Around Atton's New York, All Day Tuesday

[suitably_heroic]

So, Cade was still here. And... damned lucky that Dane had the patience of a saint (or at least a guy with crappy coping methods and a history of poor boundary-setting), or he probably would've been out on his ass by now. Hell, Jack had thought about throwing him out on his ass a few times now. The crossing the streams was just kind of weird.

And Cade could be kind of a jackass.

(But he'd also missed the guy and having him here was a good reminder of their misspent youth and space he really was getting old, wasn't he?)

Anyway.

It was show day. And Jack-slash-Atton hadn't slept a wink last night, so he'd just be on the floor of the living room, where he'd been for the last couple of hours. Ugh.

[[ for that guy and some ocd ]]

Comments

Re: Morning

[suitably_heroic]

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

Re: Morning

[shutupandkillsomething]

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

Re: Morning

[suitably_heroic]

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

Re: Morning

[shutupandkillsomething]

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

Re: Morning

[suitably_heroic]

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

Re: Morning

[shutupandkillsomething]

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

Re: Morning

[suitably_heroic]

"How long has he been doing that?"

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

Re: Morning

[shutupandkillsomething]

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

Re: Morning

[suitably_heroic]

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

Re: Morning

[shutupandkillsomething]

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

Re: Morning

[suitably_heroic]

"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."

Re: Morning

[shutupandkillsomething]

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

Re: Morning

[suitably_heroic]

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."

Re: Morning

[shutupandkillsomething]

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

Re: Morning

[suitably_heroic]

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?"

Re: Morning

[shutupandkillsomething]

"Sure," Cade said.

Re: Morning

[suitably_heroic]

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."

Re: Morning

[shutupandkillsomething]

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

Re: Morning

[suitably_heroic]

"Sounds like a confusing time," Atton commented.

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

Re: Morning

[shutupandkillsomething]

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

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

Re: Morning

[suitably_heroic]

"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."

Re: Morning

[shutupandkillsomething]

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

Re: Morning

[suitably_heroic]

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."

Re: Morning

[shutupandkillsomething]

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

Re: Morning

[suitably_heroic]

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."