her right leg, which was usually the most convenient place for it.

"Can you grab it?" she asked, nodding down to the pouch. "Uh. I know it's a weird request but ..." She moved the sling once or twice. Nope, still not bending.

It was about this point that Valentine finally noticed Rikku's case of reduced mobility.

"In this leg pocket over here?" He sidestepped and started poking through the pocket-thing. "What happened to your arm?"

"Yup," she said, shifting her weight a little. "Should be a bag of it. We Al Bhed like to be prepared. Probably about half gone by now 'cause of the dogs. I, uh, got my ass kicked, last weekend. Tried to help Mel patrol for lurks and failed miserably."

"You're still alive, I wouldn't call that a failure," Valentine pointed out, locating the bag of jerky and pulling it out of the pocket. "You just have a few more bumps on you than when you started. How much of this should I give to him?"

"I nearly wasn't," she admitted in a lower tone. "He smashed my Godhand right into my head and that's the last thing I remember before waking up in the clinic."

Cuban Pete may be dim - and he was - but he knew that smell! Meat, meat, meat! That was food! He jumped up and began pawing at the bag excitedly. His! His!

"Uh. Maybe a few? It can't hurt, right?"

"I really doubt a few will hurt. Not with the way he's going about trying to get it." Valentine pulled open he bag and held out a few pieces of Jerky for the kitten to attempt to gnaw at. He really didn't know the first thing about feeding cats.

"You know, anything you can wake up from can't be a total failure." If his tone suggested that he was speaking from experience, here... "That's why you don't do it alone, right? If someone saved you, maybe next time, you'll get the opportunity to return the favor."

Cuban Pete liked the jerky! And Valentine! And everything, ever. He hopped up and snatched the edge of the jerky and pulled it out of Valentine's hand, skittering away a few steps to settle down over it. He nibbled and licked it a few times, flicking his tail and watching for other predators who might want to steal his kill.

"I was supposed to be back-up," she said with a shrug. "I used to be good at this. I don't know when I stopped."

"You kept me alive," Valentine pointed out, crossing his arms and sitting back to watch the kitten gnaw on the meat. "We wouldn't have made it back to Fandom at all if you hadn't been there to grab the would-be heroes and run. You don't forget something like that, you know."

He offered her a smile.

"And your aim with that gem of yours..." He gave a shrug of his shoulders. "I don't think you ever really stopped. Everyone has their off days."

Cuban Pete was merrily chewing the ends of the jerky. And licking it. And tossing it in the air a little to himself.

Rikku shrugged. "Sometimes you gotta throw a flash bomb and run away. It's not being a coward or whatever. I think maybe they ... weren't used to that. Being in places where even if you're a hero, you can't win this damn fight, so you'd better run for it and come up with an actual plan later. That's ... surviving. Maybe none of them are from spots like that."

She grinned. "It was beautiful, when that went off. The lights sweeping down and everything gone. I'm sorry that ... that we failed, though. I was so worried ..."

Valentine shook his head.

"It wasn't a failure. And if it was, it wasn't your fault, by a long shot." He frowned. "I don't think I would have gone back, really, if I hadn't been harassed into it for months. The funny thing is, it might all still be there if we hadn't gone back. I can't think of any way the princess might have learned about other worlds to use that mask, aside from seeing the lot of us..."

He frowned and gave his shoulders a shrug.

"Going there was a mistake. But I owe you. I really do. Nobody would have come back if someone hadn't been able to say, 'hey, look, we can't do this.' And that's more important than standing your ground and winning every fight."

"This isn't your fault," Rikku said softly. "Maybe she would have found it anyway. You tried to save your world, 'cause you had to. I'm sorry that we couldn't."

She would have reached out to put an arm on his shoulder, but she was sitting funny from the sling, and couldn't.

"Next time, I'm not leaving unless you come with us. We couldn't even get back there again. It's a good thing that girlfriend of yours has weird drawing-stuff."

"It isn't there," Valentine mumbled. "It all folded up, and it's gone. Of course you couldn't..." Wait, what? "You tried to get back there again?"

"You were gone," Rikku shrugged. "And your girlfriend was all 'he should be back by now' and it was weird, you not being back and not writing or anything. So Will and I, we took that Heart-thing and we tried to find you. But your world was shut off. I guess ... that's because it was gone, huh?"

Valentine nodded slightly, perhaps a little too stunned to speak for a few moments, balling his hands into fists and reminding himself to breathe and wow. People had gone back for him...

"Everything went black. There wasn't anything left. Or there wasn't anything left that I could get to. You really tried to find me? After-" ... He wasn't going to go all soppy, here. He was going to look at the cat. My, what a cute little cat. And he was going to be ... something. But not soppy. "Thank you."

"Of course we did," she said softly. "We thought you might be stuck or hurt or something. Couldn't just ... leave you there. You're our friend, right?"

She looked over at Cuban Pete, too, and ...

"Do ... you think it would be terrible? To keep him?"

"I think someone probably should have come for him sooner, too," Valentine said, watching the cat. He could get to like cats. They were good for topic switches, whenever Onward and Upward happened to waver. "If the Jerries really are gone, I can't see them being of sound enough mind to come back for him. And if they aren't gone, then he shouldn't be so bloody hungry. Either way, I think it would be for the best."

And also, the Retarded Kitten Oracle was cute.

Cuban Pete thumped his tail. He really was cute. He knew it. It was the only thing he had going for him.

"He licked me," she said with a smile. "I've had a miserable week and I just wanna hide under my bed until this month is over and maybe never come out again and then he licked me and he's so adorable and ... I h-hope they don't. Come back."

"They wouldn't notice if he was gone even if they did," Valentine said. Mostly convinced. Pretty sure. Possibly more hopeful than sure. He wanted that kitten to go back to the dorms with them, dammit.

"Besides, if he keeps you from hiding under your bed, I don't think anyone can argue." He attempted a smile. "It gets cramped under there, I'll have you know."

"I know," she said softly. "And it's all dusty and it smells bad and Crookshanks would think I was crazy anyway."

Rikku watched Cuban Pete nibbling on the jerky. As if on cue, he jumped up, trotted over to her, and mrowled insistently until she started scritching his head.

"Jude left."

Oh.

Valentine didn't much like the sound of that.

"For good?"

Cuban Pete objected at being deposited back onto Rikku's lap, but only a little. Then he settled in to gnaw on her thumb.

"His mom's sick. He has to ... it's not about us. But we're kinda ..."

She shrugged, blinking back tears, as if to indicate how completely and totally okay she was. Which she was. Really.

Oh, yes. Valentine could tell that she was doing just fine. The tapering off of her sentences into silence was very reassuring, for example.

"I can't even imagine what it would be like to..." To lose the person that you breathe for? No, he could. He'd made Naminé fade, once. That had been... "For all it's worth, I'm sorry I can't do more."

He really was. That surprised even him, a little.

"Thanks," she said softly, cuddling Petey closer. He headbutted against her reassuringly and that was nice. "I ... it's ... we'll see each other again. Some day. I'm sure. It's ..."

She closed her eyes for a long moment. "It's not okay. But. I've. I've gotten through worse and I'll get through this and I ..."

Rikku was interrupted by an insistent mrowlwrl. Petey apparently had something very important he needed to share. There were syllables and entire phrases.

She smiled, scritching under his chin. "There is something. That you could do for me."

Now, it is a well-known fact that Valentines are not in the least bit sentimental. That would simply be absurd and not at all fitting for a Very Important Man such as this particular Valentine. So, when Rikku mentioned that there was something he could do, it really wasn't that Valentine wanted to do something kind for a friend to cheer her up. Not at all. Really. Honest. Mostly. It's just that Valentine kind of owed her one, here. She'd talked him out from under a bed and gave him a cabin to stay in when his brain was broken and followed him into a world that might as well have been the mouth of hell and listened to him afterward when he was going batshit insane and this was purely a debt that he owed to her, really. He was Valentine. Valentines were not gratuitously nice like this. It was all business.

And he could tell himself that until his purple stripe went blue and he'd still be lying, of course. Rikku was one of the best friends he'd ever had.

"I'd be happy to, Rikku. What did you have in mind?"

Rikku smiled at Valentine. "That's ... I appreciate that. A lot, you know."

She looked down at Petey, who was still warbling. "I'm keeping him. I don't care if he's theirs. I don't care that he's dim or that he keeps biting too hard. I don't even care if that makes me a terrible person. I'm keeping him."

She looked up again, smiling a little uncertainly. "So I need to carry him back to the dorms and stop at the store to get stuff, like some food for him and whatever else you need for a cat, although I'm sure Hermione's got some extras, but ..."

She gestured again with the sling. "I, uh. Would you ... help? He's squirmy and I'm kinda gimped."

Valentine looked between Rikku and The Retarded Cuban Pete Oracle a few times.

"You want me to carry him?"

Valentine had never actually carried a cat before.

"I can give it a shot."

This could get interesting.

"If you don't mind? He might claw and bite a little." She bit her lip. "I think he doesn't mean to bite so hard, he's just playing and he plays a little rough? You know? But I can't carry him like this. Even if I could, I wouldn't be able to stop for stuff on the way or anything. Um. It's okay if you'd rather not."

Petey was wriggling happily and chewing on her finger. Possibly talking to it. It was hard to say. He was retarded.

"I don't mind," Valentine clarified, staring down at the kitten some more.

Okay. So. Feline. That bites. He can handle this. Yes.

This was Valentine, reaching down and picking up the cat in both hands around his little middle and holding him at arm's length.

"See. Carrying the cat. Nice kitty."

Cuban Pete was very amused by Valentine's attempt to carry him, and wriggled.

"You, uh. It's easier if you get your other arm under him?" Rikku demonstrated as best she could, what with the sling and all. "Like, hold him kinda ... there, and then use the other arm to try to ... keep him there?"

"Easier for me to carry him, or easier for him to chew on me?"

It was a perfectly valid question, so far as Valentine was concerned. Even if he was shifting the cat about as he asked it.

"Is this better, then?"

"Both," she admitted, which Petey proved by settling for a good gnaw. He meant it nicely. You could tell by all the licking and burbling. "Sorry?"

"He's lucky he's cuter than the Sphinx were," Valentine informed both the cat and the girl in his company. "He'd be airborne by now if he was anything like them. And I'd be running the other way."

His fingers were wet with cat spit. Lovely.

Cuban Pete mrred happily. Being cute had saved him many a time before. It was kinda his strong suit. Well, it was his only suit, so, you know.

"Those sphinxes were creepy," she said, shuddering. "I don't think he's trying to eat you or anything. Just ... gnawing. Playing, kinda. He. Maybe he's not ... bright enough to know better."

"You'd better be right," Valentine said, attempting to feign grumpy and failing terribly at it. "These hands are my livelihood, you know."

It was difficult to feign grumpy when there was a murring kitty being cute in your arms.

It was difficult to pretend you were not laughing at a very important man when he was very clearly being smitten over a retarded kitten. Some stray giggling may have escaped.

"Okay," she said. "I'll warn him. Petey, Valentine is not for eating. Okay?"

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OrangeShoeSevenAide, Late Morning (Post-Jerries)

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