smilestopscars | A House, Currant, Maine, Wednesday

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A House, Currant, Maine, Wednesday

Today's Coterie job had been a dirty one.

No, not the fun kind.

But not the supremely unfun kind, either. Just... literally dirty. There'd been a whole lot of mud involved. It had gotten everywhere, which was why Ezra's first order of business upon getting home had been to take a long and very thorough shower.

Second order of business, upon getting out of the shower, was to throw his muddily destroyed clothes in the trash. With a great big sigh, because he'd liked that shirt, dammit. Just, you know, not enough to go through the trouble of washing it.

Third order of business? Locating clothes to wear.

[ooc: NFB due to distance. Posted with one in mind, but open before her!]

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Dammit, she had thrown her own bit of ammunition at him already and she was pretty sure that if she pressed a cookie into war as a projectile, he might actually get grumpy.

"Gonna start sending some to Ava," she muttered. "With strict instructions to share with everybody but you."

"She's going to just eat them by herself, anyway," Ezra replied, shrugging as he slouched further. Sitting upright was for losers. "She needs a lot of fuel for her fire, so to speak."

No, literally.

"I get that," the superball said with a wry smile. "For me, it's just to keep going."

It made her trauma reaction of subsistence eating suck even more than it usually would. And yes, now she was making plans to bake for Ava, just because.

Kathy was the mom-friend to people she wasn't even friends with, yes.

"Does Lock need extra calories, too? Or does he just sit between you both and try to keep track of all his fingers?"

"Lock provides the extra calories." Because he was the mom-friend of the group. Stuffing energy bars in his pockets because he knew the others would forget. "Somehow he doesn't think we can fend for ourselves."

It was probably because of previous experience.

Kathy's face took on the too-innocent expression of someone thinking very sassy thoughts.

"Huh," she said, utterly unconvincingly. "I wonder where ever he could have gotten that idea from?"

Maybe because of previous experience?

"Your face is trying to stealth-sass me," he informed her, picking up the cushion she'd thrown at him before - and lobbing it at her offending face. "Quit it. This is my house."

Kathy also caught it, moving with a languid grace of her own.

"You have never let the location stop you from sassing me," Kathy pointed out, giggling. "Stealth nor otherwise."

He probably made it a point to sass people in their own home. Hashtag fox culture.

"You know, there are a lot of rules about what expressions I'm allowed to wear in this house. You're awfully bossy, Ezra Sagishi."

She was so cute when she giggled.

"Deal with it, dumpling. I'm living by ground rules, and so shall you."

And hey, his ground rules were also about things they weren't supposed to talk about! So, fair play.

"What's next, I'm not allowed to shit talk when we're playing cribbage?" Kathy asked, pouting. Well, pretending to, really. Her eyes were sparkling with far too much mischief to be really all that put out about it. "Just saying, if I'm not allowed to sass, we're going to be spending a lot of time sitting in silence."

And Kathy was pretty sure that boring Ezra was a much worse crime than sassing him.

It was actually true. There was a mucch higher risk of him just wandering off, for one. If you couldn't keep his interest then you didn't get to keep him, period.

But silence didn't always mean boredom.

... Though they'd definitely done away with most things between them that would've still been fun in silence.

But he shrugged anyway. "Silence doesn't scare me, darling."

Like Kathy had ever been good at staying silent, even if neither of them had exactly been talking in those moments.

"I'll just end up making funny faces at you to see which expressions go on the Not Allowed list," she decided. "I'm very good at being self-entertaining."

Just now, her face was going all chagrined as she realized the underlying double entendre there. Oops.

Ezra did not miss a beat in pointing at her face.

"There, that's not allowed," he said, then booped her on the nose for good measure. "You're thinking too hard about your phrasing, Kathy, I can tell. And it's not allowed."

"I just don't wanna be a jerk," Kathy mumbled. "And overthinking is kiiiinda my jam."

As he well knew. That had been one of the many reasons she'd appreciated him so much when they were still sleeping together. He'd been able to shut her brain off in such very lovely ways.

"Well, stop it," Ezra replied, although lightly enough to make sure she understood it was a joke. He knew about her overthinking, oh, he did, and he wasn't going to suggest it was something she could just magically turn off. "It gets in the way. Mostly of you, having a good time."

"Too true," Kathy said with a sigh. She shifted, changing directions of her sprawl, so her head was on his shoulder while her feet dangled over the arm of the couch. "I was telling Dante, it's like a news crawl on CNN. There's always a low-level amount of stuff that's going on inside on my head. And sometimes it spikes and makes it impossible to focus on anything else."

"Mmh." Well, he could relate a little, even if his issue wasn't really overthinking, per se. But he wasn't going to get into that. "Well, darling, if there was a remote control for this kind of thing, I would help you to at leats switch to a less heavy channel."

He dropped a kiss on the top of her head.

"I know," she said softly. "And I'm not trying to make you, like, responsible for it or anything." She started to unconsciously wring her hands a bit. "Just...a 'This is how your Kathy works' kinda thing, I guess? I don't wanna just wordwall at you all of how I'm fucked up or whatever, but..." She trailed off, frowning. "I dunno. I'm worse than I was in high school. Figured maybe you should know?"

It wasn't very easy for him to take her hands, right now. It involved gently pulling her a little more against his chest rather than his shoulder, so that he could get an arm around her and cover at least one of her fidgeting hands with one of his.

"I get it, darling," he told her, a little quieter than before. "There's been a lot that I'm sure hasn't helped that trait of yours any."

Kathy was okay with that. Kathy was okay with cuddling in general, especially with Ez. They might not be sexual anymore, but they could still be intimate.

"Yeah," she said, red weals on her wrists from her grip. "I'm doing better. I'm doing a lot better. But I'm still only shooting for 'okay' most days and sometimes, I don't always hit it, you know? And even the stupidest shit can set me off."

"Trauma has its effects," Ezra replied mildly. Because boy, did he know it. He brushed his thumb in a light, slow, soothing back and forth against her wrist.

He wasn't very good at talking about these things, but he was okay at small, physical gestures. "But you have to forgive yourself for that."

"I'll add it to the list," Kathy said lightly. "I just...I dunno? Thought you should know? So it didn't take you by surprise or something."

Everyone else Kathy interacted with a lot had already seen it: the guys, Raven, Eliot. And those who hadn't we're people that she generally wouldn't freak out in front of anyway. Friends, sure, but not close enough to see her lose it.

Ez straddled the gap, currently on one side, but hopefully going to cross. It seemed only fair to make sure he knew what he was in for.

"Well, then I thank you for trusting me with it." Because he knew this didn't seem like the kind of thing she was advertising to everyone she knew.

Much like he hadn't, when he'd come apart at the seams at Christmas. "I'll keep it in mind."

"So glad I came over to treat you for lunch," she said wryly, pushing herself up again. Not that she wanted away from him, exactly, but she needed a moment to compose herself. To stop feeling vulnerable. "So, you know, I could dump all this in your lap, too. You must be thrilled."

Ezra didn't try to stop her. If she needed space, he would give it to her.

"I'm your friend, Kathy."

That was all he said. Sincere. Just a reminder, although he knew that his track record meant that it might not have held as much weight as it had at one point.

"You are," Kathy said, earnestly. She leaned over, reaching for his face, her palms intending to settle on his cheeks to draw him in for a kiss, if he'd allow it.

Sweet and closed-mouth and even a little chaste, yes. Because in this moment, he was her friend. And she appreciated the hell out of that.

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