A Splash Of Paint (MCYT Oneshots)

[R] Catberries (Illumina & Fruitberries)

(A/N: feretiscute: would you mind writing more about illumina and fruitberries? i am, figuratively, starving for more of this duo, but unfortunately they're super underrated;;;as for the plot, catberries. no context, just catberries
you have given me quite a lot of creative liberty with this one my (and I'm saying this gender-neutrally) dude. unfortunately, I am not very creative. this takes place in the same au as the first fic of these two i wrote.)

"Sometimes, I wonder how you manage to get into these kinds of situations," Illumina sighed.

It was supposed to be a normal day. The others in the SMP had given up in chasing after them to persuade them to fight in their wars, and in return, Illumina and Fruit stopped pranking and trapping them. They travelled all over the lands as a sort of merchant duo, trading with villagers and building contraptions to make life easier for them.

They had even built their own little treehouse-slash-underground-base. It went from Y level 76 to Y level 26, and the two of them were very proud of their skyscraper of a base. They ran a monopoly of ores and weapons, ones that they were happy to trade with the others for whatever they needed or wanted.

But back to the matter of hand. It was supposed to be a normal day. At least, until Fruitberries had the lovely and intelligent idea of pissing off a witch, causing her to splash an experimental potion on him and disappear, leaving Illumina to take care of a cat version of his best friend.

The worst part? The potion couldn't be wiped away by milk. Fruit had to spend at least a whole day as a cat. Not only that, but there was no trace of any human intelligence left in the cat version of Fruit. Illumina was stuck in their base, having to take care of the cat version of his best friend to make sure that he didn't accidentally jump out of the window or something.

"This is why we don't anger witches, Fruit," he sighed once again. Cat Fruit — who Illumina had already dubbed as 'Catberries' — simply looked back up at him, licked his paw, and purred. Illumina continued scratching his head.

"You don't even understand me, do you?"

Another purr. Catberries pushed his head closer to Illumina's hand.

"Well, it's almost afternoon," Illumina said, standing up and picking Catberries up with him. He was surprisingly docile, considering the fact that Illumina nearly had his eyes clawed out when he first tried to pick him up. "So why don't we get you some food to eat? Who knows, it might even speed up your, uh, transformation process. Or whatever."

Illumina carefully set his cat friend down on a chair as he started making some food. To make sure Catberries didn't try to hop on the stove while he was cooking, he gave him multiple balls of yarn they had traded with Niki and Eret for some diamonds a few weeks back.

He felt a smile pulling at his lips involuntarily as he watched Catberries happily play with the balls of yarn, meowing and purring in excitement. After making sure there was nothing dangerous around, Illumina turned back to the stove to actually focus on cooking.

"Do cats even eat cooked chicken...?" Illumina muttered, taking some raw chicken out of the fridge. "Eh, whatever. I think cats are carnivores anyways. Fruit will be fine."

He prepares the chicken in quick efficiency, making sure to carefully remove any and all bones that would be there. He places the chicken legs on two plates, and almost gets two pairs of forks and spoons before he realises, oh yeah, his best friend is still a cat who doesn't have human fingers.

So he parts with only one pair of a fork and a spoon, places his own plate in front of himself, gives the other to Catberries who was now looking up at him in a weird mix of confusion and delight, and watches in fascination as Catberries practically tore into the chicken with a ferocity that almost scared Illumina.

Afterwards, Illumina found himself shining a small red light on the walls, not even bothering to hide his laughter as he watched Catberries try to 'catch' the red light, becoming confused when the light kept moving around. A few times, he even sent an annoyed light to Illumina.

It was cute, in a way.

Illumina kind of liked Fruit being like this. He seemed more relaxed as a cat, in a way that he usually wasn't when he was human.

...maybe he should seek out that witch again?