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]

"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.

[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.

[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."

[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."

[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?

[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.

[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.

[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."

[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.

[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.

[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.

[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.

[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.

[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."

[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.

[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.

[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..."

[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.

[myownface]

"Not like it'd matter," Sparkle pointed out, wrinkling his nose as he adjusted the temperature of the water. "It's all fake anyway."

[suitably_heroic]

"Technically, you probably didn't even injure your hand punching a wall like an idiot," Atton said, closing up the microwave and starting the timer.

[myownface]

"Technically, probably," Sparkle muttered. "It still hurts like a sonofabitch, though."

So, that was fun. Sparkle scowled at his hand for a moment for having the audacity to react normally to pain, the jerk.

"Not fair. What's the point of getting stuck in a sim if you still get hurt and hungry and tired like always, anyway?"

[suitably_heroic]

"It's an easy place to stash us while they do who knows what with our bodies," Atton said, faux-cheerfully.

Personally, he was a little more worried about the notion someone might have digitized his memories, or something.

He leaned back against the counter, and gave Sparkle's hand a glance.

[myownface]

"... I was trying not to think about that part," Sparkle muttered, frowning down at his hand. "Thanks."

Turnabout was probably fair play, since Sparkle had pointed the whole thing out in the first place.

[suitably_heroic]

"You're welcome." Atton looked thoughtful for a second longer. "There's probably some actual disinfectant for that in the cabinet above your head," he offered. "I just ran out of bandages last week."

For reasons.

[myownface]

That admission got a speculative glance from Sparkle, but he didn't comment so much as he muttered a "Thanks," and reached up to go rummaging. At this point, it made sense to at least do that much. Whether the injury was real or not, he really had no interest in seeing if he could get some kind of nasty infection while he was in here.

"So, everything kind of sucks."

You know. Just in general.