The Perk, Tuesday Late Morning

[brat_inslayage]

Ugh, thank god the coffee was back on the island. Kennedy was not hung over from last night, but she'd had just enough that she was dragging today, and had there not been caffeine the poor barista would've gotten the full throw-Dad's-weight-around treatment. (The barista, apparently unaware of his narrow escape from that fate, went on with his work humming after Kennedy walked away with her quintuple shot extra-caramel caramel latte.)

Fandom's tiny streets were still such a contrast to Manhattan's, so-- wanting to sort of savor said contrast for a bit-- she took her drink and sat outside, frowning at her phone. Still no juicy news from Constance. Aw, man.

[[omg i have the day off and am around, though subject to spots of sp this morning while i run a couple of errands. yes, she's still here. what?]]

Comments

[withasword.livejournal.com]

Kate had made the most of Sunday nights coffee rave, despite being less-than-herself. She might be slightly less caffeine deprived than some. That didnt mean she wasn't still feeling like keeping up on her intake a little more than she might have been otherwise.

She glanced at Kennedy as she took a seat at the next table. "Yours make you want to beat it against a wall too?" She must be feeling chatty today.

[brat_inslayage]

Kennedy raised an eyebrow at her for a moment; she was still slow on the uptake. "What? Oh, the weekend? It was..."

She huffed a laugh. "Yeah. Kinda not my favorite. Granted, I think some people had it way worse, but I'll bitch about it if I want to."

[withasword.livejournal.com]

"Saw you at the wedding," Kate clarified. Somewhere between her bouts of tears she'd had time to notice people. "I won't hold that against you." Being seen at a whacked out wedding full of murders and blackmail wasn't exactly a positive.

[brat_inslayage]

"Oh, god, yeah." Remembering that made Kennedy roll her eyes, although she shot an apologetic look at Kate afterward, just to make sure she didn't think that was about her. "God, that was crazy. I swear, I'm not usually that randomly weepy."

She tilted her head thoughtfully. "That your first brush with this kind of Fandom wacky? It happened a couple of years ago, but I missed out on it then."

[withasword.livejournal.com]

"First of that kind." It was sad when you had to qualify varying degrees and varieties of bizarre, wasn't it? "I'd prefer the monsters. Way easier to deal with."

"Anything but the crying." There were definitely a few people she didn't want to run into any time soon after that.

[brat_inslayage]

Kennedy's eyes lit up with a flash of oh, hey, possible in-common thing. "Right?" she asked, a little more animated now. "God, give me something to fight any day instead of this stuff where we act completely out of our minds."

She took a sip of her coffee and snorted. "Yeah, I hear you about the crying. Also the random dramatic background music."

[withasword.livejournal.com]

"You got dramatic backing music?" ... Why did she sound somewhat indignant about that?

[brat_inslayage]

"Just the once!" Kennedy said quickly. "I still don't know what that was all about."

She paused and reached a hand out. "Kennedy, by the way. Class of '11."

She still had no idea how she was going to spin that on any college applications.

[withasword.livejournal.com]

"Kate," she offered in return, reaching to take her hand. "Class of '13." She too wasn't quite sure how that was going to work when she got home, given she was born in '15.

"Provided I survive to graduation. I'm starting to feel like that might be an achievement."

[brat_inslayage]

"Too bad 'I survived Fandom High' doesn't look that good on transcripts," Kennedy mused. "'cause really, it should."

She grinned. "I kinda got a feeling you'll make it, though. Call it a hunch or something." Or, you know, most people did.

[withasword.livejournal.com]

"I have been told I have an impressive talent for staying alive." Usually by people who wanted her otherwise. Her father would be pissed from beyond the grave if after all his efforts she was taken out now.

"Do your hunches normally work out?" It was worth checking.

[brat_inslayage]

Kennedy opened her mouth to say something like duh, they do, but thought better of it (by some minor miracle).

"Okay, not to make it sound all mystical or whatever, 'cause that's not my deal, but the whole time I was here-- which did not involve a volcano, by the way-- I was pretty involved with all the reserves groups. Lots of invasions, lots of fights." She pushed her chair back, balancing it on its rear legs. "Kids who come here... the ones who can't fight or work the magics or the superpowers are usually smart enough to stay where it's safe, and there's enough of the rest of us who can, and have what my Watcher calls 'an impossibly incorrigible heroic streak,' to look out for 'em."

She'd emphasized the quote from Constance with, yes, fingerquotes and a badly affected accent, but dropped both to look up toward the school and grin. "It all works out."

[withasword.livejournal.com]

"I don't know about the smart. There were a lot of morons went poking at a giant grey space rock or getting bitten by deer who came down with a case of the aliens the last time..." Or something. She still wasn't entirely sure what you'd call it.

"Still, more reassuring than the tectonics going on off the coast," Kate confirmed, twitching a little smirk.

[life_inshadow]

Tara made it to the counter and had placed her order with the barista before she spotted Kennedy.

This was a good thing. If she'd seen Kenendy first, she likely would have walked out. But she hadn't, so Kennedy got a little sheepish wave through the window.

A moment later, latter now in hand, Tara went over to Kennedy's table.

"Hi! I ... didn't know you were st-sticking around so long."

She sounded like she had mixed emotions about this.

[brat_inslayage]

"Hey," Kennedy replied, her smile a little forced but mostly genuine. "Yeah, I sorta decided to hang around and catch up with people."

She turned her cup around one and a half times on the table before adding, "Guess I should've warned you or something." And god, did that ever sound stupid.

"...you can sit down, if you want?"

[life_inshadow]

"Sure," Tara said, awkwardly pulling out a chair and fitting herself into it. "You don't need to, um ... warn me. We broke up, right? It's not like you have smallpox."

She remembered that when she met Kennedy, she really had been that fragile, but there was a lot of mileage on that from the last two years; she didn't need or even want to be protected so much, anymore.

"If you want to stick around, that's cool. I was just ... surprised."

[brat_inslayage]

Tara was in no way as painfully shy as she'd been when Kennedy first met her, no; that answer was proof. Still, Kennedy might never be able to completely shake the urge to at least want to protect her.

"I wasn't planning on it," Kennedy admitted. "Catching-up time got sort of derailed there, though, so I'm still here."

She chewed on her lower lip for a moment, thinking over her choice of words. "Guess it's kinda dumb to have to warn my friends when I'm around, huh?"

[life_inshadow]

"Yes," Tara said, a tiny bit of a smile around her eyes. "This -- we have to figure things out. But ... I don't want you not to live your life. Even if it gets a little weird."

She sipped her coffee, signalling a subject change. "So. That was ... a weekend."

[brat_inslayage]

"Hey. Like I said, we are gonna figure this out," Kennedy said firmly, but a slightly embarrassed smile curved up the corners of her mouth.

"Yeah. Guess I couldn't avoid that particular part of Fandom wacky forever, huh?" It had skipped her last time-- now was a hell of a time to realize that it had been just after the last time that the two of them had made things official, which just figured. "I'm not gonna ask if you don't want to say, but..."

[life_inshadow]

"I don't mind talking about it," Tara assured her. "I mean, it wasn't even me. It was some airhead blond model with absolutely no inflection in her voice until she started hitting on someone. It's ... like remembering a whole bunch of dreams."

She sipped her coffee. "And now it's my turn to say 'I'm not gonna ask if you don't want to say.'"

[brat_inslayage]

"I still looked like me." Kennedy made a face, picked up her coffee, and took a sip. "Just all broody and crying and I smoked and ugh. Also I'm pretty sure I made a lot of super questionable life decisions."

Arguably, not all that different from usual.

"Not my favorite way to spend the weekend, thus still being here. Not exactly sorry to see you, either."

[life_inshadow]

Tara shook her head. "Not sorry to see you, either. And I bet I can top your 'questionable life decisions.'"

She'd slept with a boy. Whose girlfriend was a demon. As far as she was concerned, that was a trump card.

"It's so not us, it's just ... bizarre."

[brat_inslayage]

"We're not turning this into a competition," Kennedy teased.

Because yeah, Tara had her on the sleeping with a boy part (also the demon girlfriend), but she could get bonus points for sleeping with someone right before their wedding, maybe.

"So not us," she added emphatically. "Really glad to be me again."

[life_inshadow]

"I did kind of sound that way, didn't I?" Tara asked, and laughed, just a little. "Okay. No trophies, but we're both glad to be ourselves. I don't think I'd like you, all ... sad and emo and smoking."

[brat_inslayage]

Kennedy waved a hand. "I didn't like me, either. I poledanced at Caritas while crying," she added, making a face. "Can we say not in a gazillion years? And I totally can't see you as a model type. Don't think I'd be into that."

...that was a little bit of a surprise. Huh.