Jon flopped back onto her bed with an exasperated sigh, then winced and rolled her hips to one side to let her tail un-kink from underneath her. This whole situation was just so bizarre, and it felt like it was just going to keep getting weirder. She didn't even want to think about the idea of being pregnant, except now that Tabby had raised the question she couldn't get it out of her head. The thought of ending up like Steve Farber, her stomach bloated with something growing inside her, of having to run off to the bathroom all the time because of the weight on her bladder, of the terrifying prospect that waited at the end of it all...
She shuddered. Okay, okay, she was probably being too negative, millions of women went through that every year, and maybe to them the payoff was worth the ordeal - maybe it really was worth it to be able to have kids. But not for her! Sure, in the abstract Jon had always figured he'd have a family one day, but not as the mother! Even if Tabby remembered "Joni" wanting that, it wasn't like Jon actually did...!
She heaved a sigh, feeling the rows of breasts gently quaking all up and down her chest. Well, anyway, it wasn't like that was something that just happened to you. She wasn't going to suddenly wake up one morning and find herself pregnant, unless she were to...to... She winced. No way was that ever going to happen. No way, nohow, never. Absolutely out of the question!
Jon laid there for a while, brooding and trying not to think about it anymore. Distraction finally came, but not in the way she wanted; it was just the old familiar "call of Nature," but even that was an awkward reminder of her predicament now. Grumbling to herself, she made her way down the hall to the bathroom, pulled down her skirt, and sat down on the toilet.
It wasn't like this was the first time she'd had to do this as a girl, but it had yet to lose its unwelcome novelty. And, as with any time she had to sit on a conventionally-shaped chair, it was weird and uncomfortable trying to figure out where her tail should go; apparently the simpler construction of the familiar tank-on-the-base toilet had won out over the convenience of catgirls in this reality (maybe because the parts were so much heavier than normal furniture, which overall had been changed to accomodate them.) Sighing, she did her business and cleaned up after; this was another irritating reminder of what had happened to her, with her being covered in fur...
Jon got up, hiked her skirt back up after slipping her tail through the waistband, and left the bathroom. A whole year of this, she thought. Three hundred and sixty-plus days of having to sit down to pee. Fifty-two weeks of having to wash a full-body fur coat. Twelve months of- She blanched, or would have if her skin weren't the same grayish-black as her nose, under her fur. Months? Cripes, that was right. She'd been trying to avoid thinking about it ever since Karyn brought it up, but as an adolescent female, she was going to have to deal with menstruation... Ugh, she thought, and here I was thinking that going to the bathroom with fur was bad.
She made her way back to her room, tail thrashing in agitation at the unfairness of it all. Stuck like this for a year, with no way of wishing her way out of it, no way to return to normal except by slogging on through...it would be one thing if she were like Tabby, blissfully unaware that she had ever been a human boy, but she was inundated in reminders of her change, from the bob and sway of her unrestrained breasts to the feeling of her tail angrily brushing the walls as she stormed down the hallway on her digitigrade paw-feet to the very most basic act of taking a leak...!
Not that she actually wanted to forget; she could probably wish for it, but the idea terrified her. If she wasn't aware of who she really was, how could she be sure of returning to normal? What if she made a careless wish, and a year from now "Joni" found herself mysteriously transformed into a human male and tried to return herself to what she thought of as "normal?" It seemed all too possible that she could end up truly stuck - or even buried forever under another persona! - if she went messing around with that. She gave a little growl of exasperation, which ended up being much more of a feline hiss. "All this and I can't even get any friggin' pants..."
"I never figured you for the type to want 'em, sis."
She jumped up, hackles raised and tail puffed out, to find Zoe standing at the door of her room, cackling devilishly. "Jeezus, look at you!" she laughed. "Were you that spaced out over pants that you couldn't tell I was coming?"
Jon realized with a sudden, invisible flush of embarassment that, on a subconscious level, she had sensed her sister's approach - heard the soft padding of her paws, caught the familiar scent wafting in on the air, felt a presence in that seemingly preternatural awareness that humans have in a certain modest capacity but in cats is practically a literal sixth sense - but had failed to actually take notice, lost in her brooding. But actually admitting that to her younger sister seemed anathema to her, for reasons she couldn't articulate.
"Of-of course not!" she sputtered, averting her gaze from Zoe and staring over her shoulder at nothing. "I...was thinking about...stuff." She felt her tail lashing behind her.
Zoe gave her a fangy smirk. "Uh-huh. And you concluded your profound ruminations with a wish for pants. Why d'you want 'em so much, anyway?"
Of course, Jon realized, she couldn't very well say, "because I'm supposed to be a man." By this point, anyway, she had acquired much more practical complaints to levy. "I'm tired of people staring," she said, the hiss creeping back into her voice. "Every damn time my skirt goes swishing around my legs it's like some kind of eye magnet." There was also the issue of her lack of underwear making it feel like she was always just one wrong move or stiff breeze away from flashing everyone, but she knew that nobody in this reality seemed concerned by that...
Zoe shrugged. "Well, duh. Movement catches attention, even for humans; it's just that most guys can more or less stay classy-ish about it. But it's not like the creeps are going to stop being creeps if you take away one specific thing they're creeping on. I mean, c'mon, sis. Your legs are nice, but take that away and they're just gonna be staring at your gorgeous racks or your sleek ass. Keep thinking like that and you'll end up wearing a tent and panting your goddamn mouth dry just because some cretin never learned any self-control."
Jon felt a little disturbed by having her sister rate and compliment the various parts of her figure, but she was more fixated on how blasé Zoe seemed about this. Was she really saying that this was just the way it was, and she just had to live with it? "So what am I supposed to do?" she huffed.
Zoe grinned, her ears perked and her pearly-white fangs almost luminescent against her dark-gray tabby coat. "Scratch their eyes out," she said. "That'll learn 'em."
Jon wanted to be irritated with this "advice" they both knew perfectly well she couldn't act on, but she found herself laughing instead; it was a perfectly Zoe thing to say, and after what had seemed like an odd and uncharacteristic display of resignation, it was good to see her younger sister's defiant spirit reaffirmed, no matter how much it might annoy her in daily life.
"Seriously, though," Zoe said, "even if you could find someone to tailor them for us, d'you know what a pain in the ass they'd be? It gets warm enough down there at...times; I'd go nuts without some friggin' airflow, plus it'd build up static like crazy just from walking."
She shrugged. "Look: I know, human girls can look kinda cool in jeans and it was like a whole movement-ish type thing back in the '60s and all that. But we're not them, Joni, and we don't have to be them. It's silly for us to stress out and go to a bunch of trouble over what they think is cool. I mean, screw that."
Jon sighed. Of course that had nothing at all to do with her actual reasons for wanting pants, but again, she couldn't go telling Zoe that. Out of all the people in her life, out of all the people in the entire world, only Karyn knew the truth, and even she couldn't fully understand, because she'd been a girl all her life...
Leonard slipped into his bedroom and shut the door, breathing what should have been a heavy sigh of relief, but as much as his jangled nerves were settling down now that he'd gotten away from the table without tipping off his stepmother, there was still a sinking feeling in his gut, like he'd gotten caught in some kind of gravitational anomaly that followed him around wherever he went...
He slumped down into his desk chair and stared apprehensively into the darkened monitor. Really, he wanted nothing more than to forget all about everything that had happened and just binge old sci-fi shows instead, but there was no getting out of this, and he knew it. Gritting his teeth, he nudged the mouse to wake the computer out of sleep mode, and set it booting the game. In other circumstances, Leonard found the loading music for Forgotten Age kind of soothing and familiar. Right now, it was just another noise that failed to distract him from the situation he couldn't seem to figure out a way out of.
He logged in and spent a few tense minutes just watching other players flow into and out of the village square. He'd always found it funny that so many MMOs included cat-boys as a playable race. Of course cat-girls were implemented, because they really existed, but it was kind of odd that people figured there must be a male equivalent, even when no such thing existed in the real world and there was no surviving evidence that they ever had. Well, it was fantasy, whaddya want? But now part of him wondered, if they did exist, would he still be in this predicament? Maybe instead of him, it'd be-
Crystal Flowersoul is requesting a private chat with you.
Crystal Flowersoul: jfc it's about time you showed up
Crystal Flowersoul: i spent the whole evening waiting for you yesterday
He choked down the lump in his throat. Well, this was it.
Dathan d'Sabre: i had to finish dinner, my stepmom's picky about that kionda thing
Dathan d'Sabre: and yesterday i actually went to get on but the internet crapped out on me
Crystal Flowersoul: sigh, whatever
Crystal Flowersoul: anyway i bought a test today
Crystal Flowersoul: it was positive
He stared at the words for nearly a minute, until she had her character make a little impatient gesture.
Dathan d'Sabre: i don't know what to say here
Dathan d'Sabre: sorry
Crystal Flowersoul: what does that even mean
Crystal Flowersoul: we need to figure out how to tell our families
Dathan d'Sabre: what
Dathan d'Sabre: i mean seriously what
Dathan d'Sabre: we can't tell them about this
Crystal Flowersoul: the hell?
Crystal Flowersoul: in a couple months i won't be able to hide it
Crystal Flowersoul: hell i'm pretty sure my mom already knows
Crystal Flowersoul: she's been giving me funny looks
Crystal Flowersoul: i probably smell different or something
Dathan d'Sabre: a couple months?
Dathan d'Sabre: can't you get it taken care of before then?
Crystal Flowersoul: omfg
Crystal Flowersoul: you realize you're talking about our baby
Dathan d'Sabre: oh jesus no we are not going there
Crystal Flowersoul: what
Crystal Flowersoul: this is science goddamn fact leonard
Crystal Flowersoul: right now i have OUR DAUGHTER inside me
Dathan d'Sabre: iris
Crystal Flowersoul: do you really not feel anything about that
Dathan d'Sabre: iris i can't even
Dathan d'Sabre: i still have to finish school
Dathan d'Sabre: i still have to go to college
Dathan d'Sabre: i can't deal with this now
Crystal Flowersoul: which is why i goddamn warned you ahead of time to be careful
Dathan d'Sabre: ffs you said exactly the opposite later when you were crawling all over me
Dathan d'Sabre: how am i supposed to know what you really mean when you say that stuff
Crystal Flowersoul: i can't help what my body wants dammit
Crystal Flowersoul: i warned you about that too
Crystal Flowersoul: but this is where we are now
Dathan d'Sabre: okay
Dathan d'Sabre: okay
Dathan d'Sabre: but i'm not ready to be a dad right now
Dathan d'Sabre: and i doubt you're ready for this either
Crystal Flowersoul: i just can't even believe you can be this unfeeling
Crystal Flowersoul: is this a guy thing?
Dathan d'Sabre: iris
Crystal Flowersoul: like i know it's probably different for you cuz you're not literally carrying her around inside your own body
Dathan d'Sabre: iris
Crystal Flowersoul: but for god's sake leonard this is your child you're talking about
Crystal Flowersoul: this isn't popping a zit or something
Dathan d'Sabre: IRIS
Crystal Flowersoul: sorry
Crystal Flowersoul: that was over the line
Crystal Flowersoul: i just can't understand how you can be so reliable for people you've never even met IRL but not feel anything for your own flesh and blood
Dathan d'Sabre: oh i dunno
Dathan d'Sabre: maybe it has something to do with the fact that i'm SCARED SHITLESS right now
Dathan d'Sabre: like my life is seriously flashing before my eyes here
There was a long silence. He thought about impatient-gesturing her back, but this was not the time to be flippant.
Crystal Flowersoul: yeah, me too
Crystal Flowersoul: i don't even know how my dad is gonna react
Crystal Flowersoul: but
Crystal Flowersoul: this isn't something that's just gonna go away if we ignore it
Crystal Flowersoul: we're both partly responsible
Crystal Flowersoul: we're both in this predicament
Crystal Flowersoul: and leonard?
Crystal Flowersoul: i think we'd be a lot happier if we were in it together
Leonard heaved a heavy sigh. Somehow it didn't feel as cathartic as it should.
Dathan d'Sabre: i just
Dathan d'Sabre: i need to think about this
Dathan d'Sabre: i don't want to leave you hanging, but i need some time
Dathan d'Sabre: okay?
