#jkdhjghjg and i call myself a stan.... anyway

[elftwink]

“I may have accidentally sort of adopted five cats.” + violet/arkady pls :0!

and they were roommates! violet is a uni student and arkady works full time and they live together and i didn’t think much farther than that. they’re not dating but there’s some Mutual Pining™ bc they are definitely extremely gay

Violet’s in class when Arkady texts her.

hey, the text reads, when u get home let me explain before u get mad

And it’s not like she’s paying a lot of attention to this linguistics class (she tries to, she really does, but the professor is so hard to listen to and Brian seems to regard basically re-teaching her everything “studying” for him, so she’s actually doing pretty good), but after a text like that, concentration goes totally out the window.

Violet: What?

Arkady: dw nothing’s broken and im not in trouble its not an emergency

Violet: What

Arkady: its just a long story you’ll be on my side i promise

Violet: what!

Arkady: if u say what one more time i will leave u on readArkady: i’ll explain as soon as ur here

Violet huffs in irritation, and considers tapping Brian’s shoulder to see what he has to say about what on earth this could possibly mean, but considering she’s sort of relying on him for notes later, it seems ill-advised to bother him now. Also, she’s pretty sure the professor knows she sometimes just plays tetris in the lecture so drawing his attention seems like a poor choice.

Violet: ok

She considers sending a second text to clarify that that’s an irritated okay and not a resigned or accepting okay, but figures Arkady is smart enough to pick up on it. Violet taps her pencil so much that the girl next to her leans over to tell her to stop. She does, changing the nervous tic to another one— the end of her pencil is entirely chewed up by the end of the lesson.

She’s about to bolt when Brian seems to materialize behind her. “Hey, Sana wanted me to ask you— and Arkady of course— if you would wanna see a movie on saturday? Not sure what we’re going to see, but me and Krejjh are in already.”

“Uh, yeah I’ll— sorry this saturday? I think I have a, like, presentation thing?” No, that’s friday. Violet shakes her head like that’ll help her clear it. “Wait. No I’m good saturday. I’ll ask.”

Brian squints at her for a second. “Violet, are you good?”

“Yeah! Yeah I’m fine. Arkady just sent me this stupid cryptic text message and I’m a little preoccupied with it. But I’m fine.” Violet puts on a sort of strained smile. Brian raises an eyebrow, and Violet takes a deep breath. “She basically just said ‘when you get home don’t get mad’ which, I’m overthinking I know, but who says that?”

Brian laughs. “Yeah. sounds like her. If it makes you feel better, I think it’s probably pretty minor. I think if it was something really serious she would have just told you.”

“Arkady serious or Violet serious?”

“Probably Arkady serious.” Brian tries to look sympathetic, but it sort of falls short when he’s still smiling.

“That’s what I’m afraid of.” Violet sighs, and stuff her notebook back into her bag. “Okay. I’m gonna head home and deal with whatever this is. I’ll let you know about saturday.”

“Good luck!” says Brian, and then Violet is out the door. The drive to her apartment building is spent trying to drown out worrisome thoughts by blasting music as loud as she can. It doesn’t not work very well.

She’s in the building when she texts Arkady again.

Violet: I’m in the elevator so whatever thing u did u gotta have an explanation for it in two minutes

Arkady leaves her on read, which sort of standard when Arkady doesn’t have anything to say. She’s notorious for doing that, and for not replying for hours and hours, so Violet’s prepared and doesn’t think much of it. It’s an exaggeration, anyway; Arkady’s always replied very quickly to Violet when she’s had something to say.

When Violet reaches their room, she halts, hand on the doorknob, and silently hopes that whatever this is, it’s a fixable problem, before pushing open the door and heading inside.

Arkady is on the couch with her laptop open, and when Violet comes in she snaps her head up from the screen.

“Close the door or you’ll let them out.”

On the couch— and two on Arkady— are a bunch of impossibly small kittens. Violet closes the door behind her and makes a gesture vaguely at the couch, eyes wide. Arkady could not look less put out by this, even though they have a large amount of animals in their definitely no pets allowed apartment building.

“So. I may have accidentally adopted five cats.”

“Accidentally?” Violet’s voice cracks from nerves and it’s definitely a little louder than normal.

“Keep your voice down!”

“Accidentally?” hisses Violet again, this time in a whisper. The walls in this building are too thin to be talking about things that could get them evicted at a normal volume. “How do you accidentally take home five kittens? How is that an accident!”

“I didn’t set out to get them. I didn’t go to a pet store or anything.” Arkady picks up one just as it tries to crawl across her laptop, scratching it behind the ears as she puts it down on the couch beside her.

“We’re not allowed to have them in the apartment.” Violet takes off her parka and her boots, pointedly not looking at Arkady or the cats. No attachments.

“Violet, they were outside in a box. We’re getting into negative degrees out there, it’s not like I could leave them.” As if to emphasize Arkady’s point, one of the kittens lets out the tiniest meow Violet has ever heard before laying down and curling up into a ball. Violet groans and puts her head in her hands.

“We could get evicted, Arkady.”

Arkady closes her laptop lid and puts to to the side, letting one of the kittens crawl up into her lap. “They’re pretty quiet actually. I don’t think we’d get caught.”

“What about when I’m at school and you’re at work? Are we just gonna let five cats run around our apartment?”

“Yeah, pretty much,” says Arkady, and Violet grits her teeth.

“Arkady!”

“I know.” She continues to sound not even slightly sorry, which is super not helping Violet’s rising anxiety. Instead, she holds up the cat on her lap— it’s all brown, except for one spot on its nose and the end of its tail. “Look how cute it is though.”

The cat looks at Violet with wide eyes and opens its mouth like it’s going to meow, but only manages a squeak. She swears it’s pleading with her, and it’s all too easy to imagine that same tiny face looking up from a cardboard box.

Damnit. Damnit damnit damnit.

“That’s not fair,” sputters Violet, trying desperately to not look at how cute it is. “That’s manipulation.”

“Yep,” agrees Arkady cheerfully. When Violet glares, she sighs, and drops the smile. “I’m not saying we keep them forever. We can start looking for homes for them. But I don’t wanna put them back outside.”

Violet is silent for a very very long moment, but it’s pretty obvious to both of them what she’s decided long before she says anything.

“Fine.”

Arkady’s face lights back up, and though Violet’s nerves aren’t totally settled, she can’t help but smile too.

“Great! This one is called Diana, and the one with the white paws is Rocket, and—”

“Did you name them all already?”

“No.” Arkady scoops up the kitten to her left with one white ear, drawing a very small meow of protest before it settles into her arms again, and heads over to Violet. “Left this one in case you wanted to name one.”

“Oh. Uh.” Violet desperately tries to find something good to name a cat, which seems like an awful lot of responsibility to thrust on her with no warning like that, and blurts out the first thing to come to mind. “Uh. Uhm. Curiosity?”

Arkady stifles a laugh. “As in ‘curiosity killed the cat’?”

“Oh. Shit. Okay I can come up with something better—”

“No, no—” Arkady does laugh this time, shifting how she’s holding Curiosity so she can put a hand on Violet’s arm. “I like it.”

The sincerity almost takes Violet off guard. Arkady’s expression is open and genuine and her hand is warm against Violet’s skin and Violet is silent just a little too long.

“Uh. Thanks.” The moment is over. Arkady drops her hand like Violet’s scalded her, and Violet takes a tiny step back when she notices how close they were standing. “Jeeter wanted me to ask if we want to go see a movie on saturday,” she blurts out, trying to distract from the sudden odd tension.

“What movie?”

“I dunno. You’d have to ask Sana.” Curiosity meows in Arkady’s arms, and Violet switches her gaze to the cat, reaching over to pet it. “I can’t believe you talked me into this.”

“You’re welcome.” Arkady grins, way too proud and a little mischievous. And while Violet’s eviction worries have not been totally quelled, and not that she’d actually say so out loud, but it might be worth the risk when Arkady smiles like that.