The Jedi Temple, Atton's Coruscant, 3949 BBY, Saturday

[suitably_heroic]

After Sparkle had left last weekend, Atton'd spent one glorious half day rolling around in ignorance for as long as he could. The next day, the then-upcoming date had struck him, and he had hidden away in his apartment and gotten spectacularly drunk. The day after, they had held a small, respectful mourning ceremony, and they had sat together and traded stories about Meetra for hours.

Well, the others had, anyway. Atton had mostly brooded in the back.

On Tuesday, he'd beaten the hell out of holotargets for hours. On Wednesday, Mical had yelled at him for aggravating his healing wounds, and shoved him in a kolto tank. On Thursday, still reeking of kolto, Atton had resumed lurking around his apartment.

Now it was Saturday, and Sparkle was showing up, and while Atton had only ten percent of his usual motivation to do this, he had left his apartment. He was sitting on the steps of the Temple now, smoking an Earth cigarette and glaring at passers-by. A more difficult exercise than it seemed; most foot traffic kept a respectful distance of the Temple itself. Still, he managed.

Somehow.

[[ for the kid, and phone calls, what have you. ]]

Comments

[myownface]

"Yeah," Sparkle agreed, quietly. "And then so did I."

Not quite the same way Raine had, granted. She did her emotional meltdowns her way, and Sparkle would do them in his.

[suitably_heroic]

Atton sighed. "How bad was it?" he asked, motioning Sparks to wander up the stairs with him.

[myownface]

Sparkle kind of bunched up in the shoulders a little as he nodded and started heading up the steps.

"Sort of got drunk," you know, a tiny bit, "and broke into the old bitch's house. And... smashed half her living room. And... yeah."

Maybe he wouldn't admit to the crying at her feet part.

[suitably_heroic]

"That was probably not the smartest thing you've ever done."

Not a lot of judgment in his voice, though, since that still beat 'going on a killing spree for several years'.

[myownface]

"She took it surprisingly okay, considering she was in the room at the time, and all."

He wasn't in jail right now, so... that... was good?

[suitably_heroic]

Atton paused half a step into the Temple and shot Sparkle a look with both eyebrows raised.

"So that's the sort of thing that made your buddy Raine think she was sympathetic, I guess."

[myownface]

"I guess," Sparkle replied, swallowing at a lump in his throat. "She... like... she was scared. Of me. And then... and then, I don't know. I think maybe she had her head so far up her own ass she didn't even realize she was fucking hurting Raine."

[suitably_heroic]

"That's not particularly rare among most sentient species, unfortunately," Atton said. "You ever have anyone looking at you like that before?"

Dammit, Sparkle looked all pathetic, and Atton was not exactly mr. Comforting or Physically Demonstrative, here, but the kid sounded like he really needed a hug.

So Atton was going to reach out and, like, try to give him a short half-hug kind of thing, tossing his arm over Sparkle's shoulders.

[myownface]

And Sparkle... needed that. God, he needed that more than he realized, and sort of half-leaned into that half-hug in a half-clingy-but-without-clinging kind of way.

"Scared? Or sorry?"

[suitably_heroic]

"I was gonna go with scared," said Atton, who figured the best thing to do here was to let Sparkle cling without, like, acknowledging that any clinging was going on. "But surprise me."

[myownface]

"Scared, I've seen before," Sparkle replied, after a pause. "Not just from the island that one time I ripped a friend's throat out with my teeth."

Thanks for that, Fandom.

"Trouble kids. Like, okay, we're fucking terrifying. Just... maybe not as terrifying as I was the other night? I don't know."

The 'sorry' was new.

[suitably_heroic]

"You sound like you were pretty desperate," Atton said, maneuvering them in the direction of the gardens. It seemed like a gardens kind of meltdown-day for Sparkle, here.

"So, the sorry part...?"

[myownface]

Sparkle went quiet at that, eyes on the ground as they walked. If he'd noticed that they weren't headed toward the training area, he wasn't going to make a big deal of it.

The gardens sounded like a great idea right about then.

"... I... don't know. Like... I don't think I've ever seen..." He shrugged. "It was like I fucking gutted her with words. I've never seen anything like it."

The prostrating himself on the floor at her feet and sobbing about his friend had probably helped.

[suitably_heroic]

"Yeah, well. Not a lot of people have seen you mid-breakdown either, probably," Atton said. "Especially not in the middle of their living room, about something they ignored because that made things easier on them."

[myownface]

"... That's... true," Sparkle agreed, frowning a little. "Breaking down in general is something I kind of try avoiding."

Because he didn't do 'obviously vulnerable' well, especially in front of people who were obviously in a place of power over him.

[suitably_heroic]

"I can't think of a single person who enjoys that kind of thing," Atton said. "Well, Mical might, being the weird, touchy-feely guy that he is, but I mean, normal people."

He had to get that dig in, from time to time, no matter the circumstances.

He gave Sparkle a little nudge towards the garden entrance.

[myownface]

The nudge was probably necessary, considering Sparkle's feet were sort of on autopilot right about then. He shuffled along, eyes on the ground in front of them.

"Yeah, well, even then, I don't know if he's the 'smash up some old lady's living room' type," he muttered. "Maybe I'm just doing touchy-feely wrong. Hell if I even know anymore."

[suitably_heroic]

"No, Mical would probably tip someone's teacup off a table and then spend two hours apologizing," Atton mused. "Anyway."

Getting off track.

"As much as I'd love to say something like 'there's no way to do touchy-feely wrong', or something, I'm not really a credible source to turn to for that one."

He knew his limits. 'Anything to do with healthy processing of emotion' was one of them.

[myownface]

"Touchy-feely wasn't really the aim back there," Sparkle pointed out, wrinkling his nose. "I was kind of more thinking I'd scream at the selfish bitch and smash all of her nice things, because if we can't have nice things, nobody can."

A long pause.

"And then I was too drunk to remember but I think she eventually got me some water and I helped clean up the broken glass."

Fuck everything anyway.

[suitably_heroic]

Atton shrugged. He sat down in the grass.

"Well, we all knew you're still a wet noodle under all of that attitude," he sort-of-joked. "I take it she's not pressing charges?"

Or they should be having a whole different conversation right now.

[myownface]

Sparkle shook his head a little bit.

"Not so far," he replied. "But fuck, who even knows once she talks to that pushy cow of a daughter of hers? If my parole officer finds out..."

He wasn't even thinking about what would happen if Lew found out. Lew was being forcibly shunted off his mental radar for the time being.

[suitably_heroic]

Atton rubbed at his forehead. "If your parole officer finds out, we're hauling your ass out of there," he said. "That's point one."

He hadn't figured out any other points yet, but that: definitely, one.

[myownface]

"Yeah?" Sparkle swallowed, and then nodded. Okay. Getting his ass out of there was a definite step up from going to prison. Okay. Good.

"... I'm worried about Raine."

Of course he was.

[suitably_heroic]

"Do you think she's going to do something stupid?"

Don't mind Atton jumping to that one, first.

[myownface]

"She already did do something stupid," Sparkle muttered. "I don't know how it can get more stupid from there."

Declaring war on the neighbourhood? That wasn't stupid. But turning that war against herself...

Not that Sparkle was a poster boy for making great life choices himself, admittedly.