sparkle on together

Bex doesn’t get crushes. That would be silly. Her heart is cold as stone, and her mind is focused only on carats. Sure, she dallies in some stress-relief from time to time, but even that is goal-orientated. Shit, she barely even does friendships. The most you get out of Bex on a good day is some light-hearted surface-level banter, regardless of how many times you’ve talked to her. And even that will be flush with casual lies and half-truths designed to be exactly what the other bun wants to hear. That’s the image she likes to project, and that’s how she likes to keep her affairs in order.

But… sometimes she does like to be around… particular people. She would never call it a crush, because that’s juvenile. It’s not often it happens either. And it is typically with a very particular type of person, the few times that it has. Those particularly easy to fluster and catch off-balance who seemed to enjoy that sense of off-balance tended to draw her attention more than others. It was freeing a bit, to be able to be open in her pickiness and demands. Typically all of those particulars had to get smoothed over and ignored in order to get what she wanted out of people.

This core of this thought has left her standing outside the Imporium on Mochi Moon, holding a twin pair of sparklers. Memmy had seemed a bit scared of all the bright lights in the big crowded area, so she had started to make her way home. And then she thought about how loud it got on festival night, and how that might make some imps nervous, and how Hutch more than likely would have stayed to calm them, and how they might have missed the chance to light up sparklers. 

If the lights had been off in the Imporium, Bex would have just lit her own sparklers and went home. But they’re on, and she hears some quiet movement within the store. Being bold enough to not question her own motives, she knocks on the door lightly and then heads in.

Hutch looks like a deer in the headlights as she opens the door, about seven different imps in their arms. All along the back wall are spacious crates where several rowdy Lunell seem to be temporarily housed. Something about the Moon, maybe? They’re bobbing up and down, seemingly trying to lull the various phloofs and chirops and impups into sleep.

“Uh-” they start, looking nervous. “Hi, Bex- I mean, welcome to the Imporium- I can’t help very much right now.- I was- I was planning on closing soon”

“That’s alright. How can I help?” She asks, sliding the unlit sparklers into the pocket along with Memmy. “I want to help you close up.”

“I mean, you don’t have to-”

“I’m going to.”

“Oh! Uh- Uhm, alright. Well, if you want to check on the imps in the back and make sure everythings settled there?” Hutch says, looking sheepish. The imps in their arms stir a bit, and they have to continue rocking them back and forth. Bex nods and heads back as instructed. 

For the next hour or so, Bex busies herself helping Hutch calm and soothe all the various imps. They seem nervous whenever instructing her to do anything, but she’s capable enough to get all of the simple tasks done. 

Eventually, much sooner than it would have been done on their own, the Imporium is quiet for the night.

“Thank you again,” Hutch stammers out for the seventeenth time as they fix their glasses on their face. “I’m not sure why you- why you helped, but I appreciate it.”

“Oh,” Bex says, a grin spreading across her face. “I didn’t do it for free, Hutchy. You owe me something.”

Hutch audibly gulps, their eyes wide. It’s almost cartoonish. And pretty cute. “Wuh?”

Bex leans in, her eyes narrowing. She does her best to match their cartoon fear with a cartoonishly evil smile. She lets them sit in the suspense for a moment. They fidget with their hands and their eyes dart up towards the ceiling.

“You…” she says, placing a fingertip under their chin. “Have to burn a sparkler with me now.”

Not leaving them room to breathe a sigh of relief (or disappointment), she grabs their hand and whisks them outside to the dark. Up the road, she can see a small group of people burning sparklers still. She slides the two out of her pocket, giving one to Hutch and taking one herself.

“I have a lighter around here somewhere…” she says, patting her pockets. 

“Did you just have the sparklers in your pocket randomly?” Hutch asks, waving their unlit sparkler around a few times curiously. 

“No,” Bex says flatly. She doesn’t exactly want to elaborate that she came specifically to make sure Hutch could get involved in a festival, because that’s mushy-gushy and embarrassing. “Here, the lighter.” She lights her sparkler, and then hands the lighter to Hutch.

Hutch fumbles with it a little, getting it on the fourth try. They light the sparkler, and their glasses glint in the sparkler light. They grin, waving it around in small circles before turning towards Bex.

“What if we did like, a little- like a swordfight?”

She laughs, holding her sparkler out to ‘cross blades’ with Hutch’s. “Alright, you’re on.”

Bex doesn’t do crushes. But holding sparklers out with Hutch in the dark of night on the Mochi Moon has her believing that maybe she could spend a little more time with a few people.