Erica Reyes is impossible to live with.
She dances around the apartment with her music cranked up so loud that even someone without wolf ears would flinch. She uses all the hot water, she never wants to do the dishes, and sometimes she snores a little.
But the worst thing—the absolute worst thing she ever does—is open the window to the stray cat that's been meowing on their fire escape. Cora hears the meowing stop abruptly after a solid two days of trying to ignore it, and she just knows what happened.
She walks out of her room and finds Erica standing by the window to the fire escape, cradling a bundle of dirty cat in her arms.
"Look, he likes me!" Erica says, beaming widely as the cat tilts his head so she can pet under his chin. "Can we keep him?"
Cora's shaking her head before the sentence even fully clears Erica's mouth. "No way," Cora says, narrowing her eyes at the bedraggled cat. "He stinks, he's dirty, and cats are the actual worst."
Erica huffs indignantly and pulls the cat's head against her chest, covering his other ear with her hand. "Don't talk about him like that! You're so mean, oh my god. He just wants to be loved and taken care of."
There's a lot that Cora could say. Most of it a series of the word no. But she looks at Erica holding the stupid ball of gray fluff and she's met with two sets of big, sad eyes and one very impressively pouty mouth. Cora sighs heavily and throws her hands up. "Fine. But you're in charge of the litter box."
And to the cat's credit, the truly piercing squeal Erica lets out barely fazes him.
That cat's a little shit, okay? He is. And Cora can begrudgingly admit that he's also kind of cute, but she can't ignore all the havoc he creates.
If there's one thing that's surprising out of all of it, though, it's how having this cat in their apartment turns Erica into a nonstop problem-solver. She cares that much. Cora still can't get her to do the dishes, but she's on top of anything that has to do with the cat, which she affectionately refers to as Boop (because he likes it so much when she boops his nose).
She becomes the fixer of all cat issues.
He's clawing the furniture? She buys him the biggest scratching post Cora has ever seen.
He's knocking stuff off the tables? He must be bored. She gets him an entire bag of toys.
And, okay, so it's kind of fun to make him chase the laser pointer around. And maybe Cora doesn't actually hate it when he gets in her face when she's trying to read and nuzzles her until she pets him.
Cora keeps her budding friendship with Boop (which she adamantly refuses to call him, by the way, he's just 'the cat' to Cora) to herself, because she's legitimately not ready for Erica to make her take back the thing she said about cats being the worst. And Erica would definitely try.
The cat takes to curling up in bed with Cora on the nights when Erica works late, and she doesn't mind it so much because he smells like Erica's perfume and he does this thing where he kneads the blankets and purrs. The combination, for whatever reason, is calming for both of them.
He usually springs right out of bed when he hears Erica unlock the door. But one night, he decides to break the trend.
"Boop?" Erica calls out when she comes in. Cora can hear her setting her stuff down, and she nudges the cat with her foot. He doesn't move.
Cora hears Erica moving around the apartment, flicking on lights as she looks for him. Boop turns his head to look at Cora and she points to the door in a bid to get him to take a hint, but he just yawns and stares sleepily at her.
After a few minutes Erica's footsteps move towards Cora's room, and in a last-ditch effort she throws the blanket over the cat just before Erica appears in the doorway.
"Hey," Erica says, leaning against the door frame in her Hello Kitty pajamas. Boop supposedly has a crush on her, but Cora thinks he's actually more into licking his own butt. "Have you seen Boop?"
Cora presses her lips together and shakes her head.
Erica's lips twist into a smirk and she arches a brow, and that's never a good thing. "Oh?" she says, moving slowly towards the bed. She points to the cat-sized lump under Cora's blanket. "Then what's this?"
Cora cringes as Erica tugs back the blanket and extracts a gray fluffball. "Ugh fine," she groans. "Sometimes he sleeps with me. He always tears out of here like he's got a rocket up his ass when you come home, though."
Erica giggles into the cat's fur. "I knew you were a softie."
"You better be talking to the cat," Cora says, narrowing her eyes at Erica. There's no heat behind it, though, so Erica just laughs harder.
"Actually, no, I totally meant you," Erica says, and Cora's about to protest but then Erica leans in and presses a fleeting kiss to her lips. "I like it when you're soft."
"Oh," Cora breathes out, and she's at a serious loss for what should follow it. But apparently that's okay, because Erica's flopping down on the pillow next to her, Boop still plastered to her chest.
"This seems like the place to be tonight," Erica says, grinning up at Cora's probably confused expression. "So I think I'll stay right here, if I'm wanted."
Cora bites her lip and nods. "Yeah," she says, settling in next to Erica. She turns on her side and drapes an arm over both Erica and Boop, and she buries her face unapologetically in the blonde waves spilling onto the pillows. Her bed's going to smell like Erica for days, but Cora's pretty sure she won't mind that at all.
They fall asleep with tangled legs and Cora's arm around Erica's waist and Boop purring contentedly between them.