Chapter 8 – Leon #2
Purrsephone glared at him like she understood, and James shook his head. “I don’t want to stress her out more. You’ll behave, right, sweetie?”
That balloon in Leon’s chest glowed like the streetlight outside the small waiting room window. Purrsephone also seemed to be touched by James’ earnestness, or maybe she was just tired of struggling. She settled back down as James contorted his wrist around her body to stroke her back.
“Alright, well, don’t come back to see us, ya hear?” Theo said, grinning widely at them before shooing them away from the front desk.
“Everyone is so nice here,” James said as they stepped out into the humid night air. The clouds overhead seemed to have trapped the muggy air, and by the time they got to the car, Leon’s shirt was sticking to his back.
“They are, probably because they have to deal with a lot of distraught pet owners at all times of day. My vet’s office is pretty nice too, though. We can take Purrsephone there if that’s okay, or you’re always welcome to find another office if you don’t like mine.”
James blinked his big, beautiful blue eyes at Leon. “We are not calling her Purrsephone.”
“Do you have a better name?” he asked, smirking as he slid into the driver’s seat.
For some reason, despite the increasingly precious cargo he was carrying, he didn’t feel anxious getting behind the wheel. He was excited to go home, get Purrsephone settled in, and hopefully talk with James about what the next few months would look like.
“What about Luna?” James said, clicking his seatbelt into place and wrapping both arms around Purrsephone.
“I feel like that’s a good name for a black cat,” Leon said, pulling out of the parking lot.
“Lily?”
“Seems more like something you’d name a dainty little thing. Purrsephone is large and in charge. She needs something regal and befitting of her stature.”
The car fell suspiciously silent, but Leon hit several green lights in a row, so he didn't have a chance to look over until he finally hit a red light a few blocks from his apartment. James was staring through the windshield, his face unreadable as he absently rubbed Purrsephone’s head.
“I was just joking, darlin’. If you like Lily or Luna or—”
“No, I…I’m just thinking about everything that owning a cat entails.
We’re going to have to get a carrier of her own, and she’ll need her own food and water bowl, and probably her own toys.
It’s going to take a while to introduce her to Yarmen, I do know that much, and I just…
I really don’t want to bother or inconvenience Yarmen… or you.”
Purrsephone’s tail wormed its way across the center console to rest on Leon’s leg. “You said that before, love, and like I said, you’re not a bother. Neither is Purrsephone. We’ll figure out all the logistics and shit together.”
James hummed softly but didn’t say anything more.
Leon could almost feel James spiraling, but he would be more capable of having this conversation when he wasn’t driving.
While it was true there were a lot of things to figure out for Purrsephone to move in, and if James also moved in, there would be even more to sort out, he was sure that if anyone could figure it out, it was James.
He no doubt already had plans on plans on plans for his mom’s move.
Not having a plan for himself had probably been stressing him the fuck out.
And Leon hadn’t even noticed, too caught up in his own shit.
He pulled into a spot close to the elevator and threw the car into park. Before he even turned the car off, he pulled out his phone and thumbed out a quick email to Kaden requesting they go back to weekly meetings.
James was far too busy trying to reposition Purrsephone in his arms to notice as Leon took another moment to text Hailey.
Leon
Don’t come over today, but if you come by tomorrow, there will be another furball for you to meet.
“Purrsephone, work with me,” James grunted as he managed to get both arms under the cat, and she gave her first yowl.
“I think that means she’s getting comfortable with you,” Leon said as he turned off the car and got out.
He was pretty sure he heard James mutter “fucking fantastic,” but he would never be able to prove it. He hurried around to the other side of the car to open James’ door for him, and Purrsephone gave another unimpressed cry.
Leon bowed at the waist. “Your kingdom awaits, my furry Queen.”
Both James and the cat eyed him, but after he deepened the bow, he received a single dimple from James, and he mentally high-fived himself. He wasn’t so lucky with Purrsephone, who narrowed her eyes at him, keeping him in her sights as they boarded the elevator.
“Where are we going to put her? Yarmen loves the office, so I don’t want to take that away from him.
She could live in the bathroom for a little while, but it's so small and cold,” James said, deep frown lines wiping away even a hint of a dimple.
“I guess I could always make up a bed on the floor and sleep with her tonight? I just really don’t want her to be alone right now. ”
“First of all, love, she’s a cat. Cats are fine being alone—but!
” he said as both James and the cat glared at him.
He slotted his key into his door and pushed it open, sticking out a preemptive foot to stop Yarmen as he came barreling towards them.
He bent down and scooped Yarmen up, turning away from James so the two cats couldn’t see each other.
“I hear you on not wanting to be alone.”
James mirrored him, turning so his back was pressed up against Leon’s. “I don’t want her to be alone.”
Leon had enough experience with Yarmen to hold him one-handed, so he dropped his other hand down to squeeze the side of James’ thigh. “I think maybe you’re a little scared of being alone, too.”
There was an audible hitch in James’ breath, and he pressed back against Leon. “You’re probably right, but…I guess I won’t be alone anymore. I’ve got my little forever friend now.”
Leon thought of the title on one of the pamphlets he’d been handed. He had no intention of reading any of them, but he would definitely be watching a slew of tutorials later. Hopefully, he and James could watch them together, but first things first.
He had been avoiding hard conversations with Hailey, Hailey’s mom, and even his own therapist for months. That had to stop, and now seemed as good a time as any.
“Now we just have to find you both a ‘forever home,’” Leon said, pressing against James’ back.
James’ breathing picked up. Leon could feel it in the way his shoulders were rising unsteadily against Leon’s back.
“Do you think…this could be her forever home?” James whispered.
Yarmen sunk his claws into Leon’s shirt, attempting to climb up his chest to get to James and the new friend he was holding, but Leon maintained his grip, both on his cat and his sometimes skittish boyfriend.
“I do,” Leon said, and James let out a soft breath. “And since you’re her owner, darlin’, I guess that means this could be your forever home, too. If you want it to be.”
“Is that what you want?”
Leon gave him one more squeeze before striding across the apartment to toss Yarmen gently into the office. He closed the door and turned on his heel, facing down his boyfriend, his new cat, and his future.
“Yes, my love, that’s what I want. I want to wake up every morning and go to sleep every night with you by my side.
I want to—” Yarmen gave a plaintive yowl from inside the room, to which Purrsephone answered with her own loud meow.
“—listen to the cries of our children, and ignore them because they’re both little, furry attention whores. ”
Leon received two dimples this time, and he strode back across the kitchen to James’ side.
“I want to go visit your mom, Howard, and Linda and have Aspen, Noah, Charlie, and whoever else over to our place. I want to watch TV with you on the couch after work and bicker over whose turn it is to do the dishes or who left their clothes in the laundry.”
James’ smile didn’t waver, but a light sheen spread across his eyes. “I want that, too. All of that. I want you to roll your eyes at me when I forget to turn off the lights, and I want to carpool to work so we can hold hands all the way up to our offices. I want to—”
Purrsephone flicked him in the face with her tail, and he spluttered as her fur undoubtedly got in his mouth. Leon wrapped an arm around his waist and gently batted Purrsephone’s tail out of the way.
“I want a whole lot of things,” James said, turning his glassy blue eyes on Leon. “But first, I want to figure out what we’re going to do with her tonight.”
Leon had already thought about that on the way home.
Yarmen very rarely came into the bedroom.
When he was younger, he liked to sit on Leon’s face in the middle of the night until finally Leon got tired of waking up suffocating.
He’d kept his door closed for several years until Yarmen had stopped trying to get in.
They would need to find a way to block off the bed, both for their sake and for Purrsephone’s as she healed.
Thankfully, he didn’t have anything else in the room that was jumping height, except maybe the end tables.
That would be easy enough to fix by leaving the drawers open, at least for a few days.
He wheeled James into the bedroom, shutting the door and leaving him by the bed as he went in search of some of his extra cat supplies.
He had a new set of food and water bowls, as well as a bed that Yarmen had taken one look at and walked away from.
He was also still working his way through the gigantic bag of gay pride cat toys James had bought him the year before.
With a little huffing and grunting—he was hungry, tired, and it had been a long day no matter how much he tried to reassure James—he pulled everything out and began setting up a corner of the room for Purrsephone.