Cat Got Your Tongue? {Desire}

[Dawn Phillips]

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?"

[Desiré Alys]

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.

[Dawn Phillips]

"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."

[Desiré Alys]

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.

[Dawn Phillips]

"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.

[Desiré Alys]

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 Phillips]

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.

[Desiré Alys]

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 Phillips]

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.

[Desiré Alys]

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 Phillips]

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.

[Desiré Alys]

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.

[Dawn Phillips]

"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.

[Desiré Alys]

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.

[Dawn Phillips]

"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.