2025-03-19 - Darts, Drinking, and Dad Mode

Things have been getting weirder on the islands lately, and business has been picking up with the end of winter. Sometimes you need a break from all the magic, actual or corporate. At times like those, there's worse places to be than Lucky's, arguably the most normal spot you can go without returning to the mainland. That's likely why Carl is here, in that nebulous spot between afternoon and evening, while the place is quiet before things really pick up. He's wearing jeans, a thin gray jacket, and an obnoxiously floral patterned shirt, hanging out at the back of the place and tossing darts at a board. Sometimes he even hits it.

Most of Avery's work was behind the scenes, which meant she could get it done pretty early in the day, some of the later morning and afternoon parts she was out for questions and so forth, but for the most part she was fairly hidden. Which makes it possible for her to get off earlier in the day.

That weird later afternoon going into evening hour that most bars liked to call "happy hour" was a normal time frame for her to be there if she looking to drink. Today, she was looking to drink. Luck's wasn't a fancy place and she sorta liked that. She had a grin martini in the wrong kind of glass, this one was in a short rock glass - but she didn't mind. It was currently resting on a table, while the woman herself was throwing darts at the board.

Hair left down, in a white tank top, a pair of ripped black jeans and black combat boots on her feet.

Thunk! Carl's dart hits the board, lodging itself at an angle into the single ring, well below where he was aiming. Three points. "Shit," he mutters. It's a good thing he isn't keeping score. He hasn't even got liquor to blame for it - there's a bottle of coke sitting behind him. He glances over to Avery and her board to see how her next toss goes, narrowing his eyes for a moment like he's been doing since she arrived, like he's trying to place someone.

Avery was aware someone was playing next to her, but she'd left them mostly to their own devices, playing in offset of the other like one did when playing next to someone Bowling. They go, then you go and yadda yadda...

Tossing her next dart it lands near the bullseye but on the white, not a direct hit. A smirk appears on her lips at the sight of hers and then glances over as Carl curses to see what he'd hit. Reason to curse, "oooof." ishe sounds and steps back to take a drink from her martini.

Carl gives a slight congratulatory nod at her throw, then steps up to try again. He closes one eye and squints the other, raising the dart and miming a couple of throws that way that people do. Finally he lets it go. Thunk! Much better. Not far off from where Avery's landed, actually, not far off the outer bullseye. He pumps his fist and makes a little hiss of triumph. He turns around to retrieve his coke, and as he passes he stops to finally hazard a guess.

"Hey," he says, his voice uncertain, "you're the ice girl, right? The one who..." He makes a uselessly vague gesture outlining some shape in the air, possibly a block of ice, and then another more definite one that's definitely supposed to be using a chainsaw. He doesn't know much about ice sculpting.

Leaning against the table where she drink was sitting, Avery took a drink and then another, two in a row before she looks over at Carl and his victory of a hit, "Hey, not bad." she calls out at seeing his fist pumping the air.

Being in no rush to get back to her darts, playing a game by yourself left no one waiting, so she stayed at her position and looked back over at Carl when he started talking again. "Hey," she says in greeting before he goes on and her slight grin curls up a little bit more into a smile, "Ice girl, Ice Princess... I've heard a few." Nodding her head in response.

The charades that are going on are fascinating to watch and so she leans her head on her hand and watches for a little while, letting him get through all of them before she offers, "Ice sculptor?" laughing, "Yeah, that's me." Wrapping her hand around the glass of her martini again the glass frosts and a large ice cube forms in her drink glass, "It was getting a little warmer than I like it." she says to Carl before taking another sip.

Carl seems almost as pleased to have guessed that right as he was at making his throw, though he doesn't make as much of a show of it. It would have been embarrassing if he hadn't, after the whole mime routine. "Must be a nice trick at parties," he laughs when her martini is suddenly on the rocks. "I've seen your stuff around. It's impressive. Even the park must think so, since it's trying to copy you - you heard what happened on Mystic Mountain the other day, right? Whole winter wonderland blowing in out of nowhere."

He seems fine ignoring the darts, himself. No reason to ruin his hot streak, even if it's just one throw.

"Thank you," Avery says first, following by "I've been working a long time with ice, it's fun to play with and now that I have the magic to back it up?" The left shoulder of the woman shrugs, "It's honestly even better, I love it. I'm glad you enjoy it as much I love creating it."

After the power display she looks down at her glass and then back at Carl with a smile, "Sometimes, my brother is the show off." Though from there her attention shifts, "Something happened at Mystic Mountain?" had she missed something? "A winter wonderland blow out?" uhhh what was this?

"Long time, huh? Always wondered how someone gets into that sort of thing. Thought maybe you just picked it up when you got here and learned you could..." Carl nods at her drink. He seems surprised that she hasn't heard about whatever he's alluding to on Mystic Mountain, but not displeased. He likes sharing this kind of news, and as things are getting stranger he's had more opportunity to do so. "Yeah," he says, fishing out his phone and scrolling through his camera roll, "warmest day of the year, not a cloud in the sky, and suddenly there's ice creeping over the trees and half a foot of snow on the ground. Not just snow, either."

He turns his phone around and holds it up so she can get a good look at the screen. Snowmen, snow animals, a whole snow fort. "Nobody made these, it just... fell that way. Not as good as what you do, but pretty good for a park, I'd say."

"I'm from Canada," As if that might explain everything, but not everyone is from there and doesn't know, "The cold months are filled with ice, we used to have festivals that would have these pretty awesome ice sculptures. I wanted to know how someone did that." Shrugging her shoulder, "Long story short, out of high school I went to work as an apprentice to find out how I could do it too." It was a learned trade before she'd gotten here.

"To be honest, took a couple of personal days, I just went back today and all of that had been cleared." Avery looks confused. When there is more then snow she looks intrigued and leans in for more information. The pictures spoke a 1000 words and she looked on wide eye'd and opened mouth, "What the fuck. and I fuckin missed it?" she seemed more upset that she missed it than the fact that it happened.

"Quebec?" Carl makes another guess, probably based on the accent. He listens and nods along with her explanation with genuine interest. An apprenticeship makes as much sense as anything to him. He puts on an apologetic face at her reaction to the pictures, hissing sympathetically through his teeth and rubbing the back of his neck. "Yeah, sorry. Could be there'll be a repeat performance. I'd expect it more than I wouldn't, around here. If it makes you feel any better, you also didn't get beaned in the head with snowballs by a dozen twerps."

"How did you know that?" Avery says as she picks up her drink again, her eyebrows scrunching at the fact that he'd even taken a guess, most didn't when they heard Canada, so there was a little bit of an impression there. "Yes, Montreal." There is a mutter in French, but its not heard.

Putting a pin into that for a moment, Avery handles the other interest at hand, "Did you get beaned in the head with a snowball? It wouldn't have been my first time."

"It's in your voice a little," Carl shrugs, "or I just got lucky. It happens, once in a while." He glances back at the dartboard, standing now as a testament to just how rarely once-in-a-while can be. "Don't worry, I'm not a mind reader or anything. My hocus pocus is strictly useless on anything with a heartbeat." He makes a sort of sour face at her question and rubs the side of his head, like there might be a bruise, but it all seems to be for show. "Yeah, by a bunch of them. In the head and the chest and the everywhere else. Tried to fight back, but I'm no better tossing snowballs than I am at darts. No practice, doesn't snow where I'm from."

"Are you law enforcement? Detective? Security?" Avery wonders if he is so good with accents that he could detect her own and what region, she couldn't help but wonder with some fascination. Carl had one up on her, he might have been able to tell who she and where she was from but she was not as good.

The bit of magic she had did nothing with healthcare and so she winces, "Ouch," not detecting or looking for bruises on his body, "Are you ok?" The second question comes naturally, "Where are you from?"

"Law...?" Carl asks, but he doesn't make it to the second word before he busts up snickering. It isn't a deep belly laugh, but it's persistent enough to keep him from responding until he takes a moment to rein it. Something about the idea that he might be a cop really seems to tickle him. "You," he grins, pointing at her, "you're funny. I like you. Naw, none'a that. I'm Carl. I'm with Custodial. And I'm fine, thanks for asking," he pats himself over, like to make sure, "it was mostly kids doing the throwing. Week arms."

He takes a drink from his coke bottle to wash away any residual hilarity, then answers her other question. "Austin. Texas, that is." There is a little of that in his voice, especially just now when he was cracking up, but not much. Something he works to suppress, maybe, or else a long time away.

Avery grinned at the way that Carl seemed to laugh at her question, but she did not join in on the laughter, not thinking it was that funny of a comment to suggest to begin with. "Couldn't help be wonder," she says once some of the laughter has died down, "I've never met anyone else that can pinpoint my accent to the region, I just assumed you had some practice in it." The fact that he was custodial didn't mean much to her, she'd met a lot of people that were things they weren't from the mainland. "I mean, my brothers a firefighter, but he's not here, some things aren't always what they seem here on spellbound."

Her martini is picked up and she takes another drink from it, the ice sliding down towards her upper lip that puts a stop to it, before she puts the glass back down. Lifting her cocktail napkin to her upper lip she wipes up at the wet spot on her upper lip. "Uh, Howdy?" thats about all she knows about Texas.

\"Howdy," Carl says, dropping his voice half an octave and tipping an imaginary ten gallon hat. "But don't be too impressed, I'm still a dumb American. I probably would've guessed French, if you hadn't already said you was from Canada. Sorry for laughing, I get what you mean. Meet all kinds of people here, all kinds of stories." He plays with the bottle in his hands for a moment, finishes its contents, and sets it aside. "So what brought you down stateside? If it's not prying, anyway."

"I'm not sure many of us give off the 'Canadian' vibe," Avery says with an easy smile, "We look pretty much like all the rest of you Americans if it wasn't for the accent change. The moment I start speaking French, people start asking questions." But she'd also given away that she was from Canada. Two pieces of a puzzle can go together in all sorts of ways.

The last drink she'd taken had finished off her martini only left the ice cube she'd created. Looking back at the back she caught the eye of the bartender and lifted the glass up to indicate that she'd like another without a spoken word. When she looks back to Carl she says, "Not prying at all. Ice sculpting is not exactly the most sought after employment, so when you find a place that wants to employ you full-time? You take it. What about you? Michigan is a long aways away from Texas to do custodial work."

"Wife got the house." A pause. "Then the other wife got the other house. Then a lot of other bad decisions." Carl shrugs. For all that he has a sense of humor about it, he doesn't actually seem to be joking. "After enough of those I got to be a little sick of them, wanted to try something else. Guy I knew was working here, heard I was looking for a steady job. Seemed like a good idea. How much trouble can you get into on an island?" He laughs again, just once this time. "Things're a little more exciting than I planned on, but I think it's working out."

Avery's hisses out a breath at the first wife, then "Oof" at the second, followed by a "Damn..." She looks back at him, "I mean... it's Island's... plural there is a lot that you could get up to and a lot of trouble that you could..." stopping herself there, "Nevermind, you don't sound like you need suggestion on how to get in trouble." As she teasing him at his expense? Absolutely. Was it good-natured? Also, yes. Smiling at him, "I get it though, fresh start never tasted so good, right?"

Just as she said that, her new drink is delivered and her old glass is handed back to the person that brought it to her. "How long have you been here now?"

"Yeah, I'm a natural at it, trust me," Carl chuckles. He doesn't seem to mind a little teasing. If anything, it brightens him up a little. "Been here since November '23, so..." His eyes shift to the left while he thinks for a moment, counting off the months on his knuckles, "not quite a year and a half, I guess. Funny, doesn't feel that long. Haven't been to the mainland since I got here. How about you, when did you sign on?"

"Almost a year ago," Avery realizes since they were counting months and checking time frames against one another, her eyebrows squish together and she laughs at herself, not even realizing it had been that long, "Wow, time does go by fast here." she didn't have the same story though, "I've been off the island a few times... I had...have a vacation booked but," she shrugs, "Probably going to cancel that one." clearing her throat and looking back to her drink, picking it up and taking a new interest in the newly arrived drink.

"Yeah? Sorry to hear it?" Carl says, uncertainly enough that it comes out as a question. It seems like there's a story there, and he's clearly curious, but equally conscious of prying into what might be a sensitive issue with someone he's just met. He lapses into an awkward silence, then attempts a compromise: "Well, if you don't want to talk about it, that's fine, but if you need to unload it's the least I could do after going into my whole sordid history. No gossip, Custodian's Oath." He holds up one palm, like a boyscout.

Didn't someone say sometime somewhere once that it was easier to tell a stranger things than your close friends?

Avery sighs, running her hand through her long dark hair, "My boyfriend recently left Spellbound for..." she doesn't go into what for, just trails off there, "It doesn't matter what really? Right?" smiling just a little without humor in her eyes, "Anyway, I booked us a get away as a valentines day gift, doesnt seem like he's going to be around for it after all." Swallowing hard, before picking up her martini - which at Lucky's is probably just Gin. Shrug, "it doesn't really matter."

"Aw," Carl groans in sympathy, "Aw, kid. That's awful. I'm sorry to hear it." His eyebrows knot up, partly with concern, partly with worry at saying or doing the wrong thing in a sensitive moment. His instincts aren't terribly good in this situation. "Well, he sounds like an oaf if you ask me - but you didn't, so I'll keep it to myself." A weak smile, to go with the weak joke. "Wish I could give you some advice, but..." He gestures up and down at himself, trusting she gets the idea, having heard a little of his history. "Best I could do is maybe tell you how not to handle it, and you seem smart enough not to need that. Really am sorry, though. I know how rotten that feels."

"Did you just really call me, Kid?" Avery asks him. After all at that he has to say, that is her question. She might be young, but that seemed to make her smile for reason despite everything. "Nah, It's alright, I'll deal... I mean, I kind of expected it? Most guys don't stick around. I was waiting for the pin to drop." Even if she had gotten caught up in her feels she seems to shrug them off or disregard them, "It doesn't matter." Picking up her martini she takes another drink from it.

"Have a been enough of a Debbie Downer yet?" she's playing it off well, glancing over at a deck of cards sitting on a shelf, "How are you at cards?"

"Everyone around this place is a kid, just about. Never felt so damn old 'til I started working here," Carl says with a chuckle. He gives her a kind of appraising look for a moment, then nods, apparently deciding she's going to be alright. "Well," he says, following her glance over to the cards. "Better'n I am at darts. I gotta get ready for my shift before too too long, but I think I can afford to lose a few hands. What's your game?"

"Given where you are from, I suspect you know how to play Texas' hold'em?" Avery is slipping away from the table and going to grab the deck of cards she's eyed not far away. Bringing them back to the table she takes them out of the package and start to shuffle them. "I like it better than regular poker."

The cards are dealt out to each of them.