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If there was one thing that Sue wasn't doing just now, that was soaking in self-satisfaction. Meatgrinder had been... a nightmare. A brilliant success, sure, but that didn't make it any less disgusting.

There'd been survivors, though, and that was what mattered. No, he had to think it again - they'd survived, and that was what mattered. Any... losses, personal or otherwise. They were just....

You know, Sue wasn't very good at this stuff. He just... just wasn't.

A scolding chirp from Nibs brought his attention back to the filthy teacher's lounge. He wasn't doing his job, she reminded him sternly. They'd brought him here for a reason, damn it. Stripers, bumping up against his legs, purred her agreement.

With an uncharacteristic sigh, Sue acquiesced to the feline demands. Ducking down to the cupboard they'd discovered beneath the broken coffee machine, he reached in and pulled out a single, unassuming can of tuna. Dented, but unopened. The cats had found it, recognized the shape, but been unable to work it open with just teeth and claws (though not for lack of trying - teeth marks had shredded the label on one side.)

Enter Sue. Providing the service he was best suited for.

"Right guys, right, I've got it," he grunted, tugging at the pull tab. The top ripped clean in a single motion, and suddenly the girls were dancing in a frenzy around his ankles, all pitiful mewls and whining about how they clearly hadn't eaten in months, Sue, months of not eating, wouldn't you feed them now?!

And yes, that was a direct translation.

Sue used the lid to divvy up the tuna into four equal shares (Sue deserved a bite of real food, too, after all!), and plopped each of the girl's cut onto the floor near their feet. It wasn't much, but it was real meat; it was what they needed. Poking at the remainder and stepping over Stripers, Sue called out to the sentry feline at the door, "Mackie, come'n get it!"

In the hallway, the hulking cat's focus flickered. His nose got working, his tail began to quirk. Mackie finally tilted his head to the side, inclining his nose toward the room where the rest of the gang were already feasting. His ears pivoted back and forth on his head, torn by two equally strong draws - stranger cat. Food. Stranger cat. Food. Stranger cat....

Stranger cat might try to take food.

His mind was made. Puffing himself up, Mackie growled deeply and began to draw forward. His territory, his food -- scram, stranger cat!

Loud vocalizations of "meow" were just that to Sue's ears - loud, annoying vocalizations saying meow. They hit him just the wrong way, like rubbing the wrong side of velcro on his face. It was probably one of those stupid actors that had tried out for the Fairy God Cat role. Sue's teeth gritted. Even with their mission completed, the chances were probably at least three to one that it was a zombie.

Maybe just as well, Sue thought, setting the half-can of tuna onto the counter. Sue could use some good stress relief. Nothing cured the pain of pseudo-mass murder like another pseudo-murder....

Less annoyed by the noise, more irritated by the fact that this damn b***h-cat was not backing down, the heavyweight champion in the hall was revving up for a fight. Mackie's ears set backwards, assuming their proper "I am about to bite your face off" positions. His muscles bunched, his eyes calculated the best pouncing trajectory - this is your Captain, ladies and gentlemen, we're about to cause some turbulence--

"MACKIE, STOPPIT."

And so arrived into the hall Sue, in all his (unbathed, uncombed, bloody, tattered, tired, bruised, angry) glory, as he snagged the tomcat off the ground. With a spitting hiss and a bat of one claw, Mackie twisted free and went tearing off into the kitchen - where, no doubt, he would nonchalantly lick his chest three times, then jump onto the counter to eat his and Sue's portions of tuna.

Cat b*****d. Sue touched his jaw lightly, frowning. He'd almost gotten him with that swipe, too.

"Ain't got no manners, that one," he muttered - to himself? No, couldn't be, he was looking right at Astraea.

Zoo? Okay, he wasn't exactly looking pretty right now or anything, but c'mon. He had reasons for looking like he'd just escaped from the monkey exhibit, she didn't have to be so hard on him.

Though the odd pronunciation of his name (?) was the last thing on his mind right now. He was still trying to wrap his head around what he was hearing. A cat speaking that was not cat-speaking. Hearing them talk, not "hearing" them talk. Content was so easy to lose, when the semantics of the situation were skewed beyond belief.

"... You're... not talking," Sue puzzled after a few seconds. Not talking, as in, not cat-talking. She was obviously talking. Just... not... the right way....

(Some idiot piece of his brain spoke up: Maybe she was a Human Whisperer?)

Sue shifted uncomfortably. This situation had just gotten uncomfortable. Maybe if the cat wasn't looking at him like he'd done something wrong, looking like he was, talking like he did, he could come to terms with this, but now he just felt like he was on the defensive. And that wasn't really a place that Sue liked to be.

"You got someone looking after you, cat?" The easiest way to assert himself in the situation again - disregard everything that made him uncomfortable, then turn the speculative stares around on her. With her neat fur and clean paws, Astraea was a well-fed and healthy cat. Not one that looked like she'd been eking out a life at the end of the world. Not even Sue's cats looked half as good as she did after dodging zombies for a couple weeks.

You're a cat?

Sue's startled gaze faded into a gentle shade of sympathy. Whatever else was going on with this one, she'd gotten confused. That little bit of empathy he held with cats must have done something strange with her - made her see him as one of her own kind, even when he wasn't. Because one thing was for sure - Sue was not now, nor had ever been, a cat. That wasn't an illusion he'd ever held, outside of a few old and despised pictures of him play-acting as a toddler.

Better to lay the law down quick, before the girl here got any more confused. Ducking down slowly, he got to where he could be more eye-to-eye with the cat. His practiced gaze went just up and to the right of her eyes - he wasn't trying to make a dominance fight, after all, just to connect and show that he was communicating.

"I'm human," he agreed in slow, precise words. "Not a cat, just human. And my name's Sue. Ssssue, you see?" He might not like the name, but damn it, it was his.

On one end: Sue, meet Astraea's human form. It was pretty; it had feline accessories. If Andeon were there, he would probably say that this would be Sue's dream girl, if only she'd kept the whiskers and fur.

On the other: Astraea, meet Sue's face of ABSOLUTE ******** HORROR. It was not pretty. It was also very noisy.

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHGAAAAHD!"

If anyone else was in ear shot, they would have taken that noise to mean that a zombie had just caught up with another survivor. If it were a zombie (youma?) that overheard it, they would doubtless be on their way to get their piece of the meal.

Sue wasn't thinking about zombies at just that moment. He was still trying to find some rational explanation for <******** MUTATING CAT PEOPLE - and lemme tell you, his logic circuits just weren't equipped for the task.

"What in the god-danged ******** hell are you," Sue hissed, drawing away from Astraea. He'd seen enough ******** s**t in his time here to know, he was about to get chomped on. Mangled. Mauled. Something. There were a million ways to die at Barren Pines, and none of them were bacterial meningitis, he could tell you that!

Sue couldn't get far enough away. He ******** couldn't. When those sparks had lit off, it had been the last straw. Sue may not have seen Zombieland, like some of his friends in the prestigious circle of survivors, but that didn't mean he didn't know about Rule 1. Cardio, bitches - he was turning and running--

And then the building rattled tremendously, and Sue's feet skidded out from under him. Good thing he had as thick a skull as he did, or Astraea might not have been the only one passing out in the aftermath.

The earth stilled again, and Sue blinked the stars from his eyes. All he could think was: Why God, why? Hadn't Sue gone through enough already? He'd been tested again and again. He'd broken down and formed human attachments, only to have friends die, and then his loyalty thrown into his face when they rose again. He'd ran and fought and ran and fought, all to protect what little he had left after everything else was torn away from him. He'd killed - he'd killed - over and again. It didn't matter if they were zombies. If they'd been humans doing the same things, he would have still killed to stop them. Sue was a ******** murderer. He'd been through ENOUGH, hadn't he?... were you listening, God?

Sue was a Cat Whisperer, not a priest. God had no answer.

But he found some small blessings as he pulled himself slowly upwards, groaning and gripping at the back of his head. For one, the cats were all okay - he could hear them calling out from the next room, complaining at the rudeness of the earthquake interrupting their mealtime. For another, it didn't look like Astraea was going to be getting up anytime quick. Sue could crawl over to the window in confidence, where he then pried himself up by the windowpane, and stare up at the lightless heavens.

"... It really is the end of the world, isn't it...." Sue whispered. It felt an awful lot like praying.

"What in the hell, lady?!" Oh god he'd let his guard slip. Oh god she'd done it. His skin was ******** peeling off - his forehead was on the floor. She just, just stuck some flesh-eating bug into his head or something, and he could feel in under his skin. Sue, you'd given a good show - had some laughs, a lot of tears, taken out some zombies - but this was it. God, he just hoped that the cats would have the good sense to find Yahya, and maybe they'd get to--

Oh. Hey. His head felt normal again. Experimentally, he prodded it with his fingertips. There was a sort of... odd texture there. Not like a scab (and certainly not like a flesh-eating bug), not even like the slick wound he'd have expected after losing a layer of skin. Just something like... a scar.

Time to turn off the surprise, turn on the snark.

"WHAT THE HELL DID YOU JUST DO," Sue bellowed out. Getting angry was easy right then; all it took was a drop of genuine anger to start the ripples, and then he was brimming over with it. Now he could stop with that skittish, worrisome, timid nonsense from before. Now he could remember the lessons that this school had taught him - starting with, if something tries to bite you, you bite ******** back.

Astraea was probably lucky that Sue didn't have his golf club on him, because he'd taken it to folks for a lot less provocation than she'd just given him. Where weapons lacked, though, plain old knuckles would do. The would-be Guardian Cat Zue threw himself at her, teeth bared and brows furrowed. Cat, human, monster - it didn't matter. If she was going to burn skin off of him, Sue was ready to take her the ******** out.