theo didn't know why he'd agreed to this. for one thing, he was allergic to cats, so he'd had to take out a small investment in various allergy medications to keep the itchy eyes and sneezing at bay because the ginger monster caroline had adopted at the festival shed like a menace. and for another, he was orange, so he had one brain cell on the best days, leading to two a.m. zoomies, getting stuck on top of the fridge, and, once, getting caught in charley's bedroom blinds. theo was pretty sure his roommate was drawing up his eviction notice as he stood.

right now, he was disentangling the fluffy orange tabby from the sleeve of one of caroline's jackets, which she'd left over here yesterday. or had it been thursday? she'd been over there so much lately that he couldn't remember. cheeto, for his part, wasn't being very helpful. he kept thrashing and swinging his head back and forth, only resulting in getting him stuck further up the arm of the coat. "if you'd just hold still," theo told the cat, finally resorting to clamping shut the narrow end of the sleeve. cheeto yowled pathetically for a couple of moments before finally beginning to back up. when the door behind him scraped open (he'd given caro his spare key last week; it just...made sense for her to be able to stop by even if he or charley weren't home. so she could check on her cat, obviously), theo was crouched on one knee in front of the couch, the tabby cat gathered in his arms.

"hey. we were just- ow!" cheeto had finally broken free and when he sprang onto the kitchen counter, he used theo's shoulders for balance, claws digging in before he trotted over to caroline, purring all the while. "your son is a menace."