Here's the latest, once again beta-read by Ryu_no_me, who really ought to beta-read my forwards too, apparently.
Enjoy!
Luka didn't sleep well that night. It was good to know that Miku had people she could rely on. She had a therapist, a close friend, and a group that welcomed her and her skills with open arms. But it was disconcerting to see her spiral so badly once they'd vanish, surely focusing on the destruction of an old friendship, probably a rerun of the falling out with her parents, and all that probably said about her, her relationships. Rin approaching her certainly hadn't helped, but how exactly it had hurt her, Luka couldn't know, because Miku hadn't said, because Luka couldn't ask.
Being a cat started hurting in more ways than it first did. There was the physical side of course: struggling to remember how her body was supposed to move, coping with eyes that didn't see the way she was used to. But add the social aspect, and it was torture. She couldn't be with people, she couldn't help people, or be there for people. Knowing that her parents hurt so deeply at her disappearance had been heartbreaking and heartwarming all at the same time. She was missed. But at least Luka knew in her heart that one day, she'd be human again, she'd be able to see them and assure them that they had no reason to worry: she had been safe the whole time. Of course that would never undo the time they spent in agony. It wouldn't ever give them back the lost sleep, the shed tears, the exhausted time and energy. But it would be ok.
Luka had no way of knowing if Miku would be ok. Within the span of a few weeks, she had gone from being relatively ok and happy with a new cat to spiraling into a deep depression, her whole life falling apart around her.
Luka didn't have to wonder why she cared so much. She cared about people. She had gone into medical research for a reason, for crying out loud. She was all about making life better for everyone. But she was no therapist, no counselor, only an academic doctor stuck in the body of a cat.
She spent her sleepless night wondering how to best communicate that she cared. She wanted to deposit treats by her, but while it would communicate something, it wouldn't actually help that much. Put on happy shows on TV, even though Miku didn't seem to watch it that often. Luka was even prepared to sit closer, anything that wouldn't translate to being ready for touch, but she couldn't help but come into the same obstacle time and time again.
How much was the love of a cat really worth? If she had been an old family pet, perhaps it would be worth the world. But she wasn't that. She was a stranger in her home. She wasn't even trusting.
Luka could do painfully little no matter what she tried, and that thought alone kept her up.
When she did eventually find some slumber, it wasn't the shower that woke her up, or Miku's mumbling, or even the rustling through the walls. It was the piercing note that sent agony right into her skull. Instinctively, she woke up with a yowl, once again forgetting she was in a hide, that she was small, flailing about and bumping her head. She fell out of the cat tree, meeting the floor with a thump.
Miku rushed out. "Evie?"
The door opened, the volume only increased. Disoriented, Luka hissed, scrambling across the floor until she was in the far end of the room, all the fur on her back standing on end.
"This is the second time you hiss out of the blue in just under a day," Miku mumbled, her voice thick with sleep. "Are you hurt...?"
Luka could barely keep her eyes open with the shriek ringing in her ears, but she saw Miku approach, imagining the outstretched hands.
She hissed again.
"Sorry! Sorry..."
Miku returned to her bedroom, closing the door, lessening the brutality of the onslaught. This allowed Luka to blink the sleep from her eyes.
She was entirely too poorly rested, but even she knew that she had inadvertently hurt Miku by being so aggressive. She only wanted to be a good pet owner: the last thing she needed was to think that her cat hated her, too.
Luka felt her ears as they were pressed flat against her skull. She had to act right away. Once Miku would be done with her shower, once she'd open the door again, she'd dart in and go to the source of the problem and swat at it until Miku would get it. Miku would learn that it wasn't her fault, that this was to blame for her attitude that morning, and she might even be happy at helping her cat. She could feel productive, that she'd done good. It would help set a better tone for the morning.
So she prepared herself, eyes on the door and jaw clenched, waiting for the knock, for the door handle to move. She was ready to have her skull split in two by the sound if it meant lifting Miku's spirits before they'd be abused by work. If she were to go in as sad as she'd been the previous night, it just might crush her.
Luka didn't have to wait long, but it felt like an eternity. Eventually, though, Miku knocked, and before she'd opened the door, Luka was already darting towards her, as full speed ahead as she could manage with her stupid cat body and her stupid cat limbs.
"Wh—!"
Luka almost tripped over Miku's feet, sprinting into the room, pointing her ears in every direction until she found the most painful one.
"Evie, what are you...?"
She hissed lowly, almost a growl, as she neared the nightstand. There, on the surface, next to the cable for her phone, was another, smaller, rectangular device. It was charging, the screen blinking, and when Luka batted at it, the stutter in the high note was the only confirmation she needed.
She hissed her throat at it, whacking it repeatedly.
"Evie, what has gotten into you?!" Miku exclaimed, getting closer. Luka cowered as she neared, but she didn't stop her onslaught, trying to pry the device from the plug.
"Stop it, Evie!"
Luka couldn't take it anymore. She was too close, the sound was too loud: she retreated under the bed, ears pressed flat against her skull.
Miku stood there for a moment. Luka watched through squinting eyes, her nails digging into the hardwood floor. Then, she saw Miku get down on a knee.
"Oh, it's...?"
The note stopped, and Luka almost fell apart in relief. She let out a soft meow in thanks.
"Has this been annoying you every time it was charging?" Miku mumbled.
She came out from hiding, trying to look happy and relaxed. She let out a bright meow, but contrary to her hopes, Miku was curling in on herself further and further.
"I'm so sorry, Evie. I had no idea..."
"It's ok! You know, now!" Luka tried to meow. "I'm thankful!"
Miku didn't reply, heaving a deep sigh before turning on her heel and heading for the kitchen. Luka followed, alert, trying to gauge her reaction.
This wasn't what she had been hoping for at all. Miku made them both breakfast, mute and lethargic, before spending her entire meal staring at the device. Try as she might, Luka couldn't tell what it was exactly. But she kept turning it over in her palm, placing it on the table, picking it up again.
When she was done eating, she took her bowl to the kitchen, washed all the silverware and dishes, and then, when she was done drying her hands, promptly threw the device into the trash, the landing punctuated with a muted 'clink'.
Luka felt her hair stand on end again.
She hadn't meant for that at all.
In a continued silence, Miku finished her morning routine, going from the litter box to the bathroom, and finally she left out the front door, the oversized bag slung over her shoulder.
She didn't even say goodbye as she left.
Luka immediately went towards the trash can, but the door was shut tight. The magnet was stronger than her little cat arms. Luka cursed every fiber in this pathetic body of hers.
Whatever it was that she had thrown out, Miku had cared about it. Luka wished she could undo her decision to communicate her hatred for the device: without wanting to, she'd likely driven another nail into Miku's fragile well-being, labeling another beloved trait of hers as detestable by her peers.
She couldn't, wouldn't let her throw this away as well. Luka dug her nails into the wood of the door under the sink, braced herself on the slippery tile flooring, pulled, slipped, failed. After some brainstorming, she painstakingly dragged over the welcome mat all the way across the room, avoiding the puzzles, until it was flush against the baseboards under the sink. Thanks to that, she could dig in her claws without losing purchase, and after some more trying, she finally yanked the cupboard door open.
The door stayed open until it was pushed shut, but Luka now had to deal with a new obstacle: the trash bin itself.
It wasn't horrifically tall. The table had been taller. But she knew that the edges were, at best, a thin plastic ring. She'd sooner fall in than she'd land on it. She also didn't know what else was in there, ranging from rotting food to cutting glass, nor how much of it there was.
She hissed at herself, and threw caution to the wind. This was her fault, so she'd pay the price.
After some careful aiming so she wouldn't jump too low, or too high, she leapt up, then fell in, landing in a soft, if smelly, pile of trash.
"Fuck."
She could see, but only so well. As far as she knew, she had fallen on an empty container of sorts. A box for sliced meats? Or was it for cheese? There was no time to think about that; instead, she pawed around delicately, knowing that the object wasn't heavy. It wouldn't have sunk to the bottom, unless it had slid there.
She searched for what felt like ages. Her whiskers got caught on so many little edges, some hard, some pliable. Her feet would find purchase on a piece of cardboard, then slip into a soft, wet mush. Luka could only see vague shapes, smell an onslaught of odors, but there was no device.
At least until she found an empty jar of some sort, and she remembered the noise it had made as it had landed.
She paused, trying to peer to the bottom of the glass jar. Had she aimed for it when she'd thrown it down? Bull's eye, right into the jar? Luka had those thoughts too sometimes. Just to see if she could.
She looked closer, pawing at the jar, but the bottom was deeper in the pile, casting a dark shadow over it. Luka could vaguely see some things, but whether it betrayed the presence of objects in the jar or under it, she couldn't know.
She pawed at it again, trying to pull it out, but her fluffy paws and sharp nails found no grip. She squinted, leaned, but her eyes couldn't see anything.
Really, her eyes didn't see a goddamned thing anymore. Frustrated, she pushed her face into the jar, bearing the onslaught of info from her whiskers, blinked, smelled only the old brine from pickles. After moving around and seeing that all the shapes at the bottom of the jar would be left behind, she could only conclude that the jar was, tragically, empty.
Her whiskers were going to drive her insane if she kept this up for long. She lifted her head.
The jar came along. Luka felt all the skin of her neck gather at her jaw as the lip tugged, but the jar didn't fall, resting around her head like an undersized, imprisoning cone of shame.
Dread filled her. She was going to suffocate. Suffocate in a pickle jar because she thought some gizmo was in the bottom and she couldn't see a paw in front of her face.
The fear washed in quickly. The first wave, small, lapped in when she pushed at the jar with a paw. Then the second, when she sat with her butt in the trash, pushing at the jar with both paws, claws out, pads against the glass for maximum purchase, only to feel it tug against her skull. Her whiskers screamed, her ears twisted.
Panic crashed into her when she noticed her breathing getting short, shallow. She already imagined the fading vision, and could feel that passing out was a matter of time. The smarts of a scientist, but she was as helpless as a child with a peanut stuck in their windpipe.
She flailed about, paws slipping on the glass, resorting to even kicking at the jar, and suddenly, the whole world was upside-down. It tumbled and turned, and eventually she saw the light of day again. She was sprawled on her back, in a pile of trash: both cupboard doors under the sink had been pushed open, the trash bin toppled, half of its contents spread over the floor and into the cabinet.
Luka stood on shaking legs and immediately ran for the bathroom. There, she swung the side of the jar into the porcelain side of the toilet bowl: it smashed on the third try, the attempt a bodily, weighted flail, sending glass everywhere.
But the rim was still wedged tight around her neck.
Luka didn't care. She took a second to breathe deeply. She wasn't suffocating, and that was the important part. The new collar? She would take care of that once her heart would stop racing. Some of her whiskers were even free, while others continued to whine at the pressure. Her ears remained folded under the edge, pinched. But she could breathe.
It took her a bit to calm down. She could barely remember the blind sprint to the bathroom. The door to the bedroom had been left open, either intentionally or carelessly, and that was probably what had saved her. When she returned to the kitchen, stopping at a distance to behold the scene in sharp detail, she didn't remember, couldn't imagine, how it had gotten to that point.
Worse yet, resting a small distance from the welcome mat, was the very device she was looking for.
Luka sighed, feeling the weight of the glass around her neck press against her as she breathed. She didn't know what to do with the device, now that she had it. Returning it to the nightstand would make Miku think that she was going crazy, worsening her state further. No, it was probably best to wait for a better day, before giving it back to her.
Luka leaned to pick it up, only for the serrated glass collar around her neck to get in the way.
She had barely accepted that picking anything up meant picking it up with her mouth. With this thing around her neck, she couldn't pick up anything to begin with. She rolled her eyes: now that she wasn't panicking, how hard could it be to logically think her way out of her collar?
It turned out, very. Calm and patience did not improve the grip of her paw pads, nor did it gift her claws with purchase. Either her limbs and digits slid on the smooth glass, or they touched the razor sharp edges, trimming hair and nicking skin. Lying down, kicking, nothing helped. She considered a return to the bathroom to shatter what remained, but it was all so close to her face... And she wasn't sure she would be able to get enough momentum to break it.
Did that mean waiting until Miku returned to help her?
That thought alone filled her with cold fear. She would have to solve this herself, she knew that with certainty. But clearly she needed to brainstorm a few things. That was, if her trapped whiskers wouldn't send her careening into insanity first.
So, she started with the easiest things. The device was pushed along the floor until she had it hidden under the bed, where the dust was thickest. Then, with some stubborn tugging with her claws, she pulled the welcome mat from the baseboards, then pushed it back to its place by the door, after batting off most of the trash.
People smeared their soles over it all the time, it was filthy anyway.
The kitchen, however, remained a disaster. Luka knew she wouldn't be able to lift the trash can, especially not with the collar around her neck. Cleaning up all the things from the floor? That was equally challenging. Luka tried to push a few things back into the bin, but by then even her freed whiskers kept alerting her to the presence of the outer borders of the rim, constantly catching on the serrated edges. Luka wanted to swat at her face, free the trapped whiskers, but that only got her sliced paws. She tried pulling again, pushing her neck against the toilet bowl, but either she simply couldn't get the power she had gotten from the earlier swings, or she was already being driven insane.
The continued efforts built up into minutes. Minutes spent tugging, kicking, rolling. Minutes of effort turned into hours. Hours spent screaming at herself, at her body, at her mistake, at the permanent nature of it all. Nothing was right. Her senses were overloaded, her hands hurt, her head was heavy, too heavy to carry, and there was just too much. Too much fur, too much hair, too much stimulation, too much input. She ran into the tile wall of the bathroom, in vain. She tried to close the door on the collar, but couldn't get the necessary momentum. She tried literally anything short of strangling herself, or throwing herself out of a window.
Hours? Those turned into uncountable eternities, too mad to even look at the position of the sun, to see out of her colorless eyes. She was reduced to total petrification, trapped inside her body, caught in the jar, limbs locked, nails burrowing into the floor. Her hair was standing on end, her brain was screaming, and the only shadow of a comfort she had was that eventually, Miku would be home.
Miku would save her, or crush her to death.
Luka didn't have the luxury of choice. She didn't even have the luxury to wait for it either, each and every second invested in the alerts from her whiskers, the dread of this body that simply didn't move the way she wanted it to, that didn't have the strength she once knew. Except she didn't even have a choice to begin with. She had to wait. Had to wait for rescue, going crazier with every passing moment.
Once, she had trapped her head between two bars of a staircase railing, and her parents had freed her.
She missed them. She missed it all, between panicked heartbeats which counted the unraveling stitches of her sanity.
After ages, breaking the silence, the continuous quiet agony of it all, did she finally hear the keys rattling in the hall.
She meowed desperately, and she thought she heard Miku reply through the door. Seconds later, there was the knock, and finally the door swung open.
"Don't touch me," Luka panted, breathless. "Don't—"
"Evie! Oh my gosh, you poor...!" Miku sprang into action, darting to and fro. Luka backed away from the sound, unsure where it was all coming from regardless. Her pinched ears sent conflicting messages. Opening her eyes only revealed a colorless world warped by tears.
It was all so gray. So lifeless. There was only blue, the blue of her hair, the blue right there before her—
Luka yelled as the towel was wrapped around her form. The extra touching, the reminding of her odd, lumpy shape, the extension of her spine, it sent her spiraling into a pain that was so far from physical and yet so much worse. When the towel tightened around her into a restraint, she felt her breath grow shallow once again.
At her mercy. Powerless. Small, weak, fragile.
"Evie, you poor baby," Miku whispered above her, the sound faraway and broken, split into multiple directions.
When Luka felt the fingers dig into her neck, she flailed and squirmed. This was it. She was going to die, her throat inadvertently crushed by hands that were stronger than she could imagine. They raked at her fur, pulled at her skin, pulled her apart, peeled her whole, split her open like a banana, bleeding at the seams, skin making way to muscle making way to bone, the wrong bones, the wrong skull—
It hurt. It hurt like nothing ever had before. Head trapped in a vice, senses overloaded, her head was being squeezed, the skull cracking, breaking apart like an egg, dripping and oozing all over, unable to even scream.
And just as quickly, it was all over. Luka almost thought she had died: after hours of endless onslaught, it was so quiet. There was no alarm being sent directly to her brain. There was no pain. There was only silence, only warmth.
Before Luka could even question whether this was genuine comfort or simply the mute devastation after the storm, her whiskers sounded the alarm again. She blinked her eyes open, only to see a huge thing, pale and rugged, dive straight for her eye. It was easily the size of her eyeball, it would pop them, carve them out, do irreparable damage...!
Instead, a booger was pried from her tear duct. Then again, a moment of petrifying fear as it was repeated for the other eye.
"There you go..."
Then the thing touched her face. When she felt it press against her, her heart raced once again. Like a fist, an open palm, it went from under her eye all the way to her lip, and pushed, dragged, smeared. After a pause, the gesture repeated, wiping in the direction of her fur, in a slightly different location.
She tasted her heart as her entire face was touched, smeared, by this thing. Around her eyes, on her nose, it could easily poke straight through her skin, her skull, penetrate her brain, and skewer her alive. Instead of causing her irreversible harm, it went down her cheeks, to her jaw. Every whisker screamed as even her lips were pushed and dragged, but nothing actually hurt.
Then it was done. As Luka dared open an eye, she saw Miku place a damp paper towel on the coffee table.
So it had been her finger.
"I hope I got most of it," Miku whispered. "You look cleaner than you have in a while."
Luka recognized the warmth around her: the shape of Miku's body, the legs beneath her, the belly behind her. She was still wrapped in a towel, restrained, imprisoned, held like an idiot baby in her lap.
"I think you're alright," she added. "You don't look hurt otherwise."
"Let me go," the cat hissed. "Don't you dare touch me—"
"I get it, I get it. No pets for you. Don't you worry, I'm done. Just... Don't scratch me, please..."
Once the towel was loosened, Luka made a mad dash for the cat tree, nearly falling a few times as she scrambled up. Her body felt more foreign to her than it ever had before, all sore and crooked and wrong.
Once she was in the safety of her dark corner, though, she felt better. Safer.
Outside, Miku heaved a grand sigh. Moments later, Luka heard her start cleaning up the mess in the kitchen.
Luka licked a paw and begrudgingly re-cleaned her face. She hated every moment of existing, this whole event. Getting her head stuck in a jar...
She was still shaking from the whole ordeal. Every muscle in her body hurt, her throat hurt. Her heart was still racing, her breathing was too labored.
It had been a panic. A nightmare. But it was finally over. She'd survived Miku's touch and would go on to live another day as a cat.
She sighed to herself. The sooner she could master speech, the sooner she could convince the technician to take her to the lab and turn her, and all the other people held there, back. She might have to hurry, though, especially if Miku was about to get fired. That would just complicate things.
Luka blinked, froze, then turned her attention back to the world beyond her cave.
It was still daytime out. In fact, it wasn't even remotely close to evening: mid-afternoon at best.
A new panic boiled within Luka. Had Miku been turned away from the lab? It was only Wednesday, it wasn't the weekend at all. Maybe Miku had returned at a similar time the previous week? Was this normal?
In a hope for answers, Luka peeked from her hide to try to spot the technician. By then, the kitchen had been cleaned, at least as far as she could tell. There were no dark shapes on the floor, and the cabinets looked shut.
But Miku was nowhere to be seen.
So lost in her thoughts as she had been, had Luka not heard her step out? She emerged from her hide, crawled to the bottom of the tree, and peaked towards the front door. The towel was still draped over the back of the couch. A coat hung by the door. The work bag was on the floor beneath it, next to a pair of working shoes.
She was still home.
Cautiously, Luka trod towards the bedroom, ignoring the puzzles that still littered the floor. The door there was ajar, but the room beyond was dark.
Luka hesitated for a while, before deciding to eat her fill: Miku hadn't swapped out her bowls yet, so her breakfast was still waiting for her. That would also give the technician the time to reveal her day's plans.
Minutes ticked on, and there was only silence in the apartment. Luka quietly, slowly, ate, drank, then lingered by the door.
This was irregular. Luka tried to remember something, anything about Miku when she had come in, but the cat had been so absorbed by her own agonies that she hadn't paid attention at all.
She gulped, then slowly entered the room. She expected an exclamation of surprise, a small welcome, something to acknowledge her presence, anything, but there was only dark and quiet. The curtains in front of the window had been pulled shut. A faint light emerged from the nightstand: a charging phone. Before Luka turned towards the bathroom door, to see if maybe Miku was taking a long, quiet bath, she spotted the shape under the covers.
She was sleeping.
Luka felt her ears twitch at the thought, her tail flicker.
This was highly irregular.
She approached with more confidence, Miku's form unresponsive to her presence. After standing on her back feet, Luka peered at the phone. She couldn't read the time no matter how much she tried, but it was indeed charging. Then, spotting no other obstacles, she leapt up onto the nightstand to better take in the technician's state.
She was fast asleep. She breathed deeply, evenly, her body curled into a ball, the sheets pulled up to her ear.
Luka relaxed somewhat. She needed some time to do nothing and relax. No work, no volunteering, no chores, no cat to worry about. Just a little time to catch up on sleep.
But it was concerning that she had come home early just to take a nap. Luka double-checked that she was fine before returning to her tree, just outside the door. Perhaps she could use some sleep as well: the morning's events had worn her out. Yet...
Instead of disappearing into her hide, Luka settled on the hammock, tucking her blocky paws under her body. Still glancing at the door, her ear twitching at every noise—real or imagined—she slowly relaxed and let an uneasy sleep take her.
Considering how light her sleep was, waking up at the slightest snore, or when the sunlight hit the room differently, it was no surprise that Luka was wide awake before Miku got her second foot on the floor. She darted from the hammock to the bottom of the tree, then to the bedroom. By then, Miku had disappeared into the bathroom, betrayed by a sliver of light that escaped through a gap under the door.
Luka waited in the doorframe, tense. She soon concluded that the technician had long cleaned up the broken glass she'd left there; there was no yelp, nor the rattling of glass being picked up. Except she couldn't tell what Miku was doing. The technician rummaged clumsily, and used the sink for a long time. As the pitch of the running water changed, Luka realized she was waiting for hot water. Not just hot, but scalding.
Moments later, the time filled with a variety of noises Luka couldn't name, the light was switched off, and Miku re-emerged, clutching something to her chest. She didn't say anything to Luka, much less see her, instead slowly trudging to the bed and falling on it with a heavy groan.
It hit Luka like a brick: she was sick.
She took a step forward, wanting to perch on the nightstand again, but with Miku awake, she wasn't nearly as confident. She knew that Miku wouldn't willingly touch her, but in the state she was in? There was no certainty. Sure enough, the technician swung her arm out of the bed, sloppily grabbing at the nightstand to pick up her phone.
For a few seconds, the light illuminated the room. As it winked out, Miku sighed as if every one of her bones weighed a ton.
"Fuck..."
"Are you ok?"
"I know Evie, it's dinner time," Miku said, her voice beyond tired.
Luka swallowed a hiss. "Sometimes things can be about you."
"Just give me a bit, Evie. I'm... I'm a little under the weather."
Luka refused to meow again, silently studying her form. Miku wasn't settled in the bed, her elbow sticking out as if she were rubbing her face, or fussing with her hair, some kind of activity to stay awake without quite accepting that she needed to stand up. But she sounded miserable. There was no nasal note hinting at a cold, nor was there a frog in her throat. But the technician sounded exhausted, beyond spent, perhaps even in pain.
The cat's tail twitched as she thought of medication. She kept a well-stocked mini-pharmacy at home. Did Miku do the same? Did she have painkillers? Fever reducers?
Miku eventually found the strength to stand, but she walked slowly, with a carefully considered purpose, her form hunched over what Luka decided was a hot water bottle that she kept close to her chest. As she moved, the cat eyes could hone in on the details, ranging from the barely-open eyes to the curl in her lip.
Whatever it was, it was causing her pain.
Luka went back to her tree to watch Miku prepare the food, waiting until she started preparing her own meal. Once again, she turned on the microwave, but Luka's concern was quelled by the memory of Gumi's leftovers.
"Ok, Evie. I'm eating, you can eat too."
Luka darted down to play the charade, peeking out of the corner of her eye to make sure that Miku was actually eating. And she was, if slowly, chewing for far too long, washing each mouthful down with water.
She didn't eat much. The rest of the plate went back into another tupperware. She didn't stick around to wait for Evie either, returning straight to bed, disappearing under the covers with a long, deep sigh. Luka followed her with her eyes, then waited by the doorframe, waited for something, anything.
As Miku tossed, turned, then eventually slumbered, all Luka could do was realize, more than ever, that she was completely and absolutely powerless.