From Sparkle's Toronto to Atton's Coruscant, Saturday

[myownface]

Sometimes, Sparkle did stupid shit. Sometimes he did it knowing full well that it was stupid, and really, he didn't care. Why the fuck should he care? There were already murmurings around the neighbourhood, around the high and poncy Mapleview Lanes about the no-good group home teens who were living there, about property values and bad influences on their kids and number 459 was empty and it wasn't like it was even hard they were practically asking for it.

Raine couldn't believe it when he came back into their room in the dead of night and started to tally off the most useless shit from his backpack. She'd stared, sat in shock, told him that this was exactly what they expected them to do.

She didn't get it. Of course she didn't get it. One of her best friends on the street was the same wrinkled old bat who had started the shocked murmurs along the local phone tree about how much trouble they were going to be, and maybe Raine would get it eventually, that you couldn't trust that type and they didn't fucking deserve a shred of the respect they pretended they were owed, and when she did it was going to suck to be her, he guessed.

She'd asked him why he'd done it. She tried to make him promise not to do it again.

She mentioned that Lewis would be mad at him. And that, Sparkle couldn't leave alone.

"Ohhh, 'Lewwwisss' is it?" He laughed. "It's so obvious you have a big wonking crush on him, the way your voice sort of wavers when you say his name."

"Mr. Chance?" Raine sounded perfectly incredulous in turn. "Are you kidding me?"

"It's okay. Everyone has a crush on him."

"Well I don't. I think he's an asshole."

"Yeah?" Sparkle snorted at that. "If you think he's such an asshole why do you stare at him?"

And then he grinned in victory as Raine blushed. Blushed a lot.

"I stare at Mr. Chance?"

"You can't take your eyes offa him," Sparkle agreed, bolstered by that reaction. "Anyway, darling, he's taken."

"He's married?"

"Hah!" Yeah, that was a good, hard, long laugh. "Hahaha! I think he was, actually, so some shopgirl from New Brunswick with too much lip liner and a name like Sherry Lynn when he was like in high school. But not now, silly. Now he has a boyfriend."

"He's gay."

"Well duh." Sparkle snorted. He was testing the waters, now. See what her reaction there was. It was... incredulous, maybe. Weirdly flat. And Sparkle felt an irresistible urge to dial his own reaction up to fifteen to compensate. It had been a long, long time since someone had that look, that processing look like they were trying to make a decision about someone based on something like that, people on the island never did and he hated - hated it. "Dozy head. DUH--"

"Why are you being--so--"

"He doesn't like girls," Sparkle stressed. "Is that clear?"

"Sparkle." Raine sounded more than a little on the exasperated side, now. She couldn't often tell when Sparkle was cranking up the bullshit to try to deflect, but this time, she seemed to have it figured out. "I am not in the least interested in Mr. Chance. It has never occurred to me, actually, and I resent you implying that I--"

"Yakety yakety yak." Sparkle pulled his cigarettes and lighter from his pocket. "You talk too much, girlfriend."

He was quiet, then, as he lit his smoke.

"I think you're the one with the crush on Mr. Chance."

Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck, too much, he'd pushed too much. Fuck.

"Who, me? Please. He is totally not my type. He is so lower middle. I mean his shoes? Did you happen to notice his shoes?"

There was nothing the matter with his shoes. Maybe they didn't go with the blazer he sometimes wore, but otherwise, they were perfectly acceptable shoes.

Sparkle found them kind of charming, on Lewis.

"I still think you have a crush on him."

----

As Sparkle stepped through the portal into the Portalocity lounge on Coruscant, he was feeling a bit better. Nobody had mentioned the break-in the day after. The family who had been away clearly wasn't back yet, hadn't noticed. And Raine wasn't even awake and out of bed yet by the time he slipped outside to go.

Sure, there was still a bunch of random shit in his bag. An actual sterling silver fork, and a spoon and a knife to go with it, because if he was taking one he had better get place settings for one to match, right? And two five dollar bills, which he'd tucked away into that girly-girl's flowery pink diary, which was going to be the best book he'd read ever. But he'd brought the necessities, too. Pop Tarts. Taco seasonings. Garlic. Sparkle was convinced that Atton's entire galaxy was suffering horribly for lack of garlic, poor things, and he'd snagged a few cloves from that fancy-assed house while he was there, too, because of course it was the sort of rich snob family that had fresh everything just sitting around even when they were going to be gone for a week and they'd come home and it would all go in the fucking garbage and he hated them.

Hated them. Them and their fancy house and their overabundance of crackers in like sixteen different flavours and the jewelry and the Siamese cat that had reminded him of Velcro and had rubbed against his leg the whole time he was there. He hated them. And liberated their garlic. Maybe he'd plant some while he was here. You're welcome, Coruscant. You're welcome.

[OOC: A bit more canon catchup sandwiched in with the usual 'Sparkle visits Atton' Saturday post! The Toronto parts are taken from Habitat, and slowly plunking along toward... more bad life choices, mostly. Sparkle no. For that guy!]

Comments

[suitably_heroic]

"As opposed to last weekend, when you spent half the time whining about not having any boobs?" Atton asked, throwing him a sideways glance before he stepped right out the door. "Yeah, that'll be a real step down."

[myownface]

"Hey, only half the time," Sparkle protested. "I spent the other half complaining because nothing tasted like taco spice!"

That said, the food he had prepared had been pretty damn good all the same, and he'd even taken the time to write down what he'd done so that he could improve on it later. But it hadn't been tacos so much as some kind of spiced nerf on flatbread with optional veggies and cheese, so he was tentatively calling it a nerf fajita until he could come up with something better, preferably shamelessly using the word 'space' in it.

Because, when in space...

[suitably_heroic]

Could you be even more of an Earthling, Sparks? Honestly.

"I stand corrected," Atton said, rolling his eyes. "You found a whole new range of things to complain about last week. I'll be happy to return to drowning out the regular brand of whining, where I know what keywords to turn my brain off at."

Or, you know, complain right back at Sparkle, because Atton was not in any danger of losing his own Champion Whiner badge any time soon.

[myownface]

At least Sparkle didn't use space as a swear word. And he couldn't say 'poodoo' with a straight face, either.

"Just means I'm going to have to get a better vocabulary," Sparkle decided. "Maybe I'll learn how to complain in Huttese. That's always fun."

See above Re: Poodoo.

[suitably_heroic]

Blame the writers of the KotOR games for not coming up with any real replacements for 'kark' or 'kriff', god.

"I can start you on the basics there," Atton said, "But if you really want Hutt 101, I suggest calling up Cade when he's sleeping off a hangover."

[myownface]

"Yeah, but I want Huttese that's good for complaining with, not Huttese that'll get me killed," Sparkle pointed out. "Anyway, you wouldn't get it if I were to start bitching in French."

Which defeated the whole point, clearly.

[suitably_heroic]

"Twi'lek's better for complaining anyway," Atton mused. "They have the largest range of unpleasant insults for people, you know that?"

Like 'Schutta'. He liked 'Schutta'.

"French just sounds really uptight."

[myownface]

"Depends on the dialect," Sparkle shared. "Like, Parisian French, sure. Hell, even Quebecois. But then you get into, like, Chiac, and it all goes to hell."

Straight to Hell. In a handbasket, even.

"It's all, like, Ja'i parker mon car et went and got un caisse de beer, and shit."

It was kind of magical.

[suitably_heroic]

"'Went and got and shit'," Atton echoed dubiously. "Yeah, that sounds real French to me, Sparks. I'm pretty sure that qualifies as cheating."

[myownface]

"It's Lewis' French," Sparkle laughed. "Acadian French. Crazy-assed New Brunswicker French where they don't care if they're speaking French or Mi'kmaq or English, just so long as they get their point across."

And it was kind of fun, sneaking it into conversation with Anglophones and Francophones and watching their brains explode.

[suitably_heroic]

"New Brunswick?" Atton echoed dubiously. "Is that up in the 'freezing your balls off' Canada, or what?"

Hey, he'd studied Earth geography back when he was a student with vague intentions to move to Earth permanently. Didn't mean he'd ever bothered studying Canada much beyond 'Toronto', 'That Bit in the West', and 'That Rest Of It That Gets Really Cold'.

[myownface]

"That's, like, all of Canada," Sparkle pointed out. "But, like, New Brunswick is east of Toronto. Still north of Fandom, like, if you keep following the shoreline north you'll end up there eventually. Its one claim to fame is that it's got more trees and less to do than pretty much anywhere in Canada except the freezing your balls off parts."

Which is probably how they eventually wound up forgetting how to use their words, or something.

[suitably_heroic]

Being so close to Quebec probably didn't help either. French people ruined everything. Like half of Belgium.

"So your Lewis is a freak even by Canadian standards," Atton concluded. "Hey, good to know."

[myownface]

Sparkle wrinkled his nose at that. A lot. The only one who got to call Lewis a freak was himself, dammit.

"There's nothing wrong with being-" gay, which Sparkle was still a little tetchy about after his talk with Raine last night, "-Acadian. Means he can speak English and French, and just sort of lets the two meet in the middle whenever he's with other people from his neck of the woods, that's all."

[suitably_heroic]

"I'm not saying anything's wrong, I'm just saying he's a freak by Canadian standards," Atton said, shrugging. "Which is basically what you said."

Defensive, much, Sparks?

"I mean, we can't help where we come from, but I'd rather sound Outer Rim than Alderaani any day."

[myownface]

That was the worst thing about Lewis, Sparkle found. He could fake his way through not giving a shit about almost anything else, but whenever that man was involved somehow, he was a lost cause.

"... I guess." He still sounded sort of dubious, though. Even if Atton was absolutely right, and it was basically what he had said. Common sense and reason and Lewis didn't have much room in the same train of thought, here. "Freak's a shitty word anyway."

Case in point; Sparkle was going to tell himself it was because of the word 'freak,' there. Sure, Sparks.

[suitably_heroic]

"'Weird', whatever you like better." Atton rolled his eyes. Expressively.

He didn't actually have a problem with Lewis, barring some weirdness left over from that one weekend he didn't think about. It wasn't like Sparkle hadn't been head-over-heels for vastly more hateable people before (hello, Alec).

Sparkle just got weird, himself, when the topic came up. He wasn't entirely sure which way to roll on weird Sparkle.

"How's the house, anyway?"

[myownface]

It's okay, Atton. Even Sparkle wasn't entirely sure which way to roll on weird Sparkle.

This was possibly because whenever Lewis was involved, Sparkle became a crazy person. Details.

"It's still big, it's still a house," Sparkle reported. "The neighbours still suck. People are starting to get bitchy, you know? Someone threatened to call the cops the other day because a bunch of us were outside smoking."

And only a few of them had been smoking dope!

[suitably_heroic]

One of these days, Atton would find out just how far Sparkle's crazy went re: Lewis, and then Sparkle was going to get smacked in the head repeatedly.

"Eesh," Atton said. "Did anyone tell them second-hand smoke doesn't waft that far? Or they can just go out and buy gas masks if they're so worried."

[myownface]

Kid would have it coming to him, really. Seriously. Sparkle, no.

"Oh, they're afraid it's going to escalate. Like, fuck, we're gonna get all messed up on tobacco and start egging their cars or something. And if it's pot, like, fuck, nobody's going to want to do that. We'll just wander off to laugh at our thumbs while eating twice our body weight in cheezies or something."

[suitably_heroic]

"I don't know whether it's a good thing or not they don't know you'd egg their cars whether there's tobacco involved or no," Atton mused. "Actually, it probably would be a better idea to hook you up with a steady supply of pot and maybe some fingerpaints."

[myownface]

"And see, that would be the smart way to do it," Sparkle declared. "Fingerpainting while stoned would be amazing."

Or at the very least, hilarious.

[suitably_heroic]

"Throw in a few dozen of bags of nachos and you'd be no trouble to anyone for at least a week," Atton said thoughtfully. "Hey, why don't I run one of these neighborhood gossip-circles? I'd be perfect at it."

In a belligerent, argumentative ex-military ex-Sith kind of way, sure.

[myownface]

"Oh my god, I would love to see that," Sparkle declared. "Instead of the bitchy old crones who are running it now. God, like, they lived through the sixties, you'd think they'd be familiar with how pot works by now."

Maybe it was just that nobody was allowed to have any fun now that they were too old to.

[suitably_heroic]

Atton snorted. "And you've been there for what, a few weeks?" he said. "Maybe they need to sit down and smoke some pot themselves, right?"

Or death sticks. He was sure Cade could get death sticks.