tramitem_log | 2020 June Summer Solstice Plot

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2020 June Summer Solstice Plot - Catch All!

Who: Anyone and everyone in Trames - Please use this as a catach all for all your Summer Solstice Plot fun!
What: Exploring a whole knew world
When: Anytime between June 20 - July 4
Where: Around Krajina Božstiev
Rating/Warnings: Please add warnings to your top-levels/threads as needed

The streets of Krajina Božstiev are dusty and crowded. So many people on their way to live their lives. Markets, taverns, the Temple, the Palace. What do you look at first? What do you buy? Where to do you find yourself exploring?

Take a moment to appreciate the shine of the Temple. The beauty of the Palace gardens. The quiet serenity of the Library. The simplistic, but filling food in the taverns. Or the peaceful quaintness of the hills. A new world has opened up and somehow it all just seems simpler over here. People seem happy (mostly) in this existence.

Maybe...

Watch out for the occasional person going into a rage on the other side of the street or tavern. That can't mean anything...

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That question makes him laugh. "Just fine until I have to call and cancel my early lessons tomorrow morning and come up with an excuse. Think they'd just accept getting stuck in an alternate universe?"

Anakin laughed. "Okay, that's the future. How has the recent past been?"

"Pretty standard in a weird way," he admitted. "Work's work, relationship's trucking along, even the memory stuff hasn't had anything crop up since the scars. It's almost calm."

Almost boring even.

Anakin barked a laugh. "I think you just dared the universe to make like uncalm again. If monsters show up tonight, I'm definitely blaming you."

He started rearranging things in his backpack so he could use it as a pillow.

"So... it's a relationship now?"

He crossed his legs and leaned forward so his arms were braced and holding him up-right-ish.

"If they do, I will take that blame and deserve it." As for relationship he turned it over in his head. "I think so. Usually sometime after more than one date and sex it qualifies. I don't know that it's serious, though."

Anakin eyed Ben as he shifted his backpack behind him and laid down on it.

"Not serious, huh? What makes you say that?"

"Because he is anticipating problems due to our age difference and I can only let myself get so serious when that's looming over my head."

Ask the man a question....

"Age difference- You didn't mention that before," Anakin said, a mix of concern and understanding. And he was concerned for a variety of reasons- he didn't want to see Ben get hurt, and he was also wondering why Ben didn't mention this before.

"What's the age difference?"

"That's because I'm not particularly worried about. The difference is about ten years, I think. Maybe a little more."

"You're not worried about it?" Anakin asked. "But it's keeping you from letting things get serious?" Anakin wondered if Ben noticed the contradiction.

"The age difference itself does not worry me," he clarifies. "At all. That someone I am in a relationship with is anticipating trouble from any source does. It makes me feel like like they may just be... waiting for a reason not to have to commit"

Anakin chews on that for a second. "Have you asked him what he thinks the problems will be?"

"Not yet." Meaning he intended to, after he had observed and considered a bit more and figured out what his hang up specifically was. "I need to be clear on what I'm talking about first."

"What aren't you clear about?" Anakin asked.

"Why I want to ask and what sort of resolution could come from the conversation. otherwise it's just telling him that his feelings are wrong and there's no possible outcome that's not terrible." Hey, at least he's aware?

"What resolution are you afraid of?" Anakin asked. "That he'll think the age gap is too big and end the relationship?"

"It isn't that I'm afraid of any specific outcome, it's that I need to have a productive reason to have the conversation and right now I just don't. It would just turn into me telling him his feelings aren't valid or trying to convince him of that and I'm pretty sure that's a move that would be." He pauses and sheepishly admits. "Kind of reinforcing his concerns." Meaning 'immature'.

Anakin thought working through relationship concerns was a productive enough reason to bring up and talk about concerns. But his closest relationship was with Ben, and their friendship was pretty easy...

Except for all those parts where Ben thought Anakin felt a certain way about him, or Ben held himself to this weird, impossible standard of never letting Anakin down- which was a standard Anakin didn't even come up with. He'd told Ben multiple times he expected very little from him.

And yet...

Oh, Anakin got it now.

"But... you don't know what his concerns are," he pointed out with a pointed look. "So what would you be reinforcing? The assumptions you've come up with to fill in what you haven't actually confirmed yet?"

"...That's a fair point," he admitted, wry and a little pained. "I'll talk to him about it, at some point. Maybe even some point relatively soon. Definitely before there's any risk of meeting his kid."

It was still new and they still had time to see. But having it spelled out that he didn't know helped put it in perspective and unwound him.

"Thanks, Anakin."

"He has a kid?" Anakin asked, surprised- not because someone having a kid was unusual, but surprised because Ben hadn't mentioned it until now. Anakin laughed and shook his head, starting to get used to the way Ben left out information and then dropped it later at random moments.

"Yes, definitely talk to him before you meet his kid."

Ben tended to say what was immediately relevant and to leave the rest out. It was his version of direct.

Which was not actually direct, but did infact turn into something very... Jedi-Cryptic. While believing he was direct.

"I promise," he says, easily.

"How old is the kid?"

Maybe some day Anakin would have Ben figured out. He was, by far, his most interesting friend, even when you took away the shared past life thing.

"Nine, I think?" He's not completely sure, but he's sure he's in the right ballpark.

...and Anakin was, at bare minimum, Ben's best friend. Even if it was complicated.

Anakin hadn't figured he'd find a friend like Ben - even minus the memory stuff - when he'd moved to New York. He was really glad he had found him, though.

Anakin chewed on the infomration about the kid for a moment. As the son of a single parent, he did have some perspective on this, though it was mostly brought to him by hindsight. He really wasn't too aware of his mother's dating life when he was a child. And maybe that was by his mother's design.

"Maybe that's part of it? Good parents think about how dating someone will affect their kids, right? At least I think my mom did. He has a kid, you don't- which isn't saying that's a bad thing. But when he was your age," ya, Anakin had thought about making a joke about Ben's age, his friend did call him 'kid', but figured he could do that in a less serious moment, right now, he would get the math right, "he was having a kid. Maybe he's wondering all about what that might mean for you? And his kid."

"I am absolutely sure that's a lot of it," he agrees. He is also impressed with Anakin and proud of him in ways he probably shouldn't be.

...He's still generally uncomfortable with the expectation of trouble, but he really should also probably try to sit down and work out the why of that.

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2020 June Summer Solstice Plot - Catch All!

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