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]

That actually started a laugh out of Sparkle, so well done, Dante.

"Oh my god," he chuckled, shaking his head. "I can't get pasta how terrible that was."

[rebelseekspizza]

"C'mon, you know it ravs your olos," Dante said, smirking. He looked towards Sparkle. "And you're laughing now. Ha."

Gold star Dante.

[myownface]

"And now I'm laughing," Sparkle confirmed. "Jerk."

He meant that affectionately. He was, after all, still smiling as he said it.

"... I needed that."

[rebelseekspizza]

"Ah, you'll be all right," Dante said, the smirk weakening into something more reminiscent of a smile. "You've lived here for how long? You're probably sturdier than you look."

[myownface]

"... Like, over four years now," Sparkle replied, sounding a touch bewildered about that. "Gross."

There was no escape from this place. He'd never lived anywhere for that long.

[rebelseekspizza]

"Sounds like you were made to survive this shit after all," Dante pointed out.

[myownface]

"Nah," Sparkle replied. "But I'm practically a pro at aftermath by now."

Surviving the things that wanted him dead had been a long series of flukes and having friends who were better equipped for this shit than he was.

[rebelseekspizza]

Dante shrugged. "You're around for the aftermath to show up," he said. "'s all you need to qualify."

Making the right friends was a skill, too.

[myownface]

Overall, those were not bad qualifications, Sparkle supposed.

"I... guess so..." He was dubious, but dubious was still a step up from traumatized. "That part is important, yeah."

It was hard to be around for the aftermath if you were dead, generally.

[rebelseekspizza]

Dante bit back a because a lot of other people don't make it at the last fucking second. No, that was probably a bad place to go.

"So cut yourself some slack," he said. "Shitting hell, Sparkle. You're like a normal people-shaped badass in the surviving-Fandom department."

[myownface]

These days, Sparkle really wanted to just be a normal people-shaped normal person surviving Toronto.

He'd kind of hecked up on that one.

"Okay," he replied, shrugging. "I am not unlike a surviving Fandom god. Does it still count if what happened was, like, nowhere near Fandom?"

Not that he'd never been kidnapped or stabbed on the island, either, granted.

[rebelseekspizza]

Yeah, well. Things always seemed better where you weren't, right? Dante, himself, would've killed to be a normal people-shaped normal person surviving Fandom. He might have superpowers and innate fighting skills, but he was still way more familiar with the sight of his own insides than anyone his age had any right to be.

Regardless of that, though, he just shrugged again. "I don't know," he said. "How Fandomy was this not-on-Fandom?"

[myownface]

Sparkle heaved a sigh, shrugging his shoulders.

"Kidnapped by a crime syndicate, held hostage so the government wouldn't get too close? And then lots of death happened."

... Not actually all that Fandomy.

"In space."

Slightly more Fandomy.

[rebelseekspizza]

There was a long pause.

"I'm starting to think I shoulda packed drinks today," Dante ventured.

[myownface]

"There aren't enough on the island, man." Sparkle took another pull of smoke from his cigarette. "Trust me, there just aren't."

Take it from a surviving Fandom badass.