Insis Tent, Wednesday Morning

[suitably_heroic]

Okay, their roommates-- tentmates? Whatever, not like it mattered-- had been missing in action for large swaths of time lately, which meant Atton was stuck in one tent with no one around but Miss Not A Jedi Sunshine. Great.

And because that wasn't excruciating enough, his air mattress had given up on him.

"Oh, come on," he growled, shoving yet another part of the plastic contraption into a bucket of water. "How many holes can there be in this thing?"

This was not his life.

[[ open! ]]

Comments

[notconflicted]

Miss Not a Jedi Sunshine wasn't thrilled about the situation either, but it was improved when she came back from returning a call to this.

"Problems?"

[suitably_heroic]

"Have you been poking holes in my mattress?" Atton asked, because accusations were an excellent way to start a conversation.

[notconflicted]

Charming.

"Of course not. They're plastic, they don't need me to do that to deflate," she said, only a touch dryly.

[suitably_heroic]

"Why, you have a lot of plastic friends?" Atton asked. He dropped the mattress where it was - partway in the bucket.

[notconflicted]

"I'm sure I don't know what you mean by that," she said, taking a seat on her own inflated mattress, just to rub it in.

[suitably_heroic]

"Yeah, you do know what I mean by that," Atton said, sitting back on his haunches. "I'm surprised you didn't drag a whole bunch of droids camping with us."

[notconflicted]

"It's so nice to see that your opinion of me continues to have no basis in reality," she shot back.

[suitably_heroic]

"It's so nice to see you can hang back and glower at me instead of helping," Atton shot back.

[notconflicted]

"I'm sorry. When you accused me of poking holes in the mattress, I didn't realize that was your attempt at asking for help," she said.

[suitably_heroic]

"I was joking," Atton said. "It's a thing. You might have heard of it."

[notconflicted]

Sia stood again, with way more poise than anyone should have getting up from an air mattress. "I have. But until now I'd only heard it done well."

Quit flirting, kids.

[suitably_heroic]

Seriously, did she have a hunk of metal shoved up into her spine? That almost looked painful.

Atton leaned back forward and shoved the next bunch of mattress into the water. "You think you can reproduce one of these good jokes?" he said. "It might help the mood."

[notconflicted]

"I'm more interested in knowing exactly what you're trying to accomplish here," she admitted.

[suitably_heroic]

"See, if a mattress deflates overnight, that's just a thing air mattresses do," Atton said. "If you put more air in it and it deflates again fifteen minutes later, you start thinking there might be something going on here. Well, us regular people might."

Why couldn't he find the stupid hole?

[notconflicted]

"Hence your 'joke,'" Sia said. "Why the water?"

[suitably_heroic]

"You punch a tiny hole in something this big, you're not going to be able to eyeball it. If you put it in water, you can see the airflow where it escapes from the mattress," Atton said, looking right back up. "What, haven't you ever busted something plastic before?"

[notconflicted]

"Nothing that would cause me to resort to this method. What do you need me to do?"

See, Atton? Helpful.

[suitably_heroic]

Totally. He really loved what she did with the spiting him there and everything.

"Either you can get a bucket and start working on the other end, or you can just hand me one of those sticky plasters when I find the damn thing," Atton said. "And stop glowering."

[notconflicted]

Sia took one of the sticky plasters for now, mainly because she wanted to actually watch what he was doing before trying it herself.

"You know what never works? Telling someone to stop glowering."

[suitably_heroic]

"You know what never works?" Atton retorted. "Glowering. You sure you're not Sith? Because if you are, I'd like to know."

Mostly because it'd mean he'd need to go find a different place to stay at.

[notconflicted]

"I loathe the Sith," she said, very seriously. "And asking that will not stop me from glowering."

[suitably_heroic]

"Let me guess, some Sith ran over your home and set it on fire," Atton said, shoving the next chunk of mattress in. Were those bubbles? He squinted at it.

[notconflicted]

"If only it were that simple," she replied.

[suitably_heroic]

"It's the same story every time, from what I've heard," said Atton. "What's not so simple about that?"

He knew damn well it was never that simple, even if the Sith, at least, were straightforward about their intentions most of the time.

[notconflicted]

She paused, briefly.

"They're in control of the galaxy currently."