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]

"You heard the girl," Dante said solemnly, looking up at Eric. "Two of those, stat."

The guy laughed as he went to get two cones and started scooping.

[spin_kick_snap]

"I hope you like it," Katherine said, looking nervously up at Dante. "Those are the very best flavors, I think."

[rebelseekspizza]

Dante grinned down at her. "You did exhaustive research," he said. "If I don't like it, it's my tongue that's stupid."

He took the first cone from Eric and passed it to her.

[spin_kick_snap]

"I hope you don't have a stupid tongue," Katherine said, giving the three ice creams one long lick. "It sorta tastes like a cake!"

[rebelseekspizza]

Dante laughed, took his own, and emulated her, getting all three ice cream flavors in his mouth at once.

"Fuck, it does," he marvelled. "I guess your research worked!"

He put a few bills down on the counter. A little extra for tipping. "Thanks, man."

[spin_kick_snap]

"Glad to see your tongue isn't stupid," Eric said with a chuckle, ringing them out and pocketing the tip with an appreciative nod. "Might put a crimp on your home life."

Katherine reached for Mr. Babysitter's hand, adjusting her guitar strap a little to keep from getting ice cream on it. "What next?"

[rebelseekspizza]

Dante tossed Eric a wink for that comment, because he was still him and being in a relationship was not gonna stop him from being him ever.

"Wanna go for a walk to the park?" he asked, turning around to head for the exit. "We can eat our ice cream and you can play."

[spin_kick_snap]

"It won't be too cold?" Katherine asked, glad she'd bundled up extra warm today. "It snowed yesterday. I never got to see snow before."

[rebelseekspizza]

"Not for a little while," Dante promised her. "And we won't be far from home if you start feeling chilly."

[spin_kick_snap]

"Okay," Katherine said with another fast swipe of her tongue over her cone to keep it from staining her mittens. "It'll keep our cones from getting too melty, too!"

[rebelseekspizza]

"Exactly, fast thinking," Dante said, as they walked further down the street.

He was making short work of his own ice cream. Look, he was a fast eater.

It was cold in Limbo City, but there wasn't a hint of snow yet. Temperatures would have to drop below freezing, first.

[spin_kick_snap]

Being in the city made that much less likely, too. But someone else mentioned the snow in a post on the island so I rolled with it.

Katherine was savoring hers with the relish of someone who didn't often get this kind of treat and wasn't sure when she would again. "So why do you like baby-sitting?" she asked as they strolled along.

[rebelseekspizza]

"'Cause I think kids are cool," Dante said easily. "And you give me a good excuse to get tons of ice cream without having to explain myself to anybody."

[spin_kick_snap]

"Oooh, maybe I should become a baby-sitter when I get old enough," Katherine mused. "Except I think kids are scary. But maybe that will change when I'm bigger than them."

[rebelseekspizza]

"Trust me, life gets a lot easier when you get bigger than the mean kids," Dante said, laughing softly. "And smarter. A lot of the mean kids? Not super smart."

[spin_kick_snap]

"Do they ever get nicer?" Katherine asked, a little plaintively.

It wasn't even that she got particularly bullied. She was too quiet for that, with a habit of fading into the background and being overlooked. But it was sad and scary to see other people getting bullied.

She wished she were braver, so she could put a stop to it.

[rebelseekspizza]

"No," Dante said, after a moment. "But the nice people? They'll come to you, because you're nice, and they'll help you."

[spin_kick_snap]

"Why not?" Katherine asked. Mr. Baby-sitter was clearly a man of the world, he would know things. "Why can't they just be nice? It's not hard."

[rebelseekspizza]

"'Cause some of them have had a hard time and it's safer to be mean," Dante mused. "And because some of them just don't know how to be anything else."

[spin_kick_snap]

"How can it be safer to be mean?" Katherine asked, her face scrunched up in confusion. "Being mean gets you in trouble, sometimes, if there's a grownup around that cares."

Only sometimes, though.

[rebelseekspizza]

"Protects you from other people being mean to you," Dante said, shrugging. "Scares them off."

[spin_kick_snap]

"I guess so," Katherine said, looking unconvinced. "But if nobody was mean, then you wouldn't have to worry about that."

[rebelseekspizza]

Dante shrugged. "Not mean can be very, very hard for a lot of people," he said, "And not all of them are gonna be worth your time."

[spin_kick_snap]

"I bet nobody's mean to you," Katherine said wistfully. "Cause you're cool."

[rebelseekspizza]

"Plenty of people are mean to me," Dante said easily, like it was nothing.