Chapter Text
Eraserhead was on his way home from his patrol when he heard rustling and meows of distress in the alleyway below him, giving him pause. Hizashi told him when he brought back Dumpster a year ago that he was implementing a no-more-stray-cats rule. Their apartment only allowed a certain number of pets and, with the three cats they already had, they were slowly toeing the boundary of breaking their lease. But that didn’t mean Eraserhead had to leave the cat in a distressing situation.
He jumped down into the alley, locating the sound in the near-empty dumpster. Poor thing was probably stuck in a plastic bag. He had seen a lot of tragedy at the hands of plastic bags. He looked down. The yowling picked up as the cat wiggled in distress. It was a big cat, he thought. The dark ears that were poking out of holes from its claws told him that and he noticed the size of it when he picked the bag out of the dumpster and set it on the floor to start ripping it apart.
He froze when the gaunt face of a human child stared back at him with glowing green eyes. He saw him as well and Shouta watched as he tried to scramble away but his feet, barefeet , caught on the black bag and he face planted against the stained concrete of the alley. The cat-child began kicking his legs, trying to dislodge the bag, similar to the way that Zashi’s cat Princess kicked whenever he put her booties on her. He was hyperventilating and tears began streaming down his face.
“Hey, kid,” Shouta said, trying to soothe him. “I’m not gonna hurt you, let me help.”
The kid froze before throwing his head back and releasing a loud yowl. Shouta winced as it hit his ears and wondered how a human child could make a sound that he had only heard cats perfect.
In his moments of hesitation, the kid got himself out of the bag and began trying to scramble his way up the walls of the alley. He got pretty far but Shouta’s capture weapon was faster than he was and grabbed onto him, holding him in the air. The kid wriggled uselessly and Shouta took out his phone to text his husband.
Shouta
Coming back from patrol. Bringing a stray.
Zashi
SHOU!!!!!
I SAID NO MORE STRAY CATS!!!
Shouta
It’s not a cat.
Shouta smirked to himself and pocketed his phone. That probably didn’t make his husband feel any better about what he was bring back but it was 3AM, the only reason Zashi was still up this late was because it was a Friday and he ran his radio show later on Friday nights, and he did not feel like going back to the police station before getting in a nap. They could deal with everything tomorrow afternoon—especially once they gave the kid a bath because he stunk.
As Pro Heroes, they also had emergency fostering privileges and Shouta believed having a malnourished child that acted and looked like a feral cat was an emergency situation.
/ᐠ - ˕ -マ
Shouta toed off his boots in the genkan, holding the feral child in one arm while he wiggled around and tried to get through Shouta’s uniform’s slash-proof material with his tiny claws. The smell of pork wafted through the house from his husband’s cooking and he heard the sound of a wooden spoon being set on the counter as the door shut behind him.
“Shou! What did you bring back? We’re pushing our pet limit!” Zashi complained and Shouta took great pleasure in watching the shock and disbelief take over his sharp features as he caught sight of the kid hanging under his arm. “Shouta, that’s a child.”
Shouta held him up by his armpits (worryingly able to feel his ribs through his torn shirt) and held him tightly as the kid drew his legs up and his elbows in to protect his stomach, hissing and clawing as Zashi tried to move closer. His green ears flattened against his head and his tail twitched from where it hanged.
“It’s a stray kid.”
“There’s no such thing as a stray kid, Shou.”
“I found him in a dumpster. He was stuck in a bag.”
“That doesn’t mean you bring him home!” Hizashi exclaimed, eyes wide behind his clear glasses.
“I’ll take him to the station tomorrow, Zashi.” Shouta frowned and scrunched his nose up. “He sticks though. Needs a bath.”
Hizashi walked closer, obviously undeterred by the threatening noises being hissed by the kid. “Well, you did find him in a dumpster, Shouta. Are you surprised?”
He reached his arms out to take the kid and Shouta hesitated but his husband shot him an irritated look and Shouta knew better than to argue. He handed the kid over. In the brief second he was not completely secured, the feral child used his husband as a springboard and shot himself over the divider separating the entryway from the living room, jumping from the back of the couch to the table and scrambling to the corner where they kept all their house plants.
Shouta watched Hizashi flinch as each pot was knocked over in favor of the kid hiding behind a small table that his husband’s favorite plant was on—a papyrus plant Shouta had given him for their most recent anniversary. The table rocked when the kid scrambled to tuck himself into a ball but it did not tip over.
Hizashi let out an audible sigh of relief.
Shouta hummed. “I’m gonna get the kid some broth. He’s too skinny, who knows how long it’s been since he last ate.”
Hizashi nodded and made his way to the corner to clean up the broken pots, careful to keep his eyes off the child grumbling warningly in the corner. They’d done this with stray cats before but the kid shared a lot of behaviors with cats so Hizashi figured that was the best course of action. Better to let him feel hidden in the corner than to have him scramble out again and cut his feet on the broken pieces of pottery and glass.
Shouta returned with the beef broth and placed it a few feet away from the kid before walking away, a nonchalant look on his face but concern evident in his eyes. Hizashi gripped the broom tightly and grappled with the morality of treating the kid like a cat—a problem his husband did not seem to have.
It only made him feel a little better about himself with the kid loafed like a cat and began licking the broth instead of using his hands to drink it. It also made him feel a whole lot worse thinking about what the kid had gone through to end up like this.
/ᐠ - ˕ -マ
Hizashi held still as Shouta wiped his wounds with an antibacterial cream before placing various bandages on his open scratches. Shouta didn’t look much better than he did, however selfish it was for Hizashi to find comfort in that fact, but Hizashi had received the brunt of their emergency foster child’s attack. They didn’t realize he had claws —like actual cat claws that retracted mostly into his nail beds.
The cat-boy had worn himself out after the Bath From Hell, it seemed, and was hiding under the couch. They could hear soft snores coming from him every once in a while. Those, at least, sounded human.
“Do you think the landlord will count him as a cat?” Hizashi joked. A small smirk tugged at Shouta’s lips as he closed the first aid kit and placed it back under the sink. “Where do you think he came from, Shou?”
His husband shrugged and poured himself a cup of coffee. “I have no idea. He might be a runaway but I think he’s too young for that. Besides, cat-mutation quirks like his don’t usually face the discrimination that other mutant-type quirks do. If anything…” Shouta trailed off and Hizashi met his eyes as he shot him a look. A look that meant he was about to say something Hizashi wouldn’t like. The blond gave him his permission anyway. “If anything it makes them more desirable.”
“You think he might have escaped a trafficking ring?” Hizashi questions, his heart strings pulling painfully in his chest.
Shouta leaned against the counter, taking a sip from his mug and shrugging. “He’s skittish, doesn’t trust people, in general, I think. He acts, quite frankly, feral and has clearly been living on the streets for a while.” He sighed and sat back down across from Hizashi. “It doesn’t paint a pretty picture, Zashi.”
A yowl came from their bedroom and Hizashi glanced at the clock. 05:30. Feeding time. Shouta had already aimed his eyes at the couch, where they could see a flash of green as the kid darted out from under the couch to the mouth of the hallway. His green tail was puffed up and Hizashi could see his fangs from where he drew up his lips to emit threatening hisses.
“Time to introduce the children, I guess,” he said, uncertainty clouding his tone.
Shouta stood and Hizashi followed, watching carefully as the kid froze, having sensed them behind him. Hizashi followed Shouta’s lead in ignoring the boy completely as he walked to their door to open it. The blond hung back in case he needed to break up any fights.
Shouta opened the door and their three cats shot out before pausing. They had seen the boy and there was no going back now. All three got defensive—Dumpster and Bastard pushing forward to assess the threat. The kid resumed his hissing.
Something strange happened then. Dumpster paused and the kid’s head tilted and his ears relaxed, tail lowering a little but maintaining its puffiness. Hizashi watched in complete confusion as Bastard got closer, sniffing at the kid while Princess (Hizashi’s own beautiful, gorgeous baby) inched forward with trepidation.
The boy then moved out of their way and the three cats continued by him. They watched him out of the corner of their eye but left him alone.
When Hizashi swiveled his head to meet his husband’s eyes; he found that Shouta shared his confusion.
“That was weird, right?” Hizashi asked.
Shouta nodded. “That was definitely weird. Especially for Bastard and Dumpster. Bastard doesn’t trust that easily and Dumpster is more aggressive with unknowns. Bastard also felt comfortable with letting Princess walk right past him and he’s always been protective of her.”
Bastard was the first cat they had gotten together. He was black with dull green eyes and had a constant expression of disdain. He was named Bastard because of how his attitude grew when they had him for a while. Hizashi had lost many good mugs to the mittens of the evil cat.
Princess was his own cat. She was not a stray but was offered to Hizashi by someone he had helped as Present Mic and the sweet girl was too cute not to pass up. She was white with gray markings on her face and had adorable, wide gray eyes. Princess had already been an adult when Hizashi had gotten her and had a very pretentious air to her.
Dumpster was their most recent edition. He was a feral Lykoi cat, a real ugly thing in Hizashi’s opinion, but had latched onto Shouta with the same vigor that his husband latched onto most cats. He was black with coarse hair, fur speckled with gray. His eyes were Halloween-orange and he had a thin gray mask of fur around his eyes and nose. He was creepy as fuck but his husband loved him.
Shouta had named Dumpster and Bastard, obviously, and ignored all Hizashi’s protests to the names… Hizashi ignored Shouta’s opinion on having a cat named ‘Princess’ in return. It was a fair trade.
“Too bad Dumpster is already taken.” Shouta smirked. “We could’ve called the kid that.”
Hizashi-the-long-suffering sighed.
“Maybe we can call him Trash Bag.”
Hizashi glared at his grinning husband. “We’re not calling the kid Trash Bag or any other ridiculous names you come up with. We will find out what his name is when we see Tsukauchi…” he glanced at the clock. “Fuck. Later today.”
“I vote we sleep and deal with it this evening,” Shouta said, yawning and stretching.
“That sounds like a great idea.”