myownface | MCA #4, Saturday Morning

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MCA #4, Saturday Morning

Deep breath. Exhale.

...

Deep breath.

...

Exhale.

Dial.

Deep breath.

And hit send.

Sparkle had a call to make today. One he'd been putting off since forever, and his last excuse had run out. The island was back to normal. He didn't have to worry about The Big Stuff being completely derailed because he woke up one morning underwater or he couldn't leave the house because there were dinosaurs or on account of nightmarish penance zombies. Dr. Lecter had given him the number to phone, and yeah, he knew it was Saturday and yeah he knew it was early, but he was kind of hoping he could just leave a message and wait for a phone call back on... Tuesday. Because long weekend! See? Smart. Sparkle was super smart. It wasn't procrastinating if there was Labour Day to contend with.

Somebody actually answered the phone.

"Um."

That wasn't supposed to happen.

Shit. Shit shit shit.

"Hi, uh. My name is Sparkle," and ugh, he felt like he wanted to vomit just spitting out his last name, too, but he kind of had to in this case. "Dr. Lecter suggested I call you. Yeah. Dr. Hannibal Lecter. He said you're probably the best lawyer for... a couple of cases I have, I guess. Yeah. Yeah, I can talk right now, sure. So..."

It was not a short phone call.

Dr. Lecter had picked a good lawyer for the job, for sure.

But by the time Sparkle had hung up the phone again, he was looking a little green. That was fine. This was fine. It was all going to go super well, and...

If anybody needed him, he was going to just be burying his face in a pillow and screaming himself hoarse.

Sparkle Vs. The Criminal Justice System was off to an excellent start.

[OOC: Open! Probably not happy! But open! TW: Both threads contain some talk of child abuse/grooming.]

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That startled an involuntary snort out of her. "Yeah," she acknowledged, "I'm no good at being a victim either. I had to play nice once. Not in court, nah but when I was hired at Grissom. The bigwigs wanted me to stand there and tell them I'd play nice in their sandbox and I'd be a good girl from now on. And that sucked too and I sure as fuck didn't want to but I did it. I even meant it, so far as it went. My skin crawled the whole fucking time and I wanted to go for their throats but.. but not doing that, by playing the fucking bullshit game, it meant I got the chance to be somethin' different. My entire fucking galaxy knows who I am and what I done, every single bad fuckin' thing I ever done and a shitload more I never done but I'm fine havin' 'em think I done. But they were willing to give me a chance to fight for this, you know? To prove I could be somethin' other than a criminal. To be a teacher. It meant a different future, maybe. It was a chance, anyway, so I swallowed all the shit I had to swallow and I played nice. And it sucked, but I did it. Not for me, you know? I don't care I'm a criminal. That never fucking mattered and it still sure as fuck don't. But I got this fucking do-gooder crew and they all think I can be different. Grissom sure as fuck didn't offer me the job based on my fucking merit. They did it because my fucking Commander asked. Cuz he thought, if maybe someone gave me a fucking chance to change that I could do it."

She was silent for a second and then shook her head, "Not the same bullshit as you're going through. Easier by far. It's easier if you look at the after, though. This fucker needs to go to jail, Sparkle. He needs to be kept away from other kids so he doesn't do this to anyone else. You, and every other kid he fucked with before you - cuz there's never, ever only one - deserves some sort of goddamn justice for it. So you knuckle up and you get ready to take it in the teeth for awhile. And you buckle all that shit down and you get ready to eat whatever shit you need to eat for this and you keep your eyes on after. You keep your eyes on why. What you're doing takes this fucking monster off the streets, and you do whatever you gotta do to make that happen. It helps you later, good. That's a good thing and getting the blame shoved down this fucker's throat is another kind of justice. So you keep your eyes on the after. You'll get through this. It's gonna suck. You're gonna hate it. You already know that. But this asshole deserves to be in jail and you deserve to be free of him, so you're gonna fucking do this."

Hi, welcome to positive affirmations, Jack style. "You want me to go with? Or is this some shit you don't want anyone you know to listen to? I already promised not to kill this motherfucker and I won't. That don't mean I'm happy at the idea he could get within arm's reach of you in a courthouse. I'd kinda like to be there to put him through a fucking wall if he tries."

Sparkle just kind of managed to squid his way around Jack even more while she spoke, because there was a lot there, a lot that grabbed him right by the fucking heart, and it was that or start crying and right now he couldn't. Didn't have 'crying' in him, felt almost ashamed of just how close he was dancing to it anyway.

"... Please?" He hadn't even really been aware he was going to talk, but when she made the offer... "Please? Fuck, please? I mean he can't get close he can't touch me he can't but I just... I mean. You get it, right? Like, the ugly shit that's gonna get said you're gonna hear it I'm gonna have to get up there and say it and you get it, right? That I'm still Sparkle."

Because right then, right that very moment, he wasn't feeling very Sparkle.

Jack let him wind himself around her and found new ways to hold him so he could. "Nobody's going to let him touch you," she promised, "He so much as tries to talk to you in a hall and I'm gonna scream so loud his fucking eardrums bleed just so you don't have to hear his fucking voice when it ain't necessary."

She shook her head, "I get it. That ain't you. That's a picture of you the lawyer's gotta make to put this asshole in jail. It's shit that happened to you. You aren't the sum of your fucking shit, Sparkle. You're who you are because of how you came through it. Because you didn't let the shit stick to you, and you can't let it stick to you now. Don't matter what I hear, don't matter what you say, hell - don't even matter what happened to you back then. Not now, anyway, because that shit is all old news. It's over. I know who you are, man. And you ain't gonna be a different person when this is over. Not to me, not to fucking anyone who knows you now. That ain't how it works, Sparkle. I'll be there. I'll be in the courtroom with you every fucking day you're there. I know who you are so when you're up there and you have to say all that shit again, have to answer questions and that asshole's lawyer's trying to trip you up and make you look bad, I'll be there and you can look over and see me. I'll be angry for you. You can't be angry when you're up there. You can't fly off the handle or yell or be anything other than rational, so I'll be there and I'll be the angry for you. Cuz we both know I'm gonna be fucking furious when I hear this shit. But it ain't gonna change anything so far's you're concerned. I'm not going to think anything different. You're my friend. This whole fucking thing sucks. I'm already angry you had to live through shit like that, but that's no different than I felt about it since the first fucking moment I met you." Jack shrugged, "You're the same you that you've been, buddy. That ain't gonna change."

Edited 2019-09-01 06:29 (UTC)

"It's not gonna change," Sparkle agreed. Clung on a little bit harder. "I'm gonna still be Sparkle on the other end, I might just be... I dunno. A little more fucked-up. This is gonna fuck me up, Jack, no matter what happens. It's gonna fuck me up and I'm gonna hate it."

A short pause.

A deep breath.

"But at least it'll be over."

And even if they lost, even if they fought and fought and fought and Sparkle wound up with a prison sentence instead of community service, even if somehow, Lew managed to get an 'innocent' even in spite of standing up in front of the whole damn city and announcing their fucked up... thing...

Even if?

There were options. Not the options he wanted, not even necessarily the options that would let him sleep at night, but options.

"It's gonna suck, but at least it'll be over."

Jack snorted again. "Sparkle? How's 'you but a little more fucked up' any goddamn different from how you might be any given week in this fucking place? Really now. Sparkle, you get through fucked-up shit here even though you know come Monday it's all gonna be over. This is just one more fucked-up thing you gotta get through, only it's gonna take a lot longer than a weekend. This one, though, this one's real. When you put paid to this bullshit, it ain't gonna come back at you a year later. That's a good thing, I think."

"It's a good thing," Sparkle agreed quietly. "It's a more personal thing. I dunno, it's one thing when Fandom is like, here, have a onesie and jump on turtles for a week. That's everyone's shit."

He shrugged.

"This is my shit. It's my shit and when this is done I get to do it all over again and they're gonna try to rake me across the coals and that's all gonna be my shit, and if it doesn't work and it doesn't go away then I have to live with that, too. It's easy to get through fucked-up shit waiting for Monday, you know? I don't get a Monday with this. Not like that."

"Yeah, that's true, there's no Monday whiteboard wipe for this," Jack acknowledged, "and you're not wrong about what the lawyers are going to do to you. They're called sharks for a reason and even the one you're paying for is going to be taking chunks out of you just to combat whatever shit the other lawyer's gonna pull. His lawyer's job is to make sure his client looks innocent and that's going to mean throwing as much blame shade your way as he can imply or outright say. It's going to get really ugly, Sparkle. His lawyer's going to make you look .. really bad. The other shit, the arson, they're not gonna try to make you look bad, they're just gonna try not to let the abuse excuse it. They won't be insinuating shit, but this asshole's lawyer? He's gonna. A burned down house don't have a reputation to protect but this asshole? Does."

Sparkle nodded. Nodded and leaned back, finally, and made another reach for the olives. One was going to get into his mouth eventually if it killed him, at this point.

"Yeah. And I... don't. Really. I gave up my reputation when I fucking ran, like four years ago, and that's gonna get thrown at me too. Lew's been out there probably, like, fucking kissing babies," phrasing intentional, "and trying to make himself look like a saint ever since and I've been a fugitive. Right through the gate I'm not in a good place. And people are going to want to know why I didn't throw this back on Lew sooner and all sorts of shit I'm going to have to justify, I know. And Lew..."

He sighed.

"He's made for war."

Sparkle had told him such himself, once.

That had been an ugly talk, too.

He shrugged.

"You think?" Jack asked, letting him pull back and tilting her head a little. "Usually guys like that, that ain't what they do. They dust their hands off and they go somewhere else, somewhere just far enough away that nobody can tag their shit to them and they start all over. People like him, they don't change. They only change the type of victim they go after."

She shrugged, "He's made for war. So what? Guys like him, they're loners. They don't have friends because that would mean caring about someone deeper than the fucking mask and they can't. They're empty. You're not. He's going to be alone in that courtroom with nobody but his lawyer. You're going to be there with a whole lot of people who'd turn him into red mist if they got half a chance. He's gonna be a lot better at sliming up and making himself look like the real victim here, that's true, but buddy, all you gotta be is you."

"He probably went back to New Brunswick," Sparkle allowed, chewing on the inside of his cheek. "Probably back to the middle of nowhere, maybe staying with his mom or something. Or maybe he didn't. I don't know. I never looked. I didn't want to look. If he started another home somewhere, I..."

Well.

He shrugged.

"It's never just one, right?"

"It's never just one," Jack agreed with a nod, "And from the number he pulled with you? You weren't the first kid he's mindfucked." She opened her mouth and paused and then closed her mouth before cautiously saying, "Can I offer a thing you should have your lawyer do without making you puke all over my kitchen?"

Sparkle fidgeted with the olive jar for a moment, and then set it back down.

Just in case.

"Yeah. Bathroom's easy to get to from here."

See? No puking all over the kitchen!

Jack took a breath and then said quietly, "Have them look at the list of every single kid that fucker ever came in contact with. Have them run the numbers of how many killed themselves. Sparkle.. It won't be zero." Beat. "I'm sorry. I know shitbirds like this. What you're saying, what he did to your brain.. it wasn't the fucking he wanted. Which means it was the power and the power to take away."

Sparkle was suddenly very glad he'd set down the olives.

Because his hands were falling to his sides and he was pretty certain his knees had turned to pudding.

"... I...."

He swallowed.

"Okay."

And he'd thought he'd sounded small before.

He didn't want to throw up. He wanted to just fade away.

"That game he played?" Jack added, "He wanted to make you feel worthless without him. And you're not worthless. That was never true, Sparkle, and it sure as shit ain't true now. Buddy, look how many people want to annihilate this motherfucker on your behalf. Look at how hard we want to hurt him for hurting you. You are worth a whole fucktruck full of everything to us. Like I said, he's gonna be there alone and you're going to have people bitching at you if you don't let them be there. So you look at that, Sparkle. You fucking look at it whenever you get that look on your face you're wearing right now, where you start to wonder if it's worth it, because yeah. It is. And you look at it and you see how many people care about you on their own. You never had to be nothin' but you for any of us. That fuck? He had to break people's brains to get them to think they cared about him and he'll still be alone in the courtroom. So you look at that and you tell me - which one of you is the worthless one?"

Sparkle breathed.

He breathed. And he nodded.

And he kind of leaned forward. To thump his forehead against Jack's shoulder.

And work, again, on not just shattering and crying.

Yeah.

Yeah... he knew the game.

And it was well beyond time the game came back around to bite him.

Jack caught him by the back of his head and bonked his forehead - gently - on her shoulder a few more times. "You been through worse since him, Sparkle. Just because the island shit goes away on Monday don't make it any less a lived-in fucking experience while it's going on. You been through worse than this shithead and come out the other side and you're not gonna walk into this as a scared fucking bunny. Do you hear me? That isn't happen. You got a goddamn panther on you for a reason. You need to find a way to show this asshole your teeth."

Beat.

"Legally, shit. Beat him at his own fucking game. He's gonna look for the bunny because he never really knew who the fuck you were. He only got the parts you thought he wanted to see. So we show him who Sparkle is. Yeah?"

"We show him who Sparkle is," Sparkle agreed, softly. And then paused a moment. "I have a different rabbit in mind, anyway."

He wasn't sure if Raine would be up for testifying. For standing up there and saying to the entire room the things that Sparkle had told her in confidence. In quiet desperation.

I LOVE the man, Raine...

But she was the one who had been right there, watching it all go down. The Rabbit who had watched Sparkle pine and Lewis walk away. If she was willing, maybe... Maybe.

Dragging himself through the coals in order to spite Lewis? In order to really build a strong argument for the trial that would follow this one, too?

That was a panther move he might be up for making. Let everyone see who Sparkle was.

"Yeah?" Jack asked, "Good. All the bunnies you can bring to this party, the more the better. Every gun you got, Sparkle. We bring the A-game."

"S'right," Sparkle said, and the laugh that went with it was soft and kind of desperate all at the same time, and he thumped his forehead against Jack's shoulder again for good measure. "Gotta round up all the gunbunnies."

Raine would be thrilled about the promotion.

"I don't have many guns," he admitted, a few moments later. "But I might not need them all."

Might.

"Don't matter if you need them or don't, you bring every damn one you got just in case," Jack said firmly, "Slimeball's gonna go for every trick he can manage if his lawyer's even half awake."

Sparkle nodded a little.

"Yeah. Yeah, I know. Even if he doesn't think they'll work, he'll try them. Even if he knows he's going to lose, he's going to want to get his in before he does."

Would want to make sure Sparkle's head was good and inside-out.

"Yup," Jack agreed, "Guy like that isn't convinced he can lose. He's going to be trying to prove to himself that he's still got his hooks deep into you, that he can twist you and make you hurt or make you doubt. And you? Sparkle, you don't fucking let him. You deserve better than that."

"I'm not going to let him," Sparkle agreed softly. "I deserve better than that."

He had to repeat it. Had to commit to memory every time somebody reminded him, because that was one thing he was prone to forgetting.

"... Thanks for hearing me out, Jack," he added. Tried not to sound small.

Mostly managed it.

"This ain't something you gotta thank me for," Jack shrugged, "I'm your friend. You can talk to me about whatever you gotta talk about. I won't be much good for much of the nice happy stuff, I don't know what to do with most of that, but something like this? Shit. Even without I do for that fucker, I can help with this. I know his type. He's a predator, but Sparkle? Every single one of us, we are too. And every one of us is apex as fuck, and that includes you for all you hate to be one - when chips are down, you'll tear apart a threat to protect what's yours and buddy, you're ours. We'll help your lawyer eat that son of a bitch alive."

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