April 2001
This is the result of listening to the soundtrack to "Cats" one too many times.
Duo balanced neatly on the wooden fence and faced the house, clearing his throat.
"MIDNIGHT... NOT A SOUND FROM THE PAVEMENT. HAS THE MOON LOST HER MEMORY? SHE IS SMILING ALONE..."
The longhaired Maine Coon cat dodged the shoe thrown at his head as he leapt off the fence and landed on the trash can lid below. "YOU PHILISTINES!" He yelled up at the window. "Have you NO appreciation for good music?"
"Shut up, you damn cat!" A man yelled back. The window slammed shut.
Duo huffed and marched off, tail waving in the air. Tough crowd tonight. He'd had a can of pork and beans thrown at him at the Safeway, been attacked with a walker at that kennel for old humans, and he was sure that taxi driver hadn't been saying "Good Kitty" in Pakistani as he'd tried shake Duo off of the hood. What a ride that had been.
Well, nothing like ending a hard day of work like a little carousing with the boys. He stopped to switch his tail invitingly at a cute little Siamese tom watching him from a window, but the cat hissed and jumped away. Well, he had expected as much. Whole darn town was full of homophobes. Besides, who needed the little jerk anyway? He had all the tom he could handle. The thought alone made him purr, and he pushed his way through a hole in a fence, shaking his tail a few times to remove the debris. He had a great tail, everyone said so, but darned if it wasn't a bitch to keep clean.
"Who's there?" A voice hissed from behind a piece of scrap metal.
"Just me, Trowa." Duo called out, hopping over it."How's your night be... KEERIST, what happened to YOU?"
The brown cat glanced at him from narrow green eyes. "Dog." He said simply. "I didn't run fast enough." He continued to lick a wound on his chest.
"Trowa!" A white Persian with enormous blue eyes ran up to the thin stray. "Here, let me do that." The Persian gently licked the wound and Trowa began to purr under the gentle touch. Duo considered offering his own assistance, just as a concerned friend, of course, but before he could volunteer they were interrupted.
There was a flurry of sound and something vaulted over the fence. "Quick, she's after me." The new cat panted. "Hide me."
Duo flipped open a cardboard box with a paw and the cat, a shaggy haired tabby, slipped inside. Duo dropped the lid shut and climbed on top of the box, casually licking a paw.
They all cringed at the screech that split the night.
"HEEERROOOOWWWWW"
A golden Burmese appeared on top the fence, staring at the junkyard cats below in disdain. "Have any of you seen Heero tonight?" The Burmese called down.
"Nope, not for a few days." Duo replied. "Heard a rumor he was running off to Vegas but you know how gossip goes. You guys know where Heero went?" He glanced at his friends.
"Not a clue." Trowa, annoyed, looked up from where he was washing one of the Persian's tufted ears. "Quatre?"
"I think he went down to the docks to check out the new fish shipment." Quatre flicked his tail innocently and curled up next to Trowa again so the stray could finish his ministrations. "But I'll let you know if I see him, Relena."
"Thank you." She puffed up her tail and marched away, muttering to herself about common street trash.
"Thank you." Duo mimicked. "Someone needs to poison her Meow Mix, I swear." He glanced down at the box. "You okay in there, Hee-kitty?"
"Fine. You can let me out now. It smells like wet Chihuahua in here." Came the muffled reply.
Duo leapt off the box and the tabby climbed out. Duo sniffed him. "You're right. You need a bath." He licked one paw delicately and gave Heero a sultry look over it.
"Are you volunteering?" Heero asked, arching his back, and switching his tail.
Duo butted the top of his head against Heero's. "Whatever you want, Hee-kitty. The moon is full, the stars are out, and amore is in the air."
Heero sniffed. "I think that's someone's tuna casserole." He remarked. "But I like this line of thought." He nuzzled Duo back. "You smell good, though. Where have you been?"
"That's my special cologne, just for you, Hee-Kitty. Pine-scented taxi-cab air fresher."
"Hey, does anyone know where Zechs has been?" A small, jet-black cat materialized from the shadows. "He hasn't been around in days. We were supposed to attend that meeting in Senwick Alley earlier, the one on Egyptian Philosophy and the Modern Feline but he never showed up."
Quatre shivered, and Trowa wrapped a paw around him. "I guess you haven't heard." The thin stray said softly.
"Heard? Heard what?" The black cat's eyes grew huge in the moonlight.
"Zechs... oh Trowa, how COULD they?" Quatre wailed.
Heero closed his eyes for a minute. "The people he lives with took him to the vet the other day."
"No... "
"Yes, Wufei. They had him... snipped."
Wufei sank to the ground. "Those... animals! The outrage! The INJUSTICE! You don't see them doing it to themselves, do you? No, THEY breed like rabbits all over the place." The cat, who lived at a nearby Chinese restaurant (which Duo had always said was like a chicken choosing to roost at KFC), was beside himself.
He paced back and forth, muttering under his breath. Duo grew bored quickly listening to his tirade and tackled Heero. Heero smacked him upside the head with a clenched paw and pinned him to the ground.
"Here, kitty kitty kitty." An enormous ginger tom hopped down from the fence and padded up to Wufei. "I tried to catch up with you after the meeting but I was detained by an over-zealous poodle." His claws flexed on the ground, and the dried blood on one shown darkly against his white paw.
"Evening, Treize." Duo called out, looking up from wrestling with Heero. "Slumming tonight? OW!" Heero had nipped one of his ears in his teeth and was tugging on it.
Treize flicked his tail and ignored the coon cat, focusing on Wufei.
"We're all devastated by this... terrible incident with Zechs. Would you like to spend a few days with me? The people I live with are out of town and we would have the whole house to ourselves. There are fresh roses to eat in the garden."
Wufei nodded. "I'm getting tired of Low Mein anyway. These people have lived here for 20 years now. You'd think they'd at least learn what cat food is! Stupid women!" He flicked his tail at the others and he and the tom walked off together. Treize rubbed his tail against Wufei's and the black cat hissed. "Not until we're alone."
"So what should we do tonight?" Quatre asked, ignoring Trowa, who was batting playfully at his tail.
"We could go knock over Relena's trash cans again." Duo offered. "Try and get them to blame her for it."
"I'm not going anywhere near her!" Heero shuddered. "She's in heat!"
"Now that's someone who needs a trip to the vet." Duo shuddered. "How many kittens does she have already?"
"Too many to count. And all by a different tom." Heero snorted. "She seems to want me to be the next Papa."
Duo hissed under his breath. "I'll claw those pretty blue eyes out first." He muttered.
"She sounds like my dad." Quatre said sadly. "I swear he must have a record for most kittens fathered by now. Heck, I think one or two of Relena's litters are his."
"We could go visit Zechs, see how he's doing." Duo offered. "It's got to be hard enough on him without his friends deserting him too."
"Sounds good to me." Quatre nodded, and Trowa agreed, after pouncing on a spider and swallowing it whole.
They marched out of the junkyard together. Duo began to sing again.
"Are you blind when you're born? Can you see in the dark?"
"NO!" Quatre shivered. "Nothing else from 'Cats!' Don't you know any other songs?"
Duo thought for a minute.
"Gimme a head with hair, long beautiful hair
Shining, gleaming, steaming, flaxen, waxen
Give me down to there, hair!
Shoulder length, longer (hair!)
Here baby, there mama, Everywhere daddy daddy
HAIR!"
A beer bottle was tossed at him from an alley entrance. Heero caught it neatly in his teeth and tossed it back in the direction it had come from. There was a delightful, frightened shout in response.
They squeezed through the open window of Zechs's basement. Duo sniffed the air. "Hey, you guys smell mice?"
Trowa nodded. "That's not like Zechs to allow."
They slipped up the kitchen stairs, sniffed for the human butchers, then pushed the door open.
Zechs was laying in a cat bed, staring morosely at a television screen on the counter. A blonde woman was chatting about how she had turned old egg cartons into lovely center-pieces, and Zechs was nodding every now and then.
Like Relena, Zechs was a golden Burmese, and a very beautiful one. He probably could have won in numerous cat shows but he tended to be on the gloomy side and a little neurotic as well. The last show his humans had entered him in had ended very badly, when he had simply placed his head in a cat food bowl and refused to remove it, muttering about how no one could see his face.
"Zechs!" Duo ran over to him. "How you feeling, buddy?"
"Oh? I'm fine." Zechs yawned. "Ah, air freshener. You must have had a good night."
"We came to see how you were feeling." Quatre explained. "We heard about the... operation."
"Oh, yes, that." Zechs glanced back at the television screen. "What's done is done, I suppose. Do you think egg carton center-pieces look better in blue or pink?"
"Pink." Quatre said promptly. "Come on. You need some fresh air and exercise."
"No, I'm not up to it yet." Zechs yawned. "I think I'll just sit this one out. Ahh, glitter. Now that's a nice touch. You should watch this. She's really quite brilliant for a human."
The other cats were slowly backing toward the stairwell. "Well, have a good one, Zechs." Trowa called.
"Macaroni!" Zechs replied. "Genius. Yes, we have TONS of that. I wonder where they keep the glue... "
His friends fled down the basement stairs and out of the window.
"It's true." Duo whispered. "It DOES zap your will to live."
Quatre shuddered. "What if... someone snips us?" he whimpered.
"Death before castration." Trowa vowed. "Just let them try it!"
"HEEEROOOWWWWWW."
"Oh, cripes, not HER again." Heero hissed. But it was too late to get away.
Relena swished over to them, purring, tail straight up in the air. "Hello Heero. I've been looking for you."
"REOWW!" Duo jumped in front of Heero, bristling. When a Maine Coon cat bristles, it does a LOT of bristling. In seconds, Duo resembled a spitting tumbleweed.
"Back off, you cheap pussy!" Duo unsheathed his claws. "Heero's MINE!"
"Oh yeah?" Relena's own claws were out and she and Duo began circling each other, growling.
"Yeah!" Heero informed her. She ignored him.
With screeching hiss the angry tom and Burmese were on top of each other, swiping at each other's eyes and snapping at each other's throats.
Lights were going on in Zechs' house.
"Come on, guys, break it up!" Trowa hissed.
Duo had Relena pinned to the ground and was shaking her. "And you keep your vet-trimmed, groomer-polished, little claws OFF of my tom. Got it?"
"Duo, come on. Let's scram." Quatre urged.
Duo released the Burmese. "You haven't heard the last of this." She spat out of the one eye that wasn't swollen shut and ran off.
"Yeah, bite me." Duo replied. "Let's go, guys." He snuggled up to Heero. "You're my feline." He purred.
"So what do we do next?" Trowa asked.
"The night is young and we're unsnipped. The possibilities are endless." Duo remarked as Heero licked his cheek.
The four cats vanished into the moonlight and from their direction came a voice, singing.
"I don't bother chasing mice around.
I strut down the alley, looking for a fight.
Howlin' to the moonlight on a hot summer night.
Singing the blues while the lady cats cry
'Wow, Stray Cat, you're are real gone guy'
I wish I could be as carefree and wild
But I got cat class and I got cat style."
The End
(:./lasha/meow1)
