#pinecone is BACK babyyyy

[lucky-clover-gazette]

Creature Comforts

Rated G | Vidow Cottage AU | 2557 words

Vio notices literal and figurative similarities between Shadow and Pinecone the cat.

I wrote this fic back in September for the Four Swords Winter's Delight zine, which has now been released! Please check out the tumblr page @fswintersdelight for the PDF, which includes art, fic, and other goodies from fandom creators. A special thank you to Kalh, aka @vagueandominousvibes and WriterKalhsScribbles on ao3, for creating and managing the event!

“I love it,” Vio says, turning the rock over in his hand. It reminds him of sunset dragon rides, the heat of the Fire Temple, the sweet taste of marshmallows roasted over fires they set together. “Thank you, Shadow.” In retrospect, Vio knows he probably shouldn’t have been so permissive of Shadow doing villainous things to impress him back in their evil days. It’s something Blue, Green, Zelda, and even Shadow himself have all since commented on, with various degrees of moral judgment. And to his credit, Vio typically attempts to walk it back, to express retroactive distaste for Shadow’s more violent and macabre ‘gifts.’ But deep down, some part of Vio will always take pleasure in the degree to which Shadow will go to prove his devotion. “We should probably dispose of the dead mouse, though,” Shadow mutters against Vio’s lips.

Read the rest on AO3 or under the cut:

Evil root beer is not meant to be served warm.

“Okay, yeah, experiment’s over,” Shadow gags, pouring the contents of his stein into the kitchen sink.

Vio winces at the waste. “To be fair, some beverages can be served hot and cold.” He retrieves the pot from the stovetop and begins to wash it, while Shadow sits up on the counter. His expression, Vio can’t help but notice, is almost comically sour.

“It wasn’t that bad,” Vio says, reaching for a sponge.

“It was pretty bad,” Shadow disagrees with an exaggerated shiver. “Oh hey, Pinecone.”

Their cat acknowledges them with a glance as she wanders into the tiny kitchen, headed straight for her food bowl. Wet food waits for her, as always.

Vio turns off the faucet and places the the pot on the drying rack, joining Shadow on the counter. “I know what might get the taste out of your mouth,” he says with a smirk.

Shadow returns it. “Yeah? I’d test that theory.”

Skrch-skrch-skrch.

Their attention returns to Pinecone, who scrapes the tile beside her food bowl with one dainty paw. After a moment of expressing her displeasure, she gives her roommates an indignant stare.

“Why?” Vio exclaims, gesticulating his offense. “It’s the same exact food as usual!”

“Relax,” Shadow says, putting a hand on his shoulder. “I’ll talk to her.”

“You’ll… what?”

Shadow winks, and suddenly he’s not Shadow at all. A lean black cat with familiar eyes replaces him on the counter, taking a quick second to nuzzle against Vio’s leg before he hops onto the floor.

Vio frowns. “Oh, right.”

Shadow crosses over to join Pinecone at her bowl, trilling a friendly greeting towards his three-legged friend. Pinecone sniffs him for only a second before she bonks his forehead.

They two cats communicate in a series of meows and chirps, none of which Vio can understand. After an especially long monologue from Pinecone, Shadow nods and leans down to sample some of her freshly-served, perfectly good chicken pate. After a few bites he consults with Pinecone once again, and then makes his way back to Vio on the counter.

Vio gives Shadow a full-body pet, enjoying the way he leans into his touch. And then Real Shadow is back, doing the very same thing, only his hair is purple instead of black. Shadow’s eyes are closed and he wears the dopiest smile, almost lost in the affection.

Vio clears his throat. Shadow opens one eye, as if remembering where he is and what he’s doing. He straightens his spine and leans against the kitchen backsplash.

“Well, nothing’s wrong with the food,” Shadow says, glancing over as Pinecone scrapes the floor again. “She just isn’t in the mood for chicken.”

“That’s ridiculous,” Vio huffs, crossing his arms over his sweater-clad chest. “I don’t want to waste food, and she’ll get another tin in twelve hours anyway.”

Shadow shrugs. “Seems reasonable to me. She’s fine, just being a little bit of a drama queen.”

“Sounds like someone else I know,” Vio teases. “Experiment’s still on the table, by the way.”

“I’ll ignore the insult if you kiss me.”

Vio indulges Shadow for only a second before he pulls away with his own exaggerated disgust. “Cat food! Your mouth tastes like cat food!”

Shadow bursts out laughing. “Sounds like someone isn’t in the mood for chicken!” Leaning back, he slams his head against the upper cabinet. “Aw, sh—”

Vio pats Shadow comfortingly as he reaches towards the shelf.

“Vi, what are you—”

Pinecone chirps happily as Vio opens a tin of tuna pate.

─────────────────

Vio found the book on cat behavior at the Castle Town library a few days ago, but this is the first time he’s actually been able to read it. Lounging on the couch beside a crackling fire, he hums as he turns the page.

A familiar chirp startles him to attention. Pinecone sits at the foot of the couch, staring intently towards Vio’s lap. He smiles, shifts his book to an admittedly less comfortable position, and pats the wool blanket. “You can come up.”

And so she does, immediately claiming her favorite spot on Vio’s stomach. She circles for only a moment before collapsing, resting her chin on his chest and meeting his eyes. He senses the soft rumble of a purr, and watches as she begins to knead the soft blanket.

It’s a weird angle, but Vio still manages to check the book’s index for ‘kneading.’

Kneading, also known as ‘making biscuits,’ is an instinctive feline soothing behavior.

Vio looks fondly down at his feline. “Are you making biscuits, Pinecone?”

She trills and kneads harder.

“Biscuits are in the oven!” announces Shadow, standing in the doorframe between their kitchen and den. He has flour all over his black apron, and looks very proud of his hard work.

Pinecone hops off Vio’s lap to rub against Shadow’s leg, and Vio finds himself on his feet as well. “You’ve got some flour on your face,” he observes, stepping closer.

Shadow smirks. “Totally not on purpose.”

“Of course not,” Vio agrees, running a finger gently down the other man’s cheek. He wipes the flour onto Shadow’s apron, and then pulls him by the waist for a kiss.

─────────────────

“Can you maniacs please get the zoomies one at a time?” Vio complains, seated at the kitchen table with a stack of handwritten notes and a warm cup of tea.

Pinecone responds by running straight into a wall.

Shadow, meanwhile, has been bouncing his leg uncontrollably for the past fifteen minutes. Vio finally leans down to place a gentle hand on Shadow’s knee, steadying both his partner and the table itself.

“I know the meeting was long,” he says, meeting Shadow’s eyes. “But we need to finalize this summary while the discussion is still fresh in our minds.”

Shadow glances longingly towards the den, where Pinecone gives an enchantingly peculiar yowling performance.

“She’s fine,” Vio reassures him. “Normal feline behavior, my book said so.”

Shadow sighs, trying his best to settle. “Yeah. I know. I can focus.”

Vio kisses his cheek, free to work uninterrupted for several peaceful minutes.

That is, until he hears the scraping.

Vio’s head shoots up, startling Shadow enough that he freezes mid-action. He appears to have been slowly sliding Vio’s mug closer to the table’s edge.

“What are you doing?” Vio asks, raising an eyebrow.

Shadow appears genuinely confused by his own strange impulse. “I… I’m not sure.” He pulls back his hand and examines it, bewildered. “It’s like I got possessed or something.”

They both hear a loud crash from the den.

Sighing, Vio caps his pen. “Wanna go see what she broke?”

Shadow is already gone.

─────────────────

This is the third dead thing Pinecone has brought him in a week. Vio winces down at the mouse’s corpse, only wincing harder at his cat’s self-satisfied expression.

“You really shouldn’t have,” he mutters, toeing the ‘gift’ with a sock-clad foot. “Where’s Shadow? He’s supposed to be watching you.”

Pinecone is almost entirely an indoor cat, but during the late autumn Shadow allows her to accompany him into the yard while he chops firewood. Vio can’t really blame Shadow for losing sight of the cat, who at the end of the day is naturally inclined to hunt and present trophies to the people she loves.

“Good kitty,” Vio tells Pinecone, petting her soft little head. She preens.

“Please tell me the cat’s inside,” Shadow calls from the front door, shutting it quickly behind him to keep out the November chill.

From his cozy spot in the den, Vio smiles. “Yes, she’s in here.”

Shadow stumbles into the room, wrapped up in a black and red flannel, still clutching Vio’s Four Sword. “I’m so sorry,” he says, slightly out of breath. “I was trying really hard to split this one stubborn log, and—”

Vio stands up and grabs Shadow by the waist, enjoying the lingering smell of trees.

“Hi,” Shadow tells Vio, tenderly stroking his back. “I’m a little sweaty, are you sure you want to hug me right now?”

“Too late.”

“Ah, I see Pinecone has brought you another present,” Shadow observes, somewhere between amused and disgusted. “I’m surprised she was able to do it in only a few minutes.”

Vio smirks, out of sight. “What a pragmatic little creature.”

Pinecone trills—probably at a bird out the window, but Vio likes to think she understands.

“She learned from the best,” says Shadow, and Vio pulls back to meet his eyes. His hands wander from Shadow’s waist to the pocket of his flannel, which contains… something?

Shadow blushes, and Vio loves that Shadow can still, once in a while, have his bashful moments. “It’s nothing, really, just…”

Vio withdraws the object from Shadow’s pocket and holds it between them. It’s a rock about the size of his palm, ash-brown, with strange irregular jutting edges. Shadow sighs and turns it over in Vio’s hand, revealing a smooth caramel-colored face.

“Found it and thought you’d be interested,” Shadow explains, still slightly embarrassed. “Could make a nice paperweight, too.”

Vio searches his brain for any knowledge of the peculiar specimen. “Petrified wood,” he vaguely recalls. “It’s sort of a fossil, I think. At some point, this area was affected by a volcano, or just a lot of fire, and the trees went through a sort of mineralization process.”

“Do you think that’s because of me?”

Vio blinks, genuinely puzzled by the question.

“Because of all the fire,” Shadow clarifies. “And the volcano.”

Vio releases a short laugh, but stops himself immediately. Shadow is genuinely concerned, he wants to take this seriously. “Love,” he says, reaching for his partner’s flannel-clad arm, “this is a fossil. Its creation might as well be ancient history.”

Shadow exhales. “Oh. Right.”

Vio feels Shadow’s muscles loosen—which, by the way, have become noticeably more pronounced since Shadow started chopping firewood.

“It’s just weird,” Shadow continues, not appearing to notice the blush on Vio’s face. “I know it’s been, like, more than a year since I did those awful things, but I still…”

“I love it,” Vio says, turning the rock over in his hand. It reminds him of sunset dragon rides, the heat of the Fire Temple, the sweet taste of marshmallows roasted over fires they set together. “Thank you, Shadow.”

In retrospect, Vio knows he probably shouldn’t have been so permissive of Shadow doing villainous things to impress him back in their evil days. It’s something Blue, Green, Zelda, and even Shadow himself have all since commented on, with various degrees of moral judgment. And to his credit, Vio typically attempts to walk it back, to express retroactive distaste for Shadow’s more violent and macabre ‘gifts.’

But deep down, some part of Vio will always take pleasure in the degree to which Shadow will go to prove his devotion.

“We should probably dispose of the dead mouse, though,” Shadow mutters against Vio’s lips.

From beneath them, Pinecone hisses.

─────────────────

The frequency of cat purring has been shown to fall between 25 and 140 Hz. The same frequency has been shown to aid in the healing of broken bones, joint and tendon repair, and wound healing. The combined effects of their relaxing presence and their purr make cats powerful against stress and anxiety. Cat owners report that—

“Put down the book,” Shadow mutters into Vio’s shoulder. “You need to rest.”

Vio sniffles and does as he’s told. Shadow holds him closer, pulling Red’s handmade quilt from fully over them both.

“You’re lucky,” Vio says, his throat dry, “that you don’t get sick very often. It sucks.”

Shadow hums sympathetically. “Strong immune system means I can still hold you, contagion be damned.”

“Are you sure that’s, like, a real thing?”

Shadow kisses the side of Vio’s forehead. It’s warm from his fever, but colder than it had been a few hours ago.

“Hi, Pinecone,” says Vio as the cat joins them in bed. She goes straight to Vio’s chest, plopping down and rolling on her side. Shadow scritches her soft belly with one hand and rubs Vio’s side with the other.

Pinecone’s purrs are immediate and much louder than usual. With wonder in his eyes, Vio gently presses two fingers to her throat. It vibrates steadily under his touch, and a slight press seems to make the purrs even louder.

“I’ll research her anatomy later,” Vio decides. “Too tired now.”

“Good idea,” Shadow says, completely earnest. “I love it when you know your limits.”

Vio musters the energy to roll his eyes. “Well now I have to—uh, Shadow?”

“Hm?”

Vio raises both eyebrows, turning his head to see Shadow’s face. “Are you purring?”

After a second of consideration, Shadow presses two fingers to his own throat. “Huh,” he remarks, self-satisfied. “Would you look at that.”

“Have you always been able to purr?” Vio asks, a little too weak to muster appropriate levels of bewilderment.

Shadow shakes his head. “Must have picked it up from shapeshifting into a cat so often. Neat.”

Vio has so many questions. Does this mean Shadow could just take on any quality he pleases? Could he take on more feline features, like really sharp claws and fangs? Just how weird can he get with this, if he so chooses? Because Vio already has a thing for his fangs, and—

Shadow purrs louder, adding to Pinecone’s steady rumbling. Vio shakes his head, too sick and too comfortable to stress.

─────────────────

“Please bite me somewhere less obvious next time,” Vio tells Shadow, wrapping a scarf around his neck. Shadow pouts, already bundled up for the snowy walk into castle town, and bats at the scarf’s fringes.

“They look nice,” he says, only earning a huff. Vio agrees completely, but one of them has to at least pretend to care about propriety. “Got your library book, nerd?”

Vio holds up the text on feline behavior. “Got it.” He then tucks it safely inside the tote bag they use at the farmer’s market when it’s in season.

Scritch-scritch-scritch.

“Oh, come on,” Vio mutters, craning his head towards the den. “Pinecone, not the couch! Red just helped us reupholster that thing!”

The scratching stops for a moment, then starts again. Vio pinches the bridge of his nose.

“Sorry, love,” Shadow says, although Vio knows he’s more amused than apologetic. “I think we’re just going to have to accept a certain degree of property defacement. Take it as a compliment—she only wants to claim what’s hers.”

Vio sighs. “Yeah, whatever.”

Shadow removes Vio’s scarf, scrunches it into a ball, and tosses it into the den.

─────────────────

Shadow works in the kitchen again, while Vio and Pinecone share the couch in front of a crackling fire. She’s right on his chest again, purring away, staring directly into his eyes. Vio is still disappointed that he can’t talk to her directly, but borrowing the feline behavior book definitely helped him understand her. Vio will always treasure the unique bond they share, even if it’s not as verbose as hers and Shadow’s.

Pinecone blinks slowly.

“I love you, too,” says Vio.

Shadow abruptly leans into the den, holding a wooden spoon covered with pumpkin soup. “Did you say something?”

Vio smirks, bumping Pinecone’s forehead. “Not to you.”

Shadow traces Vio’s gaze to Pinecone as she slow blinks again. He smiles, shakes his head, and leaves them to their conversation.