fandomtownies | Luke's, Sunday

The pancakes at the park today were free, sure, but they didn't come with a side of BDG. Which was the whole point of pancakes, in Summer's by now expert opinion.

So of course she was there, back in the stool where she'd be trying her best to reclaim the butt groove that had gone out of it over the summer when she wasn't there every week.

"You've survived so far," she noted. "That's good."

"I've made it to Sunday," Kanan agreed, looking faintly frazzled as he turned a grin toward Summer. "I'm pretty sure I have a new pen pal, but if that's the worst thing to come out of this weekend... I'll cope."

Playing pen pal chicken with a Dark Lord of the Sith. Yeah, that was what his life had come to now, because of course it had.

"And how's your weekend going, Summer?"

"Pretty quiet and uneventful," Summer reported with a sigh of relief, "which is really nice after the last one of these I had to go through. I kept half expecting someone to show up last minute, but, nope, if they did, they had no interest in actually visiting with me, so that's good. And we didn't run out of toothbrushes."

"Sounds kind of like you're having a good weekend to me, then," Kanan noted, smiling crookedly at her. "Comparatively, anyhow. And it's nice of the visitors to leave some toothbrushes for the rest of us."

Edited 2018-09-30 15:25 (UTC)

"We remain well protected in the event of an attack from the gum disease known as gingevitus ." No, she didn't expect BDG to know why her voice dropped dramatically on that last word, and she didn't care to explain. She just folded her hands nearly in front of her and smiled as she asked, "So new pen pal, huh?"

Kanan blinked, and then shrugged, letting that one go. Hey, gum disease was serious business. Probably.

"Yeah, the guest of one of the students," he sighed. "I'm not entirely sure if he was serious about writing or not, but if he does, I'm going to have to reply."

He didn't sound thrilled about this.

Jack went to find something for breakfast while Kaidan was still sleeping. There was a thing at the park. Her plan had been to raid the tables and return to the apartment with her justly-won spoils.

The plan ended when she walked by a diner and saw who was behind the counter.

She sauntered in with her hands in her pockets and took a seat at the counter by locking her knees to the side of a stool and dropping down onto it. A chin nod at ponytail. "What's good?"

Kanan returned that chin nod with one of his own.

"Depends what you're in the mood for," he replied. "Usually the Sunday special is pancakes, but you can get those free just down the street anyway, today. Kind of ruins my whole Sunday spiel, honestly."

"Half a liter of whiskey and protein, grease and cheese," Jack responded promptly, "What's dickhead usually order?"

"Hell if I know," Kanan replied, shrugging his shoulders. "We do Tuesdays and Fridays, but if he comes in here for meals, it isn't on my day."

He wrote up an order for a cheeseburger and sent it to the back.

"We don't generally do whiskey here," he noted, "but I've got a cupboard back home I've been meaning to clear out, if you want me to unload that on you at some point. I know. The waiting'll be awful."

"Huh. Figured he would." She shrugged. Then she complained, "Is everyone on this damned island going dry? Kaidan didn't have anything around even for medicinal purposes. The dumbass."

Jack considered her options. "Soda, then." A beat. "Please."

"I intend to keep a bottle or two around at least for company," Kanan noted. "I just decided that it doesn't agree with me the way it used to."

Kanan hiked a shoulder up. Figured he probably didn't have to explain his reasons to a near stranger, even if she was Kaidan's family. At least not unless she cared to ask.

"Soda it is, then," he replied. "Coke, cherry, orange... any preference?"

"His fucking migraine meds are more effective with EtOH onboard, the stupid ass," Jack scowled. She wasn't going to ask. She respected other people's choices when the choices weren't stupid.

"Don't care. Wet is good," she answered.

Jack looked at the lightsaber hilt. "So you have one of those red swords too, huh?"

"Maybe I'll have to send a bottle his way, unless you've already got him set up, then," Kanan replied, looking thoughtful as he reached for a class and topped it off with Coke.

... He and Hera had both decided Coke was one of the best things to ever come out of a Soda fountain. The novelty hadn't worn off yet.

"Blue," he replied, after a pause. "Mine's blue. Red is... mostly a Sith thing."

"The fuck's a Sith?" Jack asked. She took the Coke and had a sip of that. "Wouldn't bother. He's being a stubborn ass and would just dump it out or something. I had a flask with me. He got taken care of."

Was she insulting Kaidan or giving the new meat a clue for the proper care and feeding of the stubborn ass they both cared about?

Both? Was both good?

"Good," Kanan replied, taking note of that, frowning slightly as he did so before nodding. Got it. "Sith are..."

He paused, trying to find way to explain. She must have seen Lana or Vowrawn ignite their blade, to know that they even were blades. To know that theirs burned red.

"They're members of an ancient order of users of the Force," he replied. "The energy created by and binding all life in the galaxy I come from. The Sith tap primarily into the Dark Side of it, embrace passion in order to attain power."

He explained that in an impressively level manner, all things considered. He was still maybe the slightest bit perturbed about Vowrawn.

Both was more her style.

"Sound like my kind of people," she said easily. Lana seemed like a good kid and her dad or whatever had been pleasant enough. She'd even let him call her 'my dear' without snapping at him.

"That's what they do, then what the hell do you do?" She sipped her soda and added, "Kaidan's armor's blue. So was Shepard's. Seems to be the standard color for do-gooder assholes who're gonna die young."

'Do-gooder asshole who was gonna die young' was pretty much Kanan in a nutshell, yeah.

"I didn't exactly choose blue," Kanan noted, lifting a shoulder slightly. "More like the blue chose me. I'm... Jedi. The other side of that coin. The Light. Peace, knowledge, serenity, harmony. All that boring flipside."

She made a small gagging noise in the back of her throat.

"You don't seem any too fucking serene," Jack informed him.

Kanan gave a small laugh, lifting a shoulder and pouring a Coke for himself while he was at it.

"Serenity is overrated."

See how long that would last.

"So how's that work with your Jedi shit, if you're supposed to be all goody-goody-gumdrops?" Jack asked.

Locking her feet behind the post of the stool let her lean back to give him another once-over. A little more critically this time.

"It doesn't, I suppose," Kanan replied. "Maybe one of these days, I'll get the hang of it. In the meantime..."

He looked back at her, measuring her up in turn.

"I get by."

That on its own was... a lot.

She held her hands out to the side so he could get a good long look. "What's Kaidan told you?"

Open ended at best. She was curious what the answer would be.

"Not nearly enough, sometimes."

Kanan considered her, and then shrugged, seeming to come to some sort of conclusion based more on her willingness to let him look than on what it was he was actually looking at.

"You're his family. He doesn't use that word lightly, but he does use it a lot."

Family was the world to him. He had more of it than Kanan could entirely fathom. It was an overwhelming concept, at times.

Jack let him look because she didn't have anything to hide. Not that he'd be able to see on the outside.

Her eyelids flickered when Kanan said 'family'. "I never asked for that. Never wanted it. Some days I still don't and all I want to do is fuck off to the farthest reaches of space and pretend none of this shit is real. Family means caring and when you care about something you give it value, and then you have something to lose. Someone that can be taken away, used against you. They die and your heart breaks into a million tiny sharp fragments that cut you over and over again forever. They go missing for four fucking months and you lose the ability to cope with shit because you don't know if the sharp little pieces of your heart are going to break even more."

Nostrils flared as she inhaled, "And you think you were better off before when there was no such thing as family and none of these fucking people were in your life with their bullshit and their caring. Before you started giving a single fuck what anyone thought about anything. Before it mattered that something you did might upset them. It changes your behavior and you start adapting to things that are alien to your existence. Family means people who care about you, love you and everything you are. It makes you want to be someone who deserves that even if you know you don't. You don't want to disappoint them because now you care too. Once they get in there and make you care about them, you won't be able to stop. It doesn't work that way."

Jack leaned back, "Kaidan cares about everything. Always has done. I asked that asshole once what 'family' meant to him. Know what he said?"

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