MHA #4; Thursday Evening [07/09].

[somethingwithturquoise]

It had been a while since Summer and Rey got together for one of these sangria nights, and Summer was really feeling like it was needed. But the nice thing was that the unwinding and conversation that had this time around should be way more positive and uplifting than the last time they did this.

Boy, she certainly hoped so anyway! That last time had gotten dark.

But tonight, there was plenty of sangria to be had, the cats had been isolated in the bedroom with plenty of catnip and their fifty billion different toys that they usually just ignored for pieces of string and packaging tape unless it was decided that what this evening really needed was some cute cat snuggling, she'd set up a pretty relaxing multidimenional playlist that featured heavily on the snake jazz, the space jizz, and the lo-fi hip-hop beats to chill to, there was a small army of hopeful nail polish bottles stationed on her coffee table, and while she waited for Rey to swing by, she was in the kitchen, looming over the glowing screen of her phone in the attempts to mix up an experimental mud mask that she was hoping to convince Rey to at least try once they were a few glasses in.

Dry winter weather was coming for their skin soon; they needed to be prepared.

[[ for the space bestie! ]]

Comments

[thatwaslucky]

"We'll figure it out. Probably."

And don't think she wasn't going to use this as an excuse to turn this around on Summer in a minute, but there was one question she had first.

"Can I ask what you see that made you think something was going on? Or should have been?"

[somethingwithturquoise]

And that was...a good question, because Summer wasn't sure, even after thinking about it a little, after some sangria to help her think, that she even knew an answer to it. But since it was a good question, she wanted to make sure she had a good answer.

But what she came up with was a shrug and wry grin that knew very much that this wasn't a good answer at all.

"Like I said," she said, "one of those 'when you know, you just know' kind of things.

"Seriously, though," she added, a beat later, "I don't really know, if I'm honest, it was just...something kind of different when you talked about him. And, well, you denying it when I teased you. You ever hear the phrase 'the lady doth protest too much'?"

Also...projection and hope based on a whim, but that was generally Summer's approach to most things these days.

[thatwaslucky]

"I didn't want to get ahead of myself in case there wasn't really anything there," Rey said with a shrug. "Things like using his name or him coming to check on me really were friend things."

She assumed him coming to check on her that time was a friend thing. It was only like the third time they'd talked or something.

[somethingwithturquoise]

Summer shrugged back with a light smile. "Sometimes friend things are a really good start."

Not that she ever had any experience with that, really, but, you know. Theoretically.

Then her smile sharpened a little.

"That's a good friend to have," she added.

[thatwaslucky]

"Seems like," Rey said, totally unable to keep the smile off her face at that. "I'm not sorry about how this has gone at all."

[somethingwithturquoise]

"Good," Summer's own grin grew as she finished off her glass, reaching for the pitcher to refill it and then giving it a questioning lift to see if she should top Rey off while she was at it, too. "You shouldn't be. And I'm really, really happy for you, Rey."

[thatwaslucky]

"Thank you," Rey said, and held out her glass. She'd only gotten maybe halfway through but she was keeping in mind that she had training tomorrow.

"How are things going with you and Barry?"

[somethingwithturquoise]

Summer, meanwhile, had already informed Troy that he was on his own for radio tomorrow and gotten a sub for her class, because Shunsui owed her one. That's how you knew you were a responsible adult: you fucking planned for your hangovers!

"Things with Barry are great," she said, smiling softly into her glass. "Barry's great."

Almost too great, but she'd need to make it through at least another round before she managed to get that one out loud.

She laughed a little, shook her head. "But that's, like, totally ancient news at this point, right?"

It had been one of her longest continual relationships pretty much since tenth grade, so...

[thatwaslucky]

"Not that ancient," Rey pointed out.

Especially when Summer was smiling into her glass like that.

[somethingwithturquoise]

"This has been one my longest continual relationships pretty much since the tenth grade."

Yeah, that definitely called for bringing that little bit of narrative into the world.

"We're practically married at this point.

"Fuck," she realized, "we've been together longer than my actual marriage."

Another beat.

"Okay, not technically, because the papers only got signed this year, but, you know. Spiritually. And you could even make the argument that, hello, it was a lawless wasteland, so was it really a marriage if, you know, laws don't even exist?"

[thatwaslucky]

"It might say something that I didn't hear about the marriage until about a month ago," Rey said, putting actual thought into it. "But I think the time you were actually together is what actually matters here."

Was that helpful?

[somethingwithturquoise]

"The time we were actually together," Summer offered pointedly, "happened when we were still in school here, Rey. Wrap your brain around that one."

Oh, look, maybe getting through that second glass was going to go even quicker than the first!

She feel bad about it if this wasn't exactly the sort of thing sangria nights were all about.

[thatwaslucky]

"I can't, that's still really difficult," Rey said honestly.

Maybe because they hadn't been that close then?

[somethingwithturquoise]

No one had been. The only reason Kanan even knew about Hemorrhage was because a fake kid showed up and that definitely necessitated some emergency pancakes.

"Right?" Summer enthused. "Because it's super weird, right? How many people have had a secret husband from an alternate post-apocalyptic version of Earth while they were still in high school? And what kind of person would just be cool with something like that? But right now there's this guy in a warehouse probably poking at some way to stop the fucking polar ice caps from melting right now who was just all 'yeah, okay, whatever, here, I made you a jello shot machine and a laser pointer to entertain your cat, wanna go get tacos in Mexico?' about it, and that's what I can't wrap my head around."

Yeah, this had been building up for a bit, which was why Summer definitely wanted to focus on Rey that evening, but a small crack was sometimes all you needed.

"And I don't really want to. I'd go nuts if I tried."

[thatwaslucky]

"It's because you're great, and the exact opposite of boring," Rey said firmly. "And he can see that. That's probably really all there is to it."

Ignore that Rey was a hypocrite.

[somethingwithturquoise]

A big ol' hypocrite who was getting such a withering look right then.

"I'm going to fuck it up," Summer pronounced with the utmost confidence.

"But," she added, just as confident, with a lift of her glass to toast to the sentiment, "I'm going to enjoy the hell out of it before I do."

And down went the rest of it and the reason she had a contingency plan for tomorrow!

[thatwaslucky]

"Focus on that second part," Rey told her. "Maybe you'll surprise yourself."

Forever an optimist, especially for her friends.

[somethingwithturquoise]

"I usually do," said Summer, and it was half-sigh, half-preening, as she paid very close attention to refilling her glass.

"Okay," she said, "enough of my bullshit. Back to you, or else I start threatening you with painted fingernails because I did not bring my entire nail polish collection out as a decorating statement."

She brought it out as a threat!

[thatwaslucky]

"I have no problem painting my nails, it just won't stay on for more than a day," Rey warned. The girly stuff was fun sometimes, there were just reasons she didn't feel like it worked for her. "What else do you want to know?"

[somethingwithturquoise]

"We could always do both," Summer offered. "I have literally dozens of different shades of pink if you're feeling nostalgic, but I don't think any of them are even half as sparkly as that Halloween dress."

This was a lie. Some were pretty much all sparkle.

"And I don't know," she shrugged, grinning a little. "What do you want to tell? Or, like, how did it all go down? What was the lead-up? I love shit like that."

[thatwaslucky]

"I can skip the pink sparkles," Rey said quickly, though she did check out the colors.

"There's not much lead-up. I couldn't sleep so I texted him and he came over instead of texting me back."

[somethingwithturquoise]

"Oh. Mygod." Summer was officially forgetting about the nail polish for the time being. "Rey! You sent a booty text!"

This was amazing.

[thatwaslucky]

The protest was automatic. "It was not-"

And then she fell silent, and picked up a bottle of polish at random like she was considering it, because yeah, she'd sent a booty text.

[somethingwithturquoise]

"Uh-huh," said Summer. Totally convinced. Really.

Her chin jerked up, grin going crooked.

"What did it say?"

[thatwaslucky]

"I asked if he was awake."

Totally innocent. It was a total coincidence that she jumped him thirty seconds after he showed up.