myownface | The Causeway, Sunday Evening

The boy nodded warily while looking up at Sparkle through his bangs. He looked a little as if he'd like to run but he held his ground.

Hernando walked over to an unoccupied bench and sat down. One ankle lazily crossed over a knee as he waited. For all the boy looked wary, Hernando was not worried. Sparkle was not the sort to harm a child. Even one with the bad taste to get caught.

Sparkle offered the kid a wry smile, and then leaned forward a little and said, easily, "There's an option to turn the sound off when you take a picture, you know. Means you won't get busted when you catch two guys making out to a backdrop of kickass fish on your camera reel."

He suspected this was not what the kid was expecting, yes.

"Want me to show you how to find it?"

The boy blinked quite a bit. That clearly had not been what he had expected to hear, no.

Hernando laughed quietly. This was almost worth being interrupted for.

Almost.

The boy mumbled something that might've been 'Sorry, yeah, thanks' but it came out in the garbled unintelligible tone of a teenager caught doing something they shouldn't. Almost shyly was the picture called up and the camera offered to Sparkle so he could see it.

Sparkle smiled a little, leaned in for a good look, and then couldn't help but grin a bit.

"Oh, hey, that actually looks really nice, with, like, the backdrop and everything. I don't suppose I could get you to like e-mail me a copy of that?" He smiled crookedly. "But, if it's all the same, you know I have to ask you to not put that up on the internet anywhere, right?"

Since he had no idea how Hernando felt about that sort of thing, but he was kind of trying to avoid having anything online that would, say, tip people off about his own actual whereabouts.

"I wasn't gonna," the boy blurted and blushed harder, "I can email it to you, sure. Where do I send it?"

Hernando would be against having the photo online only because he was still edgy about the photos on Dani's phone. Which was still in Joaquin's possession.

He watched Sparkle handle the budding photographer situation with a fond little smile though.

Sparkle was still smiling as he rattled off the e-mail address for Demon Marcus, and then added reassuringly, "And thanks. I mean, for not taking this with, like, Tumblr in mind or whatever. Like I said... I'm not gonna give you shit for this. We were the two grown-ass adults who were all over one another in a public place."

He glanced back at Hernando with a fond, but kind of wry, smile. Hey, it was true.

"You just have to work on being more sneaky."

If the kid had been a bit older, Sparkle might have suggested a flipside; waiting for a break in the kissing, stepping over, saying the whole scene had been captivating, and asking permission to take the photo. But... kid. There were always going to be creeps out there who would take that one entirely the wrong way, and someone who was maybe fourteen wouldn't necessarily have the life experience to safely navigate a situation like that if it came to it.

Hernando would have had a large problem if it had been an adult. Even if asked. A boy? No problem. Not when he had that look on his face when he took the picture.

Hernando smiled back at Sparkle shamelessly. He didn't mind people watching. Only pictures.

"No. That wouldn't have been cool," the teen said about Tumblr with his eyes sliding away a little since taking the picture at all hadn't been exactly on the cool side of things. He mumbled something more that might have been a comment or a compliment about the two of them looking good together.

Sparkle smiled, a small, reassuring look on his face that came, mostly, from a place of understanding.

"Thanks," he said, honestly. And then, after a pause and a little more quietly, he added, "I hope someday you find somebody who you can be just as comfortable with."

No judgement, no assumptions. There were certain things he wasn't ever going to put a kid on the spot about. Not unless they volunteered it first. But it was sitting right there for the boy to take if he needed it.

I see you, kid.

The boy peeked up at Sparkle through his bangs again and mumbled his own thanks. When he was sure the talk was through, he turned and headed away.

His fingers moved on the screen to email the picture to Sparkle.

Hernando watched with a fond smile. "You are very good with them," he mentioned.

"Used to be one," Sparkle replied, glancing back at Hernando, smiling crookedly. "Sometimes I wonder how the hell everyone else is so far removed from them that they can't begin to relate."

Hernando looked in the direction the boy was escaping. "I think for most, we convince ourselves we could never have been as young as this. At this moment I am convinced I would never have been as bold as that."

A breath and a small shake of his head while he looked up at Sparkle, "Though perhaps it is simply lack of opportunity. There would be little even now. In Mexico."

"There's little... most places," Sparkle noted. "We're a hell of a lot braver here than I've been... like..."

He spread his hands.

"Anywhere? I never actually came out, back home."

He'd been outed. By his legal fucking guardian. Thanks, Lew.

"I was not out but it was not my choice," Hernando said. He unfolded from the bench and walked over to stand near Sparkle. "It would have destroyed Lito's career to be known as what we are. I do not know if it is bravery or simply that I am tired of living a life in silence."

"I mean... could be both," Sparkle offered, smiling crookedly and reaching for Hernando's hand. "Takes a lot of bravery to decide not to be quiet."

Hernando braided his fingers with Sparkle's and squeezed his hand gently. "Never again will I pretend to be something I am not," he said quietly. "Come what may."

His gaze cut toward the direction the boy had gone, "By doing so, perhaps it will inspire another."

"Good," Sparkle decided, stepping up close and smiling down at their hands. "And anybody who expects you to probably isn't worth it anyway."

Hernando smiled and leaned in for a kiss. "Not to me, no."

Sparkle, in turn, nipped at Hernando's lip playfully before kissing him, and then leaned back to smile at him.

"You be you," he said, poking him lightly in the chest with his free hand. "Because you're pretty damn great, dammit."

"I could say the same of you," Hernando mused, "though I think perhaps you need the advice less?"

He smiled, "Come. There are more fishes to be seen."

"Heh." Sparkle huffed out a soft laugh. "Yeah."

No. No, he could stand to hear that at every possible opportunity. It would do him some good, maybe.

He leaned up and bumped his nose lightly against Hernando's, and then nodded again.

"Lead on."

Hernando nuzzled his nose against Sparkle's. With a last lingering look at the sea dragons, he moved past them to the smaller tanks of sea horses. They were no sea dragons but still very neat.

The tanks also had some tiny sand eels who occasionally peeked up from the substrate and looked around for food.

Hernando took one look at them and promptly said, "Let's have those."

"They... they're playing peek-a-boo and I want ten."

This was possibly even an adequate number of tiny peek-a-boo eel friends.

"I think you would have to have ten," Hernando said when he read the small sign, "They are colony creatures."

"Oh no," Sparkle wispered, leaning in to peer at them in awe. "Friendfish."

This was basically going to be the way he was at every tank along the way, yes.

Hernando hoped that would be the case. Sparkle was an unfettered delight.

The sand eels popped back down their holes when he leaned in. Slowly resurfacing one by one.

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