Teddy Bear
Summary: Drake, Wendy, and a kitten named Teddy Bear. Pure, unadulterated fluff. A/U. Takes place shortly after the OVAs. Now edited for the removal of expositional bricks. :)
Disclaimer: They're Kurata's toys; I'm just borrowing them. I promise to return them safely when I'm done!
"Drake! I'm back!"
Drake looked up at this cheerful call, followed immediately by the soft click of the chain lock being fastened. Quickly, he flipped off the television.
"Long time to pick up some dry cleaning," he observed as the little blonde bounced into the small breezy living room of her flat, carrying decidedly more than the three wispy little summer frocks she had taken in earlier that week.
Wendy blushed pinkly, fumbling with numerous packages, including a large one with a handle, covered in an old wool blanket.
"Did you know they've opened a pet shop at the corner by the dry cleaners?" she asked casually, looking carefully away and draping the long plastic dry cleaning bag over a little yellow armchair.
She set down the rest of her packages carefully on the floor next to it, taking particular care with the large blanket-covered box, and flopped down on the couch next to Drake.
"No," he replied a little suspiciously, resting a hand on her back a little awkwardly as she snuggled affectionately against his chest. "Can't say I did."
"So I had to go in and have a look."
He eyed the large object.
"Yeah…"
She pulled back a little, cheeks flushing and eyes growing starry and excited.
"And I swear, Drake, it was like love at first sight! I couldn't resist, really, I—"
"Wendy," he interrupted sternly. "What did you do?"
She beamed.
"I bought a kitten!"
He rolled his eyes as the package beneath the blanket mewled its hearty agreement.
The blonde disentangled herself from his arm, and climbed to her feet.
"Do you want to meet him?" she asked hopefully with a shy glance over her shoulder as she lifted the blanket.
He hid a grimace, pushing himself off of the couch.
"What the hell. Sure."
"Right from the second I saw him in the store, I knew he was my kitty," she rambled on cheerfully, eyes still bright and starry and just a little bit dreamy at the memory. "And I think he knew that I was meant to be his human, because he made these sad, pitiful little noises when I went to get one of the girls to take him out for me, and he didn't stop until I was holding him."
Drake shook his head as a little grey and white bundle of fur, claws, and pure energy shot forth from the carrier and into Wendy's eagerly waiting arms. She giggled as the kitten climbed up the front of her loose-knit, light lemon yellow sweater, snagging it woefully.
"Sounds like you'll get along well," Drake commented, crouching down next to her and watching the little ball of fur snuggle against her neck and bat her ear affectionately. True enough, he figured. Both she and the ball of fuzz were psychotic.
"Teddy Bear loves me already," she declared, lifting the tiny animal off her shoulder and kissing the top of his head lightly.
"Teddy Bear," he repeated incredulously. "So, what do you think your landlady will think of 'Teddy Bear'?"
"Oh, I've cleared it with Delores already," Wendy replied easily. "She said she would prefer to see me with a nice man, but a kitten will have to do, because she doesn't want to see me lonely."
Drake scowled.
"And what am I?"
An uncomfortable silence. She flushed miserably at his expression, hurt as much as angry; and inwardly kicked herself.
"She means a nice man in the same country," she replied, gently pushing the kitten into his reluctant hands.
"Hey, you know how I feel about that," he said, scratching Teddy Bear's tiny fuzzy head absently and watching Wendy attentively as she seemed to remember several small tasks that required immediate attention.
After several seconds, he raised an eyebrow.
"Not going to say anything?"
She gave a tiny sigh and turned from the bookshelf, where she was busily arranging several volumes on the care and training of domestic cats. Her expression was reproachful, speaking volumes of wanting very badly something she could not quite bring herself to accept quite yet.
Something that she would never be able to bring herself to refuse for good.
"Drake. You know I can't just leave."
He made a slight noise of fond, grumbling annoyance. That's what she'd said last time. And the time before. And the time before. For close to a year now. Why he kept trying, when this arrangement was so completely comfortable, was beyond him.
"Yeah, I know.
He grimaced in dismay as, without warning, she took a flying leap at the couch and very nearly bounced both him and the kitten right off.
"Hey, watch it," he chided, glaring at her as Teddy Bear dug tiny claws into his chest.
"Sorry," she chirped, clearly not at all. She tickled the kitten's nose lightly and giggled as he bounced enthusiastically at her finger. Then she looked back up at Drake. "You should get a kitten!"
He gave her a look that rather implied a high probability that she was, at that moment, sprouting a second nose.
"What?"
"Honestly! Animals love you! See?" She giggled at the grey energy molecule currently trying to climb Drake's arm. "Isn't that the cutest thing ever?"
Drake smirked slightly at her look of big-eyed hopefulness, detached the kitten from his shoulder, and dropped it unceremoniously in her lap.
"Hey, the only fluffy hyperactive thing I want jumping at me and tearing at my clothes is you."
She blushed devastatingly and dropped her eyes to carefully inspect the tips of her shoes, periodically sneaking glances at him.
"Is it okay if I don't rip anything while I'm jumping you?" she murmured shyly.
His eyebrows shot up into his hairline. Talk about a walking mood swing. Still…
"Yeah, alright," he agreed nonchalantly.
Just in time, it seemed, to be knocked flat on his back by a yellow-and-pink-clad, blonde-haired comet.
It was amazing what this sort of thing could do for a guy's mood, he thought as articles of clothing began dropping to the floor.
To the point that, when a pair of tiny claws dug sharply into his back (belonging to a certain hyperactive kitten who had apparently seen the commotion from across the room where he had been skittering madly about in exploration of his new home, and craved to be involved in the fun), he was hard pressed to be too annoyed.
Particularly with an adorable young woman to his left, in a state of undress similar to his, giggling madly, cheeks flushed and eyes tearing with amusement.
Nevertheless, there was no reason to risk a repeat performance, Drake decided, picking the kitten up in one hand and stalking toward the nearest closet.
Thirty seconds later, a distinctly annoyed Teddy Bear scratched furiously and futilely at the door of Wendy's broom closet, only to be entirely ignored as the two on the sofa became increasingly distracted by other matters.
"I still think you should get a kitten," Wendy announced a long while later, startling Drake out of his half-asleep state.
He stared in bewilderment and propped himself up on the arm not currently wrapped loosely around her waist to keep her from rolling off the edge of the couch. Like last time. There was still a dent in the coffee table from her head.
"What?"
"Honestly; your daughter would love it!"
"You're right about that," he said, shaking his head and laughing slightly at the thought of the little girl's delighted expression if she should find a kitten waiting for her the next time she came for a visit. "Maggie would love it for the two weekends a month she spends with me."
"That's plenty of reason!"
"If you like cats."
"Well! You like Teddy Bear, don't you?"
"Yeah, sure, the little rodent's great."
She swatted his shoulder.
"Drake!"
"Hey, stop it," he commanded, catching her hand and pulling her closely against him as he turned over onto his back.
She snuggled contentedly against his shoulder, dragging a fluffy yellow blanket up higher around both of them. Then, after a moment, she stole another glance up at him.
"Drake?"
"Yeah."
"D'you think you'd like to take Teddy Bear?"
He blinked.
"Uh…what?"
"Really. I think you should take Teddy Bear home with you for Maggie."
"Wendy, I'm not taking your kitten home with me."
A long silence, and an almost palpable attempt to summon up courage. She smiled uncertainly, nervously.
"Well…how about if Teddy Bear's owner came with you, too?"
He pushed her back slightly and stared incredulously.
"What changed your mind?" he finally asked, pushing himself up and sitting back against the arm of the couch.
She ducked her head sheepishly, struggling helplessly around half-formed, barely conscious thoughts that this wasn't exactly a new decision.
"I-I don't know," she finally said, burying her face in his shoulder for a moment, before looking up resolutely. Enough hiding whenever it came time to talk about something serious, and hoping that he would just let it go. Enough letting him handle it. "I think I've known for a while that I would agree eventually. I just had to make up my mind to do it."
"Really."
She returned his slightly sceptical look with a quick nod.
"It was after you left last time that I really decided, I think. I spent the whole week being gloomy, and came home and moped around every evening, and it seemed a bit silly to go through that just because I wanted to prove that I could handle this."
"I'd call that stupid," he suggested tactfully.
"Drake!"
"What? It is stupid. If that's the only reason you've been—"
"It's not."
He pulled back slightly at this quiet interruption, and waited.
"You know what the other reason was," she said with slight hints of impatience.
"Yeah. But as far as I know, you've still got a job. So what changed that?"
She was silent for a long moment, forehead wrinkling in deep concentration. While she was thinking, he reached for the pile of clothes and began sorting through what belonged to whom. He had just finished tugging his shift back down over his head when she began to speak, absently pushing the bottom button on her sweater through the buttonhole and popping it out again.
"I-I suppose it was easy to admit that I was being silly – alright, stupid – by trying to prove that I could handle being away from you most of the time. But it was really hard to admit that I was being far stupider to keep telling you that I was happy with things this way when I wasn't, just for a job that…well, that I've been thinking about leaving for a while now anyway."
If it had been another kind of moment, Wendy might have allowed herself a giggle, or at the very least a smile, at Drake's expression of utter astonishment. As it was, she grinned inwardly, and made a mental note to try to think up lots more fun ways to surprise him, because he was really adorable when he was trying to make heads or tails of what was going on.
Until she noticed the dismay alongside the surprise.
"Wh-what?" she asked, alarmed as he rubbed his forehead tiredly.
He looked up.
"You bothered to mention this to Joker?"
She hesitated.
"Not yet, but—"
"He won't be happy."
With a nervous little laugh, she attempted to wriggle up under his arm – a gesture that he had learned fairly early on was, in her own personal dialect, 'I want to cuddle!'
He pushed her away gently, his frown indicating that he was far from through with his conversation, and she pouted.
"I know that," she muttered petulantly. "I'm glad that he won't exactly go dancing down the streets for joy to finally be rid of me. But it's not like any reasonably intelligent person couldn't do my job easily."
"Yeah. But 'any reasonably intelligent person' isn't. You are. You don't think he'll take exception to finding out that you've wanted to leave for this long?"
She stared down at the tassel at the edge of the blanket, spinning it absently.
"He might be disappointed. He's put a lot of trust in me, and a lot of people thought he was mad to do it. I suppose I'll be proving those people right," she finished with a weak laugh, before lifting her chin and meeting his eyes. "But I don't care what it looks like."
"Can I ask what brought it on?" he asked quietly, sighing inwardly as a pink flush creeping over her cheeks confirmed his reluctant suspicions. "Because I told you I'm not planning on doing any more work for them, right? You're following me out."
"No," she replied with a sharpness that brought that adorably startled look to his face again. This time, she didn't even bother to grin inwardly over it. "They've always had some ugly and dishonest ways of doing things; you know that. I suppose it had to occur to me someday that they weren't always justified, just because they're the people I care about."
He chuckled slightly, reaching for her.
"I've heard that before."
She blushed again, and looked away, nevertheless allowing herself to be pulled closely against his shoulder.
"Well, of course you had something to do with it. I probably wouldn't have started thinking about it if you hadn't said it first."
"I don't believe that," he said flatly. "You're not as dumb as you act."
An indignant squeal – hers – and a low, fond laugh – his.
"Seriously," he said after a moment, surreptitiously rubbing the little fist-shaped ache at his shoulder and waving off her flustered apology. "I can't believe that it only occurred to you because I said it first."
"I think it would have eventually," she said thoughtfully. "But probably not yet. After all," she continued with a smile far bitterer than he could recall seeing on her before, "Mr. Joker doesn't exactly encourage a lot of uncomfortable questions. And it's…nice, having someone who will tell you exactly what they want you to understand, instead of leaving you to find your way to your own conclusion. There are almost never correct answers, and it was very easy to believe him when he implied that this time, there were."
"I don't know; it sounds kind of disgusting to me."
She looked up and shot him a rueful smile.
"I know; it's pathetic."
"Yeah," he agreed frankly. "It is. But hell, you're not the only person to let someone tell you what's true and what's not because it's easier than making up your own mind."
"It's scary, too," she added with a tiny sigh. "For a while, it was so nice to have someone to decide everything for me that I think I would have just ignored everything I didn't like until something happened that was impossible to ignore. And by then, it might have been too late to leave."
For a long moment, he said nothing, fighting against the urge to warn her that it still might not be that easy. No point; she probably knew that already. And anyway, he thought with a tiny smirk, if she's made up her mind, it'll be damn near impossible to talk her out of it. Stubborn little creampuff. He tried to ignore a sense of rather smug satisfaction at the mental image of Joker's expression of surprise when he found his little pushover to be completely immovable on something for once. He hoped.
Then, as a soft, plaintive mewl caught his attention, he glanced over his shoulder. Wendy peeked around him, and giggled.
"We better give the little rodent a break," Drake said. "Let him say good-bye to the place."
Wendy halted in the act of hurriedly fastening up the rest of her buttons, and blinked, confused.
"Say good-bye?"
"He's coming home with me, isn't he?"
The little blonde looked rather nonplussed at the thought of losing her newly-acquired pet so soon, even if it was temporarily.
"W-well…I thought I might keep him with me for now, and bring him in a few weeks."
Drake pulled her against him again, and she made a soft noise of contentment as she felt his laugh rumble where her cheek was pressed against his chest.
"Hey, if I have to hold your kitten hostage to make sure you don't back out of this, I'll do it."
She giggled, the sound euphoric and a little hysterical with something very much like relief, and then went busily about the task of undoing the progress he'd made in getting dressed.
And in a nearby broom closet, Teddy Bear reflected in annoyance that these humans were very strange indeed.
Really, he had been very lucky to be born a cat.
End Notes: Thanks for reading/skimming/scrolling immediately to the bottom! Feedback is appreciated, constructive criticism especially.