fandomhigh | Fandom High Welcome Picnic, Front Lawn of the School, All Day: Part I

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!event: welcome picnic

Fandom High Welcome Picnic, Front Lawn of the School, All Day: Part I

The fall semester was about to get into full swing, but summer wasn't about to let go of the island just yet. The sun was out, the temperature was holding steady at a comfortable 80F/27C, and most importantly, the tables were beglittered.

Speaking of tables, there were of course the ones that were filled with a vast array of food and drink, and also the ones with nametags and lists to facilitate the meeting of new roommates and siblings.

There was room to sit, room to sprawl, room to walk around and mingle... and it was a big lawn, so if you needed to get away from the crowd for a bit, room for that too.

[OCD Up! This is part one of the picnic, specifically for meeting siblings, roommates, and teachers. The rest of the picnic is happening here. Since it's outside, the picnic is open to all students, teachers, and townies!]

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Sparkle briefly considered telling Atton that he'd considered just flat-out killing the man.

...

Nah.

"I didn't set any fires at all," he confirmed. "I went through a few packs of smokes, though."

And ate a lot of vegan food out of spite.

"Eh, you only have to worry about that in another year or forty," Atton said easily.

He'd have slapped Sparkle over the head if he'd heard about the killing people thing, except he didn't really have a leg to stand on to give anyone crap over that. "So, then you got out of there and came back...?"

"After a day trip to the spa," Sparkle agreed, shrugging his shoulders. "Here safe and sound in one piece."

He paused for a long moment, before adding, with a sigh, "Dr. Lecter offered to adopt me. Like. Officially. On paper."

IT HAD BEEN CHEWING AT HIM FOR DAYS, OKAY?

"What."

Atton was going to kill him.

Lecter, that was. Not Sparkle.

Sparkle was going to just... pocket his lighter again and maybe bury his face in his hands.

"I didn't say yes," he said quickly. "I mean, I didn't... say... no... either. But I didn't say yes. I just, like, it's too little too late anyway, you know? I don't know. What's it even do for me now?"

"He's a creep, Sparkle," Atton said flatly. "He's a creep who dragged you across the city to teach you a 'lesson' by throwing you at your dad and then offered you the one thing you wanted all your life. You say no. You say no and you run in the other direction, real fast."

Sparkle sighed again and bunched up a bit at the shoulders.

"He offered first, then threw me at my dad," he said, as if that changed... basically anything. "I don't... I mean... I know he's..."

He bit the inside of his cheek, not willing to go there.

"He's a lot of things. But he's been there. Which doesn't excuse this, but it makes it harder to just... like... ignore."

"Look, people don't do things like this if they're not trying to mess with your head," Atton said. "Take it from someone who's had his head messed with. A lot. He knows you, knows you can be volatile or go bouncing off in all kinds of directions. Gives you an offer like that, then shoves you into a volatile situation."

He stuck his hands in his pocket. "You really want someone like that to be tied to you for the rest of your life?"

Sparkle swallowed, hating just how tight his throat felt when he did so. Ugh. Ugh, feelings.

"I didn't say yes," he said again, a little lamely. "I just..."

Fuck. Fuuuuck, breathing was hard. He wasn't going to cry, damn it, but breathing was hard.

"I know there's a lot going on there. I know he offered me the one fucking thing I've almost died for a chance at in my life, and I know he did it too late to make any damn difference anyway. Like, that was it. I aged out. Time's up, there's no happy ending, I wasn't wanted until it wasn't going to mean anything anyway, but you know how hard it is to say no? To have someone give an offer like that when it's the one thing I spent my life chasing?"

"Yeah, I know," Atton said. He eyed the picnic, sensing what Sparkle was holding back, unsure how hard he wanted to push on it. "I also know it ended with a lot of dead bodies when I said yes. Not that I know if that's what Lecter's creepy deal is, I just know he has one. Anyway, it's not like nobody's wanted you around these past couple of years, Sparks."

Sparkle did know Lecter's creepy deal. Which kind of made him feel all the more conflicted about this.

He stared down at his toes.

"I know," he said, quietly. "Even he pointed out the whole... you know... found family thing. And the people I have are my whole fucking world, never thought I'd get this much. So it feels... I don't know. Fucking selfish to wish I'd been able to get both."

Which was a weird place to be coming from. Feeling selfish for wanting a family and friends.

"It's not selfish, it's normal, probably," Atton said. "But like you said, it's too late, and we're what you've got. And I mean, you've got at least one manly, awesome, dashing friend, so you're doing a whole lot better than some people."

He fidgeted for a second, then drew his lighter out of his pocket.

"I've got at least one manly, awesome, dashing shithead friend," Sparkle agreed, giving a soft laugh that wasn't entirely as heartfelt as he'd have liked. "But he's got my back. So... there's that."

He pulled his own lighter out. His not-quite-father's lighter out. Flicked it open and shut a few more times.

"It's funny," he said, idly. "There was a minute there, when I was staring down at the guy who looked like my dad but wasn't really, that I was... like, angry. Fucking furious that it wasn't actually him. There I was supposed to deal with my shit, and I had to make do with some cheap knock-off dad instead. I don't know what I would've done with the real thing, though. It wouldn't have been pretty, I'm sure."

Atton reached for a cigarette in his inner pocket. "It's definitely more satisfying when it's the real thing," he said. "Nothing else is quite that sharp."

"Nothing else left scars quite like he did," Sparkle said. He wasn't completely certain he'd ever actually talked so frankly about his father to Atton like this. Just then, it didn't seem to matter. "If it had really been him, I might've taken stupid to a fucking eleven, though. I don't think I could've held back, once I stopped freaking out."

There was an ugly piece of him deep down that was disappointed he couldn't have. He didn't know what to do with that piece. He wasn't sure he cared about it.

Atton let out a deep sigh. He popped the cigarette between his lips and lit it. "I don't think so either," he said, took a pull, and let out a breath; it was full of smoke this time.

"So it's a good thing he didn't manage to track down the real one," he said. "Sometimes it's better to just leave some scars for what they are."

Like the big one across Atton's shoulder.

"I don't think he would've gone looking for the real thing," Sparkle noted, tiredly. "He picked a reality I didn't exist in for a reason."

And wow, the reason he didn't exist in that one was... loaded.

"But yeah. Yeah, it's a good thing. I'm glad about that. And pissed off. And it's a weird fucking place to be and I hate it."

So, there was that.

"I have a few six packs left in the fridge," Atton offered. He looked Sparkle over, the Force helping a little bit to take some stock. "This is never simple," he said. "It feels good when you can go off like a rocket on someone who screwed up your life, even if they're not the real thing. And most of the time, it doesn't actually fix anything, it just drags things back to the surface you spent a lot of time burying. The kind of things that, unlike in the holos, don't actually die when they touch sunlight."

Beat.

"So cut yourself some slack. And if you ask me, Lecter doesn't get to be rewarded for putting you through all that."

The hell of it was, Sparkle was still mostly certain that in his own predatory kind of way, Hannibal had actually done this for Sparkle's own sake. Right down to that offer he'd made. It was fucked-up, it hurt like a bitch and it was a vastly shitty thing to have done, but it made some kind of twisted ugly Hannibal-sense that Sparkle hated and respected in weirdly equal measures. But that wasn't something he wanted to pick at just then, either, so he gave Atton a tired twist of a smile and then reached into his pocket for his own smokes and lit one up with a nod.

"Yeah," he settled on. "I could kill a few beers right now in good company, get all this shit out of my head for a while. We can watch something stupid on Netflix and bitch about whatever they get wrong or something."

Edited 2017-08-28 18:40 (UTC)

Yeah, show Atton a manipulative asshole and he'd show you someone who probably really believed they were doing it for the right reasons. He'd loved three of them in vastly different ways, and twice it had ended poorly for him.

And sometimes, he still wasn't sure how he felt about the way Meetra had just climbed into his brain with the Force.

"All right," he said. "I'll even try and pick something that isn't too on the nose. Though if I don't, you deserve it."

"I deserve it," Sparkle agreed, giving Atton a wry smile. "But I totally reserve the right to get stoned and watch Sesame Street if you do."

So there.

Or something.

"Do we even still have weed in the house?" Atton asked, like the responsible adult he was.

"You're asking me, like I don't know where to find weed," Sparkle replied, smirking a bit. "C'mon, man."

Sparkle was like a marijuana bloodhound.

Also, he'd stolen it from his fake dad. Hannibal had cautioned him not to smoke it, but fuck it, if there was one thing he remembered his useless old man being picky about...

You knew a wannabe mentor figure was bad when he didn't let you smoke the weed you stole fair and square.

"So you brought some? Fine."

Should they talk about this more? Atton felt like they probably should.

But maybe after Sparks had smoked some, watched some bad TV and gotten some sleep.

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Fandom High Welcome Picnic, Front Lawn of the School, All Day: Part I

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