Room 324, Friday Afternoon

[vanillajello]

Kate was a mess. A little bit. In a vague, numb way. Not that she would be showing that to people.

It had been a pretty long week; filled with thinking she was insane, and Christmas shopping, and talking about ballet, and theater, and people unexplainably falling madly in love, and sleeping with several blankets and wearing many many layers because her roommate was making their room cold.

Despite having made two separate trips to the mainland within a week, a part of her wanted to just follow Jack’s lead and get the hell off the island for the weekend. But it was only a week until she’d go back to Kansas for Christmas. Might as well stick it out on the island until then. There was a party on Sunday and everything.

And now she’d found a bunch of photos she’d forgotten about on her computer. They were from the spring, and featured a lot of people she hadn't seen or talked to in a while. Her girlfriends back in Kansas (and such awesome friends they were, having lost contact with her pretty much straight after she moved to Fandom), people from school, Gene, Benjamin. Seemed like half a lifetime away.

She looked at the pictures, comparing her life then to her life now. Deciding which was better wasn't an easy thing to do.


[ooc: Open door, open post!]

Comments

[future_sandworm]

"Triela, dressed in a skirt and high heels, offered intimate services in return for information," he repeated with a grin. "I felt obliged to rescue her from embarrassing herself further."

[vanillajello]

Kate was so not above finding other people's embarrassment funny. So she laughed.

"How chivalrous of you," she chuckled. "Poor Triela."

[future_sandworm]

"I offered her to read me romantic poetry all night," he clarified. "She was herself in the morning."

[vanillajello]

There was a random wave of mixed emotions at that. Kate pushed them back, and concentrated on what was important here.

"And pissed off?" she asked, smirking.

[future_sandworm]

"Yes." He sensed her emotions and smiled a little. "But less so than she would have been had she woken up with someone who had taken her up on the original offer, I suspect."

[vanillajello]

"Yeah, I bet," Kate noted. She shifted a little, making herself more comfortable. "Oh man, now I'm really sure I got off easy last weekend. Not as easy as you, but still."

[future_sandworm]

He laughed softly, slipping an arm around Kate. "If I were you I wouldn't worry."

[vanillajello]

"I don't," Kate said.

It was a pretty half-hearted lie.

[future_sandworm]

Leto knew that, but he didn't point it out. Instead he leaned in to kiss her again.

[vanillajello]

Not every lie needed to be pointed out. She knew he knew, and just kissed him back.

Kate had always been affectionate as a kid, always comforted more by soothing touches than words, but somewhere along the way something had changed. She still hugged her friends a whole lot and stuff like that, sure, but only when she was happy. Stressed out, she tensed up, shoved people away, didn't let them touch her. If she let the comfort in, she'd have to let the bad stuff out. And she just couldn't.

But it was different with him.

[future_sandworm]

And that was comforting for Leto as well. Being who he was - Pre-Born, the son of Muad'Dib - everyone apart from those who really knew him were cautious around him.

He laughed softly, then pulled her closer.

[vanillajello]

Close was good and closer was better, and Kate let out a sigh of contentment. The vague feeling of being a mess was still there, in the back of her mind, but it was quieter. Tamed, for now.

"I like it when you laugh." Her voice was soft and quiet, like she was speaking aloud only because she couldn't transmit her message to him through skin and clothes.

[future_sandworm]

That made him laugh again. "I'm glad," Leto said, ruffling her hair.

[vanillajello]

"I'm glad you're glad," Kate replied, grinning lightly, hand curling around his shoulder.