Alright, maybe my excuse of 'getting some air' wasn't exactly the most....competent one I'd ever come up with and yet it had been impossible to just sit around at home and...wait. Waiting for Kat to come home when I hardly knew if she even would was not exactly the greatest time of my life. Hell, I waited up for her on the nights she worked, every night she worked, even if I pretended to be asleep when she finally did come home. I think she knew, deep down, that I'd always been waiting up and yet it was just ones of those things we accepted without talking about. To disappear for months on end with no way of contacting her was....torturous. I know I shouldn't have broken into the council but Azrael kept refusing to tell me anything and I knew if anyone knew where Kat was the Council likely would. Besides- it gave me something to do, some way to at least try and help. I'd gotten far more than one of Viktor's men off her tail. Really, I think she should be thanking me instead. Maybe I'll ask for that later on. That sheepish grin still on my lips as my hand ran through the golden brown of my hair. My shoulders lifted in a shrug.

"I've always been a fan of control."

Well- it was true. I liked controlling things- far more than I ever let on. I suppose that's what the obsessive cleaning was about and the rest of the OCD. I liked to feel like i had some control over....something in my life. Even if it was only the environment I was in. Maybe that was another reason Kat disappearing had been so hard and yet until that moment I hadn't really thought of it. We had a....routine. As mundane as it sounded and yet we'd had one. A good one. One I was comfortable with and had gotten used to and then suddenly she just wasn't there anymore. That constant wondering as to whether she was alive or dead far more than I could truly take. My own behind the scenes work and effort to keep myself busy I suppose. To give me something to do. Even if they had still found us in the end anyway. My own amusement in my efforts hardly seemed to reach her. Kat's eyes narrowing as she insisted I could have been kicked out of that organisation. One eye arching upward almost incredulously as I met her gaze then.

"Darling, i have never actually managed to hunt anything. Personally I think they were thrilled I left my house."

Well they should have been. Breaking into the Council building was the first and only successful mission i'd ever really completed alone- even if it was a rather self imposed mission. Still, that was something. Though why we were still talking I hardly knew. Talking was hardly what I wanted right now. That distance between us easily closed as my ips readily found her own in that kiss id been all but dying for. Gos the taste of her was perfect, exactly I remembered it. Kat always having been a damn good kisser and yet i'd forgotten just how good. I wanted far, far more of her then tat kiss allowed. That soft sound of pleasure stirring in my throat all the same as she returned that kiss and for a moment, just a moment, that world was almost perfect. Nothing else existed outside of us. A part of my mind already considering if I could use the floor to make us both more...comfortable. It looked clean enough. Hell he the only things anyone ever spilled on it were detergent and soap. I wanted every single part of her in that moment. Every perfect line and curve and feminine swell of her figure. God I'd missed this. I'd missed her. That very utterance on my lips as she finally pulled away. My blue gold gaze meeting her own readily then. I hadn't anticipated those words. My mind almost slow to fully understand them. Split up?

I hadn't anticipated that anger either. It was almost hot in my veins and yet I was hardly angry at her. I was angry at...the world I suppose. At Viktor and the Council and everyone else. I'd just gone for months without her and now she wanted to split up again? That feeling of relief in my gut at finally having her back twisting almost painfully into something else entirely. I couldn't....do it again. Not for months on end. Whether we were in a relationship or not I couldn't do it. I couldn't stop caring enough to not wait up for her at night- and every single day in between that she didn't come home. I understood her want to....keep me safe and yet what good had that done last time? They had found us. Wouldn't they find us again? Was being apart really sensible? Wouldn't it be better not to be? Maybe i didn't mean quite what I said towards the end. After all, I had no immediate plans to die any time soon and yet I was...exhausted from running and hiding and waiting and waiting and waiting. The words just came out I suppose in that moment of....weakness? I don't really know what it was- but right then I just everything to stop. To go back to the way it was supposed to be. To not have this fucking man ruin our lives any more. What the hell had I ever done to him? What had kat ever done? Well- I knew at least some of her story with Viktor and yet still that man was....out of order in the very least.

I'd hardly anticipated Kat to react as angrily as she did. I suppose in that moment I hadn't even truly been aware of exactly what I'd said. At least, not until she rounded on me in a way she'd never done before. We never fought. Not really. Not like this. Her anger colliding with my own then and for the first time in a long time I felt my own voice raise. I don't think i've ever yelled at her. Fuck- I dont even yell. Period. Maybe it was the exhaustion or the emotion or the stress or.....maybe it was god damn all of them in that moment. Those words snapping out almost before I could stop them.

"Christ Kat, that is not what I meant! Not really. Look, I just..."

Apparently she wasn't done. She was yelling again then. Yelling about my 'giving up' and that she had worked far to hard for me to throw everything away now as if this was some great tragic love story in a book or those movies I always fell asleep in and pretend I'd enjoyed anyway. Movies were never any good if no one got naked even once. I hadn't expected the tears- I don't think she even noticed they were there as she kept on, her voice as filled with frustration and anger as my own had been. That anger and irritation sparking within me again once more- as if every single one of those frustrations and fears come pouring out- all over each other. In hindsight it probably wasn't our best moment, not for either of us- but hindsight is never there when you need it.

"Me man up!? I just fucking murdered someone with playing cards after I got hit over the head with god fucking knows what and ended up in some warehouse after having the shit kicked out of me. I don't know how more fucking manly it gets! I don't want to goddamn die Kat. That isn't what I meant. As for all that you've done...what about me? Or does nothing I did to keep you safe count? Your not the only one in this."

She jerked away then, storming towards the door before pretending to look out of it. Im hardly a very good Hunter but even I know fake looking when I see it. That anger made me feel almost...hot as I lent on that table the old woman had been leaning on moments ago. One hand lifting to run through my hair. That woman staring blankly at the both of us as she kept folding her sheets without looking away. Well- as long as someone was entertained. Kat's voice was soft then, far softer then i think I ever remembered it being as the blue gold of my gaze turned towards her. She still had her back turned to me, her eyes trained on the street outside as she insisted again we were not some fairytale in a book. That this was only going to end with either Viktor dead or her dead. That my fate was apparently not written down. That I was apparently I book she never should have read.. Something, somewhere inside me almost...flinching at that comment. I hardly moved. My eyes resting on her all the same- the way they always did. The way i'd been looking at her for all the years we'd been together- and yet- I suppose for the first time I noticed how afraid she was. She'd always been the stronger one out of both of us. That sigh falling heavily from my own lips then. Some of that anger, at least, finally letting go.

"That's where you're wrong, Kat. In fact- your so wrong it almost worries me. I thought I was bad at the relationship thing- but honestly, Darling, your worse."

That faint simper managed to find my lips then, despite it all, those words holding no true harshness at all as I shook my head softly. My words almost gentle then in comparison to what they had been before.

"What exactly do you think I'd do if you were killed, Kat? Do you think I'd somehow manage to pick up the pieces of my life and just move on? Worse than that, the chances are one day your just not going to come home. I am never going to know what happened to you and I am going to spend the rest of my life trying to find out. Do you truly not think that for every single bit of desire you have to keep me safe that I don't feel every bit as strongly as that over you?"

I paused, briefly, considering those further words before i lent away from the table at last to walk towards her. My form coming to stand beside her own, our arms just barely touching as I pretended that maybe I wanted to look out that window too. My gaze glancing briefly sideways to her own.

"You deciding to leave me isn't going to make me care any less about you. It's far too late for that. You leaving is damning me to a life of never knowing what happened to you and spending the rest of my life searching, I have OCD- you know i will fixate on that because i can't do anything else. I haven't slept properly in weeks- because I wait up for you every single night. You don't have to tell me that's stupid, i already damn well know. But I can't stop that any more than i can stop being in love with you. I've been in love with you for years. I'm always going to be in love with you. If i'm not allowed to go and get myself killed then your not either. I don't think us breaking up is the answer. Is that....what you really want?"



k o h l
so you want to play with magic?