LOG: Forge and Catseye, Monday afternoon
Mar. 21st, 2005 03:40 pm![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
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xp_logsCatseye's earlier sabotage of Forge's systems is discovered, and it is not taken well. No, not well at ALL.
Forge frowned, hitting the quick-release catch on his prosthetic leg.
"That's odd," he mused, "you don't get stuck..."
And it never did. It was how he'd designed it, due to the medication
implant that delivered the medicine that controlled his panic attacks.
After the events of the weekend, the wounded being rushed in and out
of the medlab, he'd felt it activate - but something still seemed
weird. And now it wasn't opening properly. That would only happen
if...
Frowning, Forge took a screwdriver, unfastening an access panel on his
thigh and reaching in to feel for the internal release catch. A hiss
and a click, and another panel popped open, presenting the medication
implant for reloading.
Except that it was full.
"That's not right..." Forge hissed, extracting the ampoule of clear
liquid. It was designed with an integral syringe, that would inject
itself when the implant detected an oncoming panic attack. Only the
needle wouldn't work if it was bent nearly double. This definitely
called for investigation. Hauling over a magnifying lens, Forge
lowered his glasses and inspected the needle. Definitely didn't look
like a malfunction - the point of the needle was sharp. This had been
intentionally bent - but how? The implant was a part of him, something
no one else fiddled with. While he'd shown a few people how his
prosthetic worked, no one ever had the chance to touch the implant
except...
Palming the ampoule, Forge refastened the panels on his leg, threw on
a pair of pants, and stalked angrily out of his room and down the
hall. Reaching the other wing of the mansion, he found the door he was
looking for. Rapping his knuckles on it quickly to announce his
presence, he stuck his head in swiftly. Rahne was busy down in the
kitchen, and the room's only inhabitant was the purple cat lazily
stretching in a sunbeam. Seeing her, Forge narrowed his eyes.
Striding across the room in two quick steps, he grabbed the cat by the
collar and hauled her up briskly to his eye level.
"Human," he hissed through clenched teeth. "Now."
The sharp meow of displeasure at being so rudely woken up was cut
short as Catseye found herself hauled up, in a way she'd not been
since she was a small kitten in the streets. And while being held that
way still generated the very instinctual response to curl up so as to
be carried more easily, Catseye was in fact nearly to adult size - and
as such, being hauled up like that was far from a pleasant experience.
Most particularly so when it was from someone she'd never have thought
would do that.
As a result, the shift from cat to human was one of the fastest she'd
ever achieved, followed by a sharp motion involving shoulder and neck
which served to shake off Forge's hand. Hard. Eyes flashing with
irritation, she glared down at him, not backing down in the least.
"What is ShinyBitsBoy doing?"
"Being very, very angry with you right now," Forge growled, pacing
around the room so as to not be intimidated by the girl who he'd
forgotten stood a good head taller than him. "And confused, and hurt -
but mostly angry." He held up the bent ampoule of medication with an
accusing look. "This look familiar to you, hmm?"
If she'd had cat ears to flick back right now in disdain, Catseye
would have done it. Instead, her tail lashed tightly before going very
still, only the tip twitching now and then, and she looked down her
nose at the ampoule coldly. "Yes." So this was what this was
about. Well then. "Catseye knows what that is." She looked from the
ampoule back to him, straight in the eye and not in the least bit
ashamed of what shed done, not at all inclined to even consider hiding
it.
Forge blinked, irritated beyond measure at how blase she was about the
whole thing. "You... but the... and... do you know how much trouble
you could have caused?" He turned to throw the useless ampoule in the
trash can, listening to it crack sharply. "There are things that you
do not screw with, human OR cat!" he accused. "What if I'd needed it,
if something bad happened, and I froze up again? What if I panicked
and got hurt, or someone else got hurt? Did you think of that? Huh?"
"Catseye caused no trouble." It was so hard to hide the satisfaction
there, the knowledge that Forge had done just fine on his own, as
she'd known he would. She tried though, at least enough to not spark
him off further - though even that was oddly pleasing to see. "Catseye
thinks ShinyBitsBoy is only a mouse in his own head, but not anywhere
else. And it was about time ShinyBitsBoy figured that out." He'd done
just fine on his own, pushing too far and forgetting to eat
notwithstanding - he'd not panicked, not at any one given moment
during the weekend, even with the obvious tension in the mansion and
the hoopla in the middle of the early Sunday morning hours, which
she'd mostly ignored.
"I... but... that's not the point!" Forge wailed. "You don't get it -
I'm not LIKE you, or the rest of the people who can just let all this
stuff happen and be brave about it! It freaks me out, and then I
panic, then I can't breathe, and everything just freezes up, and I
become completely useless." He threw his hands up in frustration.
"It's just... you... ah!" he growled, "Everything was happening so
fast and if I'd have needed it, what then?"
"ShinyBitsBoy cannot live on whatifs all his life." What ifs changed
nothing and brought nothing good along with them and should generally
be erased from existence as far as Catseye was concerned. "No one is
like anyone else. Even Catseye knows this - and ShinyBitsBoy knows
there are more to things than just that." She'd had her share of
fears, now that she'd ever want to talk about them. Not even the ones
haunting her now - particularly not those. "And ShinyBitsBoy did not
need it." The smile nearly one over at that, though she managed
to keep it down to something that was trying to pass off as a scowl
and not truly succeeding.
There was no denying the girl had a point. "That's not the point!"
Forge persisted. "Just because you do something reckless and no one
gets hurt, doesn't mean it wasn't still stupid and..." he sighed with
resignation and fell back onto the bed. "Could you maybe have, I don't
know, SAID something instead of messing with my stuff? It's like,
maybe you thought it was a funny joke, but I could have been hurt,
Catseye. I can't really find that funny."
"It was not a joke." Relaxing a bit, Catseye stopped looming quite so
much, the instinctive reaction to a challenge she wasn't about to try
and sublimate overmuch. "Catseye knows the difference between cat
funny and human funny, too." Take a careful step sideways, edging a
bit closer to him, she linked her hands behind her back. Cat to human
'not a threat' gesture she'd found usually worked with most humans.
"Catseye was not sure ShinyBitsBoy was ready to let go on his own,"
she admitted, calmly. And trying to do that after talking to him about
it would have been much trickier.
"You don't know," Forge insisted, lacing his fingers together
in his lap and hunching over. "You don't know what it's like, being
this scared of everything that happens, having every little thing seem
like a tidal wave at times. And I know the meds are just something for
the symptoms. Doc Samson, he's been saying... we've been talking and
he's getting me to realize a lot of stuff..." He looked over at
Catseye, peering at her through his glasses, "but you don't know how
hard it is, trying to adapt and be like everyone else. Brave,
unflappable, confident. They all do it normally. Me, I need a chemical
cocktail to even cope."
Catseye walked over to stand by him, looking down for a long time,
before sitting next to him carefully. Her voice was oddly small in the
room and she stared out the window as she spoke, looking wistful.
"Catseye does not know?" Turning to look at him, the slits of her
pupils widening as she looked away from the light, Catseye waited for
a moment before going on, with an unfathomable expression on her face.
"Catseye does not even try. Because it is too big. And ShinyBitsBoy
has been trying to help so much, only if Catseye does that, if Catseye
gives in and somehow forgets one day about being a cat ...then
everything Catseye has known will turn out to have been a lie." She
blinked, though her eyes were dry. "Catseye is scared of that,
sometimes."
Forge thought for a moment, then got it. "You're talking about being
human. It's something new for you, isn't it?" He waited a while, then
put a hand over hers. "You and me both. I spent way too long thinking
I was alone and no one understood me, and just as long tricking myself
into believing I liked it that way. Now? Now I'm finding out
differently - and that scares me too."
The usual protest was swallowed down, unvoiced just this once. If
curling around someone's hand had been possible for a six foot girl,
somehow Catseye would have managed - as it were, she attempted it to
her very best, human shape notwithstanding. "Catseye just thought she
was alone, and that it was normal for all the other cats to get older
so fast." There had been one constant in her life - and she'd not seen
the Cat Lady since she'd made that call, and ended up at the mansion.
She should do something about that, somehow.
Thinking on that, Forge swallowed. Knowing the average lifespan of a
housecat, and how old Catseye seemed to be, it must have been like
seeing childhood friends age and grow old before you'd even reached
your teens.
"I'll say this, then," Forge offered, "No deal, just what we're going
to do, okay? I talk to Samson, see about getting a handle on my
damage. And you," he reached out to ruffle her hair affectionately.
"You stop worrying about being alone, because you're not. We're not
going anywhere. I'm certainly not."
She looked up at him for a while, the hair ruffled and left that way.
And then a small smile of agreement dawned, the slightest curl of her
lips, though there was a light in her eyes that spoke volumes. "Okay."
Sometimes, things were as simple as all that.
Forge frowned, hitting the quick-release catch on his prosthetic leg.
"That's odd," he mused, "you don't get stuck..."
And it never did. It was how he'd designed it, due to the medication
implant that delivered the medicine that controlled his panic attacks.
After the events of the weekend, the wounded being rushed in and out
of the medlab, he'd felt it activate - but something still seemed
weird. And now it wasn't opening properly. That would only happen
if...
Frowning, Forge took a screwdriver, unfastening an access panel on his
thigh and reaching in to feel for the internal release catch. A hiss
and a click, and another panel popped open, presenting the medication
implant for reloading.
Except that it was full.
"That's not right..." Forge hissed, extracting the ampoule of clear
liquid. It was designed with an integral syringe, that would inject
itself when the implant detected an oncoming panic attack. Only the
needle wouldn't work if it was bent nearly double. This definitely
called for investigation. Hauling over a magnifying lens, Forge
lowered his glasses and inspected the needle. Definitely didn't look
like a malfunction - the point of the needle was sharp. This had been
intentionally bent - but how? The implant was a part of him, something
no one else fiddled with. While he'd shown a few people how his
prosthetic worked, no one ever had the chance to touch the implant
except...
Palming the ampoule, Forge refastened the panels on his leg, threw on
a pair of pants, and stalked angrily out of his room and down the
hall. Reaching the other wing of the mansion, he found the door he was
looking for. Rapping his knuckles on it quickly to announce his
presence, he stuck his head in swiftly. Rahne was busy down in the
kitchen, and the room's only inhabitant was the purple cat lazily
stretching in a sunbeam. Seeing her, Forge narrowed his eyes.
Striding across the room in two quick steps, he grabbed the cat by the
collar and hauled her up briskly to his eye level.
"Human," he hissed through clenched teeth. "Now."
The sharp meow of displeasure at being so rudely woken up was cut
short as Catseye found herself hauled up, in a way she'd not been
since she was a small kitten in the streets. And while being held that
way still generated the very instinctual response to curl up so as to
be carried more easily, Catseye was in fact nearly to adult size - and
as such, being hauled up like that was far from a pleasant experience.
Most particularly so when it was from someone she'd never have thought
would do that.
As a result, the shift from cat to human was one of the fastest she'd
ever achieved, followed by a sharp motion involving shoulder and neck
which served to shake off Forge's hand. Hard. Eyes flashing with
irritation, she glared down at him, not backing down in the least.
"What is ShinyBitsBoy doing?"
"Being very, very angry with you right now," Forge growled, pacing
around the room so as to not be intimidated by the girl who he'd
forgotten stood a good head taller than him. "And confused, and hurt -
but mostly angry." He held up the bent ampoule of medication with an
accusing look. "This look familiar to you, hmm?"
If she'd had cat ears to flick back right now in disdain, Catseye
would have done it. Instead, her tail lashed tightly before going very
still, only the tip twitching now and then, and she looked down her
nose at the ampoule coldly. "Yes." So this was what this was
about. Well then. "Catseye knows what that is." She looked from the
ampoule back to him, straight in the eye and not in the least bit
ashamed of what shed done, not at all inclined to even consider hiding
it.
Forge blinked, irritated beyond measure at how blase she was about the
whole thing. "You... but the... and... do you know how much trouble
you could have caused?" He turned to throw the useless ampoule in the
trash can, listening to it crack sharply. "There are things that you
do not screw with, human OR cat!" he accused. "What if I'd needed it,
if something bad happened, and I froze up again? What if I panicked
and got hurt, or someone else got hurt? Did you think of that? Huh?"
"Catseye caused no trouble." It was so hard to hide the satisfaction
there, the knowledge that Forge had done just fine on his own, as
she'd known he would. She tried though, at least enough to not spark
him off further - though even that was oddly pleasing to see. "Catseye
thinks ShinyBitsBoy is only a mouse in his own head, but not anywhere
else. And it was about time ShinyBitsBoy figured that out." He'd done
just fine on his own, pushing too far and forgetting to eat
notwithstanding - he'd not panicked, not at any one given moment
during the weekend, even with the obvious tension in the mansion and
the hoopla in the middle of the early Sunday morning hours, which
she'd mostly ignored.
"I... but... that's not the point!" Forge wailed. "You don't get it -
I'm not LIKE you, or the rest of the people who can just let all this
stuff happen and be brave about it! It freaks me out, and then I
panic, then I can't breathe, and everything just freezes up, and I
become completely useless." He threw his hands up in frustration.
"It's just... you... ah!" he growled, "Everything was happening so
fast and if I'd have needed it, what then?"
"ShinyBitsBoy cannot live on whatifs all his life." What ifs changed
nothing and brought nothing good along with them and should generally
be erased from existence as far as Catseye was concerned. "No one is
like anyone else. Even Catseye knows this - and ShinyBitsBoy knows
there are more to things than just that." She'd had her share of
fears, now that she'd ever want to talk about them. Not even the ones
haunting her now - particularly not those. "And ShinyBitsBoy did not
need it." The smile nearly one over at that, though she managed
to keep it down to something that was trying to pass off as a scowl
and not truly succeeding.
There was no denying the girl had a point. "That's not the point!"
Forge persisted. "Just because you do something reckless and no one
gets hurt, doesn't mean it wasn't still stupid and..." he sighed with
resignation and fell back onto the bed. "Could you maybe have, I don't
know, SAID something instead of messing with my stuff? It's like,
maybe you thought it was a funny joke, but I could have been hurt,
Catseye. I can't really find that funny."
"It was not a joke." Relaxing a bit, Catseye stopped looming quite so
much, the instinctive reaction to a challenge she wasn't about to try
and sublimate overmuch. "Catseye knows the difference between cat
funny and human funny, too." Take a careful step sideways, edging a
bit closer to him, she linked her hands behind her back. Cat to human
'not a threat' gesture she'd found usually worked with most humans.
"Catseye was not sure ShinyBitsBoy was ready to let go on his own,"
she admitted, calmly. And trying to do that after talking to him about
it would have been much trickier.
"You don't know," Forge insisted, lacing his fingers together
in his lap and hunching over. "You don't know what it's like, being
this scared of everything that happens, having every little thing seem
like a tidal wave at times. And I know the meds are just something for
the symptoms. Doc Samson, he's been saying... we've been talking and
he's getting me to realize a lot of stuff..." He looked over at
Catseye, peering at her through his glasses, "but you don't know how
hard it is, trying to adapt and be like everyone else. Brave,
unflappable, confident. They all do it normally. Me, I need a chemical
cocktail to even cope."
Catseye walked over to stand by him, looking down for a long time,
before sitting next to him carefully. Her voice was oddly small in the
room and she stared out the window as she spoke, looking wistful.
"Catseye does not know?" Turning to look at him, the slits of her
pupils widening as she looked away from the light, Catseye waited for
a moment before going on, with an unfathomable expression on her face.
"Catseye does not even try. Because it is too big. And ShinyBitsBoy
has been trying to help so much, only if Catseye does that, if Catseye
gives in and somehow forgets one day about being a cat ...then
everything Catseye has known will turn out to have been a lie." She
blinked, though her eyes were dry. "Catseye is scared of that,
sometimes."
Forge thought for a moment, then got it. "You're talking about being
human. It's something new for you, isn't it?" He waited a while, then
put a hand over hers. "You and me both. I spent way too long thinking
I was alone and no one understood me, and just as long tricking myself
into believing I liked it that way. Now? Now I'm finding out
differently - and that scares me too."
The usual protest was swallowed down, unvoiced just this once. If
curling around someone's hand had been possible for a six foot girl,
somehow Catseye would have managed - as it were, she attempted it to
her very best, human shape notwithstanding. "Catseye just thought she
was alone, and that it was normal for all the other cats to get older
so fast." There had been one constant in her life - and she'd not seen
the Cat Lady since she'd made that call, and ended up at the mansion.
She should do something about that, somehow.
Thinking on that, Forge swallowed. Knowing the average lifespan of a
housecat, and how old Catseye seemed to be, it must have been like
seeing childhood friends age and grow old before you'd even reached
your teens.
"I'll say this, then," Forge offered, "No deal, just what we're going
to do, okay? I talk to Samson, see about getting a handle on my
damage. And you," he reached out to ruffle her hair affectionately.
"You stop worrying about being alone, because you're not. We're not
going anywhere. I'm certainly not."
She looked up at him for a while, the hair ruffled and left that way.
And then a small smile of agreement dawned, the slightest curl of her
lips, though there was a light in her eyes that spoke volumes. "Okay."
Sometimes, things were as simple as all that.
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*dies*
Date: 2005-03-21 10:28 pm (UTC)I am way too easily amused. Good log. Catseye messing with Forge's medication freaks the hell out of me, but good log none the less.