Chapter Text
There was a cat in the greenhouse.
Crowley stared owlishly at the little creature curled into the large pot of his yucca plant. It was early afternoon, and Crowley had popped out to the back garden to see how his plants were getting along after a particularly nasty storm the day before that had kept him and Aziraphale inside, the shutters closed tight. Storms in London had never been pleasant, but there was something to be said about the ferocity of some of the ones that blew through the Downs from the sea.
The cat was a small tortoiseshell, probably only a few months old, if one hazarded a guess. She was sleeping, her little paws curled underneath her little body, her tail curled over her nose, blissfully unaware that the plant she’d chosen as her bed happened to belong to a demon.
Crowley had never been particularly good with animals. They’d always seemed to consider him with a fine degree of distrust upon sight; he supposed this could be chalked up to his being a demon, or perhaps they could sense the more snakey aspects to his nature, or maybe they could sense his general unease around them. Either way, he tended to avoid them when he could, and whenever he was faced with the prospect of having to be in the general vicinity, he tended to let Aziraphale do all the talking.
But now, with Aziraphale having popped downtown to the market, he didn’t really have much of a choice.
He gently and quietly sat down his watering can and crouched down close to the plant to just watch the kitten for a few moments, weighing his options.
On the one hand, he could just leave her be, and hope she left on her own. On the other, she was young enough that she might not be able to jump high enough to get out the window, and Crowley shuddered when he remembered the badger that had gotten in the one time he’d left the door open, which meant leaving it ajar in the hopes the kitten would leave were out.
In the end, the kitten decided for him. As if she could feel Crowley’s serpentine gaze on her, her little eyes blinked open, and a (frankly adorable) yawn stretched across her face, highlighting her rows of tiny, sharp teeth.
The kitten blinked at Crowley. Crowley blinked back.
The demon (retired) wasn’t sure exactly what reaction he’d been expecting; hissing, maybe; a swipe at his nose with tiny claws; an arched back and fluffed out fur. He certainly wasn’t expecting the little creature to meow at him.
It was a shrill little cry, more of a mewl than anything, indicating that she was, indeed, very young. She immediately stood up and made a beeline for him, her little eyes never leaving him.
Crowley straightened up and watched her as she gracelessly jumped out of the yucca plant onto the shelf and mewled again. Cautiously, he held out his hand towards her, and she sniffed him for a single second before she thrust her tiny head against his fingers, rubbing her cheeks against his hand as a surprisingly loud purr erupted from her tiny body.
“Uh,” Crowley said, uncertain. “Hello?”
He gently rubbed a fingertip between the kitten’s ears, before he ran his palm down her back. She was so tiny, she damn near disappeared completely behind his hand. She responded immediately, arching into the contact, and she chattered happily as he repeated the action several times.
“Where’d you come from, hm?” He said gently, continuing to pet the kitten as he glanced about the greenhouse, trying to pinpoint where she could have made her grand entrance. Nothing immediately stood out to him, and he wondered how long she’d been inside; had she been here for several days, and he just hadn’t noticed her?
The kitten didn’t answer him, but instead rolled over onto her back and let him rub her little tummy. She batted playfully at his hand, kicking her little feet, before she abruptly rolled over and meowed at him. She bounded over to the edge of the shelf, where she stopped, surveyed the area, and then took a flying leap towards the demon.
Crowley instinctively reached out to catch her before she could fall, but he needn’t have worried; she had calculated her jump perfectly, and her little claws caught in the worn cotton of his jeans, where she clung for a moment before she began to crawl up his clothing and onto his right shoulder, where she perched, and pressed against his neck, still purring away.
“Oh no you don’t,” Crowley said, and reached up to try and pluck the kitten from his shoulder to set her down again. As he did so, the kitten sank her claws into his shirt and made a (yet again, adorable) growly noise, indicating that she did not like the prospect of being removed from her perch.
Crowley groaned. “Fine. But if you’re going to stay there, you’d best hold on. I’ve got things to do.”
The kitten didn’t reply; she resumed purring and rubbing her little whiskers against his cheek.
It tickled.
Crowley sighed. This was far from what he’d been expecting; animals didn’t usually…take to him like this, and he wasn’t sure what had compelled this little creature to decide that he was worthy of her attentions, but she’d made her position quite clear, and what harm could it do, anyway? She wasn’t hurting anyone or anything, and if she were with him, at least he could be sure she wasn’t using his Pink Princess Philodendron as a litter box, or chewing on his rubber plant.
Picking up his watering can, Crowley went back to watering his plants, whispering vague yet menacing reminders of the consequences of disappointing him.
All the while the kitten sat and listened, her little tail curled over her paws, and not once did she try to leave.