Private Catboy Puppy Love

Ganymede sulked. The way Wednesday put things, she made it sound like he only wanted to grow up faster because of his infatuation with Ailonwey. Which was probably why she was getting amused at his expense.

The ear scritches helped with his mood, though. He closed his eyes and gave Wednesday an appreciative purr for her trouble. There weren't many people who would give him this sort of affection. He cherished it.

And while he was enjoying that affection, his mind latched back onto the more hopeful aspects of the conversation he'd had with Ailonwey.

"Perhaps..." Ganymede began, "After I finish this year of school, I could start university courses and convince people that I should be seen as an adult. Which is something I had been thinking of doing anyway. But... Ailonwey did seem to suggest that she would be interested, if not for the gap between us."

And then his attitude about the situation swung back to the negative. His excitement, which had been building, faded rapidly. "Me being a child makes all of this kind of revolting though, doesn't it?" He had to imagine that causing Ailonwey to think of him in such a way must have made her deeply uncomfortable.

Wednesday was right. It was fine for him to be having a crush. What would be disgusting was if Ailonwey reciprocated those feelings, probably, no matter how much he wanted that. Thinking about romance with someone like her brought back unspeakable memories of his life before he came here - memories that disgusted him, and would probably disgust others if he spoke up about them. They made his yearnings seem like poison.

He leaned into Wednesday's ear-scritches and closed his eyes.

"I've spoken to my therapist and my counsellor at length about it. I'm of two minds. On the one hand, I want to be able to experience something like a childhood. On the other hand, there's an undeniable experience gap between myself and most of my classmates. I've spent years working and taking care of a household. I've done a lot of what my therapist calls 'emotional labor' for my owner and for others. I've also had sex, and I made something of a splash one time, telling a few of my classmates that it isn't all it's cracked up to be." He exhaled. His classmates were still giggling about it. "So, sometimes I feel like my time at school is a valuable experience, but at other times it feels like a ridiculous charade, like I'm an adult playing at being a child."

Ganymede thought about it, starting to weight the costs and potential benefits of telling his classmates more about the life he came from.

"Oh, it would be mortifying to talk about, with most people. Though... I suppose I have a lot in common with Carmin. He's a few years ahead of me, and he's stuck in a small... plant-human hybrid body. Because of a curse someone put on him when he was a kid. They also made him do manual labor for them, and... this was the friend of mine I helped the police find by using my scrying, actually." Ganymede had already told all the witches about that particular triumph of his.

It wouldn't help him feel any more like a real boy, but he could at least relate to Carmin.