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

[suitably_heroic]

"Maybe if they didn't sleep much and had a hangover," Atton said.

... it was weird how easy it was to slip back into this kind of banter.

[myownface]

And it was crazy just how badly Sparkle had needed it.

"Yeah, but why would I want to fight somebody with a hangover? Like, haven't they suffered enough?"

[suitably_heroic]

"Why are you asking me?" Atton asked him, squinting. "I was just trying to establish how noodley you've become. You didn't need to let me know it was noodley on the inside, too."

[myownface]

There was a long pause, then.

And then Sparkle grinned a little.

"You're talking about noodles again."

Maybe he was super noodly, but at least he hadn't stopped being a complete little shit?

That was a good thing, right?

[suitably_heroic]

Atton let out a long groan.

And threw a chunk of chicken at him with his chopsticks.

Serves you right, Sparks.

[myownface]

Hey! What a waste of perfectly good chicken!

... This was not going to stop Sparkle from picking the chicken out of his lap with his chopsticks and then eating it, no.

"Hey, thanks! This goes super great with all these noodles."

Noooodles.

[suitably_heroic]

Atton pointed at him with the chopsticks. "Don't make me send you into timeout," he said, "I haven't taken all of the blaster rifles out of your room yet."

Yeah, Sparkle's room.

[myownface]

Sparkle got a room?

Of his own?

He was behaving now, if only because he was kind of dazed at the prospect. Okay, cool, this was real, this was going on. And it was good. Place to live? Good.

"God," he muttered, once his mental faculties were running properly again, "I haven't been sent to timeout since, like..."

... Did jail count as grownup timeout?

"... Since a while."

[suitably_heroic]

Technically it was the second bedroom. It probably still had some of Anakin's hair stuff in there, too, actually.

Don't ask.

"That explains a lot," Atton said, digging into his food like that pause had never happened, Sparkle.

[myownface]

... Watch out, Anakin. Sparkle was going to discover your hair secrets.

"What's that supposed to mean?!"

Now Sparkle was throwing a shrimp at you, Atton. Take that.

[suitably_heroic]

Atton, perpetual cheater, batted it away with the Force. "You know exactly what it's supposed to mean," he retorted, redirecting the shrimp to Sparkle's hair.

[myownface]

"I think you're questioning my upbringing," Sparkle replied loftily, reaching up to rescue... either his hair or the shrimp. Possibly both. And then squinting at the morsel while he contemplated just how badly it would taste of hair gel if he were to eat it now.

... Worth it.

Pleh.

"Not nearly enough proper disciplinary action while I grew up or something."

Well, it wasn't inaccurate.