Chapter Text
Normally, X didn’t have trouble with villains. Former heroes injected with fear? Problem. Having to work overtime for the third time this week? Super problem, but run-of-the-mill villains? X could handle.
It didn’t matter if they had high trust value or unexpected powers, as long as X thought creatively, he could take care of anything that came his way.
So why, why was he oneshotted by some unknown villain?
He’d had zero chance to do anything. He heard a commotion so he snapped himself into his hero form to see what was going on, but the second the woman with cat ears of all things saw him, she’d wasted no time in giving him a wink. And while people flirting with X was nothing new, this wasn’t a normal wink.
No, the second she did so, X was cast in a beam of light. He could feel his bones contorting, and as he was forced to fall into his knees, he could see how the whole world grew and grew. The pain had been minimal, but the disorientation blinded him. The cat-woman’s legs felt humongous, as she kneeled down towards his level.
She tilted her head and gave him a mischievous grin before reaching her now giant hand to his head.
“Sorry shuài gē, but I need you out of the way for a while,”
The way her hand moved on his head quickly made him realise… that wasn’t his head. Something felt off, really off. Which sounds ridiculous after being shrunk, but still, there was something more going on.
Wait! X said, or rather… tried to say. What came out instead was a high-pitched meow. X looked down and saw that where he thought his hands were, two white paws stood. As baffled as he was with this turn of events, that with the sounds was enough for X to put the pieces together.
You turned me into a cat?! He yowled in outrage, and wow was it a trip to feel his tail rapidly moving behind him in agitation. It was a whole limb he hadn’t had a few minutes ago.
“Sure did honey,” answered the cat-woman before he could go deep into analysing his tail. “You make for a cute cat, huh, kitten?”
X felt his ears go back in offence, Wha- stop flirting with me! Wait… you can understand me? The woman just snorted as she twirled a strand of purple hair on her finger.
“Don’t worry,” she said as she stood up, “this city might suck, but it has enough crazy cat people you’ll be fine.” X couldn’t help but get worried, sure, this woman probably had some sort of nefarious purpose, but she hadn’t harmed him, and she was probably the only person who could understand him. He clumsily walked towards her, but she just shook her head.
“Sorry shuài gē, go find a friend or something, I’ll turn you back soon enough,” and then with inhuman strength, she went back to her destruction of private property, absolutely decimating a garage door, before entering the lab looking place she’d been loudly destroying earlier.
…
Right so… so X was a cat now. He was so going to get fired, maybe people wouldn’t notice X disappearance as a hero for a while, but they’d surely notice ████ not coming to work. Hopefully he could figure this out before Monday came…
Figure this out, huh… how the heck was he supposed to figure this out?
Maybe X could find the woman again, but even though she was able to understand his cat-speak, she didn’t seem very interested in helping him. Sure, she didn’t try to outright harm him, but she turned him into a cat for a reason. She wanted him out the way so she’d be free to do… whatever it was she had planned.
X should just get used to this whole cat situation first, he reasoned, it’d be useless to make a plan if he can’t even walk. And so, X starting walking around the empty streets. It was… weird. At first, he kept tripping over his new joints, unable to correctly utilise them, but after a while, he started noticing things. He could feel how much easier it was to balance with his new tail, which kept moving automatically to keep his centre of gravity consistent.
He paused and realised he could actually move his tail intentionally if he wanted to, but most if he did nothing it would just do its own thing. That was… bizarre. It was like muscle memory or autopilot, but his tail shouldn’t have muscle memory, as it was only a few minutes old.
His ears were somehow more normal and also weirder. Just like with his human ears, moving them required extreme concentration, however they also moved without his input. When he tried focusing on a sound, he could feel his ears moving without his consent towards said sound, which felt, like everything else on this day, weird.
X huffed in frustration. Sure, he could walk fine now, and he was a little more used to his new body, but that didn't help him regain his true body. He wasn’t a therapist, there was no way he was stopping that woman with only words.
Perhaps he should just head back home? Recuperate and gather his wits? It wasn’t a perfect plan, or even a plan, but it was better than sitting here doing nothing.
With nothing left to do, X started heading towards his house. The treck there was long, he was still around his job, so usually he’d just metro himself home, but as a cat… that didn’t seem to be possible. He tried sneaking into the train, or even a bus, but humans would just carry him out before it could start running.
It was… humiliating, to be carried like dead weight and to have all his efforts be done in vain. He knew he looked like a cat, but there was something infantilising about being carried and told no, as a grown man.
“Mummy! Look how cute kitty is!”
Ugh, and the children. X didn’t know how real cats did it, here he was, facing a crisis and feeling depressed, and they still came to gawk. He was a cat lover too, but couldn’t they see he was far too depressed for this?!
Ok, enough is enough X, you can’t just mope all day.
X stood up, and decided he’d simply make the trek by foot. It's how real cats did it, if he hadn’t wasted an hour trying to sneak into public transportation, he’d be way closer to his house by now.
And so, the long trek began.
The walk back towards his house wasn’t much to speak about. He knew cats tended to go by the roofs, but there was no way he was doing risky things while still getting used to his new body.
The only big incident. So to speak, it was when he accidentally entered another cat’s territory and was chased out. He noticed immediately the area was marked by another -his new cat nose luckily came with the neuron pathways required to connect new smells with new ideas, something that was way too bizarre to think about- but the last few times he entered foreign territory it hadn’t matter much. Not this time.
A female cat came at him, hackles raised, and told him in not so many words to get the fuck out. He could hear kitten cries from nearby, so he could see why she was so overprotective but, couldn’t she see he was just passing by?
X tried to show his harmlessness, but the she-cat had no care about things like intent. She’d even managed to swipe at him before he managed to run away.
Besides that, the trek was fairly normal. He got out of the way when people gave him bad looks, and took a longer detour when he could hear dogs barking, but the main thing bringing his mood down was just how long it was taking.
His cat legs were way too small, so every human step took five steps. Plus, doing his commute without public transportation was just a recipe for misery. His entire body hurt, his legs fell like they were about to fall off, and all the sounds and smells his brain was receiving were constantly overstimulating him. X was miserable, so you could imagine his delight when he could finally see his apartment building.
Home! I made it!
He couldn’t stop his body from running at full speed, only to come face to face with a roadblock.
Fuck, I can’t open this.
X stared at his apartment complex door in dismay. It was a doorknob that needed to be twisted, not one of the long ones one could just pull down. He knew his flat’s doorknob was like that too.
Ok… this is ok, it’s still salvable.
X had window. He just had to figure out how to get up there. There were a couple of awnings he could use as leverage. Sure it’d be hard, but harder was staying in this cold all night.
Getting into the closest awning was hard. Even though his body jumped way higher than he would’ve thought, it still wasn’t enough. He stared at the view in front of him, frustration growing by the second.
He normally had a higher threshold for having things not going his way, but there was something about being a cat in a world built for humans, the impotence of his situation, that kept chipping at him. But it was ok, he was X after all, he could figure out how to get to a third floor.
It was then that he noticed a dumpster nearby. It was far enough from the first floor awnings it wouldn’t help him there, but he could get on that, then walk through the windowsill nearby till he reached the window with the awning and- This was it! A plan!
X’s body became still with focus, the only movement coming from his tail that was still switching around behind him. He calibrated his body a couple times before doing the first jump and - success!
X continued like that, until he finally reached his flat. His excitement was so strong he could feel vibrations coming off his body. Was he purring? It wasn’t strong enough to be audible but he could definitely hear it.
It was as he turned the corner of the small ledge and finally reached his home, he noticed it. This was definitely his window, but… it was closed. Had X- yes he had, he closed it before leaving his home. X tried to pry it open with his paws as that earlier frustration slowly grew and grew inside him. The more he failed opening the window, the tighter his chest felt, he had- he had spent this entire day trying to get here, only for the windows to be locked? An entire day walking, running from angry cats, burning up under the blazing sun with his dark fur, then freezing his tail off after the sun set, only to be roadblocked by a window?
X felt his breathing accelerates and knew that if he still was human he’d be crying at this point. What even was the point? Was he going to freeze to death after all? At least his fur was long enough to provide some insulation, but it definitely wasn’t enough.
X decided then to sit on the awning on top of the front door of his apartment complex, maybe if someone entered he’d be able to at least sleep in the hall. That said, at this point X had no hope.
Time passed, the sun had fully set at this point. Every nearby bark jolted X awake from the shallow sleep he was able to get. The cold kept him from fully falling asleep. He was miserable.
It was when all hope was lost, that he saw him. A broad man with a yellow jacket and a pack of beers in his hand. He was happily whistling and X recognised him immediately.
Smile! X meowed, only realising he couldn’t really talk after he’d said that. Smile looked up at him with a surprise grin.
“Oh, hello there kitty,”
X scoffed at that, but his relief at seeing someone he knew was too strong for him to stay annoyed. He jumped down to the floor and went directly towards him. He couldn’t talk, so… he just let his body do what it wanted. Which turned out to be rubbing against Smile’s legs. He’d always wondered why cats did that on cat videos, but as he kept rubbing his face and the base of his tail to Smile, it was very clear why they did.
Not only did it feel extremely pleasant, he could tell he was leaving his scent on Smile, marking him off limits for any cat. Honestly, cats were so smart, he wished he could mark his spot at the train or his favourite café and have no one get near it.
A chuckle drew him out of his thoughts as Smile’s big, calloused hand reached down to pet him. And god, being pet on the sides of his head felt even better than rubbing it, the warmth that Smile radiated contrasted the chilly night wonderfully. When X got out of this happiness haze, he knew he’d be mortified about the purring and little mrreoups he was making, but at the moment all he felt was relief.
“You sure are a friendly one, huh?” Smile said as he kept petting him. Sadly, all good things come to an end, and way before X had gotten his fill of the petting, Smile stood up.
“Mrow?”
“Sorry kitty, I came here for a reason,” As he talked, Smile shook the six-pack in his hand. As if that was going anywhere. X wanted to scream, I’m right here! But he knew it wouldn’t go anywhere. Still, X was not letting the only good part of his day go, so when Smile opened the door to the apartment complex, X immediately butted himself in.
Smile looked down at him with an unsure smile., “I’m not sure if cats are allowed here but… I don’t think X will mind, I’ve seen him watching cat videos before,”
Which was… what? There was no way Smile noticed that, X was sure he only watched cat videos in the privacy of his home. Smile knowing his embarrassing secrets aside, X continued following him as they went up the stairs.
He couldn’t help but indulge himself a little, doing the typical cat thing and crisscrossing through Smile’s legs. Not only did it feel good and warm him up, but tripping him while they went up the stairs and watching Smile stop himself from falling, gave X some joy.
They reached the door and Smile knocked only to be ignored.
“Hmm that’s weird. Even when he’s asleep, X usually hears me and comes out,”
Yeah no shit, maybe, thought X uncharitably as Smile knocked a second time, it’s because I’m a cat.
“Meow,” X told him very seriously. Maybe if he’s tone was serious enough, Smile would figure it out?
“You’re right kitty,” said Smile after knocking for a third time, “maybe he’s out fighting crime or something,” who was he kidding of course Smile wouldn’t reach that insane conclusion.
They walked back downstairs, and here X had to decide. Did he stay on the hall for warmth or follow the only person who knew his identity?
The question was a no-brainer. If X had learned something throughout this day, it was that being a stray cat sucked. If he could get Smile to take care of him while he figured something out, life would be way more comfortable.
Smile chuckled at the way X kept following him, when they went out he kneeled again to give him some well deserved pampering.
“Sorry little friend, if X is not coming out to play, I think I’m just going to head home,” he said, before starting to walk away. Absolutely not, thought X. He was not letting Smile escape this, no way. X ran towards him as fast as he could and rubbed himself on his legs again as he walked.
“You’re so friendly,” he could hear Smile mutter. “Bye bye,”
NO!
X didn’t have to do this, but he’d watched enough cat videos to know of this technique.
“Meow?” X gave the saddest little meow imaginable. He made sure to contort his face into what he thought were puppy-dog eyes, and to drop his ears. For a final measure, he also let his body shiver, as it had been wanting to do this entire time.
Smile looked very conflicted, the smile on his face froze, as in he was in actual pain.
“Come on, kitten, you’re not playing fair,” was the unsure response the blond man gave him.
“Meowww?”
He could feel Smile’s resolve wavering. He kept looking between the street and X. As a finishing touch, X looked at him straight in the eyes, and then sneezed.
Smile broke instantly.
“Ok, ok, I’ll take you with me until we find you an owner.” Smile kneeled back down and carried him.
Score, thought X as he made himself comfortable in the bigger man’s arms. He’d secured himself shelter and food for the night. X still felt slightly infantilised by the carry, but his legs still hurt from the long walk he’d just trekked, and the warmth Smile radiated felt even better this close.
As Smile started walking, X couldn’t help but to close his eyes, slowly drifting off to the steady sound of Smile’s heartbeat, until he knew no more.