Dite's Decadent Delights, Tuesday

[spin_kick_snap]

It had been a few weeks since Kathy had come into the store, which meant that whatever else she wanted to do, it all had to take backseat to inventory. It was very weird, going around the store muttering things like, "Nipple clamps, seven sets" and "fuzzy handcuffs, blue, three; fuzzy handcuffs, pink, five, fuzzy handcuffs, leopard, one."

She stopped and looked at her clipboard. "Please tell me that's because we only order one set at a time and not because we sell them so quickly."

And when she was done with totting up the stock still left on the shelves, it was time to go through the receipts to see what had handwavily been sold in her absence and to hopefully clear up any discrepancies between what the inventory sheet said she had and what merchandise was actually in the store.

"Okay, how the heck are we missing nine gallons of lube? How are we even stocking that much? This has got to be some kind of error!"

Ahh, the glamorous life of a sex toy salesgirl.

[No OCD]

Comments

[myownface]

So sue him, Sparkle was pretty sure it was bad form to crash in for potential awkward conversations with people in their place of employment. Particularly when their place of employment was one's own former place of employment.

And when, even a couple of years ago, that place of employment would have had the person one was crashing in for a conversation with blushing forever.

But here he was, after class, and after a brief pause in the zoo gift shop along the way, brandishing a stuffed koala toy and sauntering in like he owned the place anyhow. It wasn't a mouse, mostly because zoo gift shops weren't generally big on common vermin or anything, but he figured it was cute enough that maybe he could... what? Bribe her with it? Throw it at her face as a distraction if he chickened out and needed to run off? Question mark profit?

Fuck it. He was here. He was doing this. He was walking into the shop and looking around and realizing that he kind of missed all of this, too.

"Hooboy."

Nothing was ever easy.

"Uh... hey."

[spin_kick_snap]

Kathy glanced up from what felt like miles of receipts, eyes taking a moment to focus on him as its finished processing various words and crunching numbers. "Sparkle?" she asked, confused. She even glanced around, as if they might have swapped locations and she hadn't noticed. "Hi. Uhh, welcome? What's up? Can I get you anything?"

[myownface]

"Nah," Sparkle said, giving a little awkward shrug of his shoulders. And then scuffing a toe. And then offering Kathy a wry little smile. "Just, you know, I've been hearing you're back in the neighbourhood, and I figured I'd stop by, see if you needed, like, a cup of sugar or a stuffed koala or anything."

Yeah. Yeah, he was shoving that stuffed koala in her direction.

"... Please god say you need a stuffed koala or I'm gonna just look like a total fucking idiot standing here like this."

[spin_kick_snap]

"I don't need a stuffed koala," Kathy said quietly.

Beat.

"But I sure would like one a whole lot," she said, offering him a tentative smile.

[myownface]

Sparkle had gone tense for a moment there, feeling every bit the idiot he'd said he would look like, until she spoke up again and he relaxed slightly.

"I mean, that's probably actually even better," he decided. And then he edged his way over to the counter to offer it to her. "I'm not sure what you'd do with it if you needed it in this place, anyway."

[spin_kick_snap]

"Those are thoughts better left unthunk," Kathy declared, gathering up the stuffed koala in her arms and giving it a hug. "Let's not traumatize this little guy and give Fandom reasons to, I don't know, turn it into a dropbear or whatever."

[myownface]

"Oh, I so don't come equipped for drop-bear," Sparkle snorted, conveniently ignoring the myriad of knives and the small blaster he had hidden on his person at any given time these days. "Anyway, I am, like, totally anti-trauma whenever it can be avoided. Best to let him go on oblivious, right?"

They were technically in a toy shop! It was almost homey!

[spin_kick_snap]

Excepted for how it absolutely wasn't.

"I think so," Kathy said. "I think I'll bring him home and set him up in my room. Just to keep the potential trauma and violence to a minimum." She smiled at him. "Thanks, Sparkle. Err, is there a holiday I'm missing?"

[myownface]

Sparkle shook his head a little.

"No holiday. I mean, unless 'finding my nerve after avoiding people because of my own past fuckups day' is a thing. Maybe it's a thing? It's probably a thing somewhere." He blew out a breath. This was going great. "The koala was a bribe, I think."

A 'please don't hate me even though I'm basically the master of absentee friendship' bribe?

[spin_kick_snap]

"A bribe." Kathy raised her eyebrows at him. "A 'give me discounts on items' bribe?" she asked. "Because I'm pretty sure there's a 'past-employee discount' on the books you're eligible for. Or a 'go easy on me with Uno' bribe, because you have to know that's not going to work."

She'd be keeping the koala regardless.

[myownface]

"Aw, shit, and here I was hoping to be able to play just one game of Uno without having my ass kicked," Sparkle replied, more a relieved wordvomit than a teasing note. "... We're cool? Are we cool?"

He had no idea if they were cool.

Hence the koala.

He was bad at this.

[spin_kick_snap]

"We're..." Kathy wanted to say they were cool. But she wasn't exactly sure. "I'm not angry at you or upset or anything. Are you?"

She looked down at the koala, stroking its soft head. "Even if you're not, are still friends? Properly friends? Or is it more likely that we're going to have to try to rebuild that over time?"

[myownface]

"God, I'm not angry," Sparkle sighed. "I mean... I had some shit to work through, I have issues, like, abandonment issues and shit? But that's me stuff you don't even want me to get started on and it's not even really about you and... like... why the fuck would... I dunno... I mean."

He huffed out a breath and held up a hand while he pulled together his thoughts.

"I mean, I went and pissed off before you took off and never came back right up until you did, that's on me."

[spin_kick_snap]

Kathy nodded slowly. "We...didn't really see each other much, my last year," she said. "And some of that was just as much on me as it was on you."

Hey. That might actually count as a bit of emotional growth. Before she died, she would have tried claiming more, either because she felt guilty or just so Sparkle wouldn't feel as bad.

"I don't know if we're friends anymore," she admitted. "We kind of drifted apart. But I'd like to find out for sure. And if we're not...I'd like to get there again."

He'd been among her first and best friends. She'd missed him. It would be good to have him back.

[myownface]

"And... I mean... I guess I graduated and was gone for part of that too, and Toronto went to hell, and..."

He huffed out a little sigh.

"I don't know either," he settled on, finally. "I mean, drift happens. But you're like one of the only people around here who could meet me on my level for a lot of stuff, and that meant more than maybe I ever let on, back when I was a dumbass kid."

[spin_kick_snap]

"I wouldn't have believed you anyway, unless you meant academics," Kathy admitted, brushing a strand of hair from her face. "And shit just...happened. The island..."

Well, he knew what the island was like. What it made them do, both separately and to each other.

[myownface]

"The island does a lot of things," Sparkle replied, cramming his hands into his pockets awkwardly. "Thing is, we both know that."

And at least he didn't try to eat her! That had been reserved for, you know, other people who had been close friends until he fucked up with help from the island.

He super sucked at this.

"Guess I figured it was safer to slink off with my tail between my legs than, like, actually fucking apologize for dragging you through my bullshit and challenge you to a game of Uno."

[spin_kick_snap]

Hey, she'd actually eaten people. Fortunately, none of them had been her friends.

"But I know how it can be," Kathy said, leaning over the counter to reach for his hand. "After everything. Just getting your head on straight can take all the energy you have to spare. And it's--hard. Facing people afterwards, I mean. When you're just choking on shame and regret and guilt. Even their forgiveness hurts. It grates on you."

[myownface]

"I'm still not entirely certain I'm, like, past the point where forgiveness feels like a trap," Sparkle admitted. "Like, what the fuck did I ever do to deserve it? I'm not out there earning it, that's for damn sure."

He wouldn't even know where to start with that.

Maybe less burning down houses.

"What if instead of worrying about forgiveness, and about who owes it to who and for what, we just, like, clean slate this shit? We don't know where we stand with one another, sure, then," he reached to take the hand that was reaching for his. "Hey, I'm Sparkle. Yeah, that's actually my name, my mother had this weird sense of humour. I used to break people's teeth for laughing at it because I thought I had some kind of point to prove, but fuck that, they're just jealous they don't have names half as fabulous as mine."

[spin_kick_snap]

"I'm Kathy," she replied, shaking his hand. "I don't have any special nicknames or anything of the kind. I mean, I had a friend who called me Mouse for years, but that's about it." She gave him a wry smile. "I'm here for the long haul. Nowhere else to go. You?"

[myownface]

"Pretty stuck here," Sparkle replied, returning that wry smile. "I'm here by way of Toronto, but Toronto kind of sucks. Like. More than I ever gave it credit for."

Well. It sucked for him in particular. And most of that was his own damn fault.

"You know it's funny? I used to have this friend I called Mouse? Would've turned like fifty shades of pink if she ended up in a place like this, though, back when I worked here."

[spin_kick_snap]

"She sounds like the kind of girl who used to get embarrassed by a lot of dumb things," Kathy noted with a fond smile for her idiot younger self. "Sounds like she had a lot of growing up to do."

Probably still did, even though there were some days when she easily felt like a hundred years old.

[myownface]

"Sure she did," Sparkle agreed fondly. "I mean, not like anybody else back then didn't, but not everyone else can be blamed for a common room porn party as a direct result from an in-class tirade about the evils of bukkake, either."

[spin_kick_snap]

"Oh my god," Kathy groaned, dropping both the pretense and also her face to the counter. "I'd forgotten about that. I think my brain was protecting me from the trauma."

[myownface]

And at that, Sparkle doubled over in laughter.

"Oh shit, Mouse, was there ever a time when you thought I'd let you ever live that down?"

Really, it made her current place of employment that much more hilarious.