#petsverse

Jason loved his boyfriend. Genuinely, really, truly, without question, he did. Leo was funny and smart and surprisingly patient (especially with Jason) and the prettiest damn thing to walk the planet. Leo was, without question, the single best thing that had ever happened to Jason in his whole life. Jason would do anything, anything, for Leo without a second thought, and they both knew it like they knew the sun rose in the east and set in the west. Jason loved Leo so, so much, even when Leo drove him up the wall. 

So, naturally, when Jason’s beautiful, perfect, wonderful, boyfriend quadruple texted him without even a sniff of an emoji or indecipherable short hand, he took it very seriously indeed.

Jace

I don’t mean to alarm you

But something serious happened in the living room

Just come see

Jason’s mind immediately flooded with every worst case scenario imaginable. Something was broken. Leo was broken. Leo had discovered something that made him realize that he didn’t want to date Jason for some reason. His face paled as every imaginary situation just got worse and worse. There was blood and bone and fire and tears and–

Before he could spiral any further, Jason leapt up from his desk and tore down the hall to the living room. He burst through the doorway, chest heaving more with emotion than exertion, and his wild eyes found Leo’s back. “Leo?”

Leo turned and grinned at Jason. His smile was totally normal, teeth wonky and crooked and nose scrunched up and eyes sparkling with mischief and delight. More importantly, he was completely whole and uninjured. “Oh, good, you made it,” he said like he hadn’t expected Jason to come sprinting at his call. Then he dramatically stepped to the side and gestured at the couch like a showman. “Ta-da! Purrito de gato.”

On the couch was a pile of blankets, but not any pile of blankets. This was Leo’s favorite blanket, a colorful woven wool blanket that they’d picked up last time they were in Texas. The blanket was very precisely, neatly rolled up in a giant burrito, and in the middle of that burrito was the large, furry orange face of Festus. Festus blinked his big amber eyes and yawned lazily. 

Jason’s adrenaline dropped immediately and so too did his patience. “This is what you called me in here for?”

Leo gave him a deeply offended look. “It was important. Don’t you think this is important?” To add to his point, Festus let out a loud yowl of agreement. “You tell him, Festus. Asshole.”

Jason rolled his eyes and dragged his hand down his face. “Festus is very cute, but after you made out like you were dying, he's a little anticlimactic.”

Leo's whole face puckered in confusion. “What are you talking about?” Instead of answering, Jason just shoved his phone, still open to the fateful text string. Leo rolled his eyes, but as he read each line, his lips began to purse slightly. When he finished, he handed the phone back over. “Okay, with the power of hindsight, I can maybe concede your point. But I seriously wasn’t trying to. It was just supposed to be dramatic.”

“Then why did you type it all weird and formal like that?” Jason asked, pocketing the phone. “Usually it takes me like five minutes to even figure out what you’re saying because you shorten everything so much.”

“Shut up, no I don’t.”

“You really do.”

“Whatever,” Leo scoffed with a toss of his head. “And if you must know, my phone updated last night. It was one of those big, stupid system updates that undoes all of your settings. I kept meaning to turn off autocorrect today, but I kept getting distracted.”

Jason stared at him for a moment as he tried to slow his heart rate. “So you’re telling me that I had a panic attack over your phone correcting your grammar?”

“Sorry,” Leo mumbled, sheepishly hiking his shoulders. “That’s my bad.”

Jason kind of wanted to be mad, but that feeling had always had difficulty finding a foothold in his chest, especially when it came to Leo. “If it makes you feel any better, Festus is very cute.”

Leo lit up and blossomed like a flower in the sunrise. “Yeah? It took so long to get him wrapped up. I thought it would be easy because he’s just fat, but moving that much cat is actually kinda hard.”

Jason chuckled, already picturing Leo trying to wrestle his beloved 22-pound agent of fluffy chaos into a blanket. He stepped over and pressed a kiss to Leo’s hair. “Well, I’m certainly impressed.”

Leo beamed up at him, so Jason ducked his head to kiss him properly while Festus yodeled quietly behind them. Leo was loud and chaotic and impulsive and had way too much of a flair for the dramatics. He caused problems on purpose just as often as he did accidentally, and he seemed to revel in the joy of finding the solution. Despite all this Jason loved his boyfriend so, so much.