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

Fire. There's someone on fire. But Kate can't see who it is until the figure turns around and it's her but not her but her and she's standing there and the flames lick up her arms and she's on fire but then it's Mitchell, wild-eyed with a fire inside, and it's Hannibal and the flames go from hot to cold from hot to cold in time with his eyes, and then it's Jack and Emma and Karla and Sebastien and David and Bod and Marshall and Max and Tara --

And then it's Annie, serene calm beautiful Annie like that time in the cellar, and everything stops for a single awful second as she smiles.

And then the flames swallow her up and there's nothing but the fire.

-----

Kate had been very, very glad to not wake up screaming. She had been very glad to wake up, period. Her subconscious was not the place to be right now, her dreams had made that abundantly clear. She'd had no trouble getting out of bed since she'd craved a cold shower to fully wake her up and make sure nothing lingered on.

After the shower, she'd changed her clothes, put on some music, opened the door, made her bed and then flopped down on it with a notebook to make plans for a third floor welcome she wasn't sure she'd even organize.

Saturday wasn't shaping up to be a day to be bubbly and welcoming.

[ooc: Open post, open door. ETA: I would like to call all Mitchell stuff NFB, please and thank you!]

Thanks to her dreams, Kate had woken up today to the completely crushing thought that there'd be no more lazy mornings of waking up happy and clinging and sprawling, and having the familiar smell of pale graveyard boy be the first thing to register with her about a new day.

Taking that into account, it was really no surprise she'd been feeling a little on the quiet and brooding side of things after getting up. Apparently things were really starting to sink in, and maybe she was starting to sink with them.

She'd be harassing Mitchell for a night at the pub today, she was sure. Or a tiny house party. Or something. Anything to get her out of this mood.

But right now she was looking through the music collection on the shelves in the living room. That was a distraction, at least, if only a tiny one.

[ooc: NFB, open to bristolians and/or people with telephones!]

Two weeks and a day ago, on New Year's Eve, around this time, Kate had been dancing with Jason, teasing him and smiling at him, having just apologized to him for being a bitch the day before.

Two weeks and a day ago, around this time, Kate had been feeling like maybe Jason was actually a pretty decent guy to be around.

( Exactly a week ago, and now. )

She kept trying to tell herself that it made no sense, the amount of pain she was in. She didn't really even know all that much about Jason! And hadn't she gone on a date with Warren within the last two weeks, and didn't she still want to go out with him again? Wasn't all this pain and overpowering sadness overdoing it a little for a guy she'd only known for, like, five minutes?

But the thing was that she hadn't had a chance to process anything about what was going on with her and Jason until it was over. It had been somehow violent, the way he'd gotten so close so fast, and it was a lot to take in. She needed to figure out what it actually was that had ended so quickly, before she could let it go. She needed to close herself off. To deal. To hurt.

To stare off into space and pity herself.

[ooc: Establishy, as she won’t open the door for anyone yet, and I need to be in bed soon. Also wow, this came out a lot longer than I expected.]