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Caritas, Friday Evening

Fjord was actually in a pretty decent mood as he showed up for his Caritas shift tonight, a bandage wrapped around one bicep, looking to just settle in behind the bar for a nice long evening of pouring drinks and chatting with good people.

What he got was Tino giving him a once-over, and then informing him that he was going to teach him the tried-and-true trick to a successful juggling act.

...

After they cleaned up the glass and Fjord had informed Tino he wasn't allowed to throw anything that wasn't made of plastic for the remainder of the evening, both bartenders took their places behind the bar, ready to serve the thirsty folks of the island.

Happy Friday.

[OOC: And that's it for my spam this morning! Open!]

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"Aww, has it been that bad?" Jack asked sympathetically, "Need another beer? Didn't you have a good Valentine's day, buddy? I'm sorry. I tried to help by making sure you got at least one good arrangement of flowers."

"If I needed any help, I wouldn't want it from you." She shook her head, her eyes squeezed shut. "Can't you just go away and try to be friends with someone else?"

"Haven't needed to try with anyone else, they didn't make it difficult," Jack mused, "but that just means I have all the more energy to spend for you to make our friendship work, Seivarden."

"I just don't get it." She made an exasperated gesture. "For fuck's sake, why are you doing this? Are you capable of being serious for at least a minute and explain that to me?"

"What on Earth makes you think I'm not serious?" Jack inquired, seriously, "I'm trying to be your friend. Why is that so hard for you to understand? Why wouldn't I want to be your friend, Seivarden? We see each other every fucking week here."

"Yeah, well, I see her every week too," she gestured in Beau's direction. "We don't try to be friends. We ignore each other."

"She's shy," Jack lied easily. "I'm not."

"She's a kid with attitude, you're crazy."

Seivarden emptied her glass.

"So, get me a beer, then."

"She's not a kid," Jack said calmly, "Though she is younger than you. Not that you don't look good for your age, Seivarden. I hope to look half that well when I get that old."

Jack was 26.

Jack beamed. "Fjord! Get Seivarden a beer, would you?"

"Do you even know how old I am?" Seivarden said, looking towards Fjord.

"You don't look a day over sixty," Jack assured her in the tone of someone conferring a compliment.

"And you're a kid," Seivarden replied. "Judging from personality. The vase was nice by the way. I kept it."

Implying she hadn't kept the flowers.

"I'm so glad you liked it," Jack beamed, "I picked it out specially in your favorite colors."

She didn't care if you kept the flowers.

"You don't know my favourite colours," Seivarden said. "We're not friends, remember."

"The colors you picked out and were the only favorites I knew you had at the time," Jack corrected, "And sure we are."

"Since I didn't remember to wear gloves during that weekend, why would I remember what my favourite colours are," Seivarden said pointedly. "And it's a bit odd for a friend to take advantage and make someone do something they know they're not comfortable with."

It might be a good thing that Sparkle wasn't here.

"They were the colors you picked so you must have liked them that day," Jack said pleasantly, "How was I to know it made you uncomfortable? You've never said and you didn't seem uncomfortable at the time. I don't see how painting your nails is taking advantage of you. I certainly got nothing out of it. I was doing it as a nice gesture for you."

Somewhere Sparkle is laughing. Not in a nice way.

"Oh, come on, you knew why I wear gloves. You knew I didn't remember that I was supposed to be wearing them, and you chose to offer to paint my nails, which is a really intimate thing to do. You knew I wouldn't have consented to it if I had had my memories intact."

She leaned against the bar, looking straight at Jack.

"That's not the kind of thing people I call friends generally do. It must be fucking sad to think that's what friends are like."

"I know your people wear gloves and I knew your hands were bare," Jack said pleasantly, "I thought you might like some color on them. Painting nails is no more intimate than getting a haircut. You can often get both done at the same place, Seivarden. You did consent to it, though. I asked. I did not hold your hands down and paint your nails by force. I asked every step of the way. You agreed to all of it. I would not have done it if you'd at any point said no or even indicated you weren't comfortable with it. I wouldn't want to do something you'd feel bad about later."

"You chose to do it on a day when I didn't know who I was. Aatr's tits, don't fucking pretend I could consent to anything. So, if that happens to you, you'd be fine with someone getting you to walk around half-naked and grope you if you thought it was normal at the time?"

This was pointless. She reached for her full beer, and emptied half of it in one go.

"See but that's not what it means here," Jack said with a shrug, "It's just making your nails pretty."

Jack took a drink of her chocolate/whiskey mix and continued, "But you're saying that holding you to the standards of my culture, which you're not a part of, made you feel shitty and bad and that it wasn't cool to do that much less at a time when you were vulnerable?"

She looked across at Seivarden and agreed, "You're right. It wasn't. I wouldn't be fine with it. I'm sorry I made you feel that way. See, cuz that's the thing people do when they put someone in the position of feeling shitty or terrible or taken advantage of. They apologize, because it's an awful thing to do. So: I'm sorry I made you feel like trash. That wasn't what I meant to do."

The hell of it was that she didn't even need to lie for it. That hadn't been how she had meant Seivarden to feel.

She wasn't exactly sorry for doing it in the first place, but for all anyone watching her or listening to her speak? Unless they were a Jedi, telepath or Kaidan? Jack appeared to be nothing but sincere.

Great. A lecture, and this time from someone who had fucking painted her nails. Seivarden just looked at her.

"Are you? Well, that's wonderful." She wasn't just going to accept an apology, even a sincere one, from someone as clingy as Jack.

"I suppose making me believe that we're friends is a little better."

"I am your friend, Seivarden," Jack said patiently.

Seivarden just looked at her.

Jack looked right back at her with the faintest of smiles.

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Caritas, Friday Evening

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