Apartment Above Lukes, Tuesday Evening

[spin_kick_snap]

So, technically, Kathy's plan was to make tacos for dinner, but no one would know that from the state of the kitchen. She'd decided to make homemade guacamole (because what were tacos other than tasty vehicles for guac?) and now all the taco fixings were kind of pushed off to one side while she finished mashing up the avocados and chopping the cilantro and prepping the other stuff.

And texting Dante, because making tacos was the perfect opportunity for jokes, right? Especially with her shoulder still a little red from Pride?

Looking forward to putting all the tacos into my face tonight, she said, continuing their lazy conversation. No more sausage for me, but tacos are always the way to my...heart.

Comments

[rebelseekspizza]

Oh.

Right.

"I can handle the chuck, don't worry," Dante said, tossing her a lazy salute.

[spin_kick_snap]

"Oooh, Dante cooking at the stove," Kathy said, happy to tease him and move away from the specter of why she was still reluctant to touch meat. "Sexy. Make sure to stir it nice and slow while making pouty model faces at me."

[rebelseekspizza]

"Your kinks are getting weirder all the time," Dante said, choosing to ignore that snark in favor of tracking down the meat.

[spin_kick_snap]

"I will have you know, there's a huge market out there of mostly-naked guys doing household chores," Kathy informed him, pushing a small package of beef his way. The busboy had run some up when she'd called down for it and she hadn't touched it since he'd left it on the counter. "It's a totally normal kink. You're lucky I'm not trying to convince you to lose your pants and wear a frilly apron instead."

She grabbed a beer from the fridge and cracked it, setting it down next to the stove for him as a silent sign of appreciation.

[rebelseekspizza]

"Apron and no pants? Now there's a look," Dante mushed, opening up the pack nice and quick. "Easy access too."

[spin_kick_snap]

"I'm not going to lie and say I've never thought about that," Kathy admitted, heading back to the table to finish chopping up the last of the toppings. "Gender fuckery and easy access. That's hot."

[rebelseekspizza]

"Maybe next time you pick up a dick," Dante said merrily, rummaging around until he'd produced a pan and got the stove going.

[spin_kick_snap]

While Dante rummaged, Kathy slipped quietly out of the kitchen, darting towards her bedroom. A quick dip into her special drawer and she was heading back to the kitchen again, placing a box from Dite's on the counter next to him.

"You were saying?" she asked.

Look, she wasn't trying to start anything. But was she supposed to just ignore that opening there?

Dirty.

[rebelseekspizza]

Dante, his hands busy poking around the pan with a spatula, blinked.

And then he blinked again.

And then he laughed. "You got another one?"

[spin_kick_snap]

Kathy shrugged, a little self-conscious, and snagged the box back. "A bunch came in with an order," she said. "Good size and heft and it has a vibrating end for me, so it seemed worth picking up."

And now she had a boxed strap-on in her hands and nothing to do with it. Awkward.

"So, y'know, just watch all those comments about what might happen when I get a dick," she said with a wink. "Never know when maybe I'll take you up on it."

[rebelseekspizza]

Dante made a faintly amused noise, reaching to snag her arm.

Part of it might have been a long-hardwired instinct to boost Kathy up when she looked self-conscious about something to do with getting laid; whatever it was, he leaned in to kiss her, nice but quick.

[spin_kick_snap]

The kiss surprised Kathy, over almost before she could respond, and she stood blinking at him for a moment before she shook herself. Her fingers brushed over her lips for a second before she gave him a soft smile in return. "I should probably go put this away," she suggested. "We've got tacos to finish prepping."

[rebelseekspizza]

"All right," Dante said easily, turning back to the browning meat. "But we'll have to break that thing in sometime."

[spin_kick_snap]

"Just say the word," she said, putting the ball squarely in his court. "It's your ass, after all."

Beat.

"And maybe your mouth again cause that really was pretty."

[rebelseekspizza]

Dante snickered softly. "I'll add it to the list," he said.

Poking casually through the meat, he added, "So I'm giving that not-banging-other-people thing a try."

[spin_kick_snap]

"Oh?" Kathy asked, halfway out of the kitchen, her mind more about getting the strap-on back into her room in case Raven came home unexpectedly. That concern vanished as soon as what he said actually registered in her consciousness. "Oh!"

That was unexpected. And considering the context, she drew entirely the wrong conclusion from it. "Uhh, that's...great," she said, a little lamely. "Sorry, I didn't mean to push with the--the box. I wasn't assuming--look, being friends still is way more important than anything else we got up to, so whatever you've decided, I'm not gonna push. So don't worry about that, okay?"

[rebelseekspizza]

There was a long pause.

Dante cast her a confused look over her shoulder. "The fuck you talking about?"

[spin_kick_snap]

"Your decision to not sleep with anyone else," Kathy said, now thoroughly confused. She'd tucked the box beneath her elbow so she could worry at her hands. "I was letting you know that you don't have to worry about me trying to make you change your mind. We can keep teasing and joking and I won't have any expectations of where it's going to go."

[rebelseekspizza]

Now Dante was confused, too. "I kinda figured you and Anders were a package deal," he said, shoving some meat along the side of the pan. "Unless I got that wrong."

WORDS. STUPID.

[spin_kick_snap]

SO STUPID.

"I don't ever expect you to sleep with me just because we're both sleeping with Anders," Kathy said quietly, inwardly despairing. She'd thought that they'd gotten here because this was where they wanted to be, not because she and Anders were a package. She drew a long, shuddery breath and pushed that all aside to deal with later. "I--I'm sorry I gave you that impression. I tried not to demands--I'll be better. But you don't ever have to sleep with me if you don't want to, regardless of what Anders and I are doing. If I made you feel that way, I'm so sorry."

She fought to give him a smile, thin and weak though it was. One that said that they were okay, even if she wasn't okay right then, because they were what mattered. "If you want to try just sleeping with him, that's really great. And don't hesitate to call me out for being me, I guess, if I ever do or say something that makes you feel like I'm not holding to that."

[rebelseekspizza]

Well, that put Dante two for two in totally failing to communicate about this properly.

Maybe two and a half for two and a half, if you counted last conversation with Anders about it.

He groped for the fridge with one hand, hoping to find something alcoholic. "Kathy," he said, with all the talking experience he'd built up over the past two weeks, "By package deal I mean I didn't think about not sleeping with you for one second. You're just kind of-- part of this whole thing."

Unless he was making the wrong assumptions about what she wanted, but going by that rant just now, he didn't think he was. "The rules for you are different than for everybody else, I just took that as a given."

[spin_kick_snap]

There were more multiple bottles of beer and malt beverages in the door if he wanted them. Including a few Mike's Hard Strawberry Lemonade.

"I--I am?" she asked, looking bewildered. "You didn't? I..."

Fuck, now she was even closer to tears than before, just out of sheer relief. Not even because she was still part of it, but because she hadn't been screwing up as horribly as she'd just thought. She took a second to glance up at the ceiling to let the tears drain back and steady herself so Dante wouldn't have to deal with crying on top of everything else. He hated crying.

"I think maybe I need a drink," she said with a small laugh, once more to signal that everything was okay than because anything was funny.

[rebelseekspizza]

Dante nudged open the fridge, producing a bottle of beer and a bottle of the hard lemonade. The latter, he offered to Kathy.

"A lot of the stuff I used to do doesn't do much for me anymore," he said. "I figured just, you know, whatever. I can get my dick sucked and feel like trash, or I can stay home and get my dick sucked and feel good."

He popped open his bottle and took a swig. "Not saying we got the same thing going on as me and Anders or you and Anders, but you're important. Not so much with the trash."

[spin_kick_snap]

Kathy took the bottle, popped the lid, and drank half of it in a long swallow. It was more sugar than alcohol, but it was something she could focus on that wasn't all of this.

And then he talked and she listened and she thought about what he said before responding, choosing her words carefully rather than just spewing forth with a torrent.

"I know that what we have isn't the same as what Anders has with either of us," she said quietly. "But it's still important to me and I'm glad that I don't make you feel bad about it afterwards. The last thing I ever want to do is make you feel like I'm expecting or demanding something from you that you don't want to give."

[rebelseekspizza]

Dante took the pan of meat off the stove, figuring brown was brown enough. "I know," he said, rummaging around for the knob to turn the stove off.

"And look, I don't know if this is ever gonna be more than whatever it is right now," he said, turning around - and taking a huge swig of his beer as he moved. "But I'm not gonna pretend like you're not in this. Not 'cause you're expecting anything or whatever, but because it's stupid to."