unmade_kamig (unmade_kamig) wrote in madisonvalley, @ 2017-01-27 15:56:00 |
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While Clary’s housemates were, for the most part, pretty low-maintenance, sharing the house at all meant that there was always someone buzzing around. Tonight, however, everyone was out, which meant Clary had the place to herself. She was tempted to just take the time to relax and binge on Netflix, but binging on Netflix wasn’t as fun without her best friend to make snarky remarks. And since Simon now had a girlfriend that Clary didn’t know too well, she’d invited them both over. She had some popcorn ready, as well as some orange crush and chocolate-covered almonds. She hoped Kami wasn’t allergic to nuts. Even if she were, she hoped they brought over snacks as well. She didn’t have enough junk food in the house otherwise. *** Kami was spending most of her time as a frantic person these days. Between work and her fashion show, she felt like she was running around without her brain most of the time. When Simon had suggested the evening and getting to know Clary, Kami had balked originally. Mostly because she felt like she wasn’t in a good position to be polite to anyone, much less someone Simon cared about. What she really wanted to do was hide under a rock until it was all over. But a responsible person didn’t do such things. And she couldn’t walk away now - it was too close to being over! And she, of course, wanted to bask in the success of completing the project. So she took a deep breath and plowed on. And when Simon had given her that look, and knowing how much he had been helping her, Kami knew she needed to show up tonight. So that was why she was standing outside the door to Clary’s place feeling like a crazy person. At least she didn’t look like it. Her hair was neat and her skirt and sweater were cute and tailored immaculately. She had managed to find some chips and guacamole, arranged in a very nice dish, to bring to share. Taking a deep breath, Kami knocked and hoped this all went over well. *** Simon had been working on getting both his girls meeting each other. Because Clary was like a sister to him and well, Kami, he was madly in love with. But yes, he expected that balking, which Kami looked adorable when she did that. But he had almost promised her more time with just the pair of them. And well, he was so proud about Kami and her fashion show that he wanted to try to fuel all her dreams. That didn’t mean he noticed that Kami was nervous. “Relax. You’ll enjoy spending time with Clary,” he told his girlfriend as he gave her a reassuring kiss. “And well, we’ll just take the evening as it comes.” At least they weren’t dealing with Jace. Jace was well Jace but that was a different conversation to be had at a later point as he knocked on Clary’s shirt. Wearing a clearly geeky shirt. Clearly, Simon would need a makeover one day. *** Clary opened the door mid-knock, having spotted them coming up the path. “Hey,” she said, giving both of them a smile of greeting. She tried to give Kami an extra-nice smile to set the girl at ease, but she couldn’t quite pull it off. There was too much snark in her to come across as that welcoming and nice. She opened the door wider and gestured them both in. “Come on in. Everything’s set up. Simon already knows the drill, so I’ll let him show you around the place like he lives here.” She grinned at her best friend as she said that: mi casa es su casa and all. *** Maybe some day Kami would be at ease, but this was not the moment for that. She would probably would calm herself down over time. Maybe. The door opened and Kami went into full Kami mode - bouncy and enthusiastic and happy. Simon would know her well enough to know that she wasn’t completely being herself, but a good facsimile of who she could be. Following Simon, Kami set down the dish of chips and guacamole and began to unbutton her coat. Taking if off, she set it aside, smoothing down her sweater and skirt. “It’s nice to meet you Clary,” Kami said, hiding her nerves under a wide grin. “Thank you for having Simon and I over. It’s nice to really get to meet you.” A good portion of her was tempted to cling to Simon, but Kami reminded herself to act like an adult. “I am sorry it hasn’t happened before, but I have been busy with the fashion show.” She paused and then added, “Did you know about that?” *** Simon made sure that he was typical Simon, a big geek who was a bit child at heart. Though, he did take Kami’s coat and made sure to show her around the basics of the place. Kitchen, bathroom, living room, obviously. As he tried to be there for Kami, since how could he not be there for her? Since he knew that the whole scenario was probably awkward for her. “I may be biased, but it’s one of the best fashion lines I’ve seen,” he told Clary, trying to reassure Kami in the process before he started going into his teasing mode. “I would’ve modeled, but she told me no. Since we know that people could not resist my good looks.” He would ask what they were going to watch later. *** Clary had absolutely no interest in fashion, as evidenced by her very simple outfit: an oversized sweater with the yarn pilling on the sleeves, and black tights. But she put on her best interested face for Kami’s benefit. “Yeah, I heard about that.” At Simon’s remark, she nodded sagely. “That was a good call,” she told Kami. “Otherwise you'd get girls throwing their underwear onto stage and fainting. It'll make all the other models feel second rate.” *** Sensing that neither of them were as fascinated as she was by fashion, Kami shook her head at them both. “I sense that it may be hopeless to provide either of you with the education needed to be fashionable,” she commented primly, her face and eyes dancing with amusement. “But I won’t talk about it further. I don’t expect everyone to be as interested in fashion as I am.” And Kami honestly didn’t. She did have people who were interested and that was enough for her. She couldn’t expect to spend the entire evening talking about it. In fact, it would probably be better for her mental health NOT to think about it. “But we should talk about something else. What do you do here Clary?” Kami asked, smiling and a bit more curious now. Looking around, she decided to settle herself on the couch, leaning back into the cushions and reaching out to take Simon’s hand - to give herself something to hold on to and stay centered. *** “It probably would be, but still, I love how passionate you are whenever you talk about it,” Simon admitted to Kami, though he did know how overwhelmed she was with the fashion show. But he sat down on the couch, too, taking Kami’s hand and leaving plenty of couch space for Clary, since he consciously decided to sit in the middle. “I’m dying to hear the plans that you’ve made for this evening.” *** Clary took a seat on the other side of Simon and nudged him with her shoulder. “This isn’t a spectator sport. You’re part of the entertainment.” Leaning forward so she could speak directly to Kami, she explained, “We usually watch bad horror flicks and play video games, but if that’s not what you like, we can do something else.” She was trying really hard to extend friendship to Simon’s girlfriend. *** Neither really appealed to Kami, but when in Rome… “What sort of video games?” Kami inquired. “As long as you don’t expect me to participate as I am certain I rank in the all thumbs category of ability to play such things.” “My inability to play though doesn’t impact my enjoyment of watching,” Kami continued. “So what kind games do you play?” She looked at Simon and then grinned, teasing him. “I don’t quite see Simon as playing all those hideous sport games. So what is it?” She turned slightly so she was facing Simon and Clary more than straight on. She smiled at the pair, seeing how they were friends. *** “Oh, it varies, sometimes we do fun games like Mario Kart, but it really depends on the mood that we’re in,” he told Kami, since he was always for anything and everything fun. “But definitely no stuffy sports games.” With that said, he turned to Clary. “So, which movie are we watching first or is that a surprise?” he asked her, since he had to ask. And besides, the one perk of scary movies was that you could cuddle up with someone during the scary scenes. *** “The Creeping Terror,” Clary said in her best spooky voice. “Coming in at the low, low rating of 13% on Rotten Tomatoes. Don't say I never do anything for you.” She grinned at the pair of them. Bad movies were the best to watch with friends. There was so much to snark on. *** Willing to do whatever, Kami laughed at the description of the movie. “Now that sounds like it could be quite an interesting choice,” Kami said. “What was the reason you guys started this tradition?” That was more of what she was curious about. “How did you meet and become friends?” Kami’s experience with ‘friends’ was probably far different. It had not always been a pleasant experience growing up with someone else in her brain. It certainly meant that people didn’t understand her and she certainly wasn’t always capable of blocking things which meant she had always been a bit odd. She had learned to deal with her own oddness, but she found herself fascinated by how other people managed to gain friendships. *** “I’ll let Clary elaborate on how the whole horror movie tradition had started,” he told Kami, since he was intrigued by the movie. Bad movies were always fun if you asked him. “As for how we met, well, we met when we were six years old. And the rest was history, we pretty much just became the besties. Besides, Clary couldn’t get rid of me even if she wanted to.” And that was the truth. *** “It’s all Simon’s fault,” Clary said promptly. She felt no shame about accusing her best friend for his misdeeds. “He brought a movie to me one day and said it was the best thing ever, and I spent the night cowering under my blankets. So I decided to take my revenge by mocking everything he made me watch, and eventually he saw how much more fun that was.” *** Kami laughed. They were clearly good friends - you could just tell by how they talked about and to each other. It was nice to have a chance to be around that kind of friendship. “Well I need to see this in action. How about we start with the movie? I do not understand how one makes fun of movies that are meant to be scary. Why would that be amusing?” Her puzzlement showed on her face as she looked from Clary to Simon. “Besides, I assume that this also involves popcorn which sounds delicious!” |