STRESS AND REVELATIONS.
The last week for Kitty Katswell had been curious, to say the least.
After discovering that her mother had once more bypassed the security systems and staff at the T.U.F.F. HQ, she scurried away to escape from her.
About half an hour later, when she was walking down the streets, finally free from the thoughts of guilt and rage that came every time she evaded her mother, Kitty sat down on a bench in the park, just enjoying the calmness and the chirping of the birds around.
Then, with a much clearer mind, her thoughts returned to her mother.
Was she wrong for avoiding her and wanting not to hear her constant rants about how she was nearly 30 years old and hadn't had a boyfriend since Sly in her late teenage years?
She just wanted her mom to acknowledge her feats and achievements, why did she focus so much on her love life and her utter failures?
She even dared to say that her sister had at least married once!
She was a criminal, for Christ's sake!
Kitty simply let out a sigh at that moment, calming her mind again and hoping that, one day, her mother could finally stop comparing her to Katty and just see her for who she was.
However, the oddest thing that day was that, while she was relaxing and easing her mind, she had gotten a message from the Chief, one that with which she didn't know what made her feel more irritated, the fact that Dudley had somehow sent all their villains to the hospital for at least two weeks when he was playing around in the main weapon console, or the fact that despite the off time they had all gotten due to the villains being out of commission, the Chief still wanted her to get donuts.
But things just got worse when she complied due to her own hunger and craving for something sweet.
Dudley found her at the donut shop, so the dog and her shared a small talk, but things went rapidly downhill as Dudley mentioned he had brought her mother and wanted them to talk.
The tan cat didn't take that lightly, she yelled all sorts of expletives and called her partner a delusional and naïve idiot who was so stupid to fall for her mother's lies and emotional blackmail.
To say Dudley looked hurt after hearing that, was a total understatement, she immediately regretted her own words and wanted to apologize, but Dudley pushed his hurt feelings away and insisted that her mother wasn't like that, that he and she had talked and found the source of conflict between the two of them.
But Dudley's insistence made Kitty lose it and instead of apologizing, she slammed the fresh donut box into Dudley's face and asked the clerk for a backdoor, which the poor scared mouse girl instinctively gestured for Kitty to jump the counter and go out the back of the store, leaving her partner alone as she cursed her mother for managing to brainwash him into believing her bullshit, only to get to her.
After that, she had just locked herself into her rather luxurious apartment, laying on her couch living on instant noodles, reruns of foreign shows like El Chavo and Yo soy Betty La Fea, and coffee, all the while she kept ignoring all the calls from Dudley and her mother.
Though they hadn't tried to reach her since a couple days ago.
Had Dudley managed to break free from her brainwash?
Or had he actually managed to get her mother to understand her side and let her have some space?
She couldn't know and quite frankly, she didn't want to risk yet another comparison to her sister by her mother.
As such, she had just stayed home for their time off work, in an attempt to ponder on the possibilities of Dudley managing to snap her mother out of that custom of comparing her to Katty, as she knew that despite being clumsy and innocent most of the time, he had managed to accomplish quite impressive feats from time to time, either by nailing a really brilliant idea completely out of the blue or by seeing something in an angle only he managed to get.
And as she thought on that, she sighed as she kept flipping through the channels in her TV, trying to get her mind off from burning out from overthinking her situation.
She may have had access to pretty much every streaming service in the world, but since she had been bored out of her mind for the past week and very mentally exhausted, she decided to just let someone else give her options to watch instead of selecting something herself.
The ring of her electric teapot snapped her out of her stupor, so she set the remote down, stood up from her couch and opened a new cup of instant noodles to fill it with water, grabbing her chopsticks to keep the lid closed while they got hydrated.
After that, she returned to her couch and set her cup noodles on the coffee table to plop on her couch once more.
Kitty sighed deeply and turned to her TV, noticing that, for some odd reason (and not because of her loneliness and need for affection drove her mind to subconsciously select it), the thing she had thought was a soap opera, had actually been a porn flick.
The cat blushed almost immediately as the heated scene began, hearing the moaning and the pleased look on the woman's face, feeling rather jealous and suddenly aroused by the scene.
Subconsciously, the cat delved a hand under her sweatpants and shivered as she neared her sacred spot, biting her lip as her face flustered even more, realizing her actions, but deciding to keep going, since due to work, it had been quite long since she had some actual relief to her carnal needs.
Kitty gulped and started rubbing her sensitive folds with one finger slowly, eliciting a soft moan from her throat, keeping her eyes glued to the TV.
In the TV, the woman, a blonde, orange-furred cat, clung for dear life to the man, a muscular black wolf, while he licked and bit her neck softly, making the woman bite her lower lip in an attempt to suppress her moans as the dog claimed her.
Kitty closed her eyes, imagining herself in the cat's place, crossing her legs as she moved her fingers more intensively, even pushing her panties aside to introduce a tentative finger into her quivering entry, moaning loudly and subconsciously squirming in delight at the long-awaited sensation, adding another and moving gradually faster and more frantically as her arousal grew, stimulating her g-spot.
However, when she was about to reach her climax, the cat's imagination made her and her imaginary partner share a deep, heated kiss, but as her imaginary-self broke the kiss, she did not meet the black canine's brown eyes.
Instead, she met a white dog's blue eyes.
Kitty soon realized who she was fantasizing with and yelped as she climaxed, feeling a wave of shock and relief running through her entire body.
As she rode her orgasm down, Kitty's mind got engraved with that image of the white dog smiling lovingly at her.
But that made her feel weird because it was her partner in crime-fighting, coworker at T.U.F.F., often the source of her happiness and sometimes of her pain, Dudley Puppy.
"What the ever-loving fuck am I thinking?" Kitty gasped. "I don't feel that way for Dudley... do I?"
While the cat pondered about what she had just fantasized, she felt a little buzzing in her hoodie's front pocket, which made her dig into it with her left hand and pull out her phone to check the screen, smiling a bit, and inwardly thanking her luck for steering her mind off her thoughts, as the screen showed a caller ID with the name Carm.
Nearly immediately, Kitty turned off the TV, accepted the videocall and saw a smiling, blue-haired vixen with chocolate-brown eyes, who was wearing a blue top that showed her midriff and a tweed jacket in the screen of her phone.
"Carmelita! How's everything going, my old pal from Interpol?" Kitty asked, not realizing she was putting too much effort in her tone.
"Who are you and what did you do with Kitty Katswell? Why so cheerful, girl?" Carmelita's latina voice chuckled over the phone.
"Oh, shush. Can't I just be glad to finally get a call from the ever-so-prestigious Inspector Fox?"
"I'd say yes, but considering it's about midnight for you, I'd say no because you normally sleep in early and are a bit grumpy when you pick up my calls at this hour."
"Har-dee-har, very funny."
"Now, seriously, why so cheerful? You got a promotion, a new place, a new boyfriend? Tell me the news."
"No news, just happy to speak to a colleague. It's been a rough time for me."
"Dang, I was hoping for good news. God knows I need them." Carmelita sighed. "So, what's wrong? What's keeping you down, Kitty?"
"Well, you remember my partner Dudley, right? Well, he found the way to destroy the D.O.O.M. HQ and send all our villains to the hospital for about two weeks, so we got them as time off for ourselves."
"Sounds like a huge dent in your paychecks."
"Not really, since it was an accident and not done in purpose, it was labeled as paid time off."
"Oh, so what happened, then? That can't be the cause."
"I'm getting there." Kitty sighed. "You'll see... you remember how strained my relationship with my mom is?"
"Again, I'd say yes but since you never talk about it and get anxious every time she's mentioned and you evade the topic, I had to deduce it is, myself."
"Anyhow, it just so happens she always finds the way to bypass the security at T.U.F.F. and get to me whenever she feels like it. And she always does to complain about how I'm nearly thirty and haven't had a boyfriend since..."
"Since Ringtail... right..." Carmelita said, feeling a pang of nostalgia and longing.
"And then comes the comparisons about how often she talks with my sister, how she has married at least once, despite being a criminal, and so on. So, I always slip away by finding whatever task I can find."
"And I'm guessing she did the same and then your partner blew up D.O.O.M., ain't it?"
"Exactly."
"And I suppose you scurried away to avoid seeing your mom."
"Obviously, but I'm not even at the bad part."
"Really? What happened, then?"
"You see, I went out to actually buy donuts, seizing the fact our favorites are made in the other side of the city to see if my mom would simply go away. But as I was receiving the box fresh from the oven, I found Dudley right behind me, telling me he has some good news."
"He informed you of the time off, didn't he?"
"I assumed those would be the good news, but he said there was something even better as he signaled something out the window. And to my surprise, the so-called better news were my mom was in the T.U.F.F. Mobile..."
"Why?"
"Dudley said she wanted to apologize. We got into an argument, and I ended up smashing the donut box in his face... And God, I felt like a bitch when I realized what I had done. But I know my mom, I know she only said that to try to turn Dudley against me."
"How can you be so sure?"
"Trust me, I know what I'm talking about."
"Kitty, I've known you for about 7 years, and in all this time there's only one person you always talk about how often he surprises you by the feats he manages to accomplish in displays of absolute brilliancy is your partner Dudley, one would even say you're infatuated by him."
Kitty blushed deeply as Carmelita said that, which only made the vixen gasp as a smirk formed in her lips.
"Oh. My. God. You ARE infatuated by him!" Carmelita chuckled.
"No, I'm not! He's just a very good friend!" Kitty snapped. "And who uses the word infatuated? What are you? The calendar my uncle always gives me as birthday present?"
"Sounds like you're trying to convince yourself rather than me, Kitty."
"Oh, shut up..."
"Anyways, Kitty, I think you should give Dudley's idea a chance, both in the infatuation and the idea to fix the relationship with your mom. I mean, do you really think Dudley would take your mom to you if he knew she was gonna hurt you in any way?"
"We're talking about the dog who blows me up on a daily basis..."
"And the one that makes you blush and smile like a kid on Christmas morning whenever you talk about the good times and his brilliancy outbursts that save the day and your ass time and again."
"Well... he's not a bad guy. And even if I get hurt by him sometimes, he always tries to mend his wrongs and apologizes for it."
"See? Do you trust Dudley to do help you in everything?"
"I do but... I dunno. I'm not sure if my relationship with my mom is even worth saving."
"Dudley thinks it is."
"You're not gonna let me say no, are you?"
"Just gonna advise you that you should be honest with your feelings and give it a try. You might not get another shot at doing so... Just look at me, I lost the love of my life and I never even told him I loved him."
Kitty looked at Carmelita, who was looking down and had lost the color in her eyes as a lonely tear ran down her cheek, with Kitty feeling a pang of empathy as she remembered the night when she received Carmelita's call to inform her that, while Le Paradox had been incarcerated, the thieving raccoon was missing in time.
And while it was true that her romantic feelings for Sly had long departed, she still cared about the raccoon, and they shared a strange friendship, despite being in opposite sides of the law, so the news of his disappearance had hurt her a lot.
It had been nearly two years since that had happened, and there was still no trace nor clues to find him.
"Has Bentley had any luck? Is there anything I could help him?" Kitty asked.
"No, you're already helping him by putting him in contact with Keswick. The bad news is that despite their best efforts, they still haven't been able to find where he is." Carmelita sighed as she wiped her tear. "And the worse is that... the only other person who can help them won't because..."
"It's Penelope and she was the one who caused all that problem to begin with..." Kitty sighed. "I could help you track her, make her collaborate with Bentley and Keswick."
"Murray, Dimitri and I are already working on it, though we haven't had any luck, we'll find her and bring Ringtail back to the present, because if not... I don't know what else I'm gonna do."
"You'll find her. And you're gonna get Sly back to the present. I'm sure of it."
"I don't know any longer, Kitty... It's been two years and... what if something bad happened to him?"
"He'll be fine, it's Sly we're talking about."
"I know but... he's never been alone. He's always had Bentley and Murray to watch his back... And he's gone because of me."
"Carm, we've talked about this. This isn't your fault. It was Le Paradox who captured you and used you to get to Sly."
"If only I had been smarter, or quicker..."
"Carm, listen to me. You didn't do anything but have Sly's back in the whole Thieves in Time affair. While you were a bit harsh to him in the beginning, you helped him out as much as you could. Ultimately, his disappearance isn't but an unfortunate circumstance out of your control, no one could've predicted that outcome."
"I miss him..."
"Me too, Carm, me too. But like I said, he'll be fine and will be back before you notice."
"Thanks, Kitty. I needed to hear someone else reassure me of that." Carmelita said. "As for you, Ms Katswell, I'd suggest you listen to Dudley and see what he has to say and what's his idea. And also tell him your feelings, trust me, regret of what you could've said and didn't is the most heartwrenching thing you can feel."
"Agreed, otherwise I believe you'll kick my ass."
"You're goddamn right about that."
"Thanks, Carm, I knew I could always count on you."
"Hey, what are friends for if not to literally beat some sense into us?"
"Well, you're not wrong. Anyways, you know you can count on me if you need to talk."
"Same to you. Keep me updated on your progress with both Dudley and your mom."
"Hopefully I'll have good news."
"Have some faith in your partner, Kit, he often shows he's better at handling feelings and stuff than you."
"Yes... Hey, what's that supposed to mean?!"
"Just proving my point, see ya around, Agent Katswell!"
With that said, Carmelita just chuckled and hung up as Kitty rolled her eyes.
"Too much of Sly has rubbed on her..." Kitty grumbled before sighing. "Guess I should call Dudley and my mom to meet, but I think I should wait until tomorrow. I don't wanna risk waking them up."
Kitty sighed again and tucked her phone into her hoodie pocket, then she reached for her instant noodles and removed the lid, sniffing the still warm contents in the paper cup as she grabbed her chopsticks and dug into her meal, enjoying the shrimp flavor of the noodles.
'Sly was right, Carmelita truly is a wise and wonderful person.' Kitty thought as she ate. 'Hope she's not wrong about this, though. I trust Dudley but this could be one of those weird times in which he harms me by mistake.'
After she was done with her noodles, Kitty got up and tossed the empty cup in the trashcan, then she glanced at her TV and saw her reflection, reminiscing of what she had watched before Carmelita's call and what she had done, blushing deeply as she remembered how she had fantasized about Dudley.
"Am I really in love with him?" Kitty wondered aloud. "If so, does he return my feelings? Or am I gonna fuck up our friendship by taking the step?"
Kitty sighed heavily and headed for her bed, plopping into it, drifting into sleep not much later, thinking on the chances of every possible outcome of her actions for the next day.