#also hotpot is poisonous for cats do NOT attempt at home

[stiltonbasket]

yet another preview with very little context...

set in @sweetlittlevampire’s Cat Fic verse!

"You found a cat?" Lan Wangji repeats. "What kind of cat?"

"A white one?" shrugs Nie Mingjue. "It jumped through my window with a kitten in its mouth, and it won’t leave. I've been taking care of them both since yesterday."

From the corner of his eye, Nie Mingjue spots the kitten crawling up onto the table, and then—to his utter horror—into the steaming hotpot, where it vanishes under the hot red soup with a soft, bubbling splash. Nie Mingjue drops the receiver, frantic, and throws himself forward in a desperate attempt to stop the tiny cat from drowning in his dinner.

"Hotpot is not for kittens," he screeches, while Wangji wheezes like a dying radiator on the other end of the line. "You could have drowned, and I've already fed you three times today!"

The kitten falls to the floor, writhing as if Nie Mingjue had tried to shoot him instead of rescuing him from a soupy end, and rolls around pathetically until his father (?) comes padding over with a resigned look on his face.

"First time?" Nie Mingjue asks the cat, while it takes the kitten by the scruff of its neck and lugs it away to the cat bed in the living room. "Don't worry too much, Ming Yue. A-Sang's done worse, and it's harder when they're more than six inches tall."

Ming Yue twitches his fluffy tail, apparently in agreement, and stares at Nie Mingjue for a moment before dousing the kitten in his water bowl. The kitten wails at the top of its lungs, trying to squirm out of Ming Yue's grip; but Ming Yue refuses to let go, and washes his son (?) clean with his paws before bundling him into his own silky fur to dry. 

“What happened?” his would-be brother-in-law demands, after Nie Mingjue goes back to the kitchen and redials Lan Wangji’s phone number. “Is Ji—is the kitten all right? And what about the cat?”

“The kitten is...wet,” Nie Mingjue says lamely, watching as a minute paw emerges from Ming Yue’s coat before being unceremoniously stuffed back inside. “It fell into my dinner. I was having a hot pot, so...”

“He fell into your hot pot?” Wangji cries, distraught. Nie Mingjue sympathizes, because Miantiao-bao has been driving him and Ming Yue half-wild for the past twenty-five hours. “Where is he now?”

“In Ming Yue’s fur. He’s breathing all right, so he should be fine. I think.”

Lan Wangji sounds more dismayed than ever. “You think?”

“Well, I can go check,” Nie Mingjue suggests, wondering if Lan Wangji might have a weakness for all small creatures, and not only the rabbits he raised with Xichen when they were children. He puts Wangji on hold and hurries back into the living room, where he finds Ming Yue brooding in the cat bed like a hen sitting on eggs, with Miantiao’s impossibly small gray tail sticking out from underneath him.

The tail seems to be moving, though. Miantiao must be alive and well, and Nie Mingjue tells Wangji so before disconnecting the call. 

“How did you get saddled with a kitten, anyway?” Nie Mingjue asks. “You two don’t look alike.”

In answer, Ming Yue turns over and curls up around Miantiao, making a soft nest for the kitten out of his own furry body; and Nie Mingjue tries again, oddly certain that the cat might be able to understand him. “What happened to its mother?”

Ming Yue rolls his eyes, or does something very close to it, and lays a tender paw on Miantiao’s head.

“Are you his mother?” After all, Mingjue was guessing when he decided that Ming Yue must be a male cat, and he might very well be wrong; but Ming Yue and A-Tiao are both fast asleep, so Nie Mingjue switches the lights off and checks his messages before getting ready for bed.

Lan Xichen has not contacted him since the day before yesterday.

A-Huan, please answer, he writes again, wishing that Ming Yue and little Miantiao were in the bedroom with him. Be well, my heart. I miss you.