fandomtownies | Pick Your Poison, Wednesday

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Pick Your Poison, Wednesday

Well, this wasn't Sparkle's dumb holiday, but it just so happened that his shift happened to be on it, so here he was, sitting his ass down behind the counter at Pick Your Poison, wondering what to do with himself today.

After a good ten, fifteen minutes, he shrugged, and then put sunscreen on sale, then proceeded to start putting together a display of cosmetics in shades of red, white, and blue. Just because he wasn't American didn't mean he couldn't capitalize on it. And then, because he was bored, he pulled out his package of sparklers and set one in an incense holder at the counter. Whenever somebody came through the door, he'd light one up, let it burn down, and then replace it with a new one for the next customer.

He made his own fun, here, okay?

[OOC: Open!]

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Seivarden had run out of tea, and the fact that she had found a shop here that sold good quality teas was one of the things she had appreciated the most lately. She hadn't seen Sparkle in a while, either.

"I'm not even going to bother complaining about the weather," she said as she entered.

Sparkle's hand stuttered to a stop on the way to his lighter, and then he shrugged and picked it up, lighting his sparkler anyway.

It'd be a nice distraction if he wound up wanting to strangle somebody, he figured.

"Complaining isn't going to change it," he replied with a shrug. "Anyway, it feels hotter where I'm from today than it does here, I'd have to laugh at you if you did."

Stupid humidity.

"Complaining rarely changes things, but it might make you feel better." She closed the door behind her, then shrugged.

"Is that part of your celebration?"

She gestured towards the sparkler, unaware that there was a difference between Canada and the United States. At least she knew there was a holiday!

Sparkle bit the inside of his cheek to stop himself from saying that if complaining made people feel better, it was a wonder that Seivarden ever felt anything but wonderful all the time.

"It's a part of someone's celebration," he replied with a shrug. "Not mine. I'm not from here either. But I'll take any excuse to play with sparklers."

"Oh," Seivarden said. "Sparklers? Were you named after them?"

"Yeah, actually," Sparkle replied, shrugging and watching the sparks falling down from the stick. "When I was born someone lit one and my mother thought it'd be a good name."

... She'd been exhausted and pretty drugged up at the time, clearly.

"Oh. Well. So is it a common name where you are from?"

To be fair, she had no way of knowing.

"Not even a little bit," Sparkle replied, raising an eyebrow, looking... faintly uncomfortable, now. He had no problem with telling Seivarden to back off at his own business, but here, in Iris' place? He sighed and put up with it. "It's as stupid a name back home as it is here."

"I didn't say it was stupid," Seivarden pointed out. "Where I'm from it's just an unusual way to name a child."

She shrugged. "I came here to buy tea."

Not to argue with Sparkle.

"I know what kind of name it is," Sparkle muttered under his breath, and then waved to the tea display. "Any kind in particular? Same as last time?"

He couldn't resist adding, "I'll throw in more glitter for free."

Because so help him, he was still gonna be Sparkle.

Seivarden rolled her eyes. "It took me some time to get rid of all that glitter, you know," she said.

"Yes, same as last time, but I'd also like to try something new."

See? And that was why glitter was great.

"New, huh? Like... a green tea, or a chai or something?"

Glitter was... Seivarden still hadn't thrown away those two jars.

"Oh, yes, green. Someone talked about it. Maybe Kaidan. We do have green teas at home, but they're not as popular."

The corner of Sparkle's mouth twitched a little at the mention of Kaidan.

Oh boy, there was a can of worms to be opened on the horizon, and Sparkle really didn't want to be in this galaxy when it was.

"They take some getting used to if you're more familiar with black teas," he allowed. "Are you interested in trying one? I'm pretty sure that's actually the kind Iris is more familiar with. I like it, anyway."

Well. It was okay, coming from somebody who thought that green tea all tasted like grass. But Sparkle wasn't going to say that. He wanted Seivarden in and out of here without an incident, for a change.

"Oh, I definitely want to try," Seivarden said. "There are many good quality ones, as far as I understand."

That was something, at least.

"So," she added. "How are things with you?"

"Good as they ever get," Sparkle replied. "Weather's nice on Coruscant, Portalocity behaved itself today. My hair looks great."

Inconsequential, non-personal small-talk crap. He busied himself with going through the tea selection, picking out a few greens for Seivarden to inspect.

"You?"

Even Seivarden, who didn't generally pay much attention to things like that, noticed that something was a bit off.

"Oh, good. I need to stop by Demon Marcus soon to buy some summer clothes. And gloves. Summer gloves. Do you think they could be ordered from somewhere?"

She added, aware that Sparkle had probably been ironic: "Do you usually have a problem with your hair?"

"We already have summer gloves in," Sparkle replied, shrugging. "I make a point to know my customer base, you know."

He set the tea down on the counter in front of her, and then reached up to run a hand through his hair.

"And my hair's always great. It's just sometimes I feel the need to point it out."

Seivarden almost - almost - rolled her eyes. "So, are you going to tell me what's wrong, or are you just going to be..."

She made a gesture.

"...dramatic?"

Sparkle raised his eyebrows a little.

"Don't you mean oversensitive?"

As she'd apparently been telling people around town?

"Possibly, but how can I tell when I don't know what this is about," Seivarden snorted.

"Oh come on," Sparkle replied, rolling his eyes, "it isn't like I can sneeze without being oversensitive where you're involved."

So, yeah. That was going to be his sticking point today.

"You called me that to Kaidan? Seriously?"

"So that's what this is about. I think I said a few good things about you too, but maybe he didn't mention those."

Either way, now Sparkle was being oversensitive.

Sparkle rolled his eyes at that.

"No, I'm being perfectly civil," he replied. "There is no 'this.' If there is, that's you picking up on something that either isn't about you, isn't any of your business, or both. I only brought up Kaidan because you're prying."

And he had no patience for prying even on a good day.

"I asked because you were acting strangely," Seivarden said. "But fine, I don't need to know. It's not about me."

"You hardly know me," Sparkle sighed. "How would you know if I'm acting strangely or not?"

He shook his head a little.

"Doesn't matter. Not about you, like you said. Maybe I had a long week last week. Maybe I had a great week last week. Maybe I just handle weather like this really badly."

"No, I don't, but I've talked to you enough to know."

Seivarden sighed. "I called you oversensitive because Kaidan said he had made you cry. And for whatever reason, now you're acting like a sulky seventeen year old baby lieutenant."

Sparkle grit his teeth a little at that, and was now glaring at Seivarden over the counter.

"Did he mention what made me cry?"

"No, and I didn't ask, since it was none of my business," Seivarden replied. "Kaidan was a bit upset about it though, and I just assumed it wasn't that serious."

She shrugged.

"Then... what the hell about it makes you think I was being oversensitive? Maybe I had a fucking good reason to be crying," Sparkle said, grinding those words out between his teeth, hands balled into fists. "Do you just go around saying that about me to anyone I might happen to come up in conversation to? 'Oh yeah, Sparkle opened the shop on Sunday,' 'Yeah, he's so oversensitive.'"

Sorry, Iris. Customer service skills only went so far, apparently.

"Well, you are oversensitive sometimes."

Seivarden sighed. "Look, I didn't mean anything by it, and I'm sure it didn't affect Kaidan's opinion of you."

Sparkle stared at Seivarden long and hard in silence.

And then he picked the tea back up off the counter and put it back on the shelf without a word.

It was either that, or take a swing at her, and one of those two things would make a far more lasting impression on her, he figured.

Seivarden just looked at Sparkle: "What are you doing?"

"I'm putting away the tea," Sparkle replied simply. And then turned around and settled back behind the counter again, smiling pleasantly.

"What?" Seivarden gave him an incredulous look. "You're not going to sell the tea?"

"Why would I sell the tea? Maybe I like the tea."

He rummaged around for a moment, and then surfaced with a nail file, proceeding to start inspecting and filing his fingernails. Super casually.

"Fine," Seivarden said. "You don't want to sell me tea."

She made a frustrated gesture.

"I have no idea why, and yes, now I'm suspecting you are oversensitive. About something you don't want to tell me. Actually, I don't think I want to hear."

She turned. Better to come back another day, one when Iris was working.

She could have fun with that. Sparkle raised a hand and waved a little 'bye' with it.

"Toodles."

And then he considered all the tea stock, very, very thoughtfully.

And rang all of it into the till. He owned a business of his own. He could afford it. Maybe he'd bring some back to Coruscant for the fancypants Jedi to enjoy.

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Pick Your Poison, Wednesday

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