the one in which James gets turned into a kitten
I don't know where my brain gets these ideas. Nor do I know why they become eight thousand words long and full of emotion. Only split in two posts for length reasons, second half coming momentarily...
Title: This Magic Moment (1/2)
Rating: PG for content, R for some use of the f-word as Michael gets anxious
Word Count: 8,264; 4,483 for this first half
Disclaimers: boys’re not mine, only doing this for fun; title from The Drifters-I like the classic oldies, okay, you’re lucky it’s not Sinatra-anyway, title from “This Magic Moment”: and then it happened/ it took me by surprise…
Summary: Um…the one in which James gets turned into a kitten for a day. Plus some panicking Michael-James is missing!-and overdoses of adorable. Also, there’s a Monty Python reference in there somewhere.
Notes: Tara is my niece’s name. Also, don’t annoy Steve the intern. And James, for reference, kind of looks like this but with bluer eyes.
It’s a wet day. Rainy. The skies’re crying, on and off. On, right now.
Of course they are. They know exactly what’s just happened.
James stares at Michael staring at him. His own words hang in the air: I was just thinking, if you wanted, if you were in the mood for dinner, later, we could get dinner, I mean you and me, I mean I’m asking you out, I mean I think this has been the best two weeks of filming of my life, or just of my life ever, and that’s because of you and I thought maybe if you wanted to also then we could, um, dinner?
Michael’d stopped walking, beside him. Blinked. Twice. Said, eloquently, nothing.
“I’m so sorry,” James says, flailing now, as the rain plops onto his hair and face and sneaks down his shirt collar despite all of Charles’s suit layers. He’s cold everywhere already, he doesn’t need the reminder, thanks. “I’m so sorry, I’ll just-go and-do something. Away from you. Right.”
“…James?” Michael murmurs, sounding dumbfounded. The rain catches in his eyelashes and makes them sparkle and James hates himself for noticing that now.
“I’m sorry,” he tries again, “I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable, just-just forget I said anything, please, we’ll just-we can pretend this never happened and we’ll be friends and I’ll see you tomorrow and-and I promise I’m going now, I’ll leave you alone, I swear-” and then forces his legs into motion because clearly his mouth isn’t going to give up on its own.
Michael still hasn’t moved. James backs up, nearly trips over a camera crane, spins around, and runs.
Once he’s out of sight of those astonished lakewater eyes, he can breathe a bit better, except then he thinks about what a complete and total idiot he’s just made of himself, and then has to lean against the closest trailer wall-Kevin’s, he’s pretty sure-for support. The world turns slowly into muddy greys and browns, around him.
That’s about right. Not like there’re any bright colors left in his immediate future.
Michael hadn’t said anything. Had stood there looking all shocked and mute and disbelieving, and somehow still beautiful, hair curling upwards with the damp and rainwater dripping onto those broad shoulders and slightly parted lips that make James want to lean up and kiss them and find out if Michael actually tastes like the sinfully black coffee he drinks in the mornings or-
“Oh, fuck me,” he says, to the aluminum trailer-side. Compassionately, it refuses to answer.
The rain gets harder, though. Of course it does.
“I didn’t say you could have any input,” he tells the drops. “You’re not helping.” In reply, the thunder snickers.
It’d been such a good day. That was why he’d asked, really, in the aftermath of the scene, himself pretending to telepathically face down a guard dog and a host of soldiers, Michael reaching over-not in the script-to squeeze his leg in support, leaving the hand there, large and warm on his knee. That hand had been offered again as they hopped out of the truck, unnecessary assistance that James’d taken, and he’d looked up into pale happy eyes and hadn’t been able to hold back the question.
He’s never been great at keeping secrets. Just not comfortable with concealment. Somewhat ironic, maybe, for an actor, always disappearing into characters; or maybe not. All those emotions, all those longing looks Charles tosses at Erik, those are all real, after all.
And on the heels of that thought, his acting ability gets severely tested, as one of the interns bounces up to him, all smiles. “Mr McAvoy? Oh I mean James you told us to call you-”
“Yes, I absolutely did-” Oh, god, what is her name? “-Tara, how’re the nieces?”
“They’re brilliant and they loved the autographed Mr Tumnus dolls and thank you and also Mr Vaughn needs you back on the set because there was a problem with the film and that last scene isn’t usable and you look worried can I help?”
“Um, sorry, no. It’s-I’m fine, thank you. I’ll be right there. I promise. You can go tell him.” He flashes a smile at her. Seems to work well enough, because she sparkles a grin back at him and runs off through the rain. Alone, James sags against the trailer one more time.
Oh, fuck. And other words of that nature. That scene. With Michael. Being that close to Michael. Again.
He can’t. He honestly can’t.
Except he has to, because he’s a professional.
He stands up. Takes a deep breath, or as much as he can through the inconvenient rain, and starts walking himself and his incipient headache back towards the set.
When he’s halfway there, a different intern runs over to tell him that in fact there seem to be some technical difficulties due to the unrelenting cloudbursts and he should probably just find someplace to wait, except he should also probably see the makeup department first because he’s looking kind of pale, and James stands there in the mud and briefly hates his life.
He turns around and trudges back toward his trailer so that he can collapse for a while, out of sight. Because he’s determinedly not thinking about anything at all, and especially not where Michael might be at the moment and what those multihued eyes’re contemplating, he’s not paying attention to anyone around him, and consequently almost runs into yet another intern. They’re multiplying like bunnies.
“Sorry, sorry, Steve-totally my fault, here-”
“No, it’s fine, don’t worry, you don’t have to look worried, but listen, while I’ve got you here-” Evidently there are downsides to not terrifying the interns.
“-you know I’m doing that charity thing? Animal rescue? And I was wondering if you could donate? Because it always helps to have celebrities involved? And kittens are an awesome cause? And you could-”
“Steve,” James attempts, futilely.
“-do a lot of good, and you’re such a nice person, I sort of already put your name down, and if you ever wanted a kitten we could totally find one for you-”
“Steve!”
Steve stops. Looks at him with wounded eyes.
James sighs. “Listen, please, I just can’t-not right now, okay? Ask me again later. Tomorrow. Please.”
“Tomorrow might be too late, kittens get abandoned every minute-”
“Steve,” James says, “at the moment, I really don’t fucking care,” and then, because that’s not true and he does care, or he will tomorrow, “sorry, sorry, I just-”
“You bastard,” Steve hisses, and then mutters something else that doesn’t sound like English, followed by a menacing glare, and then backs up, clutching his clipboard, and runs away.
James blinks after him for a moment, then decides that the rain is clearly making everyone crazy, and that this is not his fault, though he’ll try apologizing again later anyway, and gets his feet back into action and eventually falls down on his creaky old sofa and never wants to get up.
The rain pounds away. So does his head. James closes his eyes, and pretends, just for a second, that he’ll wake up in a world that’s magically all right again.
When he opens his eyes, the world is different. For one thing, much larger. Horrifyingly so. From a bizarre tilted perspective, as if he’s shrunk in his sleep. And everything’s confusingly brighter and dimmer at once, more light but less color, a washed out universe with faded hues, mostly blues and greens and greys.
Oh god. Oh god, it wasn’t just a headache, and there’s something very wrong, and he needs some sort of medical help right the fuck now-
At which point he tries to sit up, and his body is much lighter than it should be, and curves in terrifying ways, and when he puts a hand out to catch his balance it’s a fluffy kitten paw.
A paw. His hand. Is a paw.
James panics and twists around and falls off the sofa in a tangle of clothing, hearing something rip and tear as he kicks his way free, and that’s not right either, and when he hits the floor he’s tiny and he lands on four feet, what the hell, and he bolts over to the full-length mirror and stares, frantic.
A tortoiseshell fluffball stares back at him, enormous-eyed and dismayed.
At least he still has blue eyes. Somehow that’s the only thought he’s got left. He knows that’s his gaze, because he knows those eyes, complicated legacy from his nonpresent father, the brilliant depth of color that he’s always regarded with mixed emotions, beautiful and bittersweet.
Right now, he’s both pathetically grateful for those eyes, and horrified, because those are his eyes, and so this must be him, fur sticking up in every direction out of sheer shock.
He’s a cat. Not even a cat. A kitten. An adorable cuddly harmless-looking kitten. What the fuck-
Steve. Steve did this to him. Some sort of curse. Some kind of revenge for James not helping the damn cats.
He hears growling. It’s coming from him. It’s a real sound. This is all real.
“Help,” he says, feebly, to the cat in the mirror. The word emerges as a feline whimper. Of course it does.
Okay. Okay, well. He can go find Steve and say, yes, all right, point made, lesson learned, now make it stop, and this will all be a bad dream, right?
Right, James thinks, desperately, and turns around and leaps for the door, sparing a second to be glad he hadn’t locked it upon arrival. It’s a helpful knob, too, the sort that has a nice long handle, and after a few missed jumps he manages to hook it with a paw.
Jumps’re a bit tricky. Not so much because he’s unpracticed-the cat body just sort of seems to know how this goes-but because he’s tiny. Because he’s not even a full-size cat. He wants to growl again.
The rain’s bucketing down, and he’s drenched within seconds. Too late, he recognizes that this was not perhaps the most intelligent plan he could’ve envisioned.
He scampers through the mud, which clings wetly to his fur. The people all look the same, from this far down. Legs. Booming voices. Damp clothing. A few of them notice him; one or two try to scoop him up. James evades clutching hands, heart pounding, and leaps into a puddle.
That person has a clipboard and is accosting passersby. Probably the right one, then.
“You did this!” he shrieks, from the ground, and is immensely gratified when Steve turns around, looking guiltily surprised. “Oh…”
“Oh, what a cute kitten,” says Rose, and James yells, “I am not cute!” and the objection comes out as a lengthy wail.
“Sorry, he’s not very well-behaved,” Steve says, and reaches down and picks him up, which. No. James tries to scratch him, furiously.
“Right,” Rose says, “so I’ll see you tomorrow, then,” and escapes. James, nose to nose with his nemesis, glares.
“I’m really sorry,” Steve says, looking contrite, and also a bit entertained. “I lost my temper. Didn’t mean to.”
“You-you-Change me back right the fuck now!”
“I, um. I could try, but…the thing is, I’m not actually a very good witch.” Steve looks miserable, now. Good, except for how his misery is ruining James’s actual life. “The spell’s supposed to last for twenty-four hours, and…I could try taking it off sooner, but…I, um, might end up turning you into something else. Or getting you stuck this way. I-”
“You turned me into a kitten!”
“I’m so sorry.”
“Just put me down.”
“It’s raining and it’s all wet and you’re going to get even more muddy-”
“I. Don’t. Care.”
Steve sets him down on a chair, very carefully. James turns his back, and adamantly pretends to be washing his tail despite the rain, because that seems like the appropriate course of action at the moment.
Twenty-four hours. One day. Okay. He can handle that. He can think of it like…a role. A character. And then he might not end up entirely insane. As long as he can keep equating his current feline status with his chosen profession.
He’s doomed.
As if to underscore this conclusion, the universe provides him with extra horror, in the shape of the large friendly German Shepherd he’d been filming with just a few short hours ago. She’s a nice dog. Happy. Very enthusiastic.
She catches one sight of James sitting on his chair and lets out a series of gleeful barks and lunges in his direction. She more than likely just wants to play, somewhere in the rational human part of his mind he knows that, but the cat-brain opts for flight, and James bolts.
He runs until he’s out of breath and exhausted, sides heaving, all of him plastered with mud and wetness, and he’s a cat and he’s just run from a dog and he’s hungry and tired and cold and, now, incredibly utterly lost, amid the sea of buildings and bodies.
He creeps under the nearest set of trailer steps, and curls into a dejected lump, and shivers, and lets himself cry, which sounds like a kitten crying, out loud, in the rain.
After a while, footsteps slosh through the puddles. The feet start to go up the stairs, then stop.
James doesn’t even bother trying to make himself understood. No one can hear him properly except Steve, and fuck that.
The person gets down on both knees, tiredly, and peeks under the steps. And the person is Michael.
Of all the steps he could’ve chosen to hide under, he’s chosen Michael’s.
“Ah…hello?” Michael peers into the gloom. “Um…here, kitty? C’mon, kitty-cat, come here…”
James tucks himself more tightly into his pathetic ball. No. No, no, no.
“Please,” Michael says, and that familiar voice catches on the words, “please, come on, let me help, let me be able to do the right thing for someone-”
What?
James lifts his head to look. Michael’s biting his lip. There’s rain in his hair. And his outfit’s more soaked than it ought to be, on a film set where directors and assistants look after their actors and offer them warm waterproof blankets between takes.
Without thinking too much about it, he staggers to his feet and wobbles towards Michael’s outstretched hands. Michael sounds so forlorn.
“Thank you,” Michael whispers, and the long fingers reach out gently and collect his wet kitten body. “You-oh, you don’t weigh anything, and you’re half-frozen, come on, I can at least warm you up-”
And James finds himself wrapped in a towel, being vigorously dried off and bundled up in what looks like one of Michael’s spare shirts, and nestled down in a sort of clothing-burrow on Michael’s couch. Bemused, he stays quiet, and lets himself be fussed over.
“You’re probably hungry, aren’t you…” Michael stops hovering, briefly, and heads to the mini-fridge. “I’ve no idea what’s in here that you might eat. Um…not the half-bagel from this morning…cream cheese? Do cats like cream cheese? Not this, this is raspberry coffee creamer, that’s a surprise for…James…” There’s a pause. Michael doesn’t stand up, and doesn’t turn around; James can’t see his face.
“Right. Okay. Um, there’s normal milk, that should be good, right?” Which is how James ends up sticking his nose into a makeshift saucer of milk, created by Michael attacking one of the disposable coffee cups with bare hands and determination.
Milk is delicious, he has to admit. He’s never really appreciated its wonders before.
He’s drying out, and his fur is getting fluffier again. Michael sits down next to him and holds out a hand, an invitation; James sniffs fingertips, whiskers twitching. Michael smells like rainwater and worry and home.
“Sorry, that’s not real food, either. You’re awfully friendly, aren’t you? Can I pet you? Or, um, brush you-hang on, I’ve, um, got a comb, I think-”
The comb cheerfully sacrifices itself to get the drying mud out of James’s fur. He contemplates being embarrassed, but, well, it does feel nice to be clean. And Michael has very talented hands.
“That feels better, right? And you’re absolutely gorgeous, I wonder if you’re any specific breed…Do you belong to someone here? No, of course not, who’d bring you to set on a day when we’re filming with a dog?” Michael strokes him gently, ears to tail. “Did you get lost? Maybe I should ask whether anyone’s lost a kitten? Someone might be missing you. People miss other people, when they get lost.” And then, almost inaudible, Michael talking to himself, something that sounds like, “I know how that feels.”
James ponders possible responses, and then wiggles over, bonelessly, and insinuates himself onto Michael’s lap. Michael, startled, laughs. “All right, then. Make yourself at home.”
There’s a comfortable pause, in which the rain patters complacently off the windows and walls, and Michael cradles him in one arm as if trying to keep him safe, and James enjoys the cuddling. He’s not starving anymore-the milk took the edge off, at least-and he’s dry and not being chased by anything and Michael’s holding him and this ridiculous situation won’t last forever. There are worse places he could be.
“I didn’t actually mean to stay in this position, you know-can I move that leg? Sorry, sorry-here, settle back down. I need to be able to reach the phone…” Michael looks at the screen as if it might hold the hope of the universe, but obviously doesn’t find what he’s looking for, because he lets out a tiny sigh and sets the phone down on the couch. James stops objecting to all the motion with pointy kitten-claws, and looks up at Michael instead, curious.
“Such pretty eyes. They kind of-you almost look like-no, god, now I’m just seeing him everywhere. Fuck.” Michael tips his head back against the couch. Sighs. James sighs too, wistfully.
“Oh…more petting? Sure. Sorry. Hey, you don’t know where James is, do you?” Michael scratches under his chin, with one careful finger. “No, you probably don’t. No one seems to.”
Mrow? James inquires, intrigued. He’s not been gone that long, has he?
“James…you’d like him, kitty. Everyone likes him. I-well. Everyone likes him.” Michael pauses, bites his lip, goes back to scratching. “Except he’s-he never made it back to the set. The interns said they saw him, and then…nothing. And that’s not like him, not at all, I know you don’t know him, but he’s the most dedicated person I know, the best person I know, and he wants the best for everyone else too, he’d never not show up when he said he’d be there. No matter what. No matter how badly I-he’d still be there and smile and make us all smile along. And…”
Michael thinks that James is a good person? The best person he knows? And? And what?
He tips his head to the side and says mrr? and Michael smiles, painfully, and rubs his ears. “And…oh, kitty…we looked for him. When he didn’t-I looked for him. I went back to his trailer, and-and the door was open, and his phone was on the floor, and his clothes were ripped-” That sentence stops, very fast.
The rain pours down, beyond the walls.
James, helplessly, turns his head and licks the nearest hand. That last part’s his fault, not that he’d expected any of this. He doesn’t know how to make it okay.
A knock rattles the door in its frame. Michael sprints across the room, setting James to one side, but gently so. “It’s open-come in-who is it-James?”
“No, sorry.” Kevin Bacon holds up both hands, apologetically. “Only me.”
“Oh…sorry, come in…”
“No, it’s fine. I just wanted to come by and tell you…well, not much, really. No new developments. No one’s left the set all day, no vehicles anyway, and no one’s seen James anywhere since this afternoon, and everyone at the hotel is our people, and they’re all accounted for, no one missing. No one…else. Sorry. You haven’t heard anything, either?”
“No…nothing…and there’re no leads, no, I don’t know, footprints, anything-”
“No. It’s like he just vanished. Thin air.” Kevin sighs. Puts out a hand and grips Michael’s shoulder, as if preparing to offer support. “Matthew thinks it might be time to call the police.”
Even from the couch, James can see Michael’s face go white.
“I’m sorry,” Kevin says.
“James…”
“I know. Listen, it’s only been a few hours, and we don’t know anything for sure, he might still turn up, just walk out of nowhere grinning and surprise us all…”
“You don’t actually believe that…”
Kevin squeezes Michael’s shoulder again. Hard. “I believe that we don’t know anything yet. Good or bad. Okay?”
“…okay. Yes. Thank you.”
“We’re done for today, obviously, and Matthew’s got a security detail to take us all back to the hotel. I think he doesn’t want to lose anyone else…oh, damn, damn, don’t look like that, I didn’t mean it that way. You know what I mean.”
Michael nods, scrubbing a hand over his face.
“Okay,” Kevin says, “five minutes, then, and someone’ll walk us out to the cars,” and leaves.
James looks at Michael; Michael looks back, and then, apparently, reads his mind. And doesn’t leave him, doesn’t abandon him; collects him, gently, wrapped up in the shirt again and protected from the rain with tender fierceness, and if anyone wants to say anything about Michael bringing a cat back to the hotel, it only takes one look at those eyes for them all to think better of potential objections.
Michael takes him up into a hotel room that looks like a much neater version of James’s own, and sets him on the bed, and then says, “Oh, sorry, here-” and turns up the heat. “I like it cold, at night, I can never sleep when I’m warm, but you probably need the heat, don’t you? You’re not very big.”
James attempts to scowl. Cats are good at that, right?
Michael grins, fleetingly, and then picks up the phone and orders room service, and James forgives him everything when a tuna-fish sandwich arrives and Michael peels away the bread and then sets the plate out for him.
Contented, stomach full, he sprawls across the sheets and sheds kitten-hair on Michael’s neatness and doesn’t even care when Michael pats his stomach and then laughs. “That probably isn’t healthy for you, you know. I think you’ve just doubled your weight.”
James, attention caught by the scent of more tuna, pricks whiskers towards Michael’s fingers and the pieces of bread; Michael laughs again. “Hey, you got most of it, at least let me have the outside. Anyway, cats don’t eat bread.”
That’s what you think, James tells him, but the words turn into a yawn along the way. Michael stretches out on the bed beside him, and nibbles distractedly on the remains of the sandwich, and worried little creases keep deepening around his eyes, even as one hand gets back to kitten-petting duties.
“So…no tag, no collar…no name. But I feel like I ought to have something to call you.” Michael scratches behind his ears, gently. This prompts a low rumbling sound, which after a second James recognizes as coming from himself. Okay. Evidently he purrs when Michael pets him. Which is…not actually much of a surprise.
“I could call you Magneto. Except James would probably laugh and tell me you look like a Charles. James would-” The hand pauses. So does the voice. After a second, Michael lets out a small unhappy breath of air. Goes back to scratching.
“How do you feel about being a Charles-cat? Or-I guess I don’t even know whether you’re a boy or a girl. Charlotte? Maybe I should check?”
James, horrified, sits bolts upright and flattens his ears down and glares. He’s definitely a boy cat, thank you. And while under ordinary mutually human circumstances he’d be quite pleased to let Michael discover those aspects of his anatomy, there is no way that that exploration, at this particular moment, can be anything less than traumatic for them both.
“Okay, got it.” Michael holds up both hands in surrender. “Not trying to offend your dignity. You know, I swear you understand every word I say…”
James wants to roll his eyes, and can’t quite manage that either.
“I’m sorry, Charles-cat.” Michael pets his head, with apologetic fingers. Mollified, James flops back down against that lean warmth. Rolls onto his back, paws in the air, just because.
“I really am sorry.” That Irish-springtime voice sounds mournful, now. Harpsong and tragedies. James blinks. Gazes upside down at Michael’s face. Michael blinks, too, more rapidly.
“I’m just fucking things up for everyone, today, I think. You, and James…oh, god, James. That look on his face-earlier I kept wishing for some-some second chance, some kind of extra take, some way to say the right fucking words and tell him yes, always, I only didn’t say anything because I was so surprised, I never thought-the whole world brightens up when he walks into a room, he could have anyone he wanted, I never imagined he’d want me-” The hand petting his stomach stops and curls into his fur. In distress.
“Now I’m just wishing he’ll walk through the door. Or turn up on set. Or call. Me, anyone, I don’t care, just please let him be all right. Please. Please let him be all right.”
No proper tears, as badly as James wants to cry at that moment. Michael’s hurt. Hurt and grieving and confused and afraid. Afraid for him.
Michael would’ve answered yes. Wanted to answer yes. Wants him.
If he’d been human, he’d’ve flung arms around those lean shoulders and never let go.
Of course, he’s not human. Which is, if not the only problem, certainly the most conspicuous.
Instead of the hug, he bumps his head against Michael’s hand, as forcefully as he can. Purrs more loudly. When Michael gives a small watery laugh, stretches up and pats at one damp cheek with a fluffy paw. Michael laughs again, through the emotion, and James considers this a success, as far as comforting can go at the moment.
“Thanks, Charles-cat. Listen, I know I should take you to a vet, or a shelter, or something, it’s not like I can keep you, but…maybe just for tonight? I’m…kind of glad you’re here.”
James is glad, too. He wraps paws around Michael’s fingertips, playfully, no claws. Holds on. And they hold each other, for a while, under the rain.