suitably_heroic | Atton's Coruscant, Saturday

It took Sparkle a moment, once he was through his portal, to realize exactly why he didn't recognize the chick that was wearing what looked to be Atton's clothes. And then it took him another couple of moments to stop from swearing.

If that swearing was both in relief and disappointment, well, Sparkle was a complicated kid, okay?

"Really? Really, you, and not me?"

"Yep," Atton said, "Apparently."

Hey, it wasn't like he was complaining about his boobs, but that was a particular level of disappointment he did not expect in any guy who had just found out he wasn't turning into a girl over the weekend. "The island, right?"

Hey, what could Sparkle say? He really liked being casually checked out by hot guys even when he was walking around in public. There was more to be disappointed about than the plumbing, anyway.

"The island," he agreed. "I guess the plus side is that I didn't end up, like, waking up a chick and then not noticing until I wandered into the living room or some shit like that."

That would have sucked. A lot.

"How small are your boobs as a chick?" Atton, that was rude. "Because I think you'd notice."

He turned and headed for the door.

"They're a perfectly respectable size!"

They were small. Sparkle had small boobs as a chick. Which wasn't going to stop him from that lament, anyway. Or from jogging to catch up.

"Anyway, I need, like, coffee in the morning before I'll notice much of anything, unless someone's been going through my things."

"Things any prospective assassin would want to know about you," Atton said cheerfully.

Not that he thought any assassins would come after Sparkle... back in Canada, anyway.

"Anyway, I'm stupidly off-balance, so congratulations, you get to shop and abuse the Temple kitchens while I baffle at how anyone could waste that much time on food."

"Oh, shit, seriously? Shopping? I'm gonna make tacos. Or pizza. Or... something. Maybe something inspired."

Inspired by how Atton got the boobs and Sparkle got to be cheerfully warned about assassins. That was inspirational, right?

Hey, in Atton's defense, there were Sith after him right now, and if Sith operating procedures versus Jedi were still the same they'd been back when he was Sith-- well.

He wasn't letting Sparkle out of his sight as long as he was in Atton's galaxy.

"Tacos or pizza are fine with me," he said. "We've got a full house today, Mira's in."

Though he had still stolen a bra instead of asking for one because it was Mira.

"Okay, so I'll be cooking for..." Sparkle hesitated for a moment. "How many?"

Them, the other Jedi, and at least that one padawan kid they'd talked about last time. So... for a number. Maybe he'd go with the tacos after all. It was easy to fake 'enough' by just making 'way too much.'

"Mira, Mical, Visas, Brianna, Mical's Padawan, Visas' Padawan, you and me," Atton counted off. "But I'm more than happy not to tell anyone if you don't want to deal with them."

He just figured freaking out Mical would be more fun over a dinner table with Sparks around.

"Nah, eight is easy," Sparkle decided, grinning. "I cook for, like, a dozen, so there'll be plenty, and I want to see people's faces when they get a load of... like... everything that is going on today. Everything."

Atton's tits, whatever the hell space tacos ended up tasting like... The whole thing.

Atton snickered.

"You should've seen Mical's face this morning," he said. Mimicking the shrieky thing Mical's voice once did, he batted his eyes and said, "Atton?!"

Sparkle had to cackle and clap his hands at that.

"Oh, shit, I'm sorry I missed it." A beat. "And you do that impression way better as a chick, you know."

Which wasn't a dig at Atton so much as it was a statement about Mical's shrieky voice thing.

Hey, Atton wouldn't take it as an insult. Mical's voice was higher than his, and more inclined to fluctuate dramatically.

He affected a posh, Coruscanti-with-a-scrap-of-Dantooine accent. "I do the impression better as a woman? You must be joking. Mical normally has a low, manly voice and is not at all easily startled."

Edited 2015-06-06 06:16 (UTC)

Yeah, the cackling wasn't exactly going to stop any time soon, at this rate.

"Oh man, oh, man, you're right, how could I have gotten it all so wrong?!"

Flawless, Atton. Everything about that impression was flawless.

Atton dropped back into his usual, fashionably (and equally fake, but by now old habit) Outer Rim accent. "He really did shriek," he said. "It was kind of hilarious. Then there was a lot of yelling and stammering. I'm hoping for an encore tonight."

He took a turn. They were heading to the markets, so they'd have to head in roughly the direction of the Senate District... for which they'd have to bring the speeder.

Edited 2015-06-06 06:26 (UTC)

SPEEDERSPEEDERSPEEDER. Sparkle was going to be treated to all the best things about Coruscant today, wasn't he?

"If there isn't one, I'm going to have to be sad," he decided. "Maybe we can hook you up with something with a low cut, see if we can get him to reach a pitch that can only be heard by dogs."

Sparkle had a weird idea of what the best things about Coruscant were, but sure.

There the speeder was, anyway. Atton hopped up and into the driver's seat. "I don't know," he said, "I'm not entirely sure Mical even knows what boobs are."

"See," Sparkle climbed into the passenger's side, "that'll just make it funnier. Picture it. 'What are those!?'"

Sparkle's accent was pretty good, too. And he even managed to get his voice to crack!

Atton barked out a loud laugh before he could say anything else, because he had to. "Okay, that's perfect," he said, "But, y'know, he works with Mira. I'm pretty sure Mira thinks she was given cleavage for the express purpose of distracting guys so she can shove a Bothan Stunner in their dangly parts."

He turned on the engine.

"Well, has she ever shoved one in Mical's?"

Sparkle asked the important questions, here.

"Sadly," Atton sighed, "No. I would've paid to see that."

"Well, hey... give it time. Maybe eventually he'll do something that'll earn it."

They could live in eternal hope, right?

Atton pulled a face. "Nah, Mira mostly just finds him boring," he said. "It's the stupid earnest thing."

Look, 'more boring than me' was how Atton chose to parse anything Mira ever said about Mical, and he was comfortable that way.

Edited 2015-06-06 11:17 (UTC)

Sparkle considered that for a moment, and then shrugged and nodded.

"Okay, yeah, I can see how she would. I'd say Mical goes out of his way to be boring, but honestly? I don't think he has that much imagination."

Atton might be a mental and emotional mess, but he was interesting, damn it, which was more than Mical could say.

"Makes you wonder how he even managed to pull off becoming a spy," he said, as he maneuvered the speeder into a lane at reasonable speed. "You'd think he'd cave on the first lie."

"Maybe that's his trick," Sparkle mused. "If you're boring enough, nobody's gonna want to pay enough attention to you to notice little things like 'spying' and 'caving.'"

"True," Atton said, casting Sparkle a look. "Of course, he'd be laughed off a place like Nar Shaddaa. Nobody'd let him work, they'd just drag him into an alleyway and take all of his stuff."

"... Did he have much stuff when you met him?"

Sparkle liked to ask the big questions.

"He was living in a library in the laigrek-infested basement of the Jedi Enclave," Atton said. "I guess he had, like, stuff to read?"

"And are there many people on Nar Shaddaa who strike you as the type to mug some boring guy for his reading material?"

This was a very roundabout way of justifying that even Mical could suck enough to be a spy. Or... something. Even Sparkle wasn't completely certain where he was going with this anymore, but at least he was enjoying the conversation.

"Okay, fair point," Atton sighed, pulling back out of their lane and heading down to a platform up ahead. "But don't tell him I said that, all right?"

"Wouldn't dream of it," Sparkle replied. "I mean, like, for starters, it would make teasing the fuck out of him way more tricky if he thought you'd conceded something like that."

And where would the fun be in that?

"Right, we don't let Mical know we think any part of him isn't pointless," Atton said sagely.

He set the speeder down in the designated lot near a bustling market.

"Mical is pointless, even his boringness," Sparkle agreed, nodding his agreement before peering out at the market. "Ooooo."

This was all full of fascinating things. He was going to get so many weird foods he knew nothing about!

"So, you're going to help me pick food that isn't going to kill us all, right?"

"I'm going to walk behind you," Atton announced, slipping out of his seat, "and yell 'don't eat that!' if something's poisonous. How's that?"

"... Effective. Just so long as you don't yell it about every vegetable I reach for, I mean."

Maybe he'd be better off just looking at people's faces to see if they thought he was nuts when he picked something up.

Probably not. There were at least a bunch of beings at this market who probably wouldn't care about one less human in the galaxy.

Atton shrugged, as he strolled towards the food stalls. "There's a lot of poisonous vegetables in the galaxy," he said. "Oh, I'd also avoid anything that looks alive. I figure wrangling living food is a little beyond your experience level."

"Yeah, I'm a big fan of already dead food," Sparkle decided. "Um. And vegetables. You don't have to eat the vegetables, you know. If I manage tacos, they don't even have to, like, touch the meat."

See? Tacos! Everyone could appreciate those! Probably!

He hoped!

"Don't know about finding any actual taco shells, but I think they sell Alderaani flatbread up ahead," Atton said.

Okay, so he was going to be a little helpful.

"That might actually crisp up if I toast it," Sparkle mused, looking thoughtful. "Ground nerf should be easy enough... I guess the trick is going to be the spices. Veggies are kind of straightforward once I know they aren't likely to kill anyone..."

This actually seemed pretty doable. Score!

"Just for the record, I don't know if anyone has any allergies," Atton said.

He waved vaguely at the stalls. "But hey, have at. I'm just going to wander after you. You know how much I know about food."

"You know what you don't like," Sparkle offered. "That's a start anyway. And I can, like, set everything out for people to check out, if they aren't sure. That ought to do well enough."

Atton shrugged. He was still feeling pretty physically unbalanced, but he was doing okay - not great - at hiding it. "You're the chef," he said. "So you finally get around to doing some fancy cooking at home?"

He raised his eyebrows at a passing Bith who was staring at him for a second too long. The Bith scurried along.

"Not super fancy, unless a giant pot of spaghetti counts," Sparkle mused. "It's hard to get, like, dinner party fancy on a budget, but the kitchen's nice and big, at least. Plenty of room to make messes in."

"No news from the front otherwise?" Atton asked. He came to a stop by the Alderaani food stand he'd pointed out and picked up a starblossom at random.

Been a while since he saw one of those.

"I guess? I mean, not really. People are bitching about teenagers in the neighbourhood, lordy lordy, pearl clutching and all that. Same story everywhere."

Sparkle shrugged and leaned in for a better look.

"What's that?"

"Starblossom," Atton said, tossing the one he was holding in Sparkle's general direction. "An Alderaani specialty."

You could probably guess how surprised Sparkle was that a space vegetable had star right in the name. He caught it, anyway, and gave it a once-over.

"Oh yeah? You know how people usually prepare it?"

He was totally game.

Atton shrugged. "It's a fruit," he said, "All I've got is 'not the way my mom used to', because that was disgusting."

"... Fair enough," Sparkle said. "Maybe well get one anyway, I'll see if I can make it palatable? I'm kinda curious now, you know?"

Also, it was in his hand already and looked neat.

Atton reached into a pocket and produced a credit chip. "I can live with that," he said, "Though I reserve the right to pawn it off on Mical if it gets bad. Grab some flatbread, too."

He nodded at the fruit. "You know, I haven't had one of those in ten years?"

"That long?"

Sparkle didn't sound so terribly surprised, no. He reached for the flatbread and nodded.

"I don't really have anything like that, you know? Nothing I can, like... Say that about."

Huh.

"You would, if you lived here," Atton said, shrugging slightly. "It's the joy of spending over a decade living somewhere that's nothing like where you grew up."

"Guess so, yeah," Sparks allowed. "I sort of got a bit of that on the island, but that was with, like, shit I could at least fake it with if I tried hard enough. Poutine or whatever. Here would be... Wow, yeah. Different."

Not bad. Just different.

Admittedly, Atton had also been steering clear of Alderaan for a long time. The whole place stunk of complicated memories.

"Right?" he said. "And then at some point, somehow, you'll run across something you knew, and your first response will be 'holy shit'." Beat. "The second one is usually 'space, I hated that'. But the holy shit is something."

"The holy shit is something," Sparkle agreed. "Hey, maybe I'll have that someday. Who knows? I probably won't end up bumming around Toronto for the rest of my life. I hope."

"You ever been anywhere that's not Toronto or enabled by Fandom?" Atton asked, passing the credit chip over to the nice saleslady with the Alderaani accent.

Who he was going to exchange as few words with as possible, before he lapsed back into that.

"By Fandom or you? Nah. I'm not exactly super well-traveled. There were those few weeks in DC where I did the theatre camp? That counts, I guess, but you can practically spit on it from Fandom anyway."

Sparkle didn't really have much opportunity for travel, no.

"So you grew up there, too?" Atton checked.

The lady gave him back the chip. He tucked it back where he got it. "And all paid for."

"In Toronto? Yeah. Bounced around that place until I wound up in Fandom. I mean, I know the whole city inside and out, but that's probably not super impressive for Coruscant folks."

Or, like, space folks in general.

"Hey, plenty of people don't go off planet," Atton said, wandering off towards the next stall. "I'm sure some people around here don't even leave their city."

Especially if your city was the planet.

"Yeaaaah, I think Coruscant and Toronto maybe exist on a slightly different scale, though."

Tiny bit. A smidgen.

"Maybe," Atton said, "But because your entire people are embarrassingly primitive, I'm willing to let it go."

He was a giver!

"See anything else you want?"

Like, oh, say, lots of meat?

Edited 2015-06-06 21:25 (UTC)

"Nerf?"

Kind of important for making nerf tacos, after all.

"And, um... I'm going to have to find something like the spices in tacos. That'll be fun."

Atton surveyed the rather large market. "I'm sure some of them will let you shove spices in your mouth?" he offered.

Though he wasn't sure which ones would kill Sparkle and which ones wouldn't.

"... A spice adventure. I need to get a local cookbook or something," Sparkle decided. "Or at least bring some freaking garlic the next time I visit."

Might be safer.

Atton snickered. "Hey, maybe you can make your own little 'Earth spices' corner in the Jedi Temple gardens," he said, "See how long garlic holds out to all the other stuff that grows in there."

"That should work out well," Sparkle decided. "I mean, garlic is hard to kill. That shit will keep just fine sitting in cloves on the counter for months."

Of course, if garlic sat there that long, you were doing something terribly wrong. Eat more garlic.

"Until someone wanders in and takes a bite because they don't know what it is," Atton said.

A beat.

"Hey, I should leave some chili peppers sitting around, see what happens."

Sparkle had been picturing somebody taking a big bite out of, just, like, a bulb of raw garlic, skins and all, when Atton came up with that next gem. A look of mild disgust was quickly replaced with an expression of glee.

"Magic happens," he decided. "I mean, unless it's that Miraluka kid; then I'd just feel like an awful shit. But, like, Mical? We'd need to record that somehow for posterity."

"I'd even settle for Brianna," Atton said thoughtfully. "Of course, we could also just sneak one into a taco or something. You know, after you lull everyone into a false sense of security with your cooking."

You could take the boy out of the Sith, but not the Sith out of the boy, apparently.

"See, I'll let you do that," Sparkle decided, "because out of the two of us, you stand a better chance of not ending up a smear across the wall after they figure out who did it. But I totally want to be there to watch."

A beat.

"Of course, whoever we did it to would probably end up being like the one person who lives for insanely spicy food."

"We'll just have to test those boundaries first," Atton decided.

He walked past a vendor who had a few dozen baskets full of decidedly alive food. "I mean, I have to keep these people on their toes, hanging around the Temple all the time like they do."

He was not going to go after Mira, for instance. ... Because Mira would have his balls.

Sparkle followed along after Atton, sparing the baskets a quick glance. Yeah, he wasn't going to eat anything he could make eye contact with. Not today.

"Really, we're bringing new and exciting experiences to them, so that they don't feel like they're missing out," Sparkle decided. "I mean, a life inside the Temple all the time? Who even wants that?"

"Mical and Brianna?" Atton offered. "Brianna's making good on this weird 'I will dedicate myself to peace' nonsense she has going on."

"I bet a mouthful of jalapeno peppers would help plenty with that, huh?"

Sparkle laughed and shook his head, pausing to look thoughtfully at what kind of looked like a selection of spices. The sign with a senth-penth... number one... three lines that he was pretty sure were cresh, V-that-was-eating-a-T... looked promising. He was picking up on Aurebesh here and there, mostly going by context cues from things he already knew the names for, and almost entirely from the menus in those diners that Atton kept taking him to.

"I mean, I guess a surprise mouthful of jalapenos would help anybody with that..."

"A surprise mouthful of jalapeno peppers would help anybody with just about anything," Atton mused.

He came to a stop as Sparkle did, glancing thataway and seeing... mostly just a bunch of tiny, tiny food things. Whatever. "See, that's one of the upsides of your world: nobody here will recognize your vegetables."

"Man, just wait until I introduce them to potatoes. The versatile and delicious god of the vegetable world."

Potatoes. Because Sparkle cared.

... And because they were really freaking easy to grow and even easier to cook. Details.

"It would be really stupid of me to just, like, figure out what these are like by buying some of everything and then just sort of praying there's a book somewhere with pictures, right?"

"Hey, they have potatoes on Corellia," Atton said. "But that's a few stands over, probably."

Because some things just kind of inexplicably grew here. Sometimes weirdly Kessel-shaped things.

"Books, no. Datapads, sure. Probably could've brought a scanner or something, but..." he shrugged.

He'd woken up as a girl that morning. He hadn't had a lot of time for forward planning.

".... We're getting some potatoes," Sparkle decreed. "I have no freaking clue what we're doing with them yet, but it's happening."

Because potatoes.

"Maybe next time we bring the scanner," he added, wryly. "Because making dinner probably shouldn't involve a game of Russian roulette, but with seasonings instead of a partly loaded gun."

Probably. But what did Sparkle know? Like half the things in this galaxy were probably out to kill someone at any given moment anyway.

Hey, there were places he could be and people he could spend time with where he'd never have to encounter anything deadly in his life.

Atton was not one of those people. Whatever those people were, Atton was pretty much the opposite.

"Maybe next time," he said easily. "Of course, you could also just ask the nice Neimoidian what everything is."

"... I could also do that."

Look, Sparkle, like, sucked at asking shop owners about things. He was far too used to trying to avoid catching their attention. Shop owners hated kids like him.

For good reason, maybe, but still.

"Hey, um, excuse me? I'm curious if there are any of these that are safe for human consumption, that, like, come highly recommended?"

He'd taste-test from there, so long as he knew it wouldn't kill him. He was brave enough to subject himself to the mystery foods, so long as they were safe.

Edited 2015-06-07 12:49 (UTC)

The shopkeeper was a Neimoidian. Atton was pretty sure the only thing she was interested in were credits, and she didn't much care who they came from.

In fact, she sighed. "You might try the boontaspice," she began, and then listed - and pointed at - several in turn. "All edible by humans. However, I am not intimately familiar with your species' palate."

"Eh, anything that won't kill us," Atton said, shrugging. "Right? ...Just, y'know, stick to stands labeled 'cooking spices' while we're here."

Sparkle's mouth fell open a little, and then closed, and then he nodded.

"Cooking," he agreed, because it wasn't so difficult to figure out what 'spice' might be otherwise. He was familiar with the term because science fiction back home was totally a thing that appeared to have some tangential basis in real life throughout the multiverse. Thank god. "And sure... I'll give the boontaspice and those other ones a shot. If I don't like them, I'm sure somebody will."

Maybe there would be something even vaguely resembling taco seasonings in there. Ish. If he squinted. If not, it would be a taste adventure, and he'd have to just cheat and bring a flavour packet with him the next time he visited. The Temple totally needed more stuff in the kitchen anyway.

"A wise choice," the Neimoidian droned, though she didn't sound particularly invested. She put some of each in the bag, and Atton handed over the credit chip again.

"It's a Coruscant marketplace," he said, to Sparkle. "I mean, people here like to pretend it's all civilized and clean, but... well, nobody needs you getting hopped up on glitterstim by accident."

There was a long pause at that, and then Sparkle blinked, and grinned, and just laughed outright.

"Okay, like, being fucked up on random drugs without even seeing it coming would probably suck, but what a name."

Honestly. A kid named Sparkle being messed up on glitter would be humourously fitting. If not for the whole telepathy and highly addictive yadda yadda of the thing.

"Which is the whole reason why I'm warning you," Atton said sagely, "Because I'm pretty sure if you actually ran across it, the name would make you stick it in your stupid face."

"It's because I never developed basic common sense to go with my amazing sense of humour," Sparkle decided, still grinning. "But okay, okay, no eating the space glitter. It'll be tough, but I think I can handle it."

It would be way harder to resist than something with a name like deathsticks, though.

"There might be hope for you yet," Atton said. "But don't quote me on that. You might start using it as an excuse to pick up the stupid-slack."

He put the spice bag in the vegetable bag. Seemed like the best place to put it. "Save it for the next time you see Cade, instead."

"Cade can have all the stupid," Sparkle promised. "I will sit back and observe the stupid, so that I might understand just how stupid that stupid happens to be. That work?"

He'd film it for posterity, anyway.

"You know, I was just about to say 'I wonder how he's dealing with the weekend weird'," Atton said, "And then I realized it's Cade and I really, truly don't want to know."

His own half hour of squishy probably paled in comparison.

Sparkle's mouth fell open. And then he shut it again. And then, once more, open.

And then he just snickered.

"Yeah, no, probably not. Like. Going by weird weekends past, the responsible option still involves showing a lot of cleavage and seeing how many guys want to buy him drinks."

Which, you know, Sparkle would be all over doing too, if the island hadn't ripped him off royally this weekend. Boo.

"Nobody wants to see that," Atton complained.

Look, he'd made out with a girl!Cade on a soap opera weekend, he had a right to have an opinion.

"Though on the other hand, now I'm feeling like I'm wasting my day of boobs."

"You might get another day of boobs," Sparkle pointed out. "Like, it's probably a whole... weekend of boobs thing. That's more the island's speed, anyway. And if I'm wrong? Well, I'd be sorry, but I got screwed in the not-fun way this time around, so."

"Are you really that hard-up for free drinks?" Atton asked, shooting him a look.

"Pffth. Like I'd be doing it for the drinks."

Come on now, Atton.

"You need to get laid," Atton concluded.

"I really need to get laid," Sparkle grumbled. "You know what fancy neighbourhoods suck for? I'll give you three guesses."

If any of those guesses were 'getting laid,' good job.

Atton shot him a glance. "Don't you people have apps for that?" he said. "Or, y'know, you could skulk off to another neighborhood."

"Sure, there are apps for that. Like I'm going to trust them. I like shopping around in person." Sparkle rolled his eyes and shrugged. "Bars, though. Just so long as Lewis doesn't find out, like, sure."

Because god, he would be in so much shit if he got busted cruising gay bars in Toronto. Especially since he was at least marginally certain that Lewis spent the occasional night off exploring them himself.

Atton rolled his eyes. "Fine, fine," he said, "Just don't say I didn't try to think with you, here."

He was still on his self-enforced celibacy streak. ...Electroclash notwithstanding.

Sparkle gave his shoulders a shrug.

"Wouldn't dream of it," he replied. "I'm just, you know, going to complain. It's what I do."

It felt good to have the eyes of people he was actually attracted to on him. Sure, he'd rather be able to have that while in his own skin, but from time to time...?

"Complain, complain," Atton agreed, sighing.

He might've suggested some places on Coruscant a few months back, but right now that mostly sounded like an excellent way to get Sparkle killed by a bunch of Sith with a grudge.

"I'm sure you'll kill that dry streak... eventually." Possibly not until the kid finally got out of that house and over his crush on Lewis, though. "I just wouldn't suggest trying while you have boobs."

Hey! In fairness, Sparkle was reasonably certain that Lewis was looking back! He just had to test that theory.

Because Sparkle was a huge idiot.

"Well, hey, I don't have them this time around, so it'll be a while before I have to worry about that being an issue anyway."

Sparkle. No. Sparkle. No.

Take it from the guy who had never made a move on the love of his life, there were times you just should not want to go there.

(Although the reasons Sparkle should have not to go there were probably more compelling than the ones Atton had not to go there. But that wasn't important.)

"At least another year, probably," he agreed. "Or I guess half of one, in your case."

There was a moment's pause, and then Sparkle blinked.

"Oh, shit, you're right," he replied. "Like, these things are going to last shorter, but that means it's going to take place like twice as often."

Shit shit shit shit shit shit shit. Excuse him, he needed to take a moment to look toward the sky in a fit of dramatics and swear a lot.

Edited 2015-06-07 15:03 (UTC)

"Congratulations," Atton announced, "You're going to be a pony twice a year!"

"No, like, you don't even... sometimes this stuff happens like two weeks in a row, so I could be, like, a pony, and then three days later I might be five."

SPARKLE WAS NOT PLEASED ABOUT THIS DEVELOPMENT.

"But this one missed me? So, like... maybe I'm catching a break? Like, I spent years on the island bitching about how this shit follows us home, so it might be trying to be all in-your-face-Sparkle about it?"

He could hope.

"Well, you keep showing up here every Saturday, you're at least going to have updates on whether a thing is going on," Atton said. He rolled his eyes. "See, that's the downside of staying on to teach on the island - no squeaking out of it on the basis of living and breathing elsewhere."

Because why let Sparkle do all the complaining?

"You get to be my litmus test," Sparkle agreed, smirking a bit at that revelation. "'Is the island being weird?' 'I don't know, let me go see if my buddy Atton has tits today, and I'll get back to you.'"

Atton pulled a face.

"At least the tits are not traumatic," he muttered.

"You can't even convince me you don't enjoy the tits," Sparkle added, helpfully. "Like you can say it, but I just won't believe you."

Because for a guy with no interest in girls, even Sparkle could admit that boobs were kind of fun. In their weird jiggly sort of way.

"Fine, fine, the tits are nice," Atton said, rolling his eyes again. "I mean, no substitute for the real thing after the first thirty minutes--" Atton, "--but they're not a chore. Though I look forward to getting to lay down on something other than my back again."

Because ow.

"There is also your side," Sparkle offered. "And creative pillow arrangements, but, like, your tits are kind of huge."

And, as had been previously established, Sparkle's sort of weren't.

And now Atton had to look down.

"They're pretty nicely-sized," he agreed.

Don't touch them in pub-- okay, fine. Touch them. See if the narrative cares.

Sparkle, don't laugh. Just don't. It would bring more attention to the fact that Atton was touching his own breasts in the middle of the marketplace.

Yeah, no. Sparkle sucked at listening to narrative too, sorry.

"See? Like, okay, laying down? Totally a challenge, fine. But then you get to do that."

In public, Sparkle? C'mon.

"I haven't gotten laid in two months either," Atton announced. "I'm going to take this, damn it."

Not that he'd been trying very hard, but still.

At least he was dropping the hands again?

"You take it," Sparkle encouraged. "You take it, and you bounce with it, man."

Or jiggle. Or whatever.

"Is there anything you wanted to pick up while we're here? I guess maybe cheese is all we need, assuming these spices are anything like what I'm hoping they are..."

"And meat," Atton said. "Can't have enough dead things to cover up the taste of the vegetables."

He shrugged. "We can amble towards the non-foods later, see what the pazaak dealers brought in card-wise."

Let it never be said Atton was not consistent in his interests.

Sparkle grinned at that, already zeroing in on a stand that had an assortment of fresh meat sitting out - he recognized the nerf. He'd know nerf from a mile away, by this point.

"That'd be cool," he decided. "Beats having to plunder card decks at home to make something functional, anyway. The best I can get anyone to play with me in Toronto is, like, Uno."

Which he still kicked ass at, let it be known.

"Ugh, Uno," Atton said. "It's almost as bad as sabacc, but then in the other direction. Who did they develop that game for, younglings?"

... Yes, mainly.

"... Well, yeah," Sparkle confirmed, smirking faintly. "Which is why we have it in a group home. For kids?"

And probably why he enjoyed it so much himself, to be honest.

"You're an adult," Atton announced. "Play adult card games!"

... No, not ones with pictures of naked people on them.

Sparkle would happily play those, too!

"I'm an adult," Sparkle agreed, "so I get to pick what card games I play. That's kind of the cool thing about being one, you know. The ones who are get to define what that means."

And if Sparkle said it meant he got to play as much Uno as poker, well...

Atton thought about it.

"No, you don't," he said.

This is why you did not befriend people who took card games seriously, Sparkle.

Hey, he could still play the games that counted! That had to matter for something, right?

"You're just playing Uno wrong," he decided.

"I'm going to take a pack of Uno cards and nail them on the wall of shame next to the sabacc ones," Atton said, "To serve as a warning."

Just FYI.

Sparkle didn't look super concerned. The Uno cards could probably take it.

"Good idea. We wouldn't want any Uno decks being needlessly mauled if they don't have to be, after all."

Now he kind of wanted to know Atton's feelings on 'Go Fish.'

Murder.

"You're abusing your adulthood," Atton said, "Playing inferior card games. I'm revoking your adult card."

Sparkle took a moment to consider that.

"Does that mean I get to go back to watching Saturday morning cartoons and eating chocolatey cereal right out of the box?"

Because he could get behind that, honestly.

"Wearing pyjamas and going to bed before curfew, and no gentleman callers," Atton said. "Oh, and no chocolatey cereal. That poodoo rots your teeth."

Laying down the law, Rand.

"I wear pyjama bottoms anyway," Sparkle pointed out. "Since I share my room with a girl."

And, you know, Raine was great and all, but Sparkle just didn't like her like that.

"And I still need to get laid. So I'm like halfway there already."

Sparkle needed to live a little, clearly. Though he'd never be to bed before curfew. Ever.

"Nah. See, before this whole Uno incident, I would have been supportive of your quest to get laid," Atton said. "Now, I'm going to say wait until you're older. Maybe fifty."

He was kidding!

Besides his feelings on the Uno incident. Those were real.

Poor Atton. Card games certainly were serious business, Sparkle was beginning to see the light.

"... Might be easier to get laid at fifty," Sparkle mused. "I'll either be, like, that hot middle-aged guy who still manages to rock the tattoos, or... I don't know. Super distinguished. Calling it now."

Maybe he'd still be a complete dork, just older.

"Or you'll be that guy where everyone's like, 'he looks like he used to be pretty, but wow, he's really let himself go'," Atton said sagely. "It's the skinny thing. Never know how that's going to pan out."

Sparkle wrinkled his nose at that.

"God, don't even tease," he replied. "I have absolutely zero intentions of letting myself go, trust me. Oh my god Atton, I have standards."

"But will you have standards when you haven't gotten laid by age fifty?" Atton asked. "These are the real questions."

He came to a stop by the nerf stand - okay general meats, but whatever, they had nerf - and smiled at the shopkeeper.

Look, she was Twi'lek.

"I will too get laid by fifty!" Say that a little louder, Sparkle. "Give me at least a little credit, here!"

Hello, Twi'lek shopkeeper. You had customers who were apparently going to put on a show, now.

To be fair, they did that a lot of the time.

"You play Uno," Atton said. "No way you're getting laid before fifty. Then maybe you'll meet some old person who plays Uno."

"Yeah, well, maybe he'll be old and hot, and we can be over-the-hill sexy man-children together."

Sparkle had it all figured out, here. Anyway, he liked older men. This absolutely seemed like a win for him, except for that 'thirty more years of not getting laid' part.

Yeah, but they wouldn't be older anymore at the time, would they? Sparkle would be an older man.

"And I will shun you. I will shun you within an inch of your life," Atton said. He nodded at the Twi'lek. "All the nerf you've got, please." Beat. "Well, half of it."

"You're going to shun me and make me carry the nerf, aren't you?"

Call it a hunch. A wild guess, really.

"Yep," Atton said cheerfully, as he handed over the credit chip again. "It'll be your training for the weekend."

It would actually be pretty effective, Sparkle decided.

"Sure, sure," he sighed. "It's still not as bad as moving, like, a box full of books or something."

Probably. Depended on how much nerf the Twi'lek lady had on hand, here.

"We could pick up something heavier," Atton mused.

Mad with power, this one.

".... What in the world would we get that's heavier?"

Okay, so Sparkle was feeding this power madness, sure, but curiosity was a powerful enemy, here!

Atton shrugged. "I could do with some more engine parts for the Hawk... maybe a new navicomputer... or an astromech..."

Astromech could move on their own, but where was the fun in that?

"You'd have me carry half the nerf in the market and a whole droid?"

Sparkle was kind of incredulous to the point of laughing, now. What? Seriously?

"Maybe just the navicomputer," Atton allowed.

Because that was so much better. "It'll be good for you. Character-building!"

He wasn't serious. Well. He probably wasn't serious?

"I've got plenty of character!" Sparkle? Was still laughing. Dammit, Atton! "How heavy even are navicomputers, anyway!?"

He'd try it, but don't be surprised if he dropped it.

"Heavy enough, but I'm going to start adding engine parts if you keep it up," Atton told him.

And then offered him the giant bag of nerf he'd just been given.

Sparkle just chuckled and shook his head, and then took the bag. Because hauling around like half his body weight in dead animal was still preferable to spaceship parts, wasn't it?

Anyway, it was going to be delicious.

"I'll behave, I'll behave," he promised. "For now."

"I don't believe a word of it," Atton grunted. "I'm keeping my eye on you, smartass."

"That shouldn't be hard," Sparkle pointed out, slinging the bag over his shoulder. "I mean, it isn't like I'm going anywhere with all of this to carry."

"Now I'm sad I brought the speeder," Atton sighed. "If I'd made you limp back to the Temple with that thing, it might've taught you a thing or two about respecting your elders."

And his elders' card games!

"Pffft, my elders," Sparkle huffed, though he was still grinning. "I can't help it if my elders are all stuffy and don't appreciate children's games, okay?"

He was going to just start mentally playing Uno where Atton had told him to play pazaak from how on. Just because he was that terrible.

Atton's Coruscant, Saturday

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