OMWGNOTE: Not as many reviews as last time, but I'm still really happy about the turn-out, so thank you. You should believe me when I say that this chapter really isn't creepy at all. It's Carlos. He's precious, not creepy. I'm not even lying, I swear. Just read the chapter.
Also I'm really sorry about the long time without an update. I've recently started a new semester and the classes I have now come with a much heavier workload. And yeah. I hate school.
"I'll look out for you 'til I die, 'til I rot." –I Want To Know Your Plans, Say Anything
Carlos woke up much later than he usually did, which was really saying something. He never got up before eleven if he didn't have to, and on those days he usually slept until noon. But when Carlos finally opened his tired eyes and waited for the blur that came with sleep to disappear, the alarm clock that he and Logan shared told him it was past one.
He sat up slowly, wiping at his eyes to help his vision. Once it was cleared, he looked around his room. Logan was obviously already out of bed, his side of the room neat and his bed already made. However, several clothes strewn across the floor and a black hockey helmet lying by the door gave evidence that Carlos lived there as well.
Yawning, Carlos pulled the covers off his legs and stood up, stretching a bit before heading towards his door. He thrust it open, not even flinching at the sound it made as it collided with the door. He walked the few short feet down the hallway and without even thinking about it, dove head-first down the swirly slide.
He wasn't surprised to find the apartment empty. His friends were always out, and he never really knew what Mrs. Knight and Katie were up to. He was about to push himself off the ground to go fix himself a bowl of cereal, but he found a pair of oddly familiar bright green eyes staring him down that ceased his movements.
The creature meowed at him, swiping one of its paws at him. Carlos lay completely still, not sure whether or not he should believe what he was seeing. Because right now, he was freaking out on the inside. He was positive he wouldn't be able to contain it for much longer, his love for kitten was too strong—
"Kitten!" Carlos exclaimed happily, sitting up on his knees and grabbing at the kitten. The kitten meowed again in protest, its bright green eyes narrowed. Carlos ruffled the cat's golden fur before bringing it up to his face, cooing at it and making baby faces.
His affection didn't last for long. The kitten didn't seem to like Carlos very much, as he proved when he wriggled his way out of Carlos' hold and scattered away from him, jumping up on the orange couch and laying down.
Carlos pouted at the small animal. "Hey!" He whined, getting up and heading towards the kitten. He plopped himself on the couch next to the cat, causing the creature to look up and glare at him with those big, green eyes. Despite the cat's obvious resentment towards him, Carlos simply picked him up again and began stroking his fur.
"I'm going to name you…" Carlos trailed off, trying to find an appropriate name for the purring cat that seemed to like him now. "Simba. Because your fur is pretty and golden and The Lion King is an awesome movie."
The kitten meowed at him again, turning around in Carlos' lap and standing on his hind legs to rest his front paws on Carlos' chest. It was then that Carlos noticed the collar around the kitten's neck, the shiny silver tag hanging just below Simba's chin.
Carlos held the tag between two fingers, squinting and trying to read the name engraved onto the metal. "Kendall," He read aloud. "Huh, that's funny, my best friend's name is Kend-Oh my God!" He grabbed Kendall and held the poor kitten in front of his face. "How did you get turned into a cat?" He demanded, staring into the eyes that he now recognized. Kendall only meowed in return. "I don't speak kitten! I speak Carlos!"
Kendall only wormed his way out of Carlos' grasp again, hopping off the couch and strutting over to the bottom of the swirly slide. He walked in a circle for a moment before curling up right next to the plastic, burying his face in his paws and shutting his eyes.
Carlos was definitely about to go and bother Kendall, because no kitten walked away from him, best friend or not, but a flash of dark brown caught his eye and he was distracted.
Another meow was heard from behind him, and since Carlos could clearly see Kendall being lazy in front of him, he knew there was another kitten in the room. The smile that had disappeared when Kendall left him made its way back onto Carlos' face as he spotted another kitten sitting on the table.
In contrast to the golden color of Kendall's fur, this kitten's fur was such a dark brown that one could mistake it for black. It was also much smaller than Kendall, obviously the runt of the litter. Before Carlos could wrongly name the kitten after a character from one of his favorite Disney movies, he spotted the silver tag that must have the cat's name on it.
Innocent brown eyes stared up at him as he edged towards the cat, kneeling down in front of it and gripping the name tag in his fingers. Logan, it read. Carlos looked from the name tag to Logan, who had his nose scrunched as he stared back at Carlos.
"Why are you guys kittens?" Carlos demanded, honestly expecting to get an answer from Logan. Logan was the smart one. Surely he would be able how to talk like a human even in his cat-form. But to Carlos' disappointment, Logan only meowed at him before jumping off the coffee table and running past Carlos.
Carlos let out a frustrated sigh, throwing his hands up into the air. "I'm so confused!" He screamed to no one in particular, giving up on Kendall the kitten and Logan the kitten and walking into the kitchen. He took out a bowl and reached into the cabinet to get some Cinnamon Toast Crunch. Just as he was pouring the small sugary squares into his bowl, he heard a growl from behind him.
He rolled his eyes, assuming Kendall and Logan were having a cat fight—literally. But when he turned, Logan was on top of the counter next to him, and Kendall was messing with a new kitten that Carlos hadn't seen before. But judging by the light brown fur and hazel eyes…
"James?" He asked, abandoning his bowl and walking to where Kendall was laying on top of their new arrival. In response, the new kitten meowed at him, which Carlos took as a confirmation. He sighed again. How and why were his friends cats?
Then it hit him—obviously this was a dream. He didn't know how or why his fetish for cats had been translated into dreaming about his best friends being cats, but he'd take it. He would never admit it out loud, but his friends made some pretty damn cute kittens.
"Kendall, get off of James," Carlos demanded softly, crouching down in front of where Kendall was laying on top of James. When Kendall didn't listen to him and instead tried to use James as a bed, Carlos picked Kendall up, trying to ignore the way Kendall was clawing at his arms and how it hurt, and placed him down on the ground next to James.
"C'mere, buddy," Carlos said. James pushed himself up into a sitting position, meowing again. But he wouldn't move forward. "James, come on," Carlos whined, sitting on the back of his legs.
James hissed at him, glaring. Carlos realized then that James was just as pissy as a cat as he was when he was human.
Sighing, Carlos got up, deciding to go back to his cereal. He figured that if James wanted to play with him, he would come on his own. Despite how adorable they were as cats, Carlos was beginning to grow annoyed with his cat-friends. Logan couldn't seem to sit still, Kendall hated him and James, and James just didn't want to move.
Carlos grabbed the milk from the fridge, mumbling something about mean kittens as he poured it on his cereal and then returned it to his place. Angrily sticking his spoon inside his bowl, Carlos began to devour the sugary goodness that was inside.
He paid no mind to his feline friends as he finished his breakfast and dumped the remains of his sugary milk into the sink, filling his bowl with water afterward. He was still set out on ignoring his kitten friends and was going to watch television, but an outburst of meows and growls and hisses caught his attention.
Kendall and James were having another cat fight, but it wasn't a two party even seeing as James wasn't even fighting back. Kendall looked to be clawing at James' face, almost like he was trying to take an eye out, and James was just sitting there, meowing as if he were calling out for help.
Carlos sighed again, this time in frustration, before pulling Kendall off of James. He held the squirming cat in his hands for a moment, trying to ignore the fact that Kendall was trying to claw his arm off as he searched for a place to put him. He spotted a laundry basket in the corner and smiled. He nearly ran over to it, knowing that by now his arm was bleeding from the way Kendall scratched it every millisecond, and lifted the basket off of the ground for a moment before shoving Kendall underneath, effectively trapping him in the jail-like confines of the basket.
Kendall hissed at him, obviously unhappy with this new arrangement, but Carlos ignored him. "Come on, James," He said, making at motion with his fingers. "Let's asse—assi—look at your booboos." James meowed, sort of nodding with his head, and Carlos turned and began to head towards the bathroom, assuming James was following him.
Once in the bathroom, Carlos grabbed the Transformer bandages from the medicine cabinet. He grabbed a tissue and wiped the blood from his wounds, not caring about disinfecting the cuts, before opening three band-aids and covering his wounds with them. After smiling at his band-aids, excited because he got two Bumblebees and one Optimus Prime, he faced the doorway and expected James to be there. But he wasn't.
"James?" Carlos called out, exiting the bathroom and walking into the kitchen. He looked around for a moment before his eyes landed on the kitten in question, and when they did, his heart nearly broke into two.
His dream couldn't be this realistic, could it? He was dreaming about his friends being cats, for crying out loud. Everything that was going on in reality shouldn't be happening in his dream world. Dreams were a place where you could escape from all of the bad things happening in reality. But this, as Carlos noted, was too real.
James was literally dragging himself across the floor, seemingly only able to use his front paws to do so. Carlos could hear Kendall meowing like crazy from the confines of the laundry basket, and Logan was still hoping around like he didn't have a care in the world, but cat James—he was paralyzed. It shouldn't be a surprise to Carlos. In reality, James was also paralyzed.
But that didn't change the fact that it literally hurt his heart to see James trying to claw his way across the floor.
Suddenly a flash of blonde shot its way over to where James was struggling, and before Carlos could even begin to wonder how the hell Kendall got free from his personal jail cell, he was already standing next to James. Carlos was about to pull Kendall away, sure that the blonde would try to hurt James again, but what he saw surprised him for the second time.
Slowly but surely, Kendall wedged his way under James' belly, still continuing to do so until James was on his back. For the first time Carlos noticed that Kendall was quite bigger than James, obviously the most matured of the three of them and well on his way to being fully-grown. Carlos could only watch on in awe as Kendall stood with James still on his back, walking him over to where Carlos was standing before depositing James at Carlos' feet.
Kendall was about to turn, presumably to curl up into a ball somewhere and nap, but he stopped to rub his face against James' for a moment. Carlos translated this as a hug in kitten land. His heart stopped hurting only to swell at how adorable that was.
Carlos plopped down in front of James, sitting Indian style before the kitten. James dragged himself the last few centimeters to where Carlos was sitting, propping himself up on Carlos' legs. Then, without hesitation, he bit Carlos' leg.
Before Carlos could respond, he was whisked away from James the kitten and when his eyes snapped open, he was in his room with Logan. Sitting up, he rubbed the sleep out of his eyes and glanced at the clock. It was only a quarter past three, meaning he still had a few hours to sleep.
Falling back into his pillows, Carlos came to the conclusion that he didn't particularly like cats anymore.
OMWGNOTE: This was even more fun to write than C9. Seriously.
GO RADIO'S NEW ALBUM IS COMING OUT SUPER SOON GUYS I'M GOING TO EXPLODE INTO RAINBOWS AND BUTTERFLIES AND LOVE.
If you didn't know, the next chapter goes to the birthday boy.