fandomtownies | Caritas; Wednesday [08/30].

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Caritas; Wednesday [08/30].

Well. Looks like Summer now owned a store (again), and while that had not been the way she had been expecting her Wednesday to go, she had to admit that she wasn't at all terribly surprised, and, let's be honest, this official transfer of ownership really did absolutely nothing to chance her usual day-to-day, and, in fact, was kind of like getting an annoying, resource-draining thousands-year-old dead and perverted cyst surgically removed from her side. Liberating, in a lot of ways, and freeing.

Besides, like, honestly, who didn't already think she owned that store?

But tonight was bar night, so she was going to put all that aside until tomorrow and focus on the job at hand, which mostly meant ignoring whatever Tino was doing until he got out a blow torch, in which case she was definitely stepping in to intervene to cease and desist, and then get ready to fling some jello.

Wednesday Jello Shot Special!

Banana Split
Thin Mint
Orange Creamsicle
Cherry Popsicle*
"Ice Cream Jello Salad"

Caritas is open!

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Where you can sing!

Where you can drink!

"Oh man, Thin Mints? It's not even Girl Scout season, is it?" Annie asked, an ooooh basically encapsulated in her tone already as she hefted herself up onto her usual barstool.

(It took two tries. She'd appreciate it if everyone present pretended they didn't notice that part.)

Summer was trying very, very hard not to have noticed and was very, very grateful that the virgin shot tray was behind her right now, and hopefully was making up for any lack of pretending that her face was doing right now by placing two of the Thin Mints in front of Annie.

"It's not," she agreed, but with a slight flicker of doubt, "I don't think? But I was going for an ice cream theme, and this was close enough to mint chocolate chip to count, I feel. I don't think anyone's going to complain too much."

Unless Ignis showed up.

She then gave Annie an encouraging smile. "How's it going?"

Such a broad question, it could go so many ways, and Summer was here for all of them.

You know what, Summer? Even if Annie did see any lack of pretending there, she was, in turn, willing to just believe on her part.

Annie's poor, poor vain streak. It was taking such a beating these days. (Which, like, was probably a little good for her, let's be real.)

"Like I'm thirty weeks pregnant with twins," Annie replied with a good-natured roll of her eyes as she plucked up one of the shots. "But -- with that in mind, I'm pretty good."

Like, she was exhausted, and her feet were -- like, Annie couldn't even talk about what her feet were doing these days, okay? Or about most of what her body was doing, and as if on cue, one of the twins delivered a kick that had her letting out a little, "Oof," and the addendum, "And either Ben or Maggie just said hi."

Summer's nose wrinkled a little bit. She'd dealt with too many weird alien things (not to mention temporary being god-empress of an entire race of face-hugging parasitic beings, mind you) to not be a little weirded out by the reminder that there were two actual people nearly finished gestating inside of her best friend right now.

But she was trying her best not to think about that.

"Well, tell either Ben or Maggie I said hi back, I guess," she said. "But, hey, coming in on the home stretch pretty soon, that's got to be exciting! Anything I can do to help?"

Probably for the best that none of that was vocalized, considering how alien Annie already felt these days.

"You already threw me a shower," Annie pointed out with a smile, shaking her head. "You're good, but I'll keep you posted if anything comes up. How are you? Hopefully up to like, way more interesting things than having swollen feet and bad sleep."

Like. She better be, or Annie was going to have questions.

Look, pregnancy was just really, really weird if you thought about it for more than three seconds, okay?

"I mean," Summer said, "I literally became the owner of a store today."

That seemed like a good place to start. Topical! Prescient! Literally just happened a few hours ago!

And also made Summer kind of want to start a Please Save Nanao Ise GoFundMe campaign or something.

"Like, a store here?" Annie clarified, pointing at the ground to specify, like, the island, because it would not shock her at all if Summer had suddenly become the owner of some store four dimensions over that was entirely patronized by people who looked like frogs, or something. "Congratulations, that's like, huge!"

"I mean," Summer shrugged, "nit really, I owned it already before and I was practically running the place anyway, but now my name is actually official as the person in charge of Turtle & Canary again instead of Mr. Potential HR Nightmare McGee with the Dumb Hat."

And she did also have a bar somewhere on the mainland that she got for her birthday that one time, she should probably look into actually remembering that that existed...

"How did the fancy kimono guy even get ownership?" Annie wondered, and right away part of her brain was second-guessing whether kimono was the correct term for that article of clothing. "If you had it before?"

Technically, no, it was a haori, but details, details.

"I sold it to him," Summer informed Annie.

Full circle, baby!

"To fund my jello shop in space."

You know, like, a million years ago.

"Ah-ha, before my time," Annie noted with a sage nod, starting to work on her second cup of jello. "So like -- did you sell the jello space shop when you came back here? Or is it under, like, far-away, alien management while you're still the owner?"

She also had questions about whether the space jello was all that different from what she was currently enjoying, or whether it just had space fruit like that sangria they'd had, or what, but those could wait.

"Oh, no," said Summer, shaking her head. "I had to blow it up."

She then blinked at Annie a little.

"Have you never heard about me blowing up the space jello shop and almost an entire block of Coruscant and having to jump out of that universe for being a government terrorist before?"

Like, the whole idea of there being a before Annie's time was kind of blowing her mind a little, because, like, how was such a thing even possible??

"Nope, this is all new. I just knew you had a space jello shop, and that it's in Rey's universe, I think?" Annie offered with a thoughtful frown, tilting her head. "And then when you dipped to go back to space, like, a couple years ago -- that wasn't to there, was it? I thought that had to do with your mom."

Lots of, like, evil space governments for the Smiths to evade and their associates to subsequently keep track of, over here.

No, no, that was totally fair, it was a lot to keep track of.

Summer shook her head.

"Rey's universe," she said, "but different dimension and different time period, which was why I had no issue going to her version, but I've been portal-blocked from that version, which, you know, probably for my own good, what with the whole wanted criminal with a bounty on her head. And the space thing with my mom was my own dimension, different evil Galactic Empire, new rebel terrorist cell."

A pause, to go over that in her head again.

"I've been involved in four," she then offered, just to keep everything nice and ordered. "The OG that led me to coming here, then the one in Rey's universe but in the past, then Rey's and the second one in my universe overlapped a little."

Shenanigans had been odd but not ~~presumably~~ terribly so. Stark had changed out of his Christmas in August shirt though and was back in something less visually exciting.

"Hello, Summer." It was the usual greeting. Anything else would sound odd at this point coming out of his mouth as he slid onto his usual stool.

"The jello all sounds...desserty tonight. Is it safe?"

"Hello, Stark," Summer greeted back, with the soft smile that now almost always accompanied those now familiar beats, and she was already dutifully lining up the shots for him. "The last one's a little sketchy with its particular brand of mid-century kitsch, but on the grand scheme of Last Jello Shots, it's remarkably tame."

Edited 2023-08-30 15:02 (UTC)

"Then I'll try them all," Stark told her with an answering soft smile. "For you. How are you tonight?"

Things could have changed since shenanigans! Who knew what things might have happened?

Well, wouldn't you know it? Something had happened since then!

"Welllll," she said, "you know that store that I practically own right now? Take out the practically."

"You bought the store?" Stark asked. "Or... something else happened?"

Buying it seemed too simple, honestly.

"Is that... good?"

"His lieutenant basically just signed it over to me," said Summer, with a shrug. "And honestly? This just streamlines my life so much, not to have to deal with that guy anymore."

Not that she really did anyway, but still!

Also, definitely plotting how to get said Lieutenant to step out of the afterlife for what felt like it would be a long overdue Girls Night Out.

"I never thought he was that bad," Stark said. "Though we didn't talk much, really."

And Stark was very rarely a pretty lady. That certainly helped when dealing with Shunsui!

"So... congratulations? Should we celebrate somehow?"

If looks could kill, the look Summer was giving Stark was like a firm jerk of a knee upwards into exactly the kind of territory that would explain why Stark would never think that Shunsui was that bad, but that look flitted away entirely at the mention of the word celebrate, lighting right up at the prospect.

"Ooooh, yes!" she said. "We should! What do you think is the best way to properly celebrating finally being free of one's super creepy and weird old boss and blossoming into the true capitalist tyrant she was always probably destined to be?"

She did take a summer's worth of business courses at a community college, after all!

"You're going to be a tyrant?" Stark asked, smiling as he picked up his banana split shot. "Should I be worried about the tyranny?"

He wasn't. Much.

"If you were going to be a tyrant then I'd think you'd choose your own celebration. Whatever you like, really. Food is a good place to start. Or I could... take you somewhere? Or you could take me. Or just take yourself if you'd rather."

Seeetie, you were already in the tyranny.

"Hmmmm," Summer mused, "that last one does sound pretty appealing, actually."

But mostly just to see what he'd say if she leaned hard toward that one.

Stark had wholeheartedly submitted himself to the tyranny!

He was fairly sure she was teasing him but his face still fell, a little.

"Does it? All alone? I thought you might like company. Someone to be tyrannical at."

Someone who was prone to doing whatever Summer might ask anyway.

Summer was, at least, a...mostly benevolent tyrant.

"Mm, you're right," she decided. "Maybe not entirely alone, that just sounds sad. Better at least bring Pancakes."

Because that's definitely something cats were known for, their bendable and submissive wills....

Stark had dealt with much worse tyrants. He didn't make a habit of sleeping with them, though.

"Pancakes could be good company," he said quietly, definitely pouting a little as he picked up his next shot.

"I know someone without any plans though... they might be better company. If they were allowed."

Those tyrants probably weren't nearly so cute about it as Summer was, though.

Summer, who tilted her head and blinked oh-so-innocently at Stark.

"Oh, yeah? Like who?"

And she thought a out delving into a list of possibilities that did not include the obvious, but, you know. Benevolence personified over here.

Rygel wasn't cute by anyone's standards.

"Not Tino," Stark said after a long look around the bar. "But maybe... maybe someone else in here."

The zombies, obviously.

"Someone who might love to celebrate you."

Summer, after making a face at the suggestion of Tino and had to shake her head a little bit to clear it of that prospect, took a moment to look around the bar, which was a little less of a process than it might have usually been when it was busier, but she made a show of it as if it was busier that night. Made another face as her eyes ended up on Tino briefly again, but then her searching finally settled back on Stark.

"Is it you, Stark?" she asked, lifting a speculative eyebrow. "Are you someone else in here who would love to celebrate me?"

"I do like celebrating you," Stark told her, grinning.

"Even without you having done anything out of the ordinary. And you can be as tyrannical as you like while you celebrate."

Well. Maybe not entirely as tyrannical as she might want to be, but, thankfully, Summer had very little interest in trying to push that line with Stark.

"And you are...very good at it, too," she pointed out, maybe with a little bit of an appreciative oof in there because yesterday had been an excellent example of how to make up for lost time.

"But okay," she decided, as if it hadn't already been a foregone conclusion, "sure. You can take me out to celebrate, Stark. Something nice, though. And fun. And a surprise."

A pause.

"No pressure, though."

Stark's grin turned smug, just for a moment. "You're very easy to celebrate," he told her. "Very easy to appreciate."

He frowned a little as he picked up another shot. "But...no pressure?"

That sounded like a lot of pressure, Summer!"

Existing probably sounded like a lot of pressure for Stark.

"Why would there be any pressure?" Summer asked, her own turn at smugness blinked away into another innocently sweet sort of smile. "It'll be easy, you just said so yourself."

Existing was a lot of pressure, sometimes!

"Celebrating you is easy," Stark clarified. "Making sure I don't disappoint you may be more difficult. I never want to disappoint you."

"Well, you haven't really disappointed me yet," Summer pointed out, with maybe just a little unnecessary emphasis on that last part. "I'm sure whatever you come up with will be great."

"I never want to," Stark told her, just a little too earnestly. "Something tomorrow then? To celebrate? Or do you need more time than that to be ready to be celebrated in your newfound tyranny?"

The last time he'd surprised her had gone well. She'd seemed so happy with her birthday surprise.

"Tomorrow should be great."

There was that benevolence in action again, by not dragging the flailing time out longer than necessary.

"Just tell me when and where."

"I'll let you know," Stark promised. "As soon as I know."

He was getting an idea at least, though he would need to think on it more.

"But if you need to celebrate a little extra tonight you know exactly where to find me."

On this stool, obviously, looking at her like she was the only person on the island.

"Well," Summer reasoned, "you can never celebrate too much, right? And I have a feeling it's going to be a pretty quiet one tonight, I might be able to pull off getting out a little early maybe."

"I don't think I could ever celebrate you too much," Stark told her. "And I'd be happy to walk you home later. If you like."

"Well," Summer hedged slightly, thinking maybe of certain spaceships whose methods of celebration apparently included homicide, "I guess there could be an upper limit to celebrating, but, like, walking me home is definitely nowhere near that ceiling."

Luckily, Stark was not now nor had he ever been a spaceship! Well, he had joined with Talyn to pilot him once...

"I'm sure I can think of ways to celebrate you after I walk you home," he said. "That still wouldn't be too much. I hope."

He did worry about being too much. He'd been too much before.

Well, at least Stark didn't have to worry about the walk getting to be too much, considering it was just a ross the street, right?

"I don't think you have anything to worry about there," Summer assured him with a soft smile. "But if there was something, I'd tell you."

Was she now half-tempted to just plant a chaste little kiss on him and wish him goodnight before disappearing through her door once they got there?

Yes, kind of, but she knew herself too well to even begin to think she could do that.

Where you can...lounge!

Where you can...potentially do other things!

Where you can encourage me to make it through this last day on a hellish streak at work.

(Okay, yesterday wasn't THAT bad, but STILL)

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Caritas; Wednesday [08/30].

The Stage - 08/30.

The Bar - 08/30.

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The Lounge - 08/30.

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OOC - 08/30.