Josh shrugs, desperately trying to keep the smile from his face. He didn’t think Gideon would actually go for it, and seeing his friend grope this absolute goblin of a cat was such a hysterical visual. “Guess you’re right,” he resigns, but only after he was certain he’d sucked out all the amusement from the moment. He then pulls a face at Gideon’s suggestion to speak to McCoy. “You really think he’s going to be onboard with this?” He figures their options were pretty limited to begin with. Kitty might be cool enough to keep their secret, and given her namesake, Josh figures they’d at least have that flimsy argument going for them. Come on, from one Kitty to another… There was also Remy, who had an obvious affinity for cats and might take pity on their new friend. It was still quite the gamble. He is reminded then of the hour, and resolves that if there was any lecturer still awake it was likely the good doctor. “Alright, sure,” he says, “We’ll go see if he’s awake, but if not we’re just gonna have to take it back to our room and deal with this in the morning.” He looks between the cat and Gideon. “But we should still try to hide it.”
The idea came to him a moment later, and he was nearly about to suggest Gideon be the one to execute it, but even Josh was not that unfair. He unzipped his hoodie and gingerly took the cat from his friend’s arms. And with a silent wish for luck, he zipped his hoodie back up with the cat inside. It was still behaving pretty mildly about this whole awkward situation, its massive fluffy head resting lazily a few inches below Josh’s. It twitched a mangled ear. “Sorry about this,” he says before zipping up the hoodie all the way to his chin. Any idiot with a pair of eyes would be able to tell that Josh was smuggling something under his jacket, but he was counting on the cover of darkness to at least give them some leeway. He steps towards the stairs and takes a well-here-goes-nothing kind of breath. “Alright. Let’s do this.”
As soon as Josh says it, Gideon decides it would be better to just deal with it in the morning. “Listen… fuck it. Does gender really matter? It’s a cat. We can deal with making up excuses after someone finds the little guy.” Clicking off the flashlight as soon as they get to the top of the stairs, Gideon swings open the door quickly to try and minimize any noise. Josh looked ridiculous in his attempt to hide the mangled beast, so they’d need to be as quiet as possible. Stepping out into the hall, Gideon checked to make sure the coast was clear, then motioned for Josh to join him. When his friend was out, he tried to ease the door shut this time so it wouldn’t slam. It creaked loudly and Gideon cringed until it finally clicked shut. He stood stock still, listening for any other movements besides theirs, and when he was satisfied with the silence he whispered to Josh, “We’re fixing that fucking door one of these days.”
“If the light isn’t on, just keep going. Like I said, fuck it. We should discover which of these teachers might actually like cats first. Like… Hank is a beast right, but he could be allergic to cats or something.” Gideon tiptoed behind Josh this time, stopping whenever his friend stopped and checking behind them every few feet. If someone was watching them with night vision goggles, which he could totally see Deadpool doing it, they’d probably have a helluva laugh about it. Even though he could see pretty well in the dark, Gideon still managed to slam his elbow into a corner of the wall, “Fffff—-“ he bit his tongue and grabbed Josh to stop him from moving just in case someone heard the bang. At this rate, they’d be better off running all the way to their room and just shutting the door behind them. Too bad there weren’t any locks. Lucky little princess Jean was the only student allowed one on her bedroom door.
