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[And since they live in the same place, they're not very far away while they're playing this game. In fact, Richie's been playing this in the bathroom after a shower, sending words back and forth between drying off and shaving.

So he comes out, dressed in just baggy sweatpants and a towel laid across his shoulders to catch the water dripping from his still wet and messy hair.]

You believe in those?

[He sounds genuinely curious.]

[Kate is partway through responding to his text when he enters the room, the smile that's etched across her lips faltering as she lays eyes on him.

Not, faltering in a bad way mind. She's just... a little distracted.

Focus, Kate.]

In soulmates? [She's never really given it deep thought but she knows the answer even as she ponders his question.] Well, yeah.

[Because of course Kate believes in soulmates.]

Don't you?

Edited (I can html) 2017-01-24 04:02 (UTC)

[He lifts his eyebrows at her.]

You're talking to a guy whose first girlfriend was a fucking ancient, miserable Aztec demigoddess. [A beat.] If you can even call her that.

[He means the girlfriend part. She was something like that, anyway. Whatever.

He seems to think it over for a second, at least. Eventually, he shrugs.]

I don't know, I guess I never had any reason to think about it. I think the idea is interesting, since I find souls in general interesting, but I don't know if I can buy into that whole mystical there-is-only-one-person-in-the-universe-that-completes you crap.

[Kate has to work to keep the surprise from her features, less so because of the whole 'if you can even call her that' and more because of the 'first girlfriend' part. He'd said that he hadn't done this a lot but she hadn't realized he'd meant. Not at all.

She focuses on him ~~and not his body which is really hard okay~~ as he speaks, head cocked to one side and she's shaking her head before he can even finish his train of thought.]

No, I don't mean it like that, I just think... People choose to be together for a lot of reasons. [ Love, comfort, money, convenience. ] But I think two souls can, call to each other? When that happens I don't think it's a choice, it's because... when you're with that person, everything make sense.

[He reaches up to grab one end of the towel around his neck, starting to shake it in his hair to collect excess moisture.

He's listening though and as she keeps talking, his hand slows...then stops...then lowers to his side. It becomes very clear that whatever she's saying resonates with him somewhere deep down, and his brows furrow together where he stands at the end of the couch, watching her.]

Yeah. [His voice sounds almost hoarse in the back of his throat as he thinks back through his memories.] I don't doubt that's real at all.

[He clears his throat, gesturing with his hand.]

It's like energy. When two objects are moving at the same frequency, they can pass energy between each other if they're connected. Say you have two pendulums tied to the same anchor. If you start one, the other one starts swinging too.

[ She's so caught up in her explanation that she doesn't see how it affects him, Kate lifting her gaze at the roughness of his voice, a question in her eyes that she decides against speaking out loud.

Sometimes, though, she really wished that she could see into his soul the way that he could see into hers.]

Synchronicity. [A small smile touching her lips as she gets drawn into the way he speaks, the poetry of his words causing a look of near awe that shines in her eyes.]

Yeah, I think it's exactly like that. [Kate visibly swallowing down the emotion that rises up with the shift of the conversation.]

[He gaze seems almost distant, the way it tends to do when he's lost in thought or thinking through something he finds extremely important. She'd almost be able t literally see the cogs turning in his head as he rolls over this entire, but short, conversation in his head.

It's the exact thing he thought back when he first saw Santanico on that stage, when she spoke to him about his soul, how he was fated to be with her. She'd had an ulterior motive, of course, and as they're talking about all this, he seems to see with greater clarity.

Maybe all those moments where things had made sense that day hadn't just been her trying to make him feel those things. Maybe it had been Kate the whole time.

The thoughts crash over him in a wave, but then he seems to snap out of it just as quickly, eyes flicking to hers to catch the tail end of her expression, his brain belatedly processing the words she's spoken.

He's unsure about the face she's making, the emotions written across her face, the way she swallows.]

Are you okay? [A beat.] Thirsty?

What? [It's said in the way all her lies are, unconvincing to the point of stupid; Kate clearly aware of why he'd be asking such a thing but not yet willing to explain her reaction.]

Oh, no I'm fine. [The fine that really meant she was as opposed to the dangerous emotion that people so often concealed behind that word.]

I was just... thinkin'. [It was the truth, even if she didn't elaborate and Kate hopes to save herself from having to by distracting him.]

Where'd you go just now? [Head cocked to one side as she turns her body to face him fully, her legs shifting as if to make room for him to join her.]

[He watches her for a moment, eyes flicking back and forth across her face, as he tries to decide whether he needs to press or not.

Isn't that what he was doing, too? 'Thinking'?

For once, he lets it go, stepping over to fall into the seat she's made for him. He stares upward for a moment before he looks over at her.]

The Dew Drop Inn.

[But for a flicker of surprise and a slight tension in her shoulders, Kate manages to mask any strong reaction she might have felt to hearing his words, her expression slightly guarded as he joins her on the couch.

The Dew Drop Inn, didn't have the greatest of memories for her, between her arrival, her mother's accident report and being held at gunpoint and then shot at? About the only good memory had come from talking to Richie poolside.]

Okay... [Uncertainty causing her eyebrows to raise slightly.] Why?

[Now he's the one swallowing hard past a knot in his throat. Talking about things like this don't exactly come easy to him, and he's never sure how what he says will be perceived.

That's never really stopped him, though.]

It's where we met. [He looks askance, thoughts briefly racing against before his gaze returns to her.] You said I sounded so sure that day. But I'm not sure I was, until the pool.

[He pauses again, a thought working through his brain.]

You were the only person I didn't want to hurt.

[The only person he was around for more than a minute that he didn't at some point want to murder, besides Seth (who he'd still inflicted plenty of threats and violence on).]

[Most people in Kate's position would not be able to find anything good in what he'd said. They would struggle to celebrate a meeting that preceded their own kidnapping. Wouldn't be able to look past the fact that his not wanting to hurt her, had not extended to her family.

Most people, were not Kate. It was why this, whatever it was, seemed to work.

Without conscious thought to do so, her hand closed the distance between them, her fingers brushing his as she lays her hand on top of his, the tension that had threatened to take hold easing as she understood where he was going with this.]

You, didn't want to hurt anyone. [That destinction mattering to her, to him as well she imagined.]

[His eyes drop down to her hand as it covers his.]

You don't have to make excuses for me.

[He knows what he did and what he's done. He knows full well that he would have shot at those officers no matter what state his mind was in. He's killed before and no doubt will do it again many times over.

But innocent bystanders? Hostages? No, he wouldn't have wanted that.]

[Just as quickly as she'd reached for him, Kate's withdrawing her hand again, an emotion that's difficult to read, running over her features.]

I - [Was it what she was doing? Maybe. Maybe it was just easier to put all of the blame on Santanico and Carlos. Maybe it was easier not to blame him for choices that had so closely mirrored her own since Mexico. Was she making excused for him, or for herself?]

I didn't think I was.

I didn't want to hurt that bank teller. And I wouldn't have wanted to hurt your family. That much is true.

[But that doesn't excuse everything. He still did it, it was still his hands that cut out that woman's eyes, that followed the voice in his head, that made him feel constantly threatened.]

I wanted to protect you.

[A very big distinction.

Still, he shakes his head.]

You wanted to know where my head was at. Now you know.

I know.

[There's no hesitation, despite how difficult this subject was. She'd known that the moment they left the inn; when Freddie had been chasing the brothers. Both Seth and Richie had protected her and not just because she was their key to getting across the border to Mexico. If that was all it was, then they wouldn't have shielded her with their bodies. Seth wouldn't have punched the man at The Twister. Richie wouldn't have told Seth not to yell at her.]

Do you think I'd be here if I didn't know the kind of person you really are? [The good and the bad.

She wasn't with him here because he was the only person she knew. She wasn't on this couch with him because she had some kind of delusional idea of who and what he was and she was not some scared little girl with Stockholm syndrome, though she doubted anyone would really believe that if they knew.]

I don't think you're a Saint, Richie. [No more than she was.] But I know you're not evil, either.

Look, I'm not saying that I even think I am. I'm not.

[He has no disillusions that he is neither evil nor good. He is himself and he was brought up this way. He enjoys it. He's good at it.

He's just going about this wrong because he's suddenly uncomfortable with this topic because it's most definitely out of his realm of expertise. Emotions, how do they work.]

But we were talking about energy and all I know is that I was a hell of a lot more confused before we met. [And that's...fucking saying something.] That's all.

[It takes a few moments of confusion wrinkling her features before the lines smooth out, Kate able to lay all of the pieces of their conversation out into something that made some kind of linear sense.

Soulmates.

She straightens a little, emotion rippling across her features before she's reaching for his hand again, this time threading her fingers through with his as if to show him she wouldn't let go this time.

The fact that it took them this long to reach a point of shared comprehension, has Kate knowing that now is not the time to probe him further on that. She knows. He, clearly knows where his brain has gone and that for now is all that really matters.]

It's nice when things make sense.

[She seems to finally catch on to his meaning, the reasons behind his thoughts and what led him there, and as she takes his hand in hers, threading her warmth through his fingers, he swallows thickly. It's not discomfort he feels, but this strange vulnerability that he's only really felt one other time.

And it went horribly for him.

But Kate is not anything like her, and she wouldn't do that to him. He just hopes he's not misreading his own emotions. He'd been so wrong the first time around.

There was also the fact that he was still keeping this terrible thing from her, and he didn't know how long it would last. He didn't know how to tell her, either. He was damned either way.]

It was a long time coming.

[Kate's thumb runs along the expanse of skin between his thumb and forefinger, trying to read his expression the way he has in the past, so easily read her own. Kate does tend to wear her emotions on her features, however, while Richie?

She's learned that there's several versions of the man sitting across from her. The one he wants people to see and the one behind the glossy veneer. There was also the one driven half crazy by a desperate snake demi-goddess but that Richie, she was happy to say, she hadn't seen a trace of since Mexico.

Rather than speak, Kate lifts his hand to her face, her lips brushing over his knuckle before giving it a little squeeze, some small show of comfort and reassurance, an attempt to put the worst of that memory behind them and focus on the present.

And then, just to lighten the mood;]

You're wearing sweatpants.

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