vanillajello | Room 324, Monday After Classes

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Room 324, Monday After Classes

Kate was twitchy. She supposed it was a natural side effect of knowing one of her best friends was pretty much going to walk into his death in a few days, and she was supposed to go... see him off, or something. That was not something she wanted to be dealing with.

So after classes, she'd pulled on her PVH garb, and sat down in front of her computer. This was easy, this was so far removed from everything else going on in her life. She got to talk about the whole Princess Valhalla mythology, and random other stuff too. In fact, she was just in the middle of a good rant about the latest season of one of her favorite trashy shows when the guy on the screen (fourth_mister, again) interrupted her.

"Uh, I'm sorry but... I don't actually watch The Real Housewives of New Jersey."

Kate blinked, a little taken aback. "Oh," she said. "I... thought you said I could talk about whatever I wanted."

"I did!" the guy assured her hastily, and gave her a smile. "But now I wanna do something else."

Well. This was unexpected, but she supposed she was game. At least to find out what it was he wanted to do. "... Okay. What?" If it involved her taking her clothes off, she was so not doing it.

"Do you have any cake?"

What? Kate laughed, just because that went way over her head. "Cake?" she repeated, then sobered up some, because she really had no idea where this was going. "Why?"

"Um... I was hoping you could, um..." He swallowed. "Sit on it?"

Uhh. Kate didn't even know what to say to that. After a moment of hesitation, she told him she didn't really have the means to fulfill his request at the moment, but that she'd think about it, and then she announced she had to go, and ended the chat.

With a sigh, Kate started changing out of the costume into some regular clothes, her mind buzzing with several different kinds of things all at once.

[ooc: Door is closed, post is open! The contents of the conversation under the cut are NFB, please and thank you. Taken again from UsoT S02E08.]

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"And now you're going back, Kate!" Bod said, coming as close to a shout as he ever did. "And I'm really terrified that I might not see you again. You're not acting right, you're not telling me much and what you are telling me isn't good."

Agitated, he tried to pull into himself, make himself a smaller target for whatever.

"You asked me a question about a practice I do know about so I know it can go wrong so now I can't help but wonder what you're going to do," he said, frowning. "Last time wasn't good and you were just an observer. Can you blame me for this? Can you honestly tell me you'd feel different if our positions were reversed?"

"Jesus, Bod, I'm not trying to blame you for anything!" Kate replied, exasperated. "And I didn't ask about... that thing because I'm going to do it, I asked because I already alm--"

Here she stopped herself, her hands clenching into fists at her sides. She shook her head.

"Ugh, whatever. You wanna know why I'm going again? Because my best friend asked me to come wish him good luck when he's about to go do something completely insane. And you wanna know what totally dangerous things I'm going to do? I am gonna yell at him, and at our friends, and then I'm probably gonna cry because there's nothing I can do to stop him. That's what I'm gonna do."

Edited 2010-11-23 18:01 (UTC)

Bod stared at her again, completely taken aback and really did reach for the door this time. He was going because she hadn't heard a word he'd just said. Not a word.

"Good luck with your trip," he said, trying not to sound as upset as he was. "Next time, though, after I share a very real fear of not seeing you again, maybe you could try to be slightly more sympathetic because that just...wasn't."

He shook his head. "I shared with you what I'm feeling. You got angry. Good luck with your trip."

And at that, Kate pulled back into her shell. She didn't think he'd really heard her either, so this was getting to be a little pointless, and just generally too much right now. For both of them.

"I have no idea what it is that you wanted from me," she said, then shrugged. "But, bye, I guess. Later."

"I don't want anything from you, Kate," Bod said, shaking his head. "I want you. I want you to come back. That's what I want. And I didn't want you to run down a list of facts to tell me that. I just wanted you to tell me you'd come back. That's all."

Bod looked at her, knuckles turning white with how tight he was holding the door. "I don't want facts or a list. I just want you to tell me I'll see you again. If you get hurt, that hurts me and I'm not into that idea."

Her words were still very fresh in his mind from that day.

"I understand your friend's important to you but I don't know him. I know you and you're the one that I'm worried about. Knowing the facts, that just doesn't make me less afraid. Worried."

"Of course I'm going to come back," Kate replied, frowning even if her tone softened some again. "Sorry if I find that too obvious or something."

Mostly because she didn't like dwelling on the alternative, but she really did think she wasn't going to be doing anything dangerous just by going to Bristol. Mitchell wouldn't have asked her if that had been the case.

Bod shrugged and didn't apologize for the question. He'd felt it was important to ask and important to know. He had no idea what she was about to do and she'd asked him about letting a vampire feed.

He kept holding onto her door, eyes on the floor but hadn't moved any further out. Her reassurance was what he'd wanted to hear but he still felt scraped raw.

Kate watched him quietly for a moment, then said, "You can go if you want to." Her tone was mild. Sure, she never really liked it when he went away, but on the other hand she had no idea what they'd do if he stayed.

"I don't know," he said and rubbed the heel of his hand over his eye, still waffling on what he wanted to do. One part wanted to leave desperately and another part didn't.

Kate shrugged a shoulder, still watching him. "Well I don't know either."

"You know what, I do know," he said, finding some resolve and looking over at her. He stepped inside the room and shut the door. "I'll leave but I have to tell you something first. I don't think you realize it either. Maybe you need to hear it."

Kate raised her eyebrows, and fidgeted a little, one hand tugging on the hem of her shirt. "If it's something that's gonna make this day worse, I don't think I want to hear it right now."

When people said they had to tell her something, it tended not to be good.

"You need to hear it," Bod said, firm on that point. "I love you. And I'm not going to hold you back but I want you to understand that not knowing what you're doing is hard. It's difficult. This is not me asking to know anything and everything either but if our positions were reversed and I was leaving and hinting about things being bad and crying, wouldn't it be hard for you?"

He still felt the tinges of being upset and worried, still felt tense, but his voice was steady.

"Being in my position with you, it's hard. I love it but it's hard. There's so much you can't or won't tell me and I'm left to wonder if you're all right, if you're in trouble, whatever. I don't stop you though. I never have. I worry and I hope but I need you to understand that's hard and I'm allowed to be stressed and I'm allowed to be worried. I know you're not good at sympathy but when I say I'm worried about you not coming back, a speech telling me that my fear is misguided isn't going to help. You do what you need to do, Kate. I hope everything does go well but just remember that it's not easy to be the one here, with little information, hoping you're all right. I love you and I'll wait but it's not always easy to not know. That's all. The end."

Kate listened, quietly, almost impassive at first but then chewing on her bottom lip and having to blink maybe a little more frequently than usual, which she'd blame on her generally high levels of stress more than anything else.

At the end, she didn't say anything. She didn't know what to say, but she did step closer and reached for him, with the intention of kissing him like she'd meant to since she'd first opened the door for him earlier.

Sometimes kisses worked better for her when it came to conveying things, so she had to try.

Bod had been holding his breath after he'd stopped speaking because he hadn't known what to expect. Yelling, staring, dismissal, acceptance, those were all possibilities but he hadn't really thought of kissing.

He wasn't going to argue though. Kissing was a good thing (unless she was kissing him goodbye) so after taking a moment to recover, he responded and reached for her too.

Well, she might have been kissing him goodbye. Kate was a little undecided on that point, so for now she was just kissing him, wrapping her arms around him and letting herself be a little clingy and a little desperate.

Desperate for what? Who knows.

If she was kissing him goodbye, she'd have to be the one to say that because he'd said his piece. He'd laid everything out for her to know and try to understand and he had nothing else.

He didn't want to say goodbye. He was still worried and still stressed but he tried to keep those out of their kiss so it'd just be a good, strong kiss.

And Kate could help with that. She put all her energy and all her focus into that kiss. It was something she was feeling better at than words and talking today.

She could still try and convey that she cared about him a lot even if she failed at sympathy and other things.

As much as Bod was enjoying this kiss, he didn't want this to get away from them at a high stress time. So, he gradually eased off the intensity of that kiss until he'd eventually pulled away and was looking down at his feet.

It was hard to leave themselves open to more talking but he also didn't want any awkwardness dealing with acting without thinking.

Kate didn't fight him when he eased them out of the kiss, but it wouldn't have been her choice. Unsurprisingly. Talking was her least favorite thing today.

So she said nothing, just seemed to find her own feet with their bright red nails utterly fascinating.

He wasn't going to make her talk but he also wanted to avoid a repeat of what happened at her parents a few short months ago. They'd acted out of stress and emotion then and that had turned out so badly.

He just didn't want that to happen right now. He wouldn't have been able to handle it.

Kate hadn't forgotten that either, and wouldn't have let it happen again. Not like that. There were some mistakes she could learn from.

But now she didn't know what to do. He was the one who'd just made a big speech, but somehow she was the one feeling weirdly exposed.

She rubbed at one of her eyes.

Bod waited for her to do whatever she'd wanted. Technically, it might have been his turn because she'd kissed him but it was her room and her situation so he waited. He'd said he'd wait.

So, he waited quietly, glancing at her every so often and trying to predict what might happen.

That had to be a hard task, considering even Kate really had no idea. She thought about sending him away, for a moment, then discarded that idea quickly. She wanted him to be here, even if it was... like this.

So she reached for his hand.

Bod took the offered hand a little hesitantly but laced his fingers with hers once he'd done it. He kept his eyes on their hands and not on her face, a little afraid of what he might have seen there.

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