Will Gorski (officerstrange) wrote in valarlogs, @ 2019-05-07 14:18:00 |
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Entry tags: | !complete, padme amidala, will gorski |
Who: Will Gorski and Padmé Amidala
What: Will takes Padmé out for tacos
When: Recently
Where: A taco restaurant on the beach
Ratings/Warnings: Low/none
Status: Complete
Thanks to Padme, Will thought he was finally starting to get a hang of this surfing thing. Maybe he couldn’t exactly ride curls, or do anything fancy, but at least he could ride the wave for a while.
He owed her though. She’d helped him a lot over the last couple of months, and he owed her, which is why he’d offered to take her out for lunch after their morning of surfing. There was a decent taco restaurant on the beach which he’d scoped out a few weeks back and was eager to try. “I hope you like tacos,” he said, opening the door for her.
“How can you live in SoCal and NOT like tacos?” Padme smiled widely and walked into the restaurant. It was a nice little place, not too busy and so they were shown a table fairly quickly. “Thanks for the invite, by the way. It’s so awesome to be able to get away in the middle of the day, especially when things are as busy as they are! How’ve you been? Have you been doing the exercises I suggested?”
“How can you live anywhere and not like tacos?” Will shot back. Sure, he was originally from Chicago and he liked deep dish pizza as much as the next Chicagoan, but tacos were universal. “Yeah, I’ve been adding them to my gym routine. I think they’ve been helping.” He at least could stand up on the board more often than not now. “You’ve been busy with work?”
“Work, ugh.” Padmé grinned good-naturedly, sitting down with the menu. Looking it over, she thought why bother be creative? Fish tacos, easy. It was too hard to think of things when she was so busy. “It’s springtime, and didn’t you know? It’s twitterpation season.” Yes, that was a Bambi reference. “So there’s a million weddings, and my mother is asking for help with her fundraising since it’s election season coming up. And you know,” Padme continued, “for a rich lady, she rarely pays me. Something something familial duty.” She rolled her eyes.
“How about you?”
“Oh right, you’re a wedding planner, aren’t you?” Will asked. “Got to admit, I’d rather deal with crooks and drunks than California Bridezillas. Sometimes I wonder how you can manage it.” Will thought he had a lot of patience when it came to people, but he’d watched enough reality TV with his dad to know that there wasn’t enough patience in the world for some people.
He knew a lot about underappreciated familial duty too. If he was honest, a big part of the reason he’d moved across the country was because of his father, but this wasn’t exactly the time for it. “Pretty busy too. You know, I actually thought that being a police officer in Orange County would be quieter than back in Chicago. Shows what I know, I guess.”
“Clearly you didn’t google before you moved,” Padmé teased. “There’s more people here than in Chicago.” She wasn’t going to touch the probably prickly topic of race politics and other things that Chicago was struggling with. “And you’re right, I think sometimes I would like to deal with drunks and crooks too. At least you can reason with a drunk...or put them to sleep. I have to smile and play nice because naturally, I cater to wealthy people who have never heard no in their life.”
She reached out and played with her glass, the ice clinking lightly in the cup. “I mean, I’m not about to start saying no. They pay me well, so I do what I can...but sometimes yeah, I’ve had to stand up for myself or for others. Been fired enough times too.” A pause. “And re-hired just as quickly. Rich people are fickle.”
“More people, but less crime.” Generally, at least. Occasionally the county had strange, abnormal crime waves, which Will was finally beginning to understand after actually living here for a while. “Irvine’s apparently supposed to be one of the safest cities in the state, maybe even the country. Though I guess whoever makes the stats has never actually lived here.” He was pretty sure that frequent zombie attacks would probably bump its rating down quite a bit.
“That’s good though, that you stand up for yourself. Not enough people do it, especially not to people who are paying them. But everyone needs to be told no.”
“Right?” It was one thing that bothered her the most about working with the wealthy. Always thought they were above everyone else. It didn’t matter that she too was raised with money -- she’d actually stepped away from it. Lived in a tiny apartment, worked two jobs, did everything she needed to do to keep herself happy. Whatever. Other people’s children. “I mean, I recognize I’m lucky in the fact that I have privilege, and I can say no. Sometimes that’s not the case for some.”
She sighed and gave a shrug. “In my dreams, I’m a leader, and I guess the more I dream, the more I think I should embrace that aspect. But only that aspect,” she added hurriedly. “I’m in politics in my dreams and yeah. No thanks.”
“No, it’s not.” And a lot of cops liked to think that people didn’t have the right to say no, or even just to live their lives in peace. That, more than anything, had been the driving force that got Will out of Chicago. Irvine wasn’t perfect, but it was better than that at least.
“Yeah? I think that’s a great idea,” Will said. “I mean, yeah, steer clear of politics.” The state of politics these days was obscene. “But I think you could do a lot of good as a community leader. What were you thinking of doing?”
“No idea.” Padmé gave a little laugh. “I do the odd volunteering, donate things when I can, try to not infringe on anyone's’ rights. I’m not about to lead a revolution or anything like that. Maybe dream Padmé would be good at that but me?” She shook her head. “Not so much. And you? Other than surfing, which is an excellent use of time by the way, what else do you do?”
“Hey, the whole leading the revolution thing isn’t for everyone. And sometimes just being the best that we can be is a revolution in and of itself.” The server came by to take their order, and Will temporarily diverted his attention from Padme so that he could put in an order for fish tacos for himself. “I’m a cop, so mostly I go around and gather the drunks from the street. It’s…. alright.” It wasn’t a job that Will had ever seen for himself growing up, despite of, or more likely, because of, the fact that his father was a police officer. He wasn’t always sure that he’d made the right choice, especially when it came to some of his coworkers. “Just like you, I’ve got to try to do the best that I can to make the world a better place.”
“Cheers to that.” She lifted her glass of water and smiled. “I actually had a good conversation with Kitty recently, and she’s encouraged me to talk with a man named Logan. I guess he does some work with kids. I don’t know if I’ll be any good at that, but I’m willing to try. What kind of person would I be if I didn’t try something at least once, right?”
Will didn’t think he knew a Kitty, or a Logan, but there was a lot of people he didn’t know. He hadn’t even been here for a year yet, after all. “Exactly,” Will said, though he himself hadn’t worked much with kids. At least, not with kids who weren’t already managing to get themselves in trouble with the police. Will always tried to be a little lighter on the kids, but some of them could push their luck more than an adult would dare to. “I think you’ll be good at it. You’re a good teacher, at least. And working with kids is a good way to try and shape our future.”
Padmé flushed a little. “Aw, thanks Will! I think there’s a slight different between teaching something you’re passionate about, and working with kids who probably can tell if I’m genuine or sincere or not.” She was a little worried about that. “We’ll see how it goes! Do you do any volunteering?”
“The troubled kids are the toughest with that,” Will said. He tried his best with them, but generally, his bad precluded any sort of meaningful relationship with the kids he ended up taking into his custody. They had an idea about cops in their head, and he wasn’t going to change their mind about what that was; though, that generally didn’t stop him from trying, at least. “But as long as you’re real with them, it’ll probably be okay.”
He grimaced slightly. “No,” he admitted. He knew he probably should volunteer, but “I don’t really have the time. Long, uncooperative hours and all that.”
“That makes sense.” She kept forgetting how weird other people’s work schedules were ...nto that she could talk. She could work non-stop evenings and weekends for well...months, without having to actually be in her office during the day. Except for the rare brunch-on-a-Wednesday wedding. But those didn’t happen very often. “Well, as long as you manage to keep yourself busy and take care of yourself, that’s all that matters! It must be hard to avoid burnout when you’re in such a taxing field.”
“That’s what this is for,” Will said, grinning. It was nice to be able to get out and spend time with people who didn’t also work for the police station. “It’s not too bad, so long as you make sure to have a life outside of work. And if you make sure not to bring your work home.” That was harder, but he’d seen first hand, from growing up with his dad, what that could do to a person. He didn’t want to end up like his dad. “So, you know, thanks for helping keep me sane.”
Padmé had to laugh at that. “Well, it goes both ways,” she said smiling. The waiter showed up with their food, and Padmé gave out a little squeal. “Oh man, food! This looks amazing. Thanks again for the invite, and maybe we should get together sometime this weekend for a night ride?”
Will’s food was put in front of him, and he couldn’t agree more with Padme’s assessment. “Any time,” he said, meaning it. He enjoyed spending time with Padmé. “And that sounds great. I’m working days this week so a night ride sounds great.” And with that, he bit into his taco.