The Perk, Monday Morning

[uncertain_dume]

After Radio, Kanan and Jacen had set out in search of milkshakes. Or something. And sure, there were plenty of places they could have gone in order to get those, but as they were passing by the Perk, Jacen gave Kanan's elbow a nudge and ventured, "What about here? The cherry pastries are really good."

And that was how they wound up at a window seat, far too many pastries sitting on a plate between them, Jacen happy to distract himself from conversation by stuffing his face and Kanan sipping not-quite-broodily at a berry frappuccino with far too much whipped cream on top.

You know. Quality time.

They were both bad at this.

[OOC: open!]

Comments

[seriesofbaddecisions]

Sabine didn't have classes on Mondays, so usually she'd just get something from the Perk and head to the warehouse to work on something or other. And today, once she'd gotten her drink, she headed over to the table, kinda figuring by the look of them that she wasn't interrupting anything.

"Hey, who's your friend?"

[uncertain_dume]

"Son, apparently," Kanan offered, riiight around the same time the green-haired kid supplied his name, and a bit of a wide-eyed look at her because wow, young.

"Jacen."

The pair glanced at one another. And then Kanan shrugged at Sabine, a little hopelessly.

"The island is doing its thing again."

[seriesofbaddecisions]

"I heard." And was Sabine ever glad to be missed by a thing this time! "Good to meet you, Jacen."

[what_dad_was_like]

"It's, uh, a pleasure," Jacen offered.

Yeah. Meeting a younger version of Sabine was somehow way weirder than meeting a younger version of his mom. Kind of... somewhere on the weirdness scale between meeting his mom and meeting his father.

Soooo. That was good to know.

[seriesofbaddecisions]

Meanwhile Sabine wasn't sure what to make of that reaction, but she'd still try. "What've you been up to since you got here?"

[what_dad_was_like]

"I think mostly I've just been dragged around the park by the dog," Jacen offered. It was probably a better reply than, 'I've been avoiding my dead dad and it hadn't even occurred to me that you might be here too.'

He paused, and then nudged the plate of pastries her way.

"Want one?"

Filling people's mouths with food so they couldn't ask him too many questions? Jacen? Naaaaah.

[seriesofbaddecisions]

"Sure, thanks ," she said, taking one and glancing at Kanan as if asking if she should sit.

[uncertain_dume]

Kanan shrugged and gestured to the open seat at the table. By all means, Sabine. Please, help play buffer from this kid who seemed to know you better than he knew him.

"Jacen and I were just discussing..."

Nothing, really. There had been awkward silence. A lot of it.

"... Caf."

Jacen gave Kanan a weird look. And then shoved the pastry plate his way, too. This strategy was going to serve him well today.

[seriesofbaddecisions]

And Sabine would roll with it, taking a seat. "Caf and its clear superiority to this stuff?"

She saw the barista give her a dirty look and she did not care.

[what_dad_was_like]

"People keep saying that, and I can't taste a difference," Jacen mused, looking at his giant cup of coffee.

Kanan just gave a 'no son of mine' sort of rueful shake of his head, there.

[seriesofbaddecisions]

"Are you used to both?" Sabine wondered.

[what_dad_was_like]

"Nah," Jacen replied, shrugging. "It's just caf back home, you know? I kind of grew up on the Ghost, and it isn't like Mom ever comes back this way to stock up on Earth food or anything the way I guess they do with food from our galaxy right now."

[seriesofbaddecisions]

There were a few interesting things in there, which Sabine wasn't sure if she should touch or not. But she'd start with, "So your mom's Hera?"

Which kind of fell into the category of 'I knew it' but she wasn't going to say that.

[biotic_psychotic]

Sunday had been a shit-show and she had a final to give later that day so Jack headed to the Perk to drown herself in coffee. Kanan and.. that had to be his kid. Poor thing definitely got his eyebrows. Were sitting in the window. She smiled cheerfully and flipped Kanan off alllll the way across the window. When she walked in, she pointed the fingertip at him and announced, "You're a dick."

Fondly. She liked him. She was just a little peeved at him right now.

[uncertain_dume]

"So I'm told," Kanan snarked back, smiling crookedly at her over his... well, it certainly was made in a place that sold coffee, anyway. "What'd I do this time?"

All of this said while Jacen sat there, smiling a kind of delighted smile. That was exactly the sort of exchange between his father and anyone that he'd apparently needed, right there.

And it let him keep stuffing his face. Even better.

[biotic_psychotic]

"Sure you're told. I tell you all the time," Jack shot right back while she ordered her coffee. Big. Big coffee. No, bigger. Yeah, that, now just black. Leave room for sugar.

Collecting her cup and making her way over, swiping an entire container of sugar off the doctoring station while she went, she kicked a chair around backward and took a seat, uninvited. "You weren't at work yesterday, dick. I had to do a radio broadcast from hell and I couldn't even get coffee afterward. The hell kind of Jedi are you, you didn't get some sort of bad feeling that there was an uncaffeinated me running around the island all day? That's on you, ickle. You let that happen."

[what_dad_was_like]

Kanan opened up his mouth to answer.

Jacen beat him to it.

"My fault," he said, lifting his chin a bit. "I wanted to try to spend some time with him, and then we got stuck in a park."

Kanan closed his mouth, and just kind of shrugged. Something like that.

[biotic_psychotic]

Jack arched a brow at him, "Oh really? Why'd you want to spend time with this nerd?"

She threw Kanan a completely amused look and took a drink of her coffee. Then she upended the sugar and just let it pour into the cup.

[what_dad_was_like]

"Someone said it would be a good idea," Jacen muttered, kind of hunkering down into his coffee.

He wasn't saying it in a tone that suggested that he thought that person was full of poodoo. Yet. But that was only because he'd had yet to have any real quality quality time. And he was surprisingly okay with that.

Kanan was really just watching that sugar situation in transfixed bemusement.

"Sugar day, huh?"

[biotic_psychotic]

"Talked to Kaidan last night," Jack said by way of answer to Kanan, "Most of the night. I have a karking exam to give later today so I can't nap. Alllll the stimulants."

She threw Jacen a grin, "Let me guess, big dumb squishy guy with so much product in his hair he kind of looks like he stuck his hand in a socket?" She lifted a shoulder, "He's not wrong. Your dad's a good guy. Which I'm only saying to make him do the 'no I'm not shut your mouth' face."

[what_dad_was_like]

Jacen took a second to glance at Kanan - yep. Totally making that face. That just got a little smirk out of him.

"Definitely a big dumb squishy guy with so much product," he confirmed. "Seemed nice enough, though."

[biotic_psychotic]

"He's about as big a pain in the ass as this one," Jack said, tossing a thumb toward Kanan, "Seriously, two pain in the ass peas in a pod." She took a drink of her coffee and burned her mouth. Which was more or less the intent. "They're both nice enough. All that shining earnest do-gooderness just leaching out of 'em all up in the atmosphere. Gets kind of gross sometimes. The big dumb squish is less fun than your dad. Him, I can get into trouble just going to the corner store."

[what_dad_was_like]

Jacen was turning a speculative look from Kanan back toward Jack, yes.

"Going to the corner store?"

That sounded like a story.

"No trebuchets," Kanan said immediately.

[biotic_psychotic]

Jack gave Kanan a positively evil grin over the edge of her mug. "Why Kanan, why wouldn't you want me to tell him about the tiny working trebuchet that Amaya made?"

Because he reallllly didn't want her to explain why she'd sent him one.

"Anyway. So Valentine's rolls around, and it's a dumb Earth holiday but there's candy for it and it's tradition. None on the island so I haul your dad down to the mainland for some, little corner store type thing. We're checking out and the clerk's just a major pustular dick. I smile at him and call 'Honey, grab me some tampons?' and your dad shrugs and walks over, asks what kind I want, then pipes up with, 'Hey, should I get some condoms?' and we just went to town making the clerk stand there listening to this complete trash talk until he wanted to vaporize and ooze through the ceiling, you know? Your dad didn't even blink when I went into trash mode, he just rolled with it. It was pretty great."

She took a sip of coffee, "Then after it'd all been rung up, I got all outraged and we stormed out without paying. Your dad was ready to drop some major credits on every package of condoms they had in the store just to spite the jerk clerk. Stole the slushy and the peeps, though. By then the clerk was too shell-shocked with embarrassment to do anything but let us leave."

[what_dad_was_like]

See Jacen. See Jacen blink.

A lot.

"Wait, he did that?"

He was looking at Kanan now like he'd grown another head on his shoulders. Kanan was mostly just looking at the ceiling.

"No way."