Atton's Apartment, Manhattan, New York City, Thursday Afternoon

[suitably_heroic]

You know, Atton was finally starting to get into a rhythm with this life, a daily and weekly routine. It hadn't saved him from careening past an episode of... something... last week, but now that the reality of the potentially-long stretch of life in front of him had settled in-- well, it at least kept his sanity intact.

End of the week was usually Lana time. They'd spent some time earlier that day sparring in the band's practice space. It'd been a good workout.

But now he was home, holding the door open for Lana to come on in. "You're welcome to grab a shower, if you want."

[[ expecting one, but as always open for messages and phone calls ]]

Comments

[unusual_sith]

"There were so many things!" Lana threw up her hands. "Fake ice cream, slime, ketchup, all these things we had to swim in to complete a race! For once the shirts weren't even the worst part of it, because at least my own wasn't utterly ruined by it. I've been through sewers on Quesh, and this was still probably the most disgusting thing I've ever done, if not quite as smelly. Ugh!"

Enjoy that rant, Atton.

[suitably_heroic]

Atton was starting to get an inkling of what other people felt like when he got going.

"Well," he said. "You're welcome to use the shower a second time if it'll help you feel clean."

[unusual_sith]

Lana sighed. "I'm fine now, thank you. But that man is a sadist. One of these days we should subject him to all this."

[suitably_heroic]

"I mean, I'm pretty sure you outnumber him," Atton pointed out, as he dropped himself back onto the sofa. "Nothing stopping you from rising up and seizing the means of goo production."

[unusual_sith]

"Hm." Lana wandered over to join him, still thinking. "That is an excellent point. And it's not as though I don't have experience."

[suitably_heroic]

"Yeah, I imagine you of all people can organize an uprising with a crisp sense of efficiency," Atton said.

A little lazily. The spar had been quite the workout, the kind he didn't exactly get every day anymore. "For extra points, dye his hair for me."

[unusual_sith]

"Oh, I could get Sabine on that, no problem," Lana said, grinning. "She did mine in a rainbow for...prom, I think it was? Though we'd have to do something awful for him. Maybe make it splotches of neon or something."

[suitably_heroic]

"You know I have such a hard time picturing you as a kid, and I think I actually met kid you back then," Atton mused. "Let alone rainbow kid you holding hands with your girlfriend."

[unusual_sith]

"Oh, I have pictures," Lana said. She waved her phone at him. "Did we meet back then? I don't remember."

[suitably_heroic]

"I think I saw you once or twice," Atton said. He shrugged. "It's just one of those 'hard to connect one and the other' deals. But yeah, show me."

[unusual_sith]

Lana opened her phone and scrolled back to the earliest pictures, thumbing through them. "Here we are." She had on a black and oil-slick dress, with her hair dyed to match. And she was, indeed, holding hands with her girlfriend.

[suitably_heroic]

Atton leaned over to look. He let out a surprised laugh.

"Oh wow," he said. "You really did look like a real teenager."

[unusual_sith]

Lana laughed in turn. "Of course I did! What's that supposed to mean? Were you expecting me to show up in Sith robes or something?"

[suitably_heroic]

"Please, I'm not Skywalker, I'm actually capable of understanding Sith are just regular beings," Atton said, rolling his eyes. "But, you know, you really have the 'smart adult in the room' thing nailed down. I guess part of me thinks you were born 40 years old."

[unusual_sith]

Lana scrunched her nose. "I suppose I'll take that as a partial compliment, at least. It did take me decades to get here, though."

She thought about it.

"I think Fandom helped a lot with it, too. Showing me there were other ways to live than what our galaxy teaches. Getting a chance to be a child when I'd been Sith since I was so young. And meeting Jedi who weren't bogeymen. Even Skywalker didn't seem so bad back then."

[suitably_heroic]

"Must've been weird going home after that," Atton noted.

[unusual_sith]

"It was, a bit. I tried to bring the things I'd learned to dealing with it all, which helped, but it did make the mindset of many people much more frustrating to deal with."

[suitably_heroic]

"Yep."

Atton stretched his legs.

"You know, I realized recently that it's taken me twenty years to finally do what I wanted to do when I graduated," he said.

[unusual_sith]

"Music?" Lana asked. "Or just in general living on Earth and putting all that behind you?"

[suitably_heroic]

"The last part," Atton said. "I knew I liked Earth music after living here for a while, but I didn't really dream about making any myself. But I spent two... three? Space, I don't even remember. Some amount of years working out how I was going to do this."

[unusual_sith]

"Have you used that plan at all?" Lana asked, curious. "Or did you have to change the entire thing?"

[suitably_heroic]

"Fake ID, paperwork hacks to get myself a place, and the years of shoving Earth-specific knowledge into my head didn't hurt, either," Atton said. "Even if according to Dane, I can only pass as a millennial on a surface level because I don't know weird flash in the pan pop punk bands off the top of my head."

[unusual_sith]

"Just say you grew up in a cult," Lana suggested. "My roommate did, and she was very sheltered. Besides, isn't it a bit true of both of us?"

[suitably_heroic]

Atton snorted. "I grew up in a military family on Alderaan," he said. "And then I volunteered for a cult. It's not quite the same."

[unusual_sith]

"Right." Lana nodded. "Well, say it anyway. Did you know, there are Earth cults who believe they're descended from aliens? You'll fit right in."