thatsamilkshake | Room 505, Tuesday Evening

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Room 505, Tuesday Evening

So hey, you know what's fun? An unplanned week or so of vacation with blood magic, plague and creepy crazy sorcerers, yay! And also no showers. And no phone reception, though that didn't stop Francine from running the battery down by trying.

Oh, no, wait, fun was something else. Which would be why when the group finally made it back from Firekeeper's world to the preserve, and from there to the dorms, Francine had just barely enough energy to shuffle down the hall to her room -- and just enough thought-moths caught in the cobwebs in her head that she waited a moment, leaning on the doorknob, before she went in.

[OOC: For That Girl. No, not you, Marlo Thomas.]

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That, weirdly, made Katchoo feel better for once instead of giving her that fun twisty-knife-in-the-gut feeling. Because dammit, it had been days without Francine and the unintentional innuendo, and she'd just about been at the point where she thought she might never hear it again.

"Anything you need, honey," she promised. "Sit down for a minute and I'll get your stuff together."

Dammit, this would involve letting go. She could do that for a minute, right? Right?

Wait for it. Wait for it.

. . .

No, really, Chewie, you could let go now.

Well, the sitting down part didn't have to involve letting go. But it really did need to involve sitting down, before Francine's legs went more jell-o than they already were after walking back from the preserve,

Bed. Bed was good. For sitting.

And for not letting go. "I tried to call. Cell phone reception sucks where Blysse is from."

"That's where you went?" Katchoo was already over at Francine's dresser, looking for pajamas (her favorite ones of Francine's). "Hell, that explains the out of service area messages I kept getting."

"Not on purpose." Francine scraped her fingers through her hair, more for something to do with her hands than any chance that it would help de-tangle it. "I went out riding with Firekeeper - Blysse - and Blind Seer, in the preserve. And Arthur and Merlin were hunting."

"And you all ran into each other," Katchoo guessed; she came back over with a towel slung over her shoulder and one arm loaded down with clothes and bath paraphernalia, and held a hand out to Francine. It seemed like bad things happened when four people ran into each other in the Preserve. "I didn't think you'd take off without letting me know. I'm just glad you're okay."

Francine wasn't actually wobbly enough to need the hand up, but she took it anyway, because it was Katchoo's. Because--- moths in her head. Yeah.

"Blind Seer and Blysse heard something and ran off to check on it, and then he came back by himself all beat up, and we followed him, and the woods here just sort of... turned into the woods there." It wasn't much of an explanation, but it was the best she had.

Katchoo was going to wrap her fingers around Franchine's hand just to feel something after days of staring at the empty space across the room, and help her up.

"Beat up? Geez, Francie, why do I get the feeling this wasn't just a random stroll through the trees until the plague hit?"

"...Sort of? If you want to count the plant-monsters as trees."

Katchoo would have facepalmed if she didn't have her hands full, thereby ensuring that facepalming would result in either awkward wrenching of joints or a concussion, or maybe even both. Any of those possibilities would be inconvenient and not at all conducive to the process of getting to the bathroom.

"Plant-monsters? Geez, Francie!" And now she'd just be checking Francine over for . . . plant-y bite marks.

"Kind of giant hedge-animals with thorns for teeth and claws. Like in The Shinning but way creepier." Way to calm her down on that one, Francine. "Arthur and Merlin and Firekeeper and her friends beat the crap out of them, though. And Truth jumped on one and broke it in half." That'd be right about when she fell off the horse, but damn if everybody in a mile radius couldn't have heard that crack.

To hell with the armload of clothes, there was going to be clinging now. "Tell me that was as dangerous as it got, Francie." Katchoo could already see this was a futile line of . . . sort of questioning.

Francine was... just not going to mention falling off the horse, or she might never get to go riding again. "Um." How to deal with that question otherwise, though.... "Er."

Somewhere in the middle of the mental facepalming, she realized she was going to owe Arthur and Merlin one, now. And Firekeeper too, probably.

"I'm just glad you're okay," Katchoo said, holding the door open for her.

"I...am, yeah." Francine blinked in the fluorescent lighting of the girls' bathroom and thought that ugly green wall tiles had never looked so good. Even if a glance in the mirror showed that she couldn't say the same for her face. "Just... a little different, maybe. Some stuff happened."

Francine Peters, future travel writer. Some stuff happened.

Katchoo had to laugh. She had to, as she headed toward one of the shower stalls. "Gee, you don't say. Tell me about it later, after you clean up?"

"Oh God, hot water. That falls on your head. I was starting to wonder if that was a dream I had once or something." Francine did things with clothes and shoes and reaching her hand back out for-- "And conditioner. They really make that, right?"

"In more varieties than should be strictly decent, even." Katchoo handed the bottle over. Oh, god, not looking, except for how she was because after several days of freaking out she had to be sure.

Hey, Francine had a head full of shampoo; it's not like she was looking to see who was looking. "Mmm. It's finally starting to feel like maaaaybe I'm not actually made of ick."

"And I just aired out the room, too." If she got a bar of soap at her head for that, she deserved it. "Neither ick nor goo would keep me from hugging you, though."

Maybe just a loofah on a cord. Bap.

"But now I'm all clean," Francine said. "I give better hugs this way."

Edited 2009-09-03 02:10 (UTC)

Oof. Slain by a loofah! Only not.

"It helps if you get out, too, I've heard," Katchoo said helpfully.

"Or if--" What? You come in.

What.

Bathtub. Katchoo and a jacket and a bottle of champagne. Floating past her face in a soap bubble so close she could almost reach out and touch it with her fingers but if she did, it might pop.

Francine leaned back against the shower wall and said absolutely nothing, trying to catch her breath as the water sprayed over her face.

"If what? Francine?" The sudden silence felt . . . loaded, somehow, and Katchoo started reaching for the shower curtain before she pulled her hand back.

That recoil was going to end up being muscle memory soon, she thought sometimes.

"You okay in there, honey?"

Nothing but a jacket and a bottle of champagne. And possibly some of the color on Francine's face when she reached for the faucet didn't come from the hot water and steam. "I'm fine. Just got a little woozy for a sec."

Not entirely untrue. How much was standing upright for too long and how much was the sudden flash of memory, she couldn't say. "Could you hand me a towel?"

"Consider it done, milady," Katchoo declaimed, and it was kind of a shame Francine couldn't see the goofy pose she struck when she held out the towel.

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