vanillajello | Overland Park, KS, Early Wednesday Evening

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Overland Park, KS, Early Wednesday Evening

It was kind of funny how weirdness never stopped being weird, no matter how much you were exposed to different types of it.

Kate had felt weird since the complete disaster that was Monday night. She'd felt weird through Tuesday's family breakfast, and the stuff they did during the day, and the dinner with the gay neighbors and Charmaine and Nick (which Kate and Marshall and Bod hadn't even attended), and through whatever random crap they'd done today. She could barely remember. It was all kind of hazy. But at least she was pretty sure she'd kept her inner confusion hidden pretty well, for the most part.

She hadn't spent all that much time actually alone with Bod, though. That could've led to talking and she didn't want to do that, so she didn't.

And tomorrow, they'd be back in Fandom. Some other kind of weirdness would take this weirdness' place and this would be forgotten. Hopefully.

Right now, though, they were still in Overland Park. Kate was lying on her stomach on her brother's bed with Bod sitting beside her, Marshall's latest yearbook from glamorous Butterworth Senior High open in front of her, and a black marker in her hand. Marshall himself was currently standing on his bed on Kate's other side, fixing a lamp he had hanging from his ceiling.

Kate drew horns on some random freshman's picture and blacked out his eyes. "I don't miss any of these people."

[For the boooy. NFB due to distance, contains stuff nabbed from USoT S02E01 'Yes'. ETA: Warning for discussion of suicide.]

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Bod had spent most of his time since Monday quietly. It hadn't been hard to tell he was being avoided even when they were putting up the illusion that everything was fine between them.

He talked when spoken to and did little else. Even now, he was a little tense but still curious about the yearbook itself. He hadn't even seen one before. Any other day, he might have asked a predictable question but today, he didn't.

He just watched for the moment.

Kate flipped past a few pages, content to be quiet. Looking at pictures and defacing some of them was a good way to pass the time as far as she was concerned. Made it easier to pretend.

She drew glasses on someone who didn't have them.

Marshall was the one to break the silence next. "I, uh, had lunch at the gay table today," he shared a little uncertainly, as he carefully lowered himself to sit down on the bed.

That thought was pushed aside quickly enough when he saw what kate was doing, though. "Don't draw in there."

Kate wasn't listening. "Look!" she exclaimed with a snicker, tapping someone's picture with her index finger. "This guy's a freshman and he has a full mustache! Did he eat too much hormone chicken?"

Poor Bod didn't really know what the gay table was or what hormone chicken was but he did pick up on Marshall's tone. He looked up and away from yearbook, towards her brother.

Of course, it didn't seem like his place to ask anything, weirdness or not but Marshall had Bod's attention, at least.

And it was probably good that he had at least someone's attention, because Kate's was kind of flaky.

Still, Marshall answered her question. "That's Bill Fasano, he's actually twenty."

But Kate's attention was already elsewhere. "So you ate at the gayble?" she asked incredulously, drawing an even bigger mustache on Bill Fasano's face. Then, wanting to at least give the impression of including Bod in the conversation, she added to him, "There's this table in the cafeteria at my old school where all the gay kids sit at. And now, apparently, my brother too."

She glanced at the aforementioned brother, then shook her head and looked down at the yearbook again. "Man, that is so not your style..."

Marshall pursed his lips and looked unsure. "I don't know if it is or it isn't."

"It isn't," Kate replied, decisively. She thought she knew.

Edited 2010-08-25 19:52 (UTC)

Bod pursed his lips a little at her inclusion of him into the conversation because it wasn't that hard to tell that it had almost been an afterthought on her part. The tension he'd been feeling since Monday increased again and he rubbed the back of his neck.

"Maybe it is his style," he said, finally interjecting something into the conversation. "Have you asked him?"

All right, he'd interjected a little snappishly but at least he was talking.

Kate blinked at him. Yeah, not the best tone to take when joining a conversation. Even Marshall looked mildly surprised, not that he hadn't been noticing the tension between the two.

He'd been shanghaied into being the third wheel more than once these past few days, after all.

"He doesn't want people thinking he's gay," she pointed out. "Sitting at the gayble pretty much screams gayness."

"A-actually, there's, um, at least Courtney," Marshall interjected, "who says she's straight." But not narrow, in her exact words.

[I can't spell today.]

Edited 2010-08-25 20:00 (UTC)

"It looks like your assumption isn't entirely correct," said Bod, glancing over at Marshall briefly before looking down again. That moment of irritation had been a bit of a surprise to him too.

"It's just a table," he added, shaking his head. He was regretting saying anything at all but now that he had, he figured adding more wouldn't hurt.

[I got caught in awful traffic so you had pleeeeeenty of time to correct]

Kate rolled her eyes and went through a few more pages of the yearbook. "It's not just a table," she said. "It's a statement. And it's not Mooshmallow's style to make statements."

Except by burning down sheds, but since she wasn't currently annoyed at Marshall, she didn't bring that up.

Marshall looked a little hesitant, a little uncomfortable. "I don't think it's that much of a statement."

Poor Marshall, getting stuck in the middle of their...whatever they were having. Bod didn't know if it could be classified as a fight or an argument or something else.

"Was it bad, sitting at that table?" Bod wondered, curious. "I mean, would you do it again?"

Kate glanced at her brother, then shook her head again, going back to reading the book. She'd keep out of it for now, having made her point already.

"Uh, I don't... I don't know," Marshall said, brows knitting together a bit as he tried to put his thoughts into words. "I mean, I... didn't really know anyone there? And they were all kind of --"

"Gay?"

Okay, so maybe Kate couldn't quite keep out of it. Marshall just frowned at her.

Bod joined in the frowning and crossed his arms, feeling like he should just make himself as small as possible since that would make it easier to be ignored. He shook his head subtly.

"They're still people, gay or not," he finally said, shrugging. "Does it matter that they're labeled? I wouldn't really care."

Kate's eyes were going to roll right out of her head, one of these days. "Yes, well, you're weird," she said. "Most people are going to look at that table and decide everyone there is gay. And Marshall here has problems with publicly admitting who and what he is."

"I'm right here," Marshall protested, weakly, not really wanting to get into something that wasn't really about him. Even though on the surface it was.

"You could let your brother decide what he wants," Bod clipped out, shaking his head again. "He seems pretty competent and intelligent. Maybe he'll surprise you."

And, while Bod actually believed in what he was saying, he was getting the feeling he'd be trying to argue with her even if he didn't. If she didn't want to talk to him any other way, at least he'd get this and get some petty self satisfaction out of it.

"Thanks," Marshall said quietly, though he sounded as if he would've liked to add 'I guess'.

Kate, on the other hand, just decided to drop this subject. "Whatever," she said, pushing herself up so she could actually sit between the two boys.

"So, Hubbard's car is still out there," she continued, almost idly. It was a nice looking car, a dark red Cadillac. They'd stood right by it, in the dark with the flashing lights. Maybe her fascination was a little morbid.

"Death car." Yeah, definitely a little morbid.

The mention of her deceased neighbor sent his thoughts spiraling back to Monday and he fell back on being silent again. He almost looked sullen which was an unusual sort of thing since he never tended to look that upset.

Bod also didn't know what to say. She didn't talk about death with him all that often and when she did, they ended up fighting and with the way they already were acting towards each other, he wanted to prevent the situation from escalating.

So, he sat there and listened and looked sullen.

And Kate didn't know he looked like that, because she wasn't looking at him. Didn't really want to, right now.

Marshall did notice it, but said nothing about it. "That Cadillac?" he asked his sister instead. "It's always been in that same spot, I don't think the guy ever left the house."

Kate raised her eyebrows at him. "Must've sucked to live like that," she said, her voice deceptively light, "hiding all these secrets."

Hint hint. Maybe she hadn't quite dropped the previous topic after all.

Bod...actually made a sound of wry amusement at that. Hearing her talk about secrets and all, he couldn't really help himself. It seemed slightly hypocritical to him but he was apparently invisible today.

He did kept quiet thought and kept looking down at the floor, at his feet, at anything else but either Gregson that was in the room right now. Maybe he'd take a walk. He didn't know her street that well but, at this point, getting lost didn't seem so bad.

Kate's eyes narrowed some at that sound, but she still didn't turn to look at him. Maybe it was more than a little petty of her, but she didn't think he deserved it now.

And anyway, Marshall accidentally made himself the perfect target for her annoyance, right then. "Maybe he was happy that way," he said, shrugging.

Kate's eyes narrowed some more and she turned more towards her brother. "Sure Moosh, Mr Hubbard was happy as shit," she spat out. "That's why he took bunch of poison, slit his wrists, hung himself and then shot himself while he was hanging."

The rumors about Mr. Hubbard's chosen method had been varied, though the gist of it was that the shot they'd heard wasn't nearly all of it. Kate shook her head and would've probably said more, if her father hadn't appeared by the open door just then.

"Hey guys," Max said. "Me and Mom are gonna go down to Cat Five's for a couple beers, 'kay?"

And since he wasn't actually asking for their permission, he turned to leave after saying that. But then, after a little bit of hesitation, Marshall piped up. "Hey, Dad? Can you take me to the greenhouse tomorrow morning?"

His father looked surprised. "The greenhouse? Yeah, okay," he shrugged, then gave them all a little wave before going down the stairs again.

And silence fell, for a moment at least.

There was a random, idiotic moment where Bod almost asked Mr. Gregson if he could go with them just so he could get some space between himself and Kate. It was an idiotic, spur of the moment thought though and he let the silence fill his ears again.

Everything was hurting right now. He wasn't showing it but his mind and his stomach and his heart all hurt. She'd asked him once before if she'd made him ache and he could definitively answer that she had.

Bod didn't make any other noises, he kept his head bowed and he actually closed his eyes to maybe make himself disappear. Or to wish himself back in time to before Monday.

The sudden guest appearance by her dad had taken the fight out of Kate for now, it seemed. Couldn't really find the annoyance again. So she was quiet for a while, too.

She traced a spiral onto the random open page of the yearbook in front of her. "What's at the greenhouse?" she asked, way more subdued now.

Marshall was... the same, really, though he was far more mild already by nature. "Purple carnations."

Meanwhile, Bod's irritation was still spiking off and on because she'd been ignoring him for going on two days and being irritated hurt less than being upset. He wasn't out and out showing it all the time but it was there.

He was still half listening to Marshall and he almost added something to the conversation but it got stuck somewhere in his throat and evaporated there. So, he'd continue being the body in the room that no one wanted there.

At least he was living up to his name. Nobody Owens, indeed.

It wasn't much of a conversation.

"Purple carnations for what?" Kate asked, still tracing shapes on the page.

Marshall was only barely focusing on talking. His eyes kept looking past Kate, darting to Bod. "Sweethearts' Day. They're, uh, reclaiming it."

"Who?"

"The--" He didn't really know what to say here. "Lionel and his friends."

"Oh. Cool."

It was more than cool, especially the fact that Marshall seemed to intend participating, because that was exactly what she'd been pushing him to do, in her own way, but... Everything was just so weird.

Bod vaguely felt someone's eyes on him and he guessed they were Marshall's since Kate wasn't looking at him or talking to him or...really even acting like he was around unless she absolutely had to.

He glanced up and caught Marshall's eye once but didn't react other than that. He wasn't going to do anything that looked like he was trying to turn him against his sister.

He looked down again and crossed his arms tighter around himself. It wasn't much of a conversation but it was better to focus on those words than to focus on the silence and the thoughts in his head.

Too bad for Bod that there wasn't much conversation beyond that point. they'd exhausted what they had to say when neither was really paying much attention to what they were saying.

It was quiet again for a while. Kate leafed through the yearbook, not really looking at anything.

Marshall cleared his throat and got up. "So, since Mom and Dad are away," he said, "I, uh, I think I'm going to go downstairs and watch a movie. ~~Meta for~~ Sunset Boulevard, maybe? Anyone interested?"

And when he said anyone, he tried to catch Bod's eye again. Basically, he was vaguely offering him an out from having to deal with his sister, just for a while. Or Kate a chance to be alone.

Also, his room was kind of his favorite place in the world and they were ruining it with their tension.

Later, Bod would probably apologize for making poor Marshall's room issue laden. Right now, there was a decision out there that he had to make. He could go, let Kate have her space and not be ignored for a little awhile or he could stay and try and talk to her.

Considering she'd barely acknowledged him in forty eight hours, the choice seemed easy but it still made his stomach roil.

"I've never seen that movie," Bod replied after a moment. "Perhaps today is the day I correct that."

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