somethingwithturquoise | MHA #4; Saturday [07/08].

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MHA #4; Saturday [07/08].

As Summer had suspected from all the dreams she'd been having and that stupid urge to go traipsing through the woods to find some dumb rock, Morty had shown up at her apartment last night after getting ice cream for himself (you'd think, wouldn't you, that if you were going to come back from the dead temporarily to crash at your sister's place for a weekend, you could at least bring her some ice cream, too, but nooo~oooo), and they ordered pizza and she totally schooled his ass at Italian Plumber Franchise Racing Game, and she had to ban fighting games because he was such a button masher, and now it was Saturday, and she was just trying to figure out what to do with him now.

"Like," she said, as he sat on her couch, legs folded underneath him, tongue slightly out of his mouth as he intently button mashed against the video game itself since Summer refused to deal with it anymore, "what do you even want to do? Should I, like, take you to the park or something?"

"I'm fourteen, Summer, you don't need to take me to the park."

"I don't know!" she argued back. "It's been a while. Like, a really long time, you're practically a baby to me at this point. I don't know. There's an arcade at the bowling alley. I'm friends with the guy who runs the place, I can probably get you some free play in exchange for some weed, or something?"

There was a pause, filled with a clattering of buttons on the controller, before the computer totally demolished Morty, the fatality screen came up on her TV with a booming voice reminding him of how much he sucked, and then he sighed and set the controller down in his lap and looked up at Summer.

"We don't need to do anything, Summer," he said. "Maybe I...maybe I just wanted to come...and...and...and, you know, hang out with my sister again."

"Morty," said Summer, "we never hung out together."

Morty looked down at his hands and the controller in his lap for a moment, before looking over at her hopefully. "Sometimes we did!" he insisted. "Y-you know, not...often, or anything, but sometimes we did! And...and it was really nice, when we did and we got along, and I thought, y-you know, it's pretty cool, having a sister like you. You...you weren't perfect, and you're....you're definitely a bitch sometime, but you're not bad, either, and maybe....maybe I just wish...we could have spent more time just...just hanging out, you know?"

And Summer looked at Morty for a moment, and she felt a little twinge of guilt for all the ways in which she'd made either of her Morty's life a living hell, and how it was kind of nice, wasn't it, that even despite all that, he still just wanted to come visit and hang out?

"Yeah, okay," she said, reaching over to ruffle his hair as she moved passed him on the couch and plopped down to pick up the other controller, "but I swear to god, if you just button mash again, we're switching back to a shooter."

"But I'm not as good at those!"

"Explain to me again how that's my problem."

He totally did start button mashing again, but Summer, for now, decided to let it slide.

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Stark and Zhaan had spent much of last night and a good portion of today thus far talking. Not all of the time, of course, but much of it. There had been so much to catch up on. So much to say. So much had changed since the last time Zhaan had been here.

Eventually Zhaan had asked if she might meet this Summer that Stark had spoken so much about. Unable to think of a single good reason why not, Stark had led the way downstairs and was now knocking on Summer's door accompanied by his temporarily not-dead ex.

What could go wrong?

Stark. Stark. You could have just texted Summer and she would have happily supplied a million good reasons why not.

But since that was not the case, and there was a knock on her door, Summer just sort of turned toward it for a moment before looking at Morty with an accusing sort of look.

"You did not bring Grampa Rick with you this time," she said with an offended grunt, "did you?"

"No!" Morty insisted. "I...I didn't, I swear, I don't....I don't know what's up with him, but he wasn't with me with I came!"

Summer narrowed her eyes suspiciously at him for a moment, before setting down the controller and getting up.

"I doubt," she reasoned to both herself and her brother, "if he was coming, he'd have bothered knocking anyway..."

Still, she braced herself for when she took a peek through the peephole, but what she was was so not what she had been dreading that she was not even remotely prepared for it.

And then her brain did a little connecting and remembering and she closed her eyes for a moment and wondered if she'd have preferred it be her dead grandfather instead.

"Are you fucking kidding me right now?" she murmured to herself, before reaching for the knob and pulling the door open and maybe staring at Stark a little in an effort to not just immediately flick her eyes toward who Stark was with.

"Stark," she said, not looking, not looking, not--damn. She looked, but then immediately looked back. "What's up?"

Stark didn't usually think to send texts, especially when he could just walk down the stairs.

"Hello, Summer. I...Zhaan..."

"I asked if I might meet you," Zhaan said smoothly, stepping forward just a little.

Summer was just going to take a moment to stare at Stark in the desperate effort to telepathically ask him if he was fucking serious with this right now, which, even if she did have that ability, wouldn't have worked anyway, because it would have had to fight through all the jumble of assumptions and flailing about exactly what Stark had been telling Zhaan, especially if it lead to her asking if she might meet her.

There was maybe a faint twitch, and a sudden feeling like there was not enough alcohol in the world to deal with this right now, but then her attention shifted over to Zhaan completely right now with her best smile forward. "Of course," she gushed. "Right! Why wouldn't you? And, I mean, I've heard so much about you, too, that it would have really been a shame it....ugh, like, where are my manners?" She laughed, rolling her eyes at herself and opening the door wider and stepping back. "Come in, come in, welcome to my apartment. That's Pancakes over there," ignoring literally everything except a spot of fur on her leg, "and I know you guys have already met Morty."

Morty, for his part, was just sort of staring at them from over by the couch, until he was acknowledged, at which point he sort of beamed and gave an excited wave at his friends from the ice cream shop last night.

"H-hi, Stark! Hi...." See? See? He knew he wouldn't remember the name she'd given him! Awww, crap...

But, thankfully, Summer was still charging forward enough to maybe cover that up.

"Can I get you guys something to drink?"

And if the answer was anything other than no, no, that's alright, we weren't planning on staying, could that drink be something very, very strong??

Stark had only told Zhaan good things! About Summer being his friend! About Summer being important! About Summer being someone he care about very, very much.

"I met a few of his other friends the last time I was able to come here," Zhaan told her, smiling. "I like to know he still has people who care for him." Now that she was no longer able to, especially with what she knew now of what had happened since last she was here. "It's lovely to meet you, Summer. A drink would be most welcome."

"Hello, Morty," Stark said. He was trying not to sound or look as awkward as he felt right now.

Yeah, well, what about Summer being a spectacular hot mess more often than not? It would be nice, knowing what kind of standard she was supposed to be living up to right now instead of just flailing around like an idiot.

"What would you like?" she asked. "Water?" You know! Because plant! She paid attention! "Coffee? Tea? Juice?....Booze?"

That pause might have been a little hopeful.

Zhaan gave Summer an appraising look before glancing over at Stark.

"An intoxicant would be welcome," she said. "But please don't go to any trouble. I only wished to see you for myself. Stark has nothing but good things to say of you."

Stark, meanwhile, was wondering if he'd made a terrible mistake here.

To see her for herself? A brow lifted, and Summer looked toward Stark and just had to wonder what he had been saying to make her come across as some kind of exhibit or novelty to be seen, apparently!

"It's no trouble," Summer assured her, already drifting toward the kitchen now. "Trust me, I've got intoxicants for days. I can even make jello shots, if you want!"

Summer, no.

"Did Stark tell you about the jello shots?"

"Can....can I have jello shots, too, Summer?" asked Morty hopefully from the couch.

"No, Morty, you can't. You're fourteen."

"Awww, geez, Summer!"

Mostly he'd been stumbling over words and trying to avoid saying something he'd been avoiding saying for a little while now.

"They're her specialty," Stark said with a very fond look in Summer’s direction before looking back almost guiltily at Zhaan. "Like I told you. Every weeken at the bar."

"I was hoping I might get to experience those for myself," Zhaan said, giving Stark's hand a gentle squeeze.

"Well," Summer stated, "I can't give you, like, the full Summer Smith Jello Shot experience. At least not right now, that's a whole day process right there. But it has been a while since I've gotten to use this bad boy..."

She'd gone into one of her cupboards and bulled out a large, box-shaped machine, nudging a few things off the counter to make room for it. And then she smacked a hand triumphantly on it.

"This'll pump out shots in mere minutes, I'll just have to throw a few things together. My ex made it for me. It's pretty great."

Look, if Stark got to parade around past relationships right now, then so could she, dammit.

Stark wasn't parading anything! Well... maybe a little.

"Thank you, Summer," he said quietly. "You're sure it's not a problem? I don't want to bother you..."

That earned him a fond eye roll from Zhaan.

And from Summer, it almost earned him a snarky little comment about how if he didn't want to bother her, then he wouldn't have come knocking at her door unexpectedly with his dead blue plant girlfriend, but she sucked in a breath, she lifted her chin, and tightened her jaw a little to keep that all inside, because, so help her, she actually did find herself wanting to actually impress his dead blue plant girlfriend, and she didn't think the way to do that was going to be just tearing him a new one about not bothering her straight out the gate.

"Stark," she then said, very measured, very carefully, as she started pulling out various bottles and jello packets and fruits from her fridge, "if it was a problem, then I wouldn't have offered, now, would I?"

It was a damn good thing there was an actual science to the proper balance of alcohol to water when making jello shots, or else these shots were going to be so fucking loaded...

"You might have," Stark said stubbornly. "But... no. Probably not. You tell me the truth. Even when I don't want to hear it."

"A friend like that," Zhaan said, watching Summer carefully, "is a precious thing."

Summer was actually just kind of glad she did offer to make jello shots, because there was something very zen and centering and familiar in the process that....slightly helped her to feel a little less like some kind of animal in a zoo being observed by some dead lady who'd heard god only knows what about her from Stark, while her brother was no doubt gawking at the whole thing from the couch still.

And while she was mixing things up and getting them ready to pour into the machine, she got to thinking about how she definitely didn't feel like she could be completely honest right now, but she got to wondering whether that had more to do with Zhaan being here or just actually Stark, or the combination of them both. Which just then got her thinking....

"Hey, actually, Staaaark?" she said. "It looks like I'm actually running a little low on vodka right now. Do you think maybe you and Morty can run over to the store and get some more, maybe pick up some snacks or something while you're there, too? I mean, I would just send Morty by himself, but he's underage, and quite frankly, I do not trust him by himself on an island with so many cute high school girls on it."

"Hey!"

"What?" Summer started pouring the first jello batch into the machine. "Am I wrong? Do I need to remind you why my current Morty was looking to find a dead Morty to replace?"

Oh, Stark was definitely going to be asking this Morty for the story of why the other Morty needed to find a dead Morty to replace. After Stark turned that information around in his brain for a bit.

"We could do that," he said, only the barest hint of suspicion in his tone. "Morty. Let's go find snacks. And vodka."

Maybe lots of vodka.

"Go ahead," Zhaan said when he looked over at her for confirmation. "We'll be fine here unsupervised."

Stark nodded and headed out the door, waiting for Morty to follow.

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