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

[suitably_heroic]

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! ]]

Comments

[myownface]

"Yeah, but that involves taking to Mical," Sparkle pointed out. "And wow, cooking here would be an adventure. 'I need to season this nerf, here. Pass me that container of white grainy stuff with the minus-sign V, crocodile, backwards check-mark, and explosion symbols on it, would you?'"

More commonly known as salt.

[suitably_heroic]

"Nah, we'd just give you a droid," Atton said mildly. "We'd program it to translate 'salt' to 'minus-sign V, crocodile, backwards check-mark, explosion', you'd be fine."

The joys of living in a galaxy that wasn't completely ass-backward.

[myownface]

"... You could program it to only understand a Pig-Latin variation of biblical Hebrew and I would figure out a way to make the damn thing work, if it actually meant I got a helper droid," Sparkle decreed. "Like, I would even cook sliders every day for your picky ass."

[suitably_heroic]

"'Get Sparkle a droid so he gets off my ass'," Atton mused. "Now there's a resolution for the new year on Earth."

[myownface]

"It's really surprisingly easy to bribe me with shiny things," Sparkle shared with a solemn nod of his head. "I was probably a magpie in a past life or something."

[suitably_heroic]

"And yet when the island turns you into something, it's usually a stupid-looking dog," Atton said. "What's up with that, anyway?"

[myownface]

"It probably knows I don't even like dogs," Sparkle sighed, wrinkling his nose. "I mean, I'm obviously a cat person. They're all... independent. And not stumpy."

Stupid corgi legs.

[suitably_heroic]

"Maybe you're a self-hating canine at heart," Atton offered, digging into the last of his sliders.

[myownface]

"... I guess there could be that," Sparkle mused. "I think I drool less, though."

A beat.

"Though I do like dressing up, so maybe it balances?"

[suitably_heroic]

Atton squinted at him. "I don't think spiking your hair or shoving on fishnets counts as 'dressing up'," he offered.

Look, he never went to the kind of occasions that prompted Sparkle to dress up. They clashed with his aesthetic.

[myownface]

"You, like, haven't seen me at a school dance where I wasn't a dog, have you?" Sparkle pursed his lips a little at that, and then shook his head, amused. "I leave the hair down, the make-up off. Actually dress up nice. I know how to dress myself, man, like, believe it or not."

[suitably_heroic]

"I usually picture Student Council holding you down and attacking you with a suit," Atton said, after a moment's thought.

[myownface]

"Pffft," Sparkle replied, chuckling. "If anything, I'm the one who'll be shoving them into suits. I mean, I do work at the clothing store."

...

"When I feel like it."

[suitably_heroic]

"Last time I saw you working, you had a boa on and you were dancing around a giant cock," Atton said. "I mean, it's your life, but I'm just saying."

[myownface]

"It was a boring day!"

Sparkle's working methods were glorious. Never doubt that.

"But, hey, whatever, right? I'm just saying, I do own nice clothes. I just don't pull them out of the closet often."

[suitably_heroic]

Atton would go with 'somewhat terrifying', but hey. Like he said, it was Sparkle's life.

"That just leaves me to ask why the hell your hair looks that stupid," Atton said.

[myownface]

"Because it keeps people guessing," Sparkle shared, oddly pleased by this question. "One of these days, I'm going to come to class looking like everyone else, and half the people in the room won't even recognize me, just watch."

[suitably_heroic]

Atton let out a snort. "Hey, at least you pick a persona and stick with it," he said. "I mean, I don't know how long you're going to keep it up. It seems exhausting. But you stick the landing."

[myownface]

"I'm gonna keep it up until it doesn't work for me anymore," Sparkle replied with a shrug of his shoulders, tearing off a piece of bread and dunking it in his soup. "If people stop seeing me the way I want them to see me, then it's time to change it up, you know?"

[suitably_heroic]

"How much energy do you put into this one?" Atton asked.

Neutrally. He got masks, and he got keeping them on. He did it all the time.

[myownface]

"I dunno... it's kind of routine by now, you know? The hair's easy. Make-up only takes a few minutes. I kind of just do it without thinking, now."

The mask that took effort was that other one. That one that was all lies and attitude and convincing people that he didn't care about a thing.

[suitably_heroic]

"Not the one I was talking about," Atton said mildly. "But hey, points for the evasion."

[myownface]

"I do what I can for points, man," Sparkle replied with a shrug. "You actually care that much how much effort I put into it?"

Because Sparkle could keep ducking and dodging that answer until the nerfs came home.

[suitably_heroic]

"You can weasel your way out of it if you want to," Atton said, with a light shrug. "Just as long as we're both clear that's what's happening here."

He was curious, though. Just not the kind of curious that led to lectures or whatever, because again, not a leg to stand on.

[myownface]

"Okay." Sparkle was quiet for a moment, and then he shrugged. "I dunno. I put more effort in around some people than others."

For Atton, for example, Sparkle was only sort of wearing a mask. When he was at school, he was someone else completely. People didn't get to see Sparkle. Not unless there was a damn good reason for it.

He figured Atton would get how that went.