fandomtownies | Come As You Were Dance, Community Center, Saturday Evening

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Come As You Were Dance, Community Center, Saturday Evening

Originally, this was going to be a much smaller event, but then Fandom had to be Fandom and Portalocity had to be Portalocity, and now Zoe was wondering if there would be enough food for everyone or if she'd have to get things from the local restaurants.

For the moment though, everything was set up nicely. There were tables and chairs set up with blue and gold tablecloths, each covered with glitter from years of use. There were balloons, streamers, and other slightly tasteful decorations, also covered in glitter from years of being stored with things that were also covered in glitter. Don't worry, no one had died from a glitter overdose yet.

Once the food was set out and the (non-tainted) punch was ready, it seemed like things were as good to go as they'd ever be. If things got too crowded, hopefully a fire marshal wasn't among the folks who had come back to town.

[We appear to have broken the post, huzzah! Please use these links to get around: Arrive/Mingle | Food/Drink | Dancing | Shadowy Corner | Corner of 2005 | OOC]

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Sparkle... hadn't seen that pissed off girl coming. Not really. But beyond blinking at her sudden appearance, he didn't look terribly surprised that she was pissed off, either.

"... Hi."

She must have been talking to Atton. There were only so many places she could have found out about that thing that would have certainly pissed her off, really.

"Sure. We can talk. Is here good?"

He didn't much want to go, right now. There was a sort of safety blanket in being surrounded by strangers, somehow.

He was in so much shit.

Yes, yes he was.

"No," she said, since why on earth would Karina make this easier for him? Why? "I don't think so."

Fuck. Of course she wouldn't.

"... Okay. Ten minutes. Ten minutes to talk, and then I'm coming back, unless you make it good."

He'd had a really shitty week. Even if it was his own damn fault. And she'd probably get longer than that, yes, but he wasn't about to make it easier for her if she wasn't interested in making it easy for him, anyway.

Did he really think he deserved to have it easy? Did he?

Karina was tempted to ask, but didn't.

"Fine," she said, though hell no, this was taking longer than ten minutes. "Lead the way."

"Okay. Fine." Sparkle's tone was... kind of flat. Weirdly flat, even for Sparkle, though there was a sort of rebellious look in his eye as he headed back for the door. "Nice little chat in the outdoors. Get some fresh air while we're at it."

All the better for throttling him, right?

Karina noticed the flatness and thought about it as she followed him silently until they were outside.

"Okay," Karina said, once they were free of the crush of people. "How about you tell me what happened, from your point of view."

Then she'd get around to shouting at him. Instead he was getting sad-girl eyes right now.

Sparkle wasn't completely certain he trusted those sad-girl eyes. Because he'd met you, Karina.

"How about you tell me what Atton told you, first?"

Because who the hell else would have, right?

Karina supposed that was fair. She probably wouldn't trust him with sad boy-eyes either.

"Atton says that there was a home, there were a bunch of neighbors who didn't like the home, that Lewis confessed to having dirty thoughts about one of his charges and to using some of the money he was supposed to use for the home for other stuff and so got taken away. And then that you and this other girl burned the house down and you hung around as it burned to be arrested."

A beat.

She was still wearing the sad-girl eyes.

"Was he wrong?"

Sparkle frowned a little. Yeah, still not trusting those sad girl eyes. Not one bit.

"I guess he didn't mention that the ward he was having dirty thoughts about was me. Or that he named me in front of all of city council."

Those kind of seemed like important tidbits to Sparkle. Sorta, kinda.

The thing was, she really was sad. But in a way that made her furious.

"No," Karina said, after a moment where it was like she'd forgotten how to breathe. "No. He didn't."

"Oh. Well. There was that," Sparkle said, flatly. "He told city council about our 'silent, unconsummated love affair' and how he thinks nasty thoughts about me when he goes to bed at night, and that is why I've got people rushing and tripping over themselves to try to keep the other group home teens together somewhere safe, because fuck Lewis."

A bit of that tiredness was showing. And a lot more anger than he'd had the energy to show in days.

"And because I'm not a minor anymore, I get a shout-out in the papers for it, which is fucking awesome, and Lew gets to play martyr like he's passing on the fucking torch, like he fought the good fight and lost like some kind of goddamned hero!"

Edited 2015-09-06 00:06 (UTC)

Karina lost the girl-eyes because...

Because...

"What."

No. Seriously. What the fuck???

"So if you want to yell at me over whatever it was Atton told you, go right ahead," Sparkle continued, crossing his arms in front of his chest. "Because after all of that, after all of that, Lewis couldn't even be fucking bothered to give me a nod or an apology or to say he hopes I'm okay wherever it is I end up, and I was the name he dropped to leave a dozen kids fucking homeless. I was stupid, I was selfish, I broke the law, I got caught, whatever you want to lecture me about, fine. I don't fucking care, Karina. I do not have it left in me to care."

You know, it was getting to the point where Karina saying what she was going to say seemed like... like she was just going to have to get used to it.

"I love you," she said, rather than yell. "And I get being angry and I think you have every right to be angry. But what you did was wrong. Nobody died because you were lucky. Fires spread. Nice areas, like where your house was, I bet there were trees around and other families. A strong wind could've spread your fire and your anger down on them. They could have lost their lives because you were angry with Lewis. That's why I'm angry at you."

A beat.

"That's why it's my opinion that you deserve jail time for what you did."

It wasn't leaving him to rot. It was the right consequence to his actions. He deserved to understand the severity of what could have happened.

And Sparkle... Sparkle respected Karina. Respected her enough to hear her out. To actually shut up and listen, for once.

And hell, he even gave a little nod. Pursed his lips a bit and just... nodded... when she was done.

"Going to drag me back there?"

It wasn't even an accusation. He was curious. Maybe he wanted to know how much this meant to her. He was angry and tired and she was right, somebody could have gotten hurt. Nobody had. That was fortunate.

"No."

It had been something she'd wrestled with since leaving Atton's place.

"I should," Karina said. "I should, and I know it, and I hate myself because I won't. I won't help the others keep you out of it, but I can't bring you back there either."

"That's.... fair." Weirdly fair. When it came from Karina, Sparkle could take it. Hell, he knew that she had every reason to be pissed at him. With Karina, maybe more than anyone else, he could be rational about this.

It helped that she had been rational to him about it, first.

"I thought about that, you know. About how somebody could get hurt. Didn't much care at the time. Nobody did. But that doesn't change that the danger was there."

He'd even mentioned it to Raine, that was the thing. There was a chance...

She'd had the whole day to throw hissy fits to herself, was the thing. That helped. Especially since Karina was usually at her best when given time to think things through.

"It doesn't," she said evenly. "And fire's one of those things that doesn't give people a lot of chance to get away. You always lash out when you're angry, but you were so goddamn lucky this time, Sparkle."

"Yeah," he sighed, shaking his head. "And I know. I know. I even, like... I thought about it. I just... stopped... fucking... caring."

He was good at that. At not caring, when he was hurting. He had to be. Of course, it would be better as a survival tactic if 'not caring' didn't mean he got so damn self-destructive all the time.

"When it comes to what you do, you can't," she said quietly. "Not when you are as destructive as you are."

Karina was not the most tactful of friends, no. But she was brutally honest in ways that she was... pretty sure most of his friends weren't.

Most of his friends were just pissed off at him for being so stupid that he got caught.

Sparkle would be lying if he said that getting caught wasn't also, at least slightly, a part of that self-destructive streak of his.

"I don't get it," he said, after a minute. "I don't get how people can care. I don't know how to start. Every time I try it just... fucking..."

Explodes in his face.

Left him starving on his own bedroom floor sobbing over a torn business card that had always been a lie, always. Wound up with him sitting in a city council meeting, watching the man he loved destroy everything for everyone. Ended up with boyfriends telling him that he didn't properly appreciate being bullied and threatened by siblings because how the hell could he understand family and he couldn't. He couldn't care. That. Much.

Karina chewed on the inside of her cheek for a moment, thinking about that. There was a line between brutal honesty and being cruel and she wasn't sure what she was going to say would stay on the right side of that thin line.

"You get a lot of shit," Karina said bluntly. "I'm not going to pretend otherwise, and this island fucking shit up in ways most of the world doesn't have to deal with doesn't help you out at all. But I'm not talking about caring about others exactly. I want you to do that. But I think that the first step for you has got to be caring about yourself, since I don't think you care enough about you."

"How does..." Sparkle squinted at her, taking that in. Processing it. He... Didn't... Didn't really know how to respond to that.

Because she was right. Of course she was right. Doctor Lecter and Atton and Electroclash and everyone who gave a shit about him and who really knew him had at one point or another told him some variation on the same.

"I mean, I don't..."

But what was he supposed to say about that?

"How do people even..."

Fucking hell.

"... Wanna go get a coffee or something? I don't think I've even eaten much today, except coffee with Cade and then Leto's face. Good kisser, by the way. A+ would recommend."

Helpful, Sparkle.

Karina's eyebrows raised at all of that.

Nice attempt at deflection, Sparkle, but no.

"Let's go get Chinese," she decided, since he clearly needed food. "And we can talk about how little you like yourself."

Which wasn't going to be fun for either of them, was it?

"You really need to work on your choice of dinner conversation," Sparkle muttered, but he wasn't arguing, really. "Chinese sounds fine, though. I haven't had that in a while. Usually when I eat out these days, it's... nerf."

Not the foam darts.

Come As You Were Dance, Community Center, Saturday Evening

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