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my-beloved-lakes · 4 months

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Eliot and the stray cat he said they weren't keeping. (Click for better quality)

(Ficlet below the cut)

Eliot glanced up from his book when he heard Parker come in, then did a double take.

She was standing in the doorway, holding a cat. It was scrawny and wet and covered in mud.

"Look what I found in the alley." She said, her voice was sad and sympathetic, but underneath that there was a hint of excitement. "She needs a home."

Oh no. Eliot thought.

"We are not keeping the cat, Parker." He said firmly.

"Woah, who put you in charge?" Hardison asked indignantly.

"We can't have a cat running around here." Eliot insisted. “Not with how often we’re out of town.”

Parker looked disappointed.

"We'd Give the damn thing abandonment issues." Eliot muttered under his breath

"Well, we can at least give her a bath and some food." Hardison said.

Eliot's expression softened.

"It can spend the night. We'll give it a blanket to sleep on and leave it in the bathroom where it can't get into anything." Eliot said. "I'll take it to the shelter tomorrow."

"Shelter's closed over the weekend. Won't open again till Monday." Hardison pointed out.

Eliot groaned. "So we're stuck with it for the next 3 days?"

"Yup." Hardison said smugly.

"What should we call her?" Parker asked.

"No. No. We're not naming it. It'll just make it harder to say goodbye when the time comes."

"Aww, come on, can't we keep her? She needs a home and family to love her." Parker insisted. "And just look how cute she is!"

"They'll find it a good home at the shelter." Eliot said.

"Well, I guess I better go to the store and get some cat chow so she can have something to eat while she's here." Hardison said. "You two can handle giving her a bath while I'm gone."

Eliot rolled his eyes and got up to help Parker clean the cat off.

"Get a wet washcloth." He said. "I'll hold it still while you get as much of the mud off as you can."

Parker gently handed the cat to Eliot and ran to the other room. The cat let out a quiet broken meow that was barely more than a squeak as she passed it to Eliot. It clung to Eliot's arm with its claws, and he could feel the thing trembling. He wondered if it was cold or just scared.

Parker came back a minute later with a washcloth soaked in warm water. Eliot held the cat out so Parker could wipe away all the mud but after a while Eliot realized the washcloth wasn't going to be enough to get the cat clean. He sighed.

"It's gonna need a real bath." He said. “We’ll take it to the bathroom and do it in the tub.”

"She's not gonna like that." Parker pointed out.

The cat didn't mind nearly as much as Eliot expected. Or at least she didn't show it, maybe she was too exhausted or too scared to struggle. Her ears were pinned back in discomfort but she didn't put up a fight. She just sat in the tub, still clinging to Eliot's arm with her front paws as Parker rubbed soap into her fur. When Parker was done lathering the cat with soap Eliot helped rinse all the soap off, running his free hand over the cat's whole body as Parker poured warm water over it.

As Eliot ran his fingers through the cat's wet fur, he could feel scars. Most were old and long since healed up, but a few were more recent, still scabbed with blood.

"She's had a hard life, hasn't she." Parker said. "No family to love her, having to fight to survive."

"Yeah, seems like she has." Eliot said.

She's trying to guilt me into keeping it.

"She's old too." Parker pointed out. "Older animals are less likely to get adopted, you know."

Eliot sighed and shook his head.

I'm not going to let her guilt me into this. He told himself.

She was right though. The cat was old. Now that all the mud was gone, he could see that her face was covered in gray hairs. The rest of her was a dusty brown color with tabby stripes. She was a cute cat, he had to admit. She reminded him of the cat he had as a kid.

Eliot shook his head.

Can't let myself get attached. He reminded himself.

He grabbed a dry towel and gently rubbed as much of the water off as he could. Then he set the cat down on the ground.

"Do we really have to lock her in here?" Parker asked.

"She can wander around the back rooms until we go to bed." Eliot said reluctantly. "As long as we keep an eye on her to make sure she doesn't get into anything."

Parker's face lit up and she opened the bathroom door. No sooner had she done so, the cat scampered out of the bathroom into the livingroom and darted under the couch.

***

When Hardison got home, he found the cat wandering around, cautiously smelling everything. Parker was watching the cat intently and Eliot had his face in a book, paying no attention to the cat whatsoever, or at least pretending not to pay any attention.

"So I see the cat isn't actually staying in the bathroom then." Hardison said with a sly smile.

"She'll be put in there when we go to bed." Eliot said. "She's just hanging out out here while we can keep an eye on her."

Hardison smiled and poured a little food into the new bowl he had bought for the cat and when he looked up, he caught a dirty look from Eliot.

"What?"

"You bought the cat a new food bowl?"

"Yeah." Hardison shrugged.

"Damnit Hardison."

"She needs a dish!"

"The cat is not staying." Eliot insisted.

Hardison just rolled his eyes and set the bowl on the ground next to his feet.

The cat snuck cautiously up, but didn't come close enough to eat.

"Oops, excuse me little lady." Hardison said and backed away from the food bowl.

As soon as the cat decided Hardison was a safe distance away, she darted forward and began scarfing down the food, making happy little meows as she ate.

Parker and Hardison both chuckled at the muffled meows coming from the cat.

"I don't think I've ever heard a cat do that." Hardison mused.

I have. Once. Eliot thought, then quickly dismissed the thought.

As soon as the cat was done eating Parker tried to creep closer to pet her, but the cat darted away and sat down, wrapped her tail around her feet and stared at Parker.

"Aww it's okay little kitty." Parker promised. "I'm not gonna hurt you."

Parker sat down on the ground and scooted closer, but the cat moved away again.

"Parker, leave the cat alone." Eliot said without glancing up from his book. "She'll come to you when she's ready."

Parker reluctantly got up and settled herself on the couch between Eliot and Hardison.

***

Hardison stretched and yawned.

"Welp, I think it's time for me to get to bed." He said and got up from the couch. "Want me to put the cat up?"

"Nah, I got it." Eliot shrugged.

"Okay, night night." Hardison said and made his way up the stairs.

Parker got up to follow him.

"Good night, Eliot." She said.

"G'night."

"I really want to keep the cat." Parker said as she climbed into bed next to Hardison.

"Oh babe, we're keeping the cat." Hardison said definitely.

"But Eliot was very clear that he doesn't want to keep her. I know he's not the boss of us, but I feel like we should respect his opinion, right?"

Hardison wrapped his arms around Parker and pulled her close.

"Parker let me let you in on a little secret that Eliot would probably kill me for telling you. He'd never admit it, but he loves that cat already. He's growing more and more attached to her every second. We just have to pretend like we don't notice it for a while, let him think he’s got us fooled. Before ya know it, he’ll cave and let us keep her."

Parker smiled and snuggled in closer to Hardison.

��I think we should call her Snickers.” Parker said

“I like Snickers.” hardison mumbled sleepily. “But don’t tell Eliot till he’s agreed to keep her.”

***

Parker woke up again in the middle of the night and wondered if Eliot was still awake. She carefully slipped out of Hardison’s arm and crept down the stairs. She found Eliot curled up, sound asleep on the couch. The cat was curled up in the curve of Eliot's stomach, nestled into a pile of blankets, purring loudly.

So the cat’s not staying in the bathroom after all.

She smiled and crept back to the bedroom, nudged Hardison awake and motioned for him to follow her. Together they crept back to the living room.

Hardison chuckled quietly to himself when he saw Eliot asleep with the cat.

"What'd I tell you? He's in love with the cat already."

***

Monday rolled around, but Eliot didn’t seem to be in any hurry to take the cat to the shelter.

"Ya gonna take the cat today?" Hardison asked.

He already knew the answer was no. Eliot was completely and thoroughly attached.

"If I find the time." Eliot shrugged. "Kinda busy today, though."

Hardison and Parker shot each other knowing smiles.

"Well, I can take her if you want." Hardison offered, knowing full well Eliot wouldn't accept it.

"No, I'll do it as soon as I'm not busy."

***

When evening rolled around the cat was still wandering around the back rooms of the brewpub, but Eliot's day had proven to be much less busy than he said. He had worked out a little, gone over the brewpub menu to make a few revisions and taken one client meeting, but all of that took less than half the day.

There should have been plenty of time to take the cat to the shelter. Hardison noted smugly to himself. But he doesn't want to say goodbye.

***

Tuesday really was a busy day. They spent the whole day planning, and executing a heist and by the time they got home, the shelter was closed for the evening.

Eliot grabbed an ice pack from the freezer and pressed it to his aching shoulder. Then he slumped down onto the couch with a sigh and leaned his head against the back, closing his eyes.

The fight he had with the security guards hadn't been particularly rough, but one of them had managed to wrench his shoulder pretty bad. he had popped a couple painkillers on the way home, but it was still aching.

He looked up when he heard a tiny squeak from the cat as she jumped onto the opposite end of the couch and made her way over to him.

The cat never seemed to meow properly. It always came out more like a raspy squeak, as if she had lost her voice. He was reminded once again of the cat he had as a kid, the only other cat he had ever known who had a meow like that.

She rubbed her head against his leg and walked in circles across his lap a few times before laying down and curling up on his lap, purring softly. Eliot scratched behind her ears, and she started purring louder.

Damnit. He thought. She's not going anywhere, is she? We're stuck with her now.

***

Wednesday morning, Eliot woke to find the cat wasn't asleep next to him like she had been when he fell asleep. He got up and wandered into the next room where he found Parker, but the cat wasn't there. Neither was Hardison.

"Where's Hardison?" Eliot asked.

"Oh, He figured since we’re keeping the cat, it was probably time to take her to the vet and get her checked up. Ya know, make sure she doesn't have any illnesses or anything we need to know about. The only available time they had was first thing in the morning."

"Woah, we never agreed to keep..." Eliot trailed off and gave in, shaking his head. "Well make sure he knows to get a litter box while he's out."

Parker smiled and nodded.

"Damn cat." Eliot muttered fondly to himself as he set to work making breakfast.

“Also, we’re calling her Snickers.” Parker added.

Eliot smiled. He liked that name, mostly because Parker was the one who came up with it, but he liked it all the same.

#leverage #eliot spencer #parker #alec hardison #Snickers the cat #leverage fanart #Leverage fanfic #Leverage fluff #my art #it's been a while since I've done any digital art and boy did it feel nice to start again!#i was also trying out a different art program and ive never drawn on an ipad before so it all felt a little unfamiliar to me.#but i think it turned out okay #it took me a while to actually be satisfied with all this but i think im finally satisfied enough to post it.

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savethelastdan · 2 years

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SessKagu Week Day 4: College/Childhood Friends to Lovers

“Oi, Sesshomaru!”

Kagura’s voice echoes around the entire street, causing several co-eds by the late-night bus stop to look in their direction. Gritting his teeth, Sesshomaru jerks to a stop under a streetlight. At this rate, the entire damn campus will know his name…

Kagura cuts through a dark clump of bushes to where he stands like a lighthouse on the sidewalk. Scuffed shoes dangle from one hand; the other slings her purse in a wide arc, until it collides with his hip.

“Not everyone has long legs like you, asshole!”

“Not everyone takes forever to print their notes, witch.”

Her nostrils flare. “I do one silly middle-school play, and you still wanna call me that?”

“Correct.”

Rolling her eyes, Kagura slides her purse back up onto her shoulder. Sesshomaru’s eyes zero in on the smile hidden in the corner of her mouth. “Whatever. You’re still dumb for walking ahead - can’t get in on your own, can you?”

She jogs past him to the front of the dorm. And, as he has for the past eleven years, Sesshomaru gives in and follows her.

In order to sneak male friends, boyfriends, and fiancés into their rooms, the girls of the dorm’s junior-year block have developed a foolproof routine to get around residential staff. Within minutes of Kagura texting the group chat, Sesshomaru watches the old woman who staffs the front desk at night race for the elevator. Five seconds later, a ponytailed girl bursts out of the emergency staircase to unlock the door for them.

“Kikyo and Kagome are staging a fight. Neither one’s going to risk a sanction to make it physical, though, so you better hurry.”

It may simply be his imagination, but Sesshomaru thinks she’s smirking at him as they go past.

As usual, Kagura’s roommate is nowhere to be seen. Sesshomaru takes his shoes off to place by the door, out of habit; Kagura’s already barefoot and throws her own in a corner. Faint bursts of laughter sound from the room on the other side of the wall. He wonders if tonight, the girls snuck alcohol in too.

While Kagura goes into the adjoining bathroom to wash her face, Sesshomaru pulls down the blinds. There’s a pile of textbooks from her bed; he moves them to the floor.

The books are for her Risk Management class, the same one she had to print the paper for tonight; he’d accompanied her to the library to do just that. It’s already been a long week, but instead of just finishing what she needed to, Kagura started an argument with Rengukoki about…who even knows what.

Sesshomaru feels like he’s spent half of his life watching her fight somebody.

They’re both eight. He stands silent, as she pushes Menōmaru down into the dirt. The moth demon has been bothering him all day - “how come you don’t have a dad anymore?” Sesshomaru’s mother instructs to ignore weaker people, so that is what he does. But this tiny girl, shaking Menōmaru by the shoulders, clearly has been taught something else.

“Leave him alone!”

They’re thirteen, and his little brother Inuyasha is eleven. He tugs on his arm and whines that he wants to go home; but Sesshomaru shrugs him off and rings the doorbell to Kagura’s house again. Through the door, he can hear her and her father’s voices. They’re screaming at each other; something shatters. Out of the corner of his eye, he can see Inuyasha’s puppy ears prick sharply in fear.

Suddenly the door flies open, and Kagura comes racing out. There’s blood on her chest, right where the heart is.

She grabs each of them by the arm and leaps off the porch.

“Run, you morons!”

They’re seventeen, and the weight of college entrance exams presses heavy on their shoulders. He’s in the library studying again when Hojo from the other class runs up to his table.

“Sesshomaru, come quick! It’s Kagura again!“

He doesn’t have to know who the other girl is, or what causes the fight. Sesshomaru pushes through the crowd of jeering classmates to haul Kagura off of the other student. This time, flailing fists catch him in the chin; but he doesn’t worry about that until he’s found a quiet place to wipe the blood off her hands.

“I have an extra face mask, do you want one?”

“No.”

“Suit yourself.”

He busies himself by putting her tossed-to-the-side shoes and purse back in her side of the dorm closet. A few minutes later, Kagura comes back into the room to flop down on the bed with a sigh. One arm swings out dramatically to point at his chest.

“Come lie down with me.”

“I should get back soon. Jaken never remembers his key.”

“Come on.” Her fingers squeeze open and shut, like she’s crushing his heart in her fist. “Fifteen minutes.”

Sesshomaru slides both hands into his pockets; the edges of his claws catch the fabric. He will have to ask her to file them down again, even though it’s only been a few days since the last time.

“Move over, then.”

Sesshomaru ends up flat on his back, staring at her ceiling. The mattress buckles slightly in the middle, forcing them even closer together. Kagura has his left hand trapped in her grip. One fingernail traces his lifeline, as she pretends to read his fortune.

“That mask makes you look like a ghost,” he mutters.

“Maybe I am a ghost,” she hums. “And our souls are tied together. That would explain why I hang out with you when no one else will.”

“I won’t stay if you talk like that.”

“See, that’s why you have no friends. You can’t take a joke.”

He starts to get up. Though having an incredibly small social circle doesn’t actually bother him (and if she really wanted to be cruel then she would know exactly what to say), Sesshomaru gives her too much leeway as it is to not at least pretend to be annoyed. With a laugh, Kagura presses his arm to her chest.

“Don’t go, I didn’t mean it! Sesshomaru!”

She always laughs at him, no matter whether Sesshomaru’s actually mad or just reminding her that actions have consequences. Eyes sparkling, she starts stroking his head like he’s a small pet; Sesshomaru’s growl is met with a fond roll of her eyes. “Oh, yes, you’re very scary…”

He tugs his arm away, but does settle back onto the bed. If he rolls onto his side, she won’t be able to look at his palm anymore. (And he won’t have to wonder about what actually holding her hand would feel like.)

Kagura peels the paper mask from her face and tosses it across the room into her roommate’s wastebasket. The bed creaks. When she lies back against the blankets, there’s hardly a hand-width of space left between them.

Which is actually worse than if she was still holding his arm. Gods, he is a fool.

They’re both ten, eating shaved ice on the back porch. Kagura’s eyes widen as she peers through the window that leads back to the kitchen. Sesshomaru knows what she’s probably looking at; his mother and Inuyasha’s mother, Izayoi, laughing together as they put away groceries.

“Your moms are kissing,” she informs him, wiping her chin with one sleeve.

“So?” Sesshomaru replies, digging a ring all the way around the ice in his bowl.

“So, what do you think it feels like?” She scratches one earlobe; her brother Byakuya pierced it for her in the bathroom last week, and it apparently hasn’t stopped itching since. Sesshomaru is ninety percent sure it’s infected. “Kissing.”

“I don’t know.” Something in his stomach twists into a knot. “I don’t care, either.”

“It’s just a question.” She takes a huge bite of the ice, predictably wincing as the chill hits the back of her teeth.

“Well, go ask someone else…”

They’re fifteen, and he’s been throwing rocks at her window for ten minutes.

It isn’t something Sesshomaru would usually do (what if he breaks the glass? What if a neighbor sees him? What if her dad wakes up and starts yelling?) but she didn’t come to school today. Because of that, Sesshomaru ate alone.

Clapping the dirt off his palms, he wonders if he should just go home. Then, the windowsill creaks.

“What are you doing?”

From the rasp of her voice, he’s woken her up. Grimacing, Sesshomaru stuffs both hands in his pockets.

“You weren’t around today.”

Kagura leans halfway out the window. A gust of nighttime wind catches the bangs across her forehead, and her eyes briefly close in appreciation. From his spot in the backyard, it makes her look like something out of the doramas that Inuyasha’s mom likes.

“Hakudoshi’s sick; I had to take care of him.”

“Oh.” He feels stupid, then. Of course, there are a million things in Kagura’s life that have nothing to do with him, and why should he have been so concerned after a single day -

“I’m glad you missed me, though.” White teeth flash down at him, not quite mocking. “How sweet.”

“Shut up,” he snaps, turning his back on her. “I’m going home.”

“See you tomorrow,” she laughs; the sound echoes throughout his dreams all night.

They’re eighteen, and it’s the first day of college. Sesshomaru has returned from the store with a hanging wall calendar to note all of his classes, eishin-ryu practices, and trips home to see his mother. As he mounts it on the wall, uncomfortably aware of his roommate watching from his own side of the room, a loud knock shakes the door.

He opens it just in time for Kagura to pop a Marukawa gum bubble in his face.

When she spies the calendar over his shoulder, her expression falls. It’s subtle enough that anyone else might miss it.

The next morning, he finds her name scrawled in black marker in the corner of every square.

“Just so you don’t get so busy that you forget about me!”

Every morning, he rubs his thumb over the markings, and makes a promise he never plans to say.

“Don’t walk away without me like you did before,” she says quietly.

“Hm.”

“I mean it.”

Vibrations ripple through the wall to shake the mattress; the girls in the next room must be watching TV with the volume up. Kagura traces his bangs with one finger, and he fights to keep from shuddering at the touch.

They’re eight years old, and he brings Kagura over for dinner for the first time. His mother sits at the head of the table, telling them a story.

“Once upon a time, there was a fearsome dog demon. He was a strong warrior, to be sure. But, though he’d never lost a battle, he also had no one to protect.”

“What did he fight for, then,” Kagura snorts. “He sounds dumb.”

Sesshomaru kicks her under the table; it’s rude to interrupt, after all.

Izayoi clicks her tongue from the other side of the room, where she’s cutting an apple under Inuyasha’s watch. “We all have things to learn, don’t we?”

“Indeed.” Sesshomaru’s mother rests her chin on her hand; her many rings sparkle in the light. “Over time, he made a very powerful enemy. Several creatures joined him on a quest to defeat this villain. But the dog demon still could not fully understand how he and his comrades might care for each other. Then one day, a woman came to him - the slave of his enemy.”

Kagura grabs Sesshomaru’s arm under the table in excitement. “What was she like?”

“Not quite as powerful as our warrior.” His mother smiles. “But perhaps, in a way, that made her even more brave. What she wanted, more than anything, was to live a free life.”

“She sounds way better than him. Can she be the main character instead?”

“Kagura. Shhh.”

“Don’t shush me!”

“Then stop interrupting.”

“What are you thinking so hard about?” Her fingers press into the spot between his eyebrows.

Sesshomaru swallows hard. Despite the lack of space, he fits on her bed like he belongs there.

“I should go.”

Maybe, this one time out of thousands, she’ll finally ask him not to.

Because twelve years now, they’ve been friends, and he’s been a coward for every day of it. Too determined to preserve what they have, instead of taking the leap into something new. But if Kagura would do it - if she could be the one to lean forward, press their lips together, say I love you - Sesshomaru would give her everything.

“Oh.” Her lips turn down. The teasing touch of her fingers on his skin disappears. “Okay. Text me when you get back.”

As always, she refuses to make things easy for him.

Sesshomaru stands, taking the time to smooth wrinkles out of his shirt. Disappointment sits like a cold weight in his gut. Kagura rolls over, with a sigh that is clearly too dramatic to not be for his benefit. She presses her face into the pillow, her arms splayed out across the bedspread. Her skirt has ridden up a bit, and he resists the urge to reach out and fix it.

Usually she’ll at least give him a hug goodbye (and take the opportunity to do something annoying, like yank his pockets inside out). Sesshomaru waits awkwardly by the side of the bed for far too long before muttering, “Bye, then.”

The sound of the door closing echoes throughout the dorm hallway. It startles a girl standing by the water fountain on the opposite wall.

“Oh, hi.” She smiles sweetly, unscrewing the top off of a pink plastic water bottle. “The dorm-mother just went to the vending machines. If you take the stairs, she probably won’t see you.”

He nods stiffly in thanks, still lingering around the door. Just in case Kagura stops pouting in the next five minutes.

As water fills the bottle halfway, the girl continues talking in a friendly tone. “I’m Kagome, by the way. Are you Kagura’s boyfriend?”

Sesshomaru frowns.“No.”

“Oh.” She blinks, clearly not expecting the denial. “Sorry, just…she always talks about you. And you always seem to be together.”

“We’ve been friends for a long time.”

Kagome screws her water bottle’s cap on and takes a long, thoughtful swig. Her eyes glance towards the door, then at his face, which no doubt carries a rather obvious scowl.

In a sudden flash of energy, she runs past him to thud her fist against the door several times. Before he can ask what she’s doing, she’s already shoved him forwards and disappeared around the corner.

“What?” The door swings open, and Kagura blinks up at him. Several of her shirt buttons are undone, and she’s changed into pajama bottoms that pool around her ankles. “Did you forget something?”

Still trying to get his bearings, Sesshomaru simply stares at her. No, he wants to say, I didn’t forget, I just don’t know what to say…

“Spit it out,” Kagura yawns. “I wanna go to bed.”

The edges of his own fangs taste sharp as he runs his tongue against them in agitation. Steeling himself, Sesshomaru forces himself to breathe.

In.

Out.

He can’t say it, not yet, but he has to say something. Anything, that will make her understand that he’s trying.

“I want to stay.”

A look he doesn’t dare to name blooms across Kagura’s face. Whatever the emotion (relief, joy, love), it looks beautiful on her. That thought tempers the tension that he holds in every cell in his body, wondering where this will go.

Kagura, Sesshomaru’s best friend, reaches forward to grip his shirt in her fist. The action wrinkles it all over again. “Get back in here, then.”

Eight, nine, ten.

(Thank you.)

Eleven, twelve, thirteen.

(I like you.)

Fourteen, fifteen, sixteen.

(I want you.)

Seventeen, eighteen, nineteen.

(Do you want me, too?)

They’re twenty, and someday soon, Sesshomaru will be able to tell her.

#sesskagu #sesskaguweek2022 #sesshomaru #kagura #shespitsfire #savethelastdan #inuyasha #i'm not used to doing modern aus #but i think it turned out okay

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