fandomhigh | Shop class open house, Tuesday, period 3

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Shop class open house, Tuesday, period 3

It'd been a trying several days, but if there was one thing Fandom excelled at, it was picking itself up and dusting itself off, and getting back to business as usual. For the students, that meant the last week of classes. For the shop students, it was their day to shine.

After rather a lot of cursing and yelling and beating on things that Hardison would pout at him for later, Eliot had finally managed to coax the shop into a fancy museum opening setting, with pedestals and gallery spaces for the students to set up and show off their work. There was a table of refreshments off to the side, and Eliot had on a tweed jacket over his usual button down shirt and jeans.

He'd felt like dressing all civilized-like this week, oddly enough. Even spent a bit of time putting a pair of tiny braids into the hair just behind his ears, something he hadn't bothered with since Leverage was still working out of Nate's apartment back in Boston. Honestly, he'd had a lot of time on his hands.

It wasn't like he was sleeping.

[ooc: because folks quite possibly need something they don't recognize their friends in to hit, welcome to the Evil Shop Plot post! OCD is up, post is open to any and all comers.]

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"Kids usually do," Kanan sighed. He threw out his hand and shoved another robot into the one beside it, a chainsaw blade digging deep into a shoulder joint as a result. "And do you think the reason I want to go is entirely to save my neck?"

He was trouble. He knew he was trouble. He'd walked away from people who were far more capable of watching their backs than the kids here, because of it.

"What, you plannin' on taking everyone with you?"

Eliot had no reason to think Kanan was any more dangerous than anyone else on the island.

"I was actually hoping to do the opposite," Kanan muttered. "If taking everybody with me was the game plan, I probably would have kept those explosives I got here with."

He frowned and lowered his saber as the robots started to flicker in and out of existence around them.

"Sure as hell wouldn't have gone traipsing up a narrow stairwell to help you guys take down a psychotic version of the school principal."

Eliot nudged another saw robot with his golf club. The saw didn't even scratch it, so he tried with the toe of his boot.

Same.

The safeties were back on.

"Just what exactly are you tellin' me, here, Kanan?" he asked, the teasing tone from the fight gone over to concern.

Kanan shook his head, shut off his lightsaber, and gave it a quick twist between his hands, separating it into two pieces again.

"I don't stay anywhere for long," he said, the same way he'd said dozens of times before. This time he added, "because if I don't keep running, people get hurt."

Eliot very nearly rolled his eyes. Lord save him from smart guys with giant egos. "Right, so all this is your fault, then?"

Please, pardon Kanan while he reaches up to pinch the bridge of his nose and just sighs.

"Space, no." He was allowed to use space because he had a ship and wasn't from Earth. That was the way it worked. "This is... I have no karking clue what this is. Your junkyard drove the equipment insane or something. There is no way I'm taking responsibility for this."

His ego leaned in other directions, mostly.

"But you're saying you gotta leave," Eliot pointed out. "Because clearly your being here is, what, making Fandom worse?"

He would pelt you with logic as long as it took, Kanan.

"That isn't quite what I'm saying either," Kanan muttered, shaking his head. "I'm saying..."

He sighed and muttered something absolutely filthy under his breath in Huttese.

"I'm saying I'm running from something, and that something could cause problems down the road. Especially since somebody knows I'm here."

Eliot nodded. "Alright, I get that." He had plenty of enemies who wouldn't mind tearing through Fandom to get to him, after all. "I'd say you're better off somewhere most folks know how to handle a crisis, but hell, I dunno who your enemies are. I do know runnin', though. And I know it ain't worth half what we got here."

Kanan... shrugged. Such a little, dismissive sort of gesture, while his mind ticked through a half-dozen different things to say, and whether he was willing to say them in the middle of the Danger Shop not ten minutes after it had been trying to kill them.

Not that the Jedi part was exactly a secret anymore, granted.

"They're... they're big. Bigger than Fandom. Bigger than the people on it. Bigger than this planet. And they don't like that they didn't finish the job back when they exterminated an entire order of galactic peacekeepers."

"That big, huh. All after just one guy. Movin' around a force that big takes a lot of resources. You must be a pretty important person, they willing to send all that after you. Or are they just that stupid?"

"I'm not important," Kanan sighed. "What I represent is. It's a memory, it's an idea. It's hope in a galaxy they've spent nearly a decade systematically erasing hope from. And they don't need to send the entire Empire after me to do it. They'd do just as good a job sending that Sith back."

Maybe explain that one a little better, Dume.

"The one who knows I'm here. I think right now he's using that knowledge to get leverage over one of the students."

Eliot frowned. "And you think you runnin' away is gonna stop this guy from fuckin' with this kid?"

Yeah, he was still deeply skeptical of this.

"I think if he can't prove I'm here, he's got less to work with," Kanan muttered. "Admittedly, that's... the best I have. The list of things I can do for this kid is... short."

The fact that Mara happened to be working for the Emperor was one that he was keeping to himself, for now. This whole situation was a complicated mess.

"That ain't a plan. What, you just plannin' to keep running the rest of your life?"

That was no way to live, Kanan.

"If I stop running, the other end of 'the rest of my life' could be much closer than it would be otherwise."

And Kanan had gotten very good at running.

Dammit, Kanan, stop reminding Eliot of himself. "You keep runnin', that extra life ain't gonna be worth a good goddamn." He shook his head. "Not that you're gonna bother listening to me. Kids like you gotta learn everything the hard way."

"And you think what got me into this situation in the first place wasn't 'the hard way?'" Kanan was trying not to sound incredulous here, but...

He was a very, very jaded guy.

"Sometimes I get to settle in somewhere a little longer than usual. Sometimes I get far enough I can have a month or two instead of a week or two. But I'm never going to be able to settle down. That was never going to be my life."

Please, Kanan. You're a baby.

"You know why I call you 'kid'?"

"Besides the fact that it drives me completely barvy, you mean?"

Well, it did.

"Sure, I'll bite. Why?"

"It's 'cause you sound like you're still fifteen. You talk like you're the center of the universe. Like what your life looks like now is all it's ever gonna be like. Like you already know everything there is to learn about everything. You know when someone's grown up? When they're willin' to admit they don't know jack shit. You ain't even close." Eliot tilted his head. "And 'cause it drives you up a wall, yeah."

Well. That was going to go over... well? Probably not well.

Not super well at all. Not well enough that Kanan was making a frustrated sound and forgetting himself enough to reach up and try to run his fingers through his hair. Which mostly just resulted in him messing up his ponytail.

And the worst part about this was that he couldn't think of a single thing to say that wouldn't just prove Eliot's point. So he was going to just stay quiet (and try not to seethe too much) while he pulled his hair loose and then straightened it out again.

"My Master probably would have agreed with you," he settled on, finally. That was... the least argumentative thing he could muster. And, in its own way, it was high praise. "It's funny. At fifteen, I wouldn't stop asking questions."

"Yeah?" Eliot raised a thoughtful eyebrow. "Damn. I probably woulda liked that kid." He smirked a little to show he was teasing. "S'pose you're decent enough now, too."

Another deep breath, and then a sigh, and Kanan wrestled back the last of the frustration and the fear that had bubbled up in him over the past few days. He had no right to carry either around if he was going to be wielding his lightsaber again.

What was left was just weary.

"I'm a pain in the ass now, and I was then too," he said, trying on a wry smile. "You sure you aren't going to regret trying to talk me into sticking around?"

Shop class open house, Tuesday, period 3

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