Apartment Above Luke's, Tuesday

[spin_kick_snap]

It was Tuesday. Kathy knew she was supposed to be getting to work sometime this afternoon, doing stock or cleaning or trying to find people to come work for her or any number of countless, pointless projects. She had a routine and routines were important, at least according to what little poking around she'd done on the computer for Helpful tips when you're a basket case. But she couldn't summon the energy to get up off the couch today. Hell, getting out of bed had been a titanic struggle and the only reason she'd managed a shower at all was because she'd sat on the floor of the tub and just let the water run over her for most of it.

It sucked. She'd really thought she was doing better. She'd been okay for a few days there, genuinely happy and smiling and laughing. The kids had been great distractions while they'd been there, but they were gone now, leaving a hole in Kathy's heart and the promise of a future that seemed further away than ever, today. From 'okay' to 'utter distaster' in just twelve hours, only this time she didn't even have the outlet of fighting in Baltimore to try to channel some of this bullshit into. All she had was Hulu and about a million seasons of Hades' Kitchen to get through while she tried very hard not to think about what Saturday had been or her alternate reality daughter with her dead sister's name.

"You're never going to impress him with that mess," she informed the TV from inside her comfy cocoon of blanket. "It looks like you threw up on a plate. Way to just hand the victory to the blue team, ladies, jeez."

[Open, though I'll be off to bed soon.]

Comments

[not_every_mage]

Anders looked at her for a minute, spark of recognition in his eyes.

"I always thought you were a little better than the rest of us that way," he admitted. "I knew you liked the helping people. I didn't realize you liked the winning, too."

[spin_kick_snap]

Kathy shook her head. "You don't know how people would laugh," she said. "They'd see some skinny girl in rainbows, some--" some Saturday morning cartoon, she almost said, but didn't "--someone they didn't have to take seriously. Someone they didn't take seriously. And then I would run them down, even in their fancy cars, or I would drop down off a rooftop and corner them--and at the end, it would be me who was laughing," she said fiercely. "Me. They could have guns or knives or bats, but I'd still be the one standing in the end. And they wouldn't laugh at me anymore. And it felt good."

[not_every_mage]

"I know what you mean," Anders said, bobbing his head rapidly. "I heard it so often -- mages are bad, mages are cursed, mages are a danger. Even people who liked me didn't seem like they really liked me. And then to use this horrible thing, my magic, to help make things better -- it feels pretty great, doesn't it?"

[spin_kick_snap]

"Yes," Kathy said. "I mean, even as Banzai, I knew I was pretty much nothing. I was fast and bouncy. I couldn't drain energy like Gorgon or heal like Regenerator or fly and blow fire like the Mighty Dragon. I didn't have your magic or Dante's anything. At best, someone like me is supposed to be a distraction for the real heroes when they show up and save the day. The side kick. But I wasn't. I was..."

Her mouth twisted and her longing turned to bitterness. "...Still a fool in the end."

[not_every_mage]

"Hush," Anders said, patting her on the shoulder. "You've been yelled at about that plenty. You can't keep yelling at yourself about it every time it comes up. You ... overreached, is all."

[spin_kick_snap]

"Is there ever really an enough?" Kathy asked. She wasn't sure the answer was yes. She wasn't sure Dante would agree with that, either. "Getting yelled at doesn't undo the pain I caused. Or bring the dead back to life. Or put things back the way they were."

Not that yelling did any of those things, either. But she deserved yelling. She wasn't sure she'd earned forgiveness yet.

[not_every_mage]

"There's nothing you or anyone else could do that would put things back the way they were," Anders told her. "All yelling does is keep the wound fresh. Doesn't seem like much of a way to live a life to me."

Anders didn't think it was about forgiveness; his own forgiveness was conditional, and still a work in progress. But acceptance? That was just necessary.

[spin_kick_snap]

"I'm not really good at living one right now," Kathy admitted. "I'm trying but then there are days like today when it's just...a lot harder. Stuff presses close."

She brushed her hand over her right shoulder, an invisible scar of toothprints erased by Alluka's magic but not forgotten. "I'm getting another tattoo. Another two probably," she said, abruptly.

[not_every_mage]

"What of?" Anders asked, since he gathered from the abrupt subject change that yelling at her more about why yelling at herself was bad wouldn't be helpful.

[spin_kick_snap]

More like the two were related in her head, as he's see when she explained.

"You're probably going to think it's macabre," she said. "Dwelling. Names in a circle, here," she said, gesturing to the shoulder she'd touched a moment ago. "In Hangul. Mom. Dad. Sarah. Hell, maybe even Midknight, Blockbuster, and Murrain's. People I don't want to forget."

Even Max, who was an asshole, had still been a friend. Or, at least, a teammate. And he hadn't deserved to die like that. Or worse, be turned into a weapon against his friends.

"And a series of hashmarks on my wrist," she said, holding up her left hand. "Seven."

[not_every_mage]

"Why seven?" Anders wanted to know. "And I don't think memorial tattoos are macabre, by the way. If they are, there are a lot of macabre people walking around."

He didn't think Kathy's teammates deserved to be memorialized on her flesh, but he recognized that his grudge wasn't very helpful.

[spin_kick_snap]

"A reminder of consequences," Kathy said wryly. "That even having the best of intentions doesn't prevent you from doing harm."

Which made it sound a lot nicer than it really was.

"It's the number of people I killed while I was an ex."

[not_every_mage]

Anders gave her a funny look.

"That's all?"

From how long Kathy had been an "ex," he would have believed a dozen times that. More.

[spin_kick_snap]

"I spent the first couple of months locked in Griffith's Observatory," Kathy said. "The Mighty Dragon dropped me off there and turned the film on loop and left me. Once the power went, it took me a few days to wander through the park to civilization. By the time I got to LA proper, the survivors were all hiding. I made due with...other sources of food, usually."

[not_every_mage]

"I know you weren't free the whole time, but somebody from a world more like yours might understand all of this better," Anders told her, shaking his head. "At home, seven deaths is a tavern fight gone wrong."

A pause. "Not that I wouldn't feel guilty! I just assumed you'd killed a lot more than that."

[spin_kick_snap]

Kathy found herself laughing at that description. "If I have to have a bodycount, I guess I'm glad it's roughly on par with 'angry tavern brawl,'" she said. "But...it was weird. There was only a tiny chunk of time with lot of deaths, I think. In the beginning, most people were bit, but got away and died elsewhere. Then, the number of exes started growing and people started getting surrounded and getting killed. I died right at the beginning of that. Places were getting overrun and people were getting killed in large numbers. But then, I guess it tapers off again, once most of the people are either dead or hiding. By the time I got out, LA belonged to the exes."

She made a face. "I ate more than seven people. But I only killed seven. The rest of the time, I was drawn by the sound of struggle, but the person died before I got there."

[not_every_mage]

Anders shuddered. "That can't be much easier to have in your memories," he speculated. "Whether you did or or not, you still saw everything."

[spin_kick_snap]

"Saw, heard, smelled, tasted...it's a full-on sensory experience," Kathy said, leaning into him. He felt so good. "And, no, it's not? But those seven, I am directly responsible for. It feels right to...not just commemorate them or remember them, but have them serve as a reminder that I can't just run blindly into something and expect that my intentions will make everything okay, you know?"

[not_every_mage]

"I think I understand," Anders nodded. "And if that's what it'll mean to you, I can't blame you for wanting it."

[spin_kick_snap]

"Three tattoos," Kathy said, looking for a little levity. "If my mom were still alive, she'd accuse me of becoming a biker."

[not_every_mage]

"You got Dante his motorcycle, didn't you?" Anders reminded her. "How wrong would she really be?"

[spin_kick_snap]

"Well, I helped him steal it from a chop shop," Kathy conceded. "Not sure why that makes it his and not mine..."

You know, other than the part where Dante loved his bike like a child and Kathy would have just found it pretty cool to have.

"Pretty sure my wardrobe doesn't have enough leather for me to be a real biker chick. Something I should work on, you think?"

[not_every_mage]

"I think it's his because he'd give a limb for it, as long as it wasn't one he needed to drive," Anders told her. "And I'm never going to vote against more leather."

[spin_kick_snap]

"I'll keep that in mind," Kathy said, relaxing a little further. Anders was good at distracting her, even without sex or violence. He was...soothing. Restful. "Next time I go clothing shopping, I'll see what their leather selection looks like and send you pics."

[not_every_mage]

"I'm never going to turn down photos of you," Anders said, a bit dreamily. "Especially if you're wearing leather."