Spent on Rainy Days.

[baeddan]

TAG: Dodge... and probably Kynan..?

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Bae closed his computer with a snap, trying his hardest to make sure that he wasn't too loud. Nine o'clock on a school night? The girls were definitely asleep... and Brody was probably drooling on his pillowcase, too (not really... but Baeddan liked to think of him as either a child or a teenage girl with some delusion that she needed beauty sleep)... and Kynan might have been sleeping, or he might have been chatting up one of his many girlfriends on the computer. Similar to what Bae had been doing, but with different intentions entirely. For the most part. But anyway! The sleeping members of the family probably wouldn't appreciate being woken up, which was why Baeddan, for one, had the IM sounds turned off on his computer. As he shut the thing down, though, it made that obnoxiously loud noise, the descending scale in seventy part harmony or whatever it was, and the Hathaway boy winced, the twitching nearly throwing him off his bed. Somehow he managed to keep himself balanced precariously on the edge of the quilted thing, and when his feet touched the ground it was with hardly any noise at all - a definite improvement on what would have been a deafening crash if he hadn't caught himself.

The closet door, of course, creaked when he opened it, if only for the sole reason that he hadn't wanted that to happen. He peered at its contents, at all of the clothes scattered in a haphazard way, and grabbed a sweatshirt, throwing it over the plain white t-shirt he wore. He made sure that it was one he wasn't too fond of, because God knew it would be stolen off his back later in the night. See, there was a way around losing things that he liked to the sticky fingers of his best friend. He had learned the hard way that even if he was wearing his most favorite sweatshirt or jacket or anything, he wouldn't be in possession of it for very long. It was kind of fun, though, to think that Dodge's closet was just as full of his stuff as it was hers. And she looked better in them anyway.

In his excursion to the land of pants, shoes, and shirts, he grabbed a pale and over-washed yellow t-shirt and a pair of basketball shorts (rarely worn by this lazy twin), and then shuffled to the hallway. The linen closet was a bit kinder, only making noise when the latch fell back into place. Along with the clothes, he now had a towel - to be warmed, as were Dodge's instructions. Grumbling slightly to himself - and still slightly melancholy at the mention of the orange sweatshirt he had loved and lost in a long and terrible battle of ownership - he went downstairs, somehow found his way to the laundry room in little to no light, and threw the thing into the dryer. The machine started and the towel began to tumble, and Baeddan jumped up to sit on the teetering and tottering dryer. It tended to rock when it was being used, and that would definitely wake some people up. So his extra weight on it held it in place, and the towel made its merry way from mediocre room-temperature to a comfortable warmth.

Baeddan yawned and glanced at his phone. It proooobably wouldn't be long before Dodge got there - she always tended to underestimate when it came to traveling via bike, but she could pedal faster than she gave herself credit for. And it would most likely be a bit more motivating to bike in the rain, if only because she'd wanted to get to shelter and the warm towel faster. And, oh, maybe Baeddan's company. But probably mostly the towel. "Damnit," Baeddan muttered suddenly to himself. "Now I want some ice cream."

[Nona Constantine]

It was a regular thing that Dodge Jacobs changed her mind and her plans, so it wasn’t very strange to have her changing from flannel pyjamas into ripped jeans and an old band shirt at ten minutes past nine on a school night. Her ancient computer was still shutting down while she changed, but even the reminder that she hadn’t had an upgrade in about 5 years couldn’t get her down. She was going to kill her boredom even if… it killed her… Though the idea of death was something she didn’t want to dwell on, considering what she was about to do.

No one was home apart from the guests that were staying that night. Her parents were late home from some dinner they decided to go to at the last minute, leaving Dodge to fend for herself that evening. She ended up nabbing a cheeseburger from The Sticks around five o’clock, but already her tummy was grumbling. The plan was that her parents would take her home dome food, but considering the plans she had just made, she’d rather go hungry. Over her t-shirt she pulled on a well worn, much loved, burnt orange coloured hooded sweatshirt with a spaghetti sauce stain on the sleeve – not her doing – and blackcurrant splodge on the very edge of the same cuff – most definitely her fault.

For the briefest of moments she considered packing a change of clothes and maybe another of Baeddan’s hoodies into a backpack to take with her on the impending trip, but she knew it’d be pointless. By the time she reached the Hathaway house they’d all be drenched through too. So her bag lay forgotten as she shoved her mobile phone into one pocket of her jeans, grabbed a dark green baseball cap from the post of her bed, left, and pulled her door shut behind her. She barely made a sound as her deceptively long legs carried her down the flights of stairs to the empty kitchen, where she hastily scribbled a note to her parents to tell them where she went.

She locked every door she could before she left the warmth of the inn and darted across the yard to the shed. The rain was pounding the ground all around her and she questioned her own sanity in actually wanting to go out in such dire weather, but she didn’t turn back. She had her bike out of the shed and its lights switched on before she could change her mind. It wasn’t like she expected to meet any cars on the small, windy road to their home at this hour, in this weather, but this way she could see. Always a good thing. The baseball cap she has taken from her bed – one of Kynan’s – was shoved down over her loose hair, which she tucked back behind her ears before braving the balance of her bike.

She was definitely losing her mind.

As predicted, she met no one on the roads apart from a very haggard looking fox that startled her about twenty five minutes after she set out. The poor thing looked as joyful as she felt; the rain had proved it’s diligence and has soaked through every single layer of clothing that she wore. Her t-shirt, even her underwear, stuck cold and slick to her skin and more than once she had to stop to peel the fabric away. Even Kynan’s cap did little to help shield her from the downpour, the salty water seeping through the dense material and trickling down her scalp, begging to be itched. But she was only minutes away and she really, terribly, just wanted to get there.

The driveway was the worst part. Whoever invented gravel stone as a driveway covering should be taken out and shot. The wheels of her bike sank into the sodden grit the moment she tried to cross it. As if her legs weren’t exhausted enough. It didn’t take her long to realise, with a few very colourful curses, that getting off the bike and pushing it the last couple of hundred yards was going to make her life a lot easier. Five minutes later she was propping the trusty transportation against the porch-covered wall of the huge house, pulling drenched strands of hair that had stuck to her face to shove them behind her ears again, tugging the cap down further over her eyes. When she had her breath back, which took the length of time to get her phone out of her pocket, Dodge dialled Baeddan’s mobile phone number and hit call. She let it ring once, then hung up. Unless he was completely dense he’d get the hint. It wasn’t like she had the call credit to waste anyway.

[baeddan]

Two things happened at once. First, the dryer buzzed a loud and obnoxious buzz. If that wasn't enough to make Baeddan shed his skin from surprise, the added ringing of his cell phone did it, and for the second time that evening, the blond-haired klutz of a human being fell toward the ground - only this time he didn't have the presence of mind or coordination to catch himself, and instead of sitting comfortably on top of the dryer he was now instead sprawled on the floor in front of it, cursing like a sailor. No, cursing like a sailor who had just injured his tail bone. In fact, his curses might have made a sailor blush, or made his sea-worn ears wither.

Bae blamed his momentary obsession with sailors on the steady beat of the rain against the house.

The ringing of his cell phone meant that Dodge was there, and also meant that Baeddan had spent a good half an hour sitting on top of the dryer, making friends with the wall opposite him and absolutely zoning out. Whenever the boy had nothing to do he seemed to slip into some sort of catatonic state. He didn't like being idle. Well, physically he didn't mind it once and a while, but only if he had company. Being by himself and conscious resulted in, as mentioned before, near-coma and on some occasions uncontrolled salivation. So he was lucky that Dodge had dragged herself out to him, especially considering the weather. The girl was just stupid brave enough to do it. Bae wasn't entirely sure how he had wheedled himself out of having to bicycle to the inn, but... well, he sure did appreciate it. He was in his pajamas, after all. And they were so damn comfortable.

"All right, all right, I'm coming," Baeddan exclaimed to no one at all, not bothering to keep his voice down because if the combination of the dryer, his phone, his ass hitting the floor, and his swearing didn't wake someone up, then his normal speech wouldn't either. Struggling to his feet, Bae opened the dryer and took out the almost painfully hot towel and threw it over his arm, then grabbed the t-shirt and shorts, then headed toward the front door. Somehow during the trip between the laundry room and the front of the house, Baeddan had resumed the role of 'secret agent man' and opened the heavy door slowly. He pushed against the outside screen door and fought briefly with it before realizing that it, too, was locked (that was an extra precaution that he didn't find practical), unlocked the thing, and then moved out of the way to give Dodge access to the Hathaway home.

It was with a wide grin that Baeddan regarded his best friend, and raised eyebrows. "You look a mess," he observed somewhat bluntly, but the smile on his face definitely indicated that he was either lying or he didn't care in the least. "Charming... but still a mess." There was a laugh in his voice, and he tossed the warm towel toward the short and dark-haired girl. He held the lovely outfit (if lovely was synonymous with unflattering and mismatched) he had gotten for her and was all in all quite impressed with how diligently he had prepared for her arrival. At least she hadn't seen him fall of the dryer.

It was a moment before Baeddan registered the fact that good old Dodger was wearing the sweatshirt that the two had been talking about on the internet, and the one that had briefly entered his mind when he had been rifling through his closet. His blue eyes narrowed, the wheels in his head starting to turn. Maybe that night would be the one where ownership passed once again to his hands. Aaaand then Dodge would probably have it again by morning, but the short amount of time he would have with his beloved sweatshirt would be enough to hold him over until the next time. The next time that would more than likely be in a few months' time.

Baeddan would devise a plan to get the famed orange sweatshirt eventually. But for now he had to get Dodge out of her clothes (innocently!) and into something that wouldn't give her pneumonia. Pneumonia would mean a personal ass-kicking from Master Blaize Jacobs, and that was something that Baeddan had thankfully avoided for four whole years. He didn't want to tarnish that record. Oh, right... And he cared about Dodge's health. Naturally.

"You know where the bathroom is, right?" Baeddan asked unnecessarily; of course she knew where the bathroom is. "Go and change. Then we can get ice cream." He paused, looked at Dodge in a scrutinizing manner, then continued. "Or maybe tea. You're looking kind of blue. That's usually not a good sign, right?" All in good fun. Baeddan handed Dodge the clothes he had gotten her, then turned around to start working at the locks and chains and booby traps of the Hathaway's fortress of a front door.

[kynan]

Somewhere else in the manor, a boy was snoring. Not too loudly. But obnoxiously enough so that, had his brother been in the same room as he usually was, he would be unable to sleep. A flash of lightning illuminated the room through the gap between the curtains, and the resounding crash of thunder following it jolted the snoring Kynan out of his midnight fantasies. Yawning (again in that same obnoxious tone, designed to keep a certain other Hathaway from sleeping) and stretching widely, Kynan took a look around. Eh? Bae had gone and done a disappearing act. Oh well, Ky had more pressing matters on his mind right now. He had, perhaps somewhat unwisely, consumed a fair amount of beverage before jumping on his bed an hour ago, and as a result, was now in a fairly desperate situation, and needed to unload that excess liquid as soon as possible. Simple translation: he needed to piss, and he needed it badly. Kynan made his way to the closest bathroom, and noticed with some surprise that there was a light coming through clearly through the crack at the bottom of the door. Someone was inside.

Huh...? Damn that Bae... he musta gone to the toilet too. Well, it wasn't as if there weren't other bathrooms in the house, one bathroom between two parents and rabid hords of offspring wasn't going to last, but this was the closest bathroom to their room, and Kynan wasn't about to go leaping around to find another free one. Bae should be done soon right? If not, then Kynan could give him some encouragement. He banged on the door loudly. "Oi, you douchebag. Hurry up. I'ma explode if you don't hurry the hell up." Stupid Baeddan, what the hell was up with going to the toilet right before Kynan obviously needed it? And needed it much more than Bae would have, for sure.

Kynan's hand rested on the doorknob, and he jiggled the thing impatiently. To his surprise, it opened. Dude, who the hell didn't lock the door when they went to take a leak? Or a dump? Or whatever it was Baeddan was doing in there? Smirking, Kynan cupped a hand to his mouth and called out. "I'm coming in, ready or not!" And with that, he threw the door open and barged in, to see...

"DODGE?!" He stood rooted to the spot, excretory urges forgotten. "What the hell are you doing here?!" His eyes began to wander from her face. "And what the hell are you... not... wearing...?" Oh yeah, he was supposed to not look right? Bloody hell... he thought grudgingly as he averted his gaze. "Ineedausethetoilet." Another peek? Would she care? Heck, her brother would care a lot, so it was probably better that news of this little escapade reached no one's ears. Not even Bae's. Although he probably heard that scream and even now was running towards the bathroom.

[Nona Constantine]

The front door opened a few minutes after her phone was safely back in her pocket again. The waiting was as unbearable as the bike ride there, and she had folded her arms across her chest in an attempt to save some of the heat from escaping her body entirely. So when the door opened she practically bounded him past her best friend to the shelter of the hallway she had walked a thousand times before. She hadn’t noticed how cold she had been until the warmth of the long room clung to her wet skin, but she was glad for the heat, at last.

”You look a mess.”

She turned as swiftly as she had fled through the door and narrowed her dark eyes on him. She turned just in time to catch the towel that he tossed at her; and action she couldn’t decide whether he did it from kindness or to distract her from growling at him. It didn’t really matter; she’d find some way of bringing it back up later. Distracting though it was, and the heat from the thick cotton towel radiated against her skin as she pulled it up to her face. Bliss.

“Yes, I know where the bathroom is,” she answered, emerging with a roll of her eyes. “Besides, blue looks good on me.” She sent him an overly huge grin before taking the clothes he handed to her and making a dash for the stairs. Ice cream sounded like a bad idea right then, but tea sounded like heaven, and the sooner she dried off and changed into whatever he had just handed her, the sooner she could have something to warm her from the inside out.

She raced up the stairs as quietly as she could, fully aware of the trail of rainwater she was probably leaving behind her as she ran. She knew this house almost as well as she knew her own, and headed straight for the bathroom she knew the boys usually shared. Why that one, she wasn’t sure, but it was the one less likely to contain any sleepwalking sisters of disgruntled parents. Thankfully, she found it, cast in darkness with the door ajar, completely empty. She breathed a slight sigh of relief and tugged on the light cord before closing the door shut behind her. She thought she locked the door. Her hand went to the key and turned it, but in her haste she had forgotten that extra bit of force the lock on this door needed. Even still she didn’t expect to be disturbed. The only person that should be awake at this hour on a school night was Baeddan, and he was down stairs making her tea. He really did treat her better than she sometimes deserved, with the tea and the change of clothes.

She wasted no time in wrestling out of the oversized orange hoodie, the heavy, sodden material proving difficult as she finally got it off over her head and hung it over the rail for the shower curtain to drip without making a mess. It was only then that she afforded a glance in the mirror. She did look as awful as Baeddan teased, and now she was out of the sweater she looked rather ridiculous too. The thick material was a better rain protector than she had though, and had kept most of her upper body dry. Even the seat of her jeans was dry, the line of the bottom of the sweatshirt easily identifiable where her soaking jeans turned relatively dry just past her butt. That was good. It meant she didn’t have to sit in wet underwear for the rest of the night. Around her collar though the rain had gotten in, and unfortunately the white t-shirt she was wearing was now faintly coloured orange around the neck; the only wet part of it. With a curse she pulled that off over her head too and swiftly dried the moisture from her face and neck, and wrung out her hair as much as she could before pulling on the faded yellow t-shirt Bae had given her.

As the fabric slipped down over her nose she breathed deep, instinctively. It smelled like him. It was one of the reasons she was so grudging to give back the sweaters or shirts she borrowed from him; they all smelled like him. And strangely, his scent was one of the few things that truly calmed Dodge from any high, whether nerves, anger or excitement and when he couldn’t be there. That was something no one knew. And no one was going to know either.

This shirt though hadn’t been worn in a long time, she assumed, because it was slightly smaller than the ones she usually ‘borrowed’ from him. More than likely it was one he was growing out of and wouldn’t really miss her getting her sticky fingers on. She shed her jeans in seconds and hung those on the bathroom heater on the far wall; if there was anything she’d need of her own for tomorrow, it was her jeans. As for her own white shirt, she shoved that into the middle of the hanging sweater. Well, she may as well let some excuse of a design stain the rest of it before she decided to throw it out.

It was as she was balancing on the edge of the bath, struggling to get the sweater hanging properly, dressed in nothing but her underwear and Baeddan’s shirt that she heard the thundering bang on the door and the harsh voice that followed. Kynan. She rolled her eyes, refusing to answer him before she could open the door and beat him herself. Unfortunately, that was the best thing she could have done, for no sooner had she gotten the sweater to hang right again the door to the bathroom swung open, and Kynan’s shrill voice yelled her name. She almost toppled off the edge of the bath, but she was too stunned to realise that that would have been a better idea. At least then there would have been a commotion to distract his wandering eyes.

“Kynan!” she whined, jumping down from her perch with a lot less grace than she wished for. Her frown was one of embarrassment and irritation and she spared a moment to glare up at him (now that her bare feet were solidly on the ground). At least from this perspective he didn’t have such a good view of her less than glamorous yellow and white spotted knickers… and probably most of the way up her shirt too, now that she considered it. Fuck.

“Charming,” she whispered, her voice dripping with sarcasm as she grabbed the navy blue shorts and roughly pulled them on. Better in here than in the hallway where the rest of the Hathaway’s could get an eye full too. She pushed past him, not able to look him in the eye as a blush formed under the freckles that dusted the top of her nose and cheeks, and decided that waiting in the hallway to kick his ass was probably her best option.

[baeddan]

Baeddan smirked after Dodge's retreating figure, shaking his head at her antics. Well, she was good for a laugh, to say the very least, especially as she bounded up the stairs in her sopping wet clothes, leaving evidence of the storm outside in her wake. The grin remaining on his face, Baeddan padded his way into the kitchen and started making the necessary preparations for tea. Part of him wanted to shove two mugs of water into the microwave, let it cook, and then drop teabags into it, but that wouldn't be quite as appetizing as a proper cup of tea. So he grudgingly stood on the tips of his toes to get to the highest cabinet in the place to take down the silver kettle. He filled it with water and put it on the stove, sticking out his tongue in extreme concentration as he attempted to turn the stove top on. He probably should have learned to use the thing, but he was just so damn lazy. He would much rather go out for fast food than make his own. Either that or just not eat at all. Yes, he was that terrible a person; he would sooner starve than get into the kitchen and make himself a grilled cheese or something similarly easy. He would definitely whine about it later, too, to whoever would listen. Or whoever was forced to do so.

After a moment of examination, Baeddan was able to turn the stove on, and he pushed the kettle onto the burner. Stretching his limbs a bit, he leaned against the counter top and peered at floor in front of his feet, his gaze unfocused and his body unmoving. He hated how frickin' long it took for the water to be ready - he wanted his tea done instantly, damnit, and that was one advantage to using the microwave. Suddenly he wished he would have pushed the ice cream instead. But it was much too cold and dreary outside for that, and Dodge was probably shaking in her knickers from having to ride her bike there in the rain. Perhaps Baeddan should have, like, offered to go to her house instead. But meh. She was there now, so that was what mattered. It meant he wouldn't be absolutely bored that night.

Baeddan nearly fell asleep in that position in the few minutes that he waited. And just when he thought he'd hear the sharp whistling of the tea kettle, there was another sound just as piercing. Baeddan jerked to full consciousness, almost slipping on the tile floor to bash his head on the counter. Luckily, he caught himself and avoided another embarrassing fall. A second after he had heard what he thought was Dodge's name at the top of his twin brother's lungs, the tea kettle started whistling. "Oh, Dear God-" Baeddan gasped, and closed his eyes momentarily, the number of sounds overwhelming his idle mind. It was a damn wonder the entire house wasn't awake with all the stuff that was going on - first the dryer and then the cell phone and then douchebag (Kynan) and then the tea kettle. If his parents weren't awake it would probably happen eventually, and God would he hear it. Mostly because he had been the one to invite Dodge over, which would probably be a fact that Kynan clung to when Baeddan tried to put the blame on him and his big mouth.

Baeddan rushed to the stove and grabbed for the handle of the kettle, remembering too late that the metal thing would be scalding hot to the touch. He wrapped his fingers around it and yelped, not nearly as loudly as Kynan had been only seconds before, but close to the same amount of decibels. He quickly dropped the thing and turned off the stove instead, then left the kitchen, bounding up the stairs in the sopping wet footprints that Dodge had left behind. He was halfway up the stairs when he heard the faint words, "...not... wearing..?", and when he got to the top of the stairs he headed straight for the bathroom and almost ran immediately into Dodge, who was standing in the hallway looking rather charming in his shorts and shirt. That, he could and would comment on at a later time, if only because the look she had on her face was absolutely venomous. And he would totally admit to being afraid of it. An angry Dodge was not a pleasant Dodge, and Bae tried to steer clear of the Jacobs girl when she had a expression juuuuuust like that one.

Bae opened his mouth to speak, but in that moment remembered the pain in his hand. A low whine left his mouth and he raised his arm and spread his fingers. The skin looked raw and red, although it wasn't nearly as bad a burn as it could have been. It would stop throbbing in a few minutes, probably, although he might draw it out to be much more than that if the mood struck him. With a frown, he returned his arm to his side and once again regarded the fuming Dodge warily. "What's going on...?" Baeddan asked, and his eyes shifted to the bathroom. The door was ajar and his twin brother was standing inside where Dodge's rain-drenched clothes were hanging and dripping.

It wasn't too hard for Baeddan to put two and two together, although he did try to think of a few alternate situations in which his twin brother DIDN'T just see more of his EX-GIRLFRIEND than he had ever seen. But GODDAMN if there was anything else that could have happened. He couldn't think of it. "Aw, Jesus Christ, Kynan," Baeddan hissed, and he walked past Dodge to punch his mirror image in the shoulder. Hard. "You're a real asshole, you know that?" All right, so maybe Baeddan was overreacting. Maybe. Part of him was just being protective of Dodge, who was his best friend in the world. Another part of him hated the fact that Kynan had potentially (probably) seen Dodge in her underwear, whereas he had never had the... err... privilege of doing the same. The second part of that he wouldn't admit aloud, but it was there, in the back of his mind. He was a teenage boy, after all. With maybepossibly some residual feelings for Dodge.

A scowl on his face, Bae turned back to Dodge. “I take it you didn’t turn the lock all the way,” Baeddan said somewhat stiffly, of course knowing the mechanics of the house he lived in better than most. That lock was a pain in the ass, so… Well, it was an easy mistake to make. And so was opening the door and finding an unexpected guest as well, but it felt so much better to punch Kynan than it did to rationalize and make an excuse for him. As if Baeddan could possible pass up an excuse to beat on his twin. As if.

“If a certain someone is done being a voyeur,” Baeddan said, shooting a look of contempt toward Kynan that suggested many, many hours of pain in the near future. “Maybe we can go and drink the tea I so painstakingly prepared.” He remembered the kettle strewn carelessly on the stovetop and sighed to realized that he would probably have to reheat it and wait for it to be finish yet again. The first time had been unbearably boring, and the second time wasn’t going to be any different, especially with the added annoyance of this awkward situation in his mind’s eye.