fandomhigh | Summer Games, Wednesday Morning

Today the park was set up with the normal bleachers for observers, and also thoughtfully provided cheap plastic rain ponchos for people who wished to observe without being in the blast zone. There didn't seem to be a single adult manning any of the food stations, which could explain the choices: heavy on super spicy junk food and no salad to be seen anywhere.

The most noticeable difference from last week, though, was probably the weedy teenager with the, frankly, hilarious haircut wielding the megaphone today. He had a little ponytail and a braid looping down over his right ear. It was a lot of look. "Right!" he yelled. "So I woke up today with this set of instructions next to my bed: apparently I'm in charge of doing paintball today, which sounds surprisgly not-stupid for a school event! We're going to be in two teams, so listen for your name since I don't recognize...most of them."

He shrugged that off. Must be another weird Fandom amnesia day or something. And paintball was way more important than giant gaps in his memory, right? "Okay, this is Team Red: you wear the ugly red jumpsuits over there--" he pointed helpfully, "--and your paintball guns and don't forget your eye protection and blah blah don't poke your eyes out, etc. Team members are: Ahsoka, Verity, Kaidan, Miguel, Paris, Aloy, Vanessa, Peter, Jaylah, Peridot, Tip. Alec, Amaya, Steve, Cara, Seivarden, Tony, Sabine, Jason, Summer, and Theron."

He waited for those team members to get moving. "Okay. Team Blue is: Aphra, Astrid, Rosa, Jaina, Kanan, Eliot, Beaker, Liam, Hannibal, Manfred, Hera, Kathy, Sidon, Magnus, Uma, Cristina, Breq, Bobby, Wade, Reno, and me." He consulted his paper again, then made a face. "Okay, we were supposed to just stay in the park, but that sounds incredibly boring, so I'm going to give us five minutes to make a quick plan with our team and then say that the entire island is fair game for as long as it takes one team to take out the other team."

Complete anniliation. Surely that boded well for his future life choices! "Last man, woman, or--" his eyes drifted to Beaker, confused, "--other...standing wins for their team and gets to take home the--" he squinted at the paper again. "Terrifying fish thing?"

On cue, the fish flew into his hand. Over the past week, it had been modified again: now to smell like pumpkin spice, put off small fireworks and holographic projections of flowers with smiley faces as it flew, and telepathically project "The Song That Never Ends" into the minds of anyone too close to it.

Anakin hated this thing on sight.

"For the first time in my life, I'm considering losing," he said, staring at the fish. "Anyway! Teams, get together and plan! You have five minutes and...go!"

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Summer's face was turning all sorts of red, too, but hers was from the sheer monumental effort that was not laughing right now.

In fact, she was trying her very hardest to sound as innocent and clueless as she possibly could as she asked, "But not like what?"

It's not like there were many different was of meeting a person, Caleb.

Caleb lifted a hand and ran it through his hair, that awkward blush not going anywhere.

"I mean, we woke up? In the same room? But, I mean. I didn't even know who she was." He paused, and then grimaced, and then moved that hand from his hair right to his face, where it was going to stay for a few moments, because even a little virgin Jedi baby could tell when he'd just made something instantly sound worse. "Excuse me, I need to figure out how to turn invisible now and just never show my face out in the world again."

Dying. Summer. Was. Absolutely. Dying over here.

What an absolute gift.

But her tone turned sympathetic, layered over the chuckles that couldn't be helped. "Hey, now, come on, buddy," she said, moving to sling a reassuring arm over his shoulder and give it a little squeeze. "Don't be like that. Move that hand and take a good look around this park. How many people in this park right now do you think got to wake up next to an absolutely beautiful woman like that, huh? Not many of them, I'd guess. And I bet she didn't even beat you up about it or anything, right?"

"She didn't beat me up," Caleb confirmed, still sounding a little bit like he had a mouth full of marbles. "I think mostly she was wondering why I fell out of bed and was sitting on the floor."

IT HAD BEEN AN INTERESTING MORNING.

"Why did you fall out of the bed and sitting on the floor?" asked Summer, though she had a pretty good idea of what the answer was.

She just simply wouldn't be Big Sister Summer if she hadn't asked.

"Because a wolf jumped on me while I was trying to figure out whose lekku I was staring at," Caleb muttered. "Only the wolf was a dog, and he spent the next five minutes trying to lick the inside of my ear."

Whaaaaat was lekku?

You can bet that everything Summer was thinking was very, very wrong.

But for now, she was just going to smirk down at Stance. "Lemme guess," she said. "The wolf was this little terrifying monster right here."

"Earth dogs look like wolves!" Caleb waved a hand down at Stance. "I mean... this one is a lot more colorful than the ones I've seen holos of, but..."

Stance licked his hand.

Caleb sighed.

"I'm a bit jumpy today, okay?"

"It's okay," Summer allowed, smiling softly and resisting the urge to just reach out and ruffle his hair.

Oh, screw it. She reached out and ruffled his hair. And then held up a finger with her other hand.

"Ah!" she said, stopping before he said anything or complained. "I know this is probably super annoying and super weird to you right now, but just let me have this."

"I don't see why it's so important you mess up my hair," Caleb sighed, reaching up to run his hand through it in an attempt to smooth it down. "I don't even know you. But, uh, I guess if it makes you happy."

He shrugged his shoulders.

"So, um. Why is this such a big deal for you, anyway?"

"Yeah, you don't know me," Summer agreed, "but I know you, kind of, or at least another version of you."

She sighed, wondering how much she should go into this or how much she should just hope he manages to ride it out until it's over.

"I don't know if I can really explain it very well, but the version of you that I know is older. Older than you right now and older than me, even, but he's kind of my best friend. And I know you don't really have much of a family in the traditional sense of the word, assuming you've got a similar background that he has, but right now, you kind of feel like a little brother. I have a little brother, so it's just, like, ingrained in me or whatever to do annoying little things like that. It's a weird way of showing I care. And I hope the older version of you will get a kick out of it later."

There was a slight pause.

"I know this whole concept of different versions of yourself can be a little weird at first, but this place," and her universe, but that was beside the point, "likes to do stuff like this. You get used to it."

Although he probably wouldn't have to, since this was probably it for him.

Kinda sad, if you thought about it like that.

"Maybe later, you can let me give you a wedgie."

Caleb listened to all of that, somewhere between bemused and maybe actually a little touched, right up until the end.

Which was about the point where he opened his mouth to ask what that was, caught himself, and then shook his head.

"No, I have a bad feeling about that," he decided. "But the rest... actually kind of seems nice."

He lowered his hand, because at this rate it was going to just kind of move into his hair and never leave, otherwise.

"And you're not wrong about a lot of it, either."

Summer Games, Wednesday Morning

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