#akathehellcat v tba

[godbloodednope]

@akathehellcat (x)

She tells her always. Constantly. Leave it to her. Is she not the one who cannot die? Is she not the one who may take danger without consequence? It is not she who is fearless, is it not she who is without weakness? It is, it is. And she tried. Let that never be said she did not.

In fact, she took the brunt of the trying. She was the one who managed to force Trish just enough out of the way to be hit by immediate impact. But a god’s body is far more resistant to pain than a human’s. And while by no means has she been unharmed, Kitty Valentine can suffer the pains beneath the impact with little complaint. All the damages done to her person can be quietly magicked away, though she cannot heal them.

While she has that kind of talent, she does not in such terrible, grand weakness. Beneath the guise of seeming without blemish, she is, in fact, all bruises and cuts. Burns and eviscerations that will fade with time.

The doctors ask her questions. She answers them as well as she can, scared, her eyes wide, her words thick, her accent stuck in her mouth. How did this happen. Who are you. Where does she live. Do you know if she has any prior medical history.

Kitty fumbles her way through a series of lies until she can feel her chest caving with the fearful force of interrogation. Jessica shows up just in time to cut in, smoother of voice than she, and Kitty’s grateful for it because she feels like she’s going to faint but she’s been nervously speaking from point a to point b.

But now it’s just her and Trish again, and a gloved hand touches a palm gently.

“‘T’s ‘kay. Trish. Ya name’s Trish,” it’s short for something Kitty would remember if she thought hard enough, “y’okay. ‘M’heyuh. Ya not— by y’self.”

Is that enough? Is it? She appears human enough. Teeth normal— a faked thing, but they look it— an eye that sees, pupils standard rounded, as a human’s is, not the more feline or lizard slit it generally is. Normal. She passes for normal. (Even if she maintains muscle— this is purposeful.)

“Y’okay.”

She will not be afraid, she tells herself, because Trish needs her, and Trish needs her to not be afraid.

Jessica’s gaze says so whenever she’s in here. It’s not quite unkind but it is, as she says so often, get your shit together.

So she’s got her shit together.

[godbloodednope]

“Could use it, yuh.”

It’s a little late. A little. Actually it’s a lot late. And she should put Trish to bed. And climb into it and try to sleep how humans do. But she isn’t human and she doesn’t sleep like the rest of them. So it’s more like hours of drifting darkness and the desperate attempt to force her body to recognize sleep. But she isn’t— tired. She isn’t tired at all. She’s awake. As hell. She’s always so awake.

Slowing down is so hard for her to do. Her brain naturally makes her want to go, go, go. But she has to learn to take it down, back. Quiet. She outlets it some. Painting. She paints. She lets Trish watch her. Sometimes, she’ll set a big canvas in her lap and let her make whatever she wants. Colorful. Kitty loves color.

Sometimes, she’ll ask Trish to put down colors and she, herself, will make shapes out of them. Will make them something structured somehow. It makes her so happy.

Hands dip under. Easily. She lifts out of the chair and into her arms (does not wince, even if she just feels it, just a little bit) and tucks beneath her chin regardless of how much smaller she is.

“‘Kay. Gonna go find’uh park t’go f’r uh walk in. How ‘bout it, beau’iful?”

A nuzzle. Always, a nuzzle.

“You re-member the one we went t’the oth’r day? Dog park?”

godblooded:

“Nuh. Y’uh cat. ‘M’the kitten. ‘S’kinda a thing.”

She speaks smoothly with Trish— tries her best to navigate her own accent. It’s very, very difficult to manage, but she moves with little fluidity around her own words. It takes time and patience and thought and conscious learning. And she also has been trying to figure out how to do that. She, too, has been trying to figure out these treacherous waters. Working on it.

It’s hard pretending to be ‘normal’. She can’t make people understand what or who she is because innately there would be no way to express it. At all. No one would willfully understand her. She would be an anomaly. A danger.

So mostly, she’s just— trying to feign function.

She’s doing an okay job.

Even Jessica says so.

“Ya can have a collar ‘f’ya want. But ya got mine f’r me. ‘Cause ‘m ya kitten. Sometimes ‘m’ya actual kitten. Ya know ‘at, I showed you a’fore.”

She has a lot of patience. She has infinite, infinite patience. She doesn’t find this frustrating. Not difficult. It’s Trish. This is trish. It’s always going to be Trish. No matter how she is.

(She should’ve done better. She could’ve done better. She should’ve been more careful.)

(Had she not taken what she could of that explosion Trish would be dead.)

“‘Ow ya feel, Trish?”

In the hospital, Kitty would sneak back in after visiting hours, even after Trish was already asleep ( Trish slept a lot back then ) and would hop into the bed as a kitten and stay there all night long. Trish has no recollection of how often they’d do that before– how regular it was to fall asleep with human Kitty but wake up with a kitten curled under her chin.

She had no way of knowing it was real, not in the hospital, and she told Kitty one day that she’d been dreaming about a kitten. 

Needless to say that explanation took Kitty and Jessica and several repeats. Then proof. Then calming Trish down. Now, she loves it.

“Okay.”

She’s quiet for a few seconds. It still takes a supreme amount of effort to talk. A lot of energy, even if her brain is more active and engaged than it’s been at any point since the explosion.

“Wan’ walk in ‘uh park.”

They’re not by the park anymore. Not in the hotel. But Trish always wants to walk. Wants to walk so badly. Hates this chair.

She tried to give it to Jessica once when the other woman was over for dinner.

[godbloodednope]

@akathehellcat (x)

He clasps her hand with two of his, shaking with a warm, subdued smile that he has only SUPPRESSED because it is not becoming of a KING to be so VERY PAINFULLY OBVIOUS. He is not doing a good job, is the thing, and his eyebrows and the gentle, tilted nature of his mouth belie both those things. The SOFTEST creature-- it is, perhaps, like looking at what Kitty might’ve been had she been allowed to keep her tenderness.

“Trish Walker, yes. It’s my greatest pleasure to meet you,” He doesn’t have his mother’s rough accent-- raised in decadence and finery, after all. He lets go after a long moment-- the outfit on him is an elegant suit, though long in the sleeves and the tails of the coat, left over a tunic of a shirt tied together by drawstring at the chest. He is not AS built as she, though he is built, “My mother-- my mother who is alive, which is very relieving-- my mother told me you and she are involved. I believe she cannot find the right word for it.”

They do not have the word ‘girlfriend’ where he was raised. The concepts are very abstract. They boil down, sometimes, to just with. 

“You have lovely taste,” He pauses, glancing around the apartment. There’s a theatrical loftiness to his voice Kitty often possesses in her gestures, “did you decorate all on your own-- are people contracted, here, to do just that? It would be presumptuous to say I know you by your living space, but the place you occupy is so beautiful, I must only assume you have made it to reflect yourself. --Which is forward of me to say, I apologize. I’m only excited to meet you.”

[godbloodednope]

[ dry ]

NON SEXUAL ACTS OF DOMINANCE.

STATUS: PLS

She’s sitting at the edge of the bathtub bent all the way over, eyes closed, shoulders taut and TIGHT together, and the ridges in her back present broad muscles across vaguely tanned skin. There’s a soft, soft, SOFT, SOFT, HOW IS ANYTHING THIS SOFT? towel ruffling her dark hair and there’s water all over the place and she feels like a dog who’s just been brought in from the rain, but-- ironically-- she’s Kitty.

All her hair, soft and vaguely waved and MESSY MESSY MESSY, is not messy at all when it’s finally shaken back into place. Yes, just like a dog in out of the rain, honestly. She presses a hand into dark hair and glances up with her good eye (she has no reason to bother with illusions around Trish anymore), eyebrows raised, grin split across her lip.

“Sawft,” she remarks, nudging her nose against the towel. But, honestly, it’s ANYBODY’S GUESS if she means Trish or the material at all.

[godbloodednope]

Trish is practically brimming with excitement as she rounds the couch to set the medium-sized Santa figure on the coffee table in front of where Kitty’s perched sketching. “Baby—“ smiling “—tell the radio to play something.”

Kitty’s slightly interrupted when she hears Trish’s voice and-- oh! It’s the fat guy from the department store, the Santa-- Saint-- the Fat Guy! She grins immediately, setting her sketchbook down beside her. Trish’s enthusiasm is infectious, there’s no doubting it, so immediately the little god is happy, too! And this is a BLATANT happiness, one that breaks across her face. She practically VIBRATES with her own enthusiasm, gloved hands clasping on her knees.

“‘Ey, ‘Lexa!” She asks, shouting at the ceiling (like she must, even though it isn’t obligatory), “Uh-- play-- uh-- Fleetwood Mac, Go Y’Own Way!”

Playing Fleetwood Mac, Go Your Own Way--

OH.

OH MY FUCK, THE FAT GUY IS DANCING.

Kitty Valentine, in her gleeful vigor, almost knocks her sketch pad off the couch.

“Trish!” She exclaims, like she didn’t put it there, “Fat guy dances!”

[godbloodednope]

🎁 it’s a slim box with silken lining. a choker— medium thick black band with a dangling silver tag. there’s no name engraved, just the word “home” and trish’s address. this is trish’s rendition of a collar for kitty to wear as herself, if she wants.

PRESENTS.

STATUS: PLS.

She understands Christmas is for GIFTS because that was a tradition they had back where she had been from, as well. She knows these things-- she has been AGONIZING over a gift for Trish as well. (For her girlfriend, which is a word Trish has taught her, because she does not know-- did not know what that was-- she was utterly out of that loop-- what a girlfriend, a boyfriend, but the word girlfriend was explained-- when asked what she was, if she was a boy, if she was a girl, if she was neither and something else entirely, her brow had furrowed and she’d said-- well, she’s a girl. It had felt that way.)

SO SHE GETS TO BE HER GIRLFRIEND. WHICH IS TERRIBLY EXCITING. SHE HAS USED THE WORD A THOUSAND TIMES. SHE WILL USE IT, GLADLY, A THOUSAND TIMES MORE. SHE HAS SAID IT TO EVERYONE POSSIBLE ON HER ENDEAVORS TO GET SOMETHING FOR TRISH. I NEED A PRESENT

FOR MY GIRLFRIEND.

She takes the choker and touches it, eyes roving over with a curious glance. She has one of these! --Well, Trish’s kitten does, but her head tilts and she recognizes this one is for HER! And she smiles, then, up and honest and so warm, this bright, irrepressible thing.

She has never had a HOME before. Not one that she belonged to as another equal member. Not one she also lived in. So she slips it around her neck, buckles it gently, lets a thumb rub along fondly as though committing grooves to memory. Her head falls, shaggy, dark hair dropping to shadow deep green eyes. She has to bite her lip to keep the brilliance of a wider thing from overtaking her mouth.

“Bes’ girlfriend. Ev’r.”

[godbloodednope]

💝 KILL ME WITH FLUFF, KAT

SOFT KITTY WARM KITTY MEMESTATS: SELECTIVE YES

our muses go ice skating

She isn’t positive if she’s allowed to gloat about how good she is at this. HER ENTIRE LIFE has been a series of complex physical tests, one after another. There is NO WAY she is in the shape she’s in without having to FORCE HERSELF to be just as she is. And she’s adopted Trish’s comfort for athleisure wear– something almost oxymoronic going ice-skating when she’s wearing a cropped sweatshirt beneath a leather jacket and a hoodie because Trish insists she gets cold, she knows she does, she says it all the time, baby, come on, please. But she’s learned she has an affection for leggings. She really likes leggings. They’re tight in the this is comfy way and they’re tight in the THIS IS A GOOD ASS way. And both are important.

But here she moves effortlessly with her hands behind her back and her eyes on Trish, humming, warm, happy smile spread across her mouth. She skates past Trish calmly, tugs her soft, cashmere beanie off her head and briskly affixes it onto blonde hair before she makes a TIGHT circle and scrapes back around again, legs moving like nothing’s ever been so natural. 

“We do ‘iss all’uh time?” She asks, idly making figure 8′s in small, cinched loops, “like, all’uh time.” 

[godbloodednope]

“Stop undressing me with your eyes and start using your teeth.”

GARBAGE DAY.

STATUS: YOU BET.

“Y’givin’ me orders?”

Chin tilts upward-- fearlessly so-- and the little god places a leg between Trish’s to back her up-- it’s forceful, and easy to do when you’re so clever at where weight distributes to make a person move for you. One step, two step, three step, four. Back, back, back, back, until there’s wall behind Trish and she’s pinned her on either side of her arms. A glance up, innocent in a darkly moss shade.

Mouth tears a button from the blouse fairy carelessly, taken between teeth and ripped off with a quick motion. She tosses it carelessly until it skitters to the floor with a little push of her tongue between teeth. She has every talent conceivable where a mouth is concerned-- a thousand years of fucking to fill some abyss will do that to you. She can unbutton things, remove things-- but mostly, removal is a harsh, rough thing. She’s not one for precision or care.

“I wasn’t lookin’,” she says defiantly, though she was, and she knows she was caught, “But I’s thinkin’ about it.”

[godbloodednope]

combining 012 piggyback ride and 013 giving food. trish on kitty's back pls.

BE SOFT TO A LITTLE GOD.

STATUS: PLS

It actually takes Kitty Valentine no effort whatsoever to carry Trish on her back. Especially in her true form-- her preferred one-- all shoulders and thighs, an intimidating sight to behold, for certain. And in spite of how much shorter than Trish she is, and the talk-show host having much longer legs than she, she’s capable of carrying and holding her as high as she possibly can.

To be honest, if she wanted, Trish could very well sit her shoulders the way her children used to do, and it would be no different. She’d be just as capable of doing that as she is this.

But there is a croissant in Trish’s hand-- chocolate, powdered with sugar, flaky. She loves sweets, as Trish has learned. Has an affection for chocolate, though she also adores strawberry. She casts a glance back, eyebrows raised expectantly, those pointy little teeth bared in a smile. One word.

“Shayuh.” Pause. “I carry ya, ya shayuh.”

[godbloodednope]

“That… that is a good butt.”

DREAM DADDY MEME.

STATUS: YES

“Ya lookin’?”

First off, may it be known-- and this is a trivial detail, but one she has been haunted by her whole life-- and by haunted by, she means incessantly flattered due to-- she is more ass than anything. It’s not overtly so, but by terms of rating-- between the stereotyped breast or ass ratio-- she’s definitely mostly ass.

“Real ar-ticulate, theyuh, Trish.”

Hands taken, then, tugged closer to wrap around herself, to press palms to her backside solidly with a warm purr. A gaze UP.

“Ya get t’touch.”

[godbloodednope]

“That doesn’t look like a scratch.”

SEND “THAT DOESN’T LOOK LIKE A SCRATCH” TO ACCUSE KITTY VALENTINE OF BEING AN INJURED MESS.

STATUS: YES

Days later look what the cat dragged in. She can still hear her own voice in her ears. Her teeth ache. There’s this incredibly distinct pain she doesn’t know how to share. Do you love her, pet? Does she make you happy? Do you think you deserve her? Or do you forget what you did to the LAST ONE? Tsk tsk tsk-- claws across her cheek, a jagged mark, five shredded across a torso, --selfish. That’s all you’ll ever be.

She hates disappearing, reappearing, like-- whatever she is. But there’s blood under a palm and it’s trickling between the creases. It’s so red-- rose-red, a fresh bouquet of flowers. Five sharp nail marks, torn right across the black shirt she’s wearing, skin exposed, blood, blood, blood. She’d tried-- been trying to stifle it, to tie something around it. To slow down the leaking. And she’s standing there calm as you please, except the slight, slight slump to her body, hands pressed against the balcony to keep her upright.

“A few-- A few scratches. Ain’t.... one.”

[godbloodednope]

💋

PLEASE KISS A LITTLE GOD.

STATUS: YES.

The feeling is wild, strange and exciting, and it thrills her entirely because it’s in a park, a park where Trish promised the leaves could be colors, colors, colors, and they are-- they are! Colors, colors, colors! And there are headphones sitting comfortably around her neck, ones Trish has chosen to buy for her because they help her with the sound, the loud sound, and it’s Trish who closes the gap between them, bends her head and her neck to tilt the little god’s head up and to press her mouth to hers with the most glaring honesty she’s ever tasted.

And her heart, OH, her heart, HER HEART DOES THE FASTER THING. THE FASTER THING. IT DOES THE FASTER THING, BUT SHE PULLS TRISH CLOSER AND SHE ISN’T SCARED OF HOW IT FEELS. The faster thing-- THE FASTER THING ISN’T BAD?

It isn’t bad! It isn’t-- It doesn’t feel bad! It makes her breathless, though, it makes her chest feel tight and shuddery at once, the way she feels when she likes something or when she isn’t sure if she likes something but she’s shivering just a little bit. She keeps her closer, closer, closer, dark green eyes peering up between them, and she could not care even little or less for the public nature of the situation. She only wants her so much closer.

She’s smiling. So big, so big, so big, so big it’s all the way across her mouth.

[godbloodednope]

“it’s beautiful.”

WONDER WOMAN MEME.

STATUS: YES

Hm....?

She forgets she does it, sometimes. She can feel Trish leaning over her shoulder and Kitty Valentine, enormous by the standards of most, large shoulders drawn in tight, is scribbling in shadow across a napkin at the kitchen countertop. Her feet, bare, are perched at the stool beneath her and she’s intently focused on what she’s scribbling which, incidentally, happens to be an exceedingly lifelike rendering of Trish.

She feels her cheeks flush almost immediately. Her posture changes, grows wider and more apparent, opens from where it was moments ago closed. She covers the sketch-- crude and all lines as it is-- with her wrist. Sharp, little teeth curl over a lip to nibble in a manner most indecisive. She glances up, weakly, a timid smile coming to her face, tight, her eyebrows raising, her eyes widening.

She nods because she cannot speak to answer-- cannot say thank you or YES.

She’s only humiliated to have been caught.

[godbloodednope]

“Dave tol’ me I’s a mistake.”

She pauses. Like she’s trying to word things. And she is— put them together. To remember things that, at the time, seemed impossible to happen. To occur. To be. And yet all this was and now she is— reeling.

She nods. She nods and she understands. (She’d do anything to be sorry to them. To know where they were. To tell them— they’d always loved each other. Nova and Nissa were her twins, inseparable, and Arix— Arix has always been their littlest. And if they never had her— they had each other. And that mattered.)

“What I— am, was. All’uh mistake nev’r shoulda happened. ‘At’s why I am what I am now. Chance t’fixit. Make it bett’r. Be what I couldn’t be a-fore.”

She winces. It hurts. The thought is raw and it’s like tearing herself open again and again and again.

“I gave ‘em up. I had t’. They weren’t— I knew I got bad an’ I couldn’t keep ‘em an’ ‘ey wan’ed me but ‘ow do y’tell y’own ‘at ya can’t be ‘round ‘em because some’in is so wrong wit’ you.”

Eye flicks up. She doesn’t know what to do. How does this stop aching?

“I jus’ wan’ed t’be theyuh f’r ‘em. I still— I jus’—“ she’s halting again. Stopping. Starting. She blinks. Looks away. It’s that swift— she knows she’s beginning to cry blink.

“Give up ev’rythin’ ‘f’it meant coulda made ‘me happy. Woulda then. Did. Gave ‘em up a-‘cause it was best.”

She swallows. Hard.

“I miss it. I miss them. I miss ‘em so much.”

She has never felt with a human heart before.

That’s what this is.

“Sometimes I jus’ feel like I can’t fixit.”

godblooded:

There’s always been a part of her— very buried— that wanted so badly to be parental. Maternal. Lioness and her cubs. To dig it up and drag it out into the light. It’s so hard, so hard, so hard to do. That part— it’s always been there, but—

She searches Trish’s face with a curiosity— quiet. With a silent understanding. She’s been bad, too. But she understands now that she can be better, so she doesn’t recoil how she would usually. She doesn’t get smaller. She understands. And she watches.

(And this, here, is what people do.)

(They learn to change.)

“I wanna make it bett’r. T’— fixit. Now ‘at I’m… me. Wit’out It— wit’out the oth’r me in m’head.”

She can try to explain herself. The language is hard. (How do you tell someone that for upwards of 800 years you had almost no control over yourself? How do you make that clear?)

“I loved ‘em,” can she say the word there? She can say the word there, “I loved ‘em so much but I couldn’t—“

Be different. Couldn’t hold onto myself.

“Wasn’t real a-fore.”

She quietly takes a hand. Quietly. So quietly. She’s wincing at her own self, honestly.

“‘M’sorr’. Ya mom hurt— you,” she shakes her head, then, strokes the tip of a claw over a vein— it’s the feeling of a pulse— she lets it beat through her skin, “don’ wanna hurt anybody ev’r ‘gain. Not ev’r. I wanna— I jus’ wanna fixit.”

She can’t help but wonder what her life would be like now if her mother genuinely understood what she did. If she’d ever been remotely sorry for the right reasons. If she’d ever owned the responsibility of everything she put Trish through back then.

If Dorothy Walker had ever really wanted to fix things– to genuinely mend their relationship– could they?

Could she have a real mother who really loves her?

Could she trust that her mother wouldn’t be using her again?

She doubts it. That’s never been an option. It’s never been on a table. She doesn’t believe her mother has ever been sorry.

“You’re different than my mother. She– What she did… It who she is, truly. On the inside. She had every opportunity to stop herself, and she didn’t.” It hurts to admit, even now after all those years of therapy and counseling and rehab. It still hurts. Trish still loves her mother, even if she can’t stand her. “If you want to fix things with your kids… it’s on you to try. And– Kitty, it’s on you to accept it if they don’t want that from you, okay?”

She stops. Swallows. Shifts a little uncomfortably.

“But if you want to try, try. Kids… kids want their parents to care.”

[godbloodednope]

Trish pulls back to look Kitty in the eye. Do you see how much she loves you, Kitty? Do you see that she never wants you anywhere but here? Do you see that you've found the tenderest spot in her heart? That's where how she feels about you lives. Right there in that spot. "Of course you can, baby. Might have to borrow some dishes from the house, but we can make that happen." Leans in-- kisses Kitty's nose. Smiles. "You'd look awfully cute in an apron and nothing else." A wink.

In an apron and nothing else. Well, she’ll have to be a little smaller for that-- this waist will certainly not accommodate an apron-- and she could-- well, she would, wouldn’t she? She’s beaming happily about that, pressing leather-clad fingertips to cheeks to stand a little taller and press a kiss, a kiss, a kiss in a way so innocently genuine one’s heart could ache. Can you see all the places she might’ve been kind once, the ones she’s trying to learn to be kind again? You’ve helped, oh, you’ve helped.

She nods, enthusiastically, slides hands down shoulders, arms, takes hands in her own, bows her head neatly. All that dark hair falls over even darker eyes, and she stands a little straighter, feet together, sweetly gentle and surprisingly sincere in the way she presents herself. “Thank ya. F’r-- doin’ ‘iss f’r me.” For doing something she-- did not imagine.

“Should paint,” Hums, “Should paint wit’ me. Makes ya feel... bett’r. Makes’uh world quiet.”

[godbloodednope]

“Leave?” It’s confused. Just the note of confusion. Just there. She’s perplexed. Until it clicks— and it’s written all over her face— approaching Kitty with soft hands and a shaking blonde head. “Baby, no. You don’t have to leave. This is just a place for you. If you want it. For your art. You can do anything you want in here. You could even paint the walls and ceilings. I just... wanted you to have something that was yours. And home is always just..” Points behind across the hall. “There.”

(A place for her. For her art.)

It’s weird. No one’s ever seen her that way. Glinda had tried to, but the places they’d both fell into in life-- there was no room for the soft parts of her, the gentle ones. There were no pieces of her that could be gently encourage. Her violence needed to be tempered-- her sharpness needed, always, to be honed. There was no way to believe in these things that Trish does-- there was no way for anyone to tell her she was worth more than the damage that she could do.

She tries to swallow down this nervous feeling that’s rising in her gut, because the anxiety makes her want to go oh no this means i have to leave this means i have to go this means it doesn’t matter this means-- and it doesn’t. Trish said so. Right there, over there, that is home. That is home, that is home, that is home.

“‘Kay,” She says-- there’s  sniffle in her voice. (Like a child. Like a child, a child, a child. Like a child there’s the faint strain of tears in her tone.)

She raises a gloved palm to her good eye and presses the heel of her hand into it. Embarrassed. Embarrassed, embarrassed, embarrassed. A soft-hearted creature she’s always been, and she’s lost her edge here. (She knows what people mean, now, when they say human.)

“Can still-- live wit’-- you?”