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

[electrocynic]

Don snorted. "Sounds like Sarah."

Who now made her way back and set whiskeys in front of Atton and Sparkle with an ugh before dragging herself a stool to sit on at the end of the table. (It was really a four-person booth. Whatever.) "Fucking Devlin."

Jenny offered her a sympathetic look. "What was it this time?"

Eyeroll. "An absolutely charming offer of getting reacquainted with city life by blowing him."

[suitably_heroic]

[[ Start sending me notifs, LJ. ]]

"Sounds like a real ladies' man," Atton said dryly. "Seriously? They still allow people to use lines like that?"

[myownface]

"How often does that actually work for him? Like, he's just stupid, right? That's why he thought it would?"

Sparkle needed to check, here.

[electrocynic]

"He's the most powerful and famous superhero in the country," Jenny said by way of explanation, sounding mostly resigned.

"He's a massive prick," Sarah translated, glancing back to where Devlin was standing by the bar, surrounded by his laughing cronies. "It makes him ever so irresistible."

Feel the sarcasm.

"You should've told him you're on a date!" Jenny suggested brightly. Which would have been fine, if not for the obvious look at Atton.

Prompting a rather quick (and annoyed, and a little defensive) "Well I'm not" from Sarah.

[suitably_heroic]

"She's not," Atton said, at roughly exactly the same time.

He pointed helpfully at Sparkle.

Nobody brought a teenager to a date!

[myownface]

"Yeah, hi. Official third wheel," Sparkle said with a grin and a little wave. "I'm here to be, like, super not romantic and shit."

How was he doing so far?

[electrocynic]

Don squinted at him.

Then he nodded. "I like you."

Sarah rolled her eyes. "Anyway, it's not like Devlin would give a shit even if this was the strangest, bordering on illegal kind of three-way date," she drawled. "He didn't when I was with Alex."

[suitably_heroic]

"So how super is this guy anyway?" Atton mused. "I mean, not that I'm thinking about punching him, but if something went wrong tonight, it's good to know our options."

[electrocynic]

Sarah shrugged.

"Mind control, flight, laser eyes, X-ray vision, super strength..."

[suitably_heroic]

"Mind control won't work on me," Atton ticked off, "Flight's easy to deal with if you've got telekinesis, laser eyes probably won't go through the lightsaber, X-ray vision is useless, and super strength is ridiculously easy to work around." Beat. "And that's in the scenario where I fight him head on, instead of just putting a roofie in his drink and dumping him in a trash compactor somewhere."

... look, he was talking about humiliating the guy, not murdering him outright. That was progress!

[myownface]

Don't mind Sparkle. He was going to just be over here, not even being subtle about taking a moment to look at Don right back.

What? There was like! Sparkle liked like!

"Trash compactors are probably expensive," he offered, helpfully. "Just toss him in, like... is there a landfill somewhere around here? Cut out the middleman, save somebody from worrying about the property damage, get way better photos."

[electrocynic]

And Don looked back at him for juuust long enough to get kicked in the shin underneath the table by Sarah. (You could tell what a pro she was at that by how she didn't even manage to catch Atton's shin by accident.)

"Hey!" he protested.

"Knock it off," she snapped.

"I don't think there's a landfill," Jenny hazarded, trying to move on from that little incident. "I think there's a skip behind one of the pubs nearby?"

[suitably_heroic]

"Fine, fine," Atton said, taking a sip of his drink. "He tries the stupid blowjob routine on either of you ladies again, we'll slip him a roofie and leave him in the skip."

He had no idea what a 'skip' was.

"Maybe Sparkle here can draw something on his face, while we're at it."

[myownface]

"Maybe before we throw him in the dumpster," Sparkle offered. "I have a sharpie. I can draw nasty hairy dicks all over his face until there's no room left, easy."

Say classy, Spark.

[electrocynic]

If nothing else, it made Sarah laugh. You know, like she was actually enjoying herself. What a weird thing.

She raised her glass. "I'll drink to that. Cheers."