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]

"Yeah," she said, sitting up and drawing her knees to her chest. "And that's just the stuff I do. Then there's everyone else and it all just...fractals."

That was an incredibly obtuse way of explaining it, Kath. FYI.

[rebelseekspizza]

"Fractals," Dante echoed.

[spin_kick_snap]

"Patterns that go on for infinity, the same thing over and over again," Kathy explained. "Recursive. From the same root as fractured."

Broken.

Yeah.

Moving on.

"Okay, so...let's take my Choose Your Own Adventure thing from before," she said. "I choose to go forward and there you and Anders are, having a picnic. Now I have to choose--do I go back the way I came so I don't interrupt? Do I join you? But then, on top of my options, I start thinking about the two of you. If I join you, how might you react? What will you think if you catch me turning around instead? Okay, what if I stand there, hesitating between my options? What message is that sending? Does it seem like I'm angling for an invitation? Does that come across as passive-aggressive?" With each possibility, she spoke faster and faster. "How will you respond to my perceived passive-aggressiveness? If it reads as uncertainty, how will that be perceived? Do you know why I am hesitant? Do I know why I'm hesitant? How would each reason for my hesitation come across to you?"

Kathy stopped abruptly, breathing hard. She was not doing a great job of making herself sound sane. Or even stable. "Even right now, I'm talking to you and I'm, like, running equations or something trying to figure out how this is going to affect how you see me," she added, voice slow and quiet again as she looked down at her hands.

[rebelseekspizza]

Dante watched her as she spoke, a small frown forming on his face.

"How are you not tired all the fucking time?"

[spin_kick_snap]

"Superball, remember?" Kathy said, expression sardonic though she still wasn't meeting his eyes.

[rebelseekspizza]

"Sounds tiring even for a superball," Dante said quietly.

[spin_kick_snap]

Kathy shrugged. "Well, you'll notice I'm not really up early in the mornings anymore, going for runs around the island before class."

So...yeah. Tiring. Harder to ignore than when she'd been in school. Harder even than when she'd first come back and everything was about making it through one day and into the next.

[rebelseekspizza]

Dante let out a breath.

Then slid an arm over her, shifting closer.

[spin_kick_snap]

Kathy stayed stiff for a moment, her body pulling away from him even though she didn't actually move. One breath, two, three--

And then she was tentatively relaxing, letting him support her.

[rebelseekspizza]

"You gotta relax, Kathy," Dante said softly, his lips scraping past her cheek.

[spin_kick_snap]

"I..." Kathy shook her head, her hair brushing over his skin. "It was different in high school. It was practice. Anything I screwed up there didn't matter. I had the whole rest of my life ahead of me. Now--now this is the rest of my life and I already screwed up once. This isn't practice anymore, it's for reals and for keeps and if I screw up again, I might not get another chance to make it right."

And there was so much more than that, but it was all ambiguous feelings that she wasn't sure she knew how to put into words.

[rebelseekspizza]

"I'm not gonna ditch you just because you walk in on me and Anders sometime," Dante said, running his fingers over her hair. "Not gonna drop you because you maybe say the wrong thing sometime. Okay?"

[spin_kick_snap]

"But it's not just not doing the wrong thing," Kathy said, giving him a sad smile. "It's trying to do the best thing, too, don't you see? I don't want to walk in on you so you'll know that I respect what you two have and aren't trying to push in and demand more. I don't want to say the wrong thing and hurt you or upset you because if you're going to have a girlfriend at all, it should be one who cares about your feelings and tries to make you happy. I want to be--"

No, that was too much. Too close to the bone.

"It's like trying to run uphill," she said instead. "Trying not to fall down is important, but if that's all you focus on, you just stay put. You have to try going up, too."

[rebelseekspizza]

Long pause.

"Would it be easier on you if I didn't call you my girlfriend or whatever?" Dante asked, finally. "'Cause you're putting a lot on that."

[spin_kick_snap]

Kathy groaned, flopping over backwards and putting the pillow over her face. She never should have said anything, especially when she knew she couldn't explain it right.

"Do you honestly think I'd care less about your happiness if we were just friends?" she asked, finally removing the pillow but keeping her arm across her eyes.

[rebelseekspizza]

"'Course not," Dante said, leaning back a little to look at her. "But if you think the whole girlfriend thing's about needing you to be something or something..."

Look what you did, making him word.

[spin_kick_snap]

"Dante," Kathy said, her tone waspish with exasperation, "I don't even know what you mean when you call me your girlfriend, okay?" She moved her arm just enough to glare up at him with one baleful eye. "I know it's something you never asked for and something you never wanted, so of course I'm trying to be a good one so it's not like a--a--an imposition!" Not the right word, but a better one wasn't leaping at her.

"But even if we were just friends, or roommates, or two people who just happened to be dating the same guy, I'd still be this way. I--I care about you." Her voice cracked. "I want to make you happy. I want to get you. I want to be easy. It doesn't matter whether we're banging or there are titles being bandied around or anything like that. I want your heart to lighten when I'm around, because I'm around."

She was tired of being a millstone around the neck of the people she cared about, the kind of person who took effort and energy to be near.

[rebelseekspizza]

Dante blinked. Several times, in fact.

"It does," he said. Like he thought she already knew.

[spin_kick_snap]

From her expression, it was clear she did not.

"Dante, I'm a mess," she repeated. Like maybe he hadn't gotten it the first time. "I'm constantly making you talk about things, even when I swear to myself that I won't make you talk about things. I'm forever in some kind of distress, there's always something going on with me, I never know what to do or say to offer comfort--I'm not easy."

Well, except in one way. But that was rarely ever offered as a compliment.

[rebelseekspizza]

"Anders's the only person I know who's easier to be around than you," Dante said slowly. "And it's close."

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"How can it be close?" she asked, bewildered. "Anders just gets you. Me, I need an abacus and a physics calculation just to get in the right ballpark and half the time I feel like I just end up in the parking lot anyway."

Kathy was losing the grip on her metaphors, just a wee bit.

[rebelseekspizza]

"Yeah, he does just get me," Dante agreed. "And you don't, not the same way. But you're fun, Kathy, and talking-- might not be my first, like, thing? But you make me do it. And then somehow it works out. And when you're having a meltdown, like last week... I don't know. Feels like I know how to pick you up. Makes it worth it when you smile after, you know?"

[spin_kick_snap]

"But, see?" Kathy said and her eyes were wet and she wished they weren't because it felt so cheap. "You talk for me. You pick me up. You make me smile. You do and do and do for me. I want to be doing for you, too. But I don't know what I have that you want."

Other than her appreciation of rough sex up against a public bathroom wall. And she wanted to be more than that.

"And now it sounds like I'm complaining that you're amazing or like I want my ass patted and told that I'm special too and I don't." She'd stop him if he tried because there was nothing he could say that she would believe right now.

Again, because she was difficult and needy when she only ever wanted to be the opposite of that.

[rebelseekspizza]

"I'm not patting your ass, Kathy," Dante sighed. "I just wish you weren't doing this shit like you think you're just here because you're some fucking pity case when I don't fucking do that."

[spin_kick_snap]

"Not a pity case," she said. "I just want to--I dunno. Feel like I'm pulling my weight. Not feel like you always have to take care of me, but that we take care of each other. All of us."

She sighed and reached for the pillow again, but this time tucked it beneath her head. "I don't know what I'm doing," she said softly. "And whatever it is, I don't trust me to get it right."