spin_kick_snap | 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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It had been a while, but eventually there was a fumbling noise by the door, and then a knock.

"Kathy?"

Kathy flew to the door, unfastening all the locks and wrenching it open. "Oh thank god," she said, flinging her arms around him. "You're okay."

"Yeah, I'm good," Dante whispered, hugging here tight. "Exes still can't hurt me."

"I know," Kathy mumbled, but she was still running her hands over him anyway, looking for cuts and bruises or tears in his clothes. "And, I mean, it's not like there were any alarms or anything, the inside of the Mount is safe..." But it had been hours and he was the only one who hadn't checked in.

There was probably a bitemark or two on the arm of his coat, but he wasn't going to bring it up. Those wounds had long since healed.

"I went out to get something for you," he said, reaching into his pocket.

He held up the tin.

Kathy frowned, confused. "You got me sewing supplies?" she guessed, since it looked like the kind of tin cookies used to come in. Except there was no way there were anymore cookies like that in the world. "Did you go exploring the scavenger warehouse?"

"Nah, we went down to Koreatown," Dante said quietly. "Open it up."

"You went - with who?" Kathy asked, frowning as she tugged on the warped metal. "How? Did Stealth authorize--"

Her words fell away as the lid popped open and she was left staring at what were possibly the most precious things left in this whole world. One burned and mangled clay Christmas tree and six tiny metal fans.

"Oh," she said, breath catching in her throat. Her vision blurred as tears filled her eyes and spilled down her cheeks.

"It was all I could find," Dante said. He stuck his hands into his pockets. "I know it's probably not all of it..."

Not even close to all of it. They'd had boxes and boxes, mostly made of cardboard. It wasn't even the all the stuff that had been in this tin originally; most of that had burned, from what Kathy could tell. But the tree had been made of fired clay and the fans were made of steel and neither of those had burned, though the painted enamel that had covered them had melted away.

She shook her head, still crying. "It's more than I had," she said. "So much more than I had. You know, these fans aren't even supposed to be in this tin. But the wire they were strung on had gotten tangled up with another ornament and so Dad just threw them in and said we'd deal with it next year."

"Well, better late than never, right?" Dante said, his mouth curving like he wasn't sure whether to smile with her or cry with her.

"And look! They're not even tangled anymore!" Kathy hiccuped. "And this..." She flipped it over, showing him what was probably an 'S' and an 'L' in black marker on the bottom in childish scrawl. "Sarah made this. First grade. I think I made a snowflake that year, but mine got broken a few years ago. It also had an ugly gold foil star glued to the top of it, but I guess that b-burned."

It was amazing how many memories these two - or seven, depending on how you were counting - simple ornaments could bring to the surface.

"Probably. Not much left of the apartment," Dante said. Probably shouldn't have said; he didn't want her to be reminded of that. "Anyway... that's what I've been doing. Figure we can use this for Christmas this year, right?"

Kathy nodded, looking back up at him. "How did you get there, anyway? There are exes and Cairax and I know Stealth never would have okayed you going over the Wall!"

She'd meant to say thank you, but got distracted.

"I got cagey," Dante said, with an easy shrug. "Decided to go on a little field trip, hop the wall, Stealth didn't need to know. And Cairax isn't lookin' for demons."

"Oh!" Kathy said, nodding. "That's how Nick and I got his phone! Max cast a spell--but how did you know that? Is that just a thing everybody knows?"

Kathy was just never going to understand demons, was she?

"Max explained it," Dante said. "Guess he's all over ways to avoid Cairax right now."

"Ugh," Kathy sneered. "I guess that makes sense. Sorry you had to talk to him, but..." She hugged the tin tight to her chest. "Thank you for this. Thank you so much. I can't ever tell you how much this means to me."

Talking to Max hadn't... actually been that bad, but he could save that discussion for another day.

"You don't have to thank me," Dante said quietly. "You deserved the break. And you deserve these. So..."

"Deserved or not," Kathy said, looking up at him, "you're the only one who went and got them for me. Only one who thought to go get them for me. So yeah, you get thank yous."

Dante sighed softly and glanced around the room. Everyone was back... yeah. This could wait. "I'll tell you the whole story later," he said. "Right now, I'm wiped... you look wiped..."

"Only because I've been worrying myself sick over you," Kathy said, but she sounded way more happy than upset.

She also didn't bother to put the tin down. "Wanna go lay down in my closet? I moved the water so you should be able to stretch out."

"Now that's the nicest invite I've ever heard," Dante said, draping an arm over her shoulders. "Let's go."

Kathy leaned up and kissed him, leading him into the bedroom and the safety of her closet. And when she fell asleep, it was in his arms, with her tin safely wrapped in hers.

The Mount, Ex-Los Angeles

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