somethingwithturquoise | MHA #4; Friday Evening [02/21].

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MHA #4; Friday Evening [02/21].

Summer had had a busy week, topped up with some absolutely ridiculous squirrel drama this morning that made her almost wonder if she was going to need the wine even more than Rey at this point, but she'd still managed to completely refurnish and redecorate her apartment so it looked like a normal person lived there and not someone who'd just came crawling back after literally blowing up all their assets in space and she'd also made that sangria, because, you know what? She was just awesome like that.

And then, after a quick hop across the street ~~probably, eventually~~ to the bar to stop in for a drink like she said she would, it was back to the apartment, to ply Pancakes with treats for being an excellent squirrel-chasing cat and to dick around the internet and Instragram some of her new budget-chic, emergency-trip-to-the-Isle-of-Ikea interior design until someone showed up to help her drink all this wine.

Because there was a lot of it.

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Well, that just made at least one conversation she'd had last week slightly more awkward.

"Shit, Rey," said Summer, as she refilled the glass, shaking her head a little because what else did you say to that? Then she set aside the pitcher and leaned back on the couch a little.

"But," and here she frowned, brow furrowed, pausing a moment to consider her thoughts a little more, "you are unlocking things, which is...something. It sucks that it can't be in a better way, you know, but sometimes..."

That push was needed.

The frown deepened, and she glanced over. "What a way to have to do it, though, right? And you're strong enough. Obviously. Especially since you're only going to keep getting stronger."

"Which is terrifying." She was honest about it. "But I'm working on it. I have Master Skywalker, I have texts, I have a direct line to Kanan... It's just... a lot."

All the time.

"I've embraced it, I guess."

But being honest was good. And that was the hard part, really, if you asked Summer, but she'd never really had a whole lot of people she felt she could be honest with.

"I mean," said Summer, almost apologetically, "you kind of have to. Well," she rolled her eyes a moment, "okay, maybe technically, you don't have to. But you seem like the kind of person where the other option? Isn't really an option."

Rey nodded, looking a little sheepish. "I love Kanan," she said, "and I understand why he did things the way he did. But it's not my way. And thanks to this link thing, I don't think I'd have a choice anyway."

It would have been impossible for Summer's expression to just not turn into heartfelt goo at that first part, so she wasn't even going to try, and her smile, while maybe a bit wibbly, was softly encouraging. "So the best thing you can do at that point is buckle down and hit it head on, in your way. Use it to your advantage."

That soft smile turned easily into a grin, a lift of her glass as if in a toast.

"Really fuck 'em up by playing their game, but better."

And she was definitely going to drink to that!

"Their game is worrying," Rey admitted.

She'd drink to it anyway.

"Yeahhhhh," Summer allowed. "That's true, but...all the more reason to give 'em all the hell you can, right?"

She sipped.

"And remember," she pointed out, "you are talking to the person who literally took two seconds to decide to completely blow up something she'd spent more than a year trying to build, just because it would gain a little bit of an advantage. And that's just one of the more recent examples. So I do tend to lean pretty heavy toward the balls-to-the-wall, no-fucks-given approach these days."

"That's actually part of the problem," Rey admitted. "We don't have anything to blow up. We're starting out almost from nothing. It's all about building."

"Yeah," Summer sighed a little, "and the building part is always the more difficult one, and not nearly as fun, either. And, hey, you know if you need help, I'm here for it. It's maybe not a lot, but when you've got almost nothing, even little stuff counts."

She offered a faint smirk. "Including the occasional wine night."

"Thanks," Rey said with a little, but entirely genuine smile. "There's always things that need doing, but you might want to wait until we're off the garbage planet."

"Garbage planet?" Summer smirked. "Rey. Honey. I'm from Earth. This is, like, one of the ultimate garbage planets.

"Is it Lotho Minor, though? Please tell me it's Lotho Minor."

Mainly because that was one she knew from her research, and she remembered there being another one, but she didn't remember that one's name, she mostly just remembered Lotho Minor because it was such a trash planet that it even had it's own garbage species.

"Anoat." It had trash creatures, though! "Why?"

"Anoat," Summer repeated, narrowing her eyes a little as she tried to recall what she knew about that one, and, when she didn't come up with much, realized that was sort of what she knew about it. "I guess that makes sense. Not a whole lot out that way, right?"

And then she shrugged a little with a faint grin. "And no reason, other than," her kind of wanted to flex some of her GFFA knowledge and make herself feel like she didn't just waste all that time studying and researching the place for, what, a couple month's worth of use?, "it sounds interesting. Like one of the rando planets my grampa would drag us into for some stupid adventure to find a ridiculous artifact or element or something..."

"I'm not sure I'd use 'interesting,' but you might find more value there than I do." She got to get her scavenger skills, but she wouldn't call that fun there.

And she tilted her head and asked, "How are things going on your end?"

Summer shrugged a little. "I mean, things are fine. Store's good, I love bartending, and my class is great, so, you know, no complaints there."

It was said, however, in that very particular drawl of a person who might actually want to complain, but it sounded like complaining about a perfect day, or something. But she missed Coruscant. She missed space. She missed being helpful and she missed being a part of something so much bigger than herself...And it was kind of weird to envy Rey for that, considering it was clearly hard for her.

"Last two weeks were actually pretty banger for me," she added with a faint grin, making that particular choice of word work overtime, "but some of the fun was kind of ruined by the fact that my grampa may have inserted a monitoring chip into me at some point in time. Or he could have just been making that all up to mess with me, and I do not know which of those situations is actually worse."

And she wasn't planning on saying anything about it at all, but who did you even tell something like that to? If not the person who was just way to calm about telling you about her powers gained from mindlinking with a person torturing her?

Especially since Summer, actually, seemed surprisingly chill about it all, too. Unless you paid attention to that drink and the subsequent reach for the pitcher.

"But," she added, as she refilled her glass, "we're not here to talk about me. I was told there were two very long stories, and, at least by my count, you being the last great Jedi savior of that known universe is just one."

"...We're coming back to that," Rey said, because what the hell.

"I didn't actually finish the first," she pointed out. "Because that person I got bonded with seems to have gotten in touch with me again for the first time in months on Wednesday. The other story was Duke, but we fixed that so there's not much there.".

No, it was okay. They really didn't have to. Summer really just said it just so she could say it to someone, because saying it allowed it to exist somewhere else than just her own head.

A good solid Rick rant might be pretty cathartic, too, though.

But Summer's lifted brows and widened eyes made it clear she was pretty invested in this right at the moment. "What did they say?"

A pause.

"The person you're bonded with," she clarified, "not Duke, although that we're coming back to because I am definitely interested to hear that, too. Besides, you can't, like, tease a story and then resolve it literally the next day and take it back. That's, like, total girl's night party foul."

Said the woman dropping fat info bombs and then attempting to flee the scene.

"Kylo Ren," she supplied. "He didn't say anything. It's possible I started it without realizing it? I have no idea. I shut down the connection before he could actually say anything."

But she didn't want him to. She didn't like what he had to say anymore.

"And this...bond," Summer guessed, "it's a Force thing, right?"

"Yeah. We didn't plan on it, didn't always do it on purpose, but now it seems to be something I'm stuck with." Mixed feelings on that.

"Well, that's...awkward," said Summer, who at first didn't really know what to say, because she usually had some sort of weird frame of reference for nearly anything anyone threw at her, but this one felt a bit...new.

So her next sip was particularly thoughtful, which apparently worked, because another thought struck her.

"Wait," she said, "does this happen only when you're back home? That shit doesn't reach you all the way out here, does it?"

"It hasn't happened here, but this is the first time it's happened at all since... everything," Rey said, frowning. And drinking. "I don't think it stops when I come here."

"And then," said Summer, blinking down into her glass a bit speculatively, "what is it? Like, do you try to figure out how to stop it? Do you just deal with it because it might be useful? Does it slowly make you go crazy?"

She took a gulp, and was wondering if she was just starting to finally feel it, or if she was just hit with good old inspiration.

"You know what you should do?" she proposed. "What you should do is, you should figure out if there's, like, some sort of Force sonic blast, and then work up your skills so you can amplify it, like a mental megaphone, and then next time he bugs you? Bam. You hit him with it."

"I'm trying to learn how to block him out. Which might help me in cases like last week, too," Rey said, tilting her head. "I don't think I can use it as a megaphone..."

Probably? She had no idea.

"I mean," Summer reasoned, "you're still learning, right? Who even knows what you might really be capable of. And then you won't even need to block him. You just Pavlov that shit out of him."

There was, however, a pause.

"Although...there is something inherently satisfying in just straight up blocking someone, and that's just, like, on Twitter and Facebook. But to get to do it IRL? That's badass."

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