fandomtownies | The Perk, Tuesday Afternoon

Entry tags:

The Perk, Tuesday Afternoon

Sparkle didn't care. Okay, so he was on the island today, on, like, a Tuesday, skipping town, skipping life, sitting in a window booth and glowering out at the street like it had made some sort of personal slight against him.

Did he have a coffee roughly the size of his head? Of course. Was it actually more vanilla syrup than coffee? Absolutely. Was he using it to wash down a peanut butter cookie that was equally ridiculously sized? You betcha.

Did he care?

Of course not. What was there to care about?

Fuck, this coffee was awesome.

[OOC: Eh, I'm home sick. Open!]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"Well look who it is."

Ezra looked a little like maybe he was still on his way home from last night. Or maybe it was just an intentional fashion choice. He was the type to manage 'elegantly disheveled', either way.

"What did the street ever do to you?"

"That street in particular?" Sparkle looked out at it thoughtfully. "I mean, besides how I've died out there at least a couple of times before, right? Because I'm pretty sure that question is rhetorical, but I could drum up like eight valid answers to that question in like thirty seconds or less."

And then he turned his gaze back to Ezra, along with a quick little quirk of a smile.

"But whatever, right? Hey."

Ezra's smile was wide and bright, with only the slightest hint of the kind of wickedness he didn't seem to know how to turn off. "Hey," he replied. "Long time no see, Sparks. How sad is that?"

"Pretty sad," Sparkle replied, raising his ~~syrup~~ coffee in a little salute. "But I won't hold it against you, since I've been in Toronto for the past, like, however long. Since summer started, anyway. How's things?"

Ezra shrugged in a light and easy way, signaling loud and clear that the answer wasn't going to be very significant in any way at all. "Fine, as always."

He hadn't even had to kill anyone lately. Always a plus!

"Better now, with present company."

"Present company is flattered," Sparkle laughed. Hey, he wasn't expecting any deep life-story type answer. It wasn't like he would have given one either, if Ezra had asked.

It kept things easy. He liked things easy.

"Can I get you something? Coffee or whatever? There are cookies so big even God would have trouble finishing them, if that's more your speed."

The wallet that Ezra demonstratively pulled out of his pocket... was not his wallet. You could just tell it didn't really go with his style. Not that he was going to comment on that. "Thank you, but I've got it covered."

With someone else's money entirely.

"I will, however, take you up on that cookie recommendation," he noted, turning a little more towards the counter. "And while I'm doing that, you can tell me what brings you back from Toronto."

... Huh. Right. Okay, so he'd just let Ezra pay from now on, then. And in the meantime, try not to look too much like the thought of giving an honest answer to that question left him wanting to punch a wall.

"Just needed to get a break from stupid people doing stupid shit for a while," he answered. That much was honest, at least. "Entitled people who have no business spreading their stupid-assed lies got to my roommate back there, and now she thinks that group homes are run primarily by millionaires, or something ridiculous like that."

That was a perfectly acceptable reply. Especially by Ezra's standards.

He squinted, tilting his head. "I don't even know much about group homes, and even I know that sounds less than likely."

"Right?" Sparkle snorted and shook his head, letting his lip curl a little in disgust. "If they had that kind of money, they'd probably have a less shitty reputation, for a start."

Because it didn't matter who was living in them. The second people heard the word 'group home,' they decided the world was ending.

Ezra picked up his coffee and giant cookie, to wander over. "Yes, money tends to improve a reputation greatly." He tilted his head again, reconsidering. "Well, unless it comes from organized crime. But anyway."

"I'm mostly certain that most group homes aren't a source of huge amounts of that," Sparkle noted. "Like, at least that I've seen. God, if they really are and I haven't known all this time, I've really been missing out."

Poor thing.

"It's not all it's cracked up to be."

Not that Ezra knew anything about organized crime. He slouched into a seat across from Sparkle.

"Besides, you're young, there's still time."

"That's what they keep telling me," Sparkle chuckled. "Not much time, though. I mean, like, I age out soon, and I'm never looking back. Fuck that."

... Unless Lewis gave him something to look back for, maybe.

"Fortunately, you don't really age out of the rest of it. I'm aiming for a nice, lucrative career doing... something, someday."

His future was incredibly well plotted out, as could easily be seen here.

Ezra's future plans involved staying alive and keeping his friends alive, and somehow staying fabulous while doing that. He wasn't one to judge people very heavily for a lack of a plan.

"Ah, something," he said, with a mock wistfulness. Even brought a hand up to his heart. "An excellent career choice to aim for, my friend."

"It was either 'something' or 'nothing,'" Sparkle quipped, grinning a little. "I feel like I'm making the right life choice with this one."

It had been one hell of a toss-up, really. Sparkle smirked and reached for his coffee.

"I mean, there are plenty of people who get by in life just fine doing the other one, but that's not really my style."

"No offence to them, but nothing sounds boring, anyway," Ezra said, knowing full well that a lot of people would have said he was doing exactly nothing, himself. No one important said that, so he didn't care. "Something is where it's at, as the kids say these days."

"It's way more fun, at least." Sparkle smiled a bit, in spite of the mood he'd been in when he had left Toronto earlier. This was miles better than dealing with that mess, right now. He'd take this, hands-down. "See, that's the thing to do. Do something, become a millionaire, have fun. Honestly, I don't know why more people don't do that with their lives."

Alluka was... lost.

Which, okay, maybe for most people who'd been around since the beginning of summer, that would be extremely ridiculous but Alluka very, very rarely wandered into town, and usually when she did, just beelined for Jono and Hannibal's house and didn't look anywhere else and somehow she'd taken a wrong turn and now...

She was totally lost. She stopped outside of the Perk, clutching her stuffed giraffe in her arms and looked around helplessly.

Oop. Distressed-looking little kid at... like... three forty-five. Almost four o'clock. Sparkle looked toward the girl for a moment, and found himself tempted, for all of like three seconds, to pretend he didn't care about this, either.

But nope, his internal care-o-meter was an asshole, and after taking another mouthful of coffee, he sighed, pulled himself up from his seat, and made his way outside to see what was up.

"Hey, kid? You okay?"

Shut up. He didn't care.

It was funny, wasn't it, how Alluka still tended to light up like a Christmas tree (not that she knew exactly what one was) when people talked to her?

But, funny or not, just the fact that someone was talking to her, made her feel better as she turned to look at him. Her eyes were huge and blue and utterly guileless and her expression was that of a child younger than her physical age.

"I don't know where I am," she said, still clutching Bubbles tightly. "The streets got all turned around."

Or, well, she had. But that was a small detail.

There was something about that look, placed on that face, that threw Sparkle a little bit. Like she was a few years too old to look that jarringly young.

He saw that kind of thing a lot, actually. Just not around here. He gave her a little smile, and then crouched down a bit to make easier eye contact with both her and her giraffe.

"They kind of do that a lot around here," he replied, soothingly. "But I used to live here, maybe I can help you out a bit. Where are you trying to get, kiddo?"

After a moment, Bubbles peeked over at him too. That Alluka was the one making Bubbles do such a thing did not really matter to either her or Bubbles.

"Um, um," she said, then smiled at him. "I was trying to get to Dr. Lecter's house and then I thought I'd go see if Pinkie was working," the answer was no, since it's wasn't Friday, but Alluka and time were... yeah, "and thought maybe I should go there first and now I don't know where I am."

Being brave was totally not worth this hassle. It was much easier being in her room.

But being brave was the first step to getting better at it, right?

Or to getting eaten or something, but it was easier to focus on that other part.

Sparkle grinned a little at that.

"Are you a friend of Dr. Lecter, too? I used to be his TA, like, all the time back when I was still going to school here. He taught me how to cook, actually. I could show you to his place if you like, it's not all that far."

In fairness, Sparkle was Torontonian. Nothing on the island was all that far, to him.

Anything that tried to eat Alluka might possibly wind up dealing with Nanika. Nanika would eat them.

Oh! Oh! He knew Dr. Lecter!

She beamed sunnily. "He's super smart," Alluka said agreeably. "And, and he let me stand on his shoulders in class and he knows a lot about people."

And then she failed to actually answer his question. Good job, Alluka.

Well, at least she'd answered part of it! Which was better than none at all, and was about on par for what Sparkle expected, anyway. She was such a little kid, wasn't she?

"Well, he's never let me stand on his shoulders," Sparkle mused, "so that must have been pretty cool. What's he teaching you?"

Because Sparkle didn't think that Dr. Lecter would let anybody stand on anybody's shoulders, let alone his own, in a kitchen. Not in a million years.

"About inspirations," she said, giggling. "Which is lots and lots of field trips! We were at a church with a bunch of decorations made of bone and he let me get higher to see them better!"

And name them and talk about murder, but shhh.

"Hey, that's... actually really awesome," Sparkle replied, blinking. "I'm jealous. Where was that class when I was in high school, huh? Probably waiting for you to come along, that's where."

There was no heat in that accusation at all, just a smile.

"Are you enjoying the class, then? I mean, if it's all inspirational and stuff, I bet you are."

"It's lots of fun!" she said enthusiastically. "Almost as fun as my adventuring class!"

Which was even more field trips! ... Alluka had a bias in her class choices, yes.

A beat.

"But they probably weren't waiting for me," she added.

"You don't think so? This place works in pretty weird ways," Sparkle replied, and then, grinning faintly, he started to walk, waving for her to follow him along. "But hey, if they weren't waiting, that just means you have amazing timing."

She bounced after him. Pigtails bobbing as she did so.

"I know! The swirly blue thing brought me here, and that was pretty weird, and then there's the castle that I get to be in even though I'm not a princess--but if they'd waited for me, that would have been not fun for everyone else. So, so I think it's better if they didn't wait."

She could live with amazing timing though.

Sparkle parsed that as he walked, nodding a little.

"So, there was a portal, huh? Those are about as confusing as the streets, sometimes." And it sort of explained why she was here, of all places, considering how young she was. "And yeah, I would have been really bored hanging around here for a few years, since you didn't get here until after I left, huh?"

"It showed up in my room!" she said, since that was still a big deal to her. "And I think so? When did you leave? Are you really old?"

He didn't look really old, but...

"I'm nineteen and a half years old," Sparkle replied, and damn did it ever feel good to be someplace where he could say that. "I don't know; is that really old?"

To some little kids it was. But then, this little kid didn't look that little, either.

"Do you, like, get portals in your room often?"

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

The Perk, Tuesday Afternoon

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject