MCA #4, Wednesday Afternoon

[suitably_heroic]

Atton's comlink was currently drifting neatly in his water-filled sink. That would keep Mical from comming him again with yet another mission. Right? Right. Probably. Maybe. Whatever.

He was too tired to think about it overmuch. He'd barely gotten five hours of sleep on Monday night before getting hauled out to go deal with some Exchange thing, and now he'd gone another 30-something hours without even a decent nap. He was going to kill something.

Wandering back from the sink, he made it about as far as the sofa before collapsing. Nap. Nap would be good. His Earth phone was in reach, though, so he at least took care to place a quick message to Sparkle before passing out. That way there'd at least be food.

But now: blessed, uninterrupted sleep. Oh yeah.

[[ may become more of a linkdrop as the day goes on, depending. open post, though. ]]

Comments

[sharp_as_knives]

Since Hannibal hadn't heard back that Atton had reached the correct person, he had gone shopping and cooked, and now was showing up at Atton's apartment with a bag of high-quality organic food (beef, pork, chicken, eggs, milk, cheese, pasta, bread, beer, and assorted fruit) and a thermal bag with a home-cooked lasagne in it.

He knocked on the door.

[suitably_heroic]

Sdfjkalkdjflk.

Atton opened his bleary eyes and eyeballed the door. Okay, that wasn't Sparkle. One, because Sparkle would've probably either used a key or broken in, and two, that wasn't Sparkle's Force presence. It wasn't even Karina's or Anakin's or Sia's or Jessica's Force presence.

And he would've left it at that, too, and rolled over and gone back to nap on the okay not entirely comfortable sofa, if he hadn't vaguely recognized that particular flavor of wrong. E chu ta. What did he want?

So it was that a bleary-eyed, brown Jedi tunic-clad Atton with hair askew opened the door and squinted. "...Professor Lecter?"

The loud cursing in Twi'lekki was entirely internal and not visible on his face, thankfully.

[sharp_as_knives]

"Mister Rand." Hannibal nodded. It didn't escape him that Atton didn't seem terribly happy to see him, but he probably hadn't been expected, after all.

"Since you don't seem to have gotten my message - you left your voice mail for the wrong person." He smiled. "But since I hate to see anybody go hungry, I have groceries and lasagne for you. And no vegetables. I wasn't certain what else you might need, so please let me know if I've gotten anything wrong."

[suitably_heroic]

"...I sent that to Sparkle," Atton said. Give him a minute to wake up, please? He squinted. "...Is the island messing with the lines again?"

And it had sent his message to Hannibal Lecter? That damn island had a sick sense of humor.

"Uh, not to say I'm not real happy about the groceries," he added, a beat later. (He was pretty sure Lecter didn't know him well enough to have any desire to poison him, if that was his deal, but the likelihood of all that food getting eaten was still up in the air right now.) "Sorry, I just crashed. Um, how much do I owe you?"

[sharp_as_knives]

"I wasn't aware that was something the island did." Just when he'd thought he'd gotten the measure of its oddities. "Well, I was fairly certain you didn't mean me, but as I said."

He shifted the groceries and lasagne bag. "The receipt is in my wallet; may I come in and set these down?"

[suitably_heroic]

Atton took a quick glance to make sure the doors to both his bedroom and the guest bedroom were closed. He did not want a guy who pinged on his radar quite like this to know where all the entrances and exits were, thanks.

But then he stepped aside. "Sure," he said, "Kitchen's right down the hall. Thanks again."

He'd cleared the weapons out of the kitchen, right?

... poodoo, he was pretty sure there was still at least a vibrosword and an Aratech sniper blaster rifle lying around there somewhere.

[sharp_as_knives]

"You're very welcome," Hannibal answered as he headed to the kitchen. He gave the weapons an amused side-eye, but given the nature of the island (let alone other places people lived) he couldn't say they were a bad idea.

"I don't believe I've spoken with you since you returned," he continued, "so I suppose I should say welcome back. Sparkle was quite worried."

He opened the bags and started unpacking. "Meat, milk, bread, eggs - I wasn't certain if you wanted beer or if fruits were acceptable, so if you don't need any of it, I can use it."

[suitably_heroic]

The weapons were only here because he'd brought them in for the situation last week. He really needed to haul them back home, but he kept getting interrupted, and now he had a house full of sharp items.

"No, it's good," Atton said casually, taking a glance over. "I can toss the fruit Sparkle's way anyway." Also the beer, but he wasn't saying as much. "Yeah, it's been a while. Longer for me than for you, Professor, but still a while. Got back in one piece, though."

[sharp_as_knives]

Hannibal had given Sparkle beer, too; he wasn't going to mind.

"So I gathered, since you went from student to colleague more quickly than most," Hannibal said, smiling. He opened the thermal bag and pulled out the lasagne. "And there you are. I'll leave it with you and you or Sparkle can return the pan when you're finished."

[suitably_heroic]

It was less the 'giving beer to minors' thing - that kind of went with the aesthetic Atton was gunning for anyway - and more the part where Sparkle was the only one who didn't know Atton wasn't actually a regular drinker.

Deciding to stray away from the student-to-colleague thing, Atton boggled at the lasagne. "Man, Sparkle's been threatening to make me one of those for weeks," he said. "You really go all-out, don't you?"

Yes, this was where your efforts teaching Sparkle the culinary arts went, Hannibal: feeding a scruffy ex-assassin who'd eat nothing but junk food if he didn't have a scrawny 18-year-old to yell at him about nutrition every once in a while.

[sharp_as_knives]

Hannibal chuckled. "Call it professional pride. I love to feed people, and I refuse to do less than my best. And I did feel you ought to have some form of vegetable."

Hannibal would be so proud of Sparkle for trying to feed someone well!

[suitably_heroic]

"Aren't tomatoes technically fruit, or something?" Atton asked, tilting his head.

He could be an asshole and it'd probably get Lecter out of his apartment faster. But unfortunately, they were likely to be stuck on an island together for the foreseeable future. Besides, now that he was no longer a student, he couldn't pull off the asshole approach quite as easily.

"I don't know. I'm not the guy running a cooking class. I'm just happy I have a microwave, so props."

[sharp_as_knives]

A microwave? Hannibal did his best not to look too pained.

"Tomatoes are fruit," he agreed, "But spinach, celery, and carrots are not." He smirked. "You'll barely notice them, I promise."

[suitably_heroic]

Atton pulled a face. "And now I'm thinking I was lied to about what a lasagne is," he complained. "Uh, no offense. It's not every day I get food delivery from the culinary arts teacher."

[sharp_as_knives]

Hannibal laughed. "It is mostly meat and pasta, but there are trace amounts of vegetables. Do you have a moral objection to eating vitamins?"

[suitably_heroic]

"Not a moral one, but they usually don't taste so good," Atton said.

He shrugged. "Sparks and I have a running argument about broccoli," he said, "I think the arguing is causing some trench-digging on the subject, but hey."

[sharp_as_knives]

"That just means you haven't had them cooked correctly," Hannibal said. "And broccoli can taste very bitter if you've a particular sort of taste receptors; it's genetic. I happen to enjoy it, but I can assure you there is none in the lasagne."

He pulled his wallet from his breast pocket and fished out the receipt. It was probably more than Sparkle would have spent on groceries, but not exorbitant.

"If you're frightened of Sparkle's cooking, I can assure you he's doing quite well these days."

[suitably_heroic]

Atton had a teacher's salary he only had to live on while he was here, anyway. Now that they got a decent cashflow from the Republic, the Order paid for all his expenses back home. He reached for the wallet he had stuffed into a small pouch on his belt.

"Too well, if you ask me," he said, "I'm starting to get side-eyed about pizza. But hey, maybe that's going to be useful to him in the future, I'm not going to argue too hard."

[sharp_as_knives]

"I hope it will be," Hannibal agreed. "The larger challenge is convincing him he can do it. Or whatever else he likes." He shrugged. He doubted this was betraying a confidence; any friend of Sparkle's would know what he meant.

[suitably_heroic]

"That's as much up to reality as it is to him," Atton said, with a little shrug of his own. He took some bills out of his wallet. "The power of positive thinking doesn't really materialize great life opportunities."

[sharp_as_knives]

"True enough." Hannibal shrugged. "But I don't want him missing opportunities because he feels he isn't worth them."

He shook his head, smiling. "And he probably wouldn't thank us for talking about him like this, so I will stop."

[suitably_heroic]

And those bills were getting offered to Hannibal now.

Honestly, Atton would rather be talking about Sparks than about anything even vaguely adjacent to himself, but maybe if he paid Lecter back now, the conversation would be over anyway. "Probably not," he agreed. "Anyway, it's his life. I'm just glad he knows how to make lasagne now."

[sharp_as_knives]

Hannibal took the bills and tucked them into his own wallet. "I hope he enjoys this one and I haven't stolen his thunder." He nodded to Atton. "And now I should probably let you get back to sleep. Have a good day." He held out his hand.

[suitably_heroic]

Oh, thank the Force.

Look, he preferred it when Hannibal was on his end of the island, being snakey, and Atton was on his own side of the island, and, y'know, both parties did whatever made them happy.

(Unless whatever made them happy meant messing with Sparkle, anyway. Then, entrails.)

Atton took the offered hand and gave it a shake. There were lightsaber callouses on his hands these days, if mostly covered by the gloves, and his grip was pretty firm, but he wasn't petty enough to put all of his strength into it. "Thanks for dropping off the groceries, I appreciate it," he said easily. "Bouncing back and forth between two jobs doesn't make filling up the fridge any easier."

[sharp_as_knives]

Well really, Hannibal had only been snakey the once.

But he was totally down with entrails. They were yummy.

He shook Atton's hand with polite firmness; his own callouses were more the kind from pencil and cooking-knife. "You're quite welcome. I was happy to help; please feel free to call intentionally in future."

[suitably_heroic]

He would probably not be down with these kinds of entrails. Just because Atton was all light side now didn't mean he didn't remember how to make people hurt.

"I'll keep it in mind," he said easily. (He wouldn't.) "And I'll see you at the next staff meeting, if nothing else."

[sharp_as_knives]

"Until then." Hannibal nodded and smiled as he left.

[suitably_heroic]

Atton waited until he could sense Hannibal leaving the building before turning around and swearing a blue streak in Twi'lekki.

Then he turned back towards the fridge. Okay. The guy had no reason to poison him, but the way he worked with that food-- then again, he seemed to like the food better than people, so maybe poison wasn't his deal.

He rubbed the back of his neck.

"Right," he muttered, "I'll see if I'm hungry enough to try it when I wake up."

At least then if he did die from poisoned lasagne, he'd die well-rested and not quite as inclined to strangle everyone on the planet?