xp_logs | Jay, Catseye, Jean and Sam

After they get back and Jay is given a clean bill of health, Jean allows him to go back to his room. Catseye tries to comfort Jay, but his struggles are not only on the surface. She gets Sam and Jean comes as well, alarmed, armed and ready.

Strolling down the hallway in cat form, Catseye stopped outside Jay's door and sniffed. There was an oddness to the smell coming from inside- an un-Jay-like smell. The catgirl's tail twitched in confusion. She knew that she was supposed to be respecting peoples' privacy, and that Jay hadn't told her she could come in, but the strange, strong smell made her curious, so she wrapped her tail around the door, found that it was open, and pushed her way inside.

The room was dark. Catseye didn't have trouble seeing in the dark, but the fact that there was a blanket covering the window to block out the light gave her pause. It was also warm in the room, unusually warm considering the fact that Jay didn't get cold. She crept closer to the bed, sniffing liberally, and jumped onto the edge by Jay's shoulder. From that position she could see the hoodie he wore. But Birdboy doesn't get cold... so why...? Whiskers twitching, she sat on the edge of the bed, taking in the sight of something shiny- the source of the strange smell?- poking up from the hoodie. She let out a quiet "mrrt?" to inform Jay of her presence.

Hunched over, the form on the bed didn't move. Not because it couldn't move but because he didn't want to move for the reminder of discomfort he felt he would never get use to. The foreign thing attached to his spine, pulling at his skin and embedded very deeply into the tissue between his shoulder blades. With his knees pulled up to his chest, Jay laid sideways, one arm tucked under his body, the other spread out on the mattresse. The sleeves of the hoodie were pulled up over his wrists, over his hands leaving out only the ends of his fingers that idly traced an invisible circle beneath them.

At the familiar sound, he pulled his fingers away abruptly and hovered above the spot they previously were.

"Cats--" He said, the tone tight, strained but quiet. Yellow eyes peered out from beneath the hoodie and Jay sat up straight in one fluid movement, abandoning the hunched over posture from before. He made no move to go to her, nor pull her to him. In fact, Jay sat still, only the rise and fall of his chest giving away any signs of life.

Something wasn't right. He wasn't acting like Jay at all. Why wasn't he picking her up for a hug? And what was the hoodie covering up- the smell was foreign, confusing. Catseye shifted so that she could speak to him. "BirdBoy?" she began tentatively, nervous. "Why is BirdBoy in the dark? Why the strange smell?" She wanted to reach out and touch his skin, but he was covered up.

"Please don't call me that." He wasn't BirdBoy anymore. He wasn't a bird and he wasn't a boy, but Jay couldn't tell her what he was or why he didn't want to be called that. It was a sob that climbed his throat, choked off his words of protest but never broke past his lips. He didn't want sympathetic words, didn't want to try and understand why he was hollow with no visible scars. How could he explain? Where would he begin? "Ah ain't who you think Ah am." Why did he say that? Why did those words feel so comfortable on his tongue, as easy as a stranger dismissing a child who asked a silly question?

If it had been anyone else, in any other situation Catseye would have ignored without a further thought the plea to not be called by her name for them. But Jay's request made her think twice. And truthfully, he didn't smell like BirdBoy anymore, not really. She couldn't see very well in the gloom but the shinys protruding from his back didn't seem like parts of BirdBoy, either. "Who, then?" she asked, still curious. Who are you if you're not BirdBoy anymore? She reached out with her fingertips to touch his sleeve, as if to prove to herself that Jay was really inside of the hoodie.

He sat there for a long time and deep down, he wanted to pull away from her touch, to recoil from whatever it was she was going to do, but instead, he sat there, inclining his eyes to where her hand covered his sleeve. And for that long stretch of the time it took to put it there, he could only hear his own breathing, steady, faint, different.

"Ah don't know."

The catgirl frowned. Maybe he'd changed his smell and his wings, maybe he wasn't 'BirdBoy' anymore, but he was still Jay. Wasn't he? Wasn't he still the same friend he'd been before he'd been taken away? "Maybe not BirdBoy anymore, but you're still Catseye's GuitarBoy. Still sound the same, still have fingers for playing." She touched the fingers of one of his hands, drawing them out of his sleeve and wrapping them in her own hand.

The fingers were cold, skin rough to the touch like sandpaper grating against a smooth surface and with the sleeve pulled back, the true colour of his hands was revealed. Thankfully, he was cloaked by his own creation of darkness. Even though he knew she could see in the room, he didn't think she could see colours the way they could in the light. He wanted to squeeze her hand, wanted the comfort of touch but all it did was make him anxious and he pulled his hand away, slipping the sleeve back over it. "Ah don't sing anymore."

"How come no more singing?" Catseye asked innocently, a little crestfallen by the fact that he'd pulled away from her. In the darkness she noticed that his skin seemed a darker colour than usual, but even though she had heightened sight, and even though she was in girlform which meant she could see many more colours than the catform could, the room was too dark to pick out the specific colour. It was skin, she knew that much, and it didn't smell burned or frozen... "Is GuitarBoy too sad to sing? Or hurt? Catseye doesn't want GuitarBoy to be sad or hurt." This time she wrapped her arms around one of his, hugging it to herself and resting her head on his shoulder. If he was really hurt he could pull away without having to move his whole body the way he would if she'd hugged his torso.

It swelled within him, that shame that wanted release in the form of tears but none came as he hung his head, wishing they would. His hand brushed the rough skin on his forehead and he bent his head more, covering half of his face, squeezing his eyes shut.

"Cause Ah can't." It was faint, but the pain in those three words may have very well held tears for the tremor that coursed through his voice. "They did something to mah throat," he swallowed and his other hand joined the first. He couldn't cry and yet it felt like everything was crashing down on him. "What did they do to me?" he pleaded for an answer to a question he knew she didn't have. The pit of his stomach dropped and suddenly Jay was up, grasping for a garbage can because he thought he was going to be sick.

Without hesitating Catseye, who was closer to the can, held it out in front of him, still holding his arm as well, almost protectively. "Hurt your throat?" She felt her voice catch, upset by his obvious emotional pain. "They hurt you," she said in response to his question. "But you're home now and you're going to get better and be GuitarBoy again, or maybe not GuitarBoy but someone Catseye loves just as much because even if you're not GuitarBoy or BirdBoy you are Catseye's friend and one of Catseye's most favourite humans and Catseye loves you no matter what colour you are or what your wings look like or what your voice sounds like."

He gripped the can and slid to the floor, crouched forward on his knees. His back hunched and he could feel the pull of organic metal in his flesh and the feeling crawled over his skin like it had done so many times since he'd broke from the trance. He hated the feeling, hated it like there was something constantly in his skin, under it and the feeling swept up his stomach in a whirl wind, heaving out into the empty bucket.

After two minutes, he spit into the container and slid it to the side, lowering himself down to the floor. It was cool down here, his cheek pressed to the floor reminding him how much he enjoyed the cooler temperatures. His relief was brief when his thoughts trailed to what was wrong with him. He didn't only mourn the passing of his former self but of his relationship. Kevin could never see him like this. Jay wouldn't allow it. He couldn't, barely being able to face himself in the mirror, he could never let Kevin see him like this, not ever.

The pain, the ache deep in his chest hurt, twisted and churn so much that Jay withered on the floor and all he could do was moan, pressing his cheek harder into the floor. "Oh god," he moaned, clawing a hand down his face. "Ah just wanna die, Why couldn't they have just let me die?"

Catseye let Jay's arm loose and watching him for a moment, at a loss as to what to do. Should she go get help? He wasn't hurting himself, and his pain seemed to be more in his head than on his body. She would stay with him. Hoping she wouldn't have to leave him like this, she sank to the floor as he moaned and took his hand in her own, pulling it away from his face, eyes darting to the slight shine the metal from his back reflected in the light coming from under the doorway. Were they wings? "Can't die," she stated levelly. "Not dead. Can't die. Can't give up. Don't talk like a SillyKitten." With clawed hands she began to gently peel the hoodie off one of his arms, recognizing that he was searching for cooler temperatures like the hardwood floor. "ShinyWingFriend can't die. ShinyWingFriend has to fight, fight to get better." She managed to wrangle the hoodie off of him, tossing it onto the bed before cradling his head in her lap, stroking his hair. In the light from the doorway she could now see that his skin was indeed blue. What had happened to him? "ShinyWingFriend will not die. Will fight, will be okay," she told him firmly, as if she could make everything alright with the power in her voice. "Catseye will help."

"No, No no no no... No... No..." Jay repeated, shaking his head and his and slipped from hers, pressing his fists to his temples. "No! They shoulda let me die! Ah can't get better! Ah can't--" He sat up, pulling off the hood of his sweater and letting it fall to his shoulders. "Look at me! Look what they did to me!! Ah died! Ah shoulda died! There ain't no better!" Jay's yellow eyes looked into hers and he dragged his hands down his face, pulling at the skin.

"Look! LOOK AT ME!" He wanted the tears but they wouldn't come, instead, his wings shifted out, feather by feather and slammed into the middle of the bed, one wing cutting in half like it was butter. The other wing broke through the window on the other side, smashing the glass and lodged into the window frame. Splinters flew into the air, his wing jammed into the flooring as he jerked up, trying to stand. "AH FUCKING HATE THIS! AH HATE IT!" he screamed, wings ripping from their prisons and sweeping back in an arch, taking out everything with them.

Catseye, sensing an attack in the way he swept his wings about, scrambled back against the wall and pressed herself against it as if trying to melt, all her instincts telling her a predator was standing before her. The wings looked like they could kill her if she touched them. His scream had been purely animal, purely feral, and she struggled against panic. Her hand found the door and she considered running, going to find an adult. But the fear that made her want to flee and get help was the same thing that kept her from leaving. If Jay really was dangerous, she couldn't risk him harming anyone else, not without trying to fix this herself first.

"Catseye is looking," she answered meekly, standing a little straighter and trying to calm herself so he wouldn't smell her fear. She had to keep believing that this was still Jay, still the friend she knew. It was not an animal. "Catseye still sees Jay." She hoped the fact that she was using his human name, rather than her own term, would have some effect on him. Humans were silly that way sometimes. "Catseye sees Jay, her friend, even if he looks different and thinks different." And acts like a predator. "Jay doesn't want to hurt Catseye," she added pointedly, inching towards him with her hands out in front of her, defensive. "Catseye knows Jay hates what happened to him, and Catseye wishes she could make it all better, and Catseye hopes Jay will let her try to help and not hurt her."

He hated this, hated himself, couldn't take what she was saying. Words overlapped, one blending into the other and Jay stepped back. For a moment, he looked like he was going to relent. But the words that he wanted to scream came out in a screech that wanted fear, that wanted blood. His wings lunged forward and more than two dozen razor sharp feathers pelted out, but each and every one of them missed her as though they purposely were meant to miss their target, lining the walls on either side of her. His wings drew back a second time and Jay clawed at the blue skin on his face.

"Just leave," he said in a hoarse whisper, bending over and stumbling as though he was going to be sick again. "LEAVE! GODAMN YOU!" He screeched and screamed at the same time, fingers drawing out, palms facing upwards and fingers strained against their own joints.

Jay's actions had stunned her into a terrified immobility for a moment, and Catseye realized that she could no longer fix this situation by herself. She needed help. And he wanted her to leave. She dashed out of the room quickly. Hurt by the dismissal and her failure to help Jay, tears pricked at her eyes and she let out a sob before shifting into cat form since the cat was a faster runner. She had to get a Guthrie.

Spotting Sam, Catseye shifted back into human form. She didn't know how it had happened, but when she shifted back her human face was drenched in tears and she had trouble catching her breath from the lump in her throat. "SplodeyButt," she sobbed, tugging on his sleeve to get his attention. "Hurry. Hurry and help LittleBrother. Help ShinyWingFr- help Jay." She couldn't call him her friend, not right now. She couldn't call him any name she'd picked herself for him. "He's hurt in his brain. In his room," she explained, and dissolved into tears, curling up on the floor. She knew Sam would take care of Jay, the way she obviously couldn't, and she didn't want to go anywhere near him. He'd scared her, but more importantly he'd ordered her out of the room. He didn't want her to help. He didn't want her to be his friend. Catseye had thought they were friends. She'd wanted to believe that no matter what he looked like or sounded like or smelled like, Jay was still the same sweet boy she considered one of her closest friends. But she didn't know what he was anymore.

Sam was caught by Catseye, his sleeve tugged for attention, and once she got the words out he was off. When he saw the destruction his first reaction was to step back behind the door frame for safety. He didn't really know if there would be anything to say; it looked to be well beyond that point. He also wasn't thrilled with the idea of fighting his newly returned brother. "Jay, this doesn't look good. We need to go to medical together." He stood half behind the door frame as he spoke. He didn't know what else to say.

"I'm here, Sam," Jean said; she'd skipped the stairs on her way up to Jay's room, flying straight up the stairwell as soon as she'd sensed his loss of control - at Charles' suggestion she'd been keeping a close tab on him after his examination. There were enough warning signs to have them worried, and clearly they hadn't been wrong. She set a hand on Sam's shoulder, holding him back slightly as she peered into Jay's room. "Jay, he's right. You need to come with us now." Talking him down was the easy way. Somehow, she didn't have a lot of hope for the easy way.

The metal wings surrounding his body shifted slightly amongst the wreckage in his room and he glanced up between heavy intakes of breath. his hand clutched a crumpled piece of paper and his wings arched back, holding it up and shaking it in his fist. 'He left me! He left me!" Kevin left him, Catseye ran from him. "HE LEFT ME TO THIS! LOOK AT ME!!!"

Yeah, definitely not the easy way, not with the way his wings were flaring again, and Jean didn't want to have to do this, but there wasn't much choice left. "I'm sorry, Jay," she said quietly, and then reached out with her mind to gently shut his off so he slumped to the floor, unconscious.

Once Jay was on the floor, Sam stepped over to him. He checked to make sure he really was unconscious, then lifted him up to carefully carry him to medical. He noticed how his brother's weight had changed and the older of the two was surprised that he could survive such drastic alteration at all.

[ooc: log takes place at around 3am though posted early due to player having to sleep]