god don't leave me; i'll freeze

katherine bishop17 juniorkeoughvegetarian pescatarian+ weekend warrior.

[katherinejbishop]

damianfitz​:

†

“It does sound good,” Damian assured. “Katherine Bishop,” he said out loud, liking how it sounded. “Katherine Josephine Bishop,” he said once more, hearing all of it at once. It was a fine name. He spared a glance at Kat and smiled. “Lovely.” He didn’t care to clarify if he was talking about her name or her. It would apply to both anyway.

Did he have grandparents? Damian thought that was a weird question to ask but then he remembered that not everyone had grandparents that were still living. Just like how sometimes not everyone had parents that stayed together. Or how sometimes, like in Lucy’s case, not everyone had parents that were even alive. “Yes, I do,” he answered with a nod of his head. “Both sides.” He frowned a little as Kat went on but listened anyway and only spoke once she finished. “That’s nice. Is bestemor and bestefar different from farfar and morfar? I thought that’s what you said grandparents were called? Or is that more of just a general word?”

Damian couldn’t help the smile that grew carefully on his face as Kat talked about how she wanted kids. She had such a positive view on things, it was refreshing to listen to. “Yeah, I really enjoyed spending time with the kids at the church too. Kids are great. They don’t seem too complicated. You just have to listen to them.” Though kids often had ideas that were out of sorts and often out of reach but they were kids, they didn’t know any better yet. “Happy and loved…” Damian repeated with a big exhale. “It’s all anyone wants isn’t it?” Probably because they weren’t easy feelings to achieve. 

Katherine chuckled, “It sounds so much nicer when you say it than when Sister Michael says it,” she noted and it was usually because Sister Michael was saying her name as if the mere utterance would cause the teenager to burst into flames and shut up once and for all on the spot.

“That’s lucky,” she chimed, she was grateful for having such a big family. Even though they frustrated the hell out of her sometimes, it was nice to know that she would never be alone, even when she felt that way. Besides, it meant she got a whole lot more birthday and Christmas presents too and that there were more people who were likely to buy her a car when she finally got her license one day. “Oh it’s- yeah, I think it’s more general,” she wasn’t one hundred percent sure but she was confident enough in herself to tout everything she said as if she knew everything about the Norwegian language and culture to boot. “It’s like best mom and best dad, I guess- which is kind of the same as grand, right? Like it has the same sort of message or whatever,” she hoped that Mr. Schwartz would be proud of her linguistic analysis if he’d heard her.

She nodded her head with wholehearted agreement. Perhaps that was what Kat found most charming about them as well, how easy it was to just get along with them. They thought she was a genius because she was older than them, the epitome of strength and athleticism because she was taller and had no trouble giving them piggyback rides. It was wonderful to be admired and have such uncomplicated relationships with people, even if they did pick their nose and made Kat tie their shoe laces for them all the time just because they knew she would do it. “Kids say whatever they feel and when you listen to them you know exactly what they want,” she added, “Older people aren’t like that,” she often held back, bit her tongue, tried to manipulate her words to people others. She looked over at Damian now, “Some people want money, to be famous, they want a powerful job or- I don’t know- to be remembered for doing something great,” she insisted and she didn’t really want any of that, “I could live without all that stuff, I think,”

[katherinejbishop]

damianfitz​:

†

“Ben.” Damian blinked once and let that sink in. He wondered if Kat’s mind went straight to their school’s Track Captain too. He really hoped it didn’t. He also wished his own mind wouldn’t take him there so quickly. He just wanted that bit of knowledge to stay buried and forgotten somewhere in the back of his mind so he could co-exist with Ben without the added awkwardnesss of knowing both of them had a thing with Kat at one point. “Yeah, because it was…” Oh, he was tentative to to do this. “Bar– Barstaad?” He got out hesitantly. “Before. Right?” There was really no way getting around it sounding like that word.

Damian pushed his lips up at a corner for the polite sake of it when Kat complimented the names of the Fitzgerald children. Hearing it made him imagine the three of them together, which was difficult for some reason. It was always Joseph, fawned over by their parents, and then Damian and Eliza. Something uncomfortable stirred in Damian’s chest at the image of it. He tried to focus on Kat’s words to distract himself from the feeling. “Oh wow. That’s incredibly clever actually. And easy.” He wished there was a system that worked like that in his family. But they were old-fashioned in the Fitzgerald home. Often formal and with extra bits added for clarification. 

The question was a difficult one. If you asked Damian a year ago, he would have said ‘yes’ in a heartbeat, not a single ounce of doubt in his heart and mind. He wanted children to raise up and give the world to, to perhaps create the sort of warmth and comfort he felt was lacking in his own home growing up. But now it stumped him, made him pensive and quiet. Ever since last year, it felt like something… cracked or… broke. Less and less did Damian feel this desire to be like his father, to have two boys and one girl, or to feel more connected to him. The man just felt so far away. Not that Damian ever achieved the desired closeness he wanted to with his father but now more than ever it felt impossible to reach. The idea of family was merely very confusing to Damian at this point in his life, but he hoped he wouldn’t feel like this forever.

“I don’t know. I did, but… I think I’m just too young to think about it in a real sense, I suppose.” He didn’t feel too young to think about it before when he was even younger; he even had ideas of names he wanted to give his future children. But now it was just… different. “Do you want kids?” He asked Kat now, failing to realize just how personal the question was. To Damian, it was just a question. Like how are you. Something you were asked and had to ask in return.

“Yeah, that’s it,” she nodded to confirm, rather flattered by the fact that he had remembered, though perhaps it was only because it sounded so dangerously close to an insult, “Bjarke Barstaad. It means a farm or something- like a farm house,” not particularly prestigious, “I don’t know what Bjarke means but I think it’s like Bjorn, something to do with a bear,” she offered to detract from the fact that her name could have been Katherine Farm House which was almost as bad as Katherine Bastard.  “I would have picked something like- I don’t know, Eriksson or Erikssdottir or something easy but I guess there’s already enough of those names in the world,” she was mostly reasoning with herself, rather than with Damian, “-and he likes to play chess too, so I guess he thought it would sound good,” she added, having never really thought about it until this moment. She wondered if that was indeed a reason why her father had picked his so-called American name.

She nodded her head in agreement once more with a chuckle passing her lips, “Not that its easy to forget which grandparent belongs where but yeah- it’s smart, it’s good to remember,” she suggested. “Do you have grandparents? My bestemor and bestefar- my Mom’s parents live in Minnesota too, maybe just twenty minutes from my Mom’s house, actually, by the Mississippi River,” she explained, then thought of something Damian might like to hear, “-They live right by our church, so we used to see them every week,” she explained, “-or like, my family still does that, I’m just not there, obviously,” she clarified, realizing her error.

“Oh yeah,” she assured him without falter. Maybe Damian thought he was too young to think about it in any depth but Kat, even younger than Damian, had it all planned out. She wanted a nice job that made her feel good, a pretty house, a sexy husband and a whole bunch of cute kids in cute outfits that loved each other and their parents to pieces. She would never get divorced, so she had to be careful about who it was that she married but she was convinced she would fall so madly in love that it wouldn’t ever concern her later in life. “I just- I love my siblings so much, I love to be around them and teach them things and make them feel important,” she confessed, “-and I had so much fun at the community church too, you know, even if it’s just reading and coloring in, I felt like it was really special with those kids. I want to learn and travel and stuff too but like- I don’t know- when I think about it, I can’t really think of anything that would be more important than that. Just being happy and loved,” 

[katherinejbishop]

gundersonlogan​:

location: outside senior cabin time: monday 13th of july 3:46 am  starter: open @ba-central

It took a lot to stir Logan from a slumber, while his other classmates complained about the constant noise that came with the retreat, he found it soothing, reminded him of nights on the road with his parents. He found himself lulled into a deep sleep by the buzz of activity around him, it was a sign that he wasn’t alone, which comforted him. 

The sound that couldn’t be described as anything other than a clatter was not comforting. He sat up in his bed quickly, his head instantly going to the accident, and he had to take a few deep breaths to realize that he wasn’t back in the van but safe in the cabins. At first he thought that he had dreamed up the sound, it wouldn’t be the first time he dreamed about the crash, but then he realized his classmates had also awoken, rubbing sleep out of their eyes and getting up to investigate what had make the sound. 

He made his way towards the senior cabin in his pajamas, the pink hairs on the back of his neck standing straight up. Logan didn’t scare easily but he couldn’t denying the eerie feeling in the air. “This is giving me a weird feeling man.” He said to the person closest to him, rubbing his arm that was covered in goosebumps despite the warm weather. 

Kat had recently had a dream where Mr. Schwartz, her English teacher had taken their class, consisting exclusively of just Katherine and Logan for some reason on a field trip to the zoo right before a cataclysmic zombie outbreak. In her dream the three of them had teamed up to fight off hoards of zombies in pursuit of survival but in reality, she wasn’t sure she’d ever actually had a conversation with Logan, and besides, his sister was a total cunt. 

“Oh my God- what the fuck?” Kat shuddered, startled by Logan’s sudden appearance. “Hello? Don’t creep up on people in the middle of the night- just cos you’re in your jammies doesn’t make you not scary as fuck, okay,” she scolded him, folding her arms tightly across her chest defensively. If she hadn’t been busy staring into the depths of the woods absently, she might have heard him approaching. “What kind of feeling? Like a bad one?” she should have guessed that it wasn’t a good one just by his tone of voice but she needed reassurance. 

[katherinejbishop]

ohcndrea​:

✦

“ that’s true, ” andrea noted, nodding her head for a moment before she tilted it to one side. innocent smirk playing on her lips “ maybe they should try hitting harder, ” she suggested, smirk spreading into a smile and a chuckle falling from her lips. though truthfully she thought if the underage binge drinking hadn’t killed enough of the boys’ braincells to deflate their egos then bashing rocks on their skulls didn’t have much luck of helping. “ my tofu is huge? my plant based meat substitute is huge? do either of those do it for you? ” she asked, tone coated in playful facetiousness. another thing she could have said in place of meat could have been mashed fish considering it apparently didn’t fit into kat’s definition of vegetarian. but any time kat wasn’t shoving a mashed fish sandwich in her face she was repressing every memory that mashed fish was even a thing. “ oh– oh, okay, ” drea played along, holding seriousness for a second until kat poked at her stomach and a giggled escaped her. she pushed the hand away but feeling kat wobble her hands returned to holding onto her just above her knees. “ no wonder you’re so popular, so accommodating to my monster dong– guys with tiny dicks must really appreciate the hype up. ” she mused with a grin.

she wasn’t sure she totally believed kat but she didn’t think there was much else she was able to do to help. so all she could really do was return kat’s small smile and nod her head as if she did believe her. she gave a soft chuckle at mention of kat’s uti again however. “ you need to get some cranberry juice for that, ” she advised with a grin, amused by kat’s pain. as kat spoke, drea joined in the day dreaming. it was hard to think of her life after broadripple because there were always two paths. the way she wanted to go, the things she wanted to do– and what her parents envisioned for her, what she would probably do. she always been comfortable with there being two paths but she was not at all comfortable with the idea that eventually, and soon really, she would have to pick one. she’s about to comment that waiting wasn’t such a bad idea when kat continues with a comment about ella that totally confuses her. “ okay, i have no idea what you’re talking about but like– obviously if you’re gonna start swinging for the other team i’m candidate number one, ” she insisted, raising her hand to her chest. she loved ella, but ella hadn’t spent the past five minutes making sure kat didn’t fall down a well after being upset by damian. “ like, hello? i’m total wifey material. not saying she isn’t, but like– hello? ”

“Maybe they should try vacationing on the surface of the sun or something,” she suggested bitterly, she’d evidently had enough of the male population at Broadripple for one week. Except for Coach Cobb perhaps but only because he paid less attention to Kat and Andrea being disruptive than Sister Michael did. “PBD,” she suggested, “Plant-based dick- BPBDE,” she almost had a conniption trying to say it but she got there, “Big plant based dick energy,” she clarified with a laugh. Anybody that heard the two girls chattering at one another would likely push them both into the well at once but Kat thought that they were hilarious and charming and extremely attractive and that every word they uttered was as worth saying as it was hearing. 

She laughed and threw her head back without realizing that perhaps Drea’s grip was saving her life or at least the functionality of her spine in her increasingly precarious position. “I’m honestly like a saint because there is nothing but small dicks on this campus- except for you, obviously,” she insisted, “I’m Mother Teresa of hand jobs- I should get house points for my charity,” she joked, though she did sincerely think that she deserved more in return for how generous she was in words and gestures toward the boys of BA. 

“Oh well yeah- obviously,” that was a good point, she thought. If she was indeed going to date a woman or at least give it her very best shot, Andrea Pearson should probably be at the top of her to-do list. “It’s just at the pool party she was all over me,” not true, “-like saying I was eth-” oh fuck, what was the word? “Ethreal- Ethereal,” nailed it, “Like, I don’t know, an angel or a Goddess or something,” Kat added that herself for a little bit of flare but though it was perfectly attuned with how Ella saw her. “-and we kissed a bit,” she added, arguably something she should have lead with but alas. “If we had children they would probably just look the same,” she noted, ignoring the fact that she and Ella would not be producing biological children together any time soon, “Like just blonde and pale and tall,” like the rest of Kat’s family, in fact. “-our children would be hot though,” she bumped shoulders with Drea affectionately, simultaneously ignoring the inherent danger of them both falling into the well because of it and the fact that she’d just referred to children as hot.

[katherinejbishop]

damianfitz​:

†

Damian did his best to pay close attention when Norwegian names came into play. There was a lot of things Kat was saying that felt out of his realm of understanding. He probably couldn’t repeat her… Farfar’s (…grandfather?) name if he tried but at least he knew it now. She was also sharing a lot at once. And he swore Kat just told him her father’s name was Bianca. Or something that sounded like that. BJ. Hmm… He didn’t want to say that, and he couldn’t pronounce her father’s name correctly, so Damian supposed he’d just be referring to Kat’s dad as ‘your father’ if the topic ever worked its way into a conversation between himself and Kat again.

“Oh wow. That’s quite interesting… and considerate.” Especially considerate. Damian never thought of things like that. The most difficult name to pronounce in his family was Guinevere and it was of a cousin he hardly saw so it’s not like he said it often. It was strange to hear the name ‘Joseph’ out of Kat’s mouth though. He knew it was just a name and anyone could have it, but it strangely stirred discomfort in Damian when Kat said it. “You know, my brother’s name is Joseph.” Damian didn’t like to talk about him because he was already talked about so much at home, even when he wasn’t around. “And he was named after my grandfather too. Grandfathers, actually. That’s what your Farfar is, right? Correct me if I’m mistaken.”

She nodded her head in agreement, “My Dad got teased when he was in college so much, I think it like- it got stuck in his head,” traumatised him, perhaps, “For a little while he even said his name was Ben,” fucking gross, she didn’t want to think about Ben Martos and her own father having anything in common aside from living on the same planet, “Ben Bishop,” she chuckled at the sound of it, realizing she’d never said it aloud. It didn’t sound like her father’s name, she didn’t know this Ben Bishop character and was glad he’d given up on that. “-and Bishop because he did honors at Bishop University- or Bishop’s University, I can’t remember- in Canada before he moved to the U.S. and he liked the sound of it, I guess, then he did his PhD in America,”  it was so much easier to talk about her Dad than it was to talk about Damian’s weird emotions and perhaps she was boring the male but she didn’t mind, it was still nicer than having him reduced to tears over her.

“I think I knew that actually,” whether it was because Damian had explicitly told her or because she’d discovered it while stalking his Instagram or perhaps Eliza’s was unclear. “Eliza, Damian, Joseph,” she noted, thinking aloud, “It’s nice,” she complimented with a warm smile on her face, imagining the three of them lined up side by side, though she didn’t really know what Damian’s eldest sibling looked like.  She clicked her tongue as her lips pulled into a charmed smile at the revelation, “That’s so nice,” she chimed sweetly and it was true, it was nice, she thought. She nodded her head, “Yeah, that’s it. It goes by who your grandparent is to your parent,” her words were clumsy but clarification was on the way, “So Farfar is my Dad’s dad and Morfar is my Mom’s dad and then Mormor and Farmor, my Mom’s mom and my Dad’s Mom,” she explained with expressive hand gestures to go along with her words. “Do you want kids?” she asked, before she realized that it was an extremely personal question and probably not a great one to be asking somebody nearing an emotional break down over a high school crush. Still, she’d seen how good Damian was with the children at the community church and had to assume he’d at least thought about it.

[katherinejbishop]

orioncarlson​:

☆

𝐎𝐍𝐂𝐄 𝐒𝐇𝐄 𝐂𝐋𝐀𝐑𝐈𝐅𝐈𝐄𝐃 𝐇𝐄𝐑 𝐓𝐇𝐄𝐎𝐑𝐘, it made perfect sense, and the sure-fire way the blonde explains it only reinforces the strength of her argument. He’s much too tired to be a contrarian anyways that quite frankly, if she’d have pushed the ghost bat theory a bit more, Rion would’ve gone along with it. “Yeah, yeah; I can see that,” he replies, imprinting his palm further into his cheek. “Everyone here is so disgusting.” As if he isn’t a part of that exact crew, with his mess by his bunk. Perhaps one good thing from the stolen item debacle had been that everyone’s bunks had been trashed.

“Want me to knock you out?” Sarcastic quip, only because he wishes for the same thing, as morbid as it is. “Maybe we can borrow baseball bats. You know, knock each other out at the same —” Doesn’t even get to finish his thought, because it’s interjected by a loud rustle, right by the senior cabin, though by the time he turns towards the direction of the noise, he doesn’t see much. “Did - did you hear that?” His voice is lower now, barely above a whisper. Wide-awake, he scans the darkened area by his cabin — and right as he chalks it up to his imagination, or maybe the wind or a wild animal, again. Right on cue, as if it’d been biding its time, waiting for the right moment to run away. “What… what the hell was that?” 

“Mhm,” she hummed in agreement, though she’d had mashed fish and ketchup on a cracker for lunch the day before, so she wasn’t one to judge the habits of others. “Everybody is so disgusting,” she repeated, “-and more disgusting because they think they can get away with it in the cabins,” to her credit she was equally as disgusting in the dorms as she was in the cabins, she wasn’t taking advantage of the situation or the lack of supervision.

She laughed at his suggestion, “Wow, do you maybe want to not sound so excited to smash me in the head next time?” she advised, a smirk on her face though she tried to sound sincerely offended by his enthusiasm. “-besides, I don’t know if I can trust you, maybe-” she was cut off by Orion’s sudden shift in demeanour. The previously jovial teen’s smug smile disappeared within moments, replaced by a genuine look of concern. Maybe he was fucking with her, it wasn’t as if the blonde was particularly difficult to fool by anybody’s standards. 

“No,” she hadn’t heard anything, she was too busy enjoying the sound of her own voice or perhaps she was just enjoying the fact that she’d managed to maintain the senior’s attention for this long without protest. She paused, holding her breath for a moment, subconsciously mirroring the male’s rigid posture and that was when she heard it. “I- okay, yeah, I heard it that time,” she uttered, slightly alarmed this time. It sounded bigger than a possum, though she couldn’t be sure. “What the fuck?” she asked nobody in particular, sitting up alert on her knees on top of the picnic bench, as if whatever had made the sound might grab at her ankles if she left them vulnerable beneath the table. “Was it that way?” she pointed beyond the senior cabin in a direction her iPhone would tell her was East.

[katherinejbishop]

damianfitz​:

†

“And the trees will keep my secrets, yeah?” Damian spared a glance at the hardwoods around them again. “Same as the plants in the garden.” Though Damian hasn’t visited the garden in a long while. Since the cicada infestation they’ve had to deal with, the ivies have become rather overgrown and less inviting. Besides, time on campus was a luxury now. He didn’t want to waste it surrounding himself with green when green was all he had to return to once he’d step off the bus later in the day. Damian spent his spare time in the library now, making the most of the internet connection and silence.

“Oh yeah, incredibly attuned,” Damian assured in jest with a nod, pulling his features to look somewhat serious. “The most instinctive.” He smiled at Kat. It was nice to joke around after a stint of something so heavy. He wished it could be like this all the time. Sometimes it felt like he was only waiting for things to turn sour again, as if nothing that felt good could stay good for long. “I’ll keep you to that, December 12th.” He pointed at her jokingly with one hand and nudged into her arm with his own as they continued on in their walk.

“What else don’t I know about you…” He wondered aloud. Damian thought of Kat’s school email and remembered the ‘j’ and how he didn’t know what it stood for. “What’s your middle name?”

“Mmm, I think so,” she decided after a moment or so of contemplation, a smile growing on her face as she said the words to Damian, reminded of some of the time they spent in the Heritage Garden. Secretly she’d sort of hoped their walk in the woods would take a more physically intimate turn but getting to know each other on a personal level was good too, she supposed. It was better than nothing at the very least.

She chuckled as he played along and nodded his head, “I know yeah, just one thing on my long list of talents, I guess,” she joked at her own expensive. “Yeah, you can keep me to anything, April 19, I don’t make promises I won’t keep,” she assured him and it was a lovely thought but it was just that, a thought. She struggled to stick to her word, to maintain her convictions, as much as she liked the idea of being a woman who knew exactly what she believed in and would fight for those things without hesitation.

“Some things, I think,” she assured him. She liked to think of herself as a complicated person, one that consisted of many folds and many intricate layers, unknowable from the surface. She certainly wasn’t as complex as she imagined herself to be but she also wasn’t as much of a simpleton as other people thought she was either. Katherine Bishop sat somewhere comfortably in between, “So, my Farfar’s name is Jörmunrekur and my Dad wanted to name me after him some how because I was the first baby and that’s sort of tradition but obviously everybody was like- okay, that’s a bit cruel to name your baby like that- and it’s a boys name- so they thought maybe Jorunn but it doesn’t sound good with Katherine so then maybe not and like, it’s hard for Americans to spell and say and stuff and my Dad really hates that because his name is Bjarke and people always mess it up like his friends at work call him BJ and he hates cos that’s not even how you say his name at all but whatever, so he never wanted me to deal with that and have an American name but still like be true to my heritage or whatever and yeah, I don’t know, they ended up with Josephine,” she shrugged her shoulders, “Which maybe because my parents are Lutheran they thought it was nice because of Joseph,” she offered, realizing she had never really asked her parents about her name in any great detail. 

[katherinejbishop]

damianfitz​:

†

True. Damian didn’t get performance anxiety. Performing came naturally to him actually. It was sort of his one advantage over his siblings. While they were more academically-inclined and held flawless GPAs, Damian didn’t freeze when you put him in the middle of an audience. He could be warm and inviting, confident and assured in a blink. "Maybe you just make me nervous,” Damian told Kat, pairing the charming curve of his lips with a cheeky tilt of his head in her direction.

Damian watched in amusement as Kat worked her way around giving an answer she obviously didn’t know. He found it rather adorable and played along, nodding here and there when Kat said it was in a month of the year and on a day. “You aren’t wrong,” he quipped with a chuckle. The center of his chest felt far too warm watching her. “I do have one. And it’s on the 19th.” He contemplated if he was going to let her guess which month. “April,” he then added because he felt it’d be far too much to let Kat guess which of the twelve months it fell on exactly. “But you were close,” he continued on, obviously joking because Kat didn’t come anywhere near a proper guess, “a day on a month in a year, very close actually.” He couldn’t help but break out in a big laugh that had him leaning forward; the grin on his lips could have probably split his face in half.

She smiled sheepishly, clicking her tongue as if the fact was disappointing, though the grin on her face made it clear that it was flattering. “I’m not intimidating- and surely not to a house captain,” she insisted, though she liked the thought of it. Andrea Pearson was intimidating. She could stare people down, shut people up, challenge people in a way that made them inherently respect her. Kat envied that, though she was loath to say so. “-besides, you can’t be nervous when there’s nobody around- only the trees know,” she insisted and she liked the thought of that, in fact. Maybe she couldn’t say anything embarrassing or stupid or lame if there was only Damian and the hardwood forest to hear it, knowing neither of them would judge her cruelly like some other students did.

“I knew it,” she chimed as if she’d actually come to any meaningful conclusion whatsoever regarding his birthday. “I’m just intuitive, you know,” she assured him, tapping her temple lightly with the tip of her index finger, “I can sense things,” she added, which was ironic considering how desperately she wished she could understand what Damian was thinking and feeling, better yet if she could read his thoughts. “April nineteen,” she repeated, hoping it would embed itself in her memory somewhere by the time the date rolled around or came close again. “I won’t forget it now,” she promised, though there was every chance she’d forget it even before the week was through.

[katherinejbishop]

damianfitz​:

†

That was where Damian had to disagree. There was no way those cabins could be hyggelig. In fact, those cabins were the furthest from ‘coziness of the soul’ Damian could think of. Well, perhaps the outhouse one upped it. “Sure,” Damian said instead of any of the things he was thinking. “Bit of rebuilding here, fresh coat of paint there. Maybe a thorough dusting…” The least one could do short of tearing the entirely structure down. Damian was trying to be doubly positive here for Kat’s sake.

The Fenwick captain blinked in surprise at Kat’s reaction to his guess. It was unexpectedly enthusiastic for a wrong answer. “Oh.” Twelve! Wait. “Oh no, wait, I knew that.” He didn’t until he did anyways. Not that that made any sense. “You gave me your school email once. kjbis1212. It was right there. I knew it, I just… didn’t remember I think.” He scratched the side of his head with his free hand. “I was on the spot, it was performance anxiety, I don’t know,” he defended himself jokingly. “12th of December. I won’t forget it next time.”

He let them get a couple of steps further into the woods before he thought to ask, “Do you know my birthday?” A test for her now. Damian even raised a brow to tease her.

“Oh yeah, that’s true- good memory,” maybe he hadn’t remembered her birthday but the fact that he’d managed to remember her school I.D. was pretty impressive. Despite the fact that Jay had stolen several of her I.D. cards she was pretty sure he didn’t know what her intranet username was. She laughed aloud, thinking it was as amusing as it was adorable that he was trying to make up for the fact that he’d guessed her birthday wrong, even though she was pretty sure she’d never explicitly told him before, “As if you get performance anxiety- I don’t believe that. I’ve seen you swim and I’ve seen you give speeches at school,” she insisted confidently. In fact, his anxiety over being good enough for her was truthfully the only time she’d seen a real crack in his resolve without some sort of traumatic event triggering it and she was surprised to see it at all, truth be told.

“Mmmm,” she hummed, a pensive expression consuming her features, “Well I know that it’s in a month of the year and on a day, ” she assured him playfully, buying herself a little time as she filtered through the countless logs of her memory bank, trying to find any sort of reference to his birthday. “That’s right, isn’t it?” she asked cheekily, taking a moment more to consider things. She was pretty sure it was during the school year, she could picture Faith with balloons, whether it was a memory or a realistic assumption. “Yep- nope, I don’t know, I have no idea,” she confessed with a laugh, “-but I do know that you have one. I know you have a birthday, so that’s a start,” she joked in an effort to salvage her efforts.

[katherinejbishop]

damianfitz​:

†

“I–”  Damian’s mouth fell open in an attempt to clarify himself but when he realized Kat was only teasing him, he pulled his lips into a smirk. Cheeky, he thought as he looked at her but appreciated what she had to share with him nonetheless as she went on. “Not hygge, right,” he said with a nod, abiding by her word. He liked that he knew what it meant and that it was something only he and Kat understood. Well, he and Kat and the rest of Norway and whoever else was familiar with Scandinavian culture. Still, it was their word and it was nice.

“It was really impressive,” Damian countered without wasting a beat. He had no choice but to be. It was the way things worked after all. “Is that so? Definitely explains why you were so good.” He chuckled in return, nudging Kat’s arm slightly with his own. “Oh. Middle of Winter. Right.” Damian wasn’t certain of the specific date exactly but he knew Kat’s birthday took place in December. Largely because he paid close attention to her Instagram stories during break last year before they started school and he decided wanted to get to know her outside of Chastity Club meetings, not that they spoke much in the club to begin with.

“December…” He started, turning his head to look at Kat, hoping that by looking at her he could successfully gauge the day she was born. “…15th?” He took a guess, one eye shut in a slight wince in case it was wrong. That was the middle of Winter, right?

“Yeah,” she smiled to herself, privately charmed by the way he responded to her in such a knowing manner. She was pretty sure she could say the same handful of untranslatable Nordic words to Jay a billion and one times and he still wouldn’t recall any of them or any of their meanings when asked. “I think our cabins are a bit hyggelig,” she noted, though there was something admittedly very unhyggelig about spider webs, dust balls and stinky moss, “With a bit of love, I think they could be nice, actually,” she suggested, though she doubted they would be there for long enough to see the cabins experience any sort of renaissance. 

Her smile lit up, she loved the thought of being ‘really impressive’ in any way shape or form and admittedly, it wasn’t something she experienced often. Sure, people often made fun of her telling her how ‘amazing’ it was how much she could say about things she knew nothing about or how ‘impressive’ her volume and high pitch could be but they never meant it like Damian did. “Yep, it’s true,” she chimed with a small laugh, trying her best to hold a straight face. “-and probably instead of smacking a baby on the butt, they just make sure we know how to tie a cleat hitch when we’re born, I think,” she added with a chuckle, at least that was her experience and though her youngest sister didn’t know her multiplication tables yet, she knew how to tie their boat up.

“Oh my God, wow, that’s so close,” she was incredibly impressed, given that there must have been something like a one in thirty one chance of him getting her birthday right. She wasn’t sure what sort of a percentage that was and she had no idea how to work it out but she found it impressive either way. “-That’s so good- but it’s twelve,” she spoke as if he’d gotten it right on the first try, even while she corrected him, further proof that Katherine Bishop truly wasn’t all that difficult to please.

[katherinejbishop]

damianfitz​:

†

“At school?” Damian mentioned, as sort of a reminder. Because as they’ve gathered, they couldn’t get signal out here. WIFI was pretty much out of the question until they were back on campus. At Kat’s question, Damian shook his head. He wasn’t very knowledgeable on trees and he had no shame admitting that. He didn’t even know what ‘felled’ meant but he deduced that it had to do with cutting the tree from what Kat mentioned of the rings on the inside. “Oh…” He listened thoughtfully, nodding along. He was surprised to discover you could learn so much from just a couple of rings. “That’s neat,” was all he had to say by the end of it. He actually meant it too; he wasn’t just saying it to say it. He was at least interested enough to want to perhaps pick up a book on trees from the library now. It felt like fun leisure reading material.

Didn’t have electricity? The reveal had Damian turning his head, looking at Kat. “How would you shower at night without electricity?” He couldn’t help but wonder out loud. His curiosity outweighed his manners on this occasion and he was slow to realize that might not be an appropriate question to ask. “I mean–” He backtracked, realizing his misstep. “Or walk around the house at night?” He revised his question. “Did you use candles?” It wasn’t so concerning to him that Kat and her family only played board games or read, mostly because things were similar for Damian. His parents, or rather his mother in particular, didn’t like them sitting in front of the TV or wasting time on their phones. Growing up, they weren’t even allowed toys that were flashy or made loud noise. There was always a puzzle to be done or a book to be read. If not that, there were exercises to be filled in, languages to practice, etiquette classes to be taken. It was a busy childhood.

“I miss skiing,” Damian admitted after a moment, bringing his gaze down to his shoes. “I miss Stowe,” he added after some thought. “You’re really good at skiing,” Damian then told Kat, equal parts telling her and reminding himself. “Man, you looked great coming down the slope that day.” The memory was a fond one. Damian didn’t forget the red jacket Kat was wearing and how much he liked it.

She chuckled at his question, “Unless one of these birds has a WiFi box we can borrow,” she didn’t know where WiFi came from but she imagined it was some sort of box shaped device that was responsible, like the one her Dad constantly switched on and off and swore at whenever he was trying watch live English soccer games on his laptop at home.

Kat smiled and nodded her head in agreement, “There’s a lot we can learn about from trees. They can’t talk but they can still tell us what they’ve seen and what they’ve been through, in a way,” she told him, mostly thinking out loud now. She laughed out loud, “I don’t know if you know this but actually, showers don’t run on electricity, that stuff that comes out of them is just water,” she teased him playfully, she knew what he meant and grinned cheekily at him, enjoying the bashful look on his face, “We used candles, yeah,” she nodded, “The old fashioned way. Lots of candles, gas lamps- no flashlights because that’s not hygglig at all,” she assured him, almost like a warning, like the idea was completely taboo. 

“That really impressed you, huh?” she noted aloud with a goofy grin on her face, charmed by the fact that it wasn’t the first time Damian had brought it up. “Maybe you didn’t know that Minnesotans are born with skis on their feet,” she offered with a chuckle. It wasn’t quite true but it might as well have been, she’d been skiing downhill and cross country with her family since she could remember, whether it was in Minnesota or Colorado, Hemsedal or The Troll Peninsula, it had always been a part of her life. “-and I was born in the middle of Winter too, so that’s a good thing for me, I guess,” she added, wondering if Damian even knew when her birthday was, it wasn’t like she was ever at school to celebrate it in front of him.

[katherinejbishop]

orioncarlson​:

𝐑𝐀𝐈𝐒𝐈𝐍𝐆 𝐀 𝐂𝐔𝐑𝐈𝐎𝐔𝐒 𝐁𝐑𝐎𝐖, 𝐑𝐈𝐎𝐍 𝐒𝐌𝐈𝐑𝐊𝐒. Situating himself to face her, he nods. “Okay, let me get this straight: your theory isn’t just any old opossum or bat — you think it’s a ghost opossum. Or a demon bat.” Chuckling, he continues to nod. “I’d love to hear the explanation for supernatural animals flying into my cabin.” 

“Yeah, right,” he continues. A part of him is skeptical of the noise having… non-magical origins. He’s not sure one person pulling a prank is capable of making a noise so loud and not leaving a trace. “My money’s on the cabin. It’s already falling apart. It’s probably going to cave in and crush all of us but, hey,” he raises his palms, “maybe this will finally get the school to actually get us decent accommodations.” Or one could hope. 

She couldn’t help but laugh at the words as Rion repeated them. Somehow they sounded even more ridiculous coming from him than they had when she’d first uttered them, “Okay, not my theory- I don’t believe in that dumb shit,” she clarified. She was gullible as hell, Jay and Drea would attest to that fact but for whatever reason, she wasn’t even remotely phased by the idea of ghosts and ghouls, it just sounded silly to her. “I think it’s just bats in the trees because we keep leaving trash and food everywhere and they figured out that inside the cabins there’s even more food and trash and it’s warm,” she spoke with confidence though she had no reason to believe that what she was saying was fact.

She clicked her tongue and nodded her head, “Good thinking,” she complimented, realizing that he was probably right. Rather than the source of the noise being from outside the cabin, it was probably the cabins themselves falling apart at the seams. She looked over her shoulder to observe the old wooden structure nearest to them, “I don’t know if it would crush anybody, it’s pretty shitty wood,” she noted, “A bump on the head and a few splinters maybe, if it could even manage that,” she turned back to Rion now, “At least with a bump on the head I might actually get some sleep,” she noted bitterly, still evidently annoyed that she was going to be exhausted for class the following morning by no choice of her own.

[katherinejbishop]

ohcndrea​:

✦

“ mmhmm, ” drea hummed her confirmation, giving a small attempt to move her head in a nod but from her position against kat, with arms wrapped around her middle, it made it a little hard. letting go she only backed up a little. her stomach still pressed to kat’s knees, anchoring her to the top of the well, and her hands either side of her leaning against the stone. “ is there anything in particular you want me to draw you? ” she asked, figuring it couldn’t hurt to ask. if kat wanted something specific, she’d deliver. but if she wasn’t fussed, she’d think of something. something that was better than the stupid flower damian drew her anyway. “ or do you want a surprise? ”

“ of course it’s true, some of the guys around here probably hit rocks against their hands for entertainment. ” she commented, a grin on her features as she threw a quick glance over her shoulder at the rest of camp. again she silently made her exclusions for the guys she could stand talking to for more than a few moments at a time. but kat didn’t need to hear those names, as far as kat needed to know drea was closer to dropping on one knee and proposing to her before she thought any of the broadripple guys in a positive light. she chuckled as brown eyes returned to kat’s. after a second to pull a somewhat straight face onto her features she spoke again “ that’s true, my meat is huge, ” nodding her head, but smirk quickly betrayed her and started tugging up the corners of her lips. “ spooning might actually be kinda hard, you know, because of my giant package. ” she added, a chuckle escaping even though she was trying her very hardest to appear serious.

she shifted her weight to one hand so she could lift the other to kat’s features. pressing her lips together as she delicately tugged a blonde lock behind her friend’s ear. she knew her friendship wasn’t what kat wanted, she wanted real damian to be like the damian in her dreams. or for some other dude to be like the damian in her dreams. but maybe drea’s friendship could be a bit of a distraction, a reassurance that she was still loved even if it wasn’t rom-com worthy. “ do you feel a bit better now? ” she hoped the answer was yes, but worst case, they could always see if anyone had any mango juul pods in the cabins that they could borrow without asking and with no intention of returning. 

Kat’s eyes widened a little at the offer, clearly charmed by the idea, “Is it anything I can pick?” she asked brightly, clearly some ideas were already swirling around in that mostly empty head of hers. “Ooh,” she cooed a moment later, equally, if not more inspired by the idea of a surprise. “Yeah, a surprise then,” she confirmed, delighted by the idea of all the time and dedication it would take for Drea to come up with something so creative and especially tailored for Kat. 

“Against their heads I think- not that it does anything to deflate their giant egos,” she noted, scrunching her face up as she chastised the male portion of the student body for no real reason at all. “No- not that, I’m a vegetarian,” she reminded her best friend, as if the conversation actually had any sort of an impact on Kat’s dietary conditions whatsoever. “I’m very dedicated though, I can make it work- and you’re so small everywhere else, there’s space,” she reminded her friend, poking her in the tummy playfully to reiterate the point she was making.

She leaned into Andrea’s touch and a smile tugged at her lips at the same time, “I think so, yeah,” she confirmed, though perhaps it wasn’t as confident as Drea would have liked. “I’m not all fucked up anymore,” she assured her, “Except for UTI,” she added, though that wasn’t really for Damian or Drea to fix, that was Dr. Skrule’s problem and arguably Katherine’s as well. “Sometimes I think about what things are like after school- it’s going to be so good for us to meet smart boys that know how to be- and with like, jobs and cars and interesting things to talk about. Maybe I can just wait for that,” she was almost settled with that idea before another emerged, seemingly out of nowhere, “- or do you think Ella is actually in love with me or maybe she was just drunk at the pool?” she asked, forgetting that Drea wasn’t even present for Ella and Kat’s weird encounter regarding Katherine being an ethereal entity. 

[katherinejbishop]

orioncarlson​:

𝐅𝐈𝐍𝐀𝐋𝐋𝐘, 𝐒𝐎𝐌𝐄𝐎𝐍𝐄 𝐒𝐀𝐍𝐄. Unsurprising, since he thinks the blonde is a junior, and even if the noise had been loud, it shouldn’t have woken up everyone else in the other cabin. It couldn’t have. “Some asshole dropped something behind the cabin and everyone’s freaked out,” he explains, rubbing his eyes. “Although, people are saying it’s a demonic presence or ghosts or whatever. I don’t know. What are people in your cabin saying?” Truthfully, he’d made that part up, but the way people had been acting, it couldn’t be too far off from the truth. Sighing, he nods his head. “Yeah. Tell me about it. I mean… it was a weird noise, but like, we’re right in the freakin’ woods. Noises are normal.” Right?  

 In her tiredness, it was only half irritating that she’d been dragged out of bed over something so foolish and half entertaining, so Kat laughed at the idea that it was a ghost or a demonic presence. Whatever the fuck it was, she was confident that it wasn’t that. “Okay, that’s dumb but even if it is it’s probably a ghost opossum or a demon bat or something- when it’s humid like this they try to get indoors, that’s probably all it was,” she offered with a shrug of her shoulders. “Nico thought it was whoever went through all of our shit trying to pull another prank on everybody and maybe fucking it up,” a decent theory, she thought but she was still more convinced that it was an animal being intrusive, rather than a person being clumsy.

[katherinejbishop]

ohcndrea​:

✦

usually when drea called kat special it was to make fun of her. maybe she’d said something stupid or tumbled over nothing or just ate something some weird way. and although she was about to say kat was special, and mean it in the way she meant it, apparently kat hadn’t forgotten any of the jokes she’d made in the past. it made the corners of drea’s lips tug upwards but she pressed her lips together to stop the smile from fully forming. instead nodding her head to show she understood what kat meant. 

it became significantly easier when kat started to smile, and giggle, and making fun of faculty members. like she had said the right things, successfully comforted her friend. and she used those feelings to cover up her guilt for not telling kat about jay. for continuing to not tell her. she couldn’t help but snort as kat brought up the uti again. “ yeah, okay, see? i’m right. i’m concerned about the state of your vagina, but i’m right. ” she teased, only keeping a straight face for a moment before she chuckled and smile spread on her features. she was well ready to launch back into her fuck damian tirade when kat mentioned a single coffee at the kettle. part way through rolling her eyes and sighing when kat pulled her in for a hug. smile spread as her feet kept them both from tumbling into the depths of the well, she wrapped her arms around kat as well. “ a drawing and a coffee is still totally bullshit but i will draw you something and buy you a coffee if you really want me to. ” she pledged into kat’s shoulder. or her tit. she couldn’t really tell which she was pressed against. “ you know, along with my regularly programmed stunning, incredible, and irreplaceable friendship. ” she smiled as she pulled away.

“ it’s hard because boys are stupid, ” drea replied without missing a beat, though in her head she made her exceptions for jay and maybe a couple other guys she was friends with. “ girls are smarter, especially at this age. it’s, like, a proven thing. ” she didn’t know for sure it that was true, but she knew if she said it with enough conviction it’d be enough for her and kat. “ but your perfect guy is out there somewhere. sexy, and in love with you, and smart but not in a nerd way, and totally normal and not weird. but until he crawls out of the woodwork and makes himself known, you got me. ” it was stupid, she was aware it was stupid but she grinned anyway. “ i don’t have a dick but i’ll totally spoon you if you want. ”

Katherine laughed aloud at Drea’s primary concern, “You and Doctor Skrule can bond over it then, I think,” she chimed, trying not to genuinely think about how fucking weird it would be for her best friend and the school doctor to have that conversation or any conversation like it. “- but yeah,” she uttered a beat later, conceding to Drea’s words. She was right, she was very right, whether Kat liked it or not. 

She smiled again at that. It was obvious to anybody that knew Kat well enough that she wasn’t all that difficult to please and the thought of Drea buying her a hot drink and drawing a picture for her was enough to make her week, at least for now. “Would you?” she asked, squeezing Drea’s shoulders a little as she rocked the two of them affectionately, clearly forgetting that they were perched dangerously close to an unmeasured but potentially fatal drop. 

“Is that true?” she didn’t need confirmation from Drea, she already believed without a doubt that girls were smarter than boys and now she had Drea’s uncited scientific resources to back it up. No wonder Damian was being so weird, Kat was obviously way more mature than him. “You have the biggest dick I know, actually,” she reminded her sincerely. It was supposed to be a compliment to the other girl and she meant it that way, though anybody else that could have heard them might have been slightly perturbed by the comment. -but I still want that, yeah,” she assured the other girl, “-and the coffee too,” just in case she was already forgetting about that.

[katherinejbishop]

damianfitz​:

†

Step by step, Damian moved steadily beside Kat, repeating a walk, a nice walk in his head with each stride he took as to not forget what they were trying to accomplish here. It came with some difficulty but eventually he managed to shift his attention to what he was telling himself in his head to what Kat was talking about. Slow-growing trees. And then– Deciduous? It felt like being asked a question when you weren’t paying attention in class. The confusion on Damian’s face was evident but thankfully, Kat cleared the word up for him. “Oh,” he sounded after she explained, even nodding his head. “That’s… neat. I didn’t know that.” He tried to pay better attention now, not wanting to feel caught again. “Conserving energy…” He said aloud, looking at the trees in thought as Kat shared further. “That’s incredibly smart actually,” he decided. Quite impressive how trees knew exactly what to do when the appropriate time came. Damian wished he knew how to do that. The Fenwick captain couldn’t help but stare at the hardwoods. After what Kat told him, they might just be his new favorite tree – not that he had a favorite tree before. “I wonder how old these are,” he said after a moment. He was tempted to take his phone out and snap a picture but the hand closest to the pocket where his phone was held Kat’s at the moment and he didn’t want to let go of her. Instead, he turned his head and asked, “How do you know so much about trees?”

“It is, yeah,” she agreed, a smile on her face as she looked up at the tree line, almost expecting the hardwoods to thank her for raising such a point to their credit. “Hmmm,” she hummed thoughtfully, wondering if she’d read any signage on the way in or whether she’d ever been told anything about the woods near the school. She shrugged her shoulders, ultimately, deciding it would remain a mystery, at least for now, “I don’t know but we could probably Google it later,” she suggested. “You know how to tell, right?” she asked, raising an eyebrow, “When the tree gets felled, you can count the rings on the inside- you can learn other stuff too like you can see if it’s been burned before, you can see all the years it struggled with water and sunlight, you can even see if another tree or something else was growing against it, making it harder for it to grow,” people were like that too when they opened up, she supposed. If Damian was a tree, she’d have learned what some of his rings meant that day, she thought but said nothing. “If you ever saw Minnesota, you’d probably get it,” she mused with a light chuckle, “Lots of lakes, lot of trees, um- not really much else, I guess,” she confessed. Maybe it was a weird thing to know about but her parents had always been keen on the outdoors and she was sure she’d spent more time hiking and fishing than she had playing video games or watching TV when she was younger. “-and you know, every holiday we go to the cabin up North to spend time and it didn’t always used to have electricity. We got electricity when the kids were babies so that they could be safe but before it was just playing board games, reading books, walking and cross-country skiing, ice fishing and learning about things like trees,” 

[katherinejbishop]

ohcndrea​:

✦

drea didn’t like that it sounded as though damian just blurted out all his problems, put them all on kat, made them a part of her life, and then refused to listen to her, refused to let her help. it was awfully reminiscent of what she had accused damian of during her last conversation with him. she held onto the thought that she didn’t like the sound of it. it seemed as though kat was already walking down the path of fuck damian, she didn’t need drea to rub hurtful things in her face just because she didn’t like the guy. but she wouldn’t forget it, she wouldn’t forget that she’d called damian out and he’d only continued his shitty behaviour. 

when she no longer felt kat’s arm around her she looked up at her, properly. watching her face. she hated that she’d had to ask the question but she thought it was important kat answer it for herself. it wouldn’t be the same if drea just said what she assumed about their relationship. gently she placed her hand on kat’s leg, an affectionate, comforting move. if she could have safely reached her hair from their current position she would have run her fingers through it gently and started to braid it. but in place, a hand on kat’s leg would hopefully have a similar comfort and if she started moving too much, risking a fall, drea might be able to stabilise her. 

after a moment to think on it all, all the details kat gave and the ones drea was filling in the gaps with in her head, she spoke again “ fuck him, ” she announced, lifting hand but only so she slap kat’s leg with enthusiasm . her voice loud, clear, and passionate. kat ditching damian for good was a cause she could get behind with her whole heart. “ you’re too hot to be a doctor, and you’re way, way, way too hot for him. ” she assured, pushing up from her spot against the well, instead standing directly in front of kat. her navel leaning against kat’s knees, her hands resting just above them on her thighs. “ you had fun, or whatever, with him for a bit– but it’s not healthy. sneaking around, him using you for a therapist, and what do you get for being a super hot, super caring person that deals with it? one drawing? bitch, i’ll draw you something, fuck him. ”

“I just wanted to feel special,” she confessed but a moment later she was already wanting to clarify what she’d meant, “Not that special- not like- like obviously I want him to feel like he would die or go crazy without me but not actually die or go crazy, it’s supposed to just be pretend,” she wasn’t really sure what it was supposed to be but it certainly hadn’t hit the mark either way. She wanted her romantic life to feel like she was the star of the rom-com movies she refused to watch because they made her jealous and fussy. She smiled at the comments that followed and giggled softly, “Yeah, that’s true,” she agreed, she was too hot to be a doctor, not to mention the fact that she could barely string a sensible sentence together and whenever somebody was sick or injured her reaction was more likely to be ‘ope’ than to leap to their rescue.

“Doctor Skrule basically has a monobrow and she thinks I got a UTI from touching myself in the locker room before shower,” she frowned a little though it had been Katherine that had enforced that theory so that the school Doctor didn’t go into a diatribe about being sexually active that Kat didn’t want to stick around and listen to. She sighed as Drea continued, it was fun to joke about the school staff and even to joke around Damian a little but it was less fun to address the fact that her romantic fantasies were not going to come true any time soon unless it was in her dreams. “He paid for my coffee at the Kettle once,” she offered in his defence, “-but I’d rather you draw me something anyway,” she assured Andrea, wrapping her arms around her again, unaware that her best friend was purposefully keeping her steady as the blonde wobbled in place, adjusting her position. 

“I just want somebody to be sexy and in love with me and be not that mean or problematic or like- crazy or anything. Maybe just in good health and hot and not have too much free time. I don’t know why it’s hard,” Drea was in love with her and awesome and so why couldn’t everybody be? It seemed like everyone else was choosing between being hot or being normal and in some cases, like Ezra Bergman and Logan Gunderson, they were picking neither. It was stupid, if you asked Kat.