The Pickle Hut, Los Angeles, Thursday Afternoon

[spin_kick_snap]

The Pickle Hut was quietly popular; it had a normal crowd and a decent-sized rush around lunch and dinner, but there were definitely parts of the day that diners could head in and have the restaurant to themselves. Nick, having grown up not far away, could practically set his watch by those times. They were his preferred times to eat there, since he was getting to be a well-known agent for a very known firm. And in LA, where an agent went, the paparazzi had learned that stars often followed after. So days when Nick wanted to lunch in relative peace, he headed down to The Pickle Hut during one of those empty time slots and enjoyed the peace and quiet.

Those dead times also came in handy when you were a superhero meeting up with other superheroes to discuss a zombie invasion over delicious burgers and brined foods. It was pretty inevitable that they'd all find themselves here; Nick had introduced Kathy to it a year ago and sometimes their schedules overlapped enough that they'd end up catching a meal together. So when Max had started complaining about needing to eat, they'd both suggested The Pickle Hut in unison. It was close, cheap, and filling; Mona was content to leave them alone to talk with only the occasional interruption for refills; and they had the chance to eat truly addictive pickles and talk about hordes of the undead without being overheard.

The Mighty Dragon (who just as often went by George) and Stealth (who remained Stealth and had yet to be seen unmasked), had elected to stay and talk strategy. Zzzap had flown back to Boston or wherever, and the rest of the heroes were still at their day jobs. That left Kathy, Max, Nick, and Josh to head to the diner and continue to go over the information they'd gathered during the last few days--while enjoying amazing burgers, giant milkshakes, and random pickled sides--including authentic kimchi which delighted Kathy to no end.

[For the two aggravated ones, please! Link to Dante at the club]

Comments

Re: Los Angeles At Large

[not_every_mage]

Anders, meanwhile, felt utterly defeated. Reasoning hadn't worked. Shouting hadn't worked. Bringing up her sister hadn't worked. There was utterly no point in any of this, and for a heated moment he almost felt that getting eaten by a zombie would only serve Kathy right.

"That was a lot of words for 'la la la la, I'm not listening,'" Anders commented, and turned to the door. "Dante, let's go. Maybe if we leave now we can get a cheaper portal home."

Re: Los Angeles At Large

[rebelseekspizza]

"I can just take her," Dante said mildly. From the doorway.

He hadn't moved just yet.

"Maybe if I hold her upside down for long enough, all the bullshit is gonna pour right out."

Re: Los Angeles At Large

[spin_kick_snap]

Dante's threat forestalled Kathy from just throwing her wallet at Anders and telling him to use what frequent portal miles she'd racked up, so that was...something? Maybe?

Of course, that was only so she could turn to Dante, mouth agape in disbelief. "You wou--" She stopped herself, because the easiest way to ensure that Dante did to something was to tell him he wouldn't. "Don't."

Yeah, that wasn't much better.

RE: Re: Los Angeles At Large

[not_every_mage]

"Give him a reason not to," Anders said, folding his arms. "Kathy, you've known me forever. I'm not the type to just decide I know better than someone and tell her what to do. Usually I hate that. Dante's not exactly a dictator either. So if we're out here doing everything but begging on our knees, could you at least take us seriously?"

Re: Los Angeles At Large

[rebelseekspizza]

"You gonna say 'don't' to the zombies when they get you in a tight spot?" Dante said. His voice went dipping low. It wasn't with threat, exactly. But that thing he didn't know or understand, that'd happened just now-- there were still dregs of demonic energy spooking through his veins, cooling his nerves and stoking the flames of worry turned anger.

He pulled away from the doorway. "'Cause I could. Right here, right now, I pick you right up, throw you over my shoulder, take you to Portalocity, we'll be home by morning. Nothing you and your bouncy superpowers can do about it." His eyes narrowed. "You think you're some kind of badass zombie fighter now? You're rainbows and taglines and leaving the bad guys tied up for the police. You're a fucking Saturday morning cartoon."

Re: Los Angeles At Large

[spin_kick_snap]

Kathy opened her mouth, but no words came out. None. In just six words, Dante had managed to shred so much of her hard-won confidence. Her belief in herself and her abilities. She glanced down, both to hide the tears that sprang up in her eyes and to check and make sure that she hadn't gotten cut somewhere. Yeah, she knew her hurts were purely metaphorical, but in that moment, she almost couldn't be sure.

"I--I--" She pushed past Anders, towards to the door, blurring up to full speed. "I have to go."

Fuck them, they didn't get to see her cry.

RE: Los Angeles At Large

[not_every_mage]

Anders instinctively grabbed for Kathy's blurry form, trying to get her shoulder or elbow or wrist -- anything, really, as long as it would keep her in the room. His words, too, were aimed only at that goal.

"Hey. Hey. He didn't mean it."

Re: Los Angeles At Large

[spin_kick_snap]

"Don't touch me!" she snarled, yanking her arm out of his grasp and fleeing through the door, slamming it shut behind her. That door led directly to the parking lot and beyond; in the open, there was no way either of them could catch her.

At least the pizzas had been paid for?

Re: Los Angeles At Large

[rebelseekspizza]

That could've gone better. Probably. The bottom had kind of dropped out of Dante's ability to care for a moment, here.

He crossed his arms and eyed Anders.

Re: Los Angeles At Large

[not_every_mage]

Anders folded his arms and eyed Dante right back. It was that kind of a moment.

"What?" he asked. "I'm not the one who made her cry."

Re: Los Angeles At Large

[rebelseekspizza]

And now Dante's eyes were rolling. "She'll be back," he said, turning around. He needed to go see if this place had a minibar. "And if not, fuck her."

Re: Los Angeles At Large

[not_every_mage]

"Probably she went to tell the other heroes how awful her friends are," Anders said, which wasn't particularly fair to Kathy. "You're right. Fuck her."

Re: Los Angeles At Large

[rebelseekspizza]

And there it was, a tiny fridge sitting underneath the desk. Dante squatted down by it. Sure, this stuff was probably expensive, but whatever. Kathy could deal. "Y'know, when she said 'superheroes', I didn't think she'd mean 'dickwads'," he said, finding a small bottle of vodka and another, slightly bigger one of whiskey.

He held up the vodka for Anders. "But there we were."

He wasn't feeling like being fair to anyone at all right now. Wasn't sure why, didn't feel like questioning.

Re: Los Angeles At Large

[not_every_mage]

Anders took the vodka and poured a few fingers into one of the stupid plastic glasses, rummaging in the fridge for some juice to top it off.

"I wonder if everyone here with powers is an arse, or just the ones we were lucky enough to meet?" he said. "And Nick. I can't believe she chose that over me."

There were probably better things to worry about, but he ... wasn't.

Re: Los Angeles At Large

[rebelseekspizza]

Dante's investment in that whole thing was lower - and different - from Anders', but he wasn't about to disagree on the Nick issue, either. "He looked like he was like five seconds from telling Kathy she seems mature for her age," he said, eyeballing the tiny bottle of whiskey.

Saying a quick mental 'fuck it' and slamming back some of it. He needed alcohol. Badly.

Re: Los Angeles At Large

[not_every_mage]

Anders took a long gulp of his vodka and orange juice before answering.

"He must have just been holding off until she was legal," he said sourly. "Charming fellow. And that Max was just a creep. Can't imagine him saving anyone from anything."

Re: Re: Los Angeles At Large

[rebelseekspizza]

"No wonder they're happy to enable the shit out of Kathy," Dante said, walking back a few paces and sitting down on the bed. "I'm sad I didn't get to see you slug him."

Re: Los Angeles At Large

[not_every_mage]

"I'm sad we were inside so I couldn't do worse," Anders said firmly. "If anyone ever needed to find out why mages are feared, it's him."

He pursed his lips as he glanced to Dante. "What happened to you, anyhow?"

Re: Los Angeles At Large

[rebelseekspizza]

Dante was five seconds from making some off-handed pun about how he'd bet Anders fireballing Nick would've been hot, just to get the fuck away from that question. But the anger was beginning to eb, and it was leaving traces of exhaustion in its wake.

"I dunno," he said, giving a small shrug he hoped didn't show anything important. "He was digging into me, something just snapped back."

Re: Los Angeles At Large

[not_every_mage]

"Whatever it was, we should send it flowers for making him back off," came Anders' reasoned judgement. His expression went more curious, though he tried to shape it into something neutral. "That's never happened before?"

Re: Los Angeles At Large

[rebelseekspizza]

"Once, maybe?" Dante said. He looked up. "Long time ago."

St. Lamia's was not exactly the cheeriest topic of conversation, so he left it at that, unless Anders decided to press, in favor of taking another swig from his bottle.

RE: Los Angeles At Large

[not_every_mage]

"Was it the same kind of thing?" Anders -- who was not known for leaving well enough alone -- queried. "Getting attacked when you didn't expect it, I mean."

Re: Los Angeles At Large

[rebelseekspizza]

"When I was a kid, I was at this orphanage," Dante said, after a long pause. "Run by nuns. Turned out they were demons. Sometimes they got hungry."

He shrugged again. "Snapped, and the world went white for-- way shorter than this time. That's when I remembered I had the sword, so I took some heads off."

The version of this story currently rattling through his head was a lot more verbose, involving shit like feelings and fears and the endless terror that he might've been hallucinating the whole time or whatever. But he wasn't going to cough that one up out loud. "Worked like a charm," he finished instead.

Re: Los Angeles At Large

[not_every_mage]

"Sweet Andraste," Anders swore, with a good deal of compassion for the child Dante had been behind his words. "I suppose we should be glad you didn't remember the sword this time."

Sure, he'd just been talking about burning Nick to a crisp, but somehow it was different when he said it.

Re: Los Angeles At Large

[rebelseekspizza]

"Oh, now I know I've got it," Dante said. "I'm not a kid anymore. I've got this shit handled."

Was there whiskey left in that little bottle? Hey, look. There was. "Not going to take anyone's head off just for being a dick. Now punching him, that was a good idea."

And a better topic.