Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

It’s Wednesday evening, and a steady downpour of early-spring rain is pelting the sidewalks and buildings and unfortunate pedestrians of the city. Kylo, ever the practical pessimist, whips out his umbrella, steps out into the street, and picks his way around the puddles on the sidewalks, making his way to the parking garage while managing to keep his loafers mostly dry.

He clambers into his car, shuts the door, and leans against the steering wheel, eyes closed, frowning. The headache that had begun as a slightly uncomfortable twinge during his afternoon meeting now feels like someone is going at his forehead with a hardcover English-Elvish dictionary. He sighs, massaging his throbbing brow with his fingers—and then he hears it.

It’s too quiet to name at first. It’s a repeated sound, high-pitched and soft and—it sounds a bit like—?

A small brown cat leaps up from nowhere and lands on the hood of Kylo’s car.

Kylo goes completely still.

The cat peers into his car and seems to zero in on him with its wide, golden-brown eyes. It narrows its eyes at him, then, and meows.

“What the hell—?”

Kylo clambers out of his car and stands there, hands hanging awkwardly at his sides, unsure of what to do. The cat stares back at him, meowing at an unnervingly regular interval, as though it’s chiding him for a list of things that he’s done wrong.

“Get off,” Kylo says, waving his hand half-heartedly at the thing. “Shoo.”

The cat stays rooted to the spot.

“Off. Wait, no—!” The cat stands suddenly, swishing its tail from side to side, and takes two dainty steps toward him, leaving prim claw marks in the hood of his car.

“Off, you—you—cat!” Kylo glares at the cat. The cat stares back, and then—to his utter annoyance—yawns.

“Get off —” Kylo leans over the hood of the car and makes a grab for the cat, who slips out of his grasp with a startled yowl and tumbles over the edge of the car hood. He hurries around to the other side of the car, and the cat is standing there, unruffled, albeit looking markedly more annoyed. Kylo watches the tail as it lashes from side to side, then looks back into the cat’s unblinking stare.

“Okay. I…” Kylo points to his car, feeling ridiculous. “I’m going to drive away now.”

The cat “mrrow”s at him and darts under his car.

“No, no, you stupid—get out from under there!” Kylo roars, scrabbling to the spot where the cat had been a moment ago and crouching down to glare at the cat. The cat turns in a circle and lies down gingerly on the concrete, tucking its paws primly underneath its body. It fixes him with an emotionless stare, then begins methodically licking its paw and pawing awkwardly at its own ears.

“Fuck.” Kylo massages his brow with one hand and whips out his phone with the other. In a city as chock-full of magic users and magical beings as this one, the system for finding and returning missing and found animals is a well-oiled machine. He pulls up the city’s website for reporting lost and found animals and clicks on the “Cats” tab on the “Missing Animals” page, and scrolls through the photos rapidly.

“Mrrow.” The brown cat has paused in its nonchalant grooming and is looking at him again, paw in the air.

“What?” Kylo snaps.

“Mrrow,” the cat replies, then—much to his aggravation—flops down onto its side and—and just lies there, watching him with half-open eyes, the tip of its tail flicking lazily.

“If you don’t get out from under there,” Kylo snaps, “I’m going to get into my car and back out of this parking spot, and I’m going to drive right over your stupid little body, and I won’t feel bad about it at all.”

The cat blinks one of its eyes and flicks one of its ears; otherwise, no response.

“Okay.” Kylo gets up and marches around his car, back to the driver’s door. “I’m going to do it. I told you I would, and I’m going to do it.”

“Mrrow.”

“I’m getting into the car,” Kylo calls as he opens his car door and climbs back in. “I’m going to close the door and turn on the engine,” he continues, doing exactly that. “And I’m going to drive away,” he yells over the noise of the engine, “right over your furry little body. Just like that.”

He sits in the car and waits.

Not a peep from the cat. No sign of it coming out from underneath his car, either.

“Dammit,” he grumbles again, and nudges his door open an inch.

A second later, a set of whiskers appears under his door. The rest of the cat’s face inches out slowly, and Kylo finds himself having a staredown with a feline.

“Why aren’t you getting out of the way?” Kylo demands.

“Mrrow.”

“Do you want to die?”

“Mrrr.”

Kylo sighs, then tries a different tactic.

“Look, I’m sorry I yelled,” he says, lowering his voice to a placating pitch. “Could you please get out from under my car so that I can go home and make dinner and just go on with my life? Pretty please?”

The cat regards him for a moment, then crawls out from under his car—

“Oh, yes, good kitty—”

—and, with one bound, jumps into his car—

“—Good ki—noooOOO, BAD KITTY—”

—and makes itself at home in his lap.

Kylo stutters his way through several colorful curses as he squirms madly, trying to herd the cat off his knees.

“No! No! Off! Off !”

The cat yowls in protest, its ears flattening against its head, and clings harder to his dress pants, threatening to shred them.

“Ow! No! Not the pants!”

More yowling, followed by a bit of hissing. More clinging to dress pants.

Eventually, Kylo, realizing that his squirming is only making the situation worse, gives up and just sits in the driver’s seat, limp with resignation.

“You’re not coming home with me. Do you understand? You’re going to the rattiest cat shelter that I can find. Pun not intended.”

The cat relinquishes its death grip on his pants, pricks its ears toward him, and lets out an ingratiating meow.

“Too late,” Kylo snaps as he pulls out his phone again.

Half an hour later, Kylo’s car hasn’t moved from the parking spot, and Kylo has called nearly every animal shelter within a forty kilometer radius. Every response has been either a prerecorded message stating that the shelter is closed for the day, or an apologetic receptionist informing him that they are “up to their ears in strays” and they just “don’t have room to spare.”

Kylo is too angry to construct interesting curses, and merely alternates between “fuck” and “shit,” sometimes coming up with a mildly creative combination of the two. The cat has now curled up into a ball in his lap, its tail wrapped neatly around its paws and nose, its eyes closed. The rumbling sounds emitting from Kylo’s stomach have increased steadily in duration and melodramatic inflection.

Kylo ends his animal shelter phone marathon with a tired, drawn-out “Fuck,” and slumps against his seat.

The cat cracks one eye open and regards him for a moment.

“You little shit.” Kylo throws his phone into the passenger seat and covers his face with his hands, letting out a long sigh.

The cat opens both eyes and stares soundlessly as Kylo, exasperated and at the end of his tether, rubs his face with his hands. Then, it does something curious—it sits up, nudges closer to Kylo’s chest, and, with a loud purr, begins rubbing the side of its face against his shirt.

“Don’t you dare get hair on my shirt,” Kylo admonishes weakly, but the cat ignores him completely and continues purring and rubbing.

Kylo sits still for a moment. Then, tentatively, he reaches up with one hand and cups the cat’s small, delicate head. The purring grows louder as the cat gently butts its furry head against his palm. Kylo tries a scratching motion with his fingers, and the cat leans its thin little neck against his fingers just so, its eyes barely open now, its purring strangely comforting. Rewarding, even.

“You’re lucky you’re cute,” Kylo grumbles.

---

“Right,” Kylo says firmly. A to-go chicken sandwich and a quick Google search later, he’s at a pet store of moderate repute, holding the brown cat in his arms. (He’s not sure if he’s holding the thing properly, but it doesn’t seem to be complaining.) Kylo stands in the entrance of the store, eyeing the numerous aisles of all the pet supplies he imagines a pet owner could ever possibly want, and is immediately at a loss. His headache throbs, unhelpfully.

“Right,” he says again, rallying, and marches toward the food aisle.

“What do you think?” He mumbles to the cat as they survey the cat food selection. “Wet, or dry? God, how can there be so many choices…?”

“Mrrow.” The cat swings its little head from side to side, its eyes wide. It seems just as intimidated by the wall of colorfully-packaged cat food as Kylo feels.

“Wet it is, then.” He grabs a box of canned cat food and drops it in his shopping basket, and moves on.

“What else do cats need? You need to eat, and you need to shit. Oh, right. Cat litter.” Kylo ignores the bemused stare of a woman as he strides past her, still mumbling to the brown bundle of fur curled up against his chest.

“Mrrow.”

“Don’t deny it. You’re no better than the rest of us,” Kylo mumbles as he arrives at the litter section. He grabs a bag of litter, and swiftly selects a litter box that claims to be “hygienic,” “deodorizing,” and “self-cleaning.”

“Sounds good, right?” He consults the furball. The furball stares back at him noiselessly.

“Right. Okay. Eat, shit… Sleep? Do you need anything specific for sleeping?”

“Mrrow.”

“Hmm. A cat bed?”

The cat rewards him with a slow blink.

Kylo hurries around the store until he finds the aisle with pet beds in a range of sizes, colors, and materials. He stares down the aisle for a moment. Some of the beds look hamster-sized; others look roomy and sturdy enough to comfortably accommodate a pregnant cow.

“Well?” He queries the furball. “What do you think?”

The furball yawns.

“Yeah, me too.” Kylo grabs the nearest bed that looks about Furball-sized and stuffs it into the basket. Cat goods and cat in tow, he staggers toward the cash register.

---

“Luckily for you, my apartment allows cats. I wouldn't be willing to break the rules for you,” Kylo grouses as he lets the cat into his apartment, setting his purchases down by the door. The cat stretches for a moment, ignoring him, and sets about examining its new home.

“And don't go thinking that this is your home, or anything,” Kylo feels the need to say. “As soon as I find your owner, you're going back to them. And if you don't have an owner, then you're going to a shelter.”

The cat looks back at him, lets out a squeaky little meow, and trots toward his shopping bags, tail in the air.

“I'll bet you're hungry,” Kylo mutters. “Let me just...find a dish for you...”

He grabs the box of cat food, wrestling with it for a moment to free it from the plastic bag, and plods tiredly into his kitchen, the cat following closely and meowing loudly.

“Yes, yes, you're hungry.” Kylo sets the box on his kitchen counter and flicks on the kitchen lights. “I know the feeling intimately.”

Kylo's kitchen is the size of a normal person’s master bedroom, but as a single, mostly-still-young man who possesses very little knowledge of the culinary arts and has even less in the way of a life outside of work, his kitchen is usually cold, pristine, and covered in a thin layer of dust.

The cat pauses at the entrance of his kitchen and surveys the general state of disuse with a judgmental manner.

“Do you want to eat? I won’t feed you if you stand there, judging my kitchen,” Kylo snaps. His head throbs painfully.

“Mrrow.” The cat lifts its feet daintily as it steps into his kitchen and follows him to his dish rack.

“Let’s see here,” Kylo mumbles, half to the cat and half to himself, as he cracks open the cardboard box and peels back the lid of one of the small, squat cans of cat food. He finds that he actually doesn’t mind having another body in the room to talk to, even if the creature can’t talk back.

“It’s such a small amount of food… Is this even one serving?” Kylo turns the box back and forth until he finds the nutrition information.

“Yeah, looks like it is… Bummer for you,” he monotones. He examines the dishes in his dish rack for a moment.

“Bowl or plate?” He asks the cat.

“Mrrow.”

“Bowl it is.” He pulls out the smallest bowl he owns, turns it this way and that under running water until he’s sure that most of the dust has been washed off, and dumps the cat food into the bowl.

“Here you go,” he mutters, setting the bowl down on the floor. He watches as the cat bends its head down, sniffing skeptically at the wet chunks, before slowly taking a bite. Then, to his immense relief, the cat chews and swallows quickly, and proceeds to inhale the rest of the food.

“Okay. Good kitty,” Kylo mumbles, bending down to scratch the top of the cat’s head gently, bumping his fingers awkwardly against its ears. “Guess I’ll go figure out the litter box situation, then.”

“Mrrow-ow.”

Kylo straightens and stares down at the diminutive ball of brown fur, crouching and eating its food as fast as it can, and a small smile fights its way onto his face.

---

“Come on.”

“Mrrow.”

“Come on . I got you a perfectly good cat bed.”

“Mrrow.”

“You can sleep right next to my bed! In your own cute, fluffy little bed! Isn’t that nice?”

“Mrrrrow.”

The cat food had gone swimmingly, and the litter box had been assembled, examined, and used without a hitch; however, for some reason that Kylo cannot discern, the cat has staunchly refused to set foot in the cat bed. It now lies stretched out luxuriously over Kylo’s sheets. On Kylo’s bed.

“This isn’t okay. Do you understand me?” Kylo jabs a finger at the cat, futilely. “You’re going to spend the night in your own bed. This is my apartment. We’re going by my rules.”

The cat meows impassively.

“Off. Now.”

“Mrrow.”

“Cat. Off .”

“Mrrow.”

Kylo sighs, rubbing the bridge of his nose. “Look, Furball, I have to get at least some work done before I go to bed, and you’re lying right smack in the middle of where I like to do work. You need to move.”

Furball rolls onto its side and begins grooming the fur on its shoulder.

Kylo heaves another sigh and runs his hand through his hair, aggravated. His headache has subsided marginally, but the cat’s obstinacy isn’t helping anything.

“Fine. I’ll just lie on top of you, then. It’s going to hurt one of us a lot more than the other,” he warns, throwing up his hands and stomping off to grab his laptop. When he returns, the cat hasn’t budged, and has moved onto grooming its stomach.

Kylo hesitates. “I read somewhere that you can’t let yourself be walked all over by a cat. Once you do it, the cat basically owns you.”

“Mrrow.”

“It knows that at the end of the day, it can do whatever it wants and get away with it.”

The cat yawns.

Kylo sighs. Holding his laptop and charger gingerly, he eases into bed next to the cat. He wiggles around a bit, trying to find a mostly comfortable position, and ends up balancing his laptop on his hip, his shoulder digging uncomfortably into the mattress, his thighs at a respectful distance from the cat. He folds his pillow in half and props it under his head, and decides that the elevation is sufficient.

The cat looks up from its grooming and watches as Kylo settles in as best he can and logs in on his laptop. It watches as he rubs his forehead briefly, trying and failing to ease the headache, before clicking around and typing, and as his face settles into its “at work” expression—brow creased, mouth set in a straight line, eyes zeroed in on his screen. After a beat, the cat sits up, yawns, and steps carefully over the wrinkles and folds in Kylo’s sheets and nestles itself against his stomach.

Kylo freezes.

The cat shifts around a bit, resting its chin first on its paws, then on Kylo’s ribs. A low purring begins to thrum in its little chest, vibrating pleasantly against Kylo’s rib.

“Furball,” Kylo murmurs. “What are you doing?”

“Mrrow,” sleepily.

“You’re in the way of my arm.”

“Mrr.”

Kylo huffs a sigh, and reaches up to rub his forehead again. The cat opens its eyes a crack and watches Kylo’s fingers for a moment. Then it stands up again, maneuvering awkwardly around his arm and laptop, and pads up to his pillow, stepping on his bicep in the process.

“Hey—furball, what—?”

“Mrrow.”

The cat eyes the area around his head for a moment, before curling itself around his head, settling in against his hair.

“...Furball?”

The cat shifts its weight slightly, curling closer to his head, and resumes purring, its paws kneading slightly. The vibration of its little body is oddly soothing, Kylo muses, much to his surprise. He finds that it is suddenly much more difficult to focus on his laptop screen. He reaches up slowly over his head and scratches at the cat’s head gently, and is rewarded with a gentle headbutt and a fresh round of purrs.

Later that night, when Kylo finishes washing up for bed, his headache now mostly gone, he stands at the edge of his bed for a moment and eyes the ball of fur that now lies curled next to his pillow, its breathing rapid and light, its ear twitching occasionally. He reaches down and smooths the fur on the top of the cat’s head back, gently, before switching off his bedside lamp and sliding carefully into bed.

The next day, he returns the cat bed.

---

Living with a cat has turned Kylo’s life entirely upside down. When he isn’t scanning the lost-and-found pets website for reports of a missing, slightly-undersized brown cat with golden-brown eyes, he finds himself watching the furry little creature, trying and failing to understand it. It follows closely at his heels whenever he’s home, meowing as though it’s talking to him and expecting him to answer. It is not shy to ask for pets and scratches; it rubs itself fearlessly against him, no matter what he’s wearing—be it rainboots and jeans, dress shoes and slacks, or pajama pants and bare cold feet. He discovers that it particularly likes being scratched at a particular spot on its neck, likes crawling under his arm and settling its head under his hand whenever it sees the opportunity, will eat pretty much anything he brings back from the pet store food aisle, and will occasionally mistake his fingers for toys (or perhaps prey; he isn’t quite sure).

When he speaks to it, sometimes it pricks its ears toward him and fixes him with wide eyes, as though hanging onto his every word; other times, it will merely flop down onto its side and calmly groom itself, ignoring him entirely; it seems to have an unnerving understanding of his tone of voice.

They’ve settled into a comfortable routine. Kylo feeds it in the mornings and evenings, and it amuses itself in his mostly-bare apartment (he suspects it spends most of the day napping) while he’s at work. The weekend is an anomaly; he lazes around the apartment in the mornings and does chores and runs errands in the afternoons, and most of that remains uneventful with the presence of the cat. Things get a bit interesting when he attempts to go through his home workout routine; the cat sits at the corner of his mat and watches, apparently fascinated, as he goes through his weightlifting reps, then attempts to clamber onto his shoulders as he does push-ups and sits primly on his feet as he does curl-ups. Treadmill work is another adventure of sorts; the cat sits at the front of the treadmill and bats happily at the spinning belt as Kylo jogs along. When he kicks the speed up to a sprint, the cat rears back, engages both front paws, and bats crazily until it loses balance and tumbles over, and Kylo has to stop the treadmill to double over with laughter.

Every time the cat misbehaves or nonchalantly upsets a part of his routine, Kylo threatens to kick it out of his apartment, to dump it in front of a shelter and drive away, to only feed it vegan chicken… But nothing seems to faze the cat, and at the end of the day, they both know that Kylo would never follow through on his threats.

About a week after the furball forcibly entered his life, having not found any advertisements for missing brown cats with golden-brown eyes and an uncanny grasp of human vocal/behavioral cues, Kylo takes it to a nearby shelter that accepts and examines stray cats.

The employee who leads him and the cat from the receptionist area to an examination room holds the cat up to her scrutinizing gaze for a few moments. Her name tag has “Rose” scrawled on it, followed by a string of cute little hand-drawn animal emojis. She examines the cat’s overall physical wellbeing and prods at it carefully, here and there, while Kylo recounts his story.

“And how has she fared at your home? Has she been stressed, or overly aggressive?” Rose asks when he’s finished.

She ? It occurs to Kylo that he never bothered to check the gender of the cat. “Uh,” he says valiantly, “she seems to be doing...fine?”

“You said you only got her some pet food and kitty litter; not much else?”

“Yeah.”

“No toys? Scratching post?”

“No toys, no.” Should he have?

“Carrier? Leash?”

“No.”

“No?” 

“Mrrow.”

“No toys or carrier or leash. They didn’t seem necessary.”

“Oh. She’s a very well-behaved cat, then. Count yourself lucky,” Rose says, flashing Kylo a quick smile.

“Really?” It’d never occurred to him that his furball was particularly well-behaved. Sure, she seemed a bit more sedate than other cats, and sure, she didn’t knock things over, or scratch up his furniture, or bat at the various improvised toys that he’s tried tempting her with, or jump on his chest early in the morning, demanding to be fed…

Huh.

“Let me grab my…” Rose trails off as she hurries over to a shelf in the room and retrieves from one of the higher shelves a strange-looking device.

“This is a magic detector,” she says in response to Kylo’s puzzled look. “I’m just going to scan her real quick for any traces of magic.”

“You think she might not be...just a cat?”

“It’s something we do with all animals that we get, just to be sure,” Rose says reassuringly. “But I’m getting some signals here that she isn’t your typical cat.”

She turns the thing on and hovers it at various points of the cat’s body. The cat remains perfectly still on the examination table, eyeing Rose as she moves about with the device.

“Huh,” Rose says as she looks over the readings.

“What is it?” Kylo says, feeling his anxiety rise.

Rose looks up at him. “I don’t think your cat is a cat.”

---

“... What ?”

“It’s not unheard of,” Rose says placatingly. “We get these cases once every few months or so. Usually it’s just the result of a prank.”

“A prank? Who would turn someone else into an animal and then abandon them as a prank ?”

“It’s definitely not something that we take lightly,” Rose says. “Once we can figure out exactly how your cat was turned into...a cat, we can go about seeing if we can reverse the magic. We have connections with a very talented team of witches who specialize—”

“How can we find out how she got turned into a cat?” Kylo interrupts.

“Well,” Rose says slowly, “that’s the hard part. There are many ways that this could have happened. We would really need to find the person who did this to her.”

“How can we do that? Is there any way they can be… I don’t know, traced, or something?”

“I’m afraid not,” Rose says apologetically. “The first step would be to file a report with the police and to put out a request for information. Perhaps someone knows about the incident.”

Kylo eyes the cat with sudden apprehension. “If there’s a… If that cat is actually a person, then…? Why doesn’t it…?”

“Act more like a human?” Rose chuckles. “There’s a range of possible explanations for that. Again, we don’t know enough to make any calls or take any next steps.”

“Right.” Kylo runs a hand through his hair, agitated. “Right.”

All this past week, it’s been a human trapped in a cat’s body who’s been eating cat food in his kitchen, curling up with him on his sofa, watching him pad around his apartment in nothing but boxers, snuggled up next to him in his bed—

He cuts that thought off right quick. “Um—How can I tell—I guess, how can I tell how much of the human is still there? In the cat?”

“Hmm.” Rose frowns for a moment. “She seems to exhibit some traits that aren’t quite cat, but I don’t know if she is aware that she was once a human, or if she still possesses memories of being a human. Has she tried communicating with you, or telling you that something is wrong?”

Kylo racks his brain. “Not that I can think of.”

“Okay. Usually, when humans-turned-animals retain their self-awareness, one of the first things they do is to try to get someone else to understand their situation. You know, attempting to write letters in the dirt, pointing out letters or words in newspapers… That sort of thing.”

“Oh.” Kylo glances at the cat for a moment. “I don’t think I’ve seen any of that from her.”

“Then she’s probably pretty detached from her human identity for the moment,” Rose says.

“Okay.” Kylo feels a wave of relief; something about that makes the whole situation marginally less awkward.

“I do recommend going to the police and filing that report, and putting out an advertisement,” Rose says. “Those are the first steps that we recommend for anyone in your situation, and most of the time, those are the only steps necessary to fix the situation.”

“Okay.” Kylo runs a hand through his hair again, almost pulling at it, staring at the cat. “Okay,” he mutters again. “Right.”

“Do you have any other questions?” Rose says, smiling.

“No, I… I think I’m good.”

“Okay. Here’s my number, in case you have any follow-up questions,” Rose says, handing him a business card. “Don’t hesitate to call.”

“Thank you,” Kylo says sincerely as he accepts the card and sweeps the cat up into his arms. “You’ve been very helpful.”

“Glad to have helped!” Rose grins. “And for what it’s worth, I think you’re doing great with the cat so far. She seems to really like you.”

Kylo glances down at the cat currently hanging limply from his arms. “Thanks,” he says skeptically.

---

Filing police reports and putting out advertisements are tedious things that require socially interacting with a stranger, and Kylo finds himself in a foul mood when he’s done doing both. He drives home from the police station in a huff, and is a bit rough with opening and closing doors, and that tension headache that just never seems to completely go away is dancing a delicate little jig behind his eyeballs now… Despite his anxiety, however, he is almost excessively gentle with the cat as he lifts her out of his car and carries her carefully into his apartment and sets her on the ground.

Once they’re in the apartment and she’s safely back on the ground, she looks up at him with her wide golden eyes and meows, once, sweetly, before padding off to his bedroom with a slight bounce in her step and her tail in the air.

Kylo stands in the entrance of his apartment for a moment, and it occurs to him then that he knows absolutely nothing about Furball the Human. Does she have brown hair and golden eyes? Does she inhale any food that’s placed in front of her? Is she partial to cuddles—

Okay. That’s enough.

Kylo sheds his coat and shoes and strides into his living room, intent on squeezing in a bit more work before dinner.

---

Chapter Text

The police report and the advertisements that Kylo went through so much trouble to file don’t turn up anything in the next few days, much to Kylo’s chagrin. Friday evening finds him sitting on the couch in his living room, the lights off, the TV on, and a glass of wine sitting precariously close to the edge of the coffee table that his feet are resting on. He flips through channels with little interest in anything, absentmindedly scratching the top of the cat’s head as she lies draped over his thighs, purring up a storm.

Kylo’s about to nod off when the cat suddenly jerks to alertness, its little head shooting up from his lap.

“Humh?” Kylo mutters oafishly, startled by her sudden movement. “What’s wrong?”

“Mrrow!” The cat begins to sit up, twitching her head from side to side, as though she hears something unsettling.

“Hey, hey.” Kylo rushes to scoop the cat up into his arms, trying awkwardly to calm her down. “What’s wrong?”

“Mrrow!” She begins to paw at his chest, at first gently, then more insistently, all the while glancing around the room with increasing alarm.

One moment, her small, furry, wriggly body is cuddled securely against his chest.

The next moment, she’s a brunette young woman, lying awkwardly across his thighs and chest, her wide brown eyes staring down into his, her pink-lipped mouth a perfect “o” of surprise.

“What—” Kylo’s hands flutter about as he flails in shock, and he suddenly realizes that he is touching bare, slightly goosebumpy flesh, and that she is—

Completely naked.

“OooOOH MY GOD—”

“ What the hell —!?”

There’s a cacophony of shouting and squealing, and the young woman tries to simultaneously scramble off of him and cover her nakedness with her slender arms and slim-fingered hands. Kylo wriggles out from under her, his face aflame, unsure of whether to look away or to just close his eyes; he winds up alternating rapidly between the two. 

He flails his hands about until he finds his throw blanket, and practically throws it onto the woman as he scrambles toward the end of the sofa. She immediately covers herself with it, rolling up into a defensive ball and scooting herself to the other end of the sofa. There are now two cushions’ worth of space between them, and an immensely awkward silence.

“What the hell—?” Kylo gasps for breath. “Where—? Who are you ?”

“I could ask the same thing,” she snaps angrily, then brings her hand up to her forehead with a moan.

“Fuck,” she mutters, squeezing her eyes shut as she rubs her head. “What happened? Where am I? Who…?” She peers at him with those eerily familiar, yet entirely new, eyes. “Who are you?” She finally manages.

“Who am I ?” Kylo exclaims in disbelief. “Who the hell are you ? I mean, I know Rose said you might be a human, but—”

“Rose? Who’s—”

“How the hell—”

“Okay,” she says, her other hand emerging from the blanket, and she buries her face in her hands for a moment. “My memory is a bit foggy at the moment. The last thing I remember is sitting in my room, studying transmutation spells…”

She drags her hands down her face. “Fuck,” she mutters again. “I have the worst headache right now.”

“Are you…” Kylo swallows madly. “Are you okay? Can I get you some water?”

“No, I’ll be fine. I just need a second.”

“Oh. O-Okay.”

She hides her face in her hands again and sits still for a moment, sighing and muttering to herself.

“What day is it?” She suddenly asks.

“Friday,” Kylo says feebly.

“The 9th?”

“The 16th.”

“It’s been a week and a half ?” She exclaims.

“I guess?”

“Okay,” she says, breathing deeply and squinting against her raging headache. “Okay. I think some of it’s coming back to me. Let me know if any of this sounds incorrect, but—” she motions to herself— “Transmutation spell for homework went wrong, and...I’ve been a cat for the past week and a half.”

“Yes.”

“You… ouch, goddamnit ...you took me in.”

“Yes. Well, it…wasn’t really up to me.”

“You mean you were forced to take me in?”

“Sort of. You...jumped into my car...and wouldn’t get out.”

“Fuck,” she whispers, mortified. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s all right, really.” 

“Oh god,” she mutters. “Okay. So...you took me in. So I’ve been here for the past week and a half?”

“Yep.”

“Oh my god.” She stares at him for a moment. “Oh my god .”

“Um… Yeah.”

“I don’t know whether I should thank you first or apologize first,” she says, her cheeks flushing rapidly.

“It was…” Kylo swallows again. “It was nothing. Really. A p-... A pleasure.”

“It’s all still really fuzzy,” she says slowly, rubbing absently at her cheeks with her slender hands, and Kylo has to consciously stop himself from thinking how those lovely hands were furry little paws not five minutes ago.

“Did you...were you aware that you were a human trapped in a cat’s body?” He asks, to distract himself.

“I’m not sure,” she admits. “I don’t think I was ever fully aware of it.”

“How did the spell work? Did it just...wear off?”

“Yeah, I guess so… Thank goodness, right?” She giggles nervously. “Anyway, um, how exactly did you find me?”

“Uh,” Kylo says. “I was… I was getting into my car. In the garage. At work. And you jumped onto the hood of my car.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. I tried scaring you off, but you got past me into my car and wouldn’t get out, and I… I had a bad headache, and wanted to get dinner, so I just…” He gestures vaguely. “I took you home with me. Figured I’d deal with you one way or another.”

“You didn’t leave me at a shelter?”

“I did take you to one, but they were at max capacity and wanted me to keep you if I was okay with it, which I was. They did some examinations and said that you might be a human stuck in a cat’s body, but they couldn’t know for sure. They had me open a police report and put out requests for information…”

“Oh my goodness,” she squeaks. “That sounds like so much trouble.”

“It was okay,” Kylo hurries to reassure her. “I… I didn’t think of myself as much of a cat person. Or an animal person in general, I guess. But you were no trouble to take care of.”

“Oh. Well. I’m…glad to hear that.”

Kylo nods quickly, too many times. She peers up at him, still buried under his throw blanket, her face still aglow with embarrassment, and the corner of her lovely mouth quirks up.

There is an attractive young witch on his couch, covered in nothing but his throw blanket, blushing prettily and smiling at him .

Kylo shoots to his feet. “Um,” he says eloquently. Get a fucking grip . “Um,” he tries again, “do you want me to...to get you some clothes? I imagine you’ll want to go home? Now that you’re back to...back to human? Form?” 

Oh god, just stop talking .

She rises to her feet slowly, taking care to remain covered by the blanket. “Sure,” she says slowly. “That would be nice.”

“O-Okay.” Kylo rushes to his bedroom. He stands in the doorway for a moment, suddenly conscious of how messy his bedroom is. He had given no thought to the cleanliness of his place when he first brought the cat in, but now that the cat is a human—

He shakes his head. Not important right now. He turns to his closet and roots around until he finds a button-down shirt, a sweater that he’d accidentally shrunk in the wash a few months ago, and a pair of pants that might be short enough to not drag on the ground when she wears them. He gathers them in his arms and turns to head back to his living room, and nearly jumps out of his skin when he sees her standing there.

“Sorry!” She exclaims as he stumbles back. “I’m sorry. I thought you heard me come in.”

“It’s…” He shoves the clothes in her general direction, and feels, at this point, utterly hopeless. “It’s okay.” And he bolts from the room, unable to handle another moment of being in her presence.

---

“Um...?”

After leaving the bedroom, Kylo had paced around the living room twice before sitting down and downing the rest of the wine in his glass, which had miraculously remained unspilled during their earlier panicked flailing. He’d turned off the television and just sat, stewing in his nervousness. 

He looks up now at the small sound, and sees the young woman standing hesitantly in the entrance of the living room, dressed in his ridiculously-too-large clothes and eyeing him shyly. In addition to the clothes he’d given her, she’s found a pair of his clean socks, and she's also tied her soft brown hair back with one of the elastics that he uses to keep his hair out of his face when he’s working out.

He swallows, and is unable to keep from giving her a once-over. The shirt and sweater are several sizes too big for her, hanging from her narrow shoulders like a tent, and she’s rolled up the cuffs of the pants so that they don’t drag, and the socks are much, much too long for her, and her eyes are wide and bright and somehow a bit melancholy, and she looks... ridiculously adorable.

“H-h…” Kylo gulps for air and tries again. “How are you feeling?”

“I’m feeling better,” she reassures him. “Still pretty fuzzy on exactly what happened over the past few days, but the nausea is gone, and having clothing on is helping.”

“Oh. That’s good.” 

“Um.” She shuffles uncomfortably into the living room and sits down at a respectable distance from him, and is almost completely swallowed up by his clothes.

“I…” She glances up at him shyly. “I'm Rey. Rey Solana.”

“Oh! I-I'm Kylo Ren.” Kylo puts out a hand, and she hesitantly takes it. Their handshake is unbalanced, awkward.

“I'm pursuing an advanced degree in witchcraft, at the university downtown,” she hurries on as she withdraws her hand and clasps her fingers together in her lap. “I'm one year away from graduating.”

“Oh,” Kylo says, swallowing thickly. She's pursuing an advanced degree, so she isn’t quite a college student, but she’s still so young. “I work at a publishing company. I'm…” He swallows again, wincing. “I've been there for about 8 years.”

Her eyes light up. “You work for a publishing company? That's so cool!”

“It's less glamorous than you might think,” Kylo says, laughing nervously.

“Hmm. So no magical work or studies?”

“No, not really. Unless you count the study of magical languages and cultures when the job calls for it.”

“Wow,” Rey breathes. “Your work sounds interesting.”

Kylo shrugs half-heartedly. “It's all right.”

There’s an awkward pause as they both pretend to examine the living room with interest.

“So, um…” She shifts uncomfortably. “Now that I’ve thanked you, I should… I should probably get going.”

“Oh,” Kylo says mechanically. Then, it hits him. “Oh.”

“My friends are probably really worried about me,” she rushes to say, “and they probably have no idea that I was a...a cat for the past week and a half. And I’m probably fired from my part-time job for not showing up for so long. And I've missed sooo much classwork.”

Of course she isn't going to continue living here, at Kylo's place. Of course she has a life that she needs to get back to. What did he expect?

“Of course,” he says, repeating it to himself. “I could… I could drive you? Back to your place?”

“Oh! Um,” she says, flustered. “I live on Tuanal Street, near the Hanna Library of Magic… Do you know where that is?”

“I do, yeah,” Kylo says. “I work pretty close to the library, actually.”

“You do? Oh, that's perfect.”

“So, you want to...get going now?”

She glances outside at the dark sky, then back at him. “It seems pretty late,” she says feebly, “and I'd hate to impose on you for another night…”

The thought of her curled up next to him in bed, all warm flesh and soft brown eyes, awakens a sensation in his stomach that he isn't ready for.

“Of course,” he says, turning away quickly. “We can go right now? If you want?”

“Okay,” she says softly.

---

Kylo shrugs his jacket on slowly, and slowly, slowly stuffs his feet into his boots. He's dragging out the moment unnecessarily, and he knows it, and is ashamed of it...but not enough to quicken his pace. Not when she— Rey —is standing next to him, looking so adorably...adorable.

He drags himself to the door and reaches for the handle.

“Wait,” she exclaims suddenly, and it's pathetic how quickly he turns around, how quickly his hopes rise.

“Do you have shoes I could borrow? It’s rather wet outside right now,” she says sheepishly. He looks down for a moment at her socked feet.

“Why don't I just carry you? I'm not sure if I have shoes that would fit you,” he says before he can restrain himself, and her already-pink cheeks turn bright red.

“Sorry,” he says immediately, turning away from her. “Sorry. Let me see if I can—”

“It's okay,” she says softly. “I don't mind.” She steps closer to him, close enough for him to see the golden streaks in her warm brown eyes, the fine freckles that dust her cheekbones, the delicate curve of her cupid’s bow. He swallows and looks away as he hooks his arms around her knees and shoulders and hefts her up into his arms. She’s heavier than she was as a cat, of course, much more so, but she’s still incredibly small and light in his arms.

With a bit of teamwork, they manage to get through the door, and he carries her down to his apartment parking garage.

---

“This is me,” she says, smiling as they pull up to a tiny apartment complex around the corner from the library. Kylo pulls into a parking spot along the street and kills the engine. He steps out of his car, then hurries around to the passenger's door and carefully lifts Rey out.

“I don't have my key,” she realizes out loud as they approach the entrance. “Maybe my roommate is home? Let me just call up to my room and check.”

“Okay,” Kylo says, and bends awkwardly to help her reach the call box. She punches in a few numbers, and they wait as the box rings.

“Hello?” A man's voice answers. Despite himself, Kylo’s heart skips a beat.

“Finn? It's me, Rey.”

“ Rey !? Oh my god, I—where have you been ?”

“It's a long story,” Rey says, grimacing. “Could you let me in?”

“Oh my god, sure. Just a sec…”

The door buzzes, and Kylo and Rey manage to pull the door open and squeeze through the doorway into a dimly-lit hallway. At Rey's direction, they take the elevator to the third floor, and when the doors open, a black young man is waiting there, nearly vibrating with anticipation.

“REY!” Finn exclaims when he sees her, not even registering Kylo's presence at first, and throws his arms around the both of them. Kylo immediately tenses up. Finn seems to notice then that he's wrapped his arms around a human that is considerably larger than Rey, and looks up into Kylo's face—and frowns immediately.

“Who the hell are you ?”

Kylo's hackles rise. Rey seems to sense this, because she squirms in his arms and pushes the two of them apart as best as she can.

“Finn, this is Kylo. He's taken care of me over the past few days. Kylo, this is Finn, my overly suspicious roommate.”

“Girl,” Finn says, rounding on her, “you show up in some stranger's arms, apparently wearing his clothes as well, and you expect me to not be suspicious?” 

“It's a long story, Finn,” Rey says wearily. “I'll explain it all to you later.” Then, to Kylo: “You can put me down, if you want to; I can just walk to my room from here.”

“I can carry you,” he insists.

“She told you to put her down,” Finn interjects hotly. “What part of that didn’t you get?”

Kylo feels his temper rising. “I’m just trying to be nice,” he grits out.

“Finn, it's okay. Really,” Rey says firmly. Then, to Kylo: “My apartment is that one,” pointing to the open door down the hall and smiling apologetically. 

Kylo nods, still peeved, and strides to the open door before setting her down gently on the carpeted floor of her apartment. He realizes just before her feet touch the ground that this is probably the last time he will ever hold her in his arms, and his chest twinges oddly.

Finn squeezes by them back into the apartment and stands a few steps away, eyeing Kylo warily. Kylo pointedly ignores him and looks down at Rey, who peers shyly up at him with those golden-brown eyes that he's now realizing, with a pang, that he's going to miss.

“Thank you, Kylo,” she says softly. “For everything.”

“There’s not much to thank me for. I was an asshole to you most of the time,” he protests, ashamed.

“You were what ?” Finn demands.

“Finn,” Rey sighs.

“But what does he mean, he was an asshole?”

“ Finn .”

“All right, all right,” he mutters, retreating to the kitchen.

She turns back to Kylo, and her expression is equal parts amused and sad.

“I… I'll wash these and return them to you,” she says, indicating the clothes.

“No, it's okay.” Kylo smiles weakly. “I like the idea of you keeping them.”

“Oh,” she quavers, looking away and blushing. Kylo wonders if he was too brazen.

“Thank you again,” she says, “for taking me in and taking care of me. I don't think I can ever thank you enough.”

Have dinner with me ? His traitorous lizard brain pipes up. He clamps down on that thought, and instead mumbles “It was no trouble.”

She smiles up at him, and it's a lovely moment, a moment that he races to memorize so that he can pore over it later, in the loneliness of his apartment.

Finn peeks out from the kitchen. Kylo glances uncomfortably at him. Rey looks back at Finn, then back at Kylo, and the moment is broken.

“Goodbye, Kylo,” she says, her voice tender, as she reaches a slender hand up to his cheek.

“Goodbye, furball,” he murmurs in reply before he can correct himself, and she smiles, and her hand withdraws, and the door closes.

---

It's several days later. Kylo returns from work, soaked through; he'd forgotten his umbrella. He drops his briefcase on the ground next to the door, kicks off his shoes, and shrugs off his dripping coat, and has barely flung it onto his coat rack before he's slogging into his kitchen and pouring himself a glass of wine.

He carries the glass to the living room sofa and flops down onto the cushions, not even bothering to reach for the television remote. He gulps at the wine and sits there in the darkness, in his still-damp work clothes, staring at the black television screen.

It’s usually around this time, he muses, when the cat/Furball/Rey/whoever the hell it was would saunter out of his bedroom, yawn, stretch, and jump up into his lap with a swish of her tail and a lazy “mrrow.” She’d find a comfortable spot on his thighs and flop down on her side and stare up at him, waiting for him to pet her. And he always did; he was never any good at refusing her pets and ear scratches, and she never failed to reward him with purrs and headbutts.

It’s strange, he muses, how quickly she became a part of his routine. It’s strange how intensely he misses her, even though she’d only spent a little over a week at his place. It’s strange how he didn’t know that a hole in his life even existed until she came along and curled up in it.

He frowns and throws back more wine.

Presently—he isn't sure how much time passes—the front door buzzer goes off. He stares for a moment, numbly wondering who it could be. He gets up, lets whoever it is in without question, and slumps back to his couch. A few moments later, there's a knock on his door.

Kylo groans in annoyance. He drags himself to the door slowly, and presses his eye to the peephole.

And sees Rey's furrowed brow, Rey's lightly freckled cheeks, Rey's soft brown hair, Rey's golden brown eyes.

Kylo spins a little too quickly and trips, falling to the ground in an undignified heap. Rey must hear him hit the ground, because she starts banging more insistently on the door.

“Kylo?” She calls uncertainly.

He stifles a groan as he struggles to his feet. “I'm coming,” he grits out, and, with a massive effort, he pulls himself together, switches the living room light on, and opens the front door.

Rey stands there, wearing a worn denim jacket and knee-high rain boots, carrying a dripping umbrella, and holding what appears to be a Tupperware container and a plastic laundry bag. Her smile is warm but tentative, and he finds himself torn between wanting to sweep her up and wanting to slam the door shut.

“Rey,” he says dumbly instead.

“I washed your clothes,” she says quickly, and holds out the laundry bag. “And I made brownies! I hope you like chocolate,” she adds, and holds out the Tupperware.

Kylo gazes dumbly at the goods, then at Rey. Her face falls a few notches.

“Do you not like chocolate?” She asks meekly.

“No, no,” Kylo says, gathering up the Tupperware and the laundry bag hurriedly. “I love chocolate. I really do. God, I...just...love it so much do you want to come in?”

Rey smiles slowly.

“Yes, I'd like that.” 

She steps inside and gazes around for a moment, her golden loveliness out of place in his drab, messy apartment. He hangs by the door, partly ashamed, partly in awe, and mostly just drunk.

“You've kept the cat things,” Rey observes, seeing the box of cat food in its usual spot on the kitchen floor, the litterbox in the shadows of the bathroom, the cat toys in a bin by the bookshelf in his living room.

“Yeah,” Kylo mutters.

“Why?”

Kylo shrugs. “I thought I might get another cat someday. Or… I mean… A cat. Or...” Oh god.

She takes a step toward him. “Are you drunk?”

He huffs quietly. “Yeah, a little.”

“Why?”

“I'm...not in a good mood right now.”

She steps closer. “Why?” She asks softly.

“It's been a rough couple of days,” he mutters. He watches, unable to move, hardly able to breathe, as she steps even closer, her eyes shining.

“Why?” It's a whisper now.

“Because I miss you,” he murmurs.

She leans into him with a soft “oh” and cups his face in her hands. The Tupperware and laundry bag slip out of his hands and land unceremoniously on the ground. Kylo hefts Rey up into his arms and they tumble onto his couch, and the ache in his chest is almost unbearable.

“What is this?” He grunts as he gathers her close in his lap. “Did you cast a spell on me or something?”

“You wouldn't believe how often I get that as a pickup line,” she giggles.

“What, from other guys? From Finn?”

“Oh god no, not Finn. We're like siblings. Plus, he’s...not into vaginas.”

“Well,” he says, his voice raw, “no more casting spells on anyone other than me.”

She nods, mock-serious. “Got it.”

He gazes at her for a moment with vulnerable eyes. “Why did you come back?” He finally asks. 

She regards him for a moment.

“I've been remembering more and more of my time as a cat over the past few days,” she says finally. “And you were right; sometimes you were...a bit of an asshole.”

“Oh.” He looks away, ashamed.

She reaches out with a gentle hand and guides his face back to her. “But you took such good care of me,” she says gently. “You took me to the shelter to be examined, you went through the trouble of filing a police report, you bought and improvised a bunch of toys to see what I liked, you fed me and didn't make me sleep alone… And we both know,” she says, smiling cheekily, “that you wouldn't have gone through with any of your silly threats.”

“Oh, well, I…” Kylo huffs gruffly. But she’s right; he’d been a goner the moment she first fixed him with those golden-brown eyes. 

Her smile turns soft. “I really do have so much to thank you for.”

“So you came out here just to thank me?”

“That,” she says, shifting uncomfortably in his lap, “and also to ask if...you wanted to go...visit a cat shelter with me sometime.”

Huh ?

“Or a dog shelter,” she says quickly, “if you think you prefer dogs now—”

“You mean,” he says slowly, “like a date?”

“Um,” Rey says, blushing furiously. “Yeah. Like a date. I-I guess.”

Kylo feels his cheeks aching, and realizes that he's smiling.

“I'd love to, kitten,” he says softly, cupping her face with his hand. 

Rey’s eyes are wide. She stutters something unintelligible. Kylo's heart swells, and he tugs her face closer gently, and he presses his lips to hers.

---