A Touristy Bar Somewhere In Central Baltimore, Friday Evening-ish

[suitably_heroic]

Yesterday had wound up being a heavy day of drinking and carousing and... a lot of crying. Atton wasn't great with crying people. He'd done his damnedest to be there for the squad, but he'd be lying if he said it hadn't worn on him.

Especially with all their feelings seeping in through the Force.

So he texted Sparkle to meet up with him well over an hour after he'd already gotten to this bar, some tourist trap that was guaranteed not to want any trouble or have any crappy links with anybody who'd want to ruin their day. He needed the time. Ordered some food, had some soda.

Let out a few sighs.

At least this way, he'd feel like a normal person by the time Sparkle showed up. Or as close as he ever got, anyway.

[[ open, mostly for that guy ]]

Comments

[suitably_heroic]

It was a hard talk, yeah. Hard enough that for once, some of Atton's mask dropped off of his face without a meltdown, without a too-much-right-now, and left him looking at Sparkle like. Something.

Like he knew exactly what that was like. Like it hurt, hearing those words coming from Sparkle's mouth, because of all the people in the galaxy he didn't deserve to feel like that. Like he wanted to jump over the table and give Sparkle a hug and say some cloying, sentimental, true poodoo about how important he was, how Atton was an ass who spent so much time in meltdown mode and not enough time telling the guy that he cared, that-- something something.

He sat back after a moment, out of the light, and let the mask slide back across his face. Took a deep breath.

"'Cause that gets in you, buries itself deep, and won't let go until you rip your own heart out to get at it," he drawled. "Probably."

[myownface]

"Probably," Sparkle agreed, closing his eyes, breathing out a sigh, and then shrugging and taking another pull from his beer. Almost out. Maybe he'd get another one when the waitress came by again. "I don't remember a time without it, you know? It's like I was born with it, and I know who to blame for that, too. It's all got faces to it. They're just... faces who have been really good at convincing me it's my fault."

He'd tried to wear too many cute shirts with butterflies on them, stolen from his sister's drawer. He wasn't an adorable little girl, and people only ever wanted to adopt adorable little girls. He didn't smile enough, why did that kid look so sad all the time? He wasn't... quite like other little boys. He's been in trouble, hasn't he? He keeps telling stories. The cutlery vanished again. We found those drugs in his bag. He's been stealing from the liquor cabinet. He keeps running away. He wasn't he didn't he hadn't been able to. Alec had been the one guy in school who would kiss other guys, so clearly it was meant to be. Lewis never really tried to get Sparkle to stop getting too close, so maybe he actually stood a chance...

"I guess eventually I just started doing their work for them." He barked a soft laugh. "The island didn't help with that much."

[suitably_heroic]

"Liked its funhouse mirror versions of you," Atton said. He was still nursing that scotch, focusing on the way the glass was cold beneath his thumb, counting every click the ice cubes made as they banged together.

"All new ways to make you seem like something terrible, I guess."

[myownface]

"God, I ate one of my friends once," Sparkle muttered. "Straight-up murdered another one. Funhouse mirror isn't wrong, I was an evil carnie at the time. Stabbing that Hollow me to death fucked me up but at least I don't know what he'd been doing. Which almost makes it worse, then I start wondering."

And Sparkle could come up with a lot of horrible things he could have done, once memory started to fade into instinct, and instinct into aggression.

"Freaked out once because a teacher went off to live his life. A teacher. He gave me good advice and I took it to heart and I was personally betrayed because suddenly he wasn't there. I think he's back now teaching again and I can't even picture myself going up to him to say anything because I'd probably just fall all over myself apologizing for being such a needy little fuckhead. Someone was nice to me, how dare they leave."

[suitably_heroic]

Atton thumbed the bridge of his nose. "Sparks," he said quietly. "Not to shut you up, but you're veering off into actually beating yourself up now."

[myownface]

Sparkle paused a moment at that, glancing up at Atton, frowning a little as he reviewed what he'd just been saying. And then grimaced and finished off his beer before just kind of groaning and flopping forward to thunk his head against the table.

"But I'm so good at it," he muttered into the tabletop.

Which was sort of the point he'd been making, and so he followed that up with a wry laugh before sitting up again and shrugging.

[suitably_heroic]

"I know," Atton said. His face wasn't sure what expression it wanted to make, and so - clack clack, that was thirty-three - it slid studiously into Atton-neutral. "And you have to teach yourself how to believe otherwise."

He brought up that glass. Took a sip.

"Nothing I say will change that," he said. Thought about throwing in some caveats, the usual protestations about not telling anyone he said that, that kind of thing. Very deliberately decided not to do that. Not now. Maybe not the rest of this conversation. "But you are good enough."

Better than some of us, he didn't say. Wouldn't make things better.

[myownface]

Would really just give Sparkle something to argue against. Neither of them probably needed that, just then.

He thumbed the rim of his empty bottle, staring into it, feeling personally betrayed by it for not having more beer in it. And then he sighed.

"I can do this, right?"

He wasn't just tilting at windmills hoping to defeat giants?

[suitably_heroic]

"You can do this," Atton confirmed. Looked up at him, and added, "And whenever you start worrying that you can't, remember there are a whole bunch of people around here who believe in you, all right?"

[myownface]

"Crazy people, each and every one of them," Sparkle replied. But he was smiling a little, trying like hell to take that to heart. And maybe actually managing to, a little. "Atton?"

He fidgeted with his bottle a moment more, and then set it to the side of the table so that someone could come collect the empty.

"... Thanks. You're one of the reasons I got this far."

Instead of just crashing and burning and never getting up again, years ago.

[suitably_heroic]

Atton's mouth curved. Just a little.

No caveats right now, remember. He took a breath, glanced at the bar. "I don't say this often enough, because, well, you've met me," he said.

Okay. A little caveat. Just one. He looked back at Sparkle. "I love you, Sparks." Space, he wanted to bombard that one with caveats, but he held back. "You're the best family I could've asked for. You deserve better than this poodoo, and what little faith I've got left, you've got."

[myownface]

Sparkle glanced up at Atton at that, biting the inside of his cheek a little. Processing that.

Clinging to it.

"I love you too, Atton," he replied, no caveats, no hesitation. "You're the first family I ever really had, you know. The first family that counted. And you're stuck with me."

No matter how squirrelly his head got or how many directions it felt like he was stumbling in at once. Sparkle knew family was something he could want for himself, because Atton had, whether he'd intended to or not, proven to him that it was real.

There was a pause, and then, deciding that was a note on which to set Atton free from what had to be a whole hell of a lot more open honesty than he was used to, he added, "And if you make me cry I swear to god you're buying me another drink."

[suitably_heroic]

"I'm buying you another drink anyway," Atton sighed, a grump in his voice as much as there was something grateful in his eyes, that You're stuck with me the exact kind of stick he needed to beat his own damage over the head with before it tried to turn this back into something ugly. "And if the island is still up to its old tricks next week, I'll crash your fancy AirBnB-pad and you can serve me drinks as I ignore your boyfriend trying his damnedest to be polite to me with his eye twitching."

[myownface]

Sparkle's face went through a fascinating series of expressions as he pictured that.

And then he snorted. And ducked his head. And then he was laughing, and oh god, he'd needed that laugh.

"He's good people," he settled on, "in over his head, a little." He wasn't going to say anything trite about how he wished they'd come to some understanding or something. He really had no idea how they interacted, only that they both seemed to tolerate one another, mostly for his sake, and he appreciated that. "Could be worse," he added. "Could be Alec?"

... Granted, he could be dating a gundark and he'd still be able to say that line. Alec had set a very, very low bar.

[suitably_heroic]

"Yeah, you'd have to try very hard to get the trifecta of gundark droppings that was that guy," Atton said, finishing his scotch with less fanfare than he'd honestly expected to use when he'd ordered it. "I'm at least way less likely to take a swing at this one."

[myownface]

"But if you ever get a chance to take a swing at Alec, I wanna spectate that, too," Sparkle offered. "I mean, hell, ideally we could just line people up and let you have a pop at each one of them one after the other. I'd set that as my phone wallpaper, just you taking a swing at the last person in a line with everyone who came before all laid flat on the ground."

He dreamed big, that Sparkle.

And it was still a step up from making a list and handing it to Hannibal, so...

[suitably_heroic]

"Hey, if you make the list, I'll make it happen," Atton said brightly. "Space knows it'll be nice to do something productive around here."

[myownface]

"It's not even that long a list," Sparkle noted. "It might have a little old lady or two on there. I'm absolutely hateful enough to go after little old ladies."

Some of them might be old and saggy but still needed a good punching.

[suitably_heroic]

"I mean, I've met some really terrible old ladies in my time," Atton mused. "Atris definitely counts."

[myownface]

"Yeah, but all of mine are, like, the entitled rich bitch kind," Sparkle sighed, leaning his head back and making faces at the ceiling. "They probably wouldn't even know what a punch was if it came flying at them."

Sparkle still wanted to lay them flat. Go figure.

[suitably_heroic]

"Atris owned an entire planet's polar cap and she was entitled as all hell," Atton returned. "Yeah, I'll punch an old lady. Several, even."

[myownface]

See Sparkle. See Sparkle mime out a pleased little sigh, rest his chin on his hands, and bat his eyelashes, entirely to be a little shit.

"And this," he replied, "is just proof that you're the best, man."

How many people out there would punch a little old lady for Sparkle's sake? Huh?

[suitably_heroic]

... Leto might, which was why he was still Atton's favorite among all of Sparkle's boyfriends past and present.

"I try," he said, nodding. "So, what's your poison next?"

[myownface]

Leto was pretty amazing when it came to his complete lack of filter when it came to people who deserved a good punching, it was true!

"The beer was nice," Sparkle mused. "I mean, for like American beer. But I could totally go for something mixed and fruity right about now. Maybe with an obscene name..."