The Playground in the Park, Tuesday Afternoon

[spin_kick_snap]

Kathy was eighteen today, now officially an adult with all the important responsibilities that entailed. At least, that was the gist of the lecture she'd gotten from her parents when they called this morning to wish her a happy birthday. But, you know, Kathy didn't really feel like being grown up and responsible today. Maybe it was a leftover glow of happiness from the party yesterday. Maybe it was being woken up by her parents who had disapproved to find that she'd slept in till the outrageous hour of nine am. Or maybe it was all the sugar and caffeine buzzing through her system from the free peppermint macchiato The Perk had given her for her birthday. For whatever reason, Kathy was going to put off maturity and adulthood for another few hours and just appreciate being a kid. Which, right now, meant playing in the snow on playground. There were snow angels to make and snowmen to build and swings to swing on as high as they could go.

It was her birthday and she could play if she wanted to.

Comments

[rebelseekspizza]

Dante'd ambled around the dorms in search of a distraction for a while, but nothing had come up. So he was heading out to get to Baltimore - maybe stay there for a couple of days, because fuck Christmas.

But heading there took him near the park... where he stopped for a second.

"Huh," he said. Then, louder: "Someone's looking to get iced!"

[spin_kick_snap]

"Maybe I'm hoping someone will come by and warm me up!" Kathy called back, waving at him from her swing. She was swinging high enough to make the chain skip, which earned a small, delighted squeal each time it did. "C'mere, Dante! Come play! Or, well, come judge me for having fun like a little kid, whatever!"

[rebelseekspizza]

Dante snorted. He sauntered through the snow towards the swingset. "Are you trying to freeze your panties off?"

[spin_kick_snap]

"Who says I'm wearing any?" Kathy asked, grinning down at him as the swing arc'd upwards.

Besides, you know, common sense.

[rebelseekspizza]

"Even I know that's stupid," Dante said.

Not that he didn't look at her bottom half while she was swinging, mind you.

[spin_kick_snap]

He would have done that anyway.

"Okay, fair enough," Kathy admitted with a laugh. "But then, that would be an awfully inconvenient place to get frostbite." She nodded to the empty swing beside her. "You should come join me. C'mon, when was the last time you swung on a swing? It'll do you some good. Get color back in your cheeks."

Like hers. Under her knitted hat (complete with pompom, hell yeah it was), Kathy looked like an extra from a winter Coke commercial, all red cheeks and bright eyes.

[rebelseekspizza]

"Think I do enough swinging from down here," Dante called.

It wasn't his best pun ever, but he was currently in the snow watching some nutball of a girl swinging back and forth, so hey. "What got into you?"

[spin_kick_snap]

Well, he could be out of the snow and swinging with her if he didn't hate fun so much!

"It's my birthday!" she announced. "Which means you have to be nice to me, Dante. It's my special day and I can do what I like."

[rebelseekspizza]

Yeah, sure. Dante? Hated fun. Totally!

Not that the face he pulled now put paid to that accusation, though it was for other reasons than Kathy might think. "Birthdays are bullshit," he said, "And a terrible excuse to freeze your ass off."

[tigerundercover]

Raven had somehow managed to miss her roommate coming and going, this morning. She'd though of maybe leaving what she had under their tree for Kathy, but she had a feeling Kathy's birthday probably got lost in Christmas pretty often.

Raven wasn't about to let that happen this year, especially not after Kathy insisted on her choosing a birthday over the summer. Kathy deserved a day just for her.

"Hey," she called when she finally tracked Kathy down. She held the gift bag she was carrying casually behind her back, fluffing up her mimicked winter coat to make sure it was totally hidden. "You look like you're having fun."

[spin_kick_snap]

Raven was correct! It was the number one reason she'd never had a proper birthday party, either. Such were the woes of being a near-Christmas baby.

"I am!" Kathy called merrily. "It's snowing, it's almost Christmas, and I've decided that I'm one of those little kids that was running around the island yesterday. Wheeeeeeeee!"

Slides were even more fun when there was a thin skim of ice on them.

[tigerundercover]

"Well then, I have just the thing for you," Raven said, going over to the base of the slide and waiting for Kathy to finish.

[spin_kick_snap]

Kathy popped out a minute later, going fast enough to catch a bit of air after the slide ended.

"--eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!" she squealed, landing a foot or so away. "That was awesome! I think I'm starting to get this whole winter wonderland thing." Beaming, she bounced back over to Raven. "Now what's this you said? Just the thing for what?"

[tigerundercover]

Raven couldn't help but laugh along with that enthusiasm. "Just the thing for feeling like a kid again," she said, and brought the gift bag out from behind her back. "Happy birthday."

It wasn't easy to find a non-holiday themed gift bag three days before Christmas, but Raven had managed. Inside were three boxes: small, medium, and large*.

* and sized for a grown-up, despite the pictures

[spin_kick_snap]

Before Kathy even looked into the bag, she was grinning and wrapping Raven in a huge hug. "You remembered!" she said, completely appreciating the effort that Raven had gone to. "It's a birthday bag."

Until now, only Sarah had ever made that effort. "Eee, thank you so much!"

And any second now, she'd start to look inside the bag as well. Any second.

[tigerundercover]

Bless Sarah. Seriously.

"Of course I did," Raven said, hugging back. "How could I forget the birthday of the girl who gave me eighteen birthdays in one? That'd just be rude."

[spin_kick_snap]

"Well, it's easy enough for it to get lost in the rest of the holiday," Kathy objected, busily digging into the bag and squeeing over her gifts. The ring went onto her middle finger and the grin when she tested the spikes against her palm was not nice. It only grew when she tested the edge of the axes--then melted into something much sweeter when she pulled out the cowl and felt its softness against her cheek. "This is so adorable! Thank you!"

[goforthe_optics]

Tali was on her way out to the junkyard to see if anything new and interesting had turned up for her to poke at, but then she'd gotten distracted by the snow and wandered through the park instead, and then it was hard not to notice someone aggressively having a lot of fun.

"Someone's having a good time," she called.

[spin_kick_snap]

"I am!" Kathy called, popping up from where she'd been making an enthusiastic row of snow angels. "Would anyone like to join me?"

Snow was a lot more fun when it wasn't a Level 1 health hazard. Or on Noveria. Hell, everything was a lot more fun when it wasn't on Noveria.

[goforthe_optics]

Because Noveria was the worst. After all these husks the last few days Tali was prepared to make a good argument for Feros being up there, but nope, Noveria was still the worst. Besides the one we don't talk about.

"I don't know," she hedged, even though she was already heading in that direction. "The last couple of times I ended up on planets with snow I ended up getting shot at a lot, so statistically it doesn't look promising, but . . ."

She dropped down into one of the swings and gave herself a light push.

"Carrying on with yesterday's party, or just having fun because you can?"

[spin_kick_snap]

LA LA I CAN'T HEAR YOU. Also, I saved Ash this playthrough.

"More because I can," Kathy said, abandoning her snow angels to come sit by Tali on the swings. "It's my birthday, so I'm celebrating." Offering Tali a smile, she added, "I think we got all the shooting out of our systems over the weekend, so you're probably safe from that."

[goforthe_optics]

"Oh, well, happy birthday then!" Tali exclaimed quickly. "That's more than enough reason to celebrate. Good thing we managed to get our uninvited guests off the island in time, then."

She shook her head. "Keelah, it's been a while since I've been in that much of a fight."

And she couldn't even say it was Shepard's fault. Sob.

[spin_kick_snap]

"Thanks!" Kathy said. "I might have pretended that the party from yesterday was for me, too. My birthday gets swallowed up by Christmas a lot."

She kicked at the ground to get the swing going a bit before asking, "Spent a lot of time fighting, then? You mentioned getting shot at a lot."

[goforthe_optics]

"Well, most of the time, technically, I'm just along for the ride," Tali felt the need to point out. "But as it turns out, trying to prevent a galactic invasion? Makes a lot of people try to stop you."

Yeah, Council, this meant you too up there in the Presidium Tower. Or what was left of it after pieces of a Reaper smashed it up because this was what you got for not listening.

[spin_kick_snap]

Almost made you want to leave the short-sighted idiots to rot on the Destiny Ascension or something...

"Wait, stop you?" Kathy asked. "You mean, like a galactic conspiracy?"