Pick Your Poison, Wednesday

[myownface]

Sparkle came in to work today twenty minutes late and immediately set to cleaning the place.

It didn't need much in the way of cleaning, but didn't today seem like a good day to just, like, deep scrub the floors?

Sure did.

Pick Your Poison was open, and it had a door open because otherwise someone was going to get high on cleaning solution fumes, and that was not actually the goal here today.

[OOC: Open!]

Comments

[myownface]

"It would..." Sparkle kind of hung on that for a moment. "... I'd probably cry."

Well. That was three words of brutal honesty, right there. Shit.

"And now I'm worried that if I do, maybe I am oversensitive," he added, in a much quieter mutter.

Sparkle, your best friend's guts had been burned into by a blaster bolt.

[spectre_alenko]

Kaidan ...growled. There was no other word for that noise, really. He invaded Sparkle's personal space and pulled him into a hug. "She's a bitch, and she's wrong," he all but snarled, "You're lucid, which is better off than I'd be if it were one of my friends, and I dare her to say that about me. I'd 'oversensitive' her head straight off her fucking neck."

[myownface]

Sparkle made a little "Mmm--?" As he was pulled into that hug, mostly surprised by it. It was nice in a big protective kind of way, the way he used to think hugs from Lewis had been, back when he'd been head-over-heels for the man.

He blew out a little breath, anyway, and ducked his head, and muttered, "She just... fucking assumed it was nothing. Didn't even know why I was crying all over you, but I was clearly having an oversensitive episode or something, that time we first met. That's why I've been so pissed off about it. It was never about fucking tea."

This was a lot easier than talking about Atton. He still wanted to scream and cry and hit things, when it was about Atton. Seivarden was a good distraction, if temporary.

[spectre_alenko]

Big and protective, he could do. He tilted his chin and stared down at the top of Sparkle's head, "I don't think she'd have understood if you'd told her. I don't think she's capable of empathy."

[myownface]

"She is," Sparkle muttered, "when she doesn't have her head so far up her own ass that she can inspect her own tonsils. She gets things, when she wants to. She just never wants to. And that's what makes it so fucking frustrating when she pulls shit like that."

He huffed out a little breath, pressing his face into Kaidan's chest and muttering, "I'm oversensitive because every time she sees me upset, it's because of some bullshit she's pulled and she can do no wrong, that's all."

[spectre_alenko]

His arms tightened a little. "You're not. She's wrong. You have a right to your feelings. It's ok to cry when you're upset, angry, in pain. If people in her universe think it's not, then they're just seriously fucked up and thank god I'm not from there. I go to fucking pieces when my friends are hurt. In the moment, I'm good and useful, but the second I have to sit there helpless, waiting on a doctor or just waiting on time? I'm a wreck."

[myownface]

Sparkle had seen Seivarden cry too, was the hell of it. He frowned, and closed his eyes, and then tried like hell to bite back a little mewling sound in the back of his throat, to little avail.

"I hate it," he complained. "The being useless. Everyone else here can fucking hold their own and I get to be the one who doesn't get told shit because I'll go get myself killed, and then I get phone calls at work, oh, your best fucking friend's gotten hurt again, there's even a chance he won't die and there's fuck-all I can do about that either. What the fuck can I do? I can clean floors."

[spectre_alenko]

"As far as Jedi are concerned, it's their job to protect everyone else," Kaidan said, "It's annoying, I agree. I'm a soldier, I'm trained six ways from Sunday how to kill people, and my best friend would've done the same damn thing yours did, likely for the same damn reason. If he got hurt, there's nothing I could do about it, except be there for him when he got out, and kick his ass up to his shoulders about it once he'd healed up enough for said ass kicking. Sometimes, all you can do, is be the reminder of why they do this stupid hero shit in the first place. You be the reason they fight to come back home." He looked around, "And you burn off the anxiety any way you can. If cleaning is your method, so be it. Starch his damn underwear."

[myownface]

"Cleaning was a better idea than spitefully burning down the temple," Sparkle muttered.

Because it was true on a few different levels, really.

"There's merit to that starch thing, though."

Sparkle, don't starch Atton's underwear.

[spectre_alenko]

"That was definitely a better idea than burning down the place you're living," Kaidan noted dryly, "Especially if that's where they're storing your pickled friend." He seemed almost amused, "Did you clean his room there, too?"

[myownface]

"No," Sparkle sighed. "I should've. Fill his room with houseplants, he'd hate that."

[spectre_alenko]

"Plants are the standard 'sorry you got hurt, get well soon' thing, I hear," Kaidan offered, then shrugged a shoulder, "I preferred whiskey, personally."

[myownface]

"These plants would all have little hats and nametags," Sparkle shared. "I could give him, like, a spider-plant named Delilah or something. It'd drive him nuts."

Atton was frequently exasperated with some of Sparkle's quirks.

Which just made Sparkle double down on them further.

[spectre_alenko]

Kaidan, stop enabling Sparkle's petty.

"Better than a kitten, I suppose," Kaidan ventured.

[myownface]

"Atton hates cats," Sparkle muttered. "I'd have one, but that stupid asshole is more important to me than a housepet, anyway."

Which was why his phone had about a million photos of a fish, instead.

[spectre_alenko]

"Best stick to plants, then. Hat, googly eyes, nametags," Kaidan agreed. "Did the doctors give you a timeline?"

[myownface]

Sparkle shrugged.

"The kolto will work at whatever rate kolto works. It's still a miracle he's not dead, apparently he smacked the ground hard and tore open the burns when he fell."

He squirmed a little, and then exhaled it all in another shaky breath.

"I have no fucking clue. I just want to take him and shake him and I can't."

[spectre_alenko]

"No, for that you have to wait until he's fully healed," Kaidan agreed, "and then you shake him until his teeth rattle. Possibly with shouting."

God knew that's what he'd wanted to do, the few times John had gotten hurt. He hadn't, but only just.

[myownface]

"If I'm pissed enough, maybe he'll give me a freebie," Sparkle mused, and then huffed out a rough little laugh and pulled back, claiming his personal bubble again. "If not, I will clean his room."

[spectre_alenko]

Kaidan let go, now that Sparkle seemed less fragile. "Maybe. I don't really know the guy, I can't say."

[myownface]

"But you brought him dessert," Sparkle noted, faintly bemused. "You trying to butter him up for something?"

[spectre_alenko]

"Not really? I felt I owed him for taking one for the team with Seivarden," Kaidan said, "But if it'll buy enough goodwill for him to tell me about his galaxy, all the better."

[myownface]

"I mean, you get him bitching and you'll get to hear about that for free," Sparkle noted. "Why you wanna know, anyway?"

[spectre_alenko]

"Never met a Twi'lek before Hera," Kaidan shrugged, "She doesn't seem to want to talk about home. I'm curious. This galaxy is close enough to the one I'm from that it's damn near parallel, but theirs? Different, and thus, interesting."

Because he'd never, y'know, asked her about it.

[myownface]

Sparkle tilted his head a little, but shrugged and let that slide.

"It's a lot bigger than I'm used to," he offered. "More dangerous. But that probably has just as much to do with the idiot I run around with. Going around asking other people about a home someone doesn't want to talk to you about seems a little, uh, stalky, though. Which probably isn't what you're aiming for? You seem more decent than that. But you wanna keep an eye out for it, hey?"