Shit!

This was all good news, and it wasn't that he didn't trust Kay, but he'd probably touch base with Isabella and Clara - not to pry or cross the line, but when it came down to it it'd be their recommendation that Nathan would take into consideration as to whether or not Kay could come back to work. "I'm glad kid, proud of you." It wasn't easy humbling yourself to anybody, not a shrink and not a doctor. He smirked a bit though, "What's with the uh-" Nathan gestured to the top of his head and swirled his finger around, "you fall on a bad dye job or something?" It wasn't a bad look; if the Thief was twenty-five, he'd probably think about doing the same thing; all the cool kids were bleaching their hair these days.

Every so often he thinks that he has to pick between 'mommy issues' or 'absent father issues' and usually he angsts over his mother, on account of the fact that she'd at least been around. But when someone does something that feels pretty paternal, he's reminded how foreign the feeling is. Kay takes a second just to blink at the realization and he has to duck his head to hide how sheepish he feels getting any kind of genuine praise as he mumbles a quick 'thanks'. Nathan's proud of him for now and instead of dwelling on that he tries to tell himself that now is good, now is fine. "Something impulsive that wasn't particularly harmful? I guess?" A change he could see, something he could have control over while spiraling. "So a step forward."

"Alright, yeah, um... Sit... Yeah, take a seat, and I'll take a seat, and then we'll both be uh... Sitting." Fuck that sounded dumb, anyways; Dante took a seat as he perched himself on the surface of one of the picnic tables as cleared his throat. He strummed a preparatory few strings as his calloused fingers moved over the familiar chords. It was still in tune, but he was kind of just killing time before it was going to be too apparent that he was uncharacteristically nervous.

Feeling somewhat sheepish and yet really excited and yet feeling like he should actually bolt from the premises in case he makes an idiot out of himself, Kay sits. Kay sits and the moment the chords get familiar he can't help but softly gasp. Because it all kind of clicks into place and he's mouthing 'Taylor Swift?' but he's shaking his head and grinning anyways. When he can't sleep, which is often now, he lays awake looking up at the ceiling of his bedroom thinking about how fortunate it'd been that he'd stumbled into 4 the Record, that Dante had remembered him from their whole bathroom tryst. It's always a montage from there, from the record store to laying under the stars and smoking, to fucking in the tent. To that house party, to running in the woods, to falling into the Otherworld together. To emerging out of the fountain and Dante kissing him like he mattered as they were soaking wet and standing in a foot of water. He doesn't know when he starts crying too, somewhere around thinking about laying in bed together and kissing at the end of the world. The strumming slowly comes to a stop and Kay sits there and he's just replaying everything in his head over and over and over again. In the bedroom, when he'd all but blurted out his feelings, he'd desperately wanted to tell Dante that he didn't want him to say it back. Not until he got better, not until he deserved it. The thing is, he loves Dante more than he hates himself. He knows that now.

"Well, nothing's perfect." It was a give-and-take, but this suited Kay, at least for now. Maybe Dante would bleach his hair again so they could be one of those gay couples that looked identical. The shorts were already rubbing off on Kay. "Can I uh-" Dante held up his guitar, "can I play you something?" It was a lame offer, but it was a quintessential white boy with guitar behavior to want to serenade your boyfriend. Boyfriend. That was still a word that Dante was wrapping his head around because he'd never really been that to someone in a way that was significant. Nothing that lasted, but here they were; Dante had really been in Rome for a fucking year now. His dad had really been dead for a year. The two of them had yet to really talk about it, Kay didn't ask, and Dante didn't like the subject. "Just me, staring and singing at you for an uncomfortable three minutes?"

Kay blinked once, then twice, then three times and he'd been to a ridiculous amount of parties in his thirty years of life now. There was always a guy with a guitar at those parties, hell, that's practically how they'd met and he'd let said guy with a guitar fuck him in the bathroom. Crashing on couches in his early twenties, he'd even slept with a decent amount of those guys, the musicians trying to make a name for themselves by doing open mic night at bars. The thing was, none of them had ever played something for him beyond him maybe requesting a particular cover. He's a writer, he's a music guy himself, what Dante is proposing tics a lot of boxes, it's some Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist coming of age movie stuff. They can come of age at like thirty, they can come together except not like that....Except exactly like that later- "Yes. Yes I can even maintain eye contact."

@dhcmpirs location: Wolfchella notes: kiss kiss

There's a lot he could say to that. Like the fact that Anders had totally fucking bodied that guy. Or that he was wondering why the one guy knew how to play the spoons, was that some kind of lost art? But anything he could say sort of just goes to the wayside the moment Dante's hand runs through cropped hair. It was definitely done in a moment of crisis, but it was kind of a clean slate. The last time he'd shaved it had been after he'd left home nearly a decade ago. "Less to pull." Is what he says instead, aiming for playfully disappointed. Because it totally meant more choking was on the table, probably. He wasn't quite sure where they stood at the moment as far as that, he'd touched what had to be a soft spot. Dante was allowed to have them, hell he had plenty of his own. But he'd still called and Kay thinks that was what mattered. "And I like watching you play, you're great." That's somewhat sheepish because yeah, he could go on, he could gush about it. "Even accompanied by the spoons."

@dhcmpirs location: Lupercal notes: dad's checking in

He knew it was bound to happen on account of Nathan's just a good guy, that he was going to wind up running into him and of course he was going to say something. It's different than stopping in to the office to see him where he can prepare to be on his best behavior. Kay can't really lie and say things are great when he has very obviously gone through the twink crisis of bleaching his hair with the help of a supportive lesbian. "It's uh, it's day by day at this point, you know?" He's still angry, he's still not talking to Cloe, he's spent more time with Keket trying to figure his shit out. "I got in with Dr. Swanford though, Clara and I talk pretty regularly." He thinks he's sleepwalking and he spends most mornings throwing up and locking himself in the bathroom, but that's just life now, maybe. The Keres is still popping up in his head despite him and Cloe going back to it but that's something he absolutely doesn't want to talk about, like it's going to be the Eye of Sauron or something and just know he's talking about it. "How's everybody?"

He'd spent his life being the second-born son, he wasn't good enough for their dad, he wasn't strong in the same way as Anders was, and from the time he'd come to Rome the number of conversations he had with people where his brother wasn't brought up could be counted on one hand. He just always felt like a consolation prize and he couldn't even blame Anders for it. "I'm going to be thirty in a month, you don't have to worry about getting me in trouble. There's more to me than my brother." Dante's clothes were already on as Kay was babbling behind him about everything that he should probably not be saying at this moment. "You're right, I didn't." He was angry and reasonably so but he felt bad as soon as the words left his lips. There was a beat where he lingered in the doorway and pressed his forehead there for a second, idly beating his head against the frame. This was what happened when you stuck your dick into an actual hornet's nest, getting stung was inevitable. Dante sighed, guilt obvious on his face but as easygoing as he was he didn't want to let it slide, regardless of Kay's word vomit. "Whatever man, I'll call you, alright?" Dante didn't wait for the dhampir to answer before he took off.

It takes a lot to render him of all people speechless, sober or otherwise. It's like all the air has been sucked out of the room and the little voice in the back of his head that is definitely rational that he often ignores even gives a little 'now you've really done it'. There's so many thoughts going through his head, things he could say, things he wants to say, but he just can't. He doesn't trust that explaining himself further won't just make it worse when he's already panicking. So he watches Dante go again, doesn't take a breath until he's down the hall and there's this itch under his skin to just do something drastic, something that'll warrant attention. But he doesn't. He listens for the sound of the front door closing, he runs a hand through his hair and pulls at it and it suddenly feels like way too much hair and he's breathing too hard. Scrambling to get back over to the nightstand, he dials Milena's number and curses the fact that all he has in the top drawer of his dresser is weed.

"You said you fixed it, you said you aren't haunted by the Keres anymore," she pointed out almost impatiently, feeling his pulse again and hating the accelerated, unnatural fluttering of it. Clara digs into her bag, rattling a few containers of pills. "What is making you 'lose your shit', Kay?" She's more patient and gentle now, happy to find the right pills as she opens the container. Clara offers him one, a pill only meant to slow his dangerously high heart rate.

"Don't." He takes the pill from her anyways and he pops it like candy and then sits there with his elbows on his knees. It's a quiet plea on account of he can handle her chastising him. This though, trying to take care of him is something that feels like she's peeled a few layers of skin away. For all the stress he gives her, he doesn't really deserve her kindness and yet she's giving it to him anyways. "I'm still not sleeping or maybe I am, but it's in weird places." Kay very much wanted to make the joke of 'well how much time do you have', but he's too tired to annoy her again. "Gabe's gone, Cloe's an eladrin, I've been demoted from sidekick to somebody she used to know and I'm just-" Fingers run through his hair a couple of times, drag across his scalp, smooth over his face and mostly he just hates this. The constant hopelessness no matter if he's fucking up or not and God does he keep fucking up. "I just want something to cut out the withdrawl, I will get my shit together if you keep me from crawling up the walls." There's got to be something, he'd done things the old fashioned way last time he'd gotten clean, checked himself in somewhere. That'd sucked, but what sucked more was waking up on the bathroom floor literally crying and shaking and throwing up and tearing apart his house for whatever was left of his stash.

"We can start however way you want. If talking about what brought you here is difficult, what about telling me about your day? Or the story behind your favorite food?" Her words are calm and even as she reclines on her chair and eyes the former marshal thoughtfully. Everyone has heard of his dismissal from the ranks, but no one has been a specific answer as to why. Considering his status as a dhampir, and some of the behavior she had seen– Isabella had some guesses that she had locked away and ignored from the moment he had stepped into her office. Whatever clues she held where dismissed, because what mattered was to hear the situation from Kay's lips and ensure she had no bias in the matter. "Whatever is easiest for you, truly."

The funny thing is that ninety-nine percent of the time he couldn't shut up and then that last one percent was always this kind of thing. "I've been listening to 'Iris' by The Goo Goo Dolls a lot lately. I used to listen to it a lot in high school but that was like, edgy teenage 'nobody understands me' kind of shit." I don't want the world to see me, because I don't think that they'd understand. That had been what he'd taken away from the song then, it'd been from a perspective that was purely his. "I didn't get that it's not being sung about being alone or like, abandoned by the world. It's about being afraid of being yourself and that some heartbreak is inevitable but this one person is worth it." Kay kind of curls into himself on the couch, knees pulled up to his chest and chin resting atop them. "It's kind of just easier to lay on the floor and put something on and let that kind of do the talking right now."

"No, it's not. But it's hard to sit and feel like the bridge hasn't been burned further, you know?" He gets what she's saying and he sees the frustration. This can't be something easy for her, being in the middle of his and Cloe's friendship divorce and he doesn't expect her to take sides. Kay couldn't ask her to, that's part of the reason he'd wanted to talk to her, she was going to give it to him straight. "For the longest time I think her and I were the only two who understood each other. And then I got here and I realized that everyone else in that place," He waves vaguely in the direction of where Camp was somewhere in the distance. "Understood her, too. And then she didn't need me anymore." It's with a huff he puts the cigarette back to his lips and counts down from ten as he takes a drag before speaking. "And now she's finally what she was meant to be and I'm just here. I don't think it's really anyone's fault, it just feels..." He'd sat down and written so many stupid ramblings on how he felt and to put it into one word was hard. "Shitty."

Yeah, yeah, misfit this, never felt like he belonged that, whatever because here Dante was giving his best supportive boyfriend, and there Kay was once again talking about another guy. "Are we ever going to have a conversation where you don't bring my brother up?" It's not playful; it's pointed because they're lying there with their dicks out, and once again, Kay is talking about Anders. He moved to get up, afterglow officially ruined as he got out of the bed and started to reach for his clothes again.