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The C.I.C, Friday Evening

Vette might have been maybe the tiniest bit late coming in to work tonight.

The eensiest bit.

The most smidgen of a bit.

... A few hours. Vette was a few hours late coming in to work tonight, and so it was fortunate that the raven had picked up the slack for her before she finally came in, a bag of Mooby's under one arm and a look on her face that said that she had a lot of food for thought to go over, besides.

Earth had a really boring solar system, for starters. There was nobody out there, which she had been told before, sure, but it actually managed to make her feel a little bit more alone when it was right there to be seen in person, with hyperspace coordinates that suggested that maybe the owner of the ship had taken one look out past the Sol system and had decided that there wasn't even a point in going on.

So she was maybe weirdly quiet as she settled in behind the counter with a few more mooby burgers than were strictly necessary and a pile of severely busted phones that she was going to throw herself into cobbling together into at least one functional phone if she could manage it, so help her. She mollified the raven by giving it a whole burger to pick at as thanks for covering for the first half of her shift, and then she set to work, tinkering in between bites of burger or pausing to go bully the Friday regulars into taking their breaks and drinking some kriffing water.

This had been an exhausting week. She was grateful it was almost over so she could move right along to dreading whatever next week had in store, next.

[OOC: Open!]

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Kaidan had heard the radio. He wasn't sure if Vette would be in, but he waited around to see. When he heard her come in and confirmed it was her on the security cam, he headed downstairs.

Congratulations, Vette, you've earned the first Disappointed Dad face Kaidan's given on the island.

"So. Decided to go joyriding in Kanan's ship, hm?"

He didn't know if they'd made it airborne, but they'd been talking about doing exactly that, so he took a guess what they'd been aiming for.

Edited 2018-11-23 13:39 (UTC)

... Oh, wow. That was a face. And possibly the first time in her life somebody had actually given her that face, too. Vette blinked at him, tilted her head a little, and then crossed her arms over her chest and leaned back against the wall and shrugged.

"We figured it would handle better than trying for the bus again."

It hadn't been her idea, and by the time her brain had caught up with what she'd out and told Sidon, she'd been ready to jump onto any stupidity Nina had come up with. But she was totally going to take partial credit for this one.

"Explain to me," Kaidan said calmly, "why, if you wanted to go for some fly time, you didn't ask him to take you. Or me. Or ask anyone to point you to like one of twenty pilots on the island who could and would cheerfully take you to all the dark and twinkly void you could want."

Edited 2018-11-23 13:47 (UTC)

"Because there's no challenge in asking," Vette said immediately. "Because here I'm just sitting around living day-to-day with nothing to actually apply myself to, and someday I'm going to actually be able to go home and I'll run back headfirst and be so rusty I'll end up getting myself killed in under a week."

She lifted her chin a little, her respect for Kaidan butting heads hard with her immediate knee-jerk reaction to authority figures getting on her case.

"Because I'm a pirate, and that's what we do."

She'd brought the ship back, at least. Pirates didn't do that.

Kaidan listened and then nodded again.

His voice was a little sharp on the return, "I know all about pirates, Vette. My job back home? Making sure their shit stays in their lane. I'm not the guy they send after the crap-down rinky dink dumbass thieves with ships who think they're pirates. That's what the regular cops are for. Anyone dumb enough to get caught is plenty dumb enough for the regular cops to take down. They send me after the actual pirates. The people who know how to think, how to plan, and how to enact an op so hard, fast, and surgical that they're gone without a trace by the time the cops even know a colony's been hit."

He took a small breath and said pointedly, "You two couldn't even remember that you needed to bribe the damn squirrels. You've done radio for the squirrels before. Explain to me how either of you could be that damned dumb, Vette. It was on the bloody radio this morning, whole island knows. Sure as shit Kanan knows. Don't know what he's going to do about it, but he knows who you are and where the both of you work."

Vette's lekku were shifting as Kaidan spoke, until the very tips were practically stabbing, hard, into the small of her back.

... It was not a polite gesture, from a Twi'lek.

"It," she said, slowly, "has not been a great week. Maybe I wasn't thinking. Maybe I didn't care. I know from impressive ops, you know. I know we were stupid about it last night. If I had wanted to--" She pulled in a tight breath, and then set down the tools she'd been tinkering with the phone with, scowling down at it.

Nok had taught her better.

"So what if he knows?"

"Couldn't prove any of that from the idiot way you two pulled this stunt," Kaidan pointed out, "You're not the only person who didn't have a great week. But this? This is the kind of crap you don't walk into unless your head's fully in the game. It wasn't, and you two have now announced to the entire island that you've got thief skills. You're definitely not the only stickyfingers on the island. You're not even the only ones I personally know. You're just the only two who were dumb and got caught."

He looked at her. "So what if he knows? If it were just him, I wouldn't be so worried. You weren't the only person to have a shitty week because they wound up six years old unexpectedly. I honestly don't know what he's going to do about this."

Lifted a shoulder, "Might ask me to fire you both. I don't know, he's my next stop. But it's not, Vette. It's not just him. It's anyone who listened to the radio this morning or whoever goes back and listens to the recording of it later. Anytime something goes missing on this island, you two are probably gonna catch that blame. Get to know Liam, he's the Sheriff, and maybe Rosa, she's a detective, because you might be seeing an awful lot more of them for awhile. You're going to be watched by anyone with something they don't want gone. If Kanan asks me to fire you both, where are you going to get jobs, now that every business owner with a till knows they shouldn't trust you?"

"You two didn't think at all. You got caught. Your street cred's in the toilet, kiddo. You got a plan to earn that back?"

They hadn't invented the jail cell yet that could hold her for long, but Vette didn't much care to share that yet, either. She just hiked her shoulders up and scowled.

"Don't know. Don't care."

She did, in fact, care. She cared a lot.

"Maybe it'll actually make things interesting around here, for a change."

... This was Fandom. People would probably forget within the month. Except the cranky bus driver, who held a grudge almost as well as two teenage girls when he got it in his mind to.

It was Fandom, Kaidan knew there were people who'd probably hire them just because they'd tried to steal something, but he was in Dad Mode, so enjoy that, Vette.

"Really." His voice couldn't have been flatter if it were a two dimensional object laying on one side.

"It isn't my street cred here I need to worry about," Vette muttered. She was now swallowing back the urge to stab the hell out of a phone screen with a screwdriver in frustration. "If I can't get another job here, if they expel me from the school, I steal to get by. If I get caught, hey, they feed you in jail, right?"

Hell, it'd be pretty plush, compared to some of the jails she'd been held in before.

"Mainland isn't an option. Home isn't an option. Sure, lock me up. Throw away the key. It'll be great, whatever."

"You think not?" Kaidan asked almost as if he were curious, "You had a crew back home, right? Would you have joined one with a rep for getting caught? You think anyone here'd want to join yours, now that you got caught? You may not think you want that now, and maybe you even don't. Wouldn't matter if you did, because with the rep you just bought, the only kind of people who'd be interested would be the kind of reckless dustheads you must know better than to want."

He looked at her. "You didn't ask to come here. For whatever reason, the island's not letting you go home right now. While you're here, you have to live with whatever mess you make. This one? You'd better sit your ass right down and think of what you're going to tell Kanan when he asks you what the hell you were thinking. Because he will, and you'd better have something better for him than this tough-girl I-don't-care bullshit you're trying to throw over on me."

And that, that right there, was what had Vette throwing her arms up in the air and yelling.

"What's he going to do? Slap a shock collar on me and put me to work!? Great! It'll be the first thing anybody does around here that makes any sense!"

"I don't know what he'll do," Kaidan said, "I do know he wouldn't put a shock collar on his dog, so like hell would he put one on a person."

Not.. not the same kind of shock collar, Kaidan..

"I do know that pissing off someone who has access to worlds you're familiar with, when you can't go there, was not exactly a smart thing to do," he pointed out, "Especially when he lives with a Twi'lek and, prior to this, probably would have been pretty sympathetic to requests of that nature. Like I said.. you didn't think. Either of you."

Kaidan looked at her and popped a thumb at the door, "Get out of here. You're not fired, but you're no good to me here if you can't think. Go blow off whatever steam you need to until your head's back on some form of level. I'm going to go see if I can track down Kanan, and I don't exactly want you - either of you - here where he knows to find you until I check that weather."

Vette actually did flinch at that, hard. Not at being kicked out. At having Hera get brought up.

Hera knew. Hera would have understood the difference between a dog collar and...

"Yeah, fine," Vette muttered, shaking her head and slipping out from behind the counter, slamming her tools down before stalking her way to the door. "Have a great night, boss."

Kaidan snorted, "Well, that's not likely, but thanks for the thought."

Before she could leave, he asked almost idly, "You damage the Escape at all during this?"

Vette paused in the doorway, looking over her shoulder, not quite at him, but in his general direction.

"What, the ship with controls that look a few centuries more advanced than anything I've ever seen, at least?" She made a soft 'tch' sound between her teeth. "Of course not."

It was a nice ship. She'd fallen a little in love with it.

And she was better than that.

That made him pause. He knew who else lived in that building. Well, that certainly would've gotten Atton out of his room in a hurry.. Kaidan's brain flinched away from that idea entirely.

He nodded. "That'll help. Thanks." A pause for a moment. "Next time you're feeling angsty and need a challenge, text me. I can come up with some crap for you two to do that will challenge you and keep you out of trouble with the locals. Unlike you kids, I don't have portal restrictions."

And if you thought for two seconds he wasn't going to have Kanan help him with that..

"Yeah," Vette muttered. "I'll be sure to keep that in mind, thanks."

And with that, she breezed on out the door.

Kaidan watched her swan on out and eyerolled hard.

Then he put all the crap away and checked the sign-outs. Couple hours. He could man the store until then and kick everyone out.

Then, he had to go see a man about a ship.

Three pizzas. Sidon was on his third pizza by the time he walked into the C.I.C. to find Vette actually there, which wasn't....too much of a problem, because he had no problem at all putting away two pizzas and it would help leave more for her when he did. But the second one was consumed with added distaste of worry and concern, quite certain he didn't know what he'd do if, by the third attempt, he still walked into to just that blasted raven squawking at him very unhelpfully.

No, that wasn't true. He knew exactly what he would do. He would panic for a moment, and then he would go and tear up the entire galaxy if he had to to find out where she was, what was wrong, how he could fix it, make sure she was safe. Even if he didn't exactly have the resources or ability to do anything to the galaxy, really, but he'd find a way, there'd have to be a way, and he wouldn't stop until he found it.

So it was a good thing for both himself and the galaxy as a whole when the third time proved to be a charm, and Vette was there, and Sidon's relief was about as subtle as a tidal wave.

"Oh, thank goodness," he breathed out, shoulders sagging from being released from the slowly-building weight of worry that had been pressing onto them, "there you are!"

"Here I am," Vette agreed, smiling up at him from where she'd parked herself behind a small pile of phone parts. "Hey there, handsome. You weren't worried, were you?"

Really, with a sag like that, it was mostly a redundant question.

Yes. Anyone with functioning eyes could have clearly seen that he'd been worried, so Sidon had a better question for her.

"Was there any reason why I should be?"

Three pizzas, Vette! It took you three pizzas to get there!

"Also," he added, with a rueful, uncertain glance at the counter and the food she'd obviously procured for herself in the span of those three pizzas, before holding up the third in question, "I've brought dinner?"

"Hm...?" Vette followed his glance at the burgers. And paused a moment. And then blinked. "Oh. OH! Everything's fine! And these are for the raven!"

The raven was going to have the best night ever as Vette shoved the entire contents in its direction, yes.

"I feed it like this all the time!"

No, not really.

"So..." She came around the counter, and then hiked herself up to sit on it. Because this really had been a good arrangement while they'd been eating yesterday, hadn't it? "Making tonight a dinner date, are you?"

Perhaps that's why the bird had been squawking so much the last two times Sidon had come in; he had just been waiting, rather impatiently, for his dinner. Sidon didn't feel too terribly convinced toward that idea, really, but, then again, he didn't really feel he needed to be convinced, either.

Especially not with Vette popping up on the counter like that, inspiration for an instant grin as he set Pizza No. 03 down on the counter next to her, flipping open the lid.

He'd discovered anchovies, Vette. And he was very excited about them.

"Well," he said, "I did say I wanted to thank you for taking such wonderful care of me last week, didn't I? I figured an offering of pizza for pizza would be an excellent way to start."

He was pretty fond of that word, there. Start.

There was even emphasis on that 'start!' Vette absolutely caught that and grinned all the more over it.

"You know," she mused, "I could really start to enjoy pizza, if it comes with such a charming deliveryman."

"Pity I'm not in the market for another job, then," Sidon said, grinning back, especially since he hoped that little brightening in her smile was for noticing his very deliberate choice of words there. "Though I don't suppose I'd enjoy deliveries to just anyone quite so much."

He...would enjoy delivering to nearly anyone, that was true, but that wasn't the point.

The other part of what she'd said, though, did cause a faint frown. "Do you not already enjoy pizza, though? I suppose I'd just assumed..."

Vette laughed a little and shrugged her shoulders.

"I never really had much of it before the weekend," she admitted. "It's not something we have on Nar Shaddaa, so much. But it's growing on me."

"We've nothing like it on Hyrule that I know of, either," Sidon admitted, "but it seems to be one of the few foods that isn't related to fish I can stomach in larger quantities."

No, it didn't make any sense. Just don't think about it, okay?

"So I've got a soft spot for it, I'm afraid. Luckily for me, it seems to be rather...ubiquitous around here ad well!"

"Well, then I guess we're going to have to have pizza dates more often, now that the weather's getting colder," Vette replied with a smile and a little duck of her head. "I'll add it to the list of things to like about this place."

It was still a pretty short list.

Sidon...did not want to think about how the weather was getting colder again. So it was a good thing there was an easy segue into something much better to think about.

"And might I ask," he ventured, tilting his head, doing a poor job of keeping back his smile, "what else is on that list?"

"Spicy peppers," Vette offered, holding up a hand and ticking things off on her fingers, "color television, Earth dogs are amazing, and," she struck a pose, pumping her fist and giving Sidon a grin that might have been very familiar to him, "I'm pretty fond of a couple of the people here."

The thing! She did the thing! Sidon had to laugh at that, and of course he was just the right about of a big, giant, red doofus to pump his fist and grin right back.

"I agree," he said, "wholeheartedly about the people being easily one of the best things about this place. Present company particularly included."

"You," Vette accused lightly, "are super biased. But I'll accept that flattery."

It had been a big stupid week, she'd take anything anybody wanted to throw at her, today.

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The C.I.C, Friday Evening

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