Outside the MCA, Tuesday Afternoon

[myownface]

It had been a week since he'd gotten home, and Sparkle had barely even managed to function since then. Atton had taken off somewhere again, presumably to give him space. Maybe to have some for himself. Hell if he knew. Hell if he knew much of anything, except that gravity was weird here now and apparently something Fandom-fucked-up had happened

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[rebelseekspizza]

Dante... had walked out of a class full of issues, into a Hyacinthe full of issues, all while trying to avoid his own issues. Frankly, he was starting to think his original plan - to hole up in his dorm room with Anders and a stack of pizzas for the week - had been the better one.

But fuck it. He was gonna keep on walking.

"Yo, Sparkle," he called, as he noticed a familiar figure up ahead. "Smoke break?"

[myownface]

Oh, Dante. If you were hoping to avoid issues, today...

"Smoke break," Sparkle called back, after a pause long enough to actually work up the oomph to do any sort of calling. "Getting my fresh air, you know?"

Coming outside for fresh air was way more effective without the cigarettes, Sparkle.

[rebelseekspizza]

The mun universe was punishing Dante for making fun of Jono's wedding troubles. He was going to conclude that later on. Though not yet.

"Fresh air definitely makes it easier to get the smoke out," Dante agreed, unaware yet of anything weird going on here. "What's up? Haven't seen you in a while."

[myownface]

And there you went, Dante. Stepping right into it, up to the knees.

Sparkle shrugged and offered Dante his cigarette, in case he wanted a drag. Because pfff, worrying about age restrictions was for other people.

"Yeah, I've been out of town," he replied, a master of understatement when he was trying to skirt around basically anything. "There was a... thing? With a friend. In space."

A beat.

"I am so fucking done with space."

[rebelseekspizza]

Some days, Dante lived by the grace of people conveniently forgetting he was only seventeen. The circumstances weren't quite so dire for him this go around - ignoring shitty memories was a hard-won skill on his part - but he took the cigarette anyway, taking a quick drag, and handing it back with a "Thanks."

He looked at Sparkle curiously. "Space, huh? What's up with that?"

He had many skills and qualities. A knack for the subtle approach was not one of them.

[myownface]

Sparkle huffed a little, something kind of edging onto a laugh, if laughter had nothing like mirth in it and was most commonly employed by guys who wanted to just burn everything down.

"My-" Best friend. Brother. "-roommate is from one of those realities that has casual space travel. I just got back from the best fucking all-expenses-paid tour of his galaxy. Free room and board, meet motivated new people, that sort of thing."

He hated it he hated it he hated it...

[rebelseekspizza]

Dante snorted, fishing around his pocket, trying to track down the like one cigarette he still had on him - fuck, he was supposed to get his paycheck soon, right?

"Why am I getting the idea you mean that in the Jim Bund kind way?"

[myownface]

"... Complete with monologuing supervillain and a brilliant plan that can't possibly backfire?"

Sparkle gave Dante a wry - too fucking tired - smile and offered him his pack of smokes.

"Yeah, something like that. But I don't even really rate secret agent. Hell, I don't even really rate Bund babe."

Because they tended to be badass secret agents and assassins and things. Whereas Sparkle was mostly just the guy who started singing 'Cabaret' as the firing squad lined up their shots.

[rebelseekspizza]

Dante shrugged. He snagged a cigarette out of the pack, muttering another quick thank you, then produced a cheap-ass Bic lighter from his pocket.

"Sucks," he offered. "Guess you need to start practicing your one-liners."

He was looking at Sparkle with concern, though, in spite of the light snark.

[myownface]

"Can't hurt," Sparkle agreed, though a lot of his usual cockiness was missing. Dammit. He pulled a deep drag from his cigarette, frowning up at the sky.

It was a nice, normal sky. He liked that about it, anyway.

"Shit, usually I can't keep my mouth shut to save my life. One-liners probably aren't my problem."

Okay, he'd kind of given up on those after one such attempt at levity got Atton roughed up. So in that sense, they sort of were a problem.

[rebelseekspizza]

Dante lit his cigarette and took a long drag.

Shitting hell, he'd walked right into another one of these things. The amount of wish-I-could-help-but-not-sure-how he had in his system was going through the roof.

"Maybe you should practice... something?"

Fuck.

"Fuck," he muttered, because just thinking it wasn't enough. "You doing okay there?"

[myownface]

"I don't know," Sparkle replied, quietly. And then he shook his head and said it again, a little more loudly, a little more emphatically, for good measure. "I don't fucking know. Atton and Leto were both teaching me how to fight, you know? Because I am exactly the sort of person who ends up in shit like this. If I can't reach my knives or there are blasters going or I get fucking stabbed, I can't... like..."

He shook his head and then spat on the ground.

"It's bullshit. I'm not made for any of this bullshit."

[rebelseekspizza]

Dante gave that a faint shrug, digging around in his head for something useful to say. Definitely retreating to pizza-and-home after this, 'cause it was just that kinda day.

But not until he tried to help, like, somehow. Or something. Whatever. He wasn't a helpful guy, just--

Mrgh.

"Getting in trouble? Getting in a fight?" he ventured finally. "'Cause I gotta tell you, no one's got enough training to always walk out of either of those okay."

[myownface]

"Wouldn't have minded at least not having a fucking breakdown while they were trying to kill me," Sparkle muttered, head down. "I mean, I understand realistic expectations, and I know I was in over my fucking head, but god, maybe I could've at least given dignity a fucking try."

Nah. Nope. Dignity was for other people.

"I always thought my life was fucked up, you know? And then my life actually got fucked up, and... fuck. How do you even, like..." He shook his head. "I've been hiding for a fucking week. Because, I don't know, maybe the dead spacemen will come get me."

[rebelseekspizza]

"That's not weird," Dante said quietly. He still had no idea exactly what happened, but-- he was getting some kind of vague impression of magnitude, at lest. "That's just-- it's not weird. It's normal. I mean, not normal as in fuck, it happens to everyone all the time, just--"

He gave a faint wave of his hand.

That kind of normal. Things normal people did in fucked up situations, normal.

[myownface]

Sparkle was way too normal for Fandom, and coming to the realization that he'd burned all of his bridges when it came to the one place he did consider normal had been hitting him hard, this week.

"Normal fucking sucks," he decided. In case there was any question about that. He was mostly managing to not sulk, at least. Or have a breakdown or something. He was pretty sure Dante did not need him getting snot all over him, here.