In the Closet
Author's Note: Hi, everybody. This is the sequel to A Rescue of Sorts. I forgot how much I enjoy writing until I got back into it this week. I whipped this up last night. This is chapter one; it was originally going to be a one-shot, with a different ending to the chapter, but I decided it would serve as a good springboard for the sequel. I'm not exactly sure where it's going yet. There will be more of Kit and Nita in this one than the last one; it's their turn in the sun, though there will of course still be Dairine and Roshaun. I don't think I've quite got the subtlety in this chapter that I had in the last story, but, judge for yourselves. This is a more obvious pairing and I'm still working on the rest of the plot. Enjoy, and as always, review, because I love knowing what you think (and my mind reading powers are abismal).
Disclaimer: The characters in question belong to Diane Duane. I own only the plot.
Chapter 1: Closets
Nita wondered at just why she had been so glad to have Dairine back. In the month that Dairine had been home she had grown alternately more irritable as well as more relax (she just had to be caught in the right mood), and she continued being a generally annoying sister. However, Nita was still glad to have her back...most of time. During that time she visited Wellakh for two weekends. The first was two weeks ago, and the last was this past weekend. Nita and her dad had both been surprised to find that Dairine brought Roshaun back with her. Dairine had quite sensibly realized that so long as she and Roshaun did not physically have to be on Wellakh sorting out a spell for the drought problem, she could bring him to Earth to work and not miss school. It was now Monday afternoon and Roshaun had been here since last night. Nita could hear them arguing downstairs. She had offered help and they told her that they would manage just fine.
So it was that Nita found herself cleaning her room. It needed cleaning and she had nothing better to do on this Monday afternoon. She was glad to have company though. She looked over at Kit, who was spinning in circles in her chair.
"Why don't you make yourself useful?" she asked, grumpily.
"Why? It's not my mess," was his cheeky response.
She balled up a sweatshirt on the floor and threw it at him. He caught it. "I helped you last time when your mom wasn't going to let you come out to the movies with us if you hadn't had yours clean."
Kit considered. "Fair enough. What can I do?"
Nita looked around. She wanted company, but there's not all that much another person can do when you're trying to sort through things and put them away where they belong. Right now she was sorting out her desk, which was a mass of papers, most of which needed to get thrown out. She glanced around the room. There was no way for Kit to know which clothes on her floor were clean or dirty, but she happened to know that that last time she brought laundry up, she had tossed the lot into the closet. He could hang it up. She was pretty sure most of it was t-shirts and jeans. If the odd bra was in there, he'd just leave it be and not say anything and she'd ignore it until he was gone. "Hang up all the clean clothes at the bottom of my closet."
Kit rolled his eyes and went to the closet to get to work. "The things I do for you."
She grinned at him. "Thank you." She looked at the papers on her desk in disgust. She didn't feel like sorting these. "I'm going to get a sandwich; you want me to bring you anything?"
"Ham sandwich if you've got any ham left. And how come you're taking a break?"
"I've been working, and I'm going to keep working, I just need some fuel. I'll be back in a minute."
Kit grumbled and kept hanging things. He didn't mind, not really. He hated doing laundry—and that included putting it away—but…it was Neets. They'd risked their lives for one another more than once, he'd been there for her through her mother's death, and she was there for him as he tried to get over losing Ponch. He knew there was no comparison between losing your mother and losing a dog, but all the same, the last month and a half or so without Ponch had been tough. Tomorrow afternoon he and Nita were going to go to go the pound to pick out a new dog. He could never replace Ponch, and he knew that, but living without a dog at his feet had been tough and he was willing to take a new one into his life now. So, for Nita, who had been there for him since their first spell together and since meeting Fred, he would put laundry away. Besides which, she was bringing him a sandwich. That in mind, he got to work.
He looked through the pile. Mostly t-shirts and a few pairs of jeans. He wondered briefly if the t-shirts were supposed to get hung in the closet or folded in the dresser. The closet seemed more likely since that's where she had dumped them. He'd worked his way through about half a dozen t-shirts, a bra which he decide to leave where he found it, two pairs of jeans, and a pair of shorts he couldn't remember ever having seen before he had to go hunting through the closet for more hangers. In the midst of his hunt, towards the back of the closet next to an Easter or Christmas looking dress that he couldn't remember Nita ever wearing, he found something which confused him even more. At the back of the closet, hanging to it's skirt hanger by only one clip, was a short denim skirt. He had two thoughts almost at once. The first was Nita never wears anything like this, and the second was Why doesn't she? She'd probably look really good in it. He could have smacked himself.
No, no, and no. Nita was his best friend. She would completely flip out if she knew he was picturing her in this skirt. However, as he pictured is, he realized that it would look very good on her. Then again, he thought she looked good in just about anything she wore. He really shouldn't be thinking like this. A crush—however long he'd had it—was not worth losing his best friend over. Still, the skirt would look good. He signed and put it back in the closet.
"Kit, what are you doing?" asked Nita, coming in with two bottles of water and two plates with sandwiches.
He hastily let go of the skirt, which fell to the floor of the closet. "I was looking for hangers," he said guiltily. Why should he feel guilty? He had been looking for hangers when he found the skirt.
Nita laughed and cocked an eyebrow at him. "What did you have in your hand a second ago? That wasn't a hanger." She really hoped she wasn't blushing. It looked like he had found the mini-skirt she'd bought with her mom shortly before her diagnosis. She'd only worn it once and had been mocked at school for it. The boys who smoked by the fence complimented her legs and her butt, and then made fun of her for her brain. It served them right that Kit had then used some sort of coughing spell against them. She braced herself. Either Kit would deny it and move on, or he would make fun of her for it and say it was something Carmela would wear. Strike that, Carmela would probably where a shorter one. "I might add, you're a horrible liar and you're not getting your sandwich 'til we get this over with."
Kit grumbled. "Only because I'm hungry. I found this." He held up the skirt.
Nita rolled her eyes to hide her embarrassment. He had found exactly what she thought he had found. "Alright, give it your best shot."
He was confused. "How do you mean?"
She put down the plates and glasses on the bed and stood with her hands on her hips. "Is that a skirt or a belt? Oh yeah, Neets, that looks like something you'd wear. Feel free to interject anytime," she added.
Kit looked perplexed and scratched his head. He tossed the skirt down on the heap of clean clothes. "Sometimes you really don't understand me at all. I wasn't going to make fun of you."
She snorted. Yeah right.
"What?"
"Kit, you and I make fun of each other all the time. Am I really supposed to believe you weren't going to make fun of me for this?" She could still remember when they were first finding out about one another and starting to practice wizardry and learning more about one another as they started working with longer forms of their names. Poetry. Books about horses. It seemed like a very, long time ago. Like another life time ago.
"Believe or not, I wasn't going to make fun of you. I was just surprised by it is all. It doesn't look like something you'd usually wear. I've known you for a while now and can't remember you ever wearing it."
"I wore to school…once."
Kit hunted in his mind trying to find a picture of her in that skirt and he honestly couldn't remember. "Really?"
"Yeah. And some guys made fun of me for it and you retaliated." She looked at the floor. "It was a while ago."
Kit looked at Nita from across the room. "For what it's worth, Neets, I wouldn't make jokes about you like that."
"Thanks, Kit." After a brief pause they both settled onto the bed to eat their sandwiches.
"You're so insecure, you know that? You think everybody's out to get you," he commented, finishing off the last of his ham sandwich.
"I do not."
"Yes you do. Honestly, why would I tease you? I'm not Dairine."
"You have teased me before and you'll do it again, just like I'll tease you, El Nino."
Kit punched her lightly in the arm.
"Besides, aren't you going to get back to hanging up the rest of my clothes?"
He rolled his eyes. "I don't know. After you accused me of something so hurtful, I don't know if I can. Or if I want to." He gave a false sniff.
Nita and he both laughed and he returned to hanging up clothes and she went back to sorting out her papers. She threw a great many of them away and left more still in a stacks to be further sorted or put away. By the time he had finished hanging up everything from the closet floor, Nita had given up on the paperwork and started clearing her floor. She took the clearly dirty clothes and tossed them in the hamper, trying to make sure bras and underwear weren't visible—fortunately she didn't tend to leave those on the floor. She found a few more articles of clean clothing and tossed them to him. She threw away paper or put them in the stack of to-be-sorted sheets. She put books back on her bookshelf and tossed her shoes under the bed. When there seemed to be no work for Kit, he lounged back on the bed, eyes closed and hands behind his head.
"So what were Dairine and Roshaun up to? Sucking face?" he asked. Teasing Dairine was always a safe topic.
Nita made a face. That was not an image she needed. "Thank you, Captain Gross. I don't need to picture my baby sister 'sucking face' with some guy."
Kit shrugged. "Carmela parades her boys around the house."
"Well, Dairine and Roshaun weren't kissing or anything. They were working on that spell, and arguing over the best way to go about it now that they feel like they've figured out the cause. He might be here all week." She stuffed a pile of notes from last semester's math class in the already full trashcan.
"Where's he staying anyway? I don't he'd like the basement without his pup tent," Kit asked curiously.
Nita sat in her desk chair, taking a break for a minute. "Dad set him up down in the living room. He's got blankets and sheets and pillows on the couch. Did you see the massive suitcase when you came in?"
"No, I didn't pass through the living room."
"I think he's probably got more stuff stashed in Dairine's room. There are a whole bunch of bizarre looking shampoos and things in the bathroom now. He's only been here one night." She absentmindedly thumbed through her wizard manual, not stopping on any given page. "I think he'll stay until Friday, and Friday Dairine will pack up and go back to Wellakh with him for the weekend—if they've gotten the spell down to something they can at least try out."
Kit gave a yawn. He'd been up studying for a history test the night before. "And what about your dad? How's he feel about Dairine's boyfriend moving for the week?"
Nita made a face at him. "Dairine's boyfriend. It just doesn't sound right. He's alright…mostly. He just made it perfectly clear to Roshaun that his bed is on the couch."
He snorted. "It's not like they're going to do something, Dairine's not stupid enough to rush into anything. And if they were going to, they could do it wherever they liked in the afternoon before your dad got home from work. Stopping them from sleeping in the same bed at night is pointless."
Nita made a face. "This is my baby sister! The runt. Thinking about her even not doing anything is creepy enough. He was in her room for a while last night. I passed by eventually and the door was open. Do you know what they were doing?"
"Do I want to?"
"She was sitting there, next to him, brushing his hair. I can't imagine her doing that for anybody. She was never really one for a lot of human contact. She had her books and her computer and she was happy. Spot made a good partner for her because he wasn't really human."
Kit shrugged again. "People change. It's about time she started working with a partner, I think. Somebody as strong-headed as Roshaun won't let her have her way all the time. It'll be good for her. And who knows? Maybe having a boyfriend will help with her social skills. The Powers know she needs it."
"Yeah. I can't imagine going back to practicing wizardry alone. We've worked together almost since the beginning."
"Yeah." He reached out and poked her in the ribs. "Your social skills need any work?" he asked teasingly.
She laughed, but had a hard time finding it funny, mostly because it didn't quite seem fair. She had liked Kit for a lot longer that Dairine had even known Roshaun. It didn't quite seem fair to her that Roshaun worked up the courage to do something about it before she even really knew how Kit felt about her and before she'd ever really said anything about it to him. She supposed if she didn't have the guts to tell him how she felt, she could blame him for not saying anything him—not that he even necessarily did feel anything for her other than friendship. She sometimes thought she saw signs, but it was really just wishful thinking. "Oh, yeah, we'll get right on that." She laughed again for good measure and looked around. The room was about as clean as she could be bothered with just now.
"So, I've been thinking…"
"About…?"
"We haven't done too much in the way of projects since the Pullulus."
"I figured the Powers were giving us a break."
Kit sat up looking annoyed. "I know. And I needed the break, and I wanted it, but all the same…it's weird, you know? Not having half a dozen problems hanging my head. Do you know what I did last night? I stayed up late not working on some complex spell or reading my manual, but instead, reading three chapters out of my history book. It just…it feels like that part of me has kind of been missing these last weeks—now that the shock of the Pullulus and Ponch and everything has worn off—and I miss it. I don't want to lose it."
She turned to the Oath in the book that was still on her lap. "Wizardry will not live in the unwilling soul."
"My soul's not unwilling, the Powers just haven't handed me anything. We can't force our way onto assignments that They don't see fit to give us."
Nita got an idea. "What if we went over to Tom and Carl to see if they have anything for us to look into?"
Kit brightened. "Yeah! That might do it. Tell them thanks for the vacation but we want to get back to work."
"Work should up next month when we're out of school," she reminded him, reaching for her shoes.
"Yeah. Especially if Dairine's not around."
Nita paused. "Not around?"
"Come on, you can't think she'll stay around here all summer? She'll be off at Wellakh as soon as she can manage since she won't have to worry about missing school, and that'll be one less wizard working here for a while."
Nita thought he had a point. She put her manual away into her other-space pocket. She looked around. It was warm out, so she didn't need a jacket or anything for the walk to Tom and Carl's. They hadn't been over there in a while.
Kit picked up the plates and glasses and they passed through the kitchen to put them in the sink. "Hey, Roshaun, Dairine. How's it going?"
Dairine, annoyed, looked at him. "We're trying to work."
Roshaun's face was unreadable. "I'm trying to work, Dairine, you are simply proposing variations of the same idea over and over again."
"No, I'm proposing the idea that's going to work if you'd only actually listen to it."
"No, we agreed that that was not the main cause of the drought."
"It's a contributing cause and we can use it to get to the main cause."
Nita decided to jump in before the argument got worse. "If Dad comes looking for us before we get back, tell him we're at Tom and Carl's."
"Fine," Dairine said, still glowering at Roshaun.
"So you admit my way is right?"
"No, I was speaking to my sister. You're still wrong. We've gone over this a dozen times in the last half hour. Your way isn't going to work."
"Neither is yours," he replied coolly, tucking a forelock behind his ear.
Nita and Kit ducked out of the kitchen before the argument got any more heated, as it was threatening to do. Kit said, "That didn't seem so bad."
"Oh, they get worse. Dairine loses her temper and screams and Roshaun sits there and gets cooler and cooler, which just infuriates her more. They were going at it last night too." They enjoyed the afternoon sun and the walk to Tom and Carl's house. Nita thought seeing Annie and Monty might help Kit's mood as well. She knew he'd never really replace Ponch. Ponch was one of a kind and you can't really replace a pet anymore than a person, especially a wizard's pet. But maybe, he could find a dog tomorrow that could fill Ponch's shoes at least partly—metaphorically speaking of course.
They knocked on Tom and Carl's door and waited. They could hear muffled voices inside. "Annie! Monty!"
"No! Get back here blast you!"
At last the door was pulled open and Tom and Carl were each holding one dog in place. "Kit, Nita. Come in and shut the door. As you can see, the dogs are as anxious to see you as we are." No sooner had they shut the door than the men let go of the dogs and the dogs jumped all over Nita and Kit, licking them (Kit in particular).
After a moment, Nita followed Tom and Carl into the living room, greeting them warmly. Kit stayed in the entryway with the dogs for a while. A yappy little dog had joined the two sheepdogs and demanded attention as well.
Carl watched Kit and the dogs and spoke to Nita in a low voice, "He's still really missing Ponch, isn't he?"
"Yeah."
"Poor kid." He shook his head. He could remember hearing Nita and Kit explain that he'd never see Peach again. Sure, there was always the chance that he'd encounter the One's Champion again, but to him Peach would always be Peach, and she was gone forever now.
Tom got drinks for the four of them and eventually they all settled into the living room, Annie and Monty stayed by Kit and drooled on his knees, while the third dog kept trying to jump up onto the couch next to him. Nita couldn't decide whether he looked happy or sad about it. The dogs were making him think of Ponch.
"So what did you come to see us about? I doubt it was just to play with the dogs," Tom asked. "Have the two of you been alright since events calmed down after the Pullulus?"
Kit and Nita looked at each other. "Yeah," he said slowly. "That's actually what we wanted to talk to you about."
Nita looked quite evenly at the senior wizards. "We're bored."