Explorean Resort, Cozumel, Mexico, Saturday Night

[spin_kick_snap]

She probably should have expected the nightmares. Raven's text had upended her sense of safety; even thought she wasn't on the island now, knowing that her home was gone and all of her supplies were inaccessible had messed with her pretty hard. Sleep had been long in coming, even as exhausted as she'd been, and when it came, it had brought old friends along with it.

She was back in the basement again. It's where she was kept, when Rodney wasn't using her body, staring at a wall. In the dream, those were the best times, even though she stood silent and unmoving, staring at a crumbling brink, cloudy gray eyes unblinking. Because when she wasn't staring at the wall, it meant Rodney was puppeting her body around, his mind overriding hers, his will dominating her body. She could feel him, like cold oil spreading over her brain and down her nervous system, stealing control away from her. She tried to fight him off, tried to keep him out, but it was no good. Rodney wanted control of her body and he could take it.

"No, no..." she whimpered in the real world, starting to thrash. "Leave me...don't make me...no..."

No matter what she dreamed, Kathy felt like a prisoner in her own mind. When she dreamed of being a free ex, she still had to watch as her body moved of its own volition, attacking anything that moved. Sometimes she killed and ate people. Other times, she remembered the pet store and the mess that had been left when she was done. But those were still better than the Rodney dreams, when she was literally enslaved to his will and he could make her do anything he wanted.

Like now, when he presented her with the bound forms of her friends. Anders. Dante. Eliot. Raven, , stuck in her vulnerable human form. Ringo. Alluka. "You think there's nothing worse than being controlled my me, puta?" Rodney asked, voice coming from her own throat. "Tell you what. Here, I'll let you go. See how you like that."

To her horror, Kathy felt the cold ooze steal back up and out of her body, leaving only the ex behind. And the ex looked at her friends and saw only meat--warm flesh and hot blood. She lunged at the closest of them--Ringo, no, please!--and bit and bit and bit while Rodney's mad laughter rang in her ears and her head.

"It's always in you, girlie. Always. Just waitin' to get out. This is what you are..."

The taste of blood filled her mouth as she struggled up towards consciousness, hitting and kicking and trying to scream but blood, so much blood she was going to choke.

[For the guy with her. Violence and such under the cut.]

Comments

[not_every_mage]

"Well, there's a lead-in," Anders said, with an uncomfortable little laugh. "All right. Honestly, Dante and I could both take you down if you -- went that way again. Even if we could find a cure again, it wouldn't be fair to put your spirit and body through it. Was rough enough the first time."

[spin_kick_snap]

"And considering whatever Alluka did last time wasn't enough to free me of it entirely..." Kathy surmised. "I--that does help. But I know you could both take me down, power-wise--"

Let's face it, a single zombie on her own without the element of surprise wasn't much of a threat.

"--could you? Could you kill me?" She was sincerely asking. She figured Dante could without flinching. But could Anders?

[not_every_mage]

"Hard to say when I've never had to do anything like it," Anders said, feeling his stomach twist in his body at the thought. "But if it was that or risk you taking innocent lives, I could."

He paused for a steadying breath. "Could you, if I was possessed?"

[spin_kick_snap]

Kathy shook her head. "I don't think so," she said. "Not unless you did something drastic. But I've dreamed of killing you too many times to do it in real life, I think. I have the memory of killing too many people to make another."

She slid her thumb over the inside of her left wrist where seven tattoo'd hashmarks rested.

[not_every_mage]

"I hope I never have cause to feel that way," Anders said, sincerely. "But anyhow, I wouldn't want you to let me hurt anyone."

[spin_kick_snap]

"Oh, I'd try to stop you, even incapacitate you," Kathy said. "I don't know how useful I'd be, but I wouldn't just stand around wringing my hands and saying 'Woe is me.' I just don't think I could kill you. Has anyone ever fought off possession in your world before?"

[not_every_mage]

"Not that I can remember, but I don't know everything," Anders said thoughtfully. "Besides, they're trying to convince us possession is bad. They aren't going to give us the escape manual."

[spin_kick_snap]

"Thus proving that, once again, abstinence-only education is a idiot's gamble," Kathy said, snorting. A moment later, she was serious again, looking up into Anders' eyes. "I know how much it hurts, coming back to yourself and seeing everything you've broken when you weren't you."

And sometimes what you'd broken when you were you. Wasn't any easier.

"I'd do what I could to keep you from hurting anyone while we worked to get you back. And if we couldn't and that was the only way--" She took a deep, shuddery breath. "I still can't swear I'd do it. I don't know if I could. But if I couldn't, I'd find someone who could and I'd stay till the end. So you didn't go alone."

[not_every_mage]

"Thank you," Anders said sincerely. It was a weird thing to be grateful for, but grateful was what he was. "I'd do the same for you, you know. Everyone should see somebody they love at the end."

[spin_kick_snap]

"Yeah," Kathy said, suddenly wishing for a drink as her mind flashed back to those last, crazy days of LA. "Everybody does. But not everybody gets to."

[not_every_mage]

"You were alone, weren't you?" Anders asked uncertainly. "You said -- you told me they didn't get to you in time."

[spin_kick_snap]

Kathy shook her head. "Raven was there. And Nick," she said. "I wasn't alone. It was just Regenerator who didn't get there in time. It was still taking half a day for people to die of the virus, so he thought it was safe to leave me for a bit. He just forgot to factor in speedster, I guess."

[not_every_mage]

"Stupid superpowers," Anders sighed. "I'm glad you had Raven and Nick, anyhow. And a little sorry it wasn't me."

[spin_kick_snap]

"I..." Kathy frowned. "I'm not sure there's a way for me to respond to that that doesn't get me in trouble."

[not_every_mage]

"Go for it," Anders shrugged. "We're having a heart-to-heart in the middle of the night. Nothing is off limits."

[spin_kick_snap]

"Just, the last time I said something like that, you told me I was manipulating you and that you would rather I lied," Kathy said slowly. "So I'm not sure how to respond. I don't want to manipulate you."

[not_every_mage]

Anders sighed, weighing his words carefully.

"I'm not sure what you're talking about," he admitted. "But if you feel like telling me whatever it is is just going to go badly, I'm not going to make you talk."

[spin_kick_snap]

"Back in January," Kathy said, frowning as she tried to remember. "You said something about wishing you'd stayed. I'd agreed, but it was the wrong answer."

[not_every_mage]

"I think I also told you that you didn't know what love meant," Anders reminded her. "It wasn't my finest moment. I was still angry at -- everything, really."

[spin_kick_snap]

"That's what I mean when I say I have trouble distinguishing reality sometimes," she said, unexepectedly grateful to the painful memory for serving as an example. "Sometimes I can't tell if someone is saying something out of anger or hurt or if its true. I assume it's all true, especially if it confirms something I'm already afraid of."

She looked in his eyes, hoping he could understand. "I was so wrong before, and yet so convinced that I was right that now I can't really trust myself. So, instead, I use what people I trust tell me to kind of...build up my worldview? And my view of myself. Am I making sense?"

[not_every_mage]

"You are," Anders reassured her. "And I wouldn't have said it if I'd realized you were coming back. I was just ... getting it all out while I could. Remember, we thought you were only there for the weekend."

[spin_kick_snap]

"Neither of us did," Kathy said, giving him an understanding smile. "I thought it was the end for me, too. Hell, I thought I was in a grave somewhere, with a bunch of other people who hadn't made it. I didn't think they'd..."

Let her keep walking.

"And I really am sorry, because what I'm doing isn't fair, exactly. You don't deserve to have the burden of knowing that I'm using every off-hand comment and emotional outburst to try to put everything together." As Dante had learned, to their mutual chagrin. "I just don't know any other way to do it. I don't trust what I'm thinking or feeling as accurate, because I was just so damn wrong before. A lot of my confidence in myself was stripped away and it's slow to come back."

[not_every_mage]

"See, but now I'm worried," Anders said, leaning back in his elbows. "I don't always think all that much before I talk. What if I said something dumb that's hurting you, and I don't even know it?"

[spin_kick_snap]

"Well, thinking before you speak isn't a terrible habit to cultivate," Kathy said, giving him a good-natured poke. "But it's hard as hell, I know. And, honestly, that's where I have to be better about speaking up. I need...I need to trust you guys more. I've been so afraid of making you mad and reverting to, like, the early days that I've just stayed quiet a lot. And that's not fair to any of us. Not to me, but not to you, either."

[not_every_mage]

"No, but I understand why you're doing it," Anders said slowly. "I don't suppose telling you to worry less will help at all, even if that is what I'd like to say. But I do want to know what's scaring you, even if you think it'd be hard for me to hear."