oh, i'm gonna mess this up [p] oh, this is just my luck

[CATALYST]

They weren't normally a nervous person. Anxiety was something that they felt very rarely, yet now their palms were sweating. They had flirted with people before, gone home with near strangers once or twice, but it was so... meaningless. Just a way to pass the time that would surely just be forgotten. Maybe some people would say the same about dates, but not Cat. This was significant, this had to go right.

From the get go, this had been a disaster. After that night in the garage, chatting with Eos and flirting with him until their car was done, they'd hung out a few times. Yes, with more flirting, but nothing serious. Nothing meaningful. Except in that every time they parted ways, Cat was unable to accept that they wouldn't converge again. So they always made sure it did, and eventually, they had made up their mind. They were going to ask him out properly, for a real date, and if he said no... Well, they supposed they'd just fuck off into oblivion then. (Thanks for toying with them, Orenda. Really appreciated.)

Before they even could get to the asking part, they had to figure out what the date would actually be. Not easy for someone that had almost no concept of what romance was or what an acceptable first date would be. But then they had noticed something at the mall... there were a lot of couples there. Wait a second, that sounded perfect. Kind of casual, gave them stuff to do (stuff that Cat personally loved doing) and places to eat. Not to mention if it went bad, they could just focus on the shopping.

Then it came time to actually ask him. Asking him to go to the mall had been easy enough (he said yes), but specifying that it was a date was a bit trickier. Cat was actually genuinely surprised when his answer didn't change, and for a moment the surprise and happiness slipped past their calm and collected facade, where it stayed for a good several seconds on their face before they were able to reign it in.

That whole time, from meeting him to asking him out, they had been doing their damndest not to read him. That meant next to no eye contact and spending a great deal of willpower suppressing powers that tended to just act on their own. The one time that they had failed was when they asked him out and felt the flare up of confliction and excitement. The latter was good, but they had no idea what to make of the former. To be honest? They were too scared to ask.

Not that they should. He still didn't know what they could do. I have to tell him. He needs to know. It wasn't right for them to try start a relationship with someone that didn't know that they could read minds and innately sense what he felt about them. Talking about it with anyone was hard, especially after the whole thing with Mourningstar.

Still, all things considered, the disaster had been... minimal. They had communicated that this wasn't just a trip to the mall but a romantic outing, and Eos had still agreed. It wasn't smooth, but it was real. There was, unfortunately, a new problem. Cat had arrived to pick him up in a Challenger, wanting to impress him with the nice car (though considering his job and who he worked for, he was well aware that they drove nice cars) but within minutes of heading out, he had fallen asleep.

Well. Shit. They had tried to make conversation, but maybe it had been boring or just wasn't enough. Maybe Eos had been up all night before or something (he did work nights, after all, but Cat had tried to schedule it so it wouldn't be hurting his sleep schedule), or maybe this was all some kind of trick. They focused on driving until they got to the mall.

Once they managed to find parking, they looked over at Eos, still asleep next to them. They took off their seat belt. "Hey. We're here." They almost felt bad for waking him up. He looked so peaceful and beautiful in his sleep. But what else could they do? Wait until he woke up on his own? Who knew how long that would take. Besides, wouldn't it be kind of creepy to just sit and watch him sleep until he eventually woke up on his own? They were overthinking this.

[dame]

track on my main wesrdftgh

[aureate]

[align=center][div style="width: 500px; text-align: justify; font-family: calibri; font-size: 9.2pt; line-height: 1.4;"]also a quick track on my main as i write!

[eos]

[align=center][div style="width: 500px; text-align: justify; font-family: calibri; font-size: 9.2pt; line-height: 1.4;"]cw: past transphobia, mentions of domestic and child abuse, abusive relationships in general

The last time Eos had been on a date? Pretty much never.

His life had always been this... roller coaster. First he was too young and fragile, too unsure of himself in a world that demanded a sort of confidence. Something that he found hard to muster when he was too busy living life under the thumb of parents that shouted and told him to stop asking for a haircut. On their better days, his mother would sit him down and explain that sweetie, you're beautiful the way you are; don't you know that? It had always made him feel so guilty. Like he was ruining something that he had no right to change. As he got older, he got angrier at that way of thinking. Slowly, Eos realized that they were the ones who had no right to his body, to his existence. He would shout back when they yelled at him, hold a dirty kitchen pan in one hand when his dad was drunk and lumbering, that empty bottle held by the neck in a grip so firm it could shatter it.

No more bowing his head. But even after he got out of there, after doing things that he doesn't dare tell anyone about, he was more broken than he can put words to. He had spent too long in the dark to know what to do with the light, and if it weren't for the luck of good company and great friends, he would have ended up in a place he couldn't come back from. While they were still a rowdy bunch, breaking windows and climbing construction work, they needed him as much as he needed them, and he'd had the time to heal. To fix himself, piece by piece. It was a bit of work that would never be completed, for various reasons. Eos is fairly certain that he would always remain this shattered. You couldn't fix someone's memories.

And that's okay. Really, it is. He's made peace with his history and all of its fucked up happenings, even past the friends and the loss of them. Bad relationships and a bad person that he loved — thought he loved. One of his most vivid memories is still of kneeling by him and watching him bleed, crying into his shoulder and feeling so tempted to stay there and bleed with him. Maybe he's glad he didn't, or maybe he's not. It's hard to tell some days, but with time and distance he's learning to untangle those feelings. Whatever that man made him feel, it wasn't sweet or gentle. Maybe he needs that, now. Something gentle, with someone that will hold his hand. But as he already mentioned, he's never done this before. Never tried to be sweet. It was thrilling and terrifying, and he'd spent way too long worrying about it. Cat didn't seem to be that judgmental of a person.

Definitely not enough to worry himself like this. He thought he'd be keyed up the entire ride, but something about the seats and the smell of leather and that soft rumbling purr had him melting. In just a few minutes, he was almost curled up in a slightly unsafe way, his head by the window. He feels safe like this, wrapped up and warm, and that's — he can't call it new, but it's close, and it's certainly new with Cat. It's probably a good sign, except he's asleep on the way to their date.

Hopefully they don't give up on him for this.

Their soft words jolt him awake some, a sleep-heavy, "Mm?" betraying some of his confusion as he arches and unfolds himself with a hand carding through soft blond hair, sharply ignoring the pink tinge to his own cheeks once he's awake enough to recognize it. It only grows a little warmer then. "Sorry, that —" Eos covers his face with both hands as he yawns "— that's not a great impression for a date. I just —" Why does he feel like he has to explain himself? Probably because he actually cares about what they think of him. "— it's just the car. Like a really big cat." Or a lion, really.

[CATALYST]

//idk what to tag this as,, tw for misgendering/dismissal of third genders? also mentions of using people

No one had ever tried to tell Cat how they were allowed to express themself. Who would? Molly? Nothing they did in her presence had been objectionable. The fae? Any strangeness they possessed, their hosts chalked up to them being human. They didn't care to correct the behavior, and it's not like they were doing anything wild yet. Ah, Derick. He didn't tell them how to express themself or not, but he certainly shaped the way they did. He'd been the one to change their name, and over time everything else fell into place too. They became someone new, someone no one would dare question. A demigod that could easily seal your fate.

But just because no one tried to dictate their hair or their clothes or anything, didn't mean they were completely unable to empathize with Eos. There were different levels to it, of course. It wasn't exactly one to one. Eos was a trans guy that presented as male, Cat was an agender person that saw no reason to try and appear androgynous. To speak only for Cat, being called "he" and "sir" was something that happened pretty much daily, though of course always with an irritated correction. Maybe they shouldn't be so annoyed; not everyone was a mind reader, and there were no physical clues as to their true identity. It was grating, frustrating, and matters were only made worse when some individuals claimed that you could only be male or female.

Fuck off.

Truth be told, they had only ever had one crush before Eos. It had been on their best friend at the time, their rock, a person they could never imagine hurting them up until the moment when it became the only thing they could imagine. Whether their fear was based in reality or not didn't matter. They couldn't be with someone they were scared of, not as a friend or a lover. So they cut it off. They didn't look back. And now, they've moved on.

The truth was, they were a judgmental person. Sometimes they judged you on the right things, sometimes not. They'd judge you for trying to control others, for using and abusing, even when there were moments when they were no better. A product of being controlled and used and abused and made to do the exact same. They didn't like the person that Derick had made them, but they didn't know any other way. It had been too long since they'd seen vulnerability in the mirror and not immediately covered it in layers of apathy, too long since they'd seen vulnerability in others and thought (whether they would capitalize or not) that it was something to use.

They don't know how else to be. But goddamnit if they're not trying. No one would ever notice because the ways it showed weren't noticeable. You would see them avert their gaze and think it was shyness, not a desperate desire to not know your darkest secrets. You'd see them pull away and act distant and think it was indifference, not a deep-rooted fear of caring for someone but repeating the same damaging cycle all over again.

But they didn't want to keep hiding. Connection was something they'd been starving for for years, a craving that had driven them to find synthetic substitutes. At least those substitutes were using them as much as they were using them. But Cat was tired of it, they hated it. Orenda was presenting them with a chance for something different, something real, and they wanted it more than anything in the world.

He opens his eyes and they're quick to look away. Normally when he avoids people's gazes, it's not out of specific respect for their privacy. Their secrets don't matter if they don't know them, not in the way if it were a friend. Knowing that someone was up til dawn crying last night because they didn't know how they were going to make their mortgage payment was painful enough when it was a stranger. Cat would feel the pain, but not know who it belonged to or be able to do anything. Then they'd move on, because there was no alternative, no way to help. They hated that helpless feeling, they hated sharing that stranger's pain for a few moments.

It was a completely different ballgame when it was someone they knew, someone that might care what they thought of something like that. When, theoretically, they could reach out to that person and do something, had they not found out through such twisted means. That was a different feeling of helplessness, but just as difficult, and the whole thing is even harder to ignore and forget.

Besides, they wanted to get to know Eos. But they wanted him to be the one to tell them his story. So, when he stirs and opens his eyes, Cat is quick to look away, watching him uncurl only from their peripheral vision. "It's okay. You looked peaceful." Ugh, no, bad, he'd think that they'd been watching him sleep for a while. The car? Goddamnit. Here they were, thinking it had been a great idea. "You ride a motorcycle, right?"

[dame]

smol bump