MCA #4, Saturday Morning

[suitably_heroic]

So Atton was not actually used to having a roommate, unless you counted the military or the few month span of time he'd spent hiding out in the cockpit of the Ebon Hawk because Meetra kept filling the rest of the ship with angry malcontents with no sense of humor. There had been some adjusting involved, most notably in having to remind himself constantly not to leave the bedroom without his pants on, and also that there was now less pizza in his diet.

But he'd survived the situation thusfar. Things could only go up.

Of course, the moment that thought had crossed his mind immediately prefaced the all-hell-on-deck nightmare he'd had on Friday night, which had, as such things usually did, ended with him sitting on the floor of the living room with his legs crossed underneath him, furiously trying to meditate through the occasional fit of hyperventilating.

He was still there when the sun came up (wearing pants, thankfully), blinking blearily as the sun filtered through his eyelids. "Murgl."

[[ open! ]]

Comments

[myownface]

"Thought so," Sparkle replied, disappearing into the kitchen for a moment to get that started. When he surfaced again, he just sort of stood in the hallway, squinting thoughtfully. "Early day, or stupidly late night?"

[suitably_heroic]

"Early day," Atton confirmed. He finally opened his eyes, because yep, meditative moment lost. "Might crash again later if Mical doesn't call."

[myownface]

"Looks like you might need it," Sparkle observed. He was helpful that way. "Shit, get up on the couch or something, man. You're making my back hurt just looking at you."

He was making his own way toward the couch while he was at it. The water would take a few minutes, and he had to put his bag down anyway.

[suitably_heroic]

Atton got up to his feet, slow but steady. "Nah," he said, "Jedi meditation technique, my back's fine."

Not that this stopped him from actually sitting down on the couch, either. "Hard to meditate when you're practically melting into the sofa."

[myownface]

"Yeah, but I bet it's way better for resting," Sparkle countered. "I mean, if the couch is any good. Trust me, I have plenty of couch surfing experience that can vouch for that."

[suitably_heroic]

"If I wanted to rest, I've got my bedroom," Atton said, nodding vaguely in its general direction. "Where I don't have to wear pants."

Look, the having to wear pants thing had been annoying back when he'd shared a dorm room with Jessica.

[myownface]

Not that Sparkle would complain if Atton did stop wearing pants around the apartment, really.

"... Fair enough." He reached for the coffee table and pulled it a little closer in, putting his bag down on top of it. "Does the meditating thing actually help, at least?"

With, you know, whatever?

[suitably_heroic]

Yeah, but it might get weird.

Fast.

"It usually helps calm me down," Atton said. "Jedi meditation's big on making yourself part of a bigger consciousness. Gets you out of your own head."

[myownface]

"And... That's a good place to be?"

Sparkle sounded a touch dubious, but then, he hadn't had his coffee yet, either.

"I mean, I guess, if you want to be... less you for a while or something...?"

[suitably_heroic]

"When your problem is your brain getting stuck on a loop in a beaten-down orbit it's been on a million times before," Atton said, "Getting out of your head is definitely a good start."

Was the coffee done yet? He needed it to make more word things.

[myownface]

Word things were stupid and hard. Who even liked them, anyway?

"Fair enough." Sparkle sat there quietly for a moment, and then, after a bit of a fidget, stood abruptly to make his way back into the hall, to peer into the kitchen. "Shitty thoughts, or shitty memories?"

Or no business of his. He'd accept that answer, too.

[suitably_heroic]

Sigh. Don't ask him these things at who knows when in the morning, Sparks. He might actually feel vaguely inclined to answer, and nobody needed that. "Shitty memories, mostly," Atton said. "I'm sure you've got your fair share of loop-worthy ones, too."

[myownface]

"Yeah, two or three," Sparkle sighed, shrugging as he disappeared into the kitchen. "The sort of shit you don't tell people, because they either decide you should be able to get over it, or they start offering life advice. Fuck that. You want anything in this coffee?"

[suitably_heroic]

"Nah, nothing," Atton said. He rubbed at his eyes, mostly to clear them of haven't-had-them-open-long gunk. "Or you get the sympathy factor, which I'm not completely against, but it's awkward for everyone. Anyway, I have a databank of this stuff that goes back fifteen years. This just happens sometimes. No big deal."

[myownface]

Sparkle had never really cared for the sympathy factor. Either he found he couldn't trust it, or the sympathy was way too close to pity for comfort.

"No big deal," he repeated, pouring two cups of coffee and taking a minute to fix his own up. "If you say so. I find you on the floor like that again, should I just let you do your thing, then?"

[suitably_heroic]

"Please, at the time you drag your ass out of bed?" Atton said, looking thataway to check on the coffee situation. "Coffee's the best thing ever."

[myownface]

Okay, that got a chuckle from the direction of the kitchen, there.

"I reserve the right to sleep until one in the afternoon on a Saturday if i really want," Sparks decreed, making his way out of the kitchen. "Because Saturday."

... Not today, though.

He held Atton's coffee out to him and took a seat again.

"Let me wake up enough, there can be bacon, too."

[suitably_heroic]

"Coffee," Atton sighed appreciatively, then snagged the cup out of Sparkle's hands real fast and took a long sip of it.

"...Okay, hot. Should've seen that one coming."

He squinted at Sparkle. "When is it you crawl into Demon Marcus again?"

[myownface]

"It's been Sundays," Sparkle replied, making a reach into his bag and rummaging around a little. "Or whenever the hell, I guess. If I'm reading these papers I asked them to copy off for me at Town Hall right, I guess I get to maybe make this shit up as I go."

He was giving a sheet of paper in his hand a speculative look as he sipped at his coffee.

"Like, nobody owns the place. I don't know how the hell it's functioning, it's like the no-man's-land of clothing shops."

[suitably_heroic]

Atton squinted at him as he tried to sort that out in his head - and failed. "So... where's your inventory coming from?"

[myownface]

"Hell if I know. The moon? I guess maybe the last owner just forgot to tell them to stop sending stock, or maybe something got missed somewhere in communication." Sparkle nudged the piece of paper over to Atton to see, wrinkling his nose. "It's the island. Like, actually figuring out what's going on here is like learning rocket science if physics decided to take some kind of drug-addled holiday."

Which didn't sound like a bad sort of holiday, but it really kind of left Sparkle blinking and staring at things on a good day.

"I just wanna know who was paying the suppliers for the merch in the meantime. Gremlins?"

[suitably_heroic]

Atton leaned over slooowly to squint at the piece of paper. That was more legal language than he was usually inclined to deal with, but huh. "Maybe the former owner forgot to reroute the charges from their bank account?" he said. "Hey, does that mean you get to keep the profit?"

[myownface]

Sparkle blinked up from his coffee at that.

"... That's a good question. I don't know, maybe? Or at least put it back into the store or sit on it for a while until I know it's safe. I don't want whoever the hell owned the place last coming after me. I've got enough shit on my plate right now without somebody riding my ass over money they weren't paying attention to."

[suitably_heroic]

"Well, you can't keep putting in hours at the place and not get some kind of money out of it," Atton said.

He took another big sip of his - thankfully cooled - coffee and thought about it. "Maybe figure out how much each thing you sell is actually worth without the profit mark-up and leave that money sitting around?"

[myownface]

"Keep that set aside for wherever it belongs, and then start paying attention to where new merch is getting paid from? Like starting new and just using the markup to keep coasting? Or... Something?"

Ugh, he was going to need to use math for this.