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]

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.

[suitably_heroic]

Wasn't like there was anyone in this room who could judge, really.

"So then what?" Atton asked. He shot Sparkle a questioning glance.

He was maybe overfocusing on this so he didn't have to deal with his own stuff; it had the side effect of making him a little more action-oriented than usual.

[myownface]

Sparkle sighed and shrugged his shoulders.

"I don't know. Lewis knows to keep an eye out for Raine when I'm away, at least for now. And tomorrow there's a city hall meeting for people to talk about... I don't know. What the home means to us? Why we're a poison for the neighbourhood and we should be ashamed of even thinking we would like to live there? Something, anyway. So if something's going to happen, that would be the time. Maybe. Either way, Raine's focusing on that like she's got blinders on."

[suitably_heroic]

"So tensions are high and you think something might blow," Atton said. "And that something might be Raine. Fantastic."

He had the vague impulse just to inform Sparkle he was hauled out now, but he was pretty sure that was just the past week talking. A little drastic.

(He would've run by now. He wasn't sure whether he admired Sparkle for sticking around or thought he was being a dumbass.)

"You need some moral support out there?"

There. That was at least a nice, sane, rational response.

[myownface]

Sparkle didn't mean to sound so tired and scared and small when he nodded his head and replied, "Yeah."

He didn't.

But this was destroying him little by little in ways he hadn't even seen coming until Raine's breakdown the other night, and after she had finished screaming at him, he'd felt more alone than he'd felt since he was still just a little kid.

[suitably_heroic]

Dammit, Sparkle. That was a second hug you were getting out of him, now. This was seriously going to ruin Atton's reputation.

"Okay."