Dante's House, Limbo City, Sunday

[spin_kick_snap]

Last night after finally exiting the tower, they had made their way back to Dante's place in Limbo City. Kathy had been half-tempted to get a portal back to the island, worried about Eliot, wanting to be home, but she'd been too sore and exhausted to do much more than look at her phone before letting it fall back to pocket.

At least her texts to Raven had gone through, even if she probably seemed like a madwomen in them.

Exhausted as she was, she didn't manage to sleep much past sunrise. Too many thoughts, too many memories, too many feelings crowding close to keep her asleep. She got up, limping a little unevenly downstairs, scrounging to see what kind of breakfast she could make from the remains in the kitchen.

The answer was apparently coffee, so she set that to perking and went to sit in front of the big window, staring out at the street, eyes blank and seeing very little.

[For them who are in Limbo City with her! SP for forever because BDE and also brain.]

Comments

[rebelseekspizza]

Sometime soon, Dante would get up, and go over there, and talk to her.

Sometime.

Right now he was laying on the couch, a motorcycle magazine folded neatly over his face.

It was easier not to react to anything like that.

(It belongs to a son of Sparda...)

He hadn't taken off the ruined glove yet.

[spin_kick_snap]

Sometime.

Kathy wasn't in much of a hurry to start talking to anyone, least of all him. She wasn't upset with him, not even for running off without letting her or Anders know. But she was upset and wasn't quite able to separate Limbo City from him, if that made sense.

So it was just easier to sit here, to stare, pretending she was looking out the window, and to drink her 'coffee', which was heavily doctored with the contents of a bottle she'd found in the freezer.

[rebelseekspizza]

Dante came back from his walk sometime later.

This time, when he sank down, it was in the chair opposite Kathy.

"There's pizza coming."

[spin_kick_snap]

"Cool," Kathy said, turning away from the window to look at him. Not in his eyes; she'd look up at him and then her gaze would skitter away. "Put it on Enzo's tab?"

[rebelseekspizza]

"As long as that's still taking charges," Dante said. "Damn right."

He watched her for a long moment.

"How're you feeling?"

[spin_kick_snap]

"Ready to go home," she said, with a slight stress on the word 'home.' This wasn't home and any chance of it becoming that had fallen off the tower yesterday.

Or maybe got shot in the head. Something. She had a number of things she could point to.

[rebelseekspizza]

Dante bit down on the instinctive, I'm already home. His feelings were still pretty close to the surface, and he didn't like it.

"Can't get a portal for another few hours," he said. "Maybe we should sleep."

[spin_kick_snap]

That was the problem, wasn't it? Dante was home and Kathy wasn't. Hell, there was already a Kathy here to call it home, whatever she was calling herself.

She held up her coffee mug, ignoring the amount of booze sloshing around in the mix. "Not really tired," she said. "Don't worry about me if you need a nap though."

[rebelseekspizza]

"Nah, it's boring on my own," Dante said lightly. "Anything you need?"

[not_every_mage]

Anders fluttered near Dante — though, of course, he would have denied it was fluttering and insisted it was something far manlier. Somehub. That didn’t leave him feeling like such a useless kid.

Eventually, he settled on the floor beside Dante with a hand curled around his cooling coffe. He rested the other hand idly on Dante’s knee, just to say he was here.

[rebelseekspizza]

Dante ignored him. For a while.

Maybe if he ignored Anders long enough he'd stop feeling like crying.

Except he didn't.

He plucked the magazine from his face and finally sat up, abruptly. "I need a walk," he said.

It wasn't quite an invitation. But he was looking at Anders while doing it.

[not_every_mage]

"Funny coincidence," Anders said, with a sidelong, guilty glance to Kathy. He'd need to talk to her more later. "So do I."

[rebelseekspizza]

Dante shrugged, like he didn't care. "Hey, do what you have to, man," he said, walking to the door.

He pushed it open.

He totally didn't glance over his shoulder, except for where he did.

[not_every_mage]

Anders' mouth quirked, though it would be a stretch to call it a smile. He followed Dante out the door.

"So," he said, and bumped his hand against Dante's.

He wasn't sure where to go from that so.

[rebelseekspizza]

"At least the weather's clearing up," Dante said casually. "Less of a chance of demon in the evening too."

He kept walking, but he kept his speed slow, and his hand kept bumping right back against Anders'.

[not_every_mage]

"If you squint, we could be back in Fandom," Anders said, then kicked an empty pizza box out of his way. "... Fandom after a biker gang went through it, anyhow."

[rebelseekspizza]

"Fandom like one of the usual disasters happened," Dante agreed.

Finally he stuck his hands into his pockets.

"But at least Vergil's not gonna be a problem anymore."

Casual.

[not_every_mage]

Eventually, Anders went to sit next to Kathy, chewing his lip a bit at her blankness. It wasn't right; it wasn't her.

"Do you need more coffee?" he asked softly.

[spin_kick_snap]

Kathy started when Anders spoke, dragging her attention to him, and shook her head. "Probably shouldn't," she said. "Don't need to be more wired." She glanced down at her mug. "Or drunk," she admitted.

Look, it had been a hefty dose of whisky she'd added to her coffee. No milk or sugar in the house, something needed to cut it down.

[not_every_mage]

"If you say so, but wired and drunk sounds about right for having seen what we just saw," Anders shuddered. "Honestly, if you wanted to take up opium, I wouldn't blame you."

[spin_kick_snap]

Honestly, being blissed out sounded like a brilliant idea right now. Too bad she was eternally Kathy about things like that.

"Worse for Dante," she said immediately. "That was his actual brother. Not some..." She wasn't sure how to explain it. She'd used 'Freudian nightmare' and 'funhouse mirror freakshow' already and her brain wasn't providing her with any new and witty takes on it. "...whatever the fuck that was."

[not_every_mage]

"I'd say a demon putting on his face to torture you," Anders said. "But ... I don't know. Whatever it was, it was more than bad enough."

[spin_kick_snap]

Kathy immediately shook her head. "Except it wasn't even about me. I just happened to come along."

A spare, Arkham had called her; useful in case the proper girl hadn't worked out for some reason, but no intrinsic value of her own.

"That was her dad. Her family drama. I just pushed my way in."

[not_every_mage]

Anders shrugged. "Demons, Kathy. If they find a way to fuck with you, they're not going to hold back."

But that didn't make sense to him, not really.

"It's just such a strange coincidence for her dad to be the same as yours, isn't it? But I suppose it's not even the fourth weirdest thing that happened today."

[spin_kick_snap]

"Not really," Kathy said, frowning. "That part made sense. I think she's not a doppelganger like we get in Fandom--I think she's this world's version of me."

Hello, (one) major crux of her current crisis.

"She moved like me. Bounced like me. Not every detail is the same because this world isn't the same, but I bet if we matched up her family history and mine, there's be a lot of overlap."