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Cazador is, by any reasonable measure, very busy.
This remains true even though his pacing is no longer anything close to productive, and has instead become an irritated, nervous tic. But he keeps pacing. Yes. There are matters requiring his attention, and no, none of them are currently being resolved, but somehow, he thinks, it would be deeply unwise to stop moving.
“You’re doing it again,” Astarion says pointedly from his armchair.
Cazador ignores him, and continues circulating the room.
“You haven’t stopped for hours,” Astarion tries again. “Have you rested at all today?”
“I do not require rest. I am occupied.”
Astarion sighs, and pushes himself up by the velvet arm of the chair to his feet. “Yes,” he agrees, in a tone that tells Cazador that Astarion is humouring him, “You’re terribly occupied, I can see. Come here.”
Astarion steps into Cazador’s path on the next turn, gently catching his wrist.
“You’re going to sit down,” he says firmly.
“I am not–”
“Yes, you are. Five minutes. Then you can go back to whatever it is you’re doing.”
Cazador stares at him for a moment. Decides it isn’t worth the fight. This, he tells himself, is a temporary concession. A tactical one. To get the insufferable man off his back. So he allows himself to be guided towards the sofa.
The sofa, it turns out, is already occupied. Fluff, Cazador and Astarion’s most domesticated rescue cat, is already half asleep on one half of the sofa. Cazador sits down, half-tempted to shoo Fluff off the sofa.
But he doesn’t. Fluff opens her eyes a crack, and then steps neatly onto his lap, circles once and then settles down in a happy, purring little ball.
“I see,” he murmurs, “a trap.”
“Mmm. Now, don’t be disturbing Fluff. I’m coming back.” Astarion turns and leaves the room. He kicks his feet up and lies against the arm, sinking into the squishy cushions, tolerating the entitled weight of the cat on his legs.
A tiny mewl emanates from beneath the sofa. It’s Sprout. Sprout’s tiny little pink nose peeps up over the velvet, and then he jumps up onto him, nudging his arm with the top of his head, demanding to be stroked.
Somebody is always demanding something of him, he thinks, but he finds himself forcing back a reluctant smile as he smooths a hand over Sprout’s head, scratching lightly behind his ears. Sprout makes a small, pleased sound, and his smile tugs at the corner of his mouth. He catches himself. Resets his expression into a mandatory frown. But before he can let it settle, something darts over the arm of the sofa and lands on his shins.
It’s Socks. Socks isn’t called socks because he has coloured feet, but because the first thing he had done when Cazador adopted him was chew through the entirety of Astarion’s sock drawer. Cazador had immediately taken a liking to Socks, who generally likes to keep her distance – even now, stationing herself primly at the far end of his body, out of his clutches, minding her own business.
He hears Astarion pacing back down the hallway, and he comes back brandishing two pairs of… socks. He smiles smugly at the sight of Cazador trapped under three of their cats, as though he has already won some kind of great victory. Sprout kneads at his thigh, which he hates. The sensation of her wriggling and tickling against him makes him wince, and fills him with an urge to push her off, but Astarion is already there, lifting her away from him, “enough of that, darling, Daddy doesn’t like that,” Astarion whispers as he pops her down on his own lap.
“Listen,” he says, sitting down next to his feet. “I know you have seven-thousand-and-something things to do. But you are running yourself into the ground,” he says as he rolls a thin pair of cotton socks onto his cold bare foot, and the other, smoothing out the wrinkles just the way Cazador likes. Then he pulls a pair of fluffy pink bedsocks over the cotton ones.
Cazador wants to be cross, but he loves the way Astarion knows just how he likes his sock setup, a thin layer of comfortingly bland cotton protecting his feet from the tickly fluff of the warm overlayer.
“I want you to rest. Yes! Rest!” Astarion emphasises firmly before he has the chance to cut in, but instead, he’s disturbed by a sudden yowling and grizzling from behind the door. Cazador rolls his eyes. He knows immediately that it’s Milk and Ink, again, clawing at each other. The people at the shelter had said they were twins, but they look so opposite to each other, he’s not sure if he believes them. Astarion rolls his eyes, and goes to separate the petty war between the two inseparable cats, returning with one in each arm – Milk, immaculate and offended; Ink, grumpy and wide-eyed, whiskers twitching.
Astarion bundles Milk into Cazador’s arm, who presses into his side with a small, aggrieved huff. Milk has always preferred Cazador, while Ink always had an affinity with Astarion. Cazador watches idly, letting Milk sulk silently in the crook of his arm.
Somehow, that comforts him. The still warmth of Socks and Fluff on his legs, too, seems to wrestle his nervous system into submission.
Astarion stretches down beside him, top to tail, his head resting against the arm at the other end of the sofa, boxing Cazador in.
Bitterly, he realises that he doesn’t really mind. That for some inexplicable reason, he suddenly feels… drowsy.
There’s another patter of feet. Their last two cats jump up onto the arms of the chairs. Grand Lord Grottissimus Maximus III is a lump of a thing, and he launches himself onto Astarion with a graceless thump, who tickles under his chin, as demanded. He lets out a deep, rumbling purr. “Good boy, Grotty,” says Astarion fondly.
Cazador doesn’t care for Grotty. Thinks he’s an oaf of a cat, and dislikes the uncouth way he slobbers all over you, if one gives him half a chance.
But he does love the tiny, dishevelled, twitchy little scrap of a thing that has crawled onto his chest. Mothball. His Mothball.
He cradles her, careful not to startle his favourite feral fluffball into reconsidering this rare indulgence. Tilts his chin down to watch her eyes drift from wary and wide to peaceful and heavy-lidded as he holds her against his chest.
Cazador loves Mothball. He breathes deeply as, reluctantly, he lets the peace envelop him and drag at his eyelids.
“Just five minutes then,” he murmurs.
“Mmm. Just five,” agrees Astarion, knowingly.
He lets the weight of Fluff, Socks and Milk settle over him as Astarion curls up with Sprout, Ink and Grotty.
He rests a hand protectively over Mothball, letting her nuzzle gently against his chest, and lets himself drift off to sleep, surrounded by the warmth of Astarion nuzzled beside him and the weight of their furry little family.