Nick and Catseye

[x-catseye.livejournal.com]

Nick goes searching when he hears Catseye is hiding in the woods but after the wolfboy confesses to the realization he's come to about her, Catseye finds herself even more confused about her life than before.




The woods around the X-Mansion had been anything but peaceful over the past few months, and today was no different. But unlike most days, most of the noise in the forest seemed to be coming from a single source. A huge wolf was racing through the wooded area, knocking limbs everywhere in the process. As the wolf comes to a clearing, he pulls up onto his hind legs, and showed off the his ripped sweatsuit and a large backpack on his shoulders. Normally the smell of the food that filled the bag would be a complete distraction to Nick, but today he had a mission to focus on. His nose twitched as he found the feline scent he had been tracking all morning. It still had the slight twist to the smell he was used to, but it still was the only thing he had to go on. He quickly fell back onto all fours and began sprinting towards the scent once more.

The mountain cat leapt out onto the trail in front of the wolf, hoping to halt his mad dash through the woods. She recognized the scent immediately as NotPrey and sat down on the trail in a passive gesture. What was NotPrey doing running so fast? The question was clear by the lashing of her tail, the tilt of her head, and the look in her purple eyes.


Nick tried to stop gracefully as the cat appeared in front of him, but he was in too much of a dead sprint at the time, and instead found himself in a stumble, rolling forward. As soon as he regained his footing, the wolf was immediately back up on his hind legs, looking directly into the eyes of the large cat. Although there was a second of hesitation, the wolf brain wanting to establish dominance, it was still sidetracked by recognizing the familiar eyes. Nick's wolf-brain jumped back into its mission mode, and he was able to gain control long enough to shrink back down to his scrawny self. Upon hitting the ground, Nick held his hands up in front of him. Although he hadn't seen his friend in her larger form, he was willing to take a chance that he could get through to her. "Catseye?"




Catseye had been in cat form for longer than she'd ever spent as the mountain cat before, and when she shifted back into girlform, the hunger pains that stabbed at her stomach were worse than she'd ever experienced before, causing her to double over onto her side on the trail. "Owowowowow!" Tears of pain dotted the corners of her eyes and she let out a gasp.




Nick quickly rushed forward, swinging the bag from his shoulder into his hands, and ripping it open, spilling food everywhere on the ground as he kept rushing forward, his words a rush as he did so. "HereHereHereHereHere!" He began pulling several sandwiches out of his bag, cramming them all into one hand as he held them out in front of Catseye. Luckily he had remembered enough about their first conversation about switching forms that he knew to bring the bag with him.






After stuffing three sandwiches into her mouth in the space of under twenty seconds, Catseye's stomach stopped feeling like it was filled with knives and she stopped writhing on the ground. "Thank you Nick," she said gratefully. She ate a fourth sandwich more slowly, rolling onto an elbow and staring at Nick. "So Nick is finally seeing Catseye again? No more hiding?" she asked in an accusatory tone, remembering how frustrated she was with him.


"No I wasn't..." Nick began but suddenly a wave of emotions seemed to hit him all at once. "Do you have any idea how worried I was about you? I've been out here looking for you ever since Lex told me you you weren't in the mansion this morning, and I..." He stopped, taking in several deep breaths as he tried to find a way to connect all of his emotions. "I'm sorry I haven't come to see you recently Catseye, but please, if you ever are going to leave again, will you tell me where you're going?"




Catseye stared at him rather incredulously, chewing on a fifth sandwich. It wasn't as if she'd been lost! She just wanted time to think, about everything that had been going on, and about who and what she was. "If Catseye leaves, Catseye will tell where she is going if Nick is her friend but Catseye did not know if Nick was her friend or not."




"Of course I'm your friend Cats. It's just that..." He let himself fall down to a seat next to the girl, having to blow a strand of hair that had poked him in the eye away in the process. "...I've been confused about a lot of things recently." His eyes remained locked firmly on the ground as he began to fidget with his pockets. "But when I didn't know where you were this morning, I guess I kind of flipped out."





The girl narrowed her eyes at him. "Catseye is confused too. Catseye does not understand anything." She wasn't just talking about what was going on with Nick. "The woods are good for hiding and being alone for thinking." Or avoiding thinking by being a mountain lion, in her case. "Catseye is going to be alone until she decides if she is leaving the mansion." She wasn't exactly dismissing him, but he was part of the reason she was so confused and it was hard to figure out if she wanted to run away while he was with her.


"LEAVING THE MANSION!" He didn't mean for it to come out that loud, but it had hit Nick very hard. He found himself jumping up onto his feet, and quickly pacing back and forth in front of her. "You can't leave Cats. I'd go crazy without you here, What would make you want to leave?" He was rambling at this point, but he couldn't help himself, for the first time in the presence of Catseye, he was starting to lose control of his emotions.





"Catseye does not want to be here anymore," she answered simply. "Catseye does not understand how to be a human and when Catseye tries she only does everything wrong but Catseye learned yesterday that she is not a cat either. Catseye is nothing. So Catseye thinks she will run away."


Nick crossed his arms and began to pat his foot on the ground in front of her. "Well, if you're going to run away, you're going to have to take me with you. And I have to warn you, I'm not the best traveling partner." He was trying to control himself, but Nick was failing rapidly. His body was beginning to shake, and despite his best efforts to control himself, the boy was only seconds away from transforming.



"Nick cannot come!" she protested emphatically. "Nonono! With Nick Catseye does wrong things that upset people! That is why Nick doesn't talk to Catseye for days and days! Because Catseye confuses people and upsets them! Catseye needs to run away alone!"


The boy fell down to his knees, the transformation beginning, and him doing his best to stop it. "I can't let you just leave Cats! I can't..." The last came back as more of a growl than anything. He quickly pulled his eyes up from the ground, and thrust them towards Catseye. Nick made an impulsive decision at that moment, doing the only thing he thought could help him get control of the situation. With one last thrust of energy, he lurched forward, pressing his lips onto Catseye's.



Shocked, Catseye was unable to think of anything. Instinctively, she leaned into the kiss, tilting her head to change the angle of it, drawing Nick's lips more roughly against her own.


As Nick broke away from the kiss, he still didn't let his eyes leave hers. His body had stopped shaking, and he was fully in control of his mental and physical capacities. But that did not change that fact that he didn't regret what he had done. "Please don't leave Cats. How would I survive this mad house without you?"



"Nick would survive," she answered levelly. She wasn't trying to sound cruel, but she still had a cat's point of view on the subject, and took it literally. "The people at the BigHouse would take good care of Nick. Catseye does not take good care of Nick." She wasn't his alpha, after all. She wasn't the head of his colony. His survival didn't depend on her providing food or shelter.


He furrowed his eyebrows together upon hearing this. "Why would you say that Catseye?" He let himself turn his head to the side and look curiously into the eyes of his companion. "There isn't anyone else I can talk to. Well, except Shiro, and he would probably just either say that he's not the best person to talk to, or act all uncomfortable." He reached forward, attempting to take her hand into his. "You take much better care of me than you think."



Catseye pulled away from his attempt at holding her hand. "Holding hands is for couples!" she cried out, more emphatically than she'd intended. "Catseye does not think she takes care of Nick. Catseye thinks she only confuses Nick and Catseye."


"That's right, you do confuse me. You confuse me more than anything." The boy paused for a second, raising his eyebrow in the process. "But I think that the fact that you're confused makes you even more human. And gives you even more of a reason to stay here and not leave."



"No! Nonononono! Confusing is bad! Catseye is bad for confusing Nick more than anything! And Catseye does not want to be confused or be more human!" She jumped up from the ground and paced away from him. "Catseye just wants to be a cat again!"


Nick let his head hang down in frustration, obviously not knowing where to go from here. "Well all I can tell you is that I want you to stay, and I hope that you don't change. No more cat. No more human. You're unique the way you are." Letting out a sigh, Nick dusted off his pants, and shared one last look at Catseye. "But, one thing I'd like you to change, is starting to understand that a couple isn't such a horrible thing."



She didn't know what to say about his hope that she wouldn't change, so she let it go. "Nick doesn't want to be a couple or why would he hide from Catseye? And Catseye does not know if she wants to be a couple with anybody."


"I didn't really know what I wanted to be honest, and that's why I hid. I don't want you to feel like you're forced in to anything. But after you have some time to reflect like I did, maybe you'll come to a similar conclusion at the end..." He added a bit of hope to the last sentence.



"Nick came to conclusion that he doesn't know what he wants?" she asked, confused again. She wasn't sure if he was saying that time to reflect had made him know he wanted to be a couple, or that he didn't know what he wanted, which she recognized as a sort of conclusion.


"It gave me time to realize what I wanted." He said with a smile. Her questions no longer bothered him, just made her endearing. "And I know you're going through a hard time right now, but I'm not going to disappear again, as long as you promise me that you're not going to run off without telling me where you're going to. Deal?"





“Okay, Catseye will tell if she runs off,” she said with a nod. She was going to turn away, but curiosity held her back so she could ask about his realization. “What did Nick realize? What does Nick want?”


"You..." The boy turned, a smile spreading across his face.