Chapter Text
"This is an absolute disgrace!" Vanilla Ice pointed a long, calloused finger at the McDonald’s employee cowering behind her cash register. He scowled. “I’d like to speak to your manager!”
"I'll go get her," the cashier replied.
Ice waited for thirty seconds--a ridiculously long time--tapping his foot, holding the paper bag printed with a yellow M against his hip as grease pooled on the bottom. The employee reemerged from the kitchen in the back with a willowy, silver-haired woman. When she saw him, she grit her teeth. "What the hell are you doing here?"
Ice, at the same time, said, "Mariah?"
She switched from Egyptian Arabic to English, second language to both of them, but more secretive and their primary tongue for business with Dio. "You live with Lord Dio, and we're not exactly close to his mansion. So I ask you again, why are you here?"
"I was running a mission and I got hungry?" he said dryly, though without a hint of humor. Like most Stand users, Mariah was much harder to recognize when not dressed like herself, in an outfit showing off her personality.
"So what's wrong with your order?"
He reached into his bag and pulled out the red sleeve of fries, then slammed it onto the checkout counter. Grease and salt leaked onto the marble. "I ordered a medium fry, and this lady here gave me a small and tried to tell me that's what I ordered!"
Mariah, one hand on the edge of the counter, looked down at the register display. It listed a double cheeseburger, medium fountain drink, and yes--one small fry. "Freudian slip, I guess. Maybe you ordered a small because that's what you really wanted."
"I WANTED a MEDIUM!"
"Dude, if you want someone who can speak to ghosts, you're asking the wrong person."
Ice leaned forward, snarling, close enough to Mariah that their noses almost touched. "I'm going to kill you."
"Not in this McDonalds. If you're mean to my employees again I'm going to magnetize you to the checkout counter."
That threat calmed Vanilla Ice. He leaned back, frowning, and in a quieter voice, said, "Can't you just give me a handful more fries?"
"Not if you don't pay."
He groaned, taking out his credit card. "Fine."
"How do you even make money, anyway? Does Lord Dio pay you every time you give him head?"
"No, but I work for him, and if he didn't pay me he'd be breaking labor laws."
"As if he isn't breaking any others." She gestured to herself. "You see me? I have rent to pay, unlike you, who lives with your master. If working for Lord Dio ever stops being lucrative I'll have to work somewhere else, and if I have a gap on my resume like you will, I'll have no chance."
"Working for Lord Dio is a job."
"Yeah, one no one's going to accept as legitimate. Could you put him down as a reference? If your new boss calls him, what the hell is going to happen?"
"He'll tell my boss I did a great job. Look, can I just get my fries already?" He held out his credit card to the cashier, still cowering. She didn't seem to understand the words of their conversation, but the tone didn't leave much to the imagination. She took the card, swiped it, and got a new sleeve of fries from the kitchen. "Thank you."
"If you so much as look at Basima ever again, I'll magnetize you to the top of a lamp post and hang you there," Mariah said, waving as Vanilla Ice went out the door.