The apartment smells like butter and coffee and something sizzling on the pan—Wilbur’s nose picks it up before his brain is even fully awake. He’s yawning, scratching lazily at his jaw, hair sticking out in about seven different directions, still in his sweats and an old band shirt. It’s one of those rare, quiet mornings where he expects to shuffle into the kitchen, mumble a sleepy “good morning,” and steal a bite off your plate before actually deciding if he’s awake enough to cook for himself.

But what he actually walks in on?

You. Standing at the stove. In nothing but an oversized t-shirt that barely—barely—covers the tops of your thighs. Bed hair messy as hell, sticking out in tangled tufts, but worse than the shirt, worse than the thigh situation, worse than the whole “domestic bliss” tableau you’re unintentionally pulling off—are the ears.

Little, twitching, furry cat ears poking right out of your hair, reacting instinctively to every pop of oil in the pan. And—dear God—the tail, lazily flicking behind you, swaying with this unconscious rhythm like it’s always been there.

Wilbur freezes in the doorway. Dead still. Silent. His heart kicks up so violently it almost hurts, a thunderous what the fuck what the fuck what the fuck beating through his skull. His mouth goes dry and then floods with saliva like his body can’t pick one reaction.

“...WHAT THE FUCK,” he blurts, voice cracking so loud it startles even himself. His whole body combusts in real time, stumbling back into the wall like he’s been shot. His knees literally give out for a second and he has to brace on the counter.

You just turn, spatula in hand, ears twitching at the sound, blinking at him innocently like nothing’s wrong—like you haven’t just detonated his entire nervous system.

“WHAT—WHAT—ARE YOU—IS THAT—WHAT IS THIS,” he sputters, flailing both hands like he can physically point at the impossibility in front of him. “You—you—you can’t just—you can’t just have—EARS?! A FUCKING TAIL?!?” His voice goes embarrassingly high at the end, eyes wild.

He looks you up and down again, too fast, way too fast, immediately regretting it but also incapable of not noticing the hem of your shirt rising when your tail swishes, the ears flattening in slight annoyance at his yelling. It’s obscene. It’s too much. He’s sweating through his shirt already.

“Jesus Christ,” he hisses, dragging his palms down his face, but it doesn’t help. He keeps peeking through his fingers like some deranged Victorian man seeing ankles for the first time. “Why do you—why do you—how do you expect me to—what am I supposed to do with this?! You’re—oh my God, you’re—” His words collapse into incoherent noises, pacing a tight circle in the kitchen like a caged animal.