The Rooftops of Town, Wednesday All Day

[faithseesred]

Faith had her mail route today, and today she was taking her first shot at using the rooftops to do it. She figured the trick was to take the day's supply of mail in small chunks, so she set out for the day with her mail bag only about a quarter full. She'd come back for the rest later, but she didn't want to be too weighed down when she started her run.

Then she strapped her bag to her back and set off on her route, hurtling from rooftop to rooftop and grinning to herself when her runner vision helped her pinpoint a ladder or a handy bit of scaffolding she could use to make her journey quicker.

Before long, the extra weight on her back stopped bothering her at all, and she barely remembered she was carrying it until she reached someplace where she had to stop and get down to street level to make a delivery.

The business owners for whom she'd drop off deliveries today would find Faith considerably more upbeat and winded than she had been the past two Wednesdays. She was happy about that.

[[open!]]

Comments

[rebelseekspizza]

Dante had not gotten up on the Kwik Stop roof to say hi to Faith. Dante had gotten up there to say hi to the cat. He didn't exactly expect anyone to come by at roughly the same altitude.

He heard a noise nearby, and out of habit, he looked up-- and nearly had a fucking heart attack.

"Kat--?!"

No, wait.

[faithseesred]

Startled by the noise, Faith skidded to a stop. Well, it was more graceful than a skid, really. She stopped, and whirled around to look at Dante, panting to catch her breath.

"What'd you say?"

[rebelseekspizza]

"Nothing," Dante said, blinking rapidly. "What the fuck are you doing up here?"

He hadn't meant for that to come out as harsh as it did, but he couldn't help it. For a second there she'd been the spitting image of Kathy fucking Li.

[faithseesred]

"Is this like the tree thing again? Ha ha." Needless to say, Faith wasn't picking up on his anxiety. "I'm working. Delivering mail?" She patted the mail bag strapped to her back. "Using the rooftops is faster. What are you doing here?"

[rebelseekspizza]

"No, I'm hanging out with the cat. You're gonna scare the shit out of it," Dante said. He glanced along the roof, and-- no cat. "Already did."

Yeah. Sure. That was it.

[faithseesred]

"Well... sorry." She hadn't noticed the cat and she did feel a little bad for scaring it, but she just shrugged. "I'm up here a lot. I'm surprised the cat's not used to me by now."

She was still full of energy from the run - tapping her foot, swinging her arms.

"It'll come back."

[rebelseekspizza]

"Maybe," Dante said. "Not all cats do."

Sometimes, cryptic puns were just all you had. Especially when you were coming down off a shock like this.

"You weren't kidding about liking the high road."

[faithseesred]

She shrugged. "I like how much I can see from up here. Life is short, might as well have a good view, you know?"

Even shorter when you spent a good chunk of said life jumping from rooftop to rooftop, but - yeah.

[rebelseekspizza]

"I know," Dante said. He eyed the town. "Though usually this isn't the kind of view I'm thinking about."

[faithseesred]

"What kind of view's that?" she asked, shrugging off her bag and dumping it on the floor.

[rebelseekspizza]

"The kind of view that ends in people taking their pants off," Dante said.

He'd have found a more punny way to say it, but, well.

[faithseesred]

...If she'd had to guess, she would have guessed 'a big city.' So that was different.

"Wow," she said, actually momentarily taken aback by the brazenness. Vaguely amused, though. "And that's a view you get a lot?"

[rebelseekspizza]

Was she really surprised, though? Really?

... It was better than a few other fixations of his Dante could be focusing on. About which he was equally brazen, really.

"Can't complain," he agreed easily. "But I guess Fandom's nice too."

[faithseesred]

He was cool and all, but she just hadn't thought of him that way.

Faith shrugged. "My old city was just a lot of tall white buildings with big windows. 'S nice to get a change." She fumbled for something quippy to say in response to the other thing and settled for, "Glad to hear you get plenty to look at, I guess."

That was awkward.

[rebelseekspizza]

Dante snickered softly. "I have nothing to complain about right now," he agreed, because he was horrible.

[faithseesred]

"Except the lack of a cat on this roof." He had seemed pretty grumpy about it a few minutes ago, anyway. "I didn't really take you for someone who climbs up buildings to hang with small animals, you know."

[rebelseekspizza]

"Not small animals," Dante said, rolling his eyes. "Just a cat. He's an asshole. I like him."

[faithseesred]

Faith snorted. "That sounds more right," she said. "Cats are cool. There was this stray cat I would see back home who lived underground, in the train tunnels. He always acted like he hated me even when I gave him food." You had to respect that level of commitment to asshole behavior. "I like birds better, though."

It was cliche, but it couldn't be helped.

[rebelseekspizza]

"Why birds?" Dante asked, frowning at her. "They're just birds."

Making your mun cry, man.

[faithseesred]

"I don't know, they're just really self-sufficient and go wherever they want," she said with a shrug. "And they give even less of a shit about humans than cats do."

[rebelseekspizza]

"I guess," Dante said. He shrugged back. "They just don't really do anything, you know?"

This was the most thought he'd given to birds in always.

[faithseesred]

"Nah, man, what about carrier pigeons?" she countered. "Cats can't do that."

She knew a guy back home who raised them. But there was a side mission where three of them got killed.

[rebelseekspizza]

"Has anybody even used a carrier pigeon in the last hundred years?" Dante said.

Check your not-quite-post-apocalyptic privilege, dude.

[faithseesred]

"Would you know a carrier pigeon if you saw one?" she pointed out reasonably. "People use them. But having other people not know they're carrier pigeons is kinda the point."

[rebelseekspizza]

"I live in 2016," Dante said. "Pretty sure no carrier pigeons. Not when we have email. Even ISIS uses fucking Signal or whatever."

[faithseesred]

Faith shrugged. The differences between her world and everyone else's here weirded her out more than she wanted to let on. And she had no idea what ISIS was.

"Data security is a big thing where I'm from," she explained. "The Conglomerate reads everyone's emails, so the employs get creative when they need to send something they don't want other people to read. You guys don't worry about that here?"

[rebelseekspizza]

"Like I care if the NSA reads my sexts," Dante said.

You probably should care, dude. The demons ran NSA.

[faithseesred]

"Yeah, but isn't it skeevy, them knowing where you are all the time?" She scowled. "I dunno, I like my privacy."

[rebelseekspizza]

"Like they're gonna bother looking," Dante said. "The kinda shit I send around."

... point.

[faithseesred]

Faith snorted. "I guess they probably can't look at everything," she agreed. "Some random high schooler's probably low on the priority list."

Hey now. Dante was plenty special.

[rebelseekspizza]

Especially according to the demon authorities.

"I'm pretty much a ghost that way," Dante said easily. "Why would you be worried about that?"

[faithseesred]

Faith thought about being vague, but she figured no one really cared here. Besides, she wasn't that good a liar. "Everyone's so private with their data, there's a market for Runners to carry messages and packages and stuff," she explained. "That's me."

So that was the deal with the rooftop thing.

[rebelseekspizza]

"Right, so you get paid not to be visible," Dante said, tilting his head. "Okay, fine. That makes sense."

[faithseesred]

"Basically." Her other reason for staying off the grid was more complicated and a lot more private, so she was going to leave it at that. "People have all these conspiracies about the Conglomerate using people's data to control their emotions, but that's... I mean, if they're going to hire me because they think that's true, whatever, you know?"

[rebelseekspizza]

"It's a paycheck," Dante said.

At least she didn't sound anything like Kathy at all when she talked, which had put him back at... some level of ease. "No one's gonna cry about you taking money from rich paranoid people."

[faithseesred]

Faith laughed. "I know, right? I don't need to, like, feel bad for them." She was so chaotic neutral. It was a thing. "So, you know, I moved here and no one hires Runners, so now I'm working for the post office. Same thing, right?" She grinned as she patted her mail bag.

[rebelseekspizza]

Dante leaned over to give a theatrical glance at the bag. "Bet the pay's less nice," he said. "And neither snow nor rain blah blah... something."

It was impressive he remembered that much.

[faithseesred]

"Well, yeah." It turned out that desperate and paranoid rich people paid pretty well and a one-day-a-week student job did not. "But it's good practice for when I get back." Assuming Noah was going to want her back when she was almost twenty and out of touch with the latest gadgets and techniques, but la la la she wasn't thinking about that. "Anyway, I have to work somewhere if I'm ever gonna get those earplugs," she added with a grin.

[rebelseekspizza]

"Thought you could afford the earplugs," Dante said, smirking. "Just not the actual music."

[faithseesred]

"Right." One way of blocking out Rhys' and Kuzco's bullshit was as good as the next, really. Although she did appreciate having music while she worked. "I should really aim higher though, and save up for something that can actually play music. Like those phones you guys have here." She couldn't help grimacing a little. That was going to take a lot of shifts.

[rebelseekspizza]

"A friend stole an old school boombox for me when I got here," Dante said, looking up at her. "Those aren't that expensive. Maybe you can start there and work your way up."

[faithseesred]

"Yeah, maybe," Faith said thoughtfully. "I'll give that a try. Saving up money for something a lot fancier would be really depressing."

Especially since she owed all that money to Dogen and it was doubtful he would be convinced by an argument that a fancy phone was really a necessity.

"Did getting settled in here, with the whole school schedule and all, totally suck for you too?"

[rebelseekspizza]

Dante let out a huffy laugh. "Came here from juvie," he said. "This place was laid back as fuck."

[faithseesred]

Faith winced sympathetically. "This was my juvie alternative," she offered. "It didn't exactly sound like a party."

She was curious about what it was like for him, but didn't want to ask in case he didn't want to talk about it, so she stuck with that, and used a prompting tone of voice to hint at her curiosity.

[rebelseekspizza]

"It's not," Dante said.

If she wanted more, she'd have to ask for it. He wasn't inclined to just spit it out.