Private Scrambled Eggs, Denon Style

[Yula Perl]

/ / D E N O N
\ \ Apartment

Yula had made it home first after the assault on Jedha, eager to get out of the blood-soaked fray that was Alliance territory and into something more familiar. The slums of Denon weren't much safter by comparison, but they'd become home.

Dagon had much more at stake on Jedha, more loose ends to tie up, more responsibilities that needed tending to. He'd come back in due time—another day, another week, a month maybe. Hopefully his next trip home wouldn't coincide with one of her expeditions to the old Bryn'adul Scar Worlds.

Her battle on the streets of New Jedha with The Mongrel had been harrowing. While she'd made good use of her arachnoid armor, extended handling took its toll on her. The intense neural integration that was required for her to properly pilot the exoskeleton left her with a sort of hangover that usually lasted a few days, if not a week. The later stages were easier to deal with—headaches, slow processing, brain fog, maybe a touch of nausea. It was the most immediate effect that was the hardest to deal with, the intense brain-scrambling that seemed to last for a full 24 hours. This is what Yula is experiencing in this exact moment.

You ever have a lapse in thinking and find yourself doing something stupid? Like pouring your coffee into the sink instead of your mug, only to pause and realize what you just did? Imagine that, but without the realization.

When the door opened, Yula didn't look up. She was affixed to the stove, pushing around a pair of socks in the frying pan.

"Oh good, you're home!" She drizzled a little bit of oil into the pan and the socks hissed and crackled when she turned them over with a spatula. "You can chop the carrots." Yula absently motioned to the dirty muffler sitting on the counter, looking as if it had been ripped directly from a speeder. The Zeltron blinked sleepily, impassively down at the stir-fry.

"Dinner's almost ready."

Dagon Kaze | Jem Fossk

 

[Dagon Kaze]

"... and uh-- Yula's cooking." he summarizes, tapping his finger on his chin. "You'd never guess how tasty her cookin' is, like with all that tibanna stains on her clothes and whatnot."

There's an idiom somewhere about this, ah yeah - eat your words. He's eating them, alright. Taste way better than a gourmet of yesterday's socks with a side of a jacked speeder's muffler. There she is, in all her glory, working that stove with all the wrong ingredients. Dag's face goes through red, to pale, back to red, and pale again.

He's come to embrace this rollercoaster of emotions, embarrassment and shock, and whatever, driven by a menial situation. There's some little flicker of happiness and tranquility to be taken from it, he's learned. To be out there constantly fighting the bad guys, saving the galaxy, you know all those business as usual things, it takes its toll and both know taking it back home meant turning their last haven into a living hell.

What's a humdrum to many becomes the most exciting experience to either.

"Don't. Say. A word." the Knight murmurs to his apprentice as he strides to take control of the kitchen that's turned into a garage sale.

"Heeey, baby, how about you go meet our guest, yeah? I'll take over." a light, sheepish chuckle escapes his lips as he drags the drugged up girlfriend away from the premise. Kitchen looks like a crime scene. Socks, mufflers, his favorite Huttaburger fan shirt, a gyro, some of her, well, lewd outfits, a pizza box, cuffs - real ones, airhead - and something that probably belonged to Emily. Oh man, oh man. A BEAUTIFUL MESS, amirite, you social media addicts?

Not the first time Dag's seen this before. That spider armor Yula donned to battle was a walking street corner dealer. Fries her brain something bad, somehow worse than the fried socks tanning on the pan. He takes on the duty to clean it all up and in this dull, day-to-day routine, he finds happiness and gratitude that both are alive another day.

Jem Fossk | Yula Perl

 

[Jem Fossk]

"Force," Jem breathed, the breathy protest lost to the sound of the sizzling pan.

The temple-raised girl stood like a fish out of water in that in that grease-stained mess of a kitchen. Gone were the serving platters and the menu listings. The walls felt like a cave and any hope for natural light was surely dead in water. It was a far cry different than home. All of this could be reasoned with, even embraced, if not for the fact that the woman was cooking socks.

She wanted to run. She could hear her brother's voice trying to talk her down.

This is the real world, Jem. Jedi aren't suppose to be material, remember? She could practically feel his phantom nudge on her arm. Her chest panged. She forced herself to refocus on the mess of a scene.

"Don't. Say. A word."

Jem jammed her mouth shut.

She felt a flush of sympathy for Dagon. She hadn't realized he was so poor... Or that he had a girlfriend. Her cheeks flushed a darker bronze as his hands brushed the woman's hips-- Jem looked away, only to find herself staring at lacy remains of something see through. Her eyes darted another direction, an uncomfortable squirm building up inside the war-torn padawan.

"Um."

 

[Yula Perl]

Before Dagon could pull her away from the stove, Yula turned heel and cracked three eggs into the sink, one right after another. Broken shell in hand, she stared at the trio of egg yokes against the stainless durasteel, watching as one slipped down the drain. The gears were spinning, and perhaps there was a moment where she was close to snapping out of it.

Then she turned right back around and added an extra handful of tibanna-greased screws to the pain. The stir-fry sizzled noxiously as Dagon gently but firmly guided her away from the mess.

"Heeey, baby, how about you go meet our guest, yeah? I'll take over."

"Are you sure?" She blinked dumbly, eye still hazy. "You don't know how to cook it on your own. Don't mess it up!"

At the mention of a guest, Yula swayed herself over to Jem. The girl looks severely out of place, out of sorts.

"Are you one of those street urchins Dag's been trying to rescue?"

Without forewarning, she prodded her ribs. "Must be, on account of you're so skinny." The lean muscle of a Jedi, even one as young as she, went unnoticed in her delirium. "We gotta put some meat on them bones!"

Dagon Kaze | Jem Fossk

 

[Jem Fossk]

Jem's hand snapped out, rapping across Yula's knuckles like a teacher's ruler. "Don't touch me," came the knee jerk response. Her nerves were raw from events Dagon had pulled them from, and the pink skin and unsettled look to Yula's eyes made her an object of mistrust.

Jem took a step away, perhaps worried that Yula was contagious.

"I'm not a street urchin, I'm a jedi." Or would be, one day, but she was proud and unbothered by semantics. "What kind of safe house is this? Are the other jedi here?" She spoke over the Zeltron's fried head, her back brushing into the door as she continued to try and keep her distance.

Emily burst forward from a little doggy hole, chattering in annoyance as she was forced to walk over Jem's bare foot. The girl yelped in sudden surprised and kicked, sending the spider droid whipping through the air.

Emily whirled in fury as she went.

 

[Dagon Kaze]

"Sure thing, babe!" he flips a thumbs up with the fakest, sheepish of grins before turning around to face the hell that awaits him, his face drops and he mutters, "dOnT mEsS iT uP, dAg... dontthinkicanifitried... look at this, can't even clean it up, it's all goin' to the trash... bUt dOnT mEsS iT uP, dAg... mY sPiDeR aRmOr'S tHe pInNacLe oF iNvEnTiOn... shouldthrowthatchitoutoo"

And he goes about it, the pettiness she's infected him with fades away, replaced by the clean-up job he's got to do. There goes half the kitchenware. Just bought a few weeks back. Because she needed this clearly overpriced pan sold by a scammer on the holo. What brief exchange Jem and Yula had drifted past his ears until a loud, familiar whistle takes his attention. Familiar cause he's done it a hundred times before. Step on that darn droid. Or, well, in Jem's case - kick it like a grav-ball.

And off Emily goes to the stars. First time that droid had crept up on him and startled the living hell outta him, he'd contained the instinct to do the same. But Jem's got a looser lid, it's always shoot first, ask questions later kinda vibe with her.

A sharp wave of his hand shuts the open window down and Emily's not gone with the wind into the trunk of a scav brooding the night streets. Maybe if they were in the high rises that wouldn't be a worry but setting up in the heart of the enemy wasn't the smartest of ideas. Maybe.

"...they're scattered or with the Prosperity." Dag replies as he ties the oversized trash bag. Good thing he's bought those. Tsk, always one step ahead of you, Pink. "And it's not a safe house, well... it's a semi-safe house."

"You see that cupboard there?... second drawer, there's a syringe. Get it and inject it in her thigh like I've taught you." they had a rough going on Chaldea, freezing and all that. "Will bring her back to her senses." he was busy tending to a burning kitchen.

Jem Fossk | Yula Perl

 

[Yula Perl]

"Ow!"

Yula withdrew her hand to her chest, cradling her stinging digits with a pout. What a mean urchin!

Then Emily came onto the scene, and the urchin had the nerve to kick the spider droid! In her own home, no less!

Fortunately, Dag had the quick reflexes to shut the window before Emily went careening into the alley below, and found herself a victim of the neighborhood children or hawking scrapper. Instead, she hit the wall with a solid thunk and thudded heavily to the ground before skittering back to Yula.

"Oh!" Yula gathered the frightened droid in her arms, bouncing her gently as she tried to soothe the anxious chitters. After a few moments of this, she turned her gaze onto Jem, the clarity of anger leaking through her haze.

"This is my home." She clarified with inebriated indignation. "And I want you out of it!" Her arm lashed out and pointed aggressively towards the door.

If Emily could snicker, she would.

Dagon Kaze Jem Fossk

 

[Jem Fossk]

"Looking more like a half-way house if you ask me," Jem grumbled, ignoring the jabbing finger and ducking under Yula's arm for the cupboard. Second draw down, second draw-- her own tired brain opened the first before catching itself and moving down. She didn't relish the thought of injecting another. There was something about non ferrerro's flesh, far too soft and pliabl--

She didn't allow herself to think about it. The droid chattered menacingly as her fingers struck a syringe. She let out a slow breath... then surged onto Yula.

She flowed to the left, avoiding a flail of surprise as the girl closed into the Zeltron's personal space. It was all she needed to access the druggie's meaty inner thigh. The content of the needle dispensed with a hiss.

Jem let the all drop to the ground with a hallow clatter, the tall girl withdrawing to straighten the shredded edges of her temple garb. Jem smelt as bad as she looked, a fact which caught her crinkling nose.

"I'm not leaving," she protested, drawing closer to Dagon as he tied off the bag. "He's my master. Where he goes, I go."

Woof, or maybe she had gotten a wiff of that trash.

 

[Dagon Kaze]

It's less than three minutes in with these two and he's hit with an incurable migraine hammering his head like there's no tomorrow. The kitchen's on fire, fried socks, spark plugs and fuseboxes littering the area and then there's a drugged up Perl already trying to get an equally stubborn Gaelor out of the house.

Three minutes, folks. Radiation doesn't kill you as fast.

He hurls the bin bag down the trash chute, the clattering of it down the shaft was like music to his ears compared to the two girls going at each other's throats over... over what? Literally nothing. Like, literally.

The Knight walks in on the two just when Jem mentions their relationship and he recalls he hasn't told Yula anything about that. Whoops.

"I am." he reaffirms, then sheepishly chuckles, "Uh, Jem's gonna have to stay with us for a few days, babe. Maybe a week before I find, uh, a place for her. Since, y'know, we ain't really packing an estate here." he gestures around the room.

Dag wasn't asking.

Jem Fossk | Yula Perl

 

[Jem Fossk]

A few days? A week? Just like that her life line had been cast off. Her sharp expression softened, wide eyes watching Dagon's every movement in alarm.

He wouldn't-- he had promised. She didn't want to go anywhere else. She wasn't ready to face her peers, even if it meant dealing with fried socks and druggies.

She didn't express any of this panic, but for the first time in her life her chest tightened around her wind pipe and made it impossible to breathe. A panic attack-- yes, that was probably normal after watching your peers die-- but she did not have the words for it.

Lately she found it hard to have words at all.

Those alarmed eyes turned onto the Zeltron's, holding back the terror with a defiant tilt of her chin. She wasn't going anywhere. Tonight.

 

[Yula Perl]

Jem was too fast and Yula was too slow. A quick yelp when the stim was jabbed into her thigh, and she wilted onto the couch.

The effects on her cognition were almost immediate—the haze began to lift, and Yula was becoming more lucid by the second. After a full minute, the loopy high was replaced with a pounding headache. Yula squinted, rubbing her temples and trying to catch up.

Her Master? Her staying here?....estate???

Then their eyes met, and Yula's Zeltron empathy surged all at once. Instinct latched on to Jem's panic as it wafted through the air like an esoteric perfume, and she saw the girl in a slightly different light. Shaken from battle, scared that she'd be chucked into the trash chute by her Master. Yula didn't know how these types of relationships were supposed to work—aside from her own severely limited experience—but she began to understand that there was more going on here.

The aftermath of Jedha, if you will.

"Shower's that way." Her gaze shifted from Jem as she tilted her chin in the direction of the refresher. No way was she turning the kid out into the cold, she was just pissed that Dagon had neglected to mention that he'd taken on a student, or that said student would be living here. Honestly, no text?

Whether Jem moved or not, she'd address Dagon plainly, something the Padawan would have to get used to sooner or later.

"She can sleep on the couch." Yula's decision was firm. "You can sleep on the floor."

"And the next time either of you thinks to insult my home, remember who pays the fething rent. I set up shop on Denon long before the Alliance took interest in this chithole."

She yanked her datapad angrily out from between the couch cushions and brought up Huttaburger's menu.


Jem Fossk | Dagon Kaze

 

[Dagon Kaze]

He couldn't catch Jem's troubled gaze at his words, the exhaustion's been piling on and on again. What should've been a simple walk through the door, sit and eat had turned into a nightmare of a cleaning job, followed by the announcement that he'd be on floor duty. That made him think that it was high time he found a place for his day-n-night investigations. Dag's been using the living room for that but even before Jem it had its limitations. There's at least a dozen instances where he's caught Emily nearly formatting his memory banks - months of investigation almost erased. Don't get him started on evidence storage. He's got a mere drawer in the garage out of walls full of Yula's junk.

Ryv's End of the Road bar at the Suicide Slums was something worth considering.

"Hey, what the hell'd I do?" he spreads his arms but knows the defence won't hold, sighing he then murmurs, "Nevermind... let's have a bowl of cereal for now, Jem, and tell Yula what you want from Hutta before you hit the shower. Wardrobe in the hall has clean towels."

"...get something expensive - like the triple-decker - since she's actin' so rich." the Jedi adds, whispering to his apprentice.​

Jem Fossk | Yula Perl

 

[Jem Fossk]

Air rushed back to her lungs. Jem nodded, but it hardly seemed noticed as the two dissolved into quips. Their nature was familiar, it made her chest ached as she realized it would be her fourth night without seeing her brother.

It was the longest they had ever gone and there was no one to blame but her. She would fix that, starting with a message after she bathed.

Jem closed the draw, a strained smile hitting her lips as Dagon whispered her way.

"With a milkshake," she uttered, loud enough for the woman to hear, though something told her Yula had heard all along. She squeezed past Dagon and set for the shower, eager to both escape further fall out and deny Yula a chance to change her mind. She left them to their bicker, her voice calling out one last time,

"And fries."

The shower turned on. The war- stained clothes were peeled off. Jem leaned against the dewy stall and let the heat wash it all away.

we will burn each planet in our wake

Her eyes jerked back open.

 

[Yula Perl]

Yula massaged either side of her temples, then pinched the space between her brows. The headache was coming on strong, and the situation at hand was helping it along.

"Wish you had just told me Dag, is all. How hard is it to send a text?" Her muttering would be loud enough to hear over the hiss of the shower. In a few minutes, the humidity in the room would build from steam. Not the worst thing, given the dry air from the season's turning. She picked her gaze back up, adding a few more items to her cart before the green eye settled on Dagon.

"You...doing okay? Jedha was pretty rough." She rubbed at her eye with the heel of her palm. "Man, I keep getting buried in sinkholes, or under buildings…" She grumbled her way through the order, tapping the chocolate milkshake icon once—then two more times, almost aggressively.

"She looks like hell, by the way." From the couch, Yula gestured toward the refresher door with a nod of her head. "What happened to her?"

Once Confirm Order was pressed, she dropped the datapad in her lap and sighed hard enough for her shoulders to sag. Of course tensions would be high after that hell, and would take a second or two to wane in the aftermath. As she watched Dagon pull one of the only clean bowls from the cabinet, a tired smile tugged the corners of her mouth. Some things never change, thank the Force.

"Bring that cereal over here. I missed you."

Dagon Kaze | Jem Fossk

 

[Dagon Kaze]

"Wish you had just told me Dag, is all. How hard is it to send a text?" Her muttering would be loud enough to hear over the hiss of the shower. In a few minutes, the humidity in the room would build from steam. Not the worst thing, given the dry air from the season's turning. She picked her gaze back up, adding a few more items to her cart before the green eye settled on Dagon.

Yula's words remained unheard as Dag's eyes remain lingering over Jem's departing form, concern drawn in his irises. Had he bitten more than he can chew? Wouldn't be the first time, no, but somehow the raven-haired Jedi had always managed. This time, though, the worry, the uncertainty built up from Coruscant crept through his psyche plaguing his otherwise infallible hope. The two weren't that different and while the first time he'd stepped on Coruscant - a child with no parents and a lost brother - his eyes had been filled with belief when he had stared up the imposing form of the Jedi Temple. His face-off with destiny, fate, or whatever you wanna call it, had come later on in life. A little more prepared than Jem, a little more ready; not that it had been enough but still.

That inch felt like a mile.

"You...doing okay? Jedha was pretty rough." She rubbed at her eye with the heel of her palm. "Man, I keep getting buried in sinkholes, or under buildings…" She grumbled her way through the order, tapping the chocolate milkshake icon once—then two more times, almost aggressively.

"Huh?" Dag blinks, Yula's voice dragging him back to the present and he exhales a long-kept sigh. He turns heel towards the kitchen (previously warzone) to get three bowls of cereal ready, to keep his mind busy; if he could've drawn up a crime board right now, he would've. "You ever have one of those weeks where it feels like everything you do only makes things worse?"

All the time was the response he's expecting even when the question's rhetorical. Not unlike him, Yula's own predicaments with her family have come to haunt her, guilt weighing down on her shoulders despite the carefree, all-is-well, let's drink grins she draws on her pretty, pink face.

"She looks like hell, by the way." From the couch, Yula gestured toward the refresher door with a nod of her head. "What happened to her?"

Once Confirm Order was pressed, she dropped the datapad in her lap and sighed hard enough for her shoulders to sag. Of course tensions would be high after that hell, and would take a second or two to wane in the aftermath. As she watched Dagon pull one of the only clean bowls from the cabinet, a tired smile tugged the corners of her mouth. Some things never change, thank the Force.

"Bring that cereal over here. I missed you."

He reluctantly hangs his leather jacket on the hanger, revealing the bandages were not limited only to his fists and forearms - they went all the away beneath his t-shirt, enveloping his chest like a mummy. It's way more than the business-as-usual. The mosaic of scars had grown substantially since their last encounter. He says nothing, like always, and brings the bowls of cereals to his favorite couch. Yula gets her share and Jem's bowl is set on the coffee table.

Lingering over her sprawled-out form, Dag basks in the warmth of seeing the one he loves again. A thin smile tugs his lips. The tension confining him in a titan's grip lifts off, departing away, as the pleasant and so-needed feeling of lying down next to her envelops him. Just like on Coruscant, when she had washed away the worst from his soul in her tender embrace.

"I missed you too, pink."

He nestles in next to her, as closest as he can, then gladly focuses on the cereal. His mind's a blank slate, fixated on the cereal, but only for a few moments before her earlier question comes back to his attention.

"She's--" Dag starts after setting the quickly devoured cereal bowl on the coffee table and slumping back on the couch. Where does he even start? "-- been through too much, too soon. More than anyone can take..." fighting to save Chaldea from apocalypse seemed to pale in comparison to everything else the teenager had gone through.

He hesitates for a while before continuing, "...look, remember when we'd, uh, tell each other everything?" his eyes drift to meet hers, uncertain of how she'd react to what he's divulging next, "She's, uh, Solipsis' daughter, Yula."

Quickly, he continues, "I-I need to protect her, no, uh, need to teach her to protect herself when the inevitable comes. I know what I am stepping into, pink but I've got to do it. It's my responsibility as a Jed--" he stops, knowing duty shouldn't be brought anywhere near this conversation with her, "--as a... me. And Denon's one of the best places to blend in with the crowd, low profile, for a while. Aeris Lashiec is her brother's mentor, she'll keep him safe, I know, I trust Aeris with my life."

"When the heat drops a little, we'll move between here and the Prosperity. Few of the Jedi left there can teach her things I can't but she can't stay there all the time, too. Every Jedi's a target. Everywhere." Darth Solipsis had proven that countless times, countless deaths.

"...and I'm not risking it anymore - being played a number like Coruscant again."

The thought of following in Black Mynock 's steps and concealing his identity sprung to life once more.

Jem Fossk Yula Perl
​

 

[Yula Perl]

"You ever have one of those weeks where it feels like everything you do only makes things worse?"

"You ever have a week where everything you do goes right?" It was always one crisis after another, part of the reason why Yula's anger fizzed like a cheap firecracker. She'd been caught off guard, brain scrambled, and some things weren't worth arguing over in the end. Besides, it seemed like there was a lot more going on beneath the surface.

She starts in on the cereal, slowly because her stomach's still turning from the stim.

"...look, remember when we'd, uh, tell each other everything?" his eyes drift to meet hers, uncertain of how she'd react to what he's divulging next, "She's, uh, Solipsis' daughter, Yula."

Her spoon hit the bowl's rim in a dramatic clatter, and Yula stared dumbfounded at Dagon. "Yo—wha—" Before she could form a coherent thought, he anticipated her reaction and swiftly went on. At some point the spoon found her hand again, and she eyed him while carefully sipping from her ladle of milk.

It was a lot to take in. An apprentice, one that was staying here. One that kicked Emily. One that was a child of the now notoriously deceitful and powerful Darth Solipsis. One that was afraid of being abandoned, who was currently using her shower. One that was similar to Dagon, and who he'd apparently made his mind up about.

"Dag…you sure? About this?" Her voice wasn't gentle, but it wasn't harsh either. "Taking on a student is a big responsibility, Jedi or not." Yula crunched her way through a bite of cereal and wondered when she started sounding like her mother. A long while ago, for a short period of time that existed as a blur, she'd been a Jedi apprentice. "The bond between Master and Padawan is…" She dug her spoon into her breakfast for dinner and shook her head. "You'd know way better than me what that's like. Point is—Jem seemed scared back there, an' I can imagine she's got a lot to be scared about. Do you think you can support her through it?"

The cereal was beginning to get soggy and had lost its appeal to Yula's sensitive stomach. Placing the bowl back on the coffee table, she curled her way against Dagon, head on his chest. The warmth and rhythmic thud of his heartbeat were a soothing reminder that he was still alive. The bandages winding around his hands and arms, even his chest—those were less of a comfort. "Did you tell her yet? About your…family."

Poor kid. Did she have his voice in her head too? That wasn't how it worked…or was it? Dagon's father had literally haunted him a specter because he was de—

Yula's chest tightened as her idle thoughts came to an abrupt end. Dagon's father was dead by the hand of Yula's mother. She never learned why—how do you broach that subject with your ma?

She shifted her head up from where it was nestled against his chest, gazing at him almost sleepily.

"You know you're family to me, right Dag?"

Dagon Kaze | Jem Fossk

 

[Dagon Kaze]

The minuscule pause and faint pursing of lips when she mentioned the bond between Master and Apprentice only slightly raised his eyebrow. Too tired to find anything out of the ordinary, too concerned over Jem... well, everything, to press on it, the oddity would remain stored in his memory banks for later use at some point. Spending most of his life as an unsanctioned detective meant catching every little hiccup.

"You'd know way better than me what that's like. Point is—Jem seemed scared back there, an' I can imagine she's got a lot to be scared about. Do you think you can support her through it?"

"I've gotta try, pink. I don't want her to go through that hell alone--"

Did Dag really know what that bond's like, though? He and his official master Asmundr had surely developed some sort of bond but they were only occasionally paired together. Most of the New Jedi didn't even have that. And Ryv? The one who'd taught him all about crime-fighting? It had developed more into a brotherly relationship than anything else. This bond, Master and Apprentice, was unchartered territory. An ocean at night.

"Did you tell her yet? About your…family."

She'd know the answer to the question by the sudden skip of his heartbeat at the mention. Dag had said zilch about his own quite similar predicaments. Why? He frankly did not know. Perhaps it was his psyche locking all that down and away from the forefront of his mind. A defensive measure, if you will. There was no rational reason to withhold that information from Jem. He was her ward, in a sense.

"I... uh, probably should..."

She shifted her head up from where it was nestled against his chest, gazing at him almost sleepily.

"You know you're family to me, right Dag?"

That caught him unprepared. The significance of it came through like a flurry of distorted meanings and concepts. His heart skipped a beat again, but not in a pang of worry. Locking gazes with her, a soft smile crosses his lips, "I know." he says, fingers squeezing her tight and letting his eyes speak what could not be formed in words.

The sudden stop of the shower in the background titled his eyes away, "Uh, we didn't fix that thing where--" a clatter answered his unfinished question as the shower head came crashing down on Jem.

Ouch.

Jem Fossk Yula Perl
​

 

[Jem Fossk]

Sith spit.




Jem emerged from the washroom, one hand clutching her forehead and the other holding up the waist band of Yula's dirty sweats. The girl was a far bit thinner than the zeltron, causing the stolen wear to droop on her curveless frame. At least it wasn't covered in grime or blood. Same could be said for the baggy t she had swiped up with it.

Her grumpiness was tangible as she wordlessly folded herself onto the floor. Her hand left her forehead, revealing the healing remains of a fresh gash. It already looked a day old. Jem forgot about it entirely as she reached for the data pad. No please or may I was uttered. Whats mine is yours had been a tenant of her temple upbringing.

She logged Yula off her sms and signed herself in. Saan'an profile pulled up as offline. Her brows furrowed. She refreshed it again.

"I think your holonet's broken."

She glanced up at the cuddling pair, blushed, and looked away again.

"Refresher too."

 

[Yula Perl]

Yula's jaw loosened in surprise.

"I think your holonet's broken."

"I can name another thing that's about to be broken…"

The relaxing moment between Yula and Dagon dissolved with the entrance of Jem, or at least it did on the Zeltron's end. The datapad jerked suddenly, flying out of Jem's grasp and into Yula's waiting hands. She whipped a glare at Dagon, a single green eye reflecting the unsaid; it was a language he was fluent in by now.

"Refresher too."

"Then you can help me fix it tomorrow."

They'd been lazy in getting around to that. Who had the time? It wasn't a critical repair, but it would be a good skill for Jem to learn. Also, free labor.

The doorbell chimed, signaling the delivery of their Huttaburger order. Yula sighed heavily, rubbing up and down the left side of her face with her whole hand. Was the girl wearing her dirty clothes...? Ugh, nevermind.

"But first, apologize to Emily for kicking her." The little spider droid had crawled her way onto the top of the couch, lording herself over Jem with smug beeps. "Else I drink your milkshake."

Jem Fossk Dagon Kaze

 

[Jem Fossk]

Jem's lips parted in wordless protest, her empty fingers flexing for the data pad.

Dagon would find two sets of eyes on him, one glaring and the other imploring with silence indignation-- what the hell was wrong with this woman. Was she an only child? The doorbell rang, granting Dagon an out as Yula continued.

"But first, apologize to Emily for kicking her."

Jem's confusion stretched on, until she realized Emily was the sing-songy spider preening over her. Her nose crinkled at once. "You want me to apologize to a droid?"

That'd be a yes.

'You're crazy,' Jem wanted to explode, but that would surely get her kicked all over again. Jem's shoulders condensed inwards, resembling a soda can sucked out of an airlock. "Fine," she grumbled, glowering back at Emily. "Sorry."

No, she wasn't.

She wouldn't look at either as Dagon returned, her attention focusing solely on the grease- smeared bags he brought in hand. Hers crinkled as she stretched up for it, many hands unloading and delegating the fries back into their baskets.

Jem stole one from Dag's as she brooded, the tension thickening.

“Is home ...ever going to be safe again?” She glanced up then, the real question lingering unspoken. Was this really her life now?