alwaysroomforhope | (no subject)

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Steph is, in fact, sleeping. She spends a lot of time sleeping, because it's significantly easier than spending time thinking seriously about her life as it stands.

Today, the couch is the lucky host to Steph's sleeping. The TV is still on and the edge of the cushion has made a square red pattern in her cheek. She doesn't even hear the door open.

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Mel opens the door wide tolet in Katara, then pauses in the doorway, head tilted.

"Told you she was asleep."

"That's okay," Katara replies with all the confidence of a little sister who knows how to wake someone up quickly. She walks straight to the couch, circling it to get just in front of Steph and considers quietly for a moment.

Then a pillow smacks the blonde straight in the face.

"STEPH, WAKE UP."

Steph is awake!

Well, she is now, anyway. She puts her hands up protectively just too late, and then lets them fall onto the pillow, clutching it to her face.

"...'f you're not Zuko go 'way," she complains.

Mel uses her foot to slam the door shut behind her.

"Hit her again for that."

Katara does.

Five more times, right in the face.

"Steph, you wake up right now! You are in so much trouble!"

Steph peeks over the pillow, startled and then pleased to see Katara -- and then startled again at her voice.

"...I didn't do it," she says, in the tone of voice that says I almost certainly did, actually.

Mel strides acorss the room and sits on the couch by way of hopping over the back and hoping Steph's awake enough to move her legs out the way.

"We brought milk-based food and alcohol."

"For when you admit that you did it and we have to beat you up anyway," Katara adds, dropping the pillow on the floor so she can sit cross-legged on it. "You do realize you said 'go away if you're not Zuko,' right?"

"I ... um," Steph says, wide-eyed, looking from one to the other of them with her knees tucked up to her chest, struggling to sit up.

"...would you believe I meant to say Katara and Mel with icecream and kind of scary determined expressions, if I bribed you maybe?"

"No," Mel says cheerfully. "But I'd pretend to at least. After we're done telling you what rutting awful taste in men you have... hey, look, a fish."

She's too busy rooting through the hamper right now to me properly serious older sister.

"I wouldn't pretend at all," Katara informs her friend, mock-happily.

And hits Steph in the face with a pillow again.

Steph groans, sitting up properly. "...'taaaara," she whines, kicking out at her guiltily. "You have to tell me why you're mad before I can try to make it up to you."

Mel sits back against in the couch now, hamper to one side, hugging her knees.

This is all for the Waterbender.

The Waterbender takes her cue by kneeling on the pillow, arms crossed over her chest with the perfect mixture of concern, anger, and hurt on her face.

"You're with Zuko again, and after he hurt you so bad last time, and I had to hear it from him, you didn't even tell me about it, and we're supposed to be best friends but I haven't seen you in weeks and how long have you been with him again anyway?"

Steph opens her mouth, and then closes it again, guiltily.

She hangs her head and admits, unhappily, "...weeks. I meant to tell you, I did, I just ... knew you'd yell."

"If you know it's gonna get you in trouble, there's a reason," Mel tells the ceiling.

She's a complete and utter hypocrite, but she doesn't care.

"I'm yelling 'cause he's a jerk who makes you unhappy!" Katara yells, hands thrown up in exasperation. "Steph, he's no good for you, he's no good for anybody right now! He just doesn't get it! Do you know how many times I've tried to be nice to him, just to help him out? He fight me every step of the way for it, too! He's too selfish! Sleeping with him can't be that good!"

Steph does not, in fact, have an answer for that, except to fidget and look guiltily at her knees.

"...he needs me," she mumbles. "I'm good for him."

She's sticking to that belief.

"Yeah, like a paint job is good for crumbling warrens," Mel says dryly. "Or antispectic patches are good for a broken back."

Ready to snap back, Katara calms when Mel speaks, glancing over at the other woman before looking sadly back at Steph. "...he'll throw you away again," she says quietly, her voice breaking softly in the middle. "He will, Steph, because you make him feel good and so long as you do that, he doesn't care how you feel."

In any other case, she'd reach out and take her friend's hand or her shoulder or-- anything else, but it's a very sticky situation at the moment.

Because of the 'stickiness' of a few weeks ago, to be exact.

"He should be making you happy, Steph, and he just doesn't, he doesn't deserve you."

Steph draws her knees up to her chest and wraps her arms around them, not looking at Katara or Mel.

... they weren't supposed to notice. It's easy to keep telling yourself you're happy with the situation when your friends believe you are too.

"I know," she tells her knees. "...don't think he really wants me. He doesn't say — or anything."

The problem is that she still wants him.

"He just wants someone," Mel tells the ceiling.

"You really wanna be with someone who doesn't want you?"

Katara nods slowly, listening to Mel though her eyes stay on Steph.

"You deserve somebody who can make you happy, too."

"'m happy sometimes," Steph protests, still not quite able to look up at Katara. "Besides ... I don't wanna hurt him."

He needs someone to love him and Steph does, even if it makes her unhappy. He needs someone. She can't break up with him.

"You think pretending what you've got is real isn't gonna hurt him?"