The Apartment Above Luke's, Monday Evening

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The lack of private function space was perfectly solved by the empty apartment above the diner. Kathy had spent the afternoon cleaning and setting up for dinner tonight. Her anniversary dinner, if you would.

A year ago today, she'd woken up in Eliot's house, surrounded by tight, worried faces. Her friends, pretty much en masse, had gone through a portal to LA and fought through hordes of exes to bring her home, in hopes that Nanika could bring her back to life. Or maybe just so she'd stop chanting Kathy's name. For whatever reason they'd done it, though, they'd succeeded. Kathy was alive again and had been for a full year.

A dizzying, challenging, terrifying year.

It seemed only right to hold some kind of commemorative dinner for it, somewhere between a celebration (which she still didn't think she'd earned, exactly) and an appreciation dinner. Not just for what they'd done, but for sticking with her this past year, for weathering the ups and downs, for reaching out and checking in, for reconnecting and promising to be better and stronger friends from here forward.

And, well, even if that didn't all come through, it would still be a delicious dinner cooked by Eliot and would give her a chance to just spend some time with the people she loved best, getting caught up with those she hadn't seen in awhile and offering an opportunity for them to get to know one another better, too.

If nothing else, they could all just stuff themselves silly with whatever delicious things the kitchen downstairs had whipped up and the super, extra, very chocolatey desserts Kathy had promised Alluka in her invitation.

[For those invited and up early for SP. No OCD, feel free to just ping in and around.]

Comments

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"See, and here I was hoping for 'everyone has nice conversations and makes jokes and goes home well-fed and happy,'" Kathy said, snickering. "But we already knew I'm kinda boring."

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"Gotta learn to have better expectations, Kat," Dante agreed. "You know, at least some punching."

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"You are not allowed to go a few rounds with my adopted dad just because you think it would liven up the entertainment, Dante," Kathy said sternly.

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"Aw, but you know you'd love watching it," Dante said, snickering.

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"Nah," Kathy said. "Now, if we could get some mud up in here and it was you and, say, Anders or something..." She gave him a cheerfully naughty grin. "Then you might be on to something."

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"You want me to mud-wrestle Anders?" Dante said. Long pause. "Hey, the night is young."

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"It'd be pretty," Kathy said. "And I'm willing to sub in olive oil for mud."

Better visuals.

"Both of you strip down to almost nothing and wrestle for a bit? Hot."

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"I'd win," Dante said.

Yeah, everyone knew, god.

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"You would not," Kathy murmured so no one else could hear. "You'd let him win, cause you like it when he's on top."

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Dante snickered quietly. "More like you love it when he's on top of me."

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"Hey, I'm an equal-opportunity voyeur," Kathy protested. "I'm happy when either one of you is on top of the other. And twice as happy when I'm sandwiched in the middle."

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"Suuuure," Dante said. And kissed her again.

"Everyone here yet?"

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It took her a second to get her bearings after he kissed her. Stupid sexy boyfriends. Kathy glanced around, taking a count, then shook her head. "Waiting for a few more people. Almost, though."

Ezra had said he was coming and Kathy trusted him to be here. Parker and Hardison hadn't exactly RSVP'd and Parker could be squirrely about people, so it was hard to say for sure.

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"Should I break out the drinks?" Dante asked.

To be fair, it was Dante. She should've seen that question coming.

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"Go ahead," Kathy told him, not even bothering to roll her eyes. She did know him, after all. "It's all various kinds of wine. I like being classy."

Liiiiiies.

[rebelseekspizza]

"If this is all just wine," Dante said, sliding out of his seat, "...I'm still gonna drink it."

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Most of what was available was wine and beer, yes. But there was a bottle of rum, and vodka, and bourbon on the sideboard, too, along with mixers.

And, if he looked carefully, there was a series of hints that would end up leading him to a bottle of strawberry tequila in her old bedroom.

Who said Kathy didn't know how to have fun?

[rebelseekspizza]

Dante might've spotted one or two of those hints, but he didn't know just yet what they amounted to - and he wanted a drink.

So he snagged the rum and a bottle of Coke, just to start with, and ambled back to Kathy. "Gonna be a good night."

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Kathy had turned away to chat briefly with the busboy who'd run upstairs to check in with her about place settings. Which gave Dante his first view of the night of the back of her dress, which made up for the severe neckline and lack of ornamentation on the front.

"Hmm?" she asked, glancing back towards him. "Oh yeah, I hope so. I just want everyone to have a good time tonight."

[rebelseekspizza]

Hey, he remembered that dress. And its short skirt. And the back.

"At your thank-god-I'm-alive party," Dante said, nodding. "I guess good time makes sense. Want me to threaten to beat them up if they don't have fun?"

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"This is your sneaky way of picking fights, don't think I don't know that," Kathy teased. "But yes. If anybody at my life-aversary doesn't seem to be having fun, you can go over and threaten them. Just because I want to see everyone's response to that. Eliot will just laugh and probably take you up on it. Raven will casually turn into, like, a shark-bear-octopus or something. Ringo would ask to make it an AT battle..."

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"And I could beat all of them," Dante said, sounding satisfied with himself.

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"I'm very proud of you," Kathy said, rolling her eyes at him. "You're the very strongest Nephilim in the room."

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"I'm just saying," Dante said, smirking at her. "They can try."

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Kathy elbowed him. "Why are you so keen on starting fights at my nice dinner anyway?" she asked. "Am I gonna have to beat you up to get you to behave?"