Apartment Above Lukes, Tuesday Afternoon

[spin_kick_snap]

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.

Comments

[spin_kick_snap]

"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."

[not_every_mage]

"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?"

[spin_kick_snap]

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."

[spin_kick_snap]

"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."

[spin_kick_snap]

"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."