Dawn dropped her bookbag on the counter of the Alys kitchen, and put her hands into her back pockets. "Hello? Sebastian? Dez?" Odd. She'd just talked to Dez like, ten minutes ago. He'd told her to come on in, that he'd be in the living room. His car was out front, though nobody else's was...
"Deeeez?" she called. She hated to snoop, but... She set down the little bags of muffins on the counter, each with separate names on them (Mr & Mrs Alys was one, Sebastian another, the third for Dez, and the fourth with Uncle Dirk written on it - Dawn never forgot him, even if he wasn't pleasant to her) and took to the living room. She peered around, but while the television was on, there was nobody.
She continued to the back of the house, finally coming to a stop at Dez's door. She tapped, but it rocked open, letting the sound of his music slip into the hallway. "Dez? You in here, slacker?" she asked. She stuck her head in, but saw nothing - except a cat sitting on his bed.
"Oh, WOW, you got a cat!" she cried. Dawn loved cats. She was never really allowed to have one because everyone except for Darci was more of a dog person, but this was a really nice treat. She went right on in, totally ignoring her whole knock-before-entering protocol, which if you thought about it, she DID knock anyways.
"Oh my god, you are sooo cute!" she squealed. The cat was cream coloured, with orange points and a long, fluffy tail. She just plopped down on the bed next to him, immediately trying to communicate. "Hi," she cooed, reaching out to give his right ear a scratch. "Hi gorgeous, where'd you come from?"
She had just talked to Desiré, and he'd been up in his room on his cell at the time. He'd also found himself prone to 'catnaps' (pardon the horrible pun) as of late, and had taken the liberty of excusing them with a 'still recovering' excuse. His parents weren't about to argue, and even Dirk had been quieter on the issue, considering how lucky they all kept thinking they were that he'd recovered so well. This was one of those catnaps, with his cell left on his bed, up by his pillow, and a few CDs in the player on shuffle. He slipped off without even thinking about the fact that Dawn was on her way over, and fortunately, she just let herself in.
Fortunately for her, anyway. For Desiré, not so much. He didn't stir much until she tapped on the door, and then he shot awake so fast that he slipped right from one form to the next.
He was far from an expert at shifting. In fact, he downright sucked at it. Those people that were born with it (therefore amazing) and the ones that were infected and got the hang of it slowly? Yeah, he didn't know what was wrong with him, but he was pretty bad at it, thus the OMGWAKEUPSHIFTUHOH reaction that had Dawn walking in and finding a cat sitting on his bed instead of him. For an instant, he stared up at her with wide amber eyes, wondering if he should take off, and then she was squealing about cuteness and plopping down on his bed. He still thought about darting out so he could calm his racing kitty heart and shift back, when she started talking to him and scratching his ear. Hmm, that wasn't so bad...and what was this? 'Gorgeous'? Well, that was better than anything else she'd said to him before, even though she'd always been nice. What else would she say? Did girls always talk to cats like this?
Hmm, that was an interesting idea.
He purred, pushing his head into her hand before standing to rub against her. Later, he'd feel ridiculously stupid, especially if Sebastian ever found out about this. His brother already made fun of him for this whole thing.
"Oh, aren't you a pretty boy?" she asked, leaning forward to rub her nose against his own. She even rubbed his cheek with her own, too. "Aw, you're purring!" she exclaimed. Yank! She scooped him up, kicking off her flip-flops, and situating herself cross-legged in Dez's bed, cat firmly in her lap. She was petting the mess out of him, too, and even meowing back at him when he made little noises at her.
"So, where'd everyone go, huh?" she asked. She saw Dez's phone on the bed, and picked it up. "Hm... " she muttered. She looked around the room, and then set it carefully on his nightstand. She wouldn't go through it or anything, because Dawn just didn't do crap like that. Not only that, but it wasn't her business. She wasn't his girlfriend or anything, so.. there you had it.
"Maybe he ran off, eh? Got tired of hanging out with me already?" she asked the cat, turning her attention back to him, She unclasped the little hemp necklace she'd picked up from PacSun and trailed it across the bed, trying to see if the cat would go after it.
"I can't say I blame him. I see him more than I see my own sister." She laughed a little. "Oh well, I won't complain. I mean, he is only a little dreamy, huh? Yeah, just between you and me, kitty-cat. Hopefully after this play is over, he'll still call."
Hey, at least she'd assumed he was a boy. It'd have been somewhat upsetting to have her just ASSUME he was a girl cat, but he wasn't going to think about that. He was much more pleased with the MASSIVE girl-attention he was getting. Funny, he'd never noticed that girls did this to cats. Granted, he'd never HAD a cat before, but he'd never bothered to pay attention.
Then, she scooped him up into her lap rather suddenly, and it was just fortunate that all he did was make a startled little mrow instead of shifting again or something. That'd have been awkward.
Eventually, he was going to have to figure something out, but for the moment, he was okay where he was. She didn't know who he was, so it wasn't like with Sebastian, where he felt like an idiot just walking around as a cat. He didn't want Dawn thinking that he'd walked off on her, though. She started talking about him getting tired of hanging out with her, and he purred harder, rubbing his cheek against her arm while she was unclasping her necklace, even though that didn't really do anything to help his human self not look bad. Seconds later, his cat self wasn't looking too good, either, since she'd started trailing her necklace across the bed, and it hadn't escaped his notice.
No, it most certainly had not. In fact, that necklace was going to be HIS. As soon as it...THERE!
She trailed it just a little closer, and he took a sudden leap at it, trying to pin the end under his paws. As is pretty typical for cats, he missed, but he scrambled to get it again as she moved it once more. His ears pricked up as she kept talking about him, the human him, and mentioned him being 'dreamy'? Seriously? HAHA. He almost felt bad about this, even though he hadn't intended to be a cat when she walked in, but maybe hearing this wasn't so good. Still, he wouldn't have known how to stop her from talking even if he had a chance at it. Maybe if he just focused on the necklace and trying to think up a way to get away from her and shift back without looking too suspicious, he could tune the rest out. That's right, that's what he'd do.
Flicking the end of his feathery, furry tail around, he watched that necklace again. He'd wait to pounce until JUST the right moment.
"And anyways, who am I kidding? He's probably got girls at school there he likes. I mean, I'm pretty, but I'm a little young. Although Laurel dated someone who was older than her - a lot older, but... nobody seemed to mind. Actually, if I remember, her parents liked him. So did Posey. Everyone did." She frowned, and yanked the necklace back before he jumped down on it. "Then again, he turned out to be a little bit of a bastard, so.... maybe not a good example."
She had plenty of fun dragging the necklace around on the bed. She'd completely just assumed he'd run down to the store with his brother or mom or something, and that had been why he'd told her to let herself in. Dawn was a pretty easy-going girl, so she'd wait around until he got back, or she'd at least leave a note or something.
"And really, between you and me, I think it's not meant to be anyways. Darci would beat me up. But it's nice to think about. Huh, kitty? Yeah, you're a pretty handsome boy, aren't you?" she said, moving her voice from normal speech to baby talk for the benefit of the cat. She nuzzled him a few more times, and then laid back on Dez's bed, releasing the chunky, twine-sort of necklace to the mercy of the feline. She picked up the beaten up copy of Romeo and Juliet and laughed a little, opening it up.
"Guess I'll read my lines," she said to herself.
Wow, this was a little more than he ever expected to hear from a girl, and trying not to listen in favor of chasing that necklace really wasn't doing him all that much good. It wasn't working well, especially since he couldn't help being interested. Who could blame him? Anyone else would have been just as interested if they found themselves in his position.
Heh, she'd called him 'dreamy'. He'd never heard THAT one before.
Surprisingly, he was inbetween girlfriends. He'd had one after the girl he joined the drama class with, but she hadn't lasted more than a few weeks, and he'd fortunately been without one at the time of the accident. He really didn't need anyone other than his family, and Dawn (not the mention the doctors) marveling at his fast recovery, and he could do without the angst associated with girlfriends during things like that. They'd had plenty of bad news during that, and he wouldn't have wanted to find that a girl he was dating would rather drop his ass in a hospital room than take the chance of dating a cripple. And since then? Well, he'd been a little busy. He had a lot to catch up on in school, and he wasn't exactly making as much progress with this shapeshifter thing as he wanted. A girlfriend hadn't been at the top of his list of things to deal with.
She yanked the necklace, and he took off after it again, even though she kept talking. Laurel. He remembered her, albeit vaguely. He remembered her friend Posey more. She'd only been a little younger than him, and dating that older dude. He didn't remember the guy's name, but he'd seen him a few times. He hadn't really heard much about it, since he wasn't exactly friends with her, but he'd seen her with the guy. That was the end of his knowledge of the subject, and besides, she let the necklace go. He had to pull at it and make sure it was thoroughly dead before he could devote his attention to the girl again, and then he purred and rubbed his cheek against hers. Why? Who knew, maybe Desiré was a cuddly kind of guy deep down, and he'd had it drummed into him by Dirk that he was supposed to be more manly. Whatever the reason, she could try to read her lines all she wanted, but he was going to be annoying for a few minutes before he tried to take off and 'get home' or whatever. That was why, in typical cat fashion, he started rubbing against her book, pushing against the pages with his nose for a moment or so before he got too much of the paper dust from between the old pages in his nose, and promptly sneezed.
Dumbass.
Dawn raised her eyebrow as the cat nosed his way firmly between herself and the book, and then sneezed on it. "So, I guess you're as tired of it as I am, eh?" she asked him. She set the book down and yawned a little, rolling over onto her side and taking the cat down with an arm to draw him closer to her. Once she'd gotten into a comfortable position where she wasn't straining her arm to pet him, she did just that.
"Dez better hurry up and come back soon. I hope he got me something at the store," she muttered. She'd pretty much just told herself that was the only logical reason he could have been gone for so long, especially considering how long his mother actually took to choose between two movies or whatever else it was that they had gone for.
She felt a little more relaxed than she had all day, and so it was no surprise when she gradually petted the cat less and less, and finally tucked her arm up under the pillow and closed her eyes. She drifted off into a very light sleep, the cat, the play, and everything else momentarily forgotten.
Once again, she surprised him with the sudden change in position, but not enough that he was truly startled, just that he didn't get out of the way. She curled up with her arm around him, so he just settled down, assuming that she'd loosen her grip and let him get away within a few moments. If she actually fell asleep, he might even be able to shoot off to the store and snag her something for an excuse, if he was quick. He didn't know how he'd explain where 'his cat' went, but he'd figure something out.
Falling asleep wasn't exactly part of his plan, but with her stroking his fur and her steady heartbeat thumping against the side of his relatively small cat body, he was slowly lulled into a relaxed, calm sort of ease, and then he finally just started dozing. He'd never been a terribly deep sleeper, but now he'd wake up at the drop of a pin if he was just napping, and that's all this was. Once he dozed off, he could be out for an hour or a minute.
It wasn't quite either, to be honest, but he'd obviously known somewhere in the back of his head that he shouldn't be there and shouldn't be dozing. The first movement she made, just a shift of the hand she'd been petting him with to scratch at her face, and he shot awake much like he had when she'd first shown up, only in reverse.
Yes, that's exactly what it meant.
Fortunately, the fast, violent awakening meant that he jumped away from the bed as his body shifted once more, though it wasn't exactly a graceful maneuver on his part. He ended up on his ass on the floor, blushing like an idiot and feeling stupid. There was no way she wouldn't realize what happened, was there?
Dawn's eyes popped open right about the time Dez hit the floor. She stared at him for a second, trying to process a few things: who she was, who he was, where she was, and what was happening. She went through them in order; Dawn, Dez, Dez's room, waking up from nap with cat.
Wait, where was the cat?
Did...
".....Dez?" she said, slowly, though she sat up quite quickly. Did he just...? Did she...? What? She felt her eyes widen, like they might actually bulge out of her head, and put a hand over her mouth before she screamed. She exhaled loudly, and put her other hand up to relieve the temptation of screaming through the first.
Oh my god. Oh my god. Oh my god. She repeated the thought over and over to herself as she tried and failed to rationalize what she'd just seen. There'd been a cat, and then there'd been her friend. The two could simply not coexist in the same exact space at the same time... or could they?
"Oh my god," she whispered, only moving her hands enough to say just that and only that. She'd drawn her knees up under her and sat in the very corner of his bed furthest away from him, almost in a kneeling position, except she was alternating between huddling over and sitting back against the wall while she sort of... reacted.
Shit. She knew, she had to know, and she was going to freak out and never talk to him and maybe tell people that he was a freak or something, and that'd be it. He'd screwed up so bad, how could he have been so stupid? What a dumbass, I can't believe I did that! Sebastian was going to give him the third degree, just because his brother was trying so hard to make this work, despite his teasing about it all in private, and then Dez went and made a mess of things by being a total idiot. Great, now what was he going to do?
"Dawn, I am so sorry," he told her quietly, trying not to look at her. He didn't want to see her freaking out over there in the corner, and it was the fact that she'd pulled herself up in that corner to begin with that kept him from going near her. He wouldn't approach because he didn't want to upset her further. In fact, he tried to be subtle about scooting back a little, away from her. If he'd thought about it, he'd have tried to get away from the door, so he wouldn't seem like he was blocking it, but he didn't even consider that. He wasn't used to being considered a threatening force on accident.
He would have told her he could explain, but could he really? He basically knew what was going on, and what had happened, but he didn't know what Nero had really done. He just knew that the guy had been incredibly pleased with the situation. Dez was withholding his opinion for the time being, since he was healed, but he was a CAT.
So, how to explain? He could, kind of. Maybe. He had to try. "I can, um, explain. Please, don't freak out or anything. I can leave you alone in here for awhile if you need me to."
The LAST thing he wanted was for her to spaz out over it.
Dawn took a moment to try and listen to him - the cat - the... Dez... as he spoke. "You can explain?" she asked, voice shrill. She realized she was being loud, and dropped her tone down to a harsh whisper. "Explain how you just... and then you... and...." she trailed off, waving her hands around madly as she lunged forward a little. At least she'd moved out of the corner of the bed.
"And you were listening to me!" she shrieked. She shrank down a little at the volume of her voice, and then slung the pillow at him as hard as she possibly could, aiming for his face. "You were spying!" she hissed, accusing tone. But what was worse - HE WAS A CAT!
She threw another pillow at him for good measure, standing up on his bed to make herself feel bigger, which was nice right about now, when she felt so incredibly tiny and out of the loop. "You'd better explain," she whispered menacingly. "Or I'm not going to come back." And with that, she hopped off the bed and started putting her shoes on. She tried not to look at him, at how cute he was, because the fact of the matter was that there were two very big problems:
One, obviously, was that her friend had been neglecting to tell her something very important about himself. Two, of course, was that he'd sat through her little confessional without even thinking to try and warn her! She was infuriated, and she couldn't look at how utterly adorable he was when she was that mad, because she'd just forget why she was so mad.
Wow. Holy. Hell.
She'd gone from cowering mouse to insane dog in about a second (if you were to look at it from a cat POV, and he'd actually had the misfortune of trying out the cat vs. dog thing a few days prior. It hadn't gone well), and smacked him int he face with a pillow. Hard, considering it was a pillow. "OW!" he shot back, and he endured her tirade, blocking the second pillow where he was on the floor with his forearms. She may have been mad, and he deserved it, but he wasn't taking another pillow to the face. His head had healed up after the accident, and he didn't need any other issues with it.
"I'm sorry! I fell asleep, and you scared me when you knocked on the door! I didn't mean it, but you kind of jumped me when you came in, so I couldn't get away," he explained quickly, trying to make it look less malicious on his part as quickly as he could. He hadn't done anything to hurt her, but this had definitely turned out worse than he could have anticipated. He hadn't wanted this getting out. Speaking of which, he really didn't want her telling anyone.
"I know you're mad at me, but please don't tell anyone! Sebastian's the only one who knows, and the rest of my family would freak out." Not to mention, his friends. And girls. And just about everyone else he knew.
"You didn't act like you wanted to get away," she shot back, folding her arms. She'd stopped making a break for the door and just stared at him, shoes on, trying to decide what to do. Really? Seriously? A cat? Dez is a cat?? No, there's no rationalizing this! There's no logical explanation, so... yeah. Cats.
"I'm not going to tell anyone," she said firmly, irritated that he even had to say that. It sort of freaked her out how he was pleading with her, though, and she relaxed a little, slowly unfolding her arms. She held a hand out to him to help him off of the floor. "Come on, get up," she said, heaving him to his feet, which was easy because she wasn't really pulling at all.
She sat down on his bed and picked up her necklace, wrapping it around and around her fingers, looking at him pointedly. "So, tell me how this happened, and maybe I won't have a panic attack," she said, trying to keep her voice smooth. She took one of the remaining pillows and put it in her lap, wrapping her arms around it and waiting for some sense of this mess.
Figured that she'd bring THAT up first thing, which was one of the less comfortable parts of the whole thing. "Um, well, you kind of distracted me," he answered, looking away again and trying not to look as embarrassed as he felt. Good luck with that.
At least she wasn't going to tell. It was true that he wouldn't have pegged her for the sort to go run her mouth, but this wasn't exactly a normal situation, and some girls didn't know how to shut up after something major happened. He'd have hated to find out that she was one of those girls because of this situation. He finally glanced back at her when she said to 'get up', and accepted the hand up, though he didn't put much of his weight on her. He wouldn't have even before the accident, but since Nero's 'regeneration water' did its stuff, he wasn't likely to need a hand up ever again. Nero hadn't been kidding when he'd mentioned the 'side effects'.
She went to see on his bed and play with her necklace, though that didn't mean her attention wasn't solely on him. He still felt uncomfortable, like he'd been incredibly stupid, and leaned against his dressed rather than take a seat somewhere. He felt better standing right then. "Well, there isn't much to it. The doctors were saying I was probably going to lose my leg, and this scientist guy offered what he called 'regeneration water', saying it would heal me up without needing that nasty surgery. I didn't really believe him, but Sebastian and I figured I didn't have much else to lose on trying it, so I did. He wasn't kidding about it healing me up, but it had a few side effects that I also didn't believe him about."
Like, 'meowing'. Seriously, he'd thought Nero was kidding. Boy, was he ever wrong on THAT one. "I don't know a whole lot about it all, but I guess there are other people who turn into animals out there. I think most of them are lucky enough to have cool animal forms, though." Nero had dropped a LOT of information on him all at once, which meant he was going to have to go back and pump the guy for more information when he was ready to absorb more. He'd caught enough to understand that 'housecat' wasn't a common shifter form, though. Lucky him. He couldn't have ended up as a lion or something cool, but a housecat.
Very masculine there, Dez.
"Oh," was all she said. So it had either been this or lose his leg. Dawn was silent for a few moments. Finally, she looked up at him. "Okay." That was all she said. It seemed like she'd, at least for the time being, attempted to just make peace with the idea. When she weighed the alternatives... she'd take Dez being a fluffy kitty any day of the week.
Now it was her turn to look away, because she realized that he really did hear everything that she'd said before. She didn't even want to address it, and bit her lower lip, reaching for the book that she'd abandoned. "I guess we should go over these lines," she said stiffly.
She looked back at him expectantly, and on his dumbfounded gaze, she sighed. "Look, it's going to take some getting used to, okay? I'm not going to flip out or anything, because I definitely am glad you're okay, but... Just, need to get used to it," she repeated. Yeah, used to the idea that the guy she had a crush on was also a small, furry animal.
It could have been worse. He could have been a rabbit.
Oh. She needed to get used to it. She needed to get used to it. Right.
Given how freaked out he was at the thought that she might freak out or tell someone, he'd actually forgotten about all the things she'd said. He actually didn't want to mention them, either, since he DID feel kind of bad for hearing them in the first place. If he could have gotten away without her finding out it was him, he'd have definitely NEVER mentioned it.
"You're taking this better than I expected," he pointed out bluntly, looking at her like he expected her to explode at any moment. In a way, he did. She'd said 'oh' and 'okay', then gone right back to 'we should go over these lines' like nothing had happened. Sure, it was there in her tone that everything wasn't normal, but she didn't have much to say. The most she gave was that she wasn't freaking out, but it was going to take getting used to. He could understand that, but it seemed too....easy. "I'm still getting used to it, but I don't really have much of a choice. You do, and you're not freaking out? I don't mean to over-analyze or anything, but this seems too easy to be true. You're not going to leave here and call the circus or anything, are you?"
He was kidding, mostly. He didn't really think she'd call the circus, but he WAS waiting for the 'bad news', so to speak.
She sighed and slapped the book down on her thigh, looking up at him, mouth half-open and brows arched, expression of someone very annoyed. "No, I'm not. I'm just... trying not to deal with it right now. Is that really so bad? I mean, given the alternatives, you'd be in poor shape, but mostly human. I'd rather have you whole if I had to have it any way, not that anyone asked me, nor should they have, but it's a lot to swallow, and I have other crap that my brain needs space for, so I'm going to really melt down when I get home. Is that cool with you? Because I'm really not all about dumping my crap out on the table, you know, like I did earlier? When I thought you were a new pet? Yeah, that."
She bit her lip, realizing she'd spoken a little more harshly than she'd intended, but really, what else was there? She sighed. "Look. I'm glad you're okay, regardless of how it turned out. I just... don't want to deal with it right now. I'm not going to tell anyone, or call the nine o'clock news, or anything like that." She wanted to manage a smile, but she couldn't. She felt very strange, really, very strange indeed.
Honestly, why did people ask her what she thought or how she felt when it was going to sound selfish? Dawn was still human, so naturally, a lot of her apprehension was going to be how she was going to deal with things. She was still a little upset about dropping all of her information in confidence to an animal that had turned out to be the subject matter, but she'd get over that mortification later.
"Can we practice now, or do we need to 'talk'?" she asked. She didn't sound irritated like before, but she didn't really sound like she was up for any really deep feelings-sharing, either. She just needed to chill out, and she couldn't do that right now.
Whoopee for him, but he didn't react when she slapped the book down on her thigh. No flinch, no twitch, no nothing, which was a marked improvement over the last few minutes. Having her reaction switch from scared and horrified to aggressive to accepting in just a few moments seemed to have steeled him against a potential second outbreak of any of the above (except maybe the scared/horrified, that could reduce him to freaking out again). What got the real reaction, a pained wince, was the 'when I thought you were a new pet' bit. That was part of what had made him think that being a lion or something would have been cooler, simply because of the 'pet' ideas. He didn't even know about vampires or their weird tendencies in regards to Midnight, and he already thought that being something that could count as a 'pet' was demeaning. A freakin' housecat, of all things.
"I am sorry about that. Really, I am," he offered up quietly about overhearing her overshare, definitely looking the 'sorry' part. He felt pretty bad about making her that uncomfortable, even though he couldn't deny that it'd been nice to hear. Maybe that made it worse. Still, he looked pretty miserable for his part in that whole thing. If he'd really known she was going to get all 'confide in the cat', he could have bolted and hurt her feelings earlier.
That was the only part he was stuck on, really. It actually seemed like that bothered her more than the fact that he was a cat, and though that was strange, he could almost understand it. He'd just have to let it all go until she felt like bringing it up again, though. What else could he do? She was the least talkative of girls he'd met and spent time with, and really, who was he to argue with that? She'd probably go home, have a meltdown, and then want to discuss it later. That'd give him time to figure out how to address it, so he should really stop worrying about it right then, right? Right.
"Yeah, we can practice," he agreed, still feeling a little worried, but snagging his copy of the book up off the top of his dresser, where he'd thrown it before bed the night before. He didn't even remember where they were, but after this, he was hoping it wasn't a super romantic scene or anything. That might get a little awkward.
"Right," she said. "I know, you didn't mean to." She seemed to drop it, along with most of her attitude, until she flipped to the page that she had paperclipped. She thumbed the light pink clip off of the section, and made a loud, irritated noise. "Act Three, Scene Five."
She set the book down, and began speaking. "Wilt thou be gone? It is not yet near day.
It was the nightingale, and not the lark, that pierced the fearful hollow of thine ear; Nightly she sings on yon pomegranate-tree. Believe me, love, it was the nightinga - okay, you know what? Maybe muffins now, and scene later," she said suddenly. She looked at Dez, her hazel eyes a little wide, but not watery at least. She had forgotten they were at the scene at the window, and right now, she really didn't feel like it.
"Do you want muffins?" she asked. Since he'd been in here, she knew he hadn't seen the bags she'd set on the counter.
Oh, boy. All she had to do was name the scene, and one look at it told him that it was going to be interesting, at the very least. She got a few lines into the scene before changing her mind mid-word. Really, it was fine with him. That was the last scene they needed to worry about doing after a weird and awkward encounter having to do with a certain someone's feelings towards another certain someone. What with the way she looked at him, he expected a little more than what she said, but he wasn't arguing.
Muffins? Sounds wonderful.
"I'm in," he agreed easily, dropping the book right back where he'd picked it up, and grabbing the door for her. No, he hadn't seen the muffins on the counter, but she was awesome and brought them over often enough that he wasn't terribly shocked to hear about them. Hopefully, they'd be a good distraction. He was all for that.
"Thanks," she said. She went straight toward the kitchen and broke open the bag she'd gotten for him - the rest were all neatly lined up on the counter, even Dirk's. She didn't know if he'd ever bothered to eat them or if he threw them out or what, but she brought them anyways. She pulled out two wildberry muffins and handed one to Dez, choosing to lean against the counter and eat hers in silence. She wasn't even really hungry, but she felt like if she crammed a muffin into her mouth, she couldn't possibly fit her foot into it again.
She really wasn't even in the mood to practice, honestly - and Dez was right. The cat thing didn't bother her as much as everything else had. She was a sixteen year old girl! People turned into lots of things according to her imagination - the only thing she didn't do was confess her feelings to people to their faces. She'd rather find out his whole entire family was a bunch of cats than have had that happen.
"So... I don't really want to practice," she said, brows flat as she stared at the kitchen floor. "I think I could handle a movie, but I'm not in the mood to read or recite anything anymore." Boy, was she ever. She almost wanted to go home, but that would have actually just been a bitch move on her part. She figured she'd stay, at least, and wait until someone else got home before dipping out. She looked back up at Dez without lifting her chin much, waiting for him to respond. She didn't know what was worse, the fact that he kept apologizing, or the silence afterwards. She should have known it was all one-sided. That's what she got.
So much for luck.
Well, her luck hadn't abandoned her just yet. He actually didn't know what to make of what he'd heard just yet, and considering how fast everything else had moved, he hadn't exactly had a lot of time to think things over. If he had, he'd have taken notice of the fact that the guy who'd technically been the cause of his accident couldn't even bother to send a card to the hospital, but Dawn had gone in and sat with him all that time, just because she knew he'd be lonely. He'd thought about it before, the fact that most, if not all, of the girlfriends he'd had in the past would have either dumped him while he was messed up, or shortly afterward, and here was Dawn, more upset about the fact that he'd heard her say that she thought he was cute than about the fact that he'd turned into a cat. Thinking about that kind of stuff made it seem like his luck wasn't all that bad, nevermind hers.
"Anything in particular you want to see?" he asked, more than willing to go for a movie over reading and reciting right then. Hell, he didn't care if she was thinking theater over living room movies at that point, though he'd prefer to walk rather than drive. He was just a little wary of it, even though he didn't think it was going to happen again. He just wasn't in much of a hurry.
She wasn't the only one getting weirded about by the silence, either. He still felt bad, and like he should apologize, but that really wasn't doing much. Neither was this silence between everything they said, which suggested to him that, even if neither of them really wanted to, someone had to say something about it all. Fine. He'd start. "You know, you're not giving yourself enough credit. I don't ever get tired of hanging out with you. Just so you know," he told her, still feeling a little unsure about saying it, but he didn't want to jump into anything face-first and then just hope it worked out. If she REALLY didn't want to talk about it all, she could say so now and he'd have tried.
She smiled for real, this time, and shook her head a little. "Come on, let's just find a random DVD," she said. When he stopped to tell her that she didn't give herself enough credit, she nodded. "Good. Because I'm over here a lot." She didn't want to say anything more than that, not until she'd calmed down. She switched back to the original subject at hand, though.
"Scream? Or... hm, the Birdcage? What else... " she was naming what she could see from her vantage point, really. "Harvey Birdman, Season One? When is everyone going to be back?" she asked, suddenly. She was trying to factor that into what she chose, of course, and where she chose it. If they would be back in fifteen minutes, Dez could consider himself on the way to see Kung Fu Panda.
She brushed passed him, giving his hand a little squeeze to more or less let him know that she just needed time, that she didn't hate him, yadda yadda... all the things she managed to translate through touch that she couldn't through words. Honestly, she'd have made a terrible Avian.
In all honesty, he didn't have much of a preference as far as movies went right then. There wasn't anything standing out in his mind that he'd like to see, so he was up for whatever she wanted. She had a good point in asking when everyone else would be back. His brother would probably be getting a ride from their mother, since she seemed equally reluctant to have Desiré driving all over the place again already. It hadn't been that long, and Dez didn't mind. She hadn't told him NOT to drive, but it was an unspoken understanding. He still drove to school, and had a 'new' used car that he'd picked up with some cash he'd had laying around. The other one just wasn't going to work anymore. Besides the fact that the driver's side was crushed, there were those nasty bloodstains and damage to the engine. Easier to just get a new one.
"My mom usually gets home around 5-ish, but she's probably picking Sebastian up on the way, so she'll be a few minutes late. My dad'll be home later, and Uncle Dirk can walk in at any moment, because he decides what to do by what he feels like doing," he answered, shrugging apologetically over the Dirk situation. One would have thought that years of military life would have made the man more predictable. Nope.
One thing he had to point out, though. "If we watch the Birdcage and my mom gets home, she won't leave us alone until the movie's over. It's up there with Ghost and Overboard for her, she loves them."
"Well, I like your mom," she said with a laugh. "She's funny. I just didn't know if you wanted to watch one out here or in your room, considering people will be coming and going. It's up to you, though. But, I kind of want to watch Scream. I know I've seen it ten thousand times, but it never gets old." She liked the scary-comedic feel of the movie. She waited to see what he had to say about her choice, and fell silent.
And then: "What kind of cat are you?" she asked, something completely non-sequitur, but Dawn-style, all the same. "Does anyone else know?"
Dez might have snorted or argued with her about his mom being 'funny', since he was pretty sure that she didn't mean funny in a 'wow, she's weird' kind of way, but he remembered what Dawn had said about her own mom, and refrained. Besides, it's painfully common for teenaged boys to completely under-appreciate how cool their moms could be. It's part of that awkward phase of theirs, and though Desiré was mostly out of that phase by this point, there were still some things. He still didn't see the value of hanging out with his mom.
"I like her, too, but we only ever really sit down for movies all together when it's one that nobody's seen. If she's seen it already, she'll either sit there with a happy face or talk through the whole thing," he reminded Dawn, and sure, maybe some of the things his mom said about movies could be funny, but that still didn't mean he had some uncontrollable urge to hang out with her.
Scream was a good choice, however, and meant they could watch it in either room. "Scream it is, then." His mom would walk in, see what he was watching, roll her eyes and probably go off to do something else. If Dawn was going to be asking questions like that, he'd much prefer if his mom stayed out. "Um, I think the scientist guy said it was a Turkish something. Turkish Van? I've never heard of them, but he said he has one at home. Only he and Sebastian know right now, and you, which is cool. I don't really feel like bragging about the fact that I'm now a house cat. It's kind of lame."
She shrugged a little and thrust her hands into her pockets. A small, tiny, miniscule smile crept onto her face. "You sure were fuzzy," she said with a little laugh. "I think you're a little more cuddly as a cat, anyways."
She plopped down on the couch next to him, kicking off her flip-flops to draw her legs underneath her. She took a throw sitting on the top of the couch and waited for the movie to start, watching the previews with disinterest. "Really, for as much as we pay for dvd's nowadays you'd think there'd be a way to get them without these things." A pause. "And by the way, you should have seen Kevin's face when you sauntered in to class like nothing had happened after the wreck. I think you broke his heart."
Kevin was hopelessly wrapped on Dawn, and Dawn hated him with a passion. He was short and creepy, and he wrote really lame poetry and tried to read it aloud.
He actually flushed red again at her mention of him as a cat, even though mentioning it seemed to improve HER mood. He still found it embarrassing, and it'd likely take him awhile to reach a comfortable 'understanding' with himself over the whole issue. He was still of the opinion that he shouldn't be 'cuddly', and then he had this whole cat thing happen, and that didn't go along with what he'd always thought. "Cats are allowed to be cuddly with cute girls, but guys tend to get in trouble for it. Besides, the only cuddly person in my family is my mom. I almost feel bad for her with a house full of men," he told her, and he meant it. His mom liked to hug, and the only one who seemed to actually like hugging her back was her husband, and even then, he didn't go to her for hugs. Not that Dez had seen, anyway. Sebastian, Dirk and Desiré all succumbed to her attention with various degrees of success on her part. Basically, Sebastian let her hug him for about a ten second count (Dez could imagine him actually counting in his head) before wriggling away, Dirk was into the quick man-hug as long as she wasn't really upset and hugging him for some unknown reason, and Desiré himself would hug her for as long as she clung to him, all the while hoping it was almost over. None of them seemed to have any skill at dealing with it. As Sebastian had previously noticed, Desiré just pretended well.
Ironically, there was no way to really know if Desiré actually wanted to be a cuddly person, and pretended he didn't, or if he really just wasn't and was pretending to enjoy hugging his mother just to please her. Given the way he behaved as a cat, one could argue that he wasn't as against it as he claimed. Only time would tell.
"Kevin's a dweeb," he countered instead of commenting on the DVD previews (which he actually liked, because it brought movies to his attention that he might not have noticed otherwise), rolling his eyes. He'd been all for convincing Dawn to practice with the kid so that she didn't lose her spot, but now that he had it back, he wasn't going to deny it. "I still don't get why he got to be my understudy. There were other people who could have done it better."
Of course, hearing Dawn say he 'sauntered' in was kind of nice, if only because 'sauntering' was usually for describing someone doing something cool, and he'd just sort of wandered into the room, grinned at everyone, and pretended everything was normal. If he ever sauntered, it wasn't anything he'd noticed before, but it was good to see that others did (hey, he was a teenager, and being cool was up at the top of the list of things to do, even if he wasn't one who went out of his way to try). Maybe Kevin would take notice, and leave Dawn alone, considering how much time Dez spent with her. "You know, it's pretty messed up how much he wanted me stuck in the hospital. I know why, since he wanted that kiss out of you, but that was kind of asshole-ish, don't you think? He was mad at me the whole class period."
Desiré personally thought there was something seriously messed up about that kid, but he didn't have a good reason to do anything about it.
"Eh, he's a boy. That's what they do," she said, waving her hand, as though it explained everything. And in Kevin's case, it sort of did, really. "I thought about retaliating somehow, but I feel like any attention I give him, good or bad, might fuel that weird notion he's got that some day I'm going to suddenly fall in love with him. No way."
"Maybe we'll find out he's allergic to cats and you can sit near him a lot and make him sneeze and get snot all over himself and have to leave or something," she offered brightly, nudging Dez with her foot a little.
Dawn didn't mention how incredibly easy it would be to sneak him over to her house, now - not that she would have before, anyways. She could think of a few things that she wouldn't ever be mentioning, and most of them went along with that initial idea of hers.
Desiré tossed her the beginning of a scandalized look when she explained Kevin's behavior away with a simple, 'he's a boy, it's what they do'. All things considered, he thought it was pretty reasonable for him to disagree. "Hey, being a guy has nothing to do with why he's a creep," he pointed out, though he hesitated when she mentioned Kevin being allergic to cats. Huh...
That was quite the idea.
Actually, it made him wonder how that would even work. If someone was allergic to cats, would they be allergic to him as a human? Would cat-type stuff effect him when he was human? Oh hell, he didn't even want to consider something like catnip. There was no way that'd work, was there? That would be horrible. "That would actually be worth it. I wonder if it would work that way?"
At least he hadn't considered how easy it would be for her to sneak him over to her house. Really, for any girl to sneak him into her house. Dez was a pretty good guy, so he didn't need the temptation that brought. He'd have been intrigued to know that SHE'D thought about it, though.
"No, but it's a pretty good start," she laughed. She knew she was pushing buttons now, so she let it go. Both of them seemed to be having a little bit of a difficult afternoon, so she didn't want to antagonize him too much.
"Maybe. I wonder if catnip works, then," she said thoughtfully. She tried not to look at Dez out of the corner of her eye quite so deviously when she said it, but she failed, and ended up giving him a top notch evil smirk. "I guess we'll have to wait and see."
At least Dawn could find something to entertain herself with, it seemed. The previews had ended, though, and she settled back into the couch, becoming engrossed in the movie enough to stop teasing Dez entirely for the moment. She'd come back to it later - and she would find out about the catnip.
He snorted at 'being a guy' being a good start to why Kevin was so creepy, but then she hit on the idea that he'd actually been worried about. The catnip. Nooooooo, not good!
"I'm sure it doesn't," he told her confidently, wanting to throw her off that subject fast, though he didn't get the feeling it had worked. He met her evil smirk with a worried look, and shook his head. Finding out about the catnip with her didn't strike him as a good idea, considering how much of a dumbass he'd been earlier.
He might have argued further, but the previews ended, and she settled down into the couch and focused on the movie, so he let it go. Even though his thoughts kept returning to just how much trouble he was probably going to be getting into with this mess, he tried to keep up with Scream. At least it wasn't a deep movie.
Deep, no, not precisely the word for it, although Dawn had found that every time she watched it, she saw other little signs that pointed out the ending of the movie. She enjoyed it; she never got tired of it. It had the right balance of horror and comedy, which was just dandy for her.
She was trying to pay attention to the movie, but she was exhausted. Flipping out earlier after a, for lack of a better term, catnap, had drained her a little more than she thought it would have. She shifted around on the couch so that she could stretch out, leaning on Dez for support to keep her sitting mostly up. It was an innocent sort of thing, at least, and given the way she felt and his current standing, it was probably about all she could muster.
She was surprised to find how warm he was. She struggled to remember if he'd always been that way, or if it was something recent. Maybe the cat part of him had something to do with it? She wasn't certain, but either way, being warm and wrapped up in a blanket was the perfect recipe for her to start to drift off, which she eventually did.
Trying to pay attention seemed like a common trend with both of them, though he seemed to have a better time of it at first. He didn't shift around as much on the couch, and he was actually noticing things that he'd missed the last 8,000 times he'd seen the movie, right up until she stretched out and leaned against him. He didn't move at first, not sure if he was supposed to, and turned his head just so much that he could look down at her.
Whatever, his shoulder couldn't possibly be comfortable.
The next time he moved, it was to pull his arm out from under her and wrap it around her, completely oblivious of her musings about his body heat. He didn't say a word, just letting her get comfortable, and just tried to keep his focus on the movie. That almost worked, but he definitely didn't miss it when her breathing steadied. She was asleep.
Desiré may have even followed suit, and definitely considered it, but he also remembered the fact that Sebastian and his mom would be home before long, and Dirk could show up at any time. Better to hear them enter and nudge her awake than be passed out for who knows how long while someone snickered at them.
Something in the movie woke her up - probably the gunshot at the end. She opened her eyes, yawning. "Oh, wow," she said softly. She looked down at his arm, and then frowned a little. She glanced back up at Dez and then sat up more, pushing away from him. No, that wasn't fair.
"I'm surprised you didn't go all fuzzy on me again," she laughed. "I missed most of the movie. Figures. I guess now I'm ready to practice my lines - or when it's over, anyways." She yawned again, and reached up to fix her hair into a ponytail. "Want a soda?"
She stood and folded the blanket, waiting for him to answer her.
He was almost dozing himself by the end of the movie, and didn't entirely remember certain parts, which meant that he'd been slipping out, but he hadn't actually fallen asleep. Close, but not quite. Dawn pushed herself up and off of him, not something he objected to (he had no right to), and he simply yawned as she woke herself up and stood to fold the blanket. He gave her a 'look' about him going fuzzy, but it didn't have much feeling behind it.
"I thought about a nap, but 'going fuzzy' would have been a bad idea. My mom still hasn't seen the 'mystery cat' Uncle Dirk claims Sebastian is hiding, and trying to get away so that it wouldn't look like you were just chilling in here alone would have been almost impossible," he explained. He would have totally fallen asleep if he'd been a cat during that whole thing.
Given that he still didn't mind the idea of falling asleep, a soda sounded good. Caffeine just generally sounded good, and they probably should get something resembling practice done. That was why she'd dropped by, after all. "Sure, that sounds good. Soda first, though."
Dawn laughed aloud when he mentioned the mystery cat. "Sebastian takes an awful lot of crap from him," she said, shaking her head. "Although I think it's sort of funny that Dirk probably will lose his mind over this ordeal if Sebastian wants to take advantage of it. Ever see Bewitched? You remember the nosy neighbor who would always witness Samantha doing crazy stuff, and nobody believed her?" She laughed again and walked into the kitchen.
She grabbed two Dr. Peppers from the refrigerator and came back into the living room, giving an underhand toss of one in Dez's direction. "Ready to go read?" she asked. She still had little butterflies about the scene they were on, but she figured that she'd have to do it in front of hundreds of people, so alone in Dez's room really couldn't be any worse.
She wasn't kidding about Sebastian taking a lot of crap from Dirk, but Desiré definitely got his share, as well. Dirk had relaxed on him a little since the accident, but he was pretty sure that was because the man was afraid of breaking him if he pushed at him too hard. Dez definitely wasn't going to break, but he wasn't telling Dirk that. Let the man worry.
"Don't tell Sebastian that. He's likely to figure it out on his own, and he doesn't need the encouragement," he warned her, and he meant it. A 'war' between Dirk and Sebastian would get ugly fast.
He caught the soda without hesitation, but waited to open it. He wasn't stupid, and he wasn't taking a Dr Pepper bath right then, thanks. "Sure, are you?" he asked, just checking. She was the one who'd wanted to stop the scene. Really, he understood, but they had to do it eventually. He wouldn't push to get this one done, though. It was true that they'd have to in front of a LOT of people, but perhaps that would be easier than alone in his bedroom. It'd feel less personal. "We can stay in here, if you want."
He might as well offer her a way of not being alone and reading a romantic scene with him in his room.
"Nn-" Dawn started, and then stopped. She shook her head. "No, it's fine. I don't want everyone coming in and making fun of us, anyways. Well, your mom will probably pull up a chair. If I have to hear how great a Romeo you are one more time, I'll barf," she said with a mock gagging sound. "If only dear Kevin thought so highly of you," she added wistfully.
"And besides, I left all my junk in there anyways." She just turned and headed that way, soda in hand, damned what Dez would say. If he insisted again, she'd probably comply, but honestly, she figured she may as well get it over with. They couldn't stop practicing in closer quarters just because of this stupid... stupidness. She'd never make it to opening night if she couldn't learn to read him.
The fact was that they got along well, but in character the repertoire was just awesome. Convincing. Dawn, well, she was a drama queen, so that was her thing, but the fact that Dez actually had a brain somewhere up there made her feel a little better about her life in general. If all football players could think, she'd find one worth snagging yet. Lawl.
"If you have to hear it?" he asked, aware that Dawn couldn't possibly have a clue what Dez had to listen to from his mother all the time, including anything from how the play practice was going to what he thought of his 'pretty friend'. Like most moms, she seemed to think that her boys were better behaved than they actually were, but in a case like that, she didn't need to worry. Even if Desiré displayed and pursued an interest in Dawn, he wouldn't be stupid about it. His mom thought it was cute, especially that they were playing Romeo and Juliet. "If Kevin thought as highly of me as my mom, I'd be kind of freaked out, I have to admit. He probably thinks as highly of you as she does, though."
He wasn't kidding. That kind of interest from that creep would be freaky. He definitely pitied Dawn, and wasn't far away from scaring Kevin away from her.
Without a reason to refuse, he shrugged and followed her back up to his room to do their practicing there. He agreed with her on the issue of his mom pulling up a chair, since he definitely didn't want that. It'd be bad enough that his mom would be at the play when they did it for real, and he'd have to listen to it after that. Moments like those made him wonder how he'd let the ex of his talk him into the drama class, even though he was enjoying it (for the most part). He'd taken some flack from the other football players, but their complaints only went so far in his opinion. Actually, part of that problem was the fact that most of them couldn't think, which he didn't know was an issue of Dawn's. He got along with them because he got along with almost everyone, and he played ball with them. They definitely weren't there for conversation. He had people like Dawn for that.
Regardless, he'd found it kind of surprising that he could pull off the drama class, though he probably shouldn't have. If you were to ask his brother, Desiré was amazing at 'pretending', and what was theater except pretending?
"So, ready?"
Dawn glared at him from over her play book, eyes narrowed. "Ew. Not funny," she warned. She sighed and tossed aside her long brown hair, eyes scanning the scene as Dez prompted her. "Uh, let's just go from Act Three, Scene Five again. This time no interruptions, I hope."
She was silent for a moment while he flipped pages, and then finally, she spoke. "So, like, if you see something like a laser pointer, will you chase it?" She looked absolutely serious at first, and then grinned at his astonished sort of expression. "I'm kidding. But I will arm myself with one in case you do," she said, a warning note in her voice.
With a quick clearing of her throat, she began:
"Wilt thou be gone? it is not yet near day: It was the nightingale, and not the lark, that pierced the fearful hollow of thine ear; Nightly she sings on yon pomegranate-tree: Believe me, love, it was the nightingale."
Dawn laughed internally. It basically translated into, "Oh no, that wasn't the 6 AM bell you heard, it was the 6 PM. Men could be so stupid.