fandomtownies | Il Pollo, Saturday Evening

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Il Pollo, Saturday Evening

There were worse ways to spend an evening where most of the rest of the island was sulking over people moving on, Warren decided, than by going out for dinner with a pretty girl.

The walk to the restaurant had been blissfully uneventful. No random wild animal attacks, no creepy gremlins trying to eat them. Just... a walk. To a restaurant. Heck, there was even a table free for them when they got there, which Warren was going to think of as a positive sign.

Sometimes, Warren was far too quick to jump to optimistic conclusions.

[Warren is here for the dinner date, but the restaurant is open to anyone who wants some Italian food!]

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You'd think Kate and her famous pessimism would have been a little less eager to believe everything was finally going to go fine.

But you'd be wrong.

... Look, it was the evening that made it official that a whole bunch of her friends were going to be leaving. She had to believe that the island wouldn't screw with her today of all days.

"So far so good," she remarked to Warren as they were being led to their table.

"Knock on wood," he laughed, shooting her a wry smile. "And don't order the coffee, whatever you do, right?"

... They had a very bad track record with coffee, was the thing.

A very, very bad track record.

"Do I look like I've suffered a head injury, lately?" she retorted, amused. "No coffee, I promise."

"Excellent." See, they were capable of learning from past experience! Slowly. "We can get by on soft drinks, I guess. Or wine, if they'll serve it to us and either of us is so inclined."

Warren could appreciate a decent wine. Warren was also filthy stinkin' rich. So.

"As long as you don't try get me drunk." Because that would involve so much trying. Really. "Wine would be nice."

And hey, here was their table! Which would be convenient for the wine. Not to mention the food.

"Wine it is, then," Warren replied. And then he stepped around to pull Kate's chair out for her, because he could totally pretend to be some sort of gentleman, here. "And for the rest, we'll see what's on the menu, hm?"

But no coffee. And it was probably a good idea to avoid having tiramisu for dessert, too.

She smirked at his manners, taking her seat.

"That's how it usually goes, yes. I came here once, and I'm... pretty sure I liked what I had. We'll have to see if I remember what it was."

"Pasta?" Warren could hazard a guess, yes. He pushed her seat in for her, and then walked around the table and sat down, too.

... Well, more or less sat down. He turned his chair sideways, thankful that there weren't armrests. He wasn't made for seats with backs to them.

"At least the place smells like they've got good food, that's usually a good sign."

"Yeah, a restaurant that doesn't smell like food wouldn't exactly be promising," Kate chuckled. "... I never told you I used to work at a restaurant, did I? If you could even call it that. Thank you."

The last two words, and a smile, were directed at the waiter, handing them their menus. The young man seemed a little... nervous, maybe? But Kate paid no attention to that.

Eh, he was probably a trainee or something. Warren figured that if he tipped the guy enough, then he would relax some the next time they came around.

... He also had that nagging itch in the back of his head that hoped and prayed this wasn't an 'omgmutant' sort of nervousness. He brushed that aside quickly enough as he reached for his menu.

"I don't think you did mention a restaurant, no. What kind?"

"Just this... horrible like, family restaurant," Kate replied, flipping her menu open. "Seafood. Part of this big chain, called Barnabeez? I don't know if they even have those where you're from."

Multiple worlds. A constant source of headaches.

"I sincerely hope they don't."

"I've never heard of it before," Warren replied, hopefully reassuringly as he glanced at whatever the special was, today. Something or other with pesto in it. Eh. "But that doesn't necessarily mean much, coming from me, either."

... He had led a sheltered life.

"It's pretty big where I'm from. Not McDonald's big, but anyway," Kate said, shrugging a shoulder. Some of the filled pastas seemed promising. "It was a crappy job."

As jobs where your boss got a creepy crush on you tended to be.

"Well, then it's a good thing you're out," Warren decided, ever-so-diplomatically. "Here can't be all that bad in comparison, right?"

"No, I think here beats there pretty spectacularly," she agreed, glancing up at him and smirking a tad. "For so many reasons."

"Care to name a f--"

Warren didn't get to finish that sentence, because here came the waiter, asking if he could take their order. Yes. While Warren was speaking.

Well, there went a percentage off of his tip.

Kate raised an eyebrow at the waiter. Rude, dude.

... And let's all just ignore how likely Kate used to be to interrupt people just like that when she worked in the food service industry.

She made her order, anyway. Fettuccine Alfredo. Possibly what she'd had the last time. Possibly not.

Warren shook his head and placed his order, too. Penne pomodoro, with a bottle of the house wine. Maybe they'd get through it, maybe they wouldn't and he would end up saving the whole thing for a special occasion.

And, once the waiter had been shooed away again, Warren gave Kate a sideways sort of look.

"I have no idea what I was about to say, now."

Just putting that out there.

Kate rolled her eyes, shook her head slightly.

"Me neither. But we're not gonna let that bother us." She said so, so it must be true. "Are you looking forward to your first summer in Fandom?"

"Considering it was summer when I left home and I found myself here in the middle of winter, it'll be nice to get back to the norm," Warren decided with a nod. "The new students show up next weekend, don't they? I'm still trying to figure out what to wear to greet them."

Translation: Heavy coat? Or the one with the holes in the back for his wings to stick through?

"They're all going to freak out over something anyway," Kate pointed out. "Might as well be someone pretty."

To her, it really was that simple.

Warren really, really liked Kate Logic.

A lot.

"Just like that, huh?" He smiled faintly. "I guess when you put it that way, it makes sense to just break them in early, instead of letting them think that this place is somehow normal right up until the island turns them into toddlers or something."

"Yeah, I don't really believe in easing them into it," Kate replied with a light, amused smirk.

"No one told me about any of the transformations. No one told Bobby, either. And then, two days later, I turned into a fucking cat. If I can save anyone from that kind of a shock, I'm happy."

"So, really, it would practically be heroic of me to--"

Oh, look. It was their friend the waiter again, coming 'round with a plate of ravioli. Their friend the waiter, who apparently had a combination of horrible balance and magnificent aim.

"--Holy SHIT that is hot!"

Warren and his lap were not amused.

"What the fuck?"

Why yes, that was Kate looking like she was about to get up from her chair and smack their friend the waiter.

"Jesus, Warren, you okay?"

"I'll be fine," Warren replied, through somewhat grit teeth. Rapid healing powers, activate! "It could have been far worse, right?"

Warren was now seriously trying very hard not to speculate just how things could be worse, at this point, considering the scalding hot entree that he was attempting to remove from his person using the single napkin that was in front of him on the table, and his bare hands.

Their friend the waiter was just lucky that Warren hadn't flared his wings in shock.

Kate was frowning hard, and peering over the table at him.

"That's not even anything we ordered!"

Because that was clearly the most important thing here.

She did snap at their friend the waiter (who was by now definitely looking nervous), though. "Can't you like go get... more napkins or something?"

Their friend the waiter stammered something that could very well have been an apology under his breath before running off to grab some more napkins. From the tables of other patrons, as the place seemed to be full, and apparently he did not have the presence of mind to just go to the kitchen for more.

Warren wanted very badly to smack himself in the face, but that would have turned into a marinara sauce disaster.

"There goes his tip," he decided, quite firmly.

"Yes," Kate agreed, glaring at said now-tipless man. "Jesus Christ. Can't anything ever just go right?"

And wait, was that another waiter heading slowly towards them from across the room?

Why yes, yes it was.

Funny how someone wearing such a knowing smile could seem to be so utterly clueless about how the people whose table he was heading towards were either covered in food, or silently fuming in the general direction of another member of the waitstaff.

Well, it was a good thing that waiter number two was wearing a knowing smile, because Warren was at that point now where he had no freaking clue was was going on, anymore.

He did know well enough that when a man was carrying a platter with champagne glasses on it, after he'd ordered a bottle of wine, that someone had managed to screw up the order somewhere.

He was also too busy working on not throwing ravioli at people to comment, at this point.

"Someday, eventually, the island will surprise us and not try to kill us when we're in the same room together."

The champagne was set on the table. Waiter number two cleared his throat and held his hand out for a tip.

He received a piece of pasta.

And waiter number two was absolutely thrilled with that. Of course.

Kate was pretty damn thrilled with the way things were going, too.

"Or it will surprise us by skipping the trying and just striking us dead straight away."

Thrilled. Delighted. Really. And she was just going to grab one of the glasses of champagne because they were there and she thought she deserved it.

She didn't notice anything funny about it, mostly because she didn't actually look at it before her grip on it was already obscuring anything particularly interesting there might be about it. Or in it.

And Warren didn't notice anything funny about it, because he was busy making mental notes about possibly writing angry letters to the Better Business Bureau, while trying to get really, really nasty pasta sauce out of his lap.

"You mean without setting giant snakes and razor-toothed gremlins on us, first? I don't think it would take any joy out of skipping the humiliating parts, Kate."

"Oh, right. Yeah, you're right. That would actually be the island showing us some fucking mercy."

Kate had other things to say too, but she was only going to say them after a good gulp of champagne.

Of course, the next thing she said ended up being a strangely mumbled "What the fuck?" And then something other than words came out of her mouth.

Yeah. That was a ring she just spat out into her hand. Kinda really looked like an engagement ring, actually. "Um."

And this was Kate giving Warren a look of oh for the love of God please tell me you didn't do this Jesus Christ this is worse than Gene.

... It was a very complicated look.

Really, it was weird how the complicated looks were so very straightforward, wasn't it?

"Um?" Warren looked up from the task at hand to catch that look, and he raised an eyebrow, confused. "What um?"

Look, he'd been a little occupied, trying to save possible future generations of Worthingtons from death by ravioli.

"Um."

... So, she was just going to show the ring to him, since her words were currently failing her.

Warren was now giving the ring very much the same look that Kate had been giving him a moment before. Only without the 'worse than Gene' nuance to it, as he didn't know anyone by the name of Gene.

"Um."

It was a very complicated look, wasn't it?

Kate took a moment to figure this out. If he was looking at her in the exact same way as she was sure she was looking at him, then--

"Okay so neither of us did this, right?"

She couldn't help still sounding a bit pleading.

"I hope to God not," Warren replied.

At about the time a very angry man on the other side of the restaurant started yelling about ordering champagne and getting the house wine.

"I'll say that's a no, actually."

"Oh thank fuck."

She let the ring drop back into the half-empty glass. Maybe it didn't make much sense to do that, but she didn't care. Too busy rubbing her forehead with her hand.

"This place is insane."

Warren was looking up again, paranoid that any minute now, another waiter would come their way.

"It isn't too late to run out of here and stand in line at Mooby's instead," he noted.

There was very little romance to be had in a greasy cheeseburger. That was probably for the best.

"Easier to make run for it if shit starts happening, at least," Kate decided. "Yeah. Let's do that."

It was entirely possible they should just forget about romance altogether.

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Il Pollo, Saturday Evening

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