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Demon Marcus, Sunday

This year was going to be different.

Yes, Sparkle was well aware that the switching of a calendar from one year to the next was really just an arbitrary marker of the continuation of the steady passage of time, and that any one grouping of around three hundred and sixty five days was more or less the same as the next, fundamentally. Something as commonplace as the passage of time from one day to the next didn't automatically wipe the slate clean and guarantee an improvement in the days ahead.

And you know what? He'd heard that fucking argument from so many people who thought they were sooooo much better than the people who were hoping for an improvement in the new year, he was pretty sure that if he heard it one more time he was going to punch something and scream. Or type at them loudly in all-caps. Sure, the simple passage of time from one year to the fucking next wasn't going to change anything. Of course it wasn't. But the New Year had been traditionally used as a symbolic starting point for people to choose to change things themselves since for-fucking-ever, and if Sparkle wanted to use today as an easy-to-refer-to marker for the change he wanted to see in himself, he was going to just go right ahead and do that, high-and-mighty haters with their heads up their asses be damned.

This year was going to be a better year. The world could throw 2016: Part Two at him, and if he had any say in the matter, he wouldn't be caught off-guard by it this time around. He'd stand up and clench his fist and yell in its stupid fucking face. Then he'd save his own damn self for a change, or remind himself that this too shall pass, or, in an unprecedented turn of events, remember that for once in his life he wasn't alone, and he'd ask somebody for help.

2016 was over, 2017 was going to be better, and Sparkle was going to kick it off by leaving a postcard that he'd photoshopped himself that morning, of Milady the Fish in his tank taking in last night's ball drop in New York, for Alluka to find on her next shift. Then maybe he'd contemplate his lesson plan, or take inventory on the winter clothes while the weather was more or less behaving itself.

Or just take a little while to breathe.

[OOC: Open! OCD-free because pfft, starting 2017 on a lazy note works just fine for me.]

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As they hadn't spoken in a while, Leto called Sparkle. Not that he particularly needed a reason, but he knew the new year had been celebrated, so perhaps wishing him a year of fewer traumatic events, on or off the island, would be appropriate?

Considering the way the last year had gone, and the fact that to Sparkle, Leto was easily one of the most redeeming parts of the whole year, the gesture was much appreciated. Sparkle actually had a bit of a happy note in his voice as he answered the phone.

There was something oddly freeing about deciding to do better.

"Hey! Leto!"

"Hello Sparkle. I know it's the time to wish you a happy new year."

Hearing Sparkle sounding happy on the phone was always a bit of a relief to him.

"Thank god," Sparkle laughed, sounding weirdly relieved about it all. "The last one was eventful, dammit. I just want a boring year for a change. Well. Not completely boring. How are you? I got your gift."

A knife! A pretty one! Sparkle had so many knives on him these days.

Okay, his count was up to three. But one had saved his ass last year, so he wasn't going to look a gift knife in the mouth, either. Especially not from somebody who cared.

Perhaps Leto wasn't that creative when it came to gifts, but a knife was always useful, wasn't it?

"I am well. I hope you will find use for the gift," Leto said, which was a very Fremen way to response to that. It was also a very Fremen thing to give to a lover, because their idea of romantic was a little different.

Realizing that what he had just said could be interpreted in the wrong way, he hastily added with a laugh: "In a fun but boring way."

Edited 2017-01-01 17:17 (UTC)

"Fun but boring," Sparkle agreed. "Big fan, you don't even know."

He paused for a moment, and then added, a little more tentatively, "I found a use for one of the other ones you gave me, a couple of weeks ago. The exciting but not fun kind of use."

Because it seemed right to let Leto know that one of his gifts had kept Sparkle alive.

"Then at least it was useful," Leto said calmly. "Which might be the most important thing when it comes to knives. What happened?"

Hadn't Sparkle had his fair share of troubling experiences even before that?

He really had. That entire year had basically been a bust for him.

... Well, mostly a bust. He wasn't complaining about how much his relationship with Leto had grown in that time. Not at all.

"The island... you know. Did one of those messed-up things the island does, sometimes. Pulled everyone to some kind of nasty future where most of the island's population is either forgetting who they are, or turning into monsters bit by bit. I recognized a few. Shit, I think I stabbed Pinkie Pie in the face."

She'd had it coming, in fairness. But that wasn't even the one that was bothering him.

"Pinkie Pie? That is the pink pony, isn't it?" A world where Sparkle had had reason to stab the pink pony must have been a very dark one. "That must have been a very dark world."

"Yeah, Pinkie's the pony." Just wait until he met the island's new Pinkie. He'd be so confused. "And the place was... really dark. People without minds just... wandering the streets, attacking anything that gets too close." He pulled in a deep breath. "I met me, like that. Nothing left. Just violent and hungry."

Leto fell silent for a moment. "That's the worst part, facing something that resembles yourself. Was that another time when the knife was useful?"

Sparkle could have just stabbed the pony, but Leto assumed not.

"Really useful," Sparkle agreed, quietly. "He came at me. I gutted him."

And then he'd spent the next couple of days freaking out. A lot.

"Useful, then," Leto said softly. "I am sorry, Sparkle. I wish you hadn't had to experience something like that."

He wished Sparkle would have called him, or even showed up on his doorstep asking to be comforted, like he deserved to be. Or, perhaps less selfishly, that there was someone here that could do that. That Sparkle hadn't done that wasn't a surprise though.

"Me too," Sparkle sighed. "But... hey. If I was that guy... I mean, if that was me... if I knew I was going to end up like that, I probably would have wanted it anyway."

But Sparkle was bad at seeking comfort, even from the ones he knew would want to give it the most. Something else he'd have to get better at, in the new year.

"I think that is very likely," Leto said. "How was it when the island changed back?"

Leto understood very well the reasons why Sparkle didn't seek the help he needed, but that didn't mean he felt a mix of frustration and sadness when it happened.

"I mean... it was... December?"

Sparkle, that was not at all what Leto was asking and you knew it.

"... And it was rough. Took me a bit to process it all, I guess."

He'd had a sobbing breakdown in the bathroom and stayed in there for two full days with a fish.

Sparkle. When you felt like you wanted to spend two days in a bathroom with a fish, you didn't. You called the guy who had said, several times, that he loved you.

"That's not surprising." Leto held back a sigh, held back a Why didn't you call me?. He might not be able to always put Sparkle first, but when something like this happened he would have made whatever he could.

Sparkle was starting to get the feeling like maybe he'd hecked up a bit, there. He shifted his weight from foot to foot, chewed on his lip, and then looked up at the ceiling, pursing his lips a little.

"... I should have called, shouldn't I?"

Duh, Sparkle. Duh.

Leto decided to consider this response as a step in the right direction.

"If you wanted me to comfort you, then yes. " He added with a soft laugh: "I'm sure Hania would have wanted to do that too."

"I bet you both would have been great at it, too," Sparkle replied, giving a soft huff of a laugh of his own. "I... I mean. I can't say it didn't occur to me to try. I wanted something. I just sometimes have trouble figuring out what. Or I convince myself I shouldn't for stupid reasons..."

Being needy and fiercely independent at the same time was messy business.

"I know, Sparkle. It's just something I want to do for someone I love."

Leto leaned back against the cushions on the couch where he was sitting,

"I hope things have been peaceful since then, at least."

He really hoped that.

"They have," Sparkle replied, sighing softly and leaning back against the counter. "I mean, like, eventful, but not in a bad way. I guess I apparently lost my mind and put in an application to teach at the school this semester. Which... is weird."

That was good news!

"You are?" Leto let how he felt about this be audible in his voice. "What are you teaching?"

Okay, that was reassuring all on its own.

"Urban survival. Um... like... living in cities, homeless. I figured I would teach what I knew."

He could have taught about Pop Tarts for a whole semester and this is what he went and did.

"That is always a good choice, and I'm sure you know more than most on that subject."

Hania would have preferred the Pop Tart class, but she wasn't a student.

"When are the classes starting? Ghanima isn't teaching this semester so I haven't kept track of it."

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