Demon Marcus, Sunday Night

[myownface]

"Nooooooooo."

Sparkle, actually demonstrating a rare bit of self-preservation instinct, had managed to stay put indoors throughout the storm. Hell, he'd even waited a couple of hours to be damn sure the weather was done and over with before arming himself with his little blaster (he hated the things, but he hated dying even more) and a few of the knives Leto had gifted him with, and making his way into town to scope out the damage.

It... it was pretty dire everywhere he looked, and his hopes sank a little bit more the closer he got to Demon Marcus. When he got there to see that two impressively sized mako sharks had taken out the entire front window, boards and all, and had been carried by the wind through about half the merchandise to come to a full rest against the counter, he'd...

... Well, he'd kicked them. They were already dead, but that didn't mean he wasn't going to spend a good five minutes just vengefully kicking the shit out of the damn things as catharsis.

And from there he was checking behind the counter for-- yep. At least that had survived the storm.

He'd figure out where he was going to go from here in a while. For the time being, Sparkle could be found sitting on the front counter with a bottle of whiskey, drinking it straight and staring at his flattened storefront. He probably wasn't going to be going anywhere for a few hours.

[OOC: Shaaaaaaarks. The store is open late. Very, very open. Very, very late.]

Comments

[sharp_man]

Hannibal was wandering the island, locating likely sharks for cooking and letting anyone he came across know about tomorrow's cookout.

He spotted the damage to the store, then Sparkle inside, and carefully made his way over the glass and dust of the shattered facade.

"This brings back memories," he noted.

[myownface]

"Does it?" Sparkle frowned up from his bottle at Hannibal, and then looked back down at the pair of sharks at his feet. "I mean. I guess, probably, a little. But maybe with more structural damage this time around."

[sharp_man]

"Unfortunately, yes." Hannibal came over to the counter and leaned against it next to Sparkle. "And less danger of finding myself stickered by accident."

He looked Sparkle over, saw that he seemed well, if upset, adn nodded. "How is your apartment?

[myownface]

"Apartment's fine," Sparkle sighed, shrugging his shoulders and giving his feet a little swing. "Atton doubled down on disaster preparations this time around. Had a bad feeling, you know? So the homefront is fine, and no amount of boarding this shit up was going to stop these two assholes from blasting through the wall."

Yes, Sparkle was sliding down from the counter a little just to stop one of the dead sharks on the head out of spite.

"How'd you and yours hold up?"

[sharp_man]

"A shark took out the generator, but the house is untouched," Hannibal said. His lips twitched. "I did, however, have to get the flamingos out of the yard, and my porch is now thoroughly covered in feathers and other substances."

Just picture that, Sparkle.

[myownface]

Oh, he was.

"... Oh god," he said, glancing back Hannibal's way. Gonna be getting the cleaners in for that one, huh?"

He paused, and then sighed. "If you know a good one, can you send them my way when you're done?"

[sharp_man]

"I will," Hannibal promised. "We have a contractor that renovated the house and has done quite a bit of work. He's superb, if you don't have a problem with large gastropods."

He grimaced. "Jono will be calling him for the music store as well."

[myownface]

"... Gastropods are, like, slugs, right?"

He was just checking. He didn't have any problem, per se, but he'd probably have to put the surviving stock up out of slime's way.

"Groovy Tunes got it too, huh? Shit. The whole town's bad, it seems like."

[sharp_man]

"Yes, and yes," Hannibal agreed. "We have certainly had worse in this place, but nothing that has done quite so much lasting damage since I've been here."

[myownface]

Sparkle gave a little nod in agreement.

"Psychological damage, sure. Structural, not quite so much. I've seen it bad, but never like this."

[sharp_man]

Hannibal nodded in agreement.

"If you'd like, I could do my best to remove the sharks," he offered. "Jono has a device I can use, although I warn you I'm not terribly practiced with it yet."

[myownface]

Sparkle shrugged his shoulders and took another drink of whiskey.

"I mean, I don't think you can mess this place up more than it already has been," he pointed out. "If you have some way to help, I'll take it."

He was gonna just get hammered and kick the sharks some more, otherwise.

[sharp_man]

Hannibal smiled, checked the collar, and brought forth a hard-light band that wrapped around one of the sharks, shifting it up with a slight wobble until he managed to surround it, and with only a few fits and starts get it out the shattered window and into the street.

It was harder than it looked, but he was getting better at it, he thought.

[myownface]

Sparkle watched that in relative silence. It wasn't until the shark was outside that he looked at his bottle of whiskey.

And then looked at Hannibal.

And then looked back at the bottle.

[sharp_man]

"I'm only allowed to have it like this for the day," Hannibal confided. Apparently Jono didn't trust him with that much power.

"I'd offer to let you try it, but I don't think that Jono would appreciate it."

[myownface]

"Not mine to try," Sparkle replied, still kind of staring, gape-mouthed. "Anyway, I've, like... been into the... you know?"

Sloshy sloshy.

[sharp_man]

Hannibal chuckled. "Understandable." He lifted the other shark out of the building before speaking again.

"I plan on grilling shark again tomorrow, on the beach. Will you be available to sous chef?"

[myownface]

"... Do they need to be tenderized at all? Because I can tenderize."

He'd done a great job on those two makos.

[sharp_man]

Hannibal laughed. "I'm sure it couldn't hurt. And we'll also need a lot of slicing."

[myownface]

"I can do that, too."

Dammit. The sharks were outside of kicking range again. Sparkle was going to vengefully take another swig from his bottle.

[sharp_man]

"My generator was taken out because a shark was being flung through the air while trying to avoid angry, glittery flamingos pecking at it," Hannibal said, deadpan.

[myownface]

"My place of employment got sharked to death," Sparkle countered. "I wouldn't mind the flamingo watchdogs over here, if it might've saved the storefront."

[sharp_man]

"Yes, but then you'd have feathers on everything," Hannibal pointed out. "And glitter. Although perhaps that wouldn't be too different from usual. I'll see if I can't send a few over; you can draft them as mannequins."

[myownface]

Sparkle was pretty sure Hannibal was trying to cheer him up. And he gave him a little smile, trying to indicate that he really did appreciate the effort, honest. But he had no idea what thread to pick up on in all of that to really keep the banter going, either.

He took another mouthful of whiskey.

"Yeah, I'm gonna need to replace those."

[sharp_man]

"You will persevere," Hannibal said. "You can use this as an opportunity to make the place more your own, if you like. And you know you won't be losing business meanwhile, not on this island."

[myownface]

"Maybe I'll... I don't know. Put out racks on the street or something," Sparkle sighed. "With whatever survived. Between shark damage and water damage, a lot of stuff here is pretty much toast. I'll be putting bags of socks on sale for the next month just to turn a profit."

[sharp_man]

I'm sure there are people that will need them," Hannibal pointed out. "And more of it may be salvageable than can be seen at first glance."