Apartment Above Luke's, Thursday Afternoon

[spin_kick_snap]

Kathy was sitting crosslegged in her living room, surrounded by a truly staggering number of anatomically-shaped lollipops, hard candies, and other confections. It turned out that the company that had supplied Dite's with chocolates and candy had gone out of business and multiple other companies had sent samples to the store in hopes of scoring the contract. Kathy...wasn't sure what it said about the store or the island that it was considered a lucrative enough market for a number of stores to go to this much trouble.

But, she was determined to be a good manager and if that meant spending the afternoon trying a ridiculous amount of sexy candy to decide which she liked best, well, she was up to the task. As long as she took breaks for real food every few hours, she should be okay, right? And she had a pen and paper to record her observations (and had come up with several criteria to judge them on), making this all legit and aboveboard and not just an excuse to gorge out on penis-shaped candy all day.

So far, she'd noticed that the sour gummy boobs made the cut on her lip burn and the mold for one of the companies tended to make their chocolates look more like melted candles than anything sexy. Oh, and another company used cheap chocolate that tended to flake off which was just NOT attractive in something meant to simulate body parts. It was this kind of attention to detail that separated the good managers from the mediocre, see?

[Open! But probably slow as I'm still in training, so who knows what my schedule will be when this finally posts. Link to Anders' thread.]

Comments

[spin_kick_snap]

"People who are more interested in what's between her legs than between her ears?" Kathy suggested.

[not_every_mage]

"You'd think, but you can't even spread her legs," Anders pointed out, holding up the sucker. "She has tits and hips and that's it."

[spin_kick_snap]

"But you still get to put your tongue all over her bits," Kathy said. "Her most important bits, according to the candy."

[not_every_mage]

"The candy is wrong," Anders said firmly. "I hope nobody's relying on it for their sexual education, or they'll terribly disappoint their partner."

[spin_kick_snap]

Kathy laughed and clapped her hands. "I agree," she told him, eliding over the part where he was being totally sexy right now. "It was on my do not want list for the candy."

She held it out for him. "Wanna finish it, or should we trash it entirely?"

[not_every_mage]

"She's already decapitated. I may as well finish it and put her out of her misery," Anders said, accepting the candy with a sly grin. "But I'm glad the show won't have any."

[spin_kick_snap]

"You're a gentleman and a scholar," Kathy teased. "Thank you for jumping on that candy grenade for everyone."

Which reminded her, huh. "Hey, Anders. How's your manifesto coming? Get any work done while I was--" dead "--gone?"

[not_every_mage]

"I think the candy grenades are at the weapons store," Anders joked, and blinked at her. "You know, I haven't even thought about it in a while. Why, do you have insights I should work in?"

[spin_kick_snap]

She shrugged, tossing a few sour gummies at him. "Nothing specific to offer," she said. "But it's important to you and I figured I'd ask about it. Been awhile since I read any of it."

Almost a year, in fact. For reasons.

[not_every_mage]

"I can bring it by sometime," Anders said, catching the gummies and tossing them back one by one. "It doesn't have nearly as many Tumblr references now that I don't have you to bounce ideas off of."

[spin_kick_snap]

Kathy popped a few of the red ones into her mouth, and then returned the volley.

"Not referring to your opposing arguments as 'sweetie' anymore?" she teased. "You're still using emojis though, right?"

[not_every_mage]

"Not only emojis, but I've started writing on my laptop so I can add gifs," Anders said seriously through a mouth full of orange candy. "I don't know how I'll publish it in Thedas, but it looks amazing."

[spin_kick_snap]

"I'll have to share my gif library with you," Kathy said. "The number of facepalm gifs I have there borders on appalling. So it might almost be enough for you to counter all the stupid arguments people have made over the ages. Seriously, though. Send it my way. I'll go back to playing editor for you."

[not_every_mage]

Anders laughed as he snagged a handful of milk chocolate cocks (milk cockolates?) from the candy pile.

"Do you have any for, 'that is so stupid, my head might actually explode'?" he asked. "Because that might be useful."

[spin_kick_snap]

"I have several where people's heads do explode," Kathy told him. "Don't worry, baby, I got you."

[not_every_mage]

"That's you, always taking care of your friends," Anders told her with a grin. "Speaking of, do you need any healing?"

He had noticed the bruises when he came in, but there hadn't been a good time or way to mention them.

[spin_kick_snap]

Kathy's tongue darted out to the healing cut on her lip, even as her hand brushed her cheek. "No, I'm fine," she said. "Thanks, I mean. But they're almost gone."

Pity. Every time she'd touched them and they'd hurt, they'd given her a quick spark of...something. Proof she was alive, maybe.

[not_every_mage]

Anders nodded slowly, looking at her more carefully. "No problem," he said. "How did you get them, anyhow?"

[spin_kick_snap]

"Got into a fight in Baltimore," she admitted reluctantly. "But not how you're thinking. I wasn't--This guy shoved me out of the way so he could run off with some lady's purse. I didn't feel like getting shoved."

She hadn't gone looking for the fight. Hadn't tried to be a hero about it. But she couldn't say she'd minded the opportunity to hit someone a few times.

[not_every_mage]

Anders wasn't sure that was the whole story, but he decided he didn't want to know. Kathy was fine, and from the look in her eyes she wasn't eager to repeat the experience.

"I don't blame you," he said. "Tell me you got the purse back for her, and I'll call it worth it."

[spin_kick_snap]

"I did," Kathy said. Then winced. "Unfortunately she recognized me. Called me Banzai. I...I told her she was wrong."

[not_every_mage]

"Yeah," Anders said softly. "You don't need to get back into that. Not yet, anyhow."

[spin_kick_snap]

"I'm not," Kathy said, shaking her head. "I can't. It's--"

It was too much and not enough, too good and too awful, and all at the same time. She didn't know if she ever could go back to being Banzai.

"Dante told her I was dead," she mumbled. "I told her he was right."

[not_every_mage]

Anders hesitated.

"Don't know what else you could have said," he said finally. "'I got better'? 'He was wrong'? Anything you said would just make her ask more questions."

[spin_kick_snap]

Kathy nodded. "She'd never seen me without the mask anyway. It just seemed easier to not explain."

And not just because explaining resurrection would be complicated.

"I didn't want to explain. Not any of it. Easier to just leave it all behind."