Barry's Old Warehouse, Saturday Afternoon

[spin_kick_snap]

Kathy hadn't meant to lie to Anders when she said that wouldn't be alone tonight. She'd had every intention of going back to the apartment, letting Raven yell at her for that bullshit note she'd left, and then spend the rest of the evening pass by in a Netflix binge, where she'd watch six episodes of a forgettable anime and only drag herself to bed when the sun came up.

That wasn't what happened. Too filthy and injured for Baltimore, she'd made her way to Barry's old warehouse of all places. But it hadn't been the worst place to hole up while she had a breakdown. There'd been a shower, a clothing replicator, even a prototype for a food fabricator, though Kathy'd had to force herself to eat. It also had a lot of bits of heavy machinery that barely dented when she slammed her batons against them and pillows that made a most satisfied ripping sound when she tore them apart. Best of all, it was in the middle of the warehouse district and no one had come to find out what all the clamor was about, save for one squirrel that had run away after she'd flung a bottle of rum at it and screamed, "LEAVE ME ALONE!"

And there were plenty of places to curl up and crash once she'd worn herself out.

It was afternoon before she finally woke up, stiff and sore and still tired. Her reflection in a piece of shiny sheet metal was a blurry composite of light and dark--dark circles under her eyes, dark bruises elsewhere, pale face, and even bits of white feathers caught in her dark hair from her destructive rampage. She barely recognized herself. Hell, she barely looked human. If this were LA again, she wouldn't blame anyone for mistaking her for an ex. "Look at me, I'm a wreck," she muttered, shaking her head. "Just look at me."

"Look at me and tell me who I am,
Why I am, what I am.
Call me a fool and it's true I am,
I don't know who I am.
It's such a shame,
I'm such a sham.
No one knows who I am."

She was dancing now, Fandom's whimsy moving her feet in slow, sweeping circles. She barely noticed, not with memories from the year before rising up unbidden. Memories of when she'd been happy; filled with wonder and songs and laughter.

"Once there were sweet possibilities,
I could see, just for me.
Now all my dreams are just memories,
Fated never to be.
Time's not a friend, hurrying by.
I wonder who am I?

Am I the face of the future?
Am I the face of the past?
Am I the one who must finish last?"

Her circles slowed, bright memories fading back to grim reality. She came to a stop right back at the metal sheet acting as a mirror. Once again, she looked into it, and her reflection stared back at her with dull eyes. She barely recognized the girl in the makeshift mirror. And wasn't sure she wanted to.

"Look at me and tell me who I am,
Why I am, what I am.
Will I survive?
Who will give a damn,
If no one knows who I am?"

"Nobody knows," she whispered to herself. "Not even you. No one knows who I am...."

[Post is open and musical!]

Comments

[rebelseekspizza]

"Shitting hell."

Dante winced a second later, as he realized just how shittily he'd just accidentally punned.

He tried to think of something else to say, but he had nothing. Fuck. Fuck, that sucked beyond the telling of it for her, and there was nothing he could do about it.

"She deserved better," he said hoarsely, in the end.

[spin_kick_snap]

"She did. Does. I asked her about it. About why she was there when she was an angel," Kathy said, idly tracing circles on the floor with a finger. They stood out amid the dust and other detritus covering it. "But heaven branded her a traitor for loving Sparda and bearing his sons and when she was killed, that's where she ended up."

And Kathy had been glad that she wasn't a Christian then; glad that a heaven that would do that to one of its own had no claim on any part of her.

"I'm sorry, Dante," she said, looking up at him. "I'm sorry, I tried, I really did. You don't have to believe me and I'm not sure what I could have done, but I swear to you, I tried--"

But in the end, she'd come back to life and left his mother in Hell.

[rebelseekspizza]

Dante shut his eyes. "Kathy," he said, with an evenness he didn't actually feel, "Stop. There's nothing you coulda done for her."

Nothing he could do for her now, either. Not from here.

[spin_kick_snap]

"I know," she said. "That's why I didn't tell you. Telling you accomplishes nothing but making you hurt. I thought it might be enough to rattle Vergil--but no. It's just enough to hurt."

[rebelseekspizza]

"Nothing was going to rattle Vergil, not after he had his mind set on shit," Dante said, blowing out a breath.

He didn't know if he was happy to know or not. So he sidestepped that question.

[spin_kick_snap]

It was hardly a question; or, rather, it was one Kathy already knew the answer to. "I was hoping anyway," Kathy said. "I didn't want you to have to fight him. And I'm not--I'm not sorry I interfered."

It hadn't been her place. And several other people thought Vergil was safer dead. But that was the one thing about yesterday that Kathy didn't regret.

[rebelseekspizza]

"I didn't want to have to fight him either," Dante said, sounding-- lost. "Just like I didn't want to have to fight you."

[spin_kick_snap]

"In Los Angeles," Kathy said quietly. "You feel that Vergil and I are the same?"

Not fair! Her mind clamored. I wanted to save the world, not claim it! I didn't try to kill you! You hurt me that night and didn't even care! We are nothing alike!

She didn't say any of that aloud though, ruthlessly stomping it into silence. She wanted to hear this. She needed to hear this. She wasn't the victim of her own drama, but the architect.

"...Oh."

[rebelseekspizza]

"No, you're not the same," Dante said quietly, his thumbs pressing into his forehead as he looked down at the floor. "But neither of you wanted to listen. And I didn't wanna fight either of you on it. And then both of you left. "

[spin_kick_snap]

"Shame pulses through my heart
From the things I've done to you
It's hard to face, but the fact remains
That this is nothing new."

Well, when he put it that way...

Fuck, even Kathy's hurt pride couldn't deny there were certain similarities there. She still saw that day differently, had her own hurt from what was said and done, but...he was right. She hadn't listened. They'd fought. And it was only a quirk of Fandom that brought her back at all.

"Now that I've lost you it kills me to say
I've tried to hold on as you've slowly slipped away.
I'm losing the fight.
I've treated you so wrong, now let me make it right..."

"Except I can't," she said when the singing stopped. "I can't make it okay."

[rebelseekspizza]

She was right in one sense: the likelihood of people like ditching me not becoming a permanent fixture in Dante's rack of issues had vanished the moment Vergil had turned on him. The memory had festered too much; it wasn't going anywhere.

But there were a bunch of ways in which she wasn't.

"Yeah, you can," Dante said slowly. The next thing out of his mouth was part statement, part realization. "You're here for me now."

[spin_kick_snap]

At some point, they really needed to talk about that day. Air out the memory, point out the parts that had left them both with scars. But Kathy had no intention of that being right now. Hell, right now she could barely breathe. He was dangling hope and redemption and forgiveness right in front of her and she was almost scared to move in case he snatched it away again.

"I--I am," she said, voice choked. "At least, I want to be. It's why I was there yesterday. You asked me for something. I couldn't not."

[rebelseekspizza]

"You wanna sit down?" Dante asked, patting the torn-up sofa next to him.

[spin_kick_snap]

Kathy nodded, pushing herself to her feet more slowly than normal and crossing the space to sit. It felt like a longer trip than it was.

It felt like coming home.

"I hold a memory of myself
So young and foolish and not knowing
Careless decisions that I made..."

Tears threatened and she held them back. Words hovered, but she dismissed those too.

[rebelseekspizza]

Dante quirked a small smile at her as she came over, but he didn't say anything either. Just reached out to wrap an arm around her shoulders and pull her in close.

She hadn't earned getting his shit today.

[spin_kick_snap]

Kathy wrapped her arms around him and held him tightly for a moment, before letting him go to lean where he'd pulled her in.

"So I don't know if anyone's mentioned it to you yet," she said, going for a moment of lightness while she struggled to put her feelings in check, "but you look weird with white hair."

There were more words in that song that Kathy wasn't ready for yet. Words about forgiving oneself and moving on. Just like this wasn't the happy ending she'd spent so long wishing for. If anything, this was a happy beginning, the first step down a long road. But, for right now, she had faith she could walk it.

[rebelseekspizza]

Dante let out a soft, disbelieving snort - really, Kathy? "You and half the island," he said. "I'm leaving it this color just to fuck with you people now."

[spin_kick_snap]

It was that or word-walling at you, Dante. Give her a few moments to calm down.

She reached up to tug on it a bit, feeling the texture under her fingers. It felt different than she remembered, but she couldn't tell if it were his hair or her memory that had been altered.

"If you think it's going to take a bit of white hair to fuck with me, you're in for a surprise."

[rebelseekspizza]

"You just said it was messing with you," Dante pointed out, making a half-hearted attempt to thwap at her fingers. "I'm gonna be telling people to stop doing that for weeks, too."

[spin_kick_snap]

"No, I said you looked weird," she told him with a small smile. But it was a real one, as so few of hers were these days. "I said nothing about me."

She moved her fingers out of the way of the thwap, but removed her hand from his hair.

Lyrics rose to her mind of her own volition, not Fandom's and she didn't sing them. But she felt them, with her entire being.

Forgiveness. Can you imagine?

[rebelseekspizza]

"Ugh," Dante said theatrically, but he didn't move further out of the way. "Whatever, Kat. I got your number."

He'd be lying if he said his own thoughts weren't still a jumble. But for the moment, this part - the Kathy part - was quiet.

No, not quiet. Calm. Like this was fine.

[spin_kick_snap]

Calm. Quiet. Two things Kathy hadn't had much of over the past few months.

"Yesterday was really hard for me," she told him, because he'd asked and she'd danced away from giving him an answer. "Not the demons. Wait, I mean, definitely the demons, if I never have to play tag with a chainsaw again it'll be too soon, but not just the demons. It brought a lot of things back for me. I came here to have the breakdown I couldn't have in front of anyone else."

[rebelseekspizza]

"All of the zombie shit?" Dante guessed.

And hey, look. Now Kathy wasn't the only one who felt guilty.

[spin_kick_snap]

"Oddly enough, running through a broken urban landscape with things that want to eat you feels pretty much the same, whether it's exes or demons," Kathy said tartly. "But...yeah. It could have been any day of those last few weeks, except this time the shit I was fighting had brains and weapons, too. I..." She brushed her hair from her face. "A couple of times, I couldn't have told you where I was if you'd asked me."

[rebelseekspizza]

"Sorry," Dante said. He frowned. "I never shoulda asked you in the first place."