(Untitled)

[tearsthrulife]

If there was anything Rahne was good at, it was rolling with whatever was thrown at her. This situation was unexpected, to be sure, and completely unlike anything she'd had to deal with before, but she was determined nevertheless not to let the breakup - and Lord, it sounded juvenile to describe it as such - throw her off too much. There was just

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[chasinghumanity]

Mitchell tried to keep out of drama. It seemed like, no matter what he did, drama always found a way of pulling him back into her painfully sharp little clutches, but for what it was worth he tried to avoid it. Side step it. Keep to the fringes and interject only when the need arose. It was this attitude that kept him out of this ridiculous talk of Annie moving out and out of Rahne’s sights. It wasn’t that he didn’t care; he did. But he also knew he couldn’t exactly help the situation. Rahne never struck him as the weepy type and short of a shoulder to cry on, he had nothing to offer.

He wasn’t avoiding her though. That would be childish. When he strolled into the laundry room, he paused at the sound of her groan, for a second suspecting something more emotionally charged than bemoaning a pink t-shirt. He settled into a faint grin as he wandered over. “I’m guessin’ this isn’t what you had in mind,” he said.

[tearsthrulife]

That Rahne hadn't seen Mitchell since she'd broken up with George wasn't a surprise to her. In fact, she'd deliberately made a point of steering clear of most of George's friends where she could, or at least the ones he was closest to, some of the others just inevitable on that front, though she'd been lying low as it was, well acquainted with Wolverine's floor. What did come as a surprise was the ease of the greeting, one which made the corners of her mouth pull up in a smile, albeit a not especially amused one, before she could stop to think about it.

Maybe she was better off than she'd expected.

"Ye're looking at a t-shirt that used to be plain white," she said dryly, tossing it into a dryer with more force than was strictly necessary. Clothes probably weren't the best outlet, but she was running short on those as it was. "And what happens when ye apparently don't think to separate things by color."

[chasinghumanity]

Mitchell winced in a companionable way, both at the altered t-shirt and the strength with which Rahne shoved it into the dryer. He could commiserate on the first point and sympathize with the second. True, he had never had the luxury of having a mostly normal relationship just end on him, but he could understand how frustrating the situation could be.

"Yeah," he drawled, glancing at the rest of the clothes in the washer, wondering if they'd suffered the same fate. "That's why I stick to darks." He waved a hand over himself to illustrate the point: red vest, gray plaid shirt, black jeans. "No muss, no fuss, no... pink. Ever."

[tearsthrulife]

"A wonderful motto if ever I heard one," Rahne deadpanned, though for her, it tended to be mostly true anyway. This, as far as she was concerned, was going to be a one-time fluke. When it came to colors, she wasn't really all that picky, but pink just wasn't something she had any interest in wearing. If nothing else, it just really didn't suit her.

And it was entirely possible that she was giving the subject more serious thought than was necessary to avoid more serious topics at hand, but she hardly thought she could be blamed for that. The whole situation was so screwed up, there wasn't much else to do.

Waving one hand in his direction, she arched an eyebrow. "All those darks don't get too warm in the heat, though?"

[chasinghumanity]

"Of course they do," Mitchell answered, barking out a soft laugh as he did. "But hundred year old habits don't die hard. They just don't die. I can change my wardrobe every decade, but not the colors. Maybe that makes me stupid." He lifted his shoulders in a shrug as he turned to lean back against the next machine over, gloved hands gripping the edge of the machine. "But I've never actually been a fan of change. At all."

[tearsthrulife]

"Well, it's not as if there's any harm in it," Rahne said pragmatically, head tipping to the side. "As long as ye don't die from heat stroke, and I don't think that's too likely around here." It hadn't happened to anyone thus far, anyway, and wasn't the sort of thing that people seemed to worry about regularly. For that matter, she wasn't even sure if the color of clothing could lead to such a thing; the first thing to come to mind, though, it was too easy to make a joke out of. "No need to even try to change if it's unnecessary, aye?"

[chasinghumanity]

"What's unnecessary?" Probably too philosophical of a question to be asked over laundry, but living as long as Mitchell had made such questions standard. And made him think less of certain standards of what was appropriate or not.

"People make their own decisions on what they can and cannot live without. There's little in the way of a standard, I've noticed. Well, other than air, maybe. Necessary and unnecessary are just.. reasons people make up to justify doing things." He shrugged again, looking down at the floor with a casually thoughtful expression. "They don't change the things we do or the real reason why we do them. We just pretend."

[tearsthrulife]

Unnecessary was probably debating the philosophy of what made something unnecessary over laundry, but Rahne, for her part, wasn't especially fazed, years spent around Jamie Madrox having made her accustomed to such tangents. Watching with one corner of her mouth quirked up, she tipped her head to the side in something like agreement when he finished. Sudden it might have been, and in strange context, but it wasn't as if he were wrong. "Ye've got a point there," she said, lips pursed thoughtfully. "But that's the way people work for ye."

[chasinghumanity]

"Yeah," he said quietly, his tone making it unclear if that was an endearing quality of humans or a sickening one. Most days it was endearing, Mitchell supposed, but that could change at any moment.

Pushing away from the washing machine, Mitchell turned around and leaned forward now, fingers clasped loosely. "So how have you been?" he asked. His mood changed like a switch being flicked, darkly contemplative to brightly sociable. "With.. everything." Rahne didn't need to spill her guts to him of all people, but he wanted to make sure she was alright.

[tearsthrulife]

It didn't take a rocket scientist to know what Mitchell was hinting at, regardless of the demeanor with which he said it. There was really only one thing that had been happening lately, and it wasn't Rapture (though she'd been down a couple of times, mostly because she couldn't stand to be idle on the best of days, let alone when she was so bloody restless). She was just glad to have something vaguely resembling proof that the breakup wouldn't be the source of any division.

"About as well as I can," she said, shrugging, her own expression carefully neutral. She wasn't going to play the part of the heartbroken victim, especially not when she was the one who'd done the leaving, but she wasn't going to pretend she was better off than she was and risk seeming insensitive for it. "It's all a bit mad, but I've found a friend to stay with for a while, so that's been good."