not_every_mage | Holiday Inn, Limbo City, Friday Evening

Holiday Inn, Limbo City, Friday Evening

Anders had booked and paid for the room, ignoring the clerk's dirty look at the blood and muck on their clothes. They wouldn't be the only people caught in the day's devastation looking for someplace to sleep tonight

He'd silently followed Dante through the hotel halls to their room, and placed a quick order for pizza before he took off his boots and crashed out on the bed. The thousand bruises and scrapes of the battle stung his skin.

He should shower. He didn't want to move.

He turned to Dante, still registering faint surprise at the newly white hair. (He supposed they were lucky if that was the worst permanent change Dante saw.) Words failed him when it came to addressing the true horror of the day, but he should at least say something

"They said the pizza should be here in about half an hour," he said. "I'm actually impressed it's not longer, considering."

[OOC: For one, NFB.]

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"But that would be sensible," Anders said, though his shoulders relaxed before he twisted to look at the bruises Dante had mentioned. "Maybe wait until you're fed, too."

Dante finally pulled his hands away, satisfied with his clumsy, never-going-to-be-a-healer work. "Better plan," he decided, leaning up to steal a quick kiss from Anders. "Fucking hell."

"Fucking hell, what?" Anders asked after pulling out of the kiss, but was interrupted by a knock at the door. "-- oh, good. We have pizza."

He buttoned his pants and went over to pay the delivery guy.

Fucking hell, everything today.

Dante sighed, stretching out back onto the bed. His thoughts were picking up again; he was looking forward to pizza to shut them up again.

At least here felt safe.

Anders returned to the bed with two pizza boxes balanced on his hand. (He had fed Dante after a fight before -- one pizza was an appetizer.)

"Ta-da," he said, flopping down beside Dante with the pizza between them. "Thank the Maker. I didn't realize how hungry I was until I smelled them."

"Speak for yourself," Dante said, snagging a slice as soon as the pizza came down. "Feel like I haven't eaten in days."

The slice did not live long. Woe, pizza slice.

He looked up at Anders once he'd polished it off, weighing another one of the many unanswered questions in his head. "So," he said slowly, "You're cool with... all of this?"

The demon thing, the power, the fight, the part where the dude he'd been sleeping with was liable to be around for decades rather than days, Anders could take his pick.

Anders put down his own half-finished slice. "I ... guess I am," he said haltngly, groping for words. "I feel like I shouldn't trust you, but I do. More than anything. I loved you before we knew any of this" -- the demon thing, the power, the fight -- "and it's not like the person you are has changed. There's just ... more to you, that we didn't know before."

Demons lied. Anders knew that; he wasn't an idiot. But he didn't think it was possible to fake empathy as convincingly as Dante had over the last 18 months. Whatever a Nephilim was, it wasn't anything Anders felt he had to fear.

Dante nodded, and picked up a slice not just because he was still hungry but to have something to hide his expression behind. He took a few bites, and--

Okay, he ate the whole thing. He really hadn't changed that much.

"Demons never did much for me," he said slowly. "Or angels for that matter. But humans did." He picked up another slice. "I wanna do right by you guys," he said. "By you."

Anders blinked thoughtfully, an odd expression crossing his face. "I don't think anybody's ever seen me as representing humans before," he said. "But I'm glad you're on our side."

Dante blinked too, but then he let out a soft laugh. "You don't really represent anybody but you, man," he said. "But you're human and I kinda owe you."

"Yes, you do," Anders agreed lightly, and went quiet as he chewed on some pepperoni.

It was a comfortable silence, but one with some thinking going on behind it. Anders still had questions to ask, and was trying to decide if this was the time.

Dante polished off another slice in the mean time, eyeing his expression thoughtfully.

"What's on your mind?" he asked as he picked up the next slice.

Anders sighed and leaned to the side, propping himself on his elbow.

"That thing where you went all red," he said. "What did that feel like from the inside?"

"Like... power," Dante said. "And anger. Like being an unstoppable force."

He took a bite from his slice. "And like I like being in my human body a lot more than that one."

"I believe you, and I like you being in it better too," Anders said, some dark envy in his voice. "But there've been times in my life where I wouldn't have been able to turn down being some powerful angry force."

If he'd gotten Dante's power back in Thedas, every Circle would have been flat on the ground in an eyeblink. He knew that like he knew his own name.

Some part of him also knew it was probably better for everyone that his magic operated on a much more human scale.

Dante's mouth twisted a little, into a wry smile. "It's useful," he said softly. "And I get why you'd want it, people used to treat you like shit."

He swallowed another bite of pizza.

"But I don't know..." He put the crust down. "It's not that important to me, I guess. Having all that power."

Anders picked pepperoni off a slice to eat first.

"Maybe that's why it's good you have it and I don't," he offered. "So if you had a choice, could you walk away from it all and just be human?"

"Might've been happier that way," Dante said. "But at the same time, I can't picture it, you know?"

"You'd be a whole different person," Anders had to agree. "Even more than I would. I had more time thinking I was normal."

"Yeah, never had that," Dante said, a wan smile on his face. "But at least now I know why. That's worth something."

He glanced towards Anders. "Can't make real choices until you know."

"And you just found everything out," Anders said thoughtfully, in between bites of crush. "So between that and not thinking you'll die any day, it's like this is the first time you can make choices."

"Yeah," Dante said. "And that's... it feels kinda strange."

"I'd bet," Anders said, tapping his toes lightly against Dante's leg. "Any idea what you want to do with it?"

"I got to 'get Anders to a bedroom and buy a load of pizza' and stranded there," Dante admitted, smiling without realizing it at the touch against his skin. "I could probably do that a few months more and not get bored."

It was still a surprise, how warm Dante could make Anders feel with something like that little flicker of a smile.

"Well, I know that was my plan," he teased. "So it's not a bad place to start from."

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