Kitty and Teddy | Backdated to 1/6
Jan. 6th, 2018 12:32 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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ax_mainKitty confronts Teddy about his ultimatum to Illyana regarding Limbo. Gently.
Kitty knocked on the door as soon as she arrived at Billy and Teddy's room, unwilling to give herself time to chicken out, or rethink what exactly she was doing. She did have a mission. It was a sort of nebulous kind of mission, but a mission nonetheless. She loved her friends. She loved Billy and Teddy - almost as much as she loved Yana, so she had to find a way around this mess -- or at least get some more information about what had happened between Yana and Teddy.
Teddy had the room to himself for once, so with his music up and his focus on his computer game, it took him a while to register the knock. Once it sank in that someone was probably there, though, he hit pause on the game and playlist both, and pushed his chair back from his desk sending himself heading lazily in the general direction of the door. "Come in!"
Instead of the door swinging in, Kitty phased through it instead, headfirst, to offer Teddy a little smile of greeting. "Hey."
"Hey," Teddy greeted her with a warm smile. He'd been so focused on Billy's pain, but Kitty had been through the same events. Hopefully she was dealing with it better than Billy was right then -- which was to say, at all -- but at least she didn't look like she was in distress. "Come on in, grab a seat. Though Billy's not here, if you're looking for him specifically."
Kitty did have a few dark circles under her eyes, but for the most part, she was hale and whole, and dropped down to sit on the edge of the bed. "Soooo. This is awkward, but I'm here to talk to you. About Yana. Well, and Billy. Yana and Billy."
Teddy winced. "I guess I should have expected that." The wild card, of course, was what had been said, by whom and to whom already. He pulled his legs up under him to sit cross-legged in the chair. "Before I start digging myself a hole, what exactly did you hear?"
"Probably stuff that isn't completely accurate," Kitty acknowledged, sitting cross-legged herself. "But I think my main concern is you wanting to make decisions on Billy's behalf."
"Yeah..." Teddy frowned at her, his forehead creasing. "This is where I'm really gonna need to know what she told you, because that's not what's going on. And I'm not going to apologize for things I never said."
"Easy there, big guy, I'm not demanding apologies," Kitty made a face. "I just want to talk. And she said you don't want her exposing Billy to Limbo again."
It was hard not to get his hackles up a little; he'd wanted to protect Billy, not start drama, and either way he cut it this was probably not going to end in everybody holding hands and singing campfire songs. "I did something close to that," Teddy admitted. "I asked her to back off from pulling him in to these fights. The first time, he was a mess for a few days and had nightmares, which... yeah. Not great, but he bounced back. This time? He's not bouncing. Something's eating away at him from the inside, and he needs a break to have a chance to get better."
"Did he tell you that?" Kitty asked curiously.
He regretted telling her that much even as he said it, but it was out, so there was not much left to do but go with it. "Which part?"
Kitty sighed and pushed her hair away from her face. "I know he's having problems with it. So am I. Obviously it's worse this time. But did he tell you what he needs to get better? Or did you decide that part yourself?"
Now Teddy had the sense of where this was going and he closed his eyes for a second to beat back the rising frustration. Kitty wasn't there when Billy was collapsing in on himself at nights; she didn't know. "I don't know anything about how to make him better. If I did, I'd have done it. But I can sure make an educated guess about what would make things worse."
"I'm just trying to point out that maybe you should ask him before scaring his friends off," Kitty told him. "It's not Yana's fault that all of this happened. Billy and I chose to help her. And no matter how you put it to her, Yana's afraid of even being around him now. She already thought that she was cursed and bad for everyone around her. Now you've reinforced it. Maybe Billy's having a rough time with this, but just imagine how difficult it's been for Illyana all these years, alone and scared and stuck in that place without her family."
"I'm sorry for what she's been through. But that one's not on me," Teddy replied firmly, shaking his head. "I invited her to come hang out. I told her Billy needed his friends, and that she was totally welcome, any time. The only thing I asked her to do was not bring him to Limbo. And that was when she said that if she couldn't do that she'd rather not talk to him at all, made one of her steppy-disk things-" he drew a circle in the air with a finger, "and vanished." He left out the part where they'd threatened each other, mostly because that really wasn't the point right now.
Kitty frowned. That didn't compute. Why would Illyana retreat like that unless she'd been hurt in some way? It wasn't her battle strategy. (And yes, Kitty handled her friends like game bosses and she wasn't going to think too hard on why that was.) The long and the short of it was that Yana tended to blow smoke and take jabs when in a confrontation, but when hurt, she'd flee. Clearly, she must have been hurt in some way, and Kitty didn't see Teddy's suggestion that Billy stay out of Limbo as hurtful. An affront, maybe, but not hurtful. "You didn't say anything else?"
He had to think back, to try and remember how the conversation had gone. He'd been so focused on just getting her to understand, rather than take offense... Teddy closed his eyes and thought back. "She asked how Billy was doing. I said he wasn't in good shape. I asked her not to bring him to Limbo again, she said she'd stay away from him entirely. I said that wasn't what I meant, that of course she should come and hang out, and that Billy could use his friends." What else? Was there something he had said that had triggered her weird mood?
"She got mad and said something strange about how Limbo was part of her and she couldn't stay away from it -- I said wasn't the point, that she should just come and be his friend. Then she got madder, said that Billy was using his magic wrong and she was the only one who could teach him how to do it right, and she vanished."
Teddy shrugged helplessly. "I really don't know what that last part was about. All I wanted was to go back to movie nights and Mario Kart instead of piling on the nightmare fuel, at least until Billy's feeling better. I promise I'm not trying to isolate him. The exact opposite. The more people around him, the less likely he is to crawl back under the blankets and stare at the wall."
She pursed her lips in thought. She'd have to talk to Yana later about what might have set her off. Later. For now... "Well, I approve of taking it easy for a little while. I mean, I'm gonna try and do the same. And I told Yana that she could just avoid teleporting with Billy for now, so he's not exposed to Limbo. But... that's as long as he wants it to be that way, you know?"
"He can teleport himself, so it's not like that's even a huge deal," Teddy pointed out. "And believe me, when he's himself enough again to tell me off for any of this? I'll be the first one cheering."
"I'm happy to tell you off in the meantime on his behalf," Kitty smiled.
One corner of Teddy's mouth tugged up in an answering smile. "I thought 'on his behalf' was the reason I was in trouble in the first place," he pointed out.
"Hey, if you're doing it, then I can do it too," she huffed.
There was some pretty important differences between them and the relationships they had with Billy, but Teddy was under the strong suspicion that he'd already narrowly avoided being seriously chewed out, so he kept his mouth shut. "While I've got you here, how are you doing?" Teddy asked, his concern real.
Kitty pulled her arms around herself - a purely unconscious reaction to the question. "I mean, I can't say I'm completely awesome, you know?"
He nodded, holding back on the urge to tuck a blanket around her shoulders -- the way Billy pulled them around himself like armour. "Billy told me some of what he remembers, but even that's not a lot," he replied, his voice subdued.
"I wasn't really with the rest of them most of the time anyway," Kitty admitted with a weak smile. "As soon as things went sideways...well, I just needed to distract Belasco. I stole Illyana's amulet from him and led him on a chase through Limbo's scenic underground."
As curious as Teddy both was -- and wasn't -- about Limbo, asking her for details would surely only bring up the bad memories again. "Your plan worked, from what I've heard. A-plus strategizing."
She managed to haul herself back out of the memory before it truly terrified her again, and rolled her eyes at him. "There wasn't a strategy. Just take it and run. It's a miracle it worked. But...I'm glad it helped them get Billy back to you."
It felt like there was a trap in the way she phrased that last thing, but Teddy dismissed it. This was Kitty, after all. She'd been Billy's friend first, but she was Teddy's friend too, right? "I'm glad you all got back in one piece. Or as close to it as possible," he amended.
Kitty smiled. “We all did. That’s what’s important. Do you want me to talk to Billy?”
About this? He certainly did not. But in general- "Yeah, I think it'd be good. I don't know if you're feeling up for it, but maybe we could plan a movie night or a board game night in the rec room sometime soon." Anything to get him out of bed and engaging with people again. That had to be good for him, didn't it?
"Totally," Kitty agreed. "Ooh, I could pick up that new Star Wars Monopoly game?"
"Yeah, that sounds great!" Teddy perked up at the idea.
She grinned. "Okay. You guys set the date, and I'll drag Bobby."
There was a chance there for Teddy to be the bigger person, to prove that his warnings to Illyana had been about Billy's safety, not about dividing them. (As much as he might wish she'd knock it off with the creepy Palpatine Sith-apprentice stuff and leave Billy alone! But that wasn't in his power to control.)
"And Yana," he offered, extending the olive branch despite the worry twisting low in his gut. "I don't know if she's into Monopoly, but the more the merrier, right?"
Kitty eyed him for a moment, trying to figure out if he was being honest or not, but eventually she nodded. "Okay. Yana too. I'll at least ask her, though she's not really the board game type."
Maybe Illyana wouldn't come, and Teddy would be able to relax into an evening of games without Yana glaring at him from across the table. Or, maybe she would come, and have thought about what he'd said, and decided that Teddy had made some valid points after all and everything would be back to the way it had been before she'd literally dragged Billy into hell for the second time in three months.
(No, he obviously still was not over it. Also, talk about wishful thinking. But at least he'd made the first move.)
"Of course. Her call," Teddy said, his meaning applicable to both. "Do you have time to hang out now? We could go raid the kitchen, see if there's any cookie dough left in the freezer," he suggested, steering things away from dangerous and dark waters.
"Ugh, you know my secret weakness," she groaned. "If you share it with anyone else, I'm going to have to trap you as a shapeshifted hamster and keep you on my desk," she warned with a little grin.
"Wouldn't work, I can't go that small," Teddy replied cheerfully, unfolding his legs and pushing himself up out of his chair. "On Gar, maybe, but I have conservation of mass issues. You'll have to come up with a different threat."
Kitty knocked on the door as soon as she arrived at Billy and Teddy's room, unwilling to give herself time to chicken out, or rethink what exactly she was doing. She did have a mission. It was a sort of nebulous kind of mission, but a mission nonetheless. She loved her friends. She loved Billy and Teddy - almost as much as she loved Yana, so she had to find a way around this mess -- or at least get some more information about what had happened between Yana and Teddy.
Teddy had the room to himself for once, so with his music up and his focus on his computer game, it took him a while to register the knock. Once it sank in that someone was probably there, though, he hit pause on the game and playlist both, and pushed his chair back from his desk sending himself heading lazily in the general direction of the door. "Come in!"
Instead of the door swinging in, Kitty phased through it instead, headfirst, to offer Teddy a little smile of greeting. "Hey."
"Hey," Teddy greeted her with a warm smile. He'd been so focused on Billy's pain, but Kitty had been through the same events. Hopefully she was dealing with it better than Billy was right then -- which was to say, at all -- but at least she didn't look like she was in distress. "Come on in, grab a seat. Though Billy's not here, if you're looking for him specifically."
Kitty did have a few dark circles under her eyes, but for the most part, she was hale and whole, and dropped down to sit on the edge of the bed. "Soooo. This is awkward, but I'm here to talk to you. About Yana. Well, and Billy. Yana and Billy."
Teddy winced. "I guess I should have expected that." The wild card, of course, was what had been said, by whom and to whom already. He pulled his legs up under him to sit cross-legged in the chair. "Before I start digging myself a hole, what exactly did you hear?"
"Probably stuff that isn't completely accurate," Kitty acknowledged, sitting cross-legged herself. "But I think my main concern is you wanting to make decisions on Billy's behalf."
"Yeah..." Teddy frowned at her, his forehead creasing. "This is where I'm really gonna need to know what she told you, because that's not what's going on. And I'm not going to apologize for things I never said."
"Easy there, big guy, I'm not demanding apologies," Kitty made a face. "I just want to talk. And she said you don't want her exposing Billy to Limbo again."
It was hard not to get his hackles up a little; he'd wanted to protect Billy, not start drama, and either way he cut it this was probably not going to end in everybody holding hands and singing campfire songs. "I did something close to that," Teddy admitted. "I asked her to back off from pulling him in to these fights. The first time, he was a mess for a few days and had nightmares, which... yeah. Not great, but he bounced back. This time? He's not bouncing. Something's eating away at him from the inside, and he needs a break to have a chance to get better."
"Did he tell you that?" Kitty asked curiously.
He regretted telling her that much even as he said it, but it was out, so there was not much left to do but go with it. "Which part?"
Kitty sighed and pushed her hair away from her face. "I know he's having problems with it. So am I. Obviously it's worse this time. But did he tell you what he needs to get better? Or did you decide that part yourself?"
Now Teddy had the sense of where this was going and he closed his eyes for a second to beat back the rising frustration. Kitty wasn't there when Billy was collapsing in on himself at nights; she didn't know. "I don't know anything about how to make him better. If I did, I'd have done it. But I can sure make an educated guess about what would make things worse."
"I'm just trying to point out that maybe you should ask him before scaring his friends off," Kitty told him. "It's not Yana's fault that all of this happened. Billy and I chose to help her. And no matter how you put it to her, Yana's afraid of even being around him now. She already thought that she was cursed and bad for everyone around her. Now you've reinforced it. Maybe Billy's having a rough time with this, but just imagine how difficult it's been for Illyana all these years, alone and scared and stuck in that place without her family."
"I'm sorry for what she's been through. But that one's not on me," Teddy replied firmly, shaking his head. "I invited her to come hang out. I told her Billy needed his friends, and that she was totally welcome, any time. The only thing I asked her to do was not bring him to Limbo. And that was when she said that if she couldn't do that she'd rather not talk to him at all, made one of her steppy-disk things-" he drew a circle in the air with a finger, "and vanished." He left out the part where they'd threatened each other, mostly because that really wasn't the point right now.
Kitty frowned. That didn't compute. Why would Illyana retreat like that unless she'd been hurt in some way? It wasn't her battle strategy. (And yes, Kitty handled her friends like game bosses and she wasn't going to think too hard on why that was.) The long and the short of it was that Yana tended to blow smoke and take jabs when in a confrontation, but when hurt, she'd flee. Clearly, she must have been hurt in some way, and Kitty didn't see Teddy's suggestion that Billy stay out of Limbo as hurtful. An affront, maybe, but not hurtful. "You didn't say anything else?"
He had to think back, to try and remember how the conversation had gone. He'd been so focused on just getting her to understand, rather than take offense... Teddy closed his eyes and thought back. "She asked how Billy was doing. I said he wasn't in good shape. I asked her not to bring him to Limbo again, she said she'd stay away from him entirely. I said that wasn't what I meant, that of course she should come and hang out, and that Billy could use his friends." What else? Was there something he had said that had triggered her weird mood?
"She got mad and said something strange about how Limbo was part of her and she couldn't stay away from it -- I said wasn't the point, that she should just come and be his friend. Then she got madder, said that Billy was using his magic wrong and she was the only one who could teach him how to do it right, and she vanished."
Teddy shrugged helplessly. "I really don't know what that last part was about. All I wanted was to go back to movie nights and Mario Kart instead of piling on the nightmare fuel, at least until Billy's feeling better. I promise I'm not trying to isolate him. The exact opposite. The more people around him, the less likely he is to crawl back under the blankets and stare at the wall."
She pursed her lips in thought. She'd have to talk to Yana later about what might have set her off. Later. For now... "Well, I approve of taking it easy for a little while. I mean, I'm gonna try and do the same. And I told Yana that she could just avoid teleporting with Billy for now, so he's not exposed to Limbo. But... that's as long as he wants it to be that way, you know?"
"He can teleport himself, so it's not like that's even a huge deal," Teddy pointed out. "And believe me, when he's himself enough again to tell me off for any of this? I'll be the first one cheering."
"I'm happy to tell you off in the meantime on his behalf," Kitty smiled.
One corner of Teddy's mouth tugged up in an answering smile. "I thought 'on his behalf' was the reason I was in trouble in the first place," he pointed out.
"Hey, if you're doing it, then I can do it too," she huffed.
There was some pretty important differences between them and the relationships they had with Billy, but Teddy was under the strong suspicion that he'd already narrowly avoided being seriously chewed out, so he kept his mouth shut. "While I've got you here, how are you doing?" Teddy asked, his concern real.
Kitty pulled her arms around herself - a purely unconscious reaction to the question. "I mean, I can't say I'm completely awesome, you know?"
He nodded, holding back on the urge to tuck a blanket around her shoulders -- the way Billy pulled them around himself like armour. "Billy told me some of what he remembers, but even that's not a lot," he replied, his voice subdued.
"I wasn't really with the rest of them most of the time anyway," Kitty admitted with a weak smile. "As soon as things went sideways...well, I just needed to distract Belasco. I stole Illyana's amulet from him and led him on a chase through Limbo's scenic underground."
As curious as Teddy both was -- and wasn't -- about Limbo, asking her for details would surely only bring up the bad memories again. "Your plan worked, from what I've heard. A-plus strategizing."
She managed to haul herself back out of the memory before it truly terrified her again, and rolled her eyes at him. "There wasn't a strategy. Just take it and run. It's a miracle it worked. But...I'm glad it helped them get Billy back to you."
It felt like there was a trap in the way she phrased that last thing, but Teddy dismissed it. This was Kitty, after all. She'd been Billy's friend first, but she was Teddy's friend too, right? "I'm glad you all got back in one piece. Or as close to it as possible," he amended.
Kitty smiled. “We all did. That’s what’s important. Do you want me to talk to Billy?”
About this? He certainly did not. But in general- "Yeah, I think it'd be good. I don't know if you're feeling up for it, but maybe we could plan a movie night or a board game night in the rec room sometime soon." Anything to get him out of bed and engaging with people again. That had to be good for him, didn't it?
"Totally," Kitty agreed. "Ooh, I could pick up that new Star Wars Monopoly game?"
"Yeah, that sounds great!" Teddy perked up at the idea.
She grinned. "Okay. You guys set the date, and I'll drag Bobby."
There was a chance there for Teddy to be the bigger person, to prove that his warnings to Illyana had been about Billy's safety, not about dividing them. (As much as he might wish she'd knock it off with the creepy Palpatine Sith-apprentice stuff and leave Billy alone! But that wasn't in his power to control.)
"And Yana," he offered, extending the olive branch despite the worry twisting low in his gut. "I don't know if she's into Monopoly, but the more the merrier, right?"
Kitty eyed him for a moment, trying to figure out if he was being honest or not, but eventually she nodded. "Okay. Yana too. I'll at least ask her, though she's not really the board game type."
Maybe Illyana wouldn't come, and Teddy would be able to relax into an evening of games without Yana glaring at him from across the table. Or, maybe she would come, and have thought about what he'd said, and decided that Teddy had made some valid points after all and everything would be back to the way it had been before she'd literally dragged Billy into hell for the second time in three months.
(No, he obviously still was not over it. Also, talk about wishful thinking. But at least he'd made the first move.)
"Of course. Her call," Teddy said, his meaning applicable to both. "Do you have time to hang out now? We could go raid the kitchen, see if there's any cookie dough left in the freezer," he suggested, steering things away from dangerous and dark waters.
"Ugh, you know my secret weakness," she groaned. "If you share it with anyone else, I'm going to have to trap you as a shapeshifted hamster and keep you on my desk," she warned with a little grin.
"Wouldn't work, I can't go that small," Teddy replied cheerfully, unfolding his legs and pushing himself up out of his chair. "On Gar, maybe, but I have conservation of mass issues. You'll have to come up with a different threat."
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Date: 2018-02-25 12:34 am (UTC)LMAO!
Okay, this was seriously fun to read. :)
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Date: 2018-02-25 12:43 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2018-02-25 08:46 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2018-02-27 03:49 pm (UTC)