fandomtownies | The Perk, Tuesday Morning

The island was doing that mistletoe thing again. That mistletoe thing, Sparkle remembered it vividly from a precarious situation in a stairwell back when Alec was still a part of his life, and no amount of lecturing the island on people's right to choose who the hell they kissed for themselves had apparently dissuaded it from making it tradition. But then, he supposed he wasn't surprised. This was the island with the pollen thing, after all. That pollen thing.

Either way, he'd decided that his sanest course of action was to at least get out of the vicinity of people he didn't particularly want to kiss. Not that he didn't love Atton - he did more than almost anybody, and that was the hell of it, but not like that - he just really didn't want to find himself being pestered to kiss the guy by a freaking plant.

Anyway, it was peppermint hot chocolate season at the Perk, and the mistletoe had, for the most part, kept its attention on corners of the place with more people in it than the little table by the window that Sparkle had staked out. Sure, he'd had to give the barista a quick, chaste peck on the cheek to get his drink without being tackled by a plant, but this was the price one paid for getting out of the apartment without having to, like, french-kiss one's roomie.

"You know you're considered a parasite," he informed one creeping garland of mistletoe as it slithered past. "I'm really starting to see why."

[OOC: Open for coffee or kissy, I'm easy and Sparkle's resigned to it.]

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"Advent? Hey!" Peter hastily shoved his tea out of the way before the plant knocked it over. He misted his arm long enough to get out of it, but as soon as he was solid again, the plant grabbed it again. "What the heck!"

Sparkle... took a moment to kind of blink and rub his eyes, because Peter's arm turned to mist, there. And he knew Peter could do some funky shit, but that was still something to get used to, there.

Of course, when he went to put his arm down, he couldn't, because now there was mistletoe wrapping around his wrist. Which meant Sparkle was going to just facepalm with that hand while it was by his face, instead.

"It's mistletoe," he muttered. "You know what people do with mistletoe, this time of year."

"Hang it all over and pretend it's not poisonous," Peter answered wryly. "It's not usually mobile, though."

"Fandom island, man," Sparkle sighed. "It's mistletoe. It wants us to kiss."

Duh, Peter. Duh.

Peter snorted. "We're not together. Go away, plant." He waved futilely at it; it just tried to grab his other hand. "Stop it! Look, if this stuff's sentient, can't it figure out 'not interested'? No offense, I just don't like being dictated to about kissing."

"Yeah, none taken," Sparkle replied, rolling his eyes toward the ceiling. He'd hurt himself if he rolled them any harder, really. "Anyway, I don't know if it's sentient or not. It almost killed me once in a stairwell trying to get me to kiss my ex, so it's definitely got stubbornness going for it."

Also it was a jerk.

Peter scowled at that. "Someone needs to teach it no means no."

On the last word, he changed his arm to flame, charring to cinders the vine looped around it and sending the rest shooting away from him as fast as it could go.

He changed it back, leaving a few flames dancing on his fingertips, and reached toward the one holding Sparkle.

Sparkle... Sparkle was going to sit there wide-eyed and kind of in shock at that one. The mistletoe that had been wrapped around his arm bid a hasty retreat before it could be charred to ash, leaving Sparkle blinking at the fire.

...

"Ooooooooo."

That was an awesome trick and Sparkle wanted it.

Sorry, Sparkle; that one came of being a Shadow. Though there was probably a magical way of doing it, too, come to that.

Peter watched the plants go and gave a sigh of annoyance. "Sorry. I have a thing about consent."

"That is so fair," Sparkle replied, smiling faintly. "I'm no big fan of being dragged into a kiss with someone who isn't feeling it, either."

Peter smiled. "Hey, it really isn't anything personal. I mean, I'm not really into guys, but you've been pretty great to me since I got here."

He leaned across the table. "One for friendship, no coercion required?"

"Friend kiss!" Sparkle laughed and leaned forward, a playful glint in his eye. "Those are way better than bad touch mistletoe kisses."

"Definitely." Peter pulled Sparkle closer gently with one hand and gave him a soft kiss. More than friendly, maybe, in this place and time, but affectionate rather than sexual.

Oooo, Peter was a good kisser. Sparkle was happily hitting the tickybox next to Peter in the list of hot guys in his brain. It was a 'good kisser' tickybox. And if he was wearing a silly little grin as he leaned back when the kiss was through...

Hey, it could be an affectionate friend kiss and still have Sparkle smiling like an idiot, okay? Damn.

It could definitely be that. It might have Peter trying not to laugh at the look on his face, though.

"Good enough to make up for stupid plants?" he teased.

"Yeeeep," Sparkle said, making an extra popping sound with his lips on the 'p.' "Goddamn, Peter, congratulations on your mouth."

Seriously. Why was everyone here such a fucking great kisser anyway?

... Besides experience.

Five hundred years of experience, yeah. (There hadn't been much opportunity in Hell.)

Peter laughed. "Thanks. I've had it all my life; I'm pretty happy with it."

"Treat it well," Sparkle quipped. "It is a good mouth, it deserves all the best in life."

Did the narrative mention that Sparkle was a fan? Because fan. Resigned to never being kissed again by that mouth, maybe, but even so. Oooo.

"I'll do what I can," Peter promised. "See, right now I'm giving it tea." He hoisted his cup and took a sip, then frowned. "Cold tea. Wait, I can fix this."

He concentrated and drew out a bit of fire from the air, spelling it into a ball of heat and setting the cup in it. After a moment, he picked it up and sipped again. Better.

He picked up the ball of heat and offered it to Sparkle, smiling. "How about yours? Need a warm up?"

Sparkle didn't even care if his drink was cold, he was holding his cup out toward Peter, wide-eyed.

"... I need to learn how to do that."

Peter sent the ball of heat to Sparkle's cup and thought about it. "It doesn't take a lot of power to do it. It's more sort of...condensing things, like holding a magnifying glass under the sun. Do you know if you have any magic?"

"Uuum," was Sparkle's super intelligent reply. It was followed up with a blink. And then a shrug. "Beats me. I'm not really from a place where we think about real magic, so much."

"I could try and show you, if you want," Peter offered. "I'm not much of a teacher, though."

"... I mean, I bet you like ten bucks I've had worse teachers," Sparkle countered, squinting a little. "If it's something I even can learn, I mean..."

If nothing else, he'd save a fortune on lighters.

"Hm. Well..." Peter tried to think of a good test. "Maybe let's not start with heat, in case it goes wrong." He fished around in his pockets. "You have a pen?"

The Perk, Tuesday Morning

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