Baltimore, Sunday Night

[spin_kick_snap]

It had been another bad day. The worst part was, there had been nothing that had made it a bad day. It wasn't like there was rhyme or reason for it, but for some reason as the sun went down and the lights came on over the water, Kathy been struck anew by grief, her breath thick in her throat, her eyes burning with tears. Maybe the lights had reminded her of LA. Or maybe they'd reminded her of happier, easier times, when everything was good. More than good. Perfect. She'd known what she was doing and why--everything had made sense. She'd had a plan and every step she'd taken had moved her closer to her goals.

Now she had no plan, no goals other than 'make it through the day.' Some days, she felt good, like she was making progress, uncovering bits and pieces of herself that she'd thought she'd lost, trying to fit them into the person she was now like shards of a broken mirror. Other days, like today, she felt like she was drowning and every breath was a struggle around the thick weight of grief and regret and pain that sat on her chest like a creature out of myth. Most days were somewhere in-between, an odd muted gray as she fumbled her way, uncertain whether she was moving forward or backwards or even off to the side.

Like she did so many nights, she made her way to Baltimore. This time, she found herself on a rooftop somewhere, staring down at the city. She didn't think she'd even stood on this particular building as Banzai before, but still the vantage point and the angles were so familiar that the ache she felt sharpened to the point of true pain. But the tears stayed where they were, locked away, and instead she just sat, staring at the city, at the life, she'd once called hers and waited for it to pass.

It would pass, right?



[For one and up early for SP]

Comments

[rebelseekspizza]

Dante sighed.

Dropped his hand for real this time, and paced back towards her, sitting back down on the floor.

He didn't reach out to hug her, or anything. But he did sit down next to her. Kinda summed it up right now, didn't it?

[spin_kick_snap]

Pretty well, yeah.

Eventually, it wound down to a few hiccuping sniffles. "I keep thinking at some point I have to run out of fucking tears already," she said, wiping her face dry and mostly succeeding in making it redder and blotchier. She would never be a pretty crier. "But I guess I haven't hit that point yet."

A bit of rambly nonsense, sure, but it kept her from apologizing again. Which, she'd realized in a moment of tearful clarity, added to the emotional burden of Dante's side of the conversation. Fuck.

[rebelseekspizza]

It was a good thing she wasn't a pretty crier. Seeing her looking human took the winds out of Dante's sails a little, like he wasn't railing at some distant picture but a real person.

"Yeah, that'll be a while," he said, sounding halfway to uncomfortable. Not because she was crying, but, well.

Wind. Sails.

"I wanna be friends," he said. "Okay?"

[spin_kick_snap]

She nodded. "Okay," she said. "That means a lot. That you want to, I mean."

[rebelseekspizza]

"I just don't know how far I'm cool with it going," Dante said slowly. "'Cause like I said, right now I don't feel like I can trust you."

He shrugged, his shoulders going into something close to a huddle. "Maybe that'll change if we keep talking. Maybe it won't. I don't know and I got no answers for you. Telling me I'm wrong won't change that."

[spin_kick_snap]

Which, again, queued Kathy up for a long explanation that she wasn't just in it for the sex. She inhaled to start her spiel--

--And then exhaled slowly, letting the words fly away, unuttered in the wind.

"That's fair," she said instead. "We go at your pace, not mine. I don't--I still don't exactly get why you don't trust me, exactly. Or, well, not all of it, some parts are really obvious, but...but I don't have to."

Wait a minute, what? "I don't have to," she repeated. It was like dawn over Marblehead. "It's not the why that's important. It just is. I mean, I'd like to know sometime. It would help, I think. But that's secondary to the rest of it."

She'd been so focused on knowing the whys with the intent to fix it that she'd lost sight of what she was trying to fix in the first place.

[rebelseekspizza]

"Yeah," Dante said, after a moment of quiet. "Yeah, basically."

He wished he had gone to pick up a drink now, but his anger had quieted.

"So let's just talk about shit," he said finally. "Whatever shit got you up on the roof, or talking shit about Tino, whichever."

[spin_kick_snap]

"Tino is such a creeper," Kathy said, steering wide around topic of what had her up on the roof, since it was all just an amorphous cloud I feel bad about everything and you're a part of that. "He's totally one of those guys who'd go to Japan just to see if the vending machines with used panties are actually real or just an urban legend."

[rebelseekspizza]

Dante thought about it.

"Are they?" he asked.

If she wanted to keep things light, he'd keep it light.

[spin_kick_snap]

Kathy was done with heavy emotional lifting. At least for a few minutes.

Kathy shrugged. "You'd have to ask Ringo," she said, leaning over to poke his arm. "I'm not Japanese."

[rebelseekspizza]

"Yeah, but you've visited Ringo too," Dante retorted, poking back. "Maybe you saw something."

[spin_kick_snap]

"Mostly some guy who was too chicken to try new food," Kathy said, nose in the air.

Kathy, you tried to offer him silkworms.

[rebelseekspizza]

"You wanted to make me eat fuckin' caterpillars," Dante shot back. "No way."

[spin_kick_snap]

"They weren't caterpillars, they were silkworms." Kathy, literally not helping. "And they're really good! They kinda pop in your mouth when you chew on them."

Now she was just being a brat.

"Stop being so American about new foods."

[rebelseekspizza]

"I think I'm happy being American, thanks," Dante said, pulling a face. "Can we get some hamburgers up here?"

[spin_kick_snap]

"Not pizza?" Kathy asked. "And I don't know. I've never thought about ordering takeout to a rooftop before. We could always go get something." She looked over the city. "Remember that bar we went to that time? Where you hooked up with the waiter who liked spankings? We could always go there, if you want. I don't think it's far from here."

[rebelseekspizza]

"Don't always feel like pizza," Dante said easily. "And I guess a bar could be nice? You remember what the food was like over there?"

[spin_kick_snap]

"Pub food mostly, wasn't it?" Kathy asked, trying to psych herself up for burgers. Maybe Dante wouldn't notice if she only stuck to fries? "I mostly remember drinking Angel's Tits and devouring everything in sight because I'd patrolled all night without a snack. They could have been serving tripe on crackers and I'd've gone with it."

Though now the very idea of tripe--and the part of the body it was from--made her feel ill.

[rebelseekspizza]

Dante snickered. "Maybe we'll just get you drunk," he said, "And see what happens. C'mon."

He pushed up to his feet, much less fraught now, and offered her his hand.

[spin_kick_snap]

And Kathy grinned and took it. "You couldn't drink me under the table if you had your brother's liver to help you," she told him.

That was also not at all true. But sometimes you had to talk shit.

[rebelseekspizza]

"I so can," Dante said. "Might have to drink and dash if we really go for it, though."

Considering both their systems.

[spin_kick_snap]

"Don't you have a job?" Kathy teased, heading over to the edge of the roof. She didn't keep holding his hand after she'd stood, though she did squeeze it once before letting go. "You can't tell me you can't afford your own booze, Dante."

[rebelseekspizza]

"The way we drink?" Dante said. "I'd have to be a millionaire."

[spin_kick_snap]

"We might have to make the hard choice between food and alcohol, Dante," Kathy said sadly. She was, as he might notice, not arguing against the idea of a dine and dash. "Whatever shall we choose?"

[rebelseekspizza]

"Drinks," Dante said. "Definitely drinks."