MCA #4, Saturday Afternoon

[suitably_heroic]

Atton had to talk to Sparkle eventually; just because he now had a damn good idea why one version of himself wouldn't be on speaking terms with the kid twenty years from now, didn't mean history had to repeat itself. Alternate history? Alternate future? Ugh, this stuff made his head hurt.

It took him until Saturday before he trusted himself enough - and had convinced himself enough - to send Sparks a message: lunch on me at my place. Nice, neutral, simple.

Nice, neutral, and simple enough that he'd wound up spending the entire morning working on his new lightsaber just to get a little focus. In fact, by the time actual afternoon rolled around, he was still sitting on the floor, surrounded by lightsaber parts, floating the new crystal up into the air as he tweaked the setting. It'd taken him a long while to find a crystal that matched his main hand 'saber's in color and intensity; he didn't want to risk messing up the casing and possibly damaging the thing in the process. Besides, Sparks might not show up at all.

That was his story, anyway. He was sticking with it.

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Comments

[myownface]

"Fine," Sparkle muttered, and kind of oozed down onto the couch, himself. "Look, I'm sitting. This is me sitting, and we're going to have a Conversation now."

He was thrilled. You could probably tell.

"How much of this is just going to be more telling me how much I fucked up? Because I did kind of gather that part."

[suitably_heroic]

Atton rolled his eyes. It felt like the most effective way to communicate you're in no position to give me guff. Regardless of his actual plans for the conversation.

"I was going to ask you if you figured out what you're going to do yet," he said, "But with an invite like that..."

[myownface]

Sparkle's mouth hung open for a moment, and then he shut it again, looking the tiniest bit more uncomfortable.

Right. The reason Atton had been so pissed off at him was because he actually gave a shit about him. What reason did he have to care about some asshole's house otherwise?

"I haven't completely figured out what I'm doing yet, no," he muttered. "I don't know if I care enough about my own world to think it's worth going back and going to trial, though."

[suitably_heroic]

"Can't say I wouldn't prefer it if you decided to stick around," Atton said. "Here, some other world, anywhere that's not your karking Canada."

Just because he had enough intel on the Canadian justice system now to probably start his own cartel or something, didn't mean he wanted to use it.

[myownface]

"It hasn't really done me any favours," Sparkle acknowledged, staring down at his toes. Hey, toes. How were you doing?

He gave them an anxious wiggle before saying anything more.

"Here... I know here. I mean, here tries to kill me on a pretty regular basis. A few of us had to fend off a gremlin-bite temporary zombie last weekend. That was fun."

Except for all of the being bit at, and the horror-show creepiness of it all, and the talking Kenzi down from lighting Kathy on fire.

"But besides that."

[suitably_heroic]

Atton gave a casual half-shrug. "You'd also be welcome on Coruscant," he said, "Though I can't guarantee you a lack of anything showing up to attack there, either."

He was glad he'd waited a week to do this. The inclination to snap back to the old tack and yell some more had largely faded into a resigned sense of exhaustion.

"At least on the island you know you'll bounce back."

[myownface]

"Really, I have yet to go to a place that hasn't tried to kick my ass at least once," Sparkle sighed. "I might... might keep Coruscant in mind, though. Maybe not for right now, but give me a few months and I'll probably re-think that the next time something tries to eat me or steal my soul or something."

At least he knew how the island worked, by now.

Coruscant could be home, that was the hell of it. But after everything else that had gone on, he sort of wanted to cling to Earth as much as he could, if not Canada.

Fuck Canada.

"Bouncing back seems like a nice change of pace right now."

[suitably_heroic]

"Plus, maybe we'll get lucky and someone will show up to teach a community center curse on 'how not to be a complete screw-up'," Atton added.

He fixed Sparkle with a mild look, but it held none of his vehemence from last month.

"Plus I'm pretty sure that if they keep letting you open the clothing store, that means you work there now."

[myownface]

Sparkle met Atton's look with a 'gee, thanks' look of his own. And then he sighed.

"That's the really fucked-up thing about this place," he decided. "I'm never going to get over how easily some things just, like, slot into place. It's fucking creepy. I don't want to trust it, but for stuff like this, it hasn't given me any reason not to, yet."

[suitably_heroic]

"I figure the catch is that it doesn't last once you cross the causeway," Atton said mildly. "You're not going to be able to rent a place on the kind of money you make here when you hit the mainland. But as long as you don't mind sticking to this place, it works."

Or if you had a Jedi Order funding you when you were elsewhere.

[myownface]

Sparkle pursed his lips a little, but nodded. Nah, that sounded about right.

"It was easier when I was a student working two jobs," he admitted. "Like, I mean, I could save up that way. It wasn't like the school was charging room and board. That ship's kind of sailed."

Long gone now, Sparkle. Unless you counted back in Ontario, where you still had grade thirteen left to go and the 'room and board' you were most likely to be offered was a prison cell, but that seemed like a decidedly shittier plan.

"But here, like... people can start here with nothing and just keep going without even really trying. I can't think of anywhere else that works that way."

He still didn't trust it, but that was just basic survival, wasn't it?

[suitably_heroic]

"Well, you know what they say on this planet about gift horses."

Though admittedly Atton was probably the wrong person to be preaching that one.

"You could get yourself set up. Get out of Lecter's place, maybe work at Demon Marcus a couple of days a week if they let you, eat mostly Mooby's..."

[myownface]

"Mooby's is never a good life choice, Atton."

... Coming from this kid, that was rich.

"But it's cheap," he allowed. "Kraft Dinner is cheaper, and if I smuggle out some ketchup packets those days I do get Mooby's, I won't even have to worry about, like, fucking scurvy."

Food hadn't really been much a concern in a while. It was weird how easily he was slipping into resigning himself to that sort of thing again, even here.

[suitably_heroic]

Atton rolled his eyes. "I can get you some fruit if you're that worried about scurvy," he said. "Who even gets scurvy anymore?"

[myownface]

"People who live on Kraft Dinner," Sparkle countered. "Like, exclusively. Maybe with instant ramen thrown in for good measure."

A beat.

"So, like, college kids, I guess."

[suitably_heroic]

Atton snorted.

"Okay, so scratch Mooby Land," he said, "If you're willing to get back to doing my grocery runs, my fridge is yours."

[myownface]

"... I can live with that."

Seriously, it sounded like a definite step up from what he was working with now, which was 'hang around Dr. Lecter's place just enough to not starve to death, and lament that a clothing store doesn't have a stove or something in the back.'

Sure, he could try to see if he could force the lock to the apartment upstairs from the place, but 'crashing in the back room of a place I probably work' and 'stealing a fucking apartment' seemed like maybe they were slightly different, comparatively, if somebody were to take issue with him being there.

"I'll even, like, steer away from the broccoli. I guess."

[suitably_heroic]

"I appreciate it," Atton said.

There was a knock on the door. He rose up and headed for it. "Speaking of food, there it is."

[myownface]

Right. Right. Atton had bribed him to come here with an offer of food. And now Sparkle was keenly aware of the mild knot of discomfort that had settled in his guts today, reminding him that he'd gotten used to eating proper meals on a consistent basis somewhere in there, and that skipping out when somebody was offering to feed him regularly because of some kind of stupid sense of shame or bruised pride was stupid. Stupid stupid.

"Fuck, that smells good," he muttered. "Thai?"

[suitably_heroic]

"Yep," Atton said. He took the large back inside, then reached for a basket near the door and produced some keys.

"Forgot to give these to you earlier, by the way," he added, "But if you're going to be grocery guy..."

He tossed them in Sparkle's general direction.

[myownface]

Sparkle caught those keys, and then kind of stared down at them for a moment, his brain needing to take a bit longer to catch up to what was sitting in his hand.

"... This'll make opening the door way easier when I have an armload of grocery bags," he managed, finally, and then pulled out his keyring, which was... mostly just Demon Marcus keys, actually, except that one that might or night not have belonged to Dite's, and started working the new one on to that. "The neighbours start complaining about me picking the lock or something?"

He had to make light of this. He'd probably do something stupid like start to get choked up or something, otherwise.

[suitably_heroic]

"And the lock's getting a little shaky," Atton agreed, setting the bag down on the table. "I'd rather not have to deal with Broody showing up to scowl at me while he fixes the thing."

He sat back down and started poking through the bag.

"Anyway, don't give me the wibbly thing. I don't like doing groceries and take-out is expensive. So since I'm lazy, as we both know, I'm going to make you do it, and I'm not even going to bother to pay you for it beyond food and a place to crash if you ever get sick of Lecter's."

[myownface]

Nooot mentioning the back room. Sparkle was noooot mentioning the back room plan at all, now.

"I wasn't going to give you the wibbly thing," he mumbled, having totally just slipped into the wibbly thing, shut up. "I was just picturing what the extra crap on my keychain was going to do to the way my jeans sat on my hips."

Sure thing, Sparks.

"There's... not... um. I don't know... a limit to how much crashing...?"

[suitably_heroic]

Atton fixed him with a look.

"It'd be nice if eventually you can kick a few bucks towards the rent," he said, "But no, of course there's no limit, you stoopa nerfherder."

And to prove he could occasionally be a functional adult, he didn't even add, As long as you don't burn the place down.

[myownface]

Hey, this was actually a great arrangement for you, Atton! Sparkle had a rule about not burning down places he was actually still living in! Just don't kick him out someday in the most humiliating way imaginable, and the apartment would be fiiiine.

Probably actually fastidiously clean, even.

"Okay, cool. I just had to... yeah. I don't know." Sparkle pulled in a deep breath, and took a few moments to get his thoughts together again. He was a bit uncertain these days, wary when it came to things like assuming he had somewhere to stay in the long-term. "A couple of weeks of working and I think I can manage rent money. That and grocery duty and cooking... seems like a not bad arrangement."

Seemed pretty great, actually.