75 Godiva Street, Way Too Early Friday Morning

[spin_kick_snap]

Kathy could hear the noise all around her. Worse, her jaw ached from all the clacking she was doing herself. She wanted to stop, to push her way through the endless mob of dead people, to get somewhere she could be alone and not HURT anyone, but her body wouldn't do what she wanted. It just dragged itself forward, gliding through the other exes with a grace that seemed wrong for a corpse to have. She was faster than the rest, able to sprint while they only staggered, and somehow that speed translated into an ability to slide through crowds like mist.

Because of that, the dead girl that had once been Katherine Hana Li made it to the center of the mob, where all the exes in this location had turned their unblinking attention. Only one thing could cause this kind of focus in the dead: fresh meat. Where the living Kathy now realized that she was looking at the remains of a stocky man in a green bandanna and pair of sweats, the dead Kathy only saw food. She knelt on the hard pavement and did as her undead brethren were doing; she reached out and grabbed her own portion of that fresh meat and hot blood, bringing a handful of something wet and slippery to her mouth--

Kathy managed to wrench herself out of the dream, stifling the gasp that would surely wake Raven if her thrashing hadn't already done so. She lay still for a moment, frantically swallowing--not bile, which would have been nice, but saliva. If she really wanted to, she could remember the taste and the smell of that dead Seventeen. Most of her recognized it had smelled awful, that nothing smelled good with its insides on the outsides.

A small part of her, the part that came to the forefront whenever she remembered dreamed about the past eight months, thought it smelled delicious. She was afraid it always would.

Silently, she slipped out of the guest bed and made her way to the bathroom where she could rinse her mouth out and brush her teeth again. It was the only way to get the imagined taste of salt and pennies out of her mouth. And then to the living room, where she snagged the laptop Hardison had given her and called up a queue of cute animal videos. She'd stay up till dawn before sneaking back into the guest room to catch another hour or so of sleep. Or, at least, to pretend to so nobody asked questions about why she was up so early.

[Open for housemates!, text under the cut NFB, warning for zombie-typical violence]

Comments

[spin_kick_snap]

"Unrelated task," Kathy said fervently, relaxing a bit further. "Maybe it'll tire me out enough to sleep. I...haven't been doing that much this week."

Beat.

"Also, your water bill is going to be outrageous. I've been taking a lot of showers." Maybe one day she'd feel clean again.

Not today though.

[vdistinctive]

Eliot shook his head. "Don't even worry about that. You wanna help me cook up some breakfast?"

He'd noticed Kathy hadn't been eating much lately, either.

[spin_kick_snap]

Yeah, the function of eating had been more than a little fraught recently. As he could probably guess.

"Sure, okay," she said. "Maybe make some tea while we're at it?"

But not drink them out of wine glasses.

[vdistinctive]

Definitely not out of wine glasses, thanks.

"Sure thing." Eliot got himself back up off the floor with only a little bit of grumbling, then offered her his hand again. "I should have some kimchi in the fridge, assumin' Hardison didn't toss it to make room for more of his soda. Anything else sound good to you?"

[spin_kick_snap]

Kathy's stomach growled again. "Kimchi sounds awesome," she said, sounding surprised. "I haven't had any in--"

Months, right. Not weeks.

"Why does he need to keep his soda cold anyway? We've mastered ice technology."

[vdistinctive]

"You'd think," Eliot said with a sigh. "I've stopped tryin' to ask."

The fridge wasn't anywhere near as full of orange soda as Eliot made it out to be. But fussing about Hardison was a well worn habit, and Eliot made no effort to change it.

[spin_kick_snap]

It was part of their dynamic and, honestly, it made Kathy happy to see. Her parents had never teased or argued or bickered. Her father had imposed his will and her mother had rushed to agree and that was the end of it.

"You've killed people," she said while poking around in the fridge like it was a completely normal conversation segue. "Haven't you. That's what you mean by being a monster."

[vdistinctive]

Eliot paused in his tea preparations, staring down at the water filling the kettle, then reached up to shut off the tap before the kettle got too full.

"I've killed a lot of people," he clarified. "Includin' folks whose only crime was bein' in the wrong place, or lovin' the wrong person." He set the kettle on the stove and turned on the flame, looking at Kathy askance. "That's what I mean by bein' a monster."

[spin_kick_snap]

"What do you mean, loving the wrong person?" Kathy asked, confused. She definitely wasn't thinking in terms of taking hits on the friends and families of targets.

[vdistinctive]

"Same thing I mean about bein' in the 'wrong place'," Eliot said. "It ain't actually wrong. It's just what gets 'em into proximity of someone like me." He shook his head, realizing that probably wouldn't clear it up, either. "Goin' after family is a very effective way of motivatin' people. To do what you want. Or -- what your boss wants."

[spin_kick_snap]

"You were a hitman," Kathy said, the pieces falling together into place. Nine months ago, that would have horrified her. Now? She just felt stupid for not having figured it out before.

Who was she to judge? She'd had a moment where she'd thought about biting a dog.

"How'd you stop? If you had a boss that sent you after people, I bet he wasn't okay with throwing you a retirement party."

And then, as the timeline crystalized, she added, "You must have been so young. Only a little older than me."

[vdistinctive]

"I was," Eliot said, to both observations. "Among other things. And it wasn't easy. But you get a good enough reputation in that business . . . you can start to dictate your own terms. I told him I was goin' solo, and after I sent enough of his men back to him in casts or bags, he got the point."

There was no pride in Eliot's voice. There wasn't much of anything in it. His tone was quiet and empty, just a statement of facts.

[spin_kick_snap]

"And then you became a hitter?" Kathy asked. "Because the crew wouldn't have wanted you as a black bagger. That wasn't what you guys did."

She tilted her head. "Did you change your name? I mean, if you had a rep, wouldn't they have discovered it?"

[vdistinctive]

"Nah. Rep's a useful thing to have. 'Sides, I'd have to build up a whole new set of contacts. It'd just be a pain in the ass." The kettle started whistling, and Eliot removed it from the heat. He grabbed the jade teapot and poured in a bit of the boiling water to warm it up. "Hitter's a general term, includes a lot of different specialties. I stopped killin' because I'd had enough of it. I'd been -- I dunno, I guess you could call it 'clean' -- for a little while before I met the crew. I always worked alone, though. If it was just me callin' the shots, I didn't need to worry about whoever was in charge decidin' someone needed to die for no reason. When I first met Nate. . . ." He smiled a little at the memory. "He was an honest man. A drunken bastard, but honest. I could trust he wouldn't use my skills the wrong way."

[spin_kick_snap]

"He seemed..." Kathy trailed off, unable to find a diplomatic description for Nate. "Sophie was quite lovely."

Smooth, Kath.

[vdistinctive]

Eliot laughed. "I just called him a drunken bastard, darlin', you can say what you like." He shook his head. "Sophie's amazin'. I couldn't have asked for a better team." He glanced off, in the direction of the bedroom where Hardison, at least, was still happily snoozing away. "Lord knows I don't deserve a one of them."

[spin_kick_snap]

That's because Hardison, at least, appreciated sleep for the lovely gift it was. It knit up the raveled sleeve of care, people! The raveled sleeve of care!

"Yeah, well, he's your friend. It's one thing for you to call him a drunken bastard, but another if I tried," Kathy pointed out, fetching the teacups from their cabinet. She hadn't been eating much this week, but Eliot would find his tea stores greatly depleted.

"...I know the feeling. I don't deserve my friends either--and that's before factoring in you all risking your lives and worse to get me back."

There was owing someone your life, but this had gone above and beyond.

[vdistinctive]

"You know, there's bein' modest, darlin', and there's just bein' an idiot." Eliot shook his head. "I don't know what exactly you got up to these last several months in LA," he said, though he could venture an educated guess. "But I do know you deserved everything you had before that and more. Like I said, I made my bed. You landed in yours because you were doing your best to save other people from it."

[spin_kick_snap]

Kathy shook her head, stubbornly. "If I hadn't gone, Raven wouldn't have been trapped, Anders and Dante wouldn't be feeling so betrayed, and the rest of you wouldn't have had to grieve for almost a year."

She knew that Eliot supported her decision to go, but how could it have been right when it had hurt so many people?

[vdistinctive]

"Uh huh. And you definitely knew all of that was going to happen before you left."

[spin_kick_snap]

"Enough people tried to tell me," Kathy pointed out. "You tried to tell me. And there were times I could have gone home. Just grabbed Sarah and run back to the island. I didn't. So now...all that's on me."

[vdistinctive]

"You made the best choices you knew how at the time," Eliot said. "Raven made the best ones she could. Pretty sure Anders and Dante are probably more pissed at themselves than they really are at you." He came over to pour the tea, one hand reaching out to give her back a quick rub. "You ain't in control of anyone's actions but your own. That means you ain't responsible for any mistakes but your own, too."

[spin_kick_snap]

"No, I'm pretty sure they're mad at me," Kathy said wryly. Her back was stiff under his hand, the muscles tight to the point of pain. She was carrying a lot of tension in her...everywhere, really. "And if Raven isn't mad at me, she should be. I know it was her decision to follow me out there, but she never would have been put into the position to choose that if I hadn't gone."

[vdistinctive]

"And you wouldn't have been in that position if that healer guy hadn't tried to resurrect his wife," Eliot said. "Or if that Stealth person hadn't decided to encourage teenagers to be heroes. Or if I hadn't. You can trace blame back anywhere, that don't change the fact that you're only responsible for yourself."

[spin_kick_snap]

"I am more than willing to shoulder a lot of blame onto Josh," Kathy said bitterly, with a bitter expression. "I still can't believe he--"

She shook her head; they were having tea and tea wasn't time to focus on feelings of helpless rage or betrayal. "I was Banzai before you started mentoring me," she reminded instead. "You just made me competent. I probably wouldn't have made it till prom if it hadn't been for you teaching me."