My Patches
"Daddy, Daddy look! Lookit the kitty~!" Kratos turned around when he heard his five-year-old son calling for him. What he saw when he did turn around made him smile ruefully. There was Lloyd, playing with a small grey and orange kitten in a sandbox, giggling at the kitten chased the grass he was dragging along the ground. "Lookit him! He's sweet!" Lloyd crooned again before tripping over his feet to land on his bottom. The kitten, seeing the opportunity, leaped into Lloyd's lap and settled there, purring.
Kratos walked over there slowly and knelt before the duo. Looking at the cat, he couldn't help but smile. Inside his heart, though, the auburn knew that Lloyd couldn't keep the obviously stray kitten; they had been on the run from Cruxis ever since Anna's death, and they wouldn't be able to keep such a small animal safe for that long amount of time. "Where did you find him, Lloyd?" Kratos asked instead, reaching out to scratch the kitten behind his ears. A loud purr issued from the tiny animal, making Kratos smile again.
"He followed me! Can I keep him?" Lloyd asked, wrapping his arms around the kitten and looking up at Kratos with the biggest eyes he could manage. Kratos gave his son a soft look, an exasperated noise leaving him. "Pleaaaaseeeeeeee??? I proommmiiissseeee to look after him …" Lloyd begged again, looking down at the kitten in his lap. "I already call him Patches …"
"Patches?" Kratos asked in amusement, taking a closer look at the cat; it did indeed look like the cat's fur was grey and orange patches sewn together. "That's an appropriate name …" A heavy sigh left Kratos. "Lloyd, we can't keep him."
"but wwwwwwwwhhhhhhhhhhhhhyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy~??" Lloyd pouted, clearly already attached to 'Patches'. The grey and orange kitten mewed quietly, and then curled up in Lloyd's lap to nap. "Plleeeaaaassssseeeeee Daddy?" Kratos gave Lloyd a soft look, and then looked at Patches again. It wasn't fair, honestly, that Lloyd had to grow up without knowing what it felt like to actually have a home …
No, instead, he was being dragged hither and yon by his renegade angel of a father. Glancing at Patches again, Kratos looked up at Lloyd and smiled softly. "Not today, Lloyd. Someday, when everything is alright, I wouldn't mind having a cat in the house." He said gently, scooping Patches up into his arms. "Is that a deal, Lloyd?" He asked. Lloyd nodded slowly, softly, and stood up. Standing on his tip toes, he scratched Patches behind the ears one last time.
"Bye bye for now, Patches! Daddy and I will come back for you later~" he crooned, and was startled to hear a deeper meow as a mother cat came out of the bushes, glaring accusingly up at Kratos, who still held Patches in his arms. Chuckling, Kratos knelt and let the queen cat take Patches from him, and after a few seconds, both cat and kitten were out of sight. Kratos watched them go, Lloyd leaning against his side, feeling for once like he could understand exactly what a cat was saying.
'You look after your baby, I look after mine, that's all there is to it.'
Inspired by the kitten who followed me home today, and who is currently fast asleep on my pillow. No, this kitten doesn't resemble Patches, for my little shadow is a little black and white female with extra toes who I have dubbed Cloud. Whether or not I can keep her is still a mystery, but for right now, she's mine, and in all reality, that's all that matters to me.
Review, please. I will try to have more oyako in here next time.