smilestopscars | A House, Currant, Maine, Saturday

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A House, Currant, Maine, Saturday

Earlier in the week, Kathy had requested Ezra to tell her when he was free to be visited at home in Currant. And today, well, he was free for a visit: the house was empty, Lock was off in Boston with Bianca, and Ezra had nothing in the way of obligations happening. So he'd told her that.

And now he was just waiting around, lounging on the couch, reading a book. Easy Saturday, just like he liked it.

[ooc: NFB. Primarily for the one mentioned, but open also for texts/calls/whathaveyou!]

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"I mean, I don't have to listen," Kathy said. "I mean, okay, she said it's a good idea, not that I can't. But..." She frowned, running her hand through her hair. "She wants me to spend time experimenting with things. Figuring out what I liked, not just choosing stuff because it's what I think I'm 'supposed' to be doing."

Her voice faltered for a moment. "She says I need to live a little, because it's not something I've done enough of yet."

"Now that sounds like something I can agree with," Ezra replied, with a faint gentleness to his tone. Not that he thought all the rest was bullshit either, though. "You've earned some living."

"And she knows that I do better with...I don't wanna call 'em orders, but...assignments, maybe?" Kathy said. "Left to my own devices I flail and worry. So now I have an assignment about school and another one about jobs and I can feel like I'm accomplishing something, even if I'm just flitting about." She tucked her hair back behind her ear and brought her hand down to scritch at Ezra's head again. "But she wants me to take time and look for something I love, rather than just stopping at the first thing I don't hate."

Ezra didn't go out of his way to react to teh scritching. But he wasn't turning away from the touch, either.

"She sounds smart."

And like someone Kathy really genuinely needed.

She entirely was. She acknowledged a lot of Kathy's problems that she'd gotten from LA, from being an ex - but really wanted to work on the problems that had started a lot earlier than that.

"Yeah," Kathy agreed. "And living through everything with Mundus means she believes me when I talk about a different world where I turned into a zombie and ate people for a year."

"That's good." He'd wondered about that, yes, but with his state of mind pretty much all of his questions were finding it hard to make their way up to the surface where they would actually be voiced. "Would be bullshit if you had to try and hide everything and still get usable help from it."

She wasn't asking him for questions any more than she was asking him to react to her scritches. She was pretty sure she'd hit her limit of asking Ez for things for awhile.

"Happened with my first therapist," Kathy said. "I spent more time thinking of plausible lies than I did trying anything we talked about. Finally realized that someone who'd just gone through a demon invasion would probably have a more open idea of what was possible."

"It's like why the Coterie has its own doctors, too," Ezra replied after a pause, looking past her up at the ceiling. "It takes far too much effort to try and keep outsiders out of the loop."

Kathy could think of other reasons why they might have wanted doctors loyal to the Coterie and not the typical ethics that regular hospitals had.

"Exactly. She'd trying to get the paperwork through that would get Ronin recognized at a proper service dog so I can take him more places. Like class and stuff. But that might be impossible because his training was interrupted."

Like everything involving the Coterie, it was a little more complicated than that, yes. But these days, keeping their world under the radar was a major concerns.

"And why was that?"

There were two things he could be asking 'why' to. Kathy was going with the easiest to answer.

"Because Mundus through a chunk of pavement onto his street when they were battling," Kathy said quietly. "The whole area around there is a wreck, even now. He managed to escape somehow and lived as a stray for a couple of years before I foun--okay, before he found me."

Ezra frowned, but just barely. "Wait, so are we talking about his... normal, run-of-the-mill basic dog training that got interrupted by this, or...?"

He knew nothing about dogs.

"He was in training to be a service animal. Probably for someone with PTSD, though it's hard to say without his records," Kathy said quietly.

"Okay, so I was on the right track at first." Not that it mattered much, especially with her tone being what it was. "He has you to help now, though."

"...Yeah," Kathy said, even more quietly. It was stupid to feel embarrassed over this. Ezra had seen her on his porch. He'd come for her in LA. Shit, he'd seen her get kidnapped and mind-controlled and bitten again. Surmising that she had PTSD wouldn't be hard even for someone who wasn't as smart as Ez, for all that he pretended otherwise.

Ezra had PTSD.

He reached up and brushed his fingertips along her jawline.

He didn't talk about it, though.

Kathy raised her eyes to him, giving him a self-conscious smile. "He was a lucky find," she said, since it was that or rattle off her full diagnosis in a self-deprecating way.

Not acknowledging the pain (or even having proper diagnoses for it) was the Coterie way.

"You were a lucky find for him, too," he said, and he meant it.

Kathy had Opinions on the Coterie, what little she knew about it.

"Yeah," Kathy said with a soft smile. She nearly mentioned how she'd found him, but she didn't think it was the best idea to share a 'I got jumped by demons in LC and this stray saved my life' story right now. "Let me know if you ever wanna meet him and I'll bring him over. He's the sweetest boy."

"If he comes here, the house will smell like dog for weeks," Ezra replied, trying for lightness. "So I can't condone that without meeting him first. But maybe a walk around Fandom, sometime?"

There was no third option.

Kathy wasn't so stupid to think there was.

"I will have you know, samoyeds are hypoallergenic, which means they don't get that gross wet dog smell," Kathy declared, pretending to be offended. "The slander my poor Ronin has to put up with by all you non dog-lovers."

"...Though, I suppose if we were to go for a walk around Fandom and then stop for ice cream..."

She'd be the very happiest of Kathies.

"I'm a fox, every dog gets that gross wet dog smell."

He was not sorry. He wasn't very playful, either, but that was more his general mood than it was about dogs. He was exaggerating his distaste on that front for effect.

"Ice cream sounds preferable."

"Canidae supremacist," Kathy scoffed, though she wasn't exactly as playful as she would be under normal circumstances, either. "You're lucky I really love ice cream."

Ronin would probably love it, too. She'd bring him along to see.

Ezra shrugged, but only barely. "Foxes are always superior. I won't apologize for it."

"I wouldn't ever have expected you to," Kathy said, with a snort.

Quieter, she added, "Besides, I really like your fox self."

He was small and soft and comforting.

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