The Fortress, Sarah's London, Saturday

[electrocynic]

It had been decided Sarah wasn't going to the picnic. By Sarah. Because she felt she got the best quality decisions when she made them all by herself. New kids could just as well meet her during office hours next week. She wasn't portaling back and forth for that. Or the free food, even.

So, she'd already been here for a while. They'd gotten back from the retreat – finally, thank Christ – late last night, and she'd slept in, done some shopping, then retreated to the only place in London that really mattered: the Fortress.

And now she was standing outside in the street, smoking as she waited.

[ooc: NFB, and for the boys!]

Comments

[suitably_heroic]

Atton was still under the delusion that he'd been the only one asking Sparks here, so he was looking just a little twitchy as he approached.

Bad week. The second, yeah. He was going to give up being miserable for lent, or something.

"So you didn't miss much," he called.

[electrocynic]

Sarah, on he other hand, did not look twitchy. But maybe that was because she was still coasting along the 'not at a retreat anymore, fuck yeah' stream of residual happiness.

"That so? Well colour me shocked."

[myownface]

And Sparkle... well, for his part, he mostly just looked amused as he made his way to the pair of them. Because for free drinks and portal fare, after the voicemails he'd gotten from either of them? How could he not?

Sparkle's life was exploding around him again, so help him, and he was going to take his chuckles where he could find them.

"What are we shocked about?"

[suitably_heroic]

"The welcome picnic," Atton said, casting a glance in Sparkle's direction. "Same old, same old."

[myownface]

"If it's a 'same old' welcome picnic, there must be like eight new Skywalkers," Sparkle mused, smirking a little and giving them both a bro-nod. "Nah, not missing out on anything, there."

[electrocynic]

"Exactly my thinking," Sarah agreed with a nod. Notice for unfazed by Sparkle's appearance she was. "Seen far too many of them as it is."

She dropped what was left of her cigarette, and snuffed it out with the heel of her boot.

"Right. Should I cover some ground rules with you before I take you in?"

[suitably_heroic]

"Nah, Anakin was looking relieved, so I'm thinking no new Skywalkers," Atton said. He shrugged, but then Sarah came out with the ground rules thing, so he went, "Let me guess. Don't piss off anyone bigger than me?"

[myownface]

"I'm pretty sure that's just good life advice," Sparkle pointed out. "I mean, like, in general, even."

And not just when dealing with superheroes on their home turf.

[electrocynic]

"Actually, I don't give a shit who you piss off," Sarah replied, shrugging. "Just as long as you don't do it by using any powers, 'cause those are forbidden. Same with costumes and heroics, but I don't see how either of those is going to be a problem for you two."

[suitably_heroic]

Atton looked down at the Metallica t-shirt he was wearing, then shrugged. "Yeah, I'll be fine," he said. "I'm not going to need superpowers to deal with this bunch."

[myownface]

"And I'll leave the heroics to, you know... heroic people," Sparkle agreed. Because he'd sooner get a root canal than throw himself in front of a bus for a stranger or something.

[electrocynic]

Funnily enough, so would most of the heroes he was likely to run into here soon. The difference was that they earned their living by doing the bus thing.

"That's confirmation enough for me that you're not going to get me banned from my regular watering hole," Sarah decided, then indicated behind herself with a nod. "Come on, then."

And she turned to lead them around the building to where the entrance was, complete with a neon sign in the shape of a key and the text THE FORTRESS by the door, which itself read NO MASKS, NO POWERS, NO HEROICS. The aforementioned house rules.

[suitably_heroic]

"Did a bunch of superheroes really get together and decide to name their cantina 'the fortress'?" Atton asked... mostly Sparkle, but Sarah was probably within earshot, considering he was following along and everything. "That's just asking for something to go wrong."

Sometime way, way later...

[suitably_heroic]

There had been drinks. Then there had been more drinks. Then there'd been some asshole called Devlin, apparently, after which there had been more drinks.

Atton wasn't sure who'd brought out the karaoke set, beyond the fact that it wasn't him. But space, watching a bunch of superheroes bouncing around excitedly to the latest by Lady somethingsomething was definitely... something.

"I should go again," he muttered into his glass. "Should I go again?"

Re: Sometime way, way later...

[electrocynic]

Sarah was eyeing her actual colleagues with something between contempt and confusion. Whatever this was, it usually never happened.

Or did it?

She hadn't exactly been here a lot on Saturday nights in the past few... years. Couldn't decide if that was a good or a bad thing. "Prob'ly," she mumbled, shrugging and leaning back in her seat. "Indulge."

Re: Sometime way, way later...

[myownface]

"If you go again, it'll keep me from requesting some Gilbert and Sullivan," Sparkle added, grinning crookedly. "Nobody wants that, right? Save us, Atton. Save us all."

Nothing was going to stop him from requesting Gilbert and Sullivan, for the record.

Re: Sometime way, way later...

[suitably_heroic]

Atton grabbed his latest shot of whiskey and downed it. "Fine, fine," he said, "I'll, uh, get something poppy."

He was not going to get something poppy. He'd hit the melancholy downswing of his usual drunken repertoire; he just hadn't realized it.

In his defense, he stuck with the poppy idea right up until he'd managed to stumble up to the track listing and spotted the Metallica tracks. He snagged the microphone and moved somewhat unsteadily onto the...

... yeah, okay, they didn't have a stage. The place where the thing was. "So I'm gonna dedicate this one to the, uh, the dead."

Yeah, this would be fantastic, really.

Re: Sometime way, way later...

[electrocynic]

Sarah looked at Atton.

Then she looked at Sparkle as if to check if she'd heard that right.

But judging by the head shake that followed right after, she was already sure she had. "For fuck's sake."

Re: Sometime way, way later...

[myownface]

"... Maybe I should have gone up and started singing from the Mikado after all."

Hooboy. This was going to go super well.

Re: Sometime way, way later...

[suitably_heroic]

"Lay beside me, tell me what they've done, speak the words I wanna hear, to make my demons run--"

Yeah, Atton's singing voice was decent when he was sober. It was slightly less decent now. And that was without getting into the whole bit where Unforgiven II was about as polar-opposite of a poppy song as you could possibly get.

The worst part was that he knew all the lyrics and so did not forget and stumble away halfway in as he would have otherwise.

Re: Sometime way, way later...

[electrocynic]

Someone, somewhere, needed to give Sarah a gold star for managing to not shout 'this is not poppy, Atton, you absolute tit'.

Instead, she shook her head and gestured to Norse Dave at the bar for another round they probably shouldn't get but which seemed necessary, somehow, all the same.

Re: Sometime way, way later...

[myownface]

"Forget Gilbert and Sullivan," Sparkle mused. "After he's done, I'm going to get up there and start singing Journey or something."

Yeah, that would happen, sure.

Re: Sometime way, way later...

[suitably_heroic]

"--Cause you're unforgiven tooo-oooh-oooh."

Atton squinted blearily at the small handful of people left. Stayed where he was for all of twenty seconds before it suddenly occurred to him that he should get back to the drinking.

He wandered back to the booth unsteadily, Force-blind and clumsy.

Re: Sometime way, way later...

[electrocynic]

"Good show," Sarah drawled once he'd made it back. Or close enough to hear her, anyway. There was the slightest bit of slurring but not too much. "The fuck was that?"

Re: Sometime way, way later...

[myownface]

Sparkle just kind of found him half wanting to pet Atton's face. Poor guy was having a shitty something something...

Anniversaries. They sucked.

"Sit down an' drink some water or something, man. I mean. Good job knowing the words. You are soooo fucking drunk."

Pot, this was Kettle calling.