fandomtownies | The Perk, Friday Early Afternoon

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The Perk, Friday Early Afternoon

Ino had showed up with the intent to get a tea, but the staff had talked her into trying a peppermint mocha… thing. She sipped it and shrugged, heading for a table that gave her a good view of the shop. The drink was okay. It would do.

She tugged out a notebook and settled in to try and write something to her Dad. Ino kinda failed at writing letters.

[Open!]

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If there was any person on Earth who should not be allowed to go near coffee, it would probably be Jeffrey Murdock.

If there was any person on Earth capable of showing up exactly where he wasn't, for the sake of all things, supposed to go, it would also be Jeffrey Murdock.

This is why Jeff passed by the Perk in the afternoon, spotted his little sibling, and dashed in, yelling "INO!" and just avoiding getting a swinging door stuck in his face.

She'd been just about to take a sip when the sudden shout made her jump and the next few moments were made of frantic scrambling as she tried not to dump her drink all over either herself or her letters (though that wouldn't be much of a waste considering how little progress she'd made). She mostly succeeded.

"Jeff!" Pleased and scolding all in one, "Don't scare me like that!"

"I'm sorry!" That had all the load his apologies to his other relatives tended to carry. "I may have gotten a bit enthusiastic because of all the coffee," Jeff explained, despite not actually having had any coffee yet, "You know what it's like, you know, coffee. It gets very overcaffeinated. And then things sort of-- pop out."

He laughed nervously as he slid into a seat opposite hers. "What're you doing?"

There were several moments of blinking as she attempted to wrap her mind around his explanation. "... how much coffee have you had today?" Ino asked warily.

"Writing letters home." Pause. "Well, trying anyway."

"Coffee?" A blink blink in return. "Oh, I haven't had any."

Jeff waved at one of the members of the staff. They gave him an odd look, almost as if hitting some kind of mental block, and moved on. "Funny how I can never get any in these places," he said, "It's like they know something I don't."

She wasn't sure if helping him get coffee was a good thing, and it probably wasn't, but Ino grinned and said, "You've got to go up to the counters. They don't come 'round to the table, you know."

"Tried that," Jeff sagged into the table, "But there was a woman."

As always, with Jeff, that was really enough explanation.

"Right, a woman." Ino nodded, because that did make... sense, for Jeff anyway, and then because he looked kinda pathetic, asked, "Do you want me to get you a coffee?"

And Jeff lit up like a Christmas tree again. Well, sort of. Jeff enthusiasm came in many levels, and this hung somewhere in the middle (there were no breasts involved, or at least none he was allowed to look at). "Could you?" he asked, "I don't really care what kind!"

"I don't mind," She grinned, "Wait here."

She headed up to the counter, had a brief conversation with one of the staff and eventually came back with a drink that she offered to Jeff. "There's caramel in it somehow," Ino said, "I don't really understand why, but the staff said it was popular."

Caramel, as far as she was concerned, belonged only on ice cream.

Jeff reached for the drink and took it.

The universe shuddered.

He took a sip and beamed. "Thank you," he said, with full conviction. He was a simple man with simple needs. "So you're writing to your family?" Pause. "Since they're your family and all and you're my little sister, doesn't that sort of mean you're writing to my family?"

Chad had taught him to take this big sibling thing very seriously.

She was glad he liked it. It would be interesting to see what caffeine did to his system.

Ino was still sorta adjusting to the whole taking it seriously thing. "I... suppose they're your family too? In a way. I guess you could think of them like that, if you wanted to?" She hadn't really thought about it before, "And yeah, well, mostly to my Dad - he wanted weekly letters and I've missed the last two weeks."

"You've missed the last two weeks?!" Jeff may have sounded a little offended at that. And frightened. For someone else. "Won't he get really cross?" He had some experience in these matters.

"Well, he's probably pretty unhappy with me." Ino admitted sheepishly, "But it's hard to work out what I can and can't tell him and then with everything that's gone on this month... yeah. I don't know what to say. So I'm a bit behind on letters. Missed. Whatever."

"Well, does he want me to have a word with you?!" Jeff was a big brother and all, and relatives were supposed to do that sort of thing. Right?

"He might not even know yet, if he's been out on a mission or something." Ino sipped her drink, "so I'd rather not have you have a word with me quite yet." Or ever really, because that'd just be strange. "I'll just apologize a whole lot in my letter." And gloss over any real news.

And away from the letters! "What about you?" She asked, "Anything interesting lately?"

"Turtle got attacked by a secret cake," Jeff explained, sipping his coffee. Give it a few minutes, and the caffeine would kick in. "Well, not really attacked, I mean the secret cake just sort of materialised, but you know how it is with secret cakes, they might go on the offensive at any moment." Pause. "In your stomach, of course. Not anywhere else. That would just be mad."

"... and she ate the cake?" Ino asked dubiously, "there was no card or anything?"

"She ate the cake." Jeff was pretty serious about this. "I felt it was sort of irresponsible." Pause. "But don't tell Turtle I said that."

"I won't." But she definitely agreed with it being irresponsible, "But nothing happened to her, right? So it was a safe, non-bad cake."

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The Perk, Friday Early Afternoon

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