Genre: Family, Humour, Alternative Universe, general Fluffiness

Characters : AOS!James T. Kirk, AOS!Spock, AOS!Pike, TOS!McCoy

Author's notes: I would like to precise English is not my first language, and so I may have made mistakes, you are free to correct them.

Sort of AU where everyone is a cat apart from Pike, and as indicated above, I pictured Spock and Kirk as their 2009!movie version, and McCoy as his TOS!version, because I wanted him as a grumpy old Ragdoll.

Enjoy le désastre!

Better than the gutter anyway

When it comes to his schedule during a normal day, Bones is a pretty simple, even boring cat.

What he would like: napping, and being left alone.

What he wouldn't like: not being left alone. Curiously, most of the time, this simple request is denied.

It's not that he hates people per se; even after his former owner threw him into the street because he had to move out and didn't want to bother with his cat, even after he spent a good part of four of his eight years of life fighting his way in the street and trying to stay alive, even if he only had skin and bones when he was picked up by Christopher Pike (who gave him his name of "Bones" and is his favourite human ever), even if at first Spock didn't like him very much (and that's an understatement) and it took time to tolerate each other, Bones still doesn't hate everyone in the world.

It's just that he's a Ragdoll, not a trouble seeker, and after everything that went wrong in his life "before Pike", he would like to enjoy the advantages of his current life, thank you very much.

So he doesn't like noisy and loud human that don't understand it's his nap time, nor rude and grabby human-kitten that pull his tail and pick him up clumsily (and misunderstand his limpness for agreement ), and he doesn't like when Jim wakes him up because he wants to play and ends leading him into trouble.

Still, when people are nice to him, he likes cuddling and being petted, and he's rather good at knowing when people need to pet him (especially when they are stressed or sad and ignore him at first, but they're very glad when he climbs on their knees and starts purring).

That's his main difference with Spock.

Unlike him, Spock never had to defend his food from others strays cats and get a load of scratches from it; Spock is the sort of elegant cat everyone would love to have to show off, even if he's only half-Siamese and thus has no worth in contests or for pretentious humans that only love pure-breed. Pike obtained him when he was a kitten from a friend whose cats had had an "accidental " litter.

He's also a very clever, almost like a dog (he retrieves objects and opens doors and does a lot of things Bones could do but he's a cat, not a goddamn dog), and very vocal too, to the point it often annoys Bones.

However, unlike Bones, he doesn't like people at all; he hates being caressed and goes away everytime Pike has guests. And don't start talking about children; all of Pike's friends know it's a bad idea to let them approach Spock.

Spock is very territorial, and he hates having strangers in his territory; the only beings he accepts are Pike (because he's their human and he loves him), Bones (they have learned to tolerate each other, mainly because most of the time, they simply avoid each other and are very happy like this), and Jim.

And Jim is a very special case.

When Bones had met Jim for the first time, he had hated him (and later, he discovered most humans and animals had the same reaction).

After all, the damn tabby had invaded their garden and brutally woke Bones up as he was napping and that action automatically put you on Bones' enemy list.

So the Ragdoll has arched his back and bared his teeth and hissed at the intruder, and the scruffy young cat had fled promptly. Bones had been very satisfied.

But the stray came back the day after, and after his initial reaction of defence, Bones had noticed the intruder was very skinny and was limping, and was not trying to attack him, and obviously hadn't eaten since days.

So because Bones was a stupid cat with a maternal instinct more pronounced than a mother-cat just having her first litter, he had let the kitten (in Bones' eyes, Jim was just a kitten) eat in his bowl.

And the next day.

And the day after.

And after two weeks, Jim had invited himself in the house, and the day after he had met Spock.

Bones expected the two of them to fight to the death; that's approximately what they did...but not completely. They were both as stubborn as the other one; Jim didn't want to go, Spock didn't want Jim to stay.

Finally, Bones had had enough, had stepped in, and threatened both of them to attack if they didn't stop.

And he might not be a troubleseeker, but damn he could be intimidating when he wanted to.

However, he wouldn't have maintained this momentary truce if Pike hadn't come home.

For some unknown reason, their human had liked the intruder, and had decided to keep him. He had enough money to feed one more cat, he could as well give his chance to the young ruffian.

So Jim had entered their lives, and most of the time Bones doesn't know if he's glad or furious of this.

Because Jim seems to think both Bones and Spock are his best friends; Bones because he was the first to be nice, and Spock...the hell if Bones knows why.

They have nothing common after all (even if the same can be said about him, apart from the life in the street), and Spock usually hates everyone who is not Pike (and barely tolerates Bones), when Jim is the king of cuddling with any form of life (or not-life), cuddling including gentle buttheads, caresses, playtime, mating and play-fighting. He likes everyone in Pike's circle and most humans end up liking him (especially the female humans; he likes that a lot too), and half of his adventures running outside end with him mating with females. He's not neutered yet because Pike wants to be sure he doesn't have an owner, and so he enjoys running after females in heat, something both Spock and Bones can't appreciate anymore and don't miss it anyway, but that annoys them when others cats come to their home to fight with Jim.

And still, when Jim comes to them because he's bored, Spock always ends up following him or at least playing with him. Bones growls and tries to make Jim to leave him alone, but sometimes he follows him in his shenanigans too, and after it he fusses at him and licks his wounds because the stupid kittens always hurt themselves in a way or the other. Yes they're kittens, even if Jim's two years old and Spock three, because he's older than them and they're idiots, and they need someone to keep them from being idiots, and really he would love to just sleep all day and not having to deal with this shit. Sometimes, he even wonders if his former life wasn't better because at least he only had himself to look after.

But he's out of the street now, and he could go back anytime if he really wanted to.

So he's staying here, and damn if he's going to let the two kittens -his kittens- getting hurt under his watch.