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English
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Published:
2020-07-28
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1,793
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1/1
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Christmas Fluff

Summary:

It’s mid December when the kitten first appears on the doorstep. Win opens the door early one morning to see if the snow will need to be cleared before Fred leaves for work, and there’s a little ball of carrot colored fluff curled up on the doormat.

Notes:

This is nothing more than shameless, self-indulgent fluff. No plot, no revisions, no attempt at beautiful language. I wrote it in about two hours just to make myself happy.

(See the end of the work for more notes.)

Work Text:

It’s mid December when the kitten first appears on the doorstep.  Win opens the door early one morning to see if the snow will need to be cleared before Fred leaves for work, and there’s a little ball of carrot colored fluff curled up on the doormat.  

“Oh!” Win cries in surprise, and the little ball quickly unfurls, darting to its feet and arching its back.  The kitten is tiny, hardly big enough to have weaned from its mother, but its stance is full of ferocious indignation.  

“Hello there,” Win coos softly, crouching down to get a better look.

It’s a wonder the poor creature survived the night, with the cold and snow.  It must be half frozen and starved by now.  Its legs wobble beneath it as it eyes her warily.

Win slowly reaches out her finger toward the kitten and it backs away.  Skittish little thing, Win thinks.  But she can hardly leave it here to freeze, she’ll have to coax it inside somehow.  

She leaves the door halfway open and makes a small nest of blankets on the floor just inside the hallway.  She fetches a dish from the kitchen and fills it with milk, then sets it beside the blankets.  

The kitten is still standing just outside the door.  No longer ready to fight or flee, just watching with wide blue eyes.  

“Come here, come on kitty,” Win calls softly, but the kitten makes no move towards her or the comforts on offer.

Fred makes his way down the stairs.

“What’s the door doing open?  Letting all the heat out!”

“Shhh!  You’ll scare it!” Win reprimands in a whisper, walking over to meet him at the bottom of the stairs.

“Scare what?” Fred asks, annoyed with this unexpected turn the morning has taken.

Win takes his arm and steers him slowly toward the door to where the kitten is still peering in with cautious reserve.

Fred lets out a long sigh.  Cats make him sneeze, he’d choose a bird over a cat any day.  But there’s no point in arguing with Win once she’s spotted a creature in need.  And how can it vex him, when that heart of gold is what first drew him to her all those years ago?

He just nods and makes his way to the dining room, leaving Win to her determined beckoning of the bedraggled beast.

By the time Morse arrives to pick up Fred for work, the kitten is nestled in the pile of blankets, contentedly asleep.

Win opens the door to his knock and lifts a finger to her lips, motioning to the kitten behind her.

Morse nods with a grin.  His grin only grows when he sees Thursday’s martyred expression as he tip toes quietly past the cat, under Win’s watchful gaze.  

She hands Fred his sandwich and kisses his cheek warmly.  “Come home safe.”

She gives Morse a kind smile and the two men head towards the car.

“Don’t say a word,” Fred says gruffly and Morse gives an innocent nod and sideways grin.

 

A few days later, Morse arrives for dinner at five o’clock, as he has almost every Thursday night for nearly a year now.  He takes his usual seat at the table, beside Sam and across from Joan.

“How’s the newest family member doing?” He asks the two of them, while Win and Fred are in the kitchen making drinks.

“The little beast is nothing but trouble!” Sam replies.  “Chewed my shoelaces and keeps making off with my socks.  And still won’t let any of us near her.  Just darts around behind the furniture and peers at us suspiciously.”

“Don’t let him fool you,” Joan says.  “We’re all growing attached to Kitty, despite her peculiarities.”  “Except dad, of course,” she adds quietly, as a sneeze erupts from the kitchen.

Dinner is a delicious and jovial affair, as usual.  Morse keeps an eye out for the ginger kitten, and sees it peeking into the dining room a few times, but the chatter and laughter seem to scare it away.

After dinner they head to the sitting room for their weekly round of games.  Morse hasn’t been seated on the sofa for more than a couple of minutes before the kitten pops its head around the door and stares up at him with eyes that seem much too big for its face.  

They all grow quiet, watching the kitten cautiously make its way toward the sofa.  

“She never comes in when we’re all together like this,” Joan whispers to Morse from her seat beside him.

Slowly the kitten makes its way over to Morse and begins sniffing his shoe.  Suddenly she pounces on his shoelace, biting it and batting with her copper paws.

A smile flashes across Morse’s face.

They all watch silently as the kitten plays.  Then, suddenly growing bored with the game, the kitten jumps up onto the couch and curls up on Morse’s lap.  Morse is nearly frozen with surprise, not daring to move for fear of scaring the kitten away.

“Aww!” Win says quietly from across the room, “Look at that.  She likes you, Morse.”

He gives a sheepish grin.

 

The next Thursday night it’s the same, the kitten still wants nothing to do with the rest of the family, despite their constant care and gentle coaxing.  But the moment Morse sits down on the sofa after dinner, she makes herself right at home in his lap, purring with pleasure.

“How do you do that?”  Joan asks, half in awe and half in annoyance.  “She won’t even come near any of us.”

Morse shrugs, unable to contain his smile.

 

The next week Kitty doesn’t even wait for dinner to be over. Halfway through the meal, she sidles over and darts under the table.  She winds herself between Morse’s legs and gives a few plaintive meows.  

Joan and Win laugh and Sam rolls his eyes.  Fred just shakes his head and lets out a sneeze.

 

When Morse arrives for Christmas lunch a few days later, he notices that Kitty’s bed of blankets and dish of milk are absent from the hallway.  He tries to ignore the ridiculous panic in his chest, and hopes the Thursdays don’t see his eyes darting around the house in the hope of seeing a flash of orange fur.  

It’s his first Christmas with the Thursdays, and he’d been filled with an almost childish anticipation before coming over.  He’s never really celebrated Christmas before now, not like they do anyway, with a wonderfully gaudy tree, and table overflowing with food, and warm hugs and smiles all around.  

He’d been nervous about gifts, afraid he’d be his usual awkward self and buy something embarrassingly wrong.  But, he was good at paying attention, and had picked up ideas listening to them over Thursday night dinners.  

For Joan, he’s brought the new album from the band she’s crazy about, despite the fact that their music sets his teeth on edge.  For Sam, a couple of the new issues of comic books he’d been telling Morse about in an effort to convince him of the appeal of superheroes over the boring books he was assigned in school.  Morse had found a silver money clip for Thursday, after noticing his old one had broken.  And for Win he’d gotten a book about Paris, after she mentioned she’d always dreamed of someday going there with Fred.

He’s even brought over a tin of tuna for Kitty.  But Kitty is nowhere to be seen.

 

“Where’s the kitten?”  He asks, almost as soon as they’re sitting down to eat.  He does his best to make the question sound casual.

“Dad finally won out,” answers Joan with a sigh.  “We decided she’d be better off in another home.”

 Morse shouldn’t be surprised, he’d noticed Thursday’s red eyes, runny nose, and glowering expression for awhile now, not to mention the cacophony of sneezing that let loose sporadically whenever he was at home. 

It’s absolutely stupid, the way Morse’s eyes well up.  Probably allergies.  After all, just a mangy cat, and not even his.  No loss really, nothing to cause this drop in his stomach and lump in his throat.  

The Thursdays all notice that Morse is unusually quiet during the meal, almost as somber as he had been when he’d first started coming every week.

 

After lunch they head to the sitting room to exchange gifts.  The Thursdays all seem genuinely thrilled with their presents from him, and it fills him with a warm happiness.  But there’s a stubborn tug on his heart when he looks down at his empty lap.

“Kept your gift in the other room,” Thursday says, when the rest of them have opened their presents. “I know what you’re like when it comes to ruining surprises.”

A half grin darts across Morse’s face.

“Close your eyes, then!”  Joan says.

He does, his cheeks reddening. 

 “Okay, you can open your eyes,” Win says a minute later.

“Go ahead,” says Joan, “No guessing!  Just open it.”

He sees a large, plain brown box at his feet.  Just as he starts to reach for it, the box moves, making him jump back.

The Thursdays all laugh, and Morse looks up at them, unsure.

Then the top of the box pops off and a small, ginger kitten with a red bow around her neck pokes her head out, looking offended and giving a scolding meow.  

She looks as though she might scamper away, but then she sees Morse, and jumps up onto her usual spot, and after kneading his lap a bit longer than usual, to show her displeasure, nesltles down for a nap.

Morse doesn’t know what to say.  He has an uncomfortable feeling that the Thursdays can see his eyes brimming.

“You’ve no idea what I went through getting that little monster into that box!” Says Sam, rolling up his sleeves to show the scratches all over his arms.

“Now don’t feel like we’re saddling you with that troublemaking beast,” Thursday says.  “Win and Joan got it into their heads that you might want her when I put my foot down about her staying here.  But don’t feel obligated to take her unless you want to.  She doesn’t exactly get on with people, well, apart from you anyway.”

Morse fights to suppress the smile from his face, and loses.  “No, I’ll take her, if you’re sure.”

“Never been so sure of a thing in my life,” Thursday says, and Win gives him a playful push.

 

That night, back in his tiny bedsit, Morse makes a little nest on the floor with an old blanket for the kitten.  

She steps around the blanket with contempt and settles herself beside him on the bed, her steady purr lulling him to sleep.

 

Notes:

So, this is actually sort of a part 2 to the fluffy fic I'm writing to "fix" the end of Home, but I wrote this one first so I'm just posting them out of order as they don't need to be read in order since both are just mindless FLUFF.

Yes, I realize it's July. Everything is so terrible. Let me have this. Lol.