Roman Sky [Kinsey]

[cara june bainbridge]

@kinsey

So far, the family vacation they were on was a bust. At least in Cara’s eyes. She was sick, and had spent the entire drive to the beach knocked out cold with medicine. There was a magical antidote stuffed away in her bag for curing the sniffles, but she was pretty sure this thing would be gone by the next morning. The problem now though was that it was two in the morning and she was wide awake because she had slept all afternoon trying to kill the annoying cold off. In order to keep her siblings from being royally pissed off at her for coughing all night while she was awake and they weren’t, Cara grabbed a blanket and sat herself out on the deck that overlooked the ocean. She had only seen glimpses of it when they arrived, having quickly thrown herself into her bed as everyone else unpacked. That was probably for the best. They would have been angry at her if she spent all afternoon barking orders to do this and that. In her mind, it was better to be useless and off to the side while everyone did their own thing, than to have an army of sisters and one brother on her case for the entirety of the vacation. They couldn’t be upset at her if she was sick and trying to get better though. It seemed that her Ravenclaw ingenuity had yet to leave her despite being completely done with Hogwarts.

Cara pulled the blanket around her tighter as a light breeze started to pick up. Sitting outside when she was feeling ill was probably the dumbest thing she could do, now that she thought about it. But it was either that or the aforementioned outcome of angry, sleepy siblings. Leaning back in the lounge chair she was sitting on, Cara tried to muffle another cough. It was starting to sound better than it had the previous night. Yesterday she had practically called it quits then and there, but the temptation to not be bored out of her mind for the foreseeable future had her packing her things up and tossing them in the car this morning. She was still miserable even if the cold was starting to lessen. The only good thing to happen so far was that she had gotten all the peace and quiet she normally required, and then some. Right now was even better because the only noises around her were her coughs, the wind, and the waves crashing gently onto the beach below. That was, until she heard the sliding door open up behind her. Her head slumped backwards as she waited for the proverbial question of what she was doing outside on her own in the middle of the night. She didn’t need to be a seer to see that one coming.

[Deleted]

Kinsey was ... well to be entirely honest Kinsey wasn’t exactly sure how she felt about this vacation. Or how she should feel. She loved her brother and sisters, but things were strange. Granted, that wasn’t entirely new, but she was nervous how things would go being with them all for a week or so. Diana hated her enough she wanted nothing to do with Kinsey, she and Cara normally didn’t get along and Kinsey felt uncertain how the rest of her siblings felt around her. She believed they loved her, but after her run-in with Diana where her older sister basically said she was a huge burden and wasn’t worth it ... well, Kinsey was scared that if she spent too much time with her other siblings they would feel the same. She spent the first few weeks of summer trying to come up with a way to be there for them if they wanted her, but not push herself on them. Basically, she’d let the others start their interactions. If they came to her, it meant they wanted to be with her right?

So that was her plan for this vacation. Stick to herself, but put herself in places where her sisters and Dustin should feel comfortable approaching her if they wanted.

However, their first night there she had a hard time sleeping. The bed was lumpy and it felt hot inside and after a while she decided to go ahead and go outside. Fresh air should do her good. She crept through the house, trying not to wake anyone up. She opened the door carefully and slipped out, sliding it closed behind her. Then, when she turned around she saw someone there. Cara. Great. There went her plan to stick to herself. She moved to an empty chair and looked out at the view. ”It’s a nice night,” she commented softly, not sure if Cara even wanted to talk. If not, Kinsey would just have to go on a long walk or something. Why was this so stressful?

cara june bainbridge

[cara june bainbridge]

@kinsey

Of course the sibling that stepped outside was Kinsey. This had to be one of those stupid tricks that fate or destiny liked to play. All she wanted was to sit quietly and wallow in her sickness. Now Kinsey was here. Their last conversation that held any sort of meaning had been months ago. Things should have changed, but they hadn’t. No thanks to Cara’s own hardheadedness and inability to change her attitude like she had hoped too. It was impossible to make a complete one-hundred and eighty degree flip and start acting like everything was wonderful. Because it wasn’t. She was sick and still didn’t have a story. When they had discussed her writing at length while back at school, the pressure of getting work done hadn’t gotten to her yet. Now it was here in full force and was somewhat suffocating at times. None of which Kinsey could help her with.

Her sister took a seat in one of the empty chairs and mentioned something about it being a nice night out. “It’s decent,” Cara responded quietly, her voice and throat scratchy from coughing all day. “Could do without the wind.” She knew the easiest solution would be to go inside or shoot a warm-air charm under her blanket. Getting her wand was too much effort though, and all she wanted to do was sit still. Sticking her mouth below the edge of her blanket to cough, she cleared her throat a few times before trying to talk again. “So when were you going to tell me about your friend?” she said a little louder than she had been earlier. It had been pretty obvious what was going on between Kinsey and Riley Fudge. Cara wasn’t the biggest fan of the boy. He was always pointing out stupid things that she could care less about. She didn’t need anyone trying to read what she was doing through her social cues. “Never would have guessed that he was your type.” Coughing again, Cara continued. “But you’re definitely his type. No surprise there.”

[Deleted]

Of course Cara couldn't just agree and say it was a nice night. She said it was "decent" and then went on to explain that it was too windy. Then why the heck was she outside? Kinsey bit the inside of her lip to keep herself from saying anything that would aggravate her older sister. She didn't want to fight with Cara. Kinsey was kind of hoping for the opposite, after the last time when they talked with one another. It was one of the only times Kinsey could remember when she and her sister actually got along and she would love to prolong that ... but she had a feeling that wasn't going to be possible. Still, she'd try her best. She didn't look at Cara, closing her eyes and breathing slowly as she tried to let the soothing sound of the ocean relax her. She didn't need to be angry or upset. She could just let it ll go. 

Kinsey heard Cara cough and glanced over at her sister. She knew Cara was sick. They all knew. She'd slept the entire way to the beach asleep and collapsed on a bed when they arrived. Not that Kinsey minded too much. Cara being asleep meant she couldn't boss everyone around, which was nicer than Kinsey would admit to anyone except herself. Her eyebrows furrowed a little more as she found herself more confused. If Cara was sick and it was windy outside, why was she out here? She was about to ask when Cara spoke first, asking when Kinsey was going to tell her about her friend. "Are you talking about Riley?" Kinsey asked, feeling herself start to get defensive though she tried to hold it back. She failed. She didn't have to tell Cara about any of her friends. If Cara wanted to know, she could ask like any normal person, but the way she was asking right now felt like an attack. It was a sure way to get a rise out of her younger sister, which was probably what she wanted. This was more the Cara Kinsey knew. Cara continued, saying that she never guessed he'd be Kinsey's type and Kinsey locked her jaw, shaking her head and trying to stop herself from saying anything she would regret. At Cara's next comment, she couldn't hold it back. She glared at her older sister. "Oh really? What exactly is that supposed to mean, Cara?" She knew her tone was defensive, but she couldn't help it. She didn't need anyone else attacking her relationship with Riley. She had enough of that from Dom. If Cara said anything even close to what he said ... she would regret it.

cara june bainbridge

[cara june bainbridge]

@kinsey

Was she talking about Riley? Of course she was bloody talking about Riley. Why Kinsey felt the need to even ask that question, Cara had no idea. She never understood what was going through her younger sister’s head, if there was ever anything going through it in the first place. The fact that she hadn’t started calling her Captain Obvious years ago meant that there was some hope for her out there. Maybe. If anything, it was worse now than it had ever been. Cara wasn’t exactly a fan of the defensive tone her sister took with the question but she was willing to let that go because it was late and she felt awful. There was no need to blow this into crazy levels like usual. But it also wasn’t like she expected anything less of Kinsey. That was how it always turned out regardless. Cara knew that she didn’t have to be the ignition every single time; all she had to do was lay the ground work and see what Kinsey did with it. Wasn’t her fault if the girl decided to light it on her own. Walking away was easy to do.

“Yeah, him,” Cara said, throat scratchy and causing her to clear it again. For whatever reason, she didn’t want to give Kinsey the gratification of hearing Riley’s name come from her mouth. There wasn’t much more to it than that. Again, Kinsey asked one of her obvious questions, and Cara rolled her head from staring up at the sky over to make eye contact with her sister. “Like I said, that you’re his type.” Sometimes she wondered if Kinsey was hard of hearing, or just liked the fact that she could get upset over little things in their conversations. This was exactly why Riley liked the girl. Amazing that she hadn’t seen it yet. “Well, you know how he is. He does that little mind game thing with you, gets into your head and makes you think about things you don’t want to. Or maybe they’re things he wants you to think about,” Cara stated, heavily implying that Riley was basically playing mind games with Kinsey to get her to like him. “And you’re quick to snap judgement on things, so I can see how he probably used that to his advantage. Just saying.” It didn’t seem like it was out of the realm of possibility for the Fudge boy to do so. He had been quite annoying the last time she had run into him after all. Who was to say that going after Kinsey wasn’t his form of payback?

[Deleted]

Kinsey frowned when Cara coughed, trying to clear her throat. She felt a little bit bad that Cara wasn't feeling so good, but then again, she didn't. Cara was outside when she didn't have to be and she was choosing to be rude, like usual. Kinsey closed her eyes, not wanting to hear what mean things Cara had to say about Riley, but waiting for it all the same. Cara would have insulted him even if Kinsey hadn't demanded for her to explain herself. She took deep breaths, trying to prepare herself for her sister's words, but she knew she couldn't prepare herself enough for her sister's words. Cara started talking about how Riley did mind games to get into people's heads, saying that he made people think things they didn't want to and such nonsense. She shook her head and clenched her fists, feeling her frustration rising with each moment. Why was Cara so negative towards him? As far as Kinsey knew, the two of them never spoke with one another, so where was this hostility coming from? Her lips formed a tight line when Cara brought her into it, saying that she was quick to judge and that Riley was manipulating her. She took a deep breath once her sister finished, trying to not let her emotions take control of her too much. "You're wrong," she answered, proud of herself for not sounding half as angry as she felt, though there was still a distinct snap in her tone. The thing was, she trusted Riley. Wholly and completely. She knew how he felt about her and knew that Cara was wrong. She felt herself calming slightly as she thought about her boyfriend. Then she began to defend him. "Riley isn't like that at all, and he's not manipulating me. I would know if he was. You should just keep your nose in your own business and I'll worry about my own dating life, thank you very much." There. Kinsey doubted that would make Cara stop, but at least she answered without shouting. In fact, she felt surprisingly peaceful just at the thought of Riley. 

cara june bainbridge

[cara june bainbridge]

@kinsey

Cara didn’t hold back the eye roll that followed Kinsey telling her she was wrong. Like she hadn’t heard that before. It had to hurt to repeat the same thing over and over again as her only line of defense to any disagreement. Especially to one that wasn’t even important in the first place. Cara had no idea why her sister felt the need to protect someone as awful as Riley Fudge was. In her opinion, the boy only existed to wiggle his way into people’s heads to try and make them feel like they were important, only to dash it all away. His nasty little habit of trying to ‘read’ people was disgusting at its best, and his questions were exceptionally intrusive to her own privacy. She was sure she wasn’t the only one to share those sentiments either. Kinsey simply couldn’t see it because Riley was playing with her.

And then Kinsey said the most horrendous thing that had touched Cara’s ears all day: Riley wasn’t like she had described at all, and for Cara to back away from her dating life. Dating life. She knew the burning feeling in her face wasn’t brought on by a fever, and was instead a kind of fury that ticked her off more than anything else. She completely ignored the part about keeping her nose out of Kinsey’s business, immediately giving her sister a disapproving look before shaking her head a bit. Kinsey was stupid. That had to be it. Cara had expected more from her sister, and yet this was what she was given in return. This was exactly what she had feared. Riley had swept her off her feet with his idealistic talk about feelings and how he would understand her, and she absolutely feel for it. “Why? What does he do that makes you think he’s worthy of dating you, Kins? Does he tell you what you want to hear? Or does he always know what you want to hear? Because that’s the kind of person he is. Nothing good will come from that,” Cara shook her head again, pulling her knees up to her chest, the blanket along with it. “He’ll just hurt you in the end,” she said quietly before another fit of coughs started.

[Deleted]

Kinsey watched her sister, waiting to see her reaction. She didn't even realize that Cara hadn't known she and Riley were dating. She assumed from the beginning that that was why Cara brought it up. However, when she noticed her sister's face go red, she knew she said something to make her angry. Kins reviewed what she said in her mind, trying to figure it out, but she couldn't come up with anything, unless Cara didn't like Kinsey telling her to stay out of it, but this definitely wasn't the first time Kinsey told her sister to stay out of things that didn't concern her. Why would Cara get upset about that? Then Cara started speaking and Kinsey felt her own face start to grow hot and not from embarrassment. "What do you care, Cara?" she hissed, not bothering to hide her anger. Her voice got louder as she continued, "You've never bothered with who I spend my time with before? All you care about is telling me how to spend my time, not who I spend it with." She glared at her sister, wanting to just leave but also feeling the need to defend Riley, since he wasn't here to defend himself. "He cares more about me than you ever have and he actually shows it, instead of bossing me around. You're so concerned that he's manipulating me? Well, stop being a hypocrite and look in the mirror. All you've ever done is try to manipulate me and force me to do things your way." She knew she should stop, but Kinsey was on a roll now and she really couldn't care less what Cara had to say in response to her. "And where did you get this high-and-mighty opinion of him anyway? Have you talked to him more than once? Or ever? I've spent days with him, really gotten to know him. He doesn't need to convince me of anything because he shows me constantly how much he cares." She looked to her sister's eyes, her own hard. "He understands me more than you ever tried to, so stop trying to pretend like you know what's best for me. You don't know me at all, and you don't know him either." Kinsey took a deep breath, trying to calm herself. She was shaking from anger and knew that she needed to calm herself down. She looked away from her sister. "He won't hurt me," she added after a few moments, her tone much calmer than it had been moments before.

cara june bainbridge

[cara june bainbridge]

@kinsey

Cara was stupid for thinking that Kinsey would heed her warnings at all. That was a foolish to begin with. Too much had been built up over the years for it to all come crashing down peacefully. Kinsey would make sure of that. She was too predictable when it came to these things that it didn’t matter if they were talking about Riley or studying. As she had already thought, the same defense came bursting out of her sister. Why did she care? What did she know about anything? Blah blah blah. Cara sniffled her nose to try and keep it from dripping. That was far more important than listening to Kinsey’s ridiculous tangent about literally everything. The best part was how she was trying to defend Riley. Cara had already made her point clear on what she thought of the boy, so she wasn’t sure why there were more questions being thrown her way about how or why she knew what he was like. If Kinsey had been paying attention, the way she had detailed the way Riley went about things made it quite obvious that they had interacted before. All Cara could think of while she heard Kinsey drawl on and on about was that she was so obviously insecure about it all. Resorting to personal attacks like ‘looking in the mirror’ and being ‘high and mighty’ wasn’t going to get the anywhere in their conversation. They weren’t here to have a competition over who had spent more time ogling Riley Fudge’s stupid face.

“Whatever,” Cara said after it seemed like Kinsey was finished with her lecture. “I’ll leave you alone. That’s what you want, right?” she asked, looking back at her sister. This was going to come back to bite Kinsey, and she knew that. She wasn’t going to be there to tell her that she told her so – that warning had already been given and not taken seriously. Issuing another one would be pointless.

[Deleted]

Kinsey waited for the angry retorts, for the fight to start once she finished saying her piece. She knew she hadn't been nice, that she actually was quite rude as she spoke to her sister, but to her surprise, the only thing Cara said was "Whatever". Kinsey opened her mouth, ready to respond with her own jab, but then froze. Whatever? That was all Cara had to say? That was different. She continued to say that she would leave Kinsey alone, asking if that was what Kinsey wanted and Kinsey stared at her in confusion, her eyebrows furrowing as she watched her sister. She pursed her lips, starting to feel slightly guilty. "I just don't want to be told what to do," she answered softly, pulling her gaze from her sisters and looking out at the beach. What in the world was going on? Did Cara not want to argue because she was sick or something? Not that Kinsey really wanted to fight, but she didn't know how to react to this.

So she sat there in silence for an immeasurable amount of time, staring at the water and letting the sound of the waves hitting the shore wash over her. It wasn't long before all of her anger was gone and she found herself smiling a little. Eventually she turned to Cara, a thought occurring to her. "So, why are you out here if you're not feeling well?" she asked, trying to show that she didn't mind talking, she just didn't want to fight. Which meant not talking about Riley was probably the smartest way to go. 

cara june bainbridge

[cara june bainbridge]

@kinsey

Good. The lecture basically came to a full stop. Cara didn’t need to hear about all of Kinsey’s woes and wrongdoings wrought upon her. She had spent the better half of the last ten years listening to those. Listening was a nice way to put it too, since it was normally Kinsey telling her what was wrong. Essentially what had just happened. Cara had learned long ago that if her sister wasn’t going to follow her lead (which was a silly to do since she had excellent study methods, etc.), then letting her do things on her own was easier. She wasn’t going to continue to waste her time on someone that didn’t want it in the first place, even if it was her sister. Kinsey still got the last word in which agitated Cara greatly because she was letting her have it. No one liked to be told what to do. Obviously. But there were some instances where it was better to take advice from others. In this instance, the roles seemed to have reversed between them. Thus her whatever stance on the whole thing.

Silence followed. Kinsey didn’t leave and Cara didn’t acknowledge her because she didn’t want to leave her spot either. Doing so would mean that she had lost, and she had already bent over backwards for Kinsey’s sake tonight. Anything more would make it look like her illness was changing her ideals. Kinsey’s voice cracked the silence, and Cara felt herself groan internally. They were about to go at it again and she didn’t have the ability to do round two. It was too exhausting whilst both sick and late into the night. Thankfully it wasn’t more whining, and Cara let her shoulders relax as she moved off of the defensive. “Because I’ve been coughing a lot and couldn’t sleep. Why wake everyone up when I can remove myself from the house completely,” she rationalized. It made sense to her. “It was either out here or the sitting in the car, and I’d prefer having some air. Can’t get any sicker anyways.”

[Deleted]

Cara didn't say anything for a moment after Kinsey asked her question and she pulled her eyes from the water, looking over at her sister. She was actually ... surprised when her sister explained her reasoning, though she didn't necessarily agree with the last part. Cara could definitely get sicker if she didn't take care of herself, but Kinsey wasn't going to say anything about that. Commenting on that would just start another row and she was tired of arguing at the moment. Besides, she didn't want Cara to get in the mood to fight. Then she might bring up Riley and everything else all over again. "It's not like there isn't air inside," she said softly, smirking to herself as she quoted one of her favorite movies. She wasn't sure if Cara was aware of her small obsession for the Narnia movies, since she mostly just watched them when she was alone, but she couldn't help but say the quote when it came to her mind. She smiled as her mind started thinking about it. She should watch that when she got back home again ... she jerked when she realized that she wasn't alone. Oops. "Sorry, I got a bit distracted," Kinsey admitted, though she wasn't really sure if Cara even noticed.

cara june bainbridge

[cara june bainbridge]

@kinsey

Cara prevented herself from shooting Kinsey a dirty look following the sarcastic comment about there being air inside. Was that really necessary? Here she was, trying to her siblings a favor by not hacking away all night or spreading her germs, and she was getting sass from one of them. It was honestly unbelievable. But she stopped herself from snapping, or glaring, or doing anything to egg her sister on even more. She was supposed to be sick and not feeling well. They had already argued enough as it was, and getting pissed over a stupid sarcastic comment wasn’t going to help in the slightest. She would be the better person in this situation. By not responding, silence oozed back in and Cara was starting to have a difficult time blinking back her sleepiness. Pretty soon here she was going to have to go back in, or face the consequences of falling asleep outside. While her blanket was ridiculously warm, having that breeze hit her in the face all night wouldn’t help her cold out at all. She assumed that her dozing off would make Kinsey realize that she wasn’t going to achieve anything else, and force her to go back inside as well. Believing that this had happened during one of her dozing stages (having lost all concepts of perceived time), Cara turned her head to see Kinsey still sitting there, and staring off at Merlin knew what.

Then her sister jerked her body, like some sort of strange force had left it, and Cara continued staring at her. Kinsey apologized, but that really didn’t change the stare at all. “By what? There’s literally nothing out here other than us,” she stuck her hand out from the safety of her blanket to point out the fact that it was still pitch black on the beach. She had been outside for quite some time and her eyes had yet to adjust. Whether or not it was right of her to snap at Kinsey wasn’t really her concern. She was sure that the distraction was another thought about Riley, and Cara knew that she didn’t want to hear that again – she was already regretting the question she had asked about the supposed distraction.

[Deleted]

They sat in silence for so long that Kinsey almost thought Cara was asleep, but she didn't really believe it. Cara was too responsible to allow herself to fall asleep outside in the night air while she was sick. Kinsey rolled her eyes when the thought occurred to her, glad that her sister couldn't read her thoughts. The good thing was, her sister's intentions were semi-peaceful. At least she wasn't trying to think up mean things or something. That made it so Kinsey could try to relax, even if it was just a little bit. She couldn't tell if Cara was watching her or not and didn't want to look at her sister, because for some strange reason that felt like giving in. 

When she apologized, Cara responded, saying there wasn't anything out here to distract her and Kinsey looked at her sister, a small smile touching her lips. She shrugged, "By my thoughts?" She gave a soft chuckle. "I was actually thinking about movies, since I quoted one a few minutes ago." It might have been longer than a few minutes, but she didn't care. She was almost certain that her sister hadn't recognized her quoting Narnia. Kinsey was fairly certain that none of her other siblings would have noticed the quote, so she didn't expect it. "What are you thinking about?" It was probably something along the lines of how annoying Kinsey was, but she was trying to keep the mood peaceful and not get defensive. Maybe asking light questions was the key to that.

cara june bainbridge

[cara june bainbridge]

@kinsey

Thinking about…movies? Cara didn’t understand that. How could she be sitting there, on a deck by a beach, and think about movies? And when had she quoted one? Cara realized that she must have dozed off at some point and missed something, because that didn’t make sense at all. What was worse was that she was starting to think maybe they had held some sort of conversation amidst that sleepy period, because Kinsey looked way too happy about what she was saying (at least from what Cara could see of her sister’s face in the dark). Clearly she was more exhausted than she had thought, which was hard to believe when she had spent the entirety of the day snoozing. Anything to kill the cold off. She wasn’t against wasting half of their trip in bed if it meant having a day or two of respite from the coughing and headaches.

As for Kinsey’s question on what she was thinking about, Cara had no idea. Obviously there was the feeling better part, but the mention of movies reminded her that she had just seen the new Star Wars movie with Dominic on her birthday. That had been wonderful and confusing at the same time. At least the movie was good. Cara was unsure if she wanted to divulge those details with Kinsey though, not knowing if her sister had even been aware of the mini-date that she had gone on with Dominic. At the same time, being able to brag about something fun she had done that Kinsey hadn’t seemed to would allow her to get a step up again. “Since you mentioned movies, I saw the new Star Wars for my birthday,” Cara stated rather proudly, following it up with another awful sounding cough. “Wish Diana could have come, but I dragged Dominic along and he seemed to enjoy my company like usual.”

For Movie Thread Reference