The House In Limbo City, Limbo City, Wednesday Evening

[spin_kick_snap]

It had been ten days since the kids had left and Kathy was mostly back to normal. The fact that it was the end of the semester had probably helped a bit in that regard - it was possible to be maudlin and to study your ass off, but it took a lot more energy than Kathy really had to spare.

Her immediate plans for the evening - more studying, finals started on Monday - had been immediately derailed when Dante had declared it a night off, carrying her downstairs to a pillow pile, made from what looked to be every pillow in the damn house. As if that wasn't dirty enough, he plied her with a mixing bowl full of ice cream, whipped cream, and caramel sauce, a similar-sized sundae for him on the other side of the nest.

Ice cream, blankets, pillows, and boyfriend. The perfect recipe to get rid of post-kid and pre-finals blues.


[Dante modded with permission!]

Comments

[rebelseekspizza]

"Got a screen in here for Netflix too," Dante said, waving vaguely at the tablet, as he curled up more against her. "But only if we wanna."

[spin_kick_snap]

"Only if we wanna, huh?" Kathy asked, waggling her eyebrows at him. "What did you have in mind instead?"

She was (mostly) kidding. She had plans to attack this bowl of ice cream with her face and she had no intentions of waiting for it to melt.

[rebelseekspizza]

"Cuddle, make out, eat ice cream?" Dante said, grinning. "Some real Netflix and chill."

[spin_kick_snap]

"Okay, all those things sound pretty perfect," Kathy admitted, cuddling into Dante a little closer. "How'd you guess?"

[rebelseekspizza]

"Mighta known you for a while," Dante teased, tucking his face into her neck. "Might be into that shit too."

[spin_kick_snap]

Honestly, it was a toss up between which one of them had changed more since high school. And she certainly wasn't going to try to guess whose change had been more traumatic. All she could do was appreciate that all that trauma and all those changes had brought them here, to a place where they could lounge on pillows with ice cream and makeouts and be thoroughly content.

"Smart boyfriend," she murmured, threading her fingers through his hair. "I thought Anders had cinched the 'Best Boyfriend of the Week' title with laundry on Monday, but you're giving him some real competition."

[rebelseekspizza]

"See, Anders' mistake is he tries to get in good with you by doin' the crappy stuff alone," Dante teased, his fingers sliding down to settle over her thigh. "Much better win rate doing cool stuff together."

[spin_kick_snap]

Kathy giggled. "You might be onto something there," she admitted. "That being said, I do appreciate it when folks do chores, I'm just saaaaying."

[rebelseekspizza]

"Sure, sure," Dante said, dropping a kiss into her neck. "Yep."

[spin_kick_snap]

"Such a brat," Kathy told him, squirming a bit as his lips tickled the sensitive skin of her throat. "You're gonna make me drop my ice cream."

[rebelseekspizza]

Dante laughed softly. "Thought you were supposed to have like crazy mutant balance powers."

[spin_kick_snap]

"There are limits," Kathy sniffed. "And somehow you manage to be the exception to every rule anyway."

All the shaky ice cream in the world wasn't going to stop her from turning her head to steal a kiss though.

[rebelseekspizza]

"You say the sweetest things," Dante said, cupping the back of her head as he deepened the kiss.

It was real sweet too. Thank you, ice cream.

[spin_kick_snap]

Oh. Well. If he was going to insist...

Kathy set her bowl down in the first vaguely flat hollow she could find, rolling over to face him and kiss him for real. She'd missed him, these past few days of madcap studying and final projects.

[rebelseekspizza]

"Yeah," Dante sighed against her mouth, "You needed this break."

They both had.

[spin_kick_snap]

"But if I'm gonna apply to Yale..." Kathy murmured, not at all moving to get up and go be responsible.

[rebelseekspizza]

"You need to take mental health breaks or you're gonna fall apart during your exams," Dante said, and kissed her again.

[spin_kick_snap]

"I'll have you know, I conveniently scheduled my breakdown for after my exams," Kathy retorted, snuggling in closer. "It's circled in red on my calendar."

With Kathy, it was even odds whether or not she was serious.

[rebelseekspizza]

"Uh huh. That's totally how this works," Dante said, laughing.

[spin_kick_snap]

"I'm practically a professional by now," Kathy said with a chuckle, stealing one last kiss since she loved kissing him when he laughed. "Don't underestimate my abilities."

[rebelseekspizza]

"Yeaaah last time I let you do exam prep your way, you hid under the blankets for like a week," Dante said, poking her gently.

[spin_kick_snap]

"It was also winter!" Kathy protested. "Some of that was quality hiding-from-the-temperatures behavior!"

Just, y'know. Not most of it.

[rebelseekspizza]

"Suuuuuure," Dante said. "I believe you."

[spin_kick_snap]

"So mean to me," Kathy said, rolling over to pick her ice cream up again. "Not believing my incredibly realistic excuses. Just for that, I'm standing on cold tile before coming to bed tonight."

[rebelseekspizza]

"I think it's adorable you think you can make those icicles even colder than they naturally are," Dante said, snickering.