fandomtownies | Devil's Nest, Monday, 04/21

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Devil's Nest, Monday, 04/21

Physically, Jack was going through the mechanical bits of inventory management that went into getting the club open every Monday. He ordered soda, restocked glasses, dusted off bottles of odd-flavored liqueur no one ordered except on dares. He even bobbed his head along to the dubstep the DJ was inflicting on the club today.

Mentally, he was stuck back on Horizon. It wasn't just the buzz of the Collectors that stuck with him, or the glimpses he'd gotten of frozen colonists -- though those things were more than bad enough. But the worst of it was Kaidan's suggestion that, if Shepard was right, this might just be the first salvo in a march toward extinction. Jack had personally been through a good handful of supposed apocalypses and was still standing -- but he never relished the prospect of another one, and especially not one as hard to fight as this one promised to be.

He mulled over whether there was anything he could do as he straightened the tables and chairs.

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Jack's not inclined to be nosy today.

He is there!

Go shake your groove thang.

For Eric and special guests!

I had ALL THE INDIAN FOOD for lunch and now I just want to nap.

Éponine hadn't come so far that she was even contemplating anything close to the question of whether anything could be done; there was too much post-Restoration-era Parisian cynicism in her yet, but she did suspect other people's minds might be fairly weighed down now and had the half-formed notion of seeing if she could do anything for them. She didn't say anything, just slipped into the bar as quietly as possible and gave Jack a halfhearted flash of a smile as she sat down.

"Hell of a weekend," Jack said, returning that halfhearted smile. "Hi there."

Celia was out for an early-evening stroll when she abruptly realized two things: one, she had never been inside this bar (the other one, yes, but not this one) and two -- she was feeling adventurous enough to rectify that fact.

Not that she had any intention of drinking anything stronger than a soda, of course. Even if she'd been allowed.

She ducked in, curious, and made her way over to the bar in a swish of skirts, looking around as she did so. "It's rather less intimidating in here than the name would suggest," she told the young man behind the bar with a small smile, demurely taking a seat and pulling her gloves off.

Shortly after sunset Allie wandered in and took a seat at the bar. "So is the third time going to be the charm, or are we just staying on island the next time Kaidan invites us to visit?"

Sarcasm, the best defense of the emotionally repressed.

Éponine laughed, but there was more sarcasm than mirth in the sound. "And here I was, not thinking to expect that sort of thing. That was a bit silly, wasn't it?"

Good lord, this place was making her go a bit soft.

"It's not, but don't let the owner hear you say that," Jack said with a quick grin. He glanced the girl over, registering her skirt and gloves. "He wants us to be the dark, adult place on the island. Sometimes we even manage it."

"If I didn't have classes to go to, I might never leave the island again," Jack told her solemnly. "Think I could get away with becoming a hermit?"

Jack shrugged a shoulder. "I'd say yes if I hadn't done the same thing. I should know better than to try and go keep people company by now."

He reached for a glass, the garnish tray, the soda wand. He couldn't give Eponine alcohol, but he was going to do the best he could without it. "Do you like oranges?"

"Should I ever meet the owner, I'll compliment him on his den of iniquity," she assured him with a grin. "Do you have anything strawberry-flavored? I mean, strawberry-flavored in a dark, adult sort of way? But not too adult. I'm only fifteen."

Don't compliment yourself, Celia. He probably would have guessed you weren't old enough.

"I never would have guessed," Jack said lightly, then went to rummage for a soda.

"This should work," he said, showing her the bottle. "It's sweet, but not the type that makes your teeth hurt. Positively sophisticated. Shall I pour it for you?"

"I do!" blurted out Éponine, her eyes lighting up with excitement. "They cost a lot at home, but every now and then my brother might get hold of one, and share it with Azelma and me. There's a great big garden of them in the Tuileries, you know, but he's small enough, he could slip in and out quick as anything. Now I can get them easier, it's nice to have one whenever it suits me."

"I remember that," Jack said wistfully. "Not the garden, you know. But only being able to get oranges once in a while and having to make them last. They almost tasted better for being so scarce."

As he spoke, he assembled ingredients: Orange juice, half-and-half, vanilla syrup, seltzer, whipped cream. He mixed the creamsicle mocktail, topped its mound of whipped cream with a cherry and an orange slice, and presented it to Eponine.

"I thought you might like something special today," he explained.

"It depends, are you willing to give up things like running water and refrigeration in order to go live in an isolated shack in the woods?" Allie asked with a small smile.

"That would be lovely," Celia decided with a bright smile. "Thank you. I wouldn't imagine you get a lot of use out of your strawberry soda inventory in a place like this, do you? Or do people mix it with things?"

Ew.

"There had to be a rub in it, didn't there?" Jack sighed rhetorically. "All right, perhaps going hermit isn't an entirely reasonable reaction. But I still might go for it sometime."

"Holing up in the house for a long weekend sounds like a nice compromise. Stock up on food, start a movie and just don't answer the door." Not that Allie was making any plans of her own for something like that.

"Probably with vodka," Jack told her as he fixed her glass, "but only because people put flavored vodka in absolutely everything."

He did not think highly of this trend.

"But we try to keep a little of everything on hand, since we never know who wills how up or when something's going to suddenly come back into fashion. Maybe next month, strawberry soda will be the rage."

"I'll spread the word," Celia assured him. "You'll be swarmed by people demanding sweet-but-not-too-sweet strawberry soda within days, I'm sure. You must've worked here fairly long, to notice established trends like that, though."

"Isn't that fancier than most drinks I usually have!" exclaimed Éponine, just before taking the cherry off the top of the drink and popping it into her mouth. "That's nice, though, nicer than only pouring something into a glass, and just for me."

She propped her chin up on one hand and fell silent for possibly a second and then burst out again, "But now I'll have to do something nice for you as well." It didn't come out sounding like a complaint; more like a realization.

"God, better than two years now," Jack admitted. He was always surprised to realize that. "And on and off the island, mainly on, for five. I'm guessing you're a bit newer than that."

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Devil's Nest, Monday, 04/21

Mod Your Drinking [04/21]

Talk to Jack [04/21]

Dance Floor + Lounge [04/21]

VIP Section [04/21]

OOC [04/21]

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