Through the Mail Slot

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.]

Sparkle had spent yesterday on a mission. A sort of home-base mission that had involved interspersing half-assed attempts at going through his usual daily routine with actual research, and now he had three destinations picked out; Nar Shaddaa was the obvious one. Something familiar where they could just go and get lost for a while, maybe do some drinking, make some bad life choices. The second, some mostly aquatic Outer Rim resort world, one that Sparkle had admittedly just chosen by closing his eyes and pointing at a list of resort planets. And the third? Just... empty space somewhere Mid Rim, not necessarily near anything in particular, but near enough to something in general that they could theoretically just pick a direction, go, and find something to do once they got there.

Armed with those three destinations, he was making his way to Atton's bedroom door, raising a fist, and knocking. Hard.

"Hey, Atton! Get your ass out of bed! Tomorrow's another stupid family and togetherness holiday and I fully intend to drag you up to your fucking ship and make you fly it somewhere before anybody thinks to invite us to dinner!"

Also, he was worried about you, Atton. Also that.

[OOC: For the one!]

Saturday. Saturday was, arguably, the best day of the week. Sparkle could sleep in on Saturdays knowing that Sundays were just around the corner, that he could spend his time relaxing with something to do tomorrow.

... And that he had a built-in excuse to watch Saturday morning cartoons. Which was what he was currently doing, right up until he realized that he was out of Sugar Bombs, and needed to make a run to the store to pick some up. And he was feeling more ambitious than he had last week or the week before, which meant, hey, why not?

He'd be out for a little while, anyway. What could possibly happen before he came home with more sugar?

( Cut for preplay! )

[OOC: Preplayed with the fantabulous future_sandworm, who was also good enough to code this up for me! And to be continued in the comments a-la-slowplay!]

Sparkle had fashioned a little trauma fortress out of the bathroom. It had every houseplant he could carry, his stuffed cat, a fish, and a small mountain of Pop-Tarts, which had mostly been left untouched since he'd hauled them in with him on Sunday night so that he would have something to snack on while he cleaned. And how he had cleaned. He'd cleaned all Sunday night on into a chunk of Monday morning, and at the rate he was going the mirror was going to be so polished that it would develop the ability to see through time or something.

And then he'd settled in for a shower. He hadn't even taken his clothes off, he'd just kind of stumbled into the tub around noon on Monday, and he'd stayed there, scrubbing blood off his hands, off his face, out of his clothes, not really satisfied, not ever feeling clean enough. If he looked at his hands, he could swear there was still blood under his fingernails, and he was filthy besides, and then he'd have to clean the blood out from the tub, too, and--

It was an ugly cycle. He hadn't even thought twice about falling asleep in a ball under a stream of water, fully dressed with the fish tank tucked into the tub next to him, out of the shower's path. It would have been hard to think twice, anyway, since he hadn't really slept in days, by that point and fatigue had finally taken the wheel.

Someday, if he looked back on this year, it would go down as the one where he'd basically given up on trying to function.

[OOC: For one in particular! I'd say open for phone calls, but let's be real, his phone is probably dead in his pocket.]

Sparkle was frowning at his phone as he looked, not for the first time, at the text that Atton had sent him yesterday. It said, ever so helpfully, a nice, straightforward, NOT DEAD. Sparkle, being Sparkle, had texted back and equally straightforward, ASSHOLE. Because goddammit, Atton, you didn't have to fucking scare him like that, okay?

At least today he had a pretty good distraction all lined up. Company to cook for, which meant that he was at least somewhat distracted from his worry by things that needed to be chopped and simmered and actually watched, because like hell he was going to burn down the apartment the very first time he decided to cook something for Leto.

It wasn't anything super fancy. Not really. He was a decent cook but he was no Dr. Lecter or anything, after all. And honestly, he didn't trust himself enough tonight to try anything more complicated than a pasta dish. But spaghetti was hard to mess up, and chorizo made anything good. Mostly anything good. It definitely made spaghetti good, anyway.

He looked at his phone again and screwed up his face at it before he tucked it back into his pocket. Leto would probably be here soon, and there was sauce to stir.

[OOC: Expecting one!]

There was nothing crazy about opting to stay home and have a tea party with Pauline today, thank you very much, Atton. Sure, there was stuff going on around the island today, but Sparkle had... less than zero interest in attending the carnival. It wasn't that he didn't think the Student Council had it handled. It was just, you know, the last time he went to a carnival, he'd fallen to a violent death and then had proceeded to spend the rest of the carnival's stay on the island attempting to murder his friends. So...

Pauline was great company. And she didn't even hog the tea.

In fairness, he'd probably be watching TV or reading or something if Atton hadn't said anything about it on the radio. But now he was being contrary. He'd even made Pauline a little bonnet out of construction paper. She was looking quite fetching in it, indeed.

For, you know, a houseplant.

"More biscuits?"

[OOC: I blame Len. Open, I guess?]