The Perk, Saturday Morning

[myownface]

Sparkle hadn't slept in his bed last night.

Hell, come to that, Sparkle still hadn't slept. He hadn't even been on the island. He'd been in Baltimore, in Dr. Lecter's former neighbourhood (it was familiar enough), causing the sort of minor chaos that had gotten him into trouble more than once back in Toronto. He hadn't broken into anybody's houses, no, but more than a few of the rich snobby sorts would be waking up to find their garden sheds broken into, mostly worthless items missing that they probably wouldn't notice were gone for months. Or until their gardener brought it to their attention.

Sparkle sighed and clutched to a coffee that was too big for sane human consumption, and poked listlessly at the contents of his open backpack.

"Stupid," he muttered, pulling out a spool of weed-whacker twine and turning it over in his hand. "Stupid stupid stupid stupid."

Apparently it was going to take more than a night of petty theft for him to start feeling more like himself again. But hey. It had been worth a shot.

[OOC: I have the apartment to myself all weekend, so clearly the thing to do is camp out on the couch and RP. Open!]

Comments

[suitably_heroic]

Not having a Sparkle around last night? That wasn't anything to worry about. Not seeing him into the morning? ... Still not something to worry about, but Atton was at least going to text him, here.

Okay, I can tell you're still alive. That's good.

[myownface]

It wasn't that Sparkle was ignoring his messages. Actually, it was basically the opposite. He'd gotten Atton's text and was staring at it kind of blearily, trying to piece together what the hell to say in reply while he worked his way through his coffee.

Which might have looked almost the same, considering it took him the better part of fifteen minutes to reply.

That's me, good and alive, yep. Went for a walk.

It was not entirely untrue?

[suitably_heroic]

... What the hell kind of an answer was that, Sparks? It was like you weren't even trying to lie well.

Atton sighed at his comm.

So now I have to decide whether to be a good friend and ignore that blatant lie, or to be a good friend and call that blatant lie. Where were you walking? Saturn?

[myownface]

Sparkle squirmed. And squirmed a little more. And once he was pretty sure that he couldn't squirm out of a reply just by wriggling in his seat, he typed a text back to Atton.

Baltimore. I needed a city. Fandom's too quiet.

... This was also true. And actually sort of relevant.

[suitably_heroic]

Atton rubbed at his forehead.

Did you get it out of your system? he texted.

What he really meant was 'warn me next time', but after last summer he was not really ready to make demands of Sparkle just yet.

[myownface]

Not sure yet. Do we have any use for three garden hose attachments? Or a trowel?

Maybe within that trowel hid the secret of a good night's sleep.

Sparkle doubted it, though.

[suitably_heroic]

Never mind the forehead. Atton was going for the bridge-of-nose pinch now.

We don't have a garden, Sparks.

[myownface]

But we have houseplants. Maybe the houseplants would appreciate having a trowel.

There was a solid possibility that the trowel was bigger than some of the pots the plants were housed in. This wasn't going to stop Sparks, no.

[suitably_heroic]

We do not have enough square meters of soil in the apartment to warrant a trowel either. Atton was just going to... bang his head gently against the sofa, here. Did you sleep at all?

Damn it, now he sounded worried.

Well, typed worried.

[rebelseekspizza]

Dante was awake.

He also had his second hangover in a row.

It was an absolutely shitty combination, but the memories of yesterday were too vivid to let him sleep in that morning. So-- fuck it. He was going to the Perk, getting something full of sugar, and once he finished it, it'd be fucking noon.

He squinted blearily at Sparkle and his twine from the counter as he waited for his terrifying strawberry drink to get finished.

[myownface]

A hangover sounded almost preferable to months of insomnia and a bag full of random yard supplies, at least to Sparkle. But then, his judgement was probably suspect by this point, anyway.

He made a little gurgling sound in the back of his throat as he tossed the spool on the table, and then scowled and reached for his drink, not noticing that he was being squinted at until he was halfway through his mouthful. And then he kind of squinted at Dante right back before nodding to the seat across from him.

[rebelseekspizza]

Dante sighed.

He snagged his newly-acquired strawberry-whipped-cream drink off the counter and walked towards Sparkle. He sank in the offered chair like a sack of potatoes (if an unnaturally graceful sack of potatoes). "Ugh," he said.

[myownface]

"Ugh," Sparkle agreed, raising his drink toward Dante in a kind of wobbly salute. "You look rough, man."

Said the pot to the kettle.

"Long night?"

[rebelseekspizza]

"Yep," Dante said.

Really, it was the afternoon and the electrocution that had done it, but technically the drinking afterwards was responsible for the actual hangover. So 'yep' about covered it. "You too?"

[myownface]

"Yep," agreed Sparkle, who didn't really have an electrocution to blame for his troubles. "Was hoping that some coffee would help me feel human again, but mostly it's just making me feel like my heart's going to explode. I don't think that's how that's supposed to work."

[rebelseekspizza]

"Eugh, coffee," said Dante, who practically buried himself in his outrageously pink strawberry drink for a second. And wound up with whipped cream on his face for his troubles. He wiped at it idly. "You need sugar after a hangover. 's science."

[myownface]

"Pretty sure science says water," Sparkle mused. "But that's okay. I'm sure there's water in whatever you got, anyway."

Sparkle didn't have a hangover, but there was probably enough sugar in his coffee to appease Dante's discerning tastes if he cared to ask, either way.

[future_sandworm]

Since that time when Sparkle hadn't answered his phone, Leto had decided to call him now and then. He did enjoy their conversations of course, although having them in person was definitely preferable, so it wasn't just out of concern, but he had to admit that played into it as well.

So Sparkle got a phone call from someone who wasn't aware of his lack of sleep or stolen gardening tools.

[myownface]

The reach for his phone was more like a fumble, but Sparkle persevered. Sort of. He'd managed to avoid not dropping his phone on the floor and cracking his screen, but he'd nearly knocked over his coffee in the process, and he had dropped his twine while he was at it.

Dammit. Now he had to go crawling on the floor to get it. Which was what he was in the process of doing when he answered his phone.

"Mornin'."

[future_sandworm]

"Good morning," Leto replied. As he had noticed some kind of fumbling, he added: "Am I interrupting something?"

[myownface]

"Nah," Sparkle replied, his tone brightening a little at the sound of Leto's voice. "I just dropped something when the phone rang. I'm crawling around trying to find where it rolled to."

[future_sandworm]

"I see," Leto said with a soft laugh. "Anything of importance?"

[myownface]

"Nah, not really," Sparkle replied, spotting the twine and crawling over to fetch it. "I just don't want to trip on it when I go to leave the coffee shop. Knowing my luck..."

He grabbed the twine and then sat up.

That 'WHUMP' sound that Leto could probably hear over the phone was Sparkle knocking his head on the underside of his table.

"Son-of-a-"

[future_sandworm]

"Did you hurt yourself?" Leto sounded more amused than worried. He leaned back against the backrest of his chair, smiling up at the ceiling.

[myownface]

"I found the table," Sparkle agreed, wrinkling his nose and rubbing the top of his head before re-claiming the spool of twine and making his way back up into his seat. From there he was going to just kind of make faces for a minute. "With my head. In case you were wondering, it's a solid table."