fandomtownies | Luke's, Sunday

Summer was coming into the diner a lot earlier than she had been these past few months, looking quite a bit tired and also a bit like she did not want to talk about it.

Of course, she was probably still going to, in a roundabout way, but she would like to simply state for the narrative record that routines were actually really great and structure in your life was helpful, until you had to break that routine and the next thing you know, you're up too early when you don't have to be, remembering all too late that you don't have to be at a pet shelter to check up on things on Sunday anymore.

At least she could pick up some toys and snacks for Pancakes while she was there, though. And swing by for her weekly Luke's stop on her way back, despite the fact that Luke's was technically out of the way back.

"There's got to be some way," she started, grumbling slightly as she plopped onto her usual stool, "of portal-proofing an apartment, right? I mean, that technology has to exist somewhere. Only problem is, if it does, it's probably super expensive, and I can't afford super expensive right now, but it might just be worth it because Grampa Rick continues to have the worst timing ever. Well, okay, so it was actually my dad this time, but still. I can't believe I missed getting to see graduation, please tell me something really messed up happened and it wasn't just my class that got to be the lucky ones attacked by scorpions.

"Also," here, she smiled lightly, batting her eyes a little, trying to look cute beyond the ranting, "hey, BDG, how are you? I'll totally take some of those completely uninspired, come on you guys mortarboard pancakes and a chocolate cherry milkshake, please."

"I'm twitchy," Kanan replied, writing down her roder and sending it back to the kitchen, "and brushing it off as paranoia about the upcoming semester."

As he was wont to do.

"But I'm sure we could figure out some way of portal-proofing your apartment. If anybody out there should know what it takes to break a portal, it's the gnomes, right? They seem to be professionals at it."

Someone was still salty about the mynocks that kept him from getting home for a while there.

"True dat," said Summer, whose head tilted just a little, because twitchy was definitely not on the list of preferred answers to that question. "Maybe I'll have to stop in after this and ask, but I don't think they like me much. 'Oooh, Summer Smith, she doesn't neeeed our portals, but as soon as she needs help with hers...'"

She rolled her eyes a little. No, none of the gnomes had ever said anything remotely similar to that to her before, but that didn't mean they weren't probably thinking it.

But she kinda wanted to loop back around to that twitchy thing, anyway. "You think there might be something to be paranoid about with the upcoming semester?" she ventured. "Or just a..." She waggled her hands a little in the air. "More general 'surviving one week is reason enough to be paranoid about the next' sort of thing?"

"That Summer Smith," Kanan replied, smiling crookedly. "She's trouble, that one."

He held that smile for a moment more, and then exhaled, shaking his head.

"I don't know," he added. "There's usually something about the upcoming semester. But nothing's tried to kill us outright yet this year, and that's unusual, too. I'd suggest stocking up on power packs for that blaster I gave you. Maybe making some time in the range to brush up, just to make sure you're at top form."

Summer grinned faintly back. "You say that," she said, "like I haven't completely stocked myself up the to my eyeballs every single other time you say it. Probably not a bad idea, though. I did burn through a good number of them yesterday in a vain attempt to keep my dad from getting eaten by giant slugs. Spoiler alert: he still got eaten. And once he did, there was no getting him out except for the natural way."

Summer shook her head. Whatever it was that BDG was feeling twitchy about, at least it couldn't be worse than what she was going to be twitchy and grossed out about for at least a week.

Well. She supposed it could, but odds are, it would all be on a pretty even playing field.

"I will, though," she assured him. "Probably today. It's weird, now that Zack's back and I don't have to look after the shelter today, I don't really know what to do with myself, anyway."

The... natural way.

Kanan was going to just not picture that. For his own sanity's sake.

"Well, if you're at a loss for things to do, you can always swing by to pick up Stance and take him for a run while I'm at work," he offered. "We can always find things for you to keep yourself busy with, Summer."

A pause.

"So, did you end up with a class for next semester?"

He had.

He was squinting at it and trying to figure out what the hell the moose had been thinking.

Summer was half expecting a reminder that someone still owed a certain ship a good thorough washing one of these days, so an offer to take Stance out for a bit was a big relief. Not that she wasn't still going to wash the Escape like she promised, she just didn't really want to do it right off of a pretty already gross adventure that required a ton of washing of everything.

"Hey," she said, "if I bring him over to meet Pancakes, too, then I'll have plenty to do putting the apartment back in order again as well."

She was clearly not going to do this.

"And I did," she grinned a little, "and I think you'll like it. At least you'll like the leftovers from it. You know all those experimental jellos I've been foisting on you? Well, I'm doing a course that focuses on that kind of food and things similar to it from that very particular and disgusting era of American culinary innovation. It's going to be awful...and amazing."

She quirked her chin at him. "What're you planning on doing and how many rancors will it involve this time?"

"No rancors," Kanan chuckled, already grinning a little at the prospect of free food, because Kanan's mouth was clearly wired wrong. "I tried to take a summer term off to put more time into... whatever the hell it is Hera and I are doing back home," he wasn't ready to call it a resistance and it wasn't anything resembling a rebellion yet, "and the moose gave me this look and shoved a book at me, so I guess I'm teaching that."

"You should have shoved it right back," said Summer, lifting an eyebrow. Whatever the hell it was Hera and him were doing back home was important, at least it had better be if she was going all in to help them do it.

Well, not entirely all in yet, but... she was working on it. Perhaps a little more slowly than she could, but...there was the whole thing with the ship first, and that was going to take some time anyway.

Once that was done, though...

"What kind of book?"

Kanan just rolled his eyes toward the ceiling, reached for a pouch on his belt, and pulled out the book in question.

The Tao of ~~meta for~~ Pooh.

"Apparently it's philosophical observations as seen through the eyes of a stuffed toy."

So, that was his life now.

"Huh," said Summer, thoughtfully, as she picked up the book and flipped through it a little, figuring it probably said more about her than anything else that her first thought was that, man, she could think of some stuffed toys that had probably seen some shit.

This stuffed toy, she could tell from just the little bits gleamed here and there from one page or another, was clearly not one of those.

"Well," she noted, handing the book back, grinning faintly, "it's definitely different. And you are pretty much nothing but a big ball of fluff inside, anyway, so that checks."

"Hey, hey, don't say that too loudly," Kanan replied, tucking the book away again. "Nobody's supposed to actually know that."

... It wasn't exactly a huge secret, Kanan.

"Oh, come on," Summer said, her grin growing, her tone nothing but adoring. "You don't need to worry about me letting out the fact that you're really just a silly old bear."

He did that pretty well enough all on his own.

"Speaking of which," she continued, "you gonna keep BDG'ing it up and drive the shuttle again, you think?"

"Hell, I don't know," Kanan admitted, reaching a hand up to scratch at the back of his head.

... Hey, his hair was almost long enough back there to grab a handful of. Maybe someday he'd be back to pulling it back again.

"The bus might be safer if I don't. An attempted bus-jacking and then a party bus situation? It's a wonder Skywalker hasn't chased me off the island where my mere presence can't put his baby in danger again."

"Yeah, right?" said Summer, laughing. "Geez, Kanan, give someone else a chance to screw up this time. Hey, maybe I should do it. I mean, I've never driven a bus before, but I can fly a ship. How much more different could it be?"

Because, yeah, that was the sort of thing you wanted the person carting a small handful of newly minted students to say.

Kanan's mouth fell open a little as he pictured that.

"We can't have that," he said, quickly. "Then you'd be 'Bus Driver Girl,' and it'd be confusing if we had the same initials."

The new kids would totally wind up a few hours late, due to an emergency...detour to the shopping mall.

Hey, some of those kids might really, really appreciate it! A shopping mall could totally blow their minds before they even got to the island!

"Nahhhh," she said, "because I'd totally be BDQ. Bus. Driver. QUEEN."

OBVIOUSLY.

Really, given the island's penchant for just grabbing people up unawares, a shopping mall detour probably wouldn't necessarily be a total disaster, at that.

"... I'm not going to bow to you," Kanan decided, smirking a little, even as he reached to collect her pancakes from the kitchen. "In fact, maybe we'll have to start you off as a BDT and make you run your trainee paces, first."

Luke's, Sunday

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