Outside the MCA, Tuesday Afternoon

[myownface]

It had been a week since he'd gotten home, and Sparkle had barely even managed to function since then. Atton had taken off somewhere again, presumably to give him space. Maybe to have some for himself. Hell if he knew. Hell if he knew much of anything, except that gravity was weird here now and apparently something Fandom-fucked-up had happened over the weekend, which meant that maybe he didn't have to feel horrible and apologize to Dr. Lecter for missing another attempt at his wedding just because he had opted to stay home rather than remind himself of the other horrifying bloodbath he'd witnessed this year.

It was also time for him to go get more groceries, but he didn't feel like doing that yet. He could order delivery for a while, whatever. First he needed to work on going the hell outside. So, that was the goal for the day. Go outside. Get some actual sunshine.

Loiter outside the front door of the apartment building and smoke. That was plenty of outside for the time being, and he could pretend that the gravity wasn't doing weird shit - which freaked him out almost as much as the sky full of stars had last week - and remind himself that he was here, and...

Fuck it, he was not coping, today. Maybe once he got the nerve he'd head to Baltimore or something and get himself some pot.

[OOC: Open! Sparkle will probably not be a ray of sunshine, but he will share his smokes.]

Comments

[beautifulsenshi.livejournal.com]

Look, Minako felt like she hadn't heard from Sparkle in aaaaaaaaaaaages, which in Minako-time meant maybe a day or two, or even a few hours without a cute cat picture.

Which was why she was calling him, yes, because a Sparkle-shaped distraction from muggers was sounding like an excellent plan. Ring ring, Sparkle!

[myownface]

This... was probably not gonna be a happy distraction. Sorry, Minako.

"Uh... hey?"

Sparkle hadn't even looked at the caller ID. He was mostly still running on autopilot, so when a phone rang, you answered, right? He liked phones, even. Generally. Most days.

He was fine.

[beautifulsenshi.livejournal.com]

Minako frowned at her phone. That didn't sound right. "Sparkle?" she asked, brow knitting in concern. "Did I call at a bad time? It's not, like, 3am, is it?"

[myownface]

"Huh? No, it's, like, noon." Sparkle squinted up at the sky. There was a sun up there and everything, but with the way the island had been moving around, it was hard to be sure. "I think? Last week it was all stars all the time, and I haven't been sleeping well."

The two things were mostly unrelated.

[beautifulsenshi.livejournal.com]

"'All stars' as in you all thought you were movie stars and wore yourself out, or all stars as in the island is moving around again?" she asked, sympathy in her voice. "Which, if you end up in orbit around Venus you have GOT to let me know."

[myownface]

"Stars, stars. The sky was just, like, space, last week. It was freaky."

Okay, he probably would have appreciated it more at basically any other point in his life, ever.

"But yeah, if we hit up Venus, you'll be the first person I call. Promise." A beat. "Don't think this place is Venus."

It was not.

[beautifulsenshi.livejournal.com]

Now Minako was pulling out her communicator, and using it to check if anything was in orbit around her Venus.

No. Woe.

"If it is a Venus, it's not my Venus," she said with a sigh. "Spaaaaarkle come visit me, I'm lonely."

[myownface]

Sparkle chewed on the inside of his cheek, and then kind of huffed a half-laugh and looked up at the sky for a few moments longer.

"I'd be shitty company," he warned. "Do you mind when your Sparkles are shitty company?"

[beautifulsenshi.livejournal.com]

...someone had something else going on, didn't he?

"My Sparkles are always the best company, even when they think they aren't," was Minako's soft answer. "You can stay at my house and have my mom try to feed you for being too skinny, or stay at any of the safe-houses I've got set-up around town. For as long as you want."

[imafuturist]

After spending all of yesterday fixing what he'd managed to do to his apartment, shop, and lab... Tony finally surfaced for air.

And to check out the new planet. You know. From a safe distance until the suit was running at 100% again. (Okay, at 75%.)

"Sparkle."

[myownface]

Sparkle... jumped. Sorry, Tony. It had been a few days since the last time he'd heard another human voice, and you'd think he'd be expecting that after going outside, but...

"Oh. Tony," he said, breathless and still a bit wide-eyed, though he was more kicking himself for jumping than anything, at this point. It was kind of like forward movement, if you squinted. "Um. Hey."

And then he stood there awkwardly. Play it cool? Play it cool.

"... How's it going?"

So cool.

[imafuturist]

Oh, Sparkle. Your lack of chill was reminding Tony of himself at a certain age.

But, be real Tony. You still have none.

"As well as can be," he replied, trying to keep himself from wrinkling his nose at the smell of smoke. "You okay?"

[myownface]

"Yes?"

Sparkle, 'yes' was not generally meant to be a question, like that. You either were okay, or you weren't.

"Kind of?"

Still also not question words.

"I've been worse."

If you'd started with that, you'd probably be able to sell it more easily.

[imafuturist]

"A ringing endorsement," Tony replied dryly.

[myownface]

"I've had a shitty few weeks," Sparkle replied, wrinkling his nose and then pulling in another drag from his cigarette. "But the shitty bits are over now, so it's mostly just, like, getting back to it."

Good old 'it.' That was a place he'd like to visit, sometime.

[imafuturist]

Ah, the rebuilding phase. Where Tony was most at home.

"The shitty things from before?" he asked. "With... Atton?"

That was the guy's name, right?

[myownface]

That was, in fact, the guy's name! And Sparkle managed to not wince at the mention of it. So that was... good?

"Yeah." Deep breath. Exhale. Sigh and flick the rest of his cigarette to the ground, scuffing it out under his sneaker. "Yeah. We found him. I guess he found us. Me. I went to his reality and he found me. Some people he was with did, I mean."

Well. That whole statement was a hot mess.

[rebelseekspizza]

Dante... had walked out of a class full of issues, into a Hyacinthe full of issues, all while trying to avoid his own issues. Frankly, he was starting to think his original plan - to hole up in his dorm room with Anders and a stack of pizzas for the week - had been the better one.

But fuck it. He was gonna keep on walking.

"Yo, Sparkle," he called, as he noticed a familiar figure up ahead. "Smoke break?"

[myownface]

Oh, Dante. If you were hoping to avoid issues, today...

"Smoke break," Sparkle called back, after a pause long enough to actually work up the oomph to do any sort of calling. "Getting my fresh air, you know?"

Coming outside for fresh air was way more effective without the cigarettes, Sparkle.

[rebelseekspizza]

The mun universe was punishing Dante for making fun of Jono's wedding troubles. He was going to conclude that later on. Though not yet.

"Fresh air definitely makes it easier to get the smoke out," Dante agreed, unaware yet of anything weird going on here. "What's up? Haven't seen you in a while."

[myownface]

And there you went, Dante. Stepping right into it, up to the knees.

Sparkle shrugged and offered Dante his cigarette, in case he wanted a drag. Because pfff, worrying about age restrictions was for other people.

"Yeah, I've been out of town," he replied, a master of understatement when he was trying to skirt around basically anything. "There was a... thing? With a friend. In space."

A beat.

"I am so fucking done with space."

[rebelseekspizza]

Some days, Dante lived by the grace of people conveniently forgetting he was only seventeen. The circumstances weren't quite so dire for him this go around - ignoring shitty memories was a hard-won skill on his part - but he took the cigarette anyway, taking a quick drag, and handing it back with a "Thanks."

He looked at Sparkle curiously. "Space, huh? What's up with that?"

He had many skills and qualities. A knack for the subtle approach was not one of them.

[myownface]

Sparkle huffed a little, something kind of edging onto a laugh, if laughter had nothing like mirth in it and was most commonly employed by guys who wanted to just burn everything down.

"My-" Best friend. Brother. "-roommate is from one of those realities that has casual space travel. I just got back from the best fucking all-expenses-paid tour of his galaxy. Free room and board, meet motivated new people, that sort of thing."

He hated it he hated it he hated it...

[rebelseekspizza]

Dante snorted, fishing around his pocket, trying to track down the like one cigarette he still had on him - fuck, he was supposed to get his paycheck soon, right?

"Why am I getting the idea you mean that in the Jim Bund kind way?"

[myownface]

"... Complete with monologuing supervillain and a brilliant plan that can't possibly backfire?"

Sparkle gave Dante a wry - too fucking tired - smile and offered him his pack of smokes.

"Yeah, something like that. But I don't even really rate secret agent. Hell, I don't even really rate Bund babe."

Because they tended to be badass secret agents and assassins and things. Whereas Sparkle was mostly just the guy who started singing 'Cabaret' as the firing squad lined up their shots.