The Apartment Above Luke's, Saturday

[spin_kick_snap]

After a big day outside - playgrounds! puppies! snow! - Katherine had come back to the place where she'd woken up and had promptly fallen asleep, all tuckered out by her adventures. Now she was awake again and hungry. The only cereal in the house was a sugar cereal, which she wasn't supposed to have and she wasn't allowed to use the stove without adult supervision.

But there didn't seem to be an adult in the whole house! Just her. That was funny. Who had a house with nobody in it?

She took a shower in the pretty bathroom and got dressed, figuring maybe she could find somewhere to eat. And another funny thing - she found a twenty dollar bill tucked away in the exact place she hid money back home: hidden in a pencil box in the top drawer of the desk. She painstakingly wrote out an IOU and put it there, and then sat down to plan her day.

First, breakfast. Then...puppies again, maybe?

[Open! Dante's thread chronologically last]

Comments

[rebelseekspizza]

"Sure," Dante said again, though he privately wondered who the fuck had gotten on her case about that.

[spin_kick_snap]

Oh, that was pure Papa Li at his finest, complaining about how kids these days were too cossetted, too spoiled, too prone to being told they were perfect when all anybody meant was that they were little. He wasn't like that. He prided himself on being a man who said the hard truths, even to his tiny daughters.

"Okay," Katherine said, "where's your - what's that?" She pointed at the portal.

[rebelseekspizza]

"That's the portal back to my house," Dante said, like it was the most normal thing in the world. "Don't worry, it's gonna bring you back when the weekend's over."

[spin_kick_snap]

Katherine's dubious face was both epic and getting a workout.

"Remember, you pinky promised," she said, looking up at him as she took his hand.

[rebelseekspizza]

"I did, and I'm sticking with that," Dante promised her. "I'm not stealing you and I'm not gonna get you hurt. We're just gonna go for ice cream, and you're gonna sleep somewhere warm tonight, so your folks can be off doing their thing without worrying."

He smiled at her, her tiny hand in his, and stepped through the portal.

[spin_kick_snap]

"Is Sarah there, too?" she asked, and then looked around wide-eyed as they were suddenly somewhere else.

[rebelseekspizza]

"Nah, Sarah's too tiny to leave at home," Dante improvised, looking up at the fancy Italian arches of Limbo City. Home was just down the street; he pointed at it. "That's my house."

[spin_kick_snap]

"That's not a house," Katherine argued. "It's like...a, a, fire station or something. It's too big to be a house for just two people!"

Her standards were much more cramped.

[rebelseekspizza]

"Maybe in Los Angeles, but not out here," Dante said, laughing a little. "You wanna go stare at it first, or grab some ice cream?"

[spin_kick_snap]

"Ice cream!" Katherine said with an excited little bounce.

She stopped a moment or two later when she realized she was already being rowdy, though.

"I mean, ice cream please," she corrected. "If it's not too much of a bother."

[rebelseekspizza]

"Dude," Dante said, looking scandalized. "Ice cream! You can look alive!"

[spin_kick_snap]

"But I don't wanna get too excited in case you change your mind," Katherine explained. "Nobody likes a rowdy rumpus. Or a whinebox."

[rebelseekspizza]

"I do," Dante said, without a moment's hesitation. "I'm not gonna change my mind about getting you ice cream, c'mon, I'm not that mean."

[spin_kick_snap]

"Sometimes things happen and you gotta be flexible," Katherine explained, neck craning around as she trotted after him. "That's part of being a big girl."

[rebelseekspizza]

"You know there's a big difference between 'things happening' and someone randomly choosing not to give you what they promised, right?" Dante checked. "Because that last one, we call people being ass... es."

[spin_kick_snap]

Katherine couldn't help but grin up at him. "I know what word you were gonna use," she said. "It's okay, I won't tell."

And then she winked.

[rebelseekspizza]

"I appreciate it," Dante told her, eyes bright. "C'mon, let's take a left here, the ice cream place isn't far."

He gestured towards a path that led them underneath an arch, back into the next street.

[spin_kick_snap]

"It's so pretty here," Katherine said, looking around at all the buildings. "It doesn't look anything like LA. Those buildings're more boxy."

[rebelseekspizza]

"This place is more, like, Italian style, I guess?" Dante offered her. "They always liked to make things fancy."

[spin_kick_snap]

"They do?" Katherine asked, looking up at him with wide, interested eyes. "I don't know any."

Beat.

"You're not Italian, are you."

[rebelseekspizza]

"I've got an Italian name?" Dante offered, as they took that turn and kept walking.

[spin_kick_snap]

"But you are not very fancy," Katherine informed him.

[rebelseekspizza]

"Are you sassing me, kid?" Dante said, squinting at her.

[spin_kick_snap]

"Noooo?" Katherine said, shaking her head. "...But there is a reason I thought you might be a kidnapper." Her glance feel to his fingerless gloves. "My mommy and daddy didn't see you before they hired you, did they."

[rebelseekspizza]

"Yeah, I'm from an agency," Dante lied easily. "They look a lot fancier on the outside."