Face the Blood- Catseye and Laurie, Catseye and Doreen

[x-catseye.livejournal.com]

Laurie and Catseye keep each other company while waiting for news on Yvette's surgery.

Sitting in front of the doors to the operating room didn't seem to be making the surgery go any faster. And the smell was beginning to bother Catseye. She didn't like the smell at all- it smelled like sick, like hurt, and like Yvette and those smells together made her feel very sad and almost sick herself. The purple cat rose from where she'd been sitting like a statue standing guard over the operating room and padded over to the chairs. She hopped up into the one Laurie was occupying, and buried her head against Laurie's stomach forcefully, to make the smell go away and to encourage being held.

Laurie had been staring off into the distance somewhat, lost in her own thoughts when she felt the weight of Catseye in her lap. She looked down, reaching a hand out to scritch behind the purple cat's ear.

"She's going to be okay, Catseye," Laurie said, knowing that Catseye would be able to smell the worry on her anyhow. Sometimes you said things because you wanted to believe them yourself, even when you didn't quite. "She's in really good hands here."

The purple cat curled up in Laurie's lap, kneading her paws on Laurie's thighs, claws in, and rubbed her cheek against Laurie again as she settled down, tail twitching. She couldn't bring herself to purr, but she was grateful for the skritching, and the reassurances that Yvette would be fine.

Having someone else to care for had always helped Laurie, and while she supposed that was a selfish reason to do things, she accepted it as part of who she was. She continued to stroke her hand along Catseye's back, allowing a small degree of her powers loose as she closed her eyes and leant her head back against the wall.

"You should sleep a little," she said softly, eyes still closed. "It'll make the wait go faster if you do."

Catseye shifted into girlform so she could hug Laurie, wanting to hold on to someone the way the catform couldn't. "Catseye doesn't want to fall asleep. Catseye doesn't want to miss anything. What if SharpSkinGirl wakes up or dies while Catseye is sleeping?"

Laurie opened her eyes again, moving herself slightly so she could hold the other girl more comfortably on her lap now that she was in human form. Catseye was taller then her, which made things interesting but she finally managed to find a comfortable position for them both.

"Either way, someone would wake us," Laurie noted. "Staying awake won't change either occurrence. It just means you're exhausted, and unable to cope when it does, if either does."

The taller girl shifted her bottom out of Laurie's lap to take some of the weight off her makeshift chair, though she left her legs draped over Laurie's. "Do you think she will die?" she asked, too tired to use names.

Laurie moved her hand in a small circle around Catseye's back as she tried to think of the best way to answer that. There was a very real chance that Yvette might die, for any number of reasons but knowing that and telling Catseye that were two different things.

"She may," Laurie answered honestly, tears falling softly, leaving small spots of moisture on her shirt. "I can't say, Catseye. I honestly don't know. But there's hope still, and she's got the best doctors in there that she could possibly hope to have."


"Catseye has hope." The purple head nodded. She wasn't entirely sure what hope actually was, but she wanted it if it meant helping Yvette. Catseye had been made practical when it came to death from her life with alley cats. The members of her colonies died. Everything and everyone died. It was a part of life. She mourned for each of her feline companions who had hunted, eaten, sheltered, fought, napped with her, yet even though it made her sad, she understood and accepted death as a necessary part of life. Of course, death at the end of one's life span, or because food or heat was scarce, was quite a different thing than dying because of a weapon, because someone wanted to hurt you to keep a piece of land, but was too cowardly to fight for the land with teeth and claws like a cat, and instead used explosions and pain that could hurt anyone, even people who didn't want the land for themselves, like Yvette. That pissed her off. She didn't want Yvette to die, not here, not now. Yvette was her friend, one of her colony. Still a kitten, really, in human terms. This wasn't right. "Catseye wants her friend to be okay and not die and Catseye wants to kill the person with the weapons," she said, in a weary but heartfelt tone. She blinked rapidly, then slashed at the tears that had formed in her eyes and buried her head in Laurie's shoulder.
***



Later, in the waiting room, Doreen blames herself for Yvette's accident and Catseye gets fed up.



With a growl, Catseye leapt up from her chair and shifted to girlform when Doreen began to talk again. She'd let Doreen speak and held her temper for a while, but now she had had enough. "SquirrelGirl needs to stop talking," she said, sounding exasperated. She was tired of listening to how Yvette was hurt and it was Dori's fault.



Doreen’s eyes were red from crying. It was something she didn’t let on to anyone, but she often felt these sort of things could be traced back to her somehow. She flinched back from Catseye, though it wasn’t as bad as it was with Logan, the older girl could put Dori on edge very, very easily. “But maybe I could’ve done something!”


"SquirrelGirl could not do anything," Catseye argued sternly, tail lashing as she faced Dori. "SquirrelGirl did not put the mines there."



Doreen’s tail puffed out to about twice its normal size, “But we saved the other kids, maybe if we had done it differently…”


"Stoppit! Stoppitstoppitstoppit," the catgirl demanded, rounding on Dori angrily. "If the person who put the mines there had not put the mines there at all, then no one would need saving!"



Doreen’s tail fluffed out even more and she started backing away from the catgirl, “But you don’t get it. You weren’t there!”


Catseye took a step forward. "Catseye wasn't with Yvette when she got hurt, but Catseye has been here as long as SquirrelGirl. Catseye saw all the little children who got hurt like Yvette is hurt. No arms, no legs. Some lost their motherpeople or fatherpeople, some their brothers or sisters or friends. From sillystupid mines. SquirrelGirl didn't save those people. And that is not SquirrelGirl's fault, just like it is not SquirrelGirl's fault that Yvette got hurt! It is no one's fault but the people who put the mines there! So stoppit!"



Doreen was too tired to fight the animal inside of her right now and did what it was screaming at her to do and turned around and sprinted down the hall, though her tears were entirely human. Faraway, the animal whispered. Get far away.

Watching Dori leave, Catseye gave the retreating puffy tail a snort and a nod of her head. Well, that had shown her. Blaming herself for what had happened to Yvette was SillyStupid. It was just as easy for Catseye to blame herself for not being there. She was able to sniff out mines with her nose; if she'd been with Yvette, she could have prevented the accident. Yvette wouldn't have gotten hurt if Catseye had been there. It was so easy to blame yourself. But if Catseye had been there, even if she'd prevented Yvette from being hurt, someone else in the group she had been with might have been hurt because she wasn't with them! No. Blaming yourself didn't do anybody any good. It didn't fix anything. It wasn't Catseye's fault, or Dori's, or Inez's. It was no one's fault except the person who had put the mines there to hurt people. Catseye let out a feral growl at that thought, wishing she could get her claws on whoever had laid the mines.