xp_logs | Fianchetto: Coming Out (backdated)

Doug and his sister fly back to Denver to visit home for the holidays. In the process, Doug asks Katie how things have been to make conversation, and gets rather startled by the revelation of something he completely missed. Backdated to December 20th.

Going through an airport at the best of times tended to be a headache-inducing proposition for Doug. Holiday travel turned that up to eleven. On top of the fact that he was flying coach. With his sister. Back to Denver for Christmas with the rest of their family. It was enough to make him eagerly pay the inflated costs for in-flight alcoholic beverages. "So how was your first semester?" he asked Katie as he quickly knocked back a vodka and cranberry.

Katie's eyes slid to the side to look at her brother. Great. She was going to get college small talk for hours. Shoot me. Shoot me now. In answer she deadpanned, "Oh, you know, I drank a lot, slept with half my dorm and got knocked up. But it's cool because I met this really nice guy that does abortions on the cheap in the basement of the library. Nifty, huh?"

Doug nearly spewed his drink all over the seatback in front of him, and coughed heavily, pounding on his chest. He knew Katie enjoyed teasing him, and yet he still kept setting himself up for these sorts of situations. "Okay, okay," he said, waving a hand in surrender. "Message received. Just saying, without any small talk, it's going to be a long, awkward flight, you know?" And he was honestly curious how things were going with his sister.

"Long and awkward for you, you mean." Katie pulled her iPod out of her pocket and held it up. She wiggled it all of two inches from Doug's nose. "I plan on zoning out to music the minute you start talking about processor speeds and RAM and D&D and whatever else on the nerd bent. This is why God made magazines and books and gave people wet dreams, to help pass the time on eight hour flights between coasts."

"You think I didn't come prepared?" Doug's carryon was neatly packed with reading material, his own iPod, and a netbook for poking around on, since more and more airlines were carrying in-flight wifi. With the amount of traveling he'd done for his job, he'd gotten quite good at it. "I was just honestly curious about how things have been going with you. Besides, you know mom's going to quiz us to see if we've been talking and hanging out like she was poking us to..."

"I was planning on making it up with mom, pretty much. She never does very well at spotting when I am anyway." Katie shrugged. "I don't think you're actually curious, but it was fine. I mean, I finally got way away from home, the city's awesome, there's not as many people who suck in my classes but half my classes are still boring. I think they teach you how to have that droning, monotone voice when you study to be a history professor, too. Seriously, is that really necessary? History's boring enough without making it more boring." Katie actually liked history when it wasn't coming from a class lecture. History museums and non-textbooks about various points in history were interesting. But history classes always blew.

"Yeah, I dunno which is worse, that droning monotone in history-type classes, or incomprehensible accents in math and science classes." Doug's power didn't actually do a lick when the person was attempting to speak English with an extremely thick accent.

Katie shrugged, at once utterly disinterested in the conversation. "I dunno what you're talking about with accents. My math and science teachers always sound normal. Maybe you just get the freakish ones. Just you." She started to dig a book out of her carry on, a silent signal that small talk wasn't something she was really keen to partake in. Of course, Doug could always end up boring her into sleeping on the plane. That would be handy.

"You must have lucked out, then. Quite a few expatriates in tech majors." Doug saw the shift in Katie's body language, but wasn't really in the mood to let her off the hook. She might have hated being around her dorky brother, but he actually didn't mind talking to her, when she wasn't actively trying to be a pest. She was certainly smart, just generally in different directions than he was. She made for an interesting conversational partner. "How's the party scene?"

"Well, how do you think I got knocked up for that basement abortion?" Her sarcasm has a bit less of a bite behind it than when they'd begun the conversation. Doug could be alright, she guessed. He didn't totally suck. Even if he was a nerd. It would probably behoove her to be nice to him at least.

Katie shrugged and looked at her brother. "People are sort of stupid, actually. At the parties, I mean. They can be fun but mostly it's idiots totally smashed trying to grope each other on the couch. I did give a guy a black eye for trying to feel me up. And another might not be able to ever have kids." She grinned. "There are places hands don't go unless they're invited and drunk guys never seem to get that they aren't invited. Actually, sober guys don't always get that either. What is it with your sex? I get that you're ruled by your dick but the basic idea that someone's not interested doesn't seem to get across until you get physically assaulted. Even then sometimes they think it's foreplay."

"Not -all- of us are grab-happy Neanderthals," Doug protested weakly. "Too many are, though," he conceded with a sigh. He was glad to get the impression that Katie was taking care of herself, not that he had much doubt in that regard. She was no shrinking violet, that was certain. "Been on any dates or anything?" he asked.

She shrugged and answered, "A couple. I'm starting to think people my own age aren't quite what I'm after, you know? Too clingy. I'm thinking I should really look at dating older women. I feel like they're more my speed, more confident, less looking for other people to validate them. Or am I pulling a 'grass is always greener' perspective here?"

Doug choked on his drink at Katie's nonchalant remark. Here he was thinking about young men he knew that he could have potentially introduced her to that might help keep her more or less protected, and... "Back up," he wheezed. "Did I miss..." He stopped, and replayed the past few months in his head. The way Katie had acted around Wanda the few times she'd stopped by the office. The people her eyes tended to wander to when they'd had lunch together.

"...oh. I -did- miss something." And suddenly the airplane seemed rather claustrophobic with awkwardness. Not that Doug had any objections to his sister being...a lesbian? Bisexual? But rather, the fact that it had hit him completely out of left field. "Um. Chalk one up to your dorky big brother being unobservant." And observation was something he prided himself on. He supposed that everyone had their blind spots. Even him. As was manifestly obvious.

Katie reached out without a word and patted Doug on the head. "Very unobservant. So would this be a bad time to ask where that super hot redhead is that you broke up with and if you'd be cool with me asking her out on a date?" She almost gave him one of those harmless sorts of smiles, but since there was really nothing harmless about trying to poach your brother's ex she decided against it.

"She's been...traveling," Doug choked out. "And she doesn't go for the ladies." Unless she had been turned into a man, which was just entirely too complicated a story to even begin to tell. Though it would have the benefit of probably embarrassing Katie right back, now that he thought about it...

"Really?" The blonde frowned to herself and replied her experiences with Marie-Ange. "I was definitely getting a vibe from her. My gaydar must need tweaking." Of course, even if Marie-Ange didn't think she was into 'the ladies' that didn't mean she couldn't be coerced into trying it out. On the other hand, did Katie really want to be some straight girl's experiment again? Well....if she was that hot then yes, yes she did.

A mischievous twinkle came into Doug's eye. Oh, turnabout was fair play, and he thought Katie could use some embarrassing too. "Well, there was time that she was into girls..." he said slowly, drawing his sister in for the punch line. "But she was a guy at the time." Off of Katie's confused look, he grinned. "See, there was this team-building exercise..."

"Uh-huh, sure..." The look on her face was clearly dismissive. "Right, you had a team building exercise and her strap-on just somehow came real and attached itself to her body and then the rest of her body followed? Do you think I'm an idiot. I don't do acid so trying to work the hallucinations are real angle isn't going to work here."

"You'd be surprised what mutant powers can do," Doug told his sister. "There's a whole class of what they call 'reality warping' powers. One of the counselors at the camp...well, he decided that we all needed to...experience how the other half lived, as it were." He left Katie to draw her own conclusion.

Her conclusions went the obvious route. If she were a guy what would she do? She'd have sex with straight girls, the sort who weren't prone to experimentation. She wasn't sure she'd actually enjoy having a dick, but it'd be attached and have sensation unlike a strap-on. Her eyes moved sideways and she narrowed them at her brother. "You spent all day masturbating, didn't you?"

She didn't actually seem all that disturbed, that was kind of a disappointment. "The effects lasted about a week," he said. "Couldn't stay locked up the whole time, could I?"

She looked disappointed. "If you were a guy when that happened you wouldn't say that. You'd be all 'hell yeah, I checked myself out and figured out where the clit was all week long.' I'm so disappointed in you. Your libido does this family shame."