sga_flashfic | In The Beginning by bethynyc (animal, vegetable, mineral challenge)

Title: In The Beginning: A New York City Cats Story
Author:

bethynyc
Rating: PG for violence
Pairing: John/Rodney, but not yet
Word Count: 2018
Written for: “Animal, Vegetable, Mineral challenge at

sga_flashfic. Animal, obviously. Prequel to “When John Met Rodney”
Unbetad, please forgive and point out issues!

In The Beginning: Spring, 2000

In the beginning, there was darkness. There was warmth and milk from mother, the squirming of siblings on either side as they strove for favorite nipples. There was the occasional rush of cold air, as mother moved away for her own reasons. There was purring, and occasional sharp cries from himself and his siblings.

Life was good.

Only when they opened their eyes were the differences clear.

~*~*~*~

Mrrrr found himself picked up and cradled in a human hand. “MAAH!” he protested, but his mother just purred and blinked her eyes at the human.

Typical.

The human, who smelled of his mother’s food and grooming products, examined him carefully. “Hey, watch it!” he grumbled as huge fingers went near Very Personal Areas.

“Male, first born, marmalade tabby with white feet, chin, and chest.” said the human who was holding him. “What do you think for names?”

“Something Welsh, I think. What about Rhodri?”

Mrrrr purred. He kind of liked the sound of that. Not quite right, but he liked the rrrrr sound.

“I thought we were going to use family names?”

“Oh! Right! What about after Great-Uncle Meredith? He was Welsh, and a sea captain to boot.”

Mrrrr didn’t like the sound of that, even if it was closer to what Mother called him. He decided to express his displeasure. “Meh!”

“Hey! He likes it!”

“I do not!” Mrrrr squirmed and looked down at the dizzying height from which he could fall and kill himself. F=ma zoomed through his head, and he realized that his seven-ounce self could not die in a fall from three and a half feet up. However, he could get hurt.

“Ingram for the father, of course.” Mrrrr wriggled again. What was it with humans and all these names? The human rubbed her cheek against his head. “This little guy’s a real champion.” She set him down next to his mother and picked up his brother.

His brother (all marmalade, no white patches) was renamed McKay’s Radek Zebediah Ingram, and his sister (darker marmalade, mackerel tabby stripes, with a white throat and green eyes) became McKay’s Jeanette Marie Ingram

Afterwards, they snuggled up to their mother, who told them again their secret names, and that no matter what the humans said, they would always, always have their secret names to contemplate, whether they became a show cat, a breeding cat, or a pet.

~*~*~*~

Sssst’s first clear memory was waiting for his mother to bring back food, trying to keep Lrrr and Ffffr from leaving the packing crate that was their home. The crate was comfortable, lined with newspaper and discarded dishtowels from the Italian restaurant. The crate was in the open space where the restaurant kept the dumpsters and where delivery trucks arrived in the early morning hours, bearing vegetables, meats, and the occasional adventurous rat.

Mmmmm. Rats.

Ffffr was a good kid, mostly, except for when he thought he knew best and ran away from the crate. Sssst understood; sometimes he wanted to run away as well. Lrrr was much better about following orders, though he would offer ideas instead of running off to do his own thing.

When their mother had time, she taught her kittens how to hunt, to stalk, to hide in shadows and fight fiercely. Amid her purrs was the concept that they needed to stick together. Her sibling slept with them from the time they were very small, teaching them the mystery of their names and how to consider the nature of their felinity.

As they got older, their mother left for longer and longer periods of time. Finally they were weaned, and mother never came back. Sssst stayed in charge of his brothers, and with Lrrr and Ffffr found a new home in a vacant lot next to a kosher deli.

They learned to enjoy lox and cream cheese, and when it was clear that the three strays were keeping the rodents away, the owner left dry kibble out for them, and put a blanket in a sideways box for them. Sometimes the owner, an old man with a big beard and balding head, would sit outside and talk to the strays in human language.

One day Ffffr ran off again without his brothers. Sssst and Lrrr looked for him, tracking his scent between buildings and through parking garages, until it rained and washed away his scent. Sssst and Lrrr returned to their crate to curl up together in a ball of black and grey tabby fur and mourn their lost brother.

~*~*~*~

Finally, the kittens were weaned and ready for their new homes, or ‘assignments’ as their mother put it. Their ears had curled on schedule, and the McKay breeders often exclaimed over how adorable and brilliant they were.

The breeders decided to keep and show Jeannie, as they called Jeanette Marie, and eventually breed her. She had a sweet temperament for humans, though was stubborn with her brothers, and told them that they deserved it.

Merry (as the breeders called him, which annoyed Mrrrr to no end, as he preferred the Rhodri) was considered too high strung for the show ring, and Radek too nervous in new situations, so both were dubbed ‘pet quality’ and their first suitors came to visit the cattery.

Radek found a family that he liked; an elderly woman and her husband who had owned folds for a long time. They were looking for a kitten that would get along well with older cats. Radek, who had a habit of cuddling with the older queens and listening to their stories, suited them perfectly.

Before he left on his new assignment, he gave Mrrrr a stern look. “I think you need to reconsider some of those theories of motion and gravity. I believe your math might be off.” As Mrrrr sputtered at the notion, Radek smirked and was bundled off with his new family.

Mrrrr moped for a couple of days. Radek was the only one who argued with him about rates of fur settling and whether clumps fell faster than single hairs. Jeannie wasn’t bad, but she was thinking more about her eventual breeding than about physics.

Then Melena came.

Mrrrr liked her right away. She had a comforting scent, and didn’t mind when he kneaded the soft places on her chest when she picked him up. She didn’t talk to him in baby talk or kitty talk, but like a human to another human, which he appreciated, even if humans didn’t always make sense.

He decided to adopt her. Melena seemed relatively intelligent, and he could only be a good influence on her mental capacity.

After a ride in the car in his very own Box, a terrifying ride in some sort of storage that definitely had a new sort of movement (thus causing Mrrrr to revise several of his motion and gravity theories) with a dog that howled constantly and peed in his Box and a reptilian thing in a crate, and another ride in a car with all kinds of new scents coming in through the window, and up four flights of stairs, with the Box bumping against Melena’s leg, they were home.

Mrrrr explored carefully, taking his time to sniff around the apartment. He found the brand new litter box, the brand new food dishes, and a brand new cat bed with a shirt that smelled like Melena on it. Perfect.

He levitated to the top of the couch where Melena was reading, and rubbed his cheek against hers, claiming her. She leaned into his touch, and invited him to sit on her lap. Mrrrr took the soft half, the half that didn’t have the book, tucked his paws under his chest and purred. His assignment was very good; Melena was an excellent human.

Another human lived there as well, and Mrrrr was smug. Two human servants! Both adults, not human kits either!

Though when he first saw Ronon, Mrrrr felt nervous. Someone as huge as that might eat him!

“What’s his name?” rumbled Ronon.

Melena stroked Mrrrr. “They were calling him Merry at the breeders, but I don’t know. He doesn’t seem like a Merry.”

Rodney got up and pouted on the arm of the couch. “I am not a Merry!”

Ronon frowned. “He doesn’t look like a Merry. He looks like a Rodney.”

Rodney. The name sounded…right. He leapt off the couch and twined around Ronon’s ankles, purring loudly.

He was Rodney. He had his science and his people, and he couldn’t think of anything else that would make his life better.

Until Melena opened a can of tuna.

~*~*~*~

Sssst and Lrrr decided that the deli needed patrolling. Rats and mice were drawn to the food, and the cats couldn’t blame them. They left the corpses by the back step so the owner would see the results, and received a great deal of praise for their hard work.

At first it was easy, with only a one or two rats and mice at a time. Then a band of Norway Rats attempted to invade the deli, led by a huge rat with scars on his snout.

Sssst and Lrrr defended the deli with tooth and claw. Silently they coordinated their attacks, breaking backs and ripping out the throats of the invaders, until there were only three left. Two flanked the leader, all snarling at the half-grown cats, who snarled back.

The final battle was brutal. Pressed on all sides, the brothers fought back to back, protecting each other’s flanks as best as they could. Unfortunately, the leading rat got through their defenses and bit Lrrr’s foreleg deeply. Sssst finished off the one he was fighting and jumped onto the leader.

He sank his teeth deep into the rat’s neck and dug his claws in tight, raking fiercely with his hind legs. Lrrr screeched in pain as the rat bit even harder and Sssst did his best to shake the rat off his brother.

The rat wouldn’t let go, not until Sssst broke his neck. The last remaining rat fled.

Lrrr tried not to cry, but he trembled terribly when Sssst cleaned his wound. The next day, his leg was swollen and tender, and he could barely walk to the food dish under the back door stairs.

The owner of the deli noticed Lrrr’s injury, and scooped him up to look at him. Sssst darted away and hid under the dumpster, as the human looked worried and scratched Lrrr behind the ears.

Something froze inside of Sssst when the human took Lrrr into the deli. Another brother lost, though Sssst hoped he might escape and come back.

He mourned his lost brother loudly that night, and someone threw an empty beer can at him.

Not long after, a female sat on the back stairs with the deli owner. At first, she only came with the older male human, but later came every day by herself. She ate something that smelled absolutely delicious, and shared it with him if he came close enough. After a while, he came out of hiding whenever he saw her, and learned the human word for the delicious meat was ‘turkey’.

Sssst decided that she was lonely. He already knew that he was lonely, now that Lrrr and Ffffr were gone. When she showed up one day with a great deal of turkey and a new kind of box, he sniffed it carefully before entering it.

Sssst preferred to forget the subsequent time at the vet, and instead concentrated on his human, Teyla. He learned the name she had for him quickly, and he rather liked it. He liked being John, and he liked that he and Teyla took care of each other and fed each other turkey and sparred together. Sleeping on her pillow was almost as good as sleeping with his brothers.

He and Teyla were a family. He protected her from moths and roaches (and mice, but he never saw any) and she fed him and scratched behind his ears and brushed his coat to a smooth gloss.

John finally realized that he was happy, and was determined to keep Teyla happy as well.

Current Mood: exhausted

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

smittywing.livejournal.com

Aw, I LOVE this. I am all stupidly weepy now and trying to cuddle my own cat who is TOTALLY put out that I am cramping his style.

Also, I was nervous that this would be the story where Melena Went Out and worried about John's brothers and...it's been a hard day, okay? And this was just the most awesome comfort story to fix that. Thank you!

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