Pies in the Sky (Ghost)

((ooc: *slides into thread* Couldn’t find a graceful way to fabulously intrude upon your hum-drum apartment with my glorious self, so go ahead and post until you come to me. As is the natural order of things. *grooms behind one ear, with dignity*))

A twenty-four hour laundry mat. Indeed, they existed in this fine city. Over the years, they had even developed their own ecosystem.

Down the block from a certain Caleb Swartz’ apartment building—and a certain other individual’s—there was a pale white light washing out onto the street. Clunk, clunk, scree sang a single cycling drier in the subdued row of machines. Inside the glass door, propped open by its own broken lock, was a sleeping bundle of clothing, beard, and man. In the man’s trailing hand was a smear of oily liquid. On the floor below was a half-eaten burger from McGrease King. Above the burger was a rat. Above the rat was a cat.

He was a cream and ginger striped tom, with blue eyes deep enough to have earned him the name Sinatra, when he deigned to have a name. His admirers numbered in the millions; most had yet to met him, but that was hardly an issue. They would learn. Each hair in his luxuriant coat gleamed; every whisker roved at jaunty angles from his handsome cheeks as he stalked forward on velvet paws.

This could not end well for the burger. It could not end well for the rat. And, when the cat’s First Retainer caught up with him, on this first meeting after a certain brawl in which he may or may not have tried to eat her teammate, it could not end well for the cat.

It couldn’t end well for Juka, either. The cat, after all, was simply too fabulous. And a cat.

Ghost blinked tiredly at the red hair that was singing to her. Really it was nice. So very nice that had she been sitting, she would have fallen asleep right there. He said something about being awesome that was so very IronMouth that she just nodded dumbly along. Nothing she could say to him would convince him otherwise. Maybe it was a preforming arts thing? She would probably never have the kind of confidence required to sing in front of strangers. Her talents lay elsewhere in this life. After hearing Juka's opinion of himself, maybe it was better that way.

Juka managed the dirty clothes, something Ghost was worried his Fabulotisty might try to shirk off on her. Maybe he'd realized clean clothes were more fabulous than dirty ones? In any case, he was waiting on her. She brought up her end of the deal with the detergent box. Two steps out onto the balcony later, Ghost gulped in the night air and was instantly a part of it.

"Let's go then." Ghost rubbed at her incorporeal eye and drifted off the ledge. It seemed that she'd seen a laund-ro-mat somewhere recently. If they just floated around for a while they were sure to find it. And sure enough, not even a whole block away was a perpetually seedy looking place. Not even her reduced sense of sight could keep her from telling that. "Be careful, Juka. People may try to take your wonderful clothes. You must be vigilant at all times." She'd heard horror stories from the girls at work about panty thieves. Hopefully there were none of those here.

Ghost made herself solid again carefully, very carefully before she pulled open the door for herself and for the Jukanator. A chime sounded to announce their entry, but no one seemed to be home at first. Just a scutter of some unseen animal. Ghost would show Juka how to make change and how to separate and load laundry before she would find a table to snooze. To her dismay, someone had beaten her to the most comfortable looking one. She took another moment to look forlornly at the sleeping man and wibble. She wanted to be doing that.

One sigh and a shake of her shoulders later, Ghost was leading Juka to an empty table where she could show him how to sort. She had been asked for help and by golly she'd give it. "Okay, so the first thing to do is to section out the dark things from the light things. If you have enough for three loads, you may want to make a pile of all whites too."

Juka nodded most definitively at Ghosty's advice to be careful. He could plainly see that the laundry mat wasn't the most upstanding of places and he knew that there were people out there that were jealous of him and his perfection. And besides, he had his beautiful ever helpful goddess Ghosty to help protect too. "I swear to let no brigand accost either you, my beautiful one, or myself," Juka announced valiantly.

Juka landed beside Ghosty and hefted his bag of laundry over his shoulder, dismayed that he had to carry it by hand, though only a short distance. He watched and listened with great intensity and interest as he was explained the ins and outs of how to sort laundry and all that was involved in a successful clothes washing endeavor. It was strangely fascinating to him, having never had to deal with such mundane tasks before. How did people manage it all, he wondered.

So intently concentrating on his laundry washing lessons was he that Juka almost failed to notice the cat that had suddenly appeared and doubtless would not have noticed at all had the shirt he was about to pick up in order to properly sort wasn't suddenly pulled to the floor. And that's when he noticed the most beautiful ginger and white striped tomcat who had taken a liking to said shirt. He grinned and let out a happy little eep type sound, not even caring that it was currently using its claws on his precious shirt. Cats were the only creature allowed to commit such an act because he knew, without doubt, that cats were the only creatures just as fabulous as himself.

Juka crouched down, laundry completely forgotten, and tried to coax the cat to him. It was only right that he should give it every bit of the attention that it so rightfully deserved. He wondered if it had a home or was in need of a good home. It looked far too well groomed to be wild, but one just never knew.

Focus? Focus, his First Retainer scolded. Yet this ‘Juka’—a possessor of clear and distinguished taste—was focusing precisely where he should be: upon the cat. Coaxing coos declared his desire for the cat’s attentions. This was well within the natural order of things. The cat’s focus, in turn, was upon the shirt. The shirt that would soon die die submit to the Will of Claws. His First Retainer, therefore, had no need for worry: all was clearly well with the world.

The shirt began fighting back. This, too, was good. It moved and twitched, as if plucked from the outside by worrying hands—yet the cat was not to be fooled. Clearly, these movements were of its own making. Clearly, it was not yet dead. Fiercely did he seek to rectify this situation, right up until a cold wind graced his most noble bottom.

A tail twitched into the air, free of the shirt’s dastardly confinement. Twitch, twitch, flick—turnabout of death!

Thus did a pair of deep blue eyes with wide black pupils stare out from under the shirt. Thus did the Master ferally observe his First Retainer, for that moment it took to classify her interloping hands as Not-Part-Of-Shirt.

“Master? Master Sinatra?"

Purr, purr. Purr, purr. Purr, purr, “Indeed. Fine evening, is it not?” The cream and ginger tom asked, with all the sophistication befitting of his station.

As surprised golden eyes peered into the depths of dilated kitten pupils, Ghost began to understand what true danger was. And just as soon as she'd swallowed and decided that her end was near, a sophisticated, slightly truncated quip edged out of a kitty mouth.

Juka managed to ask if it was really a talking kitty before Ghost let out a glorious yelp of "Calley!" that was loud enough to startle the hobo into turning over on his bench.

She dove forward in a much less dignified way to scrabble that ginger into a hug. No matter how fast the cat, she would catch some part of him and hold on before he got too far away again. For Kat, she could take a few claws! "You slip in and out, but you must remember to warn me when you decide to be gone for so long and Kat, you'll break the dear one's heart, but I can't believe you swarmed Luke, I bet you had your reasons, but I'm still mad at you!" Most of this increasingly long unbroken sentence was spoken against the the poor cat-boy's fur. It was curious that Ghost didn't seem to have to stop and breathe. "You weren't really standing on their side because you believe in Haywire, were you?"

Poor Juka meowed. For attention, Ghost decided, because she had most decidedly forgotten the flamboyant man for a moment. "Juka, meet the Master. Master, Juka... uhm..." How did she get roped into doing his laundry again? "We met in the sky..." But even her tone wasn't wholly convinced.

Juka was entirely contented with the meeting of the talking cat. There was something fitting about it, really, something right. He had always wished for a talking kitty and now, it seemed, his wishes were being fulfilled. Obviously some higher power or another had seen how wonderful and deserving he was and had sent him this amazing gift. His very own talking cat, even though one could never really posses a cat, let alone a talking cat. It was more like cats owned people but he had no problem at all being this cat's person. He smiled happily down at Master kitty. "So good to meet you Master."

Juka turned towards Ghost and grinned. "We did indeed meet in the sky, its not so strange when you really think about it. You can fly and I can float so its really only natural." In his mind it was at least, but of course his mind didn't always work the same way as the minds of others. It was one of the many things that made him so amazing.

Juka clapped happily as Master Kitty returned his meow in kind. No matter that he didn't have any idea what said meow actually meant, he took it as a sign that the cat approved and that he would, indeed, become the cat's new human. He gently scratched behind Master Kitty's ears, seeking that spot he knew all cats to love, determined to make a most worthy human.

>> "So good to meet you Master."

This was the well and proper way to greet him, yes. The ginger and cream tom rumbled in Ghost’s arms, his engines set to Full Approval. “I shall call you,” he declared, “Third Retainer. Do you accept the privilege of answering my demanding merrows, at any and all hours of the morning, evening, and night? You shall be reimbursed handsomely in my affections, when and if I choose to bestow them, and blessings of ginger and cream fur upon your clothes, when and if they are cleaned to standards fit for my rolling.” Not as Firstly as a First Retainer, but a respectable number, to be sure. Particularly given the lack of obvious Second Retainer, in the world at large. (Though it was always best to keep the plebeians wondering, truly.)

Oh, le ear-behind-scritch. Oh, le lean into the hand, and le purr. The volume of his rumbles was nearly enough to pretend he did not hear his First Retainer’s words.

>> "You can't just take out your aggressions on people, Calley. Well, you can but it doesn't mean you should... I didn't know you had a brother either."

A long tail flicked against her arm, tickling pale skin lightly, as his purrs rumbled on with only a brief hitch.

His brother. Yes. Tail flick, tickle. He had one of those. And he didn’t. And Kat knew the full story, and that was about it. His Third Retainer was sufficiently fabulous, but, perhaps, a bit new; his First Retainer was best told all the details alone. If he could tell. If he would tell. Deep blue eyes blinked, half-lidded, up at a Ghostie. “There’s a lot to tell. Clearly, you shall have to come by my apartment sometime.” All modern independent talking felines owned apartments these days, you see.

His paws wiggling loosely in the air towards Juka. He was a loose bundle of kitty fur, kitty muscle, and ears-being-scritched happiness. There was no will in him to jump arms: this situation was quite comfortable. But he would not protest a catnapping by his new Retainer.