loving someone || skam fic

15 | missing cat

iris was crouched in next-door's front garden making kissy-kissy noises in the dark when william got home on monday night.

"iris?" he said, doing a double take.

"william!" she leapt to her feet. "thank god. you're home."

"what?" he said. "what's the matter?"

"it's madeleine. she's gone missing. she went out last night and i haven't seen her since. can you help me look for her?"

"er... yeah, sure," said william, "let me just, er, dump my stuff." he indicated his off-license and work clothes.

"bollocks," he muttered to himself as he mounted the stairs to the front door and pulled his keys from his jacket pocket. the last thing he felt like doing was creeping around finsbury park in the dark with iris, looking for her blessed cat.

"thought you had a fucking connection," he hissed to himself as he made his way up to the flat. "can't you send the fucking cat a telepathic fucking message or something?"

iris was peering through the letterbox of number 50 when william went back outside a few minutes later.

"what are you doing?" he said, coming up behind her with a torch.

"look," she said, pointing at the foot of the door. "flap. she might have wandered in here by accident and got trapped."

"hasn't she got a tag?"

"no," snapped iris, "of course she hasn't. it's really dangerous to put a collar on a cat."

"it is?"

"yes. they can get strangulated. she's got a chip."

"a chip?"

"yeah - they're these new things, like a little microchip, size of grain of rice. it's injected into her neck and all her ID's stored on it so if she gets lost or hurt the vet can just zap her with a gun thingy and bring up all her details on a computer."

"cool," said william, "but how will someone know who she belongs to unless they take her to the vet?"

iris looked at him as if she were about to tell him he was being stupid, but then changed her mind. "i don't know," she muttered, turning back to the letterbox. 

"has she done this before?" william swung his torch back and forth across the base of the privet hedge outside number 50.

"no. well, sort of. i mean she goes out and i don't know what she gets up to, but she'll always come back at least once during the night or day. it's not like her to be out for so long without coming back. i'm worried she might have got lost. lost her bearings. maybe she was trying to find her way back to the old flat. maybe i let her out too soon. god, i can't bear it..."

they searched the full length of finsbury park road, wilberforce road even blackstock road that evening.

by the time they got back to the flat it was nearly nine o'clock, and william was so cold he could no longer feel his inner thighs.

iris eyed the kitchen table when they walked back in and clocked the four-pack of stellas and the block buster video. "oh," she said, "shit. i'm sorry. i've spoiled your night. i didn't think."

"don't worry about it," said william, lowering himself on to the victorian-school-style radiator and feeling his thighs and buttocks thawing as he did.

"no. really. i feel terrible. you must think i'm so selfish."

"well, yes, but that's all part of your uniqie charm."

she smiled wanly at him. "let me make it up to you," she said. "let me do you a reading."

"oh god..." iris had been jabbering on about giving him a tarot reading since the day she'd moved in.

"oh, come on," she persisted, "i'm worried about you. your life's in limbo. you're looking thin..."

"thin?"

"yes. drawn."

"that's all those fucking chickpeas you keep feeding me. i need meat, not a tarot reading." as a strict vegan, iris was stridently opposed to any form of ready-made meal and every night she commandeered the kitchen, cooking enormous pungent curries of chickpeas, lentils and strange root vegetables, which she foisted upon william like a jewish mother. as a consequence william had been enjoying the most prolific and luxurious bowed movements of his life and had lost two pounds in weight.

"ok. how about i order us a curry. with meat in it. just for you. on me. a nice chicken tikka, maybe..."

"or a vindaloo."

"or a vindaloo. and then let me read your cards. please?"

"oh, go on, then."

"cool!" she pulled open the drawer in the kitchen table and pulled out a handful of takeaway menus. 

"so," she said while they waited for their delivery, "what's happening with you and ingrid?"