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

[spin_kick_snap]

Kathy peeked out at him from between her fingers and shrugged. "I don't know," she said with more honesty than amusement. "Is that something we don't talk about anymore?"

Sex. Sex with Anders. Sex with her. Sex with her and Anders.

Not once in the past few months had Dante given any indication that he was thinking about her in that way and she wasn't going to force the issue. Sure, they'd dodged around it, that genitalia-swapped afternoon in her apartment, but much of that had been in the abstract and the rest centered around her temporary equipment. The exception to the rule, one might say.

[rebelseekspizza]

Dante'd meant it... well, not jokily. He was just naturally curious about this stuff - it didn't so much have to do with Kathy's nether regions as with the novelty of that happening at all.

So he blinked. "I don't know?" he echoed. "I mean, it's just weird fucking."

[spin_kick_snap]

"I'll have you know, it was very good fucking," Kathy told him. Because she was proud of herself, dammit. "For someone bad at getting her own self off without help from toys at the very least, I was decently competent at getting him."

There, she'd started and he could just decide for himself how much was too much.

[rebelseekspizza]

"You do kinda have experience with that," Dante pointed out. "Same reason I had no complaints about Isabela, either."

[spin_kick_snap]

Well, except for the spanking.

"Getting eaten out repeatedly does not mean that I'd be very good at returning the attentions," Kathy said, skipping over the part where most of that experience had been a year ago anyway. "I wasn't entirely sure I'd like the activity anyway."

She was blushing again.

[rebelseekspizza]

Yeah, but the spanking was unconnected to the larger genderswap sex thing at hand.

"Buuuut you did?" Dante said, tilting his head. "Holy shit."

[spin_kick_snap]

"He made such lovely noises," Kathy said, like that would explain everything. "And it's not like I don't know what I taste like, so it wasn't as entirely a foreign concept. And, well, he was so very pretty...I still like sucking cock more--" Still blushing. Very good. "But it wasn't--err, well, by which I mean it was--I'd do it again, if the opportunity arose."

[rebelseekspizza]

"Right, well, this one's for the history books," Dante said, looking up at the ceiling for reasons that had nothing to do with feeling shitty, for once. Instead, he spelled out fake words in the sky. "The Day Kathy Li Learned To Love the Beaver."

[spin_kick_snap]

"Nobody likes smugness," Kathy informed him, sticking out her tongue. "And it's not like I'm going to go trawling Baltimore for girls to pick up. I just..."

If such an opportunity presented itself, it was no longer the hard and immediate no it had once been. Very different.

[rebelseekspizza]

"... gonna wait until a cunt falls on your face?" Dante said, teasing.

[spin_kick_snap]

"Is that the follow-up sequel to Raining Men?" Kathy snorted. And yet did not sing, proving that Fandom just liked to be contrary. "I think it might have more to do with who the cunt belongs to than anything else. Need some kind of emotional connection, maybe?"

Or Isabela. Because Isabela was Isabela and Kathy still thought about that kiss in class.

"Suck my cockiness
Lick my persuasion
Eat my words and then
Swallow your pride down, down"

See? Contrary!

[rebelseekspizza]

Dante snickered softly. "You are such a fucking romantic," he said, poking her in the side. "Even about vag."

[spin_kick_snap]

Kathy raised her eyebrow at him and poked him back in retaliation. "Okay, I am thinking about the time when I fucked you with heels on and left furrows down your back," she sassed before she thought. "Pretty sure romance wasn't on my mind then."

And in a minute, she'd realize how far over the line she might have crossed with that.

[rebelseekspizza]

"Pretty sure you weren't doing the fucking," Dante retorted. "But you gave me months of emotional connection crap before then anyway."

Honestly, there wasn't much of a line she could cross with words.

[spin_kick_snap]

Yes, well--Kathy. Prone to worrying, though she was relaxing a little now that he'd had his chance to get upset and hadn't.

"I can fuck you without actually fucking you," she retorted. "And--you know what? I don't think it was actually months. We met at the end of August, remember? And were banging by mid-October."

Weeks, Dante. She'd made you wait weeks. The first few of which you were debating whether or not you even liked her.

[rebelseekspizza]

Dante shrugged. "Still weeks," he said. "Definitely more than a month."

Leading to a one-night explosion of fucking that lasted long enough he was still vaguely wondering if it'd really happene, but still.

[spin_kick_snap]

It had and it had been awesome. Though the time she'd come three times and he'd come twice would live on as her favorite for a long time.

"Yeah, but think about it. It took Anders and me years to fuck for the first time. Ezra, a few months. You practically got the express lane into my panties."

[rebelseekspizza]

"How did that happen?" Dante mused. "Not that my ego doesn't dig it."

It'd probably dig it more if there wasn't still a massive short somewhere in the system that had previously found Kathy attractive as hell.

[spin_kick_snap]

Which was why Kathy wasn't trying to push this conversation anywhere beyond just talking--and casual talking at that.

"When Anders and I first met, I was even shier and more awkward than you've ever seen me. Completely inexperienced--he gave me my first kiss. Then I had a crush on Gorgon and he started seeing Nathan and the timing never worked."

Story of their relationship.

"Then Ezra came around and we started flirting and messing around some. It took me awhile to work up the courage, and then a little longer to get over getting abandoned in the woods. By the time you came around, I'd gotten over all my virginity hang-ups." She paused, and added, "Being Banzai helped. If I could be brave and bold and fearless in Baltimore, I could be the same with boys, too. I started seeing myself as someone who could be desirable."

[rebelseekspizza]

"Trust you to have a whole word wall ready to answer that question," Dante said, though he sounded fond this time, not bothered. "Still can't wrap my head around you not figuring out you were hot for that long."

[spin_kick_snap]

"That was barely a wall," Kathy said, poking him again. "That qualified as a retaining wall at best."

She shook her head. "Hard to feel hot when you're too busy feeling like you're in everybody's way. Besides, don't people say confidence is sexy? I needed to get some of that, first."

[rebelseekspizza]

"Yeah, but confidence didn't shape those legs," Dante said, kicking gently at her ankles.

[spin_kick_snap]

"Yeah, okay, that's fair," Kathy said, lifting a leg up until it was at an acute angle to her face. She gave it a proud smile before letting it fall back to the floor. "But I was always more hung up on my tits. And no one told me whether or not I had a decent ass."

Beat.

"Also, you missed the way I dressed for awhile. Few people wanted to look below the giant prints to tell for sure."

[rebelseekspizza]

"You'd look weird with big tits," was Dante's verdict. But also... "Wait, are there pictures of that?"

[spin_kick_snap]

"No," Kathy said quickly. Far too quickly.