Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Darkness. That was all Puma could see for who knows how long. It felt like it'd been weeks.

Suddenly he gasps in the biggest breath he'd ever pulled -as if his lungs weren't in use until just now- as his eyes shoot open and he finds himself in a place he doesn't recognize. He manages to slowly crane his head to the left to see a set of hinges. Is he in a crate of some sort? Then he looks up and nearly has a heart attack at the sight of the white-faced, black-eyed monster staring back down at him. He'd never seen anything so scary in his life.

Just when he was starting to hope it was all just a bad dream the creature spoke "Come with me~" and it echoed. Puma passed out right on the spot.

--------

"Well, that is not how that was supposed to go. Now I'll have to carry him." Then after pausing to think for a second he admits "Eh, I probably would've had to anyway; I mean the kid was just dead."

Vampiro reached down into the casket and hooked his large arms under the knees and back of the yellow clad figure and easily pulled him up and out.

-

Vampiro had loaded the unconscious fighter into his car, then unloaded him to take up to his own house, but it was only as Vampiro was en route to set the smaller man down on his couch that Puma stirred.
He was still a good 10 feet away when Puma's eyelids slowly peeled open to reveal innocent brown irises. They wandered over his surroundings until finally landing on the face of his captor. Then they shot open the rest of the way and an absolutely terrified expression overtook his features.
He then began to struggle with all his (admittedly lacking) might to get out of the hold.

"Hey, hey!"
It would not be a good idea to drop the kid in his current condition so Vampiro was quick to try to get him to see reason.
"Cool your jets kid, I'm not going to hurt you; in fact I saved you."

What?
That at least gets Puma to take a break from his struggling.

Vampiro made sure to check on one detail before continuing.
"Does the name Konnan mean anything to you?"
At the confused look he got in reply he let out a silent 'Good.'

All was going according to plan.

He made it the short distance to the couch before laying the limp luchador down on it. He practically melted into it, looking exhausted; that little bout of struggling seeming to have tuckered him right out. Well, that was kind of to be expected, considering. Considering he was dead just that morning.

But he didn't need to know that.

Vamp'd heard Konnan's spiel enough times to know the story by heart, and he was gonna use that to his advantage. But change it up a little.
"I found you on the street, fighting for your life. I would've jumped in and helped, but you were doing more than fine on your own. At least, until one of those dirty rats decided to attack while your back was turned. I scared them off then, but by that point you were injured pretty bad. So I had to take you to my shrine to heal you, and that's why you woke up in a casket earlier."

A sleepy-eyed Puma thought that made enough sense (and no sense at all at the same time) and kinda just stared at Vampiro, waiting for him to continue.

"Tell ya what kid, how about you get some shut eye, and I can answer any questions you have tomorrow? Sound good?"

Satisfied at the lackadaisical nod he got in reply he stood up to leave, only to remember something. "Hey wait, don't conk out on me just yet; I have something for you. Hold on." He called the last part over his shoulder as he made his exit.

Even though he was trying to do as told Puma ended up dozing off in the short time Vampiro was gone.

The taller man returned with something small held in one hand, and seeing the poor kid had already fallen asleep gently awoke him with a hand on his shoulder and a quiet "Hey," which made the tired eyes slide back open.

"Here, thought you could probably use this." He said while wiggling a milk carton in front of Puma's face. A face which instantly lit up in excitement as he snatched the drink from the other's hand. Before Vampiro could even offer to open the thing for him Puma... bit it. Like, sunk all his teeth into it, and proceeded to basically shotgun the contents.

Vampiro couldn't help but stare, not having seen anything quite like that before.

Puma finished off his drink in record time, then handed the decimated carton back to the other man and gave him a thumbs-up while wiping his mouth with his other hand.

Speechless, Vamp accepted the empty and destroyed carton and after a couple seconds managed to get out a "Yeah, no problem, have a nice nap." as he made to leave the room.
Puma was back asleep, a smile on his face, before the taller man even passed the threshold.

As darkness shrouded most of his features Vampiro gave a wicked smile. He could already tell this protégé would be way more fun than the last one.

And probably less crazy.

Chapter Text

Vampiro enters his living room only to note the place is completely trashed. The curtains have long, claw mark shaped tears running down them, there are big lumps of what appear to be couch stuffing interspersed randomly around the room, and poking out of a giant pile of what can only be every single blanket, towel or throw in his entire house, is Puma's head, an innocent smile on his face.

"What the fu-" but before Vampiro can even finish his sentence Puma is right there, snatching the food that the confused man brought in for him, and leaping back across the room and into his blanket nest.

Deciding to leave his protégé alone for a minute while he ate, Vampiro traveled to the far side of the sofa and spotted claw marks that matched the ones on the curtains. Well, that explains where all the stuffing came from. How was that possible though? Puma didn't even have claws!

Right?

He decided enough was enough. About facing, he started marching over to the (very) cat-like warrior while announcing authoritatively "Okay, listen up. We are gonna need to set some ground ru-"

A feral growl almost loud enough to pop ears is released from within the blanket nest, surprising Vamp into stopping in his tracks, and all that could be seen of his new protégé were two glowing eyes amidst the layers.

"Uhh, okay how about I let you finish your meal first, and then we talk?"
The purr he got in response was all he needed to head over to the less-stuffed-than-usual couch and settle in to wait until Puma was done with his snack.

Less time than Vampiro thought it would take later, a plate was launched out of the blanket nest, shattering on impact with the wall, and Puma crawled out of his hiding place, sitting back on his haunches and cleaning his face. Like a cat.

Vamp decided to ignore the dead dishware for the moment and slowly headed over to Puma. When he was just a couple feet away he started from the top.
"Alright, so like I was saying earlier we are gonna need to set some ground rules. Like, no growling at me or you don't get desser-"

Puma's head snapped up at that, a look of absolute devastation overtaking his features, as if Vampiro had said something more along the lines of 'You are never allowed to eat ever again. And you're getting 40 lashes.', and he's never seen a look so sad.
Oh boy. How did Konnan deal with this kid?

"Hey, this is just a warning; you're still gonna get your pudding tonight. Unless you growl at me again, then it's gonna be taken away, got it?"
He got an eager nod in reply. Okay, one down.

"Secondly, what the hell is all this?" He made a general sweeping motion at the catastrophe that his living room currently was.
When all he got in response was a head tilt of confusion he knew it was going to be a long day.

Chapter Text

Vampiro, arms akimbo, scanned left and right as he made his way through the living room.

Now where could that crazy kid be hiding? He checked everywhere! (Yes, even under the floorboards)
But he hasn't seen hair nor tail of Puma.
He decides to check underneath the couch for a 3rd time when a heavy weight suddenly falls on his back (and of course, why didn't he check the ceiling?) and he is flattened beneath it. "What the fu-" his exclamation is interrupted by the loud purring that travels through Puma and all the way into Vamp's chest from where the warrior sits upon his back. How does he even do that?

"Alright," he manages to ground out, and raises an arm to point straight out to the side "Off."

And wow, Puma seems to actually be doing as told, but then Vamp notices the movement he thought was Puma getting up and off, was actually just him turning around in circles to get comfortable enough for a nap atop the squishy human. Figures. Taking matters into his own hands, Vampiro got into push-up position, then extended one arm more than the other to tilt Puma off of him. Judging by the sudden shifting of weight on top of him it was working! There's just one thing he forgot to factor in though.

*rip*

"Shit!!"
At the sudden movement Puma had latched onto the closest object -which just so happened to be Vampiro- to stop himself from falling off. What this meant was that now Vampiro had long tears in his shirt. And skin. He quickly got to his feat, reprimand on his tongue when he saw Puma rolling around on his back, playing with Vamp's pant leg by pawing at it innocently, and Puma just looked so cute he couldn't stay mad at him.

"You know, we really need to get started on your actual training at some point so you can do my evil bidding for me." He mumbled to himself.

Not quietly enough it seemed, as Puma paused his game of destroy-the-pant-leg to look up at Vampiro and squint at him.

"I mean, who wants dessert?!"

Puma was gone in a poof, supposedly to the kitchen where the treats lay, behind a locked fridge (he'd had to spring for the industrial strength lock, as Puma kept tearing through all others he'd tried).

"Whew, dodged a bullet there."
He'd have to be more careful in the future.

"I wonder if Matt knows anything about cats."
Vamp mused on his way to the kitchen, thinking he should maybe give his friend a call sometime.

Chapter Text

After recent events became too much for him, Vamp caved and decided to finally give his friend a call.

"Hey, Matt, you know stuff; what do you do when your cat won't stop bringing in dead animals?"

"You have a cat?"

"Yeah basically, since a couple weeks ago, but that's beside the point. Got any tips?"

"Well, there are a few different things you can try. Are we talking rats?"

"More like rabbits and fucking skunks, man."

"Wait what? What the hell kind of cat do you have?!"

"Oh wait, I meant-"

"I'm coming over."

*hangs up*

"Shit!" That did not go how he planned! Now he had to hide Puma! Hmm, maybe just throwing a sheet over him and pretending he was a new piece of (breathing) furniture would do the trick.

Suddenly he felt something hit his foot. He looked down to see a dead coyote staring back at him.

He looked up to see a proud-looking Puma sitting by the door to outside. (A door which he swears he locked)
And now that little minx is turning around towards the direction of back outside!
"Oh no you don't; stay!" He made sure to say the last part nice and authoritatively.

Puma looks back at him and... leaps away. Outside.
Probably to add to the growing pile of decay in Vamp's living room.

He just hopes that Puma stays out when Matt arrives. Otherwise he'd have plenty of 'splainin' to do.

---

"Well, I gotta say I'm impressed," Matt, settled in next to Vamp on the latter's couch, began. "That's gotta be like, what? 50 animals?"

"52." Replied a resigned Vamp, staring at the rather giant pile of freshly deceased wildlife as if it were a child who had disappointed him so many times he didn't even care anymore. At least there were no house pets in the mix.

Right?

"Ooh, full deck. Now where is this 'cat' of yours anyway? I think I need to meet it." He began scanning the interior of the house from where he sat.

"Ah, I don't think that's a good idea." Vamp scrambled to come up with some kind of excuse. "I haven't accustomed him to strangers yet, so I don't know how he'd react to seeing you. Might even want to add you to the pile." He knew he was reaching by this point.

Just then a bloody bat fell into the crevice between Matt's legs and got stuck there.

Oh no.

Not missing a beat, Matt picked it up and dangled it in front of his friend, a cocky smile on his face "Or, give me on offering. Aw, look how cute it is~ What's your cat's name? I want to thank him personally."

Vamp -unable to improvise convincingly at the moment- decided to just go for it. "Puma."

"Haha, nice choice," Matt began as he started turning towards the other presence in the room. "I like i-" then his eyes fell upon a crouching Puma with a frog dangling from his maw.

...

"Ah, I see; you guys are into role-play." Matt turned to face Vamp again, deadly serious look on his face. "I want in."

Chapter Text

Puma lay, languidly sprawled across the laps of both Matt Striker, and Vampiro (but mostly Matt), getting gently scratched behind his ears by the shorter of the two commentators.

"Who's a good kitty?" Matt cooed at the Puma who was being adorable.

A loud purring that practically vibrated through the floor was heard in response.

"Wow, he's good." Matt quietly mumbled to the man sitting on his left, who looked like he wanted to shove the cat-like man off of him.

"Yeah, good enough to do that." He gestured at the pile of dead staring back at him.

Matt followed Vamp's eyes to the pile and stared at it in contemplation for a few seconds before seeming to come to some sort of conclusion.
"Don't worry; I got this." He whispered to his friend before giving his attention back to Puma, scratching behind his ears again.

"Good kitties get scritches, but you know what else they do?" That got Puma to open his eyes and look up at Matt questioningly.

"Good kitties help keep a clean house. Good kitties don't leave roadkill lying around the living room, understand?" He finished, stopping his ministrations abruptly.

Puma just stared at Matt, and Vamp was pretty sure he was gonna scratch the guy's face off, but instead
Puma was across the room and dragging animal corpses out of the house within the next two seconds.
The pile was decreasing with every blurred image they saw of Puma jumping in and out the house.

Soon there wasn't an animal to be seen, just a small puddle of blood.

"How the fuck did you do that, man?" Inquired a stunned Vamp.

"I don't know, maybe I'm an animal whisperer~" Matt interlaced his fingers and brought his conjoined hands behind his head, then leaned back to rest against the cushions of the couch.

Suddenly the two felt a heavy weight land on their laps.

"Oof!" They let out in unison. Puma then squirmed around until he was in ultimate relaxing position, ready for more scratches.

"Who's a good kitty?" Matt said as he began scratching behind Puma's ears once again, but in reward for cleaning up his mess and not just because he's so adorable. Puma started purring again, but then stopped and squinted at Vamp, who merely raised an eyebrow in return.
Then Matt looked over at him expectantly.

"What?!" A confused Vamp all but yelled.

"I did say good kitties get scritches, didn't I Vamp?" Then he gestured towards Puma's head with his.

After a couple seconds it clicked. They actually wanted him to join in on the scratching.
"Oh, you have got to be fu-" he didn't get the rest of the sentence out before Puma's ears were covered by a shocked looking Matt.

"Vamp! Watch what you say around the kitty!" The kitty who was now pawing at a loose thread hanging down from Matt's shirt collar.

"What? But animals are like one of the things that are known for you not having to watch you language around!"

"Well not this kitty; he's special." Matt replied, nose up in the air. "Now, if I uncover his ears are you gonna be civil?"

Vamp gave a big sigh and decided the best course of action was to just go along with it. "Yeah, sure."

Matt, finding that answer good enough for him, slowly uncovered Puma's ears and began scratching behind them once again. Then they both looked over at Vamp expectantly.

Oh, for the love of "Fine!" Vamp scooted over until he was close enough to copy Matt's actions, and once he began the scratching the purring became louder and rumbled through his chest.
Hmm, it was actually kinda relaxing when he stopped to think about it.

He looked to the man on his right, and the cat in his lap, and thought to himself:

I could get used to this.