fandomtownies | Demon Marcus, Sunday

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Demon Marcus, Sunday

"Ah... shit."

Sparkle had kind of been afraid that this was going to happen. Ever since the only shirts he could find in his dresser this morning were ridiculous Christmas sweaters (though the one he'd pulled on today had given him a much-needed cackle, so he wasn't entirely complaining), he'd been at least low-level paranoid that whatever he showed up to work to today, it wasn't going to be his usual stock.

Nope. Not his usual stock by any stretch of the imagination. Some of the Christmas sweaters were at least the tolerable side of hideous, but a lot of them, especially the ones that he was sure were usually fancier, more expensive merchandise, were burn-barrel hideous.

... Eh. He could work with this. He was putting an assortment of the sweaters in the window along with a sign:

One Day Mystery Shirt Sale! All shirts marked down to $10. Buy a sweater today, end up with who knows what tomorrow!

People liked surprises, right? And that was probably the only way he was going to be able to move any stock today anyway.

[OOC: Open!]

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Mid-morning, Hannibal walked in, looking surprisingly pleased (if somewhat resigned to island's madness) despite his own sweater.

He looked around, smiled and nodded at Sparkle, and came over. "Good morning."

"Hey, Dr. Lecter." Sparkle gave Hannibal a little nod. Then took a double-take at the sweater, blinked, and barked out a startled laugh. "And Dr. Lecter's sweater. I didn't think you were the type!"

Hannibal huffed in laughter. "I believe we've previously established the island's unique sense of humor. How are you doing?"

He kept it light, but he hadn't heard from Sparkle all week; he seemed somewhat better now, but...well.

"I..." Sparkle's eyes traveled the length of the sweater again, paused on the marijuana leaves, and he bit the inside of his cheek again. "... I'm doing better now. Laughing to keep from screaming uncontrollably?"

Hey, at least he was honest.

"Better than I was on Monday."

Much better than that.

"I am pleased to hear it." Hannibal squeezed Sparkle's shoulder, encouraging him in for a hug if he wanted one. "That was not a pleasant place to be."

Dammit, Hannibal. Sparkle was totally going to lean in to cling for dear life for a minute. He'd needed that hug. Desperately.

"Wasn't," he agreed. "Too much... too much that was too empty."

Or something like it.

"Empty and becoming worse," Hannibal agreed. He held Sparkle, doing his best to be comforting despite the fact the situation hadn't been. "But we are no longer there, and you are no longer empty."

"I've been... bleeding out," Sparkle muttered. "Losing little bits of myself a piece at a time since last year September. September, and then July, and... this year has been hell. And then I come across me, but empty, completely fucking empty and I gutted that son of a bitch."

There was a weird blend of passionate and carefully blank going on, there.

Sparkle was so fucking tired.

"Ah." Hannibal smoothed a hand over Sparkle's hair. "Was it difficult to do, or harder for not being difficult?"

"It was easy, until he was dead and I was... fucking losing it. For a few minutes, but... he was me. That was me."

Deep breath. Okay. See, he was cool. He was fine.

"It was different, with the knife. I've only used guns before, when it was actually me."

Okay, not the conversation he'd been intending to have, but his mouth was apparently in overshare mode.

Hannibal just nodded. "It's closer in, more immediate. Only remember - he was a version of you, but he was not you." He tightened his hold for a moment in explanation. "You are here, and very much alive." He sighed. "And he had not been truly you for some time."

Sparkle nodded. And then he nodded some more for lack of any idea what else to do.

"He wasn't me," he murmured. "Just had my face. He lost himself. I thought I was losing myself. Perspective, I guess."

"Perspective," Hannibal agreed. "You have lost a lot of yourself this year, a piece at a time. Facing a version of yourself where that was taken to an extreme forced you to confront all the terror of that at once. You feared him less for himself, and more for what his existence said of you."

"Yeah," Sparkle agreed, pulling in a deep breath and then easing back a little. "That's... that's pretty much exactly it. I mean, killing people isn't easy for me, but even with the guy I shot in Atton's galaxy, the thing that was bothering me was that I took his life away. This... this thing didn't have a life to take away. He didn't even understand he was dying."

Hannibal loosened his grip, giving Sparkle as much room as he needed. "But you are not dying," he said with firm certainty. "You are growing, and changing, but the pieces of you that you've lost are being replaced with new growth. It may hurt, but it isn't death."

"It isn't death," Sparkle agreed. "I just... don't know what to do with it. Part of me wants to dig up the pieces of who I was, and part of me wants to just carve the rest away and not look back, and I'm not completely sure which is which anymore."

He reached a hand up and scrubbed at his face.

"Fuck. Sorry. This probably isn't what you came in for. I, uh, can't really help you with the sweater, though."

Hannibal chuckled and rubbed Sparkle's shoulder. "I know better than to ask for that on a day like today."

He eyed Sparkle a moment longer. "Look at those pieces. Decide which are worth keeping. Look at yourself, and determine what you no longer need. Make a new and beautiful self from what portions are left. And meanwhile, would you feel up to a week of cat-sitting?"

He had, after all, come here for a reason.

"Ohmygodkitties."

So that was a yes. A yes that came with somewhat fervent nodding of his head, at that.

"Cat-sitting really helps with the soul-searching. They are way more emotionally supportive than my fish."

Milady was a lovely fish. But he wasn't terribly cuddly.

"Feel free to bring your fish to keep the frog company," Hannibal said. "And as usual, you may either stop by or make use of the guest bedroom. I will have my phone should you need me, although I may not be able to answer it at all times, as this will be, at last, our honeymoon."

Blink.

Blink blink.

"Holy shit. You're married?"

HE LOOKED LIKE HE WAS IN ONE PIECE, EVEN.

"Oh my god, congrats! No casualties?"

HE HAD TO MAKE SURE.

That was fair.

"No casualties," Hannibal promised. "We eloped on the spur of the moment. The paperwork is properly signed, and we have our rings to prove it." He held up his hand in demonstration. "Now we hope that our honeymoon is less interesting than some of our weddings."

"I mean, even if it isn't," Sparkle leaned forward to admire the ring. Oooo. "You're not gonna become less married than you already are. So you're a step ahead than you have been. Kind of, you know, the important step. Sorry you never got to finish an actual wedding, though."

"As am I." Hannibal shrugged. "Perhaps for a future anniversary. In the meantime, yes, we are married, and now we'll take some time simply to enjoy that fact."

"And I will feed the animals so that you don't have to worry about it," Sparkle declared. "The cats, the frog. Fish? How are they holding up after the tank thing?"

"Most of them made it," Hannibal said. "We're determining what else to add to the tank, but for now, they should be taken care of. You'll only need to feed the frog and cats."

"The three musicians it is, then," Sparkle replied, smiling faintly. "If you need me to do anything else while you're gone, don't be afraid to leave me a message."

...

"Um. E-mail me, though. My phone didn't survive this week."

Hannibal winced. "I will. Shall I try to find you a new one? We'll be in the future, so I imagine something old enough to be obsolete without being antique should be fairly inexpensive."

Sparkle smiled and shrugged his shoulders.

"Nah, that's fine. I have an in over at Stark's, I'll just see if they can fix the one I have. I just haven't made it that far yet, you know?"

It had been that kind of week.

Hannibal nodded. "I'm pleased to see you here, and not only because I wanted a cat sitter." Sparkle was out and being upright, and even responsible.

"Well, I mean, it was probably a matter of time before Atton was going to take me by the shoulders and march me through the door anyway. I figured I'd beat him to the punch."

... Okay, no, that wasn't entirely true.

Probably.

"It's getting easier to put on a 'functioning human' suit and get back to things faster. Trade-off is that the meltdowns before I do are starting to involve more and more fucked-up ways of coping."

"Can we speak when I return?" Hannibal asked. "I can offer ways of coping, as well as an ear."

Sparkle nodded a little.

"Maybe that would be for the best," he replied. "Yeah, we can talk when you get back."

He was pretty sure Atton was getting to a point now where he worried whenever Sparkle announced that he was going to clean the bathroom.

"Thank you." Hannibal smiled. "And until then, I know our musicians will be in good hands."

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Demon Marcus, Sunday

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