2019-08-04 - The Concierge's Concierge

It's an odd haul, the collection of second-hand nonsense that Sparrow and Alfie bring back from their day-long thrift-store tour. The usefulness of most of the items lugged in from the car is questionable at best, though the bookcase someone made out of an old pallet was definitely one of their better finds, unfinished and cheap, a blank canvas for creative minds. The creepy Jesus lamp is a bit less blank, but no less a canvas, supplies snagged from an art store on the way home to make him scary in all new ways. Then there are framed, technicolor animal prints they'll hang up somewhere, the mismatched mugs, the owl mosaic mirror and the very floofy, very pink feather boa.
Sparrow wears the latter around her neck as they bring in their bounty, as she surveys the work they have ahead of them: figuring out where the bookcase, print and mirror should go, pretting up the illuminated savior. It seems like a lot of work after an already long day which has her, instead, angling a look Alfie's way to gauge his current state. Or maybe to scheme. Side-eying him like that, it definitely looks like she's scheming up something.

Actually moving the pallet shelf around is an effort manageable for most, on their own, but is certainly less awkward and unwieldly with aid. And Alfie certainly prefers aid with it. He brushes the dust from his hand, before picking out a splinter from his pinky knuckle. "Home defense," he says of the furnishing, with the means to very slightly annoy anyone who should choose to rob from it without a care. Cheeks still flush from the extertion of getting everything back to and into the home. He's still dressed as he was at the diner, naturally. Swim trunks, tank top, beat up Converse sneakers that might be his only pair of shoes at present. It takes him a moment to recognize Sparrow's inspection, and he pays her back with a slight and crooked smirk. A 'not about to quit' kind of perpetual state.

Sparrow's lips quirk in kind as she catches that smirk, as her hands lift to unwrap the feathers undoubtedly clinging to her neck. The motion isn't swift, drawing it off of her and taking that looped length of fluffy pink feathers to wrap around Alfie's neck instead, providing ample time for dodging, but it is confident and direct. And it's concluded with a tug toward her, with a look along his dusty clothes. "How much trouble do you wanna get in tonight, minion?" Her gaze only finds its way back up to his after the question is asked, brows seeming to continue that upward motion as they arch inquisitively. "Figure we can maybe steal one of Corey's fancy bottles of wine, make good on that talking you promised me..." She flicks a brief look toward their bags and boxes, a tip of her head that direction. "Or we can make with the art, get glitter everywhere, infuriate him for... like... ever." It's even a convincing pitch. If you discount the quick glance down at his lips.

It takes Alfie a moment to recognize that he's next for the fuzzy boa. He raises a brow, amused smirk still in play as he bows his head, accepting the leash/collar/scarf trifecta. "As much as you're up for," he says, before lifting his head once more, willingly snagged by boa. "It could be because you said it first. But wine sounds good - talking, maybe a touch overdue." He shrugs, an admission that it would be best to cover some ground there. "Or maybe I'm just too lazy after all that shopping to make art." Says the layabout, yet to find a proper job. No comment on the caught glance at his lips. Just a continued smirk, and the implication that there are options that are always in play, regardless of routes taken.

Teeth catch on her lower lip as Sparrow listens, a short suckle at once speaking to temptation and restraint, a thought shelved for later, for when he tastes like wine, for when the words are too much or just enough. It's the last bit that has her smile growing, that really seems to sell her on the idea of inebriation and idleness. Brown eyes meet blue again, and she nods agreeably. "Snag an extra pillow and meet me in my room." She gives a little tug to the boa and tells him, "Keep this on. I'll be right behind you." With that, she lets go and lets him go, not moving until Alfie's already on his way.
Should he make good on making it upstairs and into her room, he might be immediately confronted with two very distinct thoughts: holy hell is that room--no, it's a suite--huge and... it is really neatly kept. She's got a proper bed and a pair of old nightstands almost certainly donated by family, and the bed is made. It's covered in quilt, a rainbow rosette against a white background which shows some odd-colored stains, evidence of long use that doesn't diminish how crisp she gets those corners. A laptop sits on one of the nightstands, a half-empty bottle of water beside it. There's no evidence of clothes or mess or anything that hasn't been unpacked, though there are two walk-in closets which almost certainly contain that clutter. With so little furniture, with barren walls bereft of art or personalization, the space seems even more immense, as if every little sound might echo, as if steps should be carefully taken.

Alfie is lifting his hand to his neck and halts when Sparrow tells him to keep the boa on, when she gives it a little tug and he's nudged toward her pulling hand just a bit. A mischevious glint to his own gaze before he lowers his hand, and obeys with a nod. "I'll try not to take too long," he tells her, as to that stop to make along the way in fetching said extra pillow. "Promise." And he gets going, unable to help a glance back over his shoulder at her before he starts to climb the stairs. And he really doesn't take long at all, heading into his room and fetching a pillow among the some five that he has scattered at the head of his floor-bound mattress. Entering Sparrow's room, he hesitates just inside, pulling the door shut behind him and stepping out into that open expanse, head craning to look down the length of the room to the right when he passes the corner, checking the bathroom door or looking through the doorway. The neatness, the openness, has a certain effect. Giving a sense of amplication to what's there. Like each furnishing and object serves such an exaggerated purpose that it's practically nude.

Sparrow doesn't look back. Once Alfie's in motion, so is she, headed right for the kitchen, for where Corey has some wine on reserve for a special meal. Does he cook with it? Is it supposed to be served with the meal? She doesn't know. She'll never know. She just picks the one with the prettiest label--this one with a deep blackish red with pale golden branches twisting and twining around the name of the wine, the vineyard, the vintage--then snags a couple of red solo cups from the counter and a corkscrew from a drawer. Then she's off, heading upstairs in Alfie's wake, maybe a minute behind him given how much extra she had to grab. "I gave you the chance," she tells him as she rounds the corner, catching him peeking into the half-open bathroom with its big, fancy bathtub at the far end. "You and Corey both. You let me get away with it." With stealing the big room all for herself, she means. Bottle, cups and corkscrew are set on the nearer nightstand, right on top of her laptop. "I'mma need my own couch. And maybe a live-in butler."

No hard feelings. "I don't need the space," Alfie says, without turning, boa hanging from around his neck and a pillow from his left hand as he goes to the tips of his toes for a vantage on the tub without getting closer. "But I do need that tub," he admits. Giving away clear advantage, letting Sparrow know that she has won an object that he prizes. Not that he dwells or pouts on it, right now. Rather, he walks toward the bottle and corkscrew, picking up the latter to get the former open for them. He laughs, a brief and gentle sound that'd be easy to miss or ignore if it came from someone with a longer running habit of such expression. "I'd offer. But I can't clean worth a damn," he says. "I'd just walk around in an apron, and maybe this boa, and dust things dirtier." Quiet strain as he twists the screw into the cork and pulls, effort putting tension into his frame.

By the time Alfie makes it to their bedside table, a grinning Sparrow is already perched on the edge of her bed, stripping off sneakers and striped socks to free her long-captive toes. Rather than putting all of that where it belongs right now, she nudges shoes and socks beneath her bed, standing up again as she watches those skinny arms work the cork. "Concierge," she decides, correcting the earlier suggestion as she undoes her jean shorts, wholly intent on slipping them off in evidence of an absence of intention to leave this room again tonight. The hip-hugging corn-flower blue panties stay on for now. "Bring me pillows. Pour my wine. Make sure there are little candies waiting for me at the end of the day." She's probably not serious, right? It's difficult to tell between her dreamy delivery and the intent way she watches him, one foot somewhere imaginary and the other rooted solidly right here and now. "Probably worth a bath or two. Might even through in some bubbles if you find an excuse to bend over now and then."

"Concierge," Alfie repeats, with amusement and some effort, after Sparrow has listed the duties involved. There's a pop, a vacuum filled with a rush of air as he gets the cork out. His shoulders slackening as he takes a breath and props the cork and screw together on the dresser. And he pays another glance - as if he even needs to consider the position. "You'll have to put the nessecary items in the low drawers," he says, as to getting him to bend over now and then. He pours, partly filling one cup and then the other. His pillow at his feet, to be fetched. First, he walks Sparrow's glass to her and hands it off. Gaze dipping to note the absence of jean shorts as an extended diversion. "But I think we have a deal." Second, he walks back to the pillow and bends down to fetch it, bathing suit drawing tight over his ass where an apron would hide nothing. And he takes his time straightening up, tucking the pillow under his arm and going to nab the other glass. "I mean, how could I say no to the possibility of bubbles?"

A soft sound follows that pop, muted pleasure for the play of inked muscles drawn tight then falling slack. The hum which follows Alfie's advice is brighter, louder, the idea met with an approving, "Mm," which surely guarantees that Sparrow's drawers will be filled very strategically to that very specific end. When he delivers her cup, she lifts it in gratitude, a sip of the spicy red taken in his honor. A shallow shrug answers that look down at bare belly, pastel panties and tone thighs, as if it weren't for him at all. The mattress creaks as she sits down again once he turns, and he might catch the tilt of her head when he straightens, evidence of very studious attention paid to his ass, to the angles of his lanky body as he moves.
But that question, rhetorical as it is? That brings her gaze back up, eyes rolled as she scoots back against the headboard, her single pillow--on a bed big enough to demand a minimum of two--tucked behind her back, her bare feet on her quilt. "Easy. You just say, 'Nah, I don't need bubbles. Mostly, I just like it when you check out my ass, Phil.'" She angles a half-lidded look his way, complete with a sly smile, but she doesn't linger on that tease long. "So you gonna tell me where you went when you disappeared?"

"But that would be exposing all my bargaining chips as duds," Alfie says, thusly exposing his bargaining chips as duds, for enjoying the process by which they are gathered. He sets his pillow on the bed and climbs onto the mattress to join her, hip against the pillow and legs tucked in against his opposite side, shoes shed behind him and still feeling entirely overdressed. He dwells in this sly admission, even when the inevitable follow up question lands. He takes a moment to take an extended sip from his glass before he even deigns to get started. Then, a breath. Diversions. "Western State Hospital," is the very literal of it, the where to which he went. "I didn't respond well to the psychotropics or sedatives, at first. The first couple weeks are kind of a mess. Restraints. Isolation. But good, uh-" he clears his throat. "Doctors." Nothing but respect, there. No notion that he shouldn't have been there. Even if he went direct to answering her question rather than take the meandering route of how he ended up there.

"There's no bargaining," Sparrow counters cockily, so confident in that assertion even though Alfie's getting access to her magnificent bathtub. Maybe she's tipping her hand, too. She keeps her eyes on him as he climbs into bed, as he settles, considering his collected angles in the silence which preceeds his answer, like there might be some secret in bony bends and black ink. When he speaks, she looks up, finding his eyes even if he doesn't meet hers. She reaches over as he explains the first couple of weeks, fingers slipping over knee, under fabric, shameless claim laid to one thigh, maybe in the name of comfort. "Guess I can't be pissed about you not answering my texts or returning my calls for a little while, at least, but that doesn't..." The thought hitches, just for a second. "That doesn't explain why you were there or why you didn't call after. I mean, I get that we weren't that close, but--" Her brow furrows as she looks down at her wine then takes a shameless swig. It should be sipped. She drinks it as if it were beer.

The careful telling of the story, the direct answer he takes that lets him avoid hard topics means that Alfie gets there, out of order. He doesn't meet her eyes. Instead, he watches blankets. Then, he watches the shape of Sparrow's hand, on his knee. Though there's the slightest hint of a wince at 'weren't that close'. "I didn't have friends outside of school. I wasn't given time for them," he says, discounting closeness as an excuse or justification for not reaching out. "I mean, it makes sense if you thought of it that way. But I didn't." He meets her gaze again, ready to dive back in, this time not preceding immersion with wine. "Do you remember Cheryl Sweeny?" He shakes his head. That's not quite right. "Or, do you remember hearing about her? She was a visiting journalist. Disappeared around the time we would have ten. Ten-ish. Wrote public interest stories. Tame stuff." Left field, sure - but there must be a point. "I kind of got it in my head that maybe I could find something the cops didn't. Because I was stupider than my GPA said I should have been. And books were my distraction from my parents at home. I kind of went looking for what happened to her."

Sparrow's fingers tighten where they curl against Alfie's leg, fingertips pressing into muscle, almost tugging before she catches herself and relaxes. It's the only answer she offers for his comments on closeness, on friendship, her own feelings tucked back wherever they'd come from. Almost. Sort of. Her eyes aren't quite as bright when he finds them, some unresolved something left on open display as she listens. Swiftly overshadowed. Confusion sets in as she shakes her head, muttering a vague, "I guess?" that probably means 'no,' that might admit to having only the barest itch of a recollection about the story. The explanation doesn't help, answered with a, "So?" and a shallow shake of her head. It's not adding up yet.

Alfie pauses for a drink. To glance aside. To take what comfort he does from the squeeze of Sparrow's tightening fingers around his thigh. "So," he repeats, his tone not so default dry and detached. Nor is it the amusement that they play with. Rather, it's something less certain, more vulnerable. Gaze back to Sparrow, moving away from her on occassion but always returning. "As far I know, the last part of my-" His nose scrunches, as if in distaste for the word he's about to use. "Investigation. As far as I got in it. Was convincing the hotel receptionist to let me see the room she stayed in. And he gives me the key." He lapses into present tense, leaving the implications of uncertainty of 'as far as I know' lie. "I go to the door to her room. I turn the key in the lock." He closes his right eye, straining, as if access to the memory is giving him an active headache. "I push the door open and-" He shrugs, settles back down, and opens his eye. Nothing. "Fourteen days later, I'm wearing dirt at a river, screaming at some poor hiker to keep their fear away from me. I might have bit him." He tilts his head, looks at the wall. "Seven days later, the working theories are schizophrenia, schizophreniform, schizoaffective depressive. Those were the days, experimenting with drugs and restraints in the least fun way." Right back to the hospital. A part of the story missing for him, as well.

Sparrow's gaze doesn't stray, her frequently frenetic energy entirely still, wholly his. That furrow between her eyebrows doesn't dissipate, always there when he looks back again, as if that snag were, itself, an anchor. The first break in that focus comes at 'fourteen days later,' a look to her wine, to the nightstand as she reaches back to set it down. Fingers sliding farther up beneath his trunks, she leans in, head pressing to his shoulder for a few seconds. It's an awful hug if that's what she's going for, but it does its job, gets its message across in its alotted time, before she draws back into her slouch, arms draped across knees. "Even the first day without you was weird," she admits quietly, no access to her eyes while she tells her side. "But everyone gets sick eventually, right? Flu maybe. Too full of snot to text back. Whatever. A few days. Sure."
She flicks a quick glance his way, dropped quickly again as she continues. "But then there were questions. Talk about you running away. I told them that was bullshit, but." She falls quiet for a few seconds like she might be searching for words. "There were all kinds of theories after that. Military school for punishment after you absconded was the most popular." No, that's not right. "Most plausible. That or home-schooling. Most popular was that you ran off with some wiccan chick to join a pagan cult and dance naked out in the woods. There was some very specious evidence, coincidental bullshit." With a hint of a grin resurfacing, she looks askance at Alfie and adds, "Biting the guy didn't help with the feral witch rumors."

Alfie sinks into the purposeful closeness. Several false starts into what he could say, aborted. The tension keeps this time, but he sets chin atop Sparrow's head and he sttays there like that until she's drawing back to the slouch. The first day without him was weird? He nods at that, though he couldn't have a clue about those fourteen days. The excuses given - too full of snot - he chuckles, a sound that could just as easily hop the fence into being a sob. But he keeps a tightly knit composure within his tension. He stacks his free hand on her forearm, over one knee. The quiet laugh he gives for the last of the theories is more stable, less on the verge of descent into an opposite expression of emotion. "Biting the guy didn't help with a whole lot of anything at all, to be honest," he adds, a quiet dry humor that forms a wafer thin artifice toward being casual about the whole thing.

Sparrow shifts almost immediately under Alfie's touch, quick enough that it might send the wrong message, telegraphing withdraw when the actual intent is to catch his fingers with her own, to reciprocate the contact. Hold, squeeze. Connect. She breathes a quiet laugh, almost absent any humor, then looks up to catch his eyes, waiting until he's looking at her, until that connection is made too. "We're good. I meant it when I said it. I want you to know that so that when I say what I'm going to say you don't think anything otherwise." She makes a face, lips twisting weirdly, settling into an odd leftward skew as she readies herself. "It hurt. I know how dumb that is. Even--even without knowing any of what was going on, there were plenty of reasons why you might not have been able to reach out. But it still hurt. I missed you. Missed having someone keeping me on point. Missed having someone to nudge off track. Missed... that cute distracted smile you'd give me when I asked to copy your notes. Missed the way your face would get all serious when assignments were handed out. Missed--" When she falls quiet, it's clearly not for lack of more details to ache after, but rather to cut that sad babbling short, head shaken to dismiss the rest of the list. "When all I got was silence? Way easier to just tell myself maybe we weren't really that close."

Sensation of freefall taking a fraction of a second at that mistaken withdrawal that catches rather than drops him - his shoulders rise and settle back down with him, in short order. Alfie gives something of an embarrassed smile for the automatic response when he does manage to meet Sparrow's gaze for what she's waiting to say. "Thanks," he says, softly, as if the absence of bitterness to past were something actively worked toward. And, "It's not dumb." He shakes his head to press this point, delicate features softening. A meekness to his features as she goes from missing the effects of his presence to his smile. And into guilt that he can't quite dispell despite her assurances as to their status. "I thought it'd be easier." He nods, conceding a concession, "In a selfish way. Not for you."

"Probably," a quiet concession as Sparrow's study of Alfie's eyes ends, attention slipping off to the side, to nothing, nowhere. "Probably would've made it harder to... I dunno. Get where you are now. Be who you are now. If someone who knew who you used to be was looking for that ghost, ya know?" And she looks, not for the ghost, but to the man he is now, the fingers caught in her own held tighter as if that might express everything she feels about temporality, about the way their timeline actually went. "You don't look like him anymore. Sometimes, in your smile still, but--" She smiles, off-center and small, as she shakes her head. "Forced perspective. All the ink. The presentation. Your bearing. Way you talk. The sharpness you almost always blunted before." Raising her free hand to her face, she looks away, putting an increasingly pink cheek on easy display, half-veiled by dark hair when she reaches out for her wine again.

Something Alfie isn't saying. Something that puts a knit into his brow as Sparrow makes the justifications for him. "Acute Chronic Hallucinatory Psychosis with full sensory range," he provides, for the diagnosis that the doctors eventually reached after their range of theories. "Which is like a big catch-all for a group of symptoms with no good explanation." He lets this stand, as is, rather than dip into why while what Sparrow assumes might be true, it isn't the whole truth. He drifts off from there and into the contrasts, him and his ghost. His gaze settles on her pink cheeks in following her hand to her face. "You seem wiser, in a way," he admits. "Like you fell on your ass a few times without me to keep you on point." It'd be a better tease if he could muster a more humorous tone of voice. "And that you learned something from it. But without losing the drive for fun - for adventure. I'm glad the world didn't sand that away."

"I left too," almost sounds defensive, a bite behind it that Sparrow maybe hadn't meant. She tries to soften it with some wine, a swig, then another sip. And another. Time more than taste, little pauses to collect her thoughts and keep pushing through this awkwardness. "No band, no prospects, no desire whatsoever to go to college and I don't even know why I'm doing it now... I just... fucked off. Which sounds childish, but it wasn't. We had to figure everything out on our own, make our own way, figure out what mattered." With a shallow snort of laughter, she adds, "What we could afford." A shrug follows as she looks back to Alfie, cheeks still pink whether she wants them to be or not, whether she's aware or not. "Don't make this about me. That's my job. I make it about me. You just..." It's becoming a habit, the way her gaze flicks to his lips, evidently even at maybe not the most appropriate moments. "I don't know if it's wrong to tell you that I like you even more now that you're officially psychotic. It sounds wrong. But I mean it."

Mirroring. Not in expression this time, though the subtle hue in Alfie's cheeks could just as easily be reflective. Rather, he drinks when she does, as she washes away the bite with the flavor intensity of red wine. And he lowers his glass when she lowers hers. "You've got to step outside yourself, to see you whole," he says, in a way it indicates that leaving makes sense to him - that it wasn't childish or that it doesn't matter if it was, because it wasn't wrong. "I had a whole lot of me. Four years of long term care. A year of hiding from old me in Seattle, to figure out who I am," he says. His own lips skewing to a slight smirk that is somehow at once playful and apologetic. "I don't care if it's wrong," he admits. "Because it would really fucking hurt if I came back to find that you preferred the me I could no longer be." A nervous laugh, at that.

There's a restlessness to Sparrow's expression when she first looks back up at Alfie again, a frequent return to his lips. Maybe she's just watching the words, but it's more likely that she's waiting for them to be over, hoping for something to stop the conversation she encouraged, wanted. Something he says, though, anchors her, all that antsiness settled, attention solidified, eyes on his. Her brows knit slightly, evidence of a question, a physical manifestation of whatever's snagged her focus so wholly, and she asks simply and directly: "Do you like who you are?"

Lips that taste like red wine. This isn't a mirror. Even with active effort, Alfie doesn't read thoughts. So this is his. Accelerated and amplified by the cycle of impatient interest that bounces between them, sure, but the articulation is entirely his own. And prompts a distracted look to her lips in turn. "I don't think I'm done figuring out who I am," he admits. Gentle lift of delicate shoulders without disrupting his hold of his wine glass. "But I like me so far. And-" Another shrug, this repetition a nervous tick as he gets closer to imitating the full force of pink cheeks. "Now I also like that you like this me."

Sparrow can't help the reflexive eyeroll at that first answer, a break from her seriousness as a smirk cracks, as she quips a quiet, "Obviously." Her fingers shift against his, brush over knuckles, her hold relaxing, less tense. "Maybe it's cuz you're still figuring you out instead of having everything already done and numbered." A contrast to who he had been, future all planned out, everything by the book. "Little more like the rest of us." She draws in a breath that seems to travel upward as it goes in, drawing her features up with it until her eyebrows are both lifted. "I think I'd like you even better if you kissed me." Almost a question, like she's not sure, the sort of thing that needs to be tried out to be sure.

"Did you know," Alfie starts, wearing an old and familiar voice of knowledgeable pride. "That the majority of long-running bestsellers in Japan are 'how to' and 'guide' books." Meta-layering the joke, by espousing his old self momentarily to reference a cultural practice he'd picked up elsewhere. "Including the Complete Manual of Suicide." That was morbid. He catches it, the accidental departure from old Alfie within sentences of trying. He drops the imitation. Not a great set up for the transition into the prospect of a kiss, maybe. But he doesn't detract from his own wanting. He leans forward, departs from his pillow to prop himself up on one hand and both his knees as he makes a bridge while holding his wine aloft. He tilts his head, half-hoods his blue eyes, and moves in slow until he's breathing the scent of wine onto Sparrow's own lips. Until the gentlest brush of his soft mouth against hers.

It's the morbid note that brings Sparrow's mirth back, the most directly dark comment of the conversation inspiring the brightest smile. Maybe it's that keen-edged blend of both old and new, academic and grim, that hits the right now. She's certainly not analyzing it. Really, she seems mostly to be relaxing. Maybe now's when the tension should be building, at the prospect of that kiss she's been craving being delivered, but it seems a balm right now, a break from the heavy delve into histories and who-are-we. With her cup held low, braced against the bed, and her shoulders falling slack, she lets Alfie take his time with his approach, lets that featherlight introduction linger for a happy breath before she presses forward and catches his lower lip between her own. She tugs him closer with that. Or means to, anyway, resting back, releasing. How deep the kiss gets from there will depend on whether he's followed or fallen back.

That smile certainly assured Alfie that he hadn't misstepped on his way in. Flashing a reflective smile of his own before their lips meet. He intakes a little gasp as Sparrow tugs on his bottom lip between her own. He walks himself forward on his knees, sliding his hand up along the blanket to brace himself as he crawls forward, captured by the soft pleasantness of their lips meeting and the promise of more. She may not be pulling on the bring pink boa hanging from his neck, but he's following as though she had. A little hitch in his breath, warm from his nose, but still spiced with wine from intake.

The feather boa's not forgotten even if it's not used for its initial purpose. Maybe Alfie can feel it, the idle stroke of loose, lazy fingers through the fuzzy pink feathers as lips connect again, parting, exploring, sipping at wine-spiked skin. One knee tips out, bed creaking slightly as her weight shifts, as if she might turn to more directly meet that kiss. But she doesn't. No. She's still holding her wine, and he has his. After several seconds, maybe half-a-minute, she pulls back enough to murmur an airy, "Thank you," impishly dismissive. "I feel better now." With that, unless prevented, she turns her head and lifts her drink, evidently done with the making out for now.

Alfie suckles on Sparrow's bottom lip, preceding a tease of his tongue between her lips. His eyes closed as he drifts into a sightless sensory experience. His response is delayed when she breaks off, still with his eyes closed, and still leaning in, waiting. He opens his eyes at the thank you. He wears a ghost of a grin at her impish dismissiveness. And he rises. Not all the way, just up onto his knees. He sits back on his heels rather than return to his pillow. "I'd think much less of myself as a concierge if you didn't," he tells her, with a lift of one brow. And he plays another reflection, taking a long sip of his own wine as he watches her playfully through his glass.

The blush summoned by those words softens Sparrow's cockiness as she wobbles her empty glass in her fingers, extending it his direction with an arch of her brows, a wordless request for more. If he's gonna maintain claim of that title, she's gonna maintain use of his services. The leg which had tipped toward him instead stretches out along the bed, toe briefly pointed like maybe all this sitting around is getting to her, but there's no effort to move, a purposeful laziness on display so that he might attend her. "When did you get all the ink? Why?"

Alfie dips his head and takes the glass in his other hand, playful smile still on his lips. He works harder to get off the bed, with no hand free, sliding sideways onto his hip, and stretching his legs out tot he opposite direction and over the edge of the mattress. He drops to bare feet and walks back to where he left the corkscrew bottle. He takes a swig to finish his own glass before setting both down and filling them each in turn - hers, first. "All of it is from the last year, from my time out in Seattle," he answers. "A bit at a time." The when of it, the easy part to cover. He turns away from the bottle with both glasses in hand and walks slowly toward the edge of the bed. "It was hard. Seeing me in the mirror, as I was. Not seeing the difference that I felt inside," he explains. "A lot of the ink is who I am. Some, reminders of how I got here. And a few are wants - desires - things I can hold onto, and know that no one picked them out for me."

Sparrow watches. More often than not, she watches. Watches how he moves, the path he chooses, the order of operations. She's watching his hands when he approaches, though lifting one of her own to accept the refill seems an afterthought, evidence that she hadn't been thinking much about the wine at all. 'Wants' tugs her attention upward, curiosity caught, and she's quick to instruct, "Show me one of those," without so much as a please.

Alfie sets his own glass on the nightstand. And he looks down his arms, and at the tank top that he'd worn for thrift shopping with the knock-off cartoon squirrel and the pinyin script. His arms, neck, and legs exposed for the range of tattoos there. Those detailed at the diner on his arms, a simple bird on the left side of his neck. Blunt tailfeathers. He holds out his left arm, the full sleeve in the style of Japanese tapestry in blackout, the line work done in the pale shade of his skin. Waves, flowers, and wind. "To be somewhere unfamiliar. Where I was never someone else," he explains. Though, in simplest terms, likely, given that he gave that an entire arm. He reaches for the hem of his tank top and pulls it up over his head to drop on the floor, left in swim trunks that he tugs down low on the one hip so that he can fully expose the jackalope in flower and field that covers his right flank of his lean body. Animals, a theme alongside doors. "The kind of crown I could stand to wear," he says of the antlered rabbit. "No responsibility. Just running and wanting - escape and vice - good enough at both to be myth."

"You've only ever been you in my arms," Sparrow croons, shamelessly leaning into cheese to pull herself out of stranger places. There's even a bit of brow-waggling to go with it as she lifts her glass, a long pull of the wine enjoyed while she takes in the stripping, all that inked skin. Her gaze grazes along several different possibilities before following his fingers down to his hip, to that jackalope, that quest for freedom given permanent place upon his person. "Right side is future-leaning, future-looking," she points out, literally, index finger extended from her glass to needlessly point at the ink, approving of its placement. "Bridging purpose and pleasure, solar plexus to sacral core. Drive and desire." When her finger curls back around her glass, she looks up at Alfie with head tilted and tells him very directly, "I can give you that. We've got time to get a taste if you don't wanna lean into the unknown too hard." As if that's the only reason she might not want to fuck off to who knows where with the guy just back from four years getting his head fixed, as if she has no responsibilities of her own. "I can be your concierge out there. Your guide to the wild." A shallow flicker of doubt flickers across her features with a quirk of her lips, a shallow knit of her brows, but she hides that worry behind another taste of wine while she waits.

Alfie leaves the waistband of his shorts purposely low on the one side. Surely aware that he's on display for a wine sipping Sparrow. "Very true," he agrees, with a bright flash of smile in response to that cheesy line. Happy for it, in more than one way. And he quiets to listen to the meanings that he hadn't had, regarding placement - the way, through either fate or happy accident, that the jackalope fell where it needed to. He steps up to the edge of the mattress direct, standing against it. As close as he can be without climbing up. He pays a curious tilt of head and a lift of one brow. "I'll be your concierge if you'll be mine?" he summarizes, in a lighter way, maybe trying to defuse the tension of everything they're not saying - and everything that they're talking their way around. "Deal," he states. And squirms. "It's sappy. Or sad, given how long I've been away. Both, probably. But, I don't think there's anyone I'd trust for it more."

Sparrow's brother would surely be offended at the way she flat out chugs that second glass of wine, downing the remainder far too quickly when the deal is struck, when her openly bold offer is met with approval. It's enough that she needs to catch her breath when she's done, while she reaches over to set the glass down beside his. "No." Nearer knee dropping to the bed, she sits up and pivots, shin to his thighs as she swings her other leg over the edge of the bed, bringing herself directly in front of him. Hands to skin, one steady at his left side, the other running up along that dream in antlers and flowers. "It's not sappy or sad. I was good to you before, and I've been good to you now, and you know I was on the road for a while. It's sound judgment." Trust yourself, AJ, not just her. "Tell me what you don't want. What fucks you up in bad ways. And I'll stay within those lines."

Alfie settles into the touch. Sinking forward against it, despite the unyielding obstruction in his way that is the bed. He does his best not to interrupt the inspection of fingertips or the gentle hold, setting a hand on her shoulder, soft, a whisp of fingertips as he draws his shoulder back, and stretches up into a straight posture of tactile tapestry. "I'll take your word for it," he says, as to Sparrow's review of his judgment. He sounds playful and amused. As for what he doesn't want, he pauses, thinking deeply about where the outlines of his limits might lie. "Mind if I hold off on that?" he asks, after some delay. "I mean, as long as it doesn't mean trying to fill old shoes, I really can't think of where the lines might be. But I'll let you know?"

"Cuz I'm right," Sparrow counters, just as playful, but laced with confidence, only half-teasing. Her hands sink low along his lanky frame and push back, draping loose and lazy as she leans in, cheek brushing his lifted arm, distracting Alfie with proximity and contact while he thinks. She accepts his uncertainty with a little nod, no protest for not knowing, and she declares, "Our safewords are 'this is bad' and 'I don't want this.'" Far from her usual silliness, evidence of honesty, directness in this Very Important Responsibility she's undertaking. The red in her cheeks as she stares up at him, lower from her seated position, from her forward lean, it's not difficult to guess that the wine's catching up with her. Especially when the next words from her mouth are pretty much the direct opposite of their declared safewords. "I like this. It's itchy, but I like it. Like you. This."

Something not reflected. Just Alfie's. A soft affection in his countenance as Sparrow declares herself right and summons memories he's not trying to run from. An alcove. A fire alarm. That confidence. His hips slide forward as Sparrow pushes back, automatically wanting to keep his frame in touching distance, even as she settles her cheek against his arm. "Those'll be easy enough to remember," he decides. "I'll be saying them if class is boring enough to melt my brain." There's no nervous glances aside, now, as they address the now and points ahead. He meets her gaze. Tipsy enough for bodily relaxation, but not about to sway or stumble. "Me too," he admits. "This. You. Both." A tilt of his head in the opposite direction, counterpoint, on his part. "Not so much itchy. The cusp of gravity. Leaning forward, waiting to fall." Nervous excitement.

"I don't wanna fall." An easy admission, no thought needed. Sparrow keeps her lazy-lidded gaze on his, not shying away from that honesty. "I don't think I've got much choice," comes with a wide, dopey smile, a firmer press of her cheek to his arm. "Get rid of the thing making me happy so I can stay up here or..." Her eyes go wide... and her tongue sticks out, the little pbft raspberry incidentally sprinkling his skin with spit. "Dead. Splat. Done." Her lips part again like she's got more on her mind, humor dimming in her eyes. It's serious, whatever it is. And easily shoved aside, evidently, given how easily she brightens again, declaring, "You were great at the diner today," whatever that means.

"I know what my vote is," Alfie says, for the threat of falling. Sticking the tip of his own tongue out in reply to the raspberry. Dead, splat, done. Nod. Severe notes of finality. Diverted successfully from whatever depths they were getting to with that dimming of humor. Completely accepted. Though his brow does furrow some at that last bit of praise, showcasing focus as he thinks back. "For sharing my fries?" he asks, uncertain, for when he offered Corey food off his plate. "Or my foot fumble?"

"Your porny brilliance, duh." How could that not be his first thought? Sparrow turns her head, nipping softly at Alfie's arm before she withdraws a little, sinking back onto one hand while the other stays on his hip where his shorts haven't quite returned to their proper position. "Way you didn't stop flirting with me just cuz I was flirting with that Kelly boy," she adds with a shade less certainty, an element of experimentation in her tone, tossing that detail out there to see how it lands. Makes the need for distance clear: it's easier to read his expression from here.

Alfie brightens, for a moment, a realization that gets his robin's egg blue eyes wide and his lips parted. Right! That. Oh, wait, not seriously. He catches on when she nips his arm. Not the porn names. "Wasn't a whole lot of that in the hospital. But I feel like I've picked up a few things. Remembered others," he quips, all the same. His hip presses in against her hand more firmly with every breath. He quiets to listen to the real reason. And he nods, slowly at the end, like he's having to think through his response. Meekness in that he doesn't look away, only glances as his expression turns soft. "Being happy about how I make you feel shouldn't mean I don't want you to feel good in any other way," he says. It's a philosophy that sits true on his tongue. But there's something unstated. That he's meaning to say, but nervously navigating it. He sets his free hand on the back of his head, where shaved. "Maybe I'm also a little weird." Just a little.

"I mean..." Sparrow can't help the wide grin that forms for that casual foray into porn experience, an eyebrow arched as she offers, "I can be your concierge there, too." And, yep, there's the brow-waggle. Cheese, sure, but she means it, that little sweep of her thumb lower along his hip, where it dips in a bit, marking her own pornographic thoughts. "You're more than a little weird, Alfie," she answers in affectionate deadpan, dry and warm. It's not a bad thing. "But it's a good philosophy. And maybe means you can read me." Her knee knocks against his thigh as she adds more softly, thoughtfully, "But not sure how good I am at reading you. Looks like there's something stuck. A ghost hanging about." The last, again, seems experimental, an idea she's trying on, one that seems to click with something beyond this conversation: the reason for all those apologetic smiles, like he was talking to his ghost, communicating with a memory that she half-inhabited. Her gaze unfocuses for only a moment as she follows that train of thought, returning when she catches herself drifting into her own head. Damned wine.

"Deal," Alfie doesn't even make a play of thinking these offers through anymore. He knows a want when he feels one. "Concierge," he calls her, by title, a wink for a brow waggle. But maybe he's leaning into this a little harder, for the aforementioned weirdness and his nervousness in addressing it. And he laughs, gentle, for the mention of him being more than a little weird. He nods. Agreement, there. The bump of knee to thigh keep his regard on her, where he might have shyly addressed the wall behind Sparrow or the bed beside her in going on. "This town is a ghost in places," he admits. "Or I am, to the people here?" He doesn't seem certain on which is which, but the latter seems like something he'd be more keen to be sorry about. His thumb reaches from shoulder to brush the side of her neck. He goes on. "If you can be excited about the pleasure someone you like feels in a threesome. Shouldn't their pleasure be kind of hot whenever? Whether you're there for it, seeing it, or hearing about it." He shrugs. The little weird to go with the rest of it. Implications that his year in Seattle meant quite a bit of catch up, even if he wasn't actively dating anyone.

Sparrow shakes her head at the ghost talk, dark hair flat after a day out in heat and dust shifting against her shoulders, still in that pale blue crop top, Care Bears staring right up at Alfie across her tits. "You feel real," isn't quite what she meant to say, an answer to the touch she tilts toward rather than the sentiment itself, but she abandons more complicated responses in favor of the easier avenues presented by the second half of his answer, the easy grin those words inspire. "I mean. Kinda hott*er* for seeing it, hearing it. But I get your meaning." Pushing up from her lean, she edges forward, free hand reaching for the side of his neck to draw him down now that the boa's on the floor with his shirt. "And I kinda get the feeling you're trying to shove me off the cliff." Though she keeps her tone light, playful, there's heft behind her words, weight which pushes her forward, pulls him in, until lips are crushed to lips and there's no opportunity to answer that accusation. Guilty without recourse.

"I can feel you," Alfie notes, in addition to feeling real. If he's a ghost, he's the tactile kind. That bright pink boa on the ground and low slung swim trunks hanging off one hip complete the scene that the swell of Care Bears start. Her easy grin in response to what he admitted, last, washes away that nervous edge about him and he laughs a little, with relief. He nods. Agreement. "Always better to be there. Sensory details." Preferences leaning deeply in that same direction. He might have an answer to the accusation, or at least an initial desire. His lips part just as her mouth meets his and he sinks into the kiss, deeming response to her words much less important than sinking into the kiss. Eyes hooding, then shutting. His hand mirroring hers, as he slips it from her shoulder to the side of her neck. He returns the kiss, a slow moving crush, tag, and tease. All that heat without the rush.

Sparrow answers that reciprocation with a satisfied sound, a smile felt against his mouth. Briefly, it seems like she tries to murmur something, a few slurred syllables muted by the kiss, but she makes no attempt to withdraw and clarify, doesn't seem to mind at all the inarticulateness. When she leans back, it's not to get away, both the hand on his hip and the one on his neck aiming to pull him along with her, back onto the bed, horizontal cross its middle and half hanging off. The logistics don't really figure into her descent, the intention solely to get him closer, to keep doing this. Of course, it's hard to keep that affection steady on the way down, the result a series of playful nips and swift kisses which promise depth at the journey's end.

Fumbling in the dark. As Sparrow pulls, he follows, sight limited with his eyes closed and Alfie moves a hand from her neck to the bed at one side of her. Knee, up. Slipping off the edge the first time and catching the second. Alfie pulls him and his other knee up on the bed. Straddling her lap. So close to slipping off given the logistics. But it's there's to try regardless of gravity's obstacle. Craning forward from that position to keep his lips on hers, parting only for soft, happy sounds like laughter and relief over playful nips and quick teasing kisses. "Sparrow," he says, softly, against her lips. Really trying on that name for size. He'd known her full name, sure, even if it hadn't been what she'd gone with for so much of the time he'd known her. The bird on his neck with the blunt tail feathers? It keeps close to their affections.

"What?" comes on a giddy breath as if that evocation of her name was the beginning of something more and not a statement in its own right. Sparrow nudges her nose against his and pulls back, potential evidence that her eyes had been open for at least some of that kissing, her lips moving out of reach now. Hand moved from hip to quilt, legs bent beneath him to try to get a heel up, to get some leverage, she scoots back, making room. There's further to go if they want gravity back on their side, and without his lips to keep her busy, she's back to watching his pursuit.

Alfie opens up one eye, peeks when they part from the kiss and she breathes the question. "I wanted to see how it felt on my tongue, just then," he admits, sheepish but playfully bright. He waits for Sparrow's initial scoot back, over the bed before he follows. Both hands free for crawling now as he moves up to join her - but taking his time, watching Sparrow in turn. "It felt good," he informs her, afterward, as if that hadn't been clear.

Sparrow laughs, an adorable chortle-snort which might feed his sheepishness more if it didn't come with some of her own, not all of the pink in her cheeks to blame on the wine. Once they're less precariously positioned, fingers find his skin again, splaying along ribs to trace those curved lines, to explore without hurry. "Sounded good," she croons in quiet reply, unashamed of her own ego, of the pleasure taken in hearing her name on his lips. The curiosity which follows doesn't find voice as easily, kept silent as she flicks a look to the side of his neck then back to his eyes.

Hue of color to his cheeks as he smiles down at Sparrow's chortle, Alfie settles on Sparrow's lap, braced up above her on his hands. Not descending onto her with his body, so long as he's enjoying the way that her touch explores his body. "I'm glad," he says, a little more softly, in reply to her own review. He gets a good sense of where she's looking in her quiet, on the way back to his eyes with that glance of question. His countenance goes soft once more, but the smile keeps. He shrugs. More or less confirming what - or rather who - the bird is in reference to. An answer that arrives, likewise, without voice.

Sparrow's exploration slows at that imprecise answer, near enough to a yes. Hands spread, palms pressing to skin, then withdraw until it's just a few fingertips keeping contact, a holding pattern while she processes this new information, the idea that she was a piece kept from that old life. Seconds pass before she murmurs a soft, "Alright," accepting without pressing further. Digits creep upward, drag along the sides of his neck and curl, pull, urge him down with a quiet, "C'mere."