i want you to want me (but that doesn't mean i want you)

[wwonder]

title: i want you to want me (but that doesn't mean i want you)

fandom: 10 things i hate about you

ship: patrick/kat



He tried to kiss her that once, but she knows what he's up to and she's not having any of it. He can move closer all he wants, that's up to him. But she's certainly not leaning forward to meet him, and if he thinks those lips are touching hers, he's got another thing coming. There's no way of knowing where his mouth has been.

Besides, she's a master of not getting involved.

*

Listen, okay. She's not obsessed with him. Really, she's not.

If she had to choose a word for her opinion about Patrick Verona, the first thing that comes to mind is loathing, followed by disgust and derision. Except that she's begun to think maybe those are a little too harsh.

The right word, she thinks, is intrigued.

Don't look at her like that. Everybody thinks he's intriguing. Why else would there be so many rumors about him? It's not like his parents are really murderers and drug lords.

That's beside the point anyway. She's not obsessed.

At most, she might have a little, trifling, no-big-deal, not even worth mentioning crush.

*

"My father is a gynecologist."

She blurts that out the next time she sees him, no hello, just My father is a gynecologist.

She'd meant to throw this in with her apology earlier, but it had slipped her mind when he called her crazy. Well, okay... she had meant it to come out way more articulate.

He looks just as confused as she feels. "Great?"

"What I mean to say is, my father is a doctor. So he probably knows a good podiatrist. You know... for your foot." Why aren't any of her words coming out right?

He laughs a little half smile like she's so hilarious. "I don't think that's necessary," he drawls out slowly, voice low and deep.

"Fine," she snaps back, annoyed, and turns to go. She's certainly not going to waste her time

"Kat, wait." He doesn't say it with very much emotion. It doesn't seem that urgent. But at the same time, it stops her short.

It stops her short because it's the first time she's heard him say her name. (And she hates that she notices it.)

"Yeah?"

"I'm sorry, too," he says. "For freaking out yesterday."

She can't help from smiling. "You'd better say thank you, too, then," she says. "For crawling all over the bathroom floor to find it."

He grins, and this time she knows he's not laughing at her. And that feels good.

"I wish I'd been there to see the show." He says it suggestively, rudely, the same way that previously earned him a chestful of trash.

But before she can retaliate, he's had the good sense to gun the engine on his bike and speed away.

Kat stands there speechless for a moment, and it's all she can do to yell a reminder of "Helmet!" at his retreating figure.

*

It's 8:30 PM when she finally concedes defeat-- the sun has long since set, and the last vestiges of pink and orange light have disappeared into darkness. Now only the cheap, yellow fluorescents in the empty garage illuminate the wreckage of what was once a working vehicle.

Kat calls home to ask for a ride. Honestly, they haven't set a time limit on when she has to finish the car, right? There's always tomorrow. (And tomorrow, she'll have a guide that got ten out of ten stars.)

Except that when she calls home Bianca tells her that dad had to go back into work for an emergency Cesarean and told her not to expect him back until at least eleven.

And unfortunately, after that, there's no one else to call. Mandela doesn't have a car, Bianca can't drive...

So it looks like she can either soldier on in the war against her car, or walk home, or wait until eleven for a ride.

She will soldier on. Obviously.

Although, first, maybe she will just take a break. You know, shut her eyes for a few minutes, eat her granola bar...

She doesn't get her moment of peace, though, because the very last person she wants to see right now shows up instead.

She springs up from her resting place on the ground as if she's been caught doing something wrong, and pretends to look busy.

"Still here?" Patrick asks, leaning casually against the doorway in the same way he casually leans against everything.

"Just finishing up!" she lies, trying to sound cheerful and undefeated.

"Really? Because you don't look finished," he says.

She's too tired to fight with him, so she gives up pretending to work and leans on the hood of her car to face him, arms crossed combatively. Commence staring contest.

"What are you doing here?" she finally asks, with the distinct subtext of You're not welcome.

"I was driving by on my bike when I saw that the lights were still on. I thought somebody had forgot to turn them off. Didn't think you'd still be here."

"Well, I can't leave until I finish, can I?"

He looks at her appraisingly, raises an eyebrow. "No, I guess you can't. You're stranded here, huh?"

"Did you come here to gloat about it?" she snaps.

He ignores her, and his voice turns teasing. "You'll be here forever. Unless you somehow manage to finish this..."

"Which I will!"

"... or unless someone with a bike offers you a ride home."

She tries to return his raised eyebrow, but it doesn't quite work out the way she wanted.

"It's all up to me, isn't it?" he continues with a smile and a jingle of his keys.

"You couldn't pay me to get on the back of your bike," she snorts. "Besides, I'm not leaving until this is done." She's not sure where this new determination is coming from, but she turns around and picks up her guide and begins to thumb through it again.

He moves to stand on the other side of the car, in her line of vision. Always a nuisance. "You're really determined to win this bet, huh?"

"I'm determined to fix my car for the good of the environment, for your information. The money is just an added bonus."

"And this has nothing to do with you proving to everyone that you can fix a car yourself?"

She grits her teeth and lies. "Absolutely not."

"So do you want any help, then?" he offers.

"No!" she looks up to glare at him.

"Don't take this the wrong way... but you seem to be having a little trouble."

"I'll figure it out."

"But what if you don't?" He just won't stop teasing her. "What will happen to the environment then?"

She just barely stops herself from throwing something at his head. Instead, she fixes him with her most withering stare. "Verona," she says, voice low and as intimidating as she can make it, "Get the hell out of here."

He holds his hands up in mock-surrender. "Whatever you say. Last chance for a ride home..."

She ignores him to focus on her car, and out of the corner of her eye she sees him leave.

Ugh, she hates him.

*

She makes a mental list as she's working: I hate his smirk, I hate when he litters, I hate that he is a sexist, condescending ass-hole...

Somewhere around the tenth reason, she looks down at what her hands have mindlessly been doing, and she's surprised to see how much progress she's made.

Things seem to actually make sense now; she consults the manual again, and within the next hour she's testing the car and it actually works...

Her grin is triumphant as she drives home. Take that, Patrick Verona, she thinks.

But she quickly amends the thought to Take that, climate change.

Because the first thought would mean that he's getting to her, and well, he's not.

*

She didn't think he was serious about that whole keeping his distance thing. Especially not after he showed up at the garage that night.

But she's barely seen him the last few days; and when she does, he's reverted back to Captain Intensity, all silent and brooding. All these opportunities to annoy her, and he's missed them.

She tells herself that this is a good thing.

*

She plops down onto the bench next to him, begins rifling through her brown-bag lunch, and without further ado, makes an announcement. "I've decided I don't hate you anymore."

He feigns deep hurt. "You hated me? And here I was thinking you just liked witty banter."

"Nope," she replies matter-of-factly. "Hated your guts."

"So what brought about the change of heart?"

"Well," she says around bites of her sandwich. "We haven't spoken in a couple days, therefore you haven't pissed me off in a couple days. Plus, I haven't seen you litter since the Trash Can Incident, so obviously you learned your lesson."

"You've been watching me to see if I litter. Obsessed, I tell you," he drawls.

She ignores him. "But the real reason," she continues, "Is that Mandela is at the dentist today, so I wanted to eat lunch with someone whose guts I do not hate."

"I'm flattered."

"You should be. My grudges are usually permanent."

"So I'm special."

"Oh, is that the word for it?" she jokes. "I would have gone with slow."

"Aww, come on. I thought you didn't hate me anymore," he protests.

"Yeah, but that doesn't mean I like you."

"You really are a horrible liar." And his eyes have all this meaning, and she thinks about third grade again: Do you like him or do you like-like him?

"This is going to be a rather odd friendship," she says, trying to emphasize the friend. "We can't get through a single conversation without bickering. Maybe we just shouldn't speak."

"That's usually my M.O.," he says with a shrug.

"Well, okay, then."

And then, it's eerily quiet, with neither of them speaking. It. is. weird.

After awhile, Kat notices the little white headphone trailing out of Patrick's left ear, and if she listens closely she can tell that there's something playing.

"What are you listening to?" she asks in a voice not too far above a whisper. Instead of answering, he holds out the spare earbud. She sticks it into her ear, and the two of them spend the rest of lunch not talking, just listening.

Actually, it's sort of nice.

*

"Go out with me Friday night."

She knows it's him before she turns, and there he is leaning again, this time against the lockers a few down from hers.

She scoffs. "I couldn't even if I wanted to."

"Is Saturday night better?"

"Are you really as stupid as you look? I said I can't."

"Sure you can. I can see through your excuses, Stratford. You want to say yes, I can tell. Just admit your obsessed with me, and we can go out this weekend and have a grand old time."

"I don't know what's wrong with your brain that makes you unable to understand simple sentences, but I can't. I'm grounded."

"You got grounded? Goody-goody Kat Stratford is grounded?"

"Oh, that you hear."

"What did you do?"

"You know what I did. I lied to my father to see the Filthy Souls, got a fake ID, and tried to help my sister sneak in. Getting detention certainly didn't help either." She made an exaggerated thinking noise. "Hmmm... basically, it's all your fault."

"My fault? You gave yourself that detention."

Okay, maybe he has a point. She turns away and begins twirling the dial on her locker. "Whatever."

He just moves in closer so she can't avoid his gaze. "So next weekend, then?"

He's so frustrating! "When did I ever say yes?"

"You never said no, Kat. You said you can't. Big difference."

Dear God, now he really has a point. Well, she'll just tell him no now. It's just one word. It's easy.

She can't make herself say it, though. She doesn't really want to. So instead she says "Ask me next week," walks away, and wonders, not for the first time, what he's thinking right now.

*

Friday nights have a pretty set pattern in the Stratford household.

First, Bianca will try to quietly slip out the door without her father noticing. He will notice; arguing will ensue. Depending on the strength of her excuses, sometimes Bianca escapes the house with permission, sometimes she doesn't. If permission is not granted, as it often isn't, she will either mope the whole night, or sneak out through the window using a decoy Hello Kitty and wig.

If Kat is feeling particularly bored, she'll head downstairs to participate in the argument, but usually she's upstairs in sweats with a book. She goes out sometimes-- when she's not grounded, that is-- but usually the weekend finds her here.

The argument started pretty early tonight; Bianca knows she's grounded from the whole web-show debacle and has already resigned herself to pajamas and curlers. Kat, for one, has settled down with her copy of The Feminine Mystique.

Yes, it's a typical Friday in the Stratford household.

Except for one thing. There usually aren't boys standing outside Kat's window looking in.

"Holy shit!" she breathes when she hears a tapping noise on her window and looks up to see him there. Her heart nearly jumps out of her chest at the shock, and before she realizes what she's doing, she's crossed the room and jammed up the window. "What the hell, Verona?"

He ignores her and climbs through the window, awkwardly thrusting long limbs through the small opening.

"Nice to see you, too," Patrick intones. He looks down pointedly at her relatively revealing tank top. She resists the urge to slap him and grabs an old grey sweatshirt instead.

"You know, Romeo, when I told you I was grounded I didn't mean it as an invitation."

"I had something I wanted to tell you," he says, ignoring her obvious anger.

"And you haven't heard of a phone? Or using a door? Or maybe waiting until Monday?" He doesn't respond. "Maybe you just prefer scaring me half to death?"

"It's kind of important. Besides, I didn't want to get you in more trouble by showing up here if you're already grounded."

"The grounding is just a formality. My dad wouldn't mind if I had a visitor. He would mind, however, if there were boys secretly climbing into my bedroom."

He just shrugs. She's waiting for him to go on and say whatever he came to say, but before he begins the door swings open. All she can think is crap, crap, crap. She's so dead.

*

It's only Bianca on the other side of the door-- but Kat almost would have preferred if it were her father. Bianca has blackmail material for at least the next six months.

After a few minutes of cajoling, Bianca agrees not to tell her father and remembers the reason she entered the room in the first place. "Some thing called a brushfire. Dad's freaking out! We don't even know what they are, but the news said something about evacuating!"

Patrick just smirks, then slips out the window with an ominous "See you soon."

*

They figure it all out eventually, albeit after a few minutes of frantic running around. The Stratford family piles into the car anxiously (because brushfires don't happen in Ohio) and arrive at school clad in pajamas. The embarrassment immediately sets in. Nobody else is in pajamas-- it seems they all took the time to change.

Although maybe they were wise arrive in their sleepwear... it looks like they might be stuck here all night. People are already going around passing out blankets.

She tries to find a quiet spot to read the book she stashed in her pocket-- but there are people. Everyhwere. People she doesn't like. Scared, annoying people that she can only deal with between the hours of eight and three.

Every quiet corner she finds doesn't stay quiet for long. And she needs the quiet to focus. If she doesn't focus, then she knows her mind will wander to boys and windows and smiles...

Kat's crappy night is poised to get a whole lot worse.

*

It's not like she's looking, okay? But she sees him when he walks through the door, late as usual, looking unbearably cool and collected.

Bianca sees her looking and makes a comment that she won't even dignify by repeating. Her sister is so... immature. And wrong. And stupid. She can't take her anymore, and stalks off yet again to find a place to be alone.

She opens the book again and forces herself to concentrate. She's managed to successfully tune out everyone, except then she hears a whisper in her ear.

Meet me on the roof, the whisperer says.

She doesn't look up. This way she can pretend she doesn't know who whispered in her ear. This way she can pretend that she's only going to the roof because, obviously, it will be quiet there.

She waits a few minutes, because she's not that eager, and manages to slip out unnoticed.

*

He kisses her on the roof. Let's just get that fact out of the way.

It's not her first kiss, but it's a good one. And it's not just that he's got good technique, but because she can tell he means it.

They didn't talk too much beforehand; which is a good thing, because it means they didn't argue either.

"I wanted to tell you that you're important," he says when she demands to know what's up. He adds, after a pause, "And this whole obsession you have with me? Well, it goes both ways."

It makes her smile, because it doesn't feel fake or cheesy, or like something she'd read in a book, just honest. It's not a very long explanation, but he was never much of a talker.

He cups a hand behind her head and pulls her closer, but he's not really pulling because she's leaning willingly.

And there's not point in denying it now: She's not just leaning into him, she's falling for him, too.