Caritas, Sunday

[suitably_heroic]

People were welcome to take Atton's return to the Caritas bar - even mixing drinks, fancy that! - as a good sign of his recuperation, or something. Personally, he'd say he was just trying to get away from all the karking television coverage of ancient soldiers and world leaders putting down wreaths.

Call it a quirk he wasn't willing to go into.

But he was behind the bar. And he was mixing drinks. Not with the usual flourish, sure. But things were getting shaken and stirred with mathematical precision.

Most of the cocktails were pretty complicated. It was nicely distracting.

[[ open! ]]

Comments

[spectre_alenko]

Kaidan was quiet for a minute while he considered that. Then he gave a short, curt nod. "Sure. Let's go with that. Thanks."

A moment later. "How'd your dates go during the thing?"

[suitably_heroic]

"Well, neither Seivarden or me wound up in the duck pond, so I either did something right or something wrong," Atton said, squatting down to fish the red-and-white beer out of the fridge.

[spectre_alenko]

"The feet on the table was a nice touch," Kaidan acknowledged. Because it had been. Not at all subtle and yet.. "I lucked out and got mostly people I knew and liked. Except the first guy, who I guess is a competitor? Devil's Nest owner."

[suitably_heroic]

"Eric?" Atton guessed. "He's... definitely an Eric."

[spectre_alenko]

"Yeah, him," Kaidan agreed with a shrug. "Never been to his place." It.. didn't sound like his scene, really. "You?"

[suitably_heroic]

"Once or twice. It's nice enough if you want to avoid teenagers when you're drinking," Atton said. He set the bottle down on the bar in front of Kaidan, and followed up with a glass. "Though obviously our ambiance is better in here."

[spectre_alenko]

Kaidan took the bottle with a nod of thanks. Tilting the glass, he gave a slow pour to avoid a foam over. He felt a little scandalous, drinking beer from a glass but, well, that's what you did with this type of beer.

"Company's better," he acknowledged, then shot a glance at the zombies, "and at least the undead in here don't seem inclined to bite."

Not that he ever got close enough for that. Less for the creepy factor, more because he didn't want to be asked for a request.

[suitably_heroic]

"Probably because most of their teeth fell out," Atton mused. "I mean, this place has had a real zombie scare before..."

[spectre_alenko]

Kaidan took a sip of his beer. "Well, now I'm glad Halloween is over. I grew up on movies with that plotline. There's always some jerk who gets bitten and decides not to say anything because hey, couldn't happen to him, right?"

He grimaced a little. "The dangers of growing up - now when I try to watch them, all I think is 'man, their quarantine protocols are garbage and their air filters must not have been changed in a decade'."

[suitably_heroic]

"Yeah, welcome to being an adult, especially an adult with some combat experience," Atton said lightly. He reached for his own glass - it had something non-alcoholic in it. Grape-y. "I tried watching one of those vampire marathons a while ago, it's just offensive."

[spectre_alenko]

Kaidan shook his head a little. "I caught an episode of Huffy on TV not too long ago and couldn't finish it. I wasn't even here for the island's take on that." Sparkle had told him about it. It hadn't sounded fun.

He also knew Peter. The show had offended him on Peter's behalf.

"Think I'll stick with cheerleaders and big stupid gunslinging jellyfish," he noted.

[suitably_heroic]

Atton blinked. "You have Celegians where you come from?" he said. "Huh."

[spectre_alenko]

Kaidan blinked back at him. His left arm came to life in a neon orange glow and a small screen popped up. Kaidan rapidly typed something in.

A small hologram of a Hanar came to life, floating above his forearm. "Hanar. Same thing?"

[suitably_heroic]

"Almost," Atton allowed. "Celegians look a little more brain-y."

[spectre_alenko]

Kaidan powered the Omni down. "Huh. Guess that makes sense. Fairly uncomplicated life form. Though I'm constantly surprised the Hanar made it out of the water."

He sipped his beer, "Someone got the bright idea to turn one into an action hero. Blasto the Jellyfish. It's.. well, it sure is a thing."

[suitably_heroic]

Atton shrugged. "That's what you get in any galaxy with a bunch of species living together," he said. "Bad exploitation holos."

[spectre_alenko]

"At least in a galaxy that has actual space travel, the movies with ships don't, y'know, suck and break every law of physics and thermodynamics to ever exist," Kaidan noted dryly. "I understand the big drama of flames but when you can hear them crackling in the void of space.."

Really now, movies.

[suitably_heroic]

"You'd think that would change as people got used to space, but you'd be wrong," Atton said. "The best choice is just to keep drinking."

[spectre_alenko]

Kaidan's brows rose, amused. "Beer goggles, the more you drink the better the movies get?"

Then he shook his head, "That wouldn't work for me. I'm a maudlin drunk. I'd like to say movies got better over the next 150 years but, y'know. Blasto."

He looked at what Atton was doing with the shakers. "Working on something new?"

[suitably_heroic]

"In a manner of speaking," Atton said. "I promised a girl I'd make her something interesting next time she stopped by."

[spectre_alenko]

"Are you going for good interesting or bad interesting?" Kaidan inquired. Look, it could go either way.

[suitably_heroic]

Atton squinted at him. "Good interesting," he said. "I don't poison the customers, and I sure as hell am not going to poison someone I've known for over a decade." Beat. "In a Fandom kind of way."

[spectre_alenko]

Kaidan's eyebrows went up again, "How'd you go straight to poison, man? I meant something like a gin cocktail. Which are interesting but not, y'know, generally on the good side of the spectrum since they taste like a juniper bush died and went to hell in your mouth."