Work Text:
Ⅰ
Tommy, like most nights, minded his own business.
No one looked twice at a raccoon digging its way through garbage bins, especially when it was their neighbour's problem and not their own.
He needed to do this to survive. Scavenging for food in his raccoon form was easier than surviving in a capitalist society as a boy with no education or home to live under. And honestly, he preferred it this way. He could hiss at people and not be judged (the same couldn’t be said for a human).
Barely anyone had problems with this. With him doing what he had to in order to survive.
But a consistent meowing came from outside of the green garbage bin. It was medium-pitched and bothersome, it ringing on and on, each time prolonging its end.
Tommy sighed and climbed out of the bin, whiskers bristling in the sudden wind. It was dark out, the street lights dimmer than usual.
A cat settled on the pavement. Grey fur and light brown eyes; eyes that narrowed at him. His tail curled around his body and he continued meowing despite having Tommy’s attention. It was as if he knew it was annoying.
“What do you want?” Tommy shouted. Though in this form, a barking hiss came out, something similar to a warning screech. His brown paws leaned over the bin lid as he glared down at the grey cat.
The cat’s tail swished idly as he meowed again, almost mockingly.
Tommy snarled and leapt onto the pavement. Far from the cat in case those claws dug straight into him. He tried so hard to keep his blond fur in good condition, so his golden stature of creams and whites remained clean. But it was practically impossible when he had to scamper around in rubbish to find food.
He repeated himself, his hissing more pronounced and mouth parted so his teeth were in view. The cat got up from where he sat, eyes still narrowed at him, and turned to leave. Tommy frowned as the cat just walked away.
Yet, it stopped. His head twisted to look back at him. The cat nudged his head in his direction, meowing once more. It was calling for him to follow. To come with him. Tommy made a high-pitched chitter, signalling his annoyance, before walking after him.
Keeping his distance all the way, the grey cat eventually stopped in front of a house. There was a bowl outside of it with food still left in it. The cat poked the bowl with his nose and mewled quietly.
Tommy drove straight into it. His furry cheeks were wet in the meat chunks as he got it all over him. Yet it didn’t matter because this was food. Actual food—sure for a cat but it wasn’t rotted and inedible.
A laughing sound came from beside him. Splintered chattering all from the cat.
As he ate more, he noticed a grey shadow in the corner of his eyes getting closer. But he paid no mind to it, not when the grey fuck was the reason he got the food in the first place. With a final lick to the now-empty bowl, he looked over to see the cat laying down next to him, paws close to touching him.
He huffed, eyeing the other. The cat meowed lowly, causing Tommy to whistle back. He patted on the floor, hesitantly tapping his paws on the ground in front of the cat, testing his luck. No hisses were aimed at him, no swatting claws or bared fangs.
Wearily, Tommy rested on the floor. The cat flopped next to him, still not quite touching, but both laid down.
The cat moved first, reaching over to brush its head against his own. Tommy’s arms stretched out and caught him around his neck, tugging him closer. He cackled as the cat yowled against his playful grip.
They continued to move closer, close enough that Tommy was laying across its flank, tucked to his side. He chippered, the sound leaving him before he could stop it. The rolling chirping he hadn’t made since he was a kit. It vibrated from his chest, escaping his throat and mouth. He was smiling. He was smiling as this cat grabbed at his tail with its paws.
As the wind picked up, it blew into his thick blond fur and Tommy crawled closer to the cat. He wrapped his arms around him, cuddling him close, protecting the other from the breeze. After all, his grey fur was shorter than his, not providing as much warmth.
The cat began to purr, letting out the sound as if it was so easy. Purring was different to his kind, especially from those older than you. It was what parents did when they were happy or wanted to show affection. This, this was affection. Something Tommy hadn’t known for years, not since he had to stop being a kit and grow up all alone. For his instincts to fade as there was no one to make a nest for him, to fight for him, to protect and hold him close when danger neared.
There was no one.
But this cat, this grey cat he had never seen before, lead him to food. Didn’t even share it, just gave it all to him. And he hugged Tommy. He sat with him, fiddled with his tail and cackled at his playful growls and yelps. He allowed Tommy to borrow into his side, to fight and play—like he should have been allowed to all those years ago.
Tommy felt a rumble in his own chest, something similar to a purr but broken. A faltering chirr, close enough to a murmur. The cat seemed satisfied at that and bit at his ear. Licked at his blond and white patches, nearing the outer fur of his cheeks.
Yet, as the cat's purr picked up, humming gently against Tommy, it got too much. The combing of his fur, the straightening of the patches he could never fix himself as his paws just messed it all up, the whiskers brushing softly against his face. Everything.
It was like a parent, a protector, like he was back with his litter. But it was wrong. He wasn’t loved, this wasn’t his father or anyone who cared. It was a cat, a cat who already had a home and owners, someone who would worry if they didn’t return home. Unlike him.
This was fake, nothing steady or permanent.
As a whimper left him, a curdling whine, Tommy fought from the cat’s grip. He scurried away from him, ignoring the calling meows and concerned yowls. He disregarded every part of him that screamed at him to go back, to go back into the warmth and cat’s side.
But as the rain began to pelt down, he ran away.
It was cold. Cold without a familiar grey coat and light brown eyes. Eyes that reflected everything in murky light, they lit like a muddy puddle, something Tommy would always bask in and flick all over himself whenever he adventured in the forests and fields. Brown eyes which were warm, of honey and tree bark and everything Tommy loved.
He wanted it back.
Especially as he sniffed, paws curled to his chest as he shook. He was wet, fur damp and heavy. His tail was clumped and drenched. He hated it, he hated the cold and now that he knew what warmth was, what he could have all thanks to that cat, he loathed it even more. Missed what he could have at any disposal. But he just had to fuck it up, to run away.
So, with his body trembling, Tommy retreated in his steps. As the rain hit hard on his back, he tried to follow the smell of the cat. He could still remember its scent, the domestic smell, of human shampoo and homely sweaters, inklings of safety and protection.
It led him back in front of that house. The empty bowl, an empty porch. The grey cat was gone.
His claws sunk into the wet concrete, distressed. Whimpers broke from him, his cries muffled under the hounding rain.
The smell of the cat spread to the car parked outside of the house. It was strong there, almost as if the cat was inside. Tommy shifted quickly, his clothes soaked under the hail, and he broke into the car.
Tommy scrambled inside, shifting back and rolling the water off his coat on the dry car seats. As he rubbed against the nylon fabric, the cat scent was so heavy. He wasn’t here but it was still like he was next to him. Grey fur with flicking ears that twitched with his whiskers.
As Tommy collapsed on the seats, still sniffing from the cold, he felt his eyelids grow heavy. Making it harder to keep them open. But he didn’t fight it. He embraced the reminder of the cat, the softness of the nylon seats, and succumbed to sleep.
Ⅱ
Wilbur’s day didn’t start off so great.
First, he woke up late after he needed to take many showers last night to get the raccoon kit odour off him. Then, his coffee machine didn’t work so he’d have to get an energy drink from the shitty vending machine in his work office instead. And now the fucking raccoon from last night was currently in his car.
The same car he needed to drive to work in.
He sighed and whipped out his phone, tapping on Niki’s contact as he eyed the asleep raccoon in the back seats. The blond mess had curled himself into a ball, his striped tail wrapped around himself, with his nose tucked into his shoulder.
The call picked up on the second ring.
“Niki! Yeah, I might be late today, there’s a raccoon in my car,” he said into the phone, trying to keep his voice down.
Stuttering came from the other end of the line. “Wil, if this is like the time you tricked me into thinking that you pronounce the ‘L’ in ‘salmon’—”
“No, no, it’s not. But that was your fault for believing me,” Wilbur bit his lip and stared as the raccoon’s black nose twitched. “There is a literal raccoon sleeping in my car.”
“Wha- how?”
Wilbur frowned. “How what? How is it’s day? How is it doing? Or how the fuck did it get in here? I don’t know!” he exclaimed. The raccoon rustled again. He sighed, “I’ll see you at work Niki, just don’t yell at me for being half an hour late.”
He hung up and the raccoon’s tail moved. It moved slightly, loosening how it was tucked to his side. Wilbur froze, watching as it woke up. But it didn’t just wake up. The blond fur coating its damp body sunk into flesh, paws stretched into longer arms and it was a human.
There was a kid in the back of his car.
A blond little boy with cuts over his knees and dried mud on his cheeks. He couldn’t have been older than twelve, or even eleven.
As the kid rubbed at his eyes and yawned, Wilbur gulped. His eyes blinked open, rough with sleep, and they were blue. Different to the raccoon’s beady black. They were blue and bright, a sharp crystalline.
The kid yelped, recognising that Wilbur was in the car.
“What the fuck are you looking at?” he bit out, sounding hostile and so young.
But then his eyes widened as he realised he had spoken, as he realised he was now human. No longer in the form of a wild animal, safe and secure in the assumption that he was an unpredictable pest. Dangerous and disease-ridden.
He shifted back, shrinking back into his comforting form as Wilbur just watched. Mouth agape. It was a shifter, another shifter.
Just as Wilbur went to speak to the kid, to console and assure, the raccoon lunged for him. He climbed onto the passenger armrest and leapt at Wilbur. Hissing with bared fangs and claws.
Wilbur yelped and grabbed it by the scruff of his neck. The kit hung, dangling limply for a moment. Then he began to growl, swatting his paws to scratch at Wilbur’s face and throat. He gripped it tighter, scowling at the pest.
“I’m having none of that shit, okay, be nice,” Wilbur demanded.
The raccoon howled, lips twitching into a threatening snarl. Wilbur rolled his eyes and shoved it on the passenger seat, quickly strapping it down with the seatbelt before those claws dug into his skin.
“You’re not making me any later to work than I already am, so shut it and don’t move,” he ordered. He grabbed the blankets from under the passenger seat and wrapped them around the raccoon, bundling him into a little burrito.
His blond face poked out, teeth still jeering at him. As were his paws, which hung out of the blankets. His ears pinned back, twitching in beat with his nose. Wilbur had never seen such a pissed off raccoon.
He fastened the blanket once more before starting up his car. His office would just have to deal with having a raccoon on the spare desk for today.
“So a shifter then, huh?” he asked as he indicated left at the end of his street.
Wilbur glanced down to see the raccoon still glaring at him.
“No discrimination here, it’s chill, I’m a shifter too,” he continued, rolling his eyes as the pest growled at him again. “I’m not gonna show you my form though, like ever probably. I tend to keep that to myself.” He growled louder. Wilbur huffed. “Maybe once then, if you stop growling at me.”
The raccoon stopped, but still gave out disapproving chitters whenever Wilbur tried to start up a conversation again.
Once he parked in his workplace carpark, Wilbur undid the seatbelt on the raccoon.
“Okay, this is the plan: you’ll come to work with me today and after, I’ll get you sorted at my house. All the food, baths and sofas you want. But only if you don’t cause a rabies outbreak for my co-workers,” Wilbur said, holding up the blanketed raccoon with both hands, staring at him one-on-one.
The raccoon’s beaded eyes narrowed. But he didn’t attempt to fight out of the bundled blankets or claw at Wilbur.
Deeming this a success, he got out of the car with the raccoon nestled in his arms. He ignored all the looks he received as he scanned his key card and walked up the staircase to his office floor.
Niki sat at her normal desk, eyes pinned to the computer screen. But the chittering of the raccoon in Wilbur’s arms made her look over their way.
“Wilbur Soot,” she exclaimed, rushing up towards him. “When you called me about being late because of a raccoon, I thought you’d be taking it to a vet or something, not here!” she whisper-shouted.
“It’s bring your child to work day.”
“So this is your child?”
“He takes after his mother.”
The raccoon nodded.
Niki just sighed. “At least it’s a baby bear,” she said, leaning to stroke its head before the raccoon hissed. She retracted her hand, glaring at him. “Did you know that raccoon in German means washing bear? Waschbar.”
Wilbur gasped, twisting the bundled raccoon so he was facing him again. Its cheeks puffed against the blanket’s rim. “He’s a little waschbar,” he cooed, tone teasingly soft. “Little laundry guy who puts his tide pods in the machines, aww.”
He began to rock the shifter back and forth tauntingly. “Who’s a little laundry loving guy?” he booped the raccoon’s nose before he could scratch at him. “You are!”
As the raccoon growls deepened, Niki stared in disdain. “I don’t find this cute anymore.”
Its claws swatted for him, paws failing to lunge at him. Wilbur hugged him closer, keeping the claws far from his face, and whispered, “If you keep trying to bite me, I will shift and bite back, okay?”
The shifter made a disgruntled but agreeing sound, borrowing his head further back into the wrapped blankets.
“Good,” he muttered, settling the raccoon in his lap as he started up his work for the day.
And surprisingly, the raccoon didn’t cause any more problems. Except when it attempted to swipe at the breakfast bar Wilbur got from the vending machine (he had to halve it and give some to the fucker since it wouldn’t stop growling again).
But besides that, it was all fine. With this little bundled mess on his lap, tucked to his chest. As warm as he was outside his house late last night.
Ⅲ
Tommy was at his fucking limit.
He had been trapped in these blankets all day (ignoring the part when Wilbur took him out for a break in the carpark and he tried to escape into the bushes). And Wilbur wouldn’t let him bite him, not even one scratch, and the fucker deserved it the most out of everyone.
Just because it so happened to be his car that Tommy had slept in for the night didn’t give him the right to basically kidnap him.
He sat on Wilbur’s sofa, still in raccoon form. The blankets were loose so he could at least move now. But he chose not to out of spite and because it was comfortable—though he’d never admit that.
The only reason he didn’t leave this house was that it smelled like the grey cat. The scent that he wanted more of. The security of it all. He didn’t know why it was in this house, but as long as it was, he would stay.
Wilbur finished up in the kitchen and walked toward him.
Tommy grabbed at the blankets so they covered him more. He didn’t want to accept that he was scared. That he was scared of this man who towered over him, of this situation, of everything that had occurred today. He just wanted to go back to the streets—sure it was unsafe, but it was familiar.
“So you don’t trust me?” Wilbur asked as he nudged the food on the plate closer to him. Tommy peaked further out of the blankets, still weary. The man hummed, eyes narrowed as he watched Tommy stare blankly at the food. “It’s better in this form, isn’t it?” he said, causing Tommy to freeze.
How would he know? How would he even understand that in your natural form it's all better and safe? Both for your own well-being to survive in a world where animals were treated with more sympathy than a living child, and because it was his primal form.
Then he remembered. He recalled what Wilbur said in the car, that he was a shifter too.
Tommy chittered, testing it out, to see if Wilbur would respond, if he’d chit back or whistle. But he didn’t. Instead, his back straightened and his face changed expressions ever so slightly. Something more empathetic, but Tommy hated those looks. So used to pity and sympathy, faces with pain and concern for him. Yet those faces never brought him home, never gave him food. Only hesitant hands leaning out to stroke him, only to pet him and that was it. To seek out their own curiosity about what it was like to pat a wild raccoon. Not to ensure his survival. Nothing like that.
But Wilbur was different, it seemed.
“It’s safer,” Wilbur mumbled, slowly pushing the plate of food closer to his grabby hands. “When you’re in your natural form, there’s no human responsibility, there’s no worries of electricity bills, education, taxes or anything complicated, really. There’s no confrontation to deal with, only survival. And survival is easy if you’ve lived long enough to learn.”
Tommy heaved to every word he spoke, his fur that once stood at ends slackening with ease. Tension ceased from him as Wilbur’s warm voice continued saying everything that Tommy had always thought, everything he knew and believed.
He wasn’t alone in this. In this way of thinking. In this comfort.
“You’re hungry, eat,” Wilbur said, glancing down at the plate. “There’s nothing bad in it and it’s washed already.”
Tommy huffed, grunting to himself, as he grabbed for the fruits. Even though they had already been washed, his instincts screamed at him to still do so. But as there was no water at the hand, Tommy rubbed his paws against the strawberries, brushing off any debris that there could be before he scoffed it down.
As he ate everything on the plate, just like how that cat did, Wilbur edged closer.
“I’ll wait for you,” he said softly. “I saw how young you were in your human form, you probably don’t have anywhere else to go. You can stay here however long you need.”
Tommy scowled, looking up from the food, blond cheeks red from the strawberry juices. He thought Wilbur understood. He didn’t want to be pitied, to be taken under anyone’s wing because of a saviour complex or straight sympathy.
He was fine being alone. He was fine.
“Stay for a bit, at least,” Wilbur persisted. “For the night.”
And Tommy reluctantly did.
He lounged on the sofa, though Wilbur gave him more pillows to sleep on. When he was sure Wilbur was asleep, that was when he closed his eyes to rest. His chest still pounded with unease, scared that something would happen to him as he slept.
But then a meow made him open his eyes. A familiar meow. The medium-pitched one that droned on and on.
The grey cat with light brown eyes sat on the floor by the end of the sofa. Tommy rushed down to him, to the kind face. He grabbed him, arms securely tucking the cat into his grasp.
Tommy rolled around, almost wrestling with the cat as both cackled and chittered. The cat brushed his head against him as he did those nights ago, whiskers caressing him gently. He sighed, content, into the touch.
The humming from the cat erased any tension in him, any unease and fear. Because he was back. It wasn’t just a single night where someone cared for him because he came back. Maybe it could be permanent, a steady figure in his life to protect him as he should have been as a younger kit.
He nudged the cat onto his side so the two could huddle together. Then the thought crossed his mind.
Wilbur was a shifter. The cat smelt like Wilbur. Even looked like him with the same eyes.
As the grey cat licked at his ears again, paws kneading into Tommy’s fur, he twisted round to stare at the other. To give him a look a normal animal wouldn’t hold or take notice of. But the cat returned it, gazed back at equal strength.
He tapped his paws onto the cat’s head, petting the side of his face, digging gently into his cheeks. And the cat meowed back, nodding.
Wilbur was the fucking cat. This was his shifting form, his primitive state.
And weirdly, Tommy didn’t mind. Well, he did mind. There had been humans in the past who tried to lure him as a raccoon inside their house, to rid the world of this pest, of him. Yet Wilbur was different.
It was weird. He didn’t feel the need to jump out of the cat’s arms, to scramble away and hiss and bite. Instead, he moved closer, chittering as paws kneaded into him, comfortable and warm.
Heat surrounded him, Wilbur surrounded him. Everything was him. The purrs rumbling against him, the licks to his cheeks and paws stroking him. Wilbur cuddled to his side and Tommy kept himself relaxed. Because he was. He was relaxed, at solace with this.
As Wilbur’s purrs got deeper, a siren’s call to his ears, Tommy’s eyes lidded shut.
The sofa was empty when he woke up. No cat or human Wilbur holding him close to his chest. No warmth except the false heat from the blankets.
A whimper left him before he could stop it. A call of longing, a desperate want for something. Whether that something was grey fur or human touch, he didn’t know.
Sounds came from the kitchen. The sizzling from a frying pan. It was Wilbur making breakfast. Two plates sat on the kitchen island, one slightly smaller than the other. Sized for an animal, for a raccoon.
Tommy wiggled out from the sofa and headed towards the kitchen, his claws scattering on the floorboards as he did so.
“Morning, waschbar,” Wilbur greeted, still focused on the cooking food.
Tommy concealed a chitter at the nickname. It was the way Wilbur said it, in a similar accent to that pink-haired lady from the office. Though you could tell he was butchering the pronunciation slightly. It wasn’t spoken in a teasing way this time, taunting him. Rather, it was fond. Almost affectionate and kind.
“I’m hoping I was obvious that you could trust me,” Wilbur said. Tommy frowned, the cat shifting. “This isn’t my first time meeting you.”
Tommy grunted. He hated how much he wanted to shift. Just to be taller and look at Wilbur’s eyes with an even gaze, where the other wouldn’t have to look that far down. If he was in human form, then Wilbur could get to know his name, say it and treat him as if he wasn’t a pest and animal—not that he did, anyway. But it would solidify it all. Him being more than a raccoon, Tommy as a shifter, a person.
Someone who mattered.
But it scared him. He was scared to shift in case Wilbur’s hospitality only extended to his raccoon form. Terrified that the moment he was human, he’d be kicked and shushed out with a broom or Wilbur’s own two hands and feet. Maybe even with a bat like in the last neighbourhood.
But then Wilbur bent down so their gaze was levelled. “You don’t have to push yourself,” he stated quietly. Tommy found no ounces of dishonesty or deceit in his eyes. “Stay like that if you want, at least then I don’t have to clean out the spare room for you.”
Tommy glared, he wanted a room even as a raccoon.
Wilbur scoffed light-heartedly, “You’re not getting a whole bed just for your little body.” Tommy swatted his paws at him, careful not to actually scratch him. “Well, maybe if you eat your food then I’ll start cleaning out the room today.”
Tommy had never eaten his food this quick before in his life.
Later, Tommy watched from the open door to the spare room as Wilbur laid new sheets on the bed. The room was still a cluttered mess, not completely clean. But you could at least get into the room now.
Wilbur had done this for him. Preparing a spare room for him instead of just making him sleep on the sofa. He even said it was fine if he stayed in his raccoon form, where they couldn’t properly talk or communicate to a full extent. But Wilbur didn’t care. He didn’t mind at all.
As he crept closer into the room, Tommy let out a call. A chitter as close to a meow as he could get. He wanted Wilbur to know, to know what he knew of his shifting state. That he was aware Wilbur was the cat, the grey cat that cared for him, who gave him food in the night and cuddled close to him, sharing the warmth and bubbling affection between them.
Wilbur stilled in his movement. He stopped tucking in the corners of the bedsheets and looked over at the door.
“So you did figure it out,” he said, smiling timidly. Tommy nodded, trotting closer. “And you’re still scared of me?” Tommy didn’t nod this time. Instead, he shook his head as a no.
When Wilbur finished putting the final pillow on the bed, he shifted. A grey cat stood on the bed, tail curled around his paws. Wilbur tapped on the bed, encouraging Tommy to jump up. He hesitated before he did.
The bed shook as he landed on it. It was soft, soft against the pads of his feet. His claws sunk into the mattress, causing Tommy to flick them up before it got stuck.
Wilbur nudged him before grabbing at his tail. Tommy jumped, bouncing away. He continued to bounce, glee surrounding him as the mattress propelled him up.
It was fun. Fun as chittering sounds left him with Wilbur running up and down the bed, bouncing with him. They played, tugging at each other, poking and swatting. He felt so much younger than he was, like he was smaller, a kit in the presence of his parents as if they had never left him to fend on his own, as if Wilbur took over that role. As a father or something more.
Tommy laid down, rolling along the soft linen bed sheets. Wilbur slumped down next to him and Tommy put his arms around his neck. Just to hold him. He rested slightly on top of him and Wilbur let it happen. He wrapped both his feet and paws around him, clinging onto him as he brushed his fur, leaning in the crook of Wilbur’s neck.
And it was safe. It was safe and warm and everything more than anything he’d ever had. Wilbur didn’t hit, didn’t bite or hiss. Instead, he relaxed with him, both sinking into the mattress. Tommy’s head lolled, head hazy and tranquil.
Wilbur moved to lick at his fur again, at the edges of his cheeks. He stroked his ears so they’d pin back and flick up. With the constant caresses, something warm erupted from Tommy’s chest. Not just in temperature and affection, but a rumbling.
He was purring. He was purring as Wilbur cleaned his face and nudged his head against his.
Wilbur purred back, smiling with the hums. A reassuring noise, clarifying to him that it was reciprocated. That this warmth, this bond between them, the affection and care wasn’t one-sided, that Tommy mattered.
Solace run through him, flushing through his relaxed body. Nothing about this scared him, not like that night where Wilbur had done exactly this and it was too much.
Instead, now he couldn’t get enough of it. He wanted more, he wanted it to never end.
His eyelids grew heavy and Tommy fought to stay awake. He yearned to experience as much of this as he could, despite how tired this comforting hold made him.
Just as he began to drift off, the body he rested against changed. Fur sept into human skin and it got bigger. Wilbur had shifted. But he didn’t move. He didn’t shove Tommy off his lap. Rather, human hands threaded through his fur.
He purred louder into the strokes. So content and warm.
“Thank you for trusting me,” Wilbur whispered into his golden coat, leaving a kiss on his forehead.
Tommy grunted and his eyes flickered shut as fingers drew patterns into his fur.
As he drifted off the sleep, he didn’t find himself disagreeing with Wilbur’s words.
It should have scared him to awaken in human form. He should’ve jumped awake, scrambled under the covers for protection from threats and danger, from Wilbur.
But no fear came to him. No distress as he realised he didn’t have paws or a tail as he woke up. He was in his human form, one he didn’t prefer and frankly felt most vulnerable in.
Wilbur could walk into this spare room, see him in this form, and he wouldn’t care. He’d be fine, okay with the peering looks and whatever reaction Wilbur would have because he knew it wouldn’t be bad. He trusted him with that.
Tommy got up and Wilbur was making breakfast in the kitchen. Two plates laid on the table island, one smaller for a raccoon but he wasn’t a raccoon right now. Wilbur must have heard his footsteps—his human footsteps—as the man stilled. He didn’t turn around but it was obvious he realised what was happening.
“Are you sure?” Wilbur asked, back still facing him.
With a hesitant step, Tommy sat on the chairs by the kitchen island. “I’m sure,” he stuttered out, voice croaky from sleep and lack of use.
Wilbur finally turned around with nothing but a bright smile on his face. His eyes flickered all over Tommy; the ears meshing in his blond curls, his blue eyes, the roundness of his cheeks and the slight scar across his nose. Wilbur’s smile widened as he engrained each detail into memory.
“What’s your name?”
“Tommy,” he said, clearer than before.
Wilbur chuckled lightly. “Hm, I gotta say, I prefer waschbar.”
He glared and reached over to hit his shoulder. Wilbur laughed harder, shaking his head.
The two ate together. Tommy still refused to use cutlery despite how he had human hands now, but Wilbur seemed too amused to not allow it.
Then, as the silence turned loving, Wilbur broke it with, “You can stay, y’know.”
Tommy hummed, a warmth settling deep inside him. The warmth he got when Wilbur hugged him in both human and cat forms. When Wilbur combed through his fur and drew patterns into his back. It was there in a simple phrase that he could stay.
“I’ll see how it goes,” Tommy replied, though, by the giddiness of his voice, they both could tell what he truly meant. That it was a yes, confirmation that he never wanted to leave, to be separated from Wilbur ever again.
So he stayed.
His stay lengthened when Wilbur got the spare room properly cleaned and they spent an entire afternoon pasting new wallpaper on it (a design Tommy got to choose). It extended when they got to the point of teasing each other on more regular terms, something brotherly and almost paternal; with instances of Wilbur giving him wafer cookies and cotton candy whilst knowing that Tommy had to wash his food before eating it. He bit him when Wilbur laughed as the food dissolved in his paws.
There were moments when Tommy wanted to run. Not from Wilbur, but just run. From everything. But then a grey cat cuddled him, paws brushed over his ears and a tail curled with his own.
And because of Wilbur, Tommy stayed.