Royesland [Full]

[theunearthlyfool]

Nicola​

There came a shout from downstairs, startling Nicola so badly she dropped the bag and sent the pilfered papers fluttering across the floor. “Sun and moon, what the hell was that?” She looked at Tom in alarm, eyes wide. “Expecting company?”

Nicola did a quick glance around before grabbing the biggest book she could see. She then dragged a chair next to the doorway and climbed up on it, tome in hand, officially ready to defend her friends from an intruder if the need arose.

 

[TrashRabbit]

When the stranger yelled into the house the occupants of the library fell silent. Tom glanced at Jackie and Nicola and said, "This is my tower right?"

And when no one corrected him he went to the top of the stairs and shouted, "Fuck off!"

 

[wickedlittlecritta]

Cathal froze at the shout from upstairs, and then shouted, "Thomas?" back up the stairs. This was sooner than he'd expected to run into Tom, but why wouldn't he be here, really? It was his tower. "I won't fuck off, I need my boots!" he shouted back. He pulled the skirts of the robe up around his knees again and started up the stairs, figuring they were all the way at the top, in the work station. "I know you don't remember me, but I still live here too, Tom!"

 

[TrashRabbit]

Tom gave Nicola and Jackie a frantic terrified look as footsteps started sounding up the stairs.

 

[theunearthlyfool]

She squinted, listening. “Did he say... he needs his boots? What?”

Nicola was about to ask Tom who else lived here when A) she remembered he wouldn’t know anyway and B) she saw the terrified look on his face at the man downstairs calling his name. Oh fuck, I wonder if it’s a squatter. That steeled her resolve.

“Tom, c’mere. Get behind me.” As the footsteps drew closer, she hefted the book up, ready to drop it on the head of (unbeknownst to her) Tom’s unsuspecting long lost lover.

 

[CelticSol]

"Oh my God, Nicola, you're four pounds soaking wet, you are not going to sway a dedicated assailant," Jackie complains, moving around Nicola and Tom, going for a dagger at her waist only for her hand to pass through her leg, which gives her the horrifying feeling that wind is directly touching her bones. She shivers, resolves that she has her legs and feet to beat the shit out of this guy, then continues to the stairs, positioning herself at the entryway, "Ayo, dude, state you fuckin' name and business, or I'm letting Nicola throw a tome at you."

 

[wickedlittlecritta]

Cathal stopped on the stairs, looking up at the new and unfamiliar voice. "A tome?" he repeated, feeling a little insulted. "My name is Cathal McKay, and my business is, foremost, to put pants on, because I have only recently stopped being a cat. You remember me as a cat, probably? Orange? Fluffy? Went by Bathtub?" He paused, and then added helpfully, "I'm not naked. I just want my own clothes."

 

[TrashRabbit]

"Well at least he's not naked," Tom said dryly under his breath to Jackie in the most Tom way possible.

 

[CelticSol]

Jackie lets that name wash into her brain. Where has she heard that extremely Irish name before?

A bell was ringing, but Jackie is also stupid, which is important.

It takes another to beats for it to click - who has she spent the last several months hearing about, who also has a distinctly Irish name.

"Oh shit, you're Tom's bard!" Jackie crows, then doubles over into laughter, "Oh my God, he fucking - he left, because you were gone, but you were just a cat, which is - awful, sorry, but also - oh my God, Jesus Fucking Christ, you were the fucking barn cat! You were here the whole fucking time!" She chuckles to herself, waving Nicola off from holding the book threateningly, "Yeah, thank fuck for the clothes, man. But Jesus, that's so fucking ironic and funny."

 

[TrashRabbit]

"I what?" Tom demanded in utter despair.

 

[CelticSol]

"This is your bottom, allegedly. I still think..." She trails off, taking Cathal in for the first time, her index and middle finger drumming over her lips in thought, "Actually... You being a top might... it just might make sense. This is your boyfriend, hotshot. You left this town and turned into a globetrotting mercenary with me to look for him, and thought that fucking Xanth zonked him, but he was here, as a barn cat, this whole time. Nicola and Finn joined the brigade later."

 

[TrashRabbit]

Tom Peeked down the stairs and caught site of the extremely handsome ginger in the priestess robes and then ducked back into the library.

He looked at Jackie and just said, "Oh no." like he was going to die.

 

[CelticSol]

"See, this shit is why I thought you were the bottom. Jesus, this might as well be lesbians. How many fucking episodes is it gonna take for y'all to kiss?"

 

[TrashRabbit]

Tom took her by the shoulders and said, "How do I turn him back into a cat?"

 

[wickedlittlecritta]

"Thanks," Cathal said dryly. "It's a very long story," Cathal told Tom, continuing up the stairs now that he seemed less likely to have books dropped on him. "But I fixed it," he added. He passed the door to their rooms, and continued up into the library, where he found Tom and Jackie and Nicola. He wanted very badly to run across the room and hug Tom and shower him in kisses, but that was the sort of thing you couldn't do to someone with amnesia when you were a person instead of a cat, so instead he let the skirts fall and held one of his arms behind his back.

"Hi," he said, and felt stupid. What were you supposed to say to someone you loved desperately when they didn't remember you?

Cathal settled on, "I missed you."

 

[TrashRabbit]

Tom turned his head slowly to stare at Cathal and like an idiot looking at something pretty forgot how to talk.

 

[CelticSol]

"Oh my God," Jackie says, suddenly caught in the middle of half of a very heartwarming reunion, "Thomas, if you ever say that shit again, I will kick you in the dick. I did not perform a coup d'état with you for your boyfriend for you to ask me to turn him back into a cat, and only because you're horny. By the way-" She bonks him on the head with her elbow gently, "Horny jail."

Jackie pivots, turning to look at Cathal. Jackie, a living bisexual woman, is also struck by Cathal - he is very handsome, and his freckles and face give him an air of being someone very friendly and kind, and Jackie goes ahead and bonks herself into horny jail. "Uh, hi, Tom's boyfriend Cathal McKay, who's name I instantly remembered. Your boyfriend is broken but he loves you very much."

 

[TrashRabbit]

"I don't love any one," Tom hisses at Jackie. He yearns for death.

 

[CelticSol]

"You love me and the ginger man in the robes, you broody fuckin' homosexual."

 

[TrashRabbit]

Tom's mouth works and his hands gesture but nothing comes out, and he ends it by motioning helplessly at the fact that Cathal exists.

 

[theunearthlyfool]

“Hey!” she exclaimed as Jackie breezed by (pun unintended). She hopped off the chair and was going to stand menacingly behind her with the book when the intruder’s identity was revealed. “Oh. Oh! Him!”

Nicola let the book drop to the floor with an extremely loud thump. “Oh my stars, Jackie. Stop it, you’re embarrassing him.”

But Jackie’s mouth is off like a shot, way before Nicola could possibly hope to do any damage control. She watches the Tom and Jackie Show with mounting secondhand embarrassment before deciding she can’t take it anymore.

“It’s so nice to finally meet you!” she said loudly over their squabbling. Somebody had to be the fucking adult here, and Finn wasn’t around so apparently it was going to be her. Very deliberately turning her back on the other two, she stepped forward, offering her hand to shake.

 

[wickedlittlecritta]

Cathal tried not to stare at Tom, even though he very badly wanted to, and it was almost a relief when Nicola stepped up to introduce herself. "Likewise," he told her with a smile, and accepted the handshake. "I'm friends with your sister. Well. Sort of." He looked at Tom again, and then decided to spare him and said, "I'm gonna...go get changed." He wanted to ask what they were doing, if he could help, but he didn't think, from the look on his face, that Tom was particularly pleased to see him. He couldn't help but add, "Let me know if you need me?" before starting back for the stairs.

 

[CelticSol]

"Oh, this motherfucker comes out being this moody and now I'm the one being fucking embarrassing. Okay," Jackie turns away from Cathal and Nicola, grabbing Tom by the shoulders - or trying to, anyway. She touches his bones with her ghost hands instead, which is a better punishment than shaking him, anyway. Cathal excuses himself, and Jackie groans, "Look! You made him feel bad! What the fuck!!!"

 

[TrashRabbit]

Once Cathal was out of sight, having descended back down to the bed chambers Tom put his hands on his head and paced across the room. His emotional support cat was gone and now there was a very handsome man in his home he couldn't speak to. This was terrible. this was worse than finding out he was old ten minutes ago.

 

[CelticSol]

"Oh my fucking - Thomas. I cannot stress to you enough that this is a man that loves you and that you love him just as much. You are having a crisis because you know you love him, but you just don't know why. I know you love him because that ginger son of a bitch is all I heard about when I met you. You need to do like - I dunno, a fucking breathing exercise," Jackie bends and flops onto a table, covering her head with her arms, complaining, "This is my own personal Hell. I'm in a romantic drama and I'm supposed to be a supporting character."