Caritas- Tuesday

[throughaphase]

After a month of Christmas stuff and then the party, Kitty was relieved to have a day where she could just relax at work.

This lasted about five minutes before she was back to, "Well this is boring."

And this, kids, is the story of why Tino was now trying to stack glasses on the bartop while Kitty cringed. For entertainment.


[Open!]

Comments

[superjoanjett]

Normally Jessica stayed away from Caritas on Tuesday nights because Rosa tended to be here. And Jessica respected the quiet work dynamic they had enough to hang out elsewhere.

But tonight she needed a different vibe and that apparently involved zombies and glass stacking.

"Hey," she said to Kitty as she sat down at the bar. "Bourbon."

Look, she actually greeted Kitty before asking for booze. Clearly she was growing as a person.

[throughaphase]

"Coming right up," Kitty said, grabbing a glass from atop the stack. "How's it going?"

[superjoanjett]

"Survived the holiday. Survived the end of the year," Jessica said with a small shrug. "Just figuring out what's next."

She bobbed her head towards Tino. "Anything he breaks comes out of his paycheck, right?"

[throughaphase]

"Yuuuuup. And it's going to happen. It always does."

Tino frowned, and ignored them.

"This is what we do when we have an easy night, apparently."

[superjoanjett]

Jessica immediately knocked twice on the bar. "I didn't believe in jinxing things until I moved to this island," Jessica said as she took a sip of her drink. "Is there a de-jinx routine we should follow?"

[throughaphase]

"Hoping and praying, and me clarifying that I mean 'easy' in the way of 'I'm not planning anything at the moment' and not anything Fandom needs to ding me for."

Hear that, Fandom?

[superjoanjett]

"I'd knock on wood," Jessica said with a small smirk. "According to German or Celtic folklore that's where supernatural beings are supposed to reside."

[throughaphase]

"Really? In wood?"

Was Kitty looking suspiciously at the bar now?

[superjoanjett]

"I got bored one day and spent time on the internet looking up origins of weird phrases," Jessica said with a small shrug. "Supposedly that's where all the fairies and shit live and knocking on them would bring about good luck."

She finished her drink and moved the empty glass towards Kitty.

"I can tell you right now that never worked for me back home. Here? Who the fuck knows?"

[throughaphase]

"Here we'd probably have a whole weekend about the fairies getting annoyed about all the knocking," Kitty said, amused, as she refilled the glass.

[superjoanjett]

"Well, fuck. Now I jinxed us by unjinxing us," Jessica joked. "Damned if you do blah blah blah."

[throughaphase]

"Knock on wood and then apologize?" Kitty suggested, smiling.

[superjoanjett]

Jessica looked down at the bar and shrugged. "Sorry bartop. Don't come after me because I need a place to set my drink down for refills."

That might be the first time she's apologized in the last six months.

"Think that'll do it?"

[throughaphase]

"I think that covered the bases. And if not... eh, what's one more thing?"

She'd been here a long time.

[superjoanjett]

"I guess after giant angry polar bears with off brand colas it's all just the same isn't it?"

[throughaphase]

"More or less. I showed up to this nice normal town just in time for the multiverse to start disappearing so by now if you throw fairies at me, I probably wouldn't even react," Kitty admitted.

[superjoanjett]

Jessica just sort of stared at Kitty for a moment and then finished her drink, gesturing for another refill. "Well. Every time I figure I got this place figured out something comes along to kick me in the ass," she said. "I'm so out of my league in this place."

[throughaphase]

"It gets easier. And it usually happens freakishly fast," Kitty said, pouring.

[superjoanjett]

"Well I thought we hit the limit with giant polar bear," Jessica said after taking a gulp of her drink. "I didn't think we would go to another level like that. Still. The world and the multiverse still exist. Something must be working out right."

Careful Jessica. That almost sounded optimistic.

[throughaphase]

"So far."

And then, very reluctantly, she said, "It can always get weirder than the giant polar bear."

[superjoanjett]

"Yeah you made that clear with the whole possible destruction of the multi-verse," Jessica said with a small chuckle.

[throughaphase]

"I mean they get goofy-weirder too. Like, know that at some point you might think the giant bear was tame."

She paused.

"Probably not literally tame, it's a bear."

[superjoanjett]

“I can handle weird,” Jessica said after thinking about that for a bit. “As long as it’s... yeah. Deadly weird. “

You get the sense she was going elsewhere with that sentence and changed direction.”

[died8yearsago]

Oh, fun. It was always a good sign to come in to see Tino...well, doing anything, really.

"Slow night?" Rosa asked, eying those stacked cups warily before settling into her usual spot at the bar.

[throughaphase]

"I'm about to take bets on how much money he's going to owe me for new glassware," Kitty confirmed.

[died8yearsago]

And now Rosa was eying the cup-stacking with the speculative eye of someone who did love a good bet.

"Could be worse, I guess," she offered. "At least it's just stacking and not...juggling."

[throughaphase]

Tino paused.

"No!" Kitty said, i-goddamn-mmediately.

[died8yearsago]

And not even Rosa could help grinning at that.

Granted, she didn't even bother trying, just like she wasn't going to bother feeling sorry about it, but, since Kitty was her friend, she was at least going to keep her comment about how entertaining that would be to herself.

You're welcome.

"I guess that's at least part of the reason why you keep him around," she noted instead, leaning on the bar with her arms folded. "He's pretty much stuck here for eternity to pay off that bill."

[throughaphase]

"Oh, I don't think he was doing much leaving anyway," Kitty said. "But he's also the one cleaning up all the broken glass."

Okay that got through to him.

[died8yearsago]

And that look on his face did nothing to temper Rosa's grin.

"You know," she said, "I think I'll just have a beer tonight. I wouldn't want to deprive him of reaching full glass use potential."

[throughaphase]

"You're encouraging terrible things," said Kitty, getting her beer.

Note that Kitty had done nothing to discourage that, because boredom.

[died8yearsago]

"I think that's a matter of opinion," Rosa countered, because she thought this was great. "My life currently consists of trying to track down a missing bee, Kitty. I need to find my entertainment where I can."

[throughaphase]

"A missing bee?" Kitty asked. "Is it normally a person?"

[died8yearsago]

"Nope," said Rosa, who was now very glad that she'd gotten that beer, because she was definitely needing a swig of it now. "Just a bee."

She wasn't even convinced that the bee was even actually missing.

[throughaphase]

"A very rare bee, maybe? Worth thousands of dollars?"

She was so hopeful.

[superjoanjett]

Seeing the boss-lady, Jessica just gave Rosa a subtle raise of the glass to acknowledge her presence.

Because why disrupt a great business relationship with actual talking?

[died8yearsago]

What would they even talk about? Bees?

Rosa's chin met the subtle raise of Jones' glass in response, and figured they'd both probably had enough of bees to last them at least a few more wordless exchanges in the future.