It was drizzling. Drizzling on her. The audacity of the sky astounded Cheshire at times. The little white cat with black spots here and there sat under and overhang, her feet tucked under her, her tail tip twitching.

She was watching a townhouse. It had been quiet all morning, as its neighbors walked past windows and slammed car doors and carried small screaming children past windows. Either the person inside didn't have a nine-to-five job, or they weren't home.

But the cats were. The calico-spotted white had peeked out the window at her, and disappeared. Every once and a while she'd circle back and stare, and Cheshire would stare back, but it was the friendly sort of you-are-outside-I-am-inside-why-is-that-friend stare.

The tabby, now. The tabby had been sitting in the window for a half hour straight. Staring. Cheshire's soggy tail tip curled up. The tabby's fluffy dry tail swish-swished. Neither of them blinked.

Chess got to her feet, with a completely unconcerned arch of her back. Then she padded across the—ah car ah!—then she waited with regal patience for a gap in traffic, and padded across the street.

Swish-swish, went the tabby's tail. Cheshire's nose was in the air as she totally-didn't-watch.

Around the side of the townhouse, past its excellent blue doors, and over to—ah yes, her very favorites of places to break in. This was New York City: doors and windows were locked. In the bad neighborhoods, bared. But the one place no one ever had extra security?

The laundry vent.

Bat-bat-bat and there went the insect cover. She stuck her nose in the duct. Warm air, but not too warm. And more importantly, no rattling breeze of a drier still running. From out the duck wafted the lovely smell of warm foofy clothes that hadn't yet been graced with a layer of her fur.

Well. Time to fix that.

Shift, and the vent was an easier fit for a mouse, and her brain made the flip to his brain. His claws clicked along the aluminum. He slid down the little curve of the anti-rain drop, and skittering down the darkness until his whiskers touched the metal grate separating the duct from the main drum. Oh foofy clothes inside, how he longed to roll in you. But alas, the mess was too thin. Which left…

Sneeze

…The lint trap. An easy enough thing for a mouse to climb and wiggle out of, but goodness did he get dirty. Annnd this was a cat household, so shift back immediately.

And that is how the little white cat with black spots here and there ended up on top of the drier, with what felt like a half-pound of lint stuck to her soggy fur, being yowled at by a tabby as the calico-spotted cat ran back and forth in the room outside.

Calling-out sick felt like a lousy thing to do, particularly on a Friday. Primarily because Friday's and Saturday's were half-days at Xavier's, for the homunculus, and secondly because Ezra did not get sick. Consequently, the homunculus found himself with too many sick days and nowhere to spend them... so, he took a self-care day.

The idea of a "self-care day" had been introduced to him by one of the tenants in the neighboring apartment. Ezra had been repairing her garbage disposal when she asked if he had plans, if he was taking time for himself, et cetera. Admittedly he hadn't made any plans. After 250 years of traversing the world, it was nice to settle.

Oh, but this wouldn't do for the tenant-- she thought that "no plans" equated to "no time for yourself"-- and Ezra, as one of her favorite superintendents, deserved time to himself.

It was thus that Ezra found himself, n his linen pajamas, a house robe and slippers, pouring himself over a book. Self-care, to the homunculus, meant reading until your vision went blurry. Besides, it was a muggy, misty day, and he would not deign to leave the house when it was like this.

His feline counterparts seemed to be keeping themselves preoccupied. Alice, the white-more-than-tabby cat, would periodically hop onto the back of the couch and headbutt the back of Ezra's head. After receiving an adequate number of pets, she'd depart once more, only to return a half dozen chapters later.

In typical Gertrude fashion, Gertrude was nowhere to be found. She tended to be aloof, however, so this was not a cause for concern, for the homunculus.

What did concern him was the agitated ruckus that arose upstairs-- a low, keening yowl that quivered on the air and melted into a growl. Cat fight? And Gertrude seemed to be the aggressor. Alice's meow was more of a squeak or a trill. Less... resounding.

"Gertrude?" Ezra inquired. Maybe she saw someone outside. She frequently squared-up at neighbor cats through the window.

Another growl answered, this time with a hiss. It sounded more central, not very close to the windows at all.

"Gertrude, I sincerely hope you aren't bullying Alice."

Ezra bookmarked his page and roused himself from the couch, setting his copy of Don Quixote on the coffee table. He padded towards the stairs, following the sounds of a very perturbed Gertrude. When he reached the stairs, Alice stole past him, low to the ground. Whatever her sister was annoyed at, it was a cause for concern for Alice.

"Gertrude?"

He was steadily ascending the stairs, eyes skimming for the familiar, fluffy tabby. He reached the second floor, and saw that she was standing in the door to the laundry room. The... laundry room.

"Gertrude," Ezra sighed, "Darling, what's going on? Are you fighting the w-? Oh, gracious."

She was not, contrary to his initial belief, yowling at the washer. There was a cat in there-- another cat, one he hadn't seen before, and was most certainly not his.

"Aren't you a pretty thing," Ezra mused, extending a hand to the unfamiliar cat, "You'll have to excuse Gertrude... she's the lady of the house." And Alice was her mistress, and Ezra was her staff.  Ezra knew his place. Gertrude howled again, ending her raucous complaint with a growl, "Gertrude, please."

Strange cat permitting, Ezra would scritch the scruff of her neck and her chin, feeling for a collar,  "Where did you come from, little one?"

Gracious, she was filthy, too.

She could have run away as the man started calling out. She didn't.

She could have moved to a less obvious perch, perhaps. She didn't.

She could have, perchance, interrupted the tongue-bath of her right paw. She didn't.

The tabby was yowling at her. This sort of challenge needed to be met with the greatest of distain, so as to inform the tabby of her new place in the hierarchy as swiftly and condescendingly as possible.

>> "Aren't you a pretty thing. You'll have to excuse Gertrude... she's the lady of the house."

Cheshire gave one last lick to her paw, then set it daintily down. The man was half-right and, having identified her outstanding beauty, deserved her full attention so that she might promptly correct him on his latter error. And so she looked up from her own fine self for the first time since he had entered the room—

--and continued looking up, for quite some time. My, he was a large one. Her tail half-foofed and her pupils dilated just to let him know that she could be quite large, too. But he smelled of cats (other cats), which simply would not do. Particularly not with Gertrude watching.

And so it was that the little white cat with black spots here and there stood up to meet the coming hand, and rubbing her cheeks all over it, and blissfully closed her eyes to the sound of Gertrude's protests. Ah, humans. They knew not what wargames were played around them.

…But was he human? Sniff. Sniff sniff

He smelled of the cats, of course, and now her as well. Good. Underneath, particularly on his hands, was the smell of paper and ink, the smell of turning pages in a book for so many hours that the ink begins to rub off on one's fingertips.

She bunched up her legs, and leapt to his shoulder in a cloud of scattering lint. Light little paws balanced on his satisfyingly plush robe. She rubbed her forehead against the side of his neck. A bit skinny for his size, what were his cats feeding him? Had they even bothered to put any mice on his bed? Another sniff. The smell under it all, the smell that was him, was like clay. Not quite finished clay, fired and glazed. More like green clay that had been dry for a while. Perhaps a little dusty, but still moldable.

Where she came from was hardly a question of any import. She was here now.

It was an extremely agreeable smell, and the new queen of the house took the moment to stare down at Gretrude from her lofty perch before dismissing the peon. At which point there was only one thing left to do: she twinned around behind the man's neck (giving him a proper benediction of wet lint and wetter cat fur), settled into cat-scarf mode, and licked his chin.

Hers.

The homunculus, as a cat-person for a majority of his civilized life, was attentive to the cat's body language and paused his advance. Underneath the grey puffs of-- dear heavens, that's lint, the cat was covered in lint-- the white-with-black spots kitty was starting to size Ezra up. He wondered if she'd bolt, which would make for some… unwarranted… excitement. Thankfully, the deemed him worthy of offering pets, and brushed against his outstretched hand.

“See, I'm not so bad,” Ezra assured the strange cat, “If I might say so, myself.”

Ezra gave a chuckle at his own remark, but his brow stitched. No collar. She was too friendly to be a stray. Ezra ran a hand down the cat's back, dislodging some of the lint and disposing of a handful of it into the wastebasket. Already, Ezra was designing a narrative for this small, monochrome Houdini. She'd somehow ventured in, perhaps through an open window (sometimes he was so absent-minded), taken a dust-bath in dryer lint, and incurred the wrath of Gertrude. Ezra pet the cat again, intending to pull more lint free, but the cat suddenly vaulted onto his shoulders. The homunculus had taken a step back in alarm. But when he felt the paws of a cat trying to steady their weight, not trying to slice his face, he righted himself.

“Oh!” Ezra gasped in alarm, “My stars, you're friendly. Did your people leave you outside on this dreary day? Hmm?”

Gertrude yowled in part-displeasure and part-resignation. Ezra thinned his nonexistent lips at the tabby, “She's a guest, Gertrude, let's show her some hospitality. Hm?” Ezra stepped gingerly past his cat, just as the surprise cat made herself comfortable and began to lick Ezra’s face. Gertrude followed urgently behind them. They rounded back into the main living area, where Alice could be spied keeping an owlish watch from the tippy top of the cat tree (one of very few modern pieces of furniture in the homunculus's house).

The timid watcher slipped from view when they entered into the kitchen. The homunculus gave a practiced bow to the refrigerator, making sure not to tip the cat as he retrieved a small, plastic container. It contained chicken that had been boiled and unseasoned, and existed solely for the cats.

”Hungry?” Ezra inquired. Perhaps if he could coax the creature down with bribery of food, he could clean the lint clumps off of it.

The wonderful earth-smelling man talked like a book. Not one of those new books with the forbidden vampire-werewolf romance on the cover. Like an old book, like something her English teacher would say was classic.

That was the word for him. The robed man was classic. And since she was riding on his shoulder, Cheshire fancied herself classy by proximity.

It helped that he knew how to talk to a cat. More than that: he knew how to feed a cat. That chicken was normal cat food around here?

Cheshire darted down the length of his arm and grabbed the edge of the container in her teeth and rolled, hitting the floor with bare feet. Bare human feet.

The rest of her was pretty bare, too. The same black-tipped ears and tail the little cat had been sporting were still there, but the rest was suddenly somewhat lacking in the modesty of fur. Unless the lint counted.

She looked up (and up, and up). Cheshire had expected to feel a little taller in this form, but… not really. This guy was huge. Not really a problem when he was 90% softie. No one who said 'my stars' was gonna give her troubles. Still: she stood up extra tall (and a little on her tip-toes), just so he knew she wasn't gonna be intimidated by all that extra height.

"Thanks, Mister," the cat girl said, taking the food container out of her teeth, and popping a piece of chicken into her mouth using fingers with rather sharper claws that usual. "Hey, can I have one of them robes, too? Looks comfy."

The cat was off like a shot, down his arm at the sight of chicken. And then... the cat was not a cat at all.

The noise that escaped Ezra was altogether unmanly. It was a yelp of alarm, which escaped him as soon as his brain registered what he was seeing. And when he registered that he was, in fact, seeing a very naked adolescent standing boldly in his kitchen, his knobby hands flew to his face, covering his eyes, and tinges of dark grey were rushing to his ears and cheeks.

And they were talking. Heavens, why were they talking?!

"Y-you..." the homunculus stammered, competing thoughts clamoring to be spoken. He wasn't sure which flagrantly obvious sentiment was worth uttering first-- that this person was a mutant, not just a cat, that they were breaking-and-entering, that they were positively naked. He reached no conclusion, so simply repeated a dour, "... you..." while his brain spun its wheels, but gained no traction.

"... I, uh... was not... expecting you to, uh..." he kept his hands firmly clasped over his eyes. If he gave the mutant is robe, they-- she-- wouldn't be naked anymore.

Ezra quickly, blindly, fussed with the belt, and once he shrugged the robe off his massive shoulders, he held it out before him, by the neck, proffering it to the seeming child.

"We should probably fetch you something more permanent, if you're going to stay... looking human for a while," Ezra established. Because now that the cat was out of the bag, so to speak, he couldn't very well let the mutant continue to stay there, "Please let me know when you are, uh, decent."

>> "Y-you…. you…"

Cheshire clasped her hands behind her back, and leaned in right close to h-h-his face, a thoroughly delighted grin on her lips, even if it was wasted on Mr. Cover-Your-Eyes.

"Oh my gosh," she cooed. "You blush gray! Your ears blush gray! Your ears blush!"

Any potential fear she might have felt for a man two feet taller than her was washed clean away in the rising tide of his stuttering, blushing, horribly endearing display of modesty on-her-behalf. He was like one of those over-sized teddy bears she could win at a fair and the poor chump she could convince to carry it, all rolled up into one package.

>> "We should probably fetch you something more permanent, if you're going to stay... looking human for a while."

He offered up his robe like the moral future of the free world was at stake.

"Aww, Mister, I couldn't," she said, as she did. She grabbed the robe out of his hand and rolled herself up into it like diving under an especially comfy blanket. It was a gajillion sizes too big for her in every possible way. It slid down her shoulders, pooled over her hands, puddled over her feet. She tied it as tight as she could, and had enough belt left over to lasso a whale. The fabric was so thick and poshly plush, it felt like she was wearing a force field of fluff.

It was the coziest thing ever, and it was on her, it was hers, and he wasn't never getting it back. She didn't need none of them permanent clothes he was talkin' about.

Unless they were better than this.

Could clothes be better than this?

>> "Please let me know when you are, uh, decent."

She paused in the middle of swinging the belt ends while his cats watched. She stared up at his shut eyes, and grinned. "Just outta curiosity, what would you do if I didn't ever say I was? Would you just keep on standing there with your eyes closed? Even if, say, there started to be some alarming noises comin' from your kitchen?"

She tip-toed back over to his fridge as she talked, and took this opportunity to start loudly rummaging inside.

"Got any more of that chicken? I ain't had anything but a sparrow since yesterday. All the good little birdies lay low when it's stormin' out, makes it real hard for a girl to get a bite in."

The homunculus opened his eyes when he heard the seal on his fridge being broken. She'd taken the robe, but that didn't necessarily mean she was wearing it-- Ezra was pleased to see that she was. An indignant, lingering blush remained in his cheeks and ears. He stood there, absolutely befuddled, as the girl dug around his leftovers and ingredients.

The fridge was relatively sparse, provided that he didn't eat much at all, ever. Sure, there was an "emergency supply" for when he might get injured and need to eat, but his fridge very much looked as one's might when they need to go grocery shopping.

"There should be some more chicken," Ezra confirmed. He was very good to Gertrude and Alice, particularly in terms of their dinner. The girl seemed determined to dig through his things, so Ezra watched quietly rather than retrieving the dish on her behalf. She had thumbs now, after all, so it wasn't as though she needed his assistance.

"...did you really eat a sparrow?" Ezra pried. Sure, for a cat it wasn't entirely unheard of. But for a mutant-who-occasionally-seemed-feline, there had to be more... savory alternatives. The girl didn't seem that old. Wouldn't her parents feed her better than that? Or at least have some objections to that personal dietary choice? It was the sort of inquiry that a mildly-concerned adult would pose to a child they feared may be suffering from neglect-- a polite, sidelong glance at someone's living situation.

Was he giving her the Concerned Adult Side-Eye? He was. Like a champ. This was a guy who was a master at--not worrying, that was too common, and he wasn't common. At… fretting. Yeah, that was the word. It brought to mind all kinds of old-timey things, like evening robes and gentlemanly manners. The big guy looked like a champion fretter.

Chess succeeded in digging the chicken out (and rearranging everything else in the sparse fridge in the process.) She ignored his kitchen chairs, and hopped up on the table. She did cross her legs, though. Like a properly modest young lady.

>>> "...did you really eat a sparrow?

She swung her feet, and dug into the chicken with her fingers. "You think I was lying? Mister, if I was gonna lie I'd do better than a sparrow. You know how bony they are? And feathery. They're like ninety percent feathers, and ten percent bones, and if you're lucky there's two percent meat somewhere in there. It's all right, though. Had a rat the day before, one of those restaurant ones that gets real fat. Sucker bit me, see?"

She pushed up the robe's sleeve and held out the back of her arm, proud as pie about the little scabbed-over battle trophy.

"So why is it your cats eat like queens, but all you've got for yourself is refrigerator lint? You one of them mutants that eats weird stuff?"

She swung her bare feet, and was utterly immune to any dietary irony in her words.

"I'm Cheshire. What'd they call you?"