fandomtownies | Kwik Stop Rooftop, Thursday Afternoon

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$kwik stop,
dante

Kwik Stop Rooftop, Thursday Afternoon

"Mew."

"Yeah, yeah, I know, I've been gone again," Dante said.

He shoved a plastic container full of hotdogs towards the cat. "I brought tribute, okay? Now cut me a break." The cat approached him cautiously, sniffing at the plastic first, snagging a hotdog and then dropping it-- but it finally dug in.

Dante sighed. "Good," he said. "You eat. Maybe you'll become a big p-- kitty and rule the roost for a few more years."

He swung his feet over the edge of the roof and watched the cat eat for a while. It was soothing.

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Was she hearing voices? Ada looked up as she passed the Kwik Stop, to see a pair of familiar shoes dangling over the edge of the roof.

"What're you doin' up there?" she asked, craning her neck upwards to try and see what Dante was up to. "Talkin' to clouds?"

"Talkin' to the cat," Dante called back, leaning over to look at her. "He's shy, sorry."

"Aw, hi, Cat," she said, waving up. "Too shy for me to come up?"

"Eh, he'll stick around if he wants the rest of his dogs," Dante said, shrugging. "And otherwise, it's his loss. Come on up."

Ada grinned and climbed up on to the ice machine, and from there pulled herself up on to the roof. "Nice view," she said, walking over to sit down next to him. "Cute company, too. H'llo, Cat. I woulda brought you somethin' if'n I'd known I was gonna meet you."

"He's here most days," Dante said. The cat was sticking to a slight distance, but not as much as per usual - the hotdogs had been too tempting. "Always likes to claw his way to a few bite sof food."

Ada snickered, but refrained from comparing the cat to Dante out-loud. Barely.

"Yeah, well, a mighty hunter's gotta pounce when he can," she said, watching the cat with a grin. "I like that about cats; they ain't never make no bones about what they want, an' they just do as they please."

"And they're low maintenance if you don't do something stupid like locking 'em in your dorm room," Dante said, slandering his roommate by proxy. He tilted his head, watching her. "Hey. How're you feeling?"

"Ain't got no alien scales left, if'n that's what you're asking," she answered, pulling up the left side of her blouse just slightly so he could see where once there'd been a wound was now nothing but smooth skin, though if Dante looked very closely, he'd see what looked like a few tiny flecks of glitter dusted over the area.

Her body did not like being stabbed like that, and so it had begun the long process of armoring over that soft, vulnerable spot. They were still incredibly tiny and soft, and it would take a few years -- hopefully -- for them to grow in and be even as large as the ones along her collarbone, but they were there and not going away.

He noticed a hint of something shiny in the area, but didn't look much closer. Instead he nodded, pulling his gaze away as soon as he was sure it had healed. "Okay," Dante said. He sucked in a breath. "That's good."

He'd known it had to be, of course. Anders had been fine by Monday. But there was a part of him that was still on high alert.

Ada knew he worried, even if he didn't say that sort of thing. She let her blouse drop the moment he looked away. "Had wicked cramps for a day," she said bluntly, "But I feel fine now."

"D'ya hear we were in space?" Ada looked up at the sky. "Kinda sad I was so out of it I missed that. It had to be amazing to see."

"Well, we're in candyworld or whatever now," Dante said, squinting at the marshmallow mountains in the distance. "That's something, too."

"Think it's edible at all, or just look like candy?" she mused. "Either way, I wanna try to climb some of th' trees."

"Only one way to find out," Dante said. "Wander off the causeway, climb into a tree, try to eat the leaves?"

He didn't sound quite as light as he usually did, but he was trying.

Ada wasn't as light as usual either, mostly because she'd been tense all the way into town, and had been getting more anxious the closer she got to the park. But taking a break up on the roof with Dante was...helping. Actually.

Nothing was going to happen, she knew that, but fight-or-flight was still on alert of after the weekend she'd had.

"Lounge on the branches an' pretend to be a sloth?" Ada'd looked up what a sloth actually was after the store had gotten in those strange animal pajama costumes. Being a candy sloth didn't seem like a half-bad idea. "Sloth-Dante, givin' no fucks an' eatin' all the candy."

Dante leaned back, studying the sky as he thought about it.

"Would there be other human sloths?" he said, "Hot ones? 'Cause I could move. If I'm motivated."

"I'd go, an' bet we could bribe 'Bela to join us," Ada pointed out. "Or anyone else up for an adventure... might as well go inna group an' make a party of it."

"You, me, Isabela, Ez--"

Dante trailed off. "No, Ezra's gone," he said, "Don't think Anders would be in the mood."

And Kathy was--

Well, this got depressing real fast.

Ada blinked. "I knew I hadn't seen Ezra around much," because, well, he was her neighbor, but it wasn't like she kept track of his comings or goings, "--but I didn't know he'd left."

There was a short silence. "Not for good, I think," Dante said. "But radio said he got up and left after Kathy-- I don't know. Maybe he'll be back."

You never knew with Ezra.

"Mmm." Ada stretched her arms over her head and then fell backwards in slow motion to lay out on the roof, soaking up the sunshine. "He got a sweet tooth? Text him a picture of Candyworld out there, so he knows what he's missin' out on."

Don't think she didn't notice how you cut off after Kathy's name, Dante.

"Guess we could head out there and hit it with a few Instagram filters," Dante mused, turning his head towards the Causeway.

Had he cut off anywhere?

"After work-- wait, you got an Instagram?" Ada asked, bemused. "Now I gotta find an' follow you."

Dante shrugged. "I got bored last week," he said.

Bored was the wrong word for it, but eh.

"Bored happens a lot around here," Ada said sympathetically, pulling out her phone and turning on Instagram to try and find Dante. "It's like the two default settings for this place are 'hide under your bed because everything wants to kill you' or 'go nap because there's nothing else to do.'"

That was why she'd gotten a job -- besides the cash -- and started fixing up the tiny bike in the junkyard. Ada hated being bored or having too much time up in her own head.

"That's why we have the big city," Dante said, shrugging. "Wonder if there's anything like that in--"

He waved at the landscape ahead of them. Then he looked at Ada, spitting out his username real quick.

Surprise, surprise, it was going to be mostly pictures of food and hot people.

"Candy monsters or fun?" she asked, typing in his username. Then she started snickering as she scrolled through his feed.

"Dammit, now I'm hungry. This all looks delicious."

Yes, all of it.

Dante grinned at her. "Hey, if you want to grab take-out and go, it's not like I have anything better to do." Distractions were good.

"I can always go to work later..." Ada mused, looking up from her phone. "What are you in the mood for?"

He wanted to say pizza, but... he pulled a face. "Uh, what've we got on this island that isn't pizza or Thai?" Dante asked.

"Burrito Loco?" Ada suggested, scrunching up her nose as she thought. "Everything else is super-fancy, I think."

"Right, so ta-- burritos," Dante said. He tilted his head at Ada. "That work for you? They probably do veggie."

"They totally do veggie ones," she said, nodding. "Tofu, too, so I can pretend I'm still eating meat."

"Aw," Dante said, grinning at about half of his usual wattage. "You'd pretend to eat meat for me? You're making me all warm and tingly."

"I can think of lots a ways to make you warm an' tingly, an' enjoyin' your meat is one of 'em," Ada deadpanned.

Come on, Dante, you walked right into that one.

And it was awesome. There was no way you were going to convince Dante that getting that response wasn't great.

As one could tell by the fact the grin went up at least another 25% in wattage. "Hey, we can split time between that and the take out," he said. "I'm easy."

"Take-out and take-out before work," Ada snickered. "Hell, you can nap off your appetite in the back if'n you want, Sparkle won't mind."

"Sparkle's good people," Dante agreed, kicking his feet against the roof.

He should probably tell Ada about Kathy. But the distraction was too good to pass up; it would do him better to get out of his own head.

Ada wasn't dumb; radio had said Dante'd gotten a message from Kathy, and now Dante was sad. This didn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that whatever it was, it wasn't great news. But he'd say something whenever he was finally ready to talk about it, or he wouldn't.

"Come on then, handsome," she teased, standing up and dusting off her butt before offering him a hand. "Let's go get us somethin' to eat."

Dirty and Not Dirty.

Dante took her hand, but mostly for form's sake; he was up and upright within moments, a graceful slide that involved no butt-dusting at all. "And this," he said, "Is why you're my favorite."

At the present moment, anyway.

"Bet you say that to everyone who you burrito with," she laughed, shaking her head as his ridiculous grace.

"Bye, Cat. Nice to meet you."

"Cat thinks you're cool," Dante said sagely. "He hasn't run off yet. That's how you tell."

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Kwik Stop Rooftop, Thursday Afternoon

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