gooseberryhigh | KITTEN ADOPTIONS

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! ic/ooc

KITTEN ADOPTIONS

KITTEN ADOPTIONS

During lunch, Mrs. O'Hare gets up in front of the students to make an announcement. She brings with her a tiny gray and white kitten, that meows plaintively as she talks. By chance, she's come into the possession of a litter of Ragdoll kittens. Before she passes them on to other potential homes, she'd like to give the students an opportunity to adopt them as familiars.

She invites all interested students to come by the stables after lunch to see them, and possibly take one home. Meanwhile, the kitten does its best to climb out of her arms and onto her shoulder.

Out by the stables, Mrs. O'Hare has set up a little pen in the grass where the kittens can roam and play safely. Students can pick them up, play with them, and potentially take one home if they don't already have a familiar.

HOW THIS WORKS

The kittens are a little over 10 weeks old.

Mrs. O'Hare will be talking with potential adoptive owners about the responsibility and how to care for a new kitten. "Now remember, you got any questions, you just come right on over to me. I'll fix you up."

Students who take home a kitten will be given all necessary kitten accessories. (Food, a couple toys, a brush, etc.)

The students who will be given a kitten are:
- Cameron Carney
- Quinn Cunningham
- Calvin Evercreech
- Levi Kramer
- Sebastien Lacroix
- Sylvester Stoker
- Penelope Vargas
- Susana Velasquez
- Solomon Webb
- Jacob Wood

» lunch: The news is out: kittens. Do you discuss with your friends before bolting to go play with a kitty?

» the stables & kittens: There's a small penned in area in the grass where students can play with kittens even if they can't or don't want to adopt one. Mrs. O'Hare is watching everyone carefully.

» OOC - Questions, comments, concerns!

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Sy has absolutely no intention of looking at kittens, or so he'll claim to anyone who asks him. Magizoology's on Monday, and Sy's been trying to do better this year about actually finishing more than half of his homework assignments, ever since it was revealed that maintaining his grades was a condition for keeping his captaincy. ("Since fuckin' when?" Sy had asked. "Since always, Stoker. Five points from Coppertale for language," Vector had retorted.)

He doesn't realize he was staring until Mrs. O'Hare cuts off her explanation of tomorrow's homework, to ask him if he wants to play with the kittens. "No," Sy says automatically, then: "They're so fuckin' tiny."

This is how Sy finds himself kneeling in a pen, watching a pile of kittens. One of them's trying to wrestle their sibling, except they're all so excited and clumsy that it mostly looks like they're climbing over each other while mewling loudly. Sy feels a strange surge of affection for the fighty little thing. "Hey, killer." He wiggles a cat toy at it, trying to get its attention.

The kitten immediately climbs into Sy's lap to bat its tiny paws at him instead. Oh no.

Edited (open to anyone who wants to catch him in this compromising situation) 2017-04-02 17:58 (UTC)

Penny is sitting not far from Sy with her tiny angry kitten, and she glances up to see him actually playing with a rambunctious little kitten who's trying to fight all the other ones. Snorting at the way this all worked out, Penelope raises a brow at Sy and nods her head in the direction of the tiny cat.

"Definitely don't want to take any of these home, right?" She says, her tone completely joking. "Why would anyone want to take one of these home. They're so tiny and needy and cute." Penny very tentatively picks up her old man cat and shows it to Sy. The cat grumps.

"I don't know Sy. People say owners look like their pets." She frowns. "Do we look enough alike?"

From the minute Mrs O'Hare mentions kittens at lunch, Ana's demeanor shifts imperceptibly. She has no problems showing her excitement at the prospect of kittens, she just has to clamp down on it in a bit to get the food in her suddenly grinning face. She spend the rest of lunch drumming her fingers on the table while trying not to look like she's shoveling the food in as fast as her other hand can move. Do they have actual shovels instead of utensils here?

Once lunch is over, during which she announced to her sophomore crew that she would definitely be playing with kittens, Ana practically sprints to the pens Mrs O'Hare set up. The kittens are just as adorable as she imagined, and her eyes light up as she takes them all in. One is gnawing on his sibling's ear, while another is rolling on its back so its paws are drawn up as it wiggles for extra effect. Its eyes meet Ana's. There's a moment, during which Ana wonders if she should start with the other kittens just on principle alone.

Nope.

Kneeling down, she runs her hand over the kitten's belly, which is so soft she can't even. She grins as the little thing meows. It knows it's winning.

Edited 2017-04-02 20:29 (UTC)

"Oh, those are... rather ^{small ^cats.}" Quinn could have been talking about kiwis at the grocery store if her voice hadn't taken a turn for a little bit too high at the end. Two piles of kittens tangle on the grass and she watches as a rather small cat leaves one pile for the other, wrestles with its new crew for a minute, and leaves that pile again, headed back to its first one. It wants to wrestle so much that it doesn't know what it wants to do, and in between Tangle A and Tangle B, it stops to tilt its head at the four very composed observers. It moves toward them at a pace that can only be called a waddle.

Quinn doesn't need a cat. She's never had a pet. Pets cost money, and you need to be home a lot to take care of them, and she'll always be studying, and she graduates in a few months anyway, and how are you supposed to move with a cat, and it would have to come to her new home with her, and she couldn't uproot a cat like that, and...

The kitten comes to a stop in front of her shoe, except it's still getting acquainted with its chubby little legs (so chubby. so little.) and it's more like it stops on top of her shoe. It inspects the shoelaces of her neon green runners, swats at one, and then moves in for the kill, closing its teeny kitten teeth around the loop and tugging.

Quinn. doesn't. need. a. cat.

She drops Ty's hand and leans over to get a better look. Reasoning that she'd better save her laces before they're mangled, she reaches down to scoop the kitten up. It meets her halfway and climbs into her arms, then scrambles up to bat at her hoodie with its teeny, tiny little kitten paws.

Quinn can feel her resolve slipping.

There's a short, high-pitched squeak and it did not come from the rather small cat.

Edited 2017-04-02 19:16 (UTC)

Leo is very proud at how calmly he is watching this display. It is, unfortunately, all because he has face hidden in Rafael's shoulder the whole time. This is convenient, and looks like their normal PDA. It's really just a mechanism to hide smiles. (There are many smiles, all blessedly muffled by Rafael's shirt.) This is a special kitten, Leo knows immediately. It was smart enough to come all the way over to them and crawl into Quinn's arms. The smile grows, against his will.

"It really likes you." He tells Quinn, who has probably figured that out already, his voice the same low tone as it had been around the baby lions, like he's afraid of waking something up.

Much like the kitten, unable to decide between Tangle A and Tangle B, Ty looks from adorable baby cat to adorable baby cat and grins and 'awwws' without reservation. He remembers when Missy was small like this and, even though she's not a cat, this whole thing has him feeling a little nostalgic. He lets go of Quinn's hand without protest, watching as she moves to pick up the friendly little kitten.

Then he mouths playfully at Rafael and Leo, 'She's doomed'. Because once you look at an animal like that how do you not take it home? Aloud, he adds cheerfully and helpfully, "It's got good taste!"

Penelope did not talk to anyone at lunch when the announcement was made. She did not freak out. She did not even think about it much, but on a whim decided to go down and see what it was all about. She had missed having a familiar, since her last one had died between jr and senior year. Penelope had always been a cat person. They were highly independent but loved affection and attention, a lot like her. They could seem prickly and distant, a lot like her. And honestly, she needed the pick-me-up. Penelope dragged her way to the stables, wondering what the point was. They would probably all be gone before she got there, anyway.

But they weren't, and there was one angry little brat of a kitten hiding off in the corner, not playing with any of the others. He hissed when the other kittens got near. He was literally everything she felt and he didn't hiss at her when she came up. They were kindred angry spirits or something. She sat down in the dirt and just stared at the grumpy little old man kitten. "Hey grumpy." She's talking to a cat and feels really dumb about it but she also doesn't care. He is... warming the dead, cold depths of her heart.

"Want to come with me?" She asks, and he makes a little snorting sound and flops over in the sun near her foot. That was sign enough, right? "We were so made for each other."

O'Hare very clearly said after lunch but Levi's headed full-speed toward the stables during lunch to get there first. He's already imagining the stables swarming with kids despite the announcement being made a minute ago, despite not seeing anyone bolting toward the kittens with him. He's shocked to find that he's the first one there (really, Levi?) and he looks around wildly for the kittens... and... they're... not there. Because O'Hare said after lunch.

So he sits. He waits. He rolls in the grass. He waits. He paces. He waits. He stares at horses. He babytalks them. He waits.

Finally-- Finally, when the pen's set up, he runs over to greet the baby kitties, lifting a leg to climb into the pen with them. "You're so cute! Yes you are! Yes you are, you're so cute!" he baby talks no kitten in particular, but seems to be addressing the entire litter.

Cecil isn't too far behind Levi, but unlike his boyfriend he isn't surprised by the lack of kittens. Mrs. O'Hare had said after lunch and he'd assumed that she meant it. So he stands near the stables, talking with Levi and flipping through his Transfiguration textbook while they wait for their teacher and the kittens to arrive. When the penned area is set up and the tiny balls of energetic fluff are finally set loose...his heart melts. They're cute. They're so cute. They're even cuter than the lion cubs they'd all seen at the zoo.

He puts his book back into his backpack, then goes to join Levi. Very carefully. Because the kittens are so little and they make him feel even more like a giant than usual. When one of them looks over at them and mews its high-pitched little mew, he has to cover his face for a moment because he's so overwhelmed. "They're so sweet," he tells Levi, who definitely already knows, then kneels to hold out his hand to the one that had said hello. Hopefully it will come over.

Levi scoops two of them up in his hands and brings them to his face to just sniff them. "They even smell new!" he enthuses, as if kittens had the equivalent of a new car smell in their fur. He kisses the tops of both their heads before setting the back down again. "Which one's your favorite? It's too hard to decide. I love them all."

Edited 2017-04-03 04:05 (UTC)

Cecil's eyes widen momentarily with alarm as Levi very casually scoops up the kittens. The animals are so little and that makes him assume that they're somehow fragile, but the other boy knows more about this than he does and he can soon see that they're just fine being cradled in Levi's hands. One of them even seems ready to try climbing up his boyfriend's arm before he sets them back down again. He smiles broadly but sheepishly, then looks back at the kitten now touching its damp little nose against his hand. It had come over after all.

He pets the kitten very gently and is rewarded when it bumps its head eagerly against his fingers. While it's fairly obvious that he wants to say this one is his favorite (it came right over to him!!), he asks, "How do you normally pick one?"

"It's like a wand-chooses-the-wizard sort of deal," he casually bullshits, sitting down and reaching out to scritch Cecil's kitten behind the ears. If that were the case, Levi has at least two kittens choosing him right now as they try to climb their way up his legs. "Do you like this one?" he asks, grinning at his boyfriend's expression. "Is it love at first sight~?"

Even Cecil knows this isn't true and that his boyfriend is teasing him now, but he just smiles and continues petting the little cat. He looks utterly smitten, especially when it begins taking clumsy swipes at the charm dangling from his ever-present friendship bracelet. It's just too cute.

"It might be," he admits sheepishly, then carefully scoops up the tiny kitten in both of his big hands and holds it against his chest. He leans closer to Levi so the other boy can reach too. Then, making an attempt at being sensible, he asks, "Can we do this, though? And, shouldn't we ask the others first...?"

"It'll be fiiiine," he tries to reassure him. Cecil can tell just how fiiiine it'll be by the way Levi drags out the i. "Ryan already has a cat. Sylvain could use a new playmate. Besides, you work so hard, you deserve a pet that's capable of snuggling. And we can always bring the kitten back if it doesn't work out-- I'm sure somebody will adopt them. But we'll lose our chance if we leave them here and somebody else adopts them first."

It had started innocently enough. Just an off-hand "Hey, isn't that what Hugo is?" as Jacob watched the little monster O'Hare was holding try to worm its way out of her arms. He hadn't been asking for a reason. These were just the sorts of things you chatted about with your bro, right?

It wasn't like Jacob wanted a kitten. There hadn't been a pet in the Wood household since his father's cranky old cat had passed when Jacob was eight. A kitten had been out of the question then; the demands of being a single father and a professional quidditch player didn't leave room for taking care of a kitten that Jacob really, really promised he would look after.

...Okay, maybe Jacob did want a kitten.

Casey had insisted they swing by Coppertale before going to the stables, so by the time they arrived, the first few kittens had already been picked over. Of the remaining balls of mewling fur, one was rolling around on its back like it had an excess of energy that it no longer had a way to channel. When another kitten staggered near it, it immediately started swatting at its tail.

How were you supposed to act with your bro when faced with kittens? Was it okay to just accept that there was no way to keep your cool when faced with kittens?

"They're so..."

"Sick!" Casey lets his own massive cat down from his shoulders and immediately leans over the fence to scratch one of the kittens behind its ear. From the moment Jacob turned to him and asked about Hugo's breed, Casey knew what he had to do: he had to make his friend—nay, his best bro—adopt one of the kittens. They'll have matching familiars. Hugo would show Tiny Bro the ropes of being a cat at Gooseberry, and they'd get matching hoodies for winter Grotto parties, and their cats would be the best cat bros anybody's ever seen. As far as Casey is concerned, this entire fantasy is already writ. He's like a fucking Seer or something.

Casey has no concerns about keeping things 'cool.' Picking up the kitten, he turns to Jacob with an ear-to-ear grin and holds the little grey face beside his own. "Check out this dude! Check out these tiny fuckin' paws!" He wiggles one of the paws in a wave 'hello.'

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KITTEN ADOPTIONS

THE STABLES & KITTENS

Sylvester Stoker

Sy & Penny

Susana Velasquez (Open to Any!)

Dances with Kittens

Dances with Kittens-SORRY IF I AM MESSING W/ANY POSTING ORDER :(

Dances with Kittens - There was an order? ♥

Penelope Vargas (and open to any/multiple)

Levi & Cecil

Levi & Cecil

Levi & Cecil

Levi & Cecil

Levi & Cecil

Levi & Cecil

Levi & Cecil

Jacob & Casey

Jacob & Casey