#speaker angus

Title: Strange, Familiar Magic Summary: There’s probably something to be said here about the red string of fate, but all Angus would like to do with it is play, thanks very much.  Warnings: None. Notes: The @speakergame Discord server was in dire need of Li fluff, so I stole @tpcignits‘s Speaker, Elizabeth, whose gamestate includes Liam, and this was born.  Someone should give me a prompt for Lily because the next fic I’m writing also includes Liam.  (Open invitation.)

Also here on AO3.

 “She’s a familiar, not a housecat, Ellie,” Liam was saying, but Ellie recognized that particular tone of voice, the one that came up when Liam was just determined to be right instead of actually being right.

She looked down at the cat on the old couch between them, eyebrows raised so high she knew it made her face look ridiculous as she watched Angus nuzzle into the palm of her hand, long strands of fur slipping between her fingers.  “The nature of cats is universal, Li,” she said, hand slipping under Angus’s chin to scratch very softly up her neck.  “She’s purring.  Pretty sure that’s proof!”

Li just sighed, flopping dramatically back onto the couch.  “Cats purr when they’re nervous, too, you know.”

“So you admit she’s a cat!”

Liam spluttered.  “No, what--”

“Besides, she’s connected to you, right?” Elizabeth said, the hand not petting Angus falling onto the couch by Liam’s thigh so she could lean closer (and not thinking about that closeness, nope, not right now).  Her voice fell to a conspiratorial, shocked whisper.  “Liam M. Cowles, are you saying I make you nervous?”

“Maybe,” Liam answered, arching up so their noses were touching.  Elizabeth was so enamored of the blush that Li couldn’t hide on his pale skin, especially not this close, not to mention the way his voice grew tight and eyes crossed to look at her (just like his cat), that the smirk on his lips went unnoticed.  “Nervous you’ll crush Angus, anyway.”

It wasn’t like their bodies were super close together, like this, but clearly, Angus did not think she had enough space if the indignant meow she let out was any indication.  Elizabeth looked down suddenly, starting to pull away (just because she had a dog, or whatever the technical classification for their demon was, didn’t mean she did not understand the cardinal rule of cat ownership: it’s the cat’s house, and you just live in it).  And there was the perfect distraction as Liam reached over and poked her hard in the ribs.

“Liam!” Elizabeth swatted at his hand, missing intentionally as she stood up.  “More like nervous I’ll bring up your favorite hoodie aga--”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Liam said, crossing his arms as Elizabeth moved across the room to where the skein of red yarn had been left after their friends’ latest brainstorming session.

“Someday I will have photographic evidence, and then you will be at my mercy,” she said.  It didn’t take too long to measure out an arm’s length of the string.

“Luke will burn them.”

“Bold of you to assume Luke isn’t on my side.”

Elizabeth punctuated her statement with a soft snip of the scissors, cutting the red string free and then wiggling it between two fingers.  Exactly as predicted, she saw Angus’s ears twitch slightly as the cat looked towards her.  “If I can get your cat, I can definitely sway your brother,” she said, coming back to the couch just as Angus jumped off of it and down to the carpet.

“You planning to bribe him with string, too?” Liam asked, rolling his eyes.

Elizabeth sat back down, then realized the string was too short to keep Angus safely away from her feet like this.  “I can’t tell you all my secrets,” she said coyly.  After a second of consideration, she pulled her feet up onto the couch, then laid sideways so that her arm and the string could flop onto the carpet and into Angus’s reach.  “There you go,” she hummed, whipping the yarn into patterns for Angus to chase.

For a few minutes, the only sounds in the room were the little pap-pap-pap of Angus’s paws on the old carpet and the occasional breathy laugh as she did something that looked impossible if not for the immutable truth that cats were actually liquid.  At some point, Liam must have remembered that he did technically have an excuse to come over that wasn’t Elizabeth’s obviously stellar company.  When she looked up, at least, she noticed a book in his lap that hadn’t been there before.  But he wasn’t reading it.  He was looking at her.

Or, rather, had been, because as soon as Elizabeth looked up, his eyes darted back to the book, then bounced to his cat, then back to the book, and Elizabeth couldn’t help laughing.  “What?” Liam asked, the blush returning with a vengeance.

“Nothing,” Elizabeth hummed, tucking her feet up against Li’s leg as she shifted a little on the couch.

Angus, impatient to have further attention lavished on her, bapped Ellie’s hand where it had fallen still, dangling by the couch.  “Okay, okay,” she laughed, going back to making the string into acceptable prey for Angus.

“You know she’s going to expect this from you now, right?” Liam asked, and there was something soft in his voice that made Elizabeth wish she’d still been looking at him when he spoke.  Still, even just a quick glance revealed a smile in his eyes that was as teasing as it was warm.

Disclaimer: since Speaker is a new project, I can’t say I’ve had the opportunity to get to know the characters all that well yet, so it’s possible that my characterization for Li may be proven wrong in the coming months, but I’m doing my best because I love them and this game.

It isn’t like familiars are all that uncommon, so it still surprises Li every time someone sees Angus and coos over her like she’s a particularly well-trained housecat.  In fact, it’s through this that Li has developed a weirdly powerful empathy for people with service animals; lucky that Angus doesn’t necessarily have a job to do that concerns life, death, medical stuff, and all that.

She’s still more than a pet, though.  It’s always been so hard to explain to people without familiars, exactly what that bond feels like, and Li is never sure that they actually get it when they say stuff like, “Oh, yeah, I know what you mean!”