Title: Flyboys and Felines
Fandom: Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell
Pairing: William De Lancey/Arthur Wellesley
Content notes: none apply
Length: 832
Author's note: Set in the Ungentlemanly Warfare universe (WW2 AU)
Summary: Arthur's sons find abandoned kittens. Contains mild kitten peril and excessive fluff.




Artie comes home with a torn sweater, a cut lip and three wet kittens in his jumper. Charlie, lagging three steps behind in his sodden shoes, has another kitten clinging to his shirt.
“They were abandoned,” Artie says, clutching at the damp wool and it’s squeaking burdens.
“They were going to drown them,” Charlie adds, fierce with indignation. His knuckles are grazed, something William decides not to notice. That can be for Arthur to sort out. In the meantime, he has bigger fish to fry.
“You can’t…” he begins, stopping short when he meets two sets of reproachful eyes. The kitten Charlie is holding opens a small, pink mouth and mews. “You can’t take care of kittens when you’re soaking wet yourselves,” he says, rather feebly even to his own ears. “Put them in the kitchen and go and change.”
The boys thunder up the stairs, leaving William with a kitchen full of kittens. Arthur, he thinks, is going to kill him.

Arthur comes home late: a good two hours after his shift was due to end. Trying to be quiet to avoid waking the house, he lets himself in by torch light and stumbles over two pairs of boys’ shoes, stuffed with newspaper and left to dry in the hall. He muffles his instinctive shout but there’s a soft ‘hello’ from the kitchen. Followed by what sounds distinctly like a mew.
Already suspicious, he ventures into the kitchen and finds William, not making late night tea as he’d hoped, but sat on a pile of cushions on the kitchen floor. There is a basket of kittens next to him and one kitten curled on his chest. It is kneading his blue dressing gown with small paws.
“We have new lodgers, I see,” Arthur says. William looks guilty.
“The boys found them.”
“Of course they did. And you took pity on them.”
“They were being abandoned, no, not just abandoned, deliberately drowned, the poor things.” The kitten in William’s hand struggles when he raises his voice, squeaking plaintively. He lifts a dropper of milk and the kitten bats at it. Arthur crouches down to watch the feeding process with the attention it seems to deserve.
“You’re very good at that,” he observes, “have you rescued kittens before?”
“No,” William grins at him. “Colley taught me, but I’ve had a lot of practise now. The boys were helping but I sent them to bed. They promised to get up for the 6 am feeding time.”
“Very diligent of them. Is that my milk ration you’re feeding them?”
“No, yours is safe. This is mine, and some from Beatie. She donated the basket too, and Flora from the pub gave us a tin of sardines. They don’t like the Ellis boys any more than Charlie does as it happens.”
“Do I want to know who the Ellis boys are? Or is that something I’m going to have to talk to Charlie about tomorrow morning?”
“Don’t be too hard on him.”
“I won’t.” Arthur reaches out and runs a finger down the back of one of the kittens in the basket. It chirrups at him. He recognises the blanket in the basket as his own grey jumper, given to William and now apparently passed on again. “And what are we going to do with you, hmm? Once you outgrow this basket and eat us out of milk and sardines?”
“Ah,” William says, “I wondered when you were going to ask that.”
“I’m afraid I have to. I don’t want to disappoint the boys but four cats might be too many.”
“Well,” Wiiliam says slowly, “I thought the ground crew could do with a mouser. Can’t have rats around the aircraft. And Flora did say she’d like to take one of them when they are older. Her father didn’t seem keen but I’d put money on her being able to talk him into anything. Beatie already has Tabitha though, who isn’t going to put up with having a kitten around.”
“So that’s two.”
“Colley was sure Jonathan would want one of them once he’d seen them.”
“Of course he would. And what about him?” Arthur looks more closely at the kitten William is still holding. He’s a fluffy little thing, mostly black with white socks and white under his chin.
“He’s the runt of the litter,” William says rather defensively, “which is why he’s getting extra rations.” He looks at the kitten and the look on his face is so soft that Arthur realises there’s no decision to make here after all. He can probably live with that.
“So, he’s ours then.”
William looks up at him, beaming. He reminds Arthur very forcibly of the boys, and a distant part of his mind acknowledges that he has no will power at all in the face of their happiness. He holds out a hand for the kitten to sniff. It licks his finger with a small, rough tongue. As kittens go, it seems like a promising introduction.