(Backdated) LOG: [Catseye, Terry, Marius] Off-schedule

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As it turns out, displacing angst with relentless exercise was not the best of ideas. Happily, sensible people are present and no harm is done. Or at least, none more severe than a few mildly sprained brains.





He'd been going somewhere. He'd forgotten where, exactly, but he did have a dim memory that some form of intent had been present at the beginning of this journey.

Whatever his original reasons had been, they were lost now. Marius recognized his current location to be one of the classroom hallways, but it was winter break, and the hall was quiet. Vague pondering suggested that maybe it had been the quiet that attracted him -- he'd been buzzing earlier today, but now he felt drained, and being alone appealed to him more than returning to the shared suite.

He looked to one side, noting in a disconnected sort of way that he was standing in front of the music room. It was sound-proofed, wasn't it? He seemed to be having some difficulty holding on to a train of thought, but this one was met with distant approval. The music room. Yes. That was private enough. He would go rest in music room for a while.

From her vantage point on the windowsill (particularly bright and sunny and warm this time of day) Catseye watched, a touch bemusedly, as Marius teetered into the room, staring blankly ahead. She blinked slowly, once, then pointedly looked at his hands, noting the faint tremors occasionally running through them - the mouths twitching in hunger. With a faintly annoyed sound the cat slowly uncurled from her spot and stretched out, keeping an eye for Marius so that she'd at least see the moment where he keeled over and fell flat on his face.

The movement was directly in front of him, yet it took a moment for it to register. Marius blinked, slowly, and his brain identified the lazy arch of purple as Catseye. The corresponding fact -- that he was not alone in this room -- sank in a few moments later.

"Cats," he muttered vaguely -- nothing more than a simple statement. He would rather have been alone, but he supposed she was all right. She occasionally slept on his bed, after all. And she was here on her own business. She would leave him alone.

Without a second glance at the cat, Marius turned to head for the nearest corner. Every step felt like he was trying to lift his feet from a pit of tar. He wasn't going to bother with a chair -- all he wanted was something solid behind his back, and he could relax.

Watching Marius crumple down and fit himself into a corner was interesting, but it wasn't going to fix things, which meant that yet again. Catseye had to be the one to sort problems out. With a half-snort, she hopped from the windowsill and stuck her head through the still open doorway of the music room and let out a profoundly demanding yowl - it was the one which said 'the cat is unhappy and needs something to be done NOW or else every single inhabitant of the mansion will pay', which everyone pretty much knew meant deadly business by now. She then trotted over to Marius, ready to whap sense into the hands (Catseye was no one's meal), or Marius, whichever seemed to require it first.

Actually, she'd have to whap sense into Marius as soon as he was aware once more, really. This was getting to be a bit too much.

Terry missed the yowling cat noise thanks to the eardrum destroying volume of her iPod, well, eardrum destroying for anyone who didn't have mutated eardrums. The piece of harp music that her teacher had given her was taking up all her concentration and her fingers already twitched like they were on the strings long before she reached the music room. With her eyes half-closed, she nearly tripped over the purple cat that twined her way through her legs. "Catseye!" Her hop-skip out of the way was probably very amusing to watch but the other inhabitant of the room didn't so much as twitch. "Marius?'

Marius sensed her presence more than he heard the inquiry. With some effort, he opened his eyes to see who'd just come in. Terry. He remembered Terry. She'd been watching Forge poke at him down in the lab earlier that month. Identity confirmed, Marius' tenuous interest slipped, and he let his eyes close again.

Catseye kept a wary eye on Marius as Terry looked at him, careful to keep herself between the prone boy and the girl. There was, simply put, not way she was allowing Terry near him unless someone was warned first. And Terry tended to be one of the sensible ones, so Catseye held hope common sense would rule the day, even as she gave Marius a brief, cursory look, listening attentively for the sound of his heartbeat as well as any other sign of the hunger which meant the mouths in his hand were running the show.

Terry recognized the signs of Marius in the first stages of his ravenous hunger and couldn't help the way her stomach jumped in fear. She took a step toward him and was blocked by Catseye who hissed in displeasure. Terry sighed and frowned down at the cat. "He's hungry. He needs to eat. I already volunteered for this, you don't have to worry."

Catseye nodded, in an entirely uncatlike gesture, but still didn't move. Instead, she gave the intercom near the door a pointed look, using her tail to point at the device a well. If it had been easy for her to tap her foot in cat form, likely she'd have done it as well, but she was sure Terry would get the point easily enough - a bright girl, was Terry, in Catseye's estimate.

Not like boys in general.

Terry rolled her eyes, "Well you call them then or I'll spend fifteen minutes arguing with them about what I should be doing and then we'll both be attacked by Night of the Living Marius over there." She folded her arms and gave Catseye exactly the same attitude back. She wasn't going to be bullied by anyone. "I can't take him downstairs and he needs to eat now. Help me out here."

Catseye rolled her eyes, and shifted to human shape. "MouthyBiteyBoy not die on the spot. ScreamingGirl call, hang up," at which part she smirked slightly, "and then let him feed, while the others come to us whichever way they like best. That is all." She shifted a bit, keeping a good part of her attention on Marius still. "And Catseye keep an eye on MouthyBiteyBoy so the stupid BiteyMouths not try anything stupid in the meantime. Is very simple, yes? Unless ScreamingGirl prefer to stand here to argue about the point until the stupid BiteyMouths try something stupid?"

"Or you could be helpful and call." Terry retorted but stepped over to the intercom and hit the medlab call. "I need someone up in the music room. Marius needs to feed and I can't bring him down. I'm going to feed him. Catseye is here to watch out for me." She let go and gave Catseye a look. "Happy?" Without waiting for a response, she stepped around the catgirl and walked over to kneel in front of Marius. There was no reaction from the boy, no change in his shallow breathing, no awareness in his clammy face. Only the faint scraping sound of teeth on nylon as the mouths on his hands reacted to her presence. Carefully, she reached forward to pull the gloves off one after the other.

Catseye peaceably shifted back to cat shape and trotted nearby, watching the proceedings with rapt attention, ready to step in should she feel it needed. She didn't make a sound, however, letting Terry do as she's been shown, or so Catseye easily assumed.

It was, Terry decided, extremely strange to see the tiny teeth straining toward her, glistening with the analgesic fluid. She glanced over at Catseye, just to reassure herself of back up, then rolled back her sleeve and put one of his hand to her skin. She jumped as the teeth sank in with sharp little pricks, then jumped again when his hand tightened around her. Terry swallowed hard and moved his other hand to her wrist, glad she was already on her knees as he clamped down on her arm.

The first sensation to return was tactile, and it came to him slowly, as if he were waking up from a deep sleep. Gradually, he registered that his hands wrapped around something warm -- tightly. The resulting confusion brought Marius further back to his senses, and after a confused moment he blinked his eyes open.

Comprehension hit at the same instant he took in Terry, kneeling in front of him. Marius jolted back against the wall, instinctively forcing the mouths to disengage a split-second before he wrenched his hands from her arm to curl against his chest, fists clenched. He opened his mouth to say something, though he never found out what it was.

Terry blinked bemusedly at the neat rings of bite marks on her arm then up at Marius. Realizing he was about to speak, she lunged forward, clapping her hand over his mouth. "No talking. Not until we get you into a sound-proof room." She looked back at Catseye. "I don't think she'd appreciate you making her go deaf."

Catseye blinked slowly, once, then slowly pressed her ears back nearly into her skull, whiskers peeling backwards as well.

The hiss of displeasure at the very notion of Terry's power being unleashed uncontrollably by a stupid boy was more than clear.

Marius glanced at Catseye, then back to Terry. While the girl didn't seem overly perturbed, the look on Catseye's face definitely bespoke a rending of flesh. Although still disoriented, he was finding reassurance in a slow trickle of slightly disjointed but very recent memories. They were hazy, and he judged he might have lost a little time, but the fact that he was still in the corner -- and that Catseye was merely looking ready to maul him rather than actually hanging from his jugular -- implied he hadn't actually attacked anyone. And that was a relief.

Marius looked Terry in the eye and nodded slowly to indicate his understanding. He doubted any sudden moves would be a bright idea at the moment.

"I fed you and a doctor should be up here soon to check you out," Terry explained slowly and quietly. Given the slightly panicked look he'd been sporting she thought it would be a good idea to be as clear and soothing as possible. "My mutation is basically vocal which means that if you get startled or upset you might blow out a wall with your voice. Now, I'll take my hand away just as soon as you prove that you're not going to break anything with a hello and hi. You can't hurt me with it so go ahead and say something while I've still got you covered."

"No worries," Marius said around her cupped hand, "I'm not much of a screamer." Of course, the fact that his assertion had been given in a very careful murmur was slightly contradictory, but he really didn't want to be regulated to pantomime for the remainder of the conversation. The situation was awkward enough.

There was no mad screaming and nothing to make Catseye's ears pop in very bad ways that Terry could sometimes achieve even if one was across the entire mansion, so Catseye relaxed. Some. Barely. Still very intently watching both Marius and Terry, as well as Marius' hands, to make sure there wasn't even the hint of anything funny going on.

Terry nodded, feeling nothing but human-level vibrations against her hand. Slowly she uncovered his mouth and put her hand on her hips.

"I thought you were supposed to be getting regular feedings so that things like this didn't happen?" She rolled to her feet, frowning at him. "How's your hearing?"

"Good enough," Marius blinked, slightly thrown by the line of questioning. Now that he knew he wasn't going to pulverize the room with an unexpectedly acquired power he allowed himself to relax enough to let his fists unclench and drop back to his sides. He noted with annoyance that the interrupted feeding had left his palms sticky with marrow. "And I do, but sometimes it gets a bit off . . . lot of variables." Not to mention the fact that the events of the last week had left him a little preoccupied, but there was no need to bring that up.

Catseye's voice drew their attention to the side, and the crouching girl glared flatly at Marius, tail lashing behind her impatiently. "Enough. StupidMouthyBiteyBoy has done silly things before, but Catseye thinks this is about as silly as it gets. Honestly!" The huff of exasperation was oddly familiar, somehow. Curling up a lip slightly, she hissed lightly, still rather annoyed with Marius for letting things get this far without ever catching on to anything.

"Pbhhhhhht!" was her final conclusion on the whole matter.

Terry choked on a giggle and told herself that it would not be appropriate to laugh at the other girl. She focused back on Marius, "Did you have enough to eat? Do you need more? Shouldn't you have a little blood test thing like a diabetic so you're not half-way into shock before someone, hopefully someone who knows what they're getting into, comes along?"

Marius, now collected enough to loosen his grip on the instinct for self-preservation, raised his eyebrows at Catseye. "Big talk comin' from the girl whose idea of a snowball fight is attackin' the literal snowballs. And so far as the height of silliness goes, I'm still new. Give it time." Ignoring the face she made in response, Marius very pointedly turned his attention to Terry, though his belated processing of her words made the motion a bit less decisive than he'd intended it to be. "--And uh, no worries. On gettin' enough to eat, that is. If I'm back out of it she's right enough . . ." Or at least, he assumed so. He glanced at his palms, rubbing his fingers together in a half-hearted attempt to be rid of some of the excess marrow. When he'd attacked Rahne the mouths had disengaged on their own accord, and during a normal feeding he waited until they did the same. This time, though, he'd yanked them away the moment he realized what he was doing. Now that he thought about it, he honestly wasn't sure.

Catseye frowned at that, and decided a distraction was in order. There had been enough feeding for now and it wasn't as though Marius deserved a reward for letting things get this bad to start with. Idiot boy. Not even listening to his instinct properly.

And it was so that Terry found herself with a lapful of cheerfully hugging her Catseye, purring up a storm while merrily declaring that the StupidMouthyBiteyBoy had been oh so very lucky that ScreamingGirl had been around to save his sorry ass.

Terry turned brilliantly red at the introduction of Catseye to her lap and her subsequent near suffocation in Catseye's cleavage--sometimes being short was an interesting experience. While a strangled 'oof' she fell backward out of her crouch, grabbing onto Catseye automatically and ending up pinned beneath her. "Um..."

Marius blinked, for an instant rendered utterly speechless. Then, unable to restrain himself in spite of a gut certainty he was going to hell for the current contents of his brain, he stood up and brushed his hands against his pants. "Right," Marius said, spreading his arms, "my turn to thank her now."

Catseye felt no pity at all as she slowly turned to look at Marius, smiling a smile that held far too many teeth. She clicked those sharp, white teeth once at him meaningfully, still holding on to Terry quite firmly.

"StupidMouthyBiteyBoy takes another step, and Catseye will do very bad things," she purred out, giving him a half-lidded gaze.

Terry was trying to remember not to look up at Catseye and not to think about the very interesting position she was in. Damn Bobby for being away anyway. These thoughts were completely his fault. "Catseye," she said cautiously, "Can I please get up now?

Marius winced, lowering his arms. "And here I thought Christmas was a time of giving," he muttered, and hoped the response would conceal any outward sign of his desperate battle with an entirely too graphic imagination.

There was a hissing noise, coming from the direction of the ventilation system. A greenish-tinged mist was pouring into the room through the vent, coalescing into a red-haired woman. Amelia Voght gave Catseye and Terry a look that involved a very eloquent raised eyebrow. "Mm-hm." Then she turned her attention to Marius, and the monosyllabic noise she made then was infinitely more ominous.

Marius started to say something, then thought better of it. He preferred not to incriminate himself, and under the circumstances no response he gave could be construed as anything but. Instead he just sighed, gave the two girls a resigned shrug, and trudged to where the school's newest redheaded doctor had positioned herself by the door. He paused, and half-turned to nod back at the others.

"Ta, Terry," he said, directing his comment to the shock of red hair sandwiched between the cushions and Catseye's . . . self. "Just thought I'd get that out of the way, as I'm about to be murdered."