Bubble Boy - Sequel to Laundry Day
Genre: humor/angst
Summary: Everyone at the Temple knows about Jinn's little run-in with the laundry. Could things get any worse?
DISCLAIMER: I do not own Qui-Gon Jinn, Tahl, or the Star Wars concept; Lucasfilm does. I am very respectfully borrowing them with no intent to profit. No credits have changed hands. No copyright infringement is intended.
"Hey, there's Bubble Boy."
The derisive laughter followed, rippling across the food hall, swelling as Padawans and older initiates joined in. The gangling victim of such ridicule blushed a deep red, even as he locked stares with his black-haired tormentor.
Padawan Jaccar Ne'te chuckled at the response. The reaction of the crowd was classic and he had handled the proclamation with just the right touch of sound and sarcasm. The kid's bright color was an added bonus. As he turned back to his fellow pranksters, he smiled, knowing he was safe. His target, the young Qui-Gon Jinn, did not believe in revenge; it was not the Jedi way. Besides, Bubble Boy was a favorite of Yoda's and Jinny wouldn't be caught dead doing anything to embarrass the Councilor - well not deliberately anyway. He snorted one last time, and then started talking about his upcoming mission, the kid forgotten. All in a day's fun.
As the snickers morphed slowly back to the normal hum of youthful conversation, the target of the joke, young thirteen-year old Jinn still hesitated in the doorway, radiating misery and profound embarrassment. Deep down, all he wanted to do was turn around, and run as far and as fast as he could. But instead, he berated himself sharply, taking the abusive ridicule as his due; after all, it was his own blasted fault that the name had stuck. In a way, he deserved everything they threw at him - because it was true. He was Bubble Boy, the stupid fool too clumsy to help with the laundry detail and not get hurt.
As he stood there, he watched the other children jostling each other, enjoying the companionship of friends, gesturing wildly with laughter and excitement. But he was alone. Outcast. And the evidence of his spectacularly-foolish experiment in washing clothes was right in front of his face, literally.
He fought the urge to touch his broken nose; it still ached, even after a week. The bruising had begun to edge from purple to yellows and greens but the nose would never be the same. Qui-Gon would wear that badge of idiocy until the day he died. Damn.
He hadn't meant to make a mess of everything. He hadn't meant to put too much detergent into the laundry tanks and have the bubbles overflow and his feet slip in the soapy water and break his nose. But, like it or not, that's what had happened and now he would have to put up with the remarks and the training droids painted like soap bubbles and the 'blub, blub' noises that everyone seemed to make around him.
Fighting the comments wouldn't work, ignoring them hadn't worked and he knew that he would just have to ride it out. Well, that was until some other poor unfortunate did something so spectacular that Jinn's embarrassing foray into the wonderful world of laundry detergent paled by comparison.
He grimaced. He knew that might take quite a while and, in the meantime, he was stuck.
Well, he was hungry and he was here - might as well eat. Dragging his feet, he made it over to the food line and, ignoring all the stares and the giggling whispers, he kept his head down and grabbed blindly at something from the server droid. When he realized his mistake, it was too late. Grimacing at the wobbling mound of green color and odd smell, he shrugged and made his way to a table in the far corner. Alone.
He was stirring the concoction, hoping to make it seem more appetizing when he realized that someone was calling his name and had been for quite some time.
"Qui-Gon, what are you doing in the corner? I've been looking for you everywhere." Tahl's exasperated voice softened when she saw his face. "Oh, that still seems bad. Does it hurt?"
She pointed one finger towards his swollen, misshapen blob of a nose but he just batted her hand away. "Tahl, not now." He looked down again at the unappetizing green mess and pushed it to one side. He wasn't that hungry and, besides, the laughter at the other tables just made his stomach into knots anyway.
His eyes flicked uneasily toward the noise, as if to gird himself for battle, and then gazed down to the floor, avoiding Tahl's sympathetic eyes. There was nothing he could do to stop the gossip and the jeers and he needed to get used to it. But sullen and morose, he fairly radiated misery.
But she was not going to let him sink down into gloom. Folding her arms tightly across her chest in irritation, she snapped, "Qui-Gon Jinn. You have to ignore them."
He just shook his head in defeat. "I've tried but they don't seem to want to stop."
Glaring at him in irritation, disliking the fact that he seemed to want to take on all the troubles of the Galaxy and made them his own, she ground out, "Then do something about it." But when he said nothing else, just sat there, playing with his disintegrating food, her voice grew impatient.
"What are you always telling me? That your enemy isn't the person making you angry but the anger itself. So figure out a way to make the anger go away."
Still not looking at her, he sighed, "How am I supposed to do that?"
"Qui-Gon, if you'd stop being so defensive and embarrassed about it, you'd realize that the whole thing was pretty funny."
He frowned at that. Gritting his teeth in annoyance, he hissed, "It was not funny."
Tahl let out a quiet chuckle. Leaning forward to catch his eye, she put her hand over his and gave it a light squeeze. Smiling, she tried to get him to share the joke. "Yes, it was. It was fit for the holovids. A young Jedi Padawan slipping on soap and breaking his nose as he slid into the tanks. Pure slapstick. We'd both be laughing if it was on the vidfeed and you know it." She gripped his hand harder and jostled it a bit, cajoling the teen with warmth and humor. He could be incredibly stubborn sometimes, especially about something so trivial. "Come on. Runaway laundry, bubbles up to your eyeballs."
An unhappy glance flicking to the other Padawans and then, grimacing, he said, "You aren't the one they're calling Bubble Boy."
"We get called a lot worse on missions."
Qui-Gon growled back, "That's not the same and you know it."
She tapped his hand a little hard to get his attention. "No, it's a lot worse because, on the missions, they mean it." She smiled in his direction, "This is just silliness." But when he didn't take the bait, she started to get annoyed.
Abruptly, she pushed back at her chair and glared at him, hard. "Qui-Gon Jinn, get over this. It isn't the end of the universe as we know it. Besides Ne'te is teaching you a valuable lesson - that names have power over you, but only if you allow it. Turn the tables on him, Bubble Boy." Lowering her voice, she suggested, "If you don't want them to laugh at you, make them laugh with you. Besides, I have an idea."
As she pulled out the child's toy, he looked at her as though she were insane. "I can't do that, not here. They'll think I'm crazy."
"Maybe, but at least it will be your choice, not some mistake, not getting your nose broken skidding through laundry soap. I'll even help."
"You will?" When she nodded, he began to smile. "You realize that, after this, you may have your own reputation to defend."
"I look forward to it." She laughed and pulled out her own toy. "Now blow."
It was sometime later that Jaccer Ne'te noticed the sound in the food hall had started to rise. He and his friends were still lounging at their table, datapads scattered across the scarred surface, pretending to study. Huddled together, they had not paid attention to the children scampering about or the Jinn kid and his friend making odd movements in the corner. Besides, Jaccer was too busy talking about his latest foray off-planet. His friends listened avidly as he cupped his hand for a moment and then made a booming sound, throwing his arms wide and laughing. The rest of the boys groaned, jostling each other good-naturedly. Another of the group started to make his own sound-effect, snickering and making semi-rude gestures when Ne'te stopped him and stared first at the chaos in the room and then at Jinny. He couldn't believe what was going on.
Around the room, the initiates and even some of the Padawans were running, jumping and laughing as they tried to catch the huge bubbles floating in the air. The place was fairly filled with them, all sizes, colors of transparent rainbow hues and they seemed to dance, bobbing up and down with graceful movement. Children and older teens alike were having a marvelous time playing with soap.
And Jinn was in the thick of the bedlam, blowing bubbles as if his life depended upon it, his eyes alight with laughter. He had a bubble pipe in his hand, and, spying Ne'te watching him, he blew an especially large sphere and wafted it in Jaccer's direction. The boy grinned madly at the older Padawan. At Qui-Gon side, his friend Tahl was chuckling and using her hands to send the airy prizes aloft.
Ne'te just stared for a moment and then started to laugh. So Jinny had turned the rout into a game. Now when he called the kid Bubble Boy, people would remember the bubbles in the food hall and not the spectacular disaster in the laundry.
Catching Qui-Gon's eye, Jaccer nodded in acceptance and then reached up to play with the bubble floating overhead. So be it.
The kid had won after all.
The end.