somethingwithturquoise | Syndulla Scrap, then Parts Beyond; Tuesday Evening [08/18].

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Syndulla Scrap, then Parts Beyond; Tuesday Evening [08/18].

Even though she knew everything was fine, Summer was a little tempted to get to the scrapyard early and fiddle with the ship before things got started for her daaaate, but, on the other hand, she did not turned her bedroom into a warzone of rejected outfits (which were surely now collecting enough cat hair to knit a sweater as Pancakes inevitably assumed all those clothes were strewn about specifically for her to sleep on) until settling on something seemingly effortless just to risk messing it up. She also thought about being 'fashionably late' andm making Barry wait for her at the ship, but, ugh, no, did we really want to be that person? So she got there early enough to just check some of the basic diagnositics (especially with the new power source) and got her started to warm her up, reminding herself of what Rey had said about her overthinking it.

So she figured she might as well just delve into the most mindless thing possible to counterbalance it by scrolling through Instagram for potential shot ideas for this apparent Girls Night Out that was going on tomorrow.

If there wasn't at least some karaoke involved, she was going to be so disappointed in this generation (which was still technically also pretty much her own generation, but shhhh).

[[ for that guy! ]]

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"Thanks," said Summer, with a grin, as she set to taking care of a few conveniently vague things she needed to do for said re-entry. "I appreciate the concern for us not freezing to death."

"Well, I figure surviving the first date is a key component to maybe getting to a second date," Barry said now venturing his line of vision to actually look at Summer. "And you know. Honesty too."

And that line of vision would catch Summer with a soft, warm smile on her face, despite not feeling the same appreciation for the convenient distraction of focusing on actually flying the giant piece of speeding metal they were in through an atmosphere as she might have before.

"Are you saying you think you might want to get together and do this again, Barry?"

Then her eyes rolled. "Well, not...this, necessarily. But, you know..." She shook her head. "You know what I mean."

So she couldn't pull off a smooth re-entry and a smooth line simultaniously; shoot her.

“Well as long as we make it to the ground safely and there’s mutual interest...”

Both things would be very important.

"Well, the mutual interest part's pretty much covered," said Summer, who realized biting her lip against her grin at this point was pointless, so she other bothered trying for a second, "so we're good there. Getting to the ground safely? I guess we're about to find out."

Whatever, she was totally going to nail it.

....oh, god, she hoped she nailed it.

“Don’t worry, it’s just both our fucking lives in your hands,” Barry teased. “Should I stop being distracting now so you can land?”

Yeah, he should probably do that.

"I think that would require you to evacuate," snorted Summer before throwing over a sweet smile. "There's some parachutes back in the cargo hold."

“Oh? Well if you get to live then hit the fucking ejection button and blow me out the airlock,” Barry said fluttering his eye lashes for amusement’s sake. “I’d hate for my fucking charm and sophistication to be the death of both of us.”

He did however take the time to check the instruments to make sure there were no atmospheric surprises coming up.

There weren't, thankfully. Everything was running just as it should, or would be expected, because this was all incredibly routine.

"I think can klmanage to keep you inside the shop for now," Summer snorted, before shifting her attention into actually getting them down. Sure, she'd landed this thing in much more trying conditions than under the attention of a cute guy that she liked, but this demanded per.fect.tion, dammit.

Which wasn't even that hard. It was practically like parking a car. Especially since Summer had actually had way more experience parking ships than even driving cars.

There may have been a little extra showboating involved, though, which was obviously just to give Barry the most of a bird's eye view of the planet before finding a good spot with a wide open hilly meadow at the base of large mountain range, a waterfall tumbling from the towering, cloud-clung heights into a serene lake already starting to catch the first glint of the promised sunset. The arrival of the ship caused a surprised flock of blue and yellow birds to expertly reroute their course away from this ubexpected intruder to their skies, while the large blobs of wild native animals grazed in a far-off field.

And the ship settled quietly, easily, smoothly among the wildflowers. Yeah, maybe throw some blaster bolts at her next time for an actual challenge.

On second thought, maybe don't.

"And we're here!" Summer announced eagerly, unwrapping herself and initiating a brief cool down. "Let's eat!"

Barry needed a moment here, Summer. He was looking out the window at the world in front of them with a smiled and a look of disbelief. “Fuuuuuuuuuuuuck,” he said appreciatively. “You weren’t shitting with me about this place.”

Okay. Moment over. He pulled himself away from his chair because you didn’t go through multiple portals just to sit in a ship for the view. He looked around the cabin and grabbed a blanket and the bag of food. “How did you hear about this place?”

Summer took a moment herself, not to appreciate the view, but the fact that she'd scored another point for being impressive, and the eager quickening in her chest over it, too.

"Oh, you know," she said, with a casual shrug that didn't quite match her pleased tone, as she got up to join Barry, "just some general planet hopping, cross-referenced with Grampa Rick's databases. I used to do a lot of that with my old ship."

And, since it was, like, totally gauche to talk about past relationships on a first date, she moved on from that as they moved on out.

"Pick a spot," she suggested, "and while you do that, it's my turn to ask some questions. Like, you said you were thinking of teaching, right? You going to go for it?"

"Fuck, yeah," Barry replied as he survey the area around them and made mental calculations on the current trajectory of the sun, the height of the mountains and the proper angle to view the upcoming sunset in order to pick out the best position to view it.

He also took into account the distance from the picnic site to the spaceship in case the temperature dip was faster than he thought it would be.

Safety first after all.

"I registered for a class as soon as they opened it up," he said unfolding and unfurling the blanket on the ground. "Full lesson plan done and fucking done. What about you? Are you going to teach next semester?"

"Oh, definitely," said Summer. "You think I could handle only two job? So, unless the moose fucks it up, I'll be next semester's Multiverse Economics teacher, since that's, you know, kind of my jam."

One of many jams, really.

And if it just sounded like a fancy excuse for shopping, then that was legit and absolutely what it was. Look, one of her mentors once had a class blatantly called 'An Excuse for Field Trips.' She learned from the best.

Is there anything that isn't your jam, Summer?

"Focusing on multiversal import and exports? That's a fucking complicated subject," Barry said starting to lay out the food. "Are you going to talk about Adam Smith and the invisible hand of the economy? The Dahrendorf hypothesis?"

Okay, Barry might have missed the fact that it could be related to just shopping.

And Summer was going to take a moment after settling in on the blanket to just look at Barry and wonder in mild amusement where the levels of his complete and utter nerdiness stopped, but he had mentioned those corporations that probably put her businesses to shame, so she could forgive it, it was actually kind of cute on him.

Or he was just cute, whatever.

"Dude," she said, "I only took one summer semester of business courses at community college to make my mom happy, I'm just teaching from the school of experience."

And shopping.

But maybe she might actually look those things up. And feel suddenly woefully inadequate.

"What about you? What sort of brainiac thing are you going to foist upon these poor, unsuspecting students?"

"Well I think that the best way to learn is immersion," Barry said with a mischievous grin. "So in the time honored tradition of teachers fucking with the minds of their students? The first day i'm turning them all into motherfucking dinosaurs. Not their minds, so they'll still be able to think and talk but what better fucking way to understand what dinosaurs are but to get the experience of being in their skin? I'll put some inhibitors on them so they don't go into a fucking rage or eat anybody's pet but yeah... that's one fucking example."

You could probably tell by the amount of swearing that Barry was really into this.

"And of course they'll hang out in space. Go inside a computer. That kind of stuff. So no, they wont be fucking around with turning liquids into other colors or other bullshit, I mean full on motherfucking jump in and feel what it means to be in the shit. Right?"

"I did a class like that once!" Summer said brightly, now digging into the bags for their food. "Based on some of my experiences around the multiverse!"

So it was definitely a whole experience.

"I never did anything with dinosaurs, and probably not anything too much like what you're planning, except the time I recreated the amusement park my grampa built inside of a giant homeless guy that one Christmas."

It was disgusting AND educational!

Barry threw his hands up in there in excitment and then pointed both fingers at Summer. Yes! Someone understood this!

"Exactly! I was going to have them take a field trip to a volunteer's brain!" he said cheerfully. "Wait... he was building a fucking amusement park in someone's body?"

...

"Fuck. That's impressive as long but you'd have to figure out how suppress the immune system without-"

He shook his head. "You know what? No talk about body parts and compromised immune systems while we're eating. Still, I like the fucking idea of the amusement park. You still have that simulation for the Danger Shop? Not for class but a fun ride through the blood stream would be awesome."

"It better fucking still be there," snorted Summer, digging into the middle dish she'd gotten and absolutely not forgetting that there were practically finger guns at the start of that, Barry. "That program took a lot of work! Grandpa's plans were very detailed."

It was still her most proudest OCD moment, too.

"Don't take it personally, though," she added, "but I don't think I want to spend our next date inside a simulated homeless guy."

She felt it wouldn't hurt to at least put that out there.

Barry laughed and waved his arm towards the beautiful vista in front of them. "Yeah, because making that a second date is going to top this one," Barry said rolling his eyes in amusement. "Seriously, Summer. You set the bar way high on this one. If you're putting me in charge of the second date I'm afraid I'm going to disappoint you."

And was there a trace of worry in Barry's expression? Fuck yeah, there was.

Seriously. How was he going to beat this? Time travel? Fuck. This is going to be a tough one.

"Oh," Summer said with a small laugh and a tone of firm conviction, "you're definitely in charge of the second date!"

You think she was going to go through all that planning and flailing and more flailing all over again? He could handle a little sweat himself.

But then her smile softened at him. "But I don't think you have anything to worry about."

There was a beat, then that smile went smug and cocky, and excuse her for preening just a bit.

"I know I'm a hard act to follow."

"Fuck. Tell me about it," Barry said running his hand over his head. "But I am a guy with a 350+ IQ. I should be able to figure something out."

He laughed but it ended in a nervous chuckle that he tried to hide with food. "This hummus is fucking amazing. Have you ever made a hummus jello shot?"

Is that a poor attempt to change the conversation?

"How did you get so wrapped up in.... um.... exotic jello shots anyway?"

Yep. It was.

It wasn't a poor attempt to change the conversation, because it wasn't as if Summer would ever mind talking about it, but it was a poor attempt to conceal the attempt as so obvious. Summer was willing to allow it, though only after she basked a little over him maybe sweating more than a little about it already.

"I haven't," she admitted, regarding the hummus, "but now I am so going to try."

And then she was off.

"Okay, so," she started, "I don't remember, like, all the details? But I'm pretty sure it started in a class. Either Steeeeve Rogers made a joke, or I brought one as a joke, but there was something in class with a picnic, I don't even know why, but, anyway, there clearly had to be a horrible jello mold if there was going to be a picnic, right? And Steeeeeve got so thrilled about it that," she clung onto it desperately to fulfil the desperate need for approval from a strong male role model, "that I kept having to do it, right? And then Kanan tried some, and," again, with the approval, "and he would seriously eat practically anything, and so now I had a challenge to see if I could make a jello that Kanan wouldn't eat. And then Dr. Lecter," what was that about approval again, "my cooking teacher was really supportive and approving of my exploration of the art of aspic, too, and so now it's just become such a thing," or a desperate need to have something distinctive and memorable about herself in the eyes of others, "that I really can't just stop and disappoint all my fans. Plus, it was actually really popular in space; aliens loved that shit."

Edited 2020-08-20 21:17 (UTC)

“Really? In my dimension aliens are usually anthropologists or the alien equivalent of cow-tippers with humans. Both of which were way to into using anal probes for testing,” Barry said shifting his position slightly. “It wasn’t until I got here that I met aliens who were actually nice and for some reason looked human.”

An interesting moment to have to shift there, Barry. One of Summer's brows lifted slightly.

"This was definitely one of those dimensions where aliens were nice and looked mostly human," she said, "but I'm sure a lot of the reasons for that a bunch of deep systemic specisism by the total douchenozzles in charge.. Aliens in my dimension tend to be a pretty mixed bag, but, I mean, none of them really bothered much with Earth until the whole Galactic Federation thing, with a few exceptions. Like when Cromulons decided to pick it for their whole weird American Idol-but-with-blowing-up-planets rip-off."

Syndulla Scrap, then Parts Beyond; Tuesday Evening [08/18].

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