The Roof, Wednesday Evening

[thismaskiwear.livejournal.com]

When Katchoo had gotten that copy of Elegant Waste from the library this morning, she'd been planning on reading it today. It had been a couple of years since she had, after all.

Clearly, she hadn't been planning on the book not staying a book, and now she was up on the roof with a pack of cigarettes, an easel and her paints, and a scrawny, trashed-looking kitten who was hitting the catnip way too hard.

Every now and then, it'd come up to her and mew plaintively as if it wanted a drag off her cigarette.

"No," she'd tell it. "Stick to your happy cat leaf, frikkin' furball."

And with a little woe-is-me sigh, it would pad back over to the corner under the Garden of Cranky Plants (as Katchoo had come to call it) and sprawl out in its little pile of catnip, one paw flung melodramatically across its eyes.

Frikkin' Fandom. All she'd wanted was something to read, not a tiny feline junkie. Well . . . at least she was getting really into the painting, and even if she didn't know exactly what she was doing, it was shaping up to be a pretty impressive, if faceless, human figure.

[OOC: Open like roofs tend to be.]

Comments

[imac-kenzie.livejournal.com]

Mac was... not in her own room for once. She'd heard radio, and was more than happy to leave Peter and Sam to it. So she took herself up to the roof, really just because she wasn't in a common room-y mood.

She had her ipod on until she realised she wasn't the only one up here. "Mind sharing roofspace?" Mac asked.

[thismaskiwear.livejournal.com]

"Sure," Katchoo said, glancing up from her easel, "why not?"

Maybe someone else's voice would drown out the --

The kitten let out a self-pitying yowl, like it resented the intrusion.

"Aw, shuddup and get higher, will ya?"

[imac-kenzie.livejournal.com]

Mac paused, wrapping her headphones around her ipod. "Get higher?" she asked, peering over towards the plants to see what made that noise.

[thismaskiwear.livejournal.com]

With a disgusted sigh, Katchoo chucked a thumb toward the corner where the kitten was sprawled in the catnip pile. "Stupid cat. I hate cats, and my book from the library turned into that."

[imac-kenzie.livejournal.com]

"It... seems, kinda doped," Mac admitted with a frown. She wasn't exactly a cat person either. "I guess at least it's low maintenance, and not just wandering around all over the place?"

[thismaskiwear.livejournal.com]

"Says you," Katchoo said with a snort. "That catnip is the expensive stuff. And it keeps trying to bum a smoke off me. I don't wanna take it back to my room or it might get into my roommate's booze."

She kicked a pebble in the kitten's direction, but the pebble missed by a good three yards. "If I didn't wanna get in trouble for losing a library book here, I could be doing that, you dumb pile of hair!"

[imac-kenzie.livejournal.com]

Mac arched an eyebrow. "I turned a bunch of my library books into tortillas once," she shared. "Nearly got me malleted."

Because that was comforting.

[thismaskiwear.livejournal.com]

"Tortillas? What, you one of the magic kids?" asked Katchoo. "And if you are, what the hell kinda power is that?"

[imac-kenzie.livejournal.com]

"Not magical," Mac told her. "It just, randomly got thrown at me. It went away after a couple of days."

"I wasn't a fan," she added wryly.

[thismaskiwear.livejournal.com]

Katchoo studied the canvas and added a couple more lines before grunting. "No kidding. I'd be pissed if that happened to me. How the hell did that happen?"

[imac-kenzie.livejournal.com]

"Logan," Mac muttered. "He's an idiot, who has now left. I'm guessing it won't happen again."

[thismaskiwear.livejournal.com]

"Guys usually are," Katchoo said, heavy on the sardonic tone. She retraced a line she'd painted, making it heavier and adding a little texture. "They can't really help it."

In the corner, the kitten mewed in the most world-weary way a kitten could ever possibly mew, like it agreed.

[imac-kenzie.livejournal.com]

Mac smirked. "Some of them aren't so bad," she said. "But there are also some that are really, really dumb... Most of them seem to come from my hometown."

[not-a-mused.livejournal.com]

While making the world's most unhealthy salad with Ned in class was a nice distraction, it still could only successfully shake his class before that for a little bit. Freaking anatomy. He told himself that at least that lesson was done and out of the way quickly, but it still stuck with him. It even had him questioning this coming Friday. Maybe he really should jus taccept that he was a freak and stop thinking that someone, anyone, would be able to just...accept it...

He hadn't had a smoke in over a week. He didn't even really feel like having one now, but he did want to step outside of his room for a little, catch some fresh air, look out over the view. And then he'd probably start smoking again once the fresh air hit his lungs, tainting them with their lack of nicotine.

Only one way to find out, and he didn't have anything better to do than stare at his typewrite and hate his life. So he went up. He noticed Katina there (big surprise) but didn't regard her more than a lift of his chin and slight, half-hearted grunt of greeting.

[thismaskiwear.livejournal.com]

She didn't notice right away, but the kitten did, trotting over to him and looking up at him with those big, pathetic kitten eyes, bits of catnip stuck in its fur. It yowled in hopes of a nicotine fix of its own, at which point Katchoo did look up.

"Oh, it's you."

Maybe the kitten that was once a book would pester him for a while.

[not-a-mused.livejournal.com]

"Great to see you, too, Katina," Cal deadpanned back after staring at the cat for a moment.

"What's the deal with the feline?"

He wasn't sure if it was that catnip or maybe the thing was in heat.

[thismaskiwear.livejournal.com]

"It followed me," she replied disgustedly, although her expression softened up just a tad. "It was a book this morning, swear to God. And now it probably wants to hit you up for a smoke. Stupid junkie cat."

[not-a-mused.livejournal.com]

"...A book borrowed from the library?" Cal guessed.

[thismaskiwear.livejournal.com]

"I even checked it out and everything," she added defensively. "Wait. Aw, hell, you mean this isn't the first one?"

[not-a-mused.livejournal.com]

"Nope," Cal shook his head, wondering if Katina asked because she thought she was special or something because of it. "Happened all day while I was there Monday."

His eyes had remained on the cat, thoughtfully.

"Think I should actually give him a cigarette?"

[thismaskiwear.livejournal.com]

. . . well, yes, she kind of would have liked to think so, and she would've died before saying so out loud to anyone. On the other hand, a warning sign on the counter would've been nice too. Either way, it was something for her to be cranky about.

"I think it's a her," Katchoo opined, "since it's acting a hell of a lot like the main character of that book. You think it can hold the cigarette?"

[not-a-mused.livejournal.com]

"I think it might be funny as hell to try and find out," Cal admitted, "but I think I'm still enough of a human being to actually let myself do it. I mean, it's probably pretty cute when it's not jonesing. Maybe we should put it in detox."

[thismaskiwear.livejournal.com]

Katchoo studied the kitten for a moment. "After all the catnip it's gone through today, detox might kill it."

At the word 'detox,' the kitten bristled into one hostile ball of fluff and hissed at both of them loudly.

The hiss went kind of ragged about halfway through, and the kitten curled up into a ball, still bristling.

"Drama queen," she told it.

[not-a-mused.livejournal.com]

Cal smirked a little. "I could get to like that kitten," he said, and then left her to her bristling and went to have a seat in a spot with a nice view.

"So, other than getting stuck with little junky kitty cats, how've you been?"

[thismaskiwear.livejournal.com]

She snorted, more for the sake of meeting her daily quota than out of any real hostility, and gestured at the canvas which bore a striking resemblance to the icon. "How's it look like I've been, genius?"