I'm really sorry this chapter took so long! I'm back in school again! Two months just isn't enough time for summer. Especially when they fudge up the schedule. Does anyone else have block schedule? Isn't it EVIL?! It is, isn't it?
-Kaze Child
It was just weird.
It wasn't that she was against the idea or something. In fact, she'd been known to go out of her way to promote just such a situation on several occasions. But the reality was somehow... disturbing.
Maybe if she'd said something.... Maybe if she'd caught them doing something... Maybe if she'd had any warning at all it wouldn't be so bad. It was just that coming home one day and finding them there in front of the TV, her sister lounging with her eyes closed, head in Kit's lap, looking perfectly content, bothered her more than she cared to admit. On her finger, Nita wore the ring she'd kept for over a year now, it's single stone shining in the light. Kit ran his fingers through her hair with the casual ease of one well accustomed, and even though the television was on he wasn't watching it. In his eyes there was a very soft emotion, a glow of subtle wonder. Dairine didn't know why, but when she saw that look, something inside her trembled dangerously and threatened to give way.
Nita looked so happy, and Kit... something about him looked different too....
Dairine had always known that somehow, someday, the phrase 'Kit and Nita' would refer to a couple instead of just a pair. Others had laughed and made suggestive comments, which the two had either ignored or done battle with. But despite all their previously violent objections to the idea, whenever the compost hit the fan, they let the pretenses drop and got down to business. Dairine couldn't count the times she'd seen her sister, dead tired and not caring who saw for once, rest her head on Kit's shoulder. Or the times he'd stepped in front of her, not actually covering her, but suggestive of his intent to protect, jaw tight, eyes narrowed. Or the times he stood unobserved behind her, glaring with bad tempered might any time another boy got just a 'little' too close. And then her sister would turn around, and the look would be gone, and Kit would never say a word.
Sometimes Dairine thought it must have been stifling, having someone who was always there like that. Someone who wouldn't let you be, who helped weather you were really sure you wanted them to or not, someone who never backed down, someone who insisted on saying "lean on me." Stubborn as Nita was, it must drive her sister crazy. And, even to herself the red head had to admit that she was twice as bad as Nita ever had been.
So why did she want him so bad?
Dairine bit her lip, tempest gray eyes focusing on the table top in front of her, as if she was absolutely amazed by the three muffin crumbs left over from breakfast. That wasn't fair, though, she knew. It wasn't Kit precisely that she wanted, just the things he seemed to embody for her sister. Companionship, protection, warmth, understanding, and even love; all of it unfaltering. Just in case. And Kit was all these things. He was strong, he was brave, hell, he was even kind of cute. Nita was lucky to have him....
Nita was always the lucky one.
Her sister seemed to have everything first. And everything the best. Much as she loved her own wizardry brand, she couldn't help but view partnership with respect, even with romance off to the side. It represented something Dairine had never had. And now she was scared to death that she never would.
The teenager understood that she wasn't being rational, and that even in the perfect world, there were things that would probably have kept Kit and her apart. But, right now, Dairine was really wishing that she'd found him first.
"Hey!"
The pair turned around, simultaneous smiles lighting their faces. The paused in their conversation and Kit freed his arm from Nita's possessive grip and draped it over her shoulders, pulling her tight as they waited for the boy to catch up.
He didn't really seem like much as far as looks went. He wasn't homely per say, but he had a rangy look, as if his limbs all followed different orbits in a radius around his body. He was tall and fairly thin, with uncombed black hair and shy Hispanic eyes. He rolled across the ground with a rapid, unsteady gate, his feet totally out of synch with his legs. It was as if by some joke of nature that all the grace that his whole body should've shared had been compressed into his fingertips. They handled wrenches and computer mice with equal fluidity, their callused fingertips never missing their mark. When he saw the pair waiting, he flashed a white grin and fumbled to a stop.
"Hola, Comp!" Nita sang out. "We've been trying to get a hold of one of you guys."
"Yeah?" He laughed. "Well. looks like I found you first! What's up?"
Kit ran his fingers through his hair with a pleased blush on his face. "You know that we set the date right?"
"Really?" Comp's dark face split with a bright grin of delight. "That's great, man!" Awkwardly, he tried to express his pleasure by hugging one or the other of them, but unfortunately failed to pick his target first, and ended up hugging tightly various parts of both of them. Kit and Nita started to laugh. The other boy looked abashed and sheepish, and turned red, but smiled still.
"So what was it? I mean, what you were looking for me, us, for..."
"Well," Kit began with a sigh. "We wanted one of you guys to stand with us at the wedding." He smiled his patented mishevious smile. "We didn't want to play favorites, so we figured we'd let you guys pick."
The grin on Comp's face faltered slightly, and dropped into a pout. "If you only want one, that knocks the twins out flat. They won't do it, just one of them. I guess this means Lead's going to pull rank and brow beat me into giving up on this one. Again."
"Maybe not," If anything. Nita's smile was even worse than her fiancee's. "Dairine's going to be the Bride's maid, and the other two groomsmen are paired with the other bridesmaids. The best man has to walk down the aisle with the maid of honor, and you know how your brother feels about Dairine."
"Oh yes." Comp agreed fervently. "It's probably good for him to get beat up by a girl every now and then. He does have a big head. I'm not really sure she needed to go THAT far though..." Comp thought for a minute, and shuddered.
"He was fine after a couple of days." Kit protested, eyes laughing. Comps' chuckle was appreciatively evil.
"So are you willing to brave the terror of my sister to be in our wedding?" Nita asked.
"Wouldn't miss it," His voice was very sincere. "In fact, I think I'll go hash it out now. You two better get home soon. I think it's going to rain." And with that, the boy turned around and sprinted away, running as if the ground was moving under his feet.
"You know. I think he's right," Nita commented. "It smells like rain." Kit smiled. he loved it when she turned her face up like that. There were so many little things...
"We should probably get home, or we're gonna get soaked." she suggested.
"Yeah," Kit agreed calmly. "But you know it's been a long time since we raced..." His eyebrows arched in a challenging question. They stared at each other, matching look for look, slow grins spreading across their faces as the tension built in the bellies of the clouds, and in the air between them.
As one, they took off, as the clouds opened up and began to weep.
She nearly jumped out of her skin when she felt the tug on the hem of her sleeve. Her arm had dropped carelessly over the edge of the table while she had slumped in the old kitchen chair, feeling sorry for herself. The light tug on her tattered T-shirt sleeve brought her back to reality with the force of a speeding ton of bricks. Swallowing her involuntary shriek, Dairine jerked her head to the left, and met a pair of amazing, wide, silver eyes.
Trapped, Dairine stared into that gaze as if the secrets of the universe were held inside. For just a second she stared, and with just a second longer, she might have known, but the blackness distracted her. Her eyes unfocused and readjusted to discover that the blackness was really a mop of dark hair, attached to the boy with the startling silver eyes, gazing up solemnly at her. He still had not let go of her shirt sleeve.
"Wha...?" Dairine struggled with the words. "Who are you..?"
The little boy thought for a second, running his fingers through is hair in an oddly familiar gesture. He couldn't have been older then five or six, and he looked so innocent, and yet so serious. Rusty instincts inside Dairine began trying to make themselves heard. She had never been one to play with baby dolls, and she felt the sudden, unexplained urge to cuddle him. Out of her inexperience though, Dairine couldn't recognize what this emotion was, and pushed it away with impatient irritation.
As if struggling with the words, he finally spoke. "Pix."
"Huh?" blinked Dairine. "What in the world-?"
A transformation swept over the child's features, a look of sudden apprehension filling his mysterious silver eyes.
"Are you the one who wants me?" He demanded.
The girl could only gape stupidly. "Uh-?"
"Please!" Small fingers curled into her shirt sleeve, and tears leaked from his eyes; silver tears. "Please say you're the one who wants me! Someone here has to want me! I- I don't want to belong to him...." he whispered, glancing apprehensively over his shoulder, as if the unnamed terror lurked there.
"Who?" Dairine leaned forward intently, hand half-extended to touch his face.
THUMP!
Dairine froze. It was like the world had disappeared while she was listening to him talk, she hadn't noticed when the rain had began to fall, or when the laughter had floated up the sidewalk, accompanied by the sound of rapid footsteps. She darted to the door and glanced out.
"Crap," she muttered. "look, you should probably-" Dairine checked her sentence halfway. The little boy was gone. Snarling befuddled curses too low to be heard, Dairine looked back out the screen door.
They were standing on the porch now, both of then dripping water onto the porch floor, laughing so hard they could barely breath. They were slumped over, gasping for air, and finally Nita came up smiling.
"I win." she laughed with a challenging grin.
Kit pushed his hair back from his face, his hands shaping it into an almost fonzi-ish slicked back style, and Nita laughed again, harder this time. Without warning he tackled her, pinning her arms and tickling her mercilessly, before spinning her around and kissing her quick and hard on the lips. Nita didn't seem to mind.
"You're an idiot," she murmured gently, just loud enough to be heard over the falling rain.
"Why's that?" He asked, his voice just as low, playful, and somehow dangerous.
"Now I'm really wet!" she giggled. "It kinda negates the point of you giving me you're jacket, y'know."
Kit just shrugged. "It's the thought that counts." He remarked sententiously. Nita stood on her toes, and they kissed again. This time their display was neither hard nor quick. Dairine swallowed and made a quick retreat.
It took her a full ten minutes to clear her head, and by the time she had, the two were in the kitchen, dry and changed, leaning with their elbows on the counter, drinking long swallows of coke from the same bottle. Dairine still felt shaky. They usually took great pains to make sure that no one saw them kiss in public. at least now they were just talking. Almost through a haze, Dairine heard her sister speaking.
"I mean it, I saw him! He was this little kid with these big silver eyes. Of course, that's not what your mom thought-"
Dairine's world abruptly stopped spinning and came into focus, with the addition of a few new questions. "Guys," she said suddenly. They started and turned to her, surprised looks on their faces. 'They didn't even notice me!' A distressed voice in the back of her mind said. Quickly, she pushed that emotion to the side.
"Guys, I think we need to talk."
-Kaze Child
It was just weird.
It wasn't that she was against the idea or something. In fact, she'd been known to go out of her way to promote just such a situation on several occasions. But the reality was somehow... disturbing.
Maybe if she'd said something.... Maybe if she'd caught them doing something... Maybe if she'd had any warning at all it wouldn't be so bad. It was just that coming home one day and finding them there in front of the TV, her sister lounging with her eyes closed, head in Kit's lap, looking perfectly content, bothered her more than she cared to admit. On her finger, Nita wore the ring she'd kept for over a year now, it's single stone shining in the light. Kit ran his fingers through her hair with the casual ease of one well accustomed, and even though the television was on he wasn't watching it. In his eyes there was a very soft emotion, a glow of subtle wonder. Dairine didn't know why, but when she saw that look, something inside her trembled dangerously and threatened to give way.
Nita looked so happy, and Kit... something about him looked different too....
Dairine had always known that somehow, someday, the phrase 'Kit and Nita' would refer to a couple instead of just a pair. Others had laughed and made suggestive comments, which the two had either ignored or done battle with. But despite all their previously violent objections to the idea, whenever the compost hit the fan, they let the pretenses drop and got down to business. Dairine couldn't count the times she'd seen her sister, dead tired and not caring who saw for once, rest her head on Kit's shoulder. Or the times he'd stepped in front of her, not actually covering her, but suggestive of his intent to protect, jaw tight, eyes narrowed. Or the times he stood unobserved behind her, glaring with bad tempered might any time another boy got just a 'little' too close. And then her sister would turn around, and the look would be gone, and Kit would never say a word.
Sometimes Dairine thought it must have been stifling, having someone who was always there like that. Someone who wouldn't let you be, who helped weather you were really sure you wanted them to or not, someone who never backed down, someone who insisted on saying "lean on me." Stubborn as Nita was, it must drive her sister crazy. And, even to herself the red head had to admit that she was twice as bad as Nita ever had been.
So why did she want him so bad?
Dairine bit her lip, tempest gray eyes focusing on the table top in front of her, as if she was absolutely amazed by the three muffin crumbs left over from breakfast. That wasn't fair, though, she knew. It wasn't Kit precisely that she wanted, just the things he seemed to embody for her sister. Companionship, protection, warmth, understanding, and even love; all of it unfaltering. Just in case. And Kit was all these things. He was strong, he was brave, hell, he was even kind of cute. Nita was lucky to have him....
Nita was always the lucky one.
Her sister seemed to have everything first. And everything the best. Much as she loved her own wizardry brand, she couldn't help but view partnership with respect, even with romance off to the side. It represented something Dairine had never had. And now she was scared to death that she never would.
The teenager understood that she wasn't being rational, and that even in the perfect world, there were things that would probably have kept Kit and her apart. But, right now, Dairine was really wishing that she'd found him first.
"Hey!"
The pair turned around, simultaneous smiles lighting their faces. The paused in their conversation and Kit freed his arm from Nita's possessive grip and draped it over her shoulders, pulling her tight as they waited for the boy to catch up.
He didn't really seem like much as far as looks went. He wasn't homely per say, but he had a rangy look, as if his limbs all followed different orbits in a radius around his body. He was tall and fairly thin, with uncombed black hair and shy Hispanic eyes. He rolled across the ground with a rapid, unsteady gate, his feet totally out of synch with his legs. It was as if by some joke of nature that all the grace that his whole body should've shared had been compressed into his fingertips. They handled wrenches and computer mice with equal fluidity, their callused fingertips never missing their mark. When he saw the pair waiting, he flashed a white grin and fumbled to a stop.
"Hola, Comp!" Nita sang out. "We've been trying to get a hold of one of you guys."
"Yeah?" He laughed. "Well. looks like I found you first! What's up?"
Kit ran his fingers through his hair with a pleased blush on his face. "You know that we set the date right?"
"Really?" Comp's dark face split with a bright grin of delight. "That's great, man!" Awkwardly, he tried to express his pleasure by hugging one or the other of them, but unfortunately failed to pick his target first, and ended up hugging tightly various parts of both of them. Kit and Nita started to laugh. The other boy looked abashed and sheepish, and turned red, but smiled still.
"So what was it? I mean, what you were looking for me, us, for..."
"Well," Kit began with a sigh. "We wanted one of you guys to stand with us at the wedding." He smiled his patented mishevious smile. "We didn't want to play favorites, so we figured we'd let you guys pick."
The grin on Comp's face faltered slightly, and dropped into a pout. "If you only want one, that knocks the twins out flat. They won't do it, just one of them. I guess this means Lead's going to pull rank and brow beat me into giving up on this one. Again."
"Maybe not," If anything. Nita's smile was even worse than her fiancee's. "Dairine's going to be the Bride's maid, and the other two groomsmen are paired with the other bridesmaids. The best man has to walk down the aisle with the maid of honor, and you know how your brother feels about Dairine."
"Oh yes." Comp agreed fervently. "It's probably good for him to get beat up by a girl every now and then. He does have a big head. I'm not really sure she needed to go THAT far though..." Comp thought for a minute, and shuddered.
"He was fine after a couple of days." Kit protested, eyes laughing. Comps' chuckle was appreciatively evil.
"So are you willing to brave the terror of my sister to be in our wedding?" Nita asked.
"Wouldn't miss it," His voice was very sincere. "In fact, I think I'll go hash it out now. You two better get home soon. I think it's going to rain." And with that, the boy turned around and sprinted away, running as if the ground was moving under his feet.
"You know. I think he's right," Nita commented. "It smells like rain." Kit smiled. he loved it when she turned her face up like that. There were so many little things...
"We should probably get home, or we're gonna get soaked." she suggested.
"Yeah," Kit agreed calmly. "But you know it's been a long time since we raced..." His eyebrows arched in a challenging question. They stared at each other, matching look for look, slow grins spreading across their faces as the tension built in the bellies of the clouds, and in the air between them.
As one, they took off, as the clouds opened up and began to weep.
She nearly jumped out of her skin when she felt the tug on the hem of her sleeve. Her arm had dropped carelessly over the edge of the table while she had slumped in the old kitchen chair, feeling sorry for herself. The light tug on her tattered T-shirt sleeve brought her back to reality with the force of a speeding ton of bricks. Swallowing her involuntary shriek, Dairine jerked her head to the left, and met a pair of amazing, wide, silver eyes.
Trapped, Dairine stared into that gaze as if the secrets of the universe were held inside. For just a second she stared, and with just a second longer, she might have known, but the blackness distracted her. Her eyes unfocused and readjusted to discover that the blackness was really a mop of dark hair, attached to the boy with the startling silver eyes, gazing up solemnly at her. He still had not let go of her shirt sleeve.
"Wha...?" Dairine struggled with the words. "Who are you..?"
The little boy thought for a second, running his fingers through is hair in an oddly familiar gesture. He couldn't have been older then five or six, and he looked so innocent, and yet so serious. Rusty instincts inside Dairine began trying to make themselves heard. She had never been one to play with baby dolls, and she felt the sudden, unexplained urge to cuddle him. Out of her inexperience though, Dairine couldn't recognize what this emotion was, and pushed it away with impatient irritation.
As if struggling with the words, he finally spoke. "Pix."
"Huh?" blinked Dairine. "What in the world-?"
A transformation swept over the child's features, a look of sudden apprehension filling his mysterious silver eyes.
"Are you the one who wants me?" He demanded.
The girl could only gape stupidly. "Uh-?"
"Please!" Small fingers curled into her shirt sleeve, and tears leaked from his eyes; silver tears. "Please say you're the one who wants me! Someone here has to want me! I- I don't want to belong to him...." he whispered, glancing apprehensively over his shoulder, as if the unnamed terror lurked there.
"Who?" Dairine leaned forward intently, hand half-extended to touch his face.
THUMP!
Dairine froze. It was like the world had disappeared while she was listening to him talk, she hadn't noticed when the rain had began to fall, or when the laughter had floated up the sidewalk, accompanied by the sound of rapid footsteps. She darted to the door and glanced out.
"Crap," she muttered. "look, you should probably-" Dairine checked her sentence halfway. The little boy was gone. Snarling befuddled curses too low to be heard, Dairine looked back out the screen door.
They were standing on the porch now, both of then dripping water onto the porch floor, laughing so hard they could barely breath. They were slumped over, gasping for air, and finally Nita came up smiling.
"I win." she laughed with a challenging grin.
Kit pushed his hair back from his face, his hands shaping it into an almost fonzi-ish slicked back style, and Nita laughed again, harder this time. Without warning he tackled her, pinning her arms and tickling her mercilessly, before spinning her around and kissing her quick and hard on the lips. Nita didn't seem to mind.
"You're an idiot," she murmured gently, just loud enough to be heard over the falling rain.
"Why's that?" He asked, his voice just as low, playful, and somehow dangerous.
"Now I'm really wet!" she giggled. "It kinda negates the point of you giving me you're jacket, y'know."
Kit just shrugged. "It's the thought that counts." He remarked sententiously. Nita stood on her toes, and they kissed again. This time their display was neither hard nor quick. Dairine swallowed and made a quick retreat.
It took her a full ten minutes to clear her head, and by the time she had, the two were in the kitchen, dry and changed, leaning with their elbows on the counter, drinking long swallows of coke from the same bottle. Dairine still felt shaky. They usually took great pains to make sure that no one saw them kiss in public. at least now they were just talking. Almost through a haze, Dairine heard her sister speaking.
"I mean it, I saw him! He was this little kid with these big silver eyes. Of course, that's not what your mom thought-"
Dairine's world abruptly stopped spinning and came into focus, with the addition of a few new questions. "Guys," she said suddenly. They started and turned to her, surprised looks on their faces. 'They didn't even notice me!' A distressed voice in the back of her mind said. Quickly, she pushed that emotion to the side.
"Guys, I think we need to talk."