Hybrid cat!User
Tangled Tail
[🐋]
Neon lights blinked erratically, half-buried beneath blueprints, wires, and discarded gadgets. Somewhere in the chaos, Jinx was working—muttering to herself, tongue poking from the corner of her mouth as she tightened the final screw on her latest project.
Meanwhile, you were sprawled lazily beside her, nuzzling your head against her thigh with an exaggerated groan of boredom.
“Ughh, Jinx… I’m dying here,” you whined, dragging the last word into a plaintive mewl.
“You’re not dying, you’re just being dramatic,” she snorted, not looking away from her work.
Your ears flicked. You bumped your head against her again, just under her hand this time. “Scratches. Behind the ears. Now.”
Jinx finally looked down at you with that wild grin—eyes alight with amusement and mischief. “You really are such a spoiled furball.”
“I’m not a cat,” you grumbled.
“Sure you’re not.” She gave in, scratching behind your ears with skilled fingers that made your tail twitch despite yourself. You hated how easy it was for her to find your weak spots.
You were about to swat at her hand when her eyes lit up even more. She straightened up suddenly, holding something small and metallic in her palm.
“Look at this furball! It’s a gift for you.”
Your tail started swaying side to side instinctively. That always betrayed you.
She held up a shiny metal plate—your name carefully engraved into it in crooked but loving letters. It glinted in the workshop light, attached to a collar with bright neon-blue paw prints glowing along the edge.
Your eyes widened. “No. No way.”
“Yes way,” Jinx said, practically bouncing. “Come here!”
She lunged forward, and you scrambled backward on all fours, hissing softly in protest. “I said I’m not a—!”
Jinx pounced, tackling you to the ground in a heap of giggles and yelps. You struggled, your claws poking at the floor for leverage, but she had you pinned.
“This is abuse,” you hissed.
“This is love” she corrected, already buckling the collar around your neck.
It clicked into place. You froze.
Then you looked up at her. She was beaming at you like she’d just won the Shimmer Lottery.
“…You’re lucky I like you,” you muttered.
“I know you do.” She smirked, flicking one of your ears before leaning close. “You’re my stray now.”
Your tail thumped the floor once in warning—but you didn’t take it off.
You sat up slowly, one hand brushing against the collar as if it might burn you. The engraved tag clinked softly with the motion, and the neon paws pulsed faintly with light—mocking you.
“This is humiliating,” you mumbled, ears pinned back as you adjusted it.
Jinx plopped down beside you, legs crisscrossed, chin in her hands as she grinned like a proud kid showing off a new toy. “Nah. You’re adorable.”
“I’m supposed to be a failed weapon, not a pet.”
“Well, lucky for me I like broken things,” she said, too casual for the words not to sting a little.
You looked away.
She noticed—of course she did. “Hey. I didn’t mean it like that. You know that, right?”
Your silence stretched for a beat too long.
She nudged your arm gently. “I don’t keep you around ‘cause you’re ‘useful,’ fuzzball. I keep you around because… I want you around. ‘Cause you’re fun. And warm. And you don’t scream when I wake up from a nightmare and start throwing knives.”
You blinked. That was unusually… honest for her.
The edge in your posture softened, and without quite realizing it, you leaned into her side. Your tail curled loosely behind you, flicking just enough to let her know you weren’t really mad.
She took it as a victory.
“C’mon,” she said, hopping to her feet and grabbing her boots. “Let’s go show Silco your new look.”
Your head snapped up. “We are not going out like this.”
“Aw, come on! He’ll love it. Or hate it. Either way, I win!”
You lunged at her—pure reflex. She shrieked, cackling as you tackled her to the floor, both of you wrestling between loose wires and empty vials. The tag around your neck jangled wildly as she shouted, “Stop resisting! Embrace the floof!”
“You’re dead!” you growled.
“You wouldn’t dare hurt the one who feeds you!”
“I find my own food—!”
“Trash doesn’t count!”
Despite your protests, your laughter cracked through, mixing with hers in the cramped little world you’d both carved out of the chaos.
Later, after the struggle ended and the collar remained firmly in place, you lay stretched across the workshop floor again, her head resting on your stomach as she toyed with a smoke grenade while you brush her hair with your claws.
“…You’re not gonna take it off, are you?” she asked quietly.
You looked at the ceiling. “…Maybe not tonight.”
She smiled.
“Good,” she said. “Because it suits you.”
𝚆𝚒𝚝𝚑 𝙻𝚘𝚟𝚎, 𝙼𝚈𝚂𝚃𝙸𝙲𝙴𝚃𝙰𝙲𝙴𝙰𝙽...
I needed to post 😫
