Demon Marcus, Sunday

[myownface]

"It's the most wonderful tiiime of the yeeear..."

It wasn't that Sparkle was in denial about what weekend it was or anything, really. Honest. Hell, it wasn't even that he was doing much better today than he had been in weeks. It was just that it was October now. Which meant that he had carte blanche to start pulling out the Halloween decorations. He was getting into the groove of it, here. Fake cobwebs, little glow-in-the-dark spiders to go in them... He hadn't gone so far as to replace all the mannequins with skeletons yet, but that was definitely on the docket.

Just as soon as he got some skeletons, mostly.

"There'll be trick-or-treat going, egg cartons for throwing, and hearts full of fear! It's the most wonderful tiiime of the yeeear!"

Just wait until he set up the big bowl of candy.

[OOC: IT'S HALLOWEEN. I mean, in a few weeks, but IT'S HALLOWEEN. Open, OCD-free!]

Comments

[exiledisciples.livejournal.com]

"Good," Brianna said. "Atton was not lying about your work."

Weren't you happy to find an extremely white girl stalking into your shop like that, Sparkle?

[myownface]

Sparkle was... mostly confused when the extremely white girl stalked into his shop, honestly. It left him kind of pausing halfway through opening a package of sparkly black bat-shaped garlands. And blinking.

There was a lot of blinking.

"Oh, uh. Hi, Brianna." See, this was unexpected. "... Why would Atton lie about where I work?"

Except possibly to spare him from having Brianna show up while he was working?

[exiledisciples.livejournal.com]

Mostly that last part.

"It's Atton," Brianna said mildly. "Only an idiot trusts anything that comes out of his mouth. I see you are still alive."

Determining that her main objective in coming to this shop, so that was good.

[myownface]

"I'm alive," he agreed, then glanced downward at himself for a second as if he was checking to make sure. Sometimes that just seemed like the thing to do. "And basically all accounted for, yeah."

All of his parts were still attached. Gold star?

[exiledisciples.livejournal.com]

"Good."

Yes. If Brianna were handing out any gold stars today, Sparkle would get one.

"No remaining injuries or trauma?"

[myownface]

Sparkle shifted his weight a little, trying not to look too blatantly uncomfortable. For all the good it would do while talking to a Jedi, granted, but it was mostly for his own benefit anyway.

"I... guess not?" He bit the inside of his cheek a little. "I mean, nothing that's going to hold me back physically or anything. There's a scar?"

He was also pretty sure that wasn't entirely what she was asking.

[exiledisciples.livejournal.com]

It wouldn't do much good opposite any Jedi, but Brianna was a particularly poor choice to fake near-- her expertise was body language. So she raised an eyebrow at his shifting.

"Where?" she asked.

[myownface]

Sparkle blew out a little sigh.

"On my shoulder. It's ugly, but whatever," he muttered, and tugged the neck of his shirt out of the way to show her the extent of the damage. "Would've been worse if it wasn't for the kolto anyway."

[exiledisciples.livejournal.com]

Brianna crossed the room to get a better look at it, tilting her head critically. "It won't impair too much function," she said. "Good."

[myownface]

To his credit, Sparkle didn't lean back, at least. He did manage to nod a little, though. And really, he would have had the same impulse to retreat if it had been anybody, though Brianna was a special sort of intimidating all her own.

"It hasn't really been. Not much, anyway."

Yeah, the scar really wasn't what was holding Sparkle back, these days.

[exiledisciples.livejournal.com]

Being so up close gave Brianna the opportunity to analyze him more fully, her expression narrowing. "I apologize," she said. "You should not have come to harm in our Temple."

[myownface]

Sparkle blew out a little breath at that. It was almost a laugh, something not quite surprised, but maybe a little out of his depth.

People didn't apologize to Sparkle often.

"It's..." Okay, it wasn't fine, so he was going to gloss over that part all the same. "... history, anyway. Your Temple is just one more place on the really long list of places that isn't safe, and that list more or less begins with 'everywhere,' so..."

He hesitated before adding, "And besides, it wasn't your fault."

[exiledisciples.livejournal.com]

"No," she agreed readily. "It was not. But we rebuilt the Temple to make it a safe space once again, as it was before the Jedi Purge. We failed in our aims. If we do not recognize such failure and make amends where necessary, we will be no better than the Jedi who came before us."

[sharp_as_knives]

Hannibal rather suspected Sparkle had nobody coming for him this weekend, and if he did, it was probably someone Hannibal and a knife needed to meet. So, he was stopping by the store to visit.

And stopping, amused, at the sight and the singing.

[myownface]

The singing meant that he wasn't traumatized! Wasn't that neat?

"It's the creep-creepiest season of-- oh!"

See Sparkle. See Sparkle fumble another bag of fake spiders as he noticed who was standing in the doorway.

See Sparkle manage to look like he'd find a way to crawl under the counter and live there unless they found a way to strike the entirety of the past minute from the record completely.

"Uh... hi, Doctor Lecter."

[sharp_as_knives]

Hannibal laughed and reached to steady the bag before it fell. "Hello. You seem to be in good spirits."

[myownface]

"Well..." Yeah, Sparkle was blushing a bit. "I mean, my options are 'good spirits' or 'really, really not,' and it's not a bad day and I found decorations so I figured I'd just focus on that instead of anything... you know... stupid."

Sparkle was babbling. Lookit him go.

[sharp_as_knives]

"Or anything that's bothering you but that may be less meaningful than it seems," Hannibal said.

He smiled. "I thought I would come to visit you. Would you like some help with the decorations?"

[myownface]

Yeah, stupid, just like Sparkle had said.

"I mean... I'm not gonna say no if you want to," Sparkle hedged. "Grab a bag of spiders or some sparkly bat garland and go to town?"

Halloween was the best, but it was a dollar store kind of tacky, and Sparkle was okay with that.

[sharp_as_knives]

Hannibal grinned. "Don't expect me to sing. Where is the garland?"

[myownface]

"Ohh, you picked the brave one," Sparkle drawled, smirking and reaching for the glittery, glittery garland. "Respect."

It was okay, Hannibal. Sparkle could do all the singing, all you had to do was hang up the little bats and, presumably, get glitter all over you.

[sharp_as_knives]

"Good lord." That was a lot of glitter. But Hannibal wasn't going to back down now he'd offered; he'd had messier things on him (albeit none quite so persistent). He just shook his head and gave it a look of mingled amusement and horror.

"Across the window sill?" he suggested.

[myownface]

"Sure," Sparkle replied, getting back to his little back of spiders. "I mean, wherever it looks good, you know? It's Halloween. You could string it around one of the mannequins like a glittery noose and it'd be appropriate."

He paused for a moment.

"But please don't. I want to replace those with skeletons before the month is through and, like, I don't want to have to unwrap them later."

...

Fake skeletons, Hannibal. Fake ones.

[sharp_as_knives]

Honestly, Sparkle, Hannibal would never use real ones! They were far too much work to get the meat off of.

"No nooses," Hannibal promised. He played with the garland a bit, letting loose a puff of glitter. "This is too stiff, anyway. It would be difficult to tie around anything."

Instead of that, he climbed onto the edge of the display to tuck one end of the garland into a corner so it wouldn't come loose. "Will this work?"

[myownface]

Naaah. The easiest way to get meat off of any bone was to just throw it on an anthill and let them do all the work.

Sparkle glanced over from where he was artfully arranging spiders in the cobwebs.

"... Sure," he said, after a pause. "Do you, uh, want tape or anything for that?"

He suspected that cheap glittery bat garland was not a thing Hannibal had much experience with.