fandomhigh | Summer Camp Wednesday [The Park]

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Summer Camp Wednesday [The Park]

Today's beautiful weather was made for sitting outside and doing craft projects, which was good, because that's what you were doing. A number of tables were set up around the park, each filled with macrame and micro macrame--which was a thing Anakin had learned this week-- supplies: cording of various colors, beads, crystals, and other bits of shiny things (though the supplies were getting depleted as the squirrels kept stealing them), and a few macrame patterns mostly for dresses and other clothing-like items.

Even more worryingly, there was a runway set out down the middle of the area, along with two chairs set aside for judges.

"Right!" Anakin said, yelling into his bullhorn again. "Today you will be working in teams under a one-hour time limit to create a piece of macrame fashionwear. It does not have to be very large--it's not going to be for any of you to wear. The dimensions are provided at your stations, and the models will be arriving shortly."

Anyone have a bad feeling about that? Good.

"This week's winners will win the highly coveted Billy the Bass singing fish--" he glanced around. "Where'd that kriffing thing get off to?" He raised his hand and the fish, propelled by its own power and shrieking Sabatoge flew in from...somewhere.

"...that was odd." He glared at the assembled crowd. "Please refrain from stealing the fish until after the winner is determined this week. Listen carefully for your name and then join your team. You will have an hour to learn how to macrame and then your models will arrive and parade down the catwalk. The winners will be determined by our fashion experts Sparkle and Brooke. Your teams are as follows:

Paris, Seivarden, and Astrid
Peter, Sabine, and Tip
Jason, Ahsoka, and Norman
Verity, Aphra, and Rosa
Bobby, Mitsutada, and Hardison
Liam, Miguel, and Uma
Hannibal, Cristina, and Rufus
Steve, Yang, and Sidon
Amaya, Kitty, and Beaker
Hera, Kanan, and Breq
Jono, Kathy, and Rey
Eliot and Ino

You may begin...now."

And a giant glowing timer that Anakin had gotten from...somewhere... began ticking down the hour.

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"A much better use of my time," Kathy said with a laugh, letting him have the bottle. "But...maybe not exactly what you think."

She'd gotten the crazy Dare version, after all.

Well, that earned a squint, yes. Sparkle tucked the bottle-shaped gift under one armpit, and then tore the paper off of the second one.

"OH SHIT. YES."

It was like this particular Uno creation had been made with him, personally, in mind.

Kathy grinned. "Thought you might like it. I take it to mean we're still on then?" she asked.

"We are so on," Sparkle agreed. "You, me, after the macrame shit is done, or pick another day. Wednesdays I'm at the shop with all the fancy soaps and Sundays I'm at the clothing shop like usual. Otherwise I'm off island for a while."

"Evenings after six I'm in Baltimore at EMT class, but otherwise around," Kathy said. "But I can show up either of your work days and bug you for a game."

Probably on Sundays because she tended to work Wednesdays herself. "Where you staying off-island?"

Dante was right, everybody was leaving.

"Definitely bug me at work, then," Sparkle said cheerfully, before adding, "And, Coruscant. Atton's world. They want him to stay there for a while because shit always has a way of hitting the fan, and I'm there as a buffer to make sure he doesn't strangle anyone, I guess."

He shrugged.

"It's not, like, a permanent thing, I hope. Being a commuter via Portalocity is the shittiest experience I've had in," he paused to think. "Like, months?"

"Since the last truly terrible thing to hit the island," Kathy agreed with a...was an amused grimace a thing? That wry understanding of 'everything is awful, but isn't that always the way?' Gallows humor, really.

"For me, that was December with the brainless, half-monster version of me showed up with everybody else. You?"

Sparkle squinted for a moment, thinking on it.

"I mean, it was December, when I was brainwashed by a fucking slug," he decided. "Unless you count that shit we had to drink to close the Tremens portal as traumatic. That had pickle juice and chocolate. It was pretty awful."

"I was in a coma for most of that," Kathy said, because what was even their life, really? "So I think I did more traumatizing that time."

But this one hadn't been her fault!

"Aw, come on," Sparkle complained. "I have to drink crap that might as well be tar, and you get a long and restful nap? I'm jealous!"

... He was not really jealous.

But she'd had such spectacular bruises from the attack! They'd been gorgeous!

"You should be," Kathy told him, not meaning a word. "I woke up and everything was mostly over, so I went home and took a hot bath. That was my experience with the tremens."

And, you know, getting beaten up by a thing that just wouldn't stop. But...details.

"And see, I just ended up brushing my teeth for like three days and gargling before every meal."

Because his life was truly hard.

Truly.

"It's weird," he said, finally. "And I know I'm gonna regret this, like, ten seconds after I say it? But aside from that shit in December, things haven't been, like, awful. I keep expecting them to be, and then they're not and that's fucked up."

Kathy automatically looked around for some wood to knock on. She wasn't superstitious, but with Fandom, sometimes it was just better to be safe.

"Well, the sharkicane kinda wrecked my place for a bit," Kathy said, "and I was too caught up in my own shit to even remember what last spring's was. Which just goes to prove it wasn't that awful."

Sparkle pursed his lips for a moment.

"Sharkicane freakin' threw sharks into Demon Marcus, but that just gave me an excuse to renovate," Sparkle said, shrugging. "So, like, I was pissed, and I had to do adult shit? Which was... adult... shit."

Which was so weird.

"Last spring there were, like, giant bunnies, I think." He shrugged. "Which wasn't so much with the trauma as bunnies."

"Now I'm kinda sad I missed them," Kathy said. "Giant bunnies might have been soothing."

Were they huggable? Kathy would be disappointed if they'd been huggable.

"And, yeah, adult shit is hard. Adulting in general is hard. All those choices which manage to be inane, terrifying, or inane and terrifying at the same time."

They'd caused little earthquakes? So maybe they were huggable if you didn't mind getting squished.

"Right? Like, school or work? Rebuild so you can stop losing profits, or hire a contractor and pray that insurance isn't going to fuck you over. If this island wasn't this island, it'd probably be, like, 'get a mortgage' or 'get a car,' or something. I don't like it. But I also don't want a do-over. What can you do?"

"For me, right now, it's 'go' or 'stay,'" Kathy admitted quietly. "Which is, surprisingly, a much harder question than it really seems like it should be."

... Huh.

"Yeah?" Sparkle chewed the inside of his cheek. "Well... what do the options look like?"

It was a dilemma he wasn't entirely unfamiliar with himself, honestly.

"Move to a city infested with demons that's still struggling with basic infrastructure, or stay here," Kathy said, a little glum. "Alternately, stick with the guys or...stay here."

"... With choices like that, who needs a pros and cons checklist, huh?"

Sparkle sighed. Well, shit. Suddenly Leto asking him if they wanted kids didn't seem half as overwhelming.

"So, what does Fandom have going for it, besides that it's not infested with demons and it has, like, roads?"

Kathy did. In fact, Kathy already had a pro and con checklist. So far it had a lot of cons. And for pros...Anders and Dante.

"My adopted dad, my best friend, my store," Kathy said, ticking them off on her fingers. "Basically, my entire non-boyfriend support structure. My social life. Convenient access to schools if and when I figure out what I want to do with my life. Lower odds of actually dying and staying dead. Additional employment opportunities--I've already taught a workshop over at the school and I could probably convince them to let me do it again. A multidimensional nexus beyond Hell and Limbo..."

Yeah. She had a list.

... That was a pretty impressive list.

"Okay. So does the demon city have any pros beyond the boyfriends? Because I gotta say, there's something to be said for long distance relationships if you're not sure about throwing yourself headfirst into something that might be too big for you."

His boyfriend was an emperor on a desert planet full of giant sandworms. At least he was kind of talking from experience.

And this was before she went to visit and got to add more things to her con list!

"...Not really," Kathy admitted. "I'll probably turn into weird things less often if I'm not on the island directly? But we've proven that it follows you home, so even that's not a guarantee."

Sparkle bit his cheek again. Oh boy.

"Well," he said, finally, slowly, "then I'd say do the thing you feel better about. I know life is risk and all, but if the only stuff you can dredge up about a place are that it'll probably try to kill you and your boyfriends are gonna be there..."

He spread his hands.

"It's like... like I love Leto. A lot. And this is the only place I've really had for years and everything else I love or every chance I have to get back to the things I care about are all here. Leto loves me too, and that means he's okay with waiting for me to be ready. Shit, we're still kids. Fine, we're adults fumbling through adult shit, but we don't know where the fuck we're supposed to end up yet. If you're not feeling 'city full of demons,' the people who really love you will understand. And if they don't, maybe they aren't worth it."

Kathy nodded. "And Dante's happy to sit back and let me figure it out on my own, no pressure. I know that if I end up somewhere around 'I wanna be with you guys, but I'm not ready for there,' he'll be okay with it. I just...I just keep hoping that maybe I'll find that thing in Limbo City that makes everything fall into place, I guess."

And privately worrying about what will happen with the three of them if she didn't move. Leto and Sparkle had started long-distance. Sparkle staying here wasn't changing their dynamic. Kathy sticking around would be.

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