video/action : open!

[passingthrough]

Who: Kitty Pryde + everyone
Broadcast: Network
Action: Iskaulit: Dance studio
When: New Year’s Eve (slightly backdated)

[Not long ago she’d been considering the best way to handle Winn’s birthday now that he’s gone and all. She considered enlisting a close friend or two to be on duty for support or distractions or just barricading herself in her room and feeling it and dealing with that. In the end she went with booze. Lots and lots of booze.

When she turns the feed on she’s lying down on a series of three chairs, holding the communicator above her head.]

Did I ever tell you about the time I was in Marina—the underwater prison place—and this tiny alien or robot or possibly dog man thing took over and made it rain fruit punch and then made us dance in a dance marathon and if we didn’t he was going to put us in a room with a moose. And I’m not drunk! [She laughs like she just said something very funny.]

No, no, I mean I am drunk but it’s also true. It was a very strange place. Did you know you had to get a wristband if you wanted to have sex with someone? Yeah. It was like being at a bar and wanting drink. [Speaking of wanting to drink. She looks around for her bottle and then lifts herself up enough to achieve drinking.] Oh! And then it was like enforced monogamy where you could only be with your band partner.

Wristband. Not like music band. You didn’t have to have sex with the person you played the flute with. [More laughing.]

What was I…? Oh, yeah, do you know I haven’t kissed anyone in moooonths? Yeah. Like May. May 10th. [Winn disappeared May 11.] In the prison you couldn’t do that because every two months—if they were months—they would send out these mistletoe robots that would make you kiss someone or lots of someones. Usually lots of someones. They had shrinking forcefields and confetti. I had to kiss a guy without lips once. Did I mention it was a weird place?

Comments

[candothat]

I would deny it, but you know my thoughts too well for me to fool you. [She does not.]

...To mark what spot?

[He wouldn't ask so lightly if he knew!]

[passingthrough]

His birthday. [Can you guess which him? Reaching for the bottle for more drinking times!]

[candothat]

[It's not hard to guess since Kitty's use of male pronouns tends to be limited to whoever she's in love with. They generally referred to Reid before; now they refer to Winn.]

Oh.

I'm sorry, Kitty.

[passingthrough]

[He's not wrong. She does always think about Piotr and Reid on their birthdays. She has no idea when Tyki's birthday is but there are things that remind her of him. Sometimes even things that aren't terrible. But open wound in her heart right now is very much Winn-shaped.]

This is why I wanted to keep it casual with him. We managed casual for literally none of the seconds. [She felt so connected to him right away. Sure, some of that is probably rewriting history, but some of it is true. They bonded quickly.]

[candothat]

[What about Chekov's birthday?! He shoves his sad Kitty-related feelings back in the box where they're supposed to stay and focuses on how she must feel because this is not about him. This is about her sad feelings.]

Your history of keeping casual isn't so good. You were doomed.

[passingthrough]

[omg, Chekov, you're right here. She can celebrate it with you and she can spend lots of days with you not just think about you while being apart. You're winning.] I only tried twice. And Tyki was...more casual than the rest. [It's not like they were in love. Probably.] The bands made it harder!

[And then a laugh.]

That makes it sound like the Rolling Stones or the Beatles did it.

[candothat]

[His player is just really emo about stupid things, okay.] Then here should theoretically be easier, yes?

I like that you're so easily amused right now.

[passingthrough]

If I wasn't mostly a happy drunk this would have been a terrible plan.

...Wait are you suggesting I have one night stands here?

[candothat]

Some might say that getting drunk is a terrible plan regardless of the kind of drunk you mostly are.

What? No! I'm not suggesting that you should not do that, but if you wanted to, it should be simpler here than it was in Marina.

[passingthrough]

[She laughs lightly, leaning back.] I was all out of good plans.

Doesn't feel simple. [It would be cheating on Winn. And it wouldn't too.]

Action

[candothat]

[This sounds like an excellent time for him to walk into the dance studio!] Not getting drunk alone is a slightly better plan, I think. May I sit? [A nod to the floor by Kitty's three-chair platform.]

But it should be. Logistically, if not emotionally.

Action

[passingthrough]

Sit away. [Once he does she is going to climb down from those chairs and put her head in his lap.]

Emotions are the hard part. We should get rid of them.

[candothat]

[There are so many good chairs going to waste right now! He tentatively strokes her hair. Good Kitty.]

That would simplify everything... but I would miss them eventually. There are a lot of good emotions.

[passingthrough]

[Purrrr.]

Would we? We could just take away the emotion for missing things.

[candothat]

Never missing things would mean never becoming attached to things to begin with. Never loving anything or anyone. I wouldn't want that.

[passingthrough]

Are you sure? Have you tried it? [But she doesn't mean any of this. Not really. She always gets attached. She always loves. No matter how many times things end badly or she loses them she goes back to it even if she tells herself not to trust again or not to get into it or go so fast, she does.

She just doesn't know if it's a strength or a weakness. Feels like both.]

[candothat]

I am, and I have. [Getting attached to people in universes where they inevitably forget or leave is a stupid thing to do and he has, at various points in his prison-universe career, tried to stop being stupid. It never lasts long. Caring and loving are easy things to start doing and difficult things to stop. Doesn't matter if it's a strength or a weakness; it's just a reality.]

...Would it help to talk?

[passingthrough]

Well, don't. [Sincere. She doesn't want that for him. And then back to being more drunk and less sincere.]

Yes. Please talk to me. Say lots of pretty words. [She smiles at him.]

[candothat]

Don't what? Be sure, or try not becoming attached? There is no sense in telling me either as I'm both very sure and very attached. [Trying not to be too sincere. Combining drinking and sincerity always makes him mopey; maybe Kitty doesn't operate the same way, but why risk it!]

I meant talking in a way that involves mostly you talking and me listening, but yes, okay. What kinds of words are pretty?

[passingthrough]

Yes. One of those. [Sorry, following trains of thought is hard.]

I know you did, but just because I'm drunk doesn't mean I can't turn it around on you! And any words you use will be pretty because you're you.

[candothat]

[He musses her hair fondly. Probably just as well that she's not up for following any of those trains of thought.]

I can't win against you even after you have had half a bottle of the worst alcohol available. [He doesn't mind that. He minds the other bit a little because what does that even mean.] You're very drunk, do you know that?

[passingthrough]

I do. I do know that. I'm not so drunk I think I'm sober again. I'm at a good level of knowing I'm drunk. Words. Words. Words. [It felt like she was talking a lot.]

[candothat]

Self-awareness is a good sign that you are exactly as very drunk as you should be.

Okay, I can make words if you would rather not. What haven't I told you already? Did I tell you about the magic house that I lived in when I was in the City?

[passingthrough]

Thank you. I knew you'd see my drunkeness for the perfection that it is.

[She shakes her head and then grimaces because head shaking was a bad idea.] No. Tell me about magic houses.

[candothat]

As if there was any doubt. I always think that everything about you is perfection. [Obviously teasing. Perfection is too hard.

He rests a hand on her forehead to discourage further head-shaking. Today does not need vomiting, please? He'll do all of the talking, really!]

Yes, okay. First, this how I came to live in the magic house: when I was seventeen and new to prisons in other universes, I invited a drunk Welsh wizard to sleep on my floor. Of course I would have offered him something more comfortable than the floor, but I had arrived very recently and had no furniture. He was not offended however, and when he was mostly sober he remembered that he lived in a magic house with his witch friend and told me that I could live there also. I said yes, of course, because a magic house is much more appealing than an empty apartment.

At first it wasn't such a big house, but then Dr. McCoy arrived in the City and came to live with us and suddenly it was one room larger. Next a British vampire hunter who was drunk more often than the Welsh wizard moved in and--this isn't surprising anymore, I'm sorry that this is repetitive--the house became one room larger again. The last room grew when Tessa joined us.

After that, I think, the house became bored and also smarter. When there was no more growing to do, it would sometimes rearrange its rooms or move doors or change the colors of its walls. Food would appear in the kitchen before we could be bothered to buy more. We would find things that we lost on a table or on our beds. My laundry even did itself more than once, although maybe that was Sophie--that was the witch's name--and not the house. Maybe not. After they all left, the house didn't stop being magic even if it was less magic without them.

And so, in conclusion, I was sad when I went to Marina and had to live in an apartment that stayed the same size and never brought food to me.