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It was important for new Weapon-Meister partners to spend time together to strengthen their soul bonds. It was a rule that went without saying. After all, how could one learn to get along with someone else if they didn’t?
Kid understood that, as a reaper, it was easy for him to resonate with any Weapon he chose. (His left eye twitched at the memory of Patty learning that fact and laughingly calling him nothing but “Soul Slut” for a week.) However, he wanted a partnership much like his father and the Death Scythes had. Creating two Death Scythes to his own specifications was one thing; becoming partners with them was entirely another.
Actually, he was afraid that it’d prove to be impossible.
Liz and Patty were as different from him as day was from night. While their probation at Deathbucks was helping them significantly in adjusting to life in Death City, they were still wild and untamed…not that he wanted to bring them to heel. As unfortunate as it was that only their Weapon forms were identical, the pair were perfectly matched in soul and thus absolutely radiant in his eyes. He’d rather die than crush such beauty.
But it also meant that it was hard for him to connect with the girls. They had nothing in common: different backgrounds, different personalities, different species for the love of his father! He felt less like a god and more like a dog crawling on his belly in hopes of pleasing his mistresses every time he tried to find something to bring them together. Thus far, his attempts were met with largely negative results.
Though, to be honest, he was grateful that Liz had stopped throwing coffee cups at him every time he went to Deathbucks to observe the pair. Despite her accusations, he hadn’t been trying to spy on the pair in regards to their probation but more in hopes of finding some means of connecting to these Brooklyn Devils.
A glance through the front windows showed a distinct lack of customers though that had more to do with the time than the girls’ own attitudes nowadays. Patty was preoccupied with creating another rather impressive Godzilla-style monster out of napkins. (How she was able to suspend those three long necks of the hydra-style creature without any sort of support structure Kid couldn’t figure out.) Liz was leaning over the counter talking to Master.
He carefully opened the front door, the bell tinkling quietly as he did so. Underneath the cool mask he projected to the world, he was tense, bracing himself for Liz to turn around and either shout at him to leave or send a cup flying at his face again.
Neither of the Thompsons took notice of the bell or of him standing in the doorway. Given the amount of concentration Patty was putting into her sculpture, a bomb probably could’ve gone off without her noticing as long as it didn’t wreck her creation. Liz, however, was engrossed in conversation with Master.
“—this place isn’t nice,” Liz complained, the first part of the conversation missed by Kid, “but is it really too much to ask for a little taste of home?”
“I suppose not,” Master said noncommittally.
The man glanced up to see Kid there. A brow lifted slightly, Liz not seeing it due to playing with her own cup of coffee.
Kid held up a hand and shook his head, backing out of the restaurant. He didn’t want to risk eavesdropping any more than he already had. He grimaced as the bell jangled upon the door closing but turned and walked away.
The bell sounding as if someone had hit it directly with something drew Liz’s attention to it, seeing Patty turn to look as well out of the corner of her eye.
“Shhhhoot!” Liz hissed, swapping words at the last moment. She’d been making an effort to try and clean up her language a little recently; her strange little Meister had seemed to appreciate it. At first she’d started doing so in hopes of letting his guard down for them to rob him blind, but recently she had started to make a more honest effort because, well, Kid preferred it when she wasn’t swearing every other sentence. “Sorry, Master. We should’ve been paying closer attention.”
“It’s fine. He’ll probably come back another day if not later on,” the man told her.
“Wait. ‘He’?” Liz groaned. “Don’t tell me…”
Patty whined from her spot beside the window, “Awww…we missed Kid!”
Liz put her face in her hand. “He was spying again? What is it with him? I thought we were doing good.”
“Are you sure he’s coming here just to see how your probation is going?” Master asked.
The elder sister lowered her hand to blink at him, Patty coming up beside her with a confused “Oh?”
Master took his time gathering beans to grind into one of his specialty blends, preparing for the customers that would start showing up again in another half hour or so. “If he was checking up on your progress, he could’ve just asked some of the agents who come in to assess you.”
Liz stared blankly for a few seconds before screeching, “You mean some of our customers are—?!”
“Not so much anymore,” Master assured her. “I don’t expect you two will have to work here much longer because you’ve been doing so well.”
“But if Kid’s not here for that stuff, why does he keep coming back? He doesn’t even like coffee,” Patty wondered aloud. “He drinks tea like his dad. Sis had to threaten to leave before he bought her that fancy coffee machine.”
“Patty!” the older Thompson sister whined.
“Very likely he’s not sure how to approach you two and is hoping to get some insight from watching you.”
Liz frowned. “So why not just come out and say it? Make it easier on everyone.”
“He is.” Master looked up from his bean grinding to gaze at her. “Women use words; men use action. Your Meister will use both but right now he’s falling back on purely action since I doubt he’s ever dealt with anyone like you two before and doesn’t know what to say in words.”
The older girl sighed. “Well, now I feel bad for chucking all those cups at him.”
“Ooh maybe we can bring him something when we get off shift, Sis!” the younger sister chirped.
“Hmm…” Liz put a hand to her chin. “Maybe…” She then looked to their boss. “Do you think you could save some scones for us to take home? You can take it out of my pay for today.”
Master blinked in surprise.
“Take some from me, too!” Patty cheered. “And can we have some jam?”
“Scones and jam?”
“He likes tea, remember? He seems like the kind of guy who’d like scones to go with them.” Liz crossed her arms. “Not like we can ask to all go out for some fun on the town. This place is pretty much dead by eleven. Death City really could use some New York City flavor in that department.”
The man gave another blink before he softly chuckling. “I think I can arrange that.”
“…is it really took much to ask for a little taste of home?”
Kid walked aimlessly around Death City, left turns following right turns and visa versa. His hands were in his pockets as he pondered Liz’s words.
“A little taste of home…” he mused aloud.
So they were feeling homesick for Brooklyn? He didn’t understand why. Brooklyn had been awful to them. He’d thought they’d been starting to accept Death City as their new home.
Then again, he’d never lived anywhere but Death City. He had nothing to compare how it felt to leave your entire life behind so you could start a new one elsewhere. Then again, the times he’d had to spend longer than a day or two (outside of travel) beyond the confines of his father’s soul, he’d felt a longing for Death City. It wasn’t quite the same, he knew, but at least it gave him a rough idea of how the girls might feel.
However, this presented a troubling problem: He wanted them to be happy, but what would truly make them happy was impossible. Even with the vast amount of money Kid and his father had at their disposal, it wasn’t as if it were possible to uproot either Death City or New York and move them closer together. Going for regular day trips might help but it seemed like it’d be the equivalent of sticking a Band-Aid on a much more serious injury. He needed something they had access to even when he was busy with work for his father.
The periodic glances up so he could check the sidewalk ahead of him prevented him from walking straight into a chalkboard sign propped up in front of a pizzeria playing the most stereotypical Italian music he’d heard in a long time. He nearly walked by it until the words “New York” jumped out at him from the uneven writing.
“The best New York style pizza in town!” the sign proclaimed. “Sold by the slice!”
“New York has its own style of making pizza?” he wondered, tilting his head to one side.
Well, considering Death City had its own local cuisine (though non-natives balked at both dead chicken and dead steak), it probably shouldn’t have been that surprising. Given how large New York City was and how many different people lived in it, it should’ve come as no surprise that it’d developed its own styles of cooking much like Death City had due to its isolation. He wondered what else New Yorkers ate regularly.
A thought sparked its way across his mind. He stood staring sightlessly at the chalkboard as a plan laid itself out in his mind. However, he needed more data before he could execute it, and he didn’t have a lot of time to do that. The girls’ shift at Deathbucks would be over in a few hours. Everything had to be finished by then.
He summoned Beelzebub and rocketed away from the pizzeria, heading towards the DWMA and its library.
Liz sighed as she opened the front door to the Gallows Manor. She was never going to get used to walking past those two guillotines out front. They seemed less like lawn decoration and more like a threat.
The entire afternoon Deathbucks had been slammed, but she and Patty emerged victorious with not just their hides in-tact but bearing a doggy bag filled with two of Master’s handmade scones and a small jar of the apricot jam he used.
“Kid, we’re—Whoa!” Patty yelped as she nearly skipped right into a delivery man who’d been reaching for the door.
“Sorry, ma’am,” the young man apologized, tapping the brim of his baseball cap which declared he was from Valentino’s Pizzeria.
“No problem,” Liz said, moving to one side to give him room to slide between the two sisters. She’d seen the van parked slightly down the street, but she hadn’t thought the driver would be making a delivery here. Then again, if she thought walking past those guillotines as a member of the household was intimidating, she could only imagine what it was like when you weren’t.
Her suspicions were confirmed as the man scurried down the path as quickly as possible, keeping his gaze fixed on the wrought iron gate.
Only then did she and Patty enter the house, closing the door behind them.
“Kid, we’re home~!” Patty sang, jogging farther into the house. Her bright colors and cheerful attitude seemed to make the monochrome home seem a little less sterile.
There was no response but that wasn’t surprising: The house was huge, so Kid might not have heard Patty. Still, the young reaper would likely be along soon enough once his Soul Perception alerted him to their presence. He’d probably startle Liz in the process; he always did despite claiming it was unintentional. She wasn’t entirely certain she believed him, but Kid did blend in with the black-and-white interior at times.
The duo headed towards the dining room, lured by the delicious scent of pizza and a few other items they currently had no names for. Kid must’ve been too busy to cook today (it still amazed her to see the little rich boy cooking them meals like a servant in his own home) and he must’ve realized it was too late to hire someone to cook for the night. The young reaper didn’t do delivery as a general rule, something Liz actually appreciated. She’d grown weary of cheap fast food and take out from her time on the street.
Patty reached the dining room first, freezing in the doorway. “Wow! Sis, you gotta see this!”
“It’s just pizza, Patty.” Liz stepped into the doorway as well, looking inside with as bored an expression as she could manage. “We’ve had it—”
She stopped, mouth hanging open.
Across the table, neatly laid out, was a small feast of various different foods. There were at least three different plates with three wide, flat pizza slices each. A plate with six bagels filled with thin little slices of salmon sat next to a bowl of some sort of fancy salad. Another plate held a dozen knishes, the funny little filled pastries that the pair had occasionally splurged their ill-gotten gains on. Next to that were two plates of three pastrami sandwiches each. Lording over all of that were three cake plates, each bearing a cheesecake. All of them had small, neatly-written placards bearing the names of the stores they had come from if the pizza plate bearing the “Valentino’s” placard was any indicator.
Kid looked up from carefully arranging that particular plate in as aesthetically pleasing a manner as possible. He gave them a small smile, and Liz was surprised at how nervous and eager-to-please it was. Though she and Patty had abandoned their plan to take the little reaper for all he was worth, Liz felt guilt merrily play with her insides even as she mentally thanked his father that he’d found her and her sister rather than someone else who still would’ve gone through with robbing him blind even after everything he’d done for them.
“Welcome back,” he greeted.
“Yeah, um…wow. This is…” She fumbled, searching for words.
“Yummy! Thanks, Kid!” Patty rushed over to hug the young reaper who awkwardly returned the gesture. (At the very beginning of their association, Liz would’ve gotten angry since she’d thought it was because he was touching someone he saw as beneath him, but she knew better now: Kid just hadn’t gotten hugs that often prior to Patty making a regular habit of giving them to him.) “You didn’t need to get us so much pizza and stuff though!”
“I didn’t originally intend to, but so many places claimed to have ‘authentic’ New York style foods that I thought you could narrow down which ones were truly authentic. I know there’ll be plenty of leftovers for the next few days, but please endure it.”
Kid didn’t fidget but his formal way of speaking hinted at how anxious he was. It was moments like this Liz almost pitied him: The boy always wanted to do things perfectly, but in scenarios like this where there was no proper way of handling things, he defaulted to acting formally though at least he wasn’t slipping into what Patty called “full-blown stick up his ass mode” as often these days.
Patty picked up one of the three empty plates, piling on her selections. Liz noted that there were slightly different toppings for the pizzas and breads for the sandwiches. Ah, so Kid had figured out to account for her sister likely mixing up her selections.
The elder sister walked over to their Meister, the doggy bag from Deathbucks held at her side. “Jeez, Kid. Did you call every place in town?”
“Only those without websites,” Kid admitted. “Please help yourself.”
“In a minute. I need to mourn for my thighs before I ruin them,” she quipped.
“You’ll work any weight you gain off in no time.”
Given all the training they did to prepare for when they’d finally be allowed on Kid’s missions, Liz had to admit that was likely true.
The pair stood in silence as Patty sat down in her usual spot to the left of the head of the table and tore into the first slice of pizza. Liz gave a soft smile at the sight of her sister’s enthusiasm, the younger girl wearing the exact same expression she’d always dreamed of Patty wearing when they’d been on the street.
“So how much did you hear when you stopped by the café?” she asked, not looking at Kid.
“You’d mentioned that you wanted a taste of home. I managed to remember that the DWMA cafeteria offers cuisine from all over the world to do the same for its students, so I did some research at the library to find what foods New York is known for before looking up the local restaurants. I didn’t find anyone who made New York style hot dogs though.”
“No complaints here. Patty and I ate enough of those on the street. I know I’m sick of them. But…” Liz grimaced, not wanting to admit it but he’d been honest with her. Might as well reciprocate. “…I actually wasn’t talking about the food. I meant the feel of New York.”
A glance showed him looking up at her with wide gold eyes before those eyes dropped to the floor. “Oh. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have presumed.”
“Maybe not, but…” She felt her cheeks turn pink. (Stupid Kid with his stupid ability to be so adorable without even trying. Was that some sort of natural defense mechanism for young reapers?) “…it was really nice of you to do this. You didn’t have to.” Remembering the bag in her hand, she practically slammed it into his chest, startling him. “Here. We managed to get Master to save you some scones and the jam he serves. Figured you might like them for breakfast or high tea or whatever.”
He took the bag gingerly, peeking inside as she calmed her blush down. “I didn’t know Master served scones.”
“Usually they’re sold out by the time you decide to poke your nose in.”
He gave a less reserved smile up at her, one she couldn’t help but return. “Thank you, Liz. To be honest, I haven’t had scones since the time I had tea at Buckingham Palace with the queen. I’ll have to see about getting some clotted cream to go with them.”
“You really expect me to believe you had tea with the fu-freaking Queen of England?”
“I’m serious.” He gestured to the food as a mute invitation for her to take what she wanted before he started filling his own plate. “Father was seething with jealousy for a week. Ask Death Scythe.”
“Ooh! Ooh! Ooh! Tell us!” Patty called from her seat.
Kid glanced at Liz who grinned as she finished making her selections.
“You can’t leave it like that,” she told him as she walked towards her own seat, plate in hand. She’d tried to be good with her choices, but there was still more food on her plate than what was probably polite. (She’d always taken as much as she could in the fear that there wouldn’t be any for later. True, that wasn’t the case in this house, but old habits died hard. At least Kid’s own eating habits camouflaged hers and Patty’s the rare times they ate in public.)
He sighed as he finished filling his plate (the amount politer than hers or Patty’s but it was guaranteed not to be his only plate of the night) to sit at the head of the table between his two Weapons. “It was about a year ago. I was in London for a fairly minor reap—just a dozen drug traffickers who’d thought to expand their ring to trading humans—and the queen somehow caught wind of it all…”