tra-la, she said. fanfic, she said.
DON'T LOOK AT MY PSEUDOSCIENCE. DON'T LOOK AT IT.
Title: (untitled)
Author: sillyangelfaery
Rating: PG there at the end, a bit
Notes: follow-up fic to this (also found here), which is required reading if you want to understand the ending to this. Also, spoilers for AWOM, technically. Although this could have been total pre-AWOM fanfic if you read the series the right way.
Summary: Dairine finds out.
The situation was not going according to plan.
Kit stood in the doorway to Dairine's room, scuffing one sneaker on the floor and waiting for her reply. He was sure she'd heard him, and there wasn't any way she could have misinterpreted 'So Nita and I are going out now,' but Dairine hadn't done much more than grunt in acknowledgment. She was absorbed in a circle of glowing characters she'd apparently inscribed right onto the wood surface of her desk. Spot was on the floor by the chair, like some comical computer version of a faithful hound.
After an awkward silence in which Dairine traced more symbols and didn't pay him any attention whatsoever, Kit tried again.
"So, uh. What do you think?"
"Called it," she said dismissively.
"...Okay," said Kit. "That's all?"
She lifted a shoulder. "Have fun. Make good choices. All that stuff."
The idea of Dairine, of all people, telling anyone to make good choices was so bizarre that Kit could only blink in disbelief.
After a moment Dairine looked up at him with impatience in the tilt of her head.
"Did you need something else?"
"Uh. No." Kit frowned at her. "You're taking this awfully..." Well was not the word, he decided. "Calmly."
She lifted an eyebrow at him. At her side, Spot shot up one eyestalk in an equivalent gesture.
"Should I bring out my pom-poms and lead a cheer?"
He winced at the acid in her tone. "No, but...I mean, you've been teasing Nita and me for as long as we've known each other. When Carmela found out, she made a big production out of telling my mama."
"Dad's at work. You'll have to come back later if you want me to stage a scene for him."
Kit swallowed. "Uh. No. That's okay." He hadn't quite thought out yet how he was going to tell Nita's dad that they'd been dating on the sly for two weeks. "I guess I just...thought maybe you'd have something to say."
"Well, I said it." She bent back over the glowing circle of symbols on the desk. "Live long and prosper, young padawan."
Okay, now he knew something was wrong. Dairine never, never mixed Star Wars references with Star Trek, not even in the deepest dregs of preoccupation with her wizardry. Kit knew from long and painful experience that she regarded it as the epitome of sci-fi social faux pas. For her to commit such a gaffe was all the proof he needed that she wasn't as imperturbed as she was pretending to be.
He stared at her bowed head for a long moment, debating what to say. "Uh..."
Her head snapped up, eyes blazing with such intensity that he took a step back in surprise.
"What, Kit? What do you want from me?"
Her sheer fury, unexpected as it was, brought him up short. "I don't -- "
"You expect me to believe you came here so I could point and laugh at you and my sister for finally getting a clue? Right, sure, and Cyhmrwth ulwars can fly!"
With the right spell, Kit thought somewhere in that tiny part of his mind that was forever coming up with inappropriate commentary in dire situations. He had stumbled into dangerous territory. When Dairine started naming organisms from galaxies he had never heard of, the best option was retreat.
Before he could scramble for his teleport spell, Dairine was standing up, crossing the distance between them to poke a finger at his chest.
"Know what, Kit? I don't care if you date my sister. I don't care if you decide to date stromalitic cyanobacteria from Omega Centauri -- if you could convince one in the first place."
Kit's mind was insisting that since the Milky Way had cannibalized most of that galaxy anyway he probably couldn't have found any, but he kept his mouth shut. He couldn't remember the last time he'd seen Dairine so furious, and he was in the dark as to exactly why she was mad at him.
"You and my sister can take your smug little fairy-tale happily-ever-after and go to -- " Her voice broke, and Dairine looked appalled with herself for a brief second before she turned her back and took a shaky breath, muttering a word that would have earned a lecture from her father.
"Just leave me alone," she said in as brusque a manner as she could. "I have work to do." She stalked across the room and threw herself into her chair, letting her hair fall forward to shield her face from his gaze.
With a pang of guilt, Kit realized what was wrong, why Dairine was so angry about his news.
She's jealous.
Even though Dairine was becoming more and more immersed in Wellakh's politics, she was still looking for Roshaun. She was running herself ragged to find him -- and she was failing. Of course it would sound to her like Kit was rubbing his relationship with Nita in her face.
"Dari," he said, helpless. He'd never used her family's nickname for her, but now it slipped from his mouth without conscious effort. "I'm -- I'm sorry. I didn't mean to -- I'm an idiot. I wasn't trying to be obnoxious."
After a pause, Dairine gave him a stiff nod. "I know." Her voice was curt. "It's fine, Kit. Just -- just go, okay?"
But he couldn't, not now that he could see he'd hurt her, however inadvertently, however impossible it seemed that Dairine could be so vulnerable.
"It's not," he said. "It's really not. Dairine, I -- I didn't know that you and Roshaun were - you know..." How could he have missed the misery in her eyes? It was the all-too-familiar look of someone who was trying not to lose hope, who was trying to ignore the fact that all her resources were dwindling, that she was running out of options and time. He'd felt that way too often in the course of his partnership with Nita -- that encompassing fear for her life, the dread that he could lose her in an instant. It could only be a nightmare for Dairine, who didn't even have Timeheart to ease her worries. Roshaun was lost, and so was she.
Dairine traced a Speech symbol on the desk. "We're not," she said with the barest trace of annoyance. Then she sighed. "I mean, I don't think we are." Now she looked bewildered and uncertain and every bit the twelve-year-old it was so easy to forget she was. Kit stuffed his hands in his pockets and felt briefly, inexplicably old.
"It's just that -- " Dairine rested her elbows on the desktop and fisted her hands in her hair. "Roshaun, he's - he's a major pain, you know? He always has to be right, and he can be a total snob, and sometimes it's impossible to make him understand Earth logic. But -- " She closed her eyes.
"But he made me try harder, and he kept me thinking." Her shift into past tense was so seamless that Kit wondered if she even noticed. "And there were a few times when he was trying to adapt to our customs, and I could laugh at him without worrying that he'd be offended by it. And he could be such a huge nerd when he put the invisible crown away and started talking wizardry. And he listened to me. Even when we fought about stuff, it was, I dunno, fun, in a way. It was like having a best friend, or a brother, or -- "
"A partner," said Kit quietly.
Dairine's face crumpled.
The next thirty seconds were some of the most excruciating of Kit's life. He'd seen women cry before -- it was unavoidable when you had two older sisters. Nita seldom cried, but he still got uncomfortable when it happened, and he was totally at a loss the rare times his mother did. The only girl he'd ever met with less of a tendency toward crying than his mother was Dairine, and for a moment he was frozen with indecision. As she dashed away the tears with impatient fingers, he took a hesitant step forward.
"Hey..."
"You try to hug me, I'll break all your limbs," she mumbled, startling a laugh out of him.
"No hugs," he promised, swamped with relief. "But, uh, maybe some advice would be okay?"
She sniffed once and eyed him with suspicion. "Okay."
He bit his lip, then shrugged. "You can't always save people."
Dairine's eyes darkened. "I know that," she said, and they locked gazes for a long, tense second. He knew they were both thinking of her mother.
"You do," he acknowledged. "But you also know that sometimes..."
He paused, wondered if this was the right thing to tell her. She was only twelve, after all, and it couldn't be good for one twelve-year-old to handle so much responsibility, even if she'd seen worse and had come through it all right. He'd been that twelve-year-old once. He remembered something the Transcendent Pig had said -- that saving the universe and saving one person amounted to the same.
Then why, he wondered, does it seem so much harder to save just one person?
He looked at Dairine, at her deceptive youth and her cautious hope. Maybe because it hurt more when you felt like you had failed one person, if that person was important enough.
"Sometimes you can," he said.
It took a few seconds for her to understand. Watching the realization, the renewed determination, bloom on her face made Kit feel at once proud and regretful. He didn't want her to give up, but he couldn't help feeling that he'd just given her false hope.
"Sometimes I can," she agreed. Her mouth quirked up at one corner. "Thanks." He nodded, and she leaned back in her chair with customary Dairine nonchalance.
"I mean, we found the Hesper, didn't we?" The confidence was back in her voice, and whatever his reservations, Kit was glad to hear it.
"Sure."
She studied the symbols on her desk, her gaze distant like it was when she was working out a complex problem.
"That was business," she said absently. "This...is personal."
Kit blinked at the new timbre in her voice. She'd forgotten Kit's presence in the room. He shook his head. "Right. So, before I leave - about Neets and me..."
Dairine spared him a dry look. "Hurt my sister and I'll still break all your limbs," she said.
"Right," said Kit, and transited away to the sound of Dairine murmuring something about compiling a code, with Spot humming in agreement.
He appeared in his living room. Nita was still sitting on the couch, her manual lying on the table. She was sipping the last of her soda, and her face was expectant.
"How did it go?" Her tone was pleasant. Too pleasant. Kit eyed her for a moment.
"It was..." He paused. "Well. She didn't break all my limbs."
Nita's brow furrowed. "What?"
"Nothing. I think it's an inside joke."
"You and my sister have inside jokes now?" Nita was incredulous. He couldn't blame her.
"Just one. And I only think it's a joke." He shrugged. "It's Dairine. She might be serious, for all I know."
Nita rolled her eyes. "Oh please. Like she even cared that much when you told her."
Kit gave her a half-smile. "You'd be surprised."
"Uh-huh." Now Nita looked mischievous. "Speaking of surprises, you'll probably want to make new sleeping arrangements for tonight. And maybe for a while after that, depending."
Kit frowned. "What are you talking about? Depending on what?"
Her smile was innocent. "On how much creaking you like in your bed."
He stared at her, not willing to believe he'd heard her correctly. After a pause that was far too long, in which he could find absolutely nothing to say, and during which Nita was beginning to look as though he'd missed the punchline to some joke, they both heard Carmela snickering from the kitchen.
"Moving a little fast, aren't we, Miss Neets?"
"What...?" As she caught on, Nita's entire face drained of color, then turned flame-red. "Oh my G--Carmela!" She glared at Kit over the sound of Carmela's cackling. "That better not have been where your mind went, Kit!"
Kit tried to maintain eye contact with her, but failed. If possible, her face went a deeper shade of red, and she started stammering something about his bed and Pluto's winter side.
"Good idea, Nita," said Carmela, coming out of the kitchen with a glass of lemon soda and a grin that would make the Lone One balk. "Send him to Pluto, that ought to calm him down."
"Calm who down?"
Why, Powers? asked Kit as Helena came down the stairs. Nita buried her face in her hands.
Carmela's eyes were merciless as a shark's. "Helena. Boy, have I got news for you..."
Title: (untitled)
Author: sillyangelfaery
Rating: PG there at the end, a bit
Notes: follow-up fic to this (also found here), which is required reading if you want to understand the ending to this. Also, spoilers for AWOM, technically. Although this could have been total pre-AWOM fanfic if you read the series the right way.
Summary: Dairine finds out.
The situation was not going according to plan.
Kit stood in the doorway to Dairine's room, scuffing one sneaker on the floor and waiting for her reply. He was sure she'd heard him, and there wasn't any way she could have misinterpreted 'So Nita and I are going out now,' but Dairine hadn't done much more than grunt in acknowledgment. She was absorbed in a circle of glowing characters she'd apparently inscribed right onto the wood surface of her desk. Spot was on the floor by the chair, like some comical computer version of a faithful hound.
After an awkward silence in which Dairine traced more symbols and didn't pay him any attention whatsoever, Kit tried again.
"So, uh. What do you think?"
"Called it," she said dismissively.
"...Okay," said Kit. "That's all?"
She lifted a shoulder. "Have fun. Make good choices. All that stuff."
The idea of Dairine, of all people, telling anyone to make good choices was so bizarre that Kit could only blink in disbelief.
After a moment Dairine looked up at him with impatience in the tilt of her head.
"Did you need something else?"
"Uh. No." Kit frowned at her. "You're taking this awfully..." Well was not the word, he decided. "Calmly."
She lifted an eyebrow at him. At her side, Spot shot up one eyestalk in an equivalent gesture.
"Should I bring out my pom-poms and lead a cheer?"
He winced at the acid in her tone. "No, but...I mean, you've been teasing Nita and me for as long as we've known each other. When Carmela found out, she made a big production out of telling my mama."
"Dad's at work. You'll have to come back later if you want me to stage a scene for him."
Kit swallowed. "Uh. No. That's okay." He hadn't quite thought out yet how he was going to tell Nita's dad that they'd been dating on the sly for two weeks. "I guess I just...thought maybe you'd have something to say."
"Well, I said it." She bent back over the glowing circle of symbols on the desk. "Live long and prosper, young padawan."
Okay, now he knew something was wrong. Dairine never, never mixed Star Wars references with Star Trek, not even in the deepest dregs of preoccupation with her wizardry. Kit knew from long and painful experience that she regarded it as the epitome of sci-fi social faux pas. For her to commit such a gaffe was all the proof he needed that she wasn't as imperturbed as she was pretending to be.
He stared at her bowed head for a long moment, debating what to say. "Uh..."
Her head snapped up, eyes blazing with such intensity that he took a step back in surprise.
"What, Kit? What do you want from me?"
Her sheer fury, unexpected as it was, brought him up short. "I don't -- "
"You expect me to believe you came here so I could point and laugh at you and my sister for finally getting a clue? Right, sure, and Cyhmrwth ulwars can fly!"
With the right spell, Kit thought somewhere in that tiny part of his mind that was forever coming up with inappropriate commentary in dire situations. He had stumbled into dangerous territory. When Dairine started naming organisms from galaxies he had never heard of, the best option was retreat.
Before he could scramble for his teleport spell, Dairine was standing up, crossing the distance between them to poke a finger at his chest.
"Know what, Kit? I don't care if you date my sister. I don't care if you decide to date stromalitic cyanobacteria from Omega Centauri -- if you could convince one in the first place."
Kit's mind was insisting that since the Milky Way had cannibalized most of that galaxy anyway he probably couldn't have found any, but he kept his mouth shut. He couldn't remember the last time he'd seen Dairine so furious, and he was in the dark as to exactly why she was mad at him.
"You and my sister can take your smug little fairy-tale happily-ever-after and go to -- " Her voice broke, and Dairine looked appalled with herself for a brief second before she turned her back and took a shaky breath, muttering a word that would have earned a lecture from her father.
"Just leave me alone," she said in as brusque a manner as she could. "I have work to do." She stalked across the room and threw herself into her chair, letting her hair fall forward to shield her face from his gaze.
With a pang of guilt, Kit realized what was wrong, why Dairine was so angry about his news.
She's jealous.
Even though Dairine was becoming more and more immersed in Wellakh's politics, she was still looking for Roshaun. She was running herself ragged to find him -- and she was failing. Of course it would sound to her like Kit was rubbing his relationship with Nita in her face.
"Dari," he said, helpless. He'd never used her family's nickname for her, but now it slipped from his mouth without conscious effort. "I'm -- I'm sorry. I didn't mean to -- I'm an idiot. I wasn't trying to be obnoxious."
After a pause, Dairine gave him a stiff nod. "I know." Her voice was curt. "It's fine, Kit. Just -- just go, okay?"
But he couldn't, not now that he could see he'd hurt her, however inadvertently, however impossible it seemed that Dairine could be so vulnerable.
"It's not," he said. "It's really not. Dairine, I -- I didn't know that you and Roshaun were - you know..." How could he have missed the misery in her eyes? It was the all-too-familiar look of someone who was trying not to lose hope, who was trying to ignore the fact that all her resources were dwindling, that she was running out of options and time. He'd felt that way too often in the course of his partnership with Nita -- that encompassing fear for her life, the dread that he could lose her in an instant. It could only be a nightmare for Dairine, who didn't even have Timeheart to ease her worries. Roshaun was lost, and so was she.
Dairine traced a Speech symbol on the desk. "We're not," she said with the barest trace of annoyance. Then she sighed. "I mean, I don't think we are." Now she looked bewildered and uncertain and every bit the twelve-year-old it was so easy to forget she was. Kit stuffed his hands in his pockets and felt briefly, inexplicably old.
"It's just that -- " Dairine rested her elbows on the desktop and fisted her hands in her hair. "Roshaun, he's - he's a major pain, you know? He always has to be right, and he can be a total snob, and sometimes it's impossible to make him understand Earth logic. But -- " She closed her eyes.
"But he made me try harder, and he kept me thinking." Her shift into past tense was so seamless that Kit wondered if she even noticed. "And there were a few times when he was trying to adapt to our customs, and I could laugh at him without worrying that he'd be offended by it. And he could be such a huge nerd when he put the invisible crown away and started talking wizardry. And he listened to me. Even when we fought about stuff, it was, I dunno, fun, in a way. It was like having a best friend, or a brother, or -- "
"A partner," said Kit quietly.
Dairine's face crumpled.
The next thirty seconds were some of the most excruciating of Kit's life. He'd seen women cry before -- it was unavoidable when you had two older sisters. Nita seldom cried, but he still got uncomfortable when it happened, and he was totally at a loss the rare times his mother did. The only girl he'd ever met with less of a tendency toward crying than his mother was Dairine, and for a moment he was frozen with indecision. As she dashed away the tears with impatient fingers, he took a hesitant step forward.
"Hey..."
"You try to hug me, I'll break all your limbs," she mumbled, startling a laugh out of him.
"No hugs," he promised, swamped with relief. "But, uh, maybe some advice would be okay?"
She sniffed once and eyed him with suspicion. "Okay."
He bit his lip, then shrugged. "You can't always save people."
Dairine's eyes darkened. "I know that," she said, and they locked gazes for a long, tense second. He knew they were both thinking of her mother.
"You do," he acknowledged. "But you also know that sometimes..."
He paused, wondered if this was the right thing to tell her. She was only twelve, after all, and it couldn't be good for one twelve-year-old to handle so much responsibility, even if she'd seen worse and had come through it all right. He'd been that twelve-year-old once. He remembered something the Transcendent Pig had said -- that saving the universe and saving one person amounted to the same.
Then why, he wondered, does it seem so much harder to save just one person?
He looked at Dairine, at her deceptive youth and her cautious hope. Maybe because it hurt more when you felt like you had failed one person, if that person was important enough.
"Sometimes you can," he said.
It took a few seconds for her to understand. Watching the realization, the renewed determination, bloom on her face made Kit feel at once proud and regretful. He didn't want her to give up, but he couldn't help feeling that he'd just given her false hope.
"Sometimes I can," she agreed. Her mouth quirked up at one corner. "Thanks." He nodded, and she leaned back in her chair with customary Dairine nonchalance.
"I mean, we found the Hesper, didn't we?" The confidence was back in her voice, and whatever his reservations, Kit was glad to hear it.
"Sure."
She studied the symbols on her desk, her gaze distant like it was when she was working out a complex problem.
"That was business," she said absently. "This...is personal."
Kit blinked at the new timbre in her voice. She'd forgotten Kit's presence in the room. He shook his head. "Right. So, before I leave - about Neets and me..."
Dairine spared him a dry look. "Hurt my sister and I'll still break all your limbs," she said.
"Right," said Kit, and transited away to the sound of Dairine murmuring something about compiling a code, with Spot humming in agreement.
He appeared in his living room. Nita was still sitting on the couch, her manual lying on the table. She was sipping the last of her soda, and her face was expectant.
"How did it go?" Her tone was pleasant. Too pleasant. Kit eyed her for a moment.
"It was..." He paused. "Well. She didn't break all my limbs."
Nita's brow furrowed. "What?"
"Nothing. I think it's an inside joke."
"You and my sister have inside jokes now?" Nita was incredulous. He couldn't blame her.
"Just one. And I only think it's a joke." He shrugged. "It's Dairine. She might be serious, for all I know."
Nita rolled her eyes. "Oh please. Like she even cared that much when you told her."
Kit gave her a half-smile. "You'd be surprised."
"Uh-huh." Now Nita looked mischievous. "Speaking of surprises, you'll probably want to make new sleeping arrangements for tonight. And maybe for a while after that, depending."
Kit frowned. "What are you talking about? Depending on what?"
Her smile was innocent. "On how much creaking you like in your bed."
He stared at her, not willing to believe he'd heard her correctly. After a pause that was far too long, in which he could find absolutely nothing to say, and during which Nita was beginning to look as though he'd missed the punchline to some joke, they both heard Carmela snickering from the kitchen.
"Moving a little fast, aren't we, Miss Neets?"
"What...?" As she caught on, Nita's entire face drained of color, then turned flame-red. "Oh my G--Carmela!" She glared at Kit over the sound of Carmela's cackling. "That better not have been where your mind went, Kit!"
Kit tried to maintain eye contact with her, but failed. If possible, her face went a deeper shade of red, and she started stammering something about his bed and Pluto's winter side.
"Good idea, Nita," said Carmela, coming out of the kitchen with a glass of lemon soda and a grin that would make the Lone One balk. "Send him to Pluto, that ought to calm him down."
"Calm who down?"
Why, Powers? asked Kit as Helena came down the stairs. Nita buried her face in her hands.
Carmela's eyes were merciless as a shark's. "Helena. Boy, have I got news for you..."