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]

"I know," Dante said. "I mean, I figured."

Did it sound arrogant, saying you weren't a tinpot dictator? Dante just couldn't figure it out.

"But like you said, you react to me like that sometimes. I noticed."

He shrugged, picking at his taco. Emotional conversation or no, he was hungry, damn it. "Look, I'm not gonna lie this wasn't touch and go for a while," he said. "But I feel like we're hitting a good groove these days. No?"

[spin_kick_snap]

She was jealous of his appetite, dammit. Hers was finicky as all hell these days.

"I don't know," Kathy said. "That's the whole problem. I...I think so? But I can't trust that. How much is true and how much am I just reading what I want to read into it? How stable is that good space? What if we fight or I make you mad? Will you pull away again because we argued? Is it okay for me to even ask these questions or am I being selfish and expectant again for want to...like...control how we interact and not push you away?"

She looked at him, a little helpless. "I don't know, Dante. I just don't."

[rebelseekspizza]

Dante took a bite of his taco while she talked, eager to get at least some of it into his stomach.

He put the food back down.

"You don't," he agreed. "I don't either. Just like I don't know where the hell the Anders thing is going. It's just gonna be what it's gonna be."

[spin_kick_snap]

"I guess so," Kathy said, pushing her plate away.

[rebelseekspizza]

Dante watched her, frowning. "Look, things seem good now, from my end," he said slowly. "I have no plans to dump you over something like that."

He pulled at the label on his beer. "But you know me, I'm shit at looking at tomorrow. If I wasn't, I probably wouldn't be here. I'd have bailed on you and Anders five seconds after walking into this place."

[spin_kick_snap]

"And I spent my whole life looking at and planning for tomorrow," Kathy said, getting up to make herself a drink much stronger than the lemonade. "But I'm not even sure where here is, or how we got there, and I certainly don't know how to move forward. Or if it's okay to want to move forward. Or if asking if it's okay is okay."

[rebelseekspizza]

"Asking if it's okay is okay," Dante said, tugging the rest of the label off his beer. "What does 'move forward' mean to you?"

Because he had no idea.

[spin_kick_snap]

"Your guess is as good as mine," Kathy told him, putting a glass of rum and coke down in front of him and taking hers back to her seat. "Figure out how to talk to you guys again?"

She took a long sip of her drink. "Mostly, I just don't want to be left behind."

[rebelseekspizza]

Dante picked up his glass and studied it. "We're not bailing on you."

[spin_kick_snap]

"That's not the only way to be left behind," she said, quietly not meeting his eyes.

[rebelseekspizza]

"What do you mean?" Dante asked, frowning.

[spin_kick_snap]

"Bailing on me, I could actually deal with better, I think," Kathy said, frowning as she tried to sort through her thoughts. "It would suck, I would be miserable, but that would be it. The end. Leaving me behind..." She struggled and eventually gave up and shrugged. "You two continuing forward and me--not. Me staying exactly where I am. It's hard to explain."

Her drink wasn't giving her any great insights. Dammit drink, do your fucking job.

[rebelseekspizza]

"Still don't know what 'forward' is," Dante said.

He took a sip of his drink, hoping it'd help him understand Kathy's argument. It didn't.

[spin_kick_snap]

"So about my shitty mixers..." Kathy said, because at this point she didn't even know anymore. "Okay, let me try one more time and if I can't explain it, I say we pretend this whole talk never happened and just get drunk on the tequila I have in the freezer."

She should have grabbed that anyway. Tequila went with tacos better than rum did.

[rebelseekspizza]

"Okay," Dante said.

He was under the distinct impression she needed the booze a whole lot more than he did, for once.

[spin_kick_snap]

Who needed coping when there was alcohol?

"Okay, so...every trio can be broken down into three pairs. That's just math." She grabbed the salt and pepper shakers and a fork, quickly grouping them in groups of two to demonstrate. "You, me, and Anders." They were the shakers, she was the fork. Obvious metaphor was becoming even more obvious.

"Right now, we're more three different pairs than we are a group of three. And those pairs are on very different footing. You and Anders are a tight-knit team. Anders and I are okay, I think. I hope? You and I are...good?" And the way she looked at him then, it was clear she wasn't really sure. "But it's definitely not easy, yet."

She looked down at her collection of kitchenware and frowned. "Am I making any sense at all?"

[rebelseekspizza]

Dante's shoulders gave a half-shrug. "Sure."

[spin_kick_snap]

"You're killin' me, Smalls," Kathy muttered, but gamely soldiered on. "You two are a team. I'm not--not really with either of you. Close with Anders, maybe, but still not quite. And I guess I'm worried I won't ever be. That I'll remain looped in, but still on the outside."

She looked down at the trio of items thoughtfully for a second, then pushed them away. "I'm not trying to say that I want anything particular," she said. "I know you don't feel for me they way you do about Anders and odds are good you never will. That's...that's okay. I still want to be part of the team, not on the outside of it looking in."

[rebelseekspizza]

Dante took a big gulp of his alcoholic Coke. "You know he's worried we're going to ditch him because he won't go doggy-style in an alleyway," he said, more to lighten the mood than anything else.

He needed a few moments to collect his thoughts before he said anything else.

[spin_kick_snap]

Kathy blinked at Dante for a few seconds in confusion and then started giggling so hard her soda splashed over the rim. "You're exaggerating." He had to be. "I mean, he asked me if I was okay with him not being into stuff like that, but I..." She shook her head. "I told him that I loved him for who he was and didn't spend time wishing he was different."

[rebelseekspizza]

"No, really," Dante said, grinning. "I told him about our trip to the truck stop and he got real worried he wasn't giving us what we needed by not having any truck stop sex."

He sipped his drink again. Still thinking, yep.

[spin_kick_snap]

"Truck stop sex isn't exactly a need, though," Kathy said. "I mean, I like it and I'm happy to enjoy it with you, but it's never going to be on my list of things my relationships have to have in order to work out."

[rebelseekspizza]

"Oh yeah," Dante said. He smiled a little, partly to himself. "Told him that, too. I don't need that from him."

And... there went the rest of his drink. Okay. Talking. Yes.

"You and me, though. I said it before, I don't know where it's going to go," he said slowly. "Sometimes I worry you're going to need something from me I can't give. Like, Anders? I didn't see that coming until it hit me like a freight train. Even though it might've even started before you died."

He eyed the remains of his drink. "You ask me now, are we gonna be that close, like, ever? I'm gonna say no. Everything in me does. But I would've been the same if you'd asked me that question about him back in June last year. You know?"

Did she? He searched her expression.

[spin_kick_snap]

Her gaze was clear and direct when she looked at him, no shadows or hidden longing. "I don't expect you to," she said, frankly. "It isn't something I ever expected from you. I'm not in love with you, either." Hopefully that would make him feel a little better about their talk.

She could be, one day, but that was why she'd put up the walls around her heart. To stop that nonsense before it started and ruined everything between them.

[rebelseekspizza]

"It's not just about love or not, though, is it?" Dante said, reaching for his beer to get the dregs out of that, too. "I feel-- safe, I guess. Around Anders."

Those couple of words sounded a lot like wringing moisture from a stone.

"I feel a lot of things," he said, "And a big part of that's just because it is what it is. Didn't come with expectations or wanting or needing or asking questions about whether this is good or that's good, or..." He trailed off.

"It was always about today," he settled on. "I don't know how to do this with tomorrow hanging over my head, Kathy, and you've always been about tomorrow."