[true to his bright red word, Dave shows up in around forty minutes, grocery bag in hand. there's a dark feather or two in his hair, which looks mussed, but he's intact, which should be good enough.]

There are too many damn types of pasta. It all cooks to the same thing, so why are there so many? Who goes to the store and thinks "gee, I need to pick up some bucatini and some radiatori otherwise my dish is going to become garbage not even that second cousin who eats everything would touch"? People don't do that. They just think the word "pasta".

[half of this speech has been delivered to Jade's closed door. by the time she opens it, he finishes a sentence, and then holds up the bag.]

...It said "spaghetti" on the box, if you're wondering. Pure, back to basics down home goodness in this cardboard.

A little shell of starchy shit is what it is.

[he comes in though, trying to brush the feathers out of his hair before he steps inside.]

Oh, and there's garlic bread in that too. Says you can just put it in the oven, heat and eat. Some lady gave me a look when I took it because it was the last one so I'm assuming it's worth it.

It's all the same! Pasta is all the same, Jade, it's the same shit shaped differently. It's all the same carb laden vehicle for the sauce to get in your mouth.

[he is unenlightened. his third eye is closed, Jade.]

Okay but if I pour cheese sauce on the thick ones, it's going to taste exactly the same as curled noodles. There is no valid reason to buy different noodles. I could get macaroni and put it in marinara and it'd taste like spaghetti.

With enough sauce, it all tastes like sauce. The sauce singularity. The sauce as the source.

[stop him.]

Because people will buy it. Some people want two hundred varieties of pasta. They capitalize on this.

I mean ravioli is the shit, though, I'll concede there.

[there's a twitch, when she mentions Dirk. he looks away, hand rubbing the back of his neck, casual but not.]

...Nah. Rather talk about how you know how to make pasta, because I always make too fucking much when I try.

Come on, not even me?

[this would be more effective if not deadpan and his expression behind his glasses. but it's the closest you'll ever get to Dave jokingly pleading, with his hand on his heart.]

[if the lady wishes. he clears his throat and takes a step forward.]

Pretty please, Jade, let me learn the perfect portions of pasta.

[he can keep going.]

[she's laughing, and everything is fine, all the pleading and the careful alliteration is like how things used to be, it's all better for that one moment when she's laughing.]

Yeah, because it's easy and kinda hard to mess it up too bad. But whose hands? Mine, yours? The hands of an Italian chef that's gonna manifest in your kitchen and yell at me for speaking the truth that it all tastes the same?

That doesn't explain how I can fit a whole pizza in there.

[but he gets it. his handfuls. that's not gonna feel like enough pasta, but if it stops the pastapocalypse from happening every time he cooks it, then so be it.]

Nah, but I know I can.

[he's good! he just lacks basic vitamins because he is a sixteen year old boy who makes not great choices. this is why roommates save his life.]

Sometimes it just tastes so good and you think that keeping on is the right idea and no one is around to stop you from taking that cheesy goodness and plunking it directly into your facehole until you realize where you are and that suddenly there is no more.