Caritas, Sunday Evening

[suitably_heroic]

Meetra would be gone by the time the sun went down, Atton knew that. It was a heavy load, one that had kept him stuck between gratitude and pain all weekend, and now the time was almost there.

So he opened Caritas up early. Like it would buy then a few more hours.

"This is where I work now," he told her as they walked into the bar.

"In a cantina, huh," Meetra said. Her smile was wan. "That does feel more like you."

"A cantina with zombie karaoke, even," Atton said. He settled behind the bar and began to set things up. "We should think about that."

Because he had a masochistic streak, apparently.

"I can't sing--"

"Eh, neither can the zombies."

[[ open! ]]

Comments

Stage

[suitably_heroic]

The zombies are playing the best of fuzzy-wuzzy family songs tonight. Atton hates them.

Re: Stage

[suitably_heroic]

Right. Atton had cowardly chosen for them to do a random hit song. At least he was on stage with her; he had one more memory to make with her, to agonize and brood about later.

He glanced down at the lyrics.

"Tell me somethin' girl, are you happy in this modern world? Or do you need more - is there somethin' else you're searchin' for?"

... okay. This was more on the nose than he'd been hoping for.

"I'm fallin'. In all the good times I find myself longing for change, and in the bad times I fear myself..."

Yeah. He should've thought about this one a little better. Maybe. Just maybe.

Re: Stage

[defiance_in_exile]

Meetra's singing voice was okay, her range not too great, and she felt, self-consciously, that it was a little too low for the song. She still wanted to try, as she had once gone to Atton to learn pazaak. Sometimes the doing mattered more than its result.

Story of her life.

"Tell me something boy: Aren't you tired tryin' to fill that void?"

... Had Atton picked this as casually as he said he had, she wondered? She suddenly wasn't sure. "Or do you need more. Ain't it hard keepin' it so hardcore?"

She sucked in a breath of air, wrapping her hands around the microphone, and stumbled over the next syllable.

"I'm falling. In all the good times, I find myself longing for change. And in the bad times I fear myself..."

Her gaze found Atton's, and her own helplessness mirrored in them.

Re: Stage

[suitably_heroic]

For one whole measure, Atton waited. Watched her, watch him, and...

Space, she'd forgotten her line.

He leaned back into the microphone. He couldn't possibly go as high as this song needed, but he was loud, projecting his voice with all the experience of a karaoke nerd.

"I'm off the deep end, watch as I dive in, I'll never meet the ground!"

Re: Stage

[defiance_in_exile]

Meetra jolted back to the moment, grasping the microphone tighter as she joined her voice with Atton's. It would have been haphazard, had it not been for their bond: she could feel the words, their intended metre and melody, seeping in through that steady thread.

"Crash through the surface, where they can't hurt us! We're far from the shallow now..."

The next part of the song was just... muttered syllables, easy to fake her way through, as she tried to find steady ground on this stage.

Re: Stage

[defiance_in_exile]

The truth was, Meetra had picked her song not long after she and Atton returned from the stage. But she was still debating - Does he love me? He is a fool, and that should answer your questions. He has nothing to offer one such as you, and even a fool such as Atton is not so ignorant of that fact - still thinking. Whether this. Would be useful at all.

It was the stone's call ambling through her mind that called her to action. She slid to her feet, walking across the bar to the stage with uncertainty in every step.

She took the microphone. "I still can't sing," she informed the bar.

She leaned in. Her voice was so soft, it was barely audible at first. "Love of mine, someday you will die, but I'll be close behind, I'll follow you into the dark..."

Re: Stage

[suitably_heroic]

Atton's attention leaped from the bar up to the stage within seconds. His eyes were big.

They had an agreement. He didn't tell her about his hopeless feelings and she pretended she didn't know he had them.

What was she doing?

Re: Stage

[defiance_in_exile]

Singing, Atton. She wasn't good. At any of this.

But she could do this right now.

"You and me have seen everything to see, from--" She cleared her throat, searching for quick substitutes to the places in the lyrics. "...Dxun to Dantooine. And the soles of your shoes are all worn down-- The time for sleep is now. It's nothing to cry about, 'cause we'll hold each other soon in the blackest of rooms..."

The pull was strengthening for the minute. She swallowed.

"And if Heaven and Hell decide that they both are satisfied, and illuminate the "No"s on their 'Vacancy' signs... If there's no one beside you when your soul embarks, then I'll follow you into the dark..."

She dropped the microphone. She sent a pulse of Sorry along their bond, so strong now, for all that it would snap in two in less than an hour.

And then she was off the stage, out the door.

Bar

[suitably_heroic]

For drinks, light conversation, and/or Tino.

Re: Bar

[defiance_in_exile]

Meetra sat at the bar, nursing a drink she had no intention of finishing. Rather, it was an excuse to watch Atton move around, and to take in the way the Force ebbed and flowed across this island.

At least until Atton shoved a book full of songs under her nose.

Re: Bar

[suitably_heroic]

"We can just grab one of the new ones if you want," Atton said lightly. "I think there's some duet from a new movie or something that looks okay."

He was trying to play it cool, but it wasn't working.

Re: Bar

[defiance_in_exile]

"I don't know any of these songs," Meetra reminded him. "I don't know anything about this world, or this culture."

She was willing to do this because he seemed to be adamant about it, and she would be dead again in just a few hours. The embarrassment wouldn't stick.

Re: Bar

[suitably_heroic]

"I've heard it in a trailer a few times, it sounded all right," Atton said.

Little did she know that he'd chickened out of picking anything important to sing with her. He didn't even really know the lyrics to this one. "C'mon, what will it hurt?"

Re: Bar

[random_encounters]

She'd told Kaidan she needed to go for a walk. Time to process the four years he'd unpacked for her and all that went with it. He'd said the island was safe enough but warned her to watch out for little scaly green things.

Ash didn't even want to know why.

The bar was easy enough to find. She was only surprised there weren't a bunch of pop-up beer stands on the way.

She took a stool and waited to catch one of the bartender's attention. "Whiskey neat, please. Double. If it's done here, I'd like the bottle."

Re: Bar

[suitably_heroic]

"Sure, a bottle it is," Atton said, turning around to rummage around one of the liquor cabinets.

He slapped down a glass and poured for her. "Weekend visitor?" he guessed.

Re: Bar

[random_encounters]

"Guess you get a lot of those, huh," Ash said in the form of not a question.

Thanked him and then threw back that drink like it was water. Shook her head once after when the burn rolled down her throat.

"Yeah. It's been weird."

Re: Bar

[suitably_heroic]

"I can imagine," Atton said, putting the bottle down on the bar for her. "It's not every day someone wakes you up from a long nap and pushes you into an interdimensional nexus to traumatize all your friends."

Re: Bar

[spectre_alenko]

Kaidan plopped himself down on the stool next to hers. A single glance took in the bottle of whiskey and how much of it was gone.

Then he reached out and moved the bottle over to the other side of him. She had a full glass in front of her. She could work on that.

"How was the walk?"

Re: Bar

[random_encounters]

"Hey! That's mine! Get your own whiskey!" Ash said and reached for the bottle.

"Found the bar!" she answered brightly.

Re: Bar

[spectre_alenko]

Kaidan had gone for his own walk. Well, run. He'd gone for a run on the beach and done a few sets of stairs to burn off the jangling nerves. When he came back up, he noticed Caritas was open early. Glanced down the road, did the math in his head, and let out an extremely loud sigh.

He went inside and looked for Ash and yup, there she was at the bar. He headed in her direction. Kaidan more or less strangled the urge to apologize to Atton on his way past and simply nodded at him instead.

Re: Bar

[suitably_heroic]

Atton nodded back at him, a mild frown settling across his brow.

It had nothing to do with Ash, and a lot more with the other woman sitting at the bar. But he wasn't stupid enough to point that out, so... frown-face is what you got, Kaidan.

Re: Bar

[spectre_alenko]

You should know better. Now he's going to worry about you.

Thankfully, he knew better than to voice it.

"Can I get another of the lemon things before she decides I need to drink with her, please?"

Lounge

[suitably_heroic]

For private times in the back.

Back Room

[suitably_heroic]

For the overlord.

OOC

[suitably_heroic]

By copyplays.