Nick and Cats: Out with the Doom Cloud

[x-wolfcub.livejournal.com]

For the first time in weeks, Nicholas Gleason finds his way out of his room. His first stop is to visit with someone very close to him in a familiar spot.



Throwing his back against one of the trees in the woods around the mansion, Nicholas Gleason pulled his coat in tighter around himself. As he let his breath out, he was the mist form in the air in front of his face. He couldn't help but smile a little bit. It may be cold in New York, but it still had nothing on Wisconsin. He let himself slowly slide down and hit the ground bellow him. After the incident during the theater production, the boy had become more and more of a ghost around the mansion. How could you face one of your fellow students when you almost ate one of them? He would never tell anyone, but the boy had actually broken from his normal routine. Instead of going out into the woods to be alone, deep in his heart, he was hoping that he wouldn't be alone for long.

Stalking silently through the trees, the purple housecat zeroed in on Nick's location and stealthily jumped from tree to tree. With a flick of her tail, she began her descent down the tree Nick had stopped against. Doing her best to make no noise, she climbed down onto a branch a few feet from Nick's head, then shifted into girlform and flipped over the branch, dangling upside down from her legs. Licking the tip of Nick's nose, she beamed down at him. "Found you!" she announced proudly.

A smile beamed across the boy's face. He couldn't help it. The girl was like his doom cloud repellent. "Just the person I wanted to see." The boy reached out with one hand, letting his thumb brush against her cheek for a second. "Sorry I haven't been around much lately."

The catgirl tried to execute a backflip off the treebranch and land on her feet next to Nick, but miscalculated the force it took to swing her human legs around and ended up falling onto her stomach, air escaping her lungs with a "whush", causing her to cough and gasp. "Ow," she muttered when she could breathe again, rolling over onto her back. "Need more practice."

Remaining on her back, she blinked up at the canopy of trees and grinned. "Do not be sorry Nick. Everybody needs to be alone sometimes. And then sometimes people need to stop being alone before they get too sad," she added pointedly, indicating that she felt Nick was at this stage. She'd given him space but his isolation was starting to concern her a little. "You should not be sad anymore Nick."

"I think that's the point I'm at." The boy leaned forward and kissed her softly before leaning back. Despite all the time he had spent with her, Nick still had a bad habit of losing himself in looking at her, and forgetting where he was. With all the horrible things that had happened to him over the last year, he still have expected that she would disappear if he didn't. Shaking his head back to reality, the boy coughed, hoping she hadn't noticed his trip to Lala Land too much. "So what has been going on in my absence, Ms. Trainee?"

"School. New people. Books. Training. The same things that always go on," the catgirl answered with a shrug, moving into a sitting position. "The school is always having the same things but the same things are always interesting," she commented. "Nick are you going to be a trainee when you are eighteen?"

Cocking his head to the side, Nick grinned. "I actually haven't thought of it." The X-Men had been the least of his concerns after what had happened with school, but he still remembered the awestruck feeling after his first sight of them in action around Shiro's accident. "But if I'm a trainee too, who's going to sit back here and have pastrami sandwiches ready for you when you get back from missions?" He cast another playful grin at the girl.

Catseye frowned, puzzling this out. "I do not know," she finally answered. "Nico? You should not decide to not be a trainee because of pastrami sandwiches Nick you should be a trainee if you want to help people and not worry about sandwiches and I think you would be a good trainee!"

The boy paused for a second. "There may be other ways to help people than being an X-Man. You never know." Looking back at the girl, he crossed his hands in front of his chest. "But I think it would probably be best if I think about that one for a while. After all, I don't want you to go out and have all those adventures without me." Brushing his hands across the girls face again, the boy leaned forward. "I was already worried enough when you went to help with the Jail Break."

"Yes there are manymany ways to help people," Catseye agreed. "Being in Red X or many other ways too. But I think it would be best if you were in the X-Men because yesyes then we can have adventures together!" She tilted her head at his last comment. "You should not be worried about me Nick. Being worried only makes you sad and I do not want you to be sad. And if I get hurt or die you should not be sad either. If I die you should be a couple with Yvette!" she suggested enthusiastically. "I think Yvette would like to be in a couple and I think you would make her very happy."

The boy threw back his head and laughed at this. Leave it to Catseye to make her own death a point of laughter. "I couldn't help but be worried about you Cats." He paused again, furrowing his eyebrows. He was happy that it didn't take him nearly as long to explain things to Catseye as when he first came to the mansion. It was so much more natural. "Think of it like this. Sometimes our hearts grow because you use them a lot. Like your other muscles do. I've used my heart a lot more because of you. If something happened to you, that little piece of my heart that grew because of you would hurt because it would always remind me of you." He paused for a second. "It's just like the pieces that hurts when I think about my mom and dad. But I'm happy it's there because it still lets me remember how much I cared about them too."

Catseye crawled over to Nick and hugged him around the side, resting her head on his shoulder. "I think that is the bestest way to think of a heart I ever heard Nick," she praised, nuzzling his cheek. She loved the way Nick made things make sense to her. "I think it is right that your heart hurts for people who are gone because then it makes living more special, just as long as you do not let all your heart hurt all the time and be sad forever, because that is not living. And," she added pointedly, "I think it is silly to be sad forever when people are not gone but you just feel guilty about something you might have done to make them be hurt or die." She poked him in the side to make her point.

"And If I die it is okay that you are sad when you think about me," she added, getting back to the previous point, "but you cannot be sad all the time especially not when you are with Yvette because that would make me want to thwapp you. But I will try veryveryhard not to die," she amended with a nod.

"And I thought the regular thwapps from you were scary enough, from ghost Cats it would be even scarier." Reaching out his hand, he let it wrap around hers in front of him. "But I don't think I could be with Yvette if something happened to you. I think she's special and all, but I don't think that I could ever find someone quite like you."

"No you could not because every person and mutant and cat is different," she told him sagely. "But sometimes different does not mean less special." Still, she waved off the topic, beginning to feel a little uncomfortable imagining what Nick would do in the event of her death. "So are you going to stop being sad about what you did not even do at the play now?"

"I can try. I think it's time for me to step out of my doom cloud." He smirked for a second. "As long as you're there with me for the first few days."

"Where else would I be?" Catseye questioned, honestly confused. "I am always with you Nick you know that! I think trying is veryverygood, because you did not do anything wrong and nobody is angry except maybe Julian but he is sillystupid sometimes and I can thwapp him for being angry at you if you want me to."

"Naw, I think I'm good with the thawapping for now." He turned his head to the side. "But how about this. How long as it been since I've taken you out for a date night?"

"Too long!" she answered with a grin. "We should go on a date, yesyesyes! Where should we go?"

Nick closed his eyes for a second. "Hmmmm." After a few seconds of quiet thought, it came to him. "How about we go out some place where we both feel comfortable? This weekend, why don't you show me around the zoo? I haven't been since I've been out here after all."

"You haven't been to the zoo?!" Catseye stared at him with a look of incredulity. "Yesyesyes we must go to the zoo! You have to see the big cats!"

"I'll go with you, but I doubt any of the big cats will be as cute as a purple one I'm used to seeing." With a final smile, Nick was happy that he was finally out from his doom cloud. At least for now.