Just follwed the kitty (Dante)

[Charlotte Greene]

Late. Very late. Likely after midnight, possibly some time after 1am. Charlie didn't like looking at clocks at night. Doing so only tended to introduce an element of panic into the already hopeless and tedious act of trying to sleep. Instead, if Charlie couldn't manage to get back to sleep she would get up, sneak out of her dorm, and walk for a while. Aside from 'away from where monitors were likely to be' she had very little direction in her wanderings. The purpose of the walk wasn't the journey or the destination, it was to loosen up sore muscles and wait out the aches that developed from putting her wings away. It was rare that Charlie could fall asleep on her stomach unless she'd just woken up. It felt wrong for whatever reason and it was exceedingly difficult to get comfortable.. so after having fallen asleep on her back, waking to aches, and falling back asleep wings-out on her stomach, Charlie needed to move around a bit to settle her muscles.. And that's what she was doing late at night on a typical Wednesday.

Tonight, though, there was a bit more direction than usual. Tonight there was a kitty.. Charlie had never owned a cat (nor any other pet) but she did like small animals and if there was a kitty out in the chilly air, surely it would appreciate someone to keep it warm for at least a little while. So she had followed at a distance, occasionally rotating her shoulders or leaning forward to stretch the muscles in her back. Walking around half-asleep could make it easy to lose track when there was no objective, let alone when there was a kitty to follow, and so Charlie was only half surprised when she realized that she was at the training fields. She hadn't been out here before, and didn't particularly care about them, but she was curious how differently the area would look bathed in sunlight instead of the cloud-obscured light from the moon.

If there was one positive to walking around at night, it was likely that Charlie's semi-transparent wings were that much harder to see.. and even if she felt them just as much as usual, perhaps she could be judged first without them instead of having the giant green butterfly-looking things be what everyone saw, with Charlie herself simply attached to them. Of course, absorbed in her thoughts as she was Charlie wasn't paying much attention to the person the cat had stopped next to.. and until someone said something she was quite likely to remain in her own half-asleep world, silently pacing toward the kitty she had followed nearly all the way from the dorms.

[Dante Russo]

Dante was laying on the grass in the middle of the training field. Smoking a cigarette. Watching the stars. He'd been amazed when he first got here. There was almost no light pollution. In the city, the sky never got truly dark. He'd seen pictures of starry skys, but he'd never actually seen one until he came to Vermont. He liked it.

Then suddenly there was a cat blocking his vision, sniffing at his cigarette. "Whoa, hey kitty," Dante murmured, shifting his cigarette to his other hand and holding it away from the cat. "You dun want any of that," he said softly, petting the cat's head.

Following the cat not too far behind was a person. A girl, Dante thought, judging by the silhouette. "Hey," he said a touch louder to get her attention. The cat crawled onto his chest. "This your cat?" Dante grunted as the cat continued walking on him. "Yo, cat. Either lie down or get the fuck off me with your stabby feet, aight?" The cat looked at him, then proceeded to just stand there on his stomach. "Okay, that's not gonna work for me." Dante held his cigarette between his lips and sat up, lifting the cat in the process and setting it on the ground in front of him.

[Charlotte Greene]

On full auto-pilot, Charlie had actually been basically dreaming while walking.. Going from images in her head of being a stick figure with huge wings to being a simple butterfly, floating on the breeze toward a meadow.. except that there was talking even though there were no people around.. and the kitty had climbed up onto a smoldering rock. She was worried it would burn it's feet if it wasn't careful, and had continued toward it... Then the rock sat up and set the cat down, and Charlie blinked several times, more than a bit surprised to find some guy in front of her smoking a cigarette.. It surprised her so much, in fact, that her wings fluttered.. which only surprised her more. "Oh no! D-don't breathe until I figure out where the wind is going! I don't want you to get dusted!"

She would frantically lick the back of her hand, holding it up in the air (regardless of what the boy on the ground was doing) and rotating around for a moment.. then heaved a relieved sigh. "You're safe. You're upwind.." Wait, where the crap was she? "Um.. Did.. did you just ask me a question? I'm not dreaming, am I?" She stopped and pushed on her left palm with two fingers from her right hand.. "..Nope.. I'm not dreaming.. Why is there a boy in the middle of.." She glanced around.. "A.. field.. smoking a cigarette petting a cat? Am I still at Hammel? I gotta start setting alarms when I'm taking walks at night.. I have no idea where I am or what time it is...."

Of course, Charlie was again slowly approaching the cat (and the boy).. still sleepy.. only now adrenalined and sleepy, thanks to the scare she'd had. She was still trying to figure out why there was a smoldering rock.. and where it had gone.. and where the cigarette had come from.. and a lot of other things, honestly.. but not putting any real effort into any of them.. because that's how sleepy logic worked. None of this was as important as catching up to the kitty, and so Charlie would figure it all out after she was petting the kitty.

[Dante Russo]

Dante stopped breathing and rose an eyebrow at he girl while she checked the wind. Dante had never been dusted before, and he had no desire for an impromptu drug trip right this second. Unexpected tripping was unpleasant, and often alarming. So Dante waited until she said it was safe and took a drag on his cigarette.

He glanced down at his lap as the cat climbed into. Cats really liked him. Fortunately, the feeling was mutual. Dante rested a hand on the cat and looked up at the apparently confused girl who'd stumbled upon him. She asked a ton of questions in a row and Dante just blinked at her.

God. She was one of those ditzy, chatty bitches. Wonderful.

"Okay," he said slowly, unsure if she was finished rambling or not, "first of all, I asked if this is your cat." Dante lifted the cat with one hand and held it out to the girl. She appeared to be following it, and she was still creeping closer, so maybe she'd go away if she got her kitty?

[Charlotte Greene]

Suddenly the kitty was in midair and Charlie stopped and stared for a moment before grinning and shaking her head. "No, it's not mine. I guessed it was a stray, and I was following it. I have a hard time sleeping so I go for walks.. Loosens up muscles and stuff.. Or.. it does something that makes my back hurt less.. I dunno who's cat it is." It certainly seemed friendly, though. Maybe it belonged to someone on campus? From this angle it didn't look like it had a collar.. Of course, the desire to see better had her stepping closer again.. and she would stop, then fold her legs to sit with them crossed five or seven feet away from the boy and the cat.

"I think it likes you. I followed it all the way from the dorms and it never tried to come to me.. but here it is.. Hehe.. just relaxing while you're holding it. Aww.. You're cute. Or.. the cat is cute? I shouldn't be telling random people in the middle of a field in the middle of the night that they are cute. Or do you mind? Am I allowed to call you cute?" Apparently dude didn't mind that Charlie was a pixie.. At least that was good. She wasn't entirely in control of her mouth, though.. Or entirely awake.

"Do you come out here all the time? I haven't actually been out here before.. I guess kitty knows the way though. It lead me straight here. Or.. I think it lead me straight here. I was pretty zoned out.. These wings make it really hard for me to sleep.. so I don't get a lot of sleep.. I put them away but my back cramps up.. and I can't sleep on my tummy. Pixie wings is a stupid meta thing.. Why couldn't I be able to turn into a kitty? Or.. or read minds or see the future or.. do any other thing besides have these wings? .. I used to like fairies and stuff when I was little.. Now I think they were just laughing at me cause they knew I was gonna be one of them.. Only instead of Tinkerbell with her magic dust, I make people trip out and hallucinate. It's like a crummy joke I gotta live with. Hey, what do you do? Are you a meta? ... Am I talking about meta things to a non-meta? I still don't even know if I'm at the school... Huh."

[Dante Russo]

Holy rambling bitch from hell!

Dante scooted away from her a bit when she sat down, and placed the cat between them. To her, it might look like he was sharing the cat, but really the cat was a barrier. He really didn't want her reaching into his lap to pet the damn kitty.

"No, you're not allowed to call me 'cute'," Dante said firmly, flashing her a threatening glare over his cigarette. He wasn't trying at all to hide his irritation. He had come out here for some solitude and reflection, not to chat with a girl who, from the looks of it, probably couldn't remember her own name.

"You're still at the school," he grumbled, becoming more and more agitated by the second. God, this girl just talked for-ev-er. If she didn't leave on her own soon Dante was going to get mean. He didn't want to find another spot. He liked this one. Of course, if she didn't go away he wouldn't have a choice. He could always go behind the dorm building. But really, she'd already ruined this particular ritual.

It went: bad dream, glass of water, sneak out for a cigarette and watch the stars. None of that involved other people. Especially talkative chicks.

[Charlotte Greene]

"Ooh, Kitty!" Once Dante put the cat down, Charlie would lean forward and scoop it up, immediately returning to a seated position and cuddling the kitty like it was her own.. Holding it against her chest and neck, nuzzling, petting with her free hand.. all of the typical things people do with affectionate kitties. "Herro Mister Kitty. You are a very nice stray, yes you are.. Purrpurr." She went back to hugging and nuzzling and petting the kitty for several moments before she even bothered to respond to Dante.

"Well then I'm sorry for calling you cute, and if we both go to school here, my name's Charlie. I have huge green butterfly wings and fail at being ignored by people, so you maybe have seen me around." She was still petting the kitty, of course, and at the very least aught to look pretty nonthreatening, what with her slim and tall figure and being hunched over loving on a cat at the moment.

"Do you have trouble sleeping too? I have some pills that some doctors gave me. I think they're generic Ambien or something. You can have them if you think they might help you." No.. it wasn't entirely ethical to be offering prescription medication to someone else.. but the pills had stopped working for Charlie when her wings had popped up. They just lead to her sleeping through her pain tolerance and then waking up in mild agony. She didn't take them anymore.

But this boy didn't seem .. uh.. overly social. Or happy. Had he been sleeping before she showed up? Had she woken him up? Was he just mean? Did he not like her because she'd almost dusted him? She had warned him and everything and made sure he was safe as best as she could.. No matter. Kitties made everything better, especially when you were also making the kitty better by warming it up on a chilly night. Suddenly Charlie wondered about the implications of putting out food for a cat.. say, near the entrance to the dorm building. Maybe she would ask a teacher if she was allowed to.. Kitties were cool, and this one (despite not having a collar) was remarkably clean and well mannered. At least that made one of her current companions well mannered.

[Dante Russo]

Dante braced against her cutesy kitty talk. That had to be the most annoying sound a girl could make. Fucking baby-talk. He was having a hard time resisting the urge to reach out, grab the cat, and throw it so that she would chase after it.

The girl yammered on, telling Dante her name and announcing that she had green butterfly wings. He remembered seeing her around now that he thought about it. Not that he cared. To him, she was just a part of the background, and he wished she would have stayed there.

"I don't want your pills." Dante's tone was getting a bit clipped. The reason he had trouble sleeping was because of nightmares, so he really didn't want to take something that might make waking up difficult. "And you're actually interrupting the thing that works for me right now." He rose an eyebrow at her, wondering if that was enough to make her split.

If he didn't have to exert extra energy to make her go away he wasn't going to. Charlie would be wise to just take off at this point, though. Because Dante was feeling the opposite of friendly. He was a little OCD when it came to his coping mechanisms. As it was, he'd still have to burn another cigarette after he got rid of her. He needed his rituals to go uninterrupted, or they were useless.

[Charlotte Greene]

Hm. It was kinda neat how easy it was to feel angst and anger and .. whatever else this boy was radiating.. when it was cool out. It was a stark contrast to the happy chill content kitty feelings.. and the ones Charlie herself was putting off. Yeah, this kid was quite obviously growing very angry and upset and.. who knew what else.. but it didn't taste good, if one was to follow the metaphor. "Bitter." Charlie nodded to herself. This kid was bitter.

"If I'm interrupting you, you should have just told me you didn't want company and asked me to leave you alone." She stood in place, setting the kitty down. It had walked to him, something about him must have attracted it.. she didn't want to ruin the kitty's night like this person was trying to ruin hers. "But since you don't seem to want to ask, I will wish you a good night and be on my way." .. And Charlie would be.. with a yawn and a stretch she would head back in the direction she had come from.. or.. what she thought was the direction she'd come from. Not only was she still sleepy and disoriented, standing up as fast as she had gave her a bit of lightheadedness.. and by the time she was out of sight she had decided to sit back down for a few minutes to get her bearings and let her eyes readjust to the ever-changing light. Stupid clouds.

(Perhaps) unfortunately, the place she had decided to sit down and rest for a moment had been right around the corner from where Dante had been laying.. and if he took the direct path to the dorms he was bound to all but step on her.. as Charlie had fallen asleep sitting up mere seconds after she'd sat down and leaned against the wall.. And as it sat, was dreaming about a grumpy smoldering rock grinding against something all angrily. In this context, it was actually rather funny to watch, and snoozing Charlie had a light smile on her face as she quietly wheezed in the brisk midnight air.

[Dante Russo]

Oh good. She wasn't a complete moron. Bitch could take a hint. Thank god. Charlie stood up and left Dante with the cat before she wandered off.

Dante finished what was left of his cigarette and put it out on the bottom of his shoe. Then he pulled another from the pack and laid down again, staring at the sky. The cat settled in on his chest and purred quietly.

Dante savored his cigarette while idly petting the stray that had apparently decided his chest was a good place to sleep. The silence was even better now in comparison to the annoyance that'd just passed through. With each inhale of smoke he let his tension ease away.

By the time he finished his hands were ice cold, and he was starting to shiver. Dante sat up again, moving the cat gently to the ground. He tucked his cigarette butts into his pack and got to his feet. Dante always threw his filters in the trash in the dorm common area, instead of leaving them littered around the grounds for the staff to find. He didn't need to give the school any reason to be extra vigilant about rule breaking. He broke the rules all the time.

Dante walked back toward the dorms and stopped with a short sigh when he saw Charlie. He considered, for a moment, just leaving her there. But.. He wasn't really a bad person. It was starting to get pretty cold at night, and Dante knew how crappy it felt to wake up after sleeping outside all night. So, with as grumpy an expression as he could muster, Dante shoved his hands into his pockets and walked up to Charlie. He kicked her with the toe of his shoe. Not hard, just enough to jostle her.

"Yo! Wake up!"

[Charlotte Greene]

In Charlie's dream, the smoldering rock had become a bit of an earth elemental, and was pacing restlessly as if guarding something.. until it walked over to dreamCharlie and stared at her.. then with what looked like a sigh it reached one rock back and threw it forward, smacking into dreamCharlie hard enough that it woke Charlie straight out of her dream as she jumped and blinked, tryign to figure out what was going on.. Of course, then the boy from the field started yelling at her and Charlie's gaze drew directly and instantly to his, her eyes huge and full of fear as she stared up at a very, very unhappy face that she couldn't quite distinguish..

She would remain panicked into stillness for several moments before finally shaking her head and shoving off of the ground away from him to press against the wall. "I left you alone like you wanted, what now? Why did you wake me up? I was asleep... It's so hard to sleep..." And in the groggy just-woke-up state she was in, Charlie' eyes glistened with tears. "I could have at least slept for half an hour.. Now I gotta go back to my room and stare at the wall for hours..." She.. sounded genuinely sad about this.. "You couldn't just tap my shoulder or say something, you kicked me and yelled! I'll be lucky if I get back to sleep at all.. Why are you so mean? I haven't done anything to you at all! I was nice."

While no longer pressing into the wall, Charlie was still leaned heavily against it and looked heartbroken and sad. "I should probably thank you for not letting me sleep out here in the cold.. but you just.. did it in the worst way." She would bury her face in her hands for a moment, then take in a deep breath and let it shakily back out. "Fine. Thank you. I appreciate you not wanting me to get pneumonia. Just.. do whatever you were doing. I don't want to interrupt you anymore." And with that she would turn and start walking as a somewhat fast pace back toward the dorms. The fact that she was walking toward the dorms was sheer coincidence, as she'd just chosen a direction and started moving in it.. but it was a convenient coincidence at least.

[Dante Russo]

Dante cringed against her whiney, groggy, just-woke-up voice. The sound made him want to actually hurt her. Dante took a step back and glared. In true New Yorker fashion, he began retaliating even while she was still talking.

"Hey, I woke you up because it's cold out here, and sleeping on the ground sucks! But whatever, sleep the fuck outside if you want! See if I care!"

"...do whatever you were doing. I don't want to interrupt you anymore."

"Oh, well since I was trying to go back to bed without getting scolded by a crazy bitch.. Y'know, good fucking job on that one!"

In the pocket of his sweatshirt, Dante's hands were balled into fists. He was just trying to be nice and not let Charlie spend the night outside. He wasn't a stranger to being harassed immediately upon waking someone, but it still made him angry as hell. Sure, hew as a little rough sometimes (most times), but some appreciation every now and then might go a long way in making him less of a dick. But no. It seemed like every time he was trying to do something nice, he got head bitten off.

Whatever. Fuck it! Oh, balls. He had to follow her. He was freezing outside, and he wasn't going to wait around for her to get ahead of him.

[Charlotte Greene]

Charlie whipped around like Dante had just slapped her and glared.. looking strangely intimidating with her giant green butterfly wings. "Yeah?? Well if you were doing something out of genuine concern for someone, why did you have to be a total jerk about it? Do you just want people to not like you? Is that it? You want fights?"

Of course, immediately after seeming to grow a backbone, Charlie went wide-eyed and covered her mouth with her hands, blinking several times. "I.. I didn't mean to say that! I-I swear! I'm just tired and cranky and I didn't want to argue or yell at you or anything I'm just exhausted because I can't sleep... Just.. Look, thank you for waking me up. Sleeping outside would be really bad when I woke up and I would probably get sick and I appreciate it I just really have a hard time getting to sleep and I am sorry and I didn't mean to be mean and you don't deserve it and I was in the wrong and I am sorry just please don't yell at me and I will go away and not bother you anymore and you can sneer at me or call me names later if you want I don't care just please don't yell at me. I messed up, this is all my fault, and I am sorry."

She would then turn 90 degrees and take a dozen or so steps.. so as to get out of Dante's way so he could head to the dorms in front of her instead of having to walk behind her.. then turn to face him again. "You can go ahead. I've already inconvenienced you and I promise not to fall asleep out here again and you have been out here longer and you should go ahead of me." Charlie would cross her arms with her hands firmly clamped against her chest.. as at this point her hands were quite cold as well and she hadn't realized it until she'd put them near her mouth and felt how warm her breath was on her fingers. "Please?"

[Dante Russo]

"Yeah?? Well if you were doing something out of genuine concern for someone, why did you have to be a total jerk about it?

Dante threw his arms out to the side. "What did I do!? What the hell did I do!?" Really, he wasn't sure this time how he'd been mean. He could say a lot of really nasty things, sometimes without meaning to. But this? He hadn't kicked her hard, and what she called "yelling" was a joke! She hadn't heard him yell yet, and she really didn't want to.

Ugh, but then she was on to the apologizing stage. Dante set his jaw and unconsciously leaned back a little. He really, really hated when girls did that. He could take all kinds of being bitched at by girls, but crying and begging? No. Just no.

"Alright, fine," he said when she told him to go first and moved out of the way. He walked past her and muttered, "you have issues."