not_every_mage | Random Hotel Room, Sunday Morning

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20 years

Random Hotel Room, Sunday Morning

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!]

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"Absolutely not," Anders said immediately. "We're making up for a lot of lost time. Since whenever the last time I visited you at college was."

He barely remembered the last encounter; it hadn't seemed special, beyond the way Kathy was always special. He hadn't known it would be the last. And then ten days later he was through a portal to Thedas, cursing his luck.

"Did you ever think about me when you were with Alex?" he asked. "I tried not to, with other people, but sometimes ... sometimes my brain went where it wanted to go, and that was usually you."

Edited 2016-06-01 01:37 (UTC)

"I felt guilty every time," Kathy said. "And one time, New Year's Eve and I'd had too much champagne, I called our your name. That was unbelievably awkward."

There had been a moment when she'd thought Alex hadn't heard, but then he'd rolled over off of her. And the first thought she'd had was Thank god he's off.

"Apparently I dreamed about Dante sometimes, too," she admitted. "Said his name in my sleep. Alex brought it up during one of our fights, though for all I know, I could have been yelling at him to not be stupid or freaking out over some imaginary demon battle in my head." Though Alex had been certain that was not the case. "Neither of you were very far from my thoughts. And you were never far from my heart."

"I should have tried my luck," Anders said brightly, so he wouldn't cry at all the wasted time. "We could have had a tawdry affair right under Alex's nose. Damn my morals."

"I want to say that I wouldn't have," Kathy said softly, her hand mapping out his skin because she couldn't touch him enough. "I'd like to think that I'm a good enough person that I would never have betrayed his trust like that. But...I really don't know. Not for sure. Not if it were you."

She would have spent their whole affair feeling conflicted as hell, though.

"I'm not equipped to be the other man,anyhow," Anders admitted. "For one thing, it wouldn't have been enough, and for another, I don't need the X-Men trying to kill me."

He nestled against her, head on her chest, and kissed a rosy nipple. "But if you'd given me the slightest hit you were interested ... I would have tried."

That nipple perked under his lips, standing at attention in hopes of more. For a moment, Kathy was tempted to just shelve all further talk for another few hours but...no. She shouldn't. She needed to make sure they were on the same page. Hell, she needed to figure out what page she was even on.

After ten years, everything was happening both too fast and not fast enough.

"How much is enough?" she asked, eyes swirling with emotion. "I couldn't give Alex enough, either."

"That's not what I meant, love," Anders said, and lifted his head enough to talk properly. "I just mean I don't want to be your secret. The man hiding in the closet when the fellow whose ring you wear gets home. I would have been in second place, and I've done that enough to know it only makes me sad."

He propped his head on his hand, thoughtful. "What's enough for you?"

Could he fill her needs? Some part of him wondered if she would have stayed with Alex so long if she'd believed that he could.

Edited 2016-06-01 03:36 (UTC)

"I... don't know," Kathy admitted. "I don't fully know yet what it is that I want. I mean, I'm not going to stop working with Leverage. Eliot, Hardison, and Parker are my family." Eliot had walked her down the aisle, dammit.

"And even as tense everything is with Alex, I want to keep doing my work there, helping mutants get rights. And I don't want to have to fight about doing these things, or be made to feel that I'm being selfish for those times I want to be with them instead." She looked down at the comforter. "I want a lot of things, I guess."

Leave it to Kathy to view wanting to help a lot of people as selfish somehow. Anders rolled his eyes.

"And even after I graduate, I'm going to be working a lot for the next few years," he told her. "We haven't chosen easy lives, Kathy. I don't have any problem with what you're doing with yours except that I want you to come home to me. Just -- try not to run into burning buildings if you don't absolutely have to, all right?"

That's how it had been presented to her for the past decade. Her flitting across multiple worlds had taken away from the time she could have spent on his.

"I'll try not to," Kathy said. "Most of my do-gooding happens in the courtroom now, rather than random alleyways." And when she went off to pick fights with Sentinels or demons, she had a team to back her up. "I want to come home to you," she said. "And have you come home to me, too. I want to bitch about my day at the office and have you complain about patients and have nights when we're both so tired we just order in and fall down on the couch to veg out in front of terrible TV."

Part of her was yelling Too fast! Too fast! You just got divorced, too soon! but she was ignoring it. They'd been waiting ten years for this; making them wait longer just to satisfy convention was stupid. And selfish. And wrong.

And speaking of defying convention, she blurted out, "But I want us to share that with Dante, too. Not just the terrible TV, but the everything. Us."

"I hadn't thought about him yet," Anders admitted slowly, and wondered if he should feel guilty about that. "But no, I wouldn't want to give him up. It wouldn't be fair to any of us to try."

Dante belonged in their lives, and in their bed if he felt like it.

Still, that left one question unanswered. "What about other people?" he asked. "Are we going to be monogamous except for Dante, or should we let things be more fluid than that?"

"I..." Kathy ducked her head and shrugged. "I haven't thought much past you and him. There's nobody I want, past you and him. I love him and I'm in love with you--" and hopefully Anders picked up the subtle distinction there "--and I can't see me wanting anyone besides that. Or wading through the perils of the dating pool to try to find someone else."

Just what the house needed, another round of Post-Its, with Agni and Rudra giving color commentary and helpful hints, oh god.

"But if there are other people you're interested in, then we can be more fluid if you want," she added quickly. "I mean, I know you've been dating and if there's something you want to explore, it wouldn't be fair to deny you that just because I came traipsing back into DMC..."

She wasn't sure she could do the fluid thing forever, but while they were still figuring things out...?

"Dating is an excellent way to lose your faith in humanity," Anders groaned. "No, there's no one. Between school and DMC I haven't really had time to pursue anything."

Strangely, his attempts at dating had died off just as Kathy's marriage thudded to an end.

"I don't think I want anybody else either, but we can talk again if we change our minds."

Strange that.

"We can always talk to each other. Always have been. About anything," Kathy said, dipping forward to kiss him again. Her lips lingered on his before slowly pulling away. "That was all I wanted, you know. Back before that fucking portal. You and me, with Dante coming back home with us sometimes. That was my idea of the perfect future."

"It would have been pretty close to perfect for me, too," Anders said, lips still tingling from her kiss. "I think my fantasy would have had more puddles of gold and worldwide renown, but the you and Dante bit would have been the same."

"Instead we get puddles of blood and hell-wide infamy," Kathy said with a chuckle. "You sure we're worth it?"

"Most days? Absolutely," Anders chuckled. "Besides, I haven't run off to seek fame and fortune yet, have I?"

"Nope," Kathy agreed. "You've sunk into debt and hard work instead. I guess you'll just have to be happy with whatever you find at home instead."

Like a bendy and bouncy girlfriend and a...whatever Dante was going to be?

"Poor me," Anders said, not sounding too put out at all. "You're going to have to keep me satisfied if you want me to stick around."

He stretched, utterly content.

"Speaking of satisfied, did you still need healing, or are you all right?"

"I could still use some," Kathy admitted, stretching out a little. "At least if we wanted to continue carrying on the way we did last night. Otherwise, you can leave it." She gave him a little smirk. "Otherwise, I want to keep the burn with me all morning. As a reminder."

That kind of aching soreness that said both well-used and well done.

Anders blushed at the reminder of the carrying on.

"I'll heal you," he said, fingers moving to brush against her underpants. "And then tonight we'll go home sore. Best of both worlds."

"Ha, I did wear you out," Kathy crowed, giving him a swift and giggly kiss. "I knew you were just bragging before. Heal me, love, and I guess we can go be part of the wider world for awhile."

"Maybe a little," Anders conceded, and sent a warm glow of healing magic through Kathy's nethers. "But Maker, do we have to go out? There are other people there. People who I don't even want to see naked."

"There are some people I should see," Kathy said softly. "People who haven't had a chance to see a Kathy in twenty years. I may not be the right one for them, but..." She shrugged. "I think it hurts and helps in equal measures. So I might go out for a little while. But not long, I don't think."

Because it mostly just hurt her.

"No, it wouldn't be very fun if you did it for long," Anders said sympathetically. "I should say hello to a few people too. Text m when you're ready to meet up again?"

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spin_kick_snap - 2016-06-02 22:14 (UTC) - Expand

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