Author's note: Wow, hello. Finally posting, hopelessly late. I'm sorry. So sorry. This is written for FrUK New Year's gift exchange, for azumeowth on tumblr, whose prompt was a human AU where Arthur finds Francis' lost Persian cat. I finished writing this at 3:30 am, so forgive me, I haven't proofread this yet. Anyway, I hope you like it!

The Curious Incident of The Missing Persian

"Sorry," Arthur says when he bumps into somebody, and moves on without looking up. The somebody shrugs and goes his own way. The incident is instantly forgotten.

xXx

It is early autumn, and even sunny a day for once, when Arthur first encounters the cat. He's strolling down the street and doesn't particularly look around, because he's late and his boss is going to kill him, and he has too many articles to edit to enjoy the leisure of death. And so it happens that Arthur Kirkland hurries along the one-way driveway and minds solely his own business, namely, the watch on his wrist. But it also happens that having eyes only for too hasty clock hands may have some rather predictable consequences, which is the reason why the world suddenly flips and Arthur finds himself sprawled face-first on the dirty pavement. He blinks, baffled, instinctively looking around to ensure that no one saw his embarrassing dive, and that is when he notices the cat.

There are no people around to have witnessed Arthur's disgraceful fall, but the white, long-furred cat looks at the Englishman with enough scorn in its sapphire eyes for ten passers-by. It sits elegantly near a trash bin and glares at Arthur so condescendingly that the Englishman can't help blushing and scrambles up on his feet. He is still late, but now his suit is dirty and he's laughed at by a bloody cat, too. An exceptionally good day, it is. Arthur shoots a glare at the stupid cat and hurries to work.

His boss merely laughs at him when he finally arrives in his office, sweaty and dirty and angry.

xXx

The second time when Arthur sees the cat is on the following day around the noon, when he's on his way to a grocery store and in no hurry at all. The cat sits on the same spot as it sat the day before, and its surprisingly white fur catches Arthur's attention as he passes. He stops and gives a glare to the blasted animal. "I remember you," he threatens.

The cat makes no answer.

"You are not a stray cat," Arthur then tells it, and receives another haughty look in response.

"You are annoying. Why don't you have a collar?"

The cat turns him its back and lies down, ignoring him completely.

"Fine," Arthur snorts and continues his way. He isn't much of a cat expert, but even he recognises a Persian cat when he sees one, and those cats are usually pretty expensive; they don't simply wander around on the streets like that. This cat is probably lost, but he didn't glimpse a collar on its neck, so there's no way he could help it anyway.

It is at the grocery store that he sees the cat staring at him again. Not in flesh, though – he catches a poster announcing of a lost pet on the noticeboard when he's packing his purchases. There's no mistake of it being the same animal on the poster and on the street: the same blue eyes (don't cats usually have yellow eyes or something?), the same strikingly white fur, the same haughty scowl. Below the photo is the contact information: Francis Bonnefoy, phone number, email. Poor old sod, probably freaking out all around the city over his lost cat.

Arthur glances around, and as no one is paying him any attention, snatches the poster from the wall and stuffs it in his shopping bag along with the groceries. He needs to be sure.

When Arthur returns, the cat is still sleeping where he last saw it. However, its ears twitch as soon as the Englishman stops within a couple of metres from it, and it slowly opens its eyes to glare at him accusingly. Arthur counters with a glare of his own and fishes the poster out of his bag.

"Is this you?" he asks aloud, then quickly looks around to be sure that no one sees him talking to a bloody cat.

The cat begins licking its paws.

"A two-year-old female Persian," Arthur reads from the poster. "Could be you." He fixes his eyes on the disinterested cat. "Are you female?"

The cat doesn't answer him, doesn't even look at him. Arthur glares at it for a good minute before sets his bag on the ground and slowly, carefully approaches the feline. It finally deigns to look at him, and, a little alarmed, hops up, yet doesn't run away. It gives a soft meow, eyeing Arthur warily, and suddenly the Englishman feels as though he were about to harass an innocent woman. The feeling is illogical and stupid, but makes him embarrassed anyway.

"Look," he explains to the cat, giving an awkward cough. "We only need to do this once, then we can forget it ever happened, okay? I just need to make sure that it indeed is you on the poster."

Swiftly, he reaches out and grabs the cat with both hands around its stomach. It's a mistake, which he understands as the cat lashes out with its paws, sinking its nails into the bare skin of his hands. Arthur yelps and barely manages to press the now furious feline against his chest to prevent it from escaping.

"Ow, you little devil, this is for your own good!" He succeeds at flipping the cat on its back and quickly checking its gender before it – or she indeed – manages to wiggle upright again on his lap, meowing and scratching his hands raw.

"Bloody hell, you!" Arthur snarls at her but doesn't let go. He captures her paws in his fists, and after some cursing, angry meowing, and failed attempts to pick up his shopping bag while maintaining a good grip on the struggling feline, the Englishman finally manages to set for the journey home. All the way people are giving him odd glances, probably considering him an animal abuser, so when by some miracle Arthur manages to get to his flat without losing neither the cat, nor his groceries, he is relieved beyond all boundaries. As soon as he kicks the front door shut behind himself he half drops the cat on the floor.

"Did you really have to make it so difficult?" he grumbles at her and slips his shoes off.

The feline gives him a sulky face, but, contrary to what Arthur believed, calms down immediately on getting her paws on the floor. At first she just stands there, sniffing the air and looking around, but then she walks further into the apartment, proceeding to calmly inspect her new surroundings.

Arthur still stands in his hall with his arms crossed, a little bit at loss. What should he do now? Should he feed the cat? She probably hasn't eaten for quite a while. Wait, oh God, what if she needs to answer the nature's call? Arthur doesn't have anything even vaguely resembling a cat toilet, but if that beast soils his apartment, he's kicking her out with two legs!

To prevent any accidents, Arthur finds a bucket, takes it to his bathroom and fetches the cat from his sofa – she found her place quickly, didn't she – and places her in the bucket. "This is the place to do it should you feel the need," the Englishman tells her sternly. The cat gives him a calm look and graciously hops out of the bucket, resuming her previous place on the sofa. Arthur shakes his head and begins unpacking the groceries.

It isn't long until he feels something pushing against his legs and hears a rather loud meow; the rustling of the shopping bag probably alerted the hunger in the poor animal. Arthur looks down on her as she continues to meow and begins purring, all the while rubbing herself against his legs. He has never had pets, unless the little hedgehog that he once brought home as a kid counts, and frankly, he doesn't quite know what to do with them. It's not that he doesn't like cats, he actually does like them, it's just that this is somebody else's cat and he was unprepared for her arrival. It's like suddenly hearing that you've become a parent... Okay, maybe not to that extent, but unexpected nonetheless.

"Milk?" he offers to the impatient feline, because cats don't drink tea.

xXx

Arthur tries ringing to Francis Bonnefoy, several times even, but either the man's phone is broken or its battery is dead, so Arthur sends him an email instead. Madeleine, however – that is the cat's name, Arthur found it on the poster with closer observation – doesn't seem to mind in the least. In fact, after eating the cat food that Arthur specifically went to buy for her, she hopped on Arthur's sofa, padded on it back and forth to find the best spot, and finally curled into a ball. The sight is adorable enough to soften Arthur's cynical heart even despite all the white cat hairs that Madeleine shed all over his dark sofa, and he sits beside her, carefully petting her neck. The sound of soft purring fills the air, and it is then that Arthur understands why people even keep cats. There is something so serene, so soothing about caressing a soft heap of fur while listening to the calming purring and feeling its vibration with his fingertips.

xXx

Bonnefoy returns his call later that day, around the time when Arthur usually puts the kettle on and prepares himself a light snack. That is usually, but not today, because today Arthur is busy getting to know the reverse side of foster-parenting cats.

"Bonjour, this is Francis Bonnefoy calling," a French voice blabbers on the other side of the line. "I just read your email, I understand that you found my dear Madeleine, yes?"

"Bonnefoy," Arthur says into his phone, to make sure he got it right.

"That's right, Francis Bonnefoy, yes. How is Madeleine?"

"Your little Madevil just shit under my sofa," Arthur informs him.

He is met with silence, during which he keeps glaring at the mentioned devil now peacefully sleeping on his sofa again, as if she hadn't just done something utterly and thoroughly disgusting.

"Well," Bonnefoy then says. "I certainly hope you didn't feed her anything odd."

"What?"

"May I have your address? I would very much like to take my little angel home as soon as possible." Is Arthur only imagining, or is that man trying to stifle a chuckle on the other side of the line?

"Come and get your beast away from here," Arthur growls into the phone and gives his address without further ado; the sooner Bonnefoy will be there, the sooner the safety of his flat is guaranteed again.

It appears that Bonnefoy lives in a different neighbourhood than Arthur, because his arrival at the Englishman's flat takes long enough for Arthur to have plenty of time to finish cleaning his floor. That is the Frenchman's point, Arthur is sure, but he isn't about to wait till the evening with shit on his floor, not even for the pleasure of forcing a Frenchman to clean it. (Because he would have forced him to clean it. Oh, he would have.) For some reason, Madeleine got distressed when Arthur moved the sofa and began cleansing the tainted area, and hid herself somewhere (for unbearable and deserved shame, hopefully).

Thus, when the doorbell rings, there's only Arthur to greet the comer.

"Arthur Kirkland, I presume?" the blond-haired man behind the door greets him with a dashing smile.

Arthur scowls at him. "Francis Bonnefoy."

Apparently that's simply hilarious, because the Frenchman bursts into laughter. The sound of it is sincere and airy, and were Arthur less displeased with the whole situation, perhaps he would have found himself a little smiling, too. But as it happens, he isn't less displeased, and so he crosses his arms and patiently waits for this Bonnefoy to collect himself.

Eventually, the man does calm down. "I apologise for any inconvenience my Madeleine may have caused you," he says and directs another bright smile at Arthur, who tries to dodge it with a massive frown but fails and steps aside instead to let the Frenchman in.

"Oh, she was no bother at all. Any time."

"Glad to hear that." Bonnefoy grins at the mild sarcasm. "She does love to visit her English friends. Speaking of her, where is she?"

"Put her in the fridge while googled recipes," Arthur says with a straight face. He is contented to catch the flash of doubt in the Frenchman's eyes before the man realises that he's joking.

"Right." Bonnefoy casts a pointed glance around his flat and then looks directly at Arthur, as if waiting for something. It strikes the Englishman that the owner's eyes are very similar in colour to those of the pet's, and he thinks that perhaps he should say something decent to the man, like that his cat is well, or something, but then he notices how those blue eyes shift from his eyes a little higher, to his thick eyebrows, and changes his mind. Instead, he turns around to locate the cat and kick her out along with her owner.

The task, however, proves to be harder than expected. The feline is not on the sofa, nor under it, she isn't under the table, under the bed or even under the cover of the bed. At this point, Francis is beginning to cast weird glances at the Englishman, and while that's amusing in a way, Arthur is really beginning to wonder where the blasted cat has stuffed itself... and what evils she might be doing there unseen.

"Are you sure you checked behind your desk?" Francis asks him on double-checking behind sofa pillows.

"Positive," Arthur responds and can't help adding, "My, how do you treat your cat if she's this eager to hide just on hearing your voice on the phone?"

Francis pouts at him. "No, your eyebrows must have scared her away. Do they bite?"

Arthur bristles. "No, but sometimes they eat stupid frogs alive."

Francis responds to the insult with mirthful laughter and Arthur catches himself smiling, too. The Frenchman's eyes fix on his, and then they shift away – lower, to his mouth. "Oh, look at you, you are capable of smiling after all!" He winks. "Looks good on you."

Arthur resists an urge to stick his tongue out – he's a grown man and a perfect gentleman besides, he will not degrade himself to such level. But for some reason he finds his mind void of any witty responses, and so he settles for a hasty suggestion. "Let's check under the sofa again."

He walks past Francis to the sofa, but at the same time the Frenchman straightens from the floor where he was kneeling, and Arthur accidentally bumps into him.

"Sorry," he mumbles quickly and begins dragging the sofa from the corner to have better access if the cat really is there. From the corner of his eyes, however, he notices Francis frowning at him a little. "What?"

The Frenchman shrugs and shakes his head. "Oh, nothing. Just had a funny déjà vu, is all. Need any help with that?"

Madeleine, to be a nuisance that she is, is not behind the sofa, and frustration begins to catch up with both men; they've turned the whole flat, small as it is, upside down at least thrice, and the cat is nowhere to be found.

"She's doing this on purpose," Arthur finally grumbles and plops down on the sofa. Francis sits beside him, visibly beginning to worry. "That might be," he admits. "But I seriously wonder. You don't happen to have any holes in your walls?"

"Of course not!"

"Simply asking..."

Arthur glances at the clock. "Er, I don't know about you, but I wouldn't mind eating something soon. Would you like a cup of tea or something?"

"Coffee would be lovely."

Arthur wrinkles his nose. "Sorry, I've got no coffee."

Francis stares at him, then chuckles. "An Englishman through and through, aren't you? Actually, might I use your bathroom?"

"Of course. The door in the hall."

Francis goes and Arthur puts the kettle on, already beginning to think what to prepare, when the Frenchman calls for him.

"Arthur, come here for a second!"

Suspiciously Arthur obeys, and finds Bonnefoy standing in the middle of the floor. "Look at that," he says and points. Arthur follows his finger with his gaze stops in his tracks.

It's Madeleine, naturally. The cat is curled up, all while fur, in the bucket that Arthur had meant to serve as her temporary toilet.

"Oh," he says. Then, "Typical." He had naturally looked in the bathroom as well, but the rims of the bucket hid the white fluffy heap from his gaze, and it hadn't even occurred to him that the cat might prefer a bloody bucket to any soft surface he has in his apartment. "Well. Mystery solved."

Francis smiles fondly at his cat and crouches beside the bucket to caress her gently. "Thank you for taking care of her," he says softly as Madeleine meows quietly at the familiar touch. "You have no idea how worried I was."

There is something so adorable about the picture of a man and his cat before Arthur's eyes that, again, he doesn't even try to fumble for words. "Er, it was no trouble."

Francis chuckles and looks at him playfully. "Sure, so you wouldn't mind cleaning up after Madeleine when I bring her over to say hello?"

Arthur grimaces, and Francis' hearty laughter echoes between his walls.

The Frenchman straightens up and takes his cat in his arms. She doesn't struggle, Arthur notes with a tinge of annoyance. "Why couldn't she be like that when I was brining her here?" he complains and rubs at the red, still fresh scratches on his hands. Francis notices and winces sympathetically. "Sorry about that. Madeleine doesn't usually like strangers. In fact, I'm surprised you managed to even catch her."

"She wasn't running away," Arthur states, shrugging.

"Right." Francis pets the feline thoughtfully for a moment, and just when Arthur thinks it's the perfect time for him to withdraw and leave the two alone (or something), the Frenchman raises his eyes and fixes them right on Arthur's. "You know, I'd like to... I mean, you did mention earlier being hungry, and I wouldn't mind some food right now, either, and besides I'd like to pay you back somehow for your troubles." He furrows his brows a bit and then utters a small laughter. "What I'm trying to say here is that would you perhaps like to go have dinner with me? I came by car, we could drop Madeleine home and then go to a place of your choice. What say you?"

Arthur's stomach grumbles and he crosses his arms over it in an attempt to hide the sound behind his own limbs. Both Francis and Madeleine are looking at him expectantly, each with their set of blue eyes, and Francis' laughter echoes in his mind. "Well," he says, hoping that the growling of his belly doesn't drown his voice, "I'd. Like that."

Francis beams at him, and Arthur offers a small smile in return.

Madeleine will never enter Arthur's flat again, but Francis, on the other hand, becomes an exceedingly frequent guest there in times to be. And if one day Arthur finds himself living with a certain cat (and a Frenchman) in his household, well, that's a secret and he doesn't know it yet.

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