Just Outside MCA, The Matrix, Shortly After Zinyak's Broadcast, Thursday

[suitably_heroic]

Several hours of searching his apartment - when he and Cara had gotten back, and again this morning - and then the greater premises of the MCA building, such as the lobby - and Atton had finally found a weapon.

Which was to say he had a broom.

He put his foot down on the head as he stepped outside and violently yanked the stick part out of it. "So what I'm gathering from this," he said, looking up at... wherever that voice had come from, just to make sure he was listening, "is that there's finally someone we can beat the poodoo out of."

They had taken all of his weapons, they had taken the Force out of his head, and they had taken the Ebon Hawk. Atton might not have been Sith anymore, but damn if he wasn't strongly inclined to make sure someone was going to die. Screaming. For this. "And then to finish up, I think I'm going to kick this Zinyak guy in the nuts."

[[ open, though some sp warning applies! ]]

Comments

[myownface]

"Where people have money," Sparkle agreed. "And it's more obvious that we're not, you know... well-to-do or whatever. There's that disparity there."

And, you know, there were things like break-ins and stuff that hadn't been happening before. That too.

[suitably_heroic]

And that is why you had to be subtle, Sparks.

Atton put the other plate down next to the first. "So, what, they can throw you guys out?"

And what the hell did that have to do with that whole production of Useless: the Stage Play that went on out there?

[myownface]

"Lewis seems to think so," Sparkle muttered. "He's pretty much already given up. He's just not saying it in as many words. And Raine's got it through her head that Lewis has, like, crazy amounts of money he gets for taking care of us, thanks to that old bitch she's been hanging around with, so while Lewis is dealing with keeping the house, Raine is losing her shit trying to get me to go poking through his filing cabinets with her or something, and I don't have time for this shit."

Maybe he'd get to explaining the freakout, too. You know. At a time.

[suitably_heroic]

"Can't she go poking through the filing cabinets herself?" Atton wondered. "I mean, you don't exactly have secret service-level access to this stuff anyway."

[myownface]

"I can pick the office lock," Sparkle explained, shrugging his shoulders. "But I'm not going to go digging. Like, Lewis doesn't need to prove himself to me. If he was making that much money per kid, he wouldn't have needed to run like several businesses on the side just to move us into that house. And it would've happened way sooner. Just, like... I don't know. I guess Raine trusts me or something. It isn't like she gets along with anyone else at the home."

[suitably_heroic]

"Hey, maybe she can move in with the elderly lady and solve both your problems, then," Atton said.

His sense of social responsibility and how that worked for other people was a little wonky, maybe. Still. "Can they actually boot you out of that house anyway? Legally speaking?"

[myownface]

"I don't know," Sparkle sighed. "They're the lawyers, not me."

So... they could probably find a way. Maybe. Which meant... probably no more breaking into places. Sparkle didn't want to exacerbate this.

Boo.

[suitably_heroic]

"I can see that contributing to the 'suckitude'," Atton said, taking a thoughtful bite of that pizza. "Rough."

But it happened.

[myownface]

"Sucks," Sparkle muttered. "So Raine's crazy and Lewis is pissy and now I'm stuck here and... he fucking told me to go watch cartoons."

There was a large part of conversation missing that would explain why that was a shitty thing to hear, but Sparkle didn't feel much like volunteering it.

[suitably_heroic]

Probably a good thing if Sparkle wanted to continue this thing where Atton at least tried to keep his cynicism in check.

"'Cause you were worried about this?" he said. "How old does he think you are, five?"

[myownface]

"Probably roughly five," Sparkle muttered. "And then he went off on me yelling that I should take shit seriously for once, because I don't care about anything, and so I took off. He needed the tie to cool down. I needed the time to cool down. And then I'm here and I can't get back and everything is fucked right now."

[suitably_heroic]

"Well," Atton said, contemplatively, "At least you definitely got 'time to cool down'."

Multitudes of time, even. Bustable kneecaps of time.

[myownface]

At least, like, three or four of some measurement of time or another.

"Lucky me."

Sparkle dabbed at his hand a little more, and then checked to see if the bleeding had at least slowed down enough that he could start eating.

[suitably_heroic]

"You do take all the house poodoo pretty seriously, though," Atton said, taking a bite of his pizza with no regard whatsoever towards Sparkle's current ability to eat or lack thereof.

[myownface]

"Well, yeah," Sparkle replied, shrugging and putting the toilet paper back on his knuckles. "If we lose the house, that's, like, a dozen of us who have no idea where we're going to end up next. Like, we might be with Lewis somewhere else, or we might get passed out to foster homes and some of those kids need each other. We're the closest to family that some of them are ever going to have. It's not just a house."

[suitably_heroic]

"You should probably stop breaking into things for a while, if the situation's that bad. Maybe then your Lewis will stop whining about your commitment to the art of Taking Things Seriously, too."

[myownface]

"Kind of already figured that, yeah," Sparkle sighed, flopping down into a seat because... mostly because that seemed like the thing to do. "As much as I want to break in and flush all of their expensive shit down the toilet in the dead of night, I don't need to give them more ammunition. That's what they want, right now."

[suitably_heroic]

"Made their minds up, now they want the proof to go along with it," Atton agreed. He finally gave in and dumped a slice on a plate for Sparks, then offered it to him. "Sorry."

[myownface]

Sparkle shrugged, and then reached for the plate with his good hand while letting the toilet paper balance precariously on the back of his other one.

"Thanks. And... I dunno. Whatever. It's stupid, but it's not over. We just need to... I don't know... appeal to the right people, or something. It could be... worse...?"

It was already kind of worse. Their brains had been hacked and Sparkle was eating sim-pizza while bleeding from his, what, brain-hand? This was all stupid and weird.

[suitably_heroic]

"The house could be on fire," Atton said.

Encouragingly.

One day he'd reflect on this conversation and have an aneurysm.

[myownface]

"Ha, yeah," Sparkle snorted. "And then nobody gets to have it."

He was going to internalize this. Really. Not that arson hadn't already been one of Sparkle's favourite 'fuck the system' hobbies, granted, but in this one instance...

[suitably_heroic]

"And half of you would be dead," Atton said. "That would definitely be worse."

[myownface]

"... Yeah, maybe preferably the house would be empty before it went up in flames," Sparkle noted.

He'd internalize that, too.

"Now I kind of want to see how much shit these Zin assholes flip if I start running around and lighting places on fire, though."

Way more satisfying than breaking windows!

[suitably_heroic]

"You know, the house being on fire is supposed to be a bad thing in general, a that-would-be-worse," Atton said. "Don't set the house on fire."

Since apparently Sparkle needed help grasping that, or something.

"...Don't set anything on fire here without backup, just in case those soldiers show up again."

[myownface]

"Fiiine."

There was a pause. A long, thoughtful sort of pause that held a world of possibility in there.

"... Atton?"

You were about to be asked to be backup, Atton. You knew that, right?