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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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.

Morty was starting to form a few questions of his own as all of this transpired, while also wondering when Summer had apparently started turning into their mom, which may or may not have been the catalyst for him squeaking out, as he got up from the couch, "C-can....can we get whatever we want? For the snacks?"

"Yeah," said Summer, "sure. Whatever you want, Morty."

"Whoo-hoo!" he said, fists lifted in victory and that was all he needed to go hurrying eagerly after Stark, already trying to make a plan for the buttload of snacks he was going to drag back and totally binge on for the rest of the day.

Summer waited until she could be sure their footsteps had receded down the hallway before letting out a sigh, reaching over to pick up a bottle of vodka that was about half full, popping it open, and making quick work out of diminishing about half of that half.

(See, Morty? Not like Beth, then it would have been wine).

"See?" she said, holding the bottle up to inspect its decreased volume. "Running low."

She then offered the bottle out to Zhaan. "But now that it's just us girls..."

Edited 2023-07-08 22:38 (UTC)

"Are you sharing, child?" Zhaan asked, brows (such as they were) raised as she held put a hand.

"Were you hoping to get me alone?"

The 'child' made Summer want to pull the bottle back and state that she changed her mind, actually, but that would only just prove the point, wouldn't it? So she just quirked a brow and shrugged as she put the bottle in Zhaan's hand.

"Obviously, I am," she said. "And I just feel we can speak more freely, now that we are."

And, more importantly, now this interaction was happening on her terms, dammit.

Nearly everyone was a child to Zhaan. She'd probably enjoy meeting the few people on the island who were significantly older than she was.

"And what would you like to speak of?" Zhaan had some thoughts of her own but she was curious. Stark was extremely fond of this young woman. "I'm happy to answer questions. After," she said, lifting the bottle to her lips, "a drink. And perhaps as a few of my own."

There was at least one person significantly older than she was that would greatly enjoy meeting her, actually!

"Oh no," Summer informed her, folding her arms in front of her a little and leaning on the counter, "I'm good. You're the one who came to see me. What were you hoping to get out of it?"

"You're important to him," Zhaan said. "The last time I was able to be here I met a few others Stark called friend. I simply wanted to meet you. See you for myself. And offer my thanks."

And with that fairly innocuous answer (or maybe because of the vodka), Summer seemed to sort of relax a little. Some of the tenseness she's been feeling in her spine and shoulders definitely slid away, and she almost felt a little bit of embarrassment over her initial response creep into her. Of course Zhaan would want to meet Stark's friends while she was here, and Summer was pretty much his best friend right now...

The jello machine dinged and a light switched to green, and so Summer turned to open it up and start taking out the shots.

"Who did you get the chance to meet last time?" she wondered. "And who else were you planning to meet this time? Have you Anakin before? Maybe Travis?"

"I've heard both of those names," Zhaan told her. She was watching the jello process with interest. "I only met a few people on my last visit. Liam, who I understand has left. Annie."

Someone else it seemed best not to mention.

"You seem to be closest to him, now."

Summer shrugged a little. "I mean," she said, as she worked on plucking the shots out of their molds and putting them onto a little tray, a small selection of colors and flavors: red for strawberry, blue for blueberry, purple for grape, orange for...well, orange, "yeah, I guess. He is one of my best friends, and we've known each other for a while now..."

"I'm glad he has friends here still." Zhaan was still watching the jello process with an air of vague amusement.

"How long have you known him then? He seems very fond of you." Had she said that already? If so perhaps it bore repeating.

Did it, though?

"Oh, god," said Summer, shaking her head a little. "I don't even know anymore. A while, I know that much. More than a few years now..."

She knew it was probably after everything with Faye that their friendship really cemented itself in as a definitely thing, and clearly they were friends before that, too, but it wasn't like Summer could remember exactly how long it had been.

"You may have known him longer than I did before I went to meet my Goddess," Zhaan said lightly. Was it a forced lightness? Who could say.

"With everything it was less than 2 cycles, I think, that we actually spent together on Moya."

"Huh."

Summer...wasn't sure what she was supposed to do with that information. If anything. Probably nothing. But Zhaan's presence seemed to loom so massively over so much about Stark that the idea that she'd somehow actually known him longer than she had was just...

Fucking bonkers.

She held out the tray for Zhaan to take her pick of a jello shot.

"So what happened?" she wondered. "When you....went to meet your Goddess. Is it rude of me to ask?"

"He hasn't told you?" Zhaan asked as she picked up a blue shot. When you had a brand...

"Moya was dying, entwined with another ship when they met inside a wormhole. Someone needed to separate the two. I was already very ill. I volunteered. He was with me, at the end, as much as he could be with so many closed off passageways between us."

Pffft. Color branding, how gauche, Summer would never.

She wondered now if Stark had told her, and it just got shuffled to the back of her memory, because that did seem vaguely familiar, but honestly? It could just be similar to something in the jumble of her own memories, too.

She plucked up a red shot for herself.

"I'm sorry," she said. "That sucks. But...at least there was some meaning to it, right? That it wasn't just senseless or entirely meaningless."

"I was able to save the people I loved," Zhaan agreed. "And I was ready. I know, at least in Stark's experience, that is vanishingly rare."

"Summer," she added after a brief pause. "How am I meant to consume this?"

"Traditionally," said Summer, after a moment of her own and a faint smile, "with these ones in the cup, you just use your tongue to loosen in and them, fwoop, right down the hatch."

And, naturally, she went ahead and demonstrated, running her tongue along the edge and then tilting her head back to pour it in and swallow, then held up the empty cup as proof.

"Ta-daaaah. You could also squeeze the cup or dig it out with your fingers, but those are clearly inferior methods."

MHA #4; Saturday [07/08].

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