Caritas, Friday Evening

[newroutines]

Okay, Mike was finally starting to really feel a bit better instead of just faking it until he believed himself. Still, apart from the band, it was kind of a quiet night at Caritas so far. Tino was looking at inventory things, and Mike was cleaning glasses.

Sorry. Maybe he'd dance or something next week.

[ocd free!]

Comments

[throughaphase]

In part, Kitty was here because it'd been kind of an emotional rollercoaster of a week. In part, it was because, "I'd like to order my last technically illegal drink, please."

In a bar that didn't card that she ran.

[newroutines]

It wasn't any stranger than anything else on the island. Mike smiled at her, almost if not quite as widely as usual. "But of course. Any preference?"

He hadn't managed to do anything with the specials this week.

[throughaphase]

"Uh, rum and Coke?" she said. "I'm so not going to finish it, but I wanted to order it."

[newroutines]

"Can do."

In fact, he got to preparing that for her immediately.

"So," he added, while he was doing that, turned away from her, "how's everything?"

[throughaphase]

"Somewhere between good and weird. It's a sliding scale," Kitty said after a moment. "How about you?"

Since she noticed he was a little subdued and all.

[newroutines]

"It's been a rough ride for a while," he admitted after a pause, still not looking at her, though that was excused by the booze-pouring. "Think the worst is over, though, so... It's cool."

[throughaphase]

"That part's good, at least," she frowned. "What's been going on?"

[newroutines]

Mike turned and waved his free hand kind of dismissively as he handed her the drink. "Nothing. It's not important. Well, the shit that's mine, that's not important."

He was pretty sure she was already aware of the Derek stuff.

[throughaphase]

"Okay. But if you need to vent, I'm around," Kitty said, taking the drink. "Gonna guess the rest is Derek?"

[newroutines]

"Yeah."

No point in denying that, was there?

"But, I don't know. I think there might be progress happening there."

[throughaphase]

Forgive her if she looked surprised. "Seriously?"

[newroutines]

"Yeah, uh... I maybe talked him into to talking to a professional." A beat. "Well, into considering it, anyway."

[throughaphase]

Well, Kitty was seriously impressed with you, Mike. "I never would have thought he'd go for that."

[newroutines]

"Well, it's not for sure yet. I think everyone just yelled at him so much that he caved."

Yeah, Mike had maybe yelled a tiny bit. Or at least snapped.

[throughaphase]

"It's also possible you're a wizard. Because I left my talk with him-" It was really more of a lecture. "-figuring he just wrote off everything I said."

[newroutines]

"Well, I'm terrifying in the morning when I have to deal with pissy people for the seventh day in a row."

He was mostly joking. Okay, entirely joking. He didn't have it in him to be terrifying, least of all at Derek.

[throughaphase]

"Yeah, that'd get me to crack, too." It'd take waaaay less for her to snap, let's be real. "Though I still can't picture you yelling."

[newroutines]

"I try to not do it much." That part was true. "But I had a pretty dumb fucking week at the house after I got home."

From his even dumber holidays, but he didn't want to get into that.

[throughaphase]

"Yeah, doesn't sound like it would have been a very fun place to be." Especially without Stiles to liven things up.

[newroutines]

"Yeah." Yeah, it hadn't been. He rubbed the back of his neck before resting both hands on the bar. "But I'm hoping it'll start getting better now. You talked to Stiles about this?"

[throughaphase]

Kitty nodded. "He called me before he came back to town and I saw him before I talked to Derek. Have you seen him at all?"

[newroutines]

Mike shook his head.

"Too busy." Or, he'd been burying himself in his work. "How was he?"

[throughaphase]

"Okay as can be, I guess," she said. "He has a lot going on without this, and Derek screwed up bad. He's been better."