uncertain_dume | MCA #3, Friday Afternoon

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MCA #3, Friday Afternoon

... You know what? Kanan was an adventurous guy, sure. But not even having a magical raccoon tail that let him fly was enough incentive to go and stand in the park working on his lightsaber forms today. And so, after class, he made his way back home, avoiding the swooping sun and flying over the quicksand (thanks propeller butt) and just settling in on the floor in the living room to meditate.

With a dog in a frog suit jumping on him every so often, demanding playtime.

He took that in stride. Mostly, he was getting increasingly more worried about Rey. As the day wore on without another check-in, he was seriously edging toward getting Chopper to help slice his phone to see if he could pinpoint exactly which reality he was going to have to get himself a Portalocity ticket to. One week of silence, he could reason away with things being a little more exciting than usual on Jakku. Two weeks? That was unlike Rey.

If nothing else, maybe she just needed a new phone?

He could hope it was that.

Hell, it wasn't that, was it?

[OOC: Open for calls or if you have any reason to be visiting his apartment! CW: Thread with Jack contains frank talk of alcoholism and self-destructive behaviour.]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"You flew at a fucking Reaper, Kanan." It was also flat. Not an accusation. Just a statement.

Two, in fact. Two Reapers. Though only the one had he.. you know..

Torn apart.

With his brain. With the Force.

Felt it live, felt it die.

And hey, now you're getting her arms wrapping around your waist and putting your other kidney at risk. Jack didn't hug lightly when she could bring herself to do it at all.

To his credit, Kanan managed to only loose a small 'hnnf' as the life was half squashed out of him.

"Guess I did," he agreed, because there wasn't any denying that, either. He paused a moment, and then added, "Would've been a lot worse if I didn't."

Children. There had been children. Hollowed out and turned into--

His jaw tensed a little.

He exhaled.

Yet peace...

"There are going to be things I do that you're not going to like," he added. "The best I can offer is that they won't come from the same place the drinking did. They won't be because I've stopped caring."

Would be, in fact, because he'd come back around.

Had started caring maybe a little too much.

"I know. I remember when the news reports came through. That memory hasn't changed." Was pretty sure it wouldn't. Kaidan had been careful. They'd all been careful. A big change that nobody would know about yet.

She thought about the rest of it. No, she wasn't going to like it. She didn't like anything that put any of her boys in danger. Couldn't stop that. They were all do-gooder assholes and that was part and parcel with who they were. Telling them to stop would be akin to telling them to just not breathe.

Jack huffed a breath that might have been a silent laugh against his shoulder. 'Just don't breathe' would probably be an easier thing for Kanan to do. He didn't have to, not for a long time if he didn't need to.

"Good." She found a word again, look at her go. "If I have to care, so do you." A beat. "Caring sucks."

"Caring sucks," Kanan agreed. And then paused and amended, "caring is hard. Not caring completely is hard too, I don't think I ever managed to find a happy medium, there."

He'd gotten to 'mostly not caring,' but if he'd had that all figured out, he wouldn't have stood up for anything on Gorse. Maybe Cynda would just be glittery shrapnel drifting through space, now.

"Not caring completely was easy," Jack said, "Not giving a fuck about anything or anyone? Real easy. Caring sucks. It's hard. It's.." Terrifying. "It's dumb. All this shit, Kanan. All this stupid shit I never fucking thought about ever in my goddamn life. None of it mattered. Now it all does. Has to because I don't know what fucking should or shouldn't and what if that part I thought was some little nothing wasn't nothing? What if it hurts someone that I thought it was nothing? You can't take hurt away once it's there. Maybe you can not do it again. Doesn't make the one time hurt less. It's complicated and there's no rulebook and it sucks and I hate it. I'm bad at it."

Took a breath. More words. Didn't know where they were coming from. "Some guy in a galaxy I've never even heard of gets shot a decade ago, the fuck do I care? Except I know him, it's you, it's Kanan and suddenly that fucking blaster scar matters because I know what it means. I know what came after. I know where that shit came from and now it's all so much more fucking serious and I didn't even fucking know. It's not in the past, it's not ten fucking years ago, it's right now cuz that's when I knew and that's when it hit and.."

And the realization. That he hadn't just been drinking. It hadn't been self medication. It could have very easily killed him.

And he knew that. And hadn't cared. It had been so bad, so dark, that he hadn't cared.

It mattered.

It was a whole load of ugly that Kaidan had seen and she hadn't. And that mattered, too.

Deep breath.

Slow exhale. Breathe.

Kanan closed his eyes for a few seconds.

Nodded.

"And it was uglier than you realized," he surmised. "I... I don't pretend I don't have a lot of ugly in my past, Jack."

Didn't really pretend he didn't have a lot of ugly here in the present, either.

Just... marginally less.

"You don't pretend," she agreed, "At least, not to me you don't. But it matters, Kanan. New Years, you ordered a fucking drink."

Which she'd stolen. Which she still hated Tino for, for serving it to him. Kanan practically lived there on Tuesdays, he had to have known he was dry and he didn't so much as fucking ask before he served the whiskey. Yeah, it was a bar and it was their job to serve alcohol but when someone is teetering on the back of a wagon you don't put a hand between their shoulders and push. She could carry hate a real long way for far less reason. This wasn't a little reason and it had just become a whole lot less little.

There was a long silence, then.

"I did," he agreed. Wasn't going to deny it. "Wasn't to try to hurt myself. Not really."

Could have. He wouldn't deny that, either.

"Wasn't a great life choice, either."

No kidding.

"Why?"

One word, hanging there in the air. So many things it could have meant and Jack meant pretty much all of them summed into just one word.

There were lots of reasons to drink. God knew Jack drank plenty. For her it was more or less self medicating. She'd never fallen down the bottle though. Couldn't; couldn't stay drunk long enough. Her system burned it out of her and left her far too sober. Never really tried to kill herself. Hadn't cared if she died. Still didn't, not really, but she also wasn't throwing herself at possibly lethal danger because she was bored or because she needed the adrenaline high. It would hurt her boys - it would hurt her family - and that mattered so she checked herself.

But..

Why? Kanan, why?

"Few reasons. They're all poodoo."

Also true. Kanan sighed.

"I was tired. There was too much to cope with. Drinking shut that down. I was on the run. The Force was a death sentence. Drinking helped blot that out. I cut myself off from everything that made me Jedi. The Force, the image, caring. For all we weren't supposed to form attachments, we were never meant to not care. Not completely."

And then, after a long moment, "Everybody's dead. Apparently I was attached, because losing them damn near killed me anyway. I was terrified of dying, but that doesn't mean I had anything to live for." Another long pause. "New Year's was simpler. The discussion got hard. Drinks made things less hard. There were drinks right there. I wanted a drink."

"You were alone," Jack summarized. For all he'd said, that's what she heard underneath it all. He hadn't even had himself. Caleb had to die. Everything about him had to be erased so that Kanan would even have a chance. Couldn't get close to anyone in case he slipped up and wasn't Kanan enough. Had to be Kanan when he didn't know how to be anybody.

She understood that part all too well. That was kind of her daily life. Trying to be like everyone around her when she didn't know how. She got it wrong all the time. She could afford to. Screwing up and getting it wrong didn't mean getting shot - or worse.

"You're not alone anymore." He knew that. She still had to say it. "It doesn't, you know," Jack added after a minute, "Alcohol doesn't make things less hard. It just makes you care less for a little while. Until you're sober again and you have to face it. The things you said or did when you didn't care enough, when emotional shit was dull enough you could pretend it wasn't sharp enough to cut and that the bleeding didn't matter. And then the only way to feel less stupid and to dull the hurt again is to take another fucking drink."

Silent for a second.

"No more drinking. Not for you. That's not who you are. It would fuck you up again."

"It would," Kanan agreed. Inhaled, exhaled. Just remembered how to breathe.

Wasn't alone anymore. Hadn't been. Not for a while, now.

"It never did help," he added. "But I could pretend it did for a while." He shook his head a bit. "You're right. That isn't who I am now." A pause. "Who that is, though, that's a work in progress."

"Okay." Because.. okay. "Whoever you become," Jack began, deliberately lightening the tone, "try not to be a too-solemn joykilling shithead. Two of them in the family already is one too fucking many. Three and I'd have to kill to all in case it was catching."

"Don't worry, Jack. No matter who I become, I'll still happily join you on trips to the corner store to get weird Earth candy."

Once a trash man, always a trash man, apparently.

Had to lean into the lighter tone. Was beginning to fidget, to pass his shirt from hand to hand.

"Oh goody," she said dryly, "Because I don't think we've introduced you to circus peanuts yet." She was able to let go and step back. Actually noticed the clothing and gave a quiet snort of amusement. "Shit. I think I owe Kaidan money. Put your shirt on and stop showing off your quarter-bounce belly, Kanan."

And Kanan replied to that with an amused little snort before pulling his shirt on again.

"Credit-bounce back home," he mused. "I might prefer quarters, though. Credits have corners."

Ah, light banter. This was far, far more comfortable territory, right here.

"Your stomach's not that great," Jack teased him, also leaning hard into the banter and away from.. you know.. feelings. "Our credits are circles too."

Beat.

"Sorry about your fursuit."

"My what?"

Furries weren't really things where he was from, apparently.

"The 'I'm pretending I'm a raccoon' onesie you were wearing," Jack said.

Helpfully.

"Kind of what started this shit today."

"I've been thinking of it as a Loth-cat," Kanan offered. "The tail's about the same."

Look, he'd been one before.

Multiple times.

He was allowed to make that call.

"... I'm afraid to ask how having a tail and fluffy ears wound up with you showing up at my door and making me strip," he added.

"Huh," Jack said when she thought about it, "Yeah, it would be wouldn't it? Ok. Tooka fursuit."

You're welcome.

"Kaidan's having a shitty month." Understaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaatement. "I asked him if he'd seen you in the suit and wondered what you were wearing under it. Trying to make him do the flailing 'stop making me picture people naked' dance, you know?" She lifted a shoulder, "Backfired. He called it about you being fully dressed. When I said 'or not', he said when you're naked he can see the scars. He was a medic. So. I mean. He told me." What that scar meant. Why it hurt Kaidan to think about it too much. Because he knew, too, what had come after. And he knew what that meant better than Jack did.

Beat.

"So yeah, he's doing great today too." Nope. "I'm awesome." Said in the tone of 'it's opposite day'.

Well... Hell, that story was a journey from start to finish, wasn't it? Kanan frowned a little, stooping down to pick his armor up from the floor. He considered it a moment, and then tossed it over to the couch. He'd pull it on again later. Fumbling with fasteners while everything was made of squares was a pain in the ass anyway.

"First serious injury I ever got," Kanan noted. "Named my dog after the reason it didn't kill me. Everything that came between..." Sigh. "You didn't know. Wouldn't have. It isn't like I've ever stripped down for you and outlined every time I've nearly died before."

Long pause.

"Or all the stoopa poodoo I've done that could've killed me since. Kaidan knows I'm not in that place anymore, at least. I was dry since... just before he wound up on the island, actually. Over a year now. Year and a half, almost."

Which meant, mostly, that he'd been treating himself like mostly disposable shit until that recently.

Jack nodded and shrugged a shoulder. "He knows. He said as much. But he doesn't know about New Years. I didn't tell him because it didn't matter." She'd stolen the drink. "It matters to me. You matter. No more stupid shit, ickle. It'll hurt more than you now." A beat, "And it'll really hurt you because I will kick your ass, do you hear me?"

"No more stupid shit," Kanan agreed, smiling wryly. "I hear you loud and clear, Jack."

Hell, she'd piffed away his tooka suit over terrible life choices made before he'd met her or Kaidan. He didn't doubt she'd beat him senseless if he pulled that nonsense again.

"And Jack? Thanks. For the check-in. For New Year's. For being family."

He used to drink because he'd had nobody and nothing. Not even himself.

That wasn't true, now.

"You're stuck with us," Jack shrugged. "If anyone in this family's going to be a self-destructive, adrenaline junkie binge drinker, it's gonna be me. You're better than me. You've got a future and you're going to do a lot of people a lot of good while you're here so let's keep your ass in the game as long as we can." Another shrug, "Gives me a future too and I'm a selfish bitch."

It gave her a purpose. Being around for them - all of them. Making sure nothing took them out early. Shepard had been more than fucking enough. She wasn't sure she could take losing another of them but being the vanguard for any of 'em, making sure she was around to watch their back? That was a thing she could do. Maybe the only thing she'd ever really been good at. She was pretty sure if the Cerberus shitheads, if any of those program people from Teltin could see what she was doing with her life, they'd consider it a failure.

But.. She didn't. Not anymore. That wasn't nothin'.

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