Random Hotel Room, Sunday Morning

[not_every_mage]

Anders woke up first, surprised by the now-unfamiliar rhythm of someone else breathing next to him. It took him the smallest fraction of a second before he realized the shape next to him was Kathy.

His head spun. He'd had too much to drink the night before; they both had. She might wake up and decide this was a one-off, that they shouldn't spoil fifteen years of mostly platonic friendship over a drunken mistake.

She might. But deep in his most selfish heart, he hoped that she wouldn't.

He curved closer to her, enjoying the moment as much as he could before what he feared would be its inevitable end.

[OOC: For one, please!]

Comments

[not_every_mage]

"Not what I meant!" Anders protested through a squirm. "I just meant, people don't get married for nice. I thought maybe he had hidden depths of depravity."

He kissed the top of her head. "Seriously, it's been years?"

[spin_kick_snap]

"I did," Kathy retorted. Maybe eventually she would explain that Alex's uncomplicated goodness had been a balm for her battered heart after that first initial rush of grief after hearing Anders had died and again, later, when he'd returned, but had been dealing with his own inner demons, the kind Dante couldn't kill. "It took me a while to realize that working so well together when heroing didn't translate to having shit in common when we weren't."

She'd been young and stupid and desperate to have somewhere to belong. Someone to belong to, really.

"And--well, yeah," she said, a touch defensive. "We were separated for almost eighteen months!"

So no sex while they'd attempted to 'work out their differences.' Or for more than six months before that.

[not_every_mage]

"I know, but I didn't know separated meant 'no sex with anyone, period,'" Anders told her. He'd assumed she and Alex still slept together sometimes,and hadn't really given Kathy's sex life too much thought. "It sounds ... dull. I'm glad I never got married."

[spin_kick_snap]

"Well...Alex and I..." Kathy looked embarrassed. "We weren't really compatible in a lot of ways. And the last time we started anything, it turned into an argument about kids and..." She trailed off, blushing. "It isn't marriage that's the problem. It was me."

[not_every_mage]

"I can't believe you were the problem," Anders said firmly. "At least not in bed."

He propped himself on his elbow, and now it was his turn to look embarrassed. "Do you want kids?" he asked. "Not right now, but in general?"

[spin_kick_snap]

"I do," Kathy said with a quiet intensity. "Though by this point, I doubt anything but adoption is the answer. I am almost forty after all." She tried not to look disappointed, but Anders knew her well enough to see the emotions she hid. "The problem was that Alex and I both wanted kids, but I refused to raise children in that world. Any child we had would almost certainly be a mutant and I'd be damned if I raised a child of mine in a world that immediately saw them as being lesser because of a trait they were born with."

Anders probably remembered her using a similar argument when they'd talked about Carys, back when she visited the island.

"I said I'd rather raise a child at DMC with demons running around than in Xavier's paramilitary academy facing off against Sentinels before they could toddle. He scoffed and said something about how that wasn't a surprise, I demanded to know what he meant by that and it just spiraled from there."

[not_every_mage]

"It'd have to be adoption for me, too," Anders said, not sounding much happier about it than Kathy was. "Most Grey Wardens are infertile. Something about drinking darkspawn blood throws a lot of things about your body out of whack."

He ran his fingers through Kathy's hair. "I had no idea you and Alex were going through that," he said. "He wouldn't consider moving, even part-time?"

[spin_kick_snap]

"His work with the X-Men was too important," Kathy replied, managing to sound bitter and defensive at once. "And the more I flitted between the three worlds, the more entrenched he became in his. In fairness, though, his brother was there, his cause was there, his life was there. And he didn't think I worked hard enough to make that true for me, too."

[not_every_mage]

"Besides going to college there, marrying him, and risking your life every other month because something terrifying was going to happen if you didn't," Anders said, sour. "No, you made no sacrifices at all."

[spin_kick_snap]

"He said I lived with one foot out the door," Kathy said softly. "That even when I was with him, my attention was somewhere else, with someone else. Whether it was DMC or Leverage, there was always something going on that was more important than making a life and a family with him." She sighed, throwing an arm over her eyes, and rolling away slightly, back on the bed. "I can't say he's wrong, either."

[not_every_mage]

"That's like what I've heard from everybody I've dated for more than six months," Anders said quietly. "That no matter what was going on with them, they felt like you and Dante always came first. They weren't wrong either."

[spin_kick_snap]

"We both should have known that it wasn't going to work out when I blew off his brother's graduation and the first big Meet The Parents thing when I ran back to DMC because you'd come back," Kathy said, dropping her arm to glance over at him. "Remember, I spent like two weeks hovering over you and generally being a pain in the ass?" She smiled at him, all wistfulness at the memory.

[not_every_mage]

Anders smiled back, though the memory brought some pain to his eyes even now. "I remember," he said. "I appreciated it, even if I wasn't much company."

He'd still had healing bruises from the last battle when he moved in with Dante, and it was years before he slept properly without a darkspawn poking its ugly head into his dreams.

[spin_kick_snap]

"You didn't have to be," Kathy said. "You were alive and that was enough."

And if he'd been in any fit state to resume their relationship, Kathy would have left Alex in a hot second. But he hadn't been and Kathy didn't want to potentially hurt Alex on the chance that maybe one day he would be (and would want to) and so she'd gone back and time had passed and their relationship had progressed.

"I've missed you," she murmured, kissing his chest. "Not just this but you. We've been holding ourselves apart, haven't we?"

[not_every_mage]

He petted the back of her head, relaxing bonelessly against her form.

"We've had to," he said. "You were married, and ... it was hard, figuring out how to just be your friend again. I'm not sure I ever got the trick of it."

[spin_kick_snap]

"Now you know how I felt way back in...what? 2015? When you were with Nathan and I was trying very hard not to give away how much I was crushing on you," Kathy said with a rueful smile. It hadn't been love back then--probably--but she'd been seventeen and pining and probably absolutely ridiculous.

[not_every_mage]

"Except I was with Nathan for eighteen months, and you were married a decade," Anders laughed. "But we were teenagers. Eighteen months of swallowing a crush probably felt like ten years."

[spin_kick_snap]

"It absolutely did," Kathy said. "Especially when I was fantasizing about swallowing you." Her fingers brushed against him, saying hello. "Not that I was all that great about being subtle about said crush. How long did you know?"

[not_every_mage]

"Swallowing me? What, like a pill?" Anders asked, brushing back against her. "And would you believe I don't remember? I was trying not to read into things."

[spin_kick_snap]

"No, more like oral sex, but I guess your imagery works too," Kathy snorted. "And good. I'd like to pretend that I wasn't painfully obvious about it. My teenage ego is soothed."

[not_every_mage]

"Oh, then I like the oral sex image much better," Anders told her easily. "Go back to talking about that. In as much detail as you can manage. It'll help build up my ego."

[spin_kick_snap]

"What, have you forgotten last night already?" Kathy teased. "I thought I'd done a good job of having actions speak louder than words."

[not_every_mage]

"You have, but I like it when you use your words," Anders said, laughing. "Or is that your way of asking for another round?"

[spin_kick_snap]

"You up for another round?" Kathy asked, leaning into him for another kiss. "...Granted, I might need a little bit of healing before I am."

It had been a long time. Even longer still since Kathy'd gotten the kind of hard use he'd given her last night. She was a little sore and it was perfect.

[not_every_mage]

"Oh, no, where are you going to get that?" Anders asked, tenderly returning the kiss. "...not that I'm not sore, too. Fucking on the ground might be for the young."