From the Apartment Above Luke's to Currant, Maine, Wednesday Afternoon

[spin_kick_snap]

Kathy'd had trouble sleeping last night, in that she really didn't at all. Even moving to the safety of her closet hadn't helped; sure, she'd managed to fall asleep, but only long enough to have a screaming nightmare about zombies and towers and rabbit brains and then she was back up for the night. It wasn't until she noticed the date on her phone that she realized what she was responding to.

Right. Halloween. The trip to LA and then their getaway had messed with her sense of time enough that she hadn't realized how close the holiday was. Kathy used to love Halloween; she still might, if she hadn't been on the island. Last year's little...stunt had left her more than a little fucked up. Turned out her subconscious was better at keeping track of the date than the rest of her. Yay.

After the nightmare, she'd given up on sleep entirely, obsessively watching for signs that the island was going to turn her into an ex again, aware that she wouldn't notice even if it did, and that being paranoid it would was probably a good sign that it hadn't. Once dawn broke and she remained herself, that should have been the end of it - but it wasn't. Kathy had worked herself up into a panic and that wasn't responding to anything useful like 'logic' or 'thinking.' She just knew she had to get out of there. Off the island. Something.

She spent the morning in Baltimore, but when the third shitty zombie costume finally made her break down and cry in public, she realized this wasn't a viable option. Neither was Limbo City; if she was hesitant to visit most days, Halloween itself was a hard pass. That left...Ezra.

Kathy didn't even bother calling, just booked the closest portal, giving her enough time to grab a thing of donuts and go. And the irony of ironies was that Ezra wasn't even home when she got there; nobody answered her increasingly frantic knocks or her abuse of the doorbell. Eventually, she gave up, hoisting herself up to the roof of their porch. Exes couldn't climb, she would be safe on the roof while she waited. Something about that thought process was wrong, but she didn't bother to pinpoint what. Her brain was pinging safe and that was what mattered.

Curling up on the tiny bit of roof, she burrowed into her winter coat and, at some point, fell asleep.

[Ezra's house modded with permission and for said house-modded guy!]

Comments

[spin_kick_snap]

She had called herself 'just Kathy' her entire life, an explanation about why she wasn't particularly special or exciting or deserving. This was possibly the first time someone else had used it to mean something good, to mean she was those things.

Her eyes were wet and she hugged him a little tighter. "L-Lock doesn't even know me," she sniffled, trying very hard to fight back tears.

[smilestopscars]

"And?" Ezra replied quietly, his thumb rubbing at her back. "He's my friend. So are you."

And he knew Lock, and he knew Ava.

"If someone's a friend of mine, then he'd consider them a friend of his, too."

[spin_kick_snap]

"I'm sorry I couldn't offer you this when you needed it," she murmured, voice quiet enough that it was probably a good thing that it was near his ear. "That I didn't know you needed a place for the longest time - and even after I did, that I was too much part of the problem to be a safe space for you."

[smilestopscars]

"It's okay, darling," Ezra told her, just as quietly. "We work a little differently, you and I."

He wasn't calling his way healthy, by any means. But it was his.

[spin_kick_snap]

"Just a little?" Kathy asked with a laugh that was more a sigh than anything else. "You have a gift for understatement, Ez. I'll add it to the list of other things you're good at."

[smilestopscars]

"Good," Ezra replied, nuzzling the top of her head. "It's a long list, but I'm sure there's room."

[spin_kick_snap]

"I'll put it right above 'humility,'" Kathy teased. Then she tilted her head as a thought struck her. "Ez, can you sing?"

She just realized she had no idea.

[smilestopscars]

Ezra raised his eyebrows a little at the seeming randomness of the question. But, hey. Anything that wasn't her panicking was fine by him. "I can carry a tune," he said. "Not something I do much outside of the shower, though."

Or to annoy Lock and Ava.

[spin_kick_snap]

It wasn't exactly as random as it seemed. Kathy needed a distraction from the noise inside her head, a chance to let herself relax while the adrenaline bled off. And Ez could offer the perfect kind of distraction, the way he had so many times before, back in high school.

But this wasn't high school. She knew Ez would probably turn her down even if she were to proposition him right now, but that would be unfair to him. Moreso than she already worried she was.

And so, a perfectly innocent question instead, at least until she could make sense of herself. "No karaoke parties for you?" she asked. "I would have thought those were entirely your kind of thing. Everyone looking at you as you perform, energy high, the chance to sing something suggestive and watch everyone's reactions..."

[smilestopscars]

Ezra would've shrugged right about now, if it hadn't been likely to jostle her a little too much.

"Music's not really my thing," he said. "I can get the attention I want just fine in other ways."

[spin_kick_snap]

"Fair enough," Kathy said with a shrug of her own, since she didn't need to worry about jostling him. "I mean, you're not wrong."

His warmth seeped into her and, one by one, her muscles began to unclench.

[smilestopscars]

"Just not one of my things," he reiterated, rubbing at her shoulder.

He sounded vaguely apologetic, somehow.

[spin_kick_snap]

"Doesn't have to be," Kathy said softly. "I mean, if my birthday party does end up some kind karaoke extravaganza, we'll have to find another way to keep you entertained, but I have faith we'll manage."

Had Kathy's birthday had anything to do with karaoke thirty seconds ago? No. No it had not. But a) it sounded fun to her and b) what even was her brain right now.

[smilestopscars]

"A karaoke party doesn't mean everyone's up there singing all the time, anyway," Ezra noted in a quiet murmur. Just rolling with her apparently random associations. "At least, that's what I'd assume. Never been to a karaoke extravaganza."

[spin_kick_snap]

"No, you're right," Kathy said, taking comfort in the random nattering. It didn't require her to think or to answer difficult questions. She didn't know if Ezra even had any to ask, but she was successfully avoiding them either way.

She was also taking comfort in the patterns she was drawing on his chest and arms with and idle finger.

"One person sings and every one else drinks and eats Korean barbeque."

Granted, Kathy's knowledge of karaoke parties were mostly theoretical and highly cultural-specific.

[smilestopscars]

"That sounds... very Korean."

Now he was just poking fun at her.

[spin_kick_snap]

"Well, when you've perfected something, why go to an inferior version?"

Tucked under his chin the way she was, he probably couldn't see her tiny smile, but he might be able to hear it.

[smilestopscars]

Yeah, he heard it.

"That's a mighty brave thing to say," he noted, "for someone who's trying to steal karaoke."

[spin_kick_snap]

"Hey now, I didn't say we'd invented it," Kathy said, lightly patting his hand. "Just perfected it. "

[smilestopscars]

"That sounds like a lie." A beat. "I think I'm going to need to see some credible sources for this claim."

[spin_kick_snap]

"Ezra." Kathy sounded reproachful. "Would I lie to you?"

[smilestopscars]

"Absolutely."

So, there.

[spin_kick_snap]

"That's slander and it hurts my feelings," she told him. "How would you even judge, Mr. Not-A-Karaoke-Fan?"

[smilestopscars]

"I believe I already told you," Ezra retorted, one hand slipping up to ruffle her hair. "Credible sources."

[spin_kick_snap]

"Of which I think I am," Kathy retorted, not at all fussed about his ruffling her hair.

It was like playing with it and that was one of the faster G-rated ways of calming her down.