Cat Got Your Tongue? {Desire}

[Desiré Alys]

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.

[Dawn Phillips]

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.

[Desiré Alys]

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.

[Dawn Phillips]

"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.

[Desiré Alys]

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.

[Dawn Phillips]

"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.

[Desiré Alys]

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. 

[Dawn Phillips]

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.

[Desiré Alys]

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."

[Dawn Phillips]

"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?"

[Desiré Alys]

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."

[Dawn Phillips]

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.

[Desiré Alys]

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. 

[Dawn Phillips]

"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 Alys]

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.