Jedi Temple, Coruscant, Tuesday

[suitably_heroic]

It had been a long flight.

The second Atton had left kolto, he'd barged down the hall to fix whatever Mical had done to his ship. It was a stupid, futile thing, and the fault a very minor one - but at least it had been something he could fix.

But now the Hawk had landed back at the Temple. There was nothing left for him to fix.

... Shit. What was Mira's Padawan's name, again?

He hunched a little as he walked into the temple, his hands stuck in the pockets of his jacket, too much rumbling under the surface for a place as big and public as this.

He needed to get back to Fandom.

Before August was over.

[[ open ]]

Comments

[myownface]

Sparkle wasn't going to, like, tackle Atton, no. But the moment he was made aware that he'd gotten back, he was going to dislodge himself from under a puppy pile of Padawans and set off to try to find him. Not as easy when you weren't a Jedi, sure, but he knew Atton's haunts well enough by now to know to start at the Hawk and kind of fan out from there.

Sooner or later, it was bound to do the trick.

"Hey," he said, his own hands stuck in his pockets as he made his way over to Atton. "Shower for a week and sleep for a month, was it?"

He wasn't, like, immediately pulling Atton in for a hug or anything. That wasn't something you just sprung on a guy. But he was going to make sure Atton knew he was there for this anyway.

[suitably_heroic]

"Something like that," Atton agreed.

His slow drawl of a voice didn't really lend itself well to hiding exhaustion. Sadly.

"Maybe some take-out and... whatever crap you've been watching recently."

There. Nice and steady.

[myownface]

"It's all crap," Sparkle shared. "I can put on some brainless cartoons or something? Take-out, that's basically just tradition anyway. What are you in the mood for?"

[suitably_heroic]

"Chinese?" Atton said, mostly because it was the first thing to pop in his head. He wasn't actually hungry.

[myownface]

"Chinese," Sparkle agreed, nodding a little. Okay, back to Fandom it was, then. He immediately started running logistics, figuring out the portals. He'd end up pulling some commuting himself, there was no way he was going to let the kids deal with this stuff alone any more than he was going to let Atton do so, but that was shit he could figure out when he didn't have Atton standing right here needing to get the fuck out of this place. "Can you hang in there for, like, ten minutes? I'll sort out portal shit, you can fly us back?"

Give him something to do. Fly the Hawk. Short trip, of course. Sparkle wasn't going to fuck around with stopover trips just to save a few bucks right now. He could sort out the rest from home.

[suitably_heroic]

"Sure," Atton said. "Have to go check if Mical didn't break anything else on my ship, anyway."

He knew Sparkle knew exactly where he was at. He still appreciated Sparkle pretending like he didn't.

[myownface]

Sparkle offered him a little grin even as he pulled out his phone.

"Maybe he installed a waterfall somewhere."

When in doubt, rag on Mical. It was for a good cause.

[suitably_heroic]

"Oh, space," Atton groaned, facepalming. "Great, now I'm going to have to check the plumbing."

[myownface]

"You're welcome," Sparkle said brightly.

... Really, it would be something else for Atton to throw his attention at anyway, right? That was a good thing?

[suitably_heroic]

Totally a good thing. Even if Atton was just postponing the inevitable.

"Right, I'm going to do that now," he said, and turned around to drag his ass back onto the Hawk.

[myownface]

"Catch you in a few," Sparkle called after him.

And then he pulled in a deep breath. Okay. Mental checklist. Book a portal, tell the kids he'd be back probably tomorrow at some point, hand out all the crap that Kaidan had shipped in, give the kids strict instructions to not touch the Kraft Dinner until he was back to make it with them. Back to the Hawk, through the portal, order Chinese, put something stupid on Netflix, pretend shit was okay for a while...

Okay. He had this.

[suitably_heroic]

It was the first time since he'd woken up that Atton had been alone, all by himself, when he set foot onto the Hawk.

He rounded the corner into the next room and nearly tripped over his own two feet. His hand shot out and caught the bulkhead, and he stayed there.

Just for a second.

Maybe two.

He sucked in a breath of air.

"Right."