fandomtownies | Demon Marcus, Sunday

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Demon Marcus, Sunday

Sparks almost didn't come in to work today. After all, he was mostly sure that he was one of those misplaced people that everyone kept talking about, which really made him wonder about this other him with the wild hair and what Cade had insinuated to be a drug habit. His jobs were the same, at least, unless his counterpart was supposed to be the cleaning guy here or whatever, but so long as nobody else showed up for a shift today, he was just going to go about his usual duties.

Sorting stock. Running the till. Cleaning the place. Having a minor existential crisis.

The usual.

[Open, OCD-freeee.]

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"Anyone in here?"

Actually, Dinah was pretty sure that Sparks was here, somewhere. She had a couple questions to ask. As nicely and gently as she could.

"In the back! I'll be out in just a min-- oh."

Sparks was no longer in the back. Sparks was standing in the doorway to the back room, behind the counter, thankful for the desk between himself and the familiar face that had just walked into the shop.

"Uh... hi," he ventured, warily. "Can I help you?"

All the trauma, ten times the coping skills! Good job, Sparks.

Edited 2014-03-17 12:15 (UTC)

Way to go, Sparks. Dinah would be so impressed if she remembered why you get the heebie-jeebies around her.

"Yes! Hi. I'm Dinah Redmond." She put her hand out to be shaken, smile bright. "You're Sparks, right? I was hearing about you on the Radio."

"Thaaat's not weird at all," Sparks reported, blinking at her hand before tentatively reaching to shake it. "I mean, you hear about everyone on the radio, here. Why would you single me out?"

Please, not for eating.

~~Her name is not Hannibal!~~

"Well, I thought maybe you could use some help." She took a breath, smile hopeful and careful. Therefore tense. "With Amelia. You are still -- being her foster brother, right?"

Look, Dinah's instincts and training were having a fistfight here. But she could *not* just blow off knowing a high-schooler had informally adopted a six-year-old.

Sparks' expression didn't go immediately to hostile at that, but it certainly became a lot more guarded as he pulled his hand back and took a step backward toward the back room doorway again.

"... Something like that, I guess. But we're doing just fine, thanks."

Anything that started with a handshake and then segued into, 'so, about that kid you've been taking care of' was pretty much tailor-made to set off warning bells in his head.

Dinah nodded, face the picture of acceptance, then said, "So, she's getting enough to eat? And you're not having a problem watching over her during classes?" She bit her lip. "There's assistance you can ask for, you know. I mean, it's there for anyone. Not really through Fandom, so much, but Baltimore has programs to look after kids."

Sparks' hands balled briefly into fists and he pulled in a slow, calming breath.

"She's not going to Baltimore," he said, tersely. "She's eating just fine and when I can't keep an eye on her she's more than capable of taking care of herself. She's got new clothes and we sit and read every night and she's not going to a home."

She finally trusted him enough to feel safe around him. She'd come a long way from the little girl that had pointed a gun at him when he'd first wandered into the warehouse she was staying in. He didn't know what the foster care system was like in America, no, but...

Dinah wasn't sure she could make anything happen on the island, because seriously, bringing authorities here could only end in tears. But she *was* here, and Sparks and Amelia deserved any help she could give him.

"Sparks, please. I just want you to think about it. I would never, ever put her someplace she'd hate. But you know the Island isn't the safest place. And any six-year-old is going to need a lot of looking after."

"Oh, trust me. I know just how unsafe the island is," Sparks replied, and that did come out as a growl. He was looking at the face of the first person to kill him after he came to the island, after all. "And I have a pretty good idea of just what a six-year-old needs. I was homeless at her age too, you know."

Things he didn't just share around for 100, Bob.

"Know what else I remember? Stepping through the doors of a home for the first time, and all of the air just... rushing out of me. Feeling empty and flat, like someone ripped open a beach ball and left it there on the ground. It took two years before anybody decided they actually wanted me. And with all the crap going on around here these days, I found out just how lucky I was. I could be seventeen and nobody ever wanted me at all. I'm not leaving her to that. I don't care how hard it is. She trusts me."

Dinah's heart was breaking here. She knotted her fingers together, just listening. That was the important part. You had to listen to someone, before you could know what they needed.

And Sparks did not want help. But maybe still needed it.

"I know what that's like too," she offered when he was done. "That's why I'm in this job." She bit her lip, and shifted the topic sideways. "But you can't do this indefinitely. It won't work. Do you have a plan, for after you graduate?"

"If I can't take her back home with me, I stay here," Sparkle replied, his hackles getting up just that much more when she told him that he couldn't do this. "I'm working two jobs here now, I have enough savings to put myself through college, with scholarships besides. But I can put my savings toward taking care of her. People get by here on one job, going in a day a week, and I'm not afraid of working three or four or five."

There was anger in his eyes now, plain and simple.

"I've been doing this for a month, now. I've been feeding her and making sure she has clothes and I just talked her out of the warehouse she was staying in, waving guns at anyone who came near. Don't tell me I can't do it. I think you'd have a hard time finding someone else who can."

God, he was so determined. Dinah wanted to hug him, but he'd probably punch her in the stomach if she tried.

"If I do find someone else-- someone Amelia likes, someone who isn't still in school, who wants to help--"

"You don't get to go anywhere near Amelia," Sparks shot back. "She won't trust you. I don't trust you. You with your 'can't' and 'won't' and 'shouldn't,' coming in here like you know me based on something you heard, comments made by a bunch of drunk squirrels and read off on the radio. And you don't know her, but you'll happily drag her away to a place where they won't care what her favourite colour is, or animal, or that she wants to be a ballerina and she's almost as good at math as I am and I'm an honours student, or why she was even on her own at all. She'll be another alone little girl - a problem kid with trust issues and a violent streak that can't be put up for adoption because she is literally a child that will shoot you if she doesn't trust you and you get too close, and she will sit in that damn home and grow up there without a family and I-- I'll be the person who promised I wouldn't put her in that situation and then gave her up."

He wasn't crying, you were crying, shut the hell up.

Damnit, damnit, damnit. This was not how she wanted this to go. God. She'd just wanted to find out if he'd accept help, and how Amelia was doing, but--

Dinah held out her hands in suArender. "Okay. Okay. Breathe. I can't make you do anything. I can't take her away from you, because there's no Social Services on the Island, and there's no way to enforce it. I'm not going to kidnap her." She dropped her hands. "And I know you love her already. And want what's best for her. But you deserve help too. If you need it, if you don't have enough money, if she disappears, there's people who can help you. Okay?"

"If I need help, I'll get help," Sparks replied, angrily wiping the back of his sleeve across his eyes. "I'll get it from people I trust. People I know, who didn't come to corner me at work because of something they heard on the radio."

People who didn't bear a striking resemblance to somebody who had ripped his throat out with her teeth, once.

"I know you think I'm just some stupid kid. I know stupid kids. I know the Moss Park junkies and the kids that were parents by sixteen and the fighters and the drinkers and the teens that think it would be a great idea to burn down sheds in rich neighbourhoods for fun. I know plenty of stupid kids. I'm not... that. I didn't just take her in because I thought it'd be a good time or something, and she's not a puppy."

"No. You took her in because you cared. But other people care too. Let them. Please." Dinah grimaced. "It doesn't have to be me. Just don't do this alone, okay? Because if something happens to you-- Amelia will still need someone."

She turned back to the door. "And if you change your mind, I live at MHA. Number nine."

"If something happens to me," Sparkle grumbled, shaking his head. "Like Amelia's the only kid out there being taken care of by one person. Who do I go to for help around here, then? The crazy guy in the bat costume? The pony? How about one of the dozens of people who have been turning into other people every time you look away?"

He wanted to throw something at her back as she walked away, but he restrained himself. Chucking things in a fit wasn't going to win him any points, here.

"Go on, leave. If I need help, I'll get it. Once I find someone who can help. You're not that person."

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Demon Marcus, Sunday

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