Room 218, Almost Certainly Thursday (Right? Right.) Evening
Oh no.
Oh no. Oh no. Oh no.
Karla was standing in the middle of her dorm room, surrounded by piles of...of...of stuff. It was probably for the best that Gabrielle was off in Greece again (though if she knew what was happening to her roommate, she'd rethink that), otherwise she might have gotten lost in the heaping jumbles of books, clothing, ( Read more... )
Oh no. Oh no. Oh no.
Karla was standing in the middle of her dorm room, surrounded by piles of...of...of stuff. It was probably for the best that Gabrielle was off in Greece again (though if she knew what was happening to her roommate, she'd rethink that), otherwise she might have gotten lost in the heaping jumbles of books, clothing, ( Read more... )
"I was going to!" Karla cried. "When...the moment was right!"
Eventually!
"Don't get all snippy with me," she added with a grumble. "You wouldn't even be thinking about him if I hadn't grabbed him for you."
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"That's not the point," Warren countered. "You know, if you had asked, I probably would have let you hang on to him anyhow. But you didn't. You just... went behind my back and stole one of the only things that was ever really mine."
Thoughtful gesture or none, Warren was feeling maybe a little betrayed. Which was probably stupid. It was just a stuffed bear. He was too old to be hung up on something like this. And she was right. He wouldn't have been thinking about him at all. Except for every now and then.
"And don't tell me 'when the moment was right.' You were the one who was just telling me that you deserved him more."
Those teddy bear custody battles were hell on young families.
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Really, they just led to tears and recriminations all the way around. And then, half the time the teddy bears grew up wrong and both people ended up yelling, 'He learned it from watching you!'
"Well, I wasn't going to keep him!" Karla declared, blithely ignoring any and all evidence to the contrary. "I was trying to figure out when the best time to surprise him with you was going to be. Sometime when the island wasn't on the verge of exploding and we were ourselves and it wasn't a time when we'd have to turn his little bear face to the wall!"
Because having sex in front of Buddy was going to be weird. Karla was calling it right now.
"I grabbed him for you! I took the one thing in that house that meant anything to you and brought it here to the one place that means something to you."
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Buddy looked about as surprised as he ever did, really.
"And then you... kept him from me," he noted, though some of the heat had left his voice, and there were the smallest beginnings of an amused smile tugging at the corners of his mouth, "and you said how unfair it was that I wanted him back after all you've done for him."
It was possible that she was over-identifying with the teddy bear, a bit.
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Who, Karla? Never.
"Surprise you with him," Karla amended, shaking her head. She was still somewhat foggy and spending half the day frantically searching for Warren's lost bear hadn't helped matters any.
"And I would have been better if you hadn't been so snatchy," she decided a moment later. "I have to ease into sharing."
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Warren was kind of hoping that he was making sense, here.
"I mean... I know he's a stuffed bear and all... But for a bit there, it seemed like you weren't planning on giving him back at all."
And he wasn't your bear, Karla.
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"I was going to," Karla said softly, chastened. "Always. I grabbed him for you and I kept him for you. It's just--" She flushed. "He smells like you. Not just his fur, but psychically. Your psychic imprint is deep within him after all these years. I...just like..."
She liked to cuddle him at night when Warren was in his own room. Same reason she liked wearing his shirts.
"I'm sorry I kept him for so long. Didn't mean to."
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Because Buddy clearly needed protecting!
"... I mean, until you lost him and he wound up in the soup bag, anyhow."
Teasing!
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She smiled at the sight of her boyfriend clutching a ragged stuffed bear (though Karla had tried to brush him out a bit!). "You don't think he'll mind sharing you with the rest of us, will he?"
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He was pretty sure they would, knowing that the island was being weird again and that Karla was still not completely well, yet.
"And Buddy's a pretty great guy," he added, grinning a little. "I mean, he kept you company for a while there, right? Pretty sure that means he knows I'm in good hands, with you."
Karla got the Buddy Bear seal of approval.
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She paused and her expression turned into a grimace. Slowly sitting back up again, she reached for her pillows. "I think I found our soup containers," she said wryly.
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Eloquently said, Warren. But at least it beat admitting that he'd probably just accidentally dropped Buddy under there at some point really shortly before leaving home and not looking back. He hadn't been hiding him, per se...
"The odds of us finding a towel or something in this mess?"
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"I guess it depends on how hard you want to look," Karla said, sighing at the mess now soaking into her sheets. Fortunately, it didn't seem like she'd knocked over enough to get into the mattress--though the pillow she was holding probably wouldn't make it. "And maybe a spare pair of sheets while we're at it."
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If you went missing again, he'd be back again for you, now that he knew you were here.
"How much did we lose?" She could have his share, if too much spilled. He was thoughtful like that. "Sometimes I have to wonder if this place is just out to get us, you know."
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