2019-07-23 - Not a Homicidal Maniac

The open house at 7 Oak Avenue has attracted a diverse group of potential renters. The owners would love to sell it, but it's been on the market for nearly a year now without any buyers at the right price point. At least if they rent the space out, they won't keep losing money on it. Most of those looking are closer to 30-something than the girl who sits on the front stoop, catching a moment of fresh air while soaking in the ambiance, the feeling of what it might be like to live somewhere so nice. Though her hair is currently in its naturally black shade, unlike the rainbow she went through in high school, Sparrow may yet be recognizable. Same jaw, same big brown eyes, same comfortably confident posture. At the moment, her attention is on her phone, texting from the look of it.

There's no drivers ed class at a mental institution. Thusly, Alfie arrives under his own power, from the direction of his parents' place. He's at once the same Alfie that Sparrow (or Phil) knew, with the same youthful, rounded facial features. The same soft blue eyes. And yet, he's also somebody new. His once carefully swept aside hair is shaved in the sides and back, and what's on the top is swept backward - a fashion that puts the spacer in his left ear on easy display. Then there's the fashion, with that baggy summer t-shirt hanging off his scrawny form while his thick gray-plaid shirt remains wrapped by the sleeves around his waist. The faded jeans. The beat up sneaks. And the tattoos. So many tattoos. But lastly, there's the expression on his face. No longer defaulting to wide eyes and excited smiles, he's somewhere else - deep within his own head. Enough so that it takes him until he's two paces from Sparrow before recognition sets in.
"Phil?" the name, from his own tongue, arrives as a croak - like it's the first time he's spoken all day, and he hasn't yet tuned his vocal cords. His gaze flickers to the address on the house, and back to Sparrow. His eyebrows knit into something like difficultly won concentration in the face of confusion.

"Yo," comes before Sparrow even bothers to look up to see if she is the Phil actually being addressed. She finishes sending off her text, what started as a private smile at that exchange easily angled toward the public as she looks up, dark brows arched high. At first, recognition doesn't click. She watches the tattooed guy expectantly for a couple of seconds. Then her face scrunches curiously, the mystery beginning to unveil itself. "AJ?" Did Alfie every actually go by AJ? Doesn't matter. That's what comes out of her mouth. "Holy fuck, lemme look at you!" As she stands, her own style is easily apparent, distressed jeans and a well-worn tee with the words MAMA BIRD in big black letters on the front. "When'd you get the ink? And the..." She just waves her hand nonspecifically in his direction. Ya know, all the rest of it.

Radio silence. Who imposed it? Alfie or his parents? Either way, once he was sent off, there wasn't a word from him. No letters in longhand. No hasty, vague text messages. Just silence. So when Sparrow speaks his initials back at him, he takes a moment, then confirms, "Yeah." It's him. And his tone of voice is wary of the silence he left behind him. When Sparrow follows up his initials with surprise, rather than whatever he'd been expecting to wait for him, he blinks and complies. He stands a little straighter - the canvas unravelling for Sparrow's viewing. Though it would take a step by step guiding process to cover each particular tattoo.
"I've been out-" is his first attempt to answer the question. "I spent the last year in Seattle." A better response. He got them in the last year. He glances up, toward her own hair. A moment before he replies, "I don't think I knew your natural hair color." A more relaxed tone of voice for that admittance.

Sparrow's inspection of that ink is cursory at best; she's not looking for a full tour at the moment. She shoves her phone in her jeans pocket without so much as a thought to check for any response for whoever she was texting. It hasn't made any noise yet. Her brows go up again as if to ask 'yeah?' for his explanation, followed up by a quick, "Nice." His mention of her hair has her looking, rather pointlessly, upward, surely unable to see her own hair thattaway. She'd have better luck to either side. "Who says this is my natural color?" As if she'd choose to dye it black when there are way more eye-stabbing colors she could try. When her gaze comes back down, she starts to say something else only to be cut off by a very pleasant-looking couple who leave the house with a polite murmur of 'excuse me.' She smiles all nice and friendly-like at them, then steps closer to Alfie once they're out of the way, removing herself from the path of egress. "What are you doing around here?"

Automatic head nod - awkwardly unexpected reuinion prompting him to confirm that Seattle was, indeed, nice. Alfie reaches up, fingers splayed through his hair, brushing it back before he rests his palm on the shaved back of his head.
He can't help but smile just a little as Sparrow tries to inspect her own hair. A nostalgic expression, distant, and a little sad despite itself. "It'd be your most subtle transformation yet," he says, with a tone that matche the conflicting complexities of his expression. And he edges aside, barely, for the passing couple - not really acknowledging them otherwise. He lifts his chin at the house behind Sparrow, not stepping back to recover the distance between them lost when she stepped forward. "Uni, in the fall. I don't much feel like crashing with my parents," he answers. As if his home life were anything approaching normal, these past few years. "You?"

A snorted laugh preceeds the brief interruption of their impromptu reunion, appreciation for his assessment of her clearly self-made look. Unlike Alfie, her every expression seems easy, open, honest, like there's nothing at all awkward or uncertain tangled up with it, like she has no concern about why he disappeared for a few years. Surely, there was a whole lot of speculation among their class, but none of that seems to be running through her head right now. When he chin-tips to the house, she looks that way, eyes widening. "Yeah? Really? Man..." Her smile mellows to let some seriousness ease into her expression, big brown eyes turned to Alfie. How is she so good at staring him down while she's only an inch taller? "You got anyone to go in with? Corey and I could use another roommate or two if we're gonna afford this place. Assuming they let it to a bunch of students. Some of the people checking it out look like they've probably got way better credit scores. But it's big. Real big. Plenty of room for parties. Or studying. Or..." She thinks for all of a half-second before shrugging. "Whatever."

This time, Alfie manages not to give a nod of confirmation - keeping himself from becoming a sort of socially awkward bobblehead over the circumstances of reunion. He just arches a brow in curiosity as to what Sparrow means to say. And as she stares him down, lowers his hand from the back of his head - aware of familiar eyes on his less familiar self. Her recital of he brother's name, another wave of nostalgia. He shakes his head. Doesn't elaborate on the distinct lack of anyone to go in with. But does say, "I was kind of hoping I'd bump into a group looking for an extra tenant." He shrugs, a lift of his slight shoulders in baggy attire in review of how odd fate should be to have that group be a pair of names from his past. Or rather, their shared path. "I'm in," he says, deciding even before 'Whatever' joins the wealth of features for use out of the space.

"Cool." Effortless acceptance punctuated by a wide smile on faintly orange-tinted lips. "I've checked out a couple other places today, and there are more on my list? But this one's..." She just shakes her head slightly; it'll be difficult for the rest to compete. "C'mon," Sparrow starts as she turns toward the house, heading right in without waiting to confirm whether Alfie's following her or not. "You should see for yourself. I don't really care which room I get, so you and Corey can work that out. He's probably gonna take over the kitchen. And the backyard." Finally, several steps into the place, into the living room, she looks back to add, "It has a backyard. Which he'll turn into a garden like--" Snap! Turning to face Alfie again, she asks, "What are you studying, anyway? Is that cliche? What's your major? I've settled on chemistry. For now. It's, uh." Her gaze strays to a middle-aged woman scrutinizing the windows, and the thought goes unfinished.

Cool. Just like that. Alfie follows as beckoned. "I'm not picky," he says, on the subject of rooms. The golden boy used to be chattier, excitable, nearly vibrating with energy and curiosity. He's not exactly silent, now, but there is a clear contrast beyond just the surface. "As long as I have a window. I'm over windowless rooms," he adds, after a moment - maybe a joke dryly delivered. But even so, indirectly referencing those years away. He steps into the living room, curiously eyeing Sparrow ahead of him, for talk of her brother. Maybe wondering what all has changed in his absence.
He stands up straight for the quick shift of subject as Sparrow turns around. "Nothing," he answers, first. "General studies. Couldn't really decide." No investment in his voice, on the subject of school. "Chemistry?" he repeats, in question. He follows her gaze and her silence to the sme middle aged woman.

"Ha!" The syllable's loud enough to draw a look from the woman, but Sparrow flashes a dopey half-apologetic smile to make it all better. Her eyes then settle, wide and wild, on Alfie. "Feels like it should be the other way around, doesn't it?" Does it? She might have been notoriously all over the place in high school, one dream falling away to the next in quick succession without any angsting, always onto the next. "I considered social work or... sociology. Something along those lines?" But..? The thought goes unfinished, and she barely seems to notice, shifting gears as she continues on through to the kitchen. Soon to be Corey's kitchen. There are certainly plenty of windows, a few of which look out over the small modest backyard. "Are they short on windows in Seattle?" The question comes with a sidelong look, a hint of curiosity. Gentle prodding, openness should he want to follow-up that half-shared sentiment with some more depth.

Alfie returns to that nostalgic smile for the response to his probable joke. And he shrugs to the notion that their places should have been reversed. "Maybe from the outside," he says - like there's no doubt in his mind that he went where he should have been. And with no assurances that his present self approaches anything like normal. "Social work?" he asks, the same repetition as he follows Sparrow to the kitchen. He looks around, some, but mostly keeps his attention - as detached as it may seem with his distant expression - with their conversation.
"No. Seattle is almost made of windows, in parts," he decides. "Temples of glass baring private lives to any onlooker wise to climb and look across." His mouth opens to continue. Closes. Catches his own lapse of internal censor between thought and voice. He gets to the core of the question instead. "I had windows 'there', too. Barred, sure." His hand returns to the back of his head and he looks out at the backyard. "But I didn't spend all that long in a padded cell."

Sparrow returns to regarding Alfie more directly as he gets all poetical about the Emerald City and all its windows, her smile skewing all soft as she listens. That amusement sharpens promptly at the mention of bars, the last thought, spoken as he diverts his attention, inspiring her to turn bodily to face him fully. Her arms cross almost sternly beneath her tits, MAMA BIRD double-underlined as if for emphasis. Her head cants to the side, at once curious and faintly wary. Were she not grinning, one might worry that she's getting ready to give him some sort of talking to. So very sweetly, she croons, "Why, Alfie James Robertson, are you a homocidal maniac?" She never gets back around to answering his curiosity about abandoned paths.

Alfie straightens up entirely at the unexpected full turn. But that grin does keep him from faltering into genuine worry over his bout of honesty with Sparrow. But the question, on its own, is enough to surprise again and earn a gently rolling chuckle that strikes true despite its reserved quality. "No, but I've shared cutlery-free meals with a few, I'm sure," he jokes, in return. He gives a grin, in reply, that only gradually falters in lead up to an inevitable addition. "I get it, if you change your mind. Including me in all this," he offers, on a more serious note. An offered escape rope, should one be desired as the reality of him sets in, beyond the unexpected reunion they've fallen into.

A laugh! A small one, sure, but it's got Sparrow smiling wide again, pleased that her teasing was well-received. When his grin begins to dim, her smile follows, delight giving way to curiosity once more. Briefly, anyway. It's gone by the time she crinkles her nose in answer to his offer, refusing that rope with a quiet, "It's fine. I mean..." For the first time, that easy patter of hers falters, marking the first time she's had to actually think about anything coming out of her mouth since she was trying to find his name. "If there are any precautions we should take or anything?" Did that come out right? Her brow furrows deeply as her hands shove into her pockets, a slightly nervous gesture. "Everything alright now?" There, that was better; the relief is easily read in the slight drop of her shoulders.

Alfie seems to handle the reluctantly serious portion of the reunion a little better. Like this is the version of events closest to what he'd been mentally preparing for. There is a minute wince at the mention of taking precautions, but otherwise, the distance of his expression provides a poker face well suited to the conversation. He hitches his thumbs in the pockets of his own jeans, half mirroring the gesture of present company - unconscious, in this, maybe a kind of residue from his empathic Glimmer.
"I'm not dangerous," he assures her, without taking a defensive tone. "Or fragile. You don't have to worry about what you do or say. Just-" This takes some searching, looking for the right term or phrase. Metaphor is attempted. "When you put a shattered mirror back together, you can see the slivers where things used to fit seemlessly. But the mirror isn't any more delicate for being broken. Just, different."

Sparrow doesn't look like she was worried about Alfie being dangerous. Not in any sense of the word. She's waiting for something else, and it's hard to be sure if she actually finds it, whatever it is. Especially when he starts in on the mirror metaphor and her eyes start to narrow. "That's not how it works," she tells him with a shake of her head. "The mirror is one hundred percent more delicate for having broken. And you're cursed with bad luck for having broken it." Her expression goes stern, probably playfully, as she tells him, "You gotta work on your metaphor." Sighing, she glances to the side, to the sound of footsteps that don't end up stopping where they are, the kitchen still uninspected by others drifting through. "I meant more, like... is this a substance issue? Should we hide the beer? Refrain from recreating in your company?"

"Yeah. I know. But it was easier to go all in than to start over," Alfie admits as to the metaphor he applied to his particular brokeness. He pays a smile, slight and apologetic, thumbs still hitched on the pockets of his jeans as they stand alone in the kitchen, aside from other wandering prospects, maybe avoiding the kitchen for their mere presence, waiting their turn at a private inspection of taps, pipes, and counterspace.
"I mean, I'd prefer if you shared instead of hid it," he answers. A little more relaxed for getting to admit as much. "I'm almost out of the lemon haze I brought back from the city." Not that Gray Harbor doesn't have any dispensaries. But they certainly didn't in the year before he was sent away. And he definitely didn't drink or smoke back then. Straight edge, straigh A's.

"Oh, well." The ease that had fled Sparrow's posture now settles back in as she shrugs up one shoulder. "I'm sure that can be arranged. It-" HONK! The muffled sound of a goose honking comes from somewhere upon her person, and she's not the least bit startled by it, fishing out her phone to check the incoming message. "--might be a bit before we're actually sharing space, but..." She pulls a face, nose scrunching and lips twisting. "I gotta go." No explanation, no justification. Just a few keystrokes, then her attention's on Alfie once more. "Gimme your number. And take a look around. Think about which room you're going to not be picky about." She hesitates, an intake of breath suggesting something more to come, but her gaze dips along his skinny figure then settles expectantly on her phone, ready to enter his digits.

Alfie doesn't jump, but the sound does get his thumbs free of his pockets. As Sparrow checks her phone, he looks back to the living space, and an older couple there, glancing, waiting, not entering the kitchen while they're there, present. And where they glance, he stares in return, flatly, until they stop glancing and step away for a detour inspection of other rooms. There's an ease, there, in dealing with those he doesn't have a history with - that don't have the him that was to compare to the him that is.
When he returns his attention to Sparrow, he runs through his digits with ease, for her to add into her phone. "And tell Corey I said-" he pauses, not having thought this one through. "-Hey, or something. I dunno." He might have meant to add more - pleasantries about bumping into one another like this. But they sit too heavy on the tongue to be lifted, it seems.

"Hey or something I dunno," Sparrow repeats in imperfect deadpan, all as one thought. The grin with the, "Got it," gives it away. If she caught that interaction between Alfie and the old couple, he'll never know, his gaze elsewhere while she peeked up to catch that steady stare. Her wide smile returns effortlessly, like she's got bouyant energy in spades. "See you soon," is spoken with confidence, as if there's no doubt about how any of this will play out. Or, at the very least, no worry. And that's that. She doesn't linger, quick to make her escape and start off to wherever she needs to go next. It's a few minutes before the text comes in, ensuring that he's got her number too. It's short and direct, telling him, "I like the new look," before falling to radio silence.