Okay so here is my Pet AU! I started off with just this single chapter which was a request for a prompt of Blake being a housecat and Ruby being a mouse she finds. Then I just kept getting more pet prompts and so I decided to make this a full story with multiple chapters.
The first two chapters may seem short because they were originally just prompts, but chapters 3 and higher were written as full fic chapters. So enjoy!
Disclaimer: I do not own RWBY.
Chapter 1. A Little Mouse
It was just another night in Blake's home. She'd curled up at the foot of her humans' bed to sleep, warm and content between their feet.
But she couldn't sleep for some reason tonight. Something was calling to her, not with audible sound, but loudly enough to have her instincts kicking into high gear. She could hear the scuttling of tiny claws across the tiled floor all the way from the kitchen.
Instantly she was up, leaping off the bed and creeping toward the hallway, keeping light on the pads of her paws. She peered around the corner into the kitchen, golden eyes flashing in the darkness.
It didn't take her long to locate the source of the noise. Up on the counter, something small was moving…
She could distinguish two round ears, a tiny body, a long tail, and a twitching nose.
Not in her house.
Blake crept up to the counter, wiggling her haunches in preparation for the jump. The mouse was too focused on her task of trying to open the cookie jar, she hadn't even noticed Blake.
With a yowl and a leap, Blake sprung up onto the counter and swiped at the mouse, bowling her over to scramble into a pile of dishes.
"Eep!" she squealed. "P-Please don't eat me!"
"Please," Blake hissed, lashing her tail. "I don't eat mice. Just get out of my house or else. One mouse always means more mice, and I'm not going to deal with that." She bared her teeth, fangs flashing even in the darkness.
The reddish-furred mouse squeaked again, trembling,
"B-But I've got nowhere else to go! This is the only place I could find! Please let me stay! I'll only eat one cookie a day, I promise!"
Blake snorted, keeping her eyes narrowed into slits on the mouse. She liked to believe her days of senseless ferocity were over, so she considered the mouse.
"…How many of you are there?"
"Just me! I promise! I'm the only one!"
"…Fine," Blake growled. "But if I ever find so much as an extra crumb missing, I'll come and nip your tail until you run out of here squealing."
"G-Got it!" The mouse scurried out from her hiding spot and wrestled the cookie jar open. She plucked out a single cookie and stuffed it into her mouth before scuttling off the counter. "Fank you!" she called back around a mouthful of cookie.
Blake merely rolled her eyes and lashed her tail again. The mouse scurried off down into the basement.
Blake leapt down from the counter and prowled back to the humans' room to go back to sleep.
After that, the mouse - who Blake had learned was named Ruby - ventured out every night into the kitchen to collect her nightly cookie. Blake always roused herself to keep a sharp eye on the rodent, ensuring she never took more than one treat.
But eventually, she started coming out into the kitchen not to keep an eye on Ruby, but to accompany her.
Blake didn't know what it was, but her predator instincts weren't kicking in anymore like they'd used to when she'd lived out in the streets.
Somewhere along the lines, the two of them started playing together, started chasing one another around the living room and passing Blake's toy balls back and forth. They'd play until dawn when Ruby would return to the basement, and Blake to her human's bed.
Not a week later, however, her humans began to notice a lack in cookies, and caught on quickly. They told Blake things like "You catch that mouse, Blake! That's your job!"
But Blake's ears went flat.
She liked Ruby. She didn't want to catch her…
After several more nights of playing together with the mouse rather than pouncing on her, Blake realized she needed to do something about this quickly.
But her humans acted first. They laid down small objects with pieces of cheese on them on the kitchen floor and left them out overnight.
When Blake and Ruby went out that night, the pair paused and looked curiously at the objects.
"What are they?" Ruby wondered from her perch between Blake's ears.
"I don't know. My humans said they were for you. They put food on them, too."
"Ew, but it's cheese! I don't like cheese…"
Blake shrugged.
"Well, I've had it before. If you don't want it, then I'll take it."
Blake stepped forward to one of the objects and bent down to sniff the cheese. It was fresh and had a strong fragrance. The cat reached out with her paw to swipe the piece off.
But as soon as her fur touched the cheese, the object jumped up at her, and suddenly there was an awful pain on her paw.
Blake yowled in agony, jumping back and thrashing about frantically, her fur fluffing up as she screamed. Ruby leapt off of her in a panic, instinctively running toward the basement to hide in the face of danger. Mice weren't particularly brave creatures by nature, after all.
But Blake was still crying, running around desperately as the trap refused to release her paw. The sounds of agony echoed through the house, but the humans weren't awake to help.
Ruby couldn't leave her.
So despite all her parents had taught her, Ruby rushed back into face the danger head-on.
"Blake! Blake! Wait!" she squeaked. "Let me help!"
The cat yowled again, backing herself against the wall, her snared paw dragging the trap along with it. Her pained eyes met Ruby's silver ones, and Blake crouched down on her belly, extending her trembling forepaw.
The mouse quickly grabbed onto the bar of the trap and pulled. Blake hissed again, but the pressure lifted, the trap snapping back into its original position as it released her. Once it was off, Ruby shoved it as far away as possible.
"Are you okay?!" she piped, scurrying over to lay in between Blake's paws. Ruby cuddled the injured one as Blake dragged her tongue over it.
"Y-Yeah…" she stammered. "But what was that? My humans said it was for you. If you'd touched it, it would've killed you!"
Ruby sniffed and looked away.
"I guess… your humans don't want me here. I should leave…"
"No!" Blake reached out her front paws and gathered Ruby in them, pulling the mouse close to her and giving a small lick to her head. "You can't leave. I don't want you to…"
Ruby turned over onto her back, looking up at the cat.
"Blake…?"
Blake flicked an ear in embarrassment, but her golden eyes were wide and honest.
"You're… you're my only friend, Ruby…" she confessed. "I won't let them hurt you. I don't want you to leave."
Ruby sniffled again and crawled up to hug Blake's chest.
The cat sighed, not knowing what more she could do but curl her tail around herself and Ruby and sleep.
When her humans woke that morning, they came into the kitchen. Their surprised cries woke Blake and Ruby both, petrifying the mouse in her paws.
Blake's humans walked over to her, reaching down to pat her head and congratulate her.
"Good girl, Blake! You caught the mouse!"
Their hands made an effort to pick Ruby up, but Blake hissed vehemently at them, drawing Ruby close to her. Her humans were clearly baffled, but Blake growled again.
Ruby crawled up Blake's back and trembled as she sat between the cat's ears. Blake lashed her tail at her humans and hissed again.
"She's my friend!" she growled. "I won't let you hurt her!"
Perhaps they couldn't hear her words, but they seemed to understand her.
"Aw, Blake. You made a friend! Wanna keep the mousy? You guys are an odd pair, but that's okay."
Blake let her fur lie flat again and she let out a small meow.
"Yes. I want her to stay with me."
This time, she didn't growl when her humans bent down. They petted Blake softly, and then reached out to scratch Ruby's ears and back lightly.
That morning, Blake's humans cleaned up the traps and threw them away.
From then on, the two unlikely friends spent their days playing, passing the toy balls in the living room and racing one another around the house.
Her humans gave Ruby her own tiny red bowl beside Blake's purple one, and every day they broke up some cookies and crackers into it for her.
And at night, Blake and Ruby curled up together at the foot of the bed.
Blake would lick the mouse's head until she fell asleep, and Ruby would drift off to the sounds of those happy purrs.
Blake hadn't had any friends for a long while, not since she'd started living indoors with humans. Having a mouse as her first companion certainly would've earned her a lot of strange looks from the local felines.
But Blake didn't care. She liked Ruby very much and always wanted to stay with her from now on.
Little did she know at the time, but Blake's little family was about to expand even more.
A/N: Again, this chapter was short and written as a prompt. Future chapters will be more detailed and longer as well.
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