I first saw Nugget and Bingo as two terrified kittens in my backyard. Little balls of black and grey fir with giant terrified eyes. They were hiding from the sun, all by themselves. I still think they were abandoned, but maybe not. Maybe their mom had simply died, and they’d always been feral. I don’t know. But they ran as soon as they saw me, and I didn’t see them again for several months; they were twice the size when I saw them again, and they’d become friends with a couple other neighborhood cats. They had a group.
Nugget is a long-haired, grey female. She has wisps of long hair coming from her ears, and she’s small. She was the first to let me pet her when I started feeding the cats on a regular basis. It’s surprising, because she’s otherwise very skittish, but food is the route to her heart. Feed her, and she’ll love you in that moment. She’ll act like you’re her mom.
Bingo is a short-haired, black male. When the sunlight hits his coat, you can see tabby markings in there, black against a dark brown. But, usually, he just looks black. He’s…round. Not fat, but round. His face is round, his shoulders and body are round, even the tip of his tail doesn’t end in a sharp point; it’s round. He also has the sweetest, highest meow you’ve ever heard. He’s more skittish even than Nugget. Just this week, he’s let me get close enough to sniff my fingers, but I can’t pet him. Not yet. I think someday maybe. But Bingo’s biggest feature by far is that he’s utterly devoted to his sister. He follows her everywhere, and while he hisses away literally every other cat in the colony, he never hisses at Nugget. They’re as close as two cats can be.
They’ve been through everything together.