>> “Mm. They are cute, but I know an ace hat store where I can get a better one for her.”

"You look like a guy who'd know where nice hats are," Gina agreed, which was a underhanded way of complimenting the man's hat. Gina trailed the British man to another display, which was lined full of make-up. Gina hummed. Make-up was so iffy. Some girls loved it, others didn't, and those that did had preferences. This was the cutesie little-girl kind, thought, so it'd be more difficult to go wrong with it.

>> “Well, you’re me expert on the mind of little girls on this side of the pond. Should an eleven year old girl stay away from these sort of things? Or is that too adult for them?”

"It's really up to the parents," Gina hummed, "Some of them are really keen on it, others make you wait. My mom wouldn't let me wear make-up until I was thirteen, and even then, I had to learn how to put it on properly from a professional." She surveyed the rack contemplatively, "Some of this stuff isn't too bad though... the lip gloss, the nail polish... those are things you can get away with giving just about any girl."

Because Kaitlyn had introduced herself as the daughter of the Order’s leader, Sledge had no reason to believe otherwise. As much as he should not be trusted, Sledge had a good deal of faith in people. They would always act in the same way, and if you bothered to study people at all you could easily predict their actions. There wasn’t anything to gain from lying about her mother, so Sledge assumed that it was the truth. Such a mother surely wouldn’t object to a little bit of make-up.

“Lip gloss and nail polish,” he confirmed, picking up the small bottles of paints and looking at the colors. He didn’t get how a nail polish could have three different colors layered together could work. It must blend together and make a dreadful mess the first time you unscrewed the lid. Such a waste. Other than those bizarre multi-colored nail polish it looked as though his choices were limited to highlighter colors. Neon had been in when he was a young child and was a fad he was happy to see fade away. The colors tended to be so saturated that they burnt into his retinas. Now the atrocity had returned to captivate a whole new generation. The electric blue was the least offensive to his eyes, and thus was his selection.

Lip gloss was easier in some ways. There weren’t colors that threatened to drive someone into a pair of correctional lenses. They were for the most part reasonable colors. A package of several ones looked promising, as there were a few sparkle ones in it. “Sparkles are good righ?” he asked Gina. He studied the flavors of it. Grape, apple, coconut. Was the point to turn a girl’s lips into a fruit salad? Kaitlyn was much too young for such actions.

>> “Lip gloss and nail polish... Sparkles are good righ?”

"Sparkles are great," Gina confirmed, nodding her head sagely. While the British man was perusing the make-up, Gina was lingering nearby, surveying neighboring displays but keeping a careful fraction of her attention directed towards the other customer. He seemed to have a partial sense of what he wanted to get in mind, so now her only purpose was to be a consultant, when her opinion was needed.

Taloned hands found a pretty, metallic hairclip that was shaped like a flower and laced with beads. That would look great in amongst her curls... she'd look like a fairy princess. Gina held the clip up to her head and modelled it. It was pretty. She the surveyed the price tag, and winced.

It wasn't that pretty. Delicately, she set the hairclip back down, and returned her attention to the British man. Gina shifted to a more casual pace of looking... a more British-man's-niece oriented perusal of the store. She started flicking through a neighboring, rotating display case, humming faintly.

"I had this stick of roll-on body glitter from Bath and Body Works," Gina said absently, "I got it because I was going to be a fairy for Halloween, but of course there was leftover body glitter afterwards. Certain days, I'd just glitter my cheeks, just for the heck of it."

There was a pause.

"So yeah, little girls love glitter."

His shopping companion gave him insight into how important glitter was to young girls. Why they would choose to wear a makeup that could double as part of a Halloween costume was beyond him. The trick to makeup was to make it look natural wasn't it? What about sparkling skin said natural? Well, with how many different mutations there were one couldn't classify anything as abnormal now. The existance of an active x-gene was causing words themselves to undergo a transformation. Mutant was mutating.

If body glitter was a popular chose for young girls, Sledge would get one for Kaitlyn. Gold glitter would be good he thought, but again, it had a fruity smell to it. Looking at the different tubes of concentrated sparkle power it seemed to be a common trend in makeup. No wonder girls were growing up too fast these days, even the small things that parents are alright with had names like "Luscious Strawberry". Maybe it was just his strict parents' voices in his head, but young girls shouldn't have anything with words like luscious or juicy. He took a gold one, the least offensive name of "Stardust". While it had a sweet smell to it, it was no type of fruit that he could identify.

Once again they were at a jewelry display. Sledge fingered a set of small silver hoop. "Could go with clip on earrings." He removed a clip earring from the plastic. It snapped shut on his finger, eliciting a soft ow. Yes, the man who could punch through a brick wall without breaking a bone just said ow because of a little sparkly. No way was he going to get this pair for Kaitlyn. Bribes work best when they don't hurt the one you're bribing. "On second thought, migh' be better iffin she just gets her ears pierced, it'll hurt less."

The British man gave serious consideration to the glitter, picking through body glitter until he found a decent scent or sparkle. Gina mulled over a nearby display display, while the man inspected clip-on earrings

>> "Could go with clip on earrings...ow."

Gina looked up, believing that he'd been addressing her for a moment, and lifted her gaze just in time to see his finger getting clamped onto by the earring. She smiled but didn't laugh.

>> "On second thought, migh' be better iffin she just gets her ears pierced, it'll hurt less."

Subtle. Gina caught a glance of her reflection, and brushed her hair back casually, glancing at her ears in the mirror. It was a microexpression, not too blatant, but... okay, maybe she could pull off earrings. Hm... she looked over towards the "piercing station" speculatively, and this time, made no attempt to hide it. It could be fun. Spontaneous.

Gina hummed, and looked back to her shopping buddy, gears obviously turning in her eyes.

"What if I do?" she inquired casually, arching her eyebrows as she dropped her gaze to the display. She seemed skeptical, but Gina would do it, Shopping-Buddy willing. Gina couldn't chicken-out if someone accompanied her, but she might if she waited until her friend left, "I mean... what if I did get my ears pierced? Would you be my wing-man?"

It had not been Sledge's intention to push Gina more into getting her ears pierced when he fiddled with the clip on earrings. Now he understood why the girls either had pierced ears or they went without earrings. Rather than dealing with a constant pinching that clips offered, they just bit the bullet and got the hole put in their ear. That time when he and his mates had gotten drunk they should have proved their manliness by wearing clips. Then again they had also proven how hard they were in the past with a hand holding competition. Not arm wrestling, hand holding. Briggs had no clue how fortunate he was that Sledge didn't arm wrestle.

"Wing-man?" he had to ask. What was more absurd? A girl with a gigantic wingspan asking him that or the need for a wing-man inside the pretty pretty princess store? You asked that question of a mate when at the bar, not in a place that played Justin Bieber and had fluffy pillows saying "Diva". Did she really need someone to hold her hand when they pierced her ears?

Maybe not, but since he put the idea in her head, Sledge at least owed it to her to make sure that she wasn't going to loose an ear. He might not know about the workings of a preteen girl's mind but he knew about the risk of infection. "Alright, I'll be your wing-man," Sledge assured Gina, "But, you've got to make sure you get gold posts. Don't go for silver, even if it's sterling. Gold only."

>> "Wing-man?"

The colloquialism seemed lost on the British man, for the inquiry was voiced as if Gina had meant the request as an ironic thing. Gina tried not to give the man a dry-humored look, tried not to quip, You know what I mean. She was casually requesting moral support, without directly saying it. Gina was pretty sure if she asked a stranger for moral support, they'd laugh in her face and then walk away rather quickly. But, before she could retort, the man agreed.

>> "Alright, I'll be your wing-man. But, you've got to make sure you get gold posts. Don't go for silver, even if it's sterling. Gold only."

"Why gold?" Gina inquired, quizzical. It seemed like a trivial matter to her, little more than a technicality. But he spoke with the assuredness of a man who'd dealt with piercings before. Gold, not silver. Not even sterling silver. Okay.

Gina walked over to the front counter, which was where the only store attendant could be found. The lady turned to face her, and jumped faintly. Great, I'm getting my ears pierced by someone who's jumpy. The woman rememebered her manners, and politely asked the gargoyle how she could be of assistance.

"I would like to get my ears pierced, please," Gina requested politely.

Sledge knew that he could influence people into doing things that might be outside of their nature, and he knew that he was good at it. He hadn’t realized that he had such power over his shopping assistant when it came to her ears. Buttering her up by complimenting her features had been a tactic to cement her willingness to help him, not to get her to put holes in her head. Was he going to have to always watch his mouth around people? He had a tendency to drop flirtatious smiles and chat up lines to any lady that caught his eye, even if he knew there was no chance. “Even if sterling silver doesn’t irritate your skin, it’s possible to ‘ave an allergy to it, and that isn’t something you want in your ears. Gold is less likely to cause a reaction, or get an infection.”

When it came to allergies Sledge was in the know. Seafood hadn’t been frequent in the Duckland house, but the first time he had clam chowder there had been a mad dash to hospital. Nobody knew then that his struggle for air and coldness were symptoms of anaphylactic shock, and that the cause was the meal he ordered in the pub. Once it was established that he should stay clear from all shellfish his mum and da had been given pamphlets about allergic reactions. “Sense of doom” had been a symptom, and while that was useful in his situation, when it came to ear piercing it was less then helpful. Having something called a gun put up to your head was enough to trigger a sense of doom.

“Does she need parental consent?” Sledge asked the sales person. He didn’t know all of the regulations in the United States.

“Minors under the age eighteen need either their parent’s or legal guardian’s signature on the waiver and their parents have to be present.”

Damn, that tossed a spanner in the works. It wasn’t as though Sledge could lie and say he was either one of those to the girl. For one he hadn’t even learned her name. Even the most useless parents had an inkling to their child’s name. The whole name thing aside, they had not entered together, and he had approached her asking for help. Even if all that had not been a problem, lying about having a family relation to the person that you already were lying about a niece you did not have was a stupid mistake. “Why don’t you take a look at their starter options?” Sledge asked the teen, his devious mind already thinking of a way to make this work. With the teen distracted David gestured for the associate to lean in. He began to address her, exaggerating his accent and hating the way he sounded in his head. “Listen, she’s a student at tha’ Xavier Institute. Parents dinnit want ‘er, so she’s been legally declared an adult. Summin’ ‘bout parental emancipation… Me, I’m not in charge of ‘er, just provided th’ lift ‘ere, but it would mean th’ world to ‘er iffin she could get a pretty stone in ‘er ears.”

The Brit informed the gargoyle child of the dangers of getting sterling silver earrings, rather than gold. Okay, gold earrings it was. After Gina had made the request, the British man spoke up once again, asking what sort of consent Gina might need. At the comment about needing her mother to sign for her, Ginas' shoulder sagged slightly. Here she was, gearing up for battle in New York, and her mom was all the way in California. Ear piercings were out of the question. Ah, well. C'est la vie.

>> “Why don’t you take a look at their starter options?”

Gina blinked at the British man blankly.

"That seems a tad futile, don't you think?" Gina murmured, though in a stage-whisper, towards the British man. He'd just said she couldn't get her ears pierced without her mom, and her mom was in California. But, the Brit had a pleading look in his eyes, and Gina shrugged. She didn't see much of a point in it, but maybe she'd scope out what she wanted now, and get her mom to take her into the city to get her ears pierced, once she was back in California. Gina shrugged, and obliged.

She went to the piercing station, surveying the display of "starter options", and keeping her attention on the "gold" posts. Simple posts, or something with a jewel, the gargoyle mused? Probably just the plain studs, they were pretty cheap... yeah. Gina was too practical. She looked up and set the display down, only to spy both the Brit and the attendant staring at her with mixed looks a pity and... something else, on the Brit's part. Gina quirked an eyebrow. The clerk rummaged under the desk, and fished out a waiver, before meandering over.

"You have to fill this out before I can pierce your ears," the lady explained, handing Gina the waiver and a pen. Gina looked at the British man, and hesitantly began to fill out the requested information. It was very brief, talking about the risks of piercing your ears, and how they weren't accountable if such-and-such went awry. Gina perused it quickly, and then signed on the "patient" line. She glanced towards the British man and whispered, "It needs a parent signature."

Ah, the British accent. In Bradford it did nothing to aid in his scams, for that was the way that everyone spoke. Not the case here he had noticed. A British accent, even in a melting pot city, was exotic, sexy. With the women at least. Either a man didn’t care or they thought of him as an arrogant little prick. He was going to have to make sure that he made the most of this. Sexy accents managed to convince people to try things that otherwise they wouldn’t do. Doubtless the associate would never have let Gina get her ears pierced without parental consent. The lie, while plausible, seemed almost transparently thin. Letting Gina put holes in her ear without her mum or da probably would land the poor associate in a world of trouble with her boss.

His sales buddy, Gina, he noticed as she wrote her name, was proper confused about the whole situation and was pointing out that it needed a parent’s signature. “Don’t worry about it, you’re old enough to pierce your ears if you want,” he whispered back to her and looked at the gold posts. Of course there were the traditional birthstone ones, along with a “pearl” and simple gold balls. “She’ll ‘ave those,” he said, pointing to dainty little golden bows. Everyone went for their birthstone. The classic little balls were plain. Gina was anything but plain.

The girl would get no choice in what she would have stuck in her ears for the next several weeks. Sledge had made the pick and sending her over to look at them had just been an excuse to get her out of earshot of the lie. He plucked an ear care guide from the stand and started to read informative parts to the winged one. “Says here to rotate the earings daily and use either rubbing alcohol or their ear care solution. Once your ears ‘ave healed take the studs out at night for a few weeks, putting them back in every morning.”

>> “Don’t worry about it, you’re old enough to pierce your ears if you want... She’ll ‘ave those.”

Gina inclined her head at the man, arching her eyebrows at him skeptically. Didn't they just say that she needed parental consent? Gina stared at the guy for a measure, and then shrugged, still blatantly skeptical as she replied, "If you say so."

Before Gina could tell the sales representative what she wanted-- just some studs, nothing gaudy or overstated-- the British man stepped in and gestured at a pair of bows. Bows? Gina tilted a gaze at him again, but glanced away as the clerk surveyed the serial number of the earrings, and then went into the cabinet to retrieve them.

>> “Says here to rotate the earings daily and use either rubbing alcohol or their ear care solution. Once your ears ‘ave healed take the studs out at night for a few weeks, putting them back in every morning.”

While the man read the instructions for ear care to Gina, Gina watched the clerk like a hawk. She pulled the earrings out, which were contained within their own package, split it open, and fasted one of the backs, and the corresponding earring, that looked to be part-clamp and part-gun .Her stomach flopped.

"My poor ears," Gina squeaked distractedly, obviously ignorant of what the British man had said.

“It’s been taken care of,” Sledge whispered back when Gina questioned the need for parental consent. That was the problem with dealing with pigeons, they couldn’t tell when to keep their mouths shut, or in this case, their eyebrows still. Faces were expressive and, unfortunately, often spoke louder than words. Having a young face was good, but what made it even better was when he teared up a little bit, made people feel sympathetic. Gina would never make it as a dishonest person, she had no control over her expressions.

Such was the case once she caught sight of the piercing gun. Not that one could call it a gun. It looked more like an oversized stapler to him. Her terror over it made her not pay attention to the ear care information that Sledge had so helpfully provided. At least the associate was being hygienic, wearing gloves as she loaded the gun with the posts that had been in their own little sealed package. It was advised that Gina pull her hair back, away from her ears. There was a whiff of alcohol as Gina’s ears were wiped with one of those medical cleaning clothes. So far every precaution against infection was being taken, but he questioned the use of a marker on Gina’s ears. The purple dots were barely visible against the gray of Gina’s skin. “How does that look?” the lady asked the gargoyle.

“Relax,” Sledge told Gina, risking placing a hand on her shoulder briefly. The girl’s head was a million miles away, and she needed to be brought back down to earth. Having holes placed in your head was something that you should probably pay attention to. “Your poor ears will be perfectly fine. People ‘ave been putting holes in their ears for millenniums. If even with the primitive piercing humanity survived, I think that you’ll be alright.”

“It will pinch briefly, after that you might feel a slight itching sensation, and I would recommend not sleeping on your ears,” the associate informed Gina.

>> “It’s been taken care of.”

Yes, Gina's honest face was blatantly skeptical, and she did not make any attempt to hide it. But when the clerk returned, Gina shifted her gaze and her attention, and her expression fell into something more normative. The lady cleaned her ears off with rubbing alcohol, and then associate dotted her ears with a purple felt-tip marker, explaining that she needed to do this to make sure that her piercing would line up.

“How does that look?”

"Looks even," Gina agreed. Her voice was in no ways as apprehensive as she looked.

>> “Relax. Your poor ears will be perfectly fine. People ‘ave been putting holes in their ears for millenniums. If even with the primitive piercing humanity survived, I think that you’ll be alright.”

A reassuring hand touched Gina's shoulder lightly as the man spoke, and it was the gesture that snagged her attention.

This reassurance was met by some minor fidgetting, and a murmured, "Yeah, that's true..."

“It will pinch briefly, after that you might feel a slight itching sensation, and I would recommend not sleeping on your ears.”

"Okay," Gina agreed with a nod.

"Are you ready?" the associate asked. Gina nodded.

The associate drew closer.

"Which ear first?"

"Um... right," Gina answered. With her answer, she was instructed to turn her head to the left, and her earlobe was captured in the earring-stapler.

"On the count of three, okay?" the associate said, "Try and relax. One... two... three."

SNAP!

With a snap Gina was officially pierced, and the associate started prepping the gun for Gina’s other ear. She was at the point of no return now. If a guy pierced his ear, depending upon which ear, it looked cool. If a girl only pierced one lobe it looked stupid. As he had expected the gold bows looked good on the girl. The gold color gave some warmth to the dreary skin tone. “Congratulations, you now have a new hole in your head.,” Sledge stated. It was obvious, you can’t help but to notice when you suddenly have something pointy in you. That earring gun looked less intimidating when it wasn’t putting a hole in your head.

Before Gina could go fleeing to the hills in terror and the agony of a pinched ear, Beth, the Claire’s associate, had the gun loaded and to Gina’s other lobe. Once more there was a countdown before the shot was fired. Now two golden ribbons were planted in the gargoyle girl’s listening ports. Beth began to assemble an ear care kit for Gina, giving the same speech that Sledge had done before the gun had even been loaded. The British man handed the teen a mirror so that she could ooh and aww over her new sparklies. “Don’t go wild now,” Sledge joked, remembering the panic that Gina had shown when the moment had been close, “Hold off on the nose, ears, cartilage and navel piercing until those ‘ave healed up.”

He would never forget the first time he had seen a navel piercing on a girl. It was in his teen years, back when he first started to run cons. The brightly colored ball above her belly button had startled him. Nobody he knew had one, and his mum declared that any woman who would do something like that was of loose morals. She hadn’t been aware of the morally questionable activities her youngest son was involved in. A navel piercing was hardly anything for her to make a fuss over.

Before Beth could give Gina the sheet to be rung up at the register, Sledge took it. It wasn’t his money that he was spending. What did he care how much money he spent? “Consider this payment for your assistance.”

>> “Congratulations, you now have a new hole in your head.”

“Yeah,” Gina said with a smile.

The second piercing was a little less daunting than the first. When Gina saw that her first ear wasn’t spewing blood from the puncture, she was rather certain that it wouldn’t start spewing blood from the second. The assistant situated the gun just above her ear, and with another loud snap, the deed was done—Gina had two piercings, now.

Gina chuckled, relaxing as she poked at the posts experimentally. They were a little tender, but nothing unmanageable. Beth lectured about caring for the new piercings, how to clean her ears out and that sort of thing. The British man, all the while, handed Gina a mirror.

“Would you look at that?” Gina murmured, turning her head to the side and brushing her hair back. They were very pretty. It had been worth the minor panicking.

>> “Don’t go wild now. Hold off on the nose, ears, cartilage and navel piercing until those ‘ave healed up.”

Gina nodded, “I’ll try and contain myself.”

There was a note in her tone that insinuated that such concerns weren’t necessary. She wouldn’t go absolutely gung-ho over getting piercings… though a second set of lobe piercings wouldn’t look too terrible…

The associate rung up how much the piercings would cost, but before Gina could grab the sheet, the British man snatched it up.

>> “Consider this payment for your assistance.”

“I wasn’t that helpful,” Gina countered, smiling faintly. Was this another battle that she wouldn’t win? The British man was such a gentlemen, yet Gina still hesitated to let him do the half-decent things that some guys (or most guys) wouldn’t do… particularly for her.