Looking For A Tornado

📅 Early January 2018

[ᴛᴡ ғᴏʀ ᴍᴇɴᴛᴀʟ ɪʟʟɴᴇss sʏᴍᴘᴛᴏᴍᴏʟᴏɢʏ ᴀɴᴅ ʙʀɪᴇғ ᴍᴇɴᴛɪᴏɴ ᴏғ sᴇx ᴡᴏʀᴋ & sᴇx ᴀs sᴇʟғ ʜᴀʀᴍ]

Athena had started seeing someone. That’s how she’d worded it; ‘I’ve started seeing someone.’ 
And it had been November and their entire social circle had just blown the fuck up and so Kato had thought, good. And he’d thought, then you have a ready-made replacement life to go live when I manage to fucking die. And he’d thought, how the fuck are you stupid enough to trust anyone new anymore, ‘Thena, holy fucking shit. And he’d thought when she said “I’ve started seeing someone,” and then after that, that she’d “made a new friend, maybe,” she meant she’d gotten a girlfriend and a friend, and not that she’d decided to assemble a whole goddamn cast of people who were going to have a fucking impact on his goddamn broken life and assist in wrecking-balling the absolute shit out of the rest of it.
He’d filed ‘Teagan’ away as her girlfriend and hadn’t even bothered to catch the new friend’s name at first, but then Athena announced actually her “new friend” was a “new roommate” because she was moving out, and he had to hear it because Anarchy said “Athena told me Storm’s coming over with Teagan to help haul the couch” and Kato said “Who the fuck is Storm?”

Of course he didn’t meet them then. This brand new fucking rando strolled into Athena’s life and then all of a sudden was helping her pack up and abandon the shit out of him and ‘Key? Fuck no he didn’t want to look at them. He spent the day chain-smoking in the cemetery again, his phone ringing or chiming every fifteen fucking minutes because Anarchy panicked every time he was out of line of sight, now, and he told himself that he wasn’t being petulant at all, he was just staying out of the way and saving Athena’s “new friend” the hassle of having to hate him as much as he hated them. 
Hell, they probably already despised him without them even meeting. Teagan certainly hadn’t enjoyed his company. Athena had probably told this Weather person all about her shitshow of an ex-roommate too, and Tornado or whatever had hopped into Teagan’s boat and told her to stop trying to be a bombsquad for a nuke and to get the fuck out of there. Bitch. How would they know? How the fuck would they know anything real about him? They definitely didn’t know what it felt like to be him and have someone who was meant to be one of his best friends just dip the fuck out in the middle of their private little apocalypse.

...Athena did text him a lot to check up on him after moving, but she’d chosen to move out and that’s why she didn’t know how he was, so he didn’t respond to her texts until Anarchy finally asked him to not give her the silent treatment, saying that she’d called him crying, that life was rough all around and they needed to stick together. Oh, exactly how she fucking didn’t? Kato had thought to himself; Exactly how she replaced us with some fucking meteorlogical event and a lifeguard?
But he started answering Athena’s messages again anyway, though he tended to sulk if her new roommate’s name came up. Which it kept fucking doing, of course. And Athena was Athena, and wanted all her friends to be friends. After he kept missing proposed hangouts she apparently figured out he wasn’t going to voluntarily give in to her desire for that this time, and instead of giving up, she pulled a fast one on him one night as they all headed out to a quick, 3-song opening gig they’d managed to land at some newborn and likely doomed-to-fail venue, and said, “Storm’s going to be there.”
“Great,” he’d hissed. 

Most of the people at the place were already wasted by the time of the show, and the bar next door seemed much more popular than the brick-closet-with-a-stage that they were playing at, though the energy of their newest songs did manage to capture the attention of some of the more heartbroken drunks at the venue’s own half-stocked counter, and they whooped with inebriated commiseration to the end of Concrete As A Painkiller. 
The music crowd itself was dishearteningly sparse, and there was a familiar face among them that Kato recognized from Athena’s more recent Instagram posts. He deliberately avoided making eye contact throughout the set, then beelined for the adjacent bar as soon as he’d stored his equipment afterwards; hunching his shoulders to hide his face. 

He wanted to go his normal route; get absolutely fucking blasted, go home with a stranger, feel shitty but useful and get his mind off everything the fuck else. It wasn’t a gay bar, though, and he was too bitter to get especially flirty with one of the few guys in the place who set off his bi-dar. He and ‘Key had recently started messing around again, too, and something about that seemed to keep kicking him in the shins every time he tried to slut it up.
By the time he went out to the street for a cigarette, he was only halfway drunk and frustrated with both himself and the world at large.
“Ah. The one and only Kato Winters,” a gravelly yet nearly sing-song voice greeted him from beside the door.
Oh, fuck you, he thought, turning to look.

Sure enough, it was Athena’s new roommate. They fell just on the masculine side of androgynous; lean but not waifish, and with a slight tan that kept them from looking sallow in the cold light, though their silver-bleached hair, like the smoke leaving their mouth, easily took on the blue hues from the nearby neon.
“Do I know you?” he asked icily. Their lips twitched upwards.
“Hmm, maybe? Maybe not. Though it’d be rude of Athena to talk about you to me but not me to you, wouldn’t it? She thought you’d probably have come over here to drink.”
“Be rude of Athena to go speculating my fucking whereabouts to people I don’t want to talk to,” Kato replied stiffly. “You felt the need to stalk me over here?”
“I don’t have time to stalk. Just figured ‘Thena was sick of trying over and over to force you to meet me ever. Might as well introduce ourselves to one another and get it over with. Give her a break, you know?” Casually they held out their pack of cigarettes in invitation, flicking it open with one thumb.
Kato glared for a couple moments, but finally gave in to the free nicotine and took a cig.
“You’re lucky you smoke my brand,” he said coldly, leaning against the brick wall next to them. “You obviously know my full name already, though, so I clearly don’t need to introduce myself.”
“You’re a Newport guy, then. Neat,” they said, pocketing the pack and pulling out a lighter; “We’re already getting to know one another better. I’m Storm.” They held the lighter out and flicked up a flame before Kato could dig his own out of his pocket, and though he considered leaving them hanging he huffed a sigh through his nose instead and leaned forward to drag an ember to the tip of his cigarette.
“Storm,” he repeated as though he’d never heard it before, leaning back against the bricks and clouding the air with menthol smoke. Well, they certainly seemed able to rain on his fucking parade. 

The glacial quality of his tone seemed to amuse Storm more than faze them and they took another drag from their own cigarette with a smirk on their lips.
“Ya know, I’m not this nice to everybody,” they offered, raising an eyebrow. “Kind of a bitch to most people, actually. So maybe you should consider yourself lucky, here.”
“I’d call basically anyone who decided to accost me outside a bar a ‘bitch,’ actually, so you’re even-keeled. Don’t worry about it,” Kato sneered back. Much to his annoyance, they laughed.
“Sure, sure, but I’m just a bitch, not a bitch-bitch. Bitch-bitches on the street try to give you religious pamphlets or do that stupid fake cough when you walk by with a lit smoke. Us half-bitches just do frustrating shit like share cigarettes or try to get to know you. So. When’d you start smoking?”
“Equally pointless motivations across the board, though, so I’d say it all stands,” Kato retorted. He couldn’t make sense of Storm; of why they had any interest in getting to know him or how it was worth the cost in tobacco. He frowned his distrust. “Why are you still talking to me? What the fuck does it matter why I smoke? Full offense but nothing about me is your business.”
 “Boy, you really aren’t a people person, huh?” Storm said around an exhalation of smoke, raising their eyebrows, “I’m just making small talk, my dude. It’s pretty normal when meeting new people.”
“So the self-described bitch is going to advise me about how social interactions work?” Kato drawled icily, “I thought you knew Athena. Did she not tell you that I don’t fuckin’ like people?”
Storm rolled their eyes and smirked off his hostility. “Of course Athena didn’t tell me not to talk to you, dumbass, or else I wouldn’t be trying. She just sort of talks about you like somebody would a kicked puppy, actually.”

Kato ground his teeth for a couple moments before he finally spat, “Yeah, she fuckin’ would, I guess. I’m a labradoodle and the world is one big fucking boot to the ribs.” He took a pointedly long drag off his cigarette that drew the embers to the filter. “So, fuckin’ Rain or Thunder or whatever hippie name it is—?” He flicked the cigarette butt to the ground and stared coldly at them. “Thanks for the cig, but it takes a bitch to talk to a bitch, and you’ve been out-bitched. We’ve met, task done. Do you have any actual reason to be wasting my time or can I go back inside and resume being a whore?”
“What do you charge?” Storm asked sarcastically, apparently unwilling to accept being ‘out-bitched,’ “Don’t worry, I don’t wanna fuck you—but if you discount for your personality, I could probably just pay your rate to keep chatting.”

Kato glared at them, heavily considering the idea of sweeping off anyway; hell, he already had his shoulders squared to turn and leave—but he couldn’t stand the concept of letting them feel like they’d had the last word.
“...Okay, you caught me. I’m only half a whore,” he said sourly, “I fuck guys at bars for free. I charge for everything else. So if you’re absolutely desperate for some one-on-one interaction, then you can buy a cam show like every other stranger who wants to inflict themselves on me. And I actually charge extra for my personality.”

Storm raised their eyebrows. “Do you actually cam?” they asked, tilting their head, and casually held out their pack of Newports. Nicotine was an irritatingly effective bribe: Kato took a cigarette and leaned against the brick wall of the bar again with a sneer, pretending to himself that he really was sticking around just for the smoke and not the attention.
“So what if I do?” he said, flipping them off when they held out their lighter again and opting instead for the beat-up zippo he dug out of his pocket, “Being in a metalcore band doesn’t make rent in goddamn New York City. Gonna judge me for the fact that jacking off on camera pays the bills?”
“I mean, I’d be a hell of a hypocrite if I did,” Storm said cooly, “seeing as I did porn, myself, for a bit.”
“The fuck, for real? Why?” Kato asked, the shock he’d expected to receive surfacing in his own tone instead and making them laugh.
“‘Why?’” They raised an eyebrow. “That’s not the usual question I get. Uh, ‘cause it paid? Same as what you said, isn’t it?” They seemed too amused; too casual, too willing to use question marks as punctuation. The conversation didn’t feel right when the topic wasn’t met with aversion, so Kato changed gears and veered away, shrugging them off and blowing smoke into the night air.
“Yeah, sure, well...Nice of ‘Thena to not go telling everyone she meets about my side job, at least, even if she sends people to follow me around. Did you lose her at some point tonight or—what? She sent you over on your own because she’s that sick of my face?”
“Funny you say that, she’s pretty sure you’re sick of hers.”
Kato glanced over and wrinkled his brow at the comment; he couldn’t help it, and Storm pointedly raised their eyebrows when he met their gaze.
“She, y’know, thinks that you hate her right now. When we were talking tonight about finding you so she could introduce us, she straight up told me it might not be worth it, because—quote—‘he’ll have to hate you on principle ‘cause he's mad at me. His brain won't let him do anything else if I'm around.’” Storm shrugged and took a final pull from their cig. “So. Came over on my own instead. Feels like it’s going alright.” All that was left to burn of their cigarette was the filter; they flicked its ember into the gutter. Kato tucked his tongue to his cheek as he watched the orange glow die to gray.

An uncomfortable guilt squirmed in his chest, eel-like in both its movement and how little he wanted to look at it. Honestly, Athena’s alleged words rang too true, and he became suddenly aware of how disproportionate his rage was. He was angry at her, okay, yeah. But fuck...he was so angry at her that he was angry at everything around her? And she could feel it? He frowned; he knew it was too much if she was picking up on the spillover. She was just one person. She was just Athena…
His lips twitched down and he remembered her before she was musclebound and newly moved-out; back when she was slight and wore Converse instead of platform boots so he always had to look down to meet her eyes. Just Athena, who was getting carpet-bombed by anger and still, he knew, letting him off the hook for it in some way: 
“His brain won't let him do anything else.”

He tried to push it away and mull it over at the same time. It writhed around in the back of his head; in the space behind his sternum.
“Are you just talking to me for ‘Thena’s sake?” he asked.
“Well, yeah, I think that’s obvious even if we hadn’t covered it already. You have brain damage or something?” Storm asked; “Your lyrics don’t show it. I don’t know what half the words you use mean.” 
The jab faded in lieu of the almost-praise and Kato snorted in spite of himself. Tensions between them lowered as the topic turned towards music and the band, and he couldn’t resist telling them about lyric-writing for Concrete, and how much his life was centered on music, and he ended up on a tangent about the pet project of an album he wanted to put out April next year but that he hadn’t fully pitched to his bandmates yet out of reluctance. 
“Just go for it,” they encouraged, surprising him; “You’ve been writing it since you were a teenager, so duh it matters to you. What harm can it do to ask your friends to just go with you on it?”
He shrugged uncomfortably and grimaced. “Well, they could say ‘Absolutely not, you psycho. Why can’t you just get over your vendetta against the school system?’” 
“Ehhh...I heard a lot about you from ‘Thena before meeting you, and she never used the word ‘psycho’ even when she could have gotten away with it, so.” Storm laughed. “And she didn’t talk fondly about school, either. It sounds like with your last release you just walked up to everyone waving your lyrics around and went ‘Look at this album I wrote. We’re doing it,’ and they were like ‘OK,’ no input. Just do that again. Strong-arm them.” 
Kato let out a half-huffed chuckle. “Pfft, sure, because they deserve that.” It was meant to be sarcastic, but discomfort crept in for him with the knowledge that it might not land that way, what with how he’d been acting that night. “...I, y’know—I know they don’t actually,” he clarified. “I’ll just ask if they’re willing to let me get this album out of my system.”
“Oh, I guess that’d work,” Storm said, thankfully nonchalant. “I thought we weren’t gonna let ‘em say no. Could stage a thing, that was my next suggestion.” 
“‘Stage a thing’?” 
“Yeah. Just belt an old radio and an alarm clock to your chest and be like, ‘Terrorists strapped a bomb to me and it’ll go off if we don’t make a questionable album— but look at how many lyrics I have, I’m saved!’” 
He snorted. “Brian Wells-ing my way through album production? Yeah, guess I could. I’ll hold onto that as a fallback.”

So…Storm ended up being funny. Fun, really; generally easy to talk to—for him at least. They were sarcastic and quick, with a bite to their tone that Kato felt begrudgingly impressed by. It wasn’t often he found someone who left him feeling evenly matched. They handed him his fourth cigarette of the evening without even asking if he wanted one when they dug out another for themself; they leaned in together over their lighter and drew their embers from the same flame. He studied their face in the brief, flickering glow; the moments where they were just a few inches apart. He couldn’t understand their motivations at all.
“...Why the hell are you putting in this much effort with me, Storm?” he finally asked after they’d leaned back again. “I know you said for Athena’s sake, but, like...I’m a shit person to get to know, she should have told you that. Or you should have figured it out.” 
“I’m literally just standing and chatting. If that seems like a lot of work to you, I dunno what to tell you, K,” Storm replied, the nickname catching him off-guard but rolling easily off their tongue. “But yeah, you kind of suck to talk to at first. You’re obnoxious and an asshole until you’re talking about yourself; you should work on that. I enjoyed the conversation anyway, though. You’re funny sometimes.” They offered an unconcerned smile that might have listed towards sarcastic but failed to seem outright unkind. “I work nights so I gotta head out. You can always be shittier later and I’ll give up. Better luck next time, huh?” 
“Yeah, thanks, I’ll try harder,” he replied.

It wasn’t until they’d already walked off that he realized he’d agreed, in whatever way, to there being a next time.

Though he ventured back into the bar afterwards, he’d lost his drive to get fucked up; it’d already been failing on him when he first came in. He threw back one final shot, but headed out to meet back up with his band instead of waiting around to try and get picked up. Seth and Aetos often left the post-show earlier than the rest of them, but Anarchy and Athena were still hanging out at the venue they’d played at when he walked back in—both looking somewhat surprised to see him return.

“Hey, K. Good to have you back,” Anarchy greeted, clapping Kato on the shoulder and letting his hand linger long enough to give his arm a squeeze. “We were just wondering what to do about headin’ home.” Kato guiltily noted the undertone of relief to Anarchy’s voice. 
“Yup, night’s wound down. Storm just dropped in to say goodbye a few minutes ago,” Athena added. “They, uh, they said they caught up with you.”
Kato registered—with a sinking, shameful feeling in his gut—the ambivalent quality of her voice; the edgy way she glanced at him. 
“Yeah, it was alright. Sorry I’ve been a shitlord a lot lately,” he said, gesturing vaguely towards her half-hunched posture and frowning. He wanted to cram excuses in; he was dealing with a lot, change was hard and there had been too much of it, she’d left him—but she’d brightened even without any excuse-planations.
“No, yeah, I know—thanks,” she said. “I’m glad you got to meet Storm. They've been really great to me, ya know.”
“Uh-huh. It was good to meet them. Sorry,” Kato said again. He was still angry and Athena seemed able to tell, but he also was sorry, and that must have been equally obvious; she offered him a cautious smile, and he forced one to his lips, too.

There was still tension between them but he gave her a hug back at the apartments, before they parted ways in the parking lot, trying to make up with her—even if it was in this fragile-feeling sort of way, there was the promise it would strengthen. He was tired of being mad at her. He was tired of being mad at the world because he was mad at her. He hadn’t even realized…
“He’ll have to hate you on principle because he's mad at me.”

He wished his brain would inform him of whatever asinine rules it fucking went by.

“...I think Athena was really relieved tonight went okay,” Anarchy said later, as they got undressed for bed in his room. “That you met Storm and all.”
“Yeah.” Kato pitched his shirt across the hallway, onto his own bedroom floor.
“She’s been upset, you know. She cares about you.”
“Ok. I get it, ‘Key.” Kato turned around and got into bed beside Anarchy, burying his face in the crook of his friend’s neck. “I just wish I could control my fucking emotions.”
Anarchy ran gentle fingers through Kato’s hair and settled back into the bed. 
“...Yeah,” he murmured; “I feel that.”