Pick Your Poison, Wednesday

[myownface]

Sparkle... was not actually certain when it had gone from being last week to this one. Sure, he'd been around. Hanging out with people. Getting some sick ink done. Self-defense lessons and yelling at hecklers. He'd skipped his other job on Sunday but he'd gone to try to bully Atton into taking care of himself with a hangover, and he'd done the Monday broadcast. All actual, tangible markers of the passage of time.

But it still felt weird to be here at work again today.

... Possibly because after bailing early last week for an impromptu flight lesson with Kaidan, the shelves... were still kind of depressingly bare. At least his head was on slightly better than it had been, and so he was sighing and pulling out the catalogues, continuing on the merry path to slowly just straight-up converting Iris' shop into a Lush.

A Lush that also sold DavidsTea.

What? It wasn't like he knew how to make that stuff any better than shampoo.

[OOC: Open!]

Comments

[spectre_alenko]

Kaidan showed up with another large coffee confection for Sparkle. It was their thing. "Hey. How you doing? Jack said it's time for the patch over your tattoo to come off."

Awkward.

[myownface]

"Feels about that time," Sparkle agreed, smiling crookedly. "I'm fine."

Well. No. But, like, comparatively?

"Finally getting around to placing like a billion orders. I deserve a raise."

[spectre_alenko]

"You kept the place going while Iris was missing so yeah, probably you're due for one," Kaidan said, handing Sparkle his coffee, "Sadly, all I can get you is coffee. And some UV lights. Probably need you to take your shirt off, Jack said it wasn't a small tattoo."

[myownface]

"Yeah, it'd be awkward to try to pull my collar down," Sparkle admitted, taking the coffee ad a long pull from it. "Whenever you're ready, I can do that, no problem."

[spectre_alenko]

Kaidan arched a brow and fired up the Omni. His left arm glowed to life and he waggled his fingers under the circular scanner. "Whenever you feel like getting half naked."

[myownface]

"I mean, that's basically my whole life," Sparkle joked, but hiked his shirt up and set it on the counter anyway, baring the large panther face on his shoulder, framed by maple leaves. "But right now especially. Let's do this."

[spectre_alenko]

Kaidan rolled his eyes but grinned a little. Sparkle seemed to be feeling a little better, anyway.

He whistled when he saw the panther. "Nice. Won't take but a minute."

He turned on the UV and tuned it to medigel release. The circular scanners glowed a little brighter and he waved them over the tattoo. The medigel released and became a faint blue vapor, barely damp, in the air before evaporating completely.

"That's some big ink, buddy."

[myownface]

"Was a big mood," Sparkle replied, reaching a hand up to touch fingers to the skin there. "And... you know. Big scar."

The scar was still there. Not that it was immediately obvious at a glance.

[spectre_alenko]

"Yeah, I remember," Kaidan said. He looked at Sparkle, "Did it help your mood?"

[myownface]

"A bit," Sparkle replied. And then paused a few seconds. "For a while. I feel better about that part of myself, at least. That's a step in the right direction, right?"

The scar had been staring at him and eating at him for years. This felt right.

[spectre_alenko]

"Yes," Kaidan assured him, "Forward's usually a good direction to move." He powered down when the last of the medigel had vaporized.

"How you doin' today?" Kaidan asked, and then added, "Jack took a trip to New York."

So, y'know, fair warning.

[myownface]

"I mean... I've been worse," Sparkle hedged. And then swallowed. Conversations prefaced with that sort of thing were probably not going anywhere he'd like. "She have a good time there?"

That was not what he was really asking.

He figured Kaidan would get that.

[spectre_alenko]

"She went trolling for muggers so, yeah, she had a great time," Kaidan said with a wry smile, "Found a whole bunch of 'em, too, from what I read in the paper from New York. Strangest damn thing, criminals turning themselves in all weekend long."

He took a drink of his own coffee. Glanced across at Sparkle and answered what he'd been asked behind the words. "She found them, all three. The one.."

Kaidan chose his words very carefully. ".. It looks like he had some sort of falling out with his buddies and one of them stabbed him a couple times. From what the medical report says, he wounds were ugly but he would have survived them if he'd gone to a hospital. He didn't. He went home. To hide, probably. Didn't go to the hospital for a few days and by the time he was brought in, he was too far gone."

A small pause. "They found the knife that did it in the apartment of one of the other two. They've both been arrested."

[smilestopscars]

Ezra had talked with someone from Fandom a few days ago. And sometimes, that sparked in him a desire to visit. Just wander the town for a good few hours. Peek into a few shops.

Like this one.

"Has this store always been here?"

No, he knew it hadn't. But sometimes he liked to keep up the ruse that he wasn't as observant as he actually was. Also, his curiosity was still genuine. Also, in his cursory glance around, he was yet to actually notice who was manning the place.

[myownface]

"Nah, not always," Sparkle replied. "I think it used to do, like, medicinal stuff or something back when we were students."

He smirked and leaned forward, propping his elbows up on the counter.

"Well hello there. You're a sight for sore eyes."

[smilestopscars]

"Sparkle!" Ezra exclaimed, a wide grin appearing instantly on his face. "I should say the same to you."

He traipsed his way to the counter.

"And in fact, I'm going to: what a sight for sore you are, darling. How have you been, how are things? Not sure I've seen you since you had more hair and I had less."

Since he was rocking the shoulder-length 'werefox Jesus' look, these days.

[myownface]

And Sparkle had meandered away from the rock-and-roll trash panda look a couple of years ago, himself.

"It's been a while," he laughed, leaning back and grinning. "The 'more hair' thing is a good look for you. I've been-" there was a brief pause. "I mean, I've been. Still hanging in there, you know? Back here on the island, I don't know what that must say. How about you?"

[smilestopscars]

Ezra answered first with a vague wave of his hand. "Oh, you know me, I'm fabulous wherever I am."

Patently not true, but he sold it well. Things had mellowed enough from the shitshow of the last few years that he was even starting to believe it himself, every once in a while, here and there.

"I've settled into my small-town life in Maine with sprinklings of Boston in-between.

[myownface]

"Wherever you are, you own it?" Between the two of them, they had a whole lot of 'things had been a shitshow and la la la you don't need to know that' going on, didn't they? But Sparkle wouldn't call Ezra on it if Ezra continued not calling out Sparkle. "Yeah, I can appreciate that. At least you get the Boston interludes? I'd go out of my fucking head if Baltimore wasn't just across the Causeway."

[smilestopscars]

It was how Ezra lived his entire life.

He nodded. "Yes. I like to think of it like this: Currant is where home is, but Boston is where life happens, you know? It's where all the people are."

It was also where his work was, but that was another one of those things that didn't need to be discussed.

[myownface]

"I like that," Sparkle replied, smiling crookedly. "So what's the occasion that brings you back around here? People?"

[smilestopscars]

"Boredom," Ezra answered, seeing no reason to be coy about that. "And a random whim." Because he had poor impulse control, or at least liked to give off that impression. "And I happened to remember the people here are all extraordinarily attractive."

He wasn't coy about the look he gave Sparkle, either.

[myownface]

Clever fox. Sparkle gave him a grin in reply to that look, tilting his head a little to one side, smirking a bit.

"They definitely haven't stopped being that," he agreed, that grin going utterly shameless. "Makes for great views whenever I'm out and about."

Or just sitting at the counter at work, as the case might have been.

[smilestopscars]

"And if you're very lucky, the great views will come visit you right in the store!"

Yeah, he had no shame. So of course he had to say what Sparkle had just left far more implicit. And he had to smirk about it, too.

"And I think that today that makes you a very lucky shopkeeper indeed."

[myownface]

Sparkle broke into a little laugh, ducking his head and grinning.

"Shit, Ezra, you didn't even miss a beat," he teased. "I've missed that about you."