Apartment Above Lukes, Tuesday Afternoon

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Kathy had spent her Memorial Day quietly, going into Baltimore to visit a tattoo parlor to get the ink she'd been mulling over for the past few weeks. Seven hashmarks on her left wrist, a circle with names written in Hangul on her right shoulder where there should have been a scar but wasn't. The feel of needles in her skin had been oddly soothing and she'd left the parlor feeling more settled than she'd entered.

Today she was paying for that a bit, with a bit of residual soreness in both arms (okay, maaaaybe she should have spread them out, but the hashmarks had been so little and quickly over). So she'd skipped her shift at Dite's and was hanging out on the couch, rubbing ointment on her new tattoos and watching TV. Something with an actual plot this time rather than mindless reality shows, so she was pretty sure it counted as improvement.

By...some metric anyway.

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[spin_kick_snap]

Kathy giggle-snorted at his exasperation before dropping back into character. But, oh, how put-upon he sounded!

"I would be ever so grateful if you'd let me do the same," she said, her wrist to her forehead. "I'll do anything to get my hands on that big...lunch...you've got there."

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"It is a rather impressive ... lunch," Anders said with a light leer that barely hid how much he enjoyed making her laugh. "Are you sure you can handle it?"

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"I'm a very hungry girl," Kathy said, batting her eyes at him. She kept a straight face, but her dimples were deep enough to show it was a struggle. "I'm certain I can handle your...lunch...no matter how big it is. In fact, the bigger the better. I like to be filled right up."

This was all terribly sexy.

[not_every_mage]

"I think I have something that'll get you nice and full," Anders promised, manfully managing not to giggle. "Maybe even leave you licking your lips after."

He let the door close behind him and moved toward the table. Which might have been anticlimactic, but he wanted his hands free.

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Kathy set the towel aside on the back of a dining room chair, then held her hands out to him when he set the lunch down. "Hi," she said in her normal voice. "Good to see you, lunch and all."

[not_every_mage]

"Good to see you, too," Anders said, squeezing Kathy's hand as he leaned in for a kiss. "I might have run out of food innuendos."

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"I still love you," Kathy assured him, before giving him that kiss he was angling for. Mmm. There was something about Anders kisses that always made her toes curl, no matter how soft or brief that kiss was. "Even if you are the world's most put-upon rentboy."

[not_every_mage]

"Not a rentboy, a delivery man," Anders argued, snaking a hand around to squeeze her ass. "There's a difference."

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"That's true, I suppose I was offering sex in exchange for goods and services," Kathy allowed, grinning up at him as she pressed herself closer. "Adventures of Delivery Man and Rentgirl? I'd watch that show."

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"What genre would it be?" Anders wondered, pressing back. "Would they have adventures, or would they just eat and have lots of sex?"

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"Porque no los dos?" Kathy asked. "It's like a porn parody TV show, where they had implausible adventures that lead to even more implausible sex. Like Delivery Man brings pizza to a seedy apartment and, oh no! He catches diamond smugglers! Or Rentgirl is hanging out in an alley and she sees...?" Kathy paused to try to come up with a scenario that would l=work.

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"Their nemesis, Boss Nofun," Anders put in. "He always wants Delivery Man to focus less on solving crimes, and more on bringing burritos to people. And it turns out he's working with gangsters, of course."

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Kathy laughed and clapped her hands. "Yes, of course!" she said. "Big Boss Nofun, who also doesn't appreciate all the sex Delivery Man has while he's on the clock."

[not_every_mage]

"He's a horrible boss that way," Anders nodded. "Also, he wants Rent Girl or himself, even though she's told him she isn't interested about ninety times. He's always trying to catch Delivery Man with her."

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"Fortunately, both Delivery Man and Rent Girl know a thousand different places to meet where he can't find them," Kathy added, resting her chin on Anders' shoulder while they continued to be ridiculous together. "He busts into the location of their most recent tryst, only to discover that they've driven away in the Delivery Mobile and have thwarted another of his evil schemes. And got the burritos delivered on time."

[not_every_mage]

"Perfect. I love stories with happy endings," Anders said, nuzzling the top of Kathy's head. "Delivery Man and Rent Girl will live to spend many more naked hours together."

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"Eating delicious takeout and having all sorts of sexy adventures," Kathy finished, wrapping her arms around him to hold him close. "Hi, you. How're you today?"

[not_every_mage]

"Better now," Anders said, relaxing into the embrace. "I missed you. Glad you were home. How're you?"

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She stole a kiss before she answered, and then reached for their bag of lunch. "Taking it easy today," she said, peeking at a taco and handing it over to him once she spotted the beef. "Catching up on the show about the people around the world with the mental connection."

The bits that took place in Korea made her fiercely homesick, but in a good way.

"You ever watch it? It's got not one but several orgy scenes in it. But I'm watching it for the plot, I swear."

[not_every_mage]

Anders shook his head as he unwrapped his taco and dolloped on a gob of guacamole. "I don't think I know that one. It's good?"

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"So good!" Kathy said, bouncing in her chair a bit. "I can show you the first few episodes while we're eating lunch. Won't get you far enough to see the first orgy scene, but it's good for other reasons than just that. I just started today and I'm almost on the second season."

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"That sounds like something I need to see," Anders told her, grinning at the enthusiasm. "Even if we won't quite make it to the orgy right away. It's about psychics?"

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Kathy snatched up one of her tacos (and more than her fair share of guacamole, if one were keeping count). "Yup! They discover they're all psychically linked and pop in and out of each other's lives. Watching them getting used to having other people in their heads is hilarious. It's done by the same people who--okay, you probably don't know the directors or what they did, but they're pretty famous for their previous work."

[not_every_mage]

"Sounds interesting, and you just took all the guacamole," Anders informed her, then watched her for a second before changing the subject. "So ... Dante said you had a date the other week."

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"That's not true!" Kathy protested. "There's still some left!"

Kathy, there was like a teaspoon of guac left, that didn't count.

"And--sorta? I don't know if I'd call it a date, exactly. We don't do dates. Not like you two or whatever. We went to Baltimore to get me a motorcycle. More of an outing?" She gave him a hapless shrug at the thought of trying to quantify anything between her and Dante, then went back to returning some of the guac back to the container. "What did he say?"

[not_every_mage]

"It doesn't count if I need my glasses to see it," Anders argued. "Anyhow, all he said was that the two of you had hooked up." A tiny shrug. "I wondered if it bothers you that I don't do things like that with you."

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"Which part?"Kathy asked, adding another fraction of guac back to the container. "The stealing motorcycles or the hookup in a public bathroom?" She shook her head. "It doesn't matter, really. The answer's the same for both. No, I don't mind. That's not who you are, that's not what we have. You want something different with me than Dante does, that's all."

In fact, that interlude in the bathroom had helped her remember what Dante did want from her.

"I love you for who you are," she said, tucking her hair behind her ear. "I don't spend a lot of time wishing you were different."