Hannibal's house, Friday morning

[sharp_as_knives]

Hannibal had gotten the distinct impression that Atton didn't care for fancy food. He might have gone all out for Sparkle regardless, but today he wanted the focus on the conversation, not the meal. So, he had stuck to a fairly simple frittata with sausages and fresh fruit on the side, and coffee. A lot of coffee.

It was also somewhat later than he generally ate himself, but neither of his guests this meal seemed to be morning people.



[OOC: For the guest, the invited, and the partner if he feels like it!]

Comments

[suitably_heroic]

Atton was perfectly capable of being a morning person, but he liked to give people the impression that he wasn't, so the later time was fine with him. He didn't want to be here any longer than he needed to be, anyway.

So he showed up there exactly five minutes late, jabbing the doorbell once.

[sharp_as_knives]

Hannibal came to let him in, and nodded politely but briefly. "Please, come in."

[suitably_heroic]

Atton held up the bag. "Got his stuff," he said. "Thanks for getting him out."

At which point he did actually go in.

[myownface]

Sparkle was... quiet, this morning. Still tired. Processing, mostly. Yesterday had been a long day, and yes, that was his own fault, but it still left him kind of sitting and staring at things.

He was mostly waiting to be yelled at. It seemed easier at the moment than wondering, "What now?"

[suitably_heroic]

Atton dumped the bag of Sparkle's stuff in front of him. "You're an idiot," he snapped.

At least he wasn't going to make Sparkle wait for the getting yelled at part?

[myownface]

Sparkle's jaw clenched just slightly at that. Come on, Atton, tell him something he didn't know already.

"For which part?"

All of it? Was the answer, 'All of it?'

[suitably_heroic]

Atton thought about it for all of five seconds. "Oh, I don't know, everything starting from the part where you set the house on fire. Which, if you were going to do that, you could have at least waited until the heat was off!"

Honestly, he wasn't sure whether he was upset about Sparkle committing these kinds of crimes in general or just not executing them well in particular.

[myownface]

"And wait until after Lewis had sold the place? Fuck that," Sparkle ground out. "We wanted people to know exactly what it was about. That was half the point!"

Which didn't make it any smarter, but at least explained the timing, somewhat.

[suitably_heroic]

"Oh, so you wanted to go to jail," Atton said. "Well, that changes everything!"

No, it didn't. Besides make it even more stupid.

[myownface]

"Yeah, that's exactly what it was," Sparkle snarked. "I wanted to go to jail. Which is why I'm actually in Toronto right now, sitting in a jail cell, waiting for shit like court dates and having heart-to-hearts with my lawyer."

... He had a lawyer. Like, a real one, that cost money.

There were so many things about this that had him baffled.

[sharp_as_knives]

"Thank you for getting that," Hannibal returned. He led Atton to the dining room and nodded him toward Sparkle. "Coffee?"

[sharp_as_knives]

"Drink your coffee," Hannibal prompted him.

[suitably_heroic]

"You set fire to a house at the exact time you knew everyone would know it was you, then you stuck around to watch it burn," Atton snapped. "What part of that is not 'angling to go to jail behavior'? And over what? You think those old rich people are going to sit around feeling bad about what they did now? They're probably patting each other on the back for getting a bunch of rotten arsonists out of town before anything worse happened."

[suitably_heroic]

"About a bucket of it, if you have it," Atton said, with a sigh.

He needed a second to collect his rage in, like, a not Sithly fashion.

[myownface]

"I can do that," Sparkle replied, nodding and reaching for his mug. "Sorry... I'm sure it's great. I just kind of..."

He had a lot on his mind. That.

[sharp_as_knives]

"The largest mug I have," Hannibal promised.

Which wasn't saying much, since all his mugs were matched, but the intent was there.

[sharp_as_knives]

"I won't take it as a judgement on the quality," Hannibal promised. "Would you like to talk?"

[sharp_as_knives]

Sparkle might argue with that, but Hannibal wouldn't. He was, however, going to take the opportunity to set a mug of coffee on the table in front of Atton and move the cream and sugar closer. Perhaps the interruption would give him time to regain a bit of composure.

[myownface]

Sparkle was quiet for a few more moments, trying to find his voice again. Where to even start?

"I don't know what to do."

... That was better than nothing, anyway.

"Can't go back, can I?"

[myownface]

"Because he wouldn't even talk to me," Sparkle yelled back, ignoring the coffee, feeling everything just boiling up in his chest until he had nothing left but the need to yell. "Because he told the entire fucking world that he went to bed at night thinking about what he wanted to do to me, he cost everyone a home, and when it was all over, he wouldn't even acknowledge I was fucking alive! I don't care about the rich assholes down the street! They were congratulating one another already, it isn't like this is going to change that!"

For Raine, maybe it was about making a statement.

For Sparkle, it was more like a scream.

[suitably_heroic]

"Of course he didn't 'fucking talk to you'," Atton said, exasperated and trying not to yell because having a huge blowout in front of Hannibal karking Lecter was not his idea of a great time, even if they were pretty much having one already. "He wasn't supposed to go to bed thinking that poodoo in the first place, let alone telling anyone about it. Space, Sparks! He should have walked away months ago, because he sure as hell wasn't fit to run a group home if he had to spend the entire time talking himself out of committing karking statutory rape!"

His opinion of Lewis had kinda tanked, recently.

[suitably_heroic]

Atton paused. "...I'm going to need two," he said.

Both for him. Sparks wasn't getting anything today, nope.

[myownface]

"So he told the whole world about it?! Let's just, just... get up in front of the fucking mayor of Toronto and anyone who has any say in what goes on with that house and tell everyone about it and--"

Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck, Sparkle needed... to get up and pace. That seemed like the thing to do. Pace angrily and try to remember how to breathe and maybe not scream and cry, because that would just be the cherry on top of all of this bullshit, wouldn't it?

"I'm eighteen there. Even there. I'm old enough to be tried as an adult, I'm old enough for them to print my name in the papers after he announced it I'm old enough that when everything crashed and burned the only reason they would have placed me in another home is because it's a condition of my parole, I'm old enough to fucking acknowledge!"

[suitably_heroic]

Lecter was here. Lecter was here. The absolute last thing Atton should be doing was roaring at Sparkle that he was eighteen and that made him a karking child regardless of what had happened to you or who died or what went colossally wrong.

He still would have, if he didn't have that inside voice telling him not to put too much out there in front of a stranger he didn't trust.

"Apparently old enough to throw a damned hissy big enough that they want to put you away for the next who knows how many years," he said, grabbing the anger by the ears and yanking it inside, the way he still kinda knew how to, bleeding his voice of tone so it came out sounding almost bored. "You sure showed him, Sparks."

[myownface]

Sparkle hated this. Hated Lewis and Toronto and hated Atton a little right then, with that flat tone and being right right right right right and he hated himself for being in this position in the first place and he hated how just it still felt, and that he didn't regret it, didn't think he would ever regret it, and how he kind of wanted to grab Raine and run away somewhere but she'd be fine, she'd be fine without him and maybe he never would. Maybe he was wired wrong. Wired to not care about all the things that were supposed to matter.

And he'd done this to himself, and he hated how much he wanted to be the little kid Atton was telling him he was and cry.

"I don't care," he said, his voice breaking halfway, betraying how much he really did. But it was what everyone thought of him, what everyone told him he was. Maybe that was what he was supposed to be aiming for. "I... don't... care. About..."

Anything. Right? About anything else but himself?

He couldn't get words out. He felt like he was drowning in them.