Midnight Manor Kitchen, Way Too Early in the Morning, Thursday

[moreofaponchoguy]

Cal didn't sleep well on the best of nights, but the past few days and weeks had left him with a lot to think about. Conversations with Liliana about setting the rules of the Order aside and forging forward on his own path, and the inane messages he'd received yesterday were one thing. Getting to see Kamala's home was another. The colors and the music and the happiness had been contagious, and all Cal could think about was how much the Mantis crew would have loved it, which made him think about how they were all stuck at home without him, like in danger, while he was dressing up and going to parties. The guilt churning in his stomach had kept him up, and after tossing and turning, he'd given up and gone into the kitchen for a snack. Cheese was a cure for all ills, right?

[Expecting one, but open for anyone else who can't sleep!]

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[moreofaponchoguy]

Cal did his best to hold still and laugh quietly to not wake up the rest of the manor, but the mental image of Cere - a strong, powerful Jedi Master - click-clacking her way through an Imperial base was going to be one of those images that stuck with him for a long time. "She would kill me where I stood for even suggesting it," he said. "The glare alone would turn a person to stone."

[afraid_of_marshmallows]

Arden wanted to give the conditioner a few minutes to set before rinsing it out - a practice that Cal surely followed and not at all something she was modeling for him, perish the thought - and took those moments to return her nails to his scalp, offering scritches while her thumbs rubbed gentle circles against his hairline, paying special attention to his forehead, his temples, and the back, right where his head connected to his neck.

"I'll make sure to snag you a pack," she teased. "So that when you go home - and you will get home, Cal, I know it - you can give them to her as a present."

[moreofaponchoguy]

In Cal's defense, he did know that you were supposed to leave the conditioner in for a bit, because he'd been nervous and read the back of the bottle to make sure he used everything correctly. The massage was a nice change of pace though, he couldn't deny that.

"Now I have to get home, because I need to present Cere with this gift and say, 'My friend Arden said you'd like these, if you're going to yell, do it at her.'"

[afraid_of_marshmallows]

"And then when you're not around, I'll point out how hilarious your face will be if she actually did wear them for a hot second and then we'll bond over hair braiding and laughing at boys, which the internet assures me is how women have bonded since the dawn of time," Arden declared, because that was a thing you could do when you didn't know someone and they lived in a whole other galaxy.

She started rinsing which, sadly, took her fingers out of his hair entirely. "Cal?" She studiously kept her eyes on his hair in the sink, not on his face. "I know I don't need to actually tell you this, but...if you find a way home that gets you there, even if it means you can't come back or keep in contact or anything...you take it, okay? We'll miss you, we'll worry about you, but you need to be there, with them. They're your family. Take the chance you're given to get back to the people you love. And I mean - I know you will? But I'm just saying, no hard feelings when you do, yeah?"

[moreofaponchoguy]

Well, it was good to know that Arden wasn't the only one who worried about that situation, and Cal was grateful he could close his eyes for the rinsing so he didn't have to look at her either. "I mean, if I found my way home, I should be able to find my way here, right?" he asked. "People go home and come back all the time. It shouldn't just be one way, that's unfair." His life was unfair enough as it was. He shouldn't have a world of new friends and get them taken away. "I don't want to leave you guys. The hard feelings would be mine."

[afraid_of_marshmallows]

Arden didn't point out that whatever had brought him here had been one-way, and him finding his way back wasn't a guarantee that that would have changed. Or that very little in their lives were fair and that just because they were due didn't mean they'd get. He knew both of those already.

Her hand slid down to cup the side of his face a moment, though she figured that anything she said would go against the point she'd been trying to make, so instead it just lingered there wordlessly against his skin for a few seconds and she didn't say anything until she'd brought it back up to his hair to finish rinsing.

"You just know that if that happens I'll be telling everybody it's because you didn't wanna face me in whatever we end up doing to replace paintball," she teased and if it fell a little flat, well, she hoped he wouldn't notice. Or would at least pretend he hadn't.

The water shut off and Arden patted his head with a microfiber towel to remove the excess moisture and then wrapped it over his head. "Luckily for you, I've decided to not give a one hour presentation about what you should be using to dry your hair until a time that's not oh-goddess-thirty in the morning when we both had nightmares. You're welcome."