fh_trips | SPRING BREAK, Cyseal, Monday Morning

"No," Kathy said, grumping at him. "Victoria is very polite and well-groomed and the whole library was her idea." At least, that was the impression Kathy had gotten from their talk. "Don't be an orc-racist or I won't share my lunch with you."

Dire threat there, woo.

"So, uhh, what's up?" she added, a little more awkwardly than she would have a few days ago. She was very aware of what she was wearing today, yes. "Planning on going for a swim? The water's gorgeous."

"You still aren't very good at threats," Anders teased. "But I'm sorry for being orc-racist. Won't happen again unless we're talking about darkspawn, but that's less racism and more good sense."

He rested his chin on his palm and looked at her more directly. "Not a lot. Went to the healer's house this morning. Maybe I'll swim in a bit. But I was hoping to run into you, actually."

"Maybe not, but you'll notice I still get what I want more often than not," Kathy teased, giving him a real grin that slowly faded as he explained that he was here deliberately looking for her.

Not that she was nervous about hearing what he had to say, of course! They'd been friends for years now, it was silly to worry that a bit of pollen could interfere with that. So she wasn't worried. Just maybe, ever-so-slightly apprehensive.

Still, she was game to play casual for as long as she could. "No, I didn't bring a week's worth of cat gifs saved to my phone," she teased. "What's up?" Okay, no, she couldn't play dumb, either. "Time for that Monday talk, huh?"

"Afraid so," Anders acknowledged, smiling back but with some tension in his eyes. "We could put it off and make it a Tuesday talk, if you want, but I'm not sure that would be any easier. Do you want me to go first?"

He didn't want to, and wasn't sure what he'd say -- but he found her, so he figured talking first was probably his job.

"Why spend our whole vacation with this hanging over our heads, right?" Kathy asked with false lightness. "Sure, yeah, why don't you go first. I mean, if you don't mind." Without her realizing it, she clasped her hands together, right thumb making small circles on her left palm; a self-soothing gesture she didn't even know she had.

"We're--we're still friends, right?"

That just slipped out.

"Still friends," Anders said, so quickly the words almost tripped over each other. The thought of losing Kathy terrified him. "Maker, I hope we can stay friends no matter what. And we're friends who had, I have to say, a completely amazing time in bed. I --"

He pursed his lips, trying to get the words right. "I like you more than about anybody," he finally said. "Love you as a friend, even. But I can't date anybody right now. It's too soon. It wouldn't be fair to me or to them. I hope no dating doesn't mean no sex, but if it does, I can't blame you."

There. His speech was made. Now all he had to do was keep a straight face and hope they weren't on different planets about this stuff entirely.

Kathy held up a finger, asking for a moment while she closed her eyes and just breathed. Still friends. Thank god. That was huge and she couldn't help but beam her relief.

"That's--that's pretty much perfect," she said, opening her eyes again. "I was a little worried--you just broke up with Nathan and I didn't want to be some kind of, like, rebound for you. I'm counting down the days until I get my college acceptance letters, you know? Neither of us are in a place to try to turn this into some kind of...deathless romance thing, even if we were of a mind to."

Was Kathy still nurturing a crush? Hell yes. But she was still pragmatic enough to know that that didn't equate out to a relationship.

"And as for sleeping together..." She leaned forward a little, letting him get a glimpse down her bikini top, a spark in her eyes that he'd recognize from the previous week. "I'm sure we can work something out."

She'd known him a lot longer than either Dante or Ezra and she enjoyed sleeping with both of them on the regular.

Anders honestly could not have asked for a better answer. He closed his eyes, savoring the sun on his skin for the first time on the trip.

"Exactly," he said, once he was looking at Kathy again. "If we were going to go out, we'd owe it to each other to be there all the way. Not you with one foot out the door and me not quite over somebody else. Maybe someday things will be different and we'll work it out, but until then I'm happy with a tawdry affair."

He had a crush, too, but -- as Kathy's narration said -- that didn't mean they should go for a relationship. That just seemed complicated.

"Oooh, I'm excited to get to have a tawdry affair!" Kathy said, leaning over to wrap Anders in a tight hug. She was very relieved that neither of them was getting their heart broken today. "And you know what this means?" she asked, nudging him with her elbow. "It means I can grill you all about your afternoon with your roommate without worrying that it would somehow be weird."

Anders hugged back, dropping a kiss on her cheek because he figured he could do that now.

"You already know about that?" he said, laughing. "Damned squirrels. But there go my fears it'd be awkward to tell you about. Anyhow, the afternoon with Dante was" -- he paused for a wicked grin -- "completely fantastic. Grill away."

There was no such thing as TMI between best friends and lovers who were also sleeping with the same guy, was there?

Edited 2016-02-22 16:02 (UTC)

If there were rules about TMI in this whole thing, no one had bothered to tell Kathy about it.

"So, who started it?" Kathy asked, resting her head on Anders' shoulder and reaching for a sandwich to pass over. Normally dishing about gossip was supposed to be done over chocolate and sweets, but she had hearty sandwiches and wonderfully roasted chicken instead.

They were hardly conventional on any other point, either. Why start there?

"And what happened? And when is it happening again? Or--just a pollen thing?"

"That would be me," Anders admitted, half shy and half proud. "We were talking about the pollen and he asked me if I'd been getting laid. I said -- no offense to you -- not as much as I'd like. And then I made a pass at him, mostly to see what would happen."

He took a bite of the sandwich, chewing on it eagerly. When he swallowed, he added, "I wasn't sure he took it seriously until he made one back at me. I wasn't about to say no, so we ... did things." It wouldn't take too much prodding to get him to tell Kathy what kind of things, but he was trying to at least remember what discretion was. "And after he said we could go again sometime if I was bored. I don't know if I'll take him up on it."

He probably would, but sleeping with your roommate was a lot more complicated without pollen. Unless, of course, you were Dante.

Edited 2016-02-22 18:00 (UTC)

Kathy shook her head. "Unless you were getting laid at that exact moment, you weren't having as much sex as you'd like," she said, giving him an understanding smile. "I get it, believe me."

She snagged another of the sandwiches, pausing a moment to hum loudly in appreciation over the tangy mustard on it and the seasonings in the meat. Yes, excellent choice in lunch foods, gold star for Kathy.

"So, best friend advice time?" she offered. "I think you should. I mean, unless you think you might end up falling for him?" Which Kathy would argue against in the strongest possible terms. "He doesn't take sex seriously. It's just--it's not going to change your dynamic much, I don't think. That's not the way he operates." She snickered at him. "You might find yourself kicked out of your room less, come to think about it."

Anders laughed at the first comment because it was so true, then listened carefully to the rest of what she had to say. He was only slightly distracted by the show she was putting on over the sandwich.

"Excellent best friend advice," he decided, shooting her a mischievous smile. "And you aren't saying it because you want us to ask you to watch?"

Not that he'd necessarily object.

Hey, she'd beat up a bunch of skeletons earlier. It was enough to make any teenage superball hungry!

"Just watch, huh?" Kathy asked, waggling her eyebrows at him. "I see how it's going to be. A good bestie would have suggested I join in." Then she paused, considering. "Hey. Is it going to be weird for you if Dante and I keep...?"

"Well, if you wanted to join in, we probably wouldn't stop you," Anders said, and snickered.

Then, more seriously: "Maybe it'll be a tiny bit weird, but that doesn't matter. You were with him first, and I'm not enough of a hypocrite to tell you who you can sleep with when I'm not offering fidelity in return. Tell me I'm better in bed than he is and I'll be happy. Lie if you have to."

So maybe he wasn't that serious.

"Oh no, I'm not stupid enough to get in the middle of something like that," Kathy said, laughing. "I'm just going to keep saying that I need to collect more data points before I can be certain of my findings."

"And if you're going for data points, it's unfair that he has so many more than I do," Anders grinned at her, appreciating the diplomacy of her answer. "I was thinking about going back to the hotel for a rest after lunch. Want to come with me?"

It was for science, Kathy!

Who was Kathy to turn down science?

"I think I'll have had enough sun by then to appreciate a chance to head inside," she said, ducking her head a bit and grinning. "Trying to get down to nine-hundred and ninety-five then?"

Anders grinned back, boyish and pleased. "Exactly. We have to keep going if we want to make any headway before you're off to college."

Kathy finished off her sandwich in three big bites--another reason to be grateful they were going with friends with benefits, she didn't have to think about all the times her mom nagged that men didn't like to see pretty girls eat--and decided that the rest of her lunch could wait until after their...nap. They'd probably appreciate having something to eat then, anyway.

"I do like having goals," she said, shrugging into an oversized shirt so she wasn't walking through town in a bright pink bikini. Bouncing up to her feet, she offered him a hand up--and would keep it even after he was standing up if he'd let her.

It wouldn't have occurred to Anders to judge how much Kathy ate, but inner voices never took things like that into account.

He took the hand she offered and didn't let go.

"And I like helping you with your goals," he said. "Let's go."

SPRING BREAK, Cyseal, Monday Morning

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