fandomhigh | Summer Shenanigans, Wednesday mid-morning

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summer games

Summer Shenanigans, Wednesday mid-morning

Worrisomely, the park was empty today aside from a sign that directed everyone to the beach. When they arrived, they would find a huge wooden scaffolding at least 30 feet high (somewhere, an Olypmic platform diving squad was wondering where their stuff had gone) next to the water. In the water was a blue and gold inflatable as long as the scaffolding was high. Further out were ropes marking distance from the inflatable blob.

Everyone have a horrifying mental image of what was going to happen here? Good!

"I have returned after foraging for parts last week," Anakin lied through the megaphone. He'd been a cat. "And we are trying out an all new event! You will climb to the top of the scaffolding and jump down onto the inflatable! This will launch the person at the other end of it into the air! Whoever launches someone the furthest wins! The launchee will also receive points for style before hitting the water."

The points get you nothing. You win nothing. "After you have launched your island mate, you crawl to the launch zone and you get launched by the person behind you. This will be fun."

Possibly only for spectators.

"Come get your rash guards and life jackets, if necessary. Listen for your names!"

Belle
Hannibal
Stark
Henry
Steve M
Thor
Jon
Jaina
Lydia
Flint
Eleanor
Luma
Steve R
Raiden
Harley
Rey

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And Jack looked up at him to meet his gaze. "Did I ever tell you I spent a year in the loony bin after Sparkle disappeared?" he said. "No, wait, I don't know why I made that a question. I didn't. I haven't told anyone that."

Consider it sensitive information to make up for using Anakin's sensitive info, or something.

"'Complex post-traumatic stress disorder', is what they call it," he said. "And I got pushed into going by someone from Sia's time, so your era can't have been that different."

Anakin thought of Yoda's "let go of everything you fear losing" advice, tried to square that with "but yes, therapy" and stopped trying before his brain exploded.

"Well, there was a galactic-wide war and Sith takeover, so everyone had trauma," Anakin said. He'd been the one inflicting it, even. "At the time I wasn't interested in mitigating the pain."

He turned his attention from the flying bodies (one of the Steves, perhaps?) and to Atton. "I am sorry you went through that, though."

He was not going to point out that 'galactic-wide war and Sith takeover' basically summed up his own time, too.

"And I refused to do it for years until my legs gave out under me, because I didn't think I deserved help, and I distrusted anyone who'd go near my head anyway," Jack said. "I'm not telling you you should go, or anything. You seem to have everything more or less figured out."

He was the one looking at the water now.

"I think I'm starting to, though," he said. "Get it figured out, I mean. I just had to walk away from our galaxy to do it."

Edited 2025-08-14 16:58 (UTC)

Anakin nodded. "But you're still talking to Rey?"

"Sure."

He glanced up at Anakin again.

"I lost my shit in class because I wish I had your clarity on where I stand with the Jedi stuff," he admitted. "I'm not running around bashing bad guys with lightsabers anymore, but I spend more time with the Force than I ever did before."

"It takes time," Anakin said. "It took me decades. The Force is the Force. It doesn't choose a side. How we use it makes us choose one." He smiled softly. "Luke has the clarity, I took cues from him."

"Your kid's also a Jedi-Jedi, if I'm not mistaken," Jack said wryly. "Not sure it's my kind of clarity."

"He is," Anakin said with a proud smile. "He struggles with different things, but his relationship with the Force isn't really one of them."

Jack snorted. "For me the struggle is with the stuff the Force used to get me into," he said, "And to what extent you can call yourself a Jedi when you're living on a backwards mudball making music for a living."

Well, not all of his living. Not in this economy. But you got the point.

"They don't take back the membership card," Anakin said. "I don't think they issue them to begin with. If you still resonate with the basic tenets of the Order, searching for knowledge and justice and avoiding revenge and murder--"

"Haven't killed anyone in over a year," Jack said. He held his hand up only half-sarcastically. "I swear."

Then he eyed his arm, sighed, and reached for the edge of his glove. "I did put one piece of clarity on my skin. Hoping I won't regret it," he said, pushing the glove up all the way to his wrist.

The tattoo read 'I will stand in the darkness and laugh with my heel on its throat'.

"Song lyrics?" Anakin guessed.

"Boyfriend," still weird to say on the island, "Thought I listened to too much angry music," Jack said, rolling his glove down. "So he gave me a less angry record, and the irritating thing is, it worked."

"Hate it when our partners understand us," Anakin teased quietly.

"It's incredibly annoying," Jack agreed, because he'd already been pretty earnest and he was probably going to have to be earnest again tomorrow and he had to make up for it somehow. "He's completely ruined my Spotify algorithm and my long nights of brooding in the darkness by myself alone."

"Have you been catching up here?" Anakin asked. "There's a good spot looking over the water. I spent a lot of time there as a teenager brooding about life's unfairness and practicing my robe billowing."

"...No," Jack admitted grudgingly. "I'm too busy. I show up here on Wednesdays, go to Caritas, wake up, go to class, do some work, call home, go to bed..."

"How adult of you," Anakin teased.

"I don't know what the hell happened," Jack groused. "... Besides the therapy. And the people. And the music. And the faking my own death to stop myself from constantly throwing myself at trouble..."

"I could throw a rock and hit probably three people here who've also faked their own deaths," Anakin said. "It's definitely a way to get out of situtations."

"And I am nothing if not good at getting out of Situations," Jack agreed.

Or liked to exaggerate that he was, anyway.

Anakin smiled. "That's always been true."

"And yet I'm still alive and still here," Jack said. "Well. Sort of." He eyed Anakin. "And I'm better at going native than you've ever been."

"You're still here or you're still alive?" Anakin asked.

"I didn't realize I had to pick one?"

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