@klarsynt asked: he walks into the apartment slowly, jacket bundled up in his arms rather than on his body. it leaves him a little bit rain soaked. water droplets gather on the end of his nose, dampen his hair from dirty blonde to a brown, but he doesn't care. his focus is on the jacket—or rather, what is wrapped gently inside it. emil quietly shuts the door behind him before he glances up to find tom. once he sees him he moves towards the other man and puts his eyes back down to the kitten just barely poking its head between the folds of the fabric. ❝ your landlord was outside— ❞ he mumbles. ❝ had to hide this. don't think he noticed. ❞ as if right on cue, little wretch mews and sticks a paw out, giving itself away before emil can even properly make his case as to why they should keep it.
tom now spends a lot of his afternoons waiting for emil. he likes pretending (to himself) to be absorbed by his books, but emil occupies a lot of his mind. he has subconsciously tracked his coming and goings and suddenly he half expects him to follow certain patterns and it becomes a problem when he does not. today he has already gone over quite a few reason for his small delay, primarily to do with rain. tom definitely did not consider that emil would be walking in with a cat tugged under his jacket, but there he is - and all soaked in rain.
he had heard him coming up and he had immediately abandoned his seat to stand nearer the door to receive him. another newer habit. “i was starting to wonder if i would see you tonight,” he says as he appears, without knowing whether he should be laughing at the sight of him or not. he does laugh however, all while staring at him, fondly, arms crossed over his chest the bundled up jacket sticks out like a sore thumb and emil isn’t halfway through his non-explanation before he realises that there is something under there, “you don’t think he noticed that you were clutching your jacket instead of wearing it in the pouring rain?”
tom freezes a little when he sees the small paw sticking out. he raises his eyebrow at emil like he means to ask him what on earth he has been up to. in the end, he doesn’t say much, but simply approaches the pair of them and leans in close to have a proper look. “it looks very young… you did not see its mother?” he asks even though he knows very little about cats. for some reason he is not in doubt that this one is too small to be entirely on its own and he reckons that is why it is now here, “is it hurt?”
before emil has the time to respond, tom carefully takes the bundle from his arms, not minding the fact that his clothes will be wet as well. he still looks at emil though, quickly making sure that nothing has happened to him either. “we should get both of you warmed up. you’ll be sick if you stand there like that.”
