Manhattan Portalocity Station and Beyond, Wednesday Afternoon

[suitably_heroic]

Coming here always made Jack restless - maybe because half the time, he was picking someone up from a different place and a different life, and as much as he was trying to do the healthy thing and not let the whole two-worlds-two-lives thing mess with his head, it still made him jittery.

Anyway.

It was just Cade. What was the worst that could happen?

(Probably a lot.)

He waited outside the station, wearing a jacket and hoodie and jeans and, probably, looking more genuinely relaxed than Cade had ever seen him. Even with the jitters. Even with the way his foot kept jumping.

Space. This was probably a bad idea...

[[ for that guy ]]

Comments

[shutupandkillsomething]

"There's a lot of remote and terrible there," Cade agreed, "but also really kriffing great."

[suitably_heroic]

"Maybe in your time," Atton snorted. "In mine, everything's falling apart. That's why it was so easy to just keep fighting: I'd take a break next time, after I doused this one last fire..."

[shutupandkillsomething]

"Oh, the Sith are getting feisty again," Cade said, "but I stay off their radar."

For now.

[suitably_heroic]

"Feisty how?"

[shutupandkillsomething]

"It's always the same play, isn't it?" Cade asked. "Attempted galactic takeover."

[suitably_heroic]

Atton shrugged one shoulder. "Feels different when you're on the inside."

[shutupandkillsomething]

"How so?" Cade asked. "Just in case I land on the wrong planet."

[suitably_heroic]

"I mean Revan's Sith Empire wasn't born out of 'let's conquer everything'," Atton said. "It was years of being exposed to death and suffering during the Mandalorian wars, building resentment against a Republic and Jedi who wouldn't stand up for us... and a little bit of a Jedi-turned-Sith-Lord who started deliberately putting us through the crucible to push us further into it."

Yeah, he was gonna wave over a server now and ask for a whiskey.

Having done that, he added, "Revan may have had big plans, but we didn't really want to conquer anything. We just wanted to make |them pay."

[shutupandkillsomething]

"And them was everyone not you?" Cade asked.

[suitably_heroic]

"Them was the Jedi and the Republic that had abandoned us, at first," Atton said. "Then it just started to spiral. Especially after the Jedi knocked Revan off the board and Malak took over. But I was long gone by then."

[shutupandkillsomething]

"The second one always tend to be worse," Cade agreed.

[suitably_heroic]

"Malak was a karking moron," Atton said succinctly. And then, less succinctly: "But also one with a chip on his shoulder and something to prove, and we know that always goes well."

[shutupandkillsomething]

"Definitely doesn't define both people at this table," Cade said.

[suitably_heroic]

Atton snorted. "I don't have anything to prove," he said, "Do you?"

[shutupandkillsomething]

"Sure you don't," Cade said. "That's why you're on a backwater without space flight."

[suitably_heroic]

"You think I'm here to prove something to someone?" Atton said, raising an eyebrow.

[shutupandkillsomething]

"They don't have space flight," Cade repeated.

[suitably_heroic]

"I don't give a single shit, Cade," Atton said, as they finally put his whiskey down. "I'm not you."

[shutupandkillsomething]

"Just the only person I know who stayed on this planet was Great Granddad and he was married and, you know, a giant war criminal."

[suitably_heroic]

"I'm also a giant war criminal," Atton pointed out dryly. He took a sip of his whiskey. "I spent years trying to run away from myself through space flight, and yet this part of this mudball is the first place I've been since I was sixteen where I feel like I can breathe."

[shutupandkillsomething]

Cade was feeling pretty good about breaking the cycle of personally not being a giant war criminal. The tequila was helping.

Cade looked around at the Mexican restaurant, then gave a philosophical little shrug. "Huh. Not gonna fight you for it."

[suitably_heroic]

Atton shrugged. He was a little more careful with his whiskey, but it was at least helping settle him somewhat.

"Wasn't trying to make it a fight," he said. "But-- space. You don't want to know how screwed up my head got over the years." He took a small sip. "And I just kept doing things to make it worse. So now I'm here, where I have a chance to unfuck it. At least a little."

[shutupandkillsomething]

"A very little," Cade teased with a tiny smile. "Guess you found a path or whatever."

He did drugs to block out annoying Force ghosts of ancestors telling him to make better choices. He was in no place to judge.

[suitably_heroic]

"Living on a stupid mudball with no space flight in a tiny apartment and getting up on stage to yell all my fee-fees into a microphone at least once a week while sweaty teenagers beat each other up in the pit," Atton agreed. "Didn't see it coming either."

[shutupandkillsomething]

"Fee-fees," Cade repeated slowly. "What the kriff is that word?"