fandomtownies | The Perk, Wednesday Morning

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The Perk, Wednesday Morning

Two days ago in Fandom time, and about a night ago in Kate-time, Kate had received an alarming text message from Emma. And she was... not dealing with it. She hadn't even managed to bring herself to text Emma back yet, trusting her to send further updates if things changed. Not that Kate even knew anything beyond 'Jack is hurt', except that he was also expected to survive, so... There was really no rush, right? She was telling herself her avoidance was mostly because she'd been busy with work and she needed to be on top of her game now that she was no longer being supervised, but maybe it was more that she was starting to hit a few of her limits when it came to facing all this horrible stuff head on.

This morning, she'd had an early flight to St. Louis where it had turned out she had a few hours to kill, and since she was having trouble staying in one place she'd ended up pulling her coat on over her SkyKans uniform and using the St. Louis Portalocity hub to get to Fandom for a brief visit. You know, to maybe clear her head a bit. Hey, maybe she'd be lucky and it would just be a normal day, even.

That hope, of course, only lasted until she got to the Perk (sending out a few 'I'm at the coffee shop' texts to friends in Fandom on the way) and a barista cautiously asked her if she was okay (probably assessing the smartness of giving her anything with caffeine), and instead of a perfunctory 'I'm fine', what came out of her mouth was singing: "The funeral director is a busy man, he must do the job on time; tape measures, nails and a clawhammer beckon him to bind the wood that grinds. Children, they cry, when they look eye to eye; stay in your home when the undertaker roams your town."

At which point she'd taken her coffee and made her way towards the back, then promptly facepalmed after taking a seat. Right, so it was one of those days. At least it could probably serve as a distraction?

[Ooopen! As usual, if you think you got a text, you did. Yay OMWF!]

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Bod hadn't done a lot of talking this morning so he didn't realize it was gonna be one of those days. He was pleasantly surprised to get a text from Kate so after he'd showered and gotten himself together, he made his way down there.

Right about now, he'd be stepping in and looking around the Perk for her.

[Work, SP, yadda yadda yadda, but I wanted to at least ping in!]

Kate waved a hand to get his attention as soon as she had spotted him, unsure if he'd find it easy to single her out in her uniform, her hair in a neat bun.

"Over here," she called out, with the slightly wary tone of someone expecting to sing again at any moment. "Hello, I got something to tell you."

Like that. Her palm met her face again, exasperated. "Fuck this day."

[*snuggles your SP*]

That bit of singing stopped Bod short as realization dawned on what today was apparently turning out to be. He hoped it didn't make Kate too angry since he didn't want to argue.

"Hullo," he greeted, pressing a kiss to her cheek and smiling and the uniform. "You've something to tell me?"

"Not really," Kate sighed, rolling her eyes at the island before trying to catch a quick kiss of her own. "I mean, at least nothing I wanted to lead like that with."

"Don't look so annoyed," he said, running his hand over that interesting hairdo of hers before taking a seat. "You look very professional, girlfriend."

"Thank you," Kate replied, mustering up a small smile for him. See? She was fine. "8.30 AM from Kansas City to St. Louis. I'm on a break."

"And how is that all going thus far?" Bod asked, smiling at that attempted smile. "Good, I hope."

Kate had meant to say it was going really pretty well, actually, but. Well.

"I'm learning to fly but I ain't got wings, coming down is the hardest thing, I'm learning to fly around the clouds, but what goes up must come down."

"I'm sure you're doing just fine," Bod said after she'd finished her singing. He reached for one of her hands. "It's good to see you. It's a nice surprise."

"It was a whim," Kate said, glad that the island allowed her to get that much out without any melodies. She gave his hand a little squeeze. "There's a Portalocity hub in St. Louis, if you can believe that."

"I can believe just about anything these days," Bod said, smiling. "How's everything else going for you right now?"

"Good, mostly," Kate shrugged, but her attempt at a smile faded a little. "Jack's in hospital. In 1902. So you know, same old, same old."

How sad was it that that was actually pretty true?

"Oh." He nodded and sobered. "I'm sorry to hear that. Is he going to be all right?"

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Jack hadn't quite planned on coming back to the island so quickly, but he figured if anyone could remove the curse, they would be here. With Ronan having handled most of the healing, he was more or less feeling physically fine -- other than the itch of the new web of scars and the fact walking from the portal and over the causeway had left him with a horrible twist in his stomach that he was choosing to blame on nerves.

Peppermint tea would soothe that, at least, so the Perk was his first stop on the island.

I saw a werewolf with a Chinese menu in his hand...

He wished he could stop singing as he stood in line. The lyrics were prickling at him.

Once he'd gathered his order, he spotted Kate and -- surprised -- went over to her table.

"I really hadn't expected anyone to be here," he said, by way of greeting, and clamped down hard on his urge to add a rhythmic ahwooo. "HELLO."

Well. He managed not to musically howl. That was something.

If Jack was surprised to see Kate, she was even more surprised to see him. You know, on account of that message she'd been avoiding. And him being the reason she was here, in a roundabout way.

It was enough for her to get momentarily distracted from the singing thing, even.

"Jack!" she exclaimed, eyebrows bouncing up. "Holy shit, aren't you supposed to be in an early 1900s hospital?"

"They let me out yesterday and Ronan patched me up the rest of the way," Jack explained -- thankfully without singing -- and he was going to violate his normal personal anti-hug rule by offering one to Kate.

"Figured I should come back to a place with telephones and let people know I'm not dead before I plotted the next adventure."

Because that was what this was. An adventure. Not, say, an exercise in sadly predictable terror.

Kate was quick to hug him. Honestly, she probably would have even if he hadn't offered. It was that kind of moment.

"Yes," she replied emphatically. "That's some excellent thinking there, Jack."

"Once in a while I have an idea that is not completely horrible," Jack said airily, and stepped out of the hug fairly quickly. (Nothing personal, just ongoing Issues with soaps and perfumes tickling his sensitive nose. He'd need to figure out a way around that.)

"This is the price you pay for being smart in a stupid way," he sang, and winced and bit his tongue. "Of course I can't talk to you without singing. What brought you to the island, anyhow?"

Hey, Kate knew she probably smelled a lot like SkyKans' signature disinfectant, even if it was coconut. She would've stepped away pretty quickly too.

She shrugged as she took a seat again. "I can't shake this feeling I've got; my dirty hands, have I been in the wars?" So not what she'd meant to say. She frowned at herself, though mostly for thinking she could keep it in. "The saddest thing that I'd ever seen were smokers outside the hospital doors."

Oh, she'd come to hate this song a long time ago.

Edited 2012-01-11 16:21 (UTC)

Jack gave her a dubious look as he sat opposite her, palms curled neatly around his paper cup; he could think of a lot of sadder things. He opened his mouth to tell her that, but:

"I cannot guess what we'll discover when we turn the dirt with our palms cupped like shovels, but I know our filthy hands can wash one another’s, and not one speck will remain."

It was like word association, here. Jack sighed and loosened a hand to push his hair back. "Which is to say this is a long story."

Kate readjusted her scarf with one hand and composed herself, raising an eyebrow. "Uh huh," she said. "How long? I've got time."

Although with this song thing going on, it might not have been the best of times.

It probably wasn't, but withholding until they weren't singing might be worse yet.

"Er." Jack said, and paused. "It's close to midnight and something evil's lurking in the dark. Under the moonlight, you see a sight that almost stops your heart."

This ... really, really wasn't his kind of music, but at least it made the storytelling easy.

Jack, meet Kate's unimpressed look.

... Oh, right, you're already old acquaintances.

"That's Thriller," she said, almost accusingly. It was better than admitting she didn't like where this was going.

"I know," Jack said, also not terribly impressed with himself. "But all the while you hear the creature creeping up behind -- no, actually it charged right at me, and we were wrong about there not being werewolves in my world, and this is not how I meant to tell you, I'm so sorry."

But it was out, anyhow, if she could pick the story out of that jumble. Jack huffed.

At first, Kate's face wasn't getting any less unimpressed. "You got attacked by a werewolf," she said, and sounded like that was exactly the kind of stupidity she'd been expecting ever since he decided to go back into ye olden days.

And then she got it. For some reason, she thought of Nina first.

Her eyes went wide as she stared at him, and she had a hard enough time choking out speech, let alone any singing. "Oh my God."