myownface | MCA #4, Saturday Morning

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MCA #4, Saturday Morning

Deep breath. Exhale.

...

Deep breath.

...

Exhale.

Dial.

Deep breath.

And hit send.

Sparkle had a call to make today. One he'd been putting off since forever, and his last excuse had run out. The island was back to normal. He didn't have to worry about The Big Stuff being completely derailed because he woke up one morning underwater or he couldn't leave the house because there were dinosaurs or on account of nightmarish penance zombies. Dr. Lecter had given him the number to phone, and yeah, he knew it was Saturday and yeah he knew it was early, but he was kind of hoping he could just leave a message and wait for a phone call back on... Tuesday. Because long weekend! See? Smart. Sparkle was super smart. It wasn't procrastinating if there was Labour Day to contend with.

Somebody actually answered the phone.

"Um."

That wasn't supposed to happen.

Shit. Shit shit shit.

"Hi, uh. My name is Sparkle," and ugh, he felt like he wanted to vomit just spitting out his last name, too, but he kind of had to in this case. "Dr. Lecter suggested I call you. Yeah. Dr. Hannibal Lecter. He said you're probably the best lawyer for... a couple of cases I have, I guess. Yeah. Yeah, I can talk right now, sure. So..."

It was not a short phone call.

Dr. Lecter had picked a good lawyer for the job, for sure.

But by the time Sparkle had hung up the phone again, he was looking a little green. That was fine. This was fine. It was all going to go super well, and...

If anybody needed him, he was going to just be burying his face in a pillow and screaming himself hoarse.

Sparkle Vs. The Criminal Justice System was off to an excellent start.

[OOC: Open! Probably not happy! But open! TW: Both threads contain some talk of child abuse/grooming.]

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"I feel like someone just punched me in the face," Sparkle agreed. And swallowed. And glanced Atton's way. "He said it'd be easier to get me off the hook for the arson and even to build a case that I had reason to fear for my own safety if I went to prison if we go after Lewis first."

And Sparkle sure as hell wanted to stick it to Lew. But he'd sort of, in his head, had the order of operations in reverse.

"I guess it makes sense," Atton said. "Prove that guy was an asshole who ruined your life at every turn first, then work from there."

He met Sparkle's gaze. "It's smart, actually."

"I hate it," Sparkle said, staring back at Atton with eyes that had gone just slightly too wide. He didn't want to be this terrified, knew he'd be safe, if not okay, but he kind of wanted to fetch his pillow and do some more screaming. "I fucking hate it, I'm going to have to see him again. If I do this, if I nail his ass to the fucking wall I'm going to have to go there and stand up and talk about being a fucking victim and I'm going to have to look at him and listen to him and..."

And.

It was Lewis.

Lewis had broken his fucking heart.

But he'd broken his fucking head first.

"And claw a few parts of yourself back from wherever in space he left them," Atton said, voice mild. But only because it usually was - a flat dry drawl. "If you're ready for that."

"I just want this to go away," Sparkle said, sounding more than a little plaintive. "I want to know that asshole isn't out there having unconsummated love affairs with other fucking stupid kids who just wanted someone to approve of them. And..."

He gave a tired sigh.

"... And I want to claw a few parts of myself back from wherever in space he left them," he acknowledged, quietly.

Atton sighed.

"Would it help if I hold the pillow so you can punch it?" he said, after a moment's pause. "Or do you want a hug? Because if you want a hug, I'm going to need a moment to get my plausible deniability going."

"I haven't decided yet if I want a hug or if I want to just start walking out to sea now and never stop," Sparkle muttered. "But punching might be good. I'll hold that hug in reserve until later, because fuck, I'm probably gonna need one later."

This was fine. There was some screaming, there was some freaking out, but this, comparatively, was fine.

"All right," Atton said, reaching for that pillow Sparkle'd been hurling around. "Punching it is. My favorite option, if you ask me."

He held it up, firm between his hands, at a safe distance from his face. "C'mon."

Sparkle nodded, and pulled in a breath. Stepped up to Atton and the pillow in question, and took a swing. It was a sloppy swing. It was a 'just got off the phone with the lawyer and can't see the forest for the trees but definitely has to hit something a lot' swing.

It was kind of a 'it's a good thing he's hitting a pillow because he'd have a broken hand doing that otherwise,' kind of swing, and mostly just came from a place of needing to move, needing to throw some weight around to just do something visceral and immediate, like the screaming, instead of anything even remotely resembling the off-and-on years of training he'd been given from so many angles, by now.

He shook out his hand and bounced on his toes a little, trying to loosen up, and then punched again. This time a little more controlled, a little less 'got to move' and more 'got to find a place to throw some focus.'

This was a good distraction. This was a much-needed distraction.

Okay.

"Space," Atton groaned theatrically. "Come on, Sparks, you wouldn't even bruise somebody's cheek with a hook like that. Give me something that'll actually break a nose, will you?"

Sparkle stuck his tongue out at that. Which was such a stupid thing to do, such a little nothing gesture, was at least fifty percent just going through the motions because that was a Sparkle thing to do. And he had to cling to the Sparkle things, because he had no idea how much of the next little while was going to be 'Sparkle' and how much was going to be 'sad lump.'

He suspected nobody was going to be a huge fan of whatever ratio that came out to be. And so, for now, Sparkle was gonna Sparkle. And square his shoulders and take a proper stance and actually punch the damn pillow. A real punch, because god knew he wasn't going to hurt Atton of all people and especially not through a pillow. So, a punch. A damn good punch, a 'this pillow might actually be Lewis' face' sort of punch, followed by another one. A harder one. And a third, alternating from left to right and finding his way into a rhythm.

"I've never," and a punch, "had trouble," and another, "breaking anybody's," punch, "fucking nose!"

Noses were easy.

"Well, not when you actually punch like you mean it like that," Atton said, glad that the pillow was hiding his grin. No reason for Sparkle to know he was relieved, or anything. "Space, Sparks."

"I know what I'm doing, punching," Sparkle bitched, and threw another one at the pillow for good measure. "I broke Dave's tooth back in Toronto once because he stole my socks, you know. My yellow ones."

And there he was, breaking Dave's tooth in effigy all over again.

"And other shit, too," he complained. "When those psycho creeps were overrunning the island they killed Alec and I took them down, that was me, you know? I can do this, I can throw a fucking punch I can shoot an asshole if he's going to kill me I'm not--" And another punch. "I'm not helpless and..." Another punch. "I can't... can't afford to be anything but."

The punching slowed. His hands fell to his sides.

"I'm gonna have to be the victim again, Atton," he said, a little more quietly. "And I hate that."

Atton sighed, lowering the pillow. "I know," he said.

Space knew he'd spent a lifetime making horrible decisions to avoid being just that.

"Do we know how long and how often they'll expect you to be up there, looking the part?"

Sparkle shook his head a little.

"Not yet," he replied. "My lawyer needs to look into some stuff, and it could be... could be, like, ugly shit. Could go as far back as my folks and that's all I want to say about that because I already had one good puke thinking about the chances of that," he muttered. "Because Lew is never going to admit he did something fucked-up and he's going to fight back and..."

He sank into the couch, reaching up to scrub his hands over his face for a moment.

"I mean," he added, "if I hadn't jumped bail, this might even be easier. But I did. For like four years. So they're gonna want to be able to keep tabs on me. I might be spending a lot of time in Toronto through this, for however long it drags on."

Atton tossed the pillow onto the spare chair and sat down on the couch, too. He expelled another breath.

"Toronto, huh."

"S'where it all went down, yeah," Sparkle agreed, fidgeting for a moment. "Playing 'illegal alien' in America for a few years and even running a business here, like... I can't let that be something they find out. I can't lose everything I built here."

A pause.

"And I can't run again. And they'll be afraid I will. And it might come to locking me up because I fucked up bad on bail but if I can swing house arrest, I'm gonna. The lawyer agrees that after Lew outed me in public I have a really good case for avoiding going behind bars at least until my own verdict."

Which was good. Because 'behind bars' would lead to Sparkle just sitting himself in a corner and starting to scream until he passed out.

"Better not be going behind bars after it, either," Atton said. "What have I told you about being in jail?"

It wasn't fun! Atton would know!

"That you'd make sure it didn't stick?"

Sparkle would also know! Just... not with proper adult prison as an adult human person. And he really didn't want to find out.

But he was kind of clinging to that other bit.

A lot.

"I mean, I was shooting for 'avoid it, it's not fun, and you can take it from me'," Atton said, after a pause, "But yeah, that one, too. We'll figure something out. Earth tech is easy. No karking force cages."

Sparkle nodded a little.

"Okay. Okay, good."

This was going to suck. It was going to suck so hard. But at worst, he'd break even this way. Maybe. Kind of.

He hated this.

Atton blew out a long breath.

"Last chance to get out of it if you want to," he said after a moment, quieter.

"I know," Sparkle said, looking at his knees. He pulled in a slow breath. "I want my life back."

And this was the best way to do it.

"I know," Atton said.

It wasn't what he would've done. But what he would've done was-- probably not the thing anybody should do.

"And I'm gonna have your back for as long as you need me to."

"Thanks, man."

Sparkle nodded a little, processing that in silence before blowing out a soft laugh and turning a wry smile up at him.

"I'm gonna be a fucking mess," he noted.

In case there was really any question about that.

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