fandomtownies | Turtle & Canary; Wednesday [06/22].

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Turtle & Canary; Wednesday [06/22].

The store had been decorated that day to look a bit like a rainforest, with various different shades of green streamers dripping from the ceiling, a variety of different potted tropical plants scattered here and there, and liberal uses of some of the fog machines they had for sale.

And there was definitely going to be a battle over the thermostat that day, because Shunsui was going to insist that if Apu-san was really so determined to celebrate World Rainforest Day so realistically that he felt it needed to feel like a rainforest in here, he would have done better than just streamers on the ceiling.

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Chocolate Éclair
Onion Ring
Red

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Well, at least Octavia had picked a good week to come by, because she was drawn to the whole rainforest aesthetic thing that was happening.

Even if she was kind of eyeing the potted plants like she didn't want to look at them, but also couldn't help doing it? It was a weird thing. (She had a lot of those, yes.) "So what's the occasion this time?"

"World Rainforest Day, apparently!" Shunsui offered, with a small sigh and a shake of his head and the prompt procurement of a couple of cups. "Don't ask about it too loudly, Octavia-chan, unless you'd like for Apu-san to come and talk your pretty little ears off about it...

"Personally," he added, now with a grin, and there was sake for those cups as well, "I can think of a much better way for you to spend your time♥."

Edited 2022-06-22 13:22 (UTC)

"I can just look it up on the internet for myself, anyway," Octavia replied, making her way to the counter. (And yes, she might.) "I don't need anyone to lecture me about it outside of that."

"You most certainly do not ♥," Shunsui agreed, as he carefully began to pour the sake into the cups. "Especially not from someone who wields his insufferability as effectively as his broom ♥."

But leaving aside any hints of pointedness in that otherwise idly drawled comment, Shunsui deftly picked up the cups with a seemingly simple turn of his hand and offered them out over the counter, the sleepy grin on his face just as effortless.

"Sake, Octavia-chan ♥?"

Octavia didn't bother with a 'sure', just reached out for a cup. She seemed extra deliberate about how she picked it up, this time, the tips of her fingers grazing over his palm a little more obviously.

(She'd had a good start to her week, okay? Shush.)

Then she drew her hand - and the cup - back. "I'd ask if I've missed anything, but I know it's mostly naps."

Far be it for Shunsui to have any complaints about any particular caution paid to the handling of cups, especially when such diligence would be inspired by things like good starts to one's week. His smile shifted into something warmer, softer at the attention to detail, and he was sure his own hand didn't depart with the remaining cup without an assurance of his own particular care.

"And a good nap," he noted, now lifting his cup in a toast of appreciation to Octavia before having a sip, "is a terrible thing to have missed ♥. And there were plenty of naps, rest assured, but I am....well, perhaps not pleased to inform you, but I am almost obligated to inform you that I actually did a little extra work this weekend ♥! If you'd believe it!"

Octavia gave a soft snort, lips curving faintly.

"Did you, now?"

"I did ♥," Shunsui confirmed happily, pulling himself because he knew she must be feeling very proud of him for that fact. For as straight as his shoulders were in that moment, though, his grin went the other way with its crookedness. "Working the booth for the store on Saturday, distributing all the little party bags Summer-chan had put together ♥. With her so preoccupied with her jello table, it was the very least I could do for her ♥."

Like, literally. The very least.

But he had done it.

Octavia's head tilted, a fraction. "This was at that... the Pride thing, right?" A concept she was still kind of wrapping her head around. Maybe next year she wouldn't have to look like an inquisitive bird about it anymore.

Anyway.

That would not stop her from rasping a sort-of wry, "Impressive."

"That's right ♥," Shunsui confirmed with another lift of his cup to the event and another sip, "the Pride thing ♥."

The sip turned into a little bit more, and Shunsui set his cup on the counter again for a refill, the pleased and proud smile still on his face. "And I figured you might have appreciated that, Octavia-chan. In fact--"

He finished pouring, tilted the jug her way with an inquiring little shake, before leaning in a little himself, voice lowered to the low rumble of a stage whisper.

"--don't tell Summer-chan, lest she be inspired to find more for me to do, but I may have actually even have...enjoyed it a little ♥! Shocking, I know!"

"Even more impressive," Octavia decided with a tiny, crooked smirk. "Don't worry, your secret's safe with me."

(Having nothing at all to do with how rarely she talked to Summer in the first place, surely.)

She held out her cup for a refill.

Not to mention the fact that Summer wouldn't even dream of it, because Summer actually liked for shit to actually get done.

"I knew yours would be a trustworthy ear to impart that particularly astonishing confession to, Octavia-chan ♥," he said warmly, as he carefully topped off her cup. "And how about yourself? What have you been doing lately to keep yourself busy &heartts;?"

"Well," Octavia rasped with a little sigh, leaning against the counter just a little bit, "we completely blanked on Duke's birthday earlier this month --"

Yes, all three of them. Including Duke.

"-- so we went on a little trip to see this very old ship in Boston, last week. That was nice."

Shunsui himself was only vaguely aware that his own birthday was coming up, and that was only because it was just a few days after Nanao-chan's, so that was a phenomenon he could certainly understand.

He gave a soft laugh as he set the jug aside. "You lot," he said fondly, "just can't seem to get enough of boats, it seems ♥."

"I think Lucifer's already had more than enough," Octavia noted, lips curving almost despite herself. "Me and Duke, though..."

Well, they were the original two boat people.

"And it was for Duke."

"His choice of destination?" Shunsui wondered, with a comfortable, casual, conversating sip from his cup. "Or did one of you two come up with the idea ♥?"

"It was Lucifer's gift for him, actually," Octavia said.

There was an odd sort of... pause, there, before she took a sip.

And any sort of...pause, odd or otherwise, would certain cause a sort of...tilt of Shunsui's head.

"Well, then," he mused with a smile, "a very good choice on his part, and cheers," he lifted his cup with a wink, "to that ♥."

A sip, a long enough one to drain his cup again, which was now set back on the counter as he reached for the jug.

"And what was your gift, Octavia-chan?"

"A bracelet," Octavia said, just barely not directly into the cup.

Sip.

"Just a bracelet." There was an attempted lightness too her tone, there, but she was still debating whether she should have tried to go bigger, after all, even though there was no way for her to match Lucifer's general over-the-topness.

She was doing a great job hiding it, though!

But not so much right here, in this moment.

"Well, surely not just a bracelet," Shunsui all but cooed as he tipped the jug and slowly refilled his cup, "coming from you, Octavia-chan..."

He tilted the jug up, sweeping the cup back up with his hand, and then tilted the jug Octavia's way.

"What kind of bracelet was it?"

Octavia didn't usually go for the second refill, but... She held out the cup again.

"A simple one," she said. "It's this thing where... some of the price goes towards protecting the ocean. And there's these two capsules on it. One has sand from where they'll plant new corals with the money, the other one's empty."

For now.

Shunsui chuckled, softly, as he refilled Octavia's cup and set the jug down again.

"You see ♥?" he said. "Already, by description alone, more than just a bracelet."

He shifted his cup from one hand to the other before his next sip.

"Is the empty one intended to be..." The newly freed hand danced in the air a little as if finding the right word, "symbolic, Octavia-chan? Or just a mere....placeholder?"

Octavia lifted one shoulder, a little. "I just thought he could put sand from wherever he wanted, in there," she said. "Maybe from his marina in the Bahamas."

Maybe symbolic, definitely sentimental.

"Why, the possibilities are endless ♥!" Shunsui remarked, his soft grin lingering for a moment before hiding behind a sip from his cup. "I'm sure he'll choose well."

And the other shoulder.

"I hope so," Octavia said, bringing her own cup up, again. "We didn't actually talk about it yet."

At all.

Shunsui's head tilted, just that marginal bit more.

"About where to get the sand?" he asked. "Or the purpose of the empty capsule in general?"

"About... the bracelet?"

That was probably not supposed to sound like a question, but it was too late now.

"I kind of just slipped it into his pocket."

It was a rare thing, for Shunsui to allow for something like surprise slip past that delicately balanced veneer of his that had become as natural to his as breathing, as natural as flitting about without sound or effort, but, in that moment, it was undeniably there.

And then, a small breath of a laugh. "Huh," he said, his grin now seeming to just marvel at Octavia with interest. "And has he found it yet?"

It was always something of an odd thing for Octavia, seeing anything slip past the facade. Like a reminder that it was there in the first place.

(They were not so different, sometimes.)

Anyway, she glanced away, then took another sip. "He noticed I did something," she said, "so he probably has. He was just being nice about not calling attention to it, at the time."

"Do you think he will call attention to it," Shunsui asked, leaning forward a little on the counter "...eventually?"

"Probably," Octavia said, out of shrugs for now even though she still felt like going for one. "Though if I'm lucky, he'll just wear it and I can bring it up."

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Turtle & Canary; Wednesday [06/22].

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