thatsamilkshake | Room 505, Friday Evening

Wincing, Dinah said more quietly, "I'm sorry for that. But-- is it weird that I'm glad you decided to keep it?" She bit her lip. "Not just because you're like me, but..." That was a little bit of it. It was nice. "Because I don't want you to lose something that's yours." She wished Francine's mom could see it that way. And how great was normal, anyway?

"That's what Katchoo said. Um. Not real Katchoo. But she was there when I was sick. So was my mom. Like they were being the little angel and devil on my shoulders or something, trying to get me to choose."

"So you were dreaming this, while you were sick, and the magic wanted you to choose? And you listened to Katchoo instead of your mom." She quirked a smile sideways at Francine. "And Merlin chose his magic too, and Blind Seer must've done something kind of the same... I'm glad you guys all got through it okay. I wish I could've helped." Dinah nodded. "So that's where, whatever the not-dealing is, that started?" She held out a chocolate chip cookie. "Have sugar for getting through it."

Francine blinked at it, then had to laugh, if a bit too hard. "I should've brought extra cookies to give out when people woke up. Here! Reward for surviving!" You know, if she'd had any helpful visions that they were going to get stuck in another world and almost die. "...I'm not sure Derian would've thought it was funny."

"What happened to him? He's Firekeeper's friend, right? I think she said he was kind of like a little brother." Dinah gave Francine a worried look at that laugh, and said, "That scary, hunh?"

"Little brother?" Though Francine could imagine Firekeeper thinking of him that way. "He's built like Arthur with a couple more inches on him ~~not dirty~~." Francine's smile faded a bit when she added, "He had some kind of talent with horses, being able to calm them down and know when they're healthy, things like that. It's even stronger now - he can almost talk to them - but the plague changed his face and made him look like one too. He didn't deal real well."

"I would guess not." Dinah thought of Cal, finding out he was a guy at fourteen, and how long it took him to deal. "Is he going to be able to go home? I know magic's not outlawed, but it's not totally a comfortable thing there."

"I don't know," Francine admitted. "When we left, they were trying to put some kind of government together for the place, so he wouldn't have been going anyplace right away, but... yeah, I don't know. So... it could've been way worse for me. I'm okay with what I got." The implication that it wasn't Derian she was talking about anymore lay heavy on that I'm.

Imagining Merlin not-okay with this was kind of ridiculous; he'd had to make the same choice too. "Who's not okay? Arthur? I thought he was dealing okay with magic stuff, these days..."

"Arthur's fine. Well, Arthur's... Arthur." She took a bite of her cookie and traced the edge of her tank top above the scar. "Arthur saw this before. The Francine in the other Fandom had it as a tattoo."

"She did?" Dinah took another drink of milk, distracted for a moment. "What does it mean, anyway? And who isn't okay with it, and why do they get a vote?"

"I don't know what it means -- but Katchoo does, and she won't tell me."

"What?" Dinah put her glass down, looking dismayed. "Wait, why would she know, and did she at least tell you why she wouldn't tell you?" She paused, running that sentence through her head again to check if it made sense. It did, but the situation didn't. "That's ridiculous!"

Edited 2009-09-27 01:12 (UTC)

"That's where we get to the part where I walked in while she had her shirt off." Francine smiled wryly. "She knows because she has one too."

Dinah paused, remembered that they were both guys at the time, wondered if that made a difference, and pushed it away as really, really irrelevant to focus on: "Wait, how-- that's. Wait." Stop, pause, put facts together. "She has the tattoo. Other-you in Vampire World, she has the tattoo. Now you have it as a brand, after a magic dream where you kept your magic and Katina talked you into it." Right. Okay. So. "This is not the kind of thing she gets to hold out on you on! It's way too all over the place and important!"

"That'd be what I said." Sort of. "Um, yelled. In the middle of the big screaming fight we had."

"Which started with you seeing her tattoo, and asking a reasonable question about it, and Katina... just clammed up?" Dinah checked, frowning. "Okay, if she's embarrassed about it for some reason, I get not admitting it, but not when you've got the same one and it's obviously really really important." She paused. "Hunh. They really match? Like, exactly?"

Edited 2009-09-27 01:51 (UTC)

"Like exactly, except for hers has colors." Francine nodded. "She said she didn't want to talk about it. And a bunch of other stuff that was basically talking around the part where it stops being none of my business when it shows up on my skin."

Dinah shook her head, troubled. "Did you try to talk to her about it since then? Has she calmed down a little?" Okay, it was Katina, so, calming down not so much an option, but still. Had to be better than the first screaming match.

Edited 2009-09-27 02:42 (UTC)

"I would except for the part where she left town before I got back in the morning to go God knows where." Francine gave a wave towards Katchoo's empty bed.

"The same place as before, when we were in Smile Time?" Dinah guessed, frowning. "She just left a note then, too. Did she at least say when she was going to be back?"

"She never told me where that was, either, so who knows." Francine shook her head and tossed up her hands. "This time her note she said she'd call, but she hasn't yet, and she left Thursday morning."

Dinah gave her a look of real sympathy, and held out another cookie. "God, that sounds frustrating." She shook her head, biting her lip, thinking. "She was so worried when you guys were gone, I'd think-- well." She blew out a breath. "Maybe she didn't have time. Or the phone's not charged. Or..." Could be anything, really. "Or something." Which was Not Helpful. "Sorry."

"I'm getting used to it." No, she wasn't. Francine broke off a piece of cookie and nibbled it slowly. "So um. Yay, that was my month, how's yours been?" Yes, she'd left out the thing at the party. Because it seemed a little detoury and not at all because she was still sorting out what she thought about it herself.

"You sure you want to hear?" Dinah checked. "Because most of it's .. well, I think it's good stuff, but some of it's confusing, and none of it is as weird or worrying as yours. Just, you know. Boy stuff." She paused. "And training with Azula, which is its own kind of confusing."

Edited 2009-09-27 16:24 (UTC)

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