spin_kick_snap | The Mount, Ex-Los Angeles

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The Mount, Ex-Los Angeles

The last time anyone from Fandom had been in Kathy's LA, the heroes had been living inside the walls that surrounded Paramount Studios, with the exes and the South Seventeens laying claim to everything else. Since then, they'd expanded; the Big Wall pushing the borders out almost a mile in all four directions. In some spots, it was hard to tell that there had ever been a zombocalypse; the streets were clean, the buildings repaired, the blood all scrubbed away. There was a proper school, lots of farms and gardens, several churches, and even a small library. The studio was still the heart of the community, but people had started to spread out and settle. It was still a tight fit, several thousand people into one square mile, but honestly not much worse than Los Angeles used to be, back before the world died and reanimated again.

Life had fallen back into a rhythm again. People got up, got ready for the day. Kids were sent off to school, adults took themselves to various jobs, though there were fewer sales people, baristas, and aspiring actors and a lot more guards, scavengers, and farmers these days. There was a brewery down on Larchmont and a still over on Monroe. Burns Park let people enjoy a bit of nature where the kids could run around and burn off steam and a Gold's Gym practically against the Big Wall. That was where the Unbreakables spent most of their free time, with curious gawkers watching them put more and more weight onto the machines.

It was a bustling little community of survivors, as safe as a place could be, surrounded on all sides by millions of undead waiting to find a way inside to devour them all.

[For them that are there! NFB, and ~~please wait for the~~ OCD is up! Previous entry Next Entry]

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Dante shrugged. "It's the way it is," he said. "Whatever. Fuck him."

Kathy didn't believe that for one minute, but she was willing to back off. "If Vergil's really gone, then what splashback are you worried about?"

"Anything else?" Dante watched her for a moment, his body relaxing muscle by muscle. "I didn't see Vergil coming back coming, either."

Kathy straddled him, the movement being surprisingly non-sexual for, well, who they were as people, and ran her hands into his hair, nails light on his scalp and the back of his neck. "Aren't you the one who told me that I can't live my life worried about the bad shit that might happen?"

She let her forehead fall forward to press against his. "If you don't wanna keep trying with Ez, you don't have to. You don't have to come up with reasons to justify it. Not to me."

"I'm not," Dante said, looking up at her. "Okay?"

Fuck, her fingers felt nice.

"Okay," Kathy said. "And I promise, any shit splashback that comes with you? You're more than worth wading through it. And anyone who thinks otherwise doesn't deserve you, not the other way around."

She leaned in and kissed him then, fingers still moving over his scalp.

Dante sighed, and let himself relax into it; he wasn't sure if he believed what she was saying, but he needed the comfort of her right now.

He slid his arms around her.

If it helped, she believed it. There was nothing she was saying that wasn't absolutely sincere.

She broke the kiss before it went on too long, before it had a chance to become anything but sweet.

"Hey," she said with wry amusement. "Think of it this way. We're not sitting in a closet ringed around by exes and a Reaver Lord because of your shitty splashback. And unless you're all just here for what will be the worst breakup in history, then you're all thinking that I'm worth hanging in there for."

"Always think so," Dante murmured, and kissed her cheek. Then her temple.

"And I'm not even, like, half as cool as you are," Kathy teased gently, eyes falling shut at his kisses. "And only, like, two-thirds as hot."

"You're definitely just as hot," Dante told her softly, kissing beneath her ear.

No lower, though.

"Maybe as sexy, when you really get me going," Kathy mused, "but definitely not as hot. You're literally breath-taking sometime."

"Aw, that's cute," Dante said, and swept her hair back behind her ear. "...Thanks."

Not for the compliment.

"Always," Kathy said.

Nor for the compliment.

Dante's mouth quirked a little.

"So," he said, after a beat, "This is where you sleep? Nice digs."

"All the comforts of home," Kathy said, gesturing grandly. "Pillows, blankets, knives on the wall, and water at my feet. What more could a girl ask for?"

"I could think of a couple of things," Dante said, his fingers sliding along her cheek.

"It's got you now," Kathy said, angling her face towards his finger. "That makes it almost perfect."

And easily five hundred percent better than it had been.

"I'm interested in your suggestions, though."

"Maybe a nice poster, some pictures..." Dante said. He kissed her mouth. "A real bed with some walls around it..."

"You still working on building that circle bed or whatever?" Kathy asked, eyes growing warm and hazy.

"We're getting you out of here as soon as fucking possible," Dante promised her, "...But if we don't, I'm making you a circle bed. With knife holders."

"I love you," Kathy told him, kissing him again. "Even if you won't build me a circle bed when we're back home and safe."

For the first time since she arrived, familiar warmth pooled in her belly and inched through her veins.

"Maybe if you say please," Dante teased softly, smiling at her.

"I'm very good at asking for things when the mood strikes," Kathy murmured, kissing her way down his neck. "You know that."

Here, in the dim, enclosed warmth of her closet, she could almost pretend they were safe...

Dante sighed softly. He wasn't sure where his own head was at, just yet.

Except that it was so nice to have Kathy's lips on him again...

"I know," he said, sliding his hands up the back of her shirt. Anything more felt like pushing it.

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