The Perk, Saturday Morning

[myownface]

Thanks to some portal delays, Sparkle had been a little too late to really catch the party last night when he'd made his way to the island. He hadn't been too late to miss the moment that the change had swept over Fandom's denizens, however, and he'd taken one look around his surroundings, given a little huff of a laugh, and booked himself a hotel room. Fandom would be Fandom, after all, and he was pretty good at rolling with the punches these days.

In the morning, he'd made his way to the Perk for coffee, and had flirted with and charmed the barista into giving him his coffee for free, and then throwing in a sandwich for good measure. Hey, she didn't need to know that he wasn't actually interested. It wasn't like he was going to be back here again any time soon, and he'd made it pretty clear he was only on the island until his next portal left, anyway.

He sat by the window to eat and sip at his coffee, giving the morning paper a bemused look. 2015, huh? Apparently some things really hadn't changed around here. Good old fucked-up island.

[OOC: Open!]

Comments

[makemyownway.livejournal.com]

"Caf, caf, I need some karking caf--"

Guess who'd shown up after dropping off the radar for almost fifteen years...

[myownface]

It was like a great big reunion of off-the-radar idiots!

"Karking caf, huh?" Sparkle smirked up from his coffee. "You might have to make do with coffee like the rest of us, here."

It had been a long time since Sparkle had heard the word 'kark.'

[makemyownway.livejournal.com]

"Maybe, but doesn't mean I'm gonna like it," Cade said, sliding into a chair ans smirking back. "How've you been, jackass?"

It was totally a term of endearment, okay.

[myownface]

Hey, Sparkle was going to take it as such! After all, some of his best friends were jackasses.

"Can't complain. Making a decent living, doing some travel. Meeting people. Fuck, I'm more or less in one piece, even." Taking people for all they were worth had a funny way of making enemies of them, what? "You're looking okay, man. Been keeping busy?"

Hey, if Cade was off the radar, it wasn't like Sparkle had been any good at keeping track of who was on it.

[makemyownway.livejournal.com]

"Not really," Cade said, "and that's been a karking good thing."

Since his busy had culminated in "almost flying himself into a sun to make a point."

"You?"

[myownface]

... There would be none of that, Cade. Suns looked way better without you in them. Or orbiting them as space ash, or whatever.

"Busy enough," Sparkle replied, shrugging. "Toronto turned out to be a stupid decision, so I've been reality-hopping. Somewhere has to work out better than that did."

Yeah, funny how breaking and entering and assault and arson could get a guy in trouble, wasn't it?

[spin_kick_snap]

Kathy had paused at the counter, trying to place the face which was difficult after twenty years of no contact because why stop the off-the-radar parade. "Kark," she repeated. "Dammit, that sounds so familiar. I know you, don't I? Kathy Li, class of 2016?"

Sure it was Kathy Li-Bartamian now, but no one here would recognize that.

[makemyownway.livejournal.com]

"Cade Skywalker," Cade said, because he'd finally gotten over some of his massive baggage and acknowledged his family. Hi again."

[spin_kick_snap]

"Cade?" Kathy squealed, giving him a huge grin. Sure, they'd barely spoken back in high school, but Kathy was just thrilled to see anyone she'd used to know. It was weird being back with people from her past who were still alive. Weird, but good. "It's so good to see you, hello!"

[makemyownway.livejournal.com]

"Hello," Cade said. "Wow, you're...enthusiastic."

He wasn't that used to enthusiastic.

[spin_kick_snap]

"Sorry, sorry," Kathy said, brushing her hair from her face and taking a step back. "It's just--weird. Seeing people I used to know."

Walking around because they were still alive, rather than because they weren't.

[suitably_heroic]

"Hey, look what the nexu dragged in," Atton called, once he'd finally noticed Cade.

[makemyownway.livejournal.com]

Cade burst out laughing. "Thought you were dead by now, old man."

[suitably_heroic]

Atton took a sip of his coffee. "Me?" he said. "Nah. Dying's for the earnest and the particularly stupid. Like you."

[makemyownway.livejournal.com]

"Gave it a try once," Cade said, shrugging. "Didn't take."

[suitably_heroic]

So there had not been coffee in Atton's old apartment. Go figure.

It wasn't that he hadn't picked up on the familiar Force presences here, but it was kind of par for the course, came with the island.

So bleary-eyed Atton would not be greeting Sparkle as he stumbled in; he had to bark out "Caf-- I mean, coffee," first.

[ sp but la ]

[myownface]

Aww, Atton. Sparkle had been a bit preoccupied these last couple decades, or else he would have made a point to make certain there was at least a pizza and some instant coffee powder waiting for you, there.

As it stood, he was just leaning back in his seat, taking a mouthful of his coffee, and smirking.

"Make sure you put something healthy in it," he called to the barista. "He loves that."

[suitably_heroic]

"Twenty years and you're still an asshole," Atton said, without looking his way just yet. Of course it'd be the expletives he didn't even have to think about twice. "How do you even make coffee healthy?"

[myownface]

"Decaffeinate it and make it using, I don't know, broccoli water," Sparkle theorized, grinning. "It'd taste like shit, and wouldn't even wake you up."

Sparkle could ruin a perfectly good thing with very little effort at all when the occasion presented itself, yes.

[suitably_heroic]

Atton opened his mouth to shoot something back, but then he noticed the grin on the barista's face as she stared over his shoulder. He pulled a face.

"He's gay, sweetheart," he said, and sighed, putting down some extra money for whatever Sparkle had gotten out of her.

Then he grabbed his new coffee and turned around, flipping Sparkle the bird in the process.

[spin_kick_snap]

"Sparkle?" Kathy had been heading into town to find her errant husband, but a swing to the Perk for some coffee to fuel said search had been mandatory. And while it had been over twenty years since she'd seen him last, Kathy could still recognize one of her very first friends from Fandom. "Oh my god, it is you!"

All smiles, she flitted to a table, hands out to greet him. "Sparkle, I can't believe it's really you!"

[myownface]

"Well, hooooly shit," Sparkle drawled, setting down his coffee and paper and standing up to hold his arms open to greet her. "Mouse, is that you?"

So he'd kind of fallen off the radar. That happened, you know?

... He wasn't going to discuss prison time for love or money, shut up.

"Damn girl. You're looking great!"

[spin_kick_snap]

In fairness, so had she. A lot. To a prison of another kind.

Stupid exes.

"Mouse, huh?" Kathy asked, laughing and holding her arms out for a hug. "No one's called me that in years." No one'd had reason to, truth be told. "And thank you! I'd say my stylist would be pleased, but Karen would just look calmly at you and say, 'I know.'"

Though referring to Stealth as just 'her stylist' never got old.

"And look at you! I never took you for the facial hair type!"

[myownface]

"Well, it's been a while," Sparkle replied, smirking a little. "I like to think of myself as something of a chameleon these days. You don't like it?"

It didn't much matter either way, really. He'd probably have it shaved by next week, and he'd be a blonde with glasses or something.

[spin_kick_snap]

"I'm getting used to it," Kathy said. "I never stopped picturing you with spikes and eyeliner. You look so...so adult now!" She laughed. "Funny how after everything, it's this that's got me thinking about my age. Somehow it's different seeing all your classmates grownup."

She dropped her arms and slid into a chair across from him instead. "How've you been? What've you been up to? I'm so sorry I just kind of vanished off the map for twenty years, forgive me?"