The Mount, Ex-Los Angeles

[spin_kick_snap]

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]

Comments

Re: Wednesday Evening

[rebelseekspizza]

Tear his heart out, why don't you, Kathy?

"I'm-- I'm sorry," Dante mumbled, his blanket reassurances all drowned out by the sound of guilt.

Re: Wednesday Evening

[spin_kick_snap]

"Not your fault," Kathy hiccuped. "You've got somewhere. I'm the difficult one. Again."

As per usual.

Re: Wednesday Evening

[rebelseekspizza]

"No, Kathy, c'mon," Dante said, a little desperate. "I can move back."

Re: Wednesday Evening

[spin_kick_snap]

"You would hate it," Kathy said, shaking her head. "You'd start to hate me."

Re: Wednesday Evening

[rebelseekspizza]

"And you hate this," Dante pointed out helplessly.

Re: Wednesday Evening

[spin_kick_snap]

"I hate not feeling safe," Kathy murmured. "And I hate that I am so afraid that nothing does."

Re: Wednesday Evening

[rebelseekspizza]

"I don't wanna be part of what makes you feel unsafe," Dante said.

His voice was awfully quiet.

Re: Wednesday Evening

[spin_kick_snap]

"And I don't want to be why you want to crawl out of your skin."

So was hers.

Re: Wednesday Evening

[rebelseekspizza]

Dante let out a deep sigh.

"There's gotta be a way to do this."

Re: Wednesday Evening

[spin_kick_snap]

That wasn't strictly true. The universe made no provisions for the hearts of the young.

But Kathy didn't say that, because if she didn't believe that the three of them would make it, she'd have very little left to hold onto at all.

"And until we figure it out, we just...keep doing the best we can, I guess," she said, though she wasn't sure she had a best to give right now.

Still. Anything else sounded like she was giving up.

Re: Wednesday Evening

[rebelseekspizza]

"Maybe we'll just have to get our beach house in Florida fifty years early, huh?"

It was a poor attempt at a joke, but he needed to give her something.

Re: Wednesday Evening

[spin_kick_snap]

"Hawaii," Kathy countered. "I'd rather deal with lava fires than trashfires and..."

Well. Florida.

Re: Wednesday Evening

[rebelseekspizza]

Dante smiled. "Okay, okay," he said, "We'll get some nice beachfront property in Hawaii."

Re: Wednesday Evening

[spin_kick_snap]

"I'll make a bra out of coconuts and run around in that and some palm fronds," Kathy said before looking down at her chest and amending it to, "Baby coconuts."

Re: Wednesday Evening

[rebelseekspizza]

"Cute baby coconuts," Dante amended that again.

Re: Wednesday Evening

[spin_kick_snap]

Kathy wished they were in a place where she could turn that into a come on. She wished she were in a place where she actually wanted to turn that into a come on. "Like our Mexico trip, but with all of us together," she said. "In the same place."

She didn't just mean physical location.

Re: Wednesday Evening

[rebelseekspizza]

"Yeah, we're definitely booking a vacation somewhere nice when we get back," Dante said thoughtfully.

Re: Wednesday Evening

[spin_kick_snap]

"Somewhere they give massages," Kathy said, trying to stretch. "I'm tight like an over-wound spring."

Re: Wednesday Evening

[rebelseekspizza]

"Just a full day of massages for Kathy, check," Dante teased.

Re: Wednesday Evening

[spin_kick_snap]

"A good boyfriend would already be rubbing me down with warmed massage oil," Kathy sniffed. "Have you ever given me a massage?"

She had seen him rub down Anders, and she'd given him a massage or two, but she honestly couldn't remember if he'd ever massaged her.

She was going to poke him anyway, just because.

Re: Wednesday Evening

[rebelseekspizza]

"I don't remember," Dante said, which was true, but grinned at her. "What, you want one now?"

It would at least give him something to do instead of feel vaguely helpless.

Re: Wednesday Evening

[spin_kick_snap]

"My feelings are hurt you didn't offer me one thirty seconds after you walked in the Big Gate," Kathy declared, basing that on nothing at all beyond bullshit.

She peeled off her shirt, reaching behind to to reach for her bra, too. Well, not hers. This plain cotton one had come from the Mount's stores, like everything else she was wearing. Didn't quite fit, wasn't her style, didn't even smell right, coming out of storage and washed with whatever detergent they had one hand.

Just one more thing that was subtly off and wrong.

Re: Wednesday Evening

[rebelseekspizza]

Dante's hands slid onto her back as soon as her skin was exposed, meaning to soothe, nothing more. "I'll make it up to you," he promised.

Re: Wednesday Evening

[spin_kick_snap]

"Is it Pamper Kathy Week already?" she asked, tipping her head forward and groaning as soon as his hands found a knot. As tense as she'd been for two weeks now, it didn't take long.

Re: Wednesday Evening

[rebelseekspizza]

"Let's call it 'Pamper Kathy Month'," Dante promised, digging into her shoulders with his thumbs. More knots there, too.