What You Can Get

Co-written with Arrow as Dustil!

_______________________________________________________________

When you're a soldier with a kid, you miss a lot of firsts. First lost tooth, first crush, first speeder, first accident in the speeder...lost years. Lost moments. Lost memories.

But Carth Onasi was damned if he was going to miss his son's first drink.

Not that he was trying to advocate drinking as a hobby, not that he didn't acknowledge that Dustil had probably already had plenty of drinks in the places he'd been in after Telos. But there weren't a lot of firsts left to mark with his son. He was already a man, already independent, already drifting away in spite of the missed years. Maybe it was Korriban. Maybe it was the Jedi. Maybe it was some gene that kicked on when a kid turned seventeen.

In any case, Dustil didn't look like he was getting married anytime soon. And it wasn't like he could throw him a graduation party when and if he became a Jedi Knight. When you were a soldier with a kid, you took what you could get.

"Order whatever you want, Dustil," Carth murmured, letting Dustil enter The Lush Hutt first, moving forward to claim two bar stools. "Even if it's imported from the Outer Rim or something."

Did he know the difference? That there wasn't really one except for the number of credits they expected you to dish out?

"Eilosian Star Cruiser - no asteroids," Dustil said, naming the most expensive drink on the menu while staring up at the video feeds.

Carth rolled his eyes and reached into his pocket for the credits. "That and a Celanon Semi-Dry," he murmured to the Besalisk bartender. The Besalisk took the credit chips in one of his four hands while the other two set to work pouring the drinks.

Carth turned around in his seat, putting his elbows up on the bar and leaning back to watch the vid feed. "You ever have an Eilosian Star Cruiser? They're pretty...strong."

His son sighed and rolled his eyes. He turned in his bar stool and grinned at Carth. "Of course not, Father. I've never once tried any of this alcohol substance that they seem to be serving in-- what do they call them? -- Oh, right. Bars."

Dustil rolled his eyes again and spun back around. Carth heard the glasses sliding onto the bar behind them, and he reached for his. Took a good, long sip.

When you were a soldier with a kid, you took what you could get. When your kid was a Dreshdae dropout, you sometimes got more than you could take.

"Cute. I would have also accepted 'yes'. Or the story of your real first drink," Carth added.

Dustil was nursing his Star Cruiser between his hands. "Fine. You want me to regale you with tales of breaking into The Drunk Side at un-Forcely hours of the morning to sneak out three bottles of CoreGin?" He stared into the glass like it would give him all the answers in the galaxy.

For some men, it did. Or at least made all the questions go away.

"You broke in for CoreGin?" Carth made a face. "Hell, grab something good if you're going to go to the trouble."

Dustil snorted. "I was fourteen, what do you expect? I didn't know the difference between CoreGin and Tekesian Brandy."

"Tekesian Brandy's sort of...it's...when you first taste it, you..."

Carth gave up trying to explain and signaled the bartender instead.

"We'll have a little," he murmured, glancing at Dustil. "That is, unless you've already had it?"

"Once." His son shrugged one shoulder. "So, when was your first drink?"

"Just a couple of ales on Telos after Jordo and I joined the militia."

They'd been underage, smirking at each other when the ales came and laughing like idiots by the third or fourth one. At the time it had seemed like they were the two smartest jet-jockeys in the galaxy; new recruits to the Telosian home guard, mature enough to fool the bartender.

In hindsight, the bartender probably knew they were just two kids who hadn't been made into soldiers yet. Maybe it was an act of recognition. Or pity, depending on his outlook.

The Celanon Semi-Dry left a barely noticable line of foam on his beard, and Carth wiped it off before taking the Tekesian Brandy.

"I think I've forgotten what this tastes like--" He took a sip. It was bitter, all alcohol and no flavor. Terse was a good word, maybe. "And now I remember why."

"He came to Korriban," Dustil drank a bit of the Tekesian Brandy and grimaced, "Jordo, I mean."

"Yeah. We caught up with him on Manaan. That's how I found you."

And I'll owe him for the rest of my life.

Carth wondered momentarily how it might have gone if he hadn't known ahead of time that Dustil was on Korriban, student in a Sith Academy. Would he have even gone in with Revan and the rest of the Jedi? Would any of them have recognized Dustil as his son? Would Dustil have been one of the students who tried to stop them at the end--

The brandy was burning his throat. Carth ordered another semi-dry to wash it down.

"Yeah..." Dustil looked uncomfortable. "I can't believe Manaan is still neutral. If I were there, I'd just take the-- " He frowned and finished off his drink. "Kolto production is up, I hear."

He couldn't abide neutrality either. Understood it, certainly, but didn't like it. There was only one thing worse than the cruelty of bad sents in the galaxy, and that was the indifference of the good ones.

"Just means there's more of it to fight over," Carth replied. The Celanon made his throat tingle warmly rather than a grating burn, and he finished off the second glass.

"What do you want to try now? I hear a Cometduster's pretty good."

"For girls," Dustil scoffed. "Ever tried a Choobie Buster?"

"With a name like that, I'm not sure I want to."

Dustil leaned back in the barstool. "Well, if you're yellow..."

"Yellow?" Carth snorted. "Try me."

Dustil waved towards the bartender and murmured something in Aqualish that Carth couldn't catch. At least, he thought it was Aqualish. Sounds more like gibberish. The bartender returned with a thick glass of what smelled like engine fluid and looked like pureed falleen.

"Drink up, Dad."

Carth eyed him for a moment, trying to decide if the years of being away and the time at a Sith Academy had pushed Dustil far enough that he might actually poison him.

He reached for the glass, deciding that there was a good chance the Jedi might have mellowed his son by now. Or maybe he'd die. Fifty-fifty wasn't bad as far as odds went. Carth took a sip.

The room went a little hazy. It might have been the smoke that had to be coming out of his ears, or maybe the tears in his eyes. Carth's mouth twisted, but he gulped it down and tried to look nonchalantly at Dustil. "Is that it?"

That might have worked if his voice hadn't cracked on 'that'.

Dustil made an affirming noise in the back of his throat and went back to his drink. "So do they still have above water swoop races on Manaan?"

"They did when I was there, but the circuit was pretty dead. Maybe it's livened up a bit since."

Was it his imagination, or had the Besalisk bartender sprouted a few more arms? One, two, three...six...

Maybe another Celanon Semi-Dry would clear his head after than Aqualish concoction. The bartender had it in front of him before Carth's hand lowered back down onto the surface of the bar. The Besalisk gave him a grin that was missing a few teeth and lumbered off again.

"Speeders are better anyways," he murmured. "Swoop racing just seems like whoever's got the best engine."

"And who's shaved off the most weight," Dustil said emphatically. "If they're light enough on water -- there's nothing about control. That's why half the tracks have bumpers anyway. Takes no skill."

Carth nodded in agreement. "All skill. No prototypes, no pads that automatically shoot you a few meters ahead..."

He felt kind of like he was in a speeder right now. The ale buzzed against his throat like the vibration of an engine and made him feel a little giddy, like he'd just won a race.

Dustil drank his new drink (Turbo Blaster, the bartender had called it) and smirked. "Feeling alright there, old man?"

"I'm fine." For some reason his mouth put more emphasis on the 'f' in 'fine' than there should have been.

Maybe Dustil would like to see a pro race, unless he had already seen one. There couldn't have been any on Korriban, and they hadn't been on Coruscant that long. It could be another first.

"How many drinks is that for you?" he murmured to Dustil. This was at least his second--

First, Carth corrected himself sagely. Because we're out for his first drink--

His brow furrowed at his non-logic and he blinked.

"Seventeen," Dustil replied, smirking into his drink. "Time is slowly slipping from your grasp and three hours have passed."

"Cute."

There was no way they had been here for seventeen hours...three hours...

What had been in that Gibberish-- Aqualish thing?

"Listen, Dushtil--" There was something wrong with that.

"Dushtil," Carth said again, enunciating the 'sh' perfectly, in his opinion. "Thanks for letting me take you out, son. I know it's not really your first drink and the whole idea probably seemed a little shtupid-- a little shtoopid-- a little dumb, but it means a lot to me."

"Might not be my first drink," Dustil punched him in the arm, causing Carth to totter on the barstool slightly. "But it'll be the first time I'll have to drag my father's drunk ass home." He grinned. "Memories."

"I'm not d-drunk," Carth replied, jostled into a stutter as he leaned over too far and nearly fell off his bar stool.

Well. So he was. And Dustil was grinning.

When you were a soldier with a kid, you took what you could get.