xp_logs | Log: Forge and Catseye, noonish on Tuesday

Forge limped into his room and collapsed on his bed roughly. P.E. was not a class, he decided. It was an exercise in sadism. At least he had the rest of the day off. That much was a blessing. He looked down at his mechanical hand and frowned at the rope fibers caught in the palm. He was rather surprised that he'd actually been able to climb the rope, what with his mechanical limbs not getting tired, and easily being able to lift his weight. It was the slide down that he'd managed to thoroughly embarrass himself on and land on his ass in front of everyone. Managed to knock something loose inside the leg as well, and his balance sensor had been oscillating between not working and complete overcompensation, making him walk something like a drunken sailor.

Tossing his sweat-soaked shirt over in the general vicinity of his hamper, Forge reached under the left leg of his shorts and found the small catches that connected the prosthesis to the anchor that was surgically attached to the remnants of his left leg. A few quick toggles and screws, and he leaned back against the wall, mechanical leg laying on the bed beside him. The problem was immediately evident, one of the feedback connectors had bent from the impact. Good thing he had a spare.

Reaching down under his bed for the toolbox Dr. McCoy had bought him, he heard the small yet familiar "Mrr?"

The talk with Jay had set her to thinking and the return of Monday and classes had set her to protesting and in general, Catseye had determined that she was very unhappy about the entire notion of having to change into a human, though Hank still managed to get her to attend his classes, due to a devastating blend of cajoling and bribery.

Today didn't involve any of the Science for Children classes though as such, Catseye was in hiding. She'd managed to keep from lashing out at the sight of the hand reaching under the bed, as she usually did when in this frame of mind and hiding in quite this way, though it was really only the fact that she suspected Forge hadn't even noticed the last time that truly kept her from doing so. She hadn't been able to keep from vocalizing though, despite her very firm intent to stay here forever. And never come out again. "Mrr." She curled up a bit more tightly under the bed, backing up against the wall a bit more, sounding utterly miserable.

Curious, Forge hooked his toes over the edge of his mattress and flipped himself upside-down to look under the mattress. Despite the clutter, he could see the ball of purple fur hunched against a
wadded-up blanket. "Hey, Catseye," he chirped. "Skipped out on class, huh? Sure didn't miss much." He recalled the first day of P.E. class, seeing the awkward purple-haired girl fidgeting in the standard t-shirt and shorts that were the school's physical fitness class uniform.

"Yeah, sometimes I'd rather hang out under the bed instead of go to class, too, but you know we gotta," he announced, sitting back up on the bed and starting to disassemble the top of his prosthetic to make the necessary adjustments. "Besides, they're playing dodgeball next week. I get the feeling you'll like it."

A plaintive sound answered him, Catseye entirely unwilling to crawl out from under the bed just yet - Forge kept telling her she had to go to these classes, but he hadn't once tried to make her, which was a distinction Catseye could appreciate just fine. She pushed back by reflex a bit more, not getting anywhere at all and instead nudging one of the many widgets stashed under the bed a bit to the side as the wall refused to move. Shifting restlessly in frustration, Catseye curled her paws and hid her face in them, small muffled sounds escaping her as she tried to calm down somehow.

"Well, then again, you might not," Forge continued to carry on the one-sided conversation. He'd become quite adept at them over the past month or so. "I mean, sure, I might have a vested interest in watching some of the female classmates run and jump around, I mean, I'm a relatively normal - if kind of boring for here in that regard - teenage guy. Though I'll bet you probably could care less, unless some strange tomcat happened to wander into the gym." Forge paused at that. He knew Catseye thought of herself as feline before human - but there was an area he wasn't at ALL comfortable discussing. Thank God she kept most of her end of their conversations silent or through the journal system.

A low growl of annoyance interrupted his thoughts, incredibly enough soon followed by the bed surging upwards a few inches suddenly suddenly, Catseye indignantly shifting to human form despite her resolve not to do so unless it was absolutely necessary to give voice to what she thought about what he'd just said.

"Catseye doe-ooOOoooOW!" With a thump the bed fell right back down again, followed by a silence. A piteous meep indicated that Catseye was back to cat shape and clearly unhappy with her lot in life.

Swearing briefly, Forge scooped up the handful of small parts he'd been working on and placed them on his desk. Grabbing a large clean shirt, he tossed it over on the floor and discreetly turned his back. If Catseye needed to say something, he hoped she'd get the clue that it could be better said clothed.

After a moment Catseye reluctantly crawled out from under the bed with a pained expression, practically slinking up on a corner of the bed before shifting again - Forge has his back turned again, that thing he'd started doing the few times she changed in front of him since they'd fallen down the stairs. For someone who liked staring at human girls, he certainly didn't seem to actually do so when he had the chance, she thought, not feeling anywhere near well enough to be amused by the thought.

A moment to shift, quickly and she winced, holding her head. "Oooow. Catseye has no interest in strange toms." Though by now she was forgetting why it had been important to point that out, the ache from bumping her head underneath the bed so abruptly taking over most of her attention. With a sound of frustration she shifted back again, meowing sharply so that Forge would stop being so silly about things before curling up once more, trying to resist putting both paws on her head. She looked silly when doing that.

"Well, good to know, and-" Forge turned around then blinked, trying to figure out where the cat had gone. "You know, if I have to keep turning around every time you say something, I'm going to be too dizzy to find the tuna later." He finished making the adjustments to his leg, laying back flat on the bed to make the necessary connections before reattaching the prosthetic.

"Anyway," he continued, attaching wires and plugs by touch, "someone's gonna bitch about it sooner or later. Besides, there's all sorts of fun stuff to do as a human. Rope climbing, though, I think you'd probably enjoy more as a cat."

There was a very annoyed sigh at this. The constant chattering was making it hard to keep wallowing in misery and Catseye was starting to get distracted by the flickering of light on metal as he went about fiddling with the prosthetic limb. Catseye would hate rope climbing. It was more of a petulant thought than anything else, accompanied by a muttered sound of dissent. She felt clumsy in human shape, moreso when having to do more than just walk around or sit down. And P.E. required much more than the minimum of human motion, she knew.

She tucked her paws a bit closer to her body, deciding that the corner of the bed was a bit more comfortable then next to the wall under the bed. And a safer place to change forms in, considering that under the bed got her entirely squished. Her tail lashed to the side and then she carefully tucked it against her side, turning into an immobile catlike statue on the corner of the bed, thoughts still whirling. He was going to say something else which would make her shift before she stopped to think about it. She just knew it.

"And besides," Forge continued, hiking the leg of his shorts up to attach the prosthetic fully to the anchor, "they're supposed to have this big party in a few weeks, and there's probably going to be all kinds of good food there. Tuna, salmon, those little salted fish - but I'm pretty sure it's a two-legs-only thing..." He grinned at the ceiling, intentionally baiting the cat.

She knew that grin. With narrowed eyes she waited for that last particular clicking sound that indicated he was done, then shifted again slipping to sit on the floor. This time she grasped the edge of the bedcover firmly and yanked, six feet's worth of girl putting effort into it so that she could avail herself of something to wrap around her body and put a stop to the constant nose to the wall act he had going. That it ended up jarring him somewhat as the blanket vanished from underneath him was a perk, she decided.

"Anchovies. ShinyBitsBoy is making fun of Catseye." She glared at him, one hand holding the liberated bed cover in place so he wouldn't get stupid about her being in human form, the other rising to gingerly touch the top of her head.

Forge recovered from his sudden transition from supine to unintentional headstand and flopped with his head hanging over the end of the mattress. Unintentionally, this brought him almost nose-to-nose with Catseye. "Um," he answered. "Anchovies. Yeah. Those. Seem to recall you eating them all off of the pizza last week." Noticing something, he reached over to grab a cotton swab from his windowsill, then brushed it quickly over Catseye's forehead. "Did you know that you sweat a little when you change? Dr. McCoy would probably know more about that, because I've got an idea..." He shook his head, dropping the swab into a handy test tube and capping it.

Distinctly trying not to focus his attention on the girl lying half-under his bed wrapped in a blanket, Forge attempted to continue his conversation. "So you know, classes. They're not all just boring stuff. I know you've got a lot of catching up to do, but hey, you're pretty quick on the uptake." He paused, deciding not to add for a girl or for a cat to that phrase. While Catseye had no compunctions about clawing at him in feline form, he had no idea what she'd do in human form.

"Catseye is very clever," was the matter of fact reply. She was just pertinently aware that she was clever in cat things and not human things. And while this suited her just fine, she was not going to be very pleased if any of the humans started mocking her for not knowing what they thought she should know. It wasn't their place to be haughty about things like that. Not one bit. And she knew she would have to go to all the classes eventually - she just had no intention of making it easy on anyone in the process. And the final decision would still be entirely hers. That would be made clear as well.

Shifting a bit under the blanket, frowning as she banged a knee under the bed and glaring down at the offending limb for a moment, Catseye sighed irritably. "Legs are all wrong," she muttered, before doing another wriggle, trying to get comfortable while ignoring the fact that her human shape didn't quite contort in the same way. "Catseye is getting hungry now." That she'd missed a few meals in her sulking, despite Jamie regularly checking in on her, was being felt. And she wasn't as used to being hungry as before arriving at the mansion, too. She settled for tucking her free hand under her head, as she'd seen Jay do more than once. "What was ShinyBitsBoy's idea? Catseye is curious."

"Of course you're curious," Forge chuckled, "you're a cat. Just thinking of something that might make going to classes easier for you - you know, letting you go around as a cat more and only having to be human when you need to." In his mind, the chemistry equations he'd need were already falling into place. Mimetic polycarbonate esters, binary arrangement series - that much he knew he could do, he just needed the key and...

"Legs?" he was still a bit slow on the uptake. "Oh, right. Yeah, tell me about it. Try getting around on just one for a while instead of just two. I feel for you there, I really do."

A low purr of approval escaped her, the sound not quite the same in that shape but still there. Calling her a cat even when she was human had just earned Forge a lot of appreciation. The rest of what he'd said hit and said legs were banged again on the underside of the bed as Catseye made one of the 'cat using a human's throat' meeping sounds of surprise while trying to sit up abruptly and apparently entirely insensible to the pain all of a sudden. "ShinyBitsBoy will help Catseye stay a cat more and not have to be human so much because of the classes?!"

"Well," he said, "I'm not promising anything, but I think if you give me a day or so, I could probably have a surprise that might help out." He reached a hand down to scratch between her ears before realizing that she was in human form, and thus he ended up awkwardly palming her face. "Er, sorry."

Hugging him was her first response, though she held it in check - he was silly about her hugging him when human, she remembered and besides, being pet as a human wasn't quite the same as being pet as a cat. So instead she shifted back to cat shape and wriggled out from under the blanket to bump her head against the hand still hanging over the edge before hopping on the bed, purring loudly at him to show her appreciation. Catseye likes surprises! A lot!

Forge smiled, running his hand over the cat's back. "I room with a bird and a dog, one of my best friends is a cat, and inside - I'm a mouse," he mused. "Oh yeah, my life is a cartoon."