Cammie, Catseye, and Scott - Busted

[x-catseye.livejournal.com]

Scott awaits the return of his car after Cammie and Catseye are finished with it.


The drive into town and the shopping itself wasn't very eventful.

Cammie didn't speed, after all it wasn't her car, she didn't have a license
and this wasn't a joy ride. The best way to avoid getting caught was to
drive perfectly, which she had learned to do. She had just left home a few
weeks shy of her 16th birthday.

Hell, she drove better than half of the people in this town. Either way,
they had got Cats her eggs, filled the car (Cammie paid for that) and she
had gotten herself some treats that she enjoyed. And a waxing kit. She
didn't like to shave. There was always a chance she'd cut herself somehow
that she didn't like to deal with.

Cammie pulled the car into the garage tapping her finger to the music she
was listening to. She had to channel surf the stations in order to find
something good. All in all it had been a great simple trip.

Now she just had to cover up evidence of having hotwired the car and they'd
be all good. She knew how to do this inside out.

It was when she saw someone in the garage she tensed a bit. This could be
trouble.

"Well, fuck," she muttered, as she drove the car back towards it's spot.

This was going to get interesting.

Catseye had had a very fun trip, peppering Cammie with questions about
driving and waxing. She wanted to learn how to drive and she didn't
understand waxing at all. She did the shaving thing because someone had
laughed at her in the gym years ago the first time she'd been at the mansion
and it had hurt her pride, but she didn't understand waxing, and it had been
fun to ask Cammie about it. When she saw the figure in the garage, however,
and heard Cammie's muttering, her spirits fell. "OneEye!" she called out
when Cammie pulled the car up.
"Catseye got shinyeggs!"

"Shinyeggs, huh?" Scott said, almost patiently. He had his arms folded
across his chest, and his eyes were narrowed very slightly as he looked over
the car for damage.

"Yeah, they're real shiny," Cammie said, parking the car and stepping out.

There was only a minimal amount of damage to the steering column, nothing
that wasn't easy to fix. It almost looked professional, which was the fun
part of being self taught. "Filled your car."

"Does OneEye want a shinyegg?" Catseye asked, holding out the net bag.
"BlackBloodGirl filled OneEye's car and Catseye helped!"

She quite possibly had no idea why what she and Cammie had done was a bad
thing, Scott reminded himself. Possibly. Cammie, on the other hand...

"I don't know whether I should be asking for an explanation," he said in
that same level tone, focusing on the green-haired girl, "or whether that
would be a waste of time."

"Well, she wanted to go into town, and it didn't seem worth bothering anyone
else over," Cammie said simply. "If you want to get upset at someone you
can do it at me. Cats just wanted some shiny eggs as she said. Oh and she
helped with the car at the gas station. We filled it up. Even with
premium." If he was going to skin someone over this it could be her.

"Your car is just fine, seriously." She was good at what she did.

Catseye cocked her head in confusion. "Is OneEye angry? Catseye is sorry.
Catseye wanted shinyeggs and BlackBloodGirl said she could take Catseye and
Catseye picked OneEye's car because if OneEye had to go somewhere he would
still have his twowheelscar to take him. And Catseye helped to fill the car
with special gas and BlackBloodGirl paid money for it!"

"Catseye," Scott said, patiently, "I want to ask you something. Did
BlackBloodGirl have keys to the car?"

"Keys?" she asked, pausing for thought. "The things people have for rooms?
Catseye has lots of keys in her shinythings box! Does OneEye want keys?"

Cammie put her face in her palm right there. "No. I didn't have keys," she
answered. "I don't need them, nine times out of ten anyway." Oh this was
going to be fun, "Look, I just took her into town to get what she wanted. I
didn't want to bother anyone and calling a cab is like having to get a ride
from someone pointing a gun at you and demanding your money."

"Two things, Carmilla. Firstly - do you even have a driver's license?
If not," Scott said, his voice clipped, "I don't think I need to tell you
just how much trouble you might have caused for the school, had you been
caught, with a student, in what was effectively a stolen car.
Secondly," he went on, "if the license wasn't a problem - there are cars in
this garage that can be signed out for the asking."

"Sure I do," the license was a fake, but it was such a well done fake that
she didn't think any normal law agency could tell the difference. "It's a
Texas one. Either way, I'm better than most of the drivers around here.
I'm sorry, I didn't know about the other cars. I'll do that next time."

"Catseye and BlackBloodGirl didn't steal it!" Catseye protested in response
to Scott's statement about being caught with a stolen car. "Stealing is
when you take something and hide it in a box or eat it and make it yours so
the person it belonged to can't have it back! But Catseye and BlackBloodGirl
brought the car back to OneEye and it is still OneEye's car."

"Catseye, I can accept that you didn't realize you were doing anything
bad," Scott said crisply, "but the two of you took something that didn't
belong to you, without permission."

She wasn't really understanding what his issue was. "Catseye and
BlackBloodGirl took but we brought the car back to OneEye. Catseye does not
understand what is bad." Maybe it was the permission thing? But Cammie had
already told him she didn't want to bother anyone.

Oh, the difference little decisions made, "Look. Stop it. If you're going
to fry someone for this. Fry me. At least I sizzle well on an open fire,"
she snapped. "My choice. My Bad."

"Don't get defensive with me, Ms. Black," Scott said. He hadn't realized the
headmaster voice was still in there somewhere. "Something went a little
wrong with your logic between 'I don't want to bother anyone' and 'Hence, I
will hotwire a car.'"

Catseye put an arm around Cammie and considered hissing at Scott, but held
back. "Catseye wants to be fried too! It is not BlackBloodGirl's fault that
the bad thing happened! And Catseye still does not understand!"

"When you see this from my perspective, if you weren't right there. All
you'd know is your car suddenly had more gas. It is less work than trekking
around asking everyone if something's okay," Cammie said. Besides, she was
worried she was getting rusty. At least she proved that wrong.

Scott didn't point out that he certainly would have known if someone had
hotwired his car. He wasn't going to stand here and have an argument with a
kid who was this far into justifying running off with a vehicle that wasn't
hers because she couldn't be bothered to ask about how to get into town. "I
see," he said. "Catseye, I'm going to want to see you during my office hours
tomorrow morning to talk about this. Carmilla..." His smile was very faint.
"You're not a student, so I have absolutely no right to discipline you. But
I'll be mentioning this to Professor Xavier, and I think you can assume he's
going to want to speak to you about what constitutes acceptable behavior for
guests in his house."

"Office?" Catseye queried. She knew office was bad. "Catseye does not
understand!" she wailed.

"I want you to understand. That's why I want you to come in and talk to me."
So that it's not as easy for Ms. Questionable Logic over there to lead
you astray, next time.

Miss Questionable Logic didn't consider it so questionable. But that was
how she lived for the past few years, "Well, before I go get my head cut off
and tossed on the street, want me to fix up your steering column? You'll
never know it was touched by the time I'm done."

Catseye jumped between Cammie and Scott. "No!" she cried. "Catseye won't let
BlackBloodGirl's head be cut off and tossed on the street!"

"Carmilla's exaggerating, Catseye," Scott said patiently. "No one is going
to cut her head off." He looked back at Cammie. "As for my steering column,
I thought I wasn't going to know that it had been touched at all?"

He raised a hand before she could answer. "But no. I don't want you to touch
that car - or any other car in this garage, again. In other words," he said,
a bit of a bite to his tone, "if you want to get into town now you do
have to lower yourself to asking someone for a ride. Consider it an
opportunity to work on your communication skills." A brief pause, as he
looked down at the two girls. "You can both leave the garage. Now."

"Yeah, you wouldn't know if I had time to finish it. It should be mostly
covered up but I kinda panicked when I saw you there," she said. Rides.
Fine. She could ask for rides. And later when she was asked to pack her
bags, at least she could say she got to drive a damn fine car while she was
here.

"Come on, Cats. Let's go play with your new shiny eggs, okay?"

Catseye hugged Cammie protectively against her side. "Does OneEye want a
shinyegg even though he does not tell Catseye why he is angry?"

"I can be annoyed at something that you do without being angry at you,
Catseye," Scott said. "We'll talk about it more tomorrow." He managed
another slight smile. "But thank you for the offer of the egg."

"Come on, Cats. Let's go have some fun before the funeral dirge starts
playing," Cammie said brightly, starting towards the garage door. "I can
think of lots of places to hide those eggs for you to find, if you want."