seriousfic

Title: Frenemies
Fandom: Legend of the Seeker
Rating: R
Word Count: 1,657
Characters/Pairings: Cara/Kahlan
Previous: Roommates
Summary: Cara wishes she weren't in love with Kahlan. Wishes she weren't on her doorstep.

Cara fantasized about Kahlan showing up at her doorstep. In the dreams, Kahlan was a bitch, starting in on a tirade about how immoral Cara was, just so Cara could shut her down and tell her what a cunt she was with a clear conscience. She came up with a couple hundred inventive ways to sum up Kahlan Amnell, none of them mentioning her bright and cheery personality.

Then Kahlan ruined that fantasy too, showing up at Cara's door with tear streaks all the way down her throat. All the one-liners dropped away. Cara just opened her door wider. And then, when Kahlan kept crying, Cara let go of the door so it drifted open. She dared Kahlan with her sullen posture to make something of the gesture other than a draft.

Kahlan was all out of shame. She charged her way into a hug. Cara's arms moved like they were magnetized, her mouth filled with strange words. She was rubbing Kahlan's back, she was cooing nonsense in her ear. She needed to know what was wrong more than she needed to know the meaning of life.

Kahlan's voice came through her own comforting, louder and clearer than Cara could've anticipated. "I screwed everything up! I'm sorry, God, I'm so sorry!"

"Quiet," Cara replied, angry with herself, with both of them. She couldn't take another go-around of pity. "It's Richard, isn't it?"

Kahlan nodded against Cara's shirt. Cara nudged the door shut with her foot and that was Kahlan's cue to tell everything.

"There was this book," Kahlan said. The most charge she gave was saying the name of the book. Even now, she said it with the thrill of the taboo. "The Ethical Slut."

She acted the doll as Cara led her to a seat, removed her jacket, her heels. Her halter top looked obscene on her, presenting her flesh alongside her tearful face.

"I've read it," Cara confirmed, off Kahlan's look.

"So did Richard. We decided to set some guidelines, for starters?"

Cara saw nothing else to do but nod.

"Guidelines like… he would have Denna and I would have—you." Kahlan looked away from Cara like she was a horror movie, an axe murder about to happen. She looked so uncomfortable that Cara moved away. Went to the mini fridge, got a beer. She opened it, took a tasteless sip, and decided Kahlan needed it more. So, she offered it.

"You're not trying to ply me with alcohol, right?" Kahlan asked, drinking. She was being sarcastic.

Cara sat beside Kahlan. "If I was going to take advantage of you, I would've done it when your mascara wasn't running."

"Thanks. For that. I think it brought stuff with Richard to a head. Oh!" Suddenly excited. Maybe because the drink was working or maybe Cara was actually comforting her. "I forgot. We were always supposed to tell each other when we were… on a date. I mean, I told him I was going to be with you."

Cara made a face. "Glad I turned you down then."

Kahlan matched her expression. "Thanks a lot!"

"Not… glad-glad. I just wouldn't want him involved." Kahlan lightened at that. If anyone could get wanting sex to be special, it'd be her. Cara took the empty can from her and dropped it in the recycle bin. "So what's the trouble in paradise?"

That got the waterworks going again. Not hysterics, not track-down-your-old-roommate-and-run-crying-across-half-the-campus hysterics, but two tears carved a path down her face and more followed. Cara was sorry and angry with herself. Not for what she'd said, but for the self-loathing. She hadn't said anything wrong.

Kahlan wiped her eyes and trooped through the replacement tears. "Richard's gone. He's with her, I know it! He's been with Denna, just so much… I didn't tell him you turned me down, but I didn't lie, I haven't said anything about more encounters, it's all him, he's the ethical slut, not me! Then you move out, so I had to tell him, so that means he has to call it off with Denna, right? Only he's not at our place and some of his condoms are gone—"

"Wait. You track his condoms?"

"What? Doesn't everyone?"

"I've heard rumors about some crazies who can actually trust their boyfriends."

Cara knew even as she said it that that would get Kahlan crying again. She grabbed Kahlan in a preemptive hug, but Kahlan pushed her away. "Can you not be you for one minute?" Kahlan demanded.

Anger flashed through Cara. She let it into her voice, but didn't let it take over. "That's obviously impossible, Kahlan. Do you want me to wear kid gloves or do you want me to talk to you like an equal? Because if you want someone to hold your hand and say you and Richard will work things out, that's not me."

Kahlan paced, arms folded under her breasts and hands in her hair and fists beating against the wall. Finally, she seemed to exhaust herself, head leaning against the wall. She grabbed a lock of her hair and wrenched it in her hands, saying "Tell me everything you've held back. I want to know."

Cara sat there, feeling like an idiot, because she'd wanted to handle Kahlan with kid gloves. She wanted to hold the silly bitch and sing to her and tell her it would be alright. She just didn't want to lie.

Standing, with a sudden cramp in one leg, Cara moved to lean against the wall beside Kahlan. "You and Richard aren't right for each other. Maybe you were once. Whatever he wants now, he won't take from you. You know that, Kahlan, deep down. That's why you want someone else."

At least Kahlan stopped hanging her head. She turned around and sat on the floor, propped against the wall like a teetering building. "So why don't you want me?"

Cara just stood there, not looking at Kahlan any more, just the wall. "I do. But I'm selfish. I want all of you. Everything Richard doesn't appreciate, I want to make you know how special it is. I don't want you to be another conquest or me to be an experiment. I want to be that person you've spent your whole life waiting for."

Kahlan ran her hands over her face. Her eyes emerged aimed at Cara. "And if I can't give you that? I've wanted you for a long time, both as a friend and… something more. But I can't tell how much more. What if we do this and I end up wanting something that I can't get from you? Six months and you're right where I am now. I don't want to do that to you."

"I'd rather have a chance with you than a sure thing with anyone else in the world."

Cara slid down into a crouch. She moved in on Kahlan with the slow inevitability of a spinning coin, gravity pulling it down. Her hands landed first, one on Kahlan's thigh, another at the back of her knee. Cara came down on one knee, the landing inches from Kahlan's crotch. She was inside Kahlan's space, too close for the brunette to do anything but move with her, the space between them more like a mirror than any distance. Kahlan's hand came to Cara's hip. Cara's hand made a stroke from the nape of Kahlan's neck to the point of her chin. That line tingled on Kahlan's skin like a drug. Kahlan made her own, sending two fingers to wipe the sweat from Cara's spine. She'd never been so glad for backless tops. Cara was purring as she rubbed her lips against Kahlan's, not parting them yet but teasing Kahlan, priming her, making her beg with shallow breaths and high, needy sounds.

"Let me show you," Cara ordered, and her lips stayed open to fasten to Kahlan's, drowning her lengthy moan between them.

Cara pulled away, keeping her promise to herself that she would only give Kahlan a taste and let her decide what to do with it. Kahlan didn't look like she was doing anything. She stayed where Cara had left her, poised like she was still being kissed, eyes shut, lips parted, breath weighted down in her lungs. She let it out she'd just been reminded. Her exhale stirred even Cara's short hair. It said that she was satisfied and not at all satisfied.

Kahlan stood, grabbing Cara's shoulder to keep from falling over. Once her legs had stopped shaking (or maybe when she realized that putting her crotch on eyelevel with Cara was like setting a keg in front of an alcoholic) she made her way to her purse. Her fingers were steady by the time they fished her phone out. It beeped as Kahlan held down a key, then dialed. Kahlan hesitated before bringing the phone to her ear.

"Hello, Richard. I know you can't get this because you're with Denna. And that's okay. If you've found someone else, then I'm glad you won't be lonely. But it's hurting me how you're holding onto both of us. So I've found someone else too. And I'm going to be with her. I hope it's for a long time." She hung up. Cara wanted to run to her, wanted to kiss her again, wanted to not stop, but something in Kahlan's mien forbid it. She was just standing there, not moving except to sway on still-trembling legs. "It's over," she said. "I ended it." The phone slipped out of her hand. The noise it made against the floor made Cara jump. Kahlan didn't notice. "I'm going to bed," she stated, same tone as before.

"Do you want some… company?" And it sounded lame even to Cara, for once trying for something deeper than a come-on and it just bounced right off Kahlan.

"No."

"I'll be right here," Cara said, after Kahlan turned her back on her.

Kahlan didn't answer.