fandomtownies | The Perk, Sunday Afternoon

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The Perk, Sunday Afternoon

Yesterday, Karolina had woken up in her office and instinctively known something was wrong.

As a seasoned Fandomite, it had not taken her long at all to figure out exactly what: she'd apparently been a doll for several weeks. Maybe it was the island's way of properly welcoming her back? And, it had been five whole years since that last time she'd been dollified, so maybe it had been time.

Either way... What a damper on her plans to get right to work with the students that had been. Wow.

But now it was Sunday, and even someone as dutiful as Karolina wasn't going to work on a Sunday, especially given that she'd realized she'd entirely missed fall break and the trip that went with it. She wasn't going to admit to being bummed about it, but... She was currently ordering a hot chocolate with all the possible toppings.

So, you know.

"I guess the chocolate sprinkles probably aren't vegan, huh?"

Probably doesn't matter, with all that whipped cream already on there, Kar.

[ooc: Oh so open.]

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"You know what else isn't vegan? Fun."

That... was Tamsin speaking from one table over, drinking a large coffee concoction that didn't feature whipped cream but definitely wasn't vegan.

On her first go-round on the island, Karolina might have gotten a little flustered at someone butting in on her ordering like that. But she wasn't that easily flustered anymore.

Not even when she glanced over at who'd spoken and noticed, holy crap, that it was someone very pretty.

No, she just smiled and cocked her head some, like she was pretending to think it over for just a second. "You know, I think that depends on the fun you're having."

"No," Tamsin said, with all the lack-of-shit-giving being over a thousand years old gave you. "Trust me. The fun that withstands vegan anything hasn't been invented and never will be. I've known some people who tried, it got ugly."

"So do you just include meat in all the fun you have, or...?" Karolina had to wonder, as she claimed her non-vegan hot chocolate. With the chocolate sprinkles and everything else on it, yes. "Because that sounds kinda weird."

A beat, and then: "No offence." There was a certain level of kind-heartedness she would apparently never grow out of, no matter how comfortable she got with joking at strangers.

"I only include meat about half the time, sometimes I'm all about the seafood," Tamsin snarked, rolling her eyes. She took a sip from her coffee. "But don't touch my dairy and eggs."

Karolina held up her free hand in a mock-placating gesture. "Wouldn't dream of it."

"That's the problem with vegans. Vegetarians are a little whacky, but at least they can still appreciate some whipped cream. Once you give that up, you're lost to the world," Tamsin said, studying Karolina's drink from a distance.

"I'm not whacky," Karolina protested with a little wrinkling of her nose. While taking a hesitant half-step closer to Tamsin's table. "I just care about the world."

"Eating a few less chickens isn't going to make the world suck less," Tamsin said, shrugging. "Someone else will figure out how to ruin it some other way. That's how it works."

She should've probably not sounded that perky about that.

'Perky' was honestly preferableto 'hostile', which was the fashion.in.which Karolina had usually heard those kinds of arguments being put.

Though it was still a little... something.

"Enough people eating a few less chickens makes a difference, though," she said. Then she nudged the chair opposite Tamsin with her foot. "Do you mind if I, um, sit here?"

"Please. There's too many of you," Tamsin said, once again rolling her eyes. But she shrugged. "Sure. You've got dairy, I can deal with a bleeding heart vegetarian."

"I'm not actually a bleeding heart anything."

Well...

She took a seat. "I'm just Karolina. Hi."

"You keep telling yourself that," Tamsin said. She tilted her head. "You look vaguely familiar. But not 'I see you at the store with that weird, overexcited wiggly dude every day'. More like... alumni familiar?"

"Oh, probably!" Karolina replied brightly. "I graduated from here a couple of years ago. And now I'm back as the guidance counselor."

Because that was just how things worked around here.

"You go to college and study anything related to guidance counseling?" Tamsin asked, sipping her coffee.

"I've been studying social work," Karolina replied, with a little shrug of her shoulders. "With an emphasis on working with, like, teenagers? Especially at-risk ones. I'm actually going to community college on the mainland, here."

Which she was weirdly self-conscious about, for someone who knew that the previous counselor had had zero qualifications.

"I transferred over from LA."

"Huh." Tamsin let the word escape her. Then she let it hang in the air for a moment. "You might be the most qualified person on the island."

Karolina couldn't really help the width and brightness of the smile that spread across her face.

"Really?"

Then, with a sheepish little chuckle, she added, "So I guess nothing's really changed while I've been gone about how, um... People are hired, here."

"I don't think this place could change if it wanted to," Tamsin said dryly. "The last person who had your job was some kind of chain-smoking alcoholic who hated people."

Beat.

"And I don't smoke, it's gross."

"Yeah," Karolina replied slowly. "She left me a beer in the mini fridge in the counselor's office."

She was probably not going to do the same for whoever took the job after her.

"Not a big drinker?" Tamsin guessed wryly.

"Well, I drink, sometimes, when there's a party or some big bad guy's been put away," Karolina hazarded, scooping up some of the whipped cream on her deibk with a spoon. "But not at work."

"I give it a few months," Tamsin decided. "These kids are a lot more terrible from the other side."

"I doubt that," Karolina replied with a little smile, because of course she did. "I think I'm going to be okay. I was wary of authority figures, too."

Super villain parents did that.

"Somehow you don't seem like the kind of kid who'd be a massive dick in class," Tamsin said skeptically.

"And I wasn't, but I didn't trust adults," Karolina explained. "I'm not saying it's experience that'll help with everyone, but it's better than if I'd just been ––"

'Normal' was the first word to come to mind, but it didn't feel like it fit. For a couple of reasons.

"Easy to deal with."

Tamsin tilted her head and thought about that.

"Well, good luck," she said abruptly. "Hope nobody sets your pretty hair on fire."

Karolina smiled, even if it was kind of lopsided by her standards. "I can always put up an energy shield if someone tries that?"

Being a little more durable than most could come in handy!

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The Perk, Sunday Afternoon

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