From the beach to...well, they were *heading* to Teddy Roosevelt... - Late Saturday Night

[thatsamilkshake]

"Can you believe it?" Francine giggled as Katchoo tugged her along by the hand. "Arthur? He was so sweet though - he even offered to build me a castle."

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[thismaskiwear.livejournal.com]

"Arthur? Sweet?" snorted Katchoo, who was blundering with brash and oh so very misguided confidence in what she thought was the direction of the cabins. "Hang on, Francie, I don't think those two words belong in the same statement."

[thatsamilkshake]

"He was, though! In a kind of dorky, princey, I'm such a boy way," Francine said. "And he wasn't the only one being weird," she reminded Katchoo.

[thismaskiwear.livejournal.com]

"Yeah, considering you liked it." Woo, evasive maneuvers! "Thank #(*@ I snapped out of being certifiably frikkin' insane, though."

[thatsamilkshake]

"Oooh riiiiiight, because everybody on the beach couldn't hear you calling for your looooooove puppy!" Francine found it hard to make That Face while dissolving into peals of laughter, but she managed it.

[thismaskiwear.livejournal.com]

Katchoo turned and aimed a playful poke at Francine's . . . she was aiming for the sternum. "I was clearly out of my mind at the time! Geez!"

[thatsamilkshake]

There were eyebrows flying skyward, because that was no more a sternum than it was a shoulder. "At the time?"

[thismaskiwear.livejournal.com]

Well, it was a big target area, sheesh!

"At the time!" insisted Katchoo. "Geez, you goofy broad, who did you think I was walking with right now?"

[thatsamilkshake]

Francine came to an abrupt stop so she could look around. If this yanked Katchoo right back into her, well. These things happened. "There's somebody else here?"

[thismaskiwear.livejournal.com]

"Yeah. Our invisible chaperone," said Katchoo who suddenly found herself thatmuchcloser to Francine and was, for the record, not complaining about that at all.

[thatsamilkshake]

"You think you're such a smartypants," Francine said, not complaining at all either. Or doing much about the thatmuchcloser, except... kind of feeling for some reason like maybe it should be thismuchcloser instead. "Hi there, smartypants."

[thismaskiwear.livejournal.com]

"Hi yourself." Katchoo thought she ought to do something about making the transition from thatmuchcloser to thismuchcloser, and turned just a little bit, and . . . there. See?

Of course, this meant any witty retort she'd been about to formulate was derailed pretty thoroughly by sudden proximity and the odd (except not really) accompanying inability to remember exactly how to breathe.

[thatsamilkshake]

"I don't see any invisible chaperon," Francine said. Then again, she didn't see anything much except a certain Katina Marie Choovanski right now.

[thismaskiwear.livejournal.com]

"Yeah." Katchoo never sounded this vague and almost uncertain. "I kinda lied about that."

[thatsamilkshake]

And Francine never sounded this sure of herself. "Why, are you afraid to be alone with me?"

[thismaskiwear.livejournal.com]

Katchoo opened her mouth to say No, but I'm afraid you are, which given Francine's tone of voice wasn't what came out.

What she did say, Cartoonist and his wonky chronology anyway be damned, was "Afraid, hell. Francie, I look at you . . . and I see the meaning of life dancing in your eyes."

[thatsamilkshake]

"Maybe I need glasses," Francine said, voice low and slow, more Tennessee than Texas tonight, and face even closer now. "All I can see is you."

[thismaskiwear.livejournal.com]

Maybe it was the voice that had Katchoo reaching up to touch the side of Francine's face with little hesitation now.

"Would you hate me if I kissed you?"

[thatsamilkshake]

Francine's hand reached up to fit itself over hers. "I'll hate you if you don't." No, she wouldn't. But.

[thismaskiwear.livejournal.com]

Details. Also, what was that rhythmic thudding sound? Katchoo wasn't sure, and she didn't really care as she leaned in to -- ohgodohgodohgod -- kiss Francine.

Whatever the hell had been going on this morning, it didn't make anywhere near the kind of sense this did.

[thatsamilkshake]

You know the nice thing about the preserve in Fandom, besides the number of conveniently-placed trees?

NO DOORBELLS.

The conveniently-placed trees were good too, though, for tall people to balance against when they leaned down towards short people.

[thismaskiwear.livejournal.com]

The short person in question was going to hang on to the taller person for balance, then, or maybe it was because she couldn't quite believe this was happening.

Or maybe it was both.

[thatsamilkshake]

Maybe it was both.

Maybe Francine pressing her lips down without a fear in the world except that this would have to end at some point was the result of somebody's eyes turning gold, too, or maybe it was that she'd never done anything righter in her life and she never would.

Or maybe it was both.

[thismaskiwear.livejournal.com]

The way Katchoo reached up to put one hand on the back of Francine's neck, and out with the other to take hold of Francine's hand, on the other hand, had nothing to do with any spell and never would except for how she wasn't the one taking all the initiative here.

And if she was kissing Francine like she might never get a chance to do this again, that could have something to do with a fear that this could end and never happen again.

[thatsamilkshake]

It might. Or it might last ten years or a thousand, or that might just be Francine's imagination going into overdrive as her fingers laced with Katchoo's and somehow she saw a million possibilities zoom past her eyes like shooting stars over a Texas sky at night, too fast to focus on, futures too impossibly fast to catch, and the two of them standing still in the middle of it.

[thismaskiwear.livejournal.com]

Funny, Katchoo might have had something like that going on in her head too. None of those futures ended abruptly and WTFily with a "The End . . . of Version [Insert Number Here]," let's just be clear about that right off.

There might have been a flash or seven of something that looked like the skyline of the New Mexico desert at sunset, though, or an air mattress surrounded by cinnamon-scented candles, or maybe it was Hawaii, or Houston. It wasn't the location that mattered so much as the fact that it was the two of them in all of those possible futures.

That sound could have been Katchoo's breath catching, or it could have been the sound of something clicking into place like it belonged there, or . . .

[thatsamilkshake]

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