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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"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.

"I missed you," Kathy said, her lips soft and gentle. No teeth. Not here. "God, I missed you so much. I kept looking behind me to find you, but you weren't there and I remembered all over again that I was alone."

"You're not alone anymore, Kat," Dante said, running his fingers up her spine. "We're not leaving without you."

Kathy shivered as his finger raised goosebumps over her back. She shifted against him, raising his face to give him a much less sweet and far more thorough kiss -

Three shots cracked in the night, one right after the other, shattering the stillness. Once, they barely would have registered in Kathy's consciousness; Koreatown had frequently had gunshots ring out at all hours of the day and night.

Now they had her freezing in place, all traces of easy lassitude erased like they'd never been.

Only guards had guns. If guards were shooting, they were shooting at exes. If they were shooting at exes, then something was happening.

She wasn't safe. She could never be safe, not in the Mount.

Dante hadn't exactly been primed for naked fun times here to begin with. That turned out to be a blessing - his arms tightening around her the second she froze, attempting to communicate some measure of protection.

"Kathy, Kathy..."

"Are they here?" Kathy asked in a shrill whisper, hand groping against the wall for one of her knives. "Did they get over the Wall."

No more shots were coming from the guards, so it seemed unlikely, but still, she couldn't be sure.

"There's nothing here," Dante said. "Kathy, nobody outside is doing shit, there's nothing here..."

"But they were shooting at them, you heard them," Kathy moaned, turning herself into the tightest ball she could, her arms over her head. "They can only use their guns against exes, ammo's too precious to fuck around."

"I know," Dante said. He sucked in a breath. "You want me to go out and look?"

Kathy hesitated. On the one hand, no. What if he went out there and was swarmed? What if the exes got into the building as he was leaving it?

On the other hand, not knowing for sure was worse than knowing they had definitely breached the Wall.

So she nodded. "Just maybe...look out the window, I guess?"

God, she hated being this scared, being this weak.

Dante could take it, either way. "Okay," he said softly, kissed her cheek, and slid out of the closet, making sure to close it tight behind him.

He walked across the room, to the window, and looked.

All was quiet in the night. The guards were watching something over the edge of the Wall, but whatever it was remained firmly on the other side. They seemed relaxed though, no signs of fear or panic; alert, yes, but not on edge.

Dante pulled away from the window and padded back to the closet, opening up the door and slipping back in to his old spot.

"All clear."

"Thanks," Kathy said, closing her eyes and breathing a sigh of relief. "Now I feel stupid at how worked up I got."

At least now that there was someone to see it.

"It's fine, you're not stupid," Dante said. He motioned for her. "C'mere."

It took Kathy a moment to unwind enough to, well, unwind and crawl back into Dante's lap, letting her hair fall around her face.

And Dante wrapped his arms around her as soon as she was there, just holding on to her.

"I don't think..." Kathy stumbled over her words, they came out clunky, graceless. "I don't think I'm going to be better when we get home."

"It'll take time," Dante said softly, "Like it did last time."

"That time I'd been dead," Kathy groused. "This time, I was just..."

She sighed, knowing what she'd say to anyone else who'd undergone this kind of trauma.

"I was doing so well," she said instead.

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