MCA #4, Tuesday Evening

[myownface]

Sparkle had been... less than functional today. The episodes of Sesame Street that an errant wish yesterday had bestowed upon him had gone away again, and so even getting his hands on his brainless g-rated amusements would have involved stealing from, like, PBS or whatever. Which Sparkle wasn't entirely opposed to, but figuring out torrents and shit involved thinking. And brains. And... combining the two, somehow, so that brains were doing thinking, and Sparkle wasn't exactly feeling that so much just yet.

So he'd kind of pottered around the apartment aimlessly for a while. At some point, he'd remembered how cereal worked. Somewhere around noon he'd realized that he was halfway through cleaning the bathroom for what was apparently the third time already, and around what would have been suppertime, he was already on his fifth shower.

By the time the evening rolled around and Sparkle could see his reflection in the bathroom floor, he'd given up on shower six and had mostly just deposited himself on his back in the otherwise empty tub, poking halfheartedly at whatever stupid cell phone game he could get for free from Google. There was a game that involved tapping the screen. Just tapping the screen. And it was just cartoony enough that the little cartoon character swinging the sword around to beat up cartoonish monsters didn't even bother him all that much.

If anyone asked, he'd just say that it was cooler in the tub than anywhere else in the apartment. He was Canadian. He wasn't made for... comfortable planetoid weather.

Shut up.

[OOC: Open mostly for phone calls, though that guy who lives here is welcome to check up on Sparks in person for our hilariously mismatched SP if he so desires.]

Comments

[sharp_as_knives]

Hannibal had heard the radio saying that Sparkle (and Atton) had returned, but given that said return had apparently involved alcohol and pizza, he gave it some time before he called.

Eventually, though, Sparkle was going to wake up and have to deal with whatever hangover he might have, and he would probably want his houseplants back.

So, Hannibal was calling, and the phone was ringing.

[myownface]

Ringing and interrupting some very important tapping. Sparkle frowned a little at that, and then only after he looked to see who was phoning, he shut down the game and answered the phone.

Kind of.

"Hey?"

Good job with that phone answering, Sparkle.

[sharp_as_knives]

Hannibal raised an eyebrow at that, but continued as if nothing were amiss, though something clearly was. "Hello. I heard you were back."

[myownface]

Sparkle, still on the flat of his back, kind of glanced around at his view of... the ceiling. That wall over there. The toilet.

"Yeah," he agreed. "Yeah, I'm back. Sorry, I'm kind of..."

Completely messed up?

"Jet lagged."

Sure. Yeah, that was believable.

[sharp_as_knives]

"You had to travel quite a bit, then?" Hannibal asked politely, not believing it for a moment. "Should I wait to ask when you'd like your plants back, then?"

[myownface]

"There was some travel involved, yeah," Sparkle muttered, though all told, the travel itself had been the easy part. He sighed. "I can... probably come over... maybe not today. Tomorrow, or sometime. I mean. Whenever's good?"

He swallowed and closed his eyes, well aware that he had reached a level of incoherent rambling that managed to say even less than his usual bouts of the same.

"I mean, I'm sure they're in good hands..."

Which was not actually the point, Sparkle.

[sharp_as_knives]

"Tomorrow works for me," Hannibal said. "I may be spending some time in my office, but there or in the house, I'll be here. Should I expect you for lunch?"

[myownface]

"Lunch?"

He didn't mean for that question to sound so much like he was trying to remember the meaning of the word, but there it was. Just kind of hanging there while he tried to grasp at words and meanings and cause and effect and all sorts of things.

He exhaled.

"Lunch is good, yeah. I mean. I can... That would be great. Yeah. Yeah."

[sharp_as_knives]

"I'll look forward to seeing you then," Hannibal said. "Should I let you get back to whatever you were doing?"

[suitably_heroic]

Laps around the island, Atton was finding, were a pretty good idea when you needed to sort out your thoughts and come to term with a lot of the shit you did. Not even much of the stuff Sparkle had seen, but the stuff before that?

Yeah. Maybe he needed more time somewhere else.

He came back late, shutting the door behind him with a thump. "Sparks?"

[myownface]

It was probably kind of sad how Sparkle was actually proud of himself for not wincing at that thump. And hearing Atton calling his name after it was okay, too. Or, at least, it didn't immediately make his guts do backflips or anything. That, too, was improvement.

"Bathroom," he called back, after grasping the fact that Atton was probably also expecting a reply. "S'okay, 'm decent."

Just in a bathtub without water, fully clothed. As you do.

[suitably_heroic]

"Right," Atton said. He rubbed at the back of his neck, then said screw it and walked towards the bathroom, to take in the state of Sparkle.

He winced.

[myownface]

"You are making a face right now, aren't you," Sparkle accused, not even looking, attention almost fiercely on his stupid tap-tappy game. "Don't. You don't need to make whatever face. I'm just playing a game."

In the tub. In a bathroom that reeked a bit of cleaning solutions. He hadn't even put on his make-up today, which was a rare happenstance on its own, especially after so long without.

Maybe make that face a little.

[suitably_heroic]

Atton tilted his head. "I dunno, from where I'm standing, you're playing 'miserable teenage bum in a tub'," he said, "If anything. Which doesn't seem like a great time, if you ask me, but who am I to judge?"

Sparkle's friend. He was that.

[myownface]

"Somebody who clearly doesn't understand that there's a fine distinction between 'teenage bum' and 'awesome adult cleaning service,'" Sparkle shared, pausing in his tapping to wave at the sparkling bathroom. "You're welcome."

... It had really only needed the one cleaning.

[suitably_heroic]

"Fantastic. Now I can see myself in the toilet, which is everything I've ever dreamed of in my life."

Atton was... still overcompensating by over-Attoning everything. He'd get back to it eventually, probably.

"Have you had dinner yet?" Or, you know, any kind of food. "Besides the giant bite you clearly took out of whatever was in the tub before this."

[myownface]

"I ate cereal today," Sparkle replied, with that sort of dawning uncertainty that betrayed in no uncertain terms that it had probably been hours and hours ago, but that he wasn't completely sure. "With the marshmallows?"

That didn't actually make that better.

[future_sandworm]

Leto didn't call Sparkle that often. In fact, he didn't call anyone unless he had a reason. He did have a reason, sort of, and he had actually tried a few days earlier and gotten no response, which was not what he had come to expect from Sparkle.

So this was why Sparkle got a phone call now.

[A little late, I hope that's ok. SP is love, as always.]

[myownface]

That was the funny thing about having a phone again, Sparkle supposed. People could call it. He blinked as it started to ring again, shut off his game, and then smiled when he saw who was on the other end of the call.

"Hey, Leto?"

His voice was tired, and he felt tired and kind of vulnerable when he answered. But Leto was a safe place. Leto was good.

[Always! Yay, Leto!]

[future_sandworm]

"Hello Sparkle." The tiredness was audible enough, but at least Sparkle had answered. "How are you?"

That was more than a polite question.

[myownface]

"I'm f--" No. No, Sparkle couldn't say that he was fine. He paused a moment, and then let out a heavy sigh and tried again. "I've been better. I had a not great week."

There was some fantastic understatement for you, Leto.

[future_sandworm]

"I tried to call you a few days ago and got no answer." Leto paused for a moment. "I was worried."

With good reason, by the sound of it.

[myownface]

Sparkle chewed the inside of his cheek for a moment.

"I didn't have my phone," he admitted. "I was, um."

He huffed a soft laugh that didn't actually have any mirth in it.

"It's hard to actually say it. I wasn't expecting that."

[future_sandworm]

"Sparkle, what happened?" It must be serious if Sparkle found it difficult to talk about, and there was concern in Leto's voice, even if whatever had happened was over.

[myownface]

There were a few hollow thumping sounds as Sparkle attempted to rearrange himself in the tub so that he could hug his own knees as he talked.

"Atton was gone for a while," he said, "and one of the other Jedi asked me to go to the temple for a bit, to see if maybe we could figure out where he went, or lure him out or something, I dunno. Except some guys broke into the temple and started shooting. I got hurt, and grabbed, and taken hostage."

'Taken hostage' somehow happened to be easier to say than 'kidnapped by my best friend, who was with those guys at the time.'