The Perk, Saturday Morning

[myownface]

Thanks to some portal delays, Sparkle had been a little too late to really catch the party last night when he'd made his way to the island. He hadn't been too late to miss the moment that the change had swept over Fandom's denizens, however, and he'd taken one look around his surroundings, given a little huff of a laugh, and booked himself a hotel

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[suitablyheroic]

So there had not been coffee in Atton's old apartment. Go figure.

It wasn't that he hadn't picked up on the familiar Force presences here, but it was kind of par for the course, came with the island.

So bleary-eyed Atton would not be greeting Sparkle as he stumbled in; he had to bark out "Caf-- I mean, coffee," first.

[ sp but la ]

[myownface]

Aww, Atton. Sparkle had been a bit preoccupied these last couple decades, or else he would have made a point to make certain there was at least a pizza and some instant coffee powder waiting for you, there.

As it stood, he was just leaning back in his seat, taking a mouthful of his coffee, and smirking.

"Make sure you put something healthy in it," he called to the barista. "He loves that."

[suitablyheroic]

"Twenty years and you're still an asshole," Atton said, without looking his way just yet. Of course it'd be the expletives he didn't even have to think about twice. "How do you even make coffee healthy?"

[myownface]

"Decaffeinate it and make it using, I don't know, broccoli water," Sparkle theorized, grinning. "It'd taste like shit, and wouldn't even wake you up."

Sparkle could ruin a perfectly good thing with very little effort at all when the occasion presented itself, yes.

[suitablyheroic]

Atton opened his mouth to shoot something back, but then he noticed the grin on the barista's face as she stared over his shoulder. He pulled a face.

"He's gay, sweetheart," he said, and sighed, putting down some extra money for whatever Sparkle had gotten out of her.

Then he grabbed his new coffee and turned around, flipping Sparkle the bird in the process.

[myownface]

"Aw, come on," Sparkle groused, rolling his eyes even as he cheerfully shot Atton a middle finger right back. "She didn't need to know that."

Shameless. Sparkle was shameless. Completely and absolutely.

[suitablyheroic]

"Okay, so there's two things I could say to that," Atton said, making it over there, coffee in hand.

"One, I'm a Jedi, you're lucky I haven't arrested you yet," not that he ever would. "And two," he added, sinking into a seat opposite Sparkle, "I taught you, what, twenty-five percent of what you know? Don't lecture me."

That was a large part of the 'not that he ever would'.

[myownface]

"I'm not lecturing, I'm complaining," Sparkle replied. "There's definitely a difference, there. And there's nothing illegal with accepting free food on account of being charming, and then taking exception with law enforcement going and crushing a lovely lady's hopes and dreams. I'm pretty sure. At least, not around here."

Not much was illegal around here.

"I checked."

That was more or less what high school had been about, after all. Seeing where the limits were.

[suitablyheroic]

"Yeah, yeah, and I bet that's all you've been up to," Atton said dryly.

He took a sip of his coffee.

"What have you been up to?"

Between Sparkle being Sparkle, and the job being the job, it'd been... a while. Not that long, he was pretty sure. But still, a while.

[myownface]

"I am in America and I reserve the right to plead the Fifth," Sparkle chuckled, shaking his head. "Shit you'd probably arrest me for, though."

Because as if he was worried Atton was going to arrest him here. C'mon.

"So, how's Jedi life been treating you lately?"

[suitablyheroic]

"Dully," Atton muttered. He took a sip of his coffee. "I'm dragging the latest batch of wannabe Padawans through their lightsaber initiation. There's only so many times you can tell an eight-year-old not to cut anyone's hands off before you start missing being in mortal danger all the time."

[myownface]

Eight years old. Sparkle just shook his head a bit.

"Jedi," he replied, like that meant something. And it kind of did, yes. Even after all this time, it was difficult to place Atton in the role he'd stepped into, in his head. A stint in prison really hadn't helped with that, granted. "They're doing okay, though? The kids?"

Shut up, yes, these were the things he worried about.

[suitablyheroic]

Atton rolled his eyes and shrugged.

"I don't know, they seem happy," he said, "I just teach them how to wave sticks of plasma around without removing anything they don't want to remove."

He liked working with the teenagers better. He didn't have to worry as much about breaking anything in, like, someone's head that way.

"You big softie."

[myownface]

"I'm not that soft," Sparkle protested, though there wasn't any heat in it. Hell, he had a strict personal code of honour, in that regard. There were certain cons that were completely off-limits, no matter how easy they would be to pull off. Anything that would end up hurting a kid in any way?

Yeah. Right out. He much preferred to fuck over the same sort of people that had screwed him over, once upon a time.

"Just, you know. Kids are kids. They need a different approach from the older ones, that's all."

[suitablyheroic]

"Which is, again, why I don't deal with that part," Atton said, waving vaguely with his cup.

"I never got the big deal."

Or it terrified the hell out of him, whichever. His family didn't have a great record with child-rearing.

[myownface]

"What, the big deal with kids?" Sparkle's eyebrows twitched up a bit. "Like, beyond how our entire species would go extinct if people didn't keep making them, and all?"

Which he was still perfectly happy to leave up to somebody else, but still. Children were sort of important.