Barry's Old Warehouse, Warehouse District, Sunday Afternoon

[spin_kick_snap]

So. The island could turn her back into an ex at literally any moment. That was not a thought that was good for Kathy's peace of mind. Being an ex again, for however short a time, had not been good for Kathy's peace of mind. She hadn't been a mindless husk that had seen everything that moved as 'prey,' no, but that was cold comfort when she had spent the day eating brains.

Sharing brains with other people.

Hunting small creatures to get--

Her stomach lurched again, just thinking about it. She hadn't eat much this past week just for that reason. It felt like February all over again, when eating had been a struggle, the very act bringing up memories she didn't want to relive.

Distantly, Kathy knew she should go home, deal with the mess left in her room, deal with the mess that was her life. And she would! She just--couldn't yet. Not while she still felt like this, ten pounds of crazy in a four pound bag. She just needed to get a handle on it--was trying to get a handle on it--and when she did, she'd go home. She'd apologize for worrying everyone, she'd clean up, she'd be okay.

Soon. Just not now.

[Open]

Comments

[spin_kick_snap]

"But--but--" Raven had a point, which was why Kathy couldn't argue with it much beyond 'but it doesn't feel right.' And the problem with Kathy judging things by 'feelings' is that they were apt to be wrong. Or, at least, disordered.

For example, please see: current meltdown.

"You already have to deal with me having a meltdown," she said, finally figuring out how to put her protest into words. "Expecting you to do more just..."

Interferes with her self-flagellation?

[I'm so sorry, I never got this notif!]

[tigerundercover]

". . . is part of dealing with the meltdown?" Raven said. "I mean, I'm not talking about cleaning up anything you do when you're freaking out, but the stuff that's going to affect the rest of the house before you calm down. . . ."

[spin_kick_snap]

"Like brains rotting away in my bedroom," Kathy said and then nearly lost her--well, not lunch, really. She was having trouble keeping things down. But the memory of lunch, maybe.

[tigerundercover]

"Which I'm guessing you wouldn't be able to deal with calm, either, so hey."

[spin_kick_snap]

Kathy shook her head. "Especially not ones I'd been..."

You know what? Raven was perfectly capable of filling in that last verb by herself. Like zombie Mad Libs.

[tigerundercover]

Not only could she do that, she was even aware enough not to say said verb out loud. "Exactly."

She glanced around the warehouse.

"So. How about that more cheerful change of topic so you don't barf?"

[spin_kick_snap]

"I would love that," Kathy said. "So much. How've you been this week?"

[tigerundercover]

Raven shrugged. "Fine. I found a cool cave."

That was most of Raven's life right now.

[spin_kick_snap]

Kathy was worried about that. Which was way better than worrying about her own shit, for serious.

"What makes a cave cool, exactly?" she asked.

[tigerundercover]

The look Raven gave her showed that this was clearly a silly question. "I don't know. It was deep? I could explore it standing up in my natural shape, mostly?"

[spin_kick_snap]

Kathy just looked stubborn. Raven was the one who declared it cool first, not her.

"I feel like at some point, I'm gonna be snowshoeing through the preserve--" Never actually gonna happen "--and stumble across this cave of yours stashed with Hot Pockets and a jury-rigged microwave."

[tigerundercover]

"Never gonna happen," Raven assured her. "There's no way you would ever voluntarily go snowshoeing in the preserve."

[spin_kick_snap]

"Of course not!" Kathy said with a feigned shudder. "It's cold! That's why I wanted to settle back West, where the weather was civilized!"

[tigerundercover]

"Ah yes, the entirety of the west coast, where 'north' doesn't exist."

[spin_kick_snap]

"The average temperature of Seattle is something like fifty degrees," Kathy retorted. "And I think Portland is something like the 40s. Still not the ridiculousness that Baltimore, which, may I remind you, is waaaaay more south than either of those."

[tigerundercover]

"The average temperature when?" Raven asked. "Because I think if you take the average of 103 and 32, you probably end up somewhere in the 70s."

[spin_kick_snap]

"Average in the winter," Kathy said. "I can handle temperatures in the hundreds!"

This was a ridiculous argument. Kathy needed ridiculousness right now.

[tigerundercover]

"The secret to handling the cold," said the girl who had basically never had to deal with cold in her entire life, "is to cuddle up with someone warm."

That was how Misfit had done it!

[spin_kick_snap]

You can't always be cuddling someone! Sometimes you needed to do stuff! (And it was the worst.)

Kathy peered at her. "Aren't you capable of ignoring cold up to subzero degree temperatures?" she asked. "How are you giving anyone lectures about how to handle cold?"

[tigerundercover]

"Hey, I was cold once!" You know, when she was exposed to absolute zero. But it had happened! "I'm just saying, we were outside in December in the mountains and Misfit did okay so long as we had a fire and could cuddle."

[spin_kick_snap]

"That one time you were cold," Kathy snorted. "I was cold ten minutes ago!"

She chuckled a bit; the noise sounded rusty, like it had been awhile. "How much did they complain when you were moving from place to place?" she asked. "Or did you both kind of hunker down for the winter?"

[tigerundercover]

"Then we were moving," Raven pointed out. "That warms you up."

She'd heard about this, she was sure of it.

". . . Wait, you were cold earlier? It's only November."

She really didn't grasp how cold worked, no.

[spin_kick_snap]

It depended on how much cold. And how much moving.

Kathy was gaping at her. "What do you mean it's only November?" she asked. "November is a perfectly good month to be cold in! We could get snow, like, at any day now!"

[tigerundercover]

"Pretty sure it's still fall," Raven said. "It doesn't snow here in the fall. It didn't even really snow in New York in the fall."

[spin_kick_snap]

New England would like to disagree with that weather assessment, Raven.

"Well, it feels like it could snow," Kathy declared. "My first night out there got down to, like, the low forties."

Which was still about ten degrees above snowing.