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

[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.

Re: Los Angeles At Large

[not_every_mage]

"Probably all he deserved," Anders conceded, and adding more vodka to his cup and skipping the juice this time sounded like a brilliant idea. He sulked over his cup for a minute,then:

"Do you think Kathy really went right back to them?"

Re: Los Angeles At Large

[rebelseekspizza]

"Nah," Dante said. He stretched his legs out, staring at the wall. Yeah. Definitely felt tired, now, in a way he didn't often do. "Don't think she wants them to see her upset."

Re: Los Angeles At Large

[not_every_mage]

"I don't think so either," Anders admitted, and stretched out next to Dante. "She'll come back when she's ready."

Not that the idea of Kathy alone and crying was a happy thought for him, either. But there weren't a lot of happy thoughts on offer in the situation.

Re: Los Angeles At Large

[rebelseekspizza]

Dante hadn't meant to be as vicious as he'd been, though the general idea behind it - Kathy didn't know her limits and she was gonna run up against them - was something he firmly believed. He was going to have to deal with that when she got back, but he wasn't sure he could find a reason to apologize.

"Probably. I mean," he said, shooting something that at least attempted to be an amused look at Anders, "There's gonna be pizza any minute."

Re: Los Angeles At Large

[not_every_mage]

"And if anything gets her to come round, it'll be food," Anders said, with a tiny, crooked smile. "We should eat, anyhow."

He thought what Dante had said was harsh but -- given Kathy's refusal to listen at all -- understandable. He hoped she'd feel the same once she had calmed down.

Re: Re: Los Angeles At Large

[rebelseekspizza]

"Why can't I make pizza show up with the power of my brain?" Dante asked, flopping back so he was side-by-side with Anders. "I get all these powers, and nothing as useful as that."

Re: Los Angeles At Large

[not_every_mage]

"For the same reason I can't wave my staff and make pizza happen," Anders told him. "Nobody asked us what kind of powers we wanted. We should file a complaint."

Re: Re: Los Angeles At Large

[rebelseekspizza]

"Now that is a real sack of shit," Dante said, making big, none-too-serious eyes at Anders. "You guys have a ton of books on magic back home, right? No one ever even tried to figure this one out? That has got to be rigged."

Re: Los Angeles At Large

[not_every_mage]

Anders shook his head, making equally woeful eyes back.

"Five hundred volumes on what the Divine Whoever told the Aequitarians in Blessed whatever, and nothing on making food appear," he said. "Honestly, I'm not sure what the point is of being a mage at all when it's such a let-down."

Re: Los Angeles At Large

[rebelseekspizza]

"Yeah, you should not be going back to that," Dante decided, dropping his head back onto the bed. "You could be gifting a way more grateful world with instant pizza."

Heh. Grateful.