Project X (Ch. 3)
Two weeks, a budding relationship and a new visitor later, Trey realizes he's now part of something much larger than he.
"I'll be okay, baby." She said with a weak smile.
Trey knew what was happening, but he couldn't accept it. She grabbed his hand with a weak grip. Trey felt agony but managed a smile back through his crying. The woman he looked up to his entire life being bested by something neither of them could control. She coughed violently, shaking the bed and scaring Trey.
"You will never be alone. I'll always be looking over you, Trey." She croaked.
He tried to tell her how much he loved her but when he opened his mouth nothing came out. His eyes watering more than ever, he turned away in shame.
"Don't be afraid to show emotion. It's okay to be sad." She reassured him.
Trey again went to say he loved her but after opening his mouth he broke down completely with tears streaming down his face. Her other hand reached out and wiped his tears off his face, smiling at him.
"What's wrong? Cat got your tongue?" She joked, giggling.
Trey tried once more but failed to say those three beautiful words. He head her giggle turn into a cough that went on for seemingly forever. After the coughing fit subsided she looked Trey in the eyes and smiled taking in a deep breath. Her exhale was long, afterward he felt her grip on his hand loosen while seeing the life in her eyes fade.
Trey woke up in a cold sweat, shivering from the cold. He had left the window open. With a sigh he pushes himself off the bed and onto the floor. Walking over to the window and closing it. Grabbing and powering on his phone, Trey noticed still no response. It had been two weeks since he last heard from Paul. Walking out to the living room Trey saw Gabrielle doing her normal thing; spawled out on a furnishing embellished in a book. Her elegant body sprawled across the loveseat.
"Heya, Trey." She said with a smile, looking over.
"Morning, Gab." He groggily replied.
They had developed a daily routine. They would always eat first thing, afterward do a workout and finally just chill around for the rest of the day with the occasional shovel to lower snow levels slowly. The previous day they had done a stenuous full body workout so they decided to skip one today. Trey worked his way to the kitchen and started to make a couple omlettes.
"You know you cook some of the best bacon omlettes, right?" She asked.
"Yeah, they're usually a lot better when they dont have fur inside them." He joked.
The snow leopard rolled her eyes with a sigh. It was to be a cold, freezing rain day. Which meant no shovelling. They had cleared the front porch of snow, slowly clearing the house day by day. Trey wolfed his down, and rinsed off his plate, putting it in the dishwasher for later. Gabrielle, still not finished looked surprised at his speed today.
"What?" Trey questioned, catching her look.
"Nothing, just haven't seen you finish your food that fast before." She stated.
"Yeah well, I don't only finish fast with food," He said thinking about the last time he ran a mile, "Oh wait...shit. I didn-"
"Think that one through? Yeah I'm sure." She poked, making herself giggle.
Trey sighed and left the room. Hearing the pitter patter of rain on the roof, he decided to look outside and found to his assumption it was indeed raining. He went and flopped himself down on the couch, groaning as he did so at his sore body. Gabrielle wasn't far behind him, sitting down on the free space of the couch. He stretched himself out further, pushing his feet into her sides.
"Hey now, don't make me punch them." She playfully teased.
Trey's legs were tender from the overwork he put in the previous day. He felt like fucking around but also didn't want to feel pain, so he settled for his part of the couch.
"I'm glad I'm not all alone in this house anymore," She started, "I got lonely from nobody being here."
"Well, happy to help." Trey said, giving her a warm smile.
He pushed his legs into her sides again and she quickly retaliated by pushing them aside and jabbing his thigh.
"Ow." He whined.
Trey decided to get her back and sat up, starting to tickle her sides. She tried to resist but quickly fell into a panic of laughter and through exasperated breaths tried to tell him to stop but never finished the word before she began laughing uncontrollably. Unable to control herself anymore, she fell on the floor landing on her back. Trey was fast behind not stopping the relentless assault on her sides. He pinned her arms on either side of her head.
"Looks like I win." He stated triumpantly.
The snow leopard took a deep breath to fix her composure. Looking into his eyes she smiled, feeling butterflies in her stomach. She felt his grip around her arms loosen so she took the chance to make her move. With all the speed and grace the cat could muster she slipped her arms from under his grip and locked her hands behind his neck pulling him down and locking her lips with his in a long, deep kiss. He broke it, pulling away.
"Moving a bit fast there, cat. No?" He asked.
Trey got up feeling flustered by her sudden actions. Not knowing what to do with himself he figured the best thing to do would be to take his morning shower and think for a bit. Gabrielle was still on the ground, propped up on her elbows watching him walk away. She kept thinking if she had done something wrong. Maybe he didn't like her or maybe he just didn't want to be with her because of how she looked. She felt bad for putting him in that position. She grabbed her novel and began reading.
Trey stood leaning with his hands against the wall of the shower, hot water running down his back at a near scalding temperature. He was too busy thinking about the cute cat's bold action toward him. Trey did like her, a lot. He also did owe her quite a bit for saving him, this thought immediately making him feel shame for just walking away instead of returning it. Suddenly feeling the heat on his back, he quickly let loose more cold water into the now spraying stream of lava, cooling it to an acceptable level. Minutes later he emerged, going to the room and changing clothes.
After emerging Trey went into the living room, hearing the hardwood floor seem to loudly creak with each step he took. Glancing around the room she gave the big cat a warm smile and sat down by her bookcase and taking one to read himself. After flipping through a few pages, the sound of a heavy wind started crashing into the house. The sound of old shingles getting uplifted by harsh winds and coming hard back down onto the roof with an audible thud. Looking across the room he heard Gabrielle sigh, watching her flick her hair back behind her face, pushing any remaining loose strands back. Everything she did had a certain grace to it.
Large clunking could be heard against the frozen wood boards of the outside porch, the freezing rain happening to turn itself into hail. Trey wondered to himself whether his break was taken at an unfortunate time, or if the weather was just bad here. Wanting to get an answer to his question, he tilted his head to the cat across from him and voiced his concerns over the recent weather trends being quite unrelenting.
Gabrielle gave a vocal negative to his question before looking out the window to her side, her ears dropping when she noticed the falling balls of ice. The sunlight giving her grey fur a beautiful illumination. Trey gawked at the cute feline and felt a shiver go down his spine as he heard the sound of ice on glass behind him, a small hairline crack forming on the window.
"Huh, glad I'm not going outside today." The thought brought itself out and Trey had seemed surprised at the random outburst his brain brought forward.
Gabrielle's only reaction was to laugh at him for his foolishness. Her cute giggle made him blush and look away. The outside wind howling from the poor weather as of late, making Trey do a double take on his own mental state to whether or not he was suicidal going on a camping trip or not. After a second of self debate he confirmed to himself that it was just all unfortunate circumstances that lead him to the fortunate scenario he found himself in.
Hours later, man and cat found themselves both done with their respective novels. Outside the large storm had now all but swallowed the sunlight whole. The wind had now picked up and the front screen door could be heard being slowly shaken off of its hinges. The cold wind slowly lowering the reading room's temperature from the large amount of glass on the outer wall.
Through the hail, Trey could make out a set of lights making their way down the trails, these were either from a car or sled. Judging by the loud engine, his assumption was a sled. After a few seconds the sled pulled up to the house and stopped, turning off as the figure aboard stepped off. A large build on a human with seemingly endless layers of jackets on his top half. A largely intimidating silhouette.
The tower of an individual made his way into the door. Stopping as he spotted Trey, taking a moment and huffing to himself. He shook off the ice and snow from his torso, the keys on his waist rattling with each movement. Squishing his brow together, the man crossed an arm across his torso and brought the other up and pulled down the thick scarf revealing a large puffy brown beard.
"Trey, grab your gear. You're being relocated under the order of the province." He quickly exhaled, quickly returning the scarf over his face and turning to the door. Trey attempt to protest in disbelief was quickly shut down by the man holding his hand back up before turning back, "If you do not, enforcement officers will be called and you will be charged with criminal trespass. Do not make this harder than it needs to be." The behemoth of a man finished before opening the door and walking out.
Putting his hands on the back of his head and breathing heavily, Trey looked at the snow leopard wordless, his thoughts scrambled and body language showing how lost in words he was. He began pacing and swallowing in discontent. It took a couple minutes before his brain registered Gabrielle calling his name. He dropped his hands, head following with a loud sigh. He felt soft pads and fur on both of his cheeks lifting his head up to see the cute grey cat giving him a compassionate smile.
Her thumb stroked his right cheek as they locked eyes. Her smile becoming bigger. "Hey, it's alright. I should of told you they'd be back for a checkup. There is a lot of monitoring equipment around the house," she explained, "I'll be okay and you will too if you just go with him, I promise."
His hand went up and covered his mouth in thought as he processed his best course of action. Looking into her beautiful eyes as he thought it out helped clear his anxiety as he noted it would likely not be permanent. Feeling a weight fall off of his shoulders he once again dropped his hand and returned Gabrielle's kind smile. She gave a hearty laugh and pulled Trey into a kiss, pulling his mouth to her muzzle.
"I promise they wont keep you away for long. I'll be waiting." She gleefully boasted in a surefire manner. Her optimism was infectious and with the happiness spreading, Trey quickly grabbed his things and put on his heavy winter wear and headed out the door following the titanic of a man outside onto the sled. With a loud noise the engine started up and the man told Trey to put an arm around his waist to which he quickly did. Just as fast as the mystery man arrived he had taken Trey and was now leaving with the same haste.
The hail pelting them both, being felt even through the thick layers both had on due to the speed of which they were travelling. The freezing wind becoming even colder as they picked up speed. With one glance back, Trey saw the house becoming a further and further distance with every passing second. A pang of guilt sprung in his chest when he remembered the goodbye kiss that the snow leopard had given him. At the same time that fresh memory ignited a burning fire of hope inside him to which he knew, nothing could ever keep them separated forever. A minute later the two began descending down a hill, the house disappearing over the crest.
Once the house was out of view the new situation finally dawned on Trey; he was now neck deep in the governments pond and had to find a way to swim himself out of it.