xp_logs | Kevin and Sharon: The cat and the spy

xp_catseye posting in

After a personal appeal from Felicia, Kevin turns his attention toward the problem child.

Someone else had entered the room.

From her spot on the floor Sharon cracked an eye. She'd come for a quiet sunbeam in which to bask, and after all the trouble she'd gone through to find an empty room she resented the infringement on her space. The fact that, to Sharon, personal space was defined as whatever area she happened to want was immaterial. The tip of her tail twitched once, ominously.

Then she registered the details and realized the newcomer was not an intruder, but rather the reason the lounge had been so suitable for her needs.

Kevin ignored the cat in the sunbeam. It had happened before and was significantly less interesting to him than a tall bourbon and his newest trove of SHIELD intel. They'd wrapped up the President's national security briefings into it, principally written by a senior CIA executive that he'd trained decades ago and he was curious to see how the worldview had evolved. He found a seat in one of the leather chairs and settled in.

For a few moments Sharon lay unmoving, as if there were any chance the man would have failed to notice over a hundred pounds of purple cat sprawled in the middle of his territory. Kevin was another one she'd made a point of avoiding since her humiliating rescue, though she wasn't entirely sure why. Something about the way he always looked at her, maybe, as if he could just flick back the curtains she tried to draw over any secrets or insecurities. She was Cat; she should be the one who stared into souls.

Carefully, as if moving slowly enough might save her from his attention, Sharon rose and began to creep towards the door.

"Is it wet food time already?" Kevin said, not looking at her but making a point at checking his watch.

The cat's head snapped around. From Match the comment would have been innocuous, but Kevin said "wet food" in a way another man might say "baby bottle".

Kevin didn't say a word, matching her stare for a moment and then disregarding it, as he turned back to his documents.

Somehow Kevin being the first to break eye contact felt even ruder than the comment. Sharon's tail bristled, but she refused to take the bait. With a low rumble she turned around and once more began to slink towards the door.

"I told Clea to check your box. I know that's important to you." He said as she reached the door.

The bait, batted aside just moments ago, was too enticing to resist. Sharon turned to glare at him.

"These comments, there is a reason?" she asked. Her voice, unused for days now, was hoarse.

"Pets don't get reasons. You're a cat. Cats in mansions are pets." Kevin said, eyes not moving from his papers. "I'm reading about some incredible dynamic shifts in Iran's internal political polling. Cats don't care about that. They want treats."

"This is a problem, why?" Sharon snapped despite herself. "I am the best at being Cat. You may ask the others. I am the most useful."

"Are you?" Kevin said, looking past his file. "The cat got kidnapped. The cat needed people to save her. Sounds like the cat was kinda useless."

Sharon's body went hot beneath her fur. Her tail lashed. "Was not. We were taken when I was human, and then I could not change. If I had been Cat I could have fought, like the times before. Is because I was human that--" Sharon caught herself and growled.

"Is better when I am Cat," she muttered. "This I am good at. Is the other that is useless."

"I'm sure the crunchies fear you." Kevin flipped a page. "Events happen because of other events. Pretending that you're just a precious pet means you get none of that. You're someone who things happen to, not one that decides their fate. A pet." He paused and took a drink. "I hope it was everything you wanted."

"But things did happen to me!" The snap was high and sharp, with a vehemence that surprised even Sharon. "I was out with my friends only, and for this I was taken. Twice I was taken. Like fodder. Like prey. This is not my fault!"

"Could the cat stop it?" Kevin set his folder aside for the first time. "The human might have."

"I tried!" The cat sat on her haunches and pressed her hands to either side of her still-healing muzzle, ears flattened. "I tried, but the human was too slow. Too clumsy. Even Liam is faster. I fought, but I was too weak. Why should I want that form? It gives me nothing. Only weakness."

"The human could have seen it coming. The human could have seen the signs. It might not have." Kevin paused. "But the cat can't. Ever. So you might not see it but the alternative is you can never see it. Which is more comfortable for you?"

Sharon glared at him, unable to tell if he was mocking her. Out of her depth -- that was how she felt. How human things always made her feel. How it had felt to fight that hunter. She hated it. Hated it more than she hated the questions Kevin was asking her, and more than the answers she was being forced to consider. Her claws curled against her palms.

"Always I am told is better to be more human," she said bitterly, "as if this is so easy a thing to do. When I try I can do nothing right."

"It's an incredibly hard thing. But it is also something you hide from." Kevin said with a sigh and polished off his bourbon. He got up and went over to the bar to build another. "Felicia will gut me if I try and make you an operative before you're ready, but if you're willing to accept you're not just a cat, I can teach you to be a smarter human."

"I am smart." It was automatic petulance with no real anger behind it. Sharon dropped her eyes, unable even to look at Kevin's back.

"For you is easy," she muttered. "Many forms are yours. A face which disappoints you may simply discard. Only one face is mine."

"No. No one has one face." Kevin said, and for the first time, his tone was softer. "We all have many faces. The British call it the diplomatic face. Personally, it's what you do to do what you need."

"Different face, different armor. This is what Felicia said." Sharon stared at her hands as her claws worried at the carpet. Then, suddenly, her tail lashed.

"I do not even know what it is I must do," she blurted. "When I lived with my mother, that life I understood. Now she is gone and I am here, and things are expected of me that I do not understand. I am told being Cat is not acceptable, that I am to act more human. This I tried, but still I was taken to be hunted like an animal. Would it not have been better to be Cat then? It would have made no difference, except then I could have fought. How do I pick a face if I do not know what is needed?"

"You accept that you need to be taught. You need to learn, and whatever came before doesn't apply any more." Kevin took a sip and set down his glass. "If you want to be just a cat, Sharon, I can make that happen in a heartbeat. I know a place where you'll never need to shift forms, you'll be well fed and adored by the people there, and you won't have any doubts that being a human involves. Just say the word."

The cat glared at him unhappily. "Do you ever give a simple answer, Kevin Sydney?"

"Only to simpletons." Kevin said. "The world is complex. If you want to run away from that, you can. It doesn't bother me. If you want to face it, that's a decision you need to make."

For a moment the cat's ears pressed against her skull, but the gesture was brief. With a growl Sharon sat back, and flesh flowed.

She had not changed since her injuries -- first because the pain meant she couldn't, but then because she had not wanted to. Kevin was right: the cat was simpler. And, much as she hated to admit it, sooner or later, simple wasn't enough.

Now she resumed her human form with little more than a twinge of her cheekbone and tightness around the healed slashes. Wobbling only slightly from so long on four legs, Sharon got her feet under her and stood.

"Never run," said the girl, wild-haired and tail slashing purple behind her. She stared Kevin directly in the eyes. "Always get even."

"There are worse rallying cries." He said, and toasted his drink to her. "If you want to learn how to control your future, you need to find Felicia. Tell her what you want. She will be the start. Once you get to me, it's the masterclass."

The girl visibly deflated. "I am not good enough to learn from Felicia. What if I . . ." The sentence collapsed, but the words "disappoint her" hung in the space left behind.

"What if... if I didn't know you weren't a cat before, I'd know it now." He refilled his glass and sat back down. "There is not a label that people hold over every other animal other than 'what if?'. It paralyzes us. Young and old ask constantly. A cat doesn't. No one other than humans wraps themselves in a thousand knots over 'what if?'." He took a sip. "Or what could be? You're at a crossroads, kid. You're facing big questions and big decisions, and the cat isn't cutting it for answers. You talk to Felicia. You tell her what you think you want, and then listen to her - hard - when she asks you some fucking hard questions about whether or not it is what you really want. You be honest with her, because she'll know if you're lying. And at the end of the day, you trust that she's looking out for you. Me, I'm happy to turn you into an expendable operative for as long as you last, which is the last thing you want, so don't trust me for a second beyond talking to Fi."

"Felicia I trust." He had not answered her question. Someone else would have looked at what she had just been through and petted her head and reassured her, but no, not Kevin. Why did he never make things easy?

Exasperated but resigned, Sharon grumbled like a defeated tiger.

"You are a mean person, Kevin Sydney. If Felicia had not given you to me I would bite."

"You wouldn't have done it more than once." Kevin took a sip. "I'm a bad person. I'm extremely good at being a bad person. That's why if you want to learn... if you want to get better, you talk to Felicia."

The girl wrinkled her nose. It wasn't as if she didn't want to talk to Felicia, it was just . . . difficult, for reasons she couldn't entirely understand and the older man seemed disinclined to walk her through. Possibly this was to encourage what they called self-directed learning. Possibly it was just to aggravate her. Likely both.

"I shall speak with Felicia," she said at last. And then, because some things were in the nature of a cat, regardless of what Kevin said, she added, "But not because you said so."

"Of course not." Kevin said, his face neutral. He reached out and refreshed his drink.