nepetaleijon | (no subject)

(no subject)

Nepeta has had a quiet word with a few of the waitrats, and as a consequence there is one booth in the main bar that's been redecorated for the evening: glossy gray tablecloth, a cluster of creamy-golden candles in elegant silver holders, silver-edged plates of subtly opalescent white glass, chunky crystal goblets, a centerpiece of black-and-gray leaves and twigs studded with amber berries. It didn't seem practical to completely reupholster the seats, but there's a runner of sleek white fur draped over them now, soft and inviting.

(The white fur also serves as an excellent backdrop for Nepeta's fanciest outfit. Which ... yes, she wore it to their last date, but he seemed to like it then, so why shouldn't she wear it again?)

She's waiting, patiently -- or at least with every outward evidence of patience, except perhaps the tiniest twitch at the tip of her tail -- perched on the edge of one of the seats, for Karkat to show up.

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Karkat peeks around the outer edge of the stairs; he doesn't want to get caught flat-footed by misjudging the fance quotient of this event. When he sees the table, he buttonhooks hurriedly back around the corner and rifles frantically through his cards. This godawful steel grey turtleneck goes back into the deck, and he equips the pin-stripe suit from his previous date; he sends the hat skimming into a corner hastily.

He wasn't totally unprepared for this eventuality, though. There's a new tie, with the same pewter ♋ tiepin.

He also has time to choose his words carefully, so it is fully and completely his fault that this is what comes out of his verbiage tunnel once he descends the stairs:

"WOW, OKAY, COLOR ME THE MOST EYE-SEARING AND GARISH SHADE OF OWNED. THIS IS A FUCKING TRIUMPH OF THE ROMANTIC ARTS.

(His new tie is diagonal stripes of red and olive green, gleaming on the night-colored surface of his shirt.)

Edited 2016-05-09 01:44 (UTC)

Nepeta preens shamelessly. "I thought you might appurreciate a little extra effurt. Shall we?"

(The candles, or maybe the leaves on the centerpiece, exude a subtly arboreal scent -- nothing strong enough to clash with dinner, once it arrives.)

"CONSIDER IT APPRECIATED," he says. "HOLD ON--I GOT YOU SOMETHING."

He brings out a sylladex card containing a pair of fresh nug carcasses.

"IT IS LIKE A CORSAGE, ONLY, BLOODIER," he says awkwardly.

Edited 2016-05-09 02:01 (UTC)

"How thoughtful," she says happily, and tucks the card away somewhere. (In her own sylladex? MAYBE.) "I hope you don't mind if I save it fur some other occasion, though? I've already made prepurrations for tonight's dinner."

"SURE, IF I EXPECTED TO EAT THEM TONIGHT IT WOULD BE PRETTY IDIOTIC OF ME TO WAIT TO DELIVER THEM UNTIL THIS MINUTE. LIKE, I WOULD REALLY BE SETTING YOU UP FOR DISHING UP RAW BEASTFLESH, UNDER THE CIRCUMSTANCES. I JUST THOUGHT IT WAS LIKE... AN APPROPRIATE MANEUVER TO SWIPE FROM THE FELINE PLAYBOOK."

"I GUESS FOR MAXIMUM ACCURACY, I WOULD HAVE TO LEAVE THEM IN YOUR SLIPPERS WHEN YOU LEAST EXPECT IT."

That gets a giggle. "This was just fine," she assures him. "Now if you'd care to be seated? I think the appurrtizers are on their way."

Raw beastflesh, hah. Karkat is about to get served.

... as it were.

Karkat sidles into the booth, silent for once; in part because he isn't totally sure what an appetizer actually is. For all his sass, his experience of high class eating is divined entirely from movies, and he doesn't really watch his movies for the highblood wish fulfillment.

As Nepeta takes her own seat across from him, she taps the link to her tablet hidden under her skirt, and soft music starts playing (a possibly recognizable theme, as it happens).

A waitrat approaches, with a tray bearing two smaller plates, and with a great air of deference serves one to each of them. Each plate has a trio of little pastries, each stuffed with a different filling (freshwater spleentrout, minced riverserpent, and sea basilisk) and all drizzled with a savory sauce.

Nepeta picks up one of the pastries with the very tips of her fingers, and daintily bites it in half.

Karkat looks at her very narrowly; he can't shake the feeling that she is getting away with something here. It is dawning on him that there is no cutlery on the table, and that his ownage may have yet barely begun.

"FISHY," he says after polishing off his pastries. "VERRRRY FISHY."

"Fish for the furst course is traditional," she says airily, delicately licking one claw clean of the sauce. "Appurrantly some humans have that too? Even though they don't have seadweller highbloods to insist on it as a remeownder of purrecedence."

He's not actually sure if that's true. It sounds plausible, but it's exactly the kind of hemotyping errata he remained spitefully ignorant of and that Nepeta would've been engulfed with around Equius.

"IT'S GOOD," he says, gruffly, for no adequately explained reason. And then stung by the realization that he is not only getting his romantic hosting spot retroactively blown up, but failing to live up the benchmarks Nepeta set as a gracious date last time, he amends it to: "IT'S REALLY GOOD," in a more civil tone.

If there is anything more adorable than Karkat being grumpy for no good reason, it is just ~~pawssibly~~ possibly Karkat making an extra special effort to not be grumpy.

Nepeta beams. "I'm so happy you like it. Now ... propurrly there should be wine betw33n courses, but the bar won't give me anything furmented, so I thought some human befurage might be good instead?"

The waitrat is back, with an elegant-looking green glass bottle of what proves to be a very sharp ginger beer.

"OKAY, BRING ON THE SUGAR WATER."

"YOU REALLY PUT A LOT OF TIME AND THOUGHT INTO THIS."

Unaccountably, she blushes faintly green.

"It s33med like the rawrmantic thing to do."

"NO, OBVIOUSLY. THIS IS A CLEAR HOME DUNK OF THE OLD SPORTSBALL WHEN IT COMES TO ROMANTIC EXTRAVAGANCES, I AM JUST ACKNOWLEDGING YOUR CLEAR VICTORY ON EVERY AXIS."

He leans across the table to fill her glass.

"I GUESS I HAVE MAINLY JUST...HERETOFORE HAD A PICTURE OF ROMANCE AS AN ACTION THAT...MOSTLY WENT ONLY ONE WAY?"

"IT IS COOL THAT YOU TAKE THESE THINGS SERIOUSLY TOO."

Nepeta sips her ginger beer, and regards him fondly over the rim of the goblet.

"I always take rawrmance seriously," she reminds him. "I just nefur had much of a chance before to do anything serious of my own. Matespritwise."

She pauses, and considers. "No, that's not true ... it's b33n how long since we started doing this? I could have made an oppurrtunity sooner, meowbe."

Beat.

"But it purrobably wouldn't have b33n as good."

"SO WHAT MAKES THE DIFFERENCE HERE? AND WHAT IS NEXT IN THE ASSASSINATION SEQUENCE?"

She grins. "It wouldn't have b33n as good befur tonight, beclawse I wouldn't have been planning it as long."

Another wave, and this time four waitrats come trooping up with several platters: deep-fried lizard legs in murderberry glaze, hot-spiced bileworm dumplings, bellfungus stuffed with scorpion salad, broiled haunch of cholerbear on a bed of crisp red-and-green tentacleaves so fresh they're still wriggling.

Karkat lingers over the platters before indiscriminately piling up his plate.

"WELL, I HAVE TO ADMIT I COULD NOT HAVE ASKED FOR A MORE DECORATIVE AND CONSPICUOUS DISPLAY FOR THE STATED PURPOSE OF WEARING MY ROMANTIC AFFILIATIONS ON MY SLEEVE. TO HELL WITH A LONG TRADITION OF POINTLESS CULTIVATED COYNESS AND NUTBEASTLY EVASIONS, I GUESS."

"ATTENTION, NUMBSKULLS," he adds, briefly cranking his volume even higher than usual. "THIS IS MY MATESPRIT. SIT BACK, AND LAP UP THIS QUALITY SCHOOLFEEDING ON THE DELICACIES AND NICETIES OF THE CERISE QUADRANT FROM A COUPLE OF RECOGNIZED PROS IN THE FIELD. I WANT TO SEE YOUR NOTETAKING TABLETS A-QUIVER, PAGE AFTER GODDAMN PAGE CRAMMED WITH A CHOICE COMBINATION OF JOTTED INSPIRATIONS AND VENOMOUS, ENVIOUS CARICATURES."

Edited 2016-05-10 01:56 (UTC)

Quite a few faces glance at them.

Nepeta, with studied nonchalance, gives them all a ~~purrfect~~ perfect middling-to-highblood wave that Equius would be proud of.

(And then pops a dumpling into her mouth. Daintily.)

For his part, Karkat is not sure if you are supposed to leave the bones of the lizard legs to the side or not, and has decided to err on the side of protein. If the yelling did not draw attention, the crunching probably would.

(There is an old troll saying: If I wasn't supposed to bite it, then why do my teeth grow back?)

The lizard leg bones are full of marrow! Tasty tasty marrow. It would be silly to waste them.

"In the meowntime," Nepeta says, selecting a stuffed bellfungus, "I was wondering if you would purrfer to have dessert befur the mewvie, or after. Or during?"

"DURING MAYBE? THAT SEEMS LIKE THE MOST COMFORTABLE."

"IN WHICH CASE WE SHOULD PROBABLY GET DOWN TO MAKING A DECISION."

"Ooh, yes. Have you got a selection purrpared?"

"YEAH OKAY." Karkat slides his plate to one side, and extracts from his suit pocket the speakercrab. (It was ruining the lines of his sleeve.) He activates it, letting it scuttle across the tablecloth and project a triptych of choices.

"OKAY, SO CHOICE NUMBER ONE IS PROBABLY A LITTLE ON THE NOSE, BUT IT SEEMED LIKE, YOU KNOW, A LOCK. IT IS ABOUT... SOME CATS. THERE'S LIKE, THIS CAT--" He points her out. "AND SHE HAS SOME KITTENS; AND THEN THERE IS ALSO A ROMANTIC ENTANGLEMENT WITH THIS OTHER CAT? BUT THAT CAT IS OF... A DISTINCT CAT SOCIAL CASTE? AND THESE CATS..."

"YOU KNOW WHAT, NO, I AM PRE-EMPTIVELY SCRATCHING THIS OPTION JUST FROM LISTENING TO MY FUCKING SELF. AND ALSO, BECAUSE YOU JUST LANDED A SENTENCE WITH FOUR DISTINCT PUNS IN IT, DON'T THINK THAT PASSED UNNOTICED." Karkat flicks that hologram away with his finger.

Edited 2016-05-11 15:13 (UTC)