MCA #5, All Day Thursday

[electrocynic]

To recap, the last week or so in Sarah’s life:

First, three days more or less entirely spent in bed with her ex-boyfriend. Yes, the one who’d fucked off to be a hero in space a few years back. Yes, the one she had not been over ever since. That one. Guy Gardner, ginger bloody menace and royal pain in her heart.

Then, two days and slowly working on making it three spent... mostly in bed, but also on the couch. Alone. Except for a few tubs of ice cream and some now-empty bottles of beer. She hadn’t even bothered to get hammered. She knew that wouldn't actually do anything but make her even more miserable.

As if that was somehow possible.

So anyway, now day three of her moping was dragging on. Maybe tomorrow she'd actually go outside. But she wasn’t counting on it. Not when there was takeout.

[ooc: Open, and up way early because I have actual class today and phone-pinging is infinitely easier than phone-posting, omg.]

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[suitably_heroic]

Well, hugs had clearly not worked out for them very well, so Atton wasn't going to try that again unless she made it absolutely clear she wanted one.

Sigh.

He put a hand on her shoulder, instead. That was unhuglike enough, right?

[electrocynic]

At the very least, she leaned right into that one.

Wasn't really the kind of action you were supposed to lean into, as such, but fuck it.

[suitably_heroic]

Well, after what had happened back at her bar, Atton wasn't going to make a big fuss of that.

"I hope you did kick his ass pretty good," he said, "In a yelling capacity."

[electrocynic]

"I did." Granted, she'd given up on yelling pretty fast after the initial flare-up. Then she'd just been sad.

And then making bad decisions that were still defensible in their own way. "He's probably as miserable as I am right now, too."

[suitably_heroic]

"Well, that's his own fault," Atton said mildly.

Not that he had his own issues about a similar situation, or anything.

[electrocynic]

"Yeah, it fucking is."

But it was hers a little, too.

(Yeah she had some tiny little sliver of guilt over not being able to go with him. Tiny.)

[suitably_heroic]

Atton shot her a brief look. "Stop that," he said. "The guilt. It's not gonna do you any good, especially when he's the one who left."

[electrocynic]

Sarah shot him a look back. Hers was confused and disgruntled – before smoothing out into an eyeroll. Would've been embarrassing for a powered person to take longer than that. At least she hadn't gotten to the defensive 'I didn't say anything about guilt!' So intead she said, "Right."

Looked at her lap, wrinkled her nose.

"'S rich, coming from you."

[suitably_heroic]

Atton eyed her. "What's that supposed to mean?"

He'd conveniently forgotten about that bit.

[electrocynic]

What a surprise.

"You know, with your ––" There was a word for it. She waved her fingers at him while she looked for it. "–– survivor's guilt, or whatever the fuck you want to call it. Maybe just normal guilt. Fucking useless, probably, either way."

[suitably_heroic]

"It's a little more complicated than that," Atton muttered.

But most things were, where he was involved.

[electrocynic]

"Isn't everything?" Sarah replied, a touch bitterly. Though it was a bitterness directed more at the idea of complicated than it was at him.

[suitably_heroic]

Atton sighed.

"There was this woman," he said, "A Jedi. She convinced me to pick up a lightsaber. We did this whole song and dance to save the galaxy, and while I was healing up in a kolto tank somewhere, she took off past the edges of the known galaxy and got herself killed."

He could've hemmed around it, but he owed her some version of the story, at least.

[electrocynic]

"Bummer."

That wasn't without sympathy. Being bad at other people's feelings just went both ways. That was her feeble attempt at solidarity.

She was starting to feel like she needed a cigarette. "Another bloody great hero, hm?"

[suitably_heroic]

"Yep," Atton said. "Went chasing after rumors of some great evil empire lurking in the shadows. Go figure."

Screw that noise. Seriously.

[electrocynic]

Sarah blew out a breath, slumping back again. "How the fuck does that kind of thinking even happen?"

That whole heroic thing. Were they born that way? Sarah had been born into a family of heroes, for fuck's sake, and she didn't have it.

[suitably_heroic]

Atton had it. Sometimes. But it was always conditional; even now his more heroic moments were either in her memory, or because his feelings on his own mortality were confusing.

(And sometimes he just liked to be useful.)

"I don't know," he said quietly. "I was going to go with her, y'know? But she took that from me. That's what that thing was all about."

Some of it. Not all. But Atton wouldn't know how to cope with himself if he wasn't lying by omission just a bit when this topic came around.

[electrocynic]

Sarah wasn't expecting complete and total honesty, anyway. Wasn't as if she was offering it up either. This was still about as honest as they'd been with each other so far.

It was comforting in its own way. Maybe. Kind of. "Well," she said, not very loudly, herself, "would explain wanting to fall under a table."

[suitably_heroic]

"Not one of my finest moments, but yeah."

Atton reached into the pocket of his jacket and produced a pack of cigarettes. He offered her one.

There were upsides to being able to sense people's emotions. Like knowing when someone really needed a smoke.

[electrocynic]

A very good use of that talent, if you asked Sarah, who accepted the cigarette without a moment's pause. Yes. Smoking would be good.

"Still more fine than being sick in the street."

She pushed herself up and off the couch. The moping around hadn't progressed to not giving enough of a fuck to not go on the balcony to smoke.

[suitably_heroic]

"Can we go back to pretending that part didn't happen?"

Atton watched her go, stretching before he went after her. He'd been sitting a while now.

[electrocynic]

"Well, it's not among my favourite things to reminisce about," Sarah replied, with a hint of her usual drawl. "So sure."

She stepped out onto the balcony, cigarette between her lips.

[suitably_heroic]

Atton slipped one into his own mouth and lit it as he stepped onto the balcony, too. "Thanks," he said.

[electrocynic]

"No prob."

She got her own lighter off the little table, lit her own cigarette.

"So out of curiosity," she said, after a drag and a puff of smoke, looking out at the view, "did we really both ask Sparks to come to London?"

[suitably_heroic]

"Looks like it," Atton said. "Must've been laughing his ass off."

He took a drag off his cigarette. "Ugh. Sparks. I need to go talk to him."

Now that he'd cooled and was slightly less inclined to rip the kid's head off.