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Demon Marcus, Monday

Tea fixed everything.

Alluka was pretty sure that was true, between tea and cookies, that they held some sort of magical power of making the day brighter.

Not that the day had been bad or anything--for one, it was still pretty early when she got to work--but Alluka had woken up in a disgruntled mood for no discernable reason at all, the kind of mood that left her wishing she didn't know better than to get out and go to work these days, that maybe if she said a prayer and hid it would be better without effort on her part.

But she'd picked up Mr. Bubbles and gotten dressed and made it into work anyway.

And her tea really was making her feel better about the whole day. The cookies helped too.

Maybe in a bit she'd go try on clothes and see if that didn't banish the rest of her bad mood. It should. Clothes usually did. In fact, even just looking around the store she could see some pretty things…

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Because two weeks ago hadn't been confusing enough, last weekend had hit Dante with another whopper that made his last conversation with Alluka already feel hopelessly out of date.

So he showed up to her workplace. It made sense.

He'd even brought a strawberry cake. (Saving his money was still not really something that came natural, here.) "Alluka, hey."

Edited 2017-02-13 16:42 (UTC)

She was never going to argue about cake. And saving money was still a hard concept for her to grasp anyway.

Alluka looked up from her tea and smiled at him. "Dante, hi! Come in, come in!"

"You want some cake?" Dante asked as he walked into the store, lifting up the plastic bag in his hands. "Figured we could both use some."

"You bought an entire cake!?" Her eyes went big as she sat up straighter. "Oh, yes, please! I'll get plates and, and you'll need tea, of course!"

Between the two of them, they were probably going to eat the whole thing, weren't they?

Alluka slid off the counter to get everything. She paused, hand on a tea cup, to look at him. "Are you okay?"

Alluka was fine!

Dante proceeded to take the box out of the bag and set it down on the counter. He flipped it open, revealing a really nice cake decorated with white and red icing and strawberries.

"I'm fine," he said. He looked up from the cake. Casually, he added, "Just found out some weird shit about myself last weekend."

That didn’t really help her figure out if he was okay or not. He was sending mixed signals and… and Alluka was willfully oblivious a lot of the time, but she wasn’t stupid.

“Oh,” she said lightly, setting plates on the counter along with a knife for cutting and forks for eating. Alluka had… well, she had everything for a tea party here, so that wasn’t a surprise, right? Tea parties involved cake sometimes. “Is that why you missed Kathy and Raven’s housewarming party?”

"I got stuck back home for a couple of days," Dante said.

He ran his fingers through his hair. "Did I ever tell you I don't remember anything about when I was a kid?"

He was definitely not okay, no matter what he said, Alluka decided as she set his tea--made just how he liked it--near him.

"No," she said, big-eyed. "Does that, does that mean you remember now?"

"Yeah," Dante said softly.

He reached out for the knife. "I don't remember everything. But enough."

Since she didn't think Dante would want a hug, Alluka hugged Mr. Bubbles instead.

"And what you remember is weird?"

She was so confused.

"Isn't it a good thing to remember your memories?"

"It's a really good thing," Dante said.

He was grateful that he got to focus on cutting the cake into (clumsy, irregular) slices. "It's just not what I expected," he said. "My dad's a demon, my mom's an angel. What even is that?"

Dante, Vergil probably didn't appreciate you telling all and sundry about that.

Vergil was just going to have to cope.

Alluka watched him cut those slices quietly. Being half demon/half angel didn't really mean a whole lot to her. He still seemed like her Dante, just a bit off today.

But it was the off-ness that bugged her.

"Does it bother you? To... to not be human...?"

Yes.

"Does it matter?" Dante asked. He stole a strawberry off a piece of cake and shoved it into his mouth. "I'm nothing like a demon."

"Your mommy loved your dad enough to marry him, despite that he was a demon," Alluka said, looking up from Mr. Bubbles. "That doesn't sound like she thought your daddy was evil."

Alluka studied him for am moment, then said, "I love you." This was not a romantic confession. It was just... a fact, that she thought he needed to hear. "I don't care if you're part demon. Or part angel. To me, you're just Dante and I love you."

That probably was going to embarrass him, but too bad.

The very idea she could've meant it as romantic hadn't even passed Dante's mind for a second.

The idea that it was embarrassing, though... "Uh," he said.

Yeah, that one was on the money.

"... Thanks."

The embarrassment didn't take away the part where hearing it was important to him. It just meant he wasn't likely to full-on admit it.

That was okay, she hadn’t really expected him to do that.

“You're welcome,” she said. “I can remind you, if you forget.”

Alluka had no problems repeating that.

“May I have that slice of cake?” she asked, indicating one of the larger ones.

Dante's eyes darted from the cake to Alluka and back. His brain needed a second to kickstart again.

He picked up the slice she'd pointed at. "Sure," he said, putting it down on her plate.

"... So that was my weekend," he said. "Met my brother too."

Cake was important, after all.

But so were brothers!

"You have a brother?!" This was exciting! Incredible! "What's he like? Is he nice? Is he going to come here?"

"He's kinda... not quiet, but super all-business?" Dante said. "Until you get him to laugh, anyway."

He took a fork to his cake. He probably should've thought about getting a fork before he got his fingers all messy, but oh well. "Don't know if he's coming over," he said, "But I'm probably heading back there later this week to hang out."

And figure out how the hell to take down a demon king.

"That'll be fun!" Alluka said, silently offering him a napkin. "Especially since you can get him to laugh. I bet he'll like you visiting him a lot."

She'd... never actually thought of trying to find Killua on her own.

Huh.

Maybe she could do that?

Dante took the napkin, sheepishly wiping off his fingers.

"Just be a quick visit, probably," he said. "You wanna come?"

He was pretty sure the Order HQ was safe. (He was going to give Vergil an aneurysm.)

"Can I?" she asked, delighted. "I wouldn't be in the way?"

"Nah, I'm just gonna go say hi," Dante said, shrugging. "He's already met a bunch of my other friends."

Yes, but, Alluka knew there was nothing cool or competent about her, not really.

She wondered if someone by the books and almost all business would even like her.

"If you're sure," she said, smiling. "I'd love to come along."

Dante liked her. That made her plenty cool, right?

Even if he still wasn't sure about Nanika.

"Yeah, of course I'm sure," he said, grinning. "He can use a little less seriousness in the room."

Zack was actually feeling pretty good after his meal at Luke's that afternoon, but he wasn't feeling 'go right back to the apartment to get back to hiding from civilization' good. That on its own was a nice change of pace.

He was going to do something productive. Ino's friend had given him some hand-me-down clothes to wear until he could get his own things, but they'd been - and this on its own was weird - too big for him. Not a dealbreaker, but it meant that he couldn't wear Jono's old jeans without a belt. And the belt that went with his SOLDIER uniform... wasn't that kind of belt.

So he was a puppy on a mission today. A mission for, if not actual new clothes, at least a belt that could hold his pants up.

"Uh, hey," he said, smiling at the girl as he made his way inside. "Do you work here?"

Alluka beamed at him. It was a beam fueled by cookies, tea, and way, way too much cake from earlier.

"I do!" she said happily. "Every Monday! Unless I forget. Sometimes that happens. Did you want tea?"

Or help picking out clothes? But tea was more important.

"Oh, hey! I'd love some tea, thanks!"

This was going to be a friendship born of sunshine and butterflies, right here. Zack had already forgotten what he'd come in for.

This was going to be the most sparkly friendship, wasn't it?

"No problem!" she said, putting down Mr. Bubbles and getting his cup ready. "How do you like your tea? Sugar? Milk? Honey?"

All of the above?

So, so sparkly.

So sparkly.

"You know, it's been a while since I had tea? How do you take yours?"

The honey sounded intriguing, but he was totally willing to just roll with whatever, here.

"Depends on my mood," Alluka admitted. "But today, it's been lots of sugar and milk."

Zack considered that carefully, and then nodded once decisively.

"Then I'll try it that way too, please," he replied. "And thanks. I'm Zack!"

Because if they were going to be having tea, introductions were totally in order.

"I'm Alluka!" she chirped, in the process of making his tea. "And this is Mr. Bubbles."

The stuffed giraffe, yes. Who had his own plate of cookies, also yes.

Mr. Bubbles wasn't even the first toy Zack had ever spoken to, really. He was a lot less responsive than Cait Sith, though.

"Well, hi, Mr. Bubbles," he said, with a smile and a little wave at the giraffe. "And hi, Alluka! It's a pleasure to meet you both!"

"Likewise!" she said, beaming. "You can sit on the counter, if you'd like. We don't have a proper table in here for tea parties."

Which was tragic.

She was going to have to fix that at some point.

"Did you want cookies too?"

Sparkle would be so confused to come in someday to see that Demon Marcus had been converted into a combination clothing store and tea shop.

"... You know, I can't possibly turn down cookies. I haven't had one since forever," Zack noted, hiking himself up to sit on the counter after taking a moment to set his sword to the side. Sitting and buster swords didn't go together very well. "Thank you."

"Not in forever?" Alluka was quietly appalled. "But how... I mean... I guess some people can manage without cookies."

But she doubted it. See her doubting it, Zack.

"Here's your tea," she said, setting it down on a saucer for him. "And cookies coming up!"

He was going to get an assortment. Some with chocolate, some vanilla cream, some thumbprint fruit cookies...

"Well, I was in a place that didn't have any," Zack explained. "It wasn't so great, but now I'm here, and here there are cookies, so I'm already seeing a vast improvement, you know?"

The plate of cookies Alluka set down for him probably had a few too many cookies on it.

But, really, he deserved them.

"I agree," she said seriously, then smiled another one of those mega-watt smiles at him. "After all, cookies are the most important food group aside from chocolate."

"Now those are some food groups that I can get behind," Zack laughed easily. "Even better if you put the two together, so that you have chocolate cookies, right?"

"Yes!" she said, taking a cookie off Mr. Bubbles' plate. "Or dipping the chocolate cookies into more chocolate."

This was why Kathy made it a priority to shove vegetables at Alluka, it really was.

"Are you here to shop?" she asked.

"I am," Zack replied, smiling faintly as he picked up a cookie. "I need either a new belt or some new pants. Most of what I have to wear doesn't fit right. It belonged to somebody else, first."

Edited 2017-02-14 02:00 (UTC)

Alluka studied him thoughtfully.

"Shirt too?" she asked.

"Probably shirt too," Zack allowed, after a pause. "But I'm not having any trouble actually keeping that on, thank goodness."

Okay, so it kept trying to slip down over one shoulder from time to time...

You know, Ino had probably noticed that quite a lot.

Not that Alluka would know.

"Shirts are more accommodating that way," Alluka agreed, nibbling on her cookie. "Were there any colours you wanted in particular? Or styles?"

"Well, I'll wear pretty much anything that's easy to move in," Zack replied after a moment. "I guess t-shirts, tank tops... that sort of thing? And I don't even know, really, with pants. Most of what I've worn for ages have just been part of my uniform."

Unless they were swim trunks. Zack had once had awesome swim trunks.

"And as for colors..." He shrugged again. "I don't know. What do you recommend? I'm totally open for suggestions!"

I had no internet all weekend and it was tragic, you guys. TRAGIC.

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Demon Marcus, Monday

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