IC contact

[candor1]

Fulcrum; go
[text | voice | video | action]






[OOC—update: Just specify in subject line which game!]

Comments

[carbonfrozen]

[It's sleep deprivation.]

yeah but what if somebody ELSE kills him what happens then

there's two Skywalkers be more specific

and yeah I can grab Luke and Lando

you okay there? [Han might not be Force-sensitive, and is not always the most sensitive person at all, but something is Up here. And Cassian's a fellow rebel, if not a friend. He's—concerned, to say the least.]

[candor1]

thats too good of a question

[maybe dying here returns one to there. Maybe they can't be killed here because they are already dead. Maybe they're just shadows of the people who are still continuing in the original timeline so it's utterly separate and doesn't matter.

Does anything ma… stop]

yes luke
heard through the dorva vine

[one for you, Corellian.

Though by which he means watching other peoples' conversations]

that anakin skywalker goes by another name

[To the last line…

Even on a good day, Cassian has no idea how to answer that question.

For now can only type—with a heaviness even to text]

i was finished

[carbonfrozen]

I know

Luke told me when he got here

I promised not to shoot his dad just yet but if something happens cause of Vader we gotta figure something out

[Han thinks: I've seen this before. Has felt it before, sometimes, when it felt as if the war wouldn't end any time soon. As much as he doesn't want to admit it, he's grown to care about the Rebellion, about its cause.

He blames Luke, and Leia, and his own bleeding heart.]

Friday night, just you and me and the closest thing there is on this dustball to Corellian rum

drinks are on me

[candor1]

[…the place Cassian mentally flashes to is initially hard to reconcile.

Crash position. Legs braced. Elbows on knees. Head hung almost between them. Suspended shy of the blaster somehow still in his numb hand.

Unable to stop staring at it.

With vision distorted by tears.

The last he'll be able to produce and shed for… well. For the rest of his life.

He doesn't look up hearing Kay approach. He knows it's him. A KX droid's footfalls are hard to mistake, and Kay's have a cadence others' don't thanks to… having a personality. Thanks to the "jailbreak".

Is that what I did? Did I free him? Or is he now just enslaved to me?

Some would say I freed them. They're idiots. There isn't always two sides to everything.

What if I've never freed anybody.

What if I'm no better than

What if I'm

…

That was Kay pausing. No doubt staring at him. Trying to ascertain why Cassian was in this utterly unprecedented position. The droid will be able to analyze factors and tell that Cassian isn't injured. That Cassian's system is uncompromised by foreign toxicants. That his blaster has been recently and repeatedly fired.

Will have to find other explanations. Doubtless his original programming, however no longer controlling him, has ample psychological data in service of interrogation.

He will be able to recognize the sight of someone who's been broken.

Not "been". Done it myself.

The surmise seemed to be correct. As Kay, with a gentleness his manufacturers would not have intended and most still would not think possible, had taken Cassian's weapon and then took Cassian himself and got them all back to the ship. Had been positively parental in getting Cassian situated before getting them the hell off Jenoport.

Somewhere in there, Kay had made the offer. Volunteering himself for a memory wipe, in case Cassian's "continued dignity and service demanded it".

Cassian hoped he'd responded aloud, not just in his mind. No one is ever messing with your programming again. Ever. I need who you are.

Cassian wouldn't go too far with any comparison between Han Solo and Kay.

You know. Other than overall manner and self-opinion and disregard.

But perhaps it was because… it felt…

Maybe, as close as an organic could reasonably get to K-2SO, maybe Han seemed unlikely to be injured by or get lost in Cassian's pain.

…That was welcome.]

guess we shouldnt do that right now

its on

thank you

[carbonfrozen]

[Han would honestly be Offended, down to his very bones, were Cassian ever to compare him to Kaytoo. Some of this is his dislike for droids, exacerbated by Threepio's constant chattering presence on the Falcon, and some of this is just Han's personal dislike of Kaytoo.

Still. Cassian's a rebel in the same vein as Luke and Leia. Han can't not try to help him out a little, even if his idea of help is a bit special.]

of course I never promised anything about not punching him

hope you can hold your liquor, I hear Maurtia Falls has the best bars

[candor1]

i never thought he was real - youll have to tell me more

usually only pretend to drink the bulk and act lashed as a front - guess its worth finding out the reality

[carbonfrozen]

he's a chuff-sucking black-clad bucket of rancor puke

don't tell Luke I said that

[Anger is better than fear, the kind of fear that creeps up his neck like cold ice.]

the reality's fun for the night, less so in the morning, but I know some hangover cures

[candor1]

you have my word

[and perhaps the illusion it's given solemnly rather than spluttering with laughter due to the mercy of text]

am fine with anything short of what k will do to both of us if i seriously damage myself

[carbonfrozen]

tell your droid I promise not to let you get seriously damaged

just maybe a little drunk

[candor1]

[Cassian types hes not 'my' droid

Looks at the words for a moment.

It was a designation that had kept Kay protected in the Alliance—where the wounds of the Clone Wars were still so rawly felt, a combat droid was a difficult presence to accept. It was enough for Kay and Cassian to know between themselves it wasn't true. (…Cassian to hope it wasn't true.) And there were enough others even there—techs and meds mainly—who would just as readily call Cassian as "K-2's human".
(Because they were the ones who knew what Kay's primary function really was.)

This was a new world. An opportunity to get in on the ground level of establishing droids as equal sentients and so not to be claimed by anyone.

…Except Han is of the old world. And as such could either be talking idiomatically, or have the entrenched ideas…

Either way…

Cassian deletes the sentence unsent.

…either way. It's a conversation he'd like to have with Han. But perhaps after more foundation. Especially if it is a deeper ideological divide.

He thinks Kay would agree with the strategy. If it makes Cassian feel a little angry at himself.

Still. He switches without difficult to thinking about Han and the situation he's getting himself into.

And smiles.]

can tell him after the fact
see you then