Have Kittens - APH

There was knocking at the door. It wasn't that which woke me up, though. It was the many cats perched on the couch and kittens milling around it, meowing at me, which stirred me from my catnap. I had slept through their feeding time again, it seemed. "I'm getting up," I informed them through a yawn, carefully pushing a few cats off of me as I sat up, "I'm up."

The knowledge that I was awake and getting up was enough to quiet the older cats, who knew this meant they would soon be fed. The crowd of kittens, however, continued to mew at me over and over, pitifully begging for food. "Give me a second. I have to answer the door," I told them as I rose to my feet, carefully taking a large step to cross over the crowd of kittens without stepping on any of them.

Seeing that I was headed for the front entrance rather than the kitchen entrance, the older cats all resumed meowing, demanding to be put first and foremost. All save for one: a fourteen-year-old Turkish Van, the oldest and largest cat I had. He silently leapt off of the couch and then leapt over the kittens much in the way I had, stalking after me as I went to the front door. He did this often. Stalked me around, I mean. From how he insisted on being included in everything I did, I do believe that he believed he was human.

The knocking had grown a touch more insistent by now, but it wasn't yet anywhere near the demanding pounding one would expect. I guess I hadn't been sleeping through the knocking of whoever it was too long, then. Finally I reached the door, opening it to reveal a handsome blond man. A friend of mine, as it so happened. "My, my, Heracles, you're getting so very slack about keeping up with your cats! This poor little kitten of yours was locked out!" he declared, holding up a small, brown ball of fur for me to see.

I stared at the furball for a moment, and then suddenly two blue eyes opened up wide, staring at me curiously. "…It's not mine, Francis," I stated even as I took the kitten from the other man's hands. The kitten gave off a little mew, perhaps arguing that he was mine now.

"Not yours, you say? Then why was it at your door?" he asked, coming inside as I stepped aside. He paused immediately after stepping inside the house, preventing me from closing the door behind him. What had caused him to pause would be the twenty-three kittens that came scurrying from the living room at the sound of their new playmate. "….Dear me, you…seem to have several more pets than the last time I came over…" he said, now swiftly stepping aside so that I could close the door before any of the kittens could escape.

"They've been showing up on my doorstep for the past few months. I think somebody is leaving them there," I stated simply. The horde of kittens had reached us now and were scrambling about our feet, a few of the older ones attempting to climb up our legs in search of the new kitten they had heard.

I bent down to set the brown kitten down, also picking the kittens off of Francis's and my legs while I was at it. I barely had gotten the kittens off of us when suddenly the blond man had grabbed me by the hand, pulling me up and away from the kittens. "Fancy that!  You have a secret admirer! And one who knows how much you fancy cats, at that!" he declared, "Oh, I wonder who it could be! Do you have any suspicions?"

"….You?" I guessed. In other words, no. I hadn't really thought all that much about it.

"Oh ho ho! I'm afraid not, mon ami. If it were me, I would definitely present you with slightly more intimate gifts. And I certainly would make it no secret I was after your affections," he chuckled, looking rather pleased with himself for a reason that escaped me, "So, you have no suspects, then?"

"Hmmm….. Not really. …I didn't even really think this meant I had a secret admirer. I thought that somebody just thought I ran a cat rescue shelter out of my home," I replied.

"If that was all this was, they wouldn't be secretly leaving the kittens on your doorstep to find; they would give it to you face-to-face. If somebody is secretly leaving them, then they must be an admirer," he informed me in a matter-of-fact manner.

"…Maybe they're just shy," I suggested.

"Well, of course they are! All secret admirers are a bit shy, a bit lacking in confidence, unlike yours truly," he stated, motioning to himself at the last part.

"…..Okay, so it's a secret admirer…" I agreed after a moment of thought, "…So what?"

"So we must unmask this admirer of yours! I shall make it my own personal mission to help you discover who is the woman or man whom, unbeknownst to you, you have captured the heart of!" he declared. I stared at him for a moment, and then turned and walked off without a word. "Hey, where are you going?" he asked curiously.

"….To feed the cats before your "mission" takes over my life," I stated. I should probably clean their litter boxes while I was at it, too.



"Alright, so I have here a list of everyone you have had even the slightest contact with in the last few months," Francis stated, setting a sheet down on the dining room table in front of me, "Do any of these names really jump out at you as possible admirers?"

Just I leaned over to take a look at the list, one of the cats suddenly jumped up onto the table and sat directly on it. As it were, it was my eldest cat, the one that believed it was human and liked to be involved in everything I did. "….Sadiq, you jerk," I grunted, shoving at the cat slightly to try to get him to move.

"Sadiq? You think your admirer could be Sadiq Adnan?" Francis asked with no small amount of surprise. It was only natural for him to be surprised, since it was no secret that Sadiq, a neighbor of mine, and I did not get along very well.

"No. I'm talking to my cat," I stated.

"You named your cat for Sadiq?" he asked now, looking no less surprised.

"Actually, I named him Sirius. But he only responds to "Sadiq", for some reason, so I have to call him that when I want him to pay attention," I explained.

"That's most peculiar. Perhaps he has heard you arguing with Sadiq so many times that he has decided to claim that name, since he hears you say it a lot. He is that cat that stalks you around, is he not?" he inquired.

I shrugged and then nodded my head, still lightly shoving at the cat in question to remove him from the table. While he did not get off the table, he did move off of the spot the list was laid just long enough for me to snatch it up, at which point he swiftly laid back down on the spot. "…Why did you put Sadiq on the list, anyway, if you don't think he could be my admirer?" I asked as I ran my eyes down the list.

"I told you, it's a list of everyone you've come into even the least little contact with since just shortly before kittens started being left on your doorstep. I excluded not a single person-not even myself. After all, you would be a better judge than me as to who may or may not be your admirer," he replied.

"Mmhmm…. Hmmm… How do you even know everyone who I've had contact with…?" I asked now, turning my gaze up to the other man.

"I have my ways of getting information," he answered, giving me a look that suggested his ways for gathering intelligence included rather intimate interactions.

"Mmm…. Well, of this list, I suppose that….Honda Kiku…and Gupta Muhammad Hassan…and Roderich Edelstein….might be it…" I said, turning my eyes back down to the list my friend had compiled.

Almost immediately Francis snatched the list from my hands, glancing it over before beginning to fan himself with it as he smiled in a most self-satisfied way. "I thought as much! They all fit the profile: quiet, reserved, and/or shy," he stated.

"So, now what?" I asked.

"Well, now that we've narrowed the list of suspects down to these three, there is only one thing left to do!" he declared. He did not, however, say what that one thing was, leaving me to guess in order to prompt him.

"…Ask them each if they have been dropping kittens off on my doorstep…?" I guessed.

"Don't be silly! If a person is too shy to confess their love when they first realize they feel it, they certainly aren't going to admit their love when confronted about it!" he said, "No, Heracles, the only thing to do is….wait."

"….Wait?" I asked, feeling a bit confused.

"Exactly," he said.

"….Wait for what?" I asked, still not understanding.

"Wait for them to act again, of course. We must wait, vigilant, for your secret admirer to again come and leave a kitten at your door. Of course, we must be discreet. I'll watch your house from across the street. As soon as I see somebody approaching your door with a kitten in hand, I shall pounce upon them like a cat on a mouse!" he half explained and half exclaimed.

"For how long are you going to watch my house…?" I asked now.

"For as long as it takes to catch your secret admirer red-handed!" he answered.

"…..Okay," I agreed. No, I wasn't going to try to deter him. I knew my friend too well to bother. When it came to matters of the heart, he was determined to come out on top. He would not take "no" for an answer, so telling him I didn't care to know who my secret admirer was would do no good. ….Besides, after all of the fuss Francis was creating, I was actually starting to become just a bit curious myself.



There was the ringing of a phone. It wasn't that which woke me up, though. It was the many cats perched on the couch and kittens milling around it, meowing at me, which stirred me from my catnap. I had slept through their feeding time yet again, it seemed. "I'll get it," I informed them groggily as I groped for the phone on the table beside the couch.

My eldest cat, Sadiq, decided now that he would answer the phone for me, jumping on the table and knocking the phone out of its cradle. However, he hit it so hard that it not only went falling out of the cradle, bit it also went falling off of the table. Being more awake than asleep, when I moved to snatch the phone receiver before it could fall to the floor, I lost my balance and fell off the couch. Fortunately, I didn't land on any of the kittens, all of which had scrambled away from the couch when they had seen the phone and me falling.

Now laying flat out, face down on the floor, I finally answered the phone. "This is Heracles," I told whomever was on the other end of the phone.

"Hey, why'd you turn off the walkie-talkie I gave you!?" Francis shouted in my ear over the phone.

"The kittens didn't like it…" I said.

"The kittens didn't like it? Why n-Ah, that's not important right now! What is important is that a person is approaching your door!" he exclaimed.

"Really? Who is it?" I asked.

"I don't know. There back is to me. I….sort of didn't notice them until they were already headed up your walkway," he admitted.

"How did you not notice them?" I asked.

"I was…giving Matthew a call," he replied.

"Who?" I asked.

"Nevermind! It doesn't matter! Anyway, I think that we should deviate from my original plan. You should be the one to pounce on this person like a cat on a mouse. Now hurry up, they're right at your door!" he exclaimed.

"….Okay. I'll call you back," I said. Only now did I shove up off of the floor and to my feet, hanging up the phone before heading to the front door. Naturally, Sadiq hopped down off of the table, following hot on my heels.

Upon reaching my front door, I opened it without hesitation. Crouching on my doorstep with a kitten in their hands was none other than…Gupta. He looked up at me with only a small spark of surprise, then abruptly stood up and wordlessly held this newest kitten out to me. I did nothing for a moment, looking between the kitten and him a few times. In the meantime, my cat, Sadiq, slipped between my legs and out of the house, heading for a tree that was at the very edge of my yard.

Finally I accepted the kitten being held out to me, then pulling Francis's walkie-talkie out of my pocket and turning it on. "…It's Gupta," I stated, "….He just handed me a kitten."

There was a very brief pause before the walkie-talkie crackled to life as my friend responded. "So Gupta's your secret admirer!" he declared. Immediately the kitten I held let out cry, disliking the crackling the walkie-talkie made during Francis's reply. Interestingly enough, Sadiq also let out an annoyed noise, despite being over by the tree and despite not having complained over the noise of the walkie-talkie anytime before.

"Not me," Gupta stated suddenly, shaking his head before pointing over to where my cat was.

I looked over to where he was pointing, seeing that what seemed to be annoying Sadiq was not the walkie-talkie, but the tree he was standing by. "….Francis, is there somebody behind the tree at the edge of my yard?" I asked over the walkie-talkie.

There was a slightly longer pause now before the walkie-talkie crackled with Francis's reply. "…Now that you mention it, there does appear to be a person hiding behind the tree, yes," he said, "…I can't say for sure, but they appear to be hissing something at a cat, which is in turn hissing at them," he added as Sadiq now began hissing at whomever was behind the tree.

"….Sadiq, come over here," I called to my cat, having decided that I didn't want him near the strange person that would force another person to drop off kittens on somebody else's doorstep. Surprisingly enough, not only did my cat turn around and walk over, but the person behind the tree stepped out into the open and followed the cat over. Yes, it was Sadiq Adnan.

There was silence for several beats as I glanced between the cat Sadiq, the human Sadiq, Gupta, and the kitten I held, whilst all four of them just stared at me. "….Why?" I asked when I finally spoke again.

"….You said you would like to have kittens again, since it had been so long since you'd seen any stray ones. I see them all the blasted time, so I thought I might as well bring 'em to you. It's not like I had to go out of my way to do it, after all," Sadiq stated, doing his best to make it sound as though he hadn't been doing me a favor.

"And you made Gupta put them at my door why…?" I asked.

"Nnn… The kittens are quiet when he holds them. They make a lot of noise when in my hands," he answered. As though to back up what the other man was saying, the kitten in my hands now let out a loud mew.

"…..Okay. Come inside….before the kittens get out," I said, adding the last part because as I turned to go in I spotted the horde of kittens rushing toward the front door in response to the mew they had heard from the newest addition to their group. Gupta immediately went inside, but neither the cat Sadiq nor the human Sadiq moved a muscle. "Sadiq, you old tomcat, come on," I called, obviously speaking to the former Sadiq.

"What did you just call me, you brat?!" Sadiq snapped, unaware that I was speaking to my cat. It seemed that the cat was also unaware of this, as he still didn't budge.

"Not you. The cat," I stated flatly. Now the cat moved inside, leaving Sadiq staring after it. After a pause he, too, moved inside, and finally I could close the door. Only once we were inside with the door closed did I use the walkie-talkie I held to again contact Francis. "…Sadiq's the one, not Gupta... And I'm turning the walkie-talkie off again so it won't disturb the kittens," I stated, then switching it off before my friend could respond.

The human Sadiq now turned to me as I put the walkie-talkie in my pocket, asking the question I knew he would pose eventually. "You named that cat for me?" he asked.

"No…." I said as I stooped down to set the new kitten on the floor amidst the others and pick Sadiq up so he wouldn't be tempted to bop any of said kittens, "…If I named this cat for you, his name would be "Perverted Old Bastard"."

"What did you say?! You damned brat! I go through all the trouble of finding all of these kittens for you-searching high and low for months for homeless little kittens-and then you go insulting me before you even thank me for it?!" he shouted.

"Why are you mad….? It's a tribute to you. I can name the new kitten that. I'll call him "Pob" for short, though…" I said, "What do you think of that, Sadiq?" I added the question almost as an afterthought, directing it at the cat in my arms. Knowing full well I was talking to him this time, the cat let out a pleased purr for an answer.

"You're insulting me to my face, is what I think! That's not a tribute at all!" Sadiq shouted, unaware that I was talking to the cat. I stared at him for a moment, and then turned and walked off without a word. "Hey, where are you going?! Don't insult me and then ignore me! Get back here, damnit! Are you even listening to a word I say?!" he shouted after me.

"…I'm going to feed the cats. I'll be right back," I stated, scratching the cat Sadiq's chin as I threw a glance over my shoulder at the human Sadiq, "….Seriously, calm down. There's no need for you to have kittens."