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The Perk, Wednesday Afternoon

He wasn't going to say it, but Atton had kind of stopped by the Perk today to find that Jedi Master of Anakin's and bug him until he coughed up some more of his secrets. To his confusion, however, Kenobi was nowhere to be found-- which he guessed was probably a good move if you were a Jedi trying to avoid hormones, but still.

Then he realized he was out in this mess and would have to deal with his fair share of hormones, now.

Ah, well. To make sure the day wouldn't be a complete, unmitigated disaster, Atton wound up going up to the (hot) barista to order a (hot) coffee and a (cold) piece of apple pie. He trudged back to a seat somewhere in the corner and sat down.

Maybe if he brooded hard enough, it'd keep people away from him.

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Since this was still going on, Sia was trying to get out of the hormone-addled dorms for a while, which involved getting out into the cold. These were good things. And then she came in, ordered her coffee, could totally sense that Atton was there and tried to ignore that for reasons. Unfortunately her order was taking a while and she had nothing to do but try not to stare over there.

He'd sensed her coming in, of course, but Atton had clung to the notion Sia's special super-rationality powers would supersede the hormonal mess clinging to everyone right now.

But nope.

He held out for a little while, but eventually the feeling of eyes burning the back of his head got too much and he looked up to catch her eye.

Dammit, no, Atton, you weren't supposed to look. And Sia might have gotten away with an acknowledging head nod and then gone back to waiting, but that was the exact moment the barista finally gave her her drink.

Which meant social mores kind of demanded she walk over to say, "Hi."

Screw social mores. This was sex pollen week. They had a history with sex pollen week. Run away.

For one insane moment, Atton contemplated jumping out of his chair and Force Speeding for the door, but. Nope.

"Hi," he echoed, faux-casually. "It's been a while."

If it helped, he never would have lived down literally speeding away.

"It has," she said. "How've you been?"

Weird question to ask this week, but.

"Um," Atton said. "Okay. It's been fine."

Talk about a big, giant lie. "How are you holding up?"

"All right," Sia said, because she wasn't the type of person to broadcast that she was totally getting some, but she was totally getting some and therefore wasn't as bad as she could be. "I'm still very ready for this to be over."

Atton had been at the Valentine's Dance. It'd been pretty clear she was getting some. Her not broadcasting it, however, was appreciated.

A lot.

"I think most people on the island probably are," Atton said. "I mean, we're like 75% teenagers around here. It's a miracle the island's still standing."

To be fair, she wasn't getting some at that point! After that point, however...

"And it goes on for so long," and that was actually what she said, as she was saying it right now.

Atton raised a finger as he debated pointing that out, and... didn't.

It was bad enough he was being reminded how easy it'd been to get distracted by Sia's general... everything. Which had been a problem seven years ago and now it had seven more reasons to be a problem, so she should really just... stop... with the face... and the. Yes.

"With any luck, it'll be done by next week," he said instead. This week, he was beginning to turn into an expert in the field of deflecting other people's innuendo. "And otherwise we'll hopefully be too busy sunbathing or jumping around giant bodies of water or something."

Which she was now picturing. So, thanks for that.

"If this isn't over by then, I think subathing and swimming will probably not help this situation," she admitted.

You were welcome, Sia!

Atton shrugged. "Well, it won't be polar temperatures, but I'd like to think water still cools things down."

Then he winced. "Space, everything sounds like an innuendo this week."

"It's almost impossible to have conversations about temperature or anything about how something's positioned these days," she agreed. "And even when you try to have a perfectly innocent conversation, you're still likely to give the other person a mental image you weren't intending. It's fun."

"This is why I locked myself in my apartment," Atton complained. "Why did I ever leave? Why?"

Oh, right, he'd had to do groceries and then he'd wanted to bug the lifelong Jedi for his secrets with regards to not banging everybody.

"It's more interesting here?" Sia suggested.

"At the Perk?" Atton said dubiously. "I mean, there's more boobs passing by--"

Ah, crap, now that was in his head.

"--But that's not really a good thing."

"This is what I was saying, about the mental images," Sia said.

"Are we both thinking about boobs now?" Atton checked. "Because if so, I quit."

"Yes, but they're of considerably less interest to me." Among other reasons, she had her own.

"I'm not sure whether that's a relief or not," Atton admitted, "But then I'm not sure about this conversation to begin with, considering what happened last time and all the awkward stuff that happened in the past few years."

And now last time was back in his head.

"Do you think something's going to happen here?" she asked, from where she was standing at a safe distance.

"No, but now it's going to be in my head," Atton said. He banged his forehead off the table. "--Ow."

One of these days he was going to remember he was still technically injured.

"That's what you get for overreacting," Sia teased.

It was in her head, too, but she could handle it these days.

Yeah, but one of them was getting laid, and this time around, it wasn't him.

"Half the student body practically had an orgy in the dorms last night and I'm overreacting?"

"As far as I've heard none of them hurt themselves at the thought of someone in their head, so yes," Sia said.

"Instead they'll probably spend most of next week getting treated for a whole number of diseases," Atton said.

And the only reason it had hurt was because he'd gotten his face punched in two weeks ago, but he wasn't bringing that up.

"Then that's their problem. I wasn't there," Sia said. "Why do you care what they do?"

"Well, one, I have to deal with all the stupid ambient hormones," Atton pointed out. Shielding input wasn't what he was good at. Output was. "Two-- why are we even arguing about this?"

"I'm not arguing," she replied calmly. Which she knew from history always went over so well.

And she had to live in the same building with those ambient hormones.

"You know, in my book, being needlessly contrarian pretty much counts as arguing," Atton said irritably, because yeah, some things didn't change.

"No, I'm just being logical and not caring what a group of other teenagers do," Sia said, still calmly.

"Which I didn't say in the first place," Atton said, throwing his hands up. "You were the one who started going on about overreactions, I'm just pointing out a little headdesking action should be the least of your worries."

"...By bringing up something I was not involved in and never would have been?" On the plus side, it was hard to feel sexy when your head hurt.

"By pointing out that if anybody's overreacting, it's not me," Atton shot back.

Seriously, he needed to lock himself up. Sex pollen week, and he was spending it unable to sleep with strangers, wallowing about a dead woman and arguing with Sia about the dumbest thing ever.

"Oh, no, this is definitely overreacting," she told him.

"Thanks," Atton muttered. "Glad you could identify that for me."

"Well, that seemed to be a problem," she said, helpfully.

"And you solved it," Atton said. "Congratulations."

Yeah, he probably was overreacting. He'd spent most of the week miserable and he was reaching straw-to-dewback's-back territory.

Probably shouldn't be taking it out on Sia, and he knew it.

"Yes, fine. Obviously I shouldn't have stopped here-" For reasons other than the usual pollen. "-so let me remedy that by leaving you alone."

Atton shook his head, but it was mostly to himself. "Try and have a good week," he said.

"Oh, I am," Sia said as she pivoted on her heel towards the door.

Which was sort of mean, but.

Could Atton just go back in time and beat himself up every time he'd been about to make a terrible life decision? Because watching Sia walk away wasn't so much sexy as a very strong impulse to do just that.

He reached into his pocket and got out his packet of cigarettes.

"NO SMOKING!" the barista bellowed.

Yeah. That about completed the picture.

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The Perk, Wednesday Afternoon

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