“Okay, but you have to promise,” Simon pouts adorably on the other end of the line. Baz can just see those blue eyes glistening up at him and the indignant jut of Simon’s chin when he protests Basil’s objections, and the dramatised sniffling his Simon would do.

He sighs, already defeated, “Love, do I ever stay mad at you long?”

“Well, no…” Simon admits, and Basil can see the little duck he’s doing with his head right then without having to see him at all, “But still! Don’t get mad in the first place for this one.”

Baz paces a circle once, and then he paces it again, just one more time before giving in fully to his defeat. “Alright, I won’t be. Actually mad. But what have you gone and done in the first place?”

“Nothing! Just, well, it wasn’t me who did anything,” Simon starts, and Baz could agree he probably hadn’t actually done anything too offensive himself. “So you know how the school’s gotten a sort of campus cat in the last couple of months?”

“Mhmn,” Baz intones, forcing himself to sit in an empty seat in the concert hall so as to not work himself up excessively or worry his musicians. He visualises the twenty tiny kindergarteners Simon minds throughout the day, running through their faces and various little mops of messy kindergartener hair from the last time he’d seen them. He could just imagine how excited they must be about some sweet campus stray. Knowing Simon, he’s probably set up a cat house in some corner of the playground for it. He doesn’t need to ask about it, he already knows Simon’s done it without even popping by the school.

“So the cat, we’ve been calling her Midnight, is actually a Mama Midnight and she had her litter like seven, eight weeks ago…” Simon trails off for a moment and Baz has to urge him on with another acknowledging noise, a sort of wordless ‘go on then’ before Simon’s barrelling forward again, “So it’s about time that the kittens get homed and I kind of just took the black one before anyone could say anything all her siblings are orange and white they’re gonna get adopted so easily and I already got her a collar and it’s pink with little rhinestones on it and you can’t tell me to send her to someone else, I’ll cry.”

Baz blinks back at the empty space at the end of the hall, taking all this information in stride. He doesn’t dislike animals. He gets on with cats rather well, actually, he’s just never had one of his own. “Alright,” he concedes without argument, “I won’t tell you to send her to someone else.”

“I’m already atta–” Simon pauses with a confounded little ‘uhhh…’ that stretches on into eternity, “Wait, you said yes?”

“I said yes,” Baz confirms, standing to stretch his legs and head back to the symphony, his musicians already starting to test their instruments in the background.

“That was surprisingly easy…”

“I have a condition,” Basil announces, purely for the sake of giving Simon a justification for that uneasiness in his tone. And also purely because he likes fucking with his husband still sometimes.

“Okay…?” Simon sounds even more suspicious of him and Basil has to hide a laugh, pulling the phone away from his ear while to compose himself before continuing.

“I get to name her.”

“Oh,” Simon says dumbly, “But I–”

“Nope,” Baz pops his ‘p’ as he says it, “That’s my condition, take it or leave it.”

⋆｡˚

Baz names her Ophelia. He doesn’t bother to hear any suggestions from Simon, even though Simon had apparently had a long list of names, but when he hears Basil call the little black kitten Ophelia he forgets each and every one of them in an instant.

She ends up being a bit of a priss, dainty on her paws and holding her head high, prancing about like she owns the place only a week and a half into moving in with them. She’s definitely taking after Baz with how he minds the house, each little thing in its little home and not a bit of mess to be found. Not to mention she does the same sort of snubbing Baz does, nose up to the sky when she doesn’t want to hear it or doesn’t get her way. The worst of it is she’s definitely bonding with Basil more than she’s bonding with Simon!

Well, alright, that wasn’t a bad thing, not actually. Something about coming home to find Baz lounging watching the tele or browsing his computer and having the little kitten on his lap napping was entirely too precious. Something about them made him entirely too fond. If it wasn’t that, then they’d be in the kitchen while Baz was cooking, and he’d have his headphones in and the sheet music to the symphony his orchestra is playing and between stirring pasta sauce or sauteing meat and vegetables, his spatula would double as a make-shift conducting baton.

Ophelia loved when Baz would practice his conducting. Not only did she manage to get stray scraps of meat and cheese when Baz was cooking-conducting, but he also was waving around a very entertaining stick for her to try and snatch from him. Nothing was better for entertaining little Ophelia. They’ve gotten her several sticks that were intended for kittens, with bells and feathers and floof in all manner of bright colours, but nothing satisfies the same way Baz’s spatula satisfies.

Perhaps it was the food. Simon could relate.

Simon’s caught them like this no less than four times so far, and she’s not even ten weeks old. 

“You’re spoiling her,” Simon says as he drops his keys in the bowl and slips his shoes off, “I thought I was going to be the one spoiling her, but it’s definitely you.”

“Don’t talk about Princess Ophelia like that to me, Simon,” Basil looks utterly appalled – a farce Simon is well aware of by now.

“I can’t believe you crowned her since the last time I saw you two,” Simon bemoans, flopping himself over on the couch, “When will you crown me, Basilton? When will I have earned the right to be royalty in your eyes?”

Baz walks over with the kitten perched on his arm like she belonged there and Simon pouts at her. “Did you want to be Princess Simon?” Baz’s voice is dripping sarcasm, but Simon only pouts harder.

“Well, what if I did?”

“Simon–” Baz outright chokes on a laugh at the thought and Ophelia looks offended that he shook her perch so abruptly. Baz puts her gently down on the arm of the couch and slides down next to Simon, sprawling the smaller out over his lap. His fingers card soft through Simon’s curls and before he knows it, he’s got Simon curled up like he was the kitten in their household. “Simon, you’re always royalty to me.”

“You’ve never titled me,” Simon prods Baz’s belly gently and Baz hums a soft song back.

“There’s no title in the world worthy of you, love,” Baz says it so sincerely that Simon knows that it must be true, “You’re always first in my heart. Even when you’re jealous of a silly kitten, need I remind you, that you brought home.”

Simon huffs a little, nuzzling his nose against that same spot he’d just poked, laying a soft kiss just there. “I’m not really jealous,” He means it when he says it, “I just wanted some attention.”

“I will always give you the attention you need,” Basil soothes as he brushes Simon’s hair behind his ears, caressing the shell of it gently, “Did you have a rough day?”

“Mhmn,” Simon answers, curling himself up more in Baz’s lap, “Parents…”

The one word bears enough weight to exhaust them both. “Would you like a nap before dinner? Right here on the couch?”

“Will you nap with me?” Simon asks, even as Basil’s already pulling the throw blanket down from where it had been resting at the top of the couch. He’s already sinking down onto the couch with Simon, wrapping himself more thoroughly around his husband, covering them both with that old hand-knit blanket Lady Ruth had given them for their wedding.

“It seems like a good day for a nap, I think.” It’s Baz’s own way of saying ‘of course,’ his own way of making the act of taking care of Simon something for them both.

Simon curls up facing Baz’s chest and Baz takes the edge of the couch, knowing Simon would fall off if he were to switch their positions. Simon’s breathing settles out as soon as Baz starts humming the notes to his symphony, just a quiet thing for Simon to focus on instead of the dreaded parents that he had been thinking about all day long, no doubt.