somethingwithturquoise | MHA #4; Saturday Evening [01/29].

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MHA #4; Saturday Evening [01/29].

One of the nice things about a sangria night was that there really wasn't a whole lot to it; all Summer pretty much had to do was mix up a shit ton of fruit and booze and maybe make sure the place was tidied up a bit. She had considered shipping off the cats to a catsitter (no, she hadn't asked him, but, yeah, Summer was pretty sure Prompto would not complain about her shoving Pancakes and Issa at him for the evening) to get them out of the way, but, considering the nature of this particular sangria night, it might not hurt to have the additional comfort and cuteness around. So they were pretty much just hanging out and staying out of the way, up until the exactly moment when summer moved the first pitcher from the fridge to the living room, which meant they were both suddenly, inexplicably, under her feet.

"Nice try, assholes," Summer told them, once she did successfully get the pitcher to the coffee table without incident, after which they both dispersed and would more than likely be oddly absent until the exact moment she went to get the second pitcher.

She just assumed they were definitely going to need the second pitcher.

[[ mostly for a certain sad glowfaced alien, but can be open before him in the timeline if anyone wants/needs to poke at her! And, yes, I do have actual cats, how can you tell? ]]

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Did baked goods go with sangria? Stark didn't really know but he'd wandered over to the bakery for an assortment of things earlier anyway. He'd said he would bring something and he hadn't had any other ideas. So he was standing outside Summer's door, holding a bakery box, and knocking before he could talk himself out of it.

As far as Summer was concerned, everything went with sangria, especially baked goods that she mostly already expected! Because Stark.

And even though she was expecting him, she checked the peephole before opening the door, because, well...Summer. but seeing that it was (probably actually) Stark, she opened the door wide and stepped aside.

"Hi, Stark! Come on in, great timing, I just pulled the first pitcher out of the fridge!"

Stark had only been replaced by a bioloid one time and that had been ages ago. He was definitely himself!

"How many pitchers are there?" Was he going to be able to make it back up the stairs later? "I brought...mostly cookies," he said, holding out the box. "I wasn't sure what. The bakery seemed safe."

You could never be too sure!

And this Summer didn't even know about all her dopplegangers yet!

"Only two!" But, to be fair, Summer had made them, so she's somehow managed to squeeze at least three into those two. At least. "And safe...," she was now eyeing the box suspiciously, "from what exactly?"

LOOK, AROUND HERE...

"Oh, no. I meant...I wasn't sure what to bring," Stark clarified. "So I just went to the bakery. That's all."

But they were also safe from containing any horrifying meat ingredients because the staff at JGoB would never do that to poor Stark.

Could you really blame Summer if that was where her brain went, though.

"Ohhhhhhhhh," she said, drawing it out with the drawl of realization, and then she shook her head, waving a hand to dismiss it. "Seriously, though, you would have been fine with anything. Cookies do sound pretty awesome, though."

At one point this evening, you can guarantee Summer was going to start dipping cookies into her wine. Bet on it.

"Come on, then " she added, gesturing toward the living room and heading that wah and figuring Stark would follow, "have a seat, I'll pour our glasses, and we can get started."

As if that wasn't pretty much all it took to get started.

Summer had good reason to be paranoid!

Stark would not judge cookies being dipped in wine. He would probably end up following suit. At least he'd be eating something then?

"Right," he said, following and taking seat as directed. "I...I appreciate this. Thank you."

Clearly, they were on the cusp of the hottest new wine lush trend here.

Summer picked up one of the rather large glasses she used for these particular occasions, picked up the pitcher, and began to pour. "No, no, no," she insisted. "Thank you, for letting me indoctrinated you into the time-honored tradition that is sangria nights."

She finished pouring, considered the volume in the glass, wrinkled her nose, poured in just a little bit more, then nodded with satisfaction as she handed the glass over to Stark.

"I just wish it was under better circumstances," she said, picking up the next glass and filling it as well. "But..."

Here, the dramatic pause also worked to fill in the time as she finished pouring her own glass, set down the pitcher, and joined Stark on the couch, grinning as she lifted her glass in a toast.

"As least it's not worse. Cheers!"

With that, she moved her glass to clink against Stark and make the Sangria Night official.

"It's not worse," Stark echoed uncertainly, clinking his glass against Summer's and shaking his head a little. "But bad enough."

That was a lot of sangria. He probably should take a large sip. "I didn't know there was a tradition involved in all of it."

"Oh," Summer assured him, with a sense of importance and a sip of her own drink...followed by a moment of looking impressed and patting herself on the back because this was one of her finest ones yet! Or maybe it had just been a while and they all sort of turned out about the same, but whatever. "It's a whole thing. There's....well, there's not a whole lot to it, other than this, but, I mean, this is kind of all you need, right? Let's just say you're in good company now, being one of the few, the proud...the Sangria....ites."

Or maybe Summer just kind of liked to conflate little moments of bonding to big deals because that way it made her feel a part of something more important than it maybe was in a desperate attempt to stay relevent in her friends' lives. Something like that.

Edited 2022-01-29 20:38 (UTC)

Summer did not need to try and stay relevant. Stark didn't go see anyone else nearly every week, did he?

"Rey said she's done this before, with you. And that I should just talk." And drink the sangria, which tended to lead to the talking. "She said it helps."

Pfft. That was clearly just because of boozy jello...

But Summer did smile to hear that, especially coming from Rey. "I like to think it does," she said, "and it's good to know other people think so, too. I mean, sometimes, that can just make a huge difference, you know? Being able to just talk about something, no holds barred. And," she lifted her glass before taking a sip, "a lot cheaper than a therapist, too."

And tastier!

Somehow, she did not think Dr. Wong would appreciate her brining sangria to her sessions.

He'd show up even without the jello!

"Never tried talking to any therapists," Stark admitted, taking another sip as well. "We didn't have them." Although Moya's inhabitants could have each used their own. One wouldn't have been enough for all of them to share.

"Sometimes I just don't talk. Or I talk too much." And, of course, the person he most wanted to talk to had gone away. "I told Rey I was worried I might not stop, if I started."

"Which is fine," Summer informed him, almost insistently. "Which is good, if that's what you need. Because there's no such thing as talking too much with sangria night. That's pretty much the whole point. It's like a....like a safe place, you know, where you can just let it all out. Let all your concerns just flow out of you the same way the sangria flows from the pitchers!"

She snorted into her glass with her next drink.

"Or something like that."

"I'm still not sure what I need," Stark admitted. "Something. Maybe talking. Talking won't hurt. Or I don't think it will."

The sangria would probably not hurt either. Good thing these glasses were big and started out very full.

"I haven't done this before. Not like this." Any of it.

Summer definitely knew what she was doing with those glasses, thank you. This was not her first sangrodeo.

"Which is also fine," Summer said, with a shrug of her shoulder. "Sometimes, a new experience is what you need, and that's why you're not sure what you need, because it's something you haven't done before, y'know? Besides, there's got to be something you've been wantinghaven'treasons. But I'll totally listen. The sangria will listen."

She held out both her hands (sangria glass still held in one of them, of course) and lifted her chin as if opening herself up to anything. "Go on. Lay it on us, Stark. Come at me, bro. Emotionally."

"I just don't understand," Stark said plaintively. "Why didn't she say anything before? It would have been easier if I'd known. I would have...I don't know what I would have done but I would have done something and she wouldn't have left the way she did. I could have said goodbye...not...not like that. It felt wrong. It felt..."

For all of Stark's seeming to hem and haw about talking about it, Summer definitely wasn't expecting him to just come out the gate like that, even when she did invite it, so she blinked a little, settled in to get a few good sips in while she listened, lining up a few points of response, but then he had to go and just trail off with that last part and to that she could only wait and see if that was just him running out of steam, or just taking a breath.

"It felt...?," she goaded gently, and waited, with bated breath.

Stark had been mostly holding in a lot of things for 2 weeks now. Blurting it all out might be the only way to deal. Or he might stop suddenly halfway through.

"It hurt," he said quietly. "It hurts. It felt cruel. She was never cruel before." She'd taken care of him when he needed it, before. And then there was this.

Out of all the words Stark could have said, somehow that one definitely felt like one of the worst, and Summer almost felt bad now for goading him to say it. But that was the whole point, wasn't it? To get those feelings out, and talk about.

"Yeah," she offered, expression melting into one of sympathy. "I definitely don't imagine it felt great. But why....I mean, if you don't mind me asking," duh, Summer, again, this was the point, "...why did it feel...cruel?"

On the one hand, Stark was her very good friend and she hated seeing him torn up like this. On the other hand, she empathized with Faye a bit on this, too. She'd been in Faye's shoes before.

She could....never, in a million years, look as good as Faye in those shoes, of course, but still...

"Because she... she was acting like none of this meant anything. Like I didn't."

Stark was going to turn his attention to trying to drain the remains of his glass now.

And, look at that, there was Summer reaching over to grab the pitcher from the coffee table so that she was ready to pour more into Stark's cup, especially since her next question had to be, "Do you think she meant it?"

"I don't know!" That was part of the problem.

"I hope she didn't," he said, very quietly. "It all meant a lot to me."

"I doubt she meant it," Summer insisted, although she, obviously, had no idea, but she kind of liked to think that no one (at least not anyone here) could really be that heartles, especially to Stark, one of the sweetest, nicest, caring, compassio--

"Whoops," said Summer, who had started to refill her own glass too now, even though she hadn't made it through quite as much, and had just about nearly overfilled it. She jerked the pitcher up in time, though, letting out a whistle because she really should have gotten a couch of a darker color.

She sipped down her sangria from the rim of the glass before setting the pitcher aside again, and got back to her point.

"I mean," said Summer, forgetting exactly what the point she was going for had been, but it was fine, as a new one was arriving to take its place, "look at it this way. She did actually tell you. That's....more than what a lot of people--"

Read: half her exes.

"--get. That's...gotta mean something, right?"

"She promised she wouldn't leave without telling me. Not again. Not after..."

Stark's wine glass was very interesting right now. Much more interesting than anyone's face.

"But maybe she just didn't want me to try and follow."

"She still could have broken that promise," Summer pointed out, and, oof/i>, didn't that just prove her earlier point about Stark pretty much bieng the squishiest boy.

And as to his other point? Summer was going to need a moment with her sangria, because something snarky about how that was fair considering the last time...

"Maaaaaaybe," she said, managing to at least veer slightly away from that. "I mean...it's possible. But doesn't mean it wasn't that, in addition to other reasons. Like..." She gestured a little, which was a choice when holding a very full glass of wine. "....that it would definitely be way, way crueler to not tell you."

He'd gone after her the last time because he'd known exactly why she'd run and he'd needed to talk to her. And she'd been in trouble when they found her. When he wasn't being unbearably sad Stark was worried.

"She should have told me sooner."

He would have protested. He might have tried to convince her to stay. But he would have had time to accept things and he could have said goodbye differently.

"But she didn't. And I don't even know if she's alright. She wasn't, the first time."

"Be careful," he added absently watching Summer's glass.

"It's fine," Summer waved (thankfully) her non-glass hand.

"Maybe," she then offered, suddenly confident that she would be using that word a lot in this conversation, "she didn't know soon enough to tell you sooner."

"She had her things packed," Stark said after taking a very long sip. "Before she came to the door. She knew soon enough to pack everything."

That was going to earn Stark a pointed look, followed by a pointed slurp of her drink, because come on.

"You're making it very hard," she informed him, "to not break sangria night law right now by just totally calling you out."

Edited 2022-01-30 01:37 (UTC)

"You didn't tell me there were rules," Stark protested weakly.

"There aren't," Summer admitted with a sigh and a roll of her eyes, "they're more like guidelines, and it feels against the spirit of sangria to rail on you, but, my dude, my guy....."

She looked at Stark and sighed again.

"Okay," she said, shifting a little so she could lean in to really convey her message, setting aside her glass because this required full hand gesturing while explaining.
"So. Let's look at it this way."

She held out one of her hands.

"Okay, so let's pretend that I am holding a jello shot in my hand right now," she said. "I don't, really, because I don't have any jello right now, which sounds ludicrous, but it's true.

"Anyway, I'm holding a jello shot, and now I'm folding my fingers in," which she did as she narrated, "because I like this jello shot, I want to keep it. But I really don't want if to slip out my hand so I better grip it tighter, right? The tighter I go, the safer it'll be, right? But, uh oh, whar's this? The jello shit is starting to feel the pressure, see, it's bulging out on the sides as I squeeze on, because it's too tight, it needs more space. But more space means more chances of it slipping off your hand. Better go tighter, tighter, until suddenly..."

She burst out both her hands with splat noise.

"Then look at that," she held up her imaginarily jello-splattered palm and pointed to it. "I held too hard and the jello slipped off my hand anyway. Only now it's just a great big mess and what I do still have in my hand is just all squished and broken."

"But I didn't! I wouldn't. And everything broke anyway."

Stark sighed, shook his head, and stared down at his glass before continuing.

"It was always on her terms. From the very first."

With the notable exception of that one 3 word declaration and the aftermath. Even then, all he'd done was ask if she was coming back. He'd never tried to make her do it.

"Then..." said Summer, after a moment, wiping her fake-jello'd hands on her pantleg and realizing that would have been a bad move if this wasn't all a metaphor, and she looked up at Stark apologeticly, "maybe it really wasn't all that strong to begin with."

And now she was just going to slowly reach over to the table and get that drink back, because it was needed.

"She said she loved me," Stark said softly. "And she showed it, when she didn't say it. And then..."

Then she left.

"I just don't know. It was real and it was good and now it's gone."

"...sometimes," said Summer, after a moment, her shoulders hitching a little as she couldn't really think of any other way to say it anymore, "that's just what happens. Some people just...have to go. It's not, like, anything against you and it doesn't mean that what you guys did have wasn't important, or meaningful, it's just..."

She trailed off a little, really failing to come up with how to explain it.

"Things just change, Stark. It's just how things go. And some people...most people, actually, in my experience, just leave. Sometimes they come back. Usually they don't. And it sucks, and it leaves this big hole inside you that you don't think you're ever going to fill, but some people spend so much time trying to figure out how to fill that hole that they forget about everything else around that hole."

Not that she was thinking about anyone specifically in her own life, nope, not at all, not one stinking bit...

Stark didn't respond at first, opting for a few very large sips (gulps, really) from his glass instead.

"I don't know that those holes ever get filled," he said carefully. "It's more...making room for them. Around them. This will always hurt. The last time...it was different, that time, the first time I was here. Zhaan...she died. And I was lost. But then I was here and she was here and she wasn't mine, she wasn't the same but she was here and she was alive and then one day she was gone. And she didn't say anything. She was just gone. And I...I was a mess. A disaster. And it still hurts. It will always hurt. But you live with the hurt and it's part of you, eventually. It doesn't go away. This isn't going away either and I know that and I...I wish I didn't."

To all of that, Summer listened quietly, maybe with a sip or two of her drink, but mostly, just listening, with a small, sympathetic tug at the corner of her mouth at certain key points. And when he finished, she was quiet for a moment longer, too, just...sitting on it a little. Finishing her glass, and then reaching for the pitcher.

"I think," she finally said, "it has a lot to do with what you do about that hurt, though. You know? Like...do you let it keep breaking you down? Or do you use it to, like, make yourself stronger? I mean, you said so yourself, you've survived this hurt before, Stark. You can do it again."

"I'm tired of being hurt," Stark said quietly, holding out his glass. "I'm used to it. I don't want to be. I was getting to used to being happy and not being lonely anymore and now it's back to before. Worse than before."

"At least you're not alone, though, right?" Summer asked softly, refilling the glass, and frowning a little as the pitcher was getting increasingly empty. "You still have a lot of people here who do care for you. So it's not all bad."

Edited 2022-01-30 20:09 (UTC)

"Not entirely alone," Stark agreed. "No. I know that." It wasn't the same, and he knew Summer knew that too.

"It does help, knowing that," he added after another sip from the refilled glass. "You're helping. I appreciate it. This, all of it." He wanted to be sure she knew that.

Yeah, Summer definitely knew it wasn't the same, but, if you asked her, it was better. But maybe she was a little jaded and cynical in that respect. She just put way more faith in the friends she'd made her than she would pretty much anyone.

But she'd probably said enough stuff Stark probably didn't want to hear, so she just nodded, drained what was left in her glass, and set aside.

"I'mma gonna go get that other pitcher," she declared, slapping her hands on her thighs and getting up just a little too fast, but she was good! It was good! "I know we've still got some, but it probably wouldn't hurt to be...pre-emptive. Prepared? Pre-something."

Just because Stark didn't want to hear things didn't mean they shouldn't be said. He just might need them repeated a few times.

"Better to have it," he agreed. "You made it. So we ought to drink it." And maybe if he had enough he'd sleep better tonight. "I'll...open the cookies?" Which really just required lifting the top of the box but they were there and hadn't been touched yet. "We should eat some. Probably."

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MHA #4; Saturday Evening [01/29].

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