Room 324, Saturday Morning

[vanillajello]

Kate had... kind of intended to spend the night alone. That had been the original plan, at least, before a miniature freakout and being a fabulous fake and having to stand the sight of Caroline and ugh. Yet another plan of Kate's that had not gone quite as she'd originally thought it would.

She'd figure out how she felt about that later, maybe. Because right now she was still asleep, clinging to Nathan with an arm and a leg over him, pressed close against him despite the blankets spread over them. That was just her thing, minor neediness slipping out when she wasn't conscious enough to control it. It was a lot like another morning a month or so ago, probably, except they were presently decidedly more lacking in clothes and knew each other better in whole new ways.

And Fandom was being Fandom again, but that was not for them to know yet. They'd find out soon enough.

[ooc: Just for that one guy, and for that other smaller guy who'll cause a whole lot of emo despite being adorbs, and then probably that third guy with some more emo.]

Comments

[vanillajello]

How was it that Kate's first instinct still was to argue that if he was counting himself as a Dorian then not all the important ones were dead? She didn't go with it, either way.

"You know what I meant," she said, mildly, instead.

[therewaslife]

"Of course," he said, shrugging a shoulder. "I know everything."

That was a little sarcastic and he closed his eyes and shook his head. "I apologize. I'm just overwhelmed right now."

[vanillajello]

"It's a lot," Kate replied, with some sympathy or something like it edging her voice. "I know. It's Fandom." She brushed her fingers against Dorian's hair a couple more times, absently, and sounded a little more business-like when she spoke again. "How are we gonna go about this?"

[therewaslife]

"Go...about this?" Bod repeated, glancing over at her for the barest of seconds. "What do you mean?"

[vanillajello]

"Like, how do we deal with this?" she clarified, without looking at Bod. "With him. Do we... take shifts looking after him or whatever?"

[therewaslife]

"You want to divide him up between us?" Bod asked, frowning at that. "Shouldn't we maybe ask him what he wants? We're not that important in the grand scheme of things, Kate."

[vanillajello]

"I was just asking, Bod," Kate replied, forcing herself not to snap like she wanted to. "Just trying to... do something."

[therewaslife]

"I lost my parents when I was young," he said, looking down at the child again and shrugging. "I don't want him to feel like he's losing his too because you hate me."

[vanillajello]

"Don't be a fucking idiot, I don't hate you." She said it precisely, and calmly, and keeping her voice down. Didn't need to wake poor Dorian up with this. "But you can't even look at me, how do you think that'll look to him?"

Not actually looking at him right now probably made her a hypocrite, yeah.

[therewaslife]

"Please don't call me names," he said and bit down on his lip to keep the well of emotion inside him from exploding. "Please. I can't look at you because you're wearing someone else's shirt, Kate. I'd rather not see that."

[vanillajello]

"It's a shirt, Bod," Kate said, and actually had the presence of mind to start moving away from the bed because she wasn't sure how much of a hold she could keep on her tone and volume. She wandered over to her desk. "It's just a shirt, at least it won't keep coming up to chatter at you, thinking you two are gonna be BFFs or something."

Oh look, someone's irritation at other stuff was slipping out.

[therewaslife]

"What?" Bod asked, resting his larger hand on Dorian's head to both comfort and partially cover his ear. "What are you talking about?"

[vanillajello]

Kate couldn't resist an eyeroll. It was directed... at the world at large, probably. She stood by her desk, arms crossed, shoulders tense.

"You should tell your little ladyfriend to stop trying to play friends with me."

[therewaslife]

"Caroline?" he guessed because he'd been listening to radio even if she didn't. "She's just my friend, Kate. I can't tell her who to talk to and who not to. I talk to her because she's my friend and she listens to me talk. Perhaps you should direct your anger away from her and onto me. There's enough of it there already. She didn't do anything wrong."

[vanillajello]

"I am not 'directing my anger' at her, okay?" Kate replied, raising her eyebrows like she couldn't believe what she was hearing. "I don't seek her out to be mean to her or whatever. She comes to me."

[therewaslife]

"I'm not going to fight with you today," he said, shaking his head and looking down at Dorian. "I refuse to do this with you anymore. I'm sorry for ruining your day and probably your weekend."

[vanillajello]

"Well you fucking should be."

Okay, deep breaths. Wasn't this exactly what she'd been trying so hard to avoid? She wrapped her arms around herself, tried to get back to some rational line of thinking but it was hard because there was nothing rational about how she felt around him.

"So what do we do?"

[therewaslife]

Bod started breathing a little heavier than previously at her absolutely stinging words and he looked down. It was just all so much and he had to wipe his eyes to prevent any tears from emerging. He didn't know if that would help but he had to try and stop this overwhelming mess of emotions that he'd been keeping in check.

He bowed his head and sniffed a few times, forgetting to answer her because, well, he didn't want his voice to sound bad.

[vanillajello]

Kate couldn't look at him. Seriously, she could not look at him because looking at him made her whole chest hurt and made her want to apologize for anything and everything just to get him to stop looking so bad, and she was... not going to do that.

"Right," she muttered in the general direction of her feet. "Extremely helpful."

[therewaslife]

Bod's head snapped up at that and he didn't eve care if his eyes looked a little wet and red. He was just so tired of having his heart run over and kicked by her.

"I'm sorry, Kate, it's a little hard for me to be helpful after you've so bluntly admitted that a child of mine could ruin your weekend so thoroughly," he said, thankfully still sounding calm. "And I really don't want to hear an excuse because that's what you meant and we both know it. Forgive me but I'm trying despite feeling really quite awful right now."

[vanillajello]

Kate looked up, her expression cold because it had to be.

"I didn't say a child of yours did that. I said you did." To her, that wasn't an excuse, that was accuracy. She also knew it wasn't a nice thing to say, but then she wasn't feeling particularly good or nice either. "I didn't say he did. He-- he's fucking perfect. Don't put words in my mouth."

[therewaslife]

"Why shouldn't I do that?" Bod wondered, shaking his head. "Why? You've been doing it to me to the point that I think I'm the absolute worst person to be around. So, you're perfectly valid in your choices of demonizing me but if I do it, it just makes me even more the villain?"

He didn't understand. Of course he didn't.

[vanillajello]

Kate squared her shoulders, trying to steel herself against his words, her reactions, all of it. "I thought you weren't gonna do this with me today."

[therewaslife]

Bod shook his head and swiped a hand across his wet eyes, fighting off the tears and the urge to scream until he was hoarse. "I'm trying not to, Kate, but you're making it hard. You've made me feel like a monster. I think you're...names that I don't want to repeat right now, I've ruined your weekend, I don't know what I'm talking about, I'm a coward, I'm nothing."

He stopped his words and looked down again. "When you look at me, I feel like a monster. And it's awful and sad. I tried so hard to get away from that and now...it's constant."

[vanillajello]

Wow, ow. That... That really did sting. Just when she thought he couldn't make her feel any worse. It knocked the wind and the words out of her for a few moments.

"That is not my fault," she said then, a little quieter, hating the way her voice tried to break on the last syllable. "You are not a monster, and you never have been, and it is not my fault if you think that. It's not. You can't pin that on me."