Private Rinse and Repeat

[Jem Fossk]

Denon
Perl/Kaze Safehouse

There was something surreal about sitting on her breakfast stool after half a year of thinking this was it. The world was going to end, her father would win, and one way or another she was going to lose everything.

But here she was. Home.

Jem felt both small and somehow safe inside the rickety Denon townhouse she thought she would never see again. The dimly lit kitchen smelt distinctly of musk and mechanical oil. The smells had sunk so deep into the peeling wallpaper no amount of candles or polluted Denon air could clear it out. She took a deep breath and sunk into her favorite squeaky bar stool, a bowl of Yula's off-brand Spacios lighting up her mouth. For the first time in half a year, everything inside of her was quiet.


Footsteps creaked up above in the attic. The small, cramped surface with a pitched ceiling was going to be her room. Yula had told her that with a large hug. Jem wanted to tell her that wasn't necessary, she would be fine with her couch, but she just hugged the woman back instead. It was as close to an apology as Jem could get.

Lighter footsteps came in from behind. Jem had only spoken to her replacement a few times but she already knew the sound his approach. She hunched deeper into her bowl, her new leather jacket stiff on her back as she focused on her cereal.

A cloying sense of guilt managed to dampen the sugary taste.

Corin Trenor

 

[Corin Trenor]

On a bleary-eyed approach, Corin held a bowl of blue milk and some gutter-brand cereal to his mouth. Munching on it obnoxiously loud and lazily as he wandered towards the inhabited kitchen counter without so much as a second thought as to who sat there. It became his home, this little safehouse... townhouse, whatever it was. Den, even. Jedi duties had him elsewhere for some time now, he figured, and even then... his vigilante partnership seemed to dwindle with Dagon as he took off on his own in that aspect.

Two people could only spend so much time together.

"Congratulations on escaping rehabilitation hell," he remarked with another mouthful, eyes not so much as bothering to find her and instead settling over the pantry. "What comes next?"

Corin turned his head over his shoulder, an eyebrow raised.

Jem Fossk

 

[Jem Fossk]

The million credit question.

She shrugged, chewing a few times before finally looking up to catch his awaiting gaze. She pursed her lips and struggled to figure out what to make of him. Things were suppose to go back to the way they were before, so where did he fit in?

And how did that affect her?

"...You give me that shirt back, for starters." The ratty, unisex tee hadn't even been hers in the first place, but that hardly mattered here. He had been the one piece of this equation she had ignored. Maybe it had hurt too much, or maybe it had just scared her. Either way, she couldn't let it affect her like she did in the past.

She had to be better than that.

She forced herself to shrug and look down at her bowl. "But I guess, I dunno, I start helping again."

Corin Trenor

 

[Corin Trenor]

With puzzled eyes cast down and over the shirt, his filled mouth opened again.

"It's all yours next wash cycle." Corin explained dismissively between munches.

He faced Jem and took to realising he hardly thought of her since their departure, or maybe hardly had the time to think of her instead. It didn't matter all that much either way, he mused between the second, the Jedi seemed more vigilante as of late and the latter of the two had been more likely to be a bad influence. Corin felt his sour nature was of no aid to her, unless what Jem needed in the end was a couple of harsh words and an outlet for some mild violence.

Seemed to suit him just fine, he noted. Even if his flurry of unbecoming words, fists, and kicks came under the cover of night and a mask.

Enough of Denon.

"Well," he sighed with the momentary tilt of his head, "Still got the Maw creeping in their corridoor, if you're up for that yet. Either way, I'm sure Dagon has more than a few good-natured missions for someone looking to be better."

He flashed a smile. Came with no more than a soft upturn at the corner of his closed mouth.

Jem Fossk

 

[Jem Fossk]

"I am better," she countered, her matter of fact continence softer spoken than it had been in the past.

Was she really up for facing down the sith? Just this morning she would have said no, but maybe tomorrow... well maybe tomorrow it might be a yes. She was here, wasn't she?

She was doing the impossible.

She looked back down to her bowl and shoveled another bite in, her brows furrowed. "...Listen... what I did to you..." she started, then stopped. Valery said it would be best if they made amends and tried to move on as a team, but now she could barley move her tongue out of the way enough to swallow back her cereal. She shook her head, chickening out.

"I wasn't myself."

 

[Corin Trenor]

"It's fine."

He chimed in without so much as a second thought as to whether it really was. It didn't seem to matter, and neither had the Padawan come to care all that much. Maybe there was insight he found somewhere along the road, from the sixty-ninth day to now. Either way, Corin shrugged his shoulders with a dismissive wave from a hand that once held onto a spoon.

"I got a mean scar out of it anyways," Corin casually remarked and raised his shirt, the thick bump of raised skin the width of a blade clearly visible across his abdomen. "Looks pretty cool to me." He said with a smile, and returned to his breakfast.

And a second went by, then another, followed by a swallow.

"For what it's worth," he struggled to say with some hesitation, "I'm sorry, too. I wasn't as understanding as I should've been."

Jem Fossk

 

[Darth Daiara]

awkward

 

[Jem Fossk]

Jem managed a stiff shrug, her eyes lingering on the covered presence of that scar. "...Yeah, well," she croaked, her voice thick. It was easy to second guess a sith? She had deserved it? She could have talked. A thousand reasons could explain away the mistakes that had been mutual.

She couldn't reach any of them.

She looked back down to her bowl and shoveled the mushy remains of cereal into her mouth. The empty bowl clanked as it was lowered against the counter, the pleasant bubble that had wrapped around her popped by reality.

"....the MAW's really still kicking?" She asked, dismayed.

 

[Corin Trenor]

"For now," Corin nodded and leaned onto the counter, "It's that corridor into the Core. But with the success on Empress Teta, I'm sure we'll fracture it soon enough and send them back to their corner of Wild Space. Until we finish them off, that is."

Confident of the fact. Maybe too confident, but that was what made Corin into Corin. Characterised by his overt boldness, even when it was unearned. He charged down a Dark Lord simply because he could and paid the price for it, all with a refusal to learn from his own headstrong failures.

"There'll no doubt be plenty of missions up for grabs. You should come along some time, ease yourself back into things." He offered sincerely, "If you're up for it, I mean."

Jem Fossk

 

[Jem Fossk]

"I'm up for it," she asserted, her tone rich with that same sincerity. She was always over eager to be apart of things, even more sure to get that comment that made her feel she was doing shit right. It hit a little weird when she realized she was seeking it from the boy that had taken her place. The bitter reminder of it all smarted through her. She pursed her lips and slowly straightened, that eagerness withdrawing. Skeptism took its place.


"Might need to get you a little more up to snuff. You know. So you don't get stabbed again." She slid off her stool and walked around the counter for the sink. The space barely fit them both, but she made room for herself anyway.

The dishes clanked noisily into the metal frame.

 

[Corin Trenor]

"Ha. Ha." He remarked with all the enthusiasm of a dead man and a set of still features that could make one truly believe Corin had become one. His eyes, so seemingly void of life, trailer her own until she rounded and entered that confined space with Corin to then turn and face Jem. Even as she busied herself with the dishes, as he scooped his own into his hand and allowed it to join the rest.

"I think you're a little out of date on your info." Corin half-sat on the counter, "You think I stay on Denon to just sit on my ass?"

Jem Fossk

 

[Jem Fossk]

Jem's head swiveled to his position on the counter. "It crossed my mind." Another joke? Maybe. She wasn't trying to kill him anymore, that was progress enough.

She sighed and turned, her elbows resting on the counter as she faced him in full for the first time. This was awkward, wasn't it. She didn't know where to look, nevermind what to say next.

"...What has he been up to, anyway?"

 

[Corin Trenor]

For all the countless and varied ideas and thoughts that circulated his mind, Corin’s all encompassing answer amounted in a shrug. “I ‘unno.” He somewhat thoughtfully remarked, “He’s busier than usual. Jedi Council things, all those meetings. He won’t always tell me what it’s about, but… Yeah I guess I’m not on the council anyways.”

Jem Fossk

 

[Jem Fossk]

Jem's mood sharpened at once. "What? He's just leaving you here?" It was a situation she had known well, and it was a situation they had grown past when... well...

She looked up to the creeking floor above them, a hint of agitation wifting off her. "The idiot."

 

[Corin Trenor]

Corin recoiled with a touch of confused amusement settled across his features, and with an arch in his brow. He wondered if that was a serious reaction or some playful tease, and in either case the Padawan was all too sarcastic in his reply.

"What, afraid I'll burn the place down by myself?" He smirked, "I like Denon. I'm from here, so staying is sometimes better. I do my thing," Corin tip-toed around what his 'thing' was, "Keeps me sane."

Jem Fossk

 

[Jem Fossk]

Her frown made its way down to him, judging whether or not he was serious. He was.

She snorted.

“He’s your master, he should be with you.” The frowned deepened, tinged by regret as the weight of blame settled on her shoulder.

“… let me guess, doesn’t take you in missions? Sometimes forgot you’re a thing? More time spent training with droids than him?”

 

[Corin Trenor]

"Erh," the Denon local trailed in a hint of awkwardness yet not due to the truth to her words. Rather, the fact that there was none. He wondered if it was best to confirm her beliefs, or her experiences and allow them to be shared, even if they were far from his own. It troubled him for the second it lasted for.

"No," Corin decided with a matter-of-fact to his answer, "I just don't mind learning on my own every once in a while."

Jem Fossk

 

[Jem Fossk]

Her face crinkled in confusion.

“…whatever,” she huffed, wondering why she cared so much either way. If Dagon had grown past icing them that was all the better for her.

She just couldn’t help but to realize it was… it was Valery that undertook her rehabilitation. It made her question, with growing unconfidence, what that said about her.

And she had been so at peace a minute ago.

She grabbed herself a cup of milk, objects clanking behind her as she went.

 

[Corin Trenor]

Lost for words, all that left his mouth was a breath. Just an echo of a word.

His arm mindlessly reached out for her own, "Just, wait."

She failed somewhere. It was a difficult road, and she fell. But even as she fell, or before, her master failed her. His master failed her. For all his life, there was someone that failed him and so that familiar ache was all too real. He knew it, he felt it. But not like this, not as the one that let her down lifted him up.

"It's been a lot. For both of you." He said with uncharacterstic sincerity, "He's trying, but we're also at war. He's a soldier, we're all soldiers. It's the mission that comes first, and we can't always balance what we need with it in the way."

Jem Fossk

 

[Jem Fossk]

Jem wavered, not pulling away even tho every muscle in her arm twitched to do so. Connection was the tether that brought her back.

Not hopeless. Not alone. There was someone here. … even if that someone was easy to hate.

“I know that. I know it,” she whispered in frustration. “I just-“ There was no excuse, none that trumped the truth he spoke. The mission came first. Always.

That’s why so little of her remained.

“…I’m tired,” she deflected, her shoulders sagging with weight.