WHO:Birkhoff & Kenzi WHEN: Earlier this month WHERE: Birkhoff's place WHAT: Kenzi wakes from distressing dreams with unfortunate keepsakes. WARNINGS: mentions of dream character death STATUS: Complete
For a moment there, Kenzi thought her dreams were getting kinda better - almost.
That hopeless anxiety of being that token helpless human of the gang skyrocketed, and fine, yeah, she did have abandonment issues that worsened after Bo’s disappearing act, but she and Hale had kindled a romance that had been long overdue (sidekicks unite), and she also couldn’t bring herself to be apart from her overgrown valkyrie child (sweet precious battle angel bae of Tam-Tam). Dyson then took it upon herself to teach her the trade of shadow thieving, in which she had practiced by stealing panties and being a total pro at it.
So, yeah. Almost better.
Except Galina showed up, and it was that same heartache of a rodeo and lies prompted by Hale’s desire to have her there for, uh, a wedding proposal. Kenzi hadn’t said yes, but the promise of it coming soon was there.
Too bad soon never came. Hale was killed, and Bo couldn’t revive him with her overpowered succubus skills, and she cried and cried over his siren corpse all while screaming that she was going to say yes, she should have said yes, and it was all her fault.
When she awoke in this world, what she considered the real one, she made a sound like she was choking and then sat up, gasping for air and swallowing a big gulp into her lungs. Her cheeks were wet from weeping in her sleep and there was an unfamiliar weight on her ring finger - the presence of something that wasn’t there and when she looked?
It was the engagement ring. I was going to say yes.
Birkhoff had never really been a sound sleeper, paranoia tended to not allow for that and if he were honest it'd really just gotten worse over the years. Probably not helped by the levels of energy drinks, sugar and caffeine he consumed on a daily basis.
He'd taken a little while to get used to having a semi-regular bed partner, but by that point Kenzi’s presence acted more like a soothing presence than one to disturb sleep. At least until his brain registered the noise of her waking suddenly and then Birkhoff was startling awake himself, bleary eyed and disorientated.
“What’s wrong? What happened?” He'd catch up to things in a minute or two.
Uh. Kinda awkward to explain, wasn’t it. Kenzi’s hand went over her ribs, right to the spot Massimo had been ramming his shoes in when when he’d beaten the crap out of her - and it felt like he did it here too, in her sleep. What a guy. “I need a drink,” she croaked with furrowed brows. It was barely eight in the morning, but alcohol was required.
Lordy, what the shit.
“I, um, got engaged. You know what they say, if you like it you should put a ring on it.” A lyrical quote by Queen Bey, obviously. Kenzi sniffled. “I might have been a cocktease and totally just left him hanging with a maybe, but then he got like, killed almost immediately after, so, uh…”
Y’know, weirdly emotional shit that bled over and what the hell does someone do about it aside drink? She wasn’t in Hale’s bed, she was in Bikrhoff’s. The fedora-wearing siren and she had never crossed paths but her heart stung, regardless. “Frozen margaritas count as breakfast smoothies if we put kale in it.”
There wasn't a lot to say to that, or if there was, Birkhoff couldn't really come up with it. His stumbling attempts at comfort would probably land them in an awkward circle of Kenzi not feeling better and he was grossly against that.
Because emotions were hard, and it was evident that the emotions from the dream were hitting Kenzi hard and that meant Birkhoff was on perk up patrol, which meant frozen margaritas were breakfast, with or without kale.
“You got it, babe.” He could definitely pull himself together for making some breakfast, leaning over to press a kiss to Kenzi’s temple, not too awkward comfort there. “I'll toss some fruit out for salad, make it continental.”
All of it was kinda awkward, in a way, so there really wasn’t much Kenzi could say about it either - it was all weird, muddled, fresh and raw and sore and the latter was meant in the literal sense. Massimo didn’t hold back the kicks on little ol’ her, and the stench and smile of him made her almost nauseous. Skeevy, creepy fucker with the gross mommy-issues and oh my god, she hoped to kill him dead.
“Sorry,” she exhaled, her sigh heavy, and she got off the bed with a wince and wiggled the ring on her finger until it slid off. “Is this weird? Me dreaming about the death of an almost-fiance and feeling just as weird about it? What’s the stupid protocol on stuff like this?”
Should she even feel sad?
“I couldn’t say,” protocol on the end of dream-relationships due to death? Not his area. He lived and worked in an underground lair of evil and despair most of the time. The rest of the time he was in an overpriced hide-out leading Niki through her revenge plots. It didn’t really lend itself to chatting up hotties. “I mean… You can feel sad, someone you cared about, even if it wasn’t here... You still cared.”
He wasn’t going to put too much weight into the whole almost fiance thing. Kenzi’s dreams were complex and full of strange things, like fae and werewolves and magical sticks that turned her into a ninja warrior goddess. Her would-be dream-land bae was probably the least headache causing.
“I’m not really good on the advice of handling emotions. Dream related or otherwise.” Most of Seymour’s stupid decisions were born from not handling emotions. Like when he faked his death and changed his name. “Do you know him? In this whole… not asleep life thing?”
Maybe all she needed was reassurance, that it was alright to feel trickles of confused sadness because hell, if she didn’t feel a damn thing, what would that say about her? Kenzi set the ring aside - it didn’t belong on her finger, not in this world.
“Nope,” she confirmed and went to latch onto him, arms around Birkhoff tight like she’d break his ribs, or maybe just pop his head off his body. Feel the lurve, Seymour. “I don’t, and if we’d met here I think we’d be total bros - and then warn him about the whole dying thing.” Like a decent human being would. But overall she had her nerd here, and she had some pretty strong feels worthy of the three little words for him. Just the way the cookie crumbled in this life.
But still, breakfast margarita-kale smoothies.
People tended to was physical comfort in times like this, or something similar enough to this, and Birkhoff was completely fine with providing whatever comfort he could when it came to Kenzi, so the bonecrusher of a hug was just enveloped with Seymour wrapping his arms around Kenzi’s shoulders, pulling her in a little tighter on his end.
“Warnings about dying should be mandatory around here.” At least sometimes people could offer a warning about things. Birkhoff knew that Kenzi had Bo, they dreamt the same messed up monster world with magic and all that, they could at least brace each other for the drama.
He wasn’t sure about the emotional whiplash of losing friends in the dreams, other than Mikey and Niki, he didn’t really have anyone of importance. And if margarita-kale smoothies helped his little badass to dust herself off a little, Birkhoff could keep the smoothies coming. “But you can feel bad about him dying as long as you need, dude was something to you, you know?” These people might only exist in their dreams sometimes, but it didn’t mean they meant less.
Hugging made her aching ribs want to cry if they could but she didn’t care, she’d lay on a pile of frozen peas later - and she could handle some bruises. Kenzi survived being held captive and starved by a kitsune that stole her face. This was nothin’.
But Birkhoff was right. The dude was something. Not as important in this life, sure, but there was no way Hale could be classified under nothing, either. Not when he had died protecting her. Not when he proposed to her right before all of it went down. And she’d been so angry with Bo about her being unable to revive him, calling her selfish.
In her defense, though? Bo was getting reaaaaaaal spoiled about the whole ‘’the focus is on me me me me meeeeee’ thing.
Kenzi gave that scruffy teddybear face of his a smooch. “Don’t you go dying on me, though. Ever. I’ll be summoning your ghost from an ouija board to have some words with you if you do, B. I wouldn’t let you have a peaceful afterlife.”
“I have no plans to die in the immediate or distant future. I think I’ll work out how to live forever, yeah? I mean, the world definitely needs me around, for sure.” It felt a little easier to joke, leaving room for Kenzi to squirm out of the serious topic, letting her lick her wounds for now before needing to process it all fully.
He still made a point in leaving a bristly kiss on her cheek just so she knew he was there if she needed to talk some more about it all. “Margarita-Kale smoothie, and I’ll fire up Tekken, you can kick some butt and get some of it outta your system.” And then they’d work on actual nutrition in the form of ordering pizza. Because cooking would probably kill one of them.
Kenzi couldn’t imagine what the heck she’d do if something happened to Birkhoff. Obviously she didn’t handle Hale (and even he bro for that matter) dying well but really, dude, who would, when someone you loved died? It didn’t help that Hale had died by Massimo’s fucking hands - all her fault because she meddled with the stupid druid with her desperation of wanting to be fae that she owed him a lot for a tub of magical sparkly cream that was only temporary.
Talk about some kind of allegory to drugs, lordy.
There was kale in this house somewhere last she checked - she sometimes brought some groceries over and kale looked trendy, until she realized it tasted like booty. Mixed with sweet and sour, lime and tequila though? It was about to get fucking delicious, that’s what. “I need to stay awake anyway,” she sighed, gathering the ingredients. Plus the ice cubes for the blender and a knife to cut a lime in half. “I so don’t want to see what’s next. I need hours of immersive gaming to escape this other reality I’m not even living.”
That’s how Kenzi coped. She talked about it a little and then got distracted with things and tried to pretend it wasn’t bothering her - happened with Inari in the dreams, she didn’t see why she couldn’t pull the same stunt of avoiding all her problems here too.