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

[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.

[passingthrough]

That is very sad. The ships do strangely grow when we make payments, but it's not the same if you have to pay for it. I want a place that brings me food and does my laundry. Also, that was so much good talking. I like you voice. It reminds me of the good parts of Piotr without the sudden stop at the end.

[candothat]

The accommodations in other prisons have been far less satisfying.

[Aw, Kitty. That's sweet and sad at the same time?] Hopefully there will be no sudden stop this time. [Well. Assuming they find a way to leave, there will be a sudden stop. But it'll be the kind they have some say in.]

[passingthrough]

Prisons are weird that way.

You're a good Chekov. Do you know that? [Did you know that somewhat nonsensical thing?]

[candothat]

Yes, and weird in that way only.

I know that now, thank you. [He pets her hair.] You're a good Kitty. Possibly the best I know.

[passingthrough]

Exactly. I knew you'd get it.

[Smiles at the petting. Not that she was stingy with smiles before this.] Even better than actual cats you know?

[candothat]

Of course. There was nothing strange about the bands at all.

I don't know any actual cats, but even if I did I would still like you best probably.

[passingthrough]

Not a thing. I was just boring everyone with that information.

You should meet an actual cat sometime. Laura left me one. She never named her.

[candothat]

The virtual nature of the prison was also terribly commonplace.

I would like to meet this cat, as well as all of your other inherited pets that you have forgotten to tell me about.

[passingthrough]

The commonplacest.

I've got the cat, and the direwolf pup from Robb and Winn's forest slug. That's it. That's all I'm hiding. And I'm not making any new friends with pets. It's too dangerous. Don't even think about getting something!

[candothat]

I haven't had a pet since the City... maybe it would be nice. Should I steal one of yours?

[He's joking. Like, he could be convinced to not be joking, but.]

[passingthrough]

You want a cat? You'd be a good cat person. You're good with me.

[candothat]

I think that there are some minor differences between you and a cat... but if you still want to let me take your cat when you're sober, I will consider it.

[passingthrough]

Name three. [Smiling at him.]

[candothat]

You have opposable thumbs, you can walk through walls, and you can participate in a conversation about theoretical physics. If cats can do those things, then I have greatly underestimated them.

[passingthrough]

They do every one of those things. You're going to be so surprised when you have this cat.