Katchoo and Francine's Dorm Room, St. Louis (Tuesday Fandom Time)

[thismaskiwear]

Yeah, you try living in the same not-that-big room as someone you'd had a nasty fight with not all that long ago; it wasn't all that fun, especially if you were like Katchoo and had a tendency to let these things simmer.

. . . if you were Katchoo, you also had a tendency to work these things out through painting. That explained the oil-based chaos strewn all around one side of the room (much to Clocky's indignation, but then again Clocky was always indignant in her view) and the sketchbooks and various paraphernalia scattered across her desk. Sure, painting people -- certain people, anyway -- was still a touchy subject, but she had a visual memory, and sketches, and was working from that.

With a cigarette dangling from the corner of her mouth, naturally.

From the rough staccato whisk of her brushes against the canvas, it was pretty obvious that she wasn't in the best of moods, but hey -- welcome to her last couple of weeks that way.

[OOC: Open for phone calls and that girl what lives there with her. Also, I must share Terry Moore's latest toongirls-as-superheroes sketch because it amuses me.]

Comments

[bitchprince]

After that whole... regrettable incident... with calling Francine and chickening out of actually talk about that-- um.

...Arthur had decided that he didn't, particularly, want to talk about that.

Girls. Emotions. Stuff.

Still, eventually, he grudgingly agreed that he might wish to lend Katina some support; at least that had the added benefit that Katchoo was more likely to shout than cry, which at least improved his odds some.

And so her phone was ringing. Warily, if there was such a thing.

[thismaskiwear.livejournal.com]

The phone was teetering precariously on the edge of the dresser; did that count as wary?

Close enough.

"Well, well, Pendragon. To what do I owe the headache today?" Katchoo's gruff voice came over the line after about three and a half rings (she'd had to find a rag to wipe her hands, and had settled for a stray sock).

Not shouting exactly, at least not yet. But even for her, there had been more cordial days.

[bitchprince]

Very briefly (okay, more than briefly) Arthur contemplated going for the Francine strategy after all and spending this entire conversation demanding facts about the weather.

"I... heard matters weren't faring too well." No. Instead, he'd opt for 'earnest but a bit wary about the whole thing'.

[thismaskiwear.livejournal.com]

"Depends which ones you mean," Katchoo answered diffidently. "I walk by the right time of day, sounds like some girl down the other end of the hall is having a really great time lately."

Which was to say that she, on the other hand, wasn't. But why couldn't she be difficult about it?

[bitchprince]

Oh, grand. Though really, it was probably better than that could-head-towards-tears-at-any-time voice certain parties liked to employ. "Don't play coy, you know of whom I speak," Arthur informed her, with prim annoyance with just a dash of gratefulness. For no reason at all. Really.

[thismaskiwear.livejournal.com]

Katchoo was perfectly capable of that voice too, albeit a much more gravelly, profanity-laced version of it. She just wasn't feeling mean enough at the moment to use it on Arthur.

"You talked to Francine," she said instead, no hint of gravel beyond the usual hoarseness and in fact not much hint of any expression at all.

Except for a jab of her paintbrush at the canvas, hard enough that it might just barely be heard over the line.

[bitchprince]

"Merlin did, actually."

What Arthur had done... probably did not constitute 'talking'. "He was a bit put out about it." And Arthur... had absolutely no clue what was really going on here.

[thismaskiwear.livejournal.com]

"Ah." Yeah, that made more sense; Katchoo had been having a little trouble with the idea of Arthur having a conversation (in the standard sense of the word) with Francine when she was in that state. She could picture awkward shoulder-patting or some such in person, but over the phone . . . yeah.

"We got into a fight," she said bluntly; may as well get that bit out there for clarity's sake. "It was messy."

[bitchprince]

Arthur winced a little against his phone. "What about?" he asked. Though he doubted it would be anything as easy as issues over shared property or anything.

[thismaskiwear.livejournal.com]

"I was painting." Katchoo's voice cracked a little, and she cleared her throat maybe a little too hard. "Her, actually. Put it this way: my vision didn't really match up to hers, and that blew up into stupid, stupid more complicated other crap."

Maybe if you hadn't been so blunt about bringing her mother into it, Chewie . . .

[bitchprince]

"Ah," Arthur said, and cleared his throat. "I... know what you're going through." It sounded physically excrutiating for him to say, but it was certainly truthful. "Without the painting, obviously."

[thismaskiwear.livejournal.com]

Because she could tell it sounded like an admission that had been forcibly extracted, possibly with a pair of heated tongs, Katchoo didn't give him any crap about it, asking instead:

"Things in Camelot not going so well, then?"

[bitchprince]

"No, everything is fine." After a beat. "Now. Our first year at Fandom was... complicated."

He cleared his throat. "So if you need to... er. Talk, or whatever it is you women do..."

[thismaskiwear.livejournal.com]

"The magic closet and everything. Right." Clocky could have just beeped for no particular reason at that point, but it sounded to Katchoo like it was a scolding, you should have known that sort of beep. "I'm not going to break down and cry on you, if you're worried about that."

She fumbled a cigarette from the pack and put it between her lips, which explained the slightly muffled sound of her next comment. "She agreed to let me paint her, and then she got nervous about it." Okay, be fair, Chewie. ". . . not the part that had to do with me seeing her. It was this whole --" She pitched her voice a little higher, affected a tiny bit of a Southern accent. "'What would my mom think?' Geez! It's in the room, not in the frikkin' Metropolitan Museum of Art."

[bitchprince]

The magic closet, many other things... really, Arthur was still a little confused on how they managed to get out of that year in such good form as they had. Which was why he chose not to think about it too often, if he could help it.

"...Why would her mother care if you paint her?" he asked, "Was Francine afraid she'd demand payment?" Were their finances in order, he didn't ask.

[thismaskiwear.livejournal.com]

See, that was Katchoo's question, although she framed it in a context that he didn't have. But that she was nice enough to provide. Aww.

"I paint nudes, remember?" she pointed out with a delicacy that absolutely belied her usual demeanor. (By contrast. Shh.)

And while she still spent more on tobacco than was strictly decent, she actually did know how to manage large amounts of money; not everything she'd learned from Darcy was impractical in the everyday world.

[bitchprince]

It was hard to remember such things, strangely enough, being back in Camelot -- which was not exactly known for its artists willing to paint nudes. "Well," he said, after a moment, "I imagine she would worry about her mother seeing it..."

[thismaskiwear.livejournal.com]

Funny, that. Who knew?

"If it was on display, sure," Katchoo answered. "But I don't exactly have people knocking down my door asking for a gallery showing in the first place."

[bitchprince]

"Or bringing shame on the family n--"

He cut himself off.

"...But your lot don't really care about that."

[thismaskiwear.livejournal.com]

Katchoo snorted so loudly it might have sounded like she'd shredded something in her sinus cavity in the process.

"'Our lot?' Don't make it sound like we actually agree on things that much in this day and age, Arthur."

Therein lay the potential for a lot more ranting, if she had the head of steam built up for it. At the moment, she didn't.

[bitchprince]

"You lot seemed to agree on everything well enough back when I was on the island," Arthur groused, "All that stuff about 'chauvenism' and 'democracy'..."

Thanks for that, Priestly.

[thismaskiwear.livejournal.com]

"You were listening to Kilt-Boy, weren't you?" Katchoo asked dryly. "It's really not that simple. For one, there's plenty of people who still have to worry about being found out the way you do, and the sadistic frikkin' geniuses of humanity've learned a lot about how to make someone's life a living hell, a lot slower than public execution, since your time."

A beat, then:

"Francine's family isn't quite that bad, but . . ."

[bitchprince]

... Ah.

Expectations.

He got that end of it.

"But her mother still expects her to behave in a certain way," he said.

[thismaskiwear.livejournal.com]

"Mph." It was vague, but meant as an affirmative. "And she cares about what her mom thinks."

After a week-plus of awkward semi-cooldown, that made more sense than her initial angry I blow mine off, why can't you? perspective had.

[bitchprince]

There was silence on the other end of the line as Arthur thought about his own father. But he had trouble enough talking about any of that to Merlin, let alone Katchoo.

"Sometimes we have to compromise some of our own beliefs for the sake of our parents," he said, "And hope the people we care for understand."

He'd get back to flailing awkwardly about the concept of 'feelings' in a minute.