You Know That I Could Use Somebody [Oneshot/Shad]

Silver eyes watched her mentor, her leader. There was anger in that gaze, but it was cooled. Like the cooled metal twolegs crafted into the sharpest weapons. Patchpaw sometimes wondered about Duskblaze. She wondered what would have happened if one, single day had played out differently. She wondered if maybe, just maybe, she might have joined him, if only he had asked her. She had thought the world of him at one point. It was a point back when the world itself was a much bigger, scarier place and she had been a much smaller, terrified kit. She had believed he could do anything. She had been shocked and awed when her mother let her be his apprentice. She had been both immensely honored and immensely terrified of bungling her training. Turns out, she had been even worse than she feared in their first session. She had done almost nothing right, but Duskblaze had kept going with her. He had not given up and marched her back to camp in disgrace as she had been so afraid of him doing. He merely told her to work at it, that skill would come if she worked for it.

Patchpaw... Patchpaw wondered if those cats would ever meet again. She wondered if there would ever come a time when she could look at her mentor and see a cat she believed in, and a time when he could look at her and see anything more than a cold apprentice. She wondered if they had to be on opposite sides... but how could they not be? How could she trust him when he had betrayed her whole family and left her alone to clean up the mess? Left her alone to care for her mother and two siblings? Stars above, at one point she had even considered Duskblaze to be a father to her and yet looking at him now... she only felt betrayal... and anger.

"I've never thought you a mousebrain," the shecat mewed quietly, coldly. "I've thought you many things, but not that. If I had, I would have said so."

Cool silver eyes met vibrant green. "And I don't mean disrespect. I mean honesty." Truth rang in the apprentice's voice, that much was clear. "Why do you think a cat did this?" she wanted to know. "Stagheart came in with him, not some random rogue. Some of the creeks have iced over and..." Patchpaw glanced to her friend. "he might have fallen through. Turtlefrost might have saved him while Stagheart brought him back. That is kind of embarrassing and I would not want to admit something like that either."

At the skeptic, border-line hostile look in her leader's gaze the shecat continued none the less, her silver eyes softening like molten metal, pleading he would listen. For once in his life, just listen to her. "Whatever the reason, there is one thing we know. Steampaw does not want to talk about it and you are not helping him. You have to see that, Duskblaze." Don't you?

Patchpaw looked in her leader's eyes, deeply, searching with her gaze. Did he see that? Did he care? He could easily say he was leader. It was his job to know what went on in his clan and he could not help it if he made one apprentice 'uncomfortable'. A leader protecting them was not a cause for discomfort and Steampaw should get used to it. That was what Patchpaw expected from this tom. That was what she expected from Duskblaze the Leader. Duskblaze the Leader was a headstrong cat. He was a cat that never, ever listened to her. He seemed to ignore what she tried to tell him just to spite her even when there was no advantage in doing so.

Duskblaze the Deputy had listened to Patchkit. They had been the first ones in their own little clan. Maybe the kit was wrong. Maybe it had only been a tom indulging a little kitten into thinking she was listened to or appreciated. Patchpaw did not want to think that. As much as she hated to admit it, especially to herself, she want to believe there was more to Duskblaze than the Leader she fought with now on almost a daily basis. There had to be. Her mother believed in this cat, and she had too, once upon a time. That meant there was something good, something worthy, in him. She trusted her mother's judgement without question.

"I know you want answers," Patchpaw mewed quietly. "but can't there be a better way to go about this? I'm sure you could ask Stagheart or Turtlefrost when she comes back what happened. If you catch her early enough, you could get both of their stories fresh." Before they talk to each other and possibly come up with a lie.

Patchpaw did not say it, but she hoped, hoped, Duskblaze would hear those unspoken words all the same. No, she did not think him a mousebrain, and nor was she one entirely either. She wanted to believe the best in all her clanmates, but that did not mean Steampaw's strange return to camp did not reek of foul play. However, there was a big different between Duskblaze and Patchpaw here. While they both might want the best for their clanmate, Duskblaze wanted to force his way in, something Steampaw was either too proud or too scared to let happen. Patchpaw wanted to go about this a different way. A softer way.

It was entirely up to her mentor whether or not he let her do it though. The shecat kept her tail over the larger tom beside her, a constant comfort, but her silver eyes never wavered from the harsh green that watched them both. The mouse was in Duskblaze's paw, as it were.