fandomtownies | T42 - Thursday 6am-6pm

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T42 - Thursday 6am-6pm

Hernando opened the shop after going for a very long run. It had been very tempting to just crawl right back in bed with Sparkle, where he'd already spent the majority of the last three days. Too tempting. He had a store, he had quokka to take care of. He might even have customers. With an air of resigned responsibility, he set out the pastries and did another cursory hunt for the Specials sign, still missing.

Standing took effort. He borrowed one of the high-top chairs from a table and pulled it behind the counter to sit on.

A moment later he found out just how high a quokka could bounce from a standstill when Dave hopped up into his lap and began imperiously nudging his hand for scritches. Hernando laughed quietly and obliged. "You miss them too, don't you my old friend?"

Abney had spent quite a lot of time curled up on the hearth telling Dave stories and petting him..

And Hernando was very much not thinking about that right now. He was going to make it through the day without bursting into tears. That was the goal.

Even he wasn't sure he'd make it.

[T42 is Open!]

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Sparkle really wasn't in any hurry to get back to real life himself, after the whole... kid... thing. But at least he seemed to be holding it together a little better. Quinn and Abney had kind of wrecked him, but at least it was a wrecking that came with a possibility of future visits, maybe even the possibility of... well.

Of a future. Period.

So he was in a pretty okay mood by the time he made his way out of pocket Narnia and into the tea shop, smiling faintly as he made his way over to the counter and leaned forward to nod at Hernando.

"Well hey there, handsome. Come here often?"

Hernando leaned forward to meet him halfway, resting their foreheads together and murmuring, "Hi, baby. I thought I should open the shop since last week it was closed. How are you doing?"

"I mean, I?" Sparkle smiled wryly. "Am up and about. And could probably use some tea and maybe some Hernando time. You don't have to not be in the shop for that, we can just hang out, you know?"

He fully intended to just hang out. Right here. Forever.

So there.

Hernando managed a smile at that. "I do know," he promised. Nuzzling their noses together he asked, "What sort of tea would you like?"

Hernando wanted him to hang out here forever. And, right at this moment, was a little bit clinging to the idea that Sparkle might want to.

"Something sweet and a little fruity," Sparkle murmured. "I'm in the mood for sweet and a little fruity right now."

And, you know, that wasn't why he was soliciting a kiss right then, but hell, that didn't hurt either.

Hernando huffed a quiet chuckle but yes absolutely he collected on that offer of a kiss. After he came up for air, he set about locating a honeybush that had apple and pear pieces along with cinnamon bark. The store was helpful and pushed the canister to the front. He murmured his thanks and went about steeping the tea.

"I keep thinking 'today will be better'," Hernando offered quietly while the tea was steeping, admitting, "It has been several days and it does not feel any better."

"It doesn't have to get better right away," Sparkle pointed out softly. "This is your first time being showed one of Fandom's maybe-tomorrows, right? And the one we were handed... it was nice. It was really, really nice. But it's not ours to steal away from the family that Abney and Quinn know, either."

As tempting as it had been.

"Could be ours to aim for someday."

Hernando was quiet for a long moment, busying himself with needless activities like placing the mug on a saucer and finding a spoon for it. Anything to keep from meeting Sparkle's eyes.

"My first.. maybe-tomorrow, yes," Hernando agreed quietly. One he wanted, very badly. Wanted to grab for it with both hands and hold on tight to the knowledge that someday, there would be a Quinn and an Abney. The problem was that this future wasn't just his to hold onto. Therein lay the part that had undone him the most.

"I don't want to steal it from the other Hernando and Sparkle," he said softly, "I wouldn't want it done to me, if that future Hernando is me. To find a note that the children had been moved through time.. this would only be survivable if I had those memories; that when the portal took them it was to here they came."

He took a breath and handed Sparkle his tea. "I suppose it would depend whether this is a direction you wish to aim for."

Sparkle chewed on his lip as he reached for that tea, puzzling over his reply.

"I... I mean, it's..." He smiled a little. Ducked his head a bit. "It's kind of everything I ever wanted with my life, you know. A family. A family. I mean, shit, if it was so easy I'd say we run out right the fuck now and start looking."

He fell quiet as his gaze slipped, and he sat there silently staring into his tea before he added, "But I'm not there yet. I wish I was, but there's... a lot. There's a lot, you know? That I need to... muddle through. First."

First. Before.

It wasn't never. He hoped that Hernando understood that.

"We have approximately until Kanan's first child is born," Hernando said quietly, "Quinn hasn't been born yet. He didn't tell me a year but the things he and Abney said about Jacen.. he's their contemporary. They grew up with him."

Sparkle nodded a little.

"Until Kanan's first child is born and then some," he noted. "If Quinn was seven. We'd have to wait for Abney to be born, wait for social services to do their thing..." And there was where hesitation caught up with him. "Assuming," he added quietly, "that's the way things actually go for Kanan's family, too. Jacen didn't seem to know either of the kids when Abs came at him."

That was probably not the helpful, concrete timeline that Hernando had wanted to hear, huh?

"It sounds like we have time, either way," he added, "but maybe we... we keep our eyes open without worrying about what's going on for other people all the same."

"I am already worried," Hernando said quietly, "If he did not know them, that could mean that in whatever time he is from, they aren't here. And.. I want them to be. I don't want to wait until Quinn has been bounced from foster home to foster home until there is only ours left. I don't want him separated from his sister at all."

Sparkle nodded.

"Either way, we've still got years," he murmured. "Maybe we can get a better time frame from Quinn or Abney next time around. Get something we can mark our calendars with?"

"Next time," Hernando murmured, rubbing his forehead, "A whole year. So much time."

He turned to fix himself a cup of tea. He didn't need the tea, he needed the fidget. "Do you know, I keep checking the bedroom. Every time I walk past the door, I check to see if they're in there. I know they're not. We saw them leave. I just.. keep checking."

Sparkle nodded the tiniest bit.

"A whole year," he offered. "Maybe time for me to... start to get everything else in order. So it's something we... can do?"

He paused a moment to sip his tea.

"... The house is too empty, huh?"

"I would like that for many reasons," Hernando agreed quietly, "First and foremost, because it would be one way to free you from the holds of your past. But I cannot deny that I would like it for this reason also."

His turn to sip his tea. He could only answer with a nod. Hernando didn't trust himself to speak without bursting into another round of crying.

Sparkle chewed his lip thoughtfully.

"So... we do that," he said softly. "I've been looking into it anyway. I'll need... like... a lawyer. At the very least. We do that, I get my shit together, and then we start putting our life together from there, yeah?"

A soft breath outward.

"But that doesn't help the empty right now."

"It doesn't help the empty right now," Hernando agreed, finally looking up at Sparkle, "But, baby - it still helps."

'We'. Sparkle had said 'we' and 'our'.. 'our life together'.

Hernando exhaled a breath he hadn't really realized he'd been holding. "Is there anything that would help the empty right now? I confess I cannot think of a single damned thing."

Quieter, "I am so glad you have been here, Sparkle." He'd be a complete wreck, otherwise.

"Of course I've been here," Sparkle murmured. "Here's where I go."

And then, after a moment taken to sip his tea in silence, he offered, almost jokingly, "Abney said something to one of the kids about having a kitty, didn't she?"

Hernando laughed quietly, "Yes, she did. She said there was only one cat that she had to share with Quinn. And you have also been talking about wanting a cat for quite some time. This is your idea? Get a cat?"

He wasn't exactly opposed, no.

"I mean, it's not a kid," Sparkle replied, smiling lopsidedly. "I understand if it's, like, a stupid attempt at a stopgap or anything. But it'd be something warm, you know."

A pause.

"Sorry, Dave. You're pretty great too, but you're not a pet."

Dave harrumphed from the chair, where he'd remained when Hernando had gone to attend Sparkle's tea-making needs. No, Dave was very much not a pet.

"We are not ready for a child yet," Hernando said softly, "Someday, perhaps, but not this day. I suppose it would not hurt to go look at the animals in the shelter. I would prefer a cat to a dog, I think, so long as it got along with the quokka and did not eat the fishes."

"The most it would probably do is drink the fishwater," Sparkle offered. "Our fishes are too quick for cats who don't want to go swimming, and the opening on the tank is too small for much more than a paw dip anyway."

"Then perhaps sometime soon we should go look at the shelter cats," Hernando agreed quietly with a small smile, "It is unlikely another would fall from the sky."

"Yeah, I'm not going to wait around for my magical skyball round two," Sparkle replied, smiling faintly. "We can adopt on a smaller, fluffier scale while we make sure everything is ready for..." And that little smile went a little bit sillier, a little bit wider. "... our kids?"

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