fandomtownies | Tuesday at the beach. (sozzzzzwrongday)

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Tuesday at the beach. (sozzzzzwrongday)

Hernando would usually go to the park when he needed some calm introspective time. After the weekend, he was avoiding trees as much as possible while he tried not to remember the mad dash through them in a search for his friend. To not think of the giant things floating around attacking people. To forget the sound of the two quick shots. He still heard that noise when he closed his eyes.

Business was slow so he locked up early and walked down to the beach in front of it. He could still see the shop so if anyone were pounding on the door desperate for tea, he could accommodate. The sun and surf were soothing. The noise of the water crashing on the rocks was exactly the sort of rhythmic comfort he needed just then.

A small gamine grin flitted over his face. Taking out his cell phone, he turned and captured a long shot of the beach, the corner of the shop's sign barely peeking into the frame. He sent it as a text. It was a very small secret to share; not really a secret at all, more like a hint.

[OOC: open sez me. no ocd sez you.]

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And Sparkle... well. Sparkle could take a hint. With the bit of the shop in frame, he didn't even have to pull a circuit of the island, which he wouldn't have minded, except he didn't want to keep Hernando waiting, either.

"You know," he said, smiling a little as he approached, "I'm pretty sure it was my turn to be sending you the next secret."

With a quiet laugh, he confessed, "I'm not sure that really counted as a secret because it was so obvious. How are you?"

"Pretty okay," Sparkle replied, smiling a little and shrugging his shoulders lightly. "Little lonely in the apartment, that's half the reason I went to Coruscant with Atton, but there's a lot of dusting to be done, so... trade-off."

He looked faintly sheepish.

"My thrilling life. How have you been?"

"You are welcome to stay with Kaidan at the hotel whenever you like," Hernando offered, "I have resorted to bribing Rosalie's son to guard the door to make sure he doesn't decide to go for a jog or anything."

"How have I been?" Hernando considered the question and tilted a hand back and forth, "I have been better. I have been worse. Today, I would choose to be better so I am enjoying the sun and the soothing sound of the water on the rocks."

A side glance, "And now, the company."

Sparkle smiled a little, both at the invitation and the statement that followed, and nodded faintly.

"Sun and water... and company," he said, "I can appreciate that. Sounds like an A+ self-care regimen, to me."

Somebody needed to teach Kaidan that one.

... And Sparkle, to be honest.

"I approve of very good self care," Hernando said. Did that sound like an innuendo?

It absolutely was.

And that was an invitation to just grin outright, wasn't it?

"Is that so?" Sparkle laughed easily and stepped up even closer to Hernando. "We'll have to trade pointers for it, sometime."

"Do you not find it so?" Hernando asked as his smile grew, "Appropriate amounts of self care after a long, hard day can be quite enjoyable and relaxing."

"I hear there is an Onsen on the island though I have not found it yet. A really good rub down and a glass of wine during a hot soak sounds like heaven."

Sparkle ducked his head a little at that, grinning. Hey, that one wasn't even subtle. He kind of loved it.

"You know, I've never been? But damn, it's been a long time since someone made taking a bath sound so enticing."

"You don't take baths?" he inquired, "I enjoy them. It is my one small complaint, that the hotel tub is small and I cannot stretch out nor sink to my chin in warm water. Perhaps this is why the Onsen sounds so nice. I will have to investigate."

"Seems like something worth investigating," Sparkle decided, smiling a little. "I do the bath thing sometimes, sure, but maybe not as often as I should. Or could. It isn't like I don't have the time, anyway."

Well. He tended to fill it as much as he could, these days.

"How does someone with your many hobbies have any time at all?" Hernando smiled at him, "I am very grateful you have made as much time for me as you have this week."

"Doesn't hurt that they're all pretty part-time hobbies," Sparkle admitted, smiling wryly. "But, I mean... you called. People were hurt. I'm not... like... some kind of knight in shining armour or anything, but being here was something I could do."

And he'd spent a lot of time on the island in the wake of things like these, not able to do much of anything at all.

Hernando caught his gaze and said seriously, "It was a very good thing you did and it was much more than only being here. For Kaidan and for me as well."

That was never going to not be weird, people being grateful for his presence. Sparkle smiled, but only briefly, as he bit down some knee-jerk urge to make some stupid joke about it.

But there wasn't really a joke to be made. This wasn't a joking situation.

"... I mean," he said, instead, "I've been there. In both your shoes. Sort of."

"They are not good shoes to fill, no," Hernando said quietly, "but when they are the only ones I have to wear.." Palm shrug. "Even so, I would not wish to be anywhere else. A little bad for all of the amazing is still a good trade."

"It is easy to say for now. All I did was wait."

Sparkle was quiet for a long moment before tilting his head a little.

"I mean," he said softly, "you cared enough to wait. That's not nothing, Hernando."

Hernando made a small negating gesture with a hand, "This is not what I meant. It is simply that next time it might be me inside something awful, with guilt or pain or worse. Will I still say the same then, with those shoes to fill? I cannot say."

"Caring begets caring. If it had been me inside, it would have been him outside. I have not such resources as he does, but I did all I could do. When that is all you can do, then it is also what you must do."

"It is," Sparkle agreed, though he was frowning faintly. "It's still... I mean..."

He spread his hands a little.

"It's okay to not be okay after all of this. And it's okay to be okay, or to be somewhere in the middle, or to still be in shock, or... any of it. If this wasn't a dealbreaker for you, if the island still has its charms even though you know what can happen here, then... hey. Good. All you did was wait, but that doesn't mean you didn't get a taste of the other side of the coin."

"I think I am still a little bit in shock. It seems very surreal but also sometimes very real. I am taking it day by day to see how I react after some time has passed," Hernando said quietly. "I am not certain that even just waiting was not part of the shadow's effects."

He looked out at the water for a few minutes. "Lito, my ex, is 'ex' because when our friend Dani was endangered, he had the power to help her and instead, he did nothing. I could never do that. I can do nothing for Dani but wait and hope. I could do nothing this weekend but wait and hope. There is a parallel." He tilted his head down to look at the stones. "At least here, the people who could help did what they could. They tried. It was worth it to wait, seeing that. For the reminder."

The name of the ex had Sparkle blink, once, if only because it sounded very much like the name of his own current. He didn't say anything on the matter, though, simply listened to the rest in silence, and then... nodded.

"If there's one thing this place does do well," he murmured, "it's round up the cavalry. If something hits us, there'll be a dozen people ready, willing, and able to hit it back twice as hard, and everyone who can't fight will do whatever they can regardless. Hell, the last big thing was thwarted by a bunch of people drinking the most horrid concoction known to man. I still taste pickle juice and chocolate syrup in my nightmares."

It was perhaps not a good indication of the actual trauma the tremens had brought to the island, but he figured sparing Hernando accounts of actual trauma right now was maybe not a bad idea.

"One thing you can say for this place... you definitely get to see people's true colours one way or another eventually."

"Do you know, that is something Kaidan said before his trip to Coruscant. 'Sometimes all you need to know about a person is how they answer four simple words: I need your help.' I have been thinking about it since he said it. It is not a bad thing, this, to judge a person by if you have nothing else."

Hernando cut Sparkle a glance, "Pickle juice and chocolate syrup? That does sound horrid, or perhaps as a prank. Why this mix?"

Sparkle huffed a soft laugh, and shook his head.

"Oh, it got worse than that," he assured Hernando, "but it was part of the sludge a few of us had to drink in order to close the portal to send the monsters that were attacking people back home. I mean, so far as animal attacks on the island go, the giant meat-demons were probably one of the least pleasant experiences, but at least the people in comas got better with a little coffee..."

He snorted.

"This place." He raised his arms up over his head in a stretch, and then sighed. "I like... I like that, though. The thing Kaidan told you. The 'I need your help.' I don't know if I'd be able to simplify it that much, myself... I'd probably crawl out of my skin just trying. But it seems like a start."

His face was a picture. Possibly of a cat's arse, the way his mouth was puckered at the idea of pickle and chocolate sludge. Giant meat demons. That was right up there with shark tornadoes in Nopeland.

Hernando smiled while watching Sparkle stretch. Was he ogling? He might be ogling, just a little.

"It is a good start. It helped me when the others showed up, using powers I had never seen. It was startling but.. they were there to help. It was what they had to use and they used everything they had. I think I would have been more frightened, else."

Sparkle nodded a little.

"God, it took me years to get used to everybody having powers," he admitted. "And I have seen a lot of weird-assed powers here over the years. But it's more... I dunno. Superhero bullshit, I guess. Some of them even wear the stupid tights and capes."

He had his own reservations about superhero bullshit, but that was... less relevant to the conversation, maybe.

"Never quite stops feeling like it's all out of your league, though," he added, a little more softly. "You meet mutants and aliens and... fucking... magical girls or whatever, and it isn't like they judge you for not being able to hold your own the way they can, but..."

He shrugged.

It was hard not to feel like something a little bit less, sometimes.

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