fandomtownies | Caritas; Wednesday [11/08].

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Caritas; Wednesday [11/08].

The Christmas decorations from last week had been pulled back and muted significantly, although there were still a lot of lights and holly hung up, and the zombie band seemed to be split on still wearing Santa hats, while the others had clearly opted for the stereotypical pilgrim's hat. The decor on the tables in the longue seemed equally split, some of them featuring Christmas and Thanksgiving and Hanukkah trappings as if in an effort to just make everyone happy.

Summer decided that this time, she just wasn't going to comment, she was just here to serve people drinks and jello, man, and would be pulling her own themes via those, thaaaanks.

At some point in the evening, though, Tino would be debuting his new fashionable Santilgrim hat, a horrible amalgamation of both styles, which Summer would staunchly refuse to wear.

Featured Cocktail
Caramel Apple Sangria

Featured Jello
Apple Pie a la Mode
Strawberry Apple*
Bacon Bourbon Apple
Cinnamon Candied Apple

Caritas is open!

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It doesn't matter if you're team Santa hat or team pilgrim hat, as long as you've got a song in your heart!

"I was gonna come in here a few weeks ago to sing something, but I got kneecapped by capitalism," Atton told the microphone conversationally. "And last week I had my head stuck in a lot of losses. I'll save that song for when I really want to depress you guys. Maybe over Christmas."

He glanced towards the zombies, then adjusted the microphone stand. "Let's gun for somewhere in the middle, and make this one an ode to someone I still miss to this day."

He waited for the guitars to kick in. Just in case the zombies wouldn't - shocker of shockers - know this one. But no, there it was. "Do you remember standing on a broken field
White crippled wings beating the sky
The harbingers of war with their nature revealed
And our chances flowing by..."

Where eventually, you won't even have to choose a hat side, because you can get the best of both hat worlds!

How had it been so long since Jesse had last set foot in Caritas? She honestly couldn't even remember.

She blamed The Song, which she found herself still humming as she settled at the bar with a self-conscious, "Hey."

It had been a while, it was true, but Summer had a feeling she wasn't really even missing a beat when she spotted Jesse come in and head to the bar and grabbed a nice, cold generic beer to have for her there by the time she got there.

"Hey, you," she said, looking absolutely delighted to see her again. "How's it going?"

"I gotta figure it out, and bring this song to an end..." Jesse hummed, then groaned, and she slumped over the bar - while her fingers reached out for the beer. "I came to apologize, but I also can't get this stupid song out of my head, Summer."

"Apologize for what?" asked Summer, brows creasing a little, before her head tilted a little thoughtfully at Jesse and the humming and trying to parse out whether or not the tune was familiar to her. "And what song?"

Will she regret asking and end up earwormed with it herself? That was a risk she was willing to take.

Probably only if she, too, was accidentally interdimensionally connected to a failing pulp writer caught underneath a lake that fed on creativity and made all his fever dreams reality!

Anyway. First things first.

"Not stopping by for a while," Jesse said. "I got swamped, and after a while it's-- you know, I haven't been by for a while, so now it's going to be weird if I do show up..."

Summer shrugged a little. "I'm kind of use to it, really," she said, "by now, people just...not stopping in for long swaths of time, or possibly not ever again. It used to kind of bother me a little, not gonna lie, but, like, I get it now, people have lives and shit going on and, hell, around here? Some people do just kind of fade away into their own shit, so getting bent out of shape about it is just a waste of time and energy. I get that it's not really, like, anything personal."

A beat.

"Usually. But, no, man, you're good. Nothing weird about it, it's just nice to see you again, you know? And to find out that you haven't been, like, totally lost to the plants or the town hall basement or whatever."

"Well... The basement is just a basement right now," Jesse said frankly. "With timewarping powers, but as far as the basement goes that's... pretty normal? I think it might be where the song is coming from..."

She sighed, and took a swig of the beer. It was nice.

"Do you think the song," Summer mused, with a considering tilt of her head, "has something to do with the timewarping powers, or do you think maybe it's an unrelated phenomenon?"

"I don't know," Jesse said, giving the bottle a little tap with the back of a nail. "I do know that when I went down there to see what was going on, it was suddenly Tuesday? A week later."

Summer's nose wrinkled a little.

"Any plans," she asked, "to try and check it out further? Should I expect to possibly not hear about how it goes for, like, another month or something? You go down to investigate and you come out and it's already 2024 or some shit...."

Her head tilted.

"Is it at least a good song?"

Somehow, all that trouble for a shitty song felt like just an insult.

"I don't know," Jesse admitted. "It's got a catchy melody? The chorus is particularly... sticky."

"I'm, like, so tempted to ask for more detail," Summer admitted, "but that's, like, how the infection starts, you might be patient zero for an earworm parasite the likes of which this island has never seen. I mean, we just finished up with that whole capitalist hellscape crap, so I think we've earned a little wiggle room to not have to worry about it turning into something big, but, I mean, you know, never say never around here."

"Or around home," Jesse said, wincing. "If this is from home, I really don't want to spread it around. At least my assistant hasn't picked up on it?"

"I'll have something apple-flavored that doesn't have alcohol in it but also doesn't taste like a child invented it, thanks," Atton said, sinking into a seat.

Had he given up on convincing Summer that he hadn't been mostly dry for years? Pretty much.

These specifications were giving Atton a bit of a withering look, though there was some sort of amusement in there as she threw in an eyeroll for good measure, too. "That's a tall order, you know," she pointed out, "since apple tend to be the go-to for 'children pretending they're actually drinking alcohol.'"

Just coincidence, right?

But it felt like a good time to bust out a Martinelli's Mule, and if Atton didn't like it, well, then, maybe he could be a little more specific next time.

"So how've you been, Atton?" she asked, whipping up a quick version of it and setting it in front of him.

Look, Atton wasn't actually trying to dunk on any of Summer's specials. He just had resting sarcastic voice!

"Thanks," he said, taking the drink. "And angry, then depressed, and now back on my baseline of 'lightly annoyed with the multiverse'. How's life?"

Come on, Bacon Bourbon Apple was clearly invented by man-bunned bearded hipsters.

....okay, okay, the children point was still fair, after all.

"I feel like if you're not at least somewhat lowkey annoyed with the multiverse at all times," Summer mused, "then you're doing something wrong." She gave him a soft, sympathetic smile. "Sorry it's been kind of rough for you lately. Life's been..." She shrugged. "Life. I actually don't have too many complaints at the moment."

"I'll drink my non-alcoholic beverage to that," Atton said, and raised it demonstratively. "And don't be sorry. It's always kind of rough for me. The joys of being fifteen traumas in a particularly handsome trenchcoat."

He took a large sip.

You know? Not bad at all.

Summer took a moment to squint at said trenchcoat to try and determine if she agreed with that descriptor.

"Anything you want to talk about?" she offered, because she did love embracing that whole 'lending an ear for your troubles' bartender trope so much that she actually did a small side-step down the bar to snag up a towel and throw it performatively over her shoulder to complete the picture.

The trench coat was kind of scruffy-looking and probably needed a haircut if Atton wanted to keep up the short style he'd come to Fandom with.

He made a faintly amused noise. "It's just leftover emotional debris," he said. "That I've been boring enough people with, lately, so I'm not going to drag you into it unless you absolutely want to know my entire sad backstory." He took another sip. "Got anything upbeat to share yourself?"

"Annie just had her babies last week," Summer happily reported with a pleased little lift of her chin and shoulders as if she had anything to do with any of that except, you know, crucial bestie emotional support, "so that's pretty upbeat and exciting, although I don't even know if you know Annie or not, so you could understandably be in the category of 'why would I care about other people's babies?' And, for the record, I do love a good sad backstory, but, of course, proceed with caution, because I do also love making uninvited commentary on people's sad backstories."

"Babies are good," Atton agreed. "I mean. For other people. But hey, congrats on that one."

He took another sip, thought about it, and said, "As for sad backstories, mine starts as a sixteen year old who ran away from home to join the army after the Mandalorians attacked and gets worse from there."

There was a faint hint of a smirk at that addendum about other people, because, yeah, you know, not assume or anything, but Atton didn't exactly scream baby person over here.

But the expression went a little sympathetic, with a shake of her head. "Yeah, no, there's not a whole lot of stories that start out 'I ran away from home when I was sixteen' and finish with 'and everything was immediately awesome after that.' You said you used to go here, too, right? To the school? How soon after that was that? Or am I misremembering?"

"Five years later," Atton said, considering his glass. "I lied about my age to get in, which should tell you everything about my time in the army, but it really doesn't. Basically, halfway in we were saved by this big Jedi hero who went a little dark side and tried - and mostly succeeded - to drag all of us along. I came here after I snapped out of it and needed somewhere safe to stay."

"Aw," Raiden said as he settled in at the bar. "I kinda liked the Margaritaville." Yeah yeah the evils of capitalism whatever, had you seen the size of those nachos?

Edited 2023-11-08 15:01 (UTC)

"Raaaaideeeeeeen," Summer could only meet that with a withering whine, "if you want corporatized beach vibes, you can get that with just the low, low cost of a Portalocity portal! Where else in the multiverse are you going to find a karaoke bar with zombies and jello shots?"

A beat.

"I mean, as long as you politely ignore the fact that there are infinite universes, and therefor an infinite amount of karaoke bars with zombies and jello shots, but for the sake of argument, let's pretend there is only one Caritas and at least probably, I don't know, how many Margaritavilles nationwide?"

Stark would not be wearing any hats tonight. Probably.

"Hello, Summer," he said as he slid on to his stool. "Sangria to start, please."

Sangria with Summer had pleasant associations, ok?

"Hello, Stark," said Summer, her usual smile with the greeting just a little bit more smug than usual since she figured he'd have gone immediately for that one, and she started to get the drink ready, which, really, was mostly just pouring and garnishing because half of it was just how it looked. "Good choice. How's it going today?"

It was like Summer knew him better than anyone else or something! Weird.

"Your sangria is always good," Stark said, grinning at her. Even when he was feeling hopeless it helped.

"My day was quiet. Wednesdays usually are after the squirrels have finished with me. Did class go well?"

Where there's a table for literally any last-year holiday you can imagine.

Is it blasphemous to turn the stripper pole into a Festivus Pole?

Probably pretty sparse today due to MOVING THINGS, but, y'know.

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Caritas; Wednesday [11/08].

The Stage - 11/08.

Re: The Stage - 11/08.

The Bar - 11/08.

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The Lounge - 11/08.

The Back Room - 11/08.

OOC - 11/08.