Re: Cat + Jack: booze and books
There was literally nothing he could teach her about death. She'd grown up with it, and there wasn't anything about death that could be tied off neatly, not in Cat's opinion. Maybe she should've been immune to it, numbed, but she wasn't, and she'd experienced loss in spades. No, she didn't think anything about death was easy or neat, and she could appreciate paper kingdoms all the same.
He brought up interviews, men and women, like he could learn with his pencil and paper, and she didn't argue with him. There wasn't much point in arguing, was there? When someone refused to listen. Oh, the banter was all well and good, but there came a point where Cat wanted dialog instead of battle, and Jack? As much as she liked him, Jack was a bit of a know-it-all, and she spent most of her time arguing his certainty. The simple truth was that people? Were unique, and Cat wouldn't ever see it differently. As for Bruce and passion? That was actually funny. The bad times with Bruce? They weren't ever remedied with sex, oddly enough. She'd tell him that, but she suspected he wouldn't believe her.
"In your experience," she echoed. It was neither agreement nor disagreement, and she poured him a fresh beer. "You don't want to make the destruction less significant? Who's making it less significant?" And, in truth, Cat liked poems over books, and those contained no heroines. But the Brontë was statement and not preference, and she knew he'd read into it something that wasn't intended. He? Always read into everything.
She listened to him describe his new home, and it sounded like he hated the place, which made her chuckle. "You sound as if you love it," she said, her grin saying it was utter sarcasm. "Oh, lots of reasons. There are lots of reasons why people set down roots, but you know that. Don't you?"
The register dinged in complaint, and Cat looked over her shoulder. She tucked the books he'd brought under the counter, in case he cantankerously decided to take them away, and she motioned toward the offensive ding, one that even Johnny couldn't obscure. "Duty calls. You can invite me over to see your lovely little house, you know. I'm fond of the seventies." And with that? She turned her back to him, and set to wrestling with the old register.