Dante (justbusiness) wrote in tiberiusswann, @ 2010-03-26 15:21:00 |
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Entry tags: | dante, erin, tad |
Sunday April 20th 2008
Who: Dante, Tad and Erin
What: Replacing Erin's lost friend
Where: Erin's room, then hallways
When: Sunday Afternoon
Rating: R for swearing
For once, Dante felt as though he were doing the right thing and he was pleased with himself. He'd found Erin a new rat (well technically it was a mouse, but who kept track?), had gotten Wesley to get any and all diseases off it, had given it a bath (much to the rat's chagrin, and Roger would need a new toothbrush) and put it in a little box. He had debated putting a bow on it, but that seemed a bit much. Besides, he didn't want to seem too sappy. But it was a brilliant plan, and Erin was gonna cream herself over it.
Mouse in a box, box in hand, Tad at his side, Dante strolled to Erin's room. "She's gonna be psyched," he informed Tad confidently. "Especially since I think her rats are stupid. So giving her one is gonna blow her mind."
Dante was crazy, or just really weird. Ciri had insisted that Tad not use his hands, instead using his ability to catch something. Tad followed Dante on the way to this girl's room, wondering what kind of person she was. Dante had told him she was okay, and who knew what that really meant? Just in case, Tad brought a bag with him, filled with good things. "OK," he said in reply to his friend. Since the guy was older, no doubt he knew what he was saying, and he had no reason to disbelieve him. Ciri told Tad that Dante needed something to make the whole situation better.
One of them knocked on the door and waited. Tad wanted to see what Dante was like talking to this girl, if he could be amused by watching him. Even better, Tad could be really nice and make another friend. "Hi!" he said cheerfully, with a large smile as soon as the door was opened.
---
Erin had been annoyed with Dante since Friday. His flippant comments had sent her into a silent fury. "It's just a rat?" "How could you get so attached to something with a tail?" How dare he! How could she get so attached to someone who was SUCH A BIG BLOODY ASS was a better question! Didn't he understand that she cared about Nicodemus, even if he was "just a rat?" He had to understand; he was just callous. He felt like Nico had been "just" a rat, and therefore thought Erin should feel the same way. Because he was a pig. A man. Man-pig. Worse than a rat, tail-less or not.
Her anger had ebbed considerably over the course of Saturday, though whenever she looked over at the cage that now just held two rats, it returned. She felt stupid for having trusted Dante with her feelings. It was stupid to have told him why she had been upset all of Friday. She had known he would say something stupid, but taken the risk regardless, and was not rewarded for it.
By Sunday morning, she was a little confused as to why he hadn't tried contacting her. Even if it was just to insult her and her choice of pet some more. So when the two knocked on her door Sunday afternoon, she was surprised. She checked the keyhole first. Dante and... the child. Todd? Tom? Tad. Yes, Tad. She opened the door wide, her expression, as usual, completely vacant, and looked down.
"Hi!" cried the little boy. Erin blinked, and a chilly smile flickered across her face before she stared expectantly up at Dante. "Hello," she said, to both of them, though her gaze was on her bo---boorish friend. Then she looked down. He had a box in his hands. Why?
---
The funny thing about Tad and Dante was it was like the blind leading the blind. Tad assumed that, because he looked older, Dante was the adult in their pair and therefore knew what he was doing most of the time. Dante, however, was thirteen at his oldest and a little over a month and a half in his current stage. While mentally he knew adult things, he still acted like a child. Most of the time, Tad was a far cry more mature then Dante would ever be.
Smiling, which always seemed more like smirking on Dante's face, he gave Tad a glance before holding out the box so Erin could see inside it, lifting up the lid flap. A tiny, fluffy brown sewer mouse scuttled around the bottom of the box, whiskers twitching. "I caught you a replacement rat," he explained.
---
Tad wasn't as short as he used to be, and he had found he gained upper body strength thanks to his growing teenage frame. He wanted to stay to watch the reaction on Erin's face, but there wasn't time if he would make this all better. "He's joking," Tad stated simply and slid past Erin to go into her room. He assumed that he could, because she was Dante's friend and friends wanted each other to spend time with them where they lived. Reaching into his bag, Tad withdrew a plastic container, three cloth napkins and forks to place on her desk. "He wanted to eat cake with you. He is too shy to say it." The container opened to reveal chocolate cake.
Just because he was doing something nice for Dante didn't mean he couldn't embarrass his friend a little. "He wrote a poem for you too." Tad dug into his pocket, pulled out a folded piece of paper, and opened it to read. "Roses are red, violets are blue, you are pretty, and I'm gay for you." He glanced at Dante and managed not to smile or laugh. Maybe it would help the man and maybe not, but at least Tad would get cake out either way.
---
One second, Tad was standing quiet by his side, the next the kid was walking into Erin's room and making himself at home. Dante looked at Erin briefly, saw the expected horrified face, then shook his head laughing, watching Tad. Either the kid was really, genuinely trying to help, or he was trying to hurt. Either way Dante knew that Erin wouldn't buy it for a second. Poetry? Please. If Dante ever wrote a word of poetry in his life it would mean the coming apocolypse.
Still, it was funny. Mostly what was funny was Tad's newfound confidence. "He's right," Dante admitted, stepping into the room past Erin. "I am totally gay for you." He held out the box with the mouse for Erin to take. "Plus Ciri makes really bitchin' cake."
---
So many things were happening at once, all of which were making Erin lower the temperature around them by gradual degrees. The second she saw the mouse, her neutral mask cracked, and she blinked. Was that..? That..was a wild mouse. A scruffy, flat-coloured, eats-garbage-has-fleas mouse. Her lip curled in distaste, and she looked up to Dante with .. hurt. She was hurt. He was making fun of her. He was making fun of her sadness over the death of her pet, and was insulting her with bringing her a wild animal. How.... luckily, Tad suddenly stole her attention by entering her fucking room. The fleeting expression of sadness was replaced with horrified incredulity, and Erin turned around to look for Tad when Dante brushed past her. She barely heard his words.
Shock and dismay were easily transmuted to anger, and by the time she joined the two of them in her bedroom, it was positively chilly in there. Dante held the box to her and she would have slapped it out of his hands were she not afraid the mouse would get loose in her room and disrupt her pet rats. "What the fuck are you two doing?" If the child spent time with Dante, she wasn't afraid to curse in front of him. Besides, if its mother had a problem with bad language, she shouldn't let him hang out with adults, who sometimes used bad language.
She looked to Dante and the box, and for a brief second her eyes lost some of their fire again, and she reached up to touch one of her temples as they began to ice over. No. Not crying. She was NOT CRYING IN FRONT OF A CHILD. "Get out," she said, her voice gentle. She looked away from both of them, forehead creased.
---
This was altogether not that expected, but no one should turn down cake. No normal person disliked cake when it was so squishy and delicious. Tad grabbed his container of cake and stared at her. "No one hates cake," he said. "You're weird." He had been trying to help although it was difficult when the woman was a simple lost cause. Sighing, Tad left the room. Dante was on his own with her, that was for sure. Maybe Tad would have more luck making friends with one of the girls in the student lounge, or the purple-haired girl who came to his birthday party.
---
Dante did not notice the cold until it was, well, cold. That was the first sign that something was amiss. He had expected her to be bowled over with their presence, especially since he'd brought Tad, so her general look of displeasure was ignored. But then the way she spoke, the sheer iciness of her tone, not to mention how her breath was starting to be visible in the room... This was more then her usual anger. She was pissed.
"We're..." Dante didn't know what to say. It was pretty damn obvious what the two of them were doing. Question was, what was she doing flipping out? Brow furrowed, Dante walked out into the hallway with Tad, mouse in box in hand. Turning back to Erin, he stared at her expectantly. "What the fuck is your deal?" he asked bluntly.
---
Erin followed them to the frame but remained in her room, white knuckles braced on the edges of her door. Dante snapped at her, and she looked up, a line between her dark eyebrows. Though her jaw was set hard, chin thrust out slightly, mouth firm, her eyes were conflicting. It was like someone was throwing a switch behind her face, and her expression vacillated between fury and devastation. Generally a cool gray, her eyes were now impossibly light, almost white, the irises almost blending out. "Nothing," she said, her voice hard, accent crisp.
"I just don't find you very funny, Dante," she spat, then slammed the door in his face.
---
Breaking off a piece of cake, Tad popped it into his mouth and enjoyed the sweet taste of it. Wonderful cake without a doubt. Dante might be in trouble with this woman, his friend, although Tad wasn't sure what to do. Luckily, Ciri had given him some advice that he hoped would help. "Say sorry," he suggested. "Ciri thinks it will help." There was a good chance that the man would never accept his or Ciri's advice, which was okay. He wasn't expecting any miracles. "I thought she liked cake." Sooner or later, someone disappointed him and it only made sense it would happen so early.
---
Tad wasn't the only one confused. Dante watched the door slam in his face, his eyebrows raised. Didn't find him funny? What the fuck was that supposed to mean? He'd said it a million times before... he would never understand women.
"I ain't apologizing," Dante informed Tad shortly, pinching off a piece of chocolate cake himself and popping it into his mouth. For starters, Dante didn't apologize. And even if he did, he wasn't quite sure what he'd be apologizing for. "Whatever. I'll keep it then, took long enough to catch the damn thing. And wash it. And I got Wesley to heal it, so it's not all gross anymore." Looking down into the box, Dante watched the thing's whiskers twitch as it sniffed around. It wasn't entirely vile, now that he was used to it.
"We should go to the bed store and get it something real to live in, instead of a box." Starting off down the hall, Dante looked back to make sure Tad was following. "You think Ciri would let you ride my bike with me?"
---
"OK." He didn't know what was the best action to take because he had never been in this situation before with a girl. Usually 'sorry' mollified Edward for a bit and he had to be on his best behaviour for a few hours afterwards. People mad at him left him feeling really sad. Why did Dante want to keep it? Maybe he was lonely. That was why people got pets, or so Ciri said. "Oh." Oh well indeed.
Tad thought of going to the city and Calvin finding him, looking hurt and disappointed. It made him feel uncomfortable and it would still be a while before he'd be able to go there again. "I don't want to," Tad said glumly. Just then, he got an idea that might be able to make him feel better. He walked along with Dante and found a door, stopping by it. Deepening his voice, Tad knocked on the door and said, "Hello? I have a present for you!"
He backed away quickly to stand against the wall and sunk into it, leaving Dante alone in the hall when the door opened several seconds later.
---
Tad was full of unexpectedness today. Before Dante could even blink, a door was knocked on and the kid just disappeared into the wall. Into the wall! A cool trick, but still! Some random girl peeked her head out, giving Dante a weird face. He blinked, then scowled. "I'm gonna punch you in the face if you don't get the fuck outta here," he snapped at her. The girl rolled her eyes and disappeared back into her room, clearly unimpressed with whatever shenanigans Dante and the nobody he was talking to was up to.
"Stones, get outta the wall," he said irritably. For starters, he didn't want to look like he wasn't talking to anybody. Or worse, people might think he was talking to the mouse. And second... well, Tad had the cake.
---
Somehow he managed to see what was happening although he was part of the wall now, because his ability was just too groovy. He waited until the girl closed the door behind her and several seconds after Dante demanded that he get back to normal. He stepped out into the hallway, returning to his normal form, and smirked at Dante. "She could be your new friend," he teased. Knowing that there was at least one person who probably had a hard time getting along with people made him feel a little better. It wasn't the best prank, but it gave him some satisfaction.
With that, he started to walk down the hallway.
---
Dante, being so damn mature, gave Tad the finger at the suggestion of a new friend. "I don't need new friends," he teased with a grin, "the ones I have suck enough already." Shaking his head, Dante followed Tad down the hallway, carrying the rat in his hands. Tad was always weird, unpredictable, but it was never boring with that kid.