Room 505, Monday Late Morning

[thismaskiwear]

This was the first time since she'd gotten back from the trip, barring a furtive minute or two to drop off her bags, that Katchoo had set foot in her own damn room out of a notion that Francine needed some space after the whole kissing-and-then-freaking-out-and-fleeing incident from Saturday night. Francine always needed space after those incidents, and it made Katchoo want to beat her head into the wall a little that there had been enough incidents for her to see a pattern.

There was a certain farcical element to this, if you were far enough removed from the situation to see it from that angle, but at point-blank face-smooshed-up-against-the-problem range Katchoo was really only inclined to be frustrated, hurt, and pretty damned worn out from it all. Too damned worn out to keep giving space, actually, which didn't mean she wasn't relieved that the room was empty when she walked in and dropped to sit on the edge of her bed.

Clocky wheeled out from under her desk with a scolding beep-whir.

"Yeah. Missed you too," she told the clock, reaching down to give it a grudging pat.

[OOC: For that girl who also lives here and constantly has these Incidents with her. Look, don't blame us, blame the Cartoonist. HE IS WAY WORSE.]

Comments

[thatsamilkshake]

That relief was destined to be short-lived, which anybody far enough removed to see the farcical element would know.

They'd also know that Francine was destined to be returning from the shower after a lazy morning of... waiting for Katchoo to stop needing space and come back to the room.

In a robe, not a towel, because our Cartoonist is nicer. Sometimes.

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That robe guaranteed that the Cartoonist Is Nicer allotment for the next six weeks at least was probably used up, but you know what? Katchoo had a visual imagination and vivid memories from a hot tub at a resort and was looking anyway.

Dammit.

"Francine."

[thatsamilkshake]

Ooh, deer in the headlights stare, with dripping hair and her arms full of shower basket and towel, and something on her face that was half fear and half relief.

"Hi."

[thismaskiwear.livejournal.com]

Which was somehow the look Katchoo had expected to see on her face, and in fact had pictured just about exactly, god only knew how many times by now.

"How --" Work, please, vocal cords. You never have trouble any other time. "You doing okay, Francie?"

[thatsamilkshake]

Francine carried the shower stuff in and dumped it on her bed without answering at first, just trying to frame one. When she turned back, she said slowly, "Are you? You weren't here last night, so I thought... maybe no."

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Katchoo shrugged, picking at the edges of a hole burned into her blanket by a stray bit of ash. "Fine. I slept on the sixth floor." As fine as she could be, anyway, and you'd think she'd be used to this by now. "Just thought you needed a little space for a while."

She couldn't stop looking. Damn.

[thatsamilkshake]

"You didn't have to--" Francine stopped and winced. "I guess I deserved that. I usually do."

She wasn't exactly immune to noticing there was a pattern either, thanks. It'd be a little hard, given the topic at hand.

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"You were pretty upset," Katchoo pointed out. "You kissed me, and then you ran away." Again, though she wasn't saying so out loud because she was fairly sure that word hung in the air anyway.

"Kinda makes a girl think there's something about her that triggers that reaction."

She knew better, of course, and was just calling Francine out on it. That would go so well, she was sure.

[thatsamilkshake]

Deeeeeeep breath. "I didn't run away the time before that," Francine said slowly, pulling her extra towel from her hair and letting it fall onto her robe. That was just as bullshit a non-answer -- considering the time before that was when she'd seen Katchoo dead -- as the last thing Katchoo had said, but it gave her a second's space to think of how to give a real one.

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"No, you were already freaking out by then." More efficient that way, Katchoo supposed, get the freakout taken care of beforehand, and completely bypass wondering if it might be for real this time. She scooted back against the wall and brought her knees up so she could slump forward and rest her head against them. "You wanted to know if I'd hate you for it. I don't. I never will, but god, Francie, how long are we going to keep doing this?"

[thatsamilkshake]

"I'm sorry." And yeah, she said that every time. But. "I'm not..." Dammit.

Francine sat down on her bed and tried to tug her fingers through still-soaked hair instead of anything as intelligent as drying it.

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"Not what?" Katchoo couldn't really even summon up the energy to sound angry. "Not going to let it happen again? What?"

[thatsamilkshake]

"I'm not good at this!" Francine finally managed to put together, before she really parsed what Katchoo had said. Then the deer was back in the headlights, minus the relief. "...Is that what you want?"

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Katchoo let her head fall back against the wall with a dull but loud thunk. "What I want? Francine, I'm not the one who runs away! Jesus frikkin' Christ -- I love you, Francie, but I'm not . . . not your experiment, all right?"

[thatsamilkshake]

"Experiment?" That had Francine standing with a nervous might-fold-if-you-look-at-me-wrong anger, fists clenching unconsciously. "I never sat around wondering if I'm gay, Katchoo. I don't check out every girl that walks into a room the way I check out every guy, and I never thought hey, what would it be like to kiss one -- but if I did, there's plenty around here who wouldn't turn me down! Kennedy sure didn't!"

That... hadn't come out right. Just the last bit. She'd meant he rest more or less the way it sounded.

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And under any other circumstances, somebody would have been getting hunted down for a smackdown. Had Katchoo not been in the mood she was, there'd be grilling about when, where, why, and how, since who was established.

"No, Francie, you don't. You just kiss me, and I'm not talking a quick little schoolyard peck, and then you panic and run like your ass is on fire to your boyfriend, who I'm pretty sure is the one you're supposed to be kissing if that's how these things work, and tell me you're sorry and then frikkin' what? What the hell am I supposed to do with that, Francine? Huh? Do you even think about what it's like for me, watching you do that almost every goddamned time?"

Clocky scurried under the bed with a querulous beep as Katchoo slammed a fist into the wall. "Because this is more than one or two times now, Francine. It's not just a fluke any more and if that's not an experiment I don't know what the hell it's supposed to be but it fucking hurts."

[thatsamilkshake]

"THAT WAS THE FIRST TIME!" Which was all Francine had before that crumble-if-you-look-at-me-wrong part kicked in, and she sank down to the bed again, and again with the "I'm sorry. I'm sorry I ran away, but I was scared."

[thismaskiwear.livejournal.com]

"SCARED?" Funny how quickly you could lose your head of steam for yelling when you witnessed the crumbling going on in front of you. Katchoo buried her face in her arms for a moment, then looked up. "Scared of what? Of me?"

[thatsamilkshake]

"Of me!" She didn't expect it to make sense; it didn't make sense to her. "That was the first time it wasn't a spell or something messing with our hormones or seeing you dead, it was just because I wanted to."

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"Has it ever occurred to you, Francine," Katchoo began in a voice so quiet compared to the way she'd been yelling a minute ago that it sounded creepy even to her, "that I would've reacted the same way if it had never been a spell or something messing with our hormones or you saw me dead?"

[thatsamilkshake]

"No!" Oh....askdjhaksjdh, that was a lie. "Not at the time. Now... Yes. Maybe. Recently. Really really recently. But I wasn't .... I didn't know. I kept... I was trying to ask."

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"I think the question took a wrong turn on the way to Albuquerque," Katchoo said tiredly. "What were you trying to ask, Francine? If I love you that way?"

[thatsamilkshake]

And there it is, Francine Peters. You didn't even have to ask it. And you've even got the luxury of backing out. Right here, right now, you could say no, no, that's not what I was going to ask. I wanted to know...something. Something else.

Francine stared down at her shower-wrinkly fingers. "Yes."

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Katchoo raised her head to look straight at Francine, whether or not Francine was looking at her.

"Dingy broad," she said affectionately. "I do. Of course I do. I always have."

[thatsamilkshake]

Why did that make Francine have to close her eyes and scrunch up her nose to stop from crying, worse than getting yelled at did?

"I'm sorry. I didn't..." See. Know. Want to see. Want to accept that I knew. "Mean to hurt you."

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Katchoo had listened to Francine go on about boys and crushes for years, never thinking that the girl who came by her bedroom window late at night almost every night was paying the kind of attention to her that she'd wanted from them. And she knew Francine, well enough to know that she couldn't be malicious if her life depended on it, and that was one of the things she loved best about her.

"You never do, Francine." Her voice might've been a touch more gruff than normal. "I know you don't mean to."

[thatsamilkshake]

"Does that make it any better?" It wasn't really a question, so she didn't leave time for an answer. "Chewie... I love you. You know that."

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Now it was Katchoo's turn to close her eyes, leaning back and turning away -- not because she was ashamed of the reaction, but out of some half-formed and probably vain hope that it would spare some of Francine's feelings somehow.

"I know that. I know. I just don't know how."

[thatsamilkshake]

She had to say this...really, really slowly, so she got it right.

So she had a snowball's chance in hell of getting it right.

"I don't check out girls." Certain blonde people who looked like certain other blonde people people and certain medieval people who totally got Francine's Angelina Jolie Freebie Card aside. "I don't think about kissing girls, or dancing with girls, or having babies and living happily ever after with girls, or ... having sex with girls."

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"And me?" Katchoo could do blunt. Katchoo could so do blunt. Like now, see? "Do I fit in that general 'girls' category there? Where do I fit in?"

That was a little absurd, wasn't it? Her. Fitting in. Pssh.

[thatsamilkshake]

"Not there." It wouldn't matter if Katchoo was looking at her or not. There wouldn't be any eyes to meet. "Not-- not girls. Just you."

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Well, didn't that just make things nice and fucking complicated.

. . . more complicated. Christ, this was easier years ago, before she even wondered about the question, much less the answer.

Katchoo did open her eyes, but only to look out the window as she took a long, slow breath and let it out. "But you're scared. And there's . . ." Merlin. And whatever he had going on with Arthur. And a nice big mess. "Complications."

[thatsamilkshake]

It was easier years ago before Francine wondered about anything.

Except for how it wasn't, because years ago Francine lived in a perfect little house with her perfect mom and dad who thought their perfect (but you could always do better!) kids couldn't hear what they weren't saying to each other, and Katchoo came to the window every night and then went back to a house that really did make Francine's look like Heaven.

"Yeah."

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Whereas Katchoo had gone on to a life that was wrapped in more money and plush carpeting and expensive clothing and fancy parties than any of the first fifteen years of her life could ever have hoped to amount to, and beneath it all was just as hellish as what she'd left, just on a terrifyingly wider scale.

Katchoo wondered what would happen (stop wondering these things, Chewie) if she slid down off the bed and knelt on the floor in front of Francine.

"So where does that leave us, then? Does this change things?"

[thatsamilkshake]

Her hair would get wet too, that's what would happen.

"I don't know." What would happen if Francine reached out for her hand? Which was less of a wondering and more of a doing. "Doesn't it? How could it not?"

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Katchoo should not be this fascinated by watching her own fingers curl around Francine's, but she was, water dripping down into her hair or not.

"I think that's up to you, Francine. I'm willing to wait for you, or fight for you, whatever . . . but I have to know what you want. You have to know."

[thatsamilkshake]

"Do I have to know now?" That was Francine's other hand starting to... do some wild flaily gesture that would only end in injury so instead she wrapped it around Katchoo's as well. "Chewie, this is... you've had a long time to get used to this." How long, she hadn't known and still wasn't sure if she understood. "I haven't. And you know me. I'm...slow."

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"I know. I know you. And I love you." The sound Katchoo made was suspiciously close to a sniffle. "I just want you to be sure. One way or the other, no matter what you choose, because it kills me to see you lost, Francie. And I can wait."

Just don't make me wait forever, was the unspoken plea.

[thatsamilkshake]

"So can I do this, while we're waiting?" Francine asked, tugging at Katchoo's hands until she could wrap her arms around her. "Because I'm pretty damn sure about this."

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Katchoo's arms went around Francine in return. If it wasn't a rule of physics, it should be.

"Always," she got out in a hoarse half-whisper, because this was home, where she was now. This was familiar, finding solace in Francine's arms when she felt so damned broken. And sure, it'd be nice if she didn't have to be broken for this to happen, but still . . . home.

And whatever idiot had said you can't always go home again could bite her. Seriously.