Katina Choovanski

Ordinarily Katchoo was . . . let's just say really not favorably inclined toward unexpected visitors, but she couldn't say no to the question when she and Francine had gotten the call from Tara; she had a bit of a soft spot toward the kid, and besides that could relate well enough to what she was going through. (Also a factor for consideration: Francine wouldn't have said no, either, and Katchoo wouldn't fight her on this.)

Luckily the semester didn't start up again for another week and students were only just starting to trickle back onto campus, so things were still fairly quiet, and the coffee shop across the street from their dorm wasn't packed with the kind of crowd that usually ended up with Katchoo bellowing in a way that made the racket in there the opposite of better. No, today there were only a few writer-looking types hunched over computers at corner tables and the occasional business person wandering in and out for a latte, and no sign of Casey.

Which would not keep Katchoo from warily watching the door for any sign of overly perky aerobics instructors, once she'd found a table big enough for the three of them.

[OOC: For Francine and Tara, and of course NFB for distance.]

"I can't feel my feet anymore. How much longer?"

"We just started! I haven't even finished the charcoal sketch. You're whining again."

"'Cause I've been sitting here so long half my body's asleep. My butt's asleep. I might as well be sitting on a rump roast!"

"If you can't feel your rump roast, it doesn't hurt, so what're ya complaining about?"

"It's cold, that's what. I'm also freezing my half-naked butt off!"

"Oh please; a quarter naked at best. Now if I could get you to take off that robe..."

"Oh God, is that the door?"

[Some dialogue folded, spindled and mutilated from Strangers in Paradise Vol. 3, Issue 19 and (later) Vol. 1, Issue 1. Continues within! Warning for Fight of the Century Round #451, long-forgotten Parents Weekend guests, and Katchoo's idea of art critique. I've also made a little space for the cheese slices peanut gallery.]

Everything that needed to be packed was packed, everything that needed to be shipped out had been, and pulling that off had been some kind of giant frikkin' miracle but the point was, it was done, just a few straggling bags and a few dozen errant dustbunnies and bits of debris left behind. (And probably a disgusting amount of nicotine residue in the walls, but.) This was it, then, two years in Fandom done and something with a disturbing resemblance to a normal high school graduate's future ahead of them.

. . . and lingering. No need to flee the place like hell.

Both of them. Who woulda thunk it, when they first got here? Katchoo sure as hell wouldn't have, with all the crap she was trying to outrun and the skeletons she'd been trying to keep in the closet. So maybe there was enough room in her cynicism for optimism, too. Just a touch of it. No getting carried away here.

Because really, their future looked pretty damn good from here, and all that crap was behind her, and who (by which we meant from Katchoo's past) cared what two girls from Fandom did, anyway?

[OOC: Katchoo and Francine's actual last post in Fandom. WAH. Some minor OCD up, post is open (see OOC thread for availability details), and if you want to have gotten notice from one of the toongirls, you did.

ETA: . . . yeah, the door's open, too. I keep forgetting to specify these things -- thanks, kestrelswolf. -_-]

Another day of work down, another day closer to graduation, and would that she knew better it wasn't as if there was anyone coming to see her graduate; anyone who might make that list, who wasn't already here, was dead.

Cheerful.

There was, however, the matter of Francine's family making an appearance, and certain things they didn't know about, and whether they should even know -- which wasn't Katchoo's call as much as she had an opinion on the matter.

All of this, pretty much, amounted to Katchoo standing in the middle of the room with Clocky circling her feet (pushing random empty soda cans and bits of Katchoo-strewn debris around with indignant beeps) as she . . . contemplated the pushed-together beds.

Yeah, that could be a problem.

[OOC: For that girl what lives there with her, but open beforehand, why not?]

So one minute there'd been an attempt at actually, finally sucking it up, saying 'the hell with it,' and kissing Francine until she couldn't breathe as a prelude to other things that . . . would have a definite impact on breathing.

And then she'd been small, and fuzzy, with floppy ears, and NOT ADORABLE, DAMMIT.

Katchoo had been keeping up quite the mental rant about this in her head ever since it had happened, but being a bunny she couldn't exactly express it in her usual oh-so-charming way. Chewing on things, maybe, vented some of the frustration but she had a lot more of that built up than this tiny lapine form should have room to hold.

. . . that rant was still going, no matter how comfortable she was at the particular moment.

[OOC: For that girl. NOT YOU, RAVEN. ETA: This post might be kinda NWS now. WHAT?]

As far as Christmas presents went, this one was -- something utterly unprintable, if you asked Katchoo to put it into words. She was not at all inclined to disagree with Francine's evaluation that Arthur was, indeed, a crazy person for doing this for them.

She'd had a constant refrain of this is crazy this is crazy this is crazy running through her head the entire trip here (portal travel, whatever, it was still enough time to cram in a lot of that refrain) that had only gotten louder when they'd arrived at the hotel, throw in a nice counterpoint while they waited to check in, and add drums on the way to the room. Fumbling with the keycard was probably even in rhythm with that mental music loop.

But here they were, in a resort hotel in Curacao, with the door to the room swinging open, and really Katchoo thought she'd be pretty nonchalant about it after a lot of the amenities she'd seen, but --

"Holy frikkin' crap."

[OOC: For that girl who's here with her. Duh.]

Raven had managed to elude her for most of the party after Francine had run off, and, well, Katchoo being Katchoo had spent the rest of the night in a fine fit of moping.

That moping finally, eventually brought her back to the dorms, where she was trudging along the hallway back up to her room slowly.

She'd get there eventually. Honest.

[OOC: For the roomie, the Ears, and FUNDRAMATIEMZ or something.]

When the phone rang, Katchoo nearly smashed it for having the audacity to wake her. Clocky sympathized with the phone, which was saved by virtue of Katchoo's fist missing and sending it skidding off the nightstand and onto the bed instead, where it bounced off her forehead.

"Ow! Sonofa --" she started to growl when she saw the caller ID and snapped the slider open, all thoughts of being relieved about being herself again on hold. "Hello?"

The woman on the other end of the line spoke in a soft French-Canadian accent. "This is Sister Jordan at Saint Mary's Hospice in Toronto. I'm looking for Katina Choovanski."

Shit. "Yeah, this is she," Katchoo answered with none of her usual gruffness, and fell silent, listening to what the woman had to say. The details of it weren't important the way the strangled sob Katchoo let out in response was. "Okay. I understand," she said, her fist half jammed into her mouth to keep from crying. "Okay. Please tell her I'm on my way. I'll be there as soon as I can."

She snapped the phone shut and rolled over long enough to let out a muffled, frustrated yell into her pillow, then got up to throw on some clothes and pull the suitcase, already packed, from its place under the bed behind the pile of empty liquor bottles. She'd told Arthur she'd try to tell Francine the truth, just yesterday. Hard to do that now, wherever the hell Francine had gone after their fight (over not telling the truth, funny, that) last night, and now this. Thanks, universe, best timing ever.

Katchoo ripped a page out of her sketchbook and started to scribble a ( quick note: )

Tossing the note onto Francine's bed, she headed out the door, already on the phone and mentally cursing out hold music.

[OOC: Establishy. NFI unless the roomie wants to react to the note.]

No word from Francine yet, and none of Katchoo's calls were going through; it was amazing she hadn't smashed her phone against the wall in a fit of panicked frustration after the -- she didn't even know how the hell many now times she'd tried to dial Francine's number only to get an "out of service area" message.

She'd left the room a few hours ago, just long enough to buy a carton of cigarettes that she'd already reduced by a pack and a half, and hadn't noticed if the door was left ajar behind her when she came back and slumped onto the disaster area that was the floor beside her bed.

"Dammit, Francie," she muttered, knees tucked up to her chest, barely rocking back and forth, the cigarette in her hand slowly turning into a long, precarious stick of ash. "Where the hell are you?"

[OOC: Expecting one (not that one), but open beforehand if you want to poke the Happy Fun Freaked-Out Chewieball.]