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Twisted Fate was so certain after their last encounter with yordles, that Malcolm would have learned his lesson.
The man had been stuck as a frog for a week, a week! and T.F had had to pay more than he would have liked for the items required to turn him back. It was a deeply unpleasant and finicky ordeal and yet Graves, never thinking twice (never thinking in the first place really) got himself in a similar mess all over again.
Similar if not worse if only because it was entirely avoidable. The two men had been on their way to the destination of their next job when a purple thing happened to run by- a thing which Graves happened to recognise as the yordle who had transformed him previously. Tobias didn’t catch sight of her and therefore didn’t get the chance to stop his partner before he practically lunged for the creature-
“YOU!” he yelled in an accusatory tone, catching both the yordle and T.F’s attention. She startled, turning around and catching a glimpse of the man before her eyes widened with recognition. Immediately her short legs quickened their pace, trying to run as fast as she could.
Unfortunately her stature put her at a disadvantage. She didn’t get far before Graves had managed to grab the back of her cloak, lifting her as she flailed panickedly.
“Malcolm wait!-“ his partner began, but it was too late for him to do anything more than watch helplessly as the yordle shrieked
“TRANSMOGULATE!”
Suddenly there was a puff of purple smoke and the yordle fell to the ground, immediately running before T.F could even think to react. He briefly considered running after her but he knew better than to mess with yordles. There were more pressing matters at hand, the main one being that Malcolm had seemingly vanished-
“Graves?” Twisted Fate found himself calling, nervously. At the lack of response, he finds himself beginning to panic, what if she’d sent him somewhere T.F couldn’t reach him? Or turned him into a bug or something similarly hard to catch? The black haired man finds himself running to the area. “Malcolm?!-“ and then the smoke cleared and it became very clear what had happened to the man.
Before him, Fate found a very disgruntled looking, and very fluffy brown cat.
He looks down in shock, the animal looking up and somehow appearing equally surprised. “Mal?” He felt a bit stupid, talking to a cat, though logically he knew it wasn’t just a cat.
That much was evident when the cat responds with a meow- only to then appear incredibly startled, looking around frantically at both the surroundings and itself, before running to T.F and yowling while practically trying to claw its way up his legs.
Okay. Definitely Malcolm.
“Malcolm- calm down- you have claws-“ T.F winces, leaning down to pick up his partner. He’s as gentle as possible- carefully unhooking each of Graves’ claws from the fabric covering his legs. The cat writhes uncomfortably in his grip until T.F manages to hold him properly (like a baby. He was cradling his partner, who is a cat, like a baby-). Malcolm glared at him as best as he could, pupils thinning into slits as he hissed as if to argue.
“Listen, I know it’s hard- but these clothes cost more than you think, and I’m not letting you tear them up just because you decided to run headfirst into a yordle’s spell.” T.F explains, ignoring the quiet growl he hears from his partner. “No, I don’t want to hear it- you brought this upon yourself.”
That earns him a meow that sounded closer to a growl. T.F simply rolls his eyes in response. Arguing with Graves was no fun when he couldn’t say much back- the man was infuriating sometimes but that was part of his charm. “In case it wasn’t clear, hotshot, you’re a cat- I can’t understand you.”
He looks down at Graves to find he’s no longer glaring- now looking more…sad. A sad Graves was often a pitiful sight in human form- T.F couldn’t prepare himself for how it looked when he was a cat. He was avoiding T.F’s gaze, almost dejected. “Aw, Mal…” T.F couldn’t help but try to reassure the other. “It’s okay! We’ll figure something out- it’s just like last time, getting all the ingredients for the counter spell will be a pain in the ass but we’ll have you back to normal soon.”
That seemed to help, Graves’ triangular ears perking up and his eyes widening in a way that Tobias couldn’t help but find shockingly cute. He clears his throat, reminding himself once more that this cat is in fact, his partner, before continuing. “You are pretty darn heavy for a cat though and I’m not exactly keen on having my hands full so-“
Before he can finish his sentence, Graves wiggles until he manages to flip himself over, standing himself up on T.F’s arm and hopping up to the back of his shoulders with surprising swiftness. He slinks himself over the man’s back, his tail and legs laid over one shoulder and head resting on the other, clearly having made himself comfortable.
“That’s not what I had in mind.” Tobias grumbles, not exactly keen on having his hair messed up or such a weight on his shoulders. He receives a disgruntled sounding meow in response, and figures there’s no point in arguing with a cat regardless of if the cat was his partner or not. So he makes his way back to their inn room with a cat draped over his shoulders.
He pretends he doesn’t feel the soft vibrations of purring when Graves presumably falls asleep. It was a long walk and the man (or, currently cat) was hardly occupied. He almost feels bad when he has to wake him up. It doesn’t take much- just a gentle pat on the top of his head when calling his name doesn’t do the trick.
Graves proceeds to stretch, having forgotten where he was and promptly falls off T.F’s shoulders mid-yawn. Despite how tall the man was, Graves, being a cat, lands on his feet- startled but unharmed. T.F can’t help but laugh. “That’s handy, maybe we should keep you like this- much less clumsy.”
He receives a low growl in response, Malcolm glaring at the man as he hops onto the bed. He almost falls off the edge- scrambling to secure himself. T.F, on instinct, catches him- pushing him up onto the mattress. Malcolm only glares harder- pupils narrowed into slits.
“Calm down, Mal- I was kidding.” He lifts his hands in a placating gesture. That gets the other to somewhat relax, settling on the bed, but still holding the glare. He was completely failing to be threatening. “Though, you are kind of cute this way.”
Tobias didn’t know a cat could ever possibly look so embarrassed, but his jab seems to surprise Malcolm. He looks pointedly away from T.F, rolling over so that his back was to him. The other man can’t help but laugh to himself. “C’mon Malcolm- getting all grumpy like this isn’t gonna fix anything.”
That earns him a hiss- which he thinks may be deserved. He sits beside Graves, the shift in pressure on the mattress startling him. Usually it wouldn’t make much of a difference- he was like an unmovable rock when he was in a deep enough sleep. Currently however- he was, incredibly frustratingly, small.
“On the bright side- I think being a cat is a touch more dignified than a frog.” T.F offers, trying to lighten the mood. He receives a quiet meow in which he assumes is agreement. He can’t help but feel somewhat sorry for his partner, despite the fact that the situation was almost entirely his fault,
His gaze softens as he looks at the curled up creature beside him and before he can stop himself, his hand is gently ruffling the fur atop Malcolm’s head. The cat startles, making a sound that T.F could only liken to a chirp. T.F’s hand continues to pet him- right between the ears. It almost reminds him of the times in the past when he’d had to move the other's hair to check for injuries. It was a far cry from affectionate ruffling but it was as close as he’d gotten.
Surprisingly enough, Graves doesn’t make any move to prevent the action. Aside from initially being startled, he doesn’t hiss or growl, if anything he relaxes into the touch. T.F can’t help the way his eyes widen as Malcolm nudges his head further into his palm, eyes closed.
He continues petting the cat, scratching gently behind his ears, and soon enough he starts to hear a faint rumbling sound. It takes him a moment but he soon realises Graves is purring again. It had already been surprising before when the other was asleep and draped over his shoulders- but now he was doing to consciously.
Or so T.F thought- the soft purrs only last a minute or so before Graves seems to come to his senses. As soon as he notices the sound he’s making, it simply stops. He pulls away from T.F’s hand looking almost humiliated before pouncing onto the other bed. The reaction catches Tobias off guard, the man and cat now making very awkward eye contact.
Hurriedly, the black haired man fumbles his way through an apology. “Ah- my bad, I didn’t mean to- do that.” A blatant lie but he wasn’t sure what else he was meant to say, ‘sorry I started petting you in a way I never would if you were human please forgive me and don’t claw my face off in my sleep.’ Comes to mind- but it doesn’t exactly seem like the most eloquent response. “Didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable-“ Graves simply continues glaring at him “or patronise you?” T.F tries, and receives what he thinks was meant to be an eye roll in response.
He sighs, watching as Graves curls up on the bed, once again facing away from him. “Fine, sulk all you want, it ain’t gonna fix anything.” He groans, beginning to strip down into something more comfortable and all the while trying to formulate a plan of action.
Frowning and chewing the inside of his lip, he thinks to himself about how much this sucks. Not only is he, once again, responsible for keeping a defenseless (excluding claws) Graves out of trouble but he also has to figure out how to fix this. As much as he likes cats he definitely likes Graves’s company more- which isn’t much use when their communication is so limited.
Once again he heaves a sigh, running his fingers through his hair in frustration. It wasn’t particularly late- he was definitely tempted to head downstairs to the bar and get himself a well earned drink or two. However, drinking wasn’t as much fun without Malcolm and it didn’t feel particularly wise to leave him unattended.
Though looking over to the cat- he appeared to be asleep, curled up in a ball (with flexibility that Graves as a human couldn’t even dream of). Well, the day had certainly felt hectic- maybe an early night would help clear his head, ready for traveling the next day to find someone who could help with their predicament.
Only after he clambers into bed does he realise the weight of his exhaustion, his shoulders aching. He really shouldn’t have let Graves perch himself in such a way- but T.F at the time couldn’t bring himself to wake him up. He was a cat for God’s sake- what kind of monster wakes up a sleeping cat.
But regardless, the combination of aching joints and anxiety made it difficult to get to sleep. Though he’d obviously been in a similar situation before- it was easy to worry that maybe he wouldn’t be able to change Graves back, that he would be stuck as good as alone again.
Meanwhile, Graves too was trying to sleep. The only upside of being a a cat, he thinks, was the ability to curl up any which way he liked without his back or knees protesting. The downside was that he was small and almost pitiful. He couldn’t say he was exactly tall but he was used to being large and Broad. The body of a cat, though he was heavy, was still no match for his physique as a human. Consequently, the bed he was laying on felt much too big and only served as a reminder of his current state.
He wasn’t necessarily scared - he trusted T.F to do everything he could to fix the mess Malcolm had gotten himself into, but he couldn’t exactly be happy could he? He was stuck like this, he didn’t know for how long- and worst of all it was his own fault. Graves didn’t like making mistakes nor admitting it- but this was an entirely new level of humiliating, especially given his reactions to T.F’s touch. It had just been so nice- so comforting, he needed more.
And Tobias looked to be having a rough time himself. Graves could practically hear the other man overthinking. So, he came up with a plan of action. Said plan: jump to the other’s bed and hopefully provide some comfort snd good company- shouldn’t be hard, being a cat and all.
Which leads to Tobias practically jumping out of his skin when he feels a sudden weight at the side of the bed, the covers being pulled before the strain stops. Recovering from his initial shock- he squints in the dark at the sight of a blurry figure and two piercing glowing eyes. He’s fearful for a moment before coming to the realisation that those eyes were reflective and in fact- Malcolm’s.
“And what do you think you’re doing?” T.F questions, wearily. He receives an uncharacterically soft meow in response, Malcolm proceeding to nuzzle at his hand. It’s not exactly an answer but he has a vague idea of what the other wants.
He lifts his hand and drags it gently over the other’s head and back, repeating the motion as Graves purrs. The cat then curls up beside Tobias, half his body over his midsection with the rest on the mattress. His paws were kneading into T.F’s side but it didn’t feel unpleasant. Graves himself didn’t know why he was doing it but it just felt right.
The soft purring and repetitive motions of petting eventually allowed them both to drift sleep. All in all, T.F thought the encounter with the yordle could have gone much worse.