suitably_heroic | Around Atton's New York, All Day Tuesday

Stupid nightmares. They weren't as plentiful as they had been back when Jack had first moved here, but sometimes they still caught him by surprise in the middle of the night. Death and bombs and Meetra vanishing into the night-- all the hits.

So it was morning, and he was curled up on the floor with his back against the only wall that wasn't covered in shelves full of records, a cup of coffee in one hand and his head bent over his knees.

Ugggh.

"It is too damn early to deal with whatever this is," said the pile of clothes on the sofa.

No, Cade had no idea what time it was. No, he didn't care.

"If you didn't want to deal with it, you should've stopped drinking in time to make it to the guest room last night," Jack muttered into his knees.

"In our entire time knowing each other, tell me three times I've made a good decision like that," Cade said, cracking open one eye.

Atton lifted his head up. Squinted.

"... I can't even think of one."

"Me either," Cade admitted. "I was giving myself some room for being a better person than I am."

"Yeah, that'll get you every time," Atton muttered, lifting his cup to take a big sip of his coffee. "Well, you crash on the couch, you get me wandering around at night. Deal with it."

"It's still night?" Cade whined. "Whyyyy."

"It's early morning," Atton told him. "I came in here a couple hours ago. You slept through most of it. Stop whining."

"I will never stop whining. It's genetic," Cade told him.

"There's like how many generations between you and Anakin now?" Atton asked.

"Have you met Luke?" Cade grumbled.

"Maybe?" Atton said, frowning at the Cade-lump on the couch. "There's too many of you."

"Blond, short, and whiny," Cade said. "Normally in black."

"Oh, the Mical clone," Atton said. "I think I distantly remember him?"

"He's annoying," Cade said, closing his eyes. "Shows up in my dreams."

Atton frowned, sitting back against the wall. "Yeah?" he said. "Why?"

"What would a Force ghost bitch about?" Cade asked. "Living up to the family name, restarting the Jedi, fighting the Sith. Pass."

"How long has he been doing that?"

Yeah, Atton knew Cade was blowing it off. He sounded kind of concerned anyway.

Edited 2025-03-13 19:24 (UTC)

"Years," Cade huffed. "Thus the death sticks. They shut him up."

"Space," Atton muttered, rubbing at his face with one hand.

"Don't judge my coping mechanisms," Cade said, flinging his arm over his eyes.

"I'm not," Atton said. He was still eyeing Cade, or as much of him as he could see. "I'm judging him. He's kept going? All this time? Here I thought Anakin was bad, but at least that schutta is honest about the way he lashes out."

"Well, he's off in Force ghost wherever," Cade said. "Guess he doesn't have anything else to do."

Atton snorted. He sipped his coffee. "There was a time I would've killed to be haunted by a Force ghost," he said. "Uh. A specific one, not just any one. Now I think the dead should probably just leave us alone."

"Name one member of my family who's ever done something that would be normal," Cade said.

Atton held his cup out in front of him and stared at the wall.

"Look, I know the way we usually handle this is we blow this stuff off," he said. "But you know that doesn't make it okay, right?"

"Sure," Cade said.

Jack was looking at the lump on the sofa again. Wondering if there even was anything useful to say, Cade being Cade.

"My folks were like that," he said, after a short silence. "There weren't a lot of military families left on Alderaan when I was young, and there's even less now. Used to give me these lectures about how we were honourbound to step up, because the rest of our people had gotten fat and cowardly." He looked at his cup. "And you hear enough of that when you're young enough, running away to join the army at 16 starts making sense."

Cade nodded. "Mine was the opposite," he said quietly. "Grew up Jedi, changed as a teen."

"Sounds like a confusing time," Atton commented.

Or like a hard one, but he didn't want to push Cade too hard.

Hugely traumatizing. Having never told anyone traumatizing. Orphaned Skywalkers were a tradition, though, right?

"I don't like to think about it," Cade said.

"Yeah, it's not the most fun thing in the world."

Jack drained his cup of coffee.

"My parents screwed me up before the war ever could," he said idly. "So when the war did happen, I was a loyal little soldier who didn't like talking about what was going on with me, so they could do whatever they wanted to me and I would find some way to put it all on me."

Edited 2025-03-14 21:20 (UTC)

"Healthy," Cade said. "Definitely nothing to wake up you at ridiculous times of night."

Jack shrugged. Not that he figured Cade could see it. "I've been thinking about it," he said. "How much of my life has been about living up to someone else's ideals and expectations." He set his cup down. "When it wasn't just about trying to keep my head above water, anyway."

Edited 2025-03-15 03:01 (UTC)

"And here helps you keep your head up?" Cade asked.

Jack snorted. "The Atton Rand you met on Fandom was me keeping my head up," he said. "This has been more about me trying to do some secret third thing."

He pushed up to his feet. "You know. Maybe not withdraw into maintenance mode or throw myself into a physical and/or emotional meat grinder every week because of what I think I owe someone else."

Edited 2025-03-16 07:50 (UTC)

"Every week is too many weeks," Cade decided.

"Agreed!" Atton said, and padded past him into the kitchen. "Okay, one, you should come to the show tonight. Two, coffee?"

And maybe he'd figure out some way to poke Cade in the issues that wouldn't trigger a shutdown in the process.

"First the coffee, then the concert," Cade decided.

"It's like seven or eight in the morning," Atton said dryly. "That's usually the order they go in."

And then he busied himself with the coffee machine.

'Dinner' was a meal at a dim sum place a few blocks from the venue. Jack and Dane could walk there, so they did, dragging Cade with them. When they got there, their drummer was already there, Jill looking none-too-impressed behind her menu card.

Well, at them, anyway.

Then her eyes drifted to Cade. "Huh," she said.

Jack squinted. "And hello to you too."

Edited 2025-03-14 07:06 (UTC)

Cade smirked right back. "Hey yourself."

"You didn't tell me he was hot," Jill said merrily, turning her eyes on Jack.

Who rolled his eyes. Maturely.

"He doesn't talk much before a show," Dane confided, pulling up a chair.

Some of them took advantage of that.

"So I assume you tell lies and embarrassing stories when he can't protect himself," Cade said. "Like good friends would."

"And we watch all the complaints and the arguments build up in his head until he almost explodes," Jill confirmed. She picked up her soda with a grin. "We're just making sure he has all the energy he needs up on stage later."

She took a sip. "Want to help?"

"To annoy him, absolutely," Cade said. "I've no interest in how he keeps his energy up."

Dane gave Jack a rueful pat on the shoulder. "You'll live," he said, as they both settled into their seats.

Unlike Dane, Jill had no intention of asking Cade copious questios about his own backstory. "You know him from school, right?" she said. "I think it's customary to bug you for the absolute worst stories you can think of."

"He once cruelly crushed my dream of bringing home a camel," Cade began, starting to a spin a tale that was 70 percent fabricated.

Jack gave Dane a fierce nudge with his elbow. He knew the full story. Defend his honor!

"No, I'd like to hear where he's going with this," Dane told him. "Let him cook."

Cade's story got even more elaborate as he grinned at Atton, daring him to tell how it really went.

Jack was just going to try and chug this drink in front of him. Chug, and chug, and chug, and--

"You and Sparks snuck a camel from a beach in Turkey onto a boat and got detention for it, space, I had nothing to do with it!"

The space goats later, on the other hand...

"But my version is much more interesting," Cade said with a triumphant grin.

Jack rolled his eyes. "Yeah, yeah, the big myth of Cade Skywalker," he muttered.

And then bent himself further over his soda.

"Trent's going to be here in a second," Jill added. "I'd save the really tall tales for his paranoid ass."

"Oooh, how paranoid is he?" Cade asked. "Will he believe I have tentacles?"

"Do you have tentacles?" Jill asked skeptically, before Jack could stop her.

"Do you want me to have tentacles?" Cade asked, smirking.

"It'd definitely be a new experience," Jill said, smirking back.

"'m gonna kill myself," Jack muttered under his breath.

A tall, gangly man with messy black hair stepped in through the door, looked towards, them, and squinted.

"I definitely recommend it at least once," Cade said, winking.

"Oh, is there a story?" Jill said, brightening up. "'Cause I gotta--"

"New spaceman," Trent said, yanking up a chair and sitting himself down in it in a kind of... dropping motion. He nodded at Cade. "Welcome to Earth."

Jack's hand slid up to rub at his forehead.

Cade gave him a sardonic wave. "I come in peace. Take me to your leader."

Cade.

"Which one?" Trent asked suspiciously. Jack heaved a sigh, waving for the server to come over.

"He'll have a whiskey and coke," Dane said.

Cade would take that capitulation as a sign of success because Cade was a dick.

"Whichever one you know," Cade said magnanimously.

Trent sat down. He eyed Cade across the table, steely. "If that's your plan," he said, "It's not well-reasoned. Does your planet have a lead problem?"

Jack picked up his soda and took an idle sip. When the whiskey and coke arrived, he shoved it effortlessly towards Trent, who downed it without taking his eyes off Cade.

"I figure I'd work up from whoever you know," Cade said.

"From whoever a random New York City bassist would know? A likely story," Trent snorted. He jabbed a finger at Cade. "Confess. How long have you been hiding here, stalking humanity, huh?"

Everyone else at the table sipped their drinks in unison.

Cade snorted. "Two weeks," he said. "You're not that interesting."

Trent's eyebrows shot up.

"Then explain this," he said, whipping out his phone to display--

A wide range of fuzzy pictures of objects flashing past in the sky, all over town.

Jack waved at the server again.

"He'll have another whiskey and coke," Dane said dutifully.

"Not me," Cade said airily. "I came by portal."

"Just like Jack insists he did," Trent said, narrowing his eyes.

"Okay, enough interrogation," Dane said, holding up both hands. "We should order some food. And more drinks. What's your poison this time, Cade?"

"My spaceship is too good to be beheld on this backwater planet," Cade said. "And I'll have whiskey."

"Is it invisible?" Trent asked. "Do you perform experiments?"

Jack shoved the next whiskey and coke at him, too.

"Why?" Cade asked. "Are you asking to get probed?"

"You're not my type and you're dodging the question," Trent told him.

The server came back with their drinks. This time, Jack grabbed the glass of water and downed that.

"Again, let's not interrogate the new hot guy," Jill sighed. "You from anywhere near where... whatever planet Jack is from?"

"No one's from where he's from," Cade said with a little grin. "I'm from a different part of the galaxy, but still human."

"Billions of beings are from where I'm from," Jack said, rolling his eyes. "They're just not here."

He immediately waved for a refill on his water.

The venue was pretty packed for a Tuesday. Couple hundred people maybe? Yeah, this was closer to the norm since the album came out than the twenty-to-forty folks they used to get, but if there was ever going to be a time where Jack didn't find that strange and surreal, this wasn't it. (They were also not, all Jack's joking in front of Cade aside, mostly teenagers. Twenty-somethings and thirty-somethings, some real metalheads in there.)

Ah, well. He peered out over the crowd one more time. Sought out Cade's Force presence for a sec, just to see if he hadn't wandered off to do something more exciting. No? Dammit.

Onto the stage it was.

He swaggered up to the microphone stand with a nonchalance he didn't feel, and smirked into the crowd. "Hey, glad you're coming out on a fucking Tuesday night to see us, of all people," he said. "Now, usually--" Trent's bass hummed through him for a sec, and he threw a glance over his shoulder. "Cool it for five more seconds!" Clear throat. "Usually, we start off this set with a cover. Usually, we pick something poppy to mangle with some distortion. But I'm not sure that fits the mood right now."

And there was Trent's bass again, hitting a rhythm in the background. Dark, but fast, and building. "So we're going to start with a classic." He swiped the microphone out of the stand with a Jedi-like elegance, and snapped, "You're keeping in step! And in line! Got your chin held high and you feel just fine--" A brief half-step, a slowing, like skipping over, and-- "'Cause you do. What you're told." --voice raising-- "But inside your heart it is black and it's hollow and it's cold!"

He skipped away from the microphone and launched himself wholesale into the song, hesitation forgotten. That was the thing about it. Jack had always tucked his feelings away for the Sith, to be brought out only to be used; then he'd become Atton and put on a good show of hiding them and only pulling out what he needed to keep up a front. Then there'd been the Jedi. He'd found himself drawn to Juyo, to the idea of taking that entire mess of pent-up emotions and throwing it into your hands and feet, walking up to the Dark Side as closely as you could without tipping over. Letting that fuel you.

Up here? He could do the same thing. Just without actual threat of lethal injury.

It fed into the crowd, too; one person threw a shove, another matched it, following the energy. A third, and then they had a fucking mosh pit. Maybe Jack-- Atton-- was putting it out there in the Force. Maybe he was feeding off it in the room. He didn't know.

"You want more of that?" he challenged as the beat died down, hair already clinging to his forehead. "Well, come back next week. Maybe we'll do a little Metallica for you. As a treat." Dane hit a loud chord behind him. He paced over the stage. "Come crawling faster! Obey your master!"

Cheering from the pit.

Jack laughed. "Next week," he said. "Now you're going to have to deal with one of ours, instead. You want sweet or do you want loud?"

More cheering.

"Well, that's not really conclusive," he said. He glanced over at Dane. "What do you think?" He slipped the microphone back into the stand.

"Feel like we gotta match Trent Reznor's energy for another beat," Dane called.

Jack gave a casual shrug. "We'll save the sugar for later," he said. Not that they hadn't already planned out this set. Not like Jill was already setting up an ominous, building, winding rhythm behind them. Not like Trent was getting ready with the guitar.

He leaned into the microphone. He smirked. "Oh, oh, you came out alive - again. Walked out the door upright when you could’ve died - again..."

And for a good forty-five minutes, Dane's guitar roared in anger and Trent's bass hit the melancholic notes and Jill's prog rhythms made things complicated and messy-- and Jack snarled and howled and softened and shoved all the tragedy of himself into stupid words in stupid music, where he didn't feel the need to minimize his own damage.

Edited 2025-03-19 12:47 (UTC)

And Cade lounged against a wall and drank, a bemused look on his face.

That rowdy guy in the crowd? Didn't so much mean to throw his beer at Cade, except it kind of went flying right over his head.

Cade wasn't going to use the Force when he could duck like a normal person, but now he was a normal person who smelled like cheap beer. "What the fuck?" he yelled.

"Sorry!" the man hollered, before leaping back into the pit.

"Hope is a dragon born from the shadows, luring his prey with fading light," Jack snarled into the microphone, backed by an extremely loud guitar.

Edited 2025-03-22 18:10 (UTC)

"Ugh," Cade grumbled, stripping his shirt off.

A thirty-something woman staggered out of the pit with a massive smile on her face, her hair sticking to everything. "AW YEAH!" she yelled.

And looked at Cade. "Aw yeah," she said. Nodding. "You comin' in?"

"No, I'm sticky enough!" Cade called back.

"Your loss!" she laughed, and retreated back into the pit.

The song cut off after the crescendo. Jack climbed down and sat on the edge of the stage, letting his legs dangle down as the rhythms of the drums and the low bass took them into something moodier. Ruefully, he sang, "I was lying on the floor with my heart on its ass and my mind firmly out of line... You pulled up this body with its pain plainly on display and sighed, 'You stupid motherfucker, you’re into too much angry shit.'"

It was the last song of the set, and yeah, Jack definitely felt a certain kind of grimly amused at singing, "Maybe I’m just fucking tired of doing the same stupid thing with the same stupid results" with Cade in the audience.

Not that he was being too pointed about it. Just, y'know. A hint.

Cade was aggressively not taking any hints via song lyrics. He was too busy trying to wipe the beer off of his shoulders with cocktail napkins.

It wasn't working.

Poor baby.

"You've been a great crowd," Jack called. "See you next week?"

The crowd - bar Cade - screamed happily in his direction.

"All right, now get the fuck out of here," he added. The lights dimmed. The band left the stage, and the crowd started to disperse.

Cade made sure to glare at Beer Throwing Dude until he left.

Beer Throwing Guy gave him the finger on his way out.

"You're a dick!" Cade yelled after him.

"So are you!" the man yelled back. "Rizzless dick!"

Better hurry to the exit, buddy.

So strange how Cade didn't move a step and yet that guy would feel like he'd gotten slapped in the back of the head.

So. Strange.

Jack felt empty. Empty of energy, empty of feelings, empty of just about anything. It was nice. He was seated on the floor of the backstage area, his shirt lost... somewhere between the stage and here. He had a towel over his head, his head bent over his knees and a bottle of water dangling from his fingers.

Just breathing for a second. Or five hundred.

Edited 2025-03-11 20:07 (UTC)

"You're definitely going to catch something sitting on the floor here," Cade told him as he sauntered back, shirtless and smelling like beer.

"I've been doing this for over two years," Jack muttered, somewhat muffled under his towel. "I've developed an immunity to backstage gunk."

"Ew," Cade said. "It's like being to Nal Hutta enough not to smell it any more."

"I mean, I also lived on Nar Shaddaa for a while," Jack muttered ruefully.

He pulled the towel further over his head and then wiped at his forehead with it. "You smell like booze. Catch a spray, huh?"

"The guy was--"

That was a very specific Huttese phrase, Cade.

"He's a drunk at a rock show," Jack pointed out. He pulled the towel off his head. "I'd offer you a towel, but..."

"Someone probably sweat into it," Cade guessed. "Pass."

Jack shot him a wry look. He dropped back against the wall. "At least you made it out alive."

"It wasn't that hard core," Cade said dryly. "No one even pulled a weapon."

It was possible Cade's idea of venue safety was slightly skewed.

You know, it was easy to slide back into a measure of Atton Rand with Cade around. Most of the time, even. Not right now, though, with his heart thumping in his chest and his body empty.

Jack let out a soft laugh, shaking his head as he looked up at Cade. He looked amused, possibly even the faintest edge of fond. "Yeah, no, it's just drunks and people getting a little nuts in the pit," he said. "You've got to wait a few nights until the nu-nu metal kids play, if you actually want a rush."

"Do they bring weapons?" Cade teased.

"Well, they usually aim to actually hit people when they throw stuff."

Cade waved his hand sardonically. "Not necessarily a problem," he said.

"Great way to make friends," Jack said, lifting up his water bottle to toast Cade.

"I'm not looking to make friends," Cade said with a smirk.

"You're here to win, huh?"

Jack pushed himself slowly up to his feet.

"Hate to break it to you, but there's not much of a prize."

"Oh, I don't want to win anything here, either," Cade said with a laugh.

"Spoken like a guy who hasn't watched bad Earth reality television in too long," Jack said, shaking his head.

He took a swig of water from the bottle. "Space, I'm tired."

"You looked like you were working hard," Cade agreed.

"The annoying thing is I'm so wired afterwards I can't actually sleep," Jack sighed. He rubbed at his forehead. "We've got most of the equipment loaded in anyway. You wanna go for a walk?"

"Sure," Cade said. "Will we be walking towards tacos?"

Cade had developed an obsession.

"How are you still hungry?" Jack asked, waving vaguely in Dane's general direction before turning around to go grab... sure, let's call that his shirt.

Cade was just going to go shirtless. In March. Choices were being made.

"I'm always hungry for tacos," he told him.

"The jokes I could make," Jack said, pulling the shirt over his head. Ah, Meshuggah. Good enough. "Sure, why not."

He nodded towards the exit. "After you, oh Mr. Eager To Freeze To Death."

"My abs are a gift I'm sharing with your city," Cade told him.

"I hate to break it to you, but people see more interesting things on the Subway every hour on the hour," Jack told him. He pushed open the door to let Cade through.

Cold air immediately rushed towards them.

"I could make a spectacle of myself on the subway, I just choose not to," Cade said.

"I appreciate it!" Jack said, faux-perkily, and stepped out onto the street. "Really, really appreciate it."

"Think of it as the encore to your show," Cade said.

"Not really the vibe I was going for," Jack said. He stole a glance towards Cade, and added, "You have an okay time besides the, uh, happy audience?"

"Sure," Cade said. "I have seen live music aside from what's inside cantinas in forever."

"Good," Jack said, nodding maybe a few times too many. "Great."

"You don't actually care what I think, do you?" Cade asked, curious.

"Mostly not." Not as much as he'd cared about Summer's opinion, anyway. "... But maybe, you know. A little."

What with Cade being the only representative of his misspent youth that a) was still around and b) he didn't have some kind of weird will-they-won't-they-oh-I-guess-they-won't situation with.

Edited 2025-03-25 21:23 (UTC)

Cade gave him two mostly not sarcastic thumbs up. "Killin' it, buddy."

"I knew you were an asshole, but I'd forgotten just how much of an asshole you really are," Jack said.

But he was laughing, so.

Cade beamed like he'd been complimented. "Thank you, thank you."

Jack rolled his eyes. "Remind me to keep you away from the Central Park Zoo."

"I'd pick something much more portable than a camel," Cade promised.

"I don't know if I want a portable Earth animal being shot at by Hutts," Jack retorted. "I feel like that could get me in trouble."

"You have lost all joy in your life," Cade told him.

"Yeah, that's me," Jack said, grinning. "Completely joyless. But free."

"You'd have more joy with a stolen Earth animal."

Cade Skywalker: Life Coach.

"I have a lot of joy with my record collection and my partner, who hates pets as much as I do," Jack pointed out. Logically.

"Your records will never hug you back," Cade said airily, ignoring how wild animals would also not hug you back.

"Nah, but the partner will," Jack said, "Unlike a camel, who'll probably just spit on you anyway."

"Spitting is how a camel shows love," Cade said erroneously.

"Cade," Jack said, as they crossed the street towards a taco joint up ahead, "I can't say I understand your sexual fetishes, nor do I want to hear about them, but I support your right to have them."

"That's very enlightened of you," Cade said with a laugh. "Glad to see that living on a backwater hasn't made you close-minded."

"I'm resisting Earth's weird fixation on sex stuff just fine," Jack promised. "Space, who has the time and energy?"

He pulled open the door to the restaurant.

"Spoken like a man who hasn't sat next to an over-sharing Gamorrean in a few decades," Cade said.

"I'm comfortable with my life choices," Jack said brightly. "After you?"

"That was inflicted on me," Cade said, heading into the restaurant.

"You're the one choosing to go to dive cantinas with chatty Gamorreans," Jack said, with an idle shrug as he followed. "Seems self-inflicted to me."

"Dive cantinas are worth it for the occasionally chatty Gamorreans," Cade decided.

"Then stop complaining," Jack said. "You sound like a five-year-old."

Cade rolled his eyes. "If a five-year-old heard about the sex lives of Gamorreans, he'd get to complain for more than five minutes."

"I've met you, you could complain for an hour," Jack said.

No, that was you.

He pulled up a chair.

"Nope, that's you," Cade said.

Jack rolled his eyes.

"Anyway," he said, as he waved over a server, "Now you know what I get up to on this mudball."

"It's definitely not what I'm doing," Cade said with a grin.

Jack snorted. "No," he agreed. "You hear anything about those Hutts?"

"I think no news is good news," Cade decided.

"Or it means they're laying in wait, hoping to catch you sleeping," Jack said merrily. "Cheers!"

"Why'd you think I went to ground here for a while?" Cade asked.

"I know," Jack said. "I'm asking because I'd prefer not to send you back out there with a target still on your back."

Hey, bold-faced honest admission of caring without couching it in any kind of irony. His therapist would be proud.

"Blue said she'd handle it," Cade said blithely.

"And has she?" Jack asked lightly.

"She's a lot prettier than I am," Cade said, "so she says that's helping to appease the Hutts."

That and a lot of credits. Mostly the credits.

"You ever worry about her?" Jack asked, as he reached for his newly-arrived drink. (Soda, again.)

Cade shook his head once. "Blue can take care of herself," he said. "Doesn't mean I want something bad to happen, but she'd stab me in the spleen if she thought I was hovering."

Skywalkers had a type.

Jack shrugged one shoulder. "You're a whole galaxy away," he said. "If you were worried, I'm not sure I'd call it 'hovering'."

"I'm not a hover-er," Cade agreed.

He took another sip of his soda and thought about it.

"Sorry," Jack said. "I just... I don't know. I shouldn't be hounding you about your own poodoo just because I'm still processing mine."

Cade shrugged. "It doesn't bother me that you ask."

"I just know what it's like to care about someone who's a big fucking badass," Jack said. He lifted his drink. "And what it feels like when they leave you in the dust 'for your own good'."

"Well, that's definitely a thing that is now about you," Cade said. "Blue's not leaving."

"Hey, it's not like I didn't warn you," Jack said, and sipped his drink, and shoved the menu towards Cade. "But I'm glad you have that."

"She's cool," Cade said with a smile.

"'Cool', huh?" Jack said, eyebrow raised, maybe a little teasing.

"She's a Zeltron," Cade said, "and we're really casual."

"Uh huh," Jack said. "And how long have you been 'really casual' for, huh?"

"A few months," Cade said. "She doesn't know my last name. It's very casual."

"You don't tell anybody your last name," Jack pointed out. "Pretty sure the only reason I know it is because I had to deal with all your family drama."

"There were just so many of them," Cade said.

"Mhm," Jack said. "And some day you're probably going to tell Blue about them."

Cade waggled his hand. "It's a lot of poodoo to dump on someone."

Jack shrugged. "Sure," he said. "But so are the Hutts."

"She's a bounty hunter, too, Hutts come with the territory. Skywalkers less so."

"Trouble follows Skywalkers, though," Jack noted, and picked up his drink again.

"Trouble follows bounty hunters," Cade said. "It's not just me."

"Not Skywalker kind of trouble," Jack said. He shook his head. "Look, do what you want. I just have a bad feeling about it."

"If I listened to every bad feeling I've had, I wouldn't make half the choices I do," Cade said with just the most blithe unawareness of how damning that was.

Jack looked at him as their food arrived, and reminded himself of how useless it would've been for anyone to give him the number of a therapist prior to the Big 2020 Mental Breakdown.

He reached over for a plate of tacos and pulled it towards himself.

"I can personally recommend listening to it at least ten to fifteen percent more," he said. "It cuts your total lifetime kolto time in half."

Edited 2025-04-02 14:21 (UTC)

"But where's the fun in that?" Cade asked around a mouthful of taco.

Yeah. Not helping Jack's resolve not to say something, Cade.

"You worry the people you care about less," he said steadily.

There went that resolve.

"And you avoid having the time I had that time Sia finally looked me in the eye and told me I had her terrified," he added, grabbing a taco like that was nothing.

Edited 2025-04-02 15:25 (UTC)

"Well, that sounds like a tough conversation," Cade said.

Atton took a bite of his taco, swallowed, and then fixed a steady look on Cade. "I don't think you're actively trying to throw yourself off a cliff the way I was by the end of it," he said, "but the end result is going to be the same if you get your dumb ass killed because you can't stop running away and you think you're immortal."

"I know I'm not immortal," Cade said. "No one is."

"Oh, so you are trying to get yourself killed," Atton said. "Glad to have that cleared up."

"Our galaxy is dangerous," Cade said. "I'm not running away from it."

Atton rolled his eyes. "Our galaxy is just a galaxy," he said. "Most people don't get into the kind of trouble you do and I used to."

"I'm not taking up the family jobs of Jedi, galaxy running or moisture vaporator farming, so this is what's left," Cade said.

"Krayt spit," At-- Jack said flatly. "You can give yourself whatever excuses you want, but don't insult me by expecting me to buy it."

"Let's just agree that neither of us gets why the other is doing his job at all," Cade said, "and eat tacos."

"No, I get it," Jack said, rolling his eyes. "I'm just hoping you hit your rock bottom before someone explodes your skull."

He took a bite of his taco. Swallowed.

src

Around Atton's New York, All Day Tuesday

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