suitably_heroic | Outside a Metal Bar and Beyond, Baltimore, Thursday Evening

Sparkle had his hands in his pockets and a smirk on his face, if that answered that question.

"It's still plenty young," he agreed with a grin. "Wanna try to sneak back in?"

He kind of liked that place. The bouncers were, you know, friendly. For huge guys that took sadistic joy in picking you up and throwing you out into a snowbank, and all.

"No, she knows me," Atton muttered. "She'll spot me in five seconds and call the bouncers back on me. Plenty of bars in this town anyway."

Just not ones he liked this much. Damn it!

"Yeah, but none with quite the same, uh..." He glanced back at the door, where the bouncer that was standing outside just raised an eyebrow. Sparkle blew a kiss right back before returning his attention to Atton. "Ambiance. None with the same ambiance as this place. So, you know, all we need to do is dress you up a bit. Disguise you or something, and we can get back in, no problem. You can find her and give her like a proper apology for being a dick, and then we get smashed at the bar and dance like drunken assholes until we can't even crawl our way into a cab to get back to the island."

Sounded like a good time, right?

"Yeah, just let me go find my fake mustache," Atton said. "Or would you happen to have a bantha costume lying around somewhere? You can be the ass."

Charming, Atton.

Oh, please, Atton. It wasn't like you hadn't met Sparkle before. He grinned, and shrugged out of his backpack.

"Change of clothes, make-up, we can do something with your hair..."

Really, Atton. Really. It wasn't like Sparkle ever left the island without his bag, in case he could find something fun to steal.

Atton squinted at him. "Did you actually plan for this?"

He wasn't sure whether to be impressed or disturbed.

"What, you've never needed a change of clothes after going clubbing? Like, nobody ever puked on you or any shit like that?"

So, no. Sparkle was just... conscientious.

And maybe he'd planned for this.

"You take a stick or a rag or something and take it to the toilet, good as new." Atton had some very particular ideas re: hygiene - including where to stick it.

He also blamed the fact he was actually considering this on the pre-drinking drinking. (Which, for once, he'd actually done.)

Edited 2013-02-07 14:05 (UTC)

"Aw, come on. It's not like I'm gonna paint an ass on your forehead or anything. Just enough make-up to make it hard for them to pick you out in a crowd. It's dark in there, right?"

You were going go be so pretty, Atton.

And he did really like this bar...

"Fine," Atton said, "But if I find out any pictures of this make it out there, it's your head." He did not need Cade to find out about this. Or Sia. Or Jessica. Or...

... he knew too many people who liked making his life hell.

"But you'll be so pretty," Sparkle laughed, and then reached for Atton's arm. "Come on, I saw a McDonald's near here, they've probably got a bathroom we can duck into to get you all changed up."

He shouldered his backpack again, shot Atton a winning grin, and added, "Oh, I can't wait to do your hair."

"Shut up and stop making me regret this, okay?" Atton grumbled.

Next time he was sticking to fake-drinking. Damn it!

"Aw, you won't regret it when you're strutting across the dance floor, with big beefy guys trying to mosh you back off again," Sparkle countered, making his way toward the McD's. "Anyhow, it's not that bad. I'm not going to make you look like a bigger freak any anyone else we saw in there tonight."

Considering the number of people with safety pins through their eyebrows, this was possibly not saying much.

"I should never have come here on a Thursday," Atton muttered. "It's quieter on Saturdays. I could just get drunk and talk to the locals."

And by locals he meant the girls with safety pins through their eyebrows.

He followed after Sparkle, muttering complaints under his breath.

And Sparkle grinned and silently mouthed 'blah blah whine whine,' as he led Atton confidently straight to the men's room at the restaurant.

"Here," he said, setting his backpack on the set counter by the sink. "Throw these on, first. It'll make your hair easier later."

Yes, he was pulling out some unholy combination of torn black t-shirt and fishnet, just for you, Atton.

"This is a joke, right?" Atton said, holding up the shirt. "You fished this out of a lake somewhere?"

"Thrift store chic," Sparkle countered, leaning back against the countertop with a grin. "You wanna get in there without people recognizing you, or not?"

Atton didn't do hygiene, but he did have standards, Sparkle...! Or, well, this edition of him did. Whatever, it didn't matter, since apparently the fishnets passed the bar after another couple of annoyed faces.

"If this doesn't work," he muttered, tagging the shirt over his head next.

"If it doesn't work, at least you'll give the ladies something to look at when we get thrown out again," Sparkle replied, smirking and, yes, ogling. Why not? "What's not to like about that?"

Atton raised his voice to point out exactly what and how far Sparkle could put it somewhere unpleasant-- "Yeah, okay, good point."

If he got to go home with some girl tonight, Sparkle was completely off the hook.

Aw yeah. Appeal to the desire to get laid, and you'll go far. Lessons from a guy named Sparkle.

"Thought so. Now c'mere, I'm gonna do your eyes."

Yes, that was eyeliner he was pulling from his bag.

This was for drinks, good music, and girls. Drinks, good music, and girls. Drinks, good music, and girls.

"Don't stab anything out."

He'd just sit here. And look annoyed.

"Don't do anything stupid like ram your face against the pencil, and we don't have that problem," Sparkle countered. "Now, just with your eyes, look up."

Oh, this was the best night out ever.

"I mean it," Atton said, rolling his eyes up to the ceiling.

See? He could do what you said and be an ass about it.

"Yeah?" Sparkle rolled his eyes too, just briefly, before he got to work putting makeup on Atton's face. "So did I. You think you can sit still for like five minutes, here?"

It would be an exercise in patience, right?

"I am sitting still," Atton pointed out. "Space, you do this every day?"

"Every day I show my face in public," Sparkle confirmed. "I'll be washing mine off before we head back in, though. See, that's how much I care, man."

Because, really, he kind of stood out as he was. He looked pretty different himself, without makeup.

"So, lips or no lips?"

Because.

"No," Atton said.

Look, if Sparkle wasn't sure, he was definitely not going to do it. No.

"Baby," Sparkle accused, putting his eyeliner pencil away and pulling out the kohl. "It would make you harder to recognize, that's all. But we'll skip it this time around, anyhow."

Because Sparks was kind like that.

Kind, and still getting glared at. Life just wasn't fair. "Yeah, yeah," Atton said. "Just do the hair thing and let's get out of here, all right, kid?"

"You're rushing an artist, Atton," Sparkle chided, rummaging through his bag for his hairspray. "Good things take time, you know."

Aha! Presto!

... Yes, he had hairspray in his backpack. Why not?

Atton would actually quibble less with the hairspray, because in a pinch, that made for a decent weapon. "You treat people at the clothing store like this?" he asked.

"Nope. You paying me for this?"

It seemed like a fair enough question to Sparkle, anyhow, as he attacked Atton's hair with spray and a comb.

"I was going to buy you a drink later," Atton said, "But I'm reconsidering it-- ow."

"Oh, did that pull?" Sparkle was gonna do it again, just to make sure he got that snarl out. "Probably wouldn't have that problem if you like ever took a comb to this hair. Oh my god Atton your hair is great and this is what you give me to work with?"

Take that from Sparkle however you will.

"My hair is just there to keep my head warm!" Atton said. Ow ow ow ow ow ow Sparkle was some kind of maniac, wasn't he? "Space!"

... It took Atton this long to figure out that Sparks was a maniac? Really?

"Don't you space me," he scolded with a quick whap of the comb to the top of Atton's head. "I'm halfway there, you know. Which is like some sort of miracle you have no idea considering you like don't seem to give a shit about how you look."

And another good spritz of hairspray, a few adjustments here and there, and Sparkle nodded to the mirror.

"Presto."

Atton knew a lot of crazy people, okay? He had a different way of scaling!

... and also a six pack and several other muscle groups that kind of went in against that 'don't give a shit' theory, but he'd stripped quick and turned-around for a reason. Not everyone needed to know he didn't actually sleep in until one every morning, then binged on snack food, thanks.

"Hey, hey, I look fine," Atton retorted. "At least I did-- seriously, we're done?"

It had been such an Olympian ordeal, he could hardly believe it. (Or he was exaggerating. Or both. Probably both.)

Edited 2013-02-07 18:30 (UTC)

"You're done," Sparkle replied, leaning back and having a good long look, smirking a little as he did so.

Yeah. Yeah, he'd just invented eye candy.

"I'll be a minute yet."

And then he was more or less sticking his face in the sink, trying to get most of his eye make-up off and getting his hair slicked down.

"Fine, whatever," Atton said, pushing away from the damned wall. "...McDonalds doesn't sell drinks, do they?"

Damn it.

"That depends entirely on how badly you're dying for a milkshake," Sparkle replied, using some of the foam soap to make sure his face was good and clean before straightening up and fixing his hair in the mirror. "Nothing like getting all prettied up for the club, just to settle for a shamrock shake and a big mac?"

"I mean drinks with a kick," Atton said, rolling his eyes and poking at his hair.

With the amount of... whatever... Sparkle had put in it, he wasn't completely sure he couldn't kill a man just by headbutting him right now. "Whatever. Let's try out this stupid idea of yours before the fumes of whatever you put in here knock me on my ass."

"Yeah, yeah. Don't breathe deeply or anything," Sparkle replied, pulling another t-shirt from his bag and turning his jacket inside-out. "Let's find a place to stash my backpack and go get ourselves good and smashed, huh?"

"There's an alley not too far from the bar," Atton said. "If you don't mind shoving your backpack in a garbage container, anyway."

It was sheer force of will that kept him from poking at his hair as he exited the McDonalds.

"Wouldn't be the first time," Sparkle replied with a shrug as he followed Atton out. "So long as I remember it before someone else finds it, it'll be fine. They don't collect the trash at this time of night, anyhow."

Every now and again, he got a weird look on his face as he looked at Atton.

"But seriously, you have any clue how hot you look right now?"

Not that he was going to jump his bones in an alley or something, but... Shit, man.

"If you keep staring at me like that, they're definitely not going to figure out who we are," Atton said casually. "Keep it up."

His ego appreciated it, sure. But right now his head felt like a helmet, and while usually it didn't take him much effort to shake off the knowledge he could easily turn this into a weapon if he wanted to, it... was weird for about thirty seconds longer than it usually was.

Screw it. He started counting pebbles skittering across the ground in his head and it cleared right up. "You can pat yourself on the back later."

Sparkle sighed and rolled his eyes skyward.

"Just saying," he grumbled, ducking into the alley near the club and making his way to the deepest trash bin he could find. A quick check to make sure there weren't any rats hiding out on top of the trash, and in went his bag. "Ready to finally enjoy the damn club?"

"Yeah, yeah. You go first. The bouncers actually like you."

Or at least they used to back when Sparkle looked a lot more like he did now.

Atton threw a glance towards the door and the guys standing outside, snorted, and began to walk.

"And they'll keep liking me so long as they don't find out I won't be legal for like years," Sparkle replied, smirking as he made his way toward the door. "Fake IDs are awesome."

And Sparkle, being Sparkle, had brought his along for this outing. Of course.

"If I didn't have one, I wouldn't be able to get anywhere in this town." Actually he had like three. No such thing as overkill if you didn't have an actual identity around here.

Atton followed right behind, hands shoved in his pockets, shifting his body language - or rather, he just suddenly felt like his arms weighed more and he didn't want to take in quite as much space and Sparkle took such big steps compared to his all of a sudden, wonder what that was.

Sparkle wasn't exactly hugely aware of that shift in manner, since his back was turned, but it was hardly his first time playing up a different role, or even sneaking back into a bar he'd been chased out of. His strides were a little more confident, his own posture was a little better. And he was giving the bouncers an easy smile like he belonged there.

Which, you know, he did. He wasn't the one that had gotten his dumb ass kicked out of the club, Atton.

"Hey guys. Having a good evening?"

The bouncers gave noncommittal grunts as they checked the ID he handed to them, and waved him by.

Your turn, Atton.

"Hey," Atton muttered, shoving his second fake ID their way.

He made very skittish eye contact with one of the bouncers.

The bouncer gave a similar grunt and shoved his ID back at him. He walked on.

"So." Sparkle was waiting just inside the door, a smirk on his face and his hands shoved into his pockets. "Worth the makeover?"

They hadn't been ID'd by the guys that had just chucked them out the door, after all. Sparkle was calling that one a win.

"Depends on whether Linda is going to have me thrown out on my ass the moment I say word one to her," Atton said. "...I should've brought something. Flowers? Do Earth girls like flowers?"

That was his special way of saying thank you, Sparkle.

Sparkle would take it.

"Flowers, chocolate, puppies - Don't get her a puppy, Atton - drinks. Buy her a drink. Maybe throw an apology in along with it. What the hell did you do to piss her off so bad, anyhow?"

"She offered a pity fuck, I said no," Atton said.

And then it kind of snowballed from there in the way only Atton could really accomplish. "Don't know why she's still upset about it." ... and snowballed again, and snowballed again.

Gave him this weird feeling in his stomach--

Actually, wait, scratch that. His eyes shot away from the bar and the pretty girl tending it to the shape of some burly man-thing vanishing through a door in the back.

"Yeah, well... Girls. There's a reason I don't go for that kind of..." Sparkle trailed off as he watched Atton's attention shift. "... thing. See something interesting, pal?"

"Just thought I saw someone heading in the back," Atton said. "Nobody heads into the back around here."

He shook his head and dug around his pocket until he managed to find a couple of dollar bills. "You know, forget it," he said, "Just grab some drinks, will you?"

"Yeah, yeah," Sparkle replied, waving his hands and turning toward the bar. "Beer? Something harder? I'm flexible, here."

He also kept looking toward the back room, now. Dammit, Atton. Go on and bring his attention to something, and then he was going to be stuck on it for hours.

"Just get me some whiskey," Atton said, shoving those dollars at him.

Eugh. It wasn't just a sense of malice turning his stomach upside down - someone out there was in pain. Whiskey? Whiskey would help.

"Whiskey," Sparkle replied, shooting Atton a salute as he took said dollars and made his way over to the bar. He ordered, got himself something good and stiff too since it wouldn't do to let Atton get too drunk without him, and a few minutes later he was on his way back to Atton with a bottle in each hand.

"Didn't feel like sharing," he explained, offering him one of the bottles.

"I can hardly argue with that," Atton said, grabbing the bottle and taking a swig without looking twice. "I can figure this one out when I've had a few drinks..."

"Which one was that?" Sparkle raised an eyebrow before taking a mouthful of his own whiskey. "The mystery of the guy that used a door?"

"No, Linda," Atton muttered. "I swear, doesn't matter where you go, women..."

He'd just take another swig.

And maybe eyeball that door. Ugh.

Seriously, put an idea in Sparkle's head, and the guy wasn't going to let it go.

"Well, like I said, start by buying her a drink," Sparkle reasoned. "I can play wingman or whatever. I mean, it can't be that hard."

Helping straight guys pick up chicks. Had to be easy, right?

"Well, she's not Sith or anything, so I probably won't lose any limbs," Atton mused. "Probably."

A pause.

"What are you bringing the door up for again?"

"Nothing," Sparkle replied, wrinkling his nose. "You just looked like it was all weird that someone was going back there, when it was probably just that a bouncer needed to take a shit in a private bathroom or something."

All class, that Sparkle.

"What did you say to her to get her so pissed off? It wasn't, like, 'no thanks,' I'm gonna guess."

"That's not a private bathroom," Atton said distractedly. "Private bathroom's on the other side of the room."

Don't ask him how he knew that.

"And I told you, I don't know. I just explained to her that I like this bar and I didn't want to ruin it by sleeping with her."

"... You didn't actually phrase it like that, did you?"

See, Atton. There was your problem.

"Offices or something behind the door, then? They gotta do payroll or whatever somewhere, right?"

And yes, now Sparkle was completely fixated on that damn door.

"I said I didn't want to dump the bar." Because that made it better! Somehow!

The second comment... kinda threw Atton out of his whole distracted spiel there. "Uh, what? The door? I have... absolutely no idea. Seems too crowded to just be a broom closet."

And that was a whole different brand of 'don't ask him how he knew that'.

"What, you see more people walk in while I was getting the drinks?" Sparkle, Sparkle honey, don't ask. "... Anyhow, you know you, like, insinuated that her presence here was gonna somehow fuck up the whole bar from here on out, right? Please tell me you caught that?"

"It was a joke!" Well, sort of. Coming here would've been awkward after banging Linda. "And yeah, sure, I saw them head in."

That was a lie, but he was going to bury it with some whiskey.

Sparkle eyed Atton for another moment at that, and then he shrugged and took another swig from his own bottle.

"Well, doesn't sound to me like she took it as a joke. Maybe you weren't clear enough about that part?"

Or maybe Atton'd just made it worse by avoiding her for a few weeks, then trying to act like nothing was wrong. Whatever, it had been a weird day, what with Si going all funny on him.

"Yeah, sure, maybe," Atton said. "Damn it, now you have me wondering about that door. Maybe it's like in one of those movies-- you know, a poker room for bad guys."

"Hey, you brought up the door first," Sparkle pointed out, smirking a little. "You think bad guys really go to back rooms at clubs like this to play poker, Atton?"

He glanced back toward the door. Hmm.

"That's ridiculous. It's too loud in here to concentrate on the cards. They're probably shaking some poor schlub down for like a safe combination or something."

Sparkle was also very quick to pick up on interesting flights of fancy.

That'd make sense of that spike of pain he'd felt earlier.

"Hey, you'd be surprised what a guy can play cards through, if motivated right," Atton argued. He took another drink and then put the bottle down on the nearest flat surface. "Two bucks says it's a really spirited card game."

"Ten bucks says it's probably just some kind of office space back there," Sparkle countered. "But hey, I'll never turn down the chance to go poking around where I'm not supposed to be."

He shot Atton a shit-eating grin.

"I mean, unless you were just going to ask your lady friend what's back there."

"Nah, let's check out the back door first." Not that Atton was procrastinating or anything.

And he was even patiently quiet in case Sparkle wanted to use that to springboard a joke or something.

Sparkle was going to behave himself. Sparkle was going to behave himself. Sparkle was going to-

"Atton, honey, I've been checking out back doors around here all night." It needed to be said. So there. "But hey, I've been in need of like a new stapler or something lately. Sure, let's check out your sinister poker game, then."

Atton assumed the universal headtilt of aren't you glad I let you get that out of your system?, but didn't comment. "You head there first," he said. "If we break off at the same time, people are going to notice."

"...You know, in case it actually is a sinister whatever. Or a trap. Been a while since I walked into a trap."

"Yeah, I gotta say, walking into traps isn't something that I'm really in the habit of, myself," Sparkle replied. "But really, how bad could it be?"

He gave his shoulders a shrug, passed his bottle over to Atton, and then cracked his knuckles.

"Worst case scenario, I just tell whoever's back there that I got lost on the way to the can."

And then he was making his way off again, this time winding his way ever-so-casually toward that door in question. And possibly stopping to check out some other back doors on the way. So as to not be too obvious, and all.

Hey, the kid was a natural. Not that this surprised Atton to any degree.

Atton snagged his bottle for one last drink, then tried to shove it into a jacket he wasn't currently wearing. ... Damn it.

He took it with him as he vanished into the crowd, keeping his eyes on the door.

It took Sparkle a few minutes to get that far, but eventually he did wind up at the door, leaning against the wall beside it for a moment to continue checking out the crowd. And then, confident that the only one actually looking at him was Atton, he reached for the knob - unlocked, score! - gave it a turn, and slipped inside, shutting the door behind him.

This was a mistake. He had about enough time to process the thought, 'holy fuck it's totally not a poker game,' and spit out the words, "So, this isn't the way to the bathroom?" before he was clubbed a good one upside the head.

Atton owed him way more than two bucks for this.

Atton waited another half-a-minute before he slid easily through the crowd to the door. Something felt off - and he didn't mean the kind of off he'd felt a minute ago. (There was a scale for this stuff; he just chose not to think about it.)

"I have a bad feeling about this," he muttered to no one in particular, opened the door, took a step... and ducked.

A baseball bat buried itself neatly in the doorway behind him. "Hey, hey!"

"Throw him out with the other one. Or shoot him."

"No shooting, all right?!"

Sparkle's head hurt.

Sparkle's head hurt, and people were being loud in another room.

Sparkle's head hurt, and people were being loud in another room, and mostly he just wanted his whiskey back. Why couldn't he have his whiskey back? He couldn't even focus on things at the moment, so the jackasses that chucked him back here were probably just being cruel and unusual for denying him his drink.

And probably for tying him up, too.

Ugh, was that blood in his hair? He'd just fixed that hair. God damn it, Atton. You messed up his hair.

Stop yelling!

The heavy door fell shut behind Atton.

Well, there went one avenue of escape. Nothing to do now but power through, and hope they hadn't murdered the kid already. (He was fairly sure they hadn't. Call it a hunch. Please call it a hunch.)

The guy with the gun took a step closer. "Hey, don't I know you from somewhere?" he said. "Yeah. You look familiar..."

"Seriously?" Atton said, staring back at him. "If I'd met anyone as ugly as you, I'd have known--"

Instincts blared at him very loudly to move, but Atton didn't really need that to know a punch was incoming. He ducked, snagging the man's arm, planting his foot down on the guy's instep-- and shoved, causing the gun to go skittering to the floor as the man's other arm impacted against the wall.

"What the--"

Better hope his hunch was right and none of the other guys were armed...

"Shut up."

Sparkle wasn't listening to the guy he'd christened 'Beefy' somewhere over the span of the last thirty seconds.

"Shut up."

Sparkle was trussed up like a piece of poultry or something and he was laying on the floor and there was a big guy staring down at him and people were still being loud, and so help him, if he had to put up with that shit, he was going to amuse himself however the hell he wanted.

"Look, kid, if you don't shut the fuck up, I'm gonna..."

Some people just didn't appreciate Hello, Dolly! the way that Sparkle did. He managed to give Beefy another cheeky grin in what he hoped was the guy's general direction, and then he hummed another line of it, because, fuck it, he was probably dead anyhow. Might as well make someone else miserable, too.

He stopped humming at the kick to the ribs, exhaling sharply and trying to curl up in a tighter ball on the floor than he was already in.

Okay. Okay. No pestering the big guys. Noted. He mumbled something under his breath that was probably intended to be 'Fuckers,' but with the way it articulated, more like a 'ffffshngh,' even Sparks wasn't completely sure.

You know, the problem with these Earth gangsters or low-lives or whatever the hell they were? Apparently they didn't know how to handle themselves without a firearm or a blunt object or something. That was the only explanation Atton could come up with.

Well, that, or he was just that good.

He picked up Hey-Don't-I-Know-You-From-Somewhere's blaster - sorry, gun - checked the safety, then put under his belt. For now. Shouldn't have thrown his holster in with his jacket when he got changed... damn it.

He swiped his by-now half-empty whiskey bottle up off the floor before taking it to the kinda heavy-looking metal door at the end. What was that, the Earth equivalent of a digital lock?

... He was going to try knocking first. Sure, surprise entrances could really help a guy out, but with Sparkle space knows where, he wasn't taking any risks.

Oh, Sparkle did not like that knocking sound. Granted, he didn't like any sounds right about then. Really, with all said and done, he didn't like much of anything. He especially didn't like Beefy, who was muttering something obscene under his breath as he went to answer the door. He didn't like the overhead lights, either. They were too damn bright, and he kind of wanted to just sleep or something. Damn lights. Should be illegal.

Grumbling more incoherent whatever under his breath, Sparkle was going to just attempt to worm his way out of the glare of the overhead lights. In a completely dignified manner that-- Oh. Oh ugh that wasn't even his blood on the floor that he was writhing through.

"Thafuhk..."

"Hey," Atton said casually. Damn, that guy had been taking something. Had to be. "I don't know what kind of operation you've got going on here, and I really don't care. I'm looking for a friend of mine. You just... hand him over and I'll be on my way."

He was strategically blocking the doorway. Nobody needed to see what he'd left behind there.

Oh... did Sparkle know that voice? Sparkle was pretty sure he knew that voice. It sounded like a voice that he happened to know, and he cracked open an eye to look toward the door, but all he really got was a view of Beefy's ass.

Say what you want about Beefy's bedside manner, he did have a pretty impressive ass.

"Y'owe m'too bucks," he grumbled from his very useful vantage point on the floor in some other poor fucker's blood. "S'not pok'r."

All of this was lost, of course, in Beefy's somewhat more coherent exclamation of, "Who the fuck are you?" as he launched himself at Atton.

Seriously, how stupid were these people? ... They could answer that later, when Atton wasn't at risk of suffering Blunt Idiot To The Face.

He practically flowed out of the guy's reach, snagging his arm as he came by and yanking it back hard. Then he kicked him in the back. Twice as hard. Sent the guy sprawling to the ground.

"Points for 'ask questions first, attack later'," he said, "But you lose some for 'poor sense of pacing'."

See, Atton? See how totally not poker it was in here?

... Sparkle was going to cling to that point as Beefy hit the floor beside him.

"Loudest rescue ever," he intoned, squinting as he tried to make out Atton under the glare of the overhead lights. "Next time, you go first."

"Is there anybody else around here?" Atton asked, ignoring that babble. "Because if I see another one of these idiots coming at me, I'm just going to start shooting kneecaps."

He knelt down by Sparkle's side.

"Dunno. Didn't get a chance to count," Sparkle grumbled, wiggling around a little on the floor in an attempt to free his hands. "Some poor bastard was in here before me, though."

He glanced down at the blood on the floor. Still fairly fresh.

"He's probably got someone dragging him around. No clue where they put him."

Probably wherever they had been planning on throwing Sparkle, too.

Because he was a nice guy, Atton reached out to help him with those restraints. "Well, going by the amount of blood on the floor," he mused as he freed Sparkle, "The guy won't have more than a few hours unless they patch him up. Two, maybe three?"

Not that it was their business.

"Sucks to be him."

"A bit," Sparkle mumbled, frowning down at the blood as Atton worked to free him. "Something tells me they're not gonna patch him up, either."

Call it a hunch.

"So I'm picking the club next time."

Just letting Atton know, here.

"There you go," Atton said. "You feel confused? Dizzy? Like you want to vomit?"

He'd ignore the club thing. Shut up, he still really liked this place. A little blood wasn't going to throw him off.

"Yes," Sparkle replied, to all of the above, as he gave his wrists a somewhat uncoordinated rub. "Feels like he hit me in the brain with a brick."

Or a baseball bat. One of those.

"Who're they? What'd we... you know? S'not poker."

The poker thing was going to be the sticking point today.

"It's not poker," Atton agreed. "And you probably have a concussion, so I'm hauling your ass out of here. Our friend splashed all over the floor down here can go save himself."

They might have to find somewhere to crash for the night. Atton wasn't sure either of them wanted to be caught hauling in injured on the island.

Sparkle made a bit of a whining sound at that. Because, in terms of summing up the whole situation, that was about the best he could manage.

"Gotta get my bag..."

See, Atton? That change of clothes would totally come in handy.

"Yeah, yeah, we'll get the bag," Atton promised. "Think I saw a door that opens out on the alley back there in the next room."

And with that, he was going to try to haul your ass upright, Sparkle. With a lot more care than he was going to admit to later.

And Sparkle wasn't going to admit that he was more or less hanging off of Atton as he was hauled to his feet, either. They could live in that merry state of denial together forever!

"N'if it doesn't lead out to the alley?"

What if they were trapped in the back room of the Random Heavy Metal Baltimore Mafia forever?

"I'll shoot someone in the kneecap. I already covered that, didn't I?" Atton said. "Pure pazaak."

Now just to get Sparkle out through the door and past that merry trio of passed-out gentlemen on the floor...

"Oh. Okay." Sparkle seemed to accept that as an adequate answer. Until a moment later, when he gave Atton a kind of bleary look. "Where'd you get a gun?"

This was all so new and novel to him, dammit.

This was so ridiculously normal for Atton - or used to be, anyway - that he'd already mentally plotted out his course to a just-in-case place he knew, and going by the looks of it, Sparkle was going to be fine by the morning, so--

"One of the idiots back here had one," Atton said casually. "I thought he'd be better off without it. I'll ditch it later."

He already had his blaster on the island. He didn't need more.

"Oh." Well, that answered that, didn't it? Sparkle returned his attention toward the floor, and the bodies that were strewn across it. "Ditch it far from here or the cops'll be all over it trying to place your prints."

If there was one thing Sparks could do, it was dodge the police.

"... Might call 'em anyhow." He nodded down to the blood that he was tracking across the floor. "Like anon... annun... anomin... without giving my name. 'Cause."

Nothing against the club, but he was feeling a bit of solidarity for the mystery guy with the blood smears everywhere.

"Not like they'll listen to me, but."

Atton tried the back door. It opened easily enough-- well, once he jimmied the lock a little, but that was child's play.

"How about we get a painkiller in you first and maybe some rest," he said, "Then when you stop stuttering, you can call the police."

Though the joy of being Atton was that nobody had his prints.

Sparkle fell quiet for a minute as he chewed on that statement, letting Atton drag him... wherever Atton was headed. He trusted him, by this point, to get him out of here in more or less one piece. He'd sent Sparkle in first, but he was also the one to come and get him again.

"... Think buddy'll last that long?"

Sparkle wasn't a big fan of getting himself killed for other people, and he wasn't a big fan of the cops, either. But just letting someone die when it was a matter of making an anonymous tip or something seemed...

... Seemed like...

Well, he didn't like it.

"Are you honestly worrying about this?"

Because this was the kind of shit that got a lot of Jedi killed.

Alleyway. Thank hell. He left Sparkle propped up against the dumpster for a couple so he could root around in it and drag out their backpack.

"Dunno," Sparkle grumbled, clinging to the side of the dumpster, amusing himself with the way the blood on his fingers froze to the cold metal of the bin. "Covered in blood an' some of it's mine and they were gonna kill me in there and my whiskey's still in the bar and some guy's gonna croak and like one of these things I can maybe to something about probably."

He wasn't going back for his whiskey, Atton.

"You're not dead," Atton pointed out. "You'll be fine in the morning. Maybe be rattled for a couple more days, but hey, who hasn't been?"

He rooted through Sparkle's backpack until he found his jacket and threw it on. "I got some vodka in here somewhere. How about we strike a deal, and you can have it when your brains aren't leaking out through your eyes?"

Sparkle put forth a valiant effort to not look too pathetic as he looked back Atton's way from where he was propped against the dumpster.

"What kinda deal?"

Because the vodka was sounding pretty good, too.

"You come with me, you settle down, you deal with me waking you up every fifteen minutes, and you get the vodka whenever your head's pieced back together," Atton said easily, slinging the backpack over his shoulder and walking back towards Sparkle.

He didn't think 'and don't tell anyone about the details of this debacle' was something he really needed to say, here.

Yeah, Sparkle wasn't planning on running off and talking about this one. Given his penchant for tall tales, it wasn't like anyone would believe him anyhow.

"... Good enough."

That wasn't going to stop him from sulking against the dumpster, though. God, he wanted to puke his brains out. Maybe if he managed that, his head would stop hurting so damn much.

Pretty bad idea, if you asked Atton, which nobody was. Instead he'd try and peel Sparkle away from the dumpster again. "I know a place, just a few streets from here," he said. "Girl'll let me crash there. You can ride this out and avoid some questions and clinic bills."

"... You do this kind of thing a lot?"

Oh, hey. Atton was all warm and not dumpster-like. Sparkle was going to hang off of him like a limpet again. That was cool, right?

~~Let's pretend that was the right icon, shall we?~~

"You spend five minutes on Nar Shaddaa, you'll find yourself getting used to a lot of things," Atton said. Not that was where he'd picked up all of this stuff, but hey.

He dragged Sparkle out of the alley. "What, have you never done this before?"

~~I saw nothing!~~

"This is a new one for me," Sparkle mumbled, shuffling along with Atton miserably. "Well. The being tied up part, anyhow."

Generally, when he got caught places he wasn't supposed to be, he was faster than the guy trying to beat him down for it. Bad luck, tonight.

"I'll teach you how to get out of that later," Atton said. Then pulled a face at himself. Ugh, he was going soft.

"What's the worst trouble you've had?"

Sparkle was quiet for a long while before he finally just gave his shoulders a shrug.

"Stupid family shit," he replied, too sore and tired and shaken to even bother trying to come up with a story. "Cops had to get involved and drag us out 'cause it was getting... I dunno. Doesn't matter. Been in trouble with the cops a lot since, but at least when they slap you in handcuffs you know you're just gonna get dumped off on your social worker again anyhow."

Atton didn't actually care if he told the truth - he was just trying to keep Sparkle talking. Anything else was a bonus.

"Did that leave any scars?"

It usually did.

"Ever get that feeling like somebody's reached into your chest and grabbed your breath right out of your lungs, and then that feeling never actually goes away?"

There was his answer.

Of course it did.

"Yeah," Atton said.

Didn't elaborate on that.

Sparkle wasn't going to ask him to. If he expected Atton to elaborate, then he'd have to return the favour.

"Yeah." He was silent for a little longer before glancing back up at Atton. "You came to get me. They had guns."

That was meant to be something between a 'thank you,' and a 'you fucking idiot,' there.

"Lots of idiots have blasters-- guns-- whatever," Atton said. "That's the thing with people who think some weapon or skillset makes them invincible. You figure out which buttons to hit and they go down just as easy as anyone else."

Just one more street. Then he'd figure out whether he was feeling magnanimous enough to place a phone call.

"Guess they do." Sparkle was looking back down at his feet, now, but just watching the ground pass them by was giving him another fresh wave of nausea. He squeezed his eyes tightly shut. "Something maybe I should learn how to do sometime."

"If you're lucky, you'll never have to," Atton said.

He came to a stop in front of a door. "And here we are," he said, reaching out to knock on the door.

It opened a minute later, revealing a pretty brunette girl. "Wha-- Jesus, Eric! What the hell?"

"My friend here got knocked on the head by some burly jackass at the bar," he said. "He's from out of town and doesn't like doctors all that much, so... I was hoping to cash in on that favor you owe me. You got a second bedroom, right?"

"Hey," Sparkle managed, with a little smile that was still a bit on the unsteady side. "I'm a pro at the couch-surfing thing. Won't be in the way or anything, promise."

Because, really, he wasn't going anywhere on his own accord any time soon.

... At least he'd washed up before being cracked over the head and smeared with some other guy's blood. He could almost fake being a respectable human being, this way.

"Come on," Atton said. "We don't really have anywhere else to go right now. He's got a concussion. He needs rest."

The girl crossed her arms. "Aren't you supposed to stay awake with a concussion?"

Oh, for the love of-- "That's just the movies, kid," he said. "Can we--"

She released a very deep sigh and rubbed at her face. "Fine," she snapped, "But don't make any noise and hurry through. My parents are visiting."

"Thanks," he said, and dragged Sparkle inside.

Sparkle mumbled something that was probably his own thanks under his breath, letting Atton drag him along. This was probably better than crashing in an alleyway, and he didn't exactly have the money for a stay in an American hospital overnight.

He leaned on Atton until they were at wherever they were going, keeping his head down the entire time.

"Just wanna sleep forever," he shared. "After like a bath or something."

Because... because.

"You really want to take a bath like this?" Atton said, eyeballing him. "Some of you people put way too much stock in hygiene, you know that?"

Or he put too little. Either or.

"If you're serious? We've got a sink. Baths make too much noise."

And he could hear Sue making shit up to her parents downstairs.

"Man, I'm like covered in some guy's blood here." And, okay, at least some of it was his own. But still. "Your lady friend won't ever look at you again if that gets in the bed. Sink'll do. I'd probably pass out in the tub or something, anyhow."

Because staying awake was hard.

"Fine."

Atton was taking that backpack of yours, Sparkle, and shaking it until all the clothes fell out. "You might want to start by taking off that shirt."

Okay, did they have a phone here? Because if they did, he might consider calling.

Well, one tumbled out of the bag- a cheap little clamshell cell phone with a pay-as-you-go plan tossed onto it. And there was a phone by the bed, so there were definitely options in that regard.

Sparkle, at least for the moment, was more interested in trying to work his way out of his shirt. The going was a bit slow, between the concussion and the kick he took to the ribs, but he managed to stubborn his way out of the bloody mess he was wearing after a few minutes of struggling and hissing between his teeth.

"Victory."

"Great work there."

Atton had picked up the phone by the bed and was now eyeing it curiously. "Hey, what's the number for your law-enforcers again?"

Keeping Sparkle talking and requesting important information! Double whammy!

"Um... 9-1-1?" Sparkle balled up the bloody wad of shirt in his hands and glanced over at Atton, managing a little bit of a smile. "You... gonna call 'em?"

That... actually kind of made him feel better. Not that he was going to make a big deal of it.

"I got nothing better to do," Atton said, dialing the number with one hand while the other busied itself stripping the case off a pillow. "Let me know when you're ready to crash."

This was turning out to be the worst night out he'd had in... well, at least since he left Nar Shaddaa.

Nar Shaddaa set a real low bar.

Sparkle kind of wanted to see this Nar Shadda for himself someday. Not because he thought for even a second that he'd last long there. More because the more Atton talked about it, the more he wanted to know what the hell it was all about.

You'd think he would have learned his lesson by going through the door.

"Yeah," he replied, looking around for the sink. "Probably pretty soon now. Staying 'wake is kinda... Not easy." He wadded up the shirt a little more. "Thanks for calling, man."

"Don't get used to it," Atton said. "I just don't have anything else to do, and I got to stay awake."

He folded a layer of the pillow case over the phone and shifted the cadence of his voice some as he dropped off his message. Trace of blood leading down one street, worried, yadda yadda. It wouldn't keep the cops from stumbling onto the bar, but with any luck those idiots had been real mobsters and they wouldn't even try to stick around.

Sparkle kind of stood there, awkwardly listening to Atton leave the message before, deciding he was satisfied, making his way to the little attachment bathroom and starting to sponge himself off in the sink.

... That shirt was going to be a write-off, so he just left it in the little wastebasket next to the toilet. There wasn't exactly a better place to leave it, really.

And a few minutes later, when he felt slightly more human, he kind of wobbled his way out of the bathroom again and hung out in the doorway.

"So... sleep was a thing that you said could be a thing?"

... Thing?

Atton tossed the pillow case aside and eyed Sparkle over his shoulder. "Sure," he said. "I'll wake you up a couple times, just to make sure your brain hasn't gone funnier than I thought. But sleep is good."

Ah, well. He could hear Sue's parents getting ready to leave downstairs.

"Sleep sounds amazing," Sparkle agreed, closing his eyes and carefully resting his head against the doorframe. "You're okay with staying up? I could like... set a thing to... you know... beep."

An alarm? For the making of noise?

Oh, he'd regret that right away.

"Get in the bed and go to sleep," Atton said, rolling his eyes. "And just remind me to kick someone's pet in the morning."

Apparently Sparkle made him feel protective like the kid was a little brother or something. Atton didn't like it. The last thing he needed was getting attached to Fandom or people on it.

"I'm gonna totally forget by morning," Sparkle almost merrily related as he dragged himself toward the bed and, unceremoniously (and with much regret the moment after) flopped down on top of it.

Oh god those were fireworks in his brain.

"... Remind me never t'do that again."

"Never do that again," Atton said. "There. Another thing to forget."

Almost made him wish he was one of those people who believed in torturing themselves endlessly over their past actions. At least then he might've gotten some kind of fuzzy atonement buzz out of this.

"You're too good to me," Sparkle half-snarked, groping around for the blanket, because he needed to burrow the heck under it and maybe never come out ever again. "Thanks for... you know... draggin' my ass out of there."

Atton got up and walked a few steps towards the bathroom. He was thirsty all of a sudden. "Yeah, don't get used to it."

"Hoping... not to have to." Oh, man. This bed was probably more comfortable than anything Sparks had slept in in his life. "No more fucked-up... you know. Doors. Kay?"

It was really hard to keep his eyes open, damn it.

Atton snagged the closest thing that looked like a cup and filled it with water. "Space, kid, will you just go to sleep?" he said. "The quicker you get rest, the less banged-up your mind is going to be in the morning."

And for all of that, Sparkle just cracked a little grin, rolled over and buried his face into the pillow - oh shit that pillow had to be stuffed with like real feathers or something did people even make pillows with real feathers in them holy fuck that was nice - and closed his eyes.

"S'always bang'dup." Well, that was true enough. "Night, Att'n."

"Night, kid," Atton muttered.

He took a sip of water. And then another one. Water was pretty damned nice right now.

Downstairs, the door slammed shut. Sue's parents were out - that meant it was time for him to swoop in and do some damage control before she came up here and started yelling.

He cast Sparkle another look. Okay.

Then he slunk out through the door and headed downstairs to talk to Sue. Just a short one. He'd be back up to check on Fireball in fifteen, tops.

Outside a Metal Bar and Beyond, Baltimore, Thursday Evening

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