Caritas, Friday, 8/14

[living_endless]

Tino's bucket collection had grown overnight; now he had two buckets instead of one. The three of them -- Tino and the buckets -- all seemed very happy together.

Didi reassured him that they were very cute buckets indeed and then backed away to polish the other end of the bar for longer than was strictly necessary. She loved everybody, sure, but some people were just weird.

[OOC: Open post, no OCD!]

Comments

[suitably_heroic]

Atton's leg was starting to more or less function as a walking appendage again, but the residual frustration of having trouble moving around left him feeling pretty aimless.

Caritas seemed like a good shot to get over it-- even if he didn't anticipate this particular bartender, necessarily. Not that that was stopping him from sinking down on a stool. "Can I get a water and a whiskey?"

Maybe drinking would calm his urge to move.

[living_endless]

"Sure," Didi said, since that was the kind of drink even she couldn't screw up. She got a bottle of whiskey (Atton's preferred brand, if he'd notice) off a shelf. "Hi there. You look like you can use it."

[suitably_heroic]

"I'm trying not to," Atton griped.

He didn't particularly like drinking, but sometimes it was useful. Pretending to almost always was.

[living_endless]

"You were limping a little," Didi explained, a note of hesitation entering her voice. "Weren't you? Or am I seeing things?"

[suitably_heroic]

"I might have had something smashed into my leg repeatedly," Atton said grudgingly, "But I'm walking it off. See?"

The 'see', apparently, referred to the fact he came here at all.

[living_endless]

"Congrats," Didi said, and you'd be right to ask if that was sarcasm. "I love the way you put that, too. Like maybe something just happened to get smashed into your leg, but you aren't sure."

She speared a cherry on a frilly toothpick, added the garnish to the whiskey and water, and slid it over to him.

[suitably_heroic]

Because it had been a weird Force-worm and Atton had maybe technically thrown himself at it repeatedly, which had resulted in the repeated injury when the thing threw itself back.

"Hey, hey, are you giving me attitude now?" he said. "That's not very bartendery of you."

Unless you were Cara.

[living_endless]

"Really?" Didi asked. "I always thought people liked bartenders who could, y'know, banter. Maybe it's not coming out right."

[suitably_heroic]

"I'm pretty sure the bartender stereotype is that you lean over and you tell people to tell you all their problems, or something," Atton offered. He took his drink - the alcoholic one - and sipped it. "Not that I particularly want to talk about my problems, so actually, banter's great."

[living_endless]

Didi wrinkled her nose. "Yeah, and asking people to tell you all their problems just sounds desperate," she contributed. "When you start with banter, you can slide into real stuff whenever."

[suitably_heroic]

"Sure, if you want to be all sneaky about it," said Atton, who had most certainly done that on several occasions while still squeaking out of talking about anything important himself. "But it does change up the mood." He held up his drink. "To be fair, so does a stiff drink, so maybe the bartender thing isn't a complete desperate move."

[living_endless]

"I'd call it being friendly, not sneaky," Didi told him, smiling a bit. "And yeah, drinks do have a way of loosening people up. But I end up playing therapist less than I expected. This place can be pretty quiet."

[suitably_heroic]

Atton picked up his glass of water, and took a sip from that next. "I'm not arguing there, but-- quiet good or quiet bad?" he said.

[living_endless]

Didi glanced over his head to the zombie band. "Can be both," she said,rubbing her upper arms. "The island has different vibes, you know? When it's quiet because everybody's happy and busy, it feels different from when it's quiet because a bunch of people got abducted by aliens."

[suitably_heroic]

Atton shrugged. "Either way, there's no one bugging you," he said. "Provided you're not the one getting abducted, anyway."

[living_endless]

"I lucked out this time," Didi told him. "Happened once when I was a student and that really wasn't a fun weekend."

Understatement, given that it had been Silent Hill.

[suitably_heroic]

"Must've been before my time," Atton supplied. "I've done a lot of things because of this stupid island, but I think this was the first major abduction."

Usually he just ran around hauling Sparkle out of trouble.

[living_endless]

"Probably," Didi agreed. "It was ...gosh. Must have been five years ago. It was this sad, creepy world where everything was covered with ash. And of course there were monsters."

She glanced at him out of the corner of her eye. "What was this last one like? You can only tell so much from radio."

[suitably_heroic]

"At first it looked like Fandom, just a creepily nice one," Atton said. He took a sip of his whiskey. "But that sim was clearly not built to contain the full capacity of even half the population of this island. It started coming apart pretty fast."

[living_endless]

"Because of course they underestimated you guys," Didi said. "Classic mistake. Probably not much fun while it was doing the coming apart, though."

[suitably_heroic]

"You'd be surprised, actually," Atton said. "The place just went haywire. At some point we actually got roads. And cars. And idiots to beat the hell out of."

[living_endless]

"... that doesn't sound completely horrible," Didi allowed. "I mean, I'm not really the relax with violence type, but if it's all fake anyhow it could be kind of fun."

[suitably_heroic]

"Would've been more fun if they hadn't tried to crawl into our heads," Atton muttered, "But at least it was cathartic in the end."

[living_endless]

"Tried to crawl into your heads?" Didi asked, crinkling her brow. "How were they doing that?"

She was getting a sense Atton had a wee tiny problem with mental privacy in general.

[suitably_heroic]

"How else are you going to call it when someone plugs your mind into a machine and downloads your entire self?" said Atton.

Who, yes, had enormous issues with mental privacy. "For all I know, there's a copy of my entire neural network still sitting on a server somewhere."

[living_endless]

"An Atton simulator," Didi mused. "Okay, yeah, that does bring up a couple issues."

[suitably_heroic]

Especially since there was a lot in there Atton didn't want anybody to know about.

"To put it mildly," he said. "I should've just torched the ship when I had the chance."

While naked. Sure.

[living_endless]

"It might have been a little rough to get everybody out if you did that," Didi offered, equally mild. "But what happened to it in the end? Did they just fly away?"

[suitably_heroic]

"The ship pretty much came apart, but they managed to limp outta here," Atton said. "I'm hoping they don't go and bother someone else with this poodoo."

Ahahah.

[living_endless]

"It'd be nice if bullies gave up that easily," Didi said.

She didn't believe they did, no.

[suitably_heroic]

"We did beat the hell out of them for a while there," Atton offered.

[living_endless]

"So maybe they'll think twice next time?" Didi offered. "That'd be something, at least."

[suitably_heroic]

"That's usually the theory," Atton said. He sipped his drink again. "So you weren't paying attention, huh?"

[living_endless]

"I usually like hearing about things from people who were there," Didi said, shrugging. "Sorry if it sounds dumb."

[suitably_heroic]

"It doesn't," Atton said. He shrugged. "Just wondering what the secret is for those of you who manage to sleep through this stuff. I always manage to get sucked in one way or another."

[living_endless]

"Maybe you like excitement more than I do," Didi offered. "Or maybe you just have the world's worst luck."

[suitably_heroic]

"Or too many impressionable baby friends," Atton muttered.

[living_endless]

"Could be," Didi tossed back. "How old are you, anyhow?"

He had the kind of face and bearing that made it hard to tell.

[suitably_heroic]

"Ugh," Atton said, and threw back the last of his whiskey. "Thirty."

The 'ugh' was for the thirty. He was perfectly aware he could probably still pass for twenty if he wanted to.

[living_endless]

"I should have guessed," Didi said. "But that's not an ugh age."

It was cute,how 30-year-olds thought 18-year-olds were babies. It was all about ten seconds to her.

[suitably_heroic]

"Feels pretty ugh," Atton commented. "I hadn't planned on getting old."

Especially considering the amount of times he should have died and didn't, and that wasn't even counting his elastic band approach to being near-lethally injured.

[living_endless]

"Happens to just about everybody," Didi told him, and nodded to his empty glass to ask if he needed a refill. "And I've heard it's better than the other option."

[suitably_heroic]

"Never been a big fan of the other option," Atton clarified.

Sure, he wasn't always the biggest fan of life, but dying? Not if he had a choice.

Except for... well, anyway.

"But I assumed it'd come sooner rather than later."

[living_endless]

"So now you have a whole 50 years to plan for that you weren't expecting," Didi said. She wasn't going to comment on her opinion of that other option; it was too complicated. "Or not to plan for, if that's your style. I do netter with the not planning."

[suitably_heroic]

"I dunno," Atton said, "I mean, the stuff I do, I could die next week. Fifty years seems a lot to plan for."

Terrifying, honestly. He barely knew what to do with himself today, let alone in fifty years.

[living_endless]

"Anyone could die next week, Atton," Didi told him, with a tiny shrug. "I've seen it a million times. Babies. Moms. Guys playing soccer in the park who forget to look both ways before chasing a ball into the street. My theory is that you have to live like you don't know that."

[suitably_heroic]

"Easier said than done when you're used to seeing it," Atton said, "And you don't have anything else to distract you."