Room 322, Sunday Night

[not_every_mage]

It had been barely more than 48 hours since Anders was last in this room, this safe space that was bright with Rapunzel's paints and littered with his own clothes and books. It felt like it might as well have been years. When he'd left, he could be flip about killing because he hadn't needed to do much of it, not enough to make it real. Now he'd done more than he had expected outside a war. (He didn't feel all that bad about it. Deep down, he wondered if that were a problem.)

In Rapture, he'd been fueled by potions and adrenaline -- too tightly wound by the situation to sleep, to rest, to eat more than a mouthful or so when they'd had the chance. It had gotten him through the horror of it all, and Nathan's pizza had helped dull the gnawing in his stomach. But now ... now he felt, all at once, as if he'd die on his feet if he didn't lie down immediately.

He took off his boots and sprawled on his bed. Drifting with his eyes closed, he imagined what would happen if he took the same crew back to Thedas.

The templars would never see them coming.

[OOC:Closed door, open post!]

Comments

[not_every_mage]

"I don't think it's like anything they have on dry land," Anders said, shaking his head. He ended up explaining where he'd been in almost the same words he'd used with Nathan. "Rapture is a whole city underwater. It's a marvel - even now you can see bits of how beautiful it was once. But of course it didn't last. The leaders went crazy, and half the people got addicted to a terrible drug that ruined their minds and warped their bodies. Most of the rest have died or left by now. There's almost no one good left in the place."

He ran his hand down her spine. "Worst place I've been. I doubt Baltimore stacks up."

[spin_kick_snap]

Kathy wasn't sure about that--mostly because she was picturing a bunch of people addicted to heroine or meth or something and not the true horror that were splicers. But she also wasn't going to argue with Anders about it. It was the worst place he'd ever been and that was what was important here.

She had no idea how wrong she was, or how lucky she was that she could be wrong.

"I'm so sorry you had to go through somewhere like that," she said, cuddling close. "Please say you managed to rescue Eleanor's aunt?"

Even with her wrong idea of what Rapture was like, no one should be trapped in an underwater prison while drug addicts ruled the streets.

[not_every_mage]

Really, it was kinder to let Kathy be wrong. She wasn't that far off, and imagining angry heroin addicts was better than having Splicers in your head.

"We did," he confirmed, not letting her go. "Got an extra passenger, too. There was a little girl who -- she'd been given up by her parents and treated badly. We brought her back with us."

If Kathy pressed, he'd tell her more about Louise. But her story was almost too horrifying to think about, let alone discuss.

[spin_kick_snap]

"Umm...was that okay?" Kathy asked, her brain still in places where there were laws, no matter how ignored, and government regulations, and the like. "I mean, I don't doubt that you had reason to, but if she was just a little girl..."

She looked up at him, trying to get across that she didn't think they were wrong, exactly, but a little girl was a big responsibility. And kidnapping was an ugly word.

"No one tried to stop you from leaving with a child?"

[not_every_mage]

"It wasn't like that," Anders said, though it was going to take him a bit to explain what itwas like.

After a long pause, he came out with: "She -- Louise, the little girl -- they'd treated her with a special drug and sent her out to collect a chemical from corpses. Her parents had sold her into it. I don't know how she ate or where she slept. She had this huge protector in a metal suit, more a machine than a man. He attacked us and we had to take him down."

He drew a breath. "Once we'd gotten her back to normal -- we didn't exactly go searching for her proper guardian. But I can't imagine anyone left down there deserved her, anyhow."

[spin_kick_snap]

Kathy shuddered. That sounded far worse than anything she could have imagined. "Is she going to be okay? Who's going to care for her now? Did she have family outside of Rapture?"

Because as much as she cared for her friends, she wasn't sure if they were up for caring for a young, possibly traumatized child long-term.

[not_every_mage]

"She went with Eleanor's aunt to Saint ... something-or-other." Anders had been a bit foggy on the details. "Right now she's okay, but she's still adjusting. I don't know how she'll be when it all starts to click into place for her. And all she could tell us about her family was that her parents were gone. I don't know if she even knew her last name."

He grimaced and brushed hair out of his face. "I hope she writes. I'll have to ask Eleanor to make sure she does."

[spin_kick_snap]

Gently nudging his hand out of the way, Kathy smoothed Anders' hair back for him. An excuse to touch, really. "How are you doing?" she asked. "You look...hollowed out is the only thing I can think that even starts to fit."

[not_every_mage]

"I think I'll be okay," Anders said, muscles relaxing under her touch. "I feel hollowed out, though. It's funny. I fought shades and demons and such. But people -- people are different."

People, even splicers, weighed on him more than anything in Thedas ever had.

[spin_kick_snap]

"Did you have to..." She made a vague hand gesture. "I mean, like, permanently?"

He was getting another hug for that, nice and tight.

[not_every_mage]

Anders drew a deep breath and then exhaled hard. "Yes," he said, daring her to look at him differently, hoping she wouldn't. "I did. Freezing, mostly, and electricity in water."

[spin_kick_snap]

Kathy was going to have to do some serious soul-searching about that. But later. Much later. Right now, she was going to focus on Anders and how he was feeling.

"I'm sorry you had to do that." She was going to assume it was in justified self-defense, at least for now. "I wish I knew what to say to help make you feel better. All I have to offer are hugs. And a promise that I'm not going anywhere, at least until you're ready for me to go."

[not_every_mage]

"Knowing you aren't running out on me helps a lot," Anders said. It was more than he would have asked for.

He reached up a hand to play with the ends of her hair and let out a soft breath, as if moving on. "Let's talk about your weekend for a bit. How'd you get caught up in a drug ring?"

[spin_kick_snap]

"We can if you want, but we don't have to," Kathy assured him. "I mean, I'm totally happy to change the subject if you'd rather? But we don't need to talk about me."

Because heaven forbid he should think that she was only in the room to talk about herself or something.

"And...well, have I told you about what I do in Baltimore? Or shown you everything I can do?"

[omg, hit send, self!]

[not_every_mage]

"But I like you and I want to hear about you," Anders said -- almost whined, really. He needed to think about something besides Rapture. "And you told me a bit about it, the flexibility and speed and bouncing, but I didn't know what you were doing in Baltimore. Should I have?"

[spin_kick_snap]

"Not really," Kathy said, curling up a little closer to him. So long as he was sure he wanted to talk about her, she was more than happy to comply. "I'm not hiding it, exactly? But I'm not going around and telling the radio squirrels, too. I just spend a lot of my nights patrolling in Baltimore. It's getting to the point where people are starting to recognize me. I mean, more than just to laugh at. People are telling me about things." She glowed with quiet pride. "Where to go to stop something from going down or warnings about people looking for me. You know, either for help, or..."

Actually, he'd probably be happier not knowing about the or. Moving on!

"So, Friday night, I got a tip from one of the working girls I've helped in the past. She'd caught wind of something big going on. She didn't want to go to the cops, but she knew I wasn't going to say anything, so..."

[not_every_mage]

Anders nodded as he listened, proud of what Kathy was telling him. Proud she was using her powers to help people; proud it made her happy.

But -- and he admitted this was strange and hypocritical, given how he'd spent his weekend -- it also scared him to know she was going out and finding trouble.

"So you went to check it out," he said, a tiny bit of tightness in his voice. "And you found something?

[spin_kick_snap]

Oblivious to the tightness, Kathy nodded, barreling on with her story. "Most of Friday night was just me skulking about the docks. I mean, I saw a little action, but mostly just some fights and a couple of drunk guys. I stopped a pair of assholes from messing with this homeless guy and gave him money for a hotel for the night, but it was pretty slow going, even after the bars let out." She turned a sunny smile towards him, for all that they were talking about danger and crimefighting. "That's usually when my Fridays take off, but it was pretty quiet. I guess there aren't a lot of bars around the docks. It's zoned for all industrial stuff, you know?"

[not_every_mage]

"Docks tend to be that way," Anders nodded, eyes skittering to her face. "Wait -- you do this every Friday? By yourself?"

That was either brave or suicidal. Possibly both.

[spin_kick_snap]

"Oh, I do it most nights," Kathy said, missing his point entirely. "There are a couple other hero-types around and sometimes we team up, but I've got my beat pretty much to myself, yeah."

[not_every_mage]

Anders nudged her with his elbow. "Take me with you sometime, silly. Walking into a fight alone can go bad fast."

[spin_kick_snap]

"Fortunately, I'm faster," Kathy teased with the optimism of someone who had never seen how bad things could get. "But if you wanna come out with me some night, sure! Though I normally take the rooftops and stuff."

There had to be a polite way to ask if he could keep up. Wasn't there?

"Do you know how to parkour?"

[not_every_mage]

Anders' blank look was probably enough answer for her. But after a long moment, he ventured, "Is that the thing with the jumping and ... things?"

So, no.

[spin_kick_snap]

Kathy nodded. "It's how I mostly get around. No one ever really looks up and I can tail people without them knowing anyone's watching. Running down a sidewalk is a little conspicuous and running in the street is just asking to be hit by a car."

The cars that she sometimes had to keep pace with. On foot. Which she could do...

"I could show you some tips and things sometime?" she offered. "I used to practice on the warehouses and things on the island before I went into Baltimore. And it's a lot of fun!"

[not_every_mage]

"Sure!" Anders said, startled but agreeable. "Mages are trained to fight from a distance, but it never hurts to know more."

Who needed to chase a car when you could stand still and rain fire down on it?