An Ice Creamery, Baltimore, Early Sunday Afternoon

[vanillajello]

Friday had been pretty spectacularly bad, and the less said about it the better. Saturday, Kate had just laid low and recuperated. And today, today was just one of those days she had to get off the island. It was just a necessity, being outside in the normal world. Not getting yelled at by vampires, not singing things that were better kept silent.

So she'd come here, to this ice cream place. She'd been happy here once, months and months ago, flirting and drawing out some of the very first of those blushes she'd later come to love so much. This was a good, non-crazy place to be spending a Sunday afternoon in.

She had a big bowl of ice cream and her laptop in front of her, and was currently busying herself with following some of Knatasha Knightblade's advice from a few weeks ago by setting up an Amoozoo wishlist for Princess Valhalla Hawkwind.

Picking out things she wanted was like therapy. She'd be here a while.

[ooc: NFB due to being off-island, but open for calls/texts/randomly finding her here.]

Comments

[therewaslife]

"You're reason enough to come by your room," Bod pointed out, smiling at her, "so I'm sure I'll be there at the next possible moment."

[vanillajello]

"And then there'll obviously have to be birthday kisses," she said, nodding. "'Cause you missed out on those too."

[therewaslife]

"I would enjoy birthday kisses," he agreed, nodding. "I would enjoy those quite a lot. I've never had birthday kisses."

[vanillajello]

"Except the ones you shared with me on mine, obviously," she pointed out. "But I'll make sure these are even better."

[therewaslife]

"I meant birthday kisses of my own," Bod clarified, blushing a bit. "I've never had my own."

[vanillajello]

"You'll get your own," Kate said, though a little distractedly, because... "You're blushing."

[therewaslife]

"I know, I am. I'm not used to people wanting to do things for me," Bod said, shrugging. "And you did and do so I'm blushing."

[vanillajello]

"And this time I didn't even have to start alluding to dirty things to get you redfaced," she snickered. "That would've been the nostalgic way to do it. Remember?"

[therewaslife]

"It might have taken more than that this time," Bod said but he nodded because he did remember. "I've gotten a little stronger than that since then."

[vanillajello]

"I know, I've kinda been monitoring your progress," she teased. "Or pushing your limits further myself."

[therewaslife]

"Monitoring my progress?" Bod asked, laughing. "I sound like an assignment."

[vanillajello]

"Not an assignment," Kate snickered. "Just something I'm interested in."

[therewaslife]

"Have you been pleased with my progress?" Bod asked curiously.

[vanillajello]

"Yes," she decided with another gentle shift of her leg against his. "I'm pleased with you in general."

[therewaslife]

"Mmm. Still love me?" Bod asked softly, moving his leg against hers in turn.

[vanillajello]

"Still love you," Kate replied, smiling down at her ice cream. "Like a fool."

She meant that in a good way. Sometimes, it felt good to be a fool like that.

[therewaslife]

"I still love you like a fool too," Bod said warmly, rubbing his leg against hers and going back to his ice cream too. It did feel good to be in love like a fool sometimes.

Right now, it definitely did.

[vanillajello]

Kate stayed quiet for a while, mixing the two different flavored ice creams together and still smiling to herself. It was a good moment.

"We should do this more often."

[therewaslife]

"All right," Bod said, agreeing easily because, well, he thought so too. "We should. This is really nice. Really nice."

[vanillajello]

"I don't know, maybe we'd benefit from actually dating more," she mused, after a spoonful of ice cream. "I mean, I love it when we just hang out and sprawl over each other in bed, but... This is just really nice."

[therewaslife]

"We can do that," Bod said, nodding. "I'm sorry we haven't done it more. I'm not really sure how to do that sort of thing, if that makes sense. I know the basics but getting me there is a little difficult."

[vanillajello]

"It's not just you," Kate replied with a little smile. "I've kinda gotten used to the whole... non-dating thing while I've been in Fandom. And it probably didn't help that most of the actual dates I had on the island were just epic disasters."

[therewaslife]

"So, we can make that a goal?" Bod suggested with a nod. "To go out with each other more than we already do?"

[vanillajello]

"Uh huh," she nodded easily. "Seems like a worthy thing to work towards. Plus, there's tons of, like, traditional couple stuff we've never done. Like going to the movies."

[therewaslife]

"You're right, we haven't," Bod agreed before eating some of his ice cream. "We're not that traditional of a couple but I think we can do those things. They sound fun."