I'm not a hardship. I'm awesome.

Being in Overland Park right now, it was hard to believe it was still March. The weather had been unusually warm from January onwards, and it was only getting warmer as the weeks went on. Charmaine was triumphant and taking it as a sign that the higher powers were smiling down at her plans to have an open air wedding. Kate just took it as another reason why dear ole OP was a better place for her to be these days than Fandom.

The bride-to-be hadn't been home when Kate had gotten there. She and Tara had taken off on a little roadtrip to Lawrence, since that was where the mysterious Mimi Parmiter lived, according to Kate's online research. They weren't really needed around, anyway. Things were pretty much in order. Max and Nick had been outside building an arch thing when Kate had gotten home, that was probably the biggest thing apart from actually doing some decorating that wasn't finished yet.

And what had Kate ended up doing? Blowing balloons with her dear little brother. They'd been at it for a while now; the gains of their efforts were littered across her bedroom floor like a light purple sea. "Feeling a little faint," Marshall announced, sounding a little out of breath. "I just grayed out."

( Keep blowing. )

[ooc: NFB, NFI, OOC-okay! Taken from USoT S02E12 'From This Day Forward'. It's much warmer in Kate's version of the Midwest than it is in RL, yes, just so I don't have to change the setting of the wedding.]

Kate had hoped getting home would make her feel better.

It didn't. Not when one of the very first questions she'd heard from her mother (after she'd come back from Lynda's, of course, because apparently she was there all the fucking time now) had been about Bod and how he was doing. Kate had sort of ducked that one, then excused herself and just avoided everyone.

It was easy, because they didn't bother coming to her in her room.

Until now, that was. Marshall appeared in the bathroom doorway while she was sitting on her bed with the latest issue of Cosmo she wasn't really reading. Too many relationship things, and she didn't have the focus necessary for the makeup tips. He got her attention by knocking on the doorframe, then stepped in, moving sort of carefully, like someone walking on thin ice.

And then his eyebrows bounced, and then dipped again. Surprise, confusion. "Is this... Are you listening to the Velvet Underground?"

"Yes," Kate replied flatly, eyes flicking back to the magazine in her lap. Her brother looked on, and she didn't need to even glance at him to know he looked worried. She would've liked to think it was just because the unlikely choice of music, because that would've been stupid and laughable and mockable, but this was Marshall, and she knew that.

He cleared his throat. "Did, um... Did something happen?"

She let a moment pass in silence, flicking past a few pages even though she had no idea what was on them, and she kept her voice calm and steady and bordering on impassive as she finally answered the question. "Bod found out about the webcam Princess Valhalla thing and dumped me. Don't tell Mom and Dad."

Marshall made a sound like he wanted to say something, and she could see him fidget from the corner of her eye, but then he seemed to think better of it. A little awkwardly, he reached to give her shoulder a little squeeze, before turning around on his heels and walking out again.

Only after he'd gone, she glanced towards the bathroom and his room beyond, then went back to not reading. Merry fucking Christmas, indeed.

[ooc: NFB, NFI, etc. Tomorrow, I am off to spend Christmas with some relatives, and I'll be AFK until Monday unless someone in my grandad's building happens to have unprotected wifi. Happy holidays, people.]

You knew you were in Fandom when a class where the room was full of bunnies was not the most insane class of the day. But that was all forgotten now, because Kate had to prepare for tomorrow. Because tomorrow, she had a job interview! And that trumped everything else.

She'd considered calling up Mitchell or Hannibal to gush, but what she really needed right now was someone to go over her outfit with her. Which meant that after a lot of persuading and general harassment, she'd managed to get her brother on webcam.

Her laptop was on her desk chair now, so Marshall got a full-body view when she finally emerged from the bathroom in her carefully picked job interview clothes: a black turtleneck shirt, black skirt, black leggins, and black boots. She thought black was a good color for the job. "So, is this serious enough?" she asked, stopping to pose with her hands on her hips.

( What makes you think I know anything about fashion? )

Kate just made another face at him and muttered "no" as she started prying the boots off her feet. Stupid logical little brother, trying to bring her down.

[ooc: Door is closed, but post is very open for interaction of all kinds. Yep, still USoT S02E01, tweaked-for-Fandom version.]

This wasn't quite what Kate had expected her family to do in preparation for the start of the big redecoration project.

It was late, and the Gregsons were gathered in front of a Planet Aid clothing donation bin. They were all looking at it, almost as if expecting something to happen. Like maybe Tara would start switching and the alters would all come rolling out and express their disdain for why Max was carrying a box filled with all their stuff.

Because they were here to dump them. The meds had been working for a while now. Tara hadn't transitioned in months. And she'd been thinking about doing this for a while already, and now that Kate had come home for a few days, and they were boxing up some of their stuff anyway... Tara thought it was time.

But scepticism was in the air. Kate, as usual, took it upon herself to voice it, asking the question no one else had asked earlier in the evening or on the drive over.

( Are you sure you wanna do this? I mean, are we sure they're all gone? )

[ooc: NFB, NFI, OOC loved like pie. Taken from United States of Tara S02E01, 'Yes'. Whoo season two!]

The first day of Parents’ Weekend had gone pretty well, and the second seemed to have had a good start too.

After escorting her mother to Mitchell’s office, Kate had met up with her brother to come hang out in her room.

”So, what were you doing when I was with Mom?” she asked, sitting down on the edge of her bed.


[ooc: For the younger Gregson kid!]

So, this was actually happening. Kate had brought Leto home with her.

Sure, her family could have picked them up at the airport, but Kate had insisted on a cab instead. It was kind of expensive, but at least it gave her some more time to prep Leto on What Not To Talk About. As if she hadn't kind of been lecturing him through the whole flight over.

The only downside to this arrangement was that thanks to some stuff that had come up during the cab ride, the cab driver now probably thought Kate and Leto were pretty nice and coherent for obvious drug users.

And now they were out of the cab and standing on the sidewalk in front of Kate's home. "So, this is my neighborhood," Kate told Leto, gesturing around at the identical houses and cute frontyards. "Pretty unspectacular."

( Leto Atreides from Arrakis meets the Gregsons from Kansas. )



( And then late Saturday morning... )

[OOC: NFI & NFB due to distance, OOC welcome. Preplayed with the wonderful future_sandworm and the equally wonderful thegregsons aka joan_notjane. Both bits posted now because of my (un)availability, about which there’ll be a separate post in just a moment.]