fandomtownies | The Devil's Nest, Friday Evening

Truthfully, Atton had come close to cancelling this drinking date twice already. The exhaustion he'd been feeling had been ramping up, and by now there was this weird, coiled thing in his gut that felt worryingly like a fear he really didn't want to touch.

So he was looking a little antsy as he slid into a seat at the bar and ordered a whiskey he probably wouldn't be touching much. He had a portal out of here in less than two hours and he couldn't wait.

"Hey," Jessica said, sidling up to the bar. "Sorry I'm late. I actually had to write tickets to deer today. I can't believe this is my life now."

"You write tickets to deer?" Atton asked, sounding only mildly confused. "I mean, of course you do, it's Fandom. But why specifically tickets?"

He hadn't been listening to the radio much.

"I got a job at the trooper station. We got a call about an aggressive deer and five minutes into dealing with it I was feeling sassy," Jessica explained.

"You got here five days ago. That was fast," Atton said, taking a small sip of his drink. Not that he wouldn't like having another graduate around, especially one he knew. "How'd they take it? You think the station is going to set up a tidy cashflow ticketing wildlife for speeding violations?"

"I move fast. Especially since with my world being MIA, there goes most of my bank accounts, wardrobe, and gear," Jessica said with a shrug. "And, you know, the ticket was essentially a warning. Next time that deer makes trouble, we'll be able to bring him in for extra charges."

"For the record, I didn't actually give the deer a ticket. It ate part of my ticket book. It's almost the same thing."

"As long as you got the deer's name and registration number," Atton said. "I'm sure it'll look at the ticket and regret it choices. You know, when it comes out the other end."

"That ticket's going to fertilize some grass and do some good for Fandom whether the deer wants it to or not," Jessica decided. "What're you drinking?"

"Whiskey."

For a measure of drinking that meant sipping it occasionally while side-eyeing the door. It was a weird night.

"You want one?"

"I've never travelled far into the realm of whiskey, but sure," Jessica said. "I've earned it this week."

"You look less bruised," Atton said, waving Tiny over. "That's good."

"I heal faster than most people. Praise be renegade genetic science gone too far," Jessica said. It wasn't dripping sarcasm so much as it was gushing. If sarcasm were blood, that sentence would have been dead before it hit the ground.

Atton let out a snort. What? He didn't spend enough time around people who understood the deep, intrinsic value of sarcasm. "That's one way of putting it," he said. "So, you're sticking around, I guess? Welcome to the Rebounding Alumni Club."

He nodded to Tiny. "Get her a whiskey on me?"

Edited 2015-03-21 01:56 (UTC)

"I was hoping for it on the rocks, actually," Jessica noted to Tiny.

"Yeah, I guess so. If there's dimensional interference or something, I'll go home when it clears up. If it's something worse, then I guess I'm here for good. Either way, it seems like I'm sticking round for a bit."

"I should've brought you a welcome basket," Atton said. "'Course, in this place, on my pay, that's two bottles of strong booze and a voucher for the local pizza place."

"Are you still teaching?" Jessica asked. "Don't you get extra hazard pay around here?" She nodded to Tiny as he brought her drink over.

"I'm a Jedi," Atton said.

He looked mildly surprised he'd said that. Don't ask. "...If they started offering me hazard pay, they'd run out of cash in a week. But yes, I'm still teaching. Trying to figure out if I want to keep doing that."

Edited 2015-03-21 02:16 (UTC)

If Jessica was surprised that he said that - and she WAS - then her face didn't show it. He'd still know, though, because Jedi. But still.

"You haven't locked any students in the basement and forgot them there, have you? Because if you've done that, you should probably quit."

Atton snorted. "I've been tempted," he said, "But no." He looked back towards the door. "You picked a weird week to be coming back, though, that's for sure."

He said this partly because it was true, and partly because he didn't want to go into why he wasn't sure about keeping up the teaching or not.

"Apparently it's the kind of week that makes you keep looking at the door," Jessica said. "Am I missing something?"

"There's something not right in the air. I don't like it," Atton said, looking back at her. "I'm actually heading out after we're done here." Beat. "Well, I usually do that, I run missions over the weekend. But still."

Edited 2015-03-21 02:32 (UTC)

Jessica focused for a moment. Nothing directly dangerous was happening. "Well, thanks for the head's up on that. I'm sure it'll keep me busy at work. Hopefully things wait until you're back to go completely to hell."

Atton snorted. "That'd be just perfect," he said, "And completely predictable, as far as my life is concerned and Tiny are you seriously making the give me the ID sign right now?"

"Hey, just think about how I feel. I got stranded here just as you're getting bad feelings about things," Jessica said as she glanced in her purse for a proper ID. She had many. That's what happened when you were a teenaged spy. "I should've tried to become a janitor at the school or something."

You should feel bad, Jessica. There was a reason Atton's canon specifically tells you to save when he says he has a bad feeling about something.

"Or teach janitor class," Atton said. "I mean, they'll accept just about anything. If I stick around, I'm teaching people when to run away from bad things. Because people around here need that, apparently."

And he was an expert in the field of running away from bad things! ...Key evidence being him fleeing the island right now.

"I would fail that class so bad," Jessica said. "I may circle around the bad thing to find an opening, but I'm pretty much always going to run toward it."

"See, people like you are why I'm still considering it," Atton said. "Friend of mine wound up trapped in a bar full of angry mobsters a while ago because the fighters who were with him decided to pick a fight, instead of bailing when they could have bailed."

Edited 2015-03-21 03:00 (UTC)

"How big is the bar? And how dark?" Jessica asked. "If I have room to maneuver and any kind of cover, the mobsters wouldn't have a chance."

"To be fair, I'd be fighting way dirtier than the mobsters would even know."

"You're still escalating the situation to the point where a civilian is stuck in the crossfire," Atton pointed out. "It's usually better to avoid that."

Apparently Jessica's fake ID was adequately convincing, since a second whiskey had just made it to the bar.

"If a fight is necessary for some reason, the first move is to get anyone who shouldn't be part of the fight out of the crossfire," Jessica said. "There are plenty of places to do that in a typical bar, way more in one that's big enough. Second - or, ideally, at the same time - you eliminate the crossfire." Jessica touched her fingertips together and pulled them apart. The webbing that bridged her fingers looked like a really complicated cat's cradle. "Webbing works there. Force whatsits work there, too. Take out their range, which gives me more of an advantage. Worst case, I stop things before they start by covering everything in webs and keeping anyone from moving."

She balled the web up and put it down on the counter next to her. "There's ways to do it well. The real question at that point is why is a civilian following me into a bar full of mobsters if I'm itching for a fight?"

"Because nobody knew the mobsters were there to begin with," Atton said. "...And space, woman, you should be co-teaching this self-defense class with me."

From one guy who occasionally liked to exposition about battle tactics to a guy's clone who occasionally liked to exposition about battle tactics.

"Well, that's just poor research. Know the mobsters of the area you're in," Jessica said, punctuating that with a drink. It was entirely possible that she was already trying to pull together whatever information she could about local organized crime so she could study. That was going to be how she spent her days behind the desk at work.

"And I'm not really a teacher at this point. I'm still usually more of a solo act," Jessica said. "But if you spot anyone who needs some tutoring, I could give some pointers."

Atton let out a snort. "I've got my hands full tutoring myself," he said, "But I think the one I have is already the absolute worst case, so your free days will remain free."

Sorry, Sparkle, but you were kind of a mess, self-defense-wise.

"Hey, what have you been up to before the whole invasion deal went down, anyway?"

Since they were now adjacent to the topic.

"I was leading a superhero team for a few months," Jessica said. "The thing where the world was almost eaten destroyed the big hero team, so I stepped up and got the next generation of heroes in gear. It kind of worked out for a while."

"Until people showed up trying to kill you," Atton said sympathetically. "That one always sucks."

"Well, the team kind of splintered after we brought down a giant monster made of drugs at the end of a city-wide gang war," Jessica said. "My life's been weird since I graduated."

Atton took a sip of his drink. "Hey, there's another club we're both in," he said. "Okay, fine, it took a few years for the weird to really get rolling, but more or less."

But he'd been busy hiding those years, so that didn't count.

"Wait, did you say 'giant monster made of drugs'?"

"I mean, technically it was a guy who took drugs that turned him into a giant monster, but that sounds way less interesting," Jessica said. "How long has it been since graduation for you anyway? Seems like you've gone through a lot in a pretty short time from Fandom's perspective."

"Seven years, more or less."

He'd turned thirty last week. He still didn't want to think about that.

"Last summer is when this Jedi rolled into my life and the whole thing went haywire," he added. "So I came here to relax and do some thinking."

And some crying, at least at first.

"It's always weird when you end up coming to Fandom to relax," Jessica pointed out. "It seems to be working for you, though.

"My galaxy's been very slowly falling apart for the past ten years," Atton said. "We finally managed to stop the last few Sith keeping that meltdown going, but there's still a lot to mop up. When you're used to dealing with Sith Lords who sleep with vibroblades, sadistic droids, ex-Jedi who have completely lost it, civil wars, etcetera, etcetera, turning into a pony or a kid every other weekend suddenly doesn't seem so bad."

Edited 2015-03-21 04:23 (UTC)

"You have it worse than I usually do - space stuff always seems to end up bing worse - but I can kind of relate," Jessica said. "Me and all my friends are crazy lab experiments, the world's always threatened by something... Fandom's a nice change of pace."

The Devil's Nest, Friday Evening

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