Familiar
Up and at 'em, squiddos!
You're MINE for the weekend
And you know what that means:
Cinnamon rolls for breakfast,
And then to the farmer's market
For fresh berries.
Not even nine in the morning, and Marie's already gone grocery shopping, had a run through the park, made plans for her next two episodes of Studying With Marie and studied the script for her next music show appearance (tomorrow night). And had a nice talk with Crusty Sean, to boot.
But now it's time, past time, she go home and have some breakfast. She turns her key in the lock but doesn't open it just yet, merely leans her head on the door. Callie will be gone already, doing another recording session, and then off to another show and Marie will eat alone.
She'll spend the whole day alone, just like she does every time she isn't surrounded by friendly coworking strangers and being Marie Splatfest Winner. She'll spend the whole day preparing for the next time she'll be Marie Splatfest Winner.
And she doesn't want to.
But life doesn't work that way, so she pushes herself away from the door with a sigh and opens it.
Cinnamon and warmth tickles her nose, the TV is playing highlights from yesterday's ranked matches, and Callie stands with her back to Marie, pulling something out of the oven.
Marie dumps her shoulderbag with her books and laptop on the floor. "What are you doing here?" she asks.
"Recording got cancelled," Callie sings, glancing back; she's already wearing sunglasses, the fashionista. She waves Marie over with a spatula. "Wanna go to Arowanna? We can wander the stores."
Marie comes closer to see cinnamon rolls, the sugar not even fully melted on them. She snags the one with the most icing and bites into it, closes her eyes, and savors every detail of this moment: Callie, the surprise, Callie, the delicious food... Callie. She feels better already. "Absolutely. We can spend the whole day together."
"Then we will." Callie slides the other rolls onto a plate, hands Marie the icing-sugar spatula to lick, and takes the plate to the table. Marie cleans the spatula thoroughly, sets it in the sink to wash later, and follows her to find berries and whipped cream set out, too.
Something nasty is draining out of Marie's hearts every second since she's gotten home, and she takes a fast moment to make sure she won't cry before sitting across from Cal. For a moment, she's a child again, unwinding her next cinnamon roll and mashing blueberries into it, then rolling it back up and...
She missed this.
She missed Callie.
A dozen cinnamon rolls; six for each of them. Marie's starving, she's been up for hours without breakfast, but it's still best to pace themselves. As she mashes strawberries to go in her next roll, Marie grins at Callie. "I'm so glad you knew I had the day off."
"I did," Callie says.
Marie raises an eyebrow. "Caught in a conversation with yourself again?"
Callie swallows a mouthful of roll and whipped cream. "I checked our scheduling app," she says, "since we still share it."
Marie smiles at her. "I'm glad you did. This was a nice surprise."
Callie taps her fingers on the edge of the plate. "We've spent so little time together lately," she says, not meeting Marie's eyes. "I... missed it. And you."
Why does Callie look guilty? Marie takes a bite of strawberry-cinnamon roll and thinks. "I miss you, too," she says. "It's just the way things happened. We're both busy; it's hard to keep up on life."
Callie takes another bite of her cinnamon roll. "Do you think we should have separate apps?"
Marie almost drops her food. Since when— "What brought this on?" Marie asks, squeezing her roll so tightly it squishes in her hand. "We've had the same calendar for years, ever since..." then she stops.
Because they were always together, so even though it was green for her and pink for Cal, they didn't even have to pay attention to the color. If it was just Callie's thing, Marie would still be right there, reminding her.
Callie still won't meet her eyes. "It'll be easier for other people to look at our schedules, and add to them or change them, if they're separate."
So that's it. She's a TV star now, and a movie star; she must have two or five or twenty different people wanting to adjust her schedule, and maybe she needs to let one of them, so she can move up in the industry. And they may get it mixed up, or try to con Marie into making a guest appearance (or more!) by scheduling her in and altering things. Marie's heard the horror stories as much as anyone else, even while she knows how necessary it can be in some industries to let others do the scheduling.
Just another way their dreams are separating them.
"If you want," Marie says, taking Callie's sugar-sticky hand and squeezing it, "I won't be upset. We knew what we were getting into." She is upset. Radio, movies, everything is driving them apart. But this is what Callie's always wanted, what she talked about back when they were just blobs of ink.
Even if it means she leaves Marie behind, Marie can't ruin this for her.
Callie nods and squeezes back. "I'll make a separate account tonight."
"Okay," Marie says. "With that settled, how about we don't discuss work? Way too stressful."
Callie releases a long breath and Marie's hand all at once. "All right, how about we talk about Drown, then?"
Marie chokes on her cinnamon roll. Callie grins at her, all innocence, except Marie knows she's anything but. Well, fine. "We're, um, seeing a movie together tonight. At seven."
Callie squeals. "Omicod you have to tell me everything! Have you kissed yet? Does he know who you are? When can I scare him?"
"We haven't kissed, I think I'll give it another month or two before I tell him who I am because that does not need to hit the tabloids, and if you dare scare him off I'll chop your tentacles and mount them on the wall as a trophy," Marie says without hesitation. "I think I have a good guy here, Cal—his other partner's nice, too, we may wind up as a full, uh, triad once she's graduated inkblot, but right now she insists she doesn't have time for another relationship."
"You have to tell me everything," Callie says.
Yeah. Marie really does.