fandomtownies | Caritas; Wednesday [08/14].

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Caritas; Wednesday [08/14].

You know, Summer had long ago come to terms with the fact that she was, technically speaking, standard issue human with no special abilities or powers or unique supernatural skills or magic or anything like that. She made up for it, clearly, with her sharp wit and undeniable charm and being able to punch and shoot things really, really well. And she was okay with that. She'd accepted her basic ass bitchness.

But, by god, what she wouldn't give right now for some sort of ability to spontaneously make a keg explode or have a zombie have an emergency or even just sort of phase through stuff like Kitty, because Summer had (admittedly, very stupidly) agreed to let Tino show her some of his pictures from visiting roadside attractions on the island's little excursion last week.

And there were so, so many of them.

He said there were only a few!

That was on her for believing him, but you'd better believe she was desperately sending eyes to the door and willing people to come in so she had a reason to finally break away from a million shots of Tino posing to make it look like he was holding up the World's Biggest Ball of Twine on his shoulders like he was Atlas or something.

Featured Cocktail
7 and 7 Cherry Bomb

Featured Jello
Strawberry Shortcake
Blueberry Cream
Mango Peach

"....wait a second," Summer realized, quite a bit later, "who even took those pictures, though??"

Caritas is open!

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Please, please sing something tonight that might actually get "HOT TO GO!" out of Summer's head for at least five seconds.

Accept that we're all probably better off not knowing who took those photos of Tino.

Rey to the rescue!

"How're things?" she asked, taking her usual seat.

"--oh, yeah, Tino, totally!" Summer was calling out in a sing-song voice as she finally broke away to go meet Rey at the bar. "Definitely later! Uh-huh! Definitely!"

And she turned fully toward Rey while mouthing ohmygod with a roll of her eyes before sighing and putting on a bright smile and saying, fully truthfully, "Much better now. What can I get you, Rey? Can I make you a drink that's very complicated and will take up plenty of time and concentration?"

"Yes," Rey said after a blink, catching on. "I want the most precise drink you've ever made."

"Excellent," said Summer, with maybe the slightest sigh of relief slipping in there. "Coming right up."

Did Summer really know what that drink would be? No, but she was definitely hemming and hawing on picking through stuff until someone else came in to distract Tino from his phone and then she finished up what was basically going to be the most painstakingly made featured cocktail of the night and set it in front of Rey.

"If you see him start to come over looking excited," she murmured as she leaned in to set it down, "just order something else as quickly as you can."

And, with that instruction out of the way, she leaned back up and smiled gratefully. "So that's my night so far," she said. "How's yours?"

"It'll involve a blender," Rey whispered.

"My night is much less interesting." Probably wasn't! "One of the reasons I'm here."

Summer was the big reason, of course.

"Awww," said Summer, a hand to her heart, because being a part of something to help make a person's night more interesting was pretty much what she lived for, let's be honest here. "Well, I'm glad you were able to make it in, although, I gotta admit, I definitely hope it doesn't get too interesting because around here, that can get....well, you know. So I hope it can be just interesting enough without pushing all the way over into that kind of interesting."

"I'm happy with talking interesting. Complicated drinks interesting," Rey assured her. "How you're doing interesting."

"How I'm doing," Summer admitted with a snort, "isn't really that interesting. It's been pretty run-of-the-mill, honestly. Just trying to figure out what to teach next semester. Bartending the Lilignis party this weekend was nice. A little bummed we didn't just...stay in California, because, um, yes, please, but I did some good shopping while we were there, so that was nice. How about you? You got anything interesting?"

"Absolutely not. But I liked California. Just for the beach. I did no shopping."

Summer sighed a little wistfully, here eyes drifting westward. "Maybe I should move out to California for a little bit," she said, "when I start getting that uncomfortable itch being here for too long, you know? Wouldn't be the worst place I've lived, that's for damn sure...Of course, there is also a lot to be said about a whole country between me and my family, even with portals."

"I'd miss you if you did," Rey said. "But I'd also visit if you did. It seems very big, though."

And lo, a savior did appear! It had been awhile since Liliana had sauntered into Caritas to spend a few hours drinking and socializing, and when the whim took her this evening, who was she to refuse it?

Though she was giving Summer a slightly skeptical look as she glanced from the jello shot list to the bartender and back.

And Summer, eagerly ceasing on more opportunities to do anything but look at Tino's photos, caught Liliana's look toward the specials board to her and then back again, followed it for a moment, and then just let her attention fall to her with a scheming, knowing sort of grin and an oh-so-innocent tilt of her head.

"Hi, Liliana," she said. "What can I get for you tonight?"

"Hello, Summer," Liliana said, oddly looking not a jot less suspicious than she had a moment ago. "Interrupted while making your jello shot list?"

"Nope!" Summer answered back cheerfully. "Just the three today! Would you like to try the full set? They do match very nicely with the cocktail tonight, too, if you wanted to really run the whole board."

Liliana narrowed her eyes, but no one would say she wasn't intrigued. "Let's," she said. "I'll take a full round, then."

"Perfect." Summer looked incredibly pleased with herself as she neatly set out the row of shots for Liliana and then started making her drink. "And how's your week been? It's always nice to see you drop in! I mean, unless you're coming in out of, like, necessity." She was now squinting a little at Liliana in return, with a head tilted cautiously.

"It's not, like, necessity, right? Everything okay?"

Liliana smiled - she thought slightly, but it was possibly a bit more than that. "Not necessity," she assured Summer. "Ignis has returned to Innistrad - I'm fairly certain he's wooing my man of business there. They're bonding over financial records and charmingly irresponsible clients no doubt."

She chuckled, picking up the first shot and dipped her tongue into it, scooping up a bit to sample. Look, she was mistrustful by nature--and had had two hundred years to perfect using her tongue for...things.

At least Summer was probably doing a better job of holding back her smirk at that mistrustfully skillful little sampling than Liliana had done of holding back that smile, but it probably wasn't by much, and it helped that she had also made a nose-wrinkled expression to let everyone know what she thought of Ignis' apparent plans for the evening.

Although....damn, if that didn't make her really miss sending him obnoxious texts when he was apparently in the middle of 'important business.'

But she was definitely poking at him in class tomorrow about exactly what that 'business' might have actually entailed.

"You're letting that guy into your financial records?" she asked, now quirking an eyebrow as she set down the drink, after plopping a few cherries in and, let's be honest, wondering if Liliana would put her tongue to showy use with those stems, too. It seemed...likely enough that she'd be willing to put money on it. "That's a bold move."

Liliana hesitated the slightest moment, she hadn't been thinking when she'd admitted that and she felt almost a little naked, giving Summer this peek into their relationship. Far more naked than simply stripping down might have. But then she was waving a hand and laughing. "I dare you to name someone less likely to run off with my money," she scoffed. "If anything, I'm certain he's already worked something out to limit his ability to do that. Besides, it was giving him agita that I didn't know what was in my financial records. And as ado--entertaining as it is watching him pinch the bridge of his nose while silently screaming, letting him have access was honestly the kindest thing I could do."

"I'm pretty sure he's still pinching the bridge of his nose even seeing it," Summer noted with a snort. "I've worked your parties before."

There was a small moment of consideration on Liliana before she added, deftly, perhaps, swaying the conversation slightly elsewhere, especially since Ignis might be getting a boner over pouring over accounting ledgers, but Summer couldn't really care less unless it involved her name on the pay to line.

Or, you know, maybe some light shopping...

"Which, by the way, Friday's was really great. You guys went all out, huh? Not that I'd expect anything less from you."

Liliana paused her to snag a cherry from her drink - she didn't do anything with the stem, but she did use her tongue to flick it out of her drink and into her mouth.

There had been a lot of parties in those two hundred years. It was a running competition between vampires and Rakdos over whose parties got more debauched and/or violent.

"Why thank you, darling. And you were exemplary as always." Especially since she hadn't brought a jug to this one. "I admit, this theme was near and dear to my heart, so I had incentive to be a bit more extravagant than normal." Then she grinned. "Though now that I've set a precedent..."

Ignis could hardly expect her to downgrade the quality of parties, could he?

Stark was a bit late to be rescuing Summer but he was still more than willing to throw himself in front of Summer to help avoid Tino.

He offered a grin and then leaned across the bar for the usual kiss hello.

"Hi. Night going all right? And can I have one of everything?"

"One of everything," said Summer, because, yes, she was very funny, thank you, "might be a bit much, but we can probably start you out with the specials."

She gave him a faint smirk and set out the trio of very normal shots and went to start in on that cocktail.

"And it's been alright once people started coming in to give Tino work to do," she reported. "How was your day? Still managing to avoid shenanigans?"

"One of all the specials," Stark confirmed. "The jello seems very...calm today."

Suspiciously so!

"And yes, still nothing from Anakin."

Even more suspicious!

"Isn't next week the last week?" asked Summer, commenting not at all on the calmness of the jello. "Do you think you might actually make it through? Should we fuck off to space next week to make sure?"

"Maybe we should...I do like fucking off with you." And he liked her reaction when he didn't say frell.

"Are we running off tomorrow after class again, too?" he asked.

Now here was a very rare sight. Bucky was trying to expand his 'doing normal person things' repertoire from just going to the Perk all the time. He also almost turned away at the door, but managed to soldier on (no pun intended) all the way to the bar.

But he reserved the right to walk out the second he started feeling like it again.

"Hi. A beer, please."

Well, that was...definitely a right that everyone had!

"Hi!" said Summer, at first only really getting a vaguely familiar vibe from this guy that made her pull back slightly on the whole full-force introduction thing, and she tilted her head as she tried to place exactly where that feeling was coming from.

Wait, wasn't this--

"And sure! Anything specific? Or just something...." Hold for vaguely significant pause, "generic?"

And yet still a right Bucky had not had for the majority of the last century. Fancy that.

"Generic's fine," he said. If he noticed any pauses, he may have been chalking them up to what usually caused them lately: the missing left arm.

Well, when it came to leaving Caritas after coming in, anyway. Not...oh, never mind.

Summer nodded, feeling like that answer didn't quite give her the confirmation she would have hoped for, but it was still something, and she did always have generic beer on hand, so it was easy enough to get one for him, and then maybe venture a little more on her suspicion.

"So I don't think I've seen your face in here much," she noted. "You usually come in on a different night, or...?"

Bucky gave a vague little head shake. "Been away for a couple of years."

Not that he'd been any kind of a regular before that either, but that was beside the point.

"...normal years?" Summer asked. "Or, like, that weird thing that happens to some people where they're gone for a lot of years back wherever they were but not nearly as many years have passed by here?"

What? Like, how many people did she know come back old? She literally couldn't count them all on just one hand.

"Normal years," Bucky replied, although even he had to qualify that with, "in that sense."

He had not had an otherwise normal year since before the war.

"Well," said Summer optimistically, "there's at least that, then! I've never had to deal with one personally, but I know those time disparities can really mess with some people's heads. But, uh, hey, welcome back! Is it, uh, a good return? Or one of those kind of...awkward and tenuous ones?"

"It's... just a return," Bucky said, with a lopsided shrug. (Lopsided by necessity, because the left shoulder was fucked.) "Might be too soon to tell."

No, it had definitely been a little awkward so far.

Atton had just discovered one advantage to being upfront with Summer: he did not have to come up with some weird excuse just to communicate that he was still alive.

Instead he texted, i'm still alive.

And added a thumbs up emoji.

Presto.

What a weird concept, just being upfront and not jumping through hoops just to send a text to someone!

And Summer really wanted to regard that with a roll of her eyes, but instead, her phone got just a faint twitch of a smile.

congrats. i guess ill hold off on donating to plant a tree in ur honor then

With a thumbs up emoji right back. Natch.

But jumping through hoops to protect himself from stranger danger (or close friend of over a year danger) was what Atton was good at! You know what they said about hammers and nails.

thanks not a big tree person anyway hows the bar

Hopefully stocking some extra punctuation.

Pffft. Punctuation. Okay, boomer.

memorial highway then

and its fine, kinda slow, but not too slow, i think a lot of people are just dealing with some end of summeritus

also please keep texting me the more u text me the less of tinos vacay pics i have to look at

have you tried insulting the pictures bc that usually worked for me

Admittedly, not every one had Atton's particular... and well-honed... charm.

uh what else... apparently our video did pretty good did not see that coming

You're probably safe from being offered to see some of those pictures yourself over here, really...

You are not safe from pictures of Tino back here, because someone (not Summer! Honest!) has put a picture of him up on the dart board.

*insert something funny/clever/cute here*

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Caritas; Wednesday [08/14].

The Stage - 08/14.

The Bar - 08/14.

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The Lounge - 08/14.

The Back Room - 08/14.

OOC - 08/14.