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

[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."

[not_every_mage]

Anders frowned; it sounded like Kathy was talking about something deeper than the pragmatics of it.

"Do you think you can?" he asked. "You don't sound very happy about it."

[spin_kick_snap]

Kathy shrugged. "I loved being Banzai. Even when everything was terrible and I was scared out of my wits, I loved it. Being her helped me learn how to be me. I could have heroed for years." She was hugging herself know, arms wrapped around her knees. "But I died because of it. My family died. I shattered what I had with you and with Dante and even with Ezra. I broke people's hearts because of it. I don't know if I can go back to being Banzai again. Or even heroing in general. It's all mixed up in my head."

She looked at him. "I think...I think it would be like if you'd successfully summoned that demon and then had to decide whether you were ever going to use magic again."

[not_every_mage]

"Now it's all mixed up in mine, too," Anders complained lightly, and sighed. "I'm selfish. I want you to never do anything dangerous ever again. But I want you to be happy, and even if I didn't, I can't exactly tell you what to do."

[spin_kick_snap]

"And yet..." Kathy sighed. "And yet, you could. Because I miss the way we were so much that you could tell me and I'd listen. Which is why I know we can't have that. Not yet. Because that kind of thinking--it's unhealthy. I'd become resentful and angry and..." She gave a shaky laugh. "I can't go after what I want because I want it too much. Isn't that a bitch?"

[not_every_mage]

"So you can't sleep with me because you want to sleep with me."

That ... didn't make sense to Anders, no. (And while he appreciated Kathy's sentiment here, sometimes one had to cut to the chase.)

[spin_kick_snap]

"I didn't say anything about not sleeping with you!"

Yo, Kathy, chill.

She sighed and scrubbed a frustrated hand over her face. "Or, rather, I'm not sure. I want to. Fuck do I want to. But I also can't try to rush into anything with you. I'm waaaaay too fucked up for that, to say nothing about where you are. But right now, if you dangled the hope of it being like March again in front of me, there are a whole lot of hoops I'd jump through to get that chance. And that's...that's not a good place to be in."

And she wasn't sure she could keep sex and emotions separate. Not with Anders.

Of course, it wasn't like emotions weren't already involved and complicated, so saying no to sex would net her exactly nothing.

Why was everything always so complicated.

[not_every_mage]

"Hey, I didn't mean right this second," Anders said, nudging her with his foot. "I'm not sure what to do either. As much as I want you, I can't promise it'd be just like it was last spring. And it doesn't sound like you want to just try it out and see where it goes. So ... I guess we keep our clothes on until we sort that out."

That was, after all, the mature thing to do. It just didn't sound like much fun.