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]

Not just letting her have a donut, but insisting she take one. Ezra was worried.

"Okay," she said, reaching for a donut and making a face at it as she brought it up to her mouth.

Her appetite was always the first to go in times like these.

"And here I thought Lock was the mom-friend," she said, mostly as a distraction as she took a tiny nibble.

[smilestopscars]

"He is," Ezra replied as he got a donut for himself as well. "I'm more like... a drunk uncle who has a smart moment or two, every once in a while."

[spin_kick_snap]

"A whisky uncle instead of a vodka aunt?" Kathy asked with a small smile. "I could see that."

She bet he'd make a great uncle, if his sisters ever having kids.

[smilestopscars]

She didn't need to know that in Ezra's own mind, it was referring back to something less favorable Dante had told him before. Just a little bit.

He just snorted, before devouring half his donut. "I have many facets."

[spin_kick_snap]

If she had, she would have been horrified that she'd agreed with him.

"I know," Kathy said, "and I don't kid myself to think I've seen them all."

Pause.

"Seen a few more recently though."

[smilestopscars]

Ezra shrugged a little. "Maybe the various surfaces of my prism have been a little clearer and cleaner, lately."

You know, because he was like a prism with all his facets. Just be grateful he hadn't called himself a diamond, instead.

[spin_kick_snap]

"You're calling yourself a diamond in your head," Kathy said with a chuckle. "I'm onto you."

[smilestopscars]

"... Yes."

Look, since she'd called him our for it so directly, and nailed it too, he had to give her that one. With a half-surprised grin, to boot.

"Wouldn't you, if you were in my shoes?"

[spin_kick_snap]

Facets and prisms pretty much spelled out diamonds. It wasn't like Ez would go for something like 'crystals' or 'cubic zirconia.'

"And yeah," she said after a moment. "But that's because they're beautiful and expensive and everybody thinks of them as only adornment, but they're actually really useful in a lot of different fields. Just most people don't know that." She grinned at him. "So diamonds have a lot of different facets, too, even beyond their actual facets."

[smilestopscars]

Ezra smirked at her. "I'm impressed, darling," he said, while his hand came up to idly twirl a strand of her hair around his fingers. "You really know your diamonds."

But more importantly... Him.

[spin_kick_snap]

Kathy offered him a small smile. "I pay attention," she said. "Or try to, anyway."

Which worked for both the statement he'd spoken aloud and the one he'd left unsaid.

[smilestopscars]

Ezra gave the strand of her hair that she was holding a little tug. Just a gentle, playful one.

"A good quality in any person," he said quietly, as he gave a sage nod.

[spin_kick_snap]

"I'm just pretty great in general," Kathy informed him. "...You know, so long as you ignore the crazy."

[smilestopscars]

Ezra leaned in again. This time, to nuzzle her temple. "You're great despite the crazy," he told her, soft but definite with his tone. "And the crazy, not that I'm sure that's the right word, is understandable."

[spin_kick_snap]

"Feels like crazy from the inside," Kathy admitted, since curling up on someone's roof - or your bedroom closet - didn't really smack of sane. "But so long as I make up for it, I guess I can't complain."

She turned slightly in his lap to give him a fierce hug. "I love you, Ez."

[smilestopscars]

Ezra wrapped his arms just a little more tightly around her. It was reflex. Same with the burying of his nose in her hair.

His words, though, were a little bit more measured. "I know, dollface," he told her. "Love you too."

[spin_kick_snap]

"In high school, I would have spent the next ten minutes tripping over myself explaining how exactly I meant it and that I wasn't trying to lure you into a relationship," Kathy mused. "In fact, I think I might have actually done that once or twice."

[smilestopscars]

"Still not chill enough to just let it pass by without comment, though, cupcake."

He sounded amused, in a vaguely fond and soft kind of way.

[spin_kick_snap]

"I will never be chill," Kathy said with a rueful smile. "I have just come to accept this."

[smilestopscars]

On the plus side, at least she hadn't made a big deal of what Ezra was pretty sure was one of the first times - if not even the first time - that he'd actually spelled out that he did, in fact, love her back.

"Suppose you'll have to settle for staying hot instead, then."

[spin_kick_snap]

Of course not. It had meant too much to hear for her to ruin.

"Took me awhile to where I could hear that without flailing, too," she said. "But look, nary a blush in sight."

Though if Ezra thought she'd somehow stopped blushing over the years, she'd laugh.

[smilestopscars]

Ezra was never going to be that much of a fool.

Still, he leaned back a little and cocked his head in an exaggerated fashion, as if to more fully appraise her blushless state. "Well, would you look at that."

[spin_kick_snap]

"Sometimes, whole days go by when I don't," she informed him. "Days."

The tightness that had lived in her chest for the last few hours was starting to unclench. She'd probably cry in belated emotional relief when it was over, but she was at least going to try to spare Ezra all that.

[smilestopscars]

"Oh, impressive, darling," Ezra told her, aiming for sincere and mostly just hitting 'amused' instead. "Days? Such restraint!"

[spin_kick_snap]

"When restraints are involved, I'm flushed for other reasons," Kathy snorted.

Hopefully they were at 'sassy dirty jokes' level of comfort because she was not really great at filters at the moment.