fandomtownies | Luke's Diner, Saturday

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Luke's Diner, Saturday

Miguel looked at the specials board, then squinted at the chef. He wanted to ask if the guy was really Canadian or just being weird again, but for all he knew, this was an island thing. Heck, maybe everybody in his world was from Canada. At least they weren't all Wolverine.

"That's not a meal," he said firmly instead. "We have to have something else on the menu too."

This job, apparently, was all about the compromises.

Luke's was open!

Today's Specials
Chili cheese dog
Poutine
S'mores milkshake

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Sparkle was having a lazy day. So lazy, in fact, that he didn't want to cook lunch. But so antsy that he didn't want to stay at home, either. And so he figured he'd kill two birds with one stone and just go eat out somewhere.

That somewhere? Luke's.

"... I have questions about your poutine."

Look, Sparkle was Canadian, and he had standards. He had seen poutine go very, very wrong.

Miguel shrugged and waved at the chef. "His idea. What questions?"

Sparkle blinked up, and then waved at the chef, too.

"What kind of cheese?"

The only answer was curds. The squeakier the better.

In answer, the chef set a few curds on a plate and stood with his arms crossed, looking smug.

If they were any squeakier, the island would probably have to be involved.

Miguel stayed out of it. In any "more Canadian than thou" game, he could only lose.

Sparkle picked up one of those curds. Inspected it for a moment. Popped it into his mouth.

And nodded his approval.

"And the gravy?"

The gravy was staying hot in a pan, and Miguel quietly got out a little dish and handed it to the chef.

So staying out of this. He had no opinions on the matter. He was from Nueva York.

Okay, he was curious, he'd admit that much.

Sparkle waited patiently for the gravy to come back to him, sized it up for a second, and then dipped his finger in and sampled it.

"And the fries are hand-cut?"

They had better be, was what he was saying, here.

At that, the cook looked downright affronted, and just raised a knife and stuck it into a potato.

Sparkle squinted in the cook's direction for a long moment. And then just nodded once.

"Gimme."

The cook, still looking smug, started making up a plate.

Miguel just shrugged and got out of his way. "You want anything with that?"

"Just a--" Sparkle paused for a moment, considering just how much he'd hate himself if he said 'Coke' and wound up drinking one of those nasty American syrupy numbers alongside an actually decent poutine. And then he considered beer, because poutine and beer went together like... well... like fries and gravy, really. Before, finally, he settled on, "milkshake? S'mores, really? How does that work?"

Miguel shrugged. "Ice cream, milk, graham crackers, marshmallow syrup and mini marshmallows, chocolate syrup. Sound good?"

Sparkle pursed his lips for a moment, and then shrugged and nodded.

"I'm skeptical about how the graham crackers are supposed to keep from going all mushy," he shared, "but I'm curious enough to want to try it anyway. Sure, let's go with that."

He was going to be so damn full. So. Damn. Full.

"It's pretty thick, so hopefully they don't soak up much." Miguel shrugged. "If they get nasty, I'll make you something else."

He stepped to one side to start working on it.

"So how have you been lately, anyway?"

"I mean, tentatively, I'm gonna say 'okay,'" Sparkle decided, looking thoughtful. "Been busy between the class I'm taking and the class I'm teaching, and I was one of the crazies a few weeks back? So I'm over that now, yay..."

He shrugged a little.

"Still haven't found that missing chicken, though."

He'd tried.

"Ouch. Glad you're doing better; that sucks. Don't worry, I'm sure the chicken'll show up. Probably flying at somebody's face to eat their food."

Hey, he'd seen the vids.

"Well, I mean, maybe," Sparkle said, though he sounded a bit dubious. "Do people usually go out to Selkie Cove to eat their food?"

Hey, Miguel! Guess who had procured those chickens that weird crazy evil Atton had been trying to sacrifice!

"I have no idea." Miguel poured the shake into a glass, stuck a big straw in it, and slid it across the counter to Sparkle. "I thought you didn't know where it was?"

"I know where I left it," Sparkle sighed, shrugging his shoulders and reaching for the milkshake. "And for all I know, she's still out there somewhere around there. But, like, knowing roughly where she might be isn't exactly the same as finding her, catching her, and bringing her back to the animal shelter I stole her from."

No, really, he super felt like crap over this. He stole things all the time, but never a pet.

"Huh."

Miguel was really going to regret this.

"Need some help looking?"

Sparkle kind of paused with the milkshake straw just a hair's width from his lips.

"... I mean, I'm not gonna say no."

He was really worried about that damn chicken. It had been weeks. There had been weather.

"Good eyesight, remember?" Miguel shrugged. "And I know how it sucks to have your brain messed with."

"I hate it," Sparkle muttered, trying not to sound small. "Atton found me after it was all said and done, just sitting stupidly in the Perk, trying to figure out how coffee worked."

"My friends had to knock me unconscious. Then apparently the world ended or something." Miguel grimaced. "I missed it, woke up with a hell of a headache and not knowing what the shock was going on."

So yeah, he could kind of relate.

"That was when I decided to take a break."

"Not a bad time to take a break," Sparkle agreed. "Apparently I decided to double down on my bullshit and teach another semester. Which is probably for the best anyway."

He'd enjoyed breaking into places and stealing things far too much. It was something he was good at, it was the old Sparkle, the one who didn't care. Except that he did. Except that he always had.

He'd still missed it.

Hey, he could always break into Hannibal's place and steal his spoons. Just not drunk.

"Yeah? What are you teaching?"

Noooo. Sparkle had reached a point in his life where his desire to break into places was outweight only by his desire to never be drugged and kidnapped away to Toronto ever again.

"Urban Survival," he replied. And then paused, and fidgeted with his milkshake cup. "Uh, it's kind of a homelessness how-to."

Huh.

Miguel thought about it. "That sounds...useful and depressing."

"Little of both," Sparkle agreed, shrugging his shoulders and returning his attention to his milkshake for a moment. "It's that sort of stuff you want your students to know but never need to use."

"Yeah," Miguel agreed. "Cities can be brutal."

Especially when you had super-powered people actively trying to kill you.

Maybe that was just him.

Funny, Sparkle mostly only had that particular problem in small towns.

"Anywhere there's people," he muttered, and then slurped at his milkshake a little more. "... So. How've you been?"

"Not too bad," Miguel said. "My roommates and I had a New Year's party, pretty low-key, and I've mostly just been working here and hanging out."

"Shit," Sparkle huffed, shaking his head and smiling wryly. "New Year's. There's a thing I didn't give a shit about, for once. Guess that means I'm gonna have to go all-out for Valentine's. My boyfriend's gonna be so baffled."

It would be great. Poor Leto.

"Or, shit, Easter is the same day as April Fool's this year. Unless the island does something completely stupid - you just know it will - I feel like that deserves at least some kind of pranking spree while dressed as rabbits."

Breaking, entering, and swapping out somebody's cutlery with the cutlery of the home he'd busted into before? Breaking, entering, and just leaving chocolate eggs everywhere? Nah, the island already did the egg thing, usually...

"Oh, man." Miguel grinned. "That could be a recipe for disaster."

Or a lot of fun.

But probably disaster.

"I know," Sparkle laughed. "Isn't it great?"

"Let me know when you plan it, and I'll take the holos," Miguel promised.

Sparkle just grinned at Miguel a little for that one.

"I mean, April first."

"All day long?" Miguel asked. "Gonna marathon it?"

"Yeah, definitely gotta marathon that. Easter Fools? How often does that happen?"

It was a special occasion, dammit.

Miguel laughed. "Okay, so midnight. Know where you want to start?"

"Not a friggin' clue!" Sparkle laughed and shook his head. "I'm kind of winging it, here. But I have until April, I'm sure I'll come up with something good."

"True enough," Miguel said.

He was never introducing Sparkle to Morph. Ever.

"How's the milkshake?"

"Too thick to be mushy," Sparkle replied with a grin. "Whaddaya know, right?"

"Good to know." Miguel grinned back.

The cook put a plate up on the divider, and Miguel turned to grab it. "And here's the rest."

He set it in front of Sparkle and eyed it dubiously. "Do you want a fork with that?"

"I mean, yeah," Sparkle replied, also eyeing it dubiously. "How else am I supposed to eat it?"

Chopsticks?

"Hey, for all I know, these are finger food," Miguel said. But he was a bit relieved to get Sparkle a fork, knife, and napkin.

Okay, maybe a small pile of napkins.

Sparkle wasn't sure what he was going to do with a pile of napkins and a knife. It was fries, Miguel. But he just smiled and shrugged and started to dig in, anyway.

"... God, your cook knows what he's doing. Nice."

It was potentially very messy!

"Don't tell him that; he'll be insufferable," Miguel said, grinning. But he was giving the cook a thumbs-up anyway. Credit where it was due.

"I'm still not sure he's really Canadian."

Not if you were eating it off a plate with a fork!

Sparkle shrugged his shoulders. He didn't know either, and really, he didn't care.

"Just so long as he's using actual cheese curds, he's Canadian enough for me," he decided.

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Luke's Diner, Saturday

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