A warehouse called George - Friday Evening

[badassprodigy]

After the welcome picnic, Barry had helped Roxie and Jeremy gather their things and haul them back to the warehouse.

Which had been redecorated in his absence.

"What. The. Ever. Loving. Fuck?"

Comments

[smallerfeetnow]

Roxie was doing her best not to laugh. "I love what you've done with the place."

[effyeah_oreoes]

Jeremy looked up from the weird pamphlet he had found on the ground nearby and burst out laughing.

"That's a lot of dicks."

[smallerfeetnow]

"A warehouse full of dicks. Anything you need to tell us, Barry?"

[badassprodigy]

Barry sighed and gave them a half smile. "Fuck you. Fuck you. And fuck whoever did this," he groaned.

[spin_kick_snap]

Okay, Barry could probably hear Kathy's laughter before she even knocked on the door.

[badassprodigy]

“Was this your handy work?” Barry joked as he opened the door.

“Kathy!” Jeremy bellowed from where he was watching TV.

“Dang! Look at you,” Roxie said raising an eyebrow. “You sure look different from the last time we saw you.”

[spin_kick_snap]

Kathy's smile was bright and bold as she waved at Roxie and Jeremy, but she answered Barry's question first. "Why would I paint dicks on your warehouse when I could be way more traumatizing by leaving dildoes strewn about the place?"

C'mon, Barry! That would be a way better prank!

"Roxie! Jeremy! Hi!" she said, bouncing - literally - past Barry to greet his friends.

[badassprodigy]

Barry sighed both treasuring his friends and despising them at the same time. “If you do that I will hunt you down, Banzai.”

“But you totally have to do that!” Roxie declared.

“Man it is so good to have you back on Barry’s EC,” Jeremy said going in for a hug. “The last couple of years it’s been a bunch of fucking lawyers talking about risk and shit.”

[spin_kick_snap]

"You know where I live, Q!" Kathy called back, before laughing and wrapping her arms tightly around Jeremy. "As opposed to, like, actual ethics which is what we're for!" she agreed, tipping Roxie a wink in a silent promise of Oh yes. I will.

"Sorry for abandoning you," she said, pulling away to offer a hug to Roxie. "It was--a rough few years."

[smallerfeetnow]

“Rough?” Roxie said leaning down to give Kathy Sasquatch hug. She looked over at Barry.

As did Jeremy.

Barry wondered why everyone was looking at him. “Hey, it’s not my fucking story to tell,” he replied. “And if she’s not up to it don’t pester her.”

Barry was still dealing with that voicemail.

[spin_kick_snap]

"You know, the classic story," Kathy said with a light laugh that nobody believed. "Would-be superhero goes home to fight the zombie apocalypse, gets bit and turns, spends a year as an ex-human hungering for human flesh while her soul is in the endless beige of Purgatory..." She rubbed her inner wrist, where several tick marks were inked onto her skin. "Get brought back to the island, resurrected with a wish, try to remember how to human, and a year or so later, get kidnapped by a sorcerer and dragged back to the last enclave of humanity that's currently being besieged by a Duke of Hell and kidnapped by a cult whose leader mentally compels you to offer yourself up to get bitten by a zombie again because their weird beliefs center around the idea that since you stopped being an ex, if you get reinfected, you can show the rest of the exes how to become human again, while your old friend - the one who let you die the first time - turns out to have been the reason the zombie apocalypse happened in the first place and then also betrays the enclave by offering his indestructible body to the aforementioned demon, along with the sorcerer who dragged you there who was only using you to get your boyfriend to show up and battle the demon for him."

You know. The usual post-high school stuff.

Not that Kathy had technically graduated.

And not that Barry had known the second half of the story, oops.

She gave them all a smile and victory fingers. "But we're all good now!"

[smallerfeetnow]

Barry and Roxie just stared at Kathy with their mouths open.

And Roxie went in for another hug.

Jeremy awkwardly stood in the background, not sure what or how to deal with this. “You know what? Let’s get pizza.”

Barry in the meantime was giving Kathy a haunted look. Yeah. They’d catch up on that later.

[spin_kick_snap]

There was a smile and victory fingers! That obviously meant that everything was now fine! ...Not that Kathy was turning down another sasquatch hug.

(Yeah, Barry, Dante loathed Kathy's v-signs with a passion, for a reason)

"Pizza sounds good," Kathy said, voice a little muffled because air, Roxie, air. "'M mostly vegetarian now..."

For, uh. You know. Zombie-related reasons.

[badassprodigy]

“Remember to let her breathe, Roxie,” Barry said as he pulled out his phone.

Jeremy made a face. “You three and your vegetables. That’s just wrong on a pizza.”

Roxie finally let go. “You ever need to talk, you give me a call. Okay?”

[spin_kick_snap]

"God, you sound like Dante," Kathy said to Jeremy. "You're both gonna end up with scurvy, watch."

And Dante wasn't even here to smirk at her and remind her that NePhIlIm ArE iMmUnE tO hUmAn DiSeAsEs, KaThY.

And then she looked up to Roxie with a grateful smile. "Yeah? She asked. That'd be awesome. I don't have a lot of girl friends around anymore. We could ditch the guys and hang out sometime."

[badassprodigy]

Barry smirked. “I’ve given Jeremy enough super vitamins that he’ll live to 120.”

Jeremy blinked. “You did what now?”

“Don’t give me that fucking look. How do you think you can eat so many fucking Oreos and not look like Jabba the Hutt?”

Roxie rolled her eyes as the boys began to bicker like an old couple. “Any time you want to hang out? Just have Barry send a portal over to my world,” Roxie told her. “I need some girlfriends who know how fucked up the world really is.”

[spin_kick_snap]

"I live in a reality infested by demons," Kathy said wryly. "And, worse, this one has Donald Trump."

[somethingwithturquoise]

At some point, Barry was definitely getting a text incoming from Summer.

please tell me the portal guns are still blowing up things that go through them

Summer. Summer, no.

[badassprodigy]

Nope. Sorry. Now it’s just turning things that’s going through it fucking green. Everything okay? I figured you can handle bucket head or whoever he is.

[somethingwithturquoise]

"Dammit!"

That would have been, like, soooo cathartic right now.

it's fine! Just complicated! and im sorry to mess up meeting your friends :( they're really great

[badassprodigy]

They’ve seen and dealt with stranger shit. They know how it is. And it wouldn’t be parents weekend if some dumb fuck didn’t show up to ruin it all. We can hang out with them another time. Plus they already think you’re awesome.