This is just a self-indulgent fluff piece I wrote as a birthday present for myself lol I've wanted to do a Bucci gang adopts a kitten story for a while and finally just sat down and wrote it. Someday, I might write a longer version of this idea, but for now, I hope you enjoy the fluff ^_^
Strays Like Us
A JoJo's Bizarre Adventure Fanfic
Abbacchio does not approve of this. The last thing they need is another stray in the house, especially one that's so damn annoying and needy.
Or: the one where Narancia brings home a kitten.
Abbacchio parked the car on the side of the road, glancing around anxiously. He grabbed an umbrella from the backseat, grumbling to himself as he saw no sign of Narancia.
Why the hell did he have to be the one to stay home with the new kid anyway? While he rationally knew that Fugo was a better choice for the particular mission, he could have easily gone in Bucciarati's place instead of playing babysitter to their newest team member. Now he had to go out and find the kid in the rain because he had a bad habit of getting lost.
Narancia should be somewhere by the phone booth he had called Abbacchio from, but he wasn't. He wasn't even sitting in the sheltered bus stop a little further down the street. All he had done was go out to get groceries, had gotten turned around trying to get back to their apartment, and now probably everything he had bought would be soaked. Abbacchio hoped there was at least something left that he could use to make dinner with.
"Narancia!" he called, gritting his teeth in annoyance as the rain started to fall even more insistently, making a racket against the umbrella.
He started down the street, glancing around for any sign of the kid…
A flash of orange out of the corner of his eye halted him in his tracks. He glanced over and finally spotted Narancia crouched in an alleyway, abandoned grocery bags dropped to one side—definitely soggy. He was half hidden behind a dumpster, in the process of yanking his orange skirt thing from around his waist.
"What the hell, brat? Don't you even have the sense to wait for me out of the rain…?"
Narancia turned around at his voice, and Abbacchio instantly noticed bruises and cuts littering his face and arms.
"What the hell happened to you?" he demanded.
Narancia somehow looked both guilty and pleased as he licked blood from a split lip. "Don't be mad," he said as he straightened up and brought the bundle of orange fabric into view, cradling it in his arms. It shifted and mewed.
Abbacchio stared at it as a tiny black head popped out, blinking huge green eyes.
"Please, Abba, I fought off two bastards who were trying to hurt him. Don't make me leave him here."
"Kid…"
"Please," Narancia said more firmly. "I don't want him to be abandoned to starve in some dirty ally."
Abbacchio remembered how Fugo had originally found the kid, in a not so dissimilar situation. He refused to recognize that Narancia and the kitten were both looking at him with the same forlorn expression.
But…despite how he tried to—and usually did—act, Abbacchio was not heartless. Hence why he had bothered to come out here in the first place.
He sighed heavily, reaching up to pinch the bridge of his nose. "Bucciarati will kill me if I let you bring that thing home," he tried to reason. "It probably has fleas."
Narancia didn't seem to care about Abbacchio's wellbeing because he just shrugged. "I'll take care of it myself."
"Kid…"
"Please, Abba. He's so small, a scrawny," Narancia pleaded again, hugging the kitten closer as he gave a pitiful mewl and…dammit.
"Fine," Abbacchio groaned, handing over the umbrella as he bent to pick up the soggy groceries, cursing as the bags were too soaked to even hold anything anymore. "This is probably ruined."
"Sorry," Narancia said, genuinely apologetic. "I didn't have time to think too much."
"Because you had to save a cat from random street thugs?" Abbacchio grunted, raising an eyebrow.
Narancia's face darkened. "I don't like it when people pick on someone who can't fight back. Just because they're all alone."
Abbacchio shut his eyes briefly as he straightened up, precariously cradling the groceries. Yeah, that was fair, and Abbacchio was again reminded of just how pitiful a picture Narancia himself had made when he had come to Bucciarati, explaining how he had joined Passione. He had definitely looked more like a stray cat than anything else at that point, but Bucciarati had taken him in anyway, because of course he had.
"Come on then," he grunted and headed back to the car, Narancia at his heels with the cat.
As soon as they got back to the apartment, Abbacchio quickly sorted through the wet food, leaving out boxes and stuff to dry before he glanced over at Narancia who had heated some milk in a saucer and had put the cat on the table to eat it. Abbacchio bit his tongue for the moment though and went to grab the first aid kit, returning in time to see the kitten eagerly lapping up the milk.
"Look how hungry he is!" Narancia exclaimed.
"Look how filthy he is," Abbacchio returned as he pushed Narancia down into the nearest chair and started to clean his cuts and bruises.
"Ow, dammit!" Narancia snipped as Abbacchio grabbed his chin so he would stay still while he cleaned grit out of a scrape on his forehead that looked like it had been ground against the concrete.
"You're the one who got into the fight."
Narancia sulked, watching the kitten eat as Abbacchio finished patching him up. Narancia sneezed and Abbacchio glanced at him, frowning.
"You're still soaked! You better not get sick from this or Bucciarati really will kill me."
"I'm fine," Narancia said, even as goosebumps broke out over his skin.
Abbacchio rolled his eyes and grabbed his shoulder, pushing him toward the door. "Go change."
"Okay, but only if you watch the kitten."
Abbacchio's lip curled as he glanced back at the tiny thing lapping up the last of the milk. "Fine, whatever."
Narancia hurried off, and Abbacchio eyed the kitten warily. It had finished the milk and was looking for more, shuffling out of the bundle of fabric, and exploring the table.
Abbacchio pressed his lips together, then grunted and finally stepped forward as the kitten got a little too close to the edge of the table, nudging it back.
It mewled and pressed against the back of his hand, pushing its tiny head against his fingers. When it started licking them, Abbacchio pulled back in disgust.
"Annoying little brat," he murmured. Just like all the rest of them.
Luckily Narancia hurried back into the kitchen and took the kitten to the bathroom to clean it up—still sniffling, dammit. Bucciarati was going to be pissed and not at Narancia.
Abbacchio was, though, when he went to shower a little later and found his towel covered in cat hair.
Despite Abbacchio's attempt to discourage Narancia out of bringing the cat home, obviously Bucciarati was not at all mad, and instantly took the kitten into their fold, promising Narancia they would go buy cat food and some other things for it the next day.
"Are you seriously letting him keep it?" Abbacchio demanded.
Bucciarati looked up at him with a small frown. "I don't see the harm."
"You don't see the pattern," Abbacchio snorted, folding his arms over his chest. "Fugo drags Narancia home, Narancia drags that scrawny cat home, and what next? The cat brings home some neglected orphan mouse? You're a soldato in Passione, Bruno, not the owner of a home for wayward strays."
A small smile turned up the corners of Bucciarati's mouth, which just made Abbacchio more annoyed. "Narancia's quite attached to the kitten, Abbacchio, let him have something to take care of. It's good for him."
"That's another point," Abbacchio stated. "Who's going to take care of the thing when we all go on missions?"
"Cats are actually quite self-sufficient," Fugo told him, as he came into the office. "Being left alone a couple days probably wouldn't do any harm as long as we left food easily accessible."
Abbacchio glowered at him for pointing that out, thus derailing his argument yet again.
"Fine, but it's still a nuisance," he grunted.
Especially the next day when Narancia—still sniffling and red-nosed from his minor chill—came tearing into the kitchen first thing in the morning, before Abbacchio had even had his coffee, whining that his cat was missing.
"He was sleeping by my bed, but now I can't find him anywhere!" he said, wringing his hands.
Bucciarati was quick to defuse the situation. "I'm sure he's around somewhere, Narancia. Kittens are very inquisitive. He's probably found a little hiding place somewhere, and will undoubtedly show up later."
That placated Narancia a little, but he still enlisted Fugo and then eventually Bucciarati as well, in the search. Abbacchio, on the other hand, was not about to do any of that before he'd had his coffee. He sat alone in the kitchen, drinking it as he listened to the others hunting for the kitten, then went to get dressed.
And found a black ball of fur fast asleep, curled up in one of his shoes.
Abbacchio grabbed the kitten by the scruff of its neck, waking it up to protest angrily as he carried it out to Narancia who's eyes lit up when he saw Abbacchio and the kitten.
"Bug! There you are!" he cried, rescuing the cat from Abbacchio's grasp. "Where was he?"
"In my damn closet. Keep him out of my stuff," Abbacchio grunted. "And bug is a stupid name for a cat."
Narancia stuck his tongue out at him and hurried off to tell the others. "Don't listen to mean old Abbacchio, Bug. I love you—don't run off again, okay?"
Abbacchio rolled his eyes. Now that they had wasted an hour of the day, he had to figure out what was going on and try to get work done with the addition of a kitten running underfoot.
There wasn't anything he could do about it, Abbacchio knew that. He wasn't quite resigned yet, but he may as well have been. Because it didn't seem like the cat was going anywhere.
Perhaps the most mortifying part of it was that, for some infuriating reason, Moody Blues, freaking loved the annoying little creature.
Even worse, it seemed the cat could see Moody Blues, and Abbacchio hoped that was just animal ESP and not that the kitten was a Stand user itself. He hadn't noticed until one day when he was working in the office, he'd felt the tug of Moody Blues's consciousness in the back of his mind, and was confused because, obviously, Abbacchio had not employed him for anything.
That was when he looked over to the corner of the room to see Moody crouching in the corner, holding a stray piece of string that he was wriggling in front of the delighted kitten. Moody was making soft happy beeps, cocking his head to one side as he watched the kitten play.
"Hey!" Abbacchio hissed at his Stand, who barely looked up. "What the hell are you doing? I didn't call you out."
Moody whirred, turning a baleful look onto Abbacchio before resuming playing with the kitten.
"Moody! Cut it out! Now!" Abbacchio snapped, glancing toward the door, hoping no one else would see this ridiculous display. Moody wasn't usually so disobedient. Fugo was the one who had trouble controlling his Stand, not Abbacchio.
Moody Blues finally dropped the string with a sad boop and disappeared back into Abbacchio's consciousness and, why the hell could Abbacchio feel his Stand sulking?
"You're being ridiculous, stop," he gritted out, just as Bucciarati walked in the door and the kitten rushed over to paw at his heels as he made his way over to the desk.
"What was that?" he asked.
Abbacchio turned back to his work. "Nothing," he grunted.
Moody Blues did not stop though. Whenever Abbacchio was not firmly reigning him in when the kitten happened to be nearby, his Stand would slip out and start playing with it. One day He found Fugo in the same boat, standing and staring, terrified, at the middle of the living room floor where both Purple Haze and Moody Blues were currently fully occupied by the kitten who was cavorting around, completely happy and at ease with both of them.
"What the hell?" Abbacchio demanded, trepidation forming in his stomach as it usually did when he saw Fugo's Stand.
Fugo's fists were clenched and trembling. "I don't know. I can't call him back; he's…"
Moody Blues was currently entertaining the kitten with a stick that had a feather attached to it, one of the various toys Narancia had bought for the little pest, and while the kitten jumped to reach it, Purple haze let out something that sounded like a low, gurgling chuckle, leaning closer, pulling his knees up to his chest. Moody Blues replied with a whirr that sounded, not too dissimilar to the kitten's purring.
"Well, Purple Haze doesn't seem to be…doing anything bad," Abbacchio pointed out hesitantly, though he was very nervous about the proximity of his own Stand.
Fugo gulped, cheeks tinted pink. "This is almost…worse," he admitted quietly.
Abbacchio snorted. "Frankly, kid, I'd rather he do this."
Fugo chewed his lip and finally loosened up. "He does look happy. And I…I actually feel kind of relaxed."
Abbacchio pursed his lips, but…Fugo had a point, so did he.
Well, maybe if a kitten could train Fugo's Stand, then at least something good would come out of having it.
Abbacchio just wished his own Stand would stop being ridiculous. It was starting to get embarrassing.
But whether he liked it or not, the kitten became a staple in their lives over the next couple weeks. Running around on the floor during meetings, climbing up Bucciarati like he was a tree the moment he came in the door, greeting the little pest with a fond pat, much like he would Narancia. Narancia was always cuddling the kitten, letting it sleep in his room—probably his bed—at night, and even Fugo allowed it to curl up in his lap while he sat and read.
But despite Moody Blues's apparent obsession, Abbacchio wasn't going to be swayed by the kitten. Which it seemed to realize, and proceeded to set all its targets on him.
Which Abbacchio was not at all happy about.
He did not appreciate the cat jumping on the back of the couch when he was trying to watch television and tangling itself in his hair. Nor did he appreciate it jumping at the ends of his coattails whenever he decided to go anywhere within the apartment. He also did not appreciate it trying to climb him and poking holes in his clothing and flesh both. In fact, he wondered why anyone else even cared for the wretched little annoyance at all?
But every time he tried to bring up any reasonable point, Bucciarati would give him a look and that was it for that. Really, what did this all say about their reputation as a crew on their way to moving up in the ranks of Passione? Bucciarati really should think more about his image and what he let into his house.
The last straw came when Abbacchio found his new stick of eyeliner chewed up. He marched straight to Narancia and waved it under his nose.
"Look what the little pest did now!" he snarled.
"He didn't mean to, he's still teething," Narancia said. "He's just a kitten."
"Well it's time for him to learn you don't mess with my stuff!" Abbacchio snapped, turning to the little black shadow peeking out from behind Narancia's legs. "Hear that?!"
The kitten only stared back at him with wide green eyes. Abbacchio curled his lip before he turned back to Narancia, waving his ruined eyeliner at him again. "You're buying me a new one."
Narancia sighed and agreed, heading back to his room. The cat just stayed there, staring at Abbacchio.
"What are you looking at?" he grunted.
The kitten mewed softly and started purring. Probably proud of itself.
Abbacchio gave it a dirty look and turned on his heel.
Abbacchio hadn't intended to get injured on a mission. He also hadn't intended for the wound to get infected. He hadn't even realized it had, until he went to bed three days later, feeling like utter crap, and unintentionally slept in, only to wake up, disoriented, to see Bucciarati leaning over him with a worried expression as he stared at a thermometer he'd forced into Abbacchio's mouth. Meanwhile, Fugo was poking uncomfortably at the wound high on his ribcage, right under his arm, red, swollen skin cut through with the gold of one of Sticky Finger's zippers.
"He definitely has a fever," Bucciarati said.
"Yeah," Fugo murmured, pressing more insistently at Abbacchio's wound as he finally grunted, slurring a curse at the kid. "We're probably going to need to drain it."
Abbacchio bit back a groan. He definitely wasn't looking forward to that.
"Is Abba going to be okay?" Narancia's voice came from further away, sounding far more quiet than usual.
"Of course, Narancia, his wound just needs a little proper care," Bucciarati told him before he turned back to Abbacchio. "Fugo, go get the first aid stuff. Abbacchio, do you think you can make it to the bathroom?"
Abbacchio grunted, but nodded, trying to push himself upright. It didn't go well, and resulted in Bucciarati and Narancia hurrying to help. He bit his lip at the pulling pain in his side and the mortification of being unable to do even this small task, focusing everything he had on getting his legs over the side of the bed.
He thought he was fine, until he got fully upright, and his head decided it was going to spin so violently he couldn't keep his eyes open. He felt like he was either going to vomit or pass out.
Perhaps, mercifully, his body chose the latter.
Abbacchio swam through shadows and red. The red swiftly overtook everything else; flooding around his shoes and creeping up his ankles, dripping down his face, absolutely pouring off his hands. Everything was bathed in red, and there was another shadow lying on the ground, a body. Abbacchio knew exactly who it was, didn't want to look at the face to confirm his fears, and yet he couldn't stop his feet from moving closer and closer and closer…
Abbacchio groaned, twisting in his sheets, pain leeching through his whole body, half in and out of a nightmare. He could hear someone talking and practically felt the presence of someone else close by before something warm settled against his side, and something else landing on his chest, which inexplicably started a soothing vibration that worked to calm his frayed nerves and sooth him back to sleep. Abbacchio's eyes fluttered shut fully again, leaving him to rest peacefully for an indeterminable amount of time.
When he woke up again, much more lucid this time, he found that two dark-haired strays had joined him in his bed.
The first was curled against his side, fast asleep, drooling a little on his shoulder. Abbacchio would like to be mad, but he had no energy for it.
The second was curled into a neat ball in the center of his chest, watching him with huge green eyes.
Abbacchio and the kitten stared at each other for a long moment before he finally sighed and reached out to nudge the black ball. "Okay, look, I'm not dead. You can go now."
The kitten only flicked its tail and started purring and…yeah, Abbacchio remembered the feeling of that vibration in his chest from the night before. Even now, it worked to soothe him. The kitten closed its eyes and cocked his head, pushing against Abbacchio's hand.
Abbacchio huffed, but opened his palm, and carefully scratched at the kitten's ears.
Narancia stirred, smacking from the dry mouth his must have after drooling so much on Abbacchio's shoulder, and blinked up at him.
"Abba!" he said, pushing up on his elbows. "Are you better?"
Abbacchio grunted. "M'fine, kid," he promised. He did genuinely feel better, though he was extremely glad he had been unconscious for the cleaning of his wound.
"Good," Narancia said sincerely, eyes wide. "Because, you kinda scared me. You scared Bug too."
The kitten made a small sound as if in agreement and climbed further up Abbacchio's body to curl up in the spot between his neck and shoulder, purring happily again.
Narancia smirked. "See, I knew you would come around to him eventually."
Abbacchio rolled his eyes. "I have not. I'm just too tired to care right now."
"Sure," Narancia snorted, still grinning knowingly and, well, damn, maybe he was right after all. There was something endearing about the little pest—just like there was about the scrawny kid that had found him.
Abbacchio realized that he wouldn't want to lose either of them, or anyone from their team for that matter. No matter how annoying some of them could be at times.
Regardless, he let Bug sleep with him for the rest of his recovery, and though he would never admit it out loud to any of the others, he had actually grown pretty fond of the little fuzzball.
