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

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! ]]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

suitably_heroic

"And a couple of others, but they slip my mind right now," Atton said. "Weren't you telling me like two months ago this poodoo was half the reason you wanted to get off the island in the first place?"

From:

myownface

"Yeah, of course I was, but that doesn't mean I'm okay with just sitting around being fucking useless while everyone else runs around playing hero," Sparkle mumbled, shoulders still up and showing no signs of coming back down again any time soon. "I fucking hate feeling useless, Atton. Hate hate HATE it when the world is burning around us and all I can do is pretend it isn't while I hang around someplace out of the fucking way."

From:

suitably_heroic

"You're not 'being useless', you're keeping yourself alive, which is pretty much the only responsibility you have here as far as I can see," Atton said. "But hey, you want to join the heroing side of the fence? Fine. Which one of your buddies do you want to get killed, first? That Raine kid, maybe? Hey, Skywalker lost four limbs being useful, and he was trained for it - maybe we can start by chopping off your hand and see where you wind up?"

... His brain had not been a nice place to hang out in, these past couple of days. That was pretty much his only excuse.

From:

myownface

... Which apparently wasn't a good enough excuse for Sparkle, because right around the time Atton suggested he'd get Raine killed, that was juuust about the time he found himself wanting very badly to take a swing at him. Compared to his other options, like storming off or screaming or crying, that one at least seemed to be the most immediately satisfying. And the one most likely to end poorly for him.

He made a fist, and he pulled in a breath. And the swing he took was at the nearest wall, because fuck this shit, even if Atton was being an asshole right now, that was not a fight he wanted today. And if that happened to leave his knuckles bloodied, at least it did wonders for that violent urge he had to take a swing at his best friend's face that wouldn't end up connecting anyway.

"Fuck, sure! Cut off my fucking hand, then! And then let's all wander back to Toronto and I'll hold Raine down for you myself and we can punch Lewis a few times for good measure before just taking a wrecking ball to the house and to Fandom and to fucking everything, fine! I don't care! Okay? Is that what you want to hear? I don't care what happens, I'll go eat your fucking pizza and stay out of the fucking way!"

From:

suitably_heroic

So Atton wasn't used to Sparkle 1) punching stuff and 2) ... whatever that diatribe about caring had been, that thing, he wasn't used to that. It was starting to dawn on him that maybe they were having, like, two completely different arguments here, existing in the same space and meshing all weird.

He kind of remembered this sensation from that weird weekend a few months back, but not the circumstances. That confusion, and the not-being-used-to parts, that was enough to stop him from at least running his mouth with yet another reactionary - sorry, totally valid - argument regarding Sparkle's general squishiness.

"Not really what I was going for," he said, after a beat, because 'uh' would be stupid.

From:

myownface

"I don't care," Sparkle muttered, looking at his hand and frowning. That seemed to be the sticking point one way or the other, didn't it? He cared too much, he didn't care enough, he cared about all the wrong fucking things. "Fuck."

He was bleeding. That was great. But at least he wasn't yelling any more. Now he was mostly just... weird and tired. Way too tired. Way too weird.

He imagined here was where most people felt that visceral, 'I want to go home,' feeling. Mostly he just wanted to go get drunk or throw up or something.

From:

suitably_heroic

Atton let out a sigh.

"See, and I don't have any medpacks on me," he said. "Space, Sparks. What happened to you?"

Because Atton's damage here was more or less common knowledge, globally speaking.

From:

myownface

"Nothing." A beat. "It's stupid." Another beat. "Lewis is getting letters bitching about the home."

A beat, and then Sparkle was wrapping the bottom of his shirt around his oozing knuckles.

"I just didn't want to be there, so I came here, and then all of this started, and I just want to get the fuck out."

From:

suitably_heroic

You're not going to get the fuck out if you get yourself killed running around like you have something to prove, Atton didn't say. Lighting another fire under this particular double-argument didn't seem like the wisest thing to do. Not that he wasn't tempted.

"Join the club," he said instead. "I'm still not entirely sure how this factors into you not caring about anything, but we've been standing outside this building screaming for like five minutes and I'd rather not tempt the bad guys by spilling anyone's guts out here."

From:

myownface

"No gut-spilling, then," Sparkle muttered, peeling the shirt away from his knuckles and inspecting his hand again. He was going to just take a moment to pick at the little bits of skin he'd half torn off, now. "I don't want to talk about it anyway."

Just like any guy who didn't care ought to, right?

From:

suitably_heroic

"Has anybody ever told you you sound really convincing when you use that tone of voice?" Atton said, with a sigh. "C'mon, we'll both grab some fake pizza."

Great. There went his rage-high. ... Actually, it was probably a good thing he was off his rage-high, like, Jedi-code-wise.

From:

myownface

They tended to sort of frown at that kind of thing anyway, yeah.

"Okay, yeah." Sparkle nodded, and started back toward the apartment. Eating fake pizza with Atton's company at least seemed like a step up from eating fake pizza while other people made themselves useful. He could handle this, sure. "Let's do that, then."

And maybe he'd feel a little less like doing something irreparably stupid by the time they were done.

From:

suitably_heroic

Atton looked up at the building - just to make sure the Hawk hadn't suddenly materialized because of their profound sudden lack of an argument, but no. "All right," he said, to be double-clear, and set his broomstick to the side as soon as they walked into the MCA lobby.

"I can pick that up later."

From:

myownface

Sparkle glanced at the broom, and nodded. So long as they were behaving themselves, it was fine. Eating pizza probably didn't require them to be armed and dangerous.

"I won't even bitch about the contents of your fridge this time."

Because presumably, that could be blamed on the aliens and all. Sure.

From:

suitably_heroic

"It's not like anything we eat here is going to have any kind of vitamin content," Atton agreed, "So you wouldn't have a leg to stand on."

Because that was the important part, clearly.

From:

myownface

It was probably better than Sparkle's, 'if our lives are in danger and we might die in here anyway, we might as well enjoy what we eat.'

"So this pizza is essentially going to be pepperoni and ham laid out over cheese on a crust that's really just bacon?"

Which sounded like a horrible life choice, for the record. The Double-Down of pizzas.

From:

suitably_heroic

"Please," Atton said, "Like I'd let a vegetable like cheese on my pizza."

Banter was, you know, easy. He opened his apartment door with keys that at the very least still functioned.

From:

myownface

"... Your pizza is just a steak, isn't it?"

Sparkle needed to check. If only because checking was better than letting himself dwell on things, like how they were heading inside to ignore what was going on out there... in here... all around them. And how his hand hurt, and how everything sucked back home, and Lewis Lewis Lewis and all of the rest of it.

Steak pizza was a good topic.

From:

suitably_heroic

Atton, meanwhile, eyed his apartment with the long-suffering gaze of a man who could recount exactly where all the sniper rifles had been before this thing went down.

"It's a steak with bacon on top and a piece of bread underneath," he agreed. "That's the level of Earth cooking I go for."

From:

myownface

"... You do know there's more vegetable content in the bread than there is in cheese, right?"

Because these were the hot discussion topics, people.

From:

suitably_heroic

"Not if you soak it in steak grease for long enough."

He had perfectly normal Meat Lover's pizza in his fridge. Please.

Atton wandered into the kitchen to poke through his fridge, figuring that food first was a good idea.

From:

myownface

"Ew."

Sparkle watched Atton for a moment, and then wandered into the kitchen after him, heading to the sink to run his hand under the faucet. Sure, he knew what kind of pizza Atton normally stocked, here. That wasn't going to stop him from clinging to this banter for dear life.

"Maybe I'll just pass on the crust and eat the toppings instead..."

From:

suitably_heroic

"And maybe after that, you can go out and strangle something beautiful just because it looked at you all nice," Atton proclaimed. He'd long-since perfected the art of opening his microwave with his elbow, a move he executed entirely flawlessly.

He was really, really glad he hadn't let Skywalker talk him into getting into the habit of doing mundane things with the Force. Right now, that helped.