Demon Marcus, Sunday

[myownface]

In the end, Sparkle had managed to get the insurance company to cooperate. It had involved a lot of arguing, and a fair bit of 'Let me TELL YOU about my week,' but whatever he'd done had apparently worked. Which was good, because looking into the shop to see what the contractors had done with the place, Sparkle wasn't completely certain he would be able to recoup the cost of repairs out of his own pocket within his lifetime.

The back room was just... gone. Gone, taking the burn barrel along with it. The staircase to the upstairs apartment was still there, but there was shelving on it for folded jeans to make the whole thing somewhat less conspicuous. Upstairs was going to be his new storage space, then. The dressing rooms were larger, the floorspace was larger, and there was a proper work table near the counter for tailoring that - shut up - kind of made his heart sing a little. The place still smelled a bit like fresh paint (by far a better smell than fish), and there was a layer of sawdust settled in that Sparkle was going to spend the better part of the morning vacuuming up, but...

... But it was a functional business space again. He put a sign out saying that the shop would open an hour late today so that he could clear out the dust, and he'd still be stocking shelves if anybody came in, but yeah. Demon Marcus was open.

And Sparkle desperately needed a nap.

Comments

[sharp_man]

Hannibal wasn't about to leave Sparkle entirely alone - call it a maintenance visit. Not to mention, he was curious about how the store was doing.

So, here he was, bringing lunch in an insulated bag.

He smiled as he looked around. "It looks lovely in here; you've done well."

[myownface]

Sparkle shook his head, glancing up at Hannibal from where he was trying to get the last of the dust off the shelves with a wet rag.

"The contractors did well. I just, like, bitched at the insurance company until they agreed to pay them," he replied. "But I guess the end result is the same."

No more sidewalk sale, just in time for fall.

[sharp_man]

"It is," Hannibal agreed. "And you coordinated it all."

He set his bag on the work table, away from the things set up on it, and started pulling out the dishes. "I thought you might enjoy a meal."

[myownface]

Sparkle opened his mouth to reply to that, then closed it, then blinked and tilted his head. Okay, he had, sure, but...

Oh, hell with it. He was going to let that one go without argument.

"Food does sound good," he admitted.

[sharp_man]

Hannibal smiled. Eventually, Sparkle, you would learn to take compliments and accolades that were your due.

He set dishes out and went about plating the food. "Venison with cloudberry chutney, sweet potato Dauphinoise, honey roasted carrots, and rosemary roasted beets."

Hey, it was Autumn. Sort of.

[myownface]

Sparkle watched Hannibal divvy out the food, kind of holding his breath as he did so. He was still... undecided... on how he felt about things in general, but there was a sort of familiar comfort to all of this that he couldn't just flat-out ignore, either. He chewed the inside of his cheek, and then wandered to get a couple of chairs.

"Cloudberry?"

There was something he'd never had before, right there.

[sharp_man]

"Similar to raspberry and blackberry," Hannibal explained. "The fruit is orange, and it grown in northern climates." He finished and set out plates, silverware, napkins, and glasses, then poured them a nice (non-alcoholic) sparkling cider.

[myownface]

"Huh." Sparkle slid a chair in at one side of the counter, and then another opposite to it for himself. "Must be farther north than me, then."

A fair bit, yes, Sparkle.

[sharp_man]

"Certainly farther than you are now," Hannibal answered, sitting. "But I thought you might enjoy it."

[myownface]

"I mean, big fan of fruit anyway," Sparkle mused, looking the spread over thoughtfully. "Venison, huh?"

That... didn't actually have a note of suspicion to it. Just curiosity. Sparkle didn't eat game often. Unless nerf counted.

He doubted nerf counted.

[sharp_man]

Hannibal nodded. "It can be difficult to get adequately fresh, with only one world to look through. Fortunately, these days it's somewhat easier. It's a good meat for Fall and Winter."

[myownface]

"Had no idea," Sparkle admitted, looking at it thoughtfully. "It's not, like... I dunno. I was gonna ask if it's a kind of, like, 'gamey' meat, but I don't entirely know what gamey meat tastes like anyway."

And, he suspected, Hannibal knew how to prepare anything so that you couldn't notice how gamey something was unless you were supposed to.

Or what it had even been before he started passing it off as venison or veal or rabbit or whatever.

[sharp_man]

Hannibal was very good at that, yes.

"Well," he said, "taste this, and then you will at least know what good venison tastes like."

[myownface]

"... Sure."

Sparkle was trying to sound not as obviously uncertain about the whole setup as he was feeling. How was he doing so far?

He reached for his fork, settling into his seat, and looked over the contents of the plate. It really did look excellent, at the very least.

"So," he said, nudging idly at some carrot, "did you just visit to make sure I'm eating, or...?"

[sharp_man]

Someone less astute than Hannibal might be fooled. As it was, Hannibal was inclined to look past it.

"In part," he agreed. "And also in part to see how both you and the store were doing, and in part because I enjoy your company."

[wiredweird]

Jughead had meant to stop by, in the aftermath of all the wreckage. To see if he could help or something. But then some things had been happening back in Riverdale and he just hadn't found the right time.

Though now that he did, at least he found the store had bounced back from the sharkicane just fine.

"Oh, wow."

[myownface]

"Yeah," Sparkle said, shaking his head as he looked around the place. He slung the rag he was dusting with over his shoulder. "That's kind of what I said, too."

He gave the kid a nod.

"Been a while."

[wiredweird]

"Yeah."

There'd been... stuff. Jughead scratched the back of his head, just barely under the ever-present beanie.

"I meant to come by after the sharks, but..." He took another meaningful glance around. "Looks like the place did okay without me."

[myownface]

Sparkle gave his shoulders a little shrug as he settled back to lean against the counter.

"I mean, it was pretty bad a few weeks back," he noted, "but after I stopped freaking the fuck out and got a contractor in, and the insurance guys stopped being dicks..."

He shrugged again.

"We're still a little low on stock," he noted. "The priority was to get a place to put it all before replacing what took water damage or got shredded by a pair of makos."

[wiredweird]

"Well, it looks good," Jughead said with a little shrug of his own. "The shark thing was..."

Look, he was still pretty new. So he made a vague hand gesture that didn't really feel like it actually covered how weird how weird it had been, as his words trailed off.

[myownface]

"A little bit overwhelming, a lot crazy, and not even the first time the island has dropped sharks on our heads," Sparkle offered. "But on Fandom's own 'why the fuck do I even live here' scale, the sharks rate maybe a five."

Nobody had even died!

[wiredweird]

Meanwhile, Riverdale hadn't suffered any freak weather, but had been shaken to its very core by a single murder.

Jughead was learning that there were pros and cons of messed-up types to every small town.

"So, what rates a ten?"

[myownface]

Oh, Riverdale. You hadn't seen nothin' yet.

"Huh," Sparkle said after a pause. "I'd put the zombie murder carnival at about eight. That one got me elected StuCo President my senior year because I bitched about how fucking tacky it would be to have a Homecoming carnival that year."

He'd had feelings. Being thrown from a faulty ferris wheel, dying, and coming back as an evil carnie had a way of doing that.

"For ten, I'd say the shit that breaks reality," he settled on. "The alternate timelines or the fucked-up futures where the island is in ruins and everyone is dead or monsters or they've been enslaved by some psycho witch with a hard-on for making people write notes."

There was a pause, and then Sparkle added, "I had so many fucking scars from those notes until someone fixed that one."

[wiredweird]

Oookay.

Jughead looked... a little taken aback, honestly, and more so with each passing item on that pretty comprehensive list. And you know, it felt a little worrisome that he could just accept all those things as having happened.

He was rarely sorry that he'd asked something, but maybe this time he was. A little. "What the hell is this place?" was all he could really think to say.

[myownface]

"I wanna say Hell," Sparkle sighed, "but we chased the devil off at least once."

Helpful, Sparkle.

"It's some kind of, like, pit stop on the road to everywhere. Different realities all kind of meet in the middle, here."