The gym [early evening]

[momslilassassin]

Ben certainly knew how to have fun on a Friday night: by kicking the crap out of a perfectly defenseless punching bag.

At least it was a productive outlet for anger?

Comments

[momslilassassin]

Ben thought about it. "Guess I'm kinda both," he said. "Not that Dad's rich, but he's totally famous."

[not-a-mused.livejournal.com]

"Totally famous, huh?" Cal said, with a slight smirk and a little bit of ribbing in his voice.

[momslilassassin]

Ben blushed. "Like, already in the history texts famous," he mumbled.

[not-a-mused.livejournal.com]

"...Wow," Cal said. "And here all my dad ever did was make a fortune on hot dogs."

[momslilassassin]

"Because they inflate to be so big," Ben said, smirking again. "I'd rather have that, really, than have everyone recognize my last name."

[not-a-mused.livejournal.com]

"If it makes you feel any better," Cal offered, "I have no idea who your father is? That's at least someone."

[momslilassassin]

Ben gave him a huge smile. "It really does help," he admitted. "He casts an awfully big shadow."

[not-a-mused.livejournal.com]

With the wattage of the smile that attempt (which Cal hadn't assumed would be anything more than a poor one at best), Cal couldn't help grinning back. "Good," he said. "My ignorance, for once, has served me well."

[momslilassassin]

"I'm certainly not going to enlighten you about him," Ben said. "You can just continue to think that I'm as astral as a Skywalker can possibly be." He smiled. "Jaina is going to be better, just because she got better genes. Her dad is soooooo cool."

[not-a-mused.livejournal.com]

And, well, Cal had to admit that Jaina was pretty cool, and he definitely had more interest in Solo than Skywalker. Not that he was about to admit that to Jaina's cousin or...whatever it was that Ben was.

"What makes him so much cooler? I mean, other than the fact that he's not your dad?"

No one thought their own dad was that cool.

[momslilassassin]

"He used to be a smuggler and he's flies this amazing heap of a ship that shouldn't even be able to break atmosphere any more because it's so old, but it can AND it's really fast and it shot down a lot of bad guys! And best of all he's does all of it without being a Jedi!"

Ben might be a bit of a fanboy.

[not-a-mused.livejournal.com]

There was a bit of a pause before Cal thought of anything to say in response to that.

"My grandfather died smuggling booze across the Detroit River from Canada?" he offered. It was...kind of close. He couldn't imagine Jimmy Zizmo having much of a car while he did it. But, if forced, he'd admit, that, okay, yeah, Jaina's dad was freaking awesome.

[momslilassassin]

"That's totally astral, too," Ben declared, nodding. "Was there a booze shortage here?"

[not-a-mused.livejournal.com]

It was only then that Cal realized that astral was actually slang, and he grinned a little. "Prohibition era," he explained. "At one point, this country's government actually thought, 'hey, you know what would be cool? Let's make alcohol illegal.' Booze-running from Canada was huge around the Great Lakes, Detroit, Chicago."

[momslilassassin]

"Well, that was a stupid idea," Ben said with all the vehemence of a 14 year old.

[not-a-mused.livejournal.com]

"Ohhh, yeah," Cal agreed. "Needless to say, it didn't last too long."

[momslilassassin]

"Can't imagine why. It's dumb to pass an unenforceable law," Ben said.

[not-a-mused.livejournal.com]

"We've got a whole history of stupid laws in this country," Cal warned Ben. "It's really no wonder eventually we all start heading out to space."

[momslilassassin]

"Hate to break it to you, but the stupid follows us," Ben said.

[not-a-mused.livejournal.com]

There was a bit of a pause.

"Not surprised," Cal admitted, shaking his head. "At all."

[momslilassassin]

"There's just a lot more space between us," Ben said, "so that's nice."

[not-a-mused.livejournal.com]

"I'll bet," Cal said, a little quietly. "It's nice having a bit of stretching room from other stupid people."

[momslilassassin]

"There's even a tradition of Jedi turning into hermits, being alone on their own planet. I think after the amount of stupid they deal with, that option looks really, really appealing," Ben decided.

[not-a-mused.livejournal.com]

"I ran away from home when I was fourteen and tried to be a hermit," Cal mused thoughtfully. "It didn't work very well. Eventually, I needed to eat something that wasn't an ice cream sundae."

[momslilassassin]

Ben laughed. "I don't think this counts as me running away from home," he said, "but if it does, the island seems to be providing me enough sugar to keep me happy for a while."