Room 324, Friday Afternoon

[vanillajello]

Kate was just getting around to emailing photos of Fandom to her brother when her phone buzzed, signaling the arrival of a message.

haven’t seen you at school, where r u?

Kate blinked a few times after she read the message. Oh-kay. Not entirely unexpected, but still pretty surprising. She wasn’t going to reply to it, though. He didn’t deserve it. She couldn’t really bring herself to delete the message right away, but went back to picking sendable pictures on the computer.

About five minutes later the phone buzzed again.

i miss you katie-chan

...He was making it really hard not to reply. Kate sat on her bed, looking at her phone.


[Open door, open post!]

Comments

[future_sandworm]

"What's wrong with spontaneity?" he replied, laughing.

[vanillajello]

"It gets you answers you don't accept as answers," Kate pointed out.

[future_sandworm]

"I only reject answers that aren't answers because they don't' answer the question." He smirked.

[vanillajello]

"Why do you get to be the judge of what answers or doesn't answer the question?" she returned.

[future_sandworm]

"Because I asked it," he replied. It wasn't a good answer, perhaps, but she was free to point that out.

[vanillajello]

"The question is yours, but the answer is mine," she said. "So I should be the one evaluating how good an answer it is. You can just judge it on the basis of how much you like it."

[future_sandworm]

"Not only based on how much I like it," he said, "But also on how much it actually does answer the question."

[vanillajello]

"Why doesn't 'I don't even know' answer the question?" she asked.

[future_sandworm]

"Why wouldn't you know?" he replied.

[vanillajello]

"Because I don't?"

Everyone was allowed a crappy answer every once in a while.

[future_sandworm]

"I might not believe you," he replied.

[vanillajello]

"There is very little I can do about that," she remarked.

[future_sandworm]

"Then we are at a stalemate," Leto concluded.

This was a lot like playing chess.

[vanillajello]

Monopoly was more her thing, but Kate would have had to agree.

"Maybe you should learn to ask better questions," she smirked.

[future_sandworm]

"I could," he said, turning serious. "But you wouldn't like it, and I wouldn't use it against you."

[vanillajello]

"...Okay, that sounded bad," Kate said, frowning.

[future_sandworm]

"Bene Gesserit training," he said. "It can be used to make people say or do things they wouldn't normally." He had admitted that particular skill very rarely in Fandom.

[vanillajello]

Which was very understandable.

"Oh. Not nice," said Miss States-the-Obvious after a pause.

[future_sandworm]

"As I said, I would never use it against you," Leto repeated.

[vanillajello]

"That's good to know," Kate nodded. "And I do believe you." She had to say it, just in case the ever so slightly worried look made it seem like she didn't.

[future_sandworm]

"Thank you," Leto said softly.

[vanillajello]

Kate smiled at him, if a little weakly, and reached out for his hand.

[future_sandworm]

Leto took her hand and squeezed it. He wouldn't ask if what he has said bothered her. He expected that it did.

[vanillajello]

Of course it did. She did her best to fight against it.

Her phone buzzed again. "Oh for fuck's sake," she muttered, picking the phone up with her free hand and flicking it open to read the message.

[future_sandworm]

"How is it?" Leto asked.