Some Life This Is - Kate the Chaser X Hoodie

3

The next week passed the same as always- hunting, stalking, venison stew, trying to get Toby to shower, and- for Kate and Toby, at least- drawing
Kate finds herself up upon the roof on watch again, this time she has one of hoodies guns but she's zoning out- she didn't steal it this time, though! He'd handed it to her with her mask when she said she'd take afternoon watch.

"Heyyy there Katie-cat~" A familiar, implacable voice says from off to the side of her, shaking her from her paranoid spiral. She lifts the gun and shoots at record speed but the source is already gone under the porch awning. "Hah, nice shot!" They say again, just the slightest of slight southern tinges dotting their words. 'Skully.'  Kate thinks, recognition snapping into place in her mind.

"Fucking hell Skully, you can't do that." She grumbles, leaning down and helping him onto the roof with her, the familiar yet impersonal mask a comfort of sorts in the cool autumn air. She can feel the static thrumming under his jacket, under his skin- his parts are probably fighting. She sits back-to-back from him, the two of them keeping watch over all around the cabin. "I could've shot you. If you're here for Tim he's out on a base supply run, going to be out until tomorrow."

"Wouldn't have been the first time getting shot, Katie-cat~ but that doesn't matter. I'm here to visit all of you bullshit you're mostly here for Tim and- has anything happened since I got assigned to the collective? Any...Romance?"

Kate scoffs, pushing down a smile as it would have been visible through her mask's mouth hole. "You know as well as I the only romance here is you and Tim, alright?...

No, there's been no romance around here, unless you count Toby having his hatchets quote-unquote 'Kiss'." She says, doing the appropriate hand motion as she speaks. "Don't tell him I saw or told you about that. Just heard Alex take the controls, how are you all?"

"Oh, Katie-cat-"
"Don't call me that, I let it slide the first two because you're dating Tim."
"Katie-cat, it's the same as always. Alex fights everyone, Jay and Seth keep trying to get the controls or a schedule up, I'm me! Amy keeps talking to jay to try to figure out how to get away."
"You said the collective- how's stalking some lanky guy around Florida treating you?"
"Well enough, I feel like he put me with a group of babysitters though. Observer and Brand are extremely creepy, especially since brand found out about Amy."

Kate and Skully jump as a scream from Toby comes from below them- "YOU SOU-TH-THERN WHORE!"

"I guess that's my queue to enter." Skully says, letting a faint southern accent out before nudging Kate and sliding off the roof to enter the house. Kate remains up there until she sees the lights of Tim's car in the forest, then she hops down and heads inside, finding Toby and skully wrestling on the floor where a coffee table used to be. Hoodies at the edge of the room videotaping the spectacle and Rouge is refereeing- that is, making sure they don't break anything that they can't steal from another house.

A dirty mirror is broken.

Kate can't help but feel a warm, nice feeling in her chest- something like these are who she's meant to be with as a family or some cheesy shit like that- as she watches before starting to take bets on who's going to win.

"Hey gang- oh my god guys." Tim says as he walks in, barely even trying to hide the amusement in his voice. He ducks as a toaster is thrown, dropping the grocery bags and scattering bags of non-perishables everywhere.
Tim laughs and rolls into the fight with all the broad 5'6 that makes him up

Of course, like all good things always do, it ends far before any of the parties think it should.

They all feel the cursed buzzing in their skull, like thousands of bees and also macdonald's sprite. They freeze, those without their masks on at the moment (just Toby and Tim, really,) scramble to get them on as Hoodie and Kate kick the groceries into the kitchen. They all line up, like good little toy soldiers- good little guard dogs even. It gets worse and worse, drowning out all thought, becoming painful even. Skully and rouge get antsy- usually he pops in and out, but this time he's mad. Tim- Masky, right now, collapses to the floor and starts to seize. Nobody chances incurring the operator's wrath by helping him.
They can feel his cursed presence in the room around them, suffocating, before they spot his form in the woods right beyond a window. The world goes fuzzy- Skully and Hoodie are the next to go down, full on passing out, and soon after goes Toby and Kate as he gets closer without moving, bending space to his will.

When Kate comes to and sits up, she notices that Hoodie's just...gone. As she wipes blood from a nosebleed off her face she recalls that they had to chase a target into the woods after he missed a shot, during their last mission. She shudders to think what's happening to him right now. She blinks, gathering her bearings, and sits up to shake the ringing from her ears. She stumbles up and goes over to Toby, offering him support as he's having a panic attack. Tim remains on the floor, but is being checked over by Rouge as Skully finally wakes up, the last to do so.

"Toby, hey, let's do a twenty-twenty alright?" She asks as she takes her gloves off and offers her hands to him. He rips his gloves off and places his hands in hers, squeezing. "Twenty breaths in and out, I'll do them with you, them we'll count to twenty alright Toby?"

He nods his head quickly.