The Orphaned Kittens Job (Leverage)

[caitis_musings]

"It is impossible to keep a straight face in the presence of one or more kittens."
~Cynthia E. Varnado

Pausing as he began to pull a shirt over his head, Eliot Spencer focused on the sounds coming from his living room. He didn’t jump or overreact to the person’s presence – he’d grown used to picking out his teammates by the sounds they made. No, he just needed to know what kind of mindset to be in when he walked out of his bedroom door. Regardless of what anyone else believed, he did adjust his behavior when dealing with the team – individually and as a whole. So, he wanted to figure out the attitude he should have to deal with the unexpected visit.

The sounds coming to him through the door told him everything he needed to know:

Soft shushing sounds like light feet across the wood.

Tiny giggles of sheer joy.

And a barely there murmur of a voice.

With a sigh, Eliot tugged on the shirt before reaching for his boots and extra knife. He didn’t know what had Parker in his house on this particular morning, but he wanted to be ready in case he needed to go out and handle a situation for her.

Or talk her down from doing something too crazy.

Exiting his bedroom, he glanced towards the couch, and sure enough – his blonde teammate sat there, hair pulled up in a ponytail as she giggled down at something in her lap. Possibly that should worry him, considering her favorite hobby consisted of seeing how fast she could break through an alarm system. She could have anything from money to the Esperanza Diamond in her hands.

Hopefully it would just be money . . . Shit, he needed coffee.

“Parker,” he greeted on his way towards the kitchen. “We got a job?”

“Nope!” she chirped, tossing him a glance over her shoulder. “Your place was the closest.”

Closest to what exactly, she didn’t say, and Eliot figured he could let it slide for now. Parker might be a lot of things, including the five-pound bag of crazy he’d called her the first night they met, but she wouldn’t lead trouble to his door without a warning. “Okay, then,” he shrugged, focusing on the kitchen once again. He wanted that coffee, and figured Parker would talk in her own time. “What do you want for breakfast?”

“Cereal, and an extra bowl of milk.”

That gave Eliot pause, and he turned to look at her. Sure, he’d expected the cereal request; the woman had an unhealthy attachment to her sugary breakfast food. It had been a fractious negotiation, but she’d finally started letting him add fruit to the cereal. Usually, Parker would even eat it.

An extra bowl of milk though . . . Now, that was new.

His brow furrowed as she giggled again but then he heard another sound altogether. A sound that didn’t belong in his place, and one that suddenly moved her strange request from odd to understandable – but no less out of place.

A soft little mew.

“Parker,” he began as suspicion curled in his gut.

“I couldn’t leave them,” she interrupted, her shoulders curling the tiniest bit.

“Them?” Striding over, Eliot looked over her shoulder to see a box full of kittens sitting on Parker’s lap. “Aw, hell . . .”

“Somebody left them in a box beside a dumpster, Eliot,” she blurted out when his voice trailed off. “They were all alone and the trash truck was coming.” She curled over even further as if to shield the box herself. “I . . . I couldn’t leave them there.”

“Of course, you couldn’t.”

Eliot stared down at the kittens as they stretched, yawned, and then curled back up to sleep. Six kittens; Parker had managed to rescue six kittens and now she looked at him as if she expected him to have all of the answers on what to do next. He liked animals, he did, but cats tended to be standoffish, skittish, snobbish, and sometimes downright spastic.

Nice alliteration.

Even as he almost laughed at himself for the thought, he glanced from the kittens to Parker and back again. Well, he supposed that Parker herself could almost fit most of those descriptions.

Cat burglar . . . appropriate.

And finding them abandoned . . . she’d identified with the box of kittens left out like so much trash.

He really wanted the chance to go back in time and find the person who’d screwed her up so badly as a kid. That would be one job he’d enjoy taking on. Forcing his mind away from the thought, he met her eyes and the pleading look in her hazel eyes. Yeah, he was going to lose this one, so he might as well give it up now. No reason to fight the inevitable.

“You can’t feed them regular milk,” Eliot sighed at last. “It’s not good for them.”

“It’s not?” Parker tilted her head, frowning in confusion even as the tension flowed out of her.

“Don’t believe everything you see on television or read online. People don’t know what they’re doing.” Scratching his chin, he considered everything in his kitchen. “I think I’ve got what I need to make up something for them. At least for the moment. We’ll think about the next steps after we get them fed.”

She gave a soft snort of amusement. “Don’t you have everything edible in your kitchen?”

That earned her a droll look. “Someone’s got to make sure the rest of you eat.” She opened her mouth, but he shook his head. “While I’m making this, you need to go to the pet store and get a couple of bottles. We’re going to have to feed them the hard way.”

“Right.” After peeking into the box to make sure the kittens were still sleeping, Parker uncurled herself and rose to her feet. “I’ll go get a couple.”

“Don’t steal them,” he ordered.

She stuck her tongue out at him. “I’m not stealing from a pet store,” she grumbled as she headed for the front door. “That’s just rude.”

The door closed behind her before Eliot allowed himself to roll his eyes towards the ceiling. That would be their five-pound bag of crazy, all right. She’d steal any number of famous, expensive trinkets just to hang them on the Christmas tree or decorate the company ‘office’, but stealing from a pet store would be rude. And somehow that made perfect sense . . . That probably said something about him, didn’t it?

Nope, not thinking about it.

Instead of thinking about what it said that Parker’s crazy made sense to him, Eliot decided he would get that cup of coffee he’d been needing since he woke up. Then he’d put together some kind of homemade kitten formula while he tried to figure out what they’d do with them after that. Hopefully the little furballs would stay in their makeshift bed until Parker got back and they could feed the critters. He had no desire to chase down or listen to half a dozen hungry, curious kittens.

The very idea made him shudder.

“Coffee. I need the damn coffee.”

And he groaned at the sound of a soft mew.