Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Tommy was tired of running.

Yet here he was, hurriedly scrambling away from a large portion of the townspeople, after being caught stealing again.

They were pissed.

Tommy could feel the flames from their torches licking his back. and sharp ends of pitchforks tearing into his flesh. Blood rushes from his wounds and soaks into his shirt. He pushes himself to run faster.

He doesn't want to run anymore; he thinks as he takes a sudden turn.

When he was a younger boy, and his mom was still around, she had warned him of the forest. Of the things lurking in the shadows, of the sparkling eyes trying to lure you in, of ugly, vile, creatures that she said wouldn't hesitate to rip him apart.

Tommy didn't want to die but he couldn't keep running.

He didn't care anymore.

He decided as he runs straight into the thorned bushes. The ones his mother had always told him to stay away from. The ones they'd planted to keep the freaks out.

It hurt.

Thorns ripping and shredding at his exposed skin and clothes, but he had to get away.

Maybe the forest would be kinder to him than his own kind ever was...

Before that train of thought can venture any further, he breaks through the other side of the thick plant, stopping for only a second to catch his breath before he's off again, racing through the woods.

He slows to a walk when he can no longer see the thick foliage that the angry mob hadn't dared to follow him through.

As he walks, the adrenaline he had been feeling started wearing off and his body ached with every step he took.

The gravity of his situation also started setting in. He had been driven out of the town. The only home he had ever known. By people that had known and hated him since he was born. The place where his parents raised him. And now he was in the one place he had sworn he would never set foot in.

Fuck.

He thinks, as his heart aches at those thoughts and his blood runs cold as his new reality sets in. He looks around anxiously, noticing the things lurking in the darkness of the forest. He could hear some of them, whether they were the things his mother warned him about or animals, Tommy didn't know, but they were darting around behind him and it put him on edge.

Then there were giggles that echoed around the forest. The sound creepy and anxiety inducing.

Tommy soon finds out that those giggling bastards are fucking fairies (no, not gay people, he is a proud ally, thank you very much. He means there are literal fairies, and they just stole his fucking bag) after they unceremoniously chewed through the straps of his messenger bag and snagged it off the forest floor

He is stock still, frozen in shock and confusion as to what just happened before he quickly comes to his senses and realizes, those ugly fuckers took his shit.

Tommy shoves the strap of his bag into one of his pant pockets and takes off after the 𝓯𝓻𝓮𝓪𝓴𝔂 glittery fucks.

His body feels like lead, exhaustion weighing heavy at his bones, but he pushes himself to run. Pain washes through his body every time his feet hit the ground, but he had to keep going, he couldn't lose what little belongings he had left.

Tommy‘s blood is burning with simmering rage as he chases after the shitty fairy that now has his belongings. He was going to kill that stupid bastard when he got his hands on it. He is fueled by adrenaline as he runs faster, desperate to get his things back.

It‘s no use though, as the fairy has a good couple feet of distance between itself and Tommy. The fairy sees this and starts getting cocky, firmly believing Tommy would not be able to catch it now, it turns around to taunt him by doing weird shit like sticking it‘s tongue out and blowing raspberries at him.

It pissed him off.

A fatal flaw that the fairy hadn’t taken into account, however, was it‘s surroundings. See, since the fairy was turned around and facing Tommy, flying backwards now, it could not see where it was going. Which means it did not see the owl that had been relentlessly watching it, and it absolutely did not see when the owl swooped down from the trees, talons outstretched, because the fairy screeches in shock, dropping Tommy's beloved bag in the process, when it is snatched out of the air and carried away in the owl's sharp talons.

Tommy flinches back and closes his eyes as something suddenly dives down from the trees. He opens his eyes after nothing happens to him and he sees that the fairy bastard is gone. While scanning his surroundings he spots his bag lying in the middle of the path. He looks around cautiously before hurrying over to his bag, picking it up, and holding it tightly under his arm as he runs the fuck away from… whatever, that was.

Worst of all, after finally getting his shit back from those slimy fuckers, he, 1). realizes that he has no clue where he is anymore, and 2). notices eyes staring at him from creatures he knew were there but couldn't see. Watching him. Stalking him. Waiting for him to relax for even a moment so they can strike.

He wasn't going to sleep that night.

Tommy soon finds himself to be a liar, after shoving himself in an abandoned burrow at the base of an old oak tree and blocking the entrance with some lengthy fallen branches. After he feels moderately safe, in the now enclosed space, he addresses the wounds he had gotten from the townspeople. Fixing himself up the best he could with what little first aid supplies he had, before he falls into a restless sleep after many position changes, the burrow moderately uncomfortable to sleep in with how he squeezed himself into it.

Chapter Text

When Tommy wakes up, his hole is wet.

Dew and condensation had settled during the night and coated everything outside, which included the burrow he had taken refuge in to get away from the horrors of the forest.

He winces when he finally makes a move to get up, as a sharp burning pain goes through his stiff joints. Tommy debates staying in the hole, but ultimately decides against it, feeling too paranoid to stay there any longer.

He moves away the branches he had woven together to close off the entrance, before he crawls out, dragging his bag out with him. He stretches after he gets to his feet, his body crackling and popping as he does.

He considers eating as he starts feeling the beginnings of hunger pains, panging in his abdomen, but he settles on not eating for now. Due to him having limited food for the moment, and because of the nausea that started plaguing him after he realized he was hungry.

He decides to set off, although he would rather be doing anything but walking right now because of the pain he is in and his unhealed injuries, but he feels as if he can’t stay in that spot any longer. He had to move.

Also mama didn’t raise no pussy, he was fine.

He starts going in a direction he briefly recognizes he didn’t come from (Northwest; he thinks, as he starts hobbling in that direction), bag clutched tightly in his grasp. He didn’t want to experience anything like what had happened the prior day. That was the fucking stupidest way he could have got robbed, ever.

Chapter Text

Tommy had come to the conclusion that this was a shitty fucking forest.

Nothing more than a shitty knock-off of this “Alice In Wonderland,” he heard kids talk about as they passed by his pog ass shelter. (It was very shitty, actually. He was just lying to himself.)

With all the unique creatures he had been spotting and the weird things that have been happening to him, he wouldn’t be that surprised if he ran into a talking white rabbit on a time crunch.

The naturally paved trail was so holey too. He kept almost twisting his ankles in the bloody things.
It’s like they were just popping up in front of him!
(Which, they actually could be. He wouldn’t put it past this stupid place. Everything was so unpredictable.)

He didn’t have a clue what to do either. He couldn’t go back to his stupid village, that would be a one way ticket to meeting the big man upstairs, but he didn’t think he could stay in the forest (he didn’t get paid enough for that.) he was too inexperienced for the wilderness life.

(Or so he kept telling himself. [He was plenty experienced enough to survive life alone, and in a shitty forest nonetheless.] He just wanted out. He wasn’t meant to be here.

[maybe it was just the guilt of disobeying words his mum told him long ago that made him want out, though…]

No-

He did want out. The forest would not, and had not, brought him anything good.)

He sighs as he observes his surroundings, thinking about life before this as he does.

Hey, maybe he’d find a puppy… Like the one that bitch who walked the yellow brick road to get to the fugly disease ridden witch, with her shitty ass red shoes and friends, who were massive pussies, had owned. Togo? He thinks it might have been named.

Speaking of pussies… He swore he kept seeing a cat in the corners of his vision, but whenever he turned, there was nothing. Maybe it was just sleep deprivation, or something else, but perhaps he was finally losing it. After only… what? A few days in this place?

‘How wonderful,’ He thinks sarcastically.

His thoughts quickly stray to a different topic.

Like how it felt like all his nerves were alight with flames, as if he was Sisyphus and had been pushing a heavy boulder up a steep incline, over and over, for many millennia.

He’d been walking forever.

It’s not like it was boring though.

On your left, trees that rivaled your dads height.
On your right, different trees that were probably taller than a giraffe (whatever that was…)
In his direct line of sight, the shittiest path to have ever existed, and some terribly, horrendously ugly… fruit plants? If that was fucking fruit, Tommy would hate to see their GMO free meat.
But whatever the fuck it was, it should see a doctor, cause that was not right.
Behind you, Tommy’s big, fat, ars- nah he was fucking with you.
It was more trees and thorny bushes and fucking greenery.

Yeah, who was he kidding. Not boring, his ass! This was almost worse than that time he got locked in some old ladies cellar for 72 hours.

(She had offered to pay him a hefty amount of galleons for cleaning it. He couldn’t refuse, okay??

But mid way through he accidentally locked himself in.

He banged on the door for hours, but she still didn’t let him out.

He’d tried to pick her stupid rustic lock with a bobby pin he’d had on him, but it proved pointless as the lock system didn’t work like that, and a roach crawled out.

He gave up on trying anything with her prehistoric door after that.

When the first full day had passed, Tommy was sure he was going to live out the rest of his terribly young life in that damp room… That the rats would make good use of his body, and the cockroach would make a home in his skull…

But he lived bitches!

Two days after he was sure he was a goner, a relative of the woman had come to clear out her home (which included the cellar) and found Tommy… Well, he’d rather not admit what she saw him doing.
But it turns out the old woman had croaked. Kicked the bucket. Saw the light. Voyaged through the veil. Met the big guy upstairs. Grew some wings. Quickly departed. Collided with the sky. Became history-
Whatever you wanted to call it. What Tommy was trying to say anyway, was she fucking died.

Thank Prime she’d had a family who’d loved her though!

Otherwise, Tommy would’ve still been rotting away in her house with her.

The bitch who’d saved him refused to pay him for his humble services however. So that was a downside, but at least she hadn’t decided to get him executed.)

…..Okay, thinking back on it, her basement was way worse than the situation he was in now.

At least here he had food, water (if he was lucky enough to find any), and freedom.
Not stuck in some tiny enclosed space that shouldn’t qualify as a cellar.

But it was his shitty experience, so he could qualify what was worse and what wasn’t.

How did the eery fuckers that lived here bear with it, though?!

Did they unlock some secret, better part of the map Tommy wasn’t at yet?? What the fuck.

They couldn’t possibly live in this shit show 24/7!

…Could they?

Tommy’s steps stutter as he hears something.

It sounded like…

Oh fuck- he’s either finally lost it, or he hears running water.

Water!

He turns towards the sound before taking off in that direction, depravedly eager and quite parched.

As he’s heading the way he thinks he hears the water coming from, he notices he’s in a different biome. Here there were less trees, whose bark was lighter in color. More land and passive creatures, as well as normal looking foliage.

As he gets closer to the sound, he finds that he’s probably not hallucinating as a stream comes into view.

Fuck yes. Water! It looked clean too… Thank Prime for that.

He could finally wash his grimy ass clothes! And he would….. Just not here. Because it was deep in this area of the stream and the water was running viciously.

He would surely drown and die.

He looks both ways, trying to decide which way to go.

He chooses to turn and go right, because it seemed like the stream tapered, compared to the way it widened and got deeper, and the current harsher, if you were to go the other way.

He found a nice spot where it was just the right depth and the flow of the water was a bit calmer.

Perfect for him to bathe in.

He sets his stuff down by the bank—probably not one of his better ideas, considering how prone he is to being clumsy at times—toeing off his shoes and pulling his socks off, setting them beside his bag, before he removes his ratty clothes—save for his undergarments—and pulls out his only other set of clothes (which were equally as dirty), as well as a lone bar of soap from the pocket of his bag. He was going to wash his clothes first.

And that he does, thoroughly washing the layers of filth from them before hanging them from some low branches so they’ll hopefully dry faster.

Next, he splashes back into the stream to cleanse the grime from his body.

(He doesn’t notice, but he knocks his shoes into it when he’s hopping back in. They are now due to become a victim of the fast moving currents a little ways away from him.)

It feels nice to properly wash the buildup of grime from his itchy scalp and free it from its current defaulted state of being so heavily matted. It is also refreshing as he lathers the soap on his partially healed wounds and cleanses the irritants from some of the open cuts.

Best wishes to anything downstream that had to drink his soapy ass water.

He finishes washing up in the stream and feels so much better as he treks out. He doesn’t have a towel or anything he could use in place of one, so he shakes off like a dog—which only partially resolves his problem because he was still left damp.

But he didn’t mind a lot, particularly because it was fairly warm and there was lots of sun shining down on him here.

Scanning the area, he spots an almost perfectly cut tree stump, one he was sure wouldn’t give him splinters no matter what.

It was perfect for him to sit there and wait for his clothes to dry, too, because he could watch them and make sure they didn’t get blown away or stolen for some hideous creature’s poorly constructed nest or some shit.

He walks the short distance to pick up his bag and his shoes, only to notice: his shoes are fucking missing.

Fuckkk. There is no way in hell he is splashing through the soggy moss in nothing but his socks.

Nuh uh.

He may be Tommy Careful Danger Kraken Innit, but that was another level of sensory hell he did not want.

So don‘t go calling him a genius, but he thinks they might have fallen in the river.

He peers down the stretch of the river, the way that the water flowed, and he can distantly see the familiar red of his well loved shoes, bobbing in the water.

Well…fuck that. The river could have them. He might as well shed a tear and wave his tissue like some forlorn lover, because he was not swimming for them.

As he watches his shoes get farther away, his gaze is drawn from them by a yellow-ish blur that darts out from a bush that was admittedly too close to him for his liking.

He watches it sprint down the length of the river before it pauses and proceeds to pounce on his shoes.

…What the fuck.

From what he could tell at this distance, it had captured one in it‘s mouth and grabbed the other with it‘s tail.

Bad news though, guys. It seems the thing has gotten itself into a predicament doing that… ‘seems’? No, It did. It was meeting it‘s match as the vicious currents sucked it in and ruthlessly beat it down.

Dammit. He had to do something now, didn‘t he? Because the little guy did dive in after his shoes, afterall. And he wouldn‘t want to witness the things suicide, because he wasn‘t heartless in that sense.

‘Ugh,‘ he thinks as he brings himself to a run along the bank of the river while simultaneously trying to formulate any idea to rescue the thing as it got farther away.

Is this what they called 'taking responsibility?' Because it kind of fucking sucked, but in the end worth it. So long as he doesn‘t fuck up-

He rules out swimming, because while he could swim, he wasn‘t the strongest swimmer ever and if he did try, he would just doom them both.

Getting a branch long enough to reach the middle as it started to widen out would take too long and she was sure to be gone if he tried that.

Uhhh, shit. This was really inconvenient.

He could try wrapping something around her??
But he didn’t have any rope on him, and even if he did, it would take him too long to go back and get it now.

He had caught up to her and was trying to keep his current pace to continue running alongside her as the stream gradually picked up while he kept thinking.

He surveys his surroundings, trying to pick out anything he could put to use.

There! Up ahead of him, there was a low hanging vine. Depending on how wimpy or firm it was he could use it as if it were a rope and make a lasso.

Right now it was his best bet, so he pushes himself faster, feet digging into the soft ground with every step.

He reaches it and notes how it had put some distance between him and the distressed piss colored creature. Great, he had a little time to spare now.

He grabs onto the vine and grimaces as the slightly slimy texture meets the palms of his hands. Disgusting. But big man Tommy had lives to save, so he pulls himself together and braces himself as he tugs on it.

And- it was really attached to the tree.

Like really, unhealthily, toxically, co-dependantly, attachment issues-don’t-even-begin-to-describe-it, attached.

Bloody hell, he did not have time for the forests fucking games right now.

He stops pulling for a moment to jump, using the momentum as he fell to use all he had and pull. He feels it give a little, and absentmindedly looks over his shoulder as he continues pulling to see where the small thing was at, and goddamnit was she catching up.

He repeats the action he did just moments ago, really leaning back as he pulls with all his might.

The pain in his back reignites, burning up into his right shoulder, bypassing his upper arm and searing right through his forearm. He definitely reopened a wound or two and his prominent back pain had came back with a vengeance but it was for the greater good, so he prevails.

It finally snaps and he falls on his ass, dumbly holding the vine in both of his hands until his brain kickstarts again and he realizes he got it. Yes!

He pushes the state of his body to the back of his mind and jumps to his feet, promptly starting to tie it into a lasso as he walks back towards the river.

He fumbles and fucks it up the first time, causing explicit curses to flow from his mouth as he sloppily unwinds it and redoes it, in a more calm and controlled manner this time.

That does the trick and he now has a vine lasso.

Pog.

Now he just had to hope his luck was up to par because if it missed, she was fucked.

Shit, shit, shit.

He starts talking to himself because: nerves, and it made him feel better about his decisions.

“National sensation Tommy Innit, swings the lasso around, lining up the shot as the cat gets closer- Fuck." The vine slips from his palms and he fumbles as he picks it up again.

Okay. No more self commentary, he was going to take this so seriously now.

He adjusts his grip, even digging his nails into it a bit so it had a better chance of not flying out of his hands again as he swings the lasso in large arching circles before chucking it as the cat is about to go past him and sink under the currents again.

With bated breathing, he pulls on it at the exact moment it slips over her head and around her little torso.

Excited exclaims tumble around in his head as it catches, briefly startling the alarmed animal that yowls, the noise muffled and wet, from the unexpected feeling. If he had pulled even a second later the rope certainly would have slipped from her small figure and he would have failed in saving her (and his shoes).

He thinks for a moment, head slightly tilted to the side as he contemplates.

The vine had hooked around her ribcage. Would that make it okay for Tommy to pull her over and lift her up like that, or…?

Eh, he guessed he‘d know if she started clawing the shit out of him.

He begins reeling her in and finds that she was incredibly light, and easy to pull in because she wasn‘t thrashing or anything…though he also considers that she could have been frozen in fear.

Soon enough, she is in a soggy heap, far enough away from the river that she wouldn’t fall in again.

He watches her crawl a little bit more away from him, and—he knew she was wet right now—obviously, she just came out of a stream that almost killed her—but she was an odd looking cat.

She wasn‘t pure piss colored like Tommy had thought she was. She had brown stripes down the expanse of her body, ones that were not too dissimilar to a bees.

…Strangely enough, she had antennae too, that looked to sit behind her ears, the fuzzy fluff that looked like fur at the end, also yellow.
It was still wet, though, so right now it just looks like a soggy Horton Hears A Who tree.

After noticing her size, he valiantly holds back chuckles. (He would like it to be known that they are not ones of mockery, though.)

If you saw her, you might be too!

Her legs were incredibly short, and Tommy isn‘t sure how she captured both of his shoes, because they were both bigger than her.

In the end, he doesn’t win the battle against cruel laughter, because as the cat is broodily glowering at the river, it yowls, the sound holding a watery edge to it which just makes him break: his body folding in half because of how physically weak it makes him feel as he laughs hard at the wet fur ball that was smaller than his shoes.

She hisses before she’s running at him and then clawing at his bare feet.

“Ow, shit, you bastard! Stop it, I- I wasn‘t laughing at you.“ He lies as he tries to stop the uncontrollable laughs that slip out while he‘s talking.

He manages to pull himself together and with a last bite to his ankle, the bastard stops its assault on his poor delicate feet.

“Jesus… For a small thing, you’re ruthless…” He comments to himself as he rubs at a foot.

“Well, I guess this is goodbye.“ He picks up his shoes and begins walking back to his bag and clothes.

…Or not. Because he hears her follow.

It sounds exactly like the footsteps he heard at a distance earlier.

And she was about the same size as the thing he thought was a hallucination that he was seeing earlier.

…

He wasn‘t delusional!

A cat had actually been trailing after him this whole time.

He no longer had to consider therapy with that creepy 8 foot tall shadow figure thing that started creeping alongside his shadow at dawn because it thought Tommy couldn‘t see it.

Yay.

His one hip kept popping as he walked, a result of all the sprinting he had done to rescue her. It was kind of painful, but for the most part it just felt strange. He wasn‘t too salty, though, because he had done something good.

It is a relief when he finally reaches the stump he was going to sit on earlier—not before grabbing his bag—and finally, heavily plops down on it.

With a quick glance, he relievingly finds that none of his clothes have became victims of these cruel woods, and his shoulders slump as he finally relaxes a bit.

He watches as Bastard—yes, he was calling her Bastard, it was really fitting if you thought about how she had treated him after he just saved her—shakes herself off and sits completely out of his reach to start grooming her cold, wet body.

He didn‘t want to touch her anyways, he thinks relatively petulantly as he suddenly turns away from the cat and grabs his bag and the fallen strap.

He pulls out the stuff he needs to mend it before examining the point where it had torn.

It was rough, and choppy, but that was to be expected.
It had gotten gnawed off by those overgrown bugs they call fairies after all.

He meticulously threads his needle—which takes a few tries—and then sets to work.

It only takes him under approximately 5 minutes to finish it, cutting the thread off using his teeth and then tying it off.

It wasn‘t perfect, but it was all he could manage right now.

Besides, he could care less about aesthetics. He just wanted to live and get out of this forbidden place.

He suddenly yawns, tired after his days exhibition.

He gets up to check on his clothes and finds that they are still pretty damp. He debated letting them dry longer or just putting them on, since he had been without them in the middle of nowhere in this shitty ass shrouded forest for so long.
He didn‘t care that they were still wet, so long as he doesn‘t catch an illness.

Which, he shouldn‘t. So long as the temperature doesn’t drop too much during the night. So in the end, he tugs down an outfit and pulls it on.

With his clothes now on, though clinging to his body, he isn‘t sure what to do.

That cat was still following him.

It was still keeping it‘s distance, wary, as it should be, after the great Tommyinnit had saved it, despite it’s defiance and ungratefulness for his very generous act.

He hoped it felt shame.

He continues staring at her as she pays him no mind.

…She looked so fluffy now, and way prettier. He could imagine the feel of her freshly cleaned fur as his fingers twitch, wishing to touch her.

Bastard notices the slight movement with her keen kitty eyes and puts more distance between them, making Tommy shake away his thoughts and grab hold of his headspace again.

His hands ball into fists and he turns away from her. Now wasn‘t the time. There was no way he was safe in any way shape or form here, especially not enough to be so mindlessly carefree about letting himself be small.
And Bastard didn‘t want to be touched by some grimy person such as himself anyhow.

He really hadn‘t wanted to pet her anyway. She was probably still damp with kitty spit from licking excess water from her fur and likely smelt like gross lake water anyway.

A yawn forces it‘s way out of him and he realizes how tired he is, along with the new pains that were accumulating over some of his joints and joining the others.

He huffs and leaves Bastard to survey the area and find a safe place to spend the coming night.

As he does he realizes he was limping quite badly because of how it hurt almost all over himself.

There wasn‘t really anything he could do for it, though, so he continues, hoping to find a place where he could lie and rest his body without his newfound companion, or whatever she was.

Sleeping in a tree was not in his bucket list of things he wanted to ever do, but he had found a decent looking one and there wasn‘t exactly many options in the openness of this different section of the forest he found himself in.
And he didn’t exactly want to sleep in a barren shrub that looked something like a tumbleweed fixed into the ground.

At least the tree he picked out was old and had grew big in it‘s many years of life, so it was lush and could probably hold his thin stature with much ease.

Besides, he spotted a nice little dip between the trunk and a mid sized branch that looked like it would be more comfortable to sleep in than that den he had shoved himself into before, so he wouldn‘t complain.

But before he settles in…

He goes back to his little set up by the stream, and grabs his bag and thinning blanket before heading back with the two things clutched between his slightly chilly hands.

It‘s not hard for him to find the tree he chose for refuge that night, and with slight difficulty he begins climbing it after slinging his bag over an arm and sloppily shoving his blanket in it.
It was spilling out of his bag, but he didn’t mind because he had already started up the tree to his desired resting spot and it didn’t look like the movement from his climbing would upset it.

It takes some bark poking into his palms and feet which were mostly protected by thick calluses, as well as a possible splinter in his knee before he makes it to the spot.

—And almost falls an estimated 13 foot drop. Because sitting on a different limb of the tree, not too far from the one he had claimed, was Bastard.

He catches himself before it can happen and pulls himself onto the branch.

He roughly pulls his bag off and sets it down in front of him in the kind of wide oval of the divet in the tree, leaning back against the broad trunk as he glares at her cute form while beginning to sulk.

He swore she wouldn‘t have been able to get up here with him.

But unfortunately for Tommy, she had. Because she is a cat, and cats are capable of climbing trees. However, Tommy does not know this, because he never got a formal education.

His sulk fest is cut short as she makes a noise and moves closer, pulling his attention back to her instead of his thoughts about how she was still supposed to be on the ground.

She was quite the weirdo. It was like she was magic.

He gets caught up, thinking about if she can fly and do other cool things, when a tiny paw pad touches his knee.

He swears he isn‘t scared by her sudden appearance, he didn‘t flinch, he was just…adjusting his posture.

Now that she was closer, he could tell just how luscious her fur was, and it makes him want to touch it even more.

It takes not even two minutes, before his qualms are ditched as he grows more unaware of himself and succumbs to the vulnerability that made him feel…small, and offers his palm for her to smell, seeing if she’d let him pet her.

She sniffs it for some brief seconds before offering her head.

It makes him smile, a small and fragile thing as he carefully pets her fluffy fur.

It was as soft as he thought it would be!

Plush and silky and surprisingly free of any grainy bits.

She meows and rubs her head against his arm and something suddenly snaps in him, the smile leaving his face, as he scrambles to pull away from her as if she were rabid and had been trying to latch onto his hand, while trying not to fall out of the tree.

What was wrong with him? He wasn‘t a child, he didn‘t need this, he‘s not safe here, he wants his mum.

No- see? He didn‘t need this, it made him think all weird when he needed to focus on surviving.

He sits up straighter and thinks of things other than the cat right beside him and how nice it would be to fully let down his guard for once and just live freely…and regress.

Thinking about how shitty the U.S. of A is, among other world issues to get rid of the remainder of foggy regression ebbing at the forefront of his mind, he drifts off before the sky has fully darkened, not even getting the chance to fight it and stay awake to keep watch over himself.