Drinking games

[for_everyone]

It was supposed to be an easy repair, fiddly but relatively straightforward. But then the stored replacement part was bad, every shop in town was out except for one, which was broken, and the repair to fix that made it an uphill slog to even fit it in the Ghost, due to Chopper and Zeb getting into a fight and leaving at least two drill bits where drill bits did not belong.

And since it was meant to be easy, everyone but Hera and Kanan is out at the cantina enjoying themselves and the two of them are here, exhausted, dusty, and covered in grease. The smell of welding torch is heavy in the air.

Then Hera rolls to her feet, shaking her head a little to clear it.

"You know what? This calls for a drink, and I've just remembered where I left some."

Comments

[notallofus]

"I don't know."

In his entire life, he'd only had one stationary 'home,' and even then, Jedi weren't really meant to settle down.

"Can I be the cantina owner in this scenario?"

[for_everyone]

"If you promise to save at least a little bit of your top shelf for me, and your lowest shelf for Zeb, sure."

She will allow it.

[notallofus]

"I'm not sure how much business sense it makes," he says, lifting his glass again, "but I think I can arrange it."

[for_everyone]

"Excellent!"

She toasts him with her cup again, then pauses meditatively.

"I'd run away to the hyperspace lanes again eventually, though."

Hera knows herself pretty well, by now.

"I hope you wouldn't mind being kidnapped on my way out of the system."

[notallofus]

"And give up my cantina?"

He doesn't think on this that long. "Yeah, I'd be okay with that."

[for_everyone]

"Leave it to the wild nerfs and banthas."

Clearly.

[notallofus]

"From what I've seen, it's not a great job, anyway."

A lot of cleaning and dealing with rowdy, drunk patrons. After long enough he might prefer taking on a squad of stormtroopers.

[for_everyone]

"Maybe if we weren't the customers . . . "

It probably wouldn't make a difference.

[notallofus]

"One thing I was good at was getting other people to drink."

Which is probably a good skill for a cantina-owner. "But I didn't always have to deal with the consequences then."

Sometimes he did. But not as much.

[for_everyone]

"No more mops!"

The time with the nerfs in the cargo bay left some scars, all right?

[notallofus]

He puts up his hands. "It's a fictional cantina!"

[for_everyone]

"Fine, no fictional mops."

She takes another slow sip of her drink.

"For our -- I'm sorry, your -- fictional cantina in the fictional town of which I am mayor."

Hera exhales, also slowly.

"Is it wrong not to really want things to be much different than this, for a while?"

[notallofus]

"I think we might have to accept that neither of us seems very interested in settling down, for a while."

Even if other, external circumstances might have been different.

[for_everyone]

"Fair enough."

It's true, so . . .

[notallofus]

"On that thought..."

Kanan picks up the bottle to refill their glasses.

[for_everyone]

Hera leans forward to make the pouring easier, then sits back and resettles herself comfortably.

"For a minute I thought you were going somewhere. Somewhere besides just pouring more to drink, that is."

[notallofus]

"I really don't want to go anywhere for the next few hours."

As he recaps the bottle, "But can we stop talking about fictional future towns? Something about it is a little..."

Depressing, maybe?

[for_everyone]

"The Captain," Hera says, gesturing to herself without slopping any alcohol out of her cup, "will allow you to pick the next topic. If you want, that is."

Which is to say, she agrees with his desire for a change in topic. Because . . .

Just because.

[notallofus]

"Anything besides the future?"

Especially unlikely futures, he doesn't say.

[for_everyone]

She sobers a little, gaze softening. (Any future seems wildly unlikely, these days. It is what it is.)

"We can do that. Any ideas?"

Her own mind drifts toward the past, but that's not really something to talk about.

[notallofus]

Kanan stays quiet for a moment, idly turning his glass in his hand.

"Okay," he says, taking a deep breath, "before we met, this is what I'd do when I wanted to get someone else to drink."

He sets his glass down.

"I'd guess something about them, and if it was true, they were supposed to drink."

[for_everyone]

One corner of Hera's mouth quirks up in a crooked smile.

"I'd say we know each other too well, but since drinking's the point . . . I'm in. If you are."

[notallofus]

"You'd have a big advantage over... anyone from back then."

Kanan wasn't so much good at this, so much as everyone else was bad at it. Somehow 'secret Jedi past' was never guessed.

[for_everyone]

She sobers a little.

"I'll try not to misuse it too nefariously."

No alcohol poisoning for anyone on this ship.

[notallofus]

"Gee," Kanan says, more than a little dry.

"Thanks."