suitably_heroic | Grakk's Diner, Near The Jedi Temple, Coruscant, Tuesday Morning

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Grakk's Diner, Near The Jedi Temple, Coruscant, Tuesday Morning

It'd been a decent couple of days - training Sparkle, avoiding Brianna, finding new places to leave rude things scribbled on the walls of the Temple that Mical probably wouldn't find out about until he was fifty - but all decent things had to end. For one thing, most of Atton's stuff was on the island, and for the other, he didn't actually want to miss the couple of quiet days there before the next term.

Why squander a perfectly good place without people he hated?

"All right, portal leaves in two hours," Atton said, pushing open the door to a charming local diner that screamed GRAKK in offensively neon-and-glittery words from the rooftop. Inside, a plethora of people of various species were hovering or sitting in their seats, but there were still a couple of booths open, including one facing right across from the diner's four-armed cook, so hey, Atton would sit down right there.

"Stick to the blue part of the menu," he said, "The white part's living food. Yellow's not for humans, and red... let's just not talk about the red."

[[ for sparks! ]]

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"I'm going to try," Sparkle replied, shrugging his shoulders. "I mean, I'm pretty sure Boo won't be able to pull that stunt off again or anything. That stuff seemed pretty thorough."

Hard to be positive without an actual ghost floating around and trying, but it didn't feel to Sparkle as though Atton was just teaching him hokey Jedi superstitious bullshit or anything, and he was usually a pretty good judge of that, at least.

Edited 2014-12-23 17:23 (UTC)

Atton had been an expert on keeping things out of his head long before he became a Jedi. It was just... keeping your mind occupied in weird ways, overfocusing on small details, making up details that weren't there, that kind of thing.

He'd figured Sparkle could work with that.

"It is," he said mildly. "You listening to the rain?"

"You're going to have me playing pazaak in the rain while trying to ride a jetski across a lava flow one of these days," Sparkle replied, only half-snarking, but he nodded all the same. "But yeah. I mean, I have to get used to doing it all the time or whatever, but..."

He could handle that. It wasn't like he wasn't already used to keeping one ear open anyway.

"Hey, if playing pazaak in the rain while trying to ride a jetski across a lava flow works for you, I say go with it," Atton said.

The droid put down two glasses of something purple in front of them. (It was better not to ask.)

"But it's probably easier to stick with something more... I don't know, Toronto."

"Nothing has ever tried to possess me in Toronto," Sparkle pointed out, shrugging his shoulders. "Toronto solutions are great for Toronto problems, but, you know, apparently pretty shitty for Fandom. Or Coruscant. Or wherever."

He reached for one of the purple... somethings... contemplated it for a moment, and then decided that if it was there to be drank, drink it he would do.

It was drinkable, and at least not alcoholic, and some kind of fruit. Honestly, Atton had just ordered whatever juice came up first on the menu.

"Toronto solutions are actually fantastic for this problem," Atton said. "Actually, hey, let's make this a teaching moment. Things here are different, right? Off-putting? The letters, just to start with? Think about that. And then think about what you'd be hearing if you were sitting in a place just like this back home. What's different? What's the same?"

Sparkle looked between the juice and Atton for a moment, and then grinned.

"Well, I'd expect this to be grape-flavoured, in Toronto," he decreed, before shaking his head and deciding to take this a little more seriously. "But, I mean, some of it's the same. Grease smells like grease no matter where you go, and there's the sound of people just... eating. Clanging dishes, food being cooked, background chatter that you'd have to focus on to pick anything out from."

He licked his lips and sat there quietly for a moment more.

"Some of the different stuff is obvious. I mean, everyone is human back home. Even if I don't speak every Earth language, at least I can make a stab in the dark about what language I'm listening to or looking at if I run into it. Some of the food looks similar to what I know, but I still wouldn't be able to identify any of the meat by looking at it, beyond, you know, 'that's probably meat.' And this time of year, there'd be Christmas carols blaring from some hidden speaker somewhere and everything would be decorated for the holiday and half the people in here would be dragging shopping bags in for something fast to eat before getting back to their last minute holiday prep. And... I dunno... some things are just tweaked a little sideways, aesthetically. A table's still a table and a chair's still a chair, and the function for both is still pretty clear, but there's something about the design to either that's different, and the clothes people wear, and even the textures on the walls."

It seemed more... industrial? Maybe that was it.

Atton listened to him go, and when he was finished, he just said, "See? Do that."

He shrugged. "Don't think of it as some weird thing you do," he said. "Just do it. Think about the differences when you're here, try to pick up the background chatter when you're back home..."

"Pay attention," Sparkle supplied, nodding. "Just... more than I used to."

It wasn't quite so simplistic as that, maybe, but it was the easiest way he had to put it into words. He looked around the room quietly, and tried to put a finger on just what that aesthetic difference was. Things were darker, maybe? Angles and curves went in different places than he'd expect them to be?

He tried to listen in on a nearby conversation, and didn't tune it out again even after he realized he had no idea what language was being spoken.

"Yeah, I can do this."

"Like I keep saying, the trick isn't to think on something real hard," Atton said, "Then they notice. But you keep your surface thoughts going like that, and they don't bother prying-- or they find it too irritating to poke their way in."

He pulled a face.

"Even Meetra did that from time to time," he said, "Mind tricks."

"Mind tricks," Sparkle echoed. "It's probably not a bad habit to get into anyway. Thinking more never hurt anyone, right? Even if ghosts or mind tricks or whatever were never a consideration, it's like... the more you notice, the more you can use."

"Exactly," Atton said, giving a little nod. "Though I don't doubt you've already got an eye for exits."

"My count in here is three, maybe four, but I can't see that far into the kitchen and that count doesn't include shit that needs to be broken first," Sparkle shared, his grin going a little wry. "That's one thing I was always good at, yeah. Don't walk into a place unless you've taken a moment to figure out a few ways to walk out again."

"Just for petty theft, or did you get up to a lot worse than that?" Atton asked, taking another sip of his juice-of-whatever-it-was.

"Oh, I killed a guy," Sparkle deadpanned, looking Atton in the eye. He didn't expect him to buy it for even a second, no. Honestly, who the hell would buy his tall tales, anyway?

Someday he'd meet somebody who did, and that poor sucker was going to get ragged on constantly.

"Just walked up to him and boom, blew his brains out. All over the floor."

He had killed people before, but nothing so irreverent as that. And did the psychos that had invaded the island a while back count, if they were threatening to turn you into sausage and eat your insides? He had a lot of horrifying experiences that he could chalk up to 'thanks, Fandom,' that he couldn't talk about back home.

He toyed with the rim of his glass for a moment, trying to see if he could get the cup to make that humming noise if he ran his finger over it just the right way.

"Would've, anyway. Wouldn't regret it if I did, either. I just don't like being locked up, okay? Not if the only way out is the one somebody else is holding the key to."

That humming noise thing alone-- yeah, Atton figured Sparkle would be a natural at the keeping his brain shut tight. As long as he put some effort into it, or rather a lack of it.

"You'd regret it," Atton said flatly.

"Not him."

Sparkle shook his head, and then shot Atton a grin that sat neatly somewhere between 'manic' and 'lazy.' Quite the combination, really.

"It's just survival of the fucking fittest, right? You survive. That's all it ever is, in the end. 'Right' and 'wrong' are all fucked up concepts anyway, and all it really comes down to is 'how do I stay alive until tomorrow?' And Lewis hates that, you know? That I'll break some guy's nose for going through my things or I drink too much or I break into people's homes just to run off with worthless shit, but it's all the same thing at the end of the day, just, the situation is different, or the scale."

Manic, lazy, a bit of both; Atton didn't much care. It was funny how little unnerved you after you'd gone toe to toe with a Sith Lord who'd been hoping to mutilate you into a copy of himself, and Sparkle was going to be the last person in the galaxy to manage it anyway.

One of the Twi'leks in the booth behind them looked a little disturbed, though.

"You'd regret it because it's killing someone, and it doesn't matter how nice your explanation sounds like in your head before you do it, it's going to be different," Atton drawled. "But I'll bite. You've argued with your Lewis about it, then?"

"I've argued with my Lewis about a lot of things," Sparkle replied, perking up a little as he finally got the glass to hum, looking for all the world like he wasn't engaged in this conversation at all, even as he continued to speak. "Stealing and fighting and running away, drugs, grades, starting fires, the colour of his shoes and why he shouldn't wear those socks, getting adopted or aging out, avoiding my parole officer when I'm in Toronto or whether it's okay to call the new girl fat or to tell the little kids that the Tooth Fairy steals teeth right out of your head if she shows up and there's nothing under the pillow. I've argued with him about the answers on Jeopardy and what goes into dinner when it's my night to cook and if it's too hot out to push a lawnmower or too cold out to shovel the sidewalk or salt the driveway or walk to school, and then why I skipped school that day anyway or mouthed the teacher off or kicked the shit out of some kid behind the smokers' shed. I argue with Lewis about everything, and most of it is stupid shit that doesn't matter, and then he'll have this long speech ready about how things are going to get better and I don't want to be one of those kids like everyone expects me to be and I'll tell him to go fuck himself and get kicked out of his office and we don't talk sometimes for days but we always make up anyway."

And then Lewis looked at him and smiled and everything was okay again, and Sparkle looked back and sometimes forgot what the arguments were about.

"So it doesn't matter."

Atton experienced that feeling he'd felt around Sparkle once or twice - that sudden need to chuck something at the kid's head because he was being both unbearably cotton candy-level infatuated and completely stupidly unhealthy at the same time.

(He always reeled it in, partly because it wasn't his business, partly because he wasn't exactly the one to talk.)

"Sounds like that list does keep getting bigger," he mused instead, neutrally.

"Sometimes I sit around just thinking up new ways to piss him off," Sparkle shared, glancing up at Atton again. "Doesn't make much difference, it always works out the same way, anyway."

He took a moment and drank down half the contents of his cup, and then, upon setting it down again, went right back to work trying to see what difference it would make if he could get it to hum again.

"But he doesn't know I've killed people. Even if it's just Fandom shit or whatever. I shot a few psychos who were coming after me when those developers started digging up the island. One of them killed Alec and I went fucking ballistic and kept shooting until they stopped moving. I tore Sholeh's throat out with my teeth, once. I regret that one. She didn't talk to me for... shit, almost a year. I don't blame her. I wouldn't talk to me, either. It's not like I can't do it. It sucks every fucking time, but I can."

"Fandom's not really real, though, is it?" Atton mused. "I mean, back during that thing with those Hyperion guys, everyone kept jumping back to life. Sholeh came back to life."

He drained his glass.

"And even then, it's not whether you can do it that does it. Whether you will, and how you'll feel afterwards, those are bigger questions."

"Fandom's not real," Sparkle echoed. "Doesn't mean it hurts any less when something kills you, or you're any less thirsty when some vampire bitch corners you and drains you empty and forces her blood down your throat. It's like some kind of fucking dream, and everything ugly goes away every single time, but it still feels real enough when it happens, doesn't it? Or else you wouldn't have been so pissed off when you met Boo, either."

He stopped playing with the rim of his glass. Now he was chewing on the end of his finger. His nails were too neatly trimmed for there to be anything there for him to nip at, and he was entirely too fastidious about them to bite them anyway. But that didn't mean he wasn't going to bite at his skin, instead.

"I'm not going to like go back to Toronto and hunt anybody down, if that's what you're worried about. Not even if it was a fucking option anymore. But sometimes you look around at everything and you think about what got you to here and sometimes there's that maybe. Everyone gets that maybe, right?"

"Everyone gets maybe, I won't argue with you about that," Atton said. "But maybe in return you'll do me the courtesy of not arguing with me on something I know a lot more about than you do."

He didn't sound combative, oddly enough. Just tired.

"It feels real, sure. And I'm not any happier seeing some ghost take you for a test drive for a week than I'd be if it was permanent. But don't think it's the same as looking back and realizing there's actually fewer people in the galaxy because of you."

Sparkle was quiet, dead quiet, for what was probably a full half-minute before replying again.

He hated, hated, hearing Atton sound that way. Hated even more that he was the reason he did. It took him about that long to come up with a reply that wasn't knee-jerk argumentative, though. Sparkle didn't handle 'guilty' well.

"There are people who do it all the time and who don't feel sorry about it, aren't there? Hell, there are people who revel in it. Why are they so different?"

It wasn't an argument. It was an honest question. And maybe a bit of tired was sneaking into Sparkle's own voice, too.

He masked it as boredom well.

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