Purrchance To Dream - Part 9

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Companion prose written by my wonderful co-writer Calico!

Enjoy!

***

His hands are still hovering over it, the shadows from the headlamps bathing the crime scene in darkness. It’s not—he can’t see blood, he can’t smell blood, he feels like he would smell it, right? If the cat was—

He holds his breath and lowers his hands, makes himself touch the silky fur, and finds with a sick lurch in his stomach that it’s still warm. 

Because it just happened, says a new, curiously blank part of his brain. Even if he’s—even if—it’s only just happened. It wouldn’t yet have cooled down. 

Crowley sucks in a shuddery breath as he scoops the cat up in his arms, tucking its head under his shoulder.  It’s alarmingly floppy until he gets it arranged properly, cradling its slight weight with both arms—and then he goes absolutely still as he detects the rapid-fire tap of its heartbeat against his own chest, faint but unmistakable. 

—Fuck, Crowley thinks, a tidal wave of relief crashing over him. Fuck! It’s not… I didn’t…

He staggers to his feet, clutching it in his arms, and jumps back into the driver’s seat—only belatedly realising it’s high time he sobers up. 

He clicks his fingers and the thick, cosy, numbing haze across his thoughts clears all at once, like shaking out a heap of blankets that have been tucked securely around his brain. 

He hasn’t forcibly sobered up in ages. In the stark microsecond that follows, he wonders how long those blankets have been there, worn thin throughout each day but topped up again every single night. Probably since—yeah. 

Well, he’s eye-wateringly sober now. He feels squeaky clean. What’s left in his brain is an uncompromising, nails-on-chalkboard clarity, sharp right now with adrenaline and fear. 

He fucking almost killed the fucking cat! 

Crowley throws the car into gear and drives the rest of the way home one-handed, holding the cat against his chest and barely remembering to breathe. 

He pulls up in his own street and sits for a moment after the engine turns off, reorienting to the small creature’s heartbeat. It’s breathing, too, he can feel—shallow but steady. But it doesn’t seem to be waking up. 

Crowley arranges the cat in his lap and drums his fingers against the steering wheel.

Fuck, fuck, fuck. Head injury? Coma? Internal bleeding?

He squints at the darkness outside, then wraps the cat carefully in his jacket and carries it into his building. 

The bright lights don’t wake him up, nor does the slam of Crowley’s door behind them as they enter his flat. 

Crowley stalks into the kitchen and then looks around, restless. He finds a tea towel - pristine, because Crowley has never washed up in his life - and lies it one-handed across the polished concrete countertop before arranging the cat across it. 

He regards it expectantly. 

Still nothing.

Fuck! Who knows about cats? Do angels know about cats? Angels don’t seem to know much about people physiology… he’s not sure he’d trust them with a cat. Good. He hates angels. 

Demons don’t know about cats, he’s fairly sure. And as for humans—

Aziraphale would know about cats, interrupts a whispering voice in his head. Or rather, he might not know himself, but he’d know where to look. He’d know which book, which pill, which human, which—human! Ah! 

“Vet!” Crowley shouts triumphantly, and clicks his fingers with force. See? Who needs Aziraphale? 

There is a flash like lightning, a startled gasp and then a staggering presence as some… person materialises. 

Crowley maybe didn’t think this through. 

His kitchen is not a veterinary office. 

A large Turkish woman wearing brightly printed silk pyjamas, with hair like molasses - thick waves of it tumbling around her shoulders - looks around in horrified silence. 

The vet, Crowley presumes.

***