Isle of Ikea, Tuesday

[spin_kick_snap]

Kathy and Raven had a new apartment in need of decoration and furnishing and they also had a lot of things to not think about and/or work their way through, depending on how they were feeling at the time. Conveniently enough, both of those things worked with the other. Kathy had spent her sleepless hours the night before making lists, flipping through magazines for inspiration (seriously, how many Williams-Sonoma catalogues did you need Eliot?!), and doodling layouts to try to figure our furniture arrangements. Then, once it had gotten bright enough outside that it wouldn't be weird to be up and about, Kathy had put together a trip to the Isle of Ikea. Because what could be better than combining a caffeine buzz, a ridiculously generous budget, and four teenage girls?

You were welcome, Ikea employees!

"So we need pretty much everything," Kathy said, as they landed on the shores of the isle. "Two bathrooms, a kitchen, a living room, and our bedrooms. Pretty much the sky's...the..." She trailed off, looking at the building in front of them. She'd known the whole island was devoted to the store, but she hadn't really thought about how big that store would be. "And this looks like it has everything," she added. "Okay then."

[For those invited, and I have no idea whether the Isle has squirrels or not! Also open for phone calls]

Comments

[spin_kick_snap]

And what a distraction that was!

"Oh my god, that's awful!" Kathy said, wrinkling her nose at it. Every thought about family was driven out by the need to reach out and see how spiky the couch actually was. "Is that part of their eye-searing collection or what?"

[tigerundercover]

"It's ridiculous." And Raven loved it. Not just because it was such a very good distraction. "We need one."

[spin_kick_snap]

"We do not!" Kathy argued laughing--though she wasn't going to argue too hard against it, especially if Raven insisted. "It looks like a siege weapon!"

[tigerundercover]

"I love it," Raven declared, and flopped right down onto it. It wasn't . . . the most comfy thing she'd sat on. Which actually just made it kind of perfect, considering the way she'd been reacting to actually comfy things since she got back. "We can put it in my room. Under the sky bed."

Loft bed, honey. Those things had names. And not just the silly Ikea ones.

[spin_kick_snap]

"...The sky bed?" Kathy asked, poking at one of the cushions. "This thing has almost no give."

You know, in case Raven had missed that.

[tigerundercover]

"So I'll put a fuzzy blanket on it." Which would not alter the give situation in the least.

[spin_kick_snap]

Not at all, but Kathy wasn't going to point that out. Not if Raven really wanted this hideous thing.

...For her room.

"Make it a really thick one," she advised instead. "So no one can tell your couch has spines."

[tigerundercover]

"Hey," Raven said, giving her a look. "I have spines, too." She looked around the array of furniture again. "If I put this under my bed, I'm still going to have a ton of room to fill." Those bedrooms were not small.

[spin_kick_snap]

Kathy brushed her hand over Raven's arms in apology. "But you're also not furniture. You're my badass bestie. That is--" bright blue with spines and generally overlooked by people. Oh. "--definitely not going to take up all the room in your bedroom. We need to get a desk and a couple more things if we don't want it to look all barren."

[tigerundercover]

See? It was perfect. Just the ugly way it was.

"Do you think they have fancy rolltop desks? I've always wanted one of those."

They didn't. they did have ones that looked like cabinets until you folded the desk surface down, though. Which was almost as cool.

[spin_kick_snap]

Except Raven wasn't ugly, even blue. And Kathy would fight anyone who said otherwise.

"Oooh, if they do, I'm getting one, too. We can get matching ones." Beat. "...Maybe."

It depended on whether or not Raven's taste in desks ran the same direction as couches.

[tigerundercover]

She might end up with an obnoxiously patterned desk chair, but no, the rest of her furniture choices weren't destined to be quite as strange as the "loveseat with 36 pillows".

"Maybe in contrasting colors," Raven said. "So we're not too matchy."

That loveseat was going to prevent anything from getting "too matchy".

[spin_kick_snap]

"Yeah, somehow I don't think we have to worry about that," Kathy snorted, eyeing the loveseat again. "Besides, my bed's going to be on the floor."

[tigerundercover]

"Boring," Raven noted.

Also, way less easily defensible.

"Have you spotted anything you like, yet?"

[spin_kick_snap]

But better for--ahem, never mind. She probably shouldn't even be having those thougths anyway.

"Two, actually," Kathy said, tugging Raven over to the beds. "Kings, both of them. I've had a twin bed my whole life. I'm ready for the joy of spreading out." She pointed at her picks. "So, I like the Hurdal's drawers and the posts on the head and footboard," she explained. "And I think the Liervik is pretty, though it seems kinda flimsy, you know?"

[tigerundercover]

"I bet you could paint that first one," Raven who was still blonde despite her mun getting lazy said. "You could even do, like, a mural or a pattern on the baseboard."

[spin_kick_snap]

"Oooh, that might be pretty," Kathy said. "Not that I'm an artist. I kind of suck at art, actually. But who's going to judge a design I paint on my bed?"

Or, more likely, got stencils to illustrate instead.

[tigerundercover]

"It'll be just for you," Raven assured her. "And your gentleman callers."

[spin_kick_snap]

Kathy blushed. Predictably.

"Yeah, whenever that happens," she muttered, suddenly very interested in the texture of several throw pillows. "I shouldn't even be thinking about boys right now anyway."

[tigerundercover]

"I don't see why not."

[spin_kick_snap]

"Because there are way more important things I should be worrying over," Kathy said. "Jobs, school, our apartment...Sleeping through the night."

Whether the dreams she kept having were a sign she was going crazy, whether or not she'd come back different somehow, the constant charade of having to pretend to be the girl she'd been, wondering what had happened to her family...

[tigerundercover]

"And having a boy would relax you and make all those things easier to stress over," Raven said firmly. "Besides, thinking about boys is fun, not stress."

[spin_kick_snap]

"Having a vibrator would relax me," Kathy muttered. "Because thinking about boys is stress."

At least the ones she was used to thinking about. And there weren't any others leaping to mind on the island right now anyway.

[tigerundercover]

". . . We should totally go get ourselves vibrators," Raven said. "Though I'm guessing Ringo and Alluka might not want to come along for that trip."

[spin_kick_snap]

"I am not explaining to Alluka any of the new friends she might notice in Dite's shop," Kathy said immediately. "Maaaaybe Ringo, but..."

Yeah. Still definitely felt weird.

"But if I do go with the drawers built into the foot of my bed, I'll have to fill it with something." One for snacks, one for toys?