(Untitled)

[roulettespin]

Characters: Nero (roulettespin and anybody who wants to help put out a small grease fire?
Setting/Location: Kitchens
Date & Time: Day 2, late afternoon.
Warnings: Nero makes food.
Summary: It doesn't go so good.

Comments

[cowboyphase]

It'd been awhile since he'd seen the kid. Not a long time, not in Dante years, but still longer than it should've been, all things--and other worlds and giant ogres--considered. He'd seen him, or heard him, around on the network, so it wasn't like he didn't know how he was doing. Just that Dante didn't know exactly where he was. Which was good in some ways; the kid needed his independence. But the ways in which it was bad included there maybe being demons and witches and hell only knew what else flying at them from all sides and Dante hadn't exactly given Nero The Talk yet.

The Talk, of course, being how to handle all this demon hunting when you didn't have a personal stake in the matter. Maybe it wouldn't make a difference, but Dante didn't know that yet. Living as long as he did meant you learned not to make assumptions.

Anyway, he could find the kid when he wanted to. That meant giving him his space wasn't really a big deal, since Dante could always track him down when things got down to the wire. Why he could do it was another story altogether, but he didn't even really know the answer to that himself. Something to do with their shared blood, and he was stopping right there before he gave himself a headache.

So when he found himself heading in the direction of the kitchen, he figured it was perfect. Though when he saw smoke coming from the kitchen, he knew to tone down his expectations just a tad. Without any preamble he swung in through the open down, heading over to the flaming pan and going into a cupboard, looking for a pot lid.

"Don't throw water on that--it'll just make it worse. Trust me. Gotta smother a fire when it's got fat in it."

[dissentive]

'Twas the terrible smell, not the idea of food nor running into two old-haired men, that brought Morrigan to the kitchen. Indeed, even if she were hungry, the smell itself would have eradicated such an appetite. The glower on her eyes would have done well enough to smother anyone, maybe even an aflame pan of eggs, but her words of telling off whomever was so inept as to burn down the kitchen failed against the fact that well enough the kitchen was, indeed, actually burning down. Some sort of insult was on her lips as she quickly strode forward, bustling her way past Dante and Nero to turn off the burner (which, she had earlier learned, supplied the flame) and, unalarmed by the flame, moved the pan in itself off of the coils to an unheated one. She whisked her cloak from her form, using it to smother and pat out the flame, all whilst not failing to scowl deeply.

"'Tis curious how one becomes so inept that they put aflame to the most simple of foods," she commented dryly once the flame was put out, picking up her cloak - thusly ruined, no better than a pile of rags, and it had been her favorite cloak too. She peered down at the pan. "Or, perhaps, make a meal so complex, indeed." The pieces of shell caught her attention - indeed, it must have been eggs of some animal. 'Twas akin to the masterpieces Alistair called his meals.

"Do we not have true cooks upon this caravan? Perchance, next time you feel the need to feed yourself, you may query as to their whereabouts."

[roulettespin]

Man, his eggs! Now they were gonna taste all...cloaky.

Though to be honest, okay, fine. Maybe he needed that. He coulda done it himself, but he'd been trying to salvage them, and maybe there'd been some stubborn pride in there, too. His first eggs. He was used to being better at giving things a whirl than this. He'd been clinging to the idea that there was still some hope, even if they hadn't turned out quite the way he usually liked 'em. (A little bit runny, the yolk all nice, not too hard but not too raw, either.)

Now that this woman--whoever she was, probably one of Dante's friends, from the way she was dressed, not to mention the way she was acting--had shown up, Nero had to admit... It smelled pretty rank in here. "I'm gonna open a window. And for the record? I like her way of doing things better."

Heh.

[cowboyphase]

Oh sure. Come in and take all the glory. That was fine, whatever. Dante didn't need to help anyway. Not like he needed to win any points with the kid or anything. He sighed, straightening up and closing the cupboard.

"Fine by me. Maybe you can ask her the next time you wanna whip up a little lunch. So long as you've got some adult supervision..."

Two can play at being a jerk kid, and trust him when he says he's been doing this way longer than you. Dante's nose wrinkles a bit at the smell, but it isn't so bad. This is way less mess than that time he tried to make Trish pancakes in bed. Batter everywhere. Not a pretty sight. Maybe he'd tell the kid that story sometime, but now didn't exactly seem like the right moment. Especially not since they had company.

He whirled around, offering the woman a bow, and a slight smile.

"I don't believe we've been introduced. You are...?"

[dissentive]

Morrigan looked from one man to the other, eyebrow hiking up her forehead. She was hardly one to stick around to deal with another man's obvious father problems, whatever the case may be, but regardless she folded her arms under the distasteful remains of her cloak and decided, indeed, she could give them the time of day - regardless of the younger one's pertinent sense of indignant whinyness and this one's over zealous amount of chivalry (who bowed, truly?).

"No, we have not," Morrigan agreed, giving him a brief, uninterested once-over. Perchance she would have preferred it to remain that way, but perhaps it was the curious way the mens' hair were so white without neither of them having wrinkles that caused her to remain. "I am Morrigan."

The opening of the window, at least, was beginning to lessen the stench.

[roulettespin]

He shoulda known. He shoulda known. This was exactly the kind of reaction Dante had to people--and exactly the kind of reaction other people had to Dante, more or less--that Nero basically dreaded. And it wasn't 'cause he was embarrassed or anything weird like that. Why should he be? They only looked related; there was only the chance that people would assume, 'cause of the hair, they were working together, they were part of the same team. (Which, even though sometimes they were working for the same thing, they weren't. Not a chance.) It was just so unnecessary, such a waste of time, such a...lie, or something, that Nero couldn't stand it. Did the guy seriously have to go through this whole routine with everybody he met? The bow, the flirting, the innuendo? Who even put up with that? What the hell was his deal?

And the stench of burnt stuff was starting to give him a headache. All this shit and more didn't lead to making Nero feel very polite. Manners told him he should've said his own name and some 'nice to meet you' spiel, but even if he knew something was right he still sometimes had trouble doing it.

"Morrigan, huh? Well I'm Nero, and I'm pretty sure whatever that cloak thing is, it's ruined."

[cowboyphase]

"Dante," Dante said, introducing himself to the woman. She seemed cold, to say the least, but unlike most normal people, Dante wasn't at all put off by that kind of attitude. In fact, he kind of embraced it. "Looks like you got here just in time."

Not that he didn't think the kid could handle himself or anything. Just that sometimes he got himself into these situations, burning eggs, getting sucked into the demon-pope's giant amorphous body--and he needed a little help to get himself out of them again. Not that Dante ever saw any gratitude for it. That was fine, though. It was what family was for, right?

Right.

"Tough break on lunch, kid," Dante commented, leaning back against the counter with his arms crossed. Any way you looked at it, there was no saving those eggs. For whatever reason though, the smell wasn't particularly bothering Dante. When you spent enough time wandering around covered in demon entrails, somehow, the little things didn't get to you as much. "Guess not everything comes naturally."

[dissentive]

Morrigan's eyes slid from Dante to Nero to focus on him, narrowing slightly. "Indeed, 'twould seem you are thusly indebted to me so that I may replace my cloak thing," she drawled out, tossing the now useless heap of rags onto a nearby table with a scowl. "Several coin ought to do well enough."

She looked down upon herself, plucking her top away from her body briefly before allowing the cloth to settle again. Indeed, 'twould seem she needed a whole new wardrobe at the rate she was going. Her clothes, as it were, were littered with small patches of fabric from previous repairs throughout their journey across Ferelden - and the subsequent battles with the occasional dragonkin or fifteen. Perchance the next village would have an expansive market, as the first did. At least to purchase some drapery, so she could sew herself anew. She took her time to note their state of dress - not from Ferelden, then. 'Twas no where close to the fashion of thus. They were, practically enough, one zipper away from Michael Jackson.

"Perchance you may stick with meat," she mused mockingly at last, head canting to the side. "At least, when that is set aflame, 'tis still digestible to a point. Or perhaps you should simply refine your palate."

L M F A O ONE ZIPPER AWAY FROM MICHAEL JACKSON

[roulettespin]

"Several coin? For a blanket? You gotta be kidding me." Was this lady for real? At least she wasn't all over Dante all at once, but she was still talking crazy. She could demand whatever she wanted, but the point remained that there wasn't much more than lint in Nero's pockets. He didn't do what he did for money, and he was past the point of getting an allowance--not that he'd ever been given one in the first place.

"Rather be good at kicking ass than making lunch any day." That was for Dante--sure enough, he'd turned this into some kinda competition, so Nero had to lay down the stakes right away, before he got any ideas about winning. Nero didn't care what the hell Dante could make, whether or not he could win in a cooking contest.

Nero's stomach a little, sure. Maybe.

cries

[cowboyphase]

It wasn't that Dante was an expert chef by any means, but he'd been living on his own since he was way younger than Nero, and a guy couldn't exist on pizza alone. A guy might've wanted to, but he couldn't. And he'd totally had his fair share of kitchen mishaps. Just most of them had happened while he'd been alone--or they'd happened in front of Lady, which was about a thousand times worse than anything Nero could imagine. Poor kid hadn't even met her yet. He didn't know what he was in for.

"Gotta have lunch to keep kicking ass properly, though," Dante pointed out. He nodded his head in Morrigan's direction. "I might take the lady's suggestion, actually. Can't do much wrong with meat."

Well, you could, but Dante wasn't going to get into that just yet.

[dissentive]

"Would you prefer I set aflame to your hair, rather than your food of choice?" Morrigan queried slowly, looking at Nero incredulously. "'Twas not a blanket, 'twas an article of clothing. Unless, perchance, you loom your own fabric, than yes - I require coin to purchase another."

Morrigan may not have had the most menacing of features, but her bitchface was indeed strong within her. While the spell remained in the back of her mind for future use, she did not cast it just yet, instead moving to partially lean, partially sit upon the same nearby table she had flung her cloak upon. Crossing her legs at the ankles and fingers curling around the edge of the wood, she studied the two of them once more. If she was looking for a particular something, she did not express it.

"Perhaps I should remain in case you, too, contain a strange amount of incompetence within your person," she commented. "And if you must refer to me, do so by my given name."

[roulettespin]

Loom his own fabric? She was crazier than the chick who wore that costume with the bat ears on it--or whatever that was. Looked like bat ears. Point was, Nobody Nero knew talked like this. Not even Credo'd been this crazy formal. Crazy sometimes; formal sometimes. (Formal a lotta the time.) But the combination of both hadn't been so...intense. And this lady? She was intense. Maybe even Trish levels of intense, when you got right down to it. And speaking of Trish...why the hell was Dante flirting with everybody? Nero hadn't seen her, but he knew she was here, and if anyone could wipe that smug grin off the guy's face...

At least it was something happy to think about.

"I can take care of myself," Nero pointed out, maybe a little ironically, given the stench in the room. "I don't need your advice, or you babysitting me."

[cowboyphase]

Dante was unable to keep from rolling his eyes. That's a look that definitely runs in the family, even if one of them would rather die than admit it. He was never like this at this age--though of course, that was a lie--his brother had been even worse. Not at cooking though, which was why this whole thing came as something of a surprise. In their family it was Dante who set the kitchen on fire, not the other way around.

"Sure, of course you can," Dante said to Nero, not bothering to gesture to the relative chaos around them. He didn't have to, did he? "I myself love the taste of burnt eggs. Mm mm. The only thing better than the taste is the smell."

He could say that about a lot of things actually, but not in front of the kid. And by the looks of her, probably not in front of the lady either. Morrigan.

"I'm sure we can work something out. Kid--Nero--looms about as well as he cooks, I'm guessing."