KATJA DE LA CRUZ
Dragon
Posts: 53
Status:
It's Complicated
Partner:
Kit Clarke
Played by:
Ange
Last seen Nov 16, 2024 19:00:56 GMT
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Post by KATJA DE LA CRUZ on Oct 31, 2023 20:10:41 GMT
The front door had closed quietly that morning, a muffled click at dawn, like Frank was trying to make sure he didn’t wake up the rest of the house on his way out. It hadn’t woken her, she wouldn’t make out as though it had. They were a whole floor away from it and with Kit’s sister and her family back in Texas, there wasn’t anybody sleeping in the office downstairs to really worry about. She’d just jolted from her dream at the same time, carrying the scent of perfume and sweet liquor with her instead of the scent of her own burning flesh and blood as it had once been.
She’d settled back in, turning under the pressing weight of Kit’s arm to curl in against him. Her head settling against his shoulder, her nose close to the warmth of his chest. Katja inhaled slowly, telling herself it was to try and drift back off – at least until Kit had to get up for whatever they were setting up for the night’s entertainment at the club (not somewhere she apparently wanted to be tonight) – and not to see if those scents were caught on his skin. In the end she drifted off again, but it was with that strange tension still lingering. It was gone when they woke again hours later and it had been her mouth skimming over those ridges of muscle instead of the tip of her nose.
Kit had closed the door louder than Frank had managed – it wasn’t like there was anybody left in the house to worry about disturbing then. She’d taken her time finishing her coffee alone, bare feet propped up on the couch, dark eyes drifting almost restlessly over the room. Later on the house would be busy again anyway. It was Halloween and that meant family – Theo, Freyja (with her plus one on board), Hazel and Bo making their traditional visit. Frank would fill the house up with candy again, putting on his own costume that she doubted she’d understand. He’d said he’d stop on the way home to grab the candy, but she could make a start on the decorations.
Taking her empty coffee cup with her, she’d started towards the kitchen and had stopped dead in her tracks at the sight of the wallet on the hall table. Not Kit’s, she’d felt that when she’d pulled him in for that goodbye kiss. Katja rolled her eyes skyward, hissing out a sigh. ”Qanra. Mana martillowan takasqa kaspaqa umaykita chinkachiwaq.” Could she go and get the candy? Yes. Could Frank do without his wallet for the rest of the day? Maybe not.
An hour later she was getting out of her car in front of the familiar building. Frank’s car was in the lot, that meant he was around somewhere. His schedule was some ghost thing in the back of her mind, a few of the things on it bumbling around in her memory, but she couldn’t have said if he was teaching this morning or just pooching around in his office. Katja supposed she could’ve asked any of the handful of students who were drifting past her as she walked into the building, but she headed down the hall to his office instead. If she’d bet wrong and he wasn’t there, his wallet could be shoved under the door at least. Or not.
The door to his office was shut, as it had been the last time she’d visited, although she’d suspected that was more to keep her out of sight of his coworkers than anything, not so much as a paper thin crack of light running along the bottom of it. Nowhere to tuck the wallet, no give to the door as she’d knocked and twisted the handle. Maybe he’d be back soon, but she didn’t want to spend half the day sat out here waiting to see if he showed up.
Most doors on the hallway were closed, but a few stood open as though waiting for students to arrive to complain about their homework, or whatever it was they did. It wasn’t like she’d know, she hadn’t stuck with education when she’d finished secondary school. Katja approached the closest, glancing through the gap to catch sight of the dark haired woman at a desk before she tapped her knuckles lightly on the door. ”Hi. Excuse me, you don’t know where Frank … Professor Damasca would be? His office is closed up and I’ve got something of his…” As though the woman wouldn’t have put the pieces together, Katja held up the worn leather wallet – definitely not something most women would’ve carried, although something not entirely different was stuffed in a back pocket of her jeans.
Tagged: ROXANNE BRASCHI * Word Count: 788 Translate: Idiot. You'd lose your head if it wasn't hammered on |
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ROXANNE BRASCHI
Chimera
psychic-skinwalker
Posts: 188
Age:
30
Occupation:
Professor at Whitmore College
Status:
In a Relationship
Partner:
Chase Buckley
Played by:
Julia
Last seen Nov 11, 2024 20:39:32 GMT
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Post by ROXANNE BRASCHI on Dec 4, 2023 16:38:17 GMT
 ━ i don't know where i'm going, but i sure know where i've been ━
Once the text was answered, Roxxi put her phone back down and began working again. She smiled as she came across Hazel’s paper━yes, okay, she wasn’t supposed to have favourites, but after Frank asked her to “keep an eye out” for his niece, and Roxxi remained determined to let the girl fly on her own, she actually began to really like her new student. She was smart, worked hard, and didn’t have the personality of a doorknob.
Roxxi heard the shift of feet coming down the hallway before the tap came at her door, and she lifted her head, smiling politely at who she assumed would be a student. Her brows went up, though, when she recognized the woman as Frank’s one-time-trying-girls. “Ah, Professor Damasca Number One.” She smirked, then scoffed lightly, “Or ‘Number Two,’ depending on who you ask.” Roxxi crossed one leg over the other, grinning at the woman as if she were a zoo animal. “He might be out kissing other women in parking lots and then claiming to still be gay.” She said simply, “That is who you are, correct? And I’m not mistaken? Kat… something foreign. Who’s dating his roommate and good friend.” Roxxi stared with one brow quirked as if expecting an explanation━like Katja was her student.
KATJA DE LA CRUZ | no notes. |
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KATJA DE LA CRUZ
Dragon
Posts: 53
Status:
It's Complicated
Partner:
Kit Clarke
Played by:
Ange
Last seen Nov 16, 2024 19:00:56 GMT
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Post by KATJA DE LA CRUZ on Dec 24, 2023 17:57:29 GMT
Frank needed a partner. Not only someone to fill the empty side of his bed (although after what had happened between the three of them in the deep dark past was proof that he needed that too), but someone to fill those gaps in his life. Someone to chase after him at the door with a forgotten wallet, or one last kiss before he went to work, the same way she’d curled her fingers into the front of Kit’s shirt to pull him in for one. The puzzle piece that fit against him – not perfectly, she’d seen too much of the imperfect with her own parents to trust the cheesy film version of love – broken edges fitting close with another’s.
Over the last couple of years she’d felt her own broken edges softening. Finding a family that didn’t splinter her further with inescapable expectations, a man jagged on the surface with his own damage. Someone to spend a life with, marriage offering a future her parents had never had (she could blame the hunters for taking any chance of it, but Copacati had already been destroying those odds one isolated day at a time). Katja glanced down at her hand as she let go of the handle of Frank’s office door.
There was always going to be room in their lives for Frank, he was one of the reasons they were still here rather than across the country with Kit’s sister and niece after all, but there were still those hollows that were all too quick to fill with loneliness and longing. She had felt them before, hadn’t she? The echoes of them felt as though they were nibbling at the edges of her mind today, perhaps because Kit would be gone for likely half the night, dealing with whatever Hector had planned for the night. At least Frank would be there, Theo, Freyja and the kids for a part of it too, stopping her mind from wandering in the direction of ‘what if this was all a dream’. She wasn’t about to wake up tomorrow morning to find herself alone and in a pit once again, wracked with an agony it felt as though there was no escape from.
Stopping at the closest office door, Katja studied the dark haired woman in the office for a moment before she spoke. She looked as though she’d have no problem finding something to do tonight. Pretty in a way that might have mirrored her own looks if she was capable of seeing herself the same way. Silky, dark hair, eyes darker than her own, a full mouth that would undoubtedly catch the eye of every man – except perhaps Frank. Katja’s lips curled faintly, one dark brow rising at the woman. So she knew Theo too, that shouldn’t have come as a surprise even in a school the size of this one.
”Arí, ah, yes, the second one,” she started, not realising the meaning of the look the woman was aiming her way until she was swiping with claws. A big cat hidden in a deceptively sweet exterior, slinky, stunning to look at, but oh so dangerous if you weren’t watching where you were going and she hadn’t been.
Katja lifted her chin an inch, her lips pursing faintly. There was nothing to be ashamed of over what had happened. She hadn’t turned Frank straight with what had happened between them that night, no more than it had turned Kit gay. One corner of her mouth lifted wryly. ”Katja,” she corrected. Obviously what had happened between them wasn’t a skeleton in Frank’s shallow cupboard, it was public knowledge. ”Who’s engaged to his roommate and good friend.” Not that the ring was on her finger yet.
Tapping the wallet against her hand as though it could draw the attention away from what had happened between the three of them and back towards Frank’s forgetfulness. ”There’s no other woman, unless…” Her dark brows hitched again, pale eyes sliding over the woman as though she could see through all that confidence to what was hidden beneath. ”I guess you would know that he is a monk though, hmm? You’re the history professor … something foreign … Roxanne, like the song?” Or close to that. She’d had two years of Frank’s dinner table conversation, all of them gathered around the table on Sundays. Stories of that week, five years, or even decades before fired back and forth, revealing pieces of their lives that she hadn’t been there to see. Tales of their childhoods, of teenaged Kit (had he told them?), of Frank wearing his military school education like a badge.
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ROXANNE BRASCHI
Chimera
psychic-skinwalker
Posts: 188
Age:
30
Occupation:
Professor at Whitmore College
Status:
In a Relationship
Partner:
Chase Buckley
Played by:
Julia
Last seen Nov 11, 2024 20:39:32 GMT
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Post by ROXANNE BRASCHI on Jan 19, 2024 22:46:44 GMT
━ i don't know where i'm going, but i sure know where i've been ━
But neither her nor Chase would be “sharing” with someone else anytime soon.
“There are no other women.” Roxxi said firmly, answering Katja’s unanswered wondering. She scoffed as the woman tried to guess her name, lifting a brow and smirking, not at all phased by whatever it was Katja was trying to say without saying it. “Actually, Roxanne is the Americanized version of my name.” The ‘but nice try,’ was silently tacked on the end. And, unfortunately, The Police were British, so she couldn’t use that as another gripe back.
She would’ve told Katja to call her ‘Roxxi,’ but this wasn’t that kind of conversation. “I’m not sure how soon he’ll be back, but I can keep his wallet safe until he returns. He has class later.” Which guaranteed he was likely to return. Roxxi smiled tersely, dark eyes surveying Katja just as the woman did to her. It didn’t have to be tense, did it? There was no reason they couldn’t be friends, but it was the same as almost every other interaction Roxxi’d had with a woman━she spoke her mind, and they got upset even if she’d meant nothing by it.
KATJA DE LA CRUZ | no notes. |
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KATJA DE LA CRUZ
Dragon
Posts: 53
Status:
It's Complicated
Partner:
Kit Clarke
Played by:
Ange
Last seen Nov 16, 2024 19:00:56 GMT
|
Post by KATJA DE LA CRUZ on Feb 11, 2024 18:33:09 GMT
”Thank you,” Katja murmured, returning the woman’s smile with one of her own even though the words had almost stuck in her throat. Saying them aloud was still so new, most still unaware of Kit’s proposal. The ring would’ve done away with having to say them aloud, but that would come with time. There was no rush to a court house, no reason to hurry towards what they knew was going to be their future together. One day there would be a walk up an aisle in a church she probably had no part in except for at his side, because it did mean something to the man that she loved. A dress, for her and likely for Hazel and Kit’s niece too. Family gathered around, vows spoken aloud. Frank likely standing there beside Kit through it all. What did they call them? The best men? If there were two people who were that to each other in life it was Frank and Kit, standing by one another through it all. She had slipped into that, finding her place in it again when her second chance had appeared unexpectedly in front of her,
She reached out to touch the door lightly, the thought of it all leaving her a little light headed. The fear had been there from the moment he’d posed the question that she wasn’t built for such a thing, but she wasn’t Copacati. There was no way she would fuck this up. She had proved that time and time again, settling into a life here with Kit that she’d come to realise she had desperately wanted for longer than she’d actually been able to verbalise the thought. Trapped in a cage underground, all that had kept her going were those thoughts of what she would do if she were ever to be free. Regrets shoved aside, no new ones allowed to slip into her life to tarnish what would come. That had been the plan, but there were still those knots tightening in her gut as what she imagined the woman thought was her sordid past with both men was dropped into conversation.
Katja dipped her head, her lips curving further. She had not asked, not imagined that Frank’s one experience with a woman had started to turn him straight in any way. If he had, he probably couldn’t have done much better than the brunette he worked with. Roxanne – or whatever the woman went by – was obviously smart, and sharp tongued enough to keep Frank in line. ”My mistake on both parts,” she admitted. ”What can I call you then?” She had gotten close with what she had remembered, but obviously not close enough. Frank would probably try and pry the details of the handover out of her when he got home later and she didn’t want to be the sort of woman to describe another with the sort of details that could piss off all included.
Had she pissed the woman off enough that the conversation was being cut short now? An offer to handle the matter, with a good bye silently tacked on at the end. Katja nodded, her lips curving again as she stepped forward with the wallet in her hand. ”I’d hoped he would. I suppose he could’ve done without it, but I wasn’t sure.” She’d have tacked on that she wasn’t that involved in the running of his life, but it felt like some sort of protestation to make it clear that she wasn’t the woman in Frank’s life. ”He’s told you about me?” she asked after a moment, not sure how this woman to woman talk thing went. It had never been that way with Freyja and it wasn’t as though the Order had been filled with girls of her own age. A lifetime of being surrounded by men left her feeling unprepared for this.
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ROXANNE BRASCHI
Chimera
psychic-skinwalker
Posts: 188
Age:
30
Occupation:
Professor at Whitmore College
Status:
In a Relationship
Partner:
Chase Buckley
Played by:
Julia
Last seen Nov 11, 2024 20:39:32 GMT
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Post by ROXANNE BRASCHI on Mar 24, 2024 18:52:26 GMT
━ i don't know where i'm going, but i sure know where i've been ━
“Maybe.” She shrugged, “Unless he wants a vending machine snack later.” But Roxxi usually had enough of a snack stockade that she could keep him away from those things. Roxxi stretched forward to take the wallet from her, then dropped it on her desk and relaxed back again.
“Yep,” Roxxi nodded curtly, but she grinned a little at Katja’s curiosity. “When I saw you two kissing in the parking lot, I forced him to explain━he nearly went home with me once and, at the last second, said he was gay.” She wasn’t embarrassed about telling Katja this, clearly she lived with Frank, she’d likely seen all the stupid shit he’d done. “Anyway, he told me about the… arrangement. I told him it was dangerous territory. Clearly, I was right, considering your engagement.” Roxxi said casually, then added, not unkindly, “Sorry if that ruined any fun you were having.” She was just an influence, though, not the boss of him.
Just then, her phone began to ding, and she lifted it, finding Chase’s contact on the screen. “Ah, there’s the one who isn’t my fiance yet.” She tsk’d, shooting Katja a little grin. “I have to take this. I’ll make sure Frank gets his wallet.” Roxxi patted it for emphasis, then gave Katja a little wave as she answered, crooning, “Hellooo, cucciolo.” Then, “I was just talking about you. You know, how you haven’t popped the question yet.” She grinned mischievously as her tone turned from sing-songy to chiding.
KATJA DE LA CRUZ | zee end! |
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hope to see you in the discord! 
