Who: Catra and Caleb What: Catra wakes up with cat ears When: This morning Where: Their apartment Rating/Warning: Low/none. Some language. Status: Complete
Caleb didn’t normally wake Catra up when he was getting ready in the morning - or if he did, she was normally able to ignore him. Not today though.
Today, Caleb seemed to be making as much noise as he humanly could.
He stomped from his bed to the bathroom, and once there, he seemed to take as much pleasure as he could in slamming the cabinet doors and she could have sworn that he was brushing his teeth with a megaphone attached.
Then he was stomping to the kitchen, banging the dishes into one another as he made the coffee. Somehow, he was even boiling the water extra loudly.
Catra couldn’t take it anymore.
“Oh. My. God,” Catra growled, ripping her curtains aside and glaring out at Caleb, ears pinned back in annoyance. “What are you? An elephant? Some of us are trying to sleep here!”
It was Caleb’s first week at his new job. He had stayed late the previous night and wanted to get in early that morning. Which meant a lot of coffee. Caleb was in the process of making when Catra yelled at him.
He knew the apartment was small but he usually tried to stay quiet when Catra was sleeping. He didn’t think he had been that loud. He was about to apologize when he looked over at her.
Caleb blinked, thinking he was imagining the cat ears on her head. Nope, still there. “What are you?” he shot back to her elephant remark. “A cat?” Since when did Catra sleep in cat ears. Hell he didn’t even know she owned cat ears. Because those were clearly just some kind of prop right? Some kind of realistic looking prop. They had to be.
Catra’s right ear twitched in irritation, and a little bit of confusion. It was way, way too early for Caleb to be telling nonsensical jokes that no one but him understood the punchline too. If she was going to deal with that, then she was going to have to get in on that coffee too.
“What are you talking about, you weirdo?” Catra snapped. ‘Weirdo,’ being a term of endearment, though she wasn’t awake enough to make her voice anything other than an annoyed snarl. She climbed out from behind her curtain in the undershirt and boxerbriefs she slept in, and made her way to the cupboards to get herself a coffee mug.
“These,” Caleb said, attempting to pull the cat ears off as she walked by. Only they didn’t come off. What the hell?
Catra yelped, yanking her head away from Caleb. “What the hell, Caleb?” she squeaked, reaching a hand up to rub her ear, wondering what the hell had possessed Caleb to just fucking yank on her ear of all things.
Except, when she rubbed the side of her head, her ear wasn’t there. In fact, the pain seemed to be coming from a little further up, and she tentatively, very tentatively, crawled her hand up to it. There, she grabbed something furry, and warm, and triangular, and it was definitely attached to her head.
“Caleb,” she said slowly, her voice eerily calm. “What is this?”
It couldn’t be her ear. There was no way it was her ear. That was impossible.
“Shit! Sorry!” Caleb said when Catra yelped out in pain. He had just assumed whatever the hell she was wearing would come right off. Because really how the fuck did she get cat ears?
“It’s um,” Caleb began not really sure how to answer her. “A cat ear?”
Catra’s ears drooped and pinned slightly back, uncertain and uncomfortable. “There’s no way,” Catra said, and then quickly turned and stalked toward the bathroom to look in the mirror. Once there, she stared at herself for a long moment.
“What is this?!” she demanded.
Caleb knew better than to follow her to the mirror. She had snapped at him when her tattoo appeared and cat ears were a lot more intense than a tattoo. While she was examining herself the coffee finished brewing. He was sure to pour a mug for both himself and Catra. Though he had a feeling she might need something a little stronger than coffee.
If he knew the answer to the question he would have answered it. But since he didn’t he didn’t even bother replying. Caleb was pretty sure nothing he could say would help. Instead he just walked over and held out the mug for her.
This couldn’t be happening. When Catra thought about moving an ear, it moved. If she thought about twitching it it twitched, and if she forced them to stand up, they stood up, and this was just… it was just too much.
Why did it have to be cat ears? How would she ever be able to go out in public again?
She heard the coffee being poured - in the mirror, she could see her ear instinctively swivel toward the sound; it made her feel a weird kind of sick to see her a part of her body - or at least, something on her body - moving without her having any say on it.
“Thanks,” Catra muttered, turning toward Caleb and taking her coffee with both hands, her ears turned downward.
That was unexpected. Caleb was pretty sure he had never heard Catra say any form of ‘thank you’ before. “No problem,” he replied, trying not to stare too much at how her ears now moved. “You, uh, need anything else?” Because with what she was going through Caleb would do everything in his power to get her whatever she needed.
Catra opened her mouth, and then closed it again, because she had no idea what she needed. What on earth did someone do when they woke up one morning with cat ears? She was pretty sure that wasn’t the kind of thing you could google.
“You have a spare beanie?” she asked after a moment.
Caleb shook his head. “You can take my usual one.” She needed it a hell of a lot more than him. Besides he didn’t always wear his grey beanie anyway. Lately he was just going with his hair down the majority of the time.
Catra let out a breath of relief, her ears sagging a little in relief. When she inhaled, they stood a little straighter. Maybe she would still be able to go out in public. “Thanks,” she said again, this time with a bit of a smile. “I’ll try to pick one up for myself soon so you can get your ugly hat back.”
Caleb laughed, shaking his head. Of course she had to end with some sort of insult. “Don’t worry about it,” he replied. Though he had a feeling she would still get her own beanie. But now that the crisis was somewhat averted it was time to get on with the day.