The loft above Luke's, Saturday afternoon

[tigerundercover]

Raven had spent her first few months back on the island in constant motion, wandering aimlessly around town, unable to stay still in one place for more than maybe an hour at a time without getting antsy. She'd spent most of 2016 on the move after all, and that kind of forward motion was a hard habit to break.

But when she'd finally managed to stop, she'd apparently gone into full reverse. She hadn't left the apartment to do more than steal food from the diner downstairs since her work shift on Tuesday.

She could swear she used to have hobbies. She used to do things that weren't walk or eat. Or watch endless seasons of melodramas on Netflix while playing tap games on her phone. Hell, hadn't she been the one to tell Jono to just stop procrastinating and do his thing?

And yet, here she was. On the couch. A hospital drama blaring too loud from the television, and a breeding farm of adorable monsters singing from her phone. She liked the noise. Human voices, especially, her favorite scenes were the ones where all the doctors shouted at each other at once. The quiet of her last couple of months in the mountains seemed to be a million miles away, an entire lifetime, and she wondered now how she went from October to December without any company. The quiet was terrible. In the quiet she had to listen for all the things that weren't creeping up on her, the things that would never creep up on her again. In the noise the only thing she listened for was which doctor was sleeping unethically with which patient, who was secretly who's long lost sister.

She was getting hungry. She wondered if she could talk one of the servers downstairs into bringing her up a sandwich. One more episode and then she'd try. This one looked like it was going to end on a cliffhanger.

[open to the roommate or anyone else who might stop by!]

Comments

[tigerundercover]

"Are they in English?" Raven asked. "I don't know if I want to read a bunch of subtitles."

Since she generally wasn't even looking at the screen and all.

[spin_kick_snap]

"Yeah, oddly enough," Kathy said, immediately snagging three of the veggie quesadillas and a ridiculous amount of guac to slather on top of them. "I asked Hardison about it after I caught the space-jellyfish action movie and he said something about universal translators and I kinda stopped listening after he got really technical. And complained about his lack of quantum phones or something."

[tigerundercover]

Raven chuckled. "That's just how he rolls. Alright, let's find some space melodrama. I'll watch anything without zombies."

[spin_kick_snap]

"No exe--no zombies here," Kathy corrected herself firmly. "Just some scary space-robots intent on killing everyone and some kind of space-sickness that makes it impossible for the heroine to go without her mask."

She navigated to the weird space streaming site that Hardison had installed on their TV and selected Fleet and Flotilla. "I cried," she warned. "Like three times, just as an FYI."

[tigerundercover]

Raven snorted. "I cry every time one of the doctors of Doctor Sexy speaks. I figure it's good for us. Cathartic or whatever." She picked up the stuffed cactus on the end of the couch and wrapped herself around it before picking up one of the steak quesadillas. "Bring on the alien melodrama!"

[spin_kick_snap]

She started the movie, which opened with a panoramic scene of somewhere in space and followed a presumably handsome? young? alien (Kathy thought they were called turyans or something) trying to join the military. Or something like that. There were some things the movie didn't explain, presumably because they didn't need explaining in the universe this had originally been filled in.

"I keep hoping that I'll finally have cried that well dry, but no dice," Kathy said, tugging down a blanket to curl up in. "I think my cheeks are getting chapped. And its hell on the makeup."

[tigerundercover]

"And that is why it's nice to have scales," Raven said. "Or tissues with lotion."

[spin_kick_snap]

"Once again, I am left bereft that my mutant power is bouncing and not awesome shapeshifting like you have," Kathy said, leaning over to poke her roommate in the arm. She was moving slowly so she didn't startle Raven, really, and not because her ribs were achy today.

[tigerundercover]

Don't think Raven hadn't noticed you being all stiff and tired, Kathy. She wasn't fussing at you about it yet, but she'd noticed.

"It's very sad. Clearly I'm at the forefront of human evolution."

[spin_kick_snap]

Kathy was gonna get around to explaining it! ...Eventually? Look, 'I kinda joined an underground fighting ring because pain helps me feel alive' was a weird conversation to broach with anyone.

"Homo sapiens stupendous?" Kathy teased. "While, I'm...what? Homo sapiens pretty good?"

[tigerundercover]

"What's Latin for 'rubber ball'?" Raven asked.

[spin_kick_snap]

"Right," Kathy said, laughing. "I don't know the Latin phrase for 'pretty good,' but I'm definitely fluent enough to know 'rubber ball.'"

Which just meant she had to ask her phone. Because computers knew everything. "Apparently I would be Homo sapiens flexilis pila. Or probably just Homo sapiens flexilis."

That actually sounded kinda cool!

[tigerundercover]

"I like that," Raven decided. "That can be your new codename."

[spin_kick_snap]

"Maybe it should be," Kathy said absently, her hand going to touch her cheek. "God knows it'd be better than listening to them butcher dokkaebi."

[tigerundercover]

"So . . . that's where you go then? At night? You're fighting crime?"

[spin_kick_snap]

"What?" Kathy looked horrified. "Nooo! Not that. Definitely not that. I'm just--" She raised her hands and then let them fall back into her lap. "I'm just fighting. Not crime. People."

[tigerundercover]

Raven blinked and frowned. ". . . Like, bar fights?"

[spin_kick_snap]

"More like...underground fight club?" Kathy said, wincing.

[tigerundercover]

". . . Those really exist?"

[spin_kick_snap]

"Well, I mean, with less blowing up credit corporations and all that stuff, but yeah," Kathy said. "There's a warehouse I go to. Twenty bucks to watch, waived if you're gonna fight. Winner takes home the pot."

Kathy hadn't yet tried for that. She wasn't after the money, usually bowing out after three fights or so.

[tigerundercover]

"Does it help?"

[spin_kick_snap]

"Yeah," Kathy said, eyes falling. "Yeah, I think it does. The pain helps, weird as that sounds. Grounds me. Reminds me that I'm still me and not...that."

[tigerundercover]

Raven shook her head. "That doesn't sound weird at all."

[spin_kick_snap]

"Really?" Kathy asked, surprised. Sure, Dante had said the same thing, but Dante wasn't always a reliable source for what was and wasn't normal. "It doesn't?"

[tigerundercover]

Raven shook her head. "It's pain you're in control of, right? You choose to be there and fight. You didn't choose to have to live with -- with those memories. But if someone's punching you there, you know why and you get to punch them back."

[spin_kick_snap]

"Exactly!" Kathy said, grateful for her understanding. reaching out to cling to Raven's hands. "And, being an ex, there's wasn't any feeling, other than the hunger. Rain and cold and beating sun? No difference. Getting punched or kicked or falling over? Nothing. But this--I get hit and it hurts and my whole body feels alive."