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.

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[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."

[spin_kick_snap]

Again, Kathy took a few moments before answering--this time because she wasn't sure if her first thoughts counted as more of her habit of 'always wanting more' or just causing trouble where it wasn't needed. So she nodded and finished her drink and thought of something else to say instead.

"That means a lot to me," she said. "I don't know what you want--or even if you want it to ever be anything other than exactly what we've got now. But I'm happy to just be a fixed point in this whole thing. Knowing there's a place for me is enough."

Might not always be, but that was for the future to take care of. Kathy was doing her best to live in the present. It was the only thing she could affect.

[rebelseekspizza]

"I don't know what I want from you either," Dante said, shrugging. "I know I wanna keep Anders in my life 'cause he makes me feel good about me like nobody else does."

He was gonna shrug some more and swig his beer to make that statement look like it meant nothing.

"And I know I still like sleeping with you," he said, "And I like hanging out with you. And getting back to doing this--" He gestured faintly in the direction the box had gone, and then between themselves, "Feels like it's how it's supposed to be again."

[spin_kick_snap]

That, Kathy could agree with wholeheartedly and she nodded again, more enthusiastically, to show it. "I missed this," she admitted. "Not just the sex but the--ease? The way you'd come knocking at my door just to say hey and laugh at me about studying. Sure, we'd fuck an awful lot, but we didn't have to. Sometimes you'd just let me draw on your arm or I'd wingman for you in Baltimore and it was good because we were friends. And we're not back there yet--not that it'll ever be just like that again, I know--but it feels like we're maybe on the road to getting somewhere like it. And I..." She swallowed hard to steady her voice again. "And that's important to me."

[rebelseekspizza]

Dante quirked a small smile at her. "'s important to me too, Kat."

[spin_kick_snap]

Again, that dizzying feeling of relief and she smiled back him, bright and unshadowed by anything else.

"Are there things I can be doing to make you feel good about being you?" she asked. "I mean, I'm not trying to step on Anders' toes and I know he does it just, like, effortlessly or whatever, but if there are things I can do to help...?"

[rebelseekspizza]

"Kathy," Dante said, putting his hands down on the edge of the counter. "Don't. Just do what comes natural, all right?"

[spin_kick_snap]

But when she did what came natural, it was either too much or not enough. Asking how she could help had come natural and had clearly been the wrong thing, leaving her feeling like she was on uneven ground again.

"Yeah, okay," she said, reaching to grab plates from the drying rack and a bit of silverware so Dante wouldn't have to use his hands to get the meat out of the frying pan and into his tacos. "Didn't mean to push."

And then she bit down on the apology that also came natural but she knew he didn't want.

[rebelseekspizza]

Dante frowned at her as he moved some meat onto a taco. "Kathy?"

[spin_kick_snap]

"Yeah?" she asked, looking up at him, brows furrowed.

[rebelseekspizza]

"You're doing the whole 'something's wrong but I don't wanna say it' thing," Dante ventured.

[spin_kick_snap]

"No, I..." Kathy bit her lip, and thought about it, making a vegetarian taco on autopilot. "I feel like I don't know how to talk to you anymore," she said finally. "Not about big things. Anders either, though to a lesser extent."

But definitely still there.

"I'm not sure about what's okay for me to do or say or feel a lot of the time, so I err on the side of...not doing or saying or trying not to feel. Because this way I can't screw everything up again. More. Whatever. It's like I'm always walking on thin ice and the wrong move will shatter everything." She gave him another wry smile. "So telling me to just do what comes natural when everything that comes natural to me is wrong, you know?"

[rebelseekspizza]

"Yeah," Dante said. He gave her a slow, thoughtful once-over, chewing on his bottom lip.

"I can tell when you're overthinking it. Always could, but now it's pretty much all the time unless I can coax you outta it."

[spin_kick_snap]

"I don't mean to make you do that," Kathy said, ducking her head apologetically.

[rebelseekspizza]

"I don't do it 'cause you make me, I do it 'cause I want to," Dante sighed. "It's not good for you, Kat. I wish I could make it easier."

[spin_kick_snap]

There was that moment of thinking again, as Kathy thought of and discarded multiple ideas at once.

"It is just very hard to talk to you, when I don't know which response is right and which one is wrong," she said, clearly struggling to get the words out. "And when the wrong ones can cost us weeks or even months of progress. So it's easier to just be quiet and smile and even if we're not moving forward at least I'm not breaking anything."

[rebelseekspizza]

Dante ran a hand through his hair. (It really was getting long, in some places. In other places it itched with growth where it'd once been kept shot.) "That's no way to live."

But he didn't know how to make things more simple, either.

[spin_kick_snap]

"I have before," Kathy said with a shrug, spooning a truly obscene amount of guac onto her taco. And also kimchi because this was her house and no one could tell her how to eat her tacos, dammit. "And hopefully we'll either get to the point where I can fuck up without setting us back to square one or I'll figure out what's okay and what isn't."

[rebelseekspizza]

Another long pause. Dante took his plate and put it down on the table.

"I don't wanna be like your dad, Kathy."

[spin_kick_snap]

There were a couple of jokes Kathy could have made, ranging from the inappropriate ('Good, cause you're doing a lousy impression of scattered ashes') to the incredibly inappropriate ('Great, cause I never wanted to fuck my dad'), but she didn't. Mostly because they were just shitty ways to change the subject back to something safer. But that would mean leaving this here and--she couldn't do that.

"I don't think of you the way I thought about him," she offered. And gave real consideration to just leaving it there. But he'd probably realize that there was more and so it was easier to just add, "But I can't honestly say I don't sometimes act the same way."

Beat.

"Feel the same way."

[rebelseekspizza]

Dante sighed. "Yeah, I can tell," he said, sinking into a seat behind his tacos. "Not sure how I can fix that."

[spin_kick_snap]

Kathy's own taco tasted like dust in her mouth. She wanted to blame the lack of cilantro in the guacamole but she knew that wasn't it.

"This wasn't how this evening was supposed to go, you know," she said, setting down her taco. Maybe she'd pick it up again later. "I was going to try to convince you to try kimchi on your tacos, argue with you over the mixers I have in my fridge since I still can't find just plain strawberry juice, and talk to you about the trip to Mexico. Nothing's set yet, but Anders and I were talking about maybe seeing if you wanted to come down if we ended up staying a second week. Simple stuff. Light stuff. Easy stuff. Not this. I'm sorry."