A/N: This is forever my favorite show. Kat is forever my favorite character. Kat and Christian is forever my favorite thing. The show left out too much, everywhere, on everyone, this story is my idea of filling in the blanks. Or: here's my doodles, enjoy them.
DISCLAIMER: Doesn't matter how many times I re-watch, show's not mine.
Title: Looks like it.
Pairings + characters: Kat, Christian, Abigail
Genre: Hurt/Comfort, Frienship (if you squint, or you're all about girl-power)
Summary: It's a spur of the moment thing, him seeking her out. Boy does the best friend make him regret it. / set in third year
Inspired by this weheartit-photo I found.
He knocks on the door next to the stairs with his eyes glued to the floor and his right hand lost in his messy black locks, knowing it's the last thing he should be doing. His best friend is dead and his spot at the academy has lost its meaning and he isn't in love with the love of his life anymore. He's always been the most closed off, he's never been able to really fit in, and he's always had the thickest and highest walls possible. And she's always been completely open with him, she's never wanted to blend in oh-so-easily, and she tore down every single scrap of pathetic wall in the blink of an eye without even breaking a nail.
His feet are more blisters than feet, his hair is a mess atop his head more often than not, and his eyes are bloodshot from lack of sleep and red and puffy from crying. His voice is so hoarse to the point where it's barely considered a voice; he doesn't know what he wants in life and what matters to him, his mind races a mile a minute and he's through with thinking straight. She doesn't talk to him anymore, doesn't pretend not to care any longer, and doesn't hide behind everyone or anyone. And she's so strong and so brave, yet so scared and so incredibly broken. She seems so happy and so beautiful, but he knows she's just scared (scared, but still beautiful).
They were so damn good, to each other and together, and he doesn't want to forget that. He first saw her on her knees in front of the vending machine praying for a coke. And then she became his safe amongst the chaos that was the academy, the one person he tolerated skating with. She was the best friend who made him fall without even trying, the girl he was never prepared to catch because she'd always deserved so much better. They survived it all, and they crashed so hard, yet their love was doomed before it even began. They should've made it to the end, and they both wanted to, but they never really began in the first place.
And as he shakes his head clear of thoughts and raises his head from the floor to the door, he remembers her tired eyes and defeated sigh and lingering goodbye-kiss. The handle gives and the door creaks, and he thinks about how much he loves her piercing blue eyes and gorgeously carefree smile. He mentally punches himself in the gut – because what is he doing outside the door of the one whose heart he broke? – as his eyes automatically slam shut in fear of a slap across the face or dead eyes or confused laughter. But instead a groan reaches his ears, an irritated one at that, and he cracks one eye open to come face to face with the only girl he hasn't been involved with.
"She's not here," Abigail declares, cockily blowing on her wet and newly painted nails.
He sighs, and forces himself to meet her narrowed eyes, "I'll wait."
As the small brunette steps aside to let him in, with her hair in a perfect bun and her face green with face mask, he realizes that this is the same brunette who threatened to hurt him if he broke her roommate's heart like he broke Tara's. And as he takes a seat at the edge of his ex's bed, while Abigail kicks the door shut and goes in search for sweatpants as if he hasn't seen her bare legs before, he wonders why he never got hurt – because if there's anything he's sure of it's that he never did break Tara Webster, just her best friend. So he sits and tries not to think about how the right someone must've defended his honor with Abigail to have her back off, he twiddles his thumbs as the roommate he always failed to pay attention to falls back on her pink bed clad in a pair of green sweatpants that don't go with her pink leotard.
"Um, where is she?" He asks, uncertain if he even wants to know.
"Just out," Abigail replies nonchalantly, still blowing on her soon-to-be Chanel red nails.
He nods, though knowing the last thing Abigail's doing is paying attention to him. The fact that she could be running on the beach with her pony-tail bouncing is comforting, but still nothing against the possibility of her glued to some random guy with alcohol in hand and heels on her feet. His eyes finds his own pathetic reflection in the mirror – someone who's given up – and he runs another hand through his hair though knowing it won't make a difference. His mind is so busy it hurts to blink, but he's never voiced his racing thoughts to Abigail Armstrong. And the silence is so loud it hurts his buzzing head, but he never has anything to say to Abigail Armstrong.
"Christian," her voice breaks the spell, and he notes just how much more alert her voice is this time. "Why are you here? What do you want?"
"I don't know, I just... I need to see her," he admits lamely, because you never find it in yourself to lie to Abigail.
The silence comes back as they sit on one bed each, her dressed for staying in and him looking like he's risen from the dead. Shecki the turtle rests atop the white dresser, in between the perfumes and the make-up bag. The only picture of the two of them that isn't blurry with one set of peace signs hangs with all the other pictures on her head board, with his smile uncharacteristically wide and her lips placed lightly on his cheek - her hand is on his chest and his t-shirt is covering her bikini, his arm is around her waist and her blonde hair blends with his black locks. He spots her leopard printed leotard hanging with all her other ones, and wonders if all these things remind her of them too.
He became the Peter Pan to her Tinkerbell and it made her realize just how big of a joke their relationship was despite how much they'd enjoyed themselves. She let him go even though she loved him and he didn't want her to, and when Sammy died the rift was too big and beyond repair and they silently agreed to just be strangers with the same friends. He wants to know what turn the events would've taken had he listened to Sammy and respected Tara and ignored his heart; if she would've stayed his crushing best friend had he not gone against his better judgment and kissed her there on the docks because she made everything so much more fun and oh-so-effortlessly easy.
"Can I say something?" Abigail questions, though they both know she will anyway. "And can you not tell my best friend about it?"
He merely shrugs, because he's in no position to argue, "Sure."
She takes a deep breath, and her hard brown eyes find his despite the tension in the air, "Her eyes don't light up when she hears your name anymore."
His breath gets caught in his throat, his muscles tense up and Shecki and the picture and the leotard isn't backing him up anymore. From the very beginning he's had the option of walking away, but for some reason this particular girl made him stay – back then it was only to punch the vending machine so the pretty blonde could get her coke, of course. But then she decided she was too cool to care, and he decided she just wanted someone to fight for her just once. And when she proceeded to make the mistake of falling in love, he did nothing but love her back. The only time he had walked away, yet another time where he shouldn't, was after she ended things on the ice rink and skated off to Abigail and Sammy as if what they'd shared meant nothing to her.
"She doesn't get chills when you walk by her and her heart doesn't race when you smile at her," she continues easily, as if she's merely reading her grocery list. "You don't get to her like you used to."
He's always been screwed up to the point where one could find it funny. His dad left him before he even became his own person, and his mother's shouldn't-have-happened death scared him beyond reason. He auditioned for the academy and made friends who didn't even know him, and backed away once they did. He's fallen both in and out of love, and he's reached for his skateboard-shaped escape more often than not. But ever since she decided he had a curable case of 'people phobia' his excuses had more or less been thrown out of the window, because she didn't care. And he loved that she didn't care, that she could go skating during exam week without a second thought and put all her built up frustration into cupcakes instead of disagreements.
He loves that she was his friend first, that he could be himself with her and that she trusted him without having a reason to. She was the one person who time and time again refused to take him up on his unspoken yet ever-lasting offer of walking out of his life because he didn't deserve love, the one good thing he never wanted to mess up because he was afraid where it would leave him afterwards. But he nodded his agreement, because even though she'd ended their relationship and gone back to her damn buffer it's him and only him who's screwed things up between them. His heart skips a beat when he hears her name, his muscles tense when she walks by, and his mind goes blank whenever she smiles – because she'll always get to him, no matter how much truth lies behind Abigail's speech.
"You're just a bad memory in the back of her mind," Abigail decides, her eyebrow raised in a challenging manner.
And his eyebrows furrow, because he suddenly finds the need to protest, "We were great."
"You were kidding yourselves for a surprisingly long time," she corrects, a smirk making its way to her face. "And you're forgetting all the crap."
Relationships at the Australian Academy of Dance are the joke of the century, no matter the year and the people and their feelings. Grace decides she likes people, but when they like her back she realizes she kind of hates them. Ben's inexperienced and cocky, and falls hard within the first three seconds. Abigail claims she puts dance over boys, but her love story is the most beautiful one there is. Ollie's the tough guy who thinks he's too cool for feelings, but after it all ends he's nothing but a wreck. Tara jumps from crush to crush equally eager, yet she ends up stuck with the one guy who tripped her. And the guy who did the tripping finds himself on his ex-girlfriend's bed getting lectured by her roommate, becoming more and more sure for every second that passes that he shouldn't have come.
But he did come, and Abigail is still proving a point - all for the prima ballerina with messy buns who loves rock music and burgers. The same girl who fell in like with the one guy she couldn't have all the way back in first year when everybody was trying to find themselves. The girl whose boundaries were pushed to the limit by the one guy who'd never learned to respect them on her sixteenth, who kissed her crush the very same night. The ex-girlfriend of pop-sensation Miles Kelly who helped her run away from all her problems, but not without saying a tearful goodbye to the one guy she'd failed to let go. The best friend who slipped up and lost everything, only to have her boyfriend love somebody else on top of it all. The beautiful blonde with the over-protective roommate and sorry ex-boyfriend, who was partying her worries away so not to stop and think about how her best friend wasn't with her anymore.
"... So don't be surprised next time you make you way past her and she doesn't even glance your way," Abigail warns, her voice going cold.
He raises an eyebrow at her, deciding he won't go down without a fight, "Yeah?"
And she continues as if she didn't even hear him, "And don't bother trying to talk to her, you won't get a response."
If mind over matter would've kept her in his life as the crushing best friend, walking away from the very first second like his old self thought he should've would have ensured marriage and dancing babies with Tara Webster. She'd just be his girlfriend's best friend, Sean's carefree and hip hop gifted partner, the ballerina who ate too much burgers to be a ballerina – a mystery he would never figure out like he has. He wouldn't have been invited to her sweet sixteen, he wouldn't have kissed her on the docks because he wouldn't have known that everything was easier with her around and he wouldn't have come to her door in the middle of the night with the intentions of a relationship because he'd decided he was through with caring too.
There would be no awkwardness with the Peter Pan production because she would've found her jealousy elsewhere, and they wouldn't have hugged and cried and danced together at Sammy's memorial because she was his girlfriend's best friend and he was her best friend's roommate. He wouldn't have taken the role as a skating tutor, he wouldn't have watched every single horror movie there was while cuddling on the couch, he wouldn't have known her back-up plan was to run away and join the circus or that she dreamed of dating a pirate.
She might've shaved her head because he wouldn't have been there to let her know it suited her long and might not have gotten back into the academy because there wouldn't have been a turtle named Shecki watching. And he might've realized that Tara made him happy in the wrong way – because she was innocent and quiet and simple – but at least there would be no breaking up the best of friends and ruining the greatest of relationships. They wouldn't have found the one person who got them through and through, and they never would've gone from best friends to boyfriend and girlfriend to awkward strangers. He wouldn't be sitting on her bed while she was out, and he wouldn't have to stand for Abigail's words repeatedly stabbing at him.
"You see, she's over fighting the same losing battle," Abigail sounds so sure it scares him to pieces. "And the saddest part is that you have no one to blame but yourself."
He lets out a defeated sigh, because Abigail knows exactly what she's doing and he has no clue, "And why's that?"
"She gave you every chance you ever could have asked for and you messed up every time," she responds matter-of-factly, like his idiocy is as obvious as Canberra being the capitol.
He knows what she's going to say before she even says it, and there isn't a single part of him that's paralyzed with shock or vibrating with anger because Abigail's so right it hurts. Shecki is an adorable stuffed turtle that was with her for her re-audition, a lousy excuse for him not having the guts to turn up himself. Her leopard printed leotard is her favorite one, and it fits so nicely, and therefore she can easily overlook the fact that she wore it the night she tried to turn him down – the night when their relationship began, even though that was already the end. And then there's the picture on her headboard, where everything still came easily and without second thought because they were always there for each other, and he realizes it's nothing but a symbol of her very last shred of hope.
He screwed up one too many times with the girl whose friendship meant the most, and the last time he could do something about it is long gone. She's always wanted to move on and she's always been seconds away, and he's never let her yet never realized. He's always thought she deserved – deserves – better, but maybe he's also led himself to believe he is better. She's out and no matter where and why it's what she wants to be doing in this particular moment, and he knows with every fiber of his being that she expects and wants to come home to a nail polish-stealing Abigail with suggestions of Golden Steps 1 through 4 as her apology.
"Now," Abigail begins just as they hear heels clacking against the wooden floor and laughter filling the common room. "Now she walks around with nothing but a smile on her face and she laughs even louder than before."
"I know, okay?" He exclaims, his realization suddenly angering him. "You have to know I'm aware of that."
The door's violently thrown open before Abigail gets a response out, and Christian's back to the skipping heart, the tense muscles and the blank mind. She's so incredibly perfect it's beyond reason. Her blonde hair is straightened to absolute perfection and then thrown up in the kind of pony-tail that everyone just knows has to be the work of Abigail. The rose necklace Ethan sent in the mail is clasped around her throat; her dancer's body is wrapped up in a little black dress with her amazingly long legs on full display. She's sporting red heels and a matching bag, clumsy steps and a drunken smile.
But even in her tipsy state she finds it in herself to stop at the doorway, and even after Abigail's speech Christian finds himself surprised by the lack of a reaction. He definitely doesn't get to her like he apparently used to. Her eyes stay unfocused and her smile doesn't disappear, she doesn't meet his eyes and she doesn't say a word. And then she raises an eyebrow at her roommate, the one she doesn't know she needs to thank, and Abigail goes from lecturing and cold to laughing in less than a single second. He feels so out of place it's insane, because he can't even count on both hands all the nights he's spent in this room and on this bed with these girls.
He stands up, more because it feels right than anything else, and as he again goes in search for her strikingly blue eyes he finds himself coming up short and inside he darkly laughs at how spot-on Abigail almost always is. She takes off one heel and then the other and Abigail compliments them, he runs another hand through his hair and lets his eyes drop from blonde to floor. Somewhere amongst the awkward tension someone should cut with a knife, Christian finally realizes what life would be like if he woke up from a nightmare crying and proceeded to let his instinct lead him to the door of the girl who's nothing but a stranger to him.
"Uh, so what's he doing here?" She asks Abigail, throwing her shoes at the bottom of the bed.
"Leaving," he cuts in, not caring about all the awkward in the air. "I'm leaving. Just needed some help with anatomy is all."
She nods in his general direction, and grabs a white towel from their rack by the door, "Cool."
He watches her disappear the way she came and then he follows without much thought. He shouldn't have come – he'd needed her, and he probably still would, but she would never need him back ever again. She's dancing her troubles away and pulling girl's nights with Abigail and Tara whenever she can, she's happy and she's okay and he's not sure what to think of that. Part of him knows it's always been her, from the very second they first locked eyes, and the rest of him is ready to roll over and die for messing it all up. He's the happiest when she's around, his troubles are washed away the second she opens her mouth, there's a glint in her eyes that makes everything so relaxed and easy - and she doesn't even know it.
She's moved on and he's regretting every wrong word and every thoughtless action. She's laughing and smiling without a single care in the world, and he's so empty. His eyes will automatically light up when he hears her name. He'll get the chills when she walks by and his heart will race whenever she finds it in herself to smile at him again. She'll always be the one that got away. The best thing that ever happened to him. And he can't wait for the eye-contact after she forgives herself for loving him. He can't wait for when she'll actually bother talking to him again, when all his unanswered questions might get a response. He's over listening to everybody else's opinions. The best part is that she is to blame for his ever-growing feelings. He gave her every single reason to walk away and she stayed every time. Now he's stuck loving her from a distance and mentally fixing every mistake he ever made with her. Looks like he isn't done with them after all.
"Christian!" Abigail calls, the smallest of smiles visible on her face.
He whirls around to face her, his every muscle aching, "Yeah?"
She shrugs helplessly, her smile widening ever-so-slightly, "Looks like you lost her, bro."
"Yeah, looks like it," he agrees, almost laughing.
A/N: This hurts, but I love it. Thank you for making it all the way to the bottom. It'll probably be forever until my next update, I technically don't have the time to write anymore.
- Brooke.
