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Demon Marcus, Sunday

Sparkle had no idea what the hell to do with this.

So, sure, he was wearing a kilt. Fine, whatever. He wore skirts for shits and giggles sometimes, so what? He even vaguely recognized the Ontario tartan, and he had a whole crapload of black shirts, so it wasn't like he didn't have anything to wear with it.

Except that the entire stock of Demon Marcus had shifted, today, to match. There were sporrans and ghillies and all sorts of other bits and pieces of Highland dress, taking the place of belts and shoes and such. Sparkle was going to avoid most of it unless he absolutely had to go poking through it. After all, he was from Toronto, not Halifax.

... Though the sgian-dubhs were kind of cool. Sparkle actually set aside a few of those to get for himself on his employee discount. Because around here, it probably couldn't hurt to have a few small, concealable pointy things.

[Open, ocd-free!]

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While Rosalind wished that the island had not chosen today to be whimsical, putting it kindly, she had to concede that her tartan (http://www.tartanregister.gov.uk/tartanDetails.aspx?ref=37) was quite lovely and it went nicely with her white dress shirts.

Even if she'd never have chosen to wear it on her own.

Besides, her discomfort today had nothing to do with what she was wearing, though that was the easy cop-out, even in her own head. It was too bad that Rosalind was terrible at copping out.

With a bag slung over one shoulder, Rosalind steeled herself, and entered the store.

She wondered if he'd recognize her. And wondered if that mattered.

It took Sparkle a moment to look up from where he was perched, sitting on a stool behind the counter and idly inspecting one of the little ceremonial knives that appeared to be part of the store's stock for the day. But part of him wanted to know if he was the only one stuck in tartan today, and the rest of him was just genuinely curious about who was showing up.

It took him a moment more before he got past the initial mental tally of 'blonde,' and 'female,' and actually got a good look at who had walked through the door. Yeah, she was older. No, her eyes weren't glowing. But he'd lived with her for a month. She had been family.

He dropped the knife on the floor and stared, sitting in silence and finding himself struggling to find his voice.

Well, that answered that, didn't it?

She wasn't quite sure how she felt about it, except that something tight and strained eased in her chest. If nothing else, he knew who she was.

"Hi," Rosalind said, feeling a bit awkward. "I've brought your things back."

She hadn't come only for that--she'd wanted to see him--but it was true enough.

"Oh." That came out sounding far more like a kind of half-choked squeak than Sparkle would have liked. He winced, cleared his throat, and then tried again, a little more clearly. "Oh. Um... Thanks. I, uh."

Well, this was going well.

"Shirt. Pants. Cool." He reached up and scratched awkwardly at his ear, pulling in a deep breath. "You... I mean. Hi."

Fucking hell, when did he forget how words worked?

Rosalind set the bag on the counter and resisted the urge to fiddle with anything.

"Hi," she said again, not pointing out that she'd said it already. "I also came by to see how you were doing."

Though she was starting to wish she'd just snuck in, dropped the bag off, and left instead.

"You did?" Oh god, the contents of Sparkle's chest just demonstrated their ability to all do a backflip at the same time. He swallowed at a lump that had settled in his throat some time during those gymnastics, and then he shrugged his shoulders a little. "I'm... you know."

Super great? Sure. He could totally not say anything and hope she decided to decipher his lack of an answer as that.

"I mean, it's kind of..." He frowned and shrugged. "It's good to see you, Amelia."

It's kind of... what?

"Its Rosalind now, actually," she said, the faintest hint of a smile touching her lips. "I changed my name when I was thirteen."

"Oh." Sparkle licked his lips and nodded a little, making the mental note. "That's a nice name, too."

He wondered what might have prompted a name change like that, but scratched at his elbow awkwardly and decided that if she wanted to tell him why, she probably would have.

"Wow," he added a moment later. "I don't even know where to start, right now."

And when had she been given the chance? Who burst out with a full explanation, right away, in a situation like this?

Not her.

"Neither do I," Rosalind admitted, giving into the urge to shift on her feet. But she was the adult here, no longer the little sister, which meant she had to take the lead, didn't it? Which brought her to...

"This reminds me of how it used to be," she said, keeping her eyes on the counter, more for his sake than hers. "With my sister. We never knew what to say to each other. This is a... bit like that."

In more than one way.

"Pretty sure it would be like this, too, if I were to find Carla again," Sparkle offered, nodding a little. "Like... Like..."

He paused for a moment, struggling for words.

"Like meeting a different person, except it feels like you should know them, like it should be easy to dig up something to talk about or... or anything. I'm guessing ballet isn't the hot subject it was a week ago, huh?"

"It's not," she said, with a brief smile. "Before the past month, I'd never given it any thought. Ballet was... never on my radar."

There'd been far, far too much to do to pay any attention to something as frivolous as dancing.

"I should thank you for taking me in. You didn't have to."

Sparkle shrugged, looking down at the top of the counter awkwardly.

"Yeah, well... the street is a shitty place for any kid to be alone, even if they can take care of themselves just fine," he replied. "I'm sorry it all ended up being so... you know... back and forth and weird, for a lot of it."

Not that there was anything he could have done about it. But.

"That wasn't your fault," she told him firmly, staring at him him. "None of that was either of our faults. Amelia... I wasn't old enough to understand what was going on and you could hardly help what the island chose to change about your lives."

Rosalind hesitated a moment, then said, "You did a good job, Sparkle."

Sparkle glanced up again at the firmness in her voice, looking at her silently for a moment while his throat worked on tightening up on him all over again. Fuck. Fuck, he was not going to get choked up, here. No.

"I... thanks, I guess?" Deep breath. "I mean, I'm glad it worked out. Wasn't a total disaster or anything. That's one thing that stayed a constant, I think. I just... wanted to do good."

Even that horrible him. That one with the teeth. He'd been fond of her.

"You did," she said, holding his gaze for as long as he'd let her. "If you hadn't, I'd never have trusted you. Not after... everything else that had happened in that timeline."

Amelia had had good reason to be trigger happy.

"If you hadn't," and she looked away now, "Amelia wouldn't have loved you."

The worst part was, Rosalind had no idea how she felt about that. Part of her loved him irrationally. The rest of her was wary and uncomfortable with that feeling.

It didn't go unnoticed by Sparkle, the way she was referring to Amelia as another person entirely. Those other people that he'd been... he could see shades of himself in them. He could still say, 'me.' But she was a few steps to the side of it.

It made his chest ache a little more.

"You... she... Amelia was a good kid," Sparkle replied, quietly. "My little sister, you know? I loved her, too."

Still did. God, it had wrecked him to find her gone.

They were tiny steps, if she was.

"I...," she paused for a moment, searching for words and hating that this was so awkward. Rosalind hated being on uneven ground. Hated it. But here and now, uneven ground was all they had to walk. "Amelia was very happy."

No, that wasn't right, and she knew it, just to look at him.

"I was very happy," Rosalind offered. "And I'm sorry for the way I left. I thought it better to go, then figure out what to say later. That... didn't really work out. The Amelia you knew, I know now, but my life was very different from hers. But she--I--was happy. Even when we were angry about what looked like lies to us."

She knew that much, at least.

"I lie to a lot of people about a lot of things," Sparkle replied, quietly. A little more warily than he usually might have been. "I never lied to you. There were things I didn't say, like when the social worker came and tried to talk me into handing you off to a home on the mainland. But I didn't lie."

And that was a huge deal, for him. Both to do at all, and then to admit later.

"I know that now," Rosalind told him, her voice softening slightly. Conversations like this still made her skin crawl, and feel tight and hot, like she was going to make a mistake and taste failure.

But she'd gotten good at facing conversations she didn't want to have, back when she'd left Fandom the first time. If she hadn't, she'd never have gotten through to Elena.

"I didn't back then. Too young to understand the difference between lies and circumstances. I were very reactionary and very scared, and I'm sorry that I said things that hurt you."

Which didn't change the fact that they'd been said, of course.

"You didn't know better," Sparkle replied, shrugging. "And I knew why it bugged you so much. I was trying to be someone I wasn't, trying to be that other kid who had his shit together when I was... you know. Me, mostly, and I didn't know where to start."

"You don't know why it bugged me so much," Rosalind said sharply. "Not if that's what you're saying now. It had nothing to do with how together you were. Nothing."

Sparkle flinched a little at the way she snapped at him, and then bunched his shoulders up a little and looked back down.

"You wanted me to trust you enough to tell you the truth, and I didn't know what the truth was. You thought I was lying to your face, when you took such a huge damn risk coming in when I invited you and everything. But I went from talking about bringing you in to meet this family I don't really have to not even knowing who half of them were, and it looked like something changed between us and I wouldn't even tell you what. That sound about right?"

He'd danced the 'just wants to be trusted' dance before.

"I just meant... going from one to the other and never telling you up-front about what the hell had changed, when something obviously had..."

He shrugged and shook his head.

"That sounds about right," she said, feeling tired all over again at that flinch. "But that had nothing to do with you being organized. Or capable of handling a child."

Rosalind hated this, having to pick her words carefully. She wasn't good at it, though she was better than she'd been once upon a time. "I'm not here to rate you on what sort of guardian you were. Maybe the social worker was. From my point of view, you fed me, sheltered me, looked out for me, and cared. If I was to give you a grade, it would be a passing one. You passed the test. Were you a perfect parent? No. But there's no such thing."

"There really isn't," Sparkle agreed, nodding a little. "I mean, I have yet to encounter any. With my wealth of... having parents experience."

Yeah. No. Not so much.

"Good to hear I wasn't... I dunno... awful."

"You weren't awful," she agreed. "You did your best and I appreciated it then, and I appreciate it now."

Rosalind was quiet for a moment. "Everything you did, I remember. I know it's not the same now, that it can't be, but I guess I came by today because I thought you were, are, worth knowing. What happens next is up to you."

Sparkle was silent for a moment in turn before piping up, quietly and awkwardly, feeling a little stupid as he did so, and far more vulnerable than he wanted to let on, "... Can I have a hug?"

Everything had been awful, lately.

This was going to be his one last concession to not being okay. His one last moment of just asking for... something. And then he could get right back to not caring. Because Sparkle didn't care. That was his thing.

Except that he did care. Amelia knew it.

Rosalind studied the counter that was between them gravely, then began making her way around it. He reminded her strongly, so strongly, of Elena in some ways.

It was that thought that made the idea of hugging him feel a little more comfortable. Rosalind knew she wasn't much of one for hugs. Or touch. She liked it that way. (She did.)

But hugging Elena had, at one point, been as easy as breathing. Even when she'd been pouty and bratty and ridiculous.

"Yes," Rosalind said quietly, once she was around the counter. She knelt and picked up the knife he'd dropped earlier, setting it on the counter. Then she hugged him, tightly.

That was not a sniffle into Rosalind's shoulder as Sparkle hugged back tightly. You shut your face. That was just... breathing. Because breathing worked differently when there were squeezy hugs going on, and that was just basic science.

Obviously.

"Do me a favour," he murmured, clinging for dear life and deciding that he could ask one more thing of her, now that they had come this far. "Don't just disappear like that again, okay?"

Because she was his baby sister, and god damn it, that had hurt.

Favours were the easiest things in the world to break.

Rosalind let him cling and, truth be told, clung back more than she wanted to admit. It felt good to hug him. Like hugging Elena felt good.

But if she could go home, if she could get through, would she stop and tell him where she was going? She didn't know, but suspected not. Rosalind had never been any good at goodbye.

"I won't," she said, and lied. "Promise."

"Thanks," Sparkle murmured into her shoulder. Her hugs had changed a little, but it was still her. If he closed his eyes, he could pretend she was way more tiny. "I appreciate that."

He did. A lot.

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Demon Marcus, Sunday

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