fandomtownies | Around the Streets of Fandom (Rooftop Level), Wednesday

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Around the Streets of Fandom (Rooftop Level), Wednesday

The difference between how Kathy had felt yesterday after the fire and today after the healing were incomparable. She didn't hurt, either inside and out, she didn't feel like the least movement was capable of knocking her on her ass, and she wasn't struggling for each individual breath. Lord, was Anders good to have around! Just one more sign that people like Cassandra were wrong to try to keep mages imprisoned. People with his skills should be allowed to go out and help people, not locked away to molder out of fear of what they might do.

But those were thoughts for his next manifesto; Kathy was just glad to be able to run around outside again at full speed. Footsteps thundered overhead as she darted about town; vaulting over the edge of Demon Marcus, dashing along the roofline of Luke's, keeping an eye out for Dante's cat as she sped across the Kwik Stop to somersault over to Atlas Gym.

And, of course, she sang while she ran, because that's just what kind of day it was. "One jump ahead of the slowpokes. One skip ahead of my doom. Next time gonna use a nom de plume!" The Ukrainians were not her biggest fans right now; several of her girls had mentioned a sizable reward being offered for information about who she was under her rainbow mask. "One jump ahead of the hit men--" that was true enough! "One hit ahead of the flock. I think I'll take a stroll around the block.."

Run. Leap. Dash. Dive. Over this retaining wall, around that antenna, running up this wall to bounce over to another. The streets of Fandom were narrow enough that she could fling herself across them, trusting in her own speed to get her safely to the other side.

"One jump ahead of the hoof beats!" she sang, while a rickshaw driver shook his fist and yelled, "Vandal!" in her wake. "One hop ahead of the hump! One trick ahead of disaster--" She nearly landed on a vicious looking bit of fence, twisting her body in the air to narrowly avoid it. "They're quick, but I'm much faster!" She changed directions, heading for the highest roof in town. "Here goes, better throw my hand in. Wish me happy landin'. All I gotta do is...juuuuuump!"

Freefall.

[Open for interaction pretty much anywhere in town. Many thanks to

rebelseekspizza for the song suggestion!]

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Dante wasn't particularly eager to talk to Kathy again, though maybe underneath all of that he was a little worried about how she was doing. Whatever. It was afternoon now, and he wanted to get some hot chocolate.

Hopefully he'd manage to keep his mouth shut on the way there. He was halfway down the street and he'd already run into two singing rickshaw drivers having a duel or something.

Catching her bouncing around and singing like she didn't have a care in the world was likely not going to help with that complicated stew of emotions he was probably trying to sublimate into anger and aggression.

Hey, if he'd seen her yesterday, he would have realized he was right to have been worried and that would have just complicated things. Wasn't having Kathy flinging herself off a nearby rooftop to land in a convenient pile of leaves a much better prospect?

Especially since she was clearly startled to see him, at least if her shocked, "Dante!" was anything to go by, as she rolled out of the leaves miraculously unharmed considering the height of the jump compared to the density of the pile.

... Well. Now, at least, she couldn't say the loud, "Hey! You! What the fuck is wrong with you!" that Dante spat out was unwarranted.

She could still say it was a little harsh!

At least, she could if Fandom hadn't decided to interpret his question as literally as possible.

"I'm waking up to ash and dust
I wipe my brow and I sweat my rust
I'm breathing in the chemicals..."

Which was such a helpful answer, truly. But then, the more literal 'outrunning nightmares' might be a little more touchy-feely than Dante was really looking for right now anyway.

Dante should have probably thanked Fandom for letting him stick close to songs he already knew, but the whole thing was such a pain in the ass...

"Self medicating, craving punishment
Blaming yourself for a world on fire
No more shame, no more pity
No more
We rise from the ashes."

He rolled his eyes.

"Whatever," he said, "I'm not doing this."

"What, the singing?" Kathy asked. "Because I'm not too sure anyone has a choice about that." She crossed her arms over her chest and leaned against the building she'd just hurtled herself from. "Or did you mean actually talking to me?"

And she didn't point out that his lyrics could have equally been about him. Self medicating? Craving punishment? Yeah, that rang a few bells.

True and true. Unfortunately Dante was in no mood to be self-reflexive right now.

If he ever was. (And he knew how the rest of the song went, and... yeah.)

"Both," he said flatly. "Aren't you supposed to be in a fucking bed somewhere?"

"That's how I spent yesterday," she admitted. "It sucked. So I hit up your roommate for help instead."

First-degree burns and smoke inhalation weren't the best way to spend an afternoon. Who knew?!

"Don't worry, he made sure to tell me not to get burned to a crisp at the same time."

He wanted to ask what Anders had to do with it.

What came out was, "Why don't you finish yourself, since you don't really care. Let the screams in your head be the last things you hear; just give it a go!"

"I don't care?!" Kathy asked, flabbergasted. "I don't?! Me?!" She gaped at him a second before singing, "I tear my heart open, I sew myself shut. My weakness is that I care too much!"

Kathy, stop stealing lyrics to songs that were clearly written for Dante.

Edited 2015-10-07 20:34 (UTC)

Literally, even. Now there was something he wasn't telling her about. Ever.

"Lying to my face again, suicidal imbecile. Think about, you're pounding on the fault line! What'll it take to get through to you, precious?"

Part of him really wanted to point. He didn't. It took effort. But fuck you, island.

He could add it to the list, right under chainsaws in his chest!

"I'm not suicidal!" Kathy snapped. "If anything, just the opposite! When I wake up in the morning, I want to look in the mirror and see someone who matters, who's done something important! I want to look at myself and say--"

Apparently that was too much prose at once, because Fandom stepped in again.

"Give it to me, I'm worth it
Baby I'm worth it
Uh huh I'm worth it
Gimme gimme I'm worth it
Give it to me, I'm worth it
Baby I'm worth it
Uh huh I'm worth it
Gimme gimme I'm worth it"

She drew up her chin and stepped forward, deliberately getting into Dante's personal space. "And like you're one to talk? Why don't you Help me understand why you've given in to all these reckless dark desires."

Edited 2015-10-07 21:01 (UTC)

Dante's eyebrows shot up, but it was a challenge, more than anything else; he wasn't moving, not even to respond physically to the intrusion.

"There's no point in being careful; I'll burn bridges anyway."

"That's the thing about being a superhero that you don't seem to get," Kathy growled at him. "We don't give up on people! If I run into a burning building to rescue strangers, why do you think I'd do any less for you, you idiot?"

She rolled her eyes. "You and I go hard at each other like we're going to war. You and I go rough, we keep throwing things and slamming the door. You and I get so damn dysfunctional, we start keeping score. You and I get sick, yeah I know but we're friends all the more."

Slight change in lyrics. So? Accurate.

Ugh, that jabby finger really wanted to show up.

Whatever. Fine.

"I don't want your charity twisting me 'round," he sang. "I don't want your charity keeping me down."

Kathy snapped at his finger, teeth clacking down a hair's breadth away from his skin. A warning; he wasn't her father, he didn't get to waggle his finger in her face. Next time, she would bite.

"Charity? Charity?! I don't fuck people for charity, Dante!" Technically they hadn't yet done that, either, but the point stood. "And just how am I going to bring you down, huh? What are you so worried I'm going to do? Hurt you? Beat you? I can't touch you, Dante!"

"Not everything's about sex, Kathy."

And you were getting that from fucking Dante, of all people. He grinned at her with full demonic force, next.

"Little angel go away
Come again some other day
The devil has my ear today
I'll never hear a word you say
He promised I would find a little solace
And some peace of mind."

Did Dante hear Kathy's teeth grinding? Because they were.

"I'm saying, you great idiot," she said, slowly and with great emphasis, "that I don't spend time with you because I am motivated by charity." Other times, she might have quailed in front of Dante's smile, but not today. "I didn't decide to have sex with you for charity. Nothing I do with you is because I feel bad for you, you horse's ass!"

She glared, hands on her hips. "According to you I'm stupid, I'm useless
I can't do anything right! According to you I'm difficult, hard to please
Forever changing my mind."

"I don't think you're useless," Dante snapped, "I think what you're doing is fucking pointless. With me, and with anyone else. You gonna get yourself killed."

"You want to know one thing I advise?
Shoot when you see the whites of their eyes.
They'll come to you in the perfect disguise
clock you too late, with a squeal of surprise
shoot when you see the whites, the whites of their eyes."

"How can you say it's pointless?" Kathy asked, trading anger for helpless confusion. "Didn't you ever want someone to help you? When you were younger--when you didn't know how to fight as well, when you were weaker and smaller--didn't you ever wish someone was there to help you out? To protect you and keep you safe? What is wrong with being that for people?"

She pushed her hair out of her face, arms going from a hard bar across her chest to something softer around her waist. She turned away slightly; this wasn't something to be up in his face about.

"I know that life ain't always good to you
I've seen exactly what it put you through
Thrown you around and turned you upside down
And so you, you got to thinking there was no way out
You started sinking and it pulled you down
It may be tough, you've got to get back up because

You know that life ain't over yet
I'm here for you so don't forget
you can count on me cause I will carry you till you carry on"

Her voice was quieter, posture more open. "That's why it's not pointless. Because helping people isn't pointless. Making the world better isn't pointless. Even if I only touch one person's life, it's one more person than if I'd done nothing." She looked up at him, searching for a sign that he understood her at all. "I just want to do something that matters."

"You won't," Dante snapped. "You don't get that, do you? People are gonna fucking die no matter what you do, because the world is beyond fucked up."

And the stupid song from that morning - never listening to that again - popped back up in his head.

"I know there is no use to pray
I am a demon today
We're all demons today
We drown in soil, we're flooded

As it happens, I still try to be human
I never tried to fit in
And now I'm falling through again."

"It doesn't matter if what I do doesn't mean anything to the world at large," Kathy said. "It matters to the people I help. There are four people alive today who wouldn't have been if you hadn't been there. To them you saved their whole world. That matters. You matter."

Dante snorted. "One step in the wrong direction, and you would've been dead," he said, "Same goes for those people. You're sweet, Kathy, but you can't save everybody, and in the long run, it still doesn't matter."

"If it doesn't matter in the long run, why did you follow me in?" she asked. "You can't save everyone, right? So why even bother trying? Why save me?"

Dante shrugged. "'Cause I like you," he said. "If I'm going to be kicking around for a while longer, I like having you around."

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