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[Not-So-Merry Prankster] Billy K. - Climb the ladders that they built
By afternoon, Kate’s thinking upscale. Her impromptu Mastercard commercial started it, but a few hours with Magnus at the clinic and resisting the temptation to go back and steal other-Kate’s shoes (for Magnus, not herself; she’s a boots-only girl, even though she can easily imagine the looks from Tesla and Declan, even Will and Magnus, if she put on a dress and heels, and that’s got some traction), and she’s thinking shoe closets bigger than her first room at the Sanctuary (before Magnus had Henry move her things ‘into more permanent quarters’), halls full of history and single pieces of art worth more than everything Kate’s ever owned. She’s thinking wine cellars bigger than houses and meals prepared for her and the rest of the team to taste, helicopters, submarines, planes, and more cars and motorcycles than even she can wreck in chases.
Call a spade a spade, Freelander. Either that or call it a heart with a stem and make everyone believe it. Either way, by afternoon, Kate’s thinking Sanctuary. It’s not that she needs it, the wealth and luxury and class. It doesn’t even suit her. She likes her expensive things fast and explosive, and maybe a little lace under her leather. But it’s familiar now. It means something. Tugs on her. Reminds her that she wants to be worthy of it, of the home Magnus gave her.
Makes heading out to the ritzy side of the island Kate’s best bad idea yet, or worst good idea. She’s not sure, and she’s not sure she cares.
After about an hour wandering around the community center and library, sitting by the reflecting pool and trying to remember what home feels like, she’s just pissed off. Pissed off and lost and any plans she had to wrap her streak hit the bottom of the reflecting pool with the penny in her pocket and a wasted wish. Her fingers itch for security grids or triggers, her chest aches and this place is complete bullshit.
Seriously. Bullshit.
They’re stuck on a tropical island that’s not on any map. They can’t get more than a few miles off shore. Can’t get a location with rockets. No one’s coming for them, or if they are, they’re as screwed for getting in as Kate and Declan and Tesla are for getting out. Everyone’s playing make believe. Pretending this utopia can last forever. Pretending no one’s greedy or ambitious or dangerous or just plain mean.
She hates them. All of them. Or maybe envies them. She used to be that good at lying to herself.
Not anymore.
Now she’s climbing up to a treehouse that isn’t hers, prepared with an ‘aw geez, I know I shouldn’t have, I’m just thinking about how nice it would be to have one and I wanted to take a look’ story and Ravi’s made-up widow Keya sitting in the back-brain ready to take over if she needs it. Her name means ‘flower’ and this cabin is called Hibiscus, and it seemed like destiny. She’s still great at lying to other people.
Imagine her surprise when the downstairs of the treehouse isn’t poncy like Pince-Nez or elegant like Magnus, but messy and cluttered. More like her own room or other-Kate’s than she imagines Magnus’s is or any of the maid-cleaned precision-tidy bedroom she’s spent half a night in or broken into. It’s almost enough to turn her off, send her out of this cabin to find someplace else, all of this teenaged crap.
She’s halfway back out the door when she realizes there’s no bed in it. Either this kid - guy, from the clothes - hasn’t made it home yet, or he can’t commit to staying, or he can’t afford a mattress, maybe he’s sleeping somewhere else. It feels familiar again, like Kate’s first weeks at the Sanctuary. Here but not. One foot out the door.
She’s about to leave the sham life when her gaze hits on something else. A ceramic wizard hat. It makes her think of Hank, so fast her breath catches. Hank and Biggie and that damned trip to Comic Con when they came back with every fanboy prize ever. She pulls off her gloves to run her finger over the hat, the purple cloak, the staff. Gandalf. And the little guy on the other side of the door is Bilbo Baggins. They brought home the director’s cut of the Lord of the Rings trilogy and made her and Will sit through every minute of it.
Bilbo Baggins, an adventurous hobbit, and his nephew Frodo, but they still like home and tea and scones and second breakfast. They’re homebodies -- and tears are spilling off Kate’s eyelashes faster than she can wipe them off.
Fuck that noise. She and Declan and Tesla, at least, are going home.
Kate puts her gloves back on, wipes for prints, and trades a shoe for the Bilbo Baggins end of the bookends. She props the pince-nez on the shoe with a note that says, Redman Boarding House, second floor, end by the stairs. Please return.
She could go upstairs, but Kate doesn’t care. She’s done what she came here for, and her last look around has a weird edge to it. “No Admittance Except on Party Business,” her ass.
Call a spade a spade, Freelander. Either that or call it a heart with a stem and make everyone believe it. Either way, by afternoon, Kate’s thinking Sanctuary. It’s not that she needs it, the wealth and luxury and class. It doesn’t even suit her. She likes her expensive things fast and explosive, and maybe a little lace under her leather. But it’s familiar now. It means something. Tugs on her. Reminds her that she wants to be worthy of it, of the home Magnus gave her.
Makes heading out to the ritzy side of the island Kate’s best bad idea yet, or worst good idea. She’s not sure, and she’s not sure she cares.
After about an hour wandering around the community center and library, sitting by the reflecting pool and trying to remember what home feels like, she’s just pissed off. Pissed off and lost and any plans she had to wrap her streak hit the bottom of the reflecting pool with the penny in her pocket and a wasted wish. Her fingers itch for security grids or triggers, her chest aches and this place is complete bullshit.
Seriously. Bullshit.
They’re stuck on a tropical island that’s not on any map. They can’t get more than a few miles off shore. Can’t get a location with rockets. No one’s coming for them, or if they are, they’re as screwed for getting in as Kate and Declan and Tesla are for getting out. Everyone’s playing make believe. Pretending this utopia can last forever. Pretending no one’s greedy or ambitious or dangerous or just plain mean.
She hates them. All of them. Or maybe envies them. She used to be that good at lying to herself.
Not anymore.
Now she’s climbing up to a treehouse that isn’t hers, prepared with an ‘aw geez, I know I shouldn’t have, I’m just thinking about how nice it would be to have one and I wanted to take a look’ story and Ravi’s made-up widow Keya sitting in the back-brain ready to take over if she needs it. Her name means ‘flower’ and this cabin is called Hibiscus, and it seemed like destiny. She’s still great at lying to other people.
Imagine her surprise when the downstairs of the treehouse isn’t poncy like Pince-Nez or elegant like Magnus, but messy and cluttered. More like her own room or other-Kate’s than she imagines Magnus’s is or any of the maid-cleaned precision-tidy bedroom she’s spent half a night in or broken into. It’s almost enough to turn her off, send her out of this cabin to find someplace else, all of this teenaged crap.
She’s halfway back out the door when she realizes there’s no bed in it. Either this kid - guy, from the clothes - hasn’t made it home yet, or he can’t commit to staying, or he can’t afford a mattress, maybe he’s sleeping somewhere else. It feels familiar again, like Kate’s first weeks at the Sanctuary. Here but not. One foot out the door.
She’s about to leave the sham life when her gaze hits on something else. A ceramic wizard hat. It makes her think of Hank, so fast her breath catches. Hank and Biggie and that damned trip to Comic Con when they came back with every fanboy prize ever. She pulls off her gloves to run her finger over the hat, the purple cloak, the staff. Gandalf. And the little guy on the other side of the door is Bilbo Baggins. They brought home the director’s cut of the Lord of the Rings trilogy and made her and Will sit through every minute of it.
Bilbo Baggins, an adventurous hobbit, and his nephew Frodo, but they still like home and tea and scones and second breakfast. They’re homebodies -- and tears are spilling off Kate’s eyelashes faster than she can wipe them off.
Fuck that noise. She and Declan and Tesla, at least, are going home.
Kate puts her gloves back on, wipes for prints, and trades a shoe for the Bilbo Baggins end of the bookends. She props the pince-nez on the shoe with a note that says, Redman Boarding House, second floor, end by the stairs. Please return.
She could go upstairs, but Kate doesn’t care. She’s done what she came here for, and her last look around has a weird edge to it. “No Admittance Except on Party Business,” her ass.