Kansas City, MO, Thursday Late Morning to Afternoon
It was still kind of weird for Kate to see her parents all normal and happy. Not that they'd ever been disastrously unhappy, but... Her mom was way more energetic than what Kate was used to, and when the news had come through this morning that the Hubbard house was officially theirs, even her dad had turned into six feet, five inches of pure glee. It was almost disturbing.
And then he'd tried to grope Tara in Kate's presence. That definitely was disturbing, so Kate had fled the scene, but not before relaying the big news she'd heard the past evening that Marshall and Courtney were now officially an item. Might as well give the parents something to gossip about that weren't her shenanigans.
Things were weird on Oak Avenue. But not in a bad way, for once.
Not that Kate was on Oak Avenue right now. Nope, she had debt whispering to attend to, and a shiny old Cadillac to do it in. Even if it was a little creepy to be driving that thing.
So, she and Hubbard's car were in the Crossroads again. Catching her big fish, take two. She stuffed the car keys in her briefcase as she wandered into Lynda's yard. There were statues outside, this time, and the whole wall was up, so you could actually see into the loft all the way from the street.
Lynda was just coming out when Kate got there, so she figured she'd get to the point straight away.
"Hey. Your check bounced."
It didn't seem like Lynda heard her, though, because she was peering past her at Hubbard's car with some mild interest. "Is that your ride?"
"Sort of," Kate shrugged, glancing back at the dead man's car, then quirked a smile at Lynda. "My neighbor blew his brains out so now I'm driving it." But, right. She had a job to do. Not supposed to be just gleeing over Lynda showing interest in her. Or her car. Whatever. "You owe me money."
Lynda looked about as unimpressed as she had the first time Kate had shown up. "Okay..."
Kate opened her mouth again, but before she had time to go into her whole debt collecting spiel, a random guy on a motorbike pulled up beside her. He didn't have a helmet on, but he did have a bandana and a beard. Not that those helped in a crash, but they did make him look kind of cool. "Hey. What up?"
"Hey Ricky," Lynda replied, not sounding all that thrilled to see him. She sat down on a rusty little tricycle, next to the some sort of a thingie for hanging smaller paintings out to dry. She had a paintbrush in one hand, Kate noticed now, and a half painted mask in the other. "Takin' a break from your busy schedule of raisin' the median income around here?"
The dude ignored the question like he was used to hearing it (or like he hadn't heard it at all) and introduced himself to Kate instead. "I'm Ricky." But Kate didn't get a chance to respond, because Lynda apparently felt that introduction needed something a little more. "Ricky's a trustafarian."
... Huh? Interesting. "Cool," Kate decided, eyes darting from Lynda to Ricky to Lynda again. "What's a trustafarian?"
"Trustfund baby," Lynda drawled, glancing up, "who only says hello to me when there's a pretty blonde girl around."
Ricky didn't seem to find this characterization particularly offensive. "So whassup?" he asked, getting off his bike. "You guys feel like partying?"
No, they didn't really start partying right away, but they did move indoors so Lynda could get her checkbook and Kate could stare at her apartment some more.
... And the random hippie on the couch, seemingly entranced by a Polaroid picture. Okay then.
Lynda and Ricky bantered, Kate didn't say much. Not even when Ricky boggled at her current job and wanted to know whether she was happy when Lynda had handed her the new check (from the woman's personal account this time), which according to him was just a piece of paper with numbers on it, which was all the whole transaction really was, and apparently that was kind of hilarious.
Or possibly deep. Either way, Kate didn't have a chance to say anything because she was almost a little muted by the presence of people cooler than her, and Lynda had a quick answer ready for everything, most of them opposing Ricky.
Actually, the only thing of Ricky's she wasn't against was his repeated offer to party. And that, in this case, meant they all ended up smoking some truly excellent weed. (As for Kate getting high on the job, was she supposed to say no to these people? That would've just been rude, and being rude was unprofessional, said so right there in the CSR employee handbook.) This, then, eventually lead to eating some truly excellent food, though Ricky didn't stay for that. Kate kind of imagined he went to some fancy vegan place downtown instead.
Not that she cared much. The main thing was that he left the pot. And after he (and the random hippie) had left, Kate got a lot more talky. She was relaxed and comfortable, half sprawling on one of Lynda's couches and stuffing herself with some awesome pasta, so why not? She was good at talking, anyway, wasn't she?
"-- And now that she's on medication or whatever, she's like this new person," she concluded her short but thorough account of her mother's mental problems.
No, Kate wasn't even sure why she was telling Lynda about it when she'd spent so much energy on keeping it a secret in Fandom. Maybe she just thought it'd impress her. It was the one special thing Kate had going for her. At least the only one she could talk about with people not living at an interdimensional crossroads like she did.
And really, Lynda sounded only politely interested. "Oh, well, good for her," she replied, wandering away from the kitchen area and towards the back of the room that was a little higher up than the rest. Almost like a stage.
Despite the woman's idle reply, Kate was in the talking zone, not really caring whether she was being listened to or not. "You know, the other day I walked in on them moaning and groaning over some paint chips," she shared, shaking her head, a little amused. And then she sighed. "Man, that weed was fantastic."
Lynda groaned. "The only thing about Ricky's trustafarian weed is that it makes me crave shit like pasta marinara with prosciutto and bananas."
But Kate saw nothing wrong with that. Laughing, she turned to look at Lynda over the back of the sofa. "You know it's actually pretty good. I mean maybe the tomato is stepping on the banana a little bit..." But her culinary analysis got cut short when she saw what Lynda was doing. She'd opened up a trunk that was doubling as a table, and was rummaging through whatever was inside. "What's all that stuff?"
"After you stopped by I thought about all my Princess Valhalla Hawkwind shit," Lynda told her, looking up and grinning. "Wanna see it?"
Oh, oh. Kate had already set her bowl down before Lynda had even finished asking. "Yes." She rushed to kneel by the trunk, eager to root around the contents. And the first thing that caught her attention and then got promptly picked up? A high-heeled boot, made of striking red patent leather, or plastic, whatever, Kate didn't know or care. It had to be thigh-high by the looks of it. Kate was in awe. "Oh, these boots are badass."
Lynda set the plastic helmet on Kate's head, then picked up a thin leaflet and held it up for her to see. "Comic book. PVH escapes her evil dad in order to rescue her sister."
Kate took the comic book and looked at it, nodding almost excitedly. "Yeah, I know about this, I saw it online!" But there was much more to see, so it got set aside quickly for another shiny object. "Oh, while wearing small red boyshorts." Those didn't even get set down before she'd picked up the next thing: a bunch of sheer pink fabric with gold trimmings. "And flying with pink wings. How ridiculous!" Kate barely noticed Lynda reaching to brush aside her bangs and some of the curls that were coming out from under the helmet. She was starting to grin. "And rad."
Lynda cocked her head at her, then went and picked up one of the princess paintings. (The place was littered with them; Ricky had been finding them highly amusing earlier.) She held it up, looking at Kate, then back at the painting. "You really do look like her."
Kate glanced up from the plastic breastplate she was examining. "Bullshit," she snorted, disbelieving and uncharacteristically modest. Lynda had that effect on her. "You just think all white people look alike."
Lynda quirked a brow at her. "Well..."
But Kate had gotten an idea. Coolest idea, ever, in fact. She thought so, at least. "You know, at the risk of getting distracted from the capital that I'm here to survey and then retrieve..." She gathered up the princess stuff in her arms, snagging even the blonde wig. And then she grinned up at Lynda. "I'm gonna be right back."
And she scurried off to the bathroom for greatest round of dress-up ever.
Fifteen minutes later, she was done. "You ready for this?" she asked Lynda as she was sashaying into the woman's view in all her glory. She felt the question was completely justified. She'd seen herself in the mirror, after all. She looked awesome. From the insane heels and thigh-hugging boots to the winged helmet and the cascade of long blonde hair with pink streaks, from the metallic gleam of the red hotpants to the duller shine of the golden breastplate with the pink bird motif and the pieces of fabric attached to her back and arms to stand in for wings, Kate was a comic book heroine come to life.
She took her place at centerstage, in the space Lynda had cleared out while she'd been preparing, and spread out her arms in a dramatic pose. Much like the one that she'd seen Lynda do the first time they'd met. "Princess," she announced with the kind of gravity the situation called for, "Valhalla Hawkwind."
And for the first time since they'd met, Lynda looked truly impressed. "Damn, girl!" she exclaimed. "You're a superstar!"
Oh, yeah. Kate would be grinning and posing and feeling absolutely fucking glorious on this stage for a while. And so Princess Valhalla Hawkwind was made flesh.
[ooc: NFB & NFI, OOC-okay!. Taken from USoT S02E03 'The Truth Hurts'. I love my canon.]
And then he'd tried to grope Tara in Kate's presence. That definitely was disturbing, so Kate had fled the scene, but not before relaying the big news she'd heard the past evening that Marshall and Courtney were now officially an item. Might as well give the parents something to gossip about that weren't her shenanigans.
Things were weird on Oak Avenue. But not in a bad way, for once.
Not that Kate was on Oak Avenue right now. Nope, she had debt whispering to attend to, and a shiny old Cadillac to do it in. Even if it was a little creepy to be driving that thing.
So, she and Hubbard's car were in the Crossroads again. Catching her big fish, take two. She stuffed the car keys in her briefcase as she wandered into Lynda's yard. There were statues outside, this time, and the whole wall was up, so you could actually see into the loft all the way from the street.
Lynda was just coming out when Kate got there, so she figured she'd get to the point straight away.
"Hey. Your check bounced."
It didn't seem like Lynda heard her, though, because she was peering past her at Hubbard's car with some mild interest. "Is that your ride?"
"Sort of," Kate shrugged, glancing back at the dead man's car, then quirked a smile at Lynda. "My neighbor blew his brains out so now I'm driving it." But, right. She had a job to do. Not supposed to be just gleeing over Lynda showing interest in her. Or her car. Whatever. "You owe me money."
Lynda looked about as unimpressed as she had the first time Kate had shown up. "Okay..."
Kate opened her mouth again, but before she had time to go into her whole debt collecting spiel, a random guy on a motorbike pulled up beside her. He didn't have a helmet on, but he did have a bandana and a beard. Not that those helped in a crash, but they did make him look kind of cool. "Hey. What up?"
"Hey Ricky," Lynda replied, not sounding all that thrilled to see him. She sat down on a rusty little tricycle, next to the some sort of a thingie for hanging smaller paintings out to dry. She had a paintbrush in one hand, Kate noticed now, and a half painted mask in the other. "Takin' a break from your busy schedule of raisin' the median income around here?"
The dude ignored the question like he was used to hearing it (or like he hadn't heard it at all) and introduced himself to Kate instead. "I'm Ricky." But Kate didn't get a chance to respond, because Lynda apparently felt that introduction needed something a little more. "Ricky's a trustafarian."
... Huh? Interesting. "Cool," Kate decided, eyes darting from Lynda to Ricky to Lynda again. "What's a trustafarian?"
"Trustfund baby," Lynda drawled, glancing up, "who only says hello to me when there's a pretty blonde girl around."
Ricky didn't seem to find this characterization particularly offensive. "So whassup?" he asked, getting off his bike. "You guys feel like partying?"
No, they didn't really start partying right away, but they did move indoors so Lynda could get her checkbook and Kate could stare at her apartment some more.
... And the random hippie on the couch, seemingly entranced by a Polaroid picture. Okay then.
Lynda and Ricky bantered, Kate didn't say much. Not even when Ricky boggled at her current job and wanted to know whether she was happy when Lynda had handed her the new check (from the woman's personal account this time), which according to him was just a piece of paper with numbers on it, which was all the whole transaction really was, and apparently that was kind of hilarious.
Or possibly deep. Either way, Kate didn't have a chance to say anything because she was almost a little muted by the presence of people cooler than her, and Lynda had a quick answer ready for everything, most of them opposing Ricky.
Actually, the only thing of Ricky's she wasn't against was his repeated offer to party. And that, in this case, meant they all ended up smoking some truly excellent weed. (As for Kate getting high on the job, was she supposed to say no to these people? That would've just been rude, and being rude was unprofessional, said so right there in the CSR employee handbook.) This, then, eventually lead to eating some truly excellent food, though Ricky didn't stay for that. Kate kind of imagined he went to some fancy vegan place downtown instead.
Not that she cared much. The main thing was that he left the pot. And after he (and the random hippie) had left, Kate got a lot more talky. She was relaxed and comfortable, half sprawling on one of Lynda's couches and stuffing herself with some awesome pasta, so why not? She was good at talking, anyway, wasn't she?
"-- And now that she's on medication or whatever, she's like this new person," she concluded her short but thorough account of her mother's mental problems.
No, Kate wasn't even sure why she was telling Lynda about it when she'd spent so much energy on keeping it a secret in Fandom. Maybe she just thought it'd impress her. It was the one special thing Kate had going for her. At least the only one she could talk about with people not living at an interdimensional crossroads like she did.
And really, Lynda sounded only politely interested. "Oh, well, good for her," she replied, wandering away from the kitchen area and towards the back of the room that was a little higher up than the rest. Almost like a stage.
Despite the woman's idle reply, Kate was in the talking zone, not really caring whether she was being listened to or not. "You know, the other day I walked in on them moaning and groaning over some paint chips," she shared, shaking her head, a little amused. And then she sighed. "Man, that weed was fantastic."
Lynda groaned. "The only thing about Ricky's trustafarian weed is that it makes me crave shit like pasta marinara with prosciutto and bananas."
But Kate saw nothing wrong with that. Laughing, she turned to look at Lynda over the back of the sofa. "You know it's actually pretty good. I mean maybe the tomato is stepping on the banana a little bit..." But her culinary analysis got cut short when she saw what Lynda was doing. She'd opened up a trunk that was doubling as a table, and was rummaging through whatever was inside. "What's all that stuff?"
"After you stopped by I thought about all my Princess Valhalla Hawkwind shit," Lynda told her, looking up and grinning. "Wanna see it?"
Oh, oh. Kate had already set her bowl down before Lynda had even finished asking. "Yes." She rushed to kneel by the trunk, eager to root around the contents. And the first thing that caught her attention and then got promptly picked up? A high-heeled boot, made of striking red patent leather, or plastic, whatever, Kate didn't know or care. It had to be thigh-high by the looks of it. Kate was in awe. "Oh, these boots are badass."
Lynda set the plastic helmet on Kate's head, then picked up a thin leaflet and held it up for her to see. "Comic book. PVH escapes her evil dad in order to rescue her sister."
Kate took the comic book and looked at it, nodding almost excitedly. "Yeah, I know about this, I saw it online!" But there was much more to see, so it got set aside quickly for another shiny object. "Oh, while wearing small red boyshorts." Those didn't even get set down before she'd picked up the next thing: a bunch of sheer pink fabric with gold trimmings. "And flying with pink wings. How ridiculous!" Kate barely noticed Lynda reaching to brush aside her bangs and some of the curls that were coming out from under the helmet. She was starting to grin. "And rad."
Lynda cocked her head at her, then went and picked up one of the princess paintings. (The place was littered with them; Ricky had been finding them highly amusing earlier.) She held it up, looking at Kate, then back at the painting. "You really do look like her."
Kate glanced up from the plastic breastplate she was examining. "Bullshit," she snorted, disbelieving and uncharacteristically modest. Lynda had that effect on her. "You just think all white people look alike."
Lynda quirked a brow at her. "Well..."
But Kate had gotten an idea. Coolest idea, ever, in fact. She thought so, at least. "You know, at the risk of getting distracted from the capital that I'm here to survey and then retrieve..." She gathered up the princess stuff in her arms, snagging even the blonde wig. And then she grinned up at Lynda. "I'm gonna be right back."
And she scurried off to the bathroom for greatest round of dress-up ever.
Fifteen minutes later, she was done. "You ready for this?" she asked Lynda as she was sashaying into the woman's view in all her glory. She felt the question was completely justified. She'd seen herself in the mirror, after all. She looked awesome. From the insane heels and thigh-hugging boots to the winged helmet and the cascade of long blonde hair with pink streaks, from the metallic gleam of the red hotpants to the duller shine of the golden breastplate with the pink bird motif and the pieces of fabric attached to her back and arms to stand in for wings, Kate was a comic book heroine come to life.
She took her place at centerstage, in the space Lynda had cleared out while she'd been preparing, and spread out her arms in a dramatic pose. Much like the one that she'd seen Lynda do the first time they'd met. "Princess," she announced with the kind of gravity the situation called for, "Valhalla Hawkwind."
And for the first time since they'd met, Lynda looked truly impressed. "Damn, girl!" she exclaimed. "You're a superstar!"
Oh, yeah. Kate would be grinning and posing and feeling absolutely fucking glorious on this stage for a while. And so Princess Valhalla Hawkwind was made flesh.
[ooc: NFB & NFI, OOC-okay!. Taken from USoT S02E03 'The Truth Hurts'. I love my canon.]