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anonymous-dentist · 7 months ago

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Part Eight of the Catboy in the Village AU

Part One | Part Seven

Cellbit misses his goggles. The ones he's "borrowed" from Niki are way too small for his head, and they pull at his hair something awful. His ears ache, and not in the usual way. They burn.

Roier says that Cellbit should try and let his ears breathe, and he gently pets Cellbit's hair and holds him as he does so, but. No. Absolutely not, not now that they're both being held captive by her.

The queen's ears are as white as the rest of her hair. They're pierced, which Cellbit didn't even know you can do. They sit neatly on the top of her head, framed perfectly by her crown, and they're perfect. No tears. No chunks taken out of them. No burns. Pure white.

Every time she looks at Cellbit, she's either angry, or she's sad. That's fine, fuck her.

But every time she sees Cellbit's ears, her eyes just fill with pity, and Cellbit. Can't.

His goggles are still on the floor of his shop back home. He doubts he'll be getting them back any time soon. He misses them, anyway; he had the family's tailors customize them so they were soft, yet sturdy, enough to be both functional as alchemical goggles and as an accessory perfect for pinning his stupid fucking ears down with.

His goggles hurt, but they don't hurt. The leather is soft and worn. The lenses are big enough to hide his ears without pinching them too badly. Any pain he feels is from the action of pinning his ears down, not from the thing actually pinning them down.

Roier gets it. He doesn't like it, but he gets it. He's always encouraged Cellbit to keep his ears free, but he gets it. He used to have four arms, he knows all about hiding parts of you from the world. He smiles just so gently when Cellbit takes his goggles off to sleep every night (something relatively recent, Cellbit slept with them on until just before they got Pepito.) He pets Cellbit's hair, he helps massage the feeling back into his ears. He doesn't touch if Cellbit doesn't want him to.

But Niki's goggles hurt, and Cellbit guesses that that's on him for stealing goggles from someone so much smaller than him.

He needs his back. He needs to go home. The queen's ears are perfect. Her daughter's are adorable. He wants to go home.

But first: dinner, unwilling.

The queen won't stop staring.

Cellbit's ears are pinned. Of course they are. He isn't in his cell.

He eats his dinner. Roier made it, and it's perfection. It tastes almost just like the meals from back home, and it's almost enough to make Cellbit start purring.

Almost.

He'll show his appreciation later when they're back in their cell. Roier loves getting compliments, he's going to be purring himself by the end of the night.

But the queen won't stop staring.

Roier, still very much upset about his children, sulks into his enchiladas. His leg is pressed against Cellbit's under the table; it shakes slightly, nervous. Anxious. Angry.

Cellbit finished eating almost as soon as Roier set his plate in front of him. (Sue him, Roier's cooking is magical.) So he's just... sitting. Waiting. Avoiding the queen's look, muttering assurances to his husband.

"There would have been war a week ago if anything had happened," he whispers.

"They might not know," Roier murmurs, staring right down at his food. "Maybe no one's found the bodies yet."

"With how often Foolish is over there? No way. He'd be cutting her head off himself."

Roier cracks a smile at that.

The queen lets out an annoyed-sounding huff. "I can hear you, you know."

Her ear twitches. Right. Cat hybrid, great hearing.

Cellbit gives her a dirty look.

"We aren't talking to you," he says. "Mind your own business."

"Um, I think that you guys talking about my death is my business, actually."

Roier shrugs. "She's right."

"Don't encourage her," Cellbit grumbles.

He settles back in his seat, continuing to glare daggers at the queen.

The queen, however, is still staring.

"What?" he asks her. "Do I have something on my face?"

"No, I just..." Her eyes travel upwards towards- "Are those Niki's goggles?"

Cellbit's shoulders tense.

"No," he shortly replies. "They're mine. I found them."

She nods slowly. "Riiiight. In Niki's closet."

"No."

"You know, she told me that they went missing this morning."

"And I've had these for a couple of days now. So."

"So, I'd appreciate it if you would give them back to her. We don't steal in this castle."

Under his breath, Roier comments, "You steal people."

The queen just rolls her eyes.

Then, she sighs and leans forward, what has to be faux sympathy painting itself across her face as she lowers her eyes to meet Cellbit's.

"That isn't safe," she gently says. "You have to know that."

(Cellbit's ears feel like they're in seventeen different places at once. He can feel every tear in them growing minutely larger with every passing second. Hairs are being pulled. Muscles are crying out in pain.)

Very calmly, Cellbit responds- teeth grit, "I'm fine."

Roier eats his enchilada. He scoots his chair closer to Cellbit's. He has dark circles under his eyes, and his hair is a mess, and his clothes are rumpled and sloppy. And he bumps his knee against Cellbit's reassuringly.

The queen is only slightly undeterred.

She nods and goes back to her food.

"I have a special shampoo that I use," she says, mouth full, gross. She swallows and glances back up at Cellbit's goggles. "Mouse helped create it. It's super gentle."

"Okay...?" Cellbit questioningly says. "That's nice?"

He frowns slightly, eyebrows furrowing. What is she playing at now?

"I can ask her to give you some," the queen continues. Ah. "And- hold on, actually."

And then she fucking. Leaves the table. Just like that: placing her fork and knife down, taking one last sip from her goblet, adjusting her dress, and then leaving.

Cellbit stares at her empty seat. What?

"What?" Roier asks, reading Cellbit's mind. (As usual.)

Carefully, Cellbit looks to the side out of the corner of his eye at the guards stationed by the entrance to the dining hall. They look confused, too.

"She's weird," Cellbit declares, not for the first time since his kidnapping. "No wonder her only friends are her servants."

Roier rolls his eyes and gently nudges Cellbit's bicep with his elbow.

"Gatinho," he chides, "be nice."

Then:

"She might have kidnapped them, too."

Cellbit laughs, shocked and loud. He turns in his seat and leans his head forward until it's nestled firmly on Roier's shoulder.

Roier hums happily. He plops a hand onto Cellbit's thigh and squeezes.

"Cute," Roier comments.

Cellbit bites him. Roier moans. The guards shuffle uncomfortably.

And then the queen comes running back into the dining hall red-faced and out of breath. She has something in her hands, something small and brown and kind of ugly.

She flattens her skirts down, chugs her wine, and offers Cellbit a smile.

Cellbit sits up as she walks around to his side of the table.

"This," she says, "is for you. As an alternative."

She holds the object out, and... it's a hat. It's a brown cloth hat like Cellbit used to see Gato Kingdom medics wearing during the war. It has patches sewn on, and there's a clear indent where a pair of goggles would normally sit.

Cellbit looks at the hat. Next to him, Roier is laughing.

It's (presumably) the queen's. It's the color of literal shit. It smells like mint and sulfur.

Cellbit loves it.

"Our mother used to hide her ears, too," the queen explains. She looks down at the hat almost nostalgically. "During the war, I mean. She wanted to help the troops, so she went to the front lines to help the medical corps. She didn't want to be recognized, so she wore this hat to hide her ears."

The queen laughs a little. She's... sad. Of course she is, she's talking about her dead mother.

The Gato Kingdom's previous queen died shortly after the war's end, supposedly of a broken heart from the loss of her son.

Good riddance, Cellbit thinks. Royalty is royalty.

The queen's thumb strokes the brim of the hat reverently.

"She said that it was uncomfortable, but not painful," she continues. "It got the job done, but it never hurt her. So..." She looks back up at Cellbit with tears in her eyes and a soft little smile on her face. "If you want to use it to... hide your ears. Then. That's fine. You can have it."

Roier gasps. He's always been one for dramatics, but this gasp sounds legitimate.

Cellbit, on the other hand, feels... something. He isn't sure what, but he feels it so deep in his chest that he's sure it's his soul that's aching.

The queen said that the previous queen was their mother, but she wasn't Cellbit's mother. Cellbit doesn't have a mother. Whoever she was, she never went looking for him. Obviously, she didn't; if she had, she would have found him because how many children with cat ears are there? How many?

Cellbit swallows a lump in his throat. Why is his stomach hurting all of a sudden? Did he eat too quickly?

He shouldn't take the hat. It's probably... trapped. Or something. Mind control magic in the fabric. Or something. Lice in the elastic band. Or something.

But, for some reason, he feels himself reaching out for it, anyway. He tries to will the shake out of his hands, but he doesn't quite manage to do so. (Why are they shaking?)

He takes the hat. It's soft. It's been well taken care of, these past years since the previous queen's death.

Hesitantly, he pulls it to himself. To inspect it. For lice. Or magic.

The queen sniffles and turns her face away. After a moment, she's just fine and looking at Cellbit with a perfectly schooled expression.

"Take care of it," she orders.

Quietly, so quietly that Cellbit swears that only he's meant to hear it, she adds, "And yourself."

Cellbit doesn't meet her eyes.

Instead, he meets Roier's, and he sees his own face reflected in them. He's... sad. Why? Why does he look sad?

"You're going to look like a nerd," Roier fondly says. "Here, I got this."

His hands raise, and they brush against the strap of the goggles.

Cellbit instinctively hisses and flinches back, but then he lets out a lon breath. Closes his eyes. It's Roier. It's fine.

The goggles come off. Cellbit hears them clatter gently against the table, a sharp TINK! as they bump into Roier's plate.

Cellbit's ears pop up immediately, like they always do. (He pretends he doesn't hear the quiet gasp the queen lets out. It's none of her business.)

Taking the hat, Roier places it on Cellbit's head. His ears press down just a little, but not to a painful degree. Cellbit imagines that this is what it feels like when Roier wears a hat that rests on top of his ears: a small, unnoticeable pressure.

Complete coverage. And it's soft, too.

The smile is audible in Roier's voice as he coos, "Ayyyyy, que guapo. Nerd. Nerdbit."

Opening his eyes again, Cellbit gently smacks Roier's hands down, and then he holds them just because he can.

He loves Roier's smile. It's one of the many, many, many, many, many, many, many things he loves about Roier. Cellbit isn't much of a poet, but he would describe Roier's smile as something equivalent to the inherent beauty of a solar eclipse. It's out of this world.

Quietly, the queen scoops the goggles off of the table.

"I'll give these back to Niki," she says. "If you want something from now on, just ask. You're a prince, Cellbit. Act like it."

Cellbit briefly turns to stick his tongue out at her before looking back at Roier.

"I feel like a nerd," Cellbit admits.

Roier nods. "You look like one. But you're my nerd. Mwah!"

With an exaggerated noise, he leans forward and plants a big wet kiss to the tip of Cellbit's nose.

The queen doesn't say anything else. She just... smiles. And leaves them to themselves and their remaining food.

But, as she leaves, Cellbit swears he hears her whisper, "He looks just like her."

#a.d.'s fics i suppose #a.d.'s fics i suppose.#catboy in the village au #that's right. it's the hat from v1 of cell's skin #but imagine it actually looks good

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