Some Life This Is - Kate the Chaser X Hoodie

4

"Alright Toby, with me now, in and out." She says, rubbing her fingers over his knuckles as he squeezes her hands. They breathe together, in and out, then do their counts. "Do you want to do them again?" She asks, noticing he's still more fidgety than normal. "Or do you want to go see if Tim is a bit better now?"

"T-iimmm."
"You want to see Tim, alright Toby." Kate scoots out of the way to let him see Tim, who at this point is working on standing back up with Skully's help. "...Tim, Toby would like to see that you're alright, are you alright?" Kate asks after about a full minute of Toby trying to verbalize, holding down hard enough on her arm and wrist to hurt. He nods at Tim and- besides a few verbal tics- stays quiet for him to talk.

He's always quieter after the boss visits.

"Yeah I'm...I'm fine, Toby, don't worry about me. I'm just going to go have a smoke and wait for Hoodie to come back." He says, sounding tired- looking tired- before skully walks with him to the porch.
Kate stands up and helps Toby up, just to get him into the kitchen, where she gives him a cup of water.
He sips it and calms the rest of the way down, but he stays quieter and soon heads off outside to chop wood- a productive, helpful chore rouge put him on to satisfy his need to use his hatchets on what feels like bone.

"You do a lot for us." Rouge says as she takes off her mask, putting it on a hook on the wall next to Kate's. "I mean it." Kate can hear the hidden worry in her voice.

They don't bother to hide as much around her, wether it's because they think she's too stupid to pick up on it or simply because they know it, she won't say is unknown to her.

"Why don't you go take a break, try to relax?" There it is, the single sentence Kate hates hearing above all else. "Just until hoodie gets back." Kate's shoulders slump, almost on their own, as she looks to the ground. She realizes over and over, every time Rouge tells her to relax, that she can't without killing something.

And that almost scares her. She grabs her mask and shuffles off to the bedroom, putting the plastic and elastic accessory on the bedside table as she sits down. She gets back up and shuts the door before laying down on the bed and thinking about where she would be if the boss hadn't indoctrinated her into his little cult, warping her mind the way he had when she was young.

She spirals into her head, lamenting what never got a chance to happen or thrive.

That is, until dusk, when hoodie appears out of nowhere on top of her, completely limp and with ripped clothes despite there being no outward wounds.

The operator took him to the place, his own darkroom void. Heather- Rouge- and Tim say it's made of him.

Anyways, Kate slides out from under him and grabs Tim, who had been nursing a beer with Skully, from outside. They work at making him comfy for when he wakes up, Tim stays behind with him but Skully herds Kate out of the room as Tim pulls hoodie's mask up to his nose.

Kate turns her hands and grumbles, setting on going to the cellar and processing some items to fall into a routine. Valuables that can be pawned or sold go into one pile, clothes that they can wear go into another, things to keep (just four or five items for the house and maybe a souvenir) go into a small shoe box.
Then she processes a deer skin and a pile of bones. Remain sustainable, hunt responsibly and keep and preserve or sell what you cannot immediately use. It's the only legal way they make money, really.

Hours pass. Kate decides to finally go back upstairs, holding the shoe box with both hands as one would a music box or small wooden storage box. She peeks around into every room, offering the box to everyone she passes so they can take their pick of any of the items within.

Finally, she makes it back to the bedroom, stopping at the door and breathing in before looking into her box- three items left. She's already decided to take the colored pencils, so she pockets them, leaving behind string lights and a rubix cube for hoodie to choose from. She breathes in and out, then moves the box to one hand and knocks.

"Hoodie? It's Kate, can I come in?" She asks blankly, leaning towards the door, all closed off.
In response she gets a tired groan noise and a quiet "yeah - ow- come in."

Kate silently slips into the room and sits on the bed, facing his back. His mask remains off on the table next to them. "It's-uh- well I've got souvenir gifts? String lights, a rubix cube, and downstairs i have some soundproof headphones." She says, sounding a bit worried.

"Sh. I'll take the cube." He grumbles, putting his hand up for the item. Kate puts it in his hand and takes her shoes off before pulling her legs up onto the bed.
And there they sit, silent save for breathing and the clicking of the cube, until Kate lays down on the bed away from Hoodie not wanting to bother him at all. It's her turn for the bed tonight anyways, as selfish as that sounds. She forces herself to relax and looks out the window as much as she can through the wax paper covering over the broken glass.
'Very little house on the prairie.' She thinks to herself before stifling a laugh and stretching out briefly before falling back into the space she was on before.

She lays there, still as the dead, as the sun lowers, painting the sky with amazing colors, until she manages to drift off to sleep.