2019-08-12 - On the Road to Find Out

Starting in the middle of the night probably wasn't the best idea given that there wasn't all that far to go before hitting the first planned stop, but why should bad timing stand in the way of a good time. Sparrow and Alfie packed up the car--a beat-up red Kia with a patchwork of stickers from across the country on the back--with enough clothes for a couple of days, notebooks, her art supplies and his camera, and she left a note for Corey in the kitchen, stuck to the fridge with a magnet shaped like an orange slice:

Abducting Alfie for a few days. Try not to burn the place down.
<3 Phil
PS - Thx for the wine! x2

Music up and windows down, they took off just after 2am, blaring Catcall's The World Is Ours into the quiet suburban night. By 4am, just north of the Oregon border, the excitement had dimmed enough to let grumbling stomachs dictate their first destination, a sign for a 24-hour family restaurant luring them off the highway toward breakfast. Most there were either starting or ending their days, late-shifters grabbing a meal before heading home, early birds downing some coffee before getting to work. They were only a little out of place, half-awake giddy kids ordering too many pancakes. Sparrow took hers with granola and bananas and syrup, while Alfie went for berries, his stack piled high with strawberries and blueberries before seeing any syrup. Enough sugar to get them through till morning. A second detour for gas and groceries left the backseat filled with snacks, all manner of chips, crackers, cookies and flavored water within reasonably easy reach.

The sun was just starting to come up as they crossed the mouth of the Columbia River into Oregon, golden light beginning to find its way to the dark water. "We'll skip the first stop," Sparrow declared as they drove through Astoria, as she off to the east at some unseen sight dubbed insignificant enough to bypass on the way to something better. "The second isn't far, and it should be worth waiting for even if we can't get in early." It was a straight shot through downtown and crossing Youngs Bay. From there, they wound through pine forests, down gloomy roads still barely touched by dawn until they started seeing signs for Fort Stevens State Park.

Deeper still, Sparrow didn't stop the car until they were driving out onto wet sand, parking on the empty beach. Nobody else was here yet, just before 6am, before the park officially opened. Empty, quiet, just a lapping of waves on the shore, birds swooping over the water, chirping in the tall trees behind them. She slipped off her shoes and dropped them on her seat as she got up. Sure, the sand was chilly at this hour, in the gloom, but she didn't care. With a, "Come on," more excited than tired, she started toward the shore, where they could see the skeleton of ship rising up from the water, the wreck of the Peter Iredale not yet accessible, not until the tide draws out a little farther.

Alfie's blanket against the meager night chill is a too-large plaid dress shirt over one of his aged tank-tops from his Beijing trip - proof that his frame hasn't really expanded since junior high. The hip-hugging skinny jeans are a late addition, post-Cobain adoption of grunge into the eclectic hipster scene. His beat-up red Converse are universal, in that he hasn't worn an outfit without them in a month. And he spends much of the drive with them up on the dash, chin lifted as he watches the gaps between evergreens in the night as they race south.

There's a certain energy about him - an excitement that breaks through the lethargy, even in the parking lot of a strange all night diner. He paces backward, chattering with a hop to his step as he faces Sparrow on the way to the door. And he drowns fruity sweetness in maple syrup, eating the kind of nutritional value of a child alone on Saturday morning. Their subsequent snack stop, likely no less healthy. He spends the next stretch of road sipping caffeinated slushie through a reusable straw.

The sugar keeps him alive and moving into the early morning when they reach the surf. He hasn't slept a wink despite the freedom of the passenger seat for the twenty-one-year-old that has never sat behind the wheel. He follows suit, stripping his feet bare before stepping out of the car, shutting the door behind him and chasing Sparrow's silhouette, bare foot against the ocean wind. His hands tucked under his arms against that initial nip of the sea. The skeletal remains of the nautical dragon ahead - Peter Iredale's bones defiantly dark, not bleached by salt or by the sun. Awe slows his pace, momentarily quiet at the sight of the yet inaccessible ship.

Sparrow has her hands in the front pouch of her hooded sweatshirt when she turns around, only the rough edges of her cut-offs showing past the low hang of that comfy black shirt. On one side, a pop of yellow tee shirt peeks out from below, loosely hugging her hip as she steps backwards, watching Alfie. Even with the sun gilding the trees from behind, tall pines limned in glowing gold, she keeps her eyes on her navigator--who's been given no map, no access to her phone as google has provided direction--to watch his reaction, to see how well she's done with her first bet. "Think maybe this was the right time. Either that or leave in the afternoon and let it catch the sunlight from the other side, but place would probably be busy then." With a look down the expanse of vacant beach to one side, she adds quietly, "I like this. Having it all to ourselves for a bit."

Bare feet sink into the wet putty of the sand beneath them, only so far before the pressure of their weight gives tactile density to the damp granules. Alfie spreads the toes of his uncalloused feet - a testament to a privileged upbringing, when noted along with the fingers of his delicate hands, while a tapestry of ink claims the mental and emotional damages suffered in the stead of physical labor. A complicated life that needed rebranding and displays to fit the person felt. "This feels like what finding logging tracks in the woods felt like as a kid," he says, after Sparrow talks times. "Some grown over hint of the civilizations that used to be here - our own - cannibalized and replaced within a century." He turns from the shape of the wreck, from the sea, to Sparrow, smiling his utter enchantment at her. "It wouldn't be nearly as-" he pauses to think of the right word, scrunching up his nose. "-big. If there were other people to see it. Like, right now, it's only us discovering it." A beat. A softening of expression and a look back out at the sea. "Thank you."

Sparrow's footprints overlap here and there for how short they are as she drifts nearer to the ship, to the point where the slowly withdrawing ocean meets the cool sand. Though her smile widens for his gratitude, she offers no answer at first, her adoration--and pride, certainly--turned away from Alfie again as she spins on her heel and rushes to the water. It must be cold, for the sharp sound she makes when she steps in ankle-deep, but she keeps going, wading out closer to the metal skeleton, eager to see how close she can get before her clothes get wet. "I have a hard time imagining you getting out of the house as a kid, away from books." With a glance back, "I never saw you out." Not that she remembers anyway, but she sounds fairly confident in that recollection. Eyes forward again, she doesn't say what's on her mind, doesn't share her joy at being able to show him this new world, knowing full well that this is only the beginning. For now, she'll keep that pleasure all to herself.

Alfie follows, walking Sparrow's footprints like she's found the solid way through snow. All the way up to the water, where the initial his of air through teeth speaks further as to the cold shallows. Shallows that'll be more tolerable than the deeper stretches, when the sun starts to heat them. He pauses and squats, and tries to roll up skinny jeans unsuccessfully. In the end, he steps back, unbelts and unbuckles, and strips to boxers on his bottom half against the wet chill. He sets his jeans as safely as he can, up from the tide line. And again he follows Sparrow. "Educational day-trips," he confesses. "Sometimes with my dad or my mom. Mostly with private tutors." A resource utilized for more than just piano lessons. "They'd pick out something 'of value' for me to see and that's where we'd go. If it was with a tutor, I'd have an assignment to complete when I got back. Work release for sheltered kids with 'gifted' minds." He snorts. Airquotes on gifted. It doesn't sink his mood. Rather, the contrast is an accelerant. He picks up his pace, getting out to Sparrow's depths, pausing at every wave deigning to climb toward pale, unprotected thighs and goosebumps bared.

That's a tempting sound, that unzipping. Sparrow can't quite resist the temptation. In truth, she doesn't try, readily abandoning pursuit of the broken boat to instead watch Alfie strip down a bit. Exploration can wait. She stands with the water nearly to her knees as she watches, as she listens, hands again shoved into pockets. Until he's close enough. Until there's reason to pull them free, to reach out and step in, close within the shadow of wreckage. "No assignment today," she promises. "But I'll give you the full itinerary after if you want to dig deeper on your own time. While we're here, though..." There are better uses for his attention, by her measure, that assertion made by leaning in closer to claim a slow kiss, to taste all that sweetness still on his lips like she'd maybe been waiting for hours.

There's no awareness in the moment of stripping off the jeans that Sparrow would be watching him, no show of it. Though, Alfie does shift his hips trying to pull the tight jeans down off of them, without bringing his boxers with them. He finds her attention again when his feet find the surf and as the splash of waves breaking on the shallows licks droplets of salty water up his legs. He automatically smiles, showcasing warmth in her direction against the chill of their surroundings when he gets close to Sparrow. "No pop quiz? I can deal," he quips through the smile. A lift of one brow in answer to the way she trails off. He hooks his thumbs into the pockets she'd only recently abandoned, another brace to keep them close to go with their meeting lips. The way they softly touch, catch, release, catch. As infrequent as the waves of the descending tide, and before long, fitting to that patterned pace.

Sparrow takes her time. She has nowhere to go except everywhere she planned and all of that is worth abandoning for this. Fingertips press gently at the small of Alfie's back, an unnecessary pin for a creature unlikely to fly away. Not a soul disturbs them at this hour, just before the park has properly opened, while normal people are beginning their work days or, if they're lucky, still deep in slumber. Really, that's where these two should be. How languid that kiss, moving with the drift of the tide, a slow tug toward the deep. The kiss is broken with a quiet laugh, with a bow of her head which presses her forehead to his and keeps her lips from easy recapturing. "Dangerous," she breathes sleepily. "Kinda just wanna melt into the sand and do that till we pass out." But this is a public park. And it's still a bit cold. And they've a long ways to go. If only logic were enough to actually put some distance between them.

Layers between fingertips and back, with a tank-top beneath a plaid shirt large enough to serve as a blanket - but only if they slept stacked in the back of the red beater. But Alfie, stepping in against Sparrow, as if prompted by those fingertips, notes that he has felt them. Head tilted, eyes half-hooded and blurring the scenery beyond the point of focus that is the face before him. A warmer wetness damping their lips, exchanged back and forth across those languid, enticing kisses spent softly. When they part, Alfie wears a meek smile and shrugs at the assessment of danger, as if to say he agrees that its present but doesn't see fit to heed it. "Think that's the curse of the shipwreck? Young lovers, early morning, sinking into the sands of the Pacific?"

"Could be," Sparrow allows with a thoughtful shimmy that brings her hips a little closer to his. "Some bold and noble captain at the wheel on a voyage of discovery." Her other hand lifts, thumb brushing his cheek, fingers tracing over the shaved side of his head, curling behind his skull. For all that she seemed to advocate avoiding danger, she seems intent on clinging to it. "Lead astray by a navigator with delicious lips and little concern for his own well-being." Her head tilts up again, lips once more in reach, though she doesn't go in for the easy kiss, instead focusing best she can on his pretty blue eyes, too close to really meet. "I think you've got one up on me here. I'm not the exhibitionist you are. I find it attractive." With a playful roll of her eyes which breaks that unsteady eye contact, she adds, "And maybe a little bit of a challenge."

Snug hips, up out of the surf. "Captain Phil Sparrow," Alfie quips, blending the mythology in with a movie franchise, and who among them here would clearly hold the rank. Unable to help but smirk a little more at his description as the navigator - his gaze flicking down to her lips as she compliments his own. He tilts his head into her tracing fingers until they curl in around the back of his head and a sigh that sounds suspiciously like contentment sneaks out from the soul of wanderlust. "I had an exhibitionist crash course," he says, referencing an already texted story. "I'm excited to see how you meet the challenge," he adds. "But also entirely willing to be the exhibitionist to your voyeur, when that is better suited." Enabler and accelerant all in one soul of perpetual motion, want, and need.

"Philomena," Sparrow corrects. If she's gonna be a captain, she's damned well gonna use her full and formal name. Except the Jones part. That's just too much. The fingers at his back start drawing up that outer layer, lifting the flannel defense with every intention of attacking the thinner cotton below next. Her, "Mm," of agreement proves distracted, issued unconvincingly as her gaze slips past him toward the shore. Still no one there. With a step forward, she presses in for that kiss she's been thinking about continuing, progress toward the tide-lapped wreckage abandoned for the moment. Another kiss, another step, the water withdrawn from their legs, leaving wet skin to chill in the cool morning air, as-yet-unwarmed by the sun. More, deeper, the sand is right there, waiting and welcoming, willing to accept all reckless things which might run ashore.

But then there's the engine, the sound of tires over packed sand. A door shutting. Sparrow has the good sense to at least refrain from further tactile exploration while the park ranger approaches, but it's not until the woman calls, "Mornin'," over to them that she actually breaks the kiss to answer back in kind.

"My apologies, cap'n," Alfie replies for his blunder in naming his senior officer. Though there's something to be said for fraternizing with the crew that's clearly breezed over. His thumbs hook Sparrow's pockets further toward him as they land into the kiss, and he closes his eyes this time. Shuts out the visual world around him as the surf becomes a thing of thunder, landing and crashing, drowning out the wet sounds of their lips meeting, suckling, parting over and over before his tongue teases out. He might not even notice the sound of the engine or the tires muffled by the soft crunch of wet sand. Up on his toes, welcoming exploration when he hears a voice that isn't Sparrow's. He opens one eye as the kiss parts, and he follows Sparrow's greeting to the woman. He unhitches a thumb to wave a hand in reply, coy and sheepish smile blending responses to their discovery.

Sparrow laughs as she buries her face against he side of Alfie's, hiding skin to skin, shielding her bright blush from curious eyes. Not that the ranger seems all that interested in making a fuss now that she's made her presence known, serving as a deterrant for inappropriate behavior on park grounds. Effectively, really. Sparrow's arms fall loose about Alfie's lanky frame as she draws a spattering of light kisses across his cheek and murmurs so very softly, "I believe we've hit a hard limit."

Disentangled, they explored the ship as much as was possible, the farther side still too deep to see without stripping further, and that didn't much seem an option with their accidental chaperone lingering farther up the shore. When they'd visited its innards to their satisfaction, they'd retreated to the sand to sit and consider its colors in the morning light for a while, to draw further parallels with childhood experience, keen newness contrasted against hazy memories.

The car was filled with sand when they pulled into the motel about a half-an-hour south along 101. Seaside, OR. Home of their next desintation. It could wait until after they slept. The room was small and clean, but it smelled weird, like someone's leftovers had infested the air conditioning, a vague essence of lo mein lingering in perpetuity. That wasn't what woke Sparrow, but she was certainly up before Alfie, a morning person incapable of sleeping too long while the sun was up. Whether she liked it or not. She waited outside, mostly, texting her sister, texting a friend, killing time while her navigator slept.

Their breakfast was continental, which at a place this size and quality meant store-bought danishes and half-burnt coffee, but who worried about that when there was adventure ahead. As they got packed up and got back into the car, Sparrow asked Alfie simply, "Go carts or seals?" Let the navigator decide.

"Maybe they're into it?" Alfie whispers back, one arched brow, smirk still on his lips. A tease, though, as he detangles from Sparrow and joins her in an exploration of the nautical skeleton. Somewhere along the way he asks if Sparrow knows where the Edmund Fitzgerald sank, the name embedded in his head by young indie folk singers wearing clothes much like his own style, in bars filled with under-30s. Fine Arts students reflecting on Gordon Lightfoot's views on a tragedy. He picks up his jeans on the way back to the car but doesn't try putting them on while his legs are still wet, instead opting to dry by the power of the car's fan.

He sleeps hard, when he does sleep. A collective sugar and caffeine crash for the ages that pulls him face down into the bed with a sheet hardly wrapped around his legs, sharing body heat with a mattress rather than confining himself in fabric. And he doesn't stir without help when Sparrow awakes early. Slightly nocturnal and usually quite lazy about routine, he sleeps until well after text conversations have petered and tends toward the lemon danishes at breakfast as he resets the coffee clock and wipes joyous sleep from his eyes - groggy, but too happy to be grumpy. "Always with the difficult choices," he says. And after a great deal of concentration set into his brow and the bridge of his nose, decides, "Seals. I'd feel bad, thinking of their faces, if we didn't put them first."

"I hope I live up to that," Sparrow croons of the difficult choices, of the always he suggests. Something to strive for in the future, a bar to continually hit. Tempation in twos. But the decision is made, and she agrees, "Seals," declared cheerfully as if that had been her preference--when, let's be honest, she'd probably love crashing go carts at any hour of the day. She pulls up her phone to start the navigation to a spot just a few blocks down the road and pulls out into the sunshiny Seaside day.

The aquarium itself isn't particularly impressive, especially when compared to those found in bigger cities, but it holds a prominent position on the boardwalk, facing the ocean, and has signs outside welcoming visitors in to FEED THE SEALS. Tuesday afternoon sees the place filled with kids on a summer camp field trip, peering over tanks and trying--and mostly failing--to pay attention to what the grown-ups are telling them. Sparrow takes Alfie's hand as they enter, perhaps defense against the pint-sized crowd, and starts right off toward the tanks filled with colorful fish, with octopi. Nevermind that they're here for the seals.

"I don't imagine it'll be much trouble for you," Alfie retorts over coffee, with a bit of lemon filling on his lip. And onward they go to visit the seals that he'd expressed potential guilt over not putting them first. Go carts, at least, wouldn't be able to afix a sea-puppy dog gaze upon him. To note, he doesn't hit his travel pipe. Or rather, he hasn't yet. It's there, maybe for a quiet, dark night, parked on the roadside listening to crickets. Maybe that's it's sole purpose on this trip, because he doesn't utilize it nearly as much as with his day to day.

"That'd be the life," he says, noting the sign to feed the seals. "Not for me. But there has to be someone who just wants to soak all day while strangers come from all over, baring gifts of food." He fits his fingers between Sparrow's when she takes his hand and gives a little squeeze to go with a lean against her shoulder. To just stand like that, an obvious couple on display for the judgement of fishes and octopi. "I don't think I'd be able to eat meat if I had to, you know, 'get it' myself," he admits. No hunter, he, looking into the eyes of creatures whose cousins might have visited his plates and bowls of past.

"While you play," Sparrow reminds of the seals. "It's not like they just laze about doing nothing. They can do whatever they want. And strangers bring them food." It sounds like it very well could be the life for her, though gods only know how often she'd break out of her cage. It'd certainly be a miserable life for someone, just probably not her. Her thumb runs over his nearest knuckle as they drift, their side-by-side reflection easy caught in the glass if one focuses right, on the pale surface rather than the motion beyond: she makes up for that extra inch of height she has on Alfie by dipping a kiss to his shoulder, a moment caught mostly in the memories of fish who don't much care about the affairs of humans anyway. His thoughts on fishes and food earn a bite to that bend before she straightens, grinning to herself. "I think I'd do alright. I think I should probably assure you that I'd take care of you, but truth is I'd probably gobble you up and regret not leaving myself any leftovers for later." She doesn't so much as glance his way as she moves on to other displays, to infographics about local species of saltwater marine life.

"Except take a road trip in the middle of the night," Alfie says of seal freedom. Not that many seals would be prone to taking road trips to begin with. His focus shifts from contents to reflection as he feels Sparrow's thumb across his knuckle, and he smiles, warmly, at their reflection. As if particularly happy for those two souls in the parallel universe of the mirrored view - like it's especially fitting that those two souls should collide in dual worlds. He makes another of those content sighs as she kisses his shoulder, and follows along to the infographics. "I don't think I'd be all that filling. But I hope you'd make something special out of my meat," he decides, in retort. And he skims what's there to read before, after some delay, he asks, "Ever get curious about how an animal must feel? Like if a crab is happy or sad to see you at the beach?"

"Just gotta get clever," Sparrow mutters indignantly in defense of the poor seals who might wanna just up and run away for a little while in the middle of the night. Whether she notices those otherselves drifting along with them or not isn't clear, her attention very much on the here and now and the hypothetical lives of aquatic creatures. And her imagined eating habits were she a proper predator. She turns a look directly to Alfie at his riposte, eyes going wide as her smile. "I'm sure I can do plenty special with your meat," earns a disapproving look from someone ushering kids about nearby, inspiring her to lowe her voice a bit as the conversation continues on into far more innocent territory. "I start with the assumption that everyone's happy to see me." Helpfully, she tacks on, "I'm always happy to see you," as if this might be a philosophy he ought to adopt.

"I'd root for a couple of wayward seals, setting out against a world of humans in a stolen car," Alfie notes. "Or, at least a show about it." Alfie, who doesn't own a TV or even a screen larger than that of his phone. Maybe that's how he'd make the plunge into getting an entertainment system. He snorts, chuckles at her boldness when Sparrow makes promises on the treatment of his meat - and the way in parts the seas of familial attendees. Impressed, and a little prideful by proxy for the effect. "I'm always happy that I make you happy. Or, happier than I make you happy, if I'm already happy," he admits. And, as if seamlessly integrated into what they're talking about, he admits, "But I'd also be curious what a seal feels upon meeting me. If that quality applies beyond the realm of Sparrows and other avian sorts."

"I don't think I've seen you not happy in years," Sparrow declares, again at her normal--and potentially disruptive--volume, as if there weren't a years' long gap in their familiarity and he'd simply been all smiles for ages now. "You were happy to see me at the house. Aaaaaaaaaand you've been happy to see me ever since. Theory holds." She angles a low-lidded grin Alfie's way, knowing full well what a little shit she's being but far too pleased with herself to correct course now. With a tug of his hand, she takes the lead, following the signs leading toward seal-feeding as she decides, "Let's go ask them. Offer fish for answers."

Five odd years absent from Gray Harbor. Not including the year in junior high that he'd spent in Beijing. Alfie is quiet as he considers that, and admits, "I wouldn't really have thought of myself as a happy person." He shrugs, a gesture easy to miss with delicate shoulders and worn extra layers. "But I can't think of a moment with you that I haven't been." There's weight to that spoken realization - a realization that fits with his much earlier theory that there are different versions of everyone, for each and every relationship. A too serious answer to a jokey back and forth as they're on their way to see the seal feeding. He nods in agreement with the plan ahead and grows a smile that loses its thoughtful cast for the promise of the moments ahead. "Let's," he agrees.

At first, it seems the revelation slips past Sparrow's notice, her confidence in Alfie's happiness already decided. It's not until they're waiting outsie the area with the seals, waiting for a flock of children to file out, that she even comments on it, wondering, "What sort of person would you think yourself then?" Turning a look directly his way, she adds with keener curiosity, "What sort of person are you when you're not with me?" Though her attention lingers on him for a second, they're not really granted any more time than that as one of the aquarium's staff approaches them and asks, "Hi! Did you want to meet our friends?" inviting them in to see the seals. Inside, the seals are playing, hamming it up for their new audience, knowing full well that they'll be well fed for their silliness. The employee holds a bucket of fish and walks the couple through the process of feeding the seals, showing them how best to throw the fish out to them before offering them each a filet so that they can try themselves. Deep conversations with anyone who isn't a seal might have to wait, but Sparrow does wonder, half-laughing as she tosses out her fish only for it to be snapped from the air by a happy little seal, "Are you gonna ask 'em?"

"Restless," Alfie decides without having to think much on it. He's spent enough time in reflection as to the state he has spent much more time in than the one that Sparrow inspires. "Sometimes like I'm treading water but don't know which way is my shore." He flashes an apologetic smile, one that he hasn't worn since Sparrow forgave his guilt - like he's sorry to reference aspects of himself that might be a downer in these happy times, and cut off from immediately following that feeling by the ensuing feeding of the sea puppies. He takes up a fish where its body tapers off before the tail, handling it awkwardly at first - not used to handling such creatures pre-sushi. He lets Sparrow go first, then throws his own with an added, "How you doin, buddy?" to a speckled gray seal that catches his meal.

Then comes the silence, the dilation of his pupils, an intake of breath. Alfie alone is witness to the 'arf' when it emerges from its mouth, a cloud of red drizzling orange paint that doesn't stick to anything. Alfie alone smells the citrus and tastes the sea - somehow dryer than it should be. Alfie takes it all in, absorbs it, and a bark of laughter exits his lips before he stifles a second. He clears his throat, nods. "Can we stay here, just a second longer?" he says, probably to Sparrow. Like he has a plan.

Whatever Sparrow's thoughts on Alfie's restlessness, on his apologetic smile, it's all shelved, all set aside to dote upon the seals vying for their attention. She squeaks another delighted laugh when he takes his toss, when he actually asks that question. Had she doubted? Maybe just a little. Even with one fish-stinky hand, she reaches both arms around him and squeezes, pressing a happy kiss to his cheek, oblivious to any glimmer, any conversation being had beyond the obvious. "See? He's happy to see you, too." Sure, it's all just food as best she can tell, but that doesn't dim her delight the least little bit. With one arm still loosely hooked about him, she nods, content to stay as long as he'd like, as long as they'll let them. And maybe a little curious as to why.

Though Alfie keeps his gaze locked on the seal, he leans into Sparrow with her arms around him. No concern for fish stench transferring from hand to shirt as he soaks in that happy affection. "Kinda," he says, like he has the inside track on what the seal feels about their visiting 'chefs'. But his eyes stay dilated, like he's way too high to be looking at creatures of the sea this close without starting on a bad trip. "Hey," he adds, in the direction of the speckled seal. From his lips, a robin's egg blue and the taste of the sea as it was at the wreck of Peter Iredale - as it should be. And oddly enough the seal stops to make eye contact with him. "This can be home, today," he tells it. A tilt of his head, an inspection of Alfie and Sparrow in the vertical, courtesy of the seal. And freshly fed, it makes no hurried pace toward the water and dives away from the couple. "Mostly happy, I think. But there are things we miss at home - even when we don't miss home, or have never been there."

Another laugh, brief and giddy, slips from Sparrow when Alfie issues that nonchalant 'hey' to the seal. It takes a second for the strangeness of the exchange to click, her hand tightening where it holds to his hip when that understanding sets in, when she sees the seal studying them so intently, directly, no longer vying for attention like its friends. "Okay then," comes from the aquarium employee, who hurries them out with a sincere, "You kids be safe out there, alright?" Then he's on to welcoming in a family of four, stooping down to chat with the kids and ask them what they know about seals.

Sparrow leads Alfie out, quieter than she had been, putting a few yards between them and the seal enclosure before she slows, before she even looks at the displays they're moving past. A snorted laugh marks the moment she notices Victor, the 28 pound lobster caught in 1994, a rough sputter that helps her relax a little. "He was dropped to death," she points out, all she can manage for the moment while she processes thoughts about home and restlessness and whatever it is she just witnessed in there.

Alfie has no doubt left an aquarium employee with the distinct notion that he's just ushered off someone who has done a little too many drugs to visit an aquarium. Or maybe just the right amount, depending upon perspective. He seems happy enough to part from his good seal deed, not fighting the imposed will of the staff to keep things rolling at a sensible pace, and drifting from the seal enclosure with Sparrow for it, still holding her hand in his as she leads the way to Victor. Victor the dropped-to-death. Victor who couldn't just be captured, but subjected to subsequent worse fates in the stead of a boiling pot of water and a serving of butter. "That must have been loud," he admits, as if that's the first thought that comes to mind with regard to a dropped 28 pound crustacean.

Sparrow laughs, quiet at first, building to a riotous guffaw that's almost certainly undue for such a dry little joke. It dies on Alfie's lips when she presses hers to his, muffled giddiness melting into contented affection which lingers all of six seconds before she separates. The light in her eyes says what doesn't make it to her lips, expressing profound affection. Joy. "C'mon," precedes another tug to her held hand, this one leading them out of the aquarium and back into the warm afternoon, the summer sun high overhead. She doesn't turn back toward the car, but instead rounds a different corner, leading Alfie further into Seaside at a pace not quite as casual as she might've meant, propelled by emotion, only slowing after they've nearly walked the full block. As they decelerate, she looks askance, still smiling, and asks, "What was that?" without context. He'll know, right?

Alfie might be both amused and confused - which would have been an acceptable response from aquarium staff over him communing with the seal - over Sparrow's response to his flat observation. He can't help but reflect that giddiness she expresses, moments before she catches his lips with her own. By the end of those six seconds, the tension of surprise in his muscles have just started to slacken into that relaxed state of affection. And they're off again, only now, Alfie is dazed as well as confused. Out into the summer sun, getting closer and closer to its peak heat for the day as time drifts on into afternoon - confusing the schedules of morning people and lazy Alfies, where they meet. "The dead lobster?" he asks? His pupils are back to normal, at least, not letting in far too much sun for his own good. "I mean, it's a weird thing to commemorate. But I think they commemorate it because it's so weird."

Another laugh, easy and brief and punctuated with a firm, "No," from Sparrow. "I understand the celebration of strange just fine, thanks. Remember who brought you to meet Victor, alright?" Her brows pitch upward sternly, that playful expression needlessly softened by a squeeze of his hand. She pauses at a corner to look one way and then the next. Really, should probably take out her phone and navigate to wherever it is she means to go, but she seems to find what she's looking for, crossing the street to make a right turn. It's a fine distraction, giving her time to work up toward her clarification, to asking, "I meant with the seal. How he looked at us. How he just... I dunno. Mellowed." She skirts a look his way, her smile dimmed, replaced with curiosity.

Alfie nods slow - accepting that it makes sense that Victor wouldn't be the reason for the question if she were the one who picked out the venue. But thinking from there just leaves him with a scrunched nose and brow, actively thinking back on if he zoned out something he should have picked up. He has time to think, though, as she guides him across the street and to the right. Time he spends to gather no new ground on what she might mean until she says it. "Oh," he says, paling a touch - only slightly sun-kissed at this point, still quite pale to begin with. "Yeah." A beat. "I noticed that too. Funny timing," he adds. "I should see if I can do it again. Go into business as a seal whisperer. Or a professional fish-thief, the scourge of Pacific fishing boats."

Serious as the inquiry may have been, Sparrow can't help the laugh for those last words, a rough little snort which assures she's not dwelling too deeply in the mysery. "Declare a major in marine biology?" she suggests with a little waggle of her brow, probably not all that serious. "Maybe he's just not used to people asking how he is. They just come in, throw fish, leave. And here you are all caring about his life." Maybe it was nothing, a weird one-off that doesn't need a deep dive. The smell of carmelized dough starts to hit them, an ice cream shop with fresh-pressed waffle cones not far away. But that's not their destination. No, Sparrow points instead to FUNLAND with all its neon lights, full of glowing promise. "Think you can win me something?"

"I feel like that might kill my love of sushi. And candied salmon," Alfie replies as grounds to discount an entire field of academia for his consideration. He shakes his head - no, not for him. And relaxation sets back in when it seems like his deflection has landed. "Empathy. My superpower, and my greatest weakness," he declares, in jest, at the assessment of what might have made that interaction different from the others the seal had been through. "That, or I show up as, like, a kind of mosaic image with all the ink." Alternative theories, breezing out to sea, away from the quagmire uncertain truths. "Is that bubble-waffle?" he asks, out of the blue, after the scent as it's carried salty, through the breeze. And on the way to the indicated FUNLAND. "Probably not," he admits. "I mean, in the movies, it's all throwing things and shooting things and hitting things with giant hammers. I feel like my upbringing hasn't cultivated these skills." A beat, "But I'll try."

Candied salmon? Sparrow scrunches her nose as she tries to imagine the merits of such a thing, but she doesn't dwell on it long, filing it under 'try anything once' and moving on. She side-eyes Alfie while they wait to cross the street, considering his declared powers. "Empathy and camouflage?" A shallow nod suggests she's willing to buy that, but maybe also that she's considering how to exploit that, a brief tangent before his commentary on that delicious smell pulls her back into the present. "No snacks until after go-carts." Firm, stern, certain. As if maybe she knows first hand how bad it can be to do it the other way around. As they step into the arcade, dark so that all the lights of the machines can glow so very brightly, she says, "Maybe I'll win you something then. I like hitting things." Mostly her drums, really, but it's a skill she can work to her advantage here, she's sure.

By the time they spill out of FUNTIME, the sun has already reached its apex is and sinking back toward the horizon on a slow trajectory. Midafternoon creeping toward evening. Sparrow carries a large fuzzy, plush unicorn under one arm, golden-horned and rainbow-mained with magenta hooves and a bow by one ear, a rather impressive prize secured by Alfie the Lucky, who denies all skill at the games he beat one after another. It's a good deal more impressive than the little speckled seal that Sparrow won for Alfie, small enough to fit in the palm of one hand, utterly adorable and entirely relevant. A quick pass through the sweets shop ends with a bag of candy and two cones of ice cream, hands full as they head back to the car to continue on their adventure. Dinner is quick and cheap, a stop by a hot dog stand farther down the coast and a disapproving look from the owner when Sparrow tries to ride the mechanical corndog. It's for kids, alright? After a tour through the Tillamook cheese factory, they're back on the road, following 101 south along the coast, the sun starting to set out the passenger side window.

By the time Sparrow pulls off the Oregon Coast Highway again, it's nearing dark, the horizon still lit in warm hues, all orange and pink and violet, reflecting across the water. A few people are just returning to their cars, calling it a day, when she parks near a sign for hiking trails. This time, she packs up some snacks, tells Alfie to bring his pipe. "In case we wanna stay a while." She follows the signs toward Thor's Well, leading down to the water, to a rocky shore with an impressive view. Maybe not the best place to be after dark, but it certainly looks spectacular at sundown.

There'll be a weather-beaten journal full of in-jokey rules to live by left behind someday. 'No Snacks Until After Go-carts' will be one of them, underlined twice to note the stern manner in which it was said. And Alfie agrees easily with the possibility of Sparrow being the one to win the prize - to hoist and gift it over to Alfie. He seems content with that dynamic, and not the least bit clued in to how fate might surprise expectation when they each walk out with a gift. "This is so surreal," he remarks, at some point, as they leave FUNTIME for other touristy shores. The seal, especially apt to a focal point of their visit.

Alfie snaps a picture of Sparrow mounting the corner dog, no doubt giggly and jittery from sugar high number two to precede dinner. The least blurry of the pictures, when developed, will have a black felt marker caption of 'Hung like a corn dog'. It'll just seem right. Back in the car, feet back up on the dash, and chin up to watch as the sun setting over the water fills the sky with colors in the kinds of shades that inspire tropical drinks with fruit and umbrella accessories. It's a quieter drive. Reflective. Affectionate. Wearing smiles that start to hurt without any forcing it. He obeys orders to procure his pipe and grabs his camera as well before exiting the vehicle. And he follows after Sparrow, down to the water as the sky tries for darker hues - wine colors.

"How long did it take?" he asks, along the way - one shoe left untied. "For you to plan all this? Everything?"

"Days," Sparrow lies, the word delivered overdramatically with a haunted look turned toward Alfie like she's been through hell and back to make this happen. Her grin spreads quickly, preceding a softer admission of, "Couple hours. Tried to keep it loose enough that we could just..." She shrugs as the thought trails off, as she picks her way along the rocky coast toward one of the larger rocks overlooking the churning water. "We've already skipped a couple things. Could always make a second pass to revisit our favorite, catch what we missed. Or head out in a different direction. Planning on shooting east with Jens, I think. Or straight down to Cali." Uncertain, untroubled. Something she'll fuss over later. For now, she's found a rock that looks like it'll be a suitable perch for the two of them to watch the last of those wine-dark shades slip down beneath the sea. Looking up at Alfie, she admits, "It's already gone better than I thought."

Alfie looks about willing to accept 'days', though not the grim look that goes with it. He nods. And smiles a little longer when Sparrow revises the count. He follows her footsteps closely, giving himself the freedom to look around or just watch her as she finds the footfalls. "A second pass. I mean, or anywhere, with you," he admits - a grand impression this has been so far. The loose freedom of it. "But I might drag you out for a second Cali trip, if you end up going first. That or to some other sandy beaches of the Pacific in Summer warmth. Swimsuits, sun, vendor food." All these dreams built off the books he reads. He slips down next to Sparrow and grunts something that couldn't be anything other than agreement. He sets both pipe and camera down next to him, and leans against Sparrow's shoulder.

"Drag!" comes on a snort of laughter. "Kicking and screaming," Sparrow declares, bumping the shoulder which connects with hers. She tilts in closer, dipping her head to rest there, where their bodies meet, nose pressed against him. Softer, "Sounds like torture." Her hand seeks his as she presses a kiss to covered skin, fingers twining with fingers as lips linger. Turning her head to set cheek to shoulder, she watches the horizon, the water, the play of glinting colors upon the tide-tossed surface. Even when she was driving, she didn't manage this much stillness, almost always drumming against the steering wheel in time with the music, but it seems like she could sit like this indefinitely, close, quiet, with the world crashing about around them in riotous waves which occasionally send a saltwater mist their way.

Out of nowhere, reaching back to a conversation held hours and hours ago now, she tells him, "I'm restless, too. All the time. Just pick a direction and go until maybe a different direction would be better." With a little shake of her head, she ventures, "I don't think that ever goes away."

Alfie lifts his opposite arm and flexes for what could only be considered comedic effect. He sticks his tongue out at Sparrow until she turns her head to where they meet. He meets her hand in kind, delicate fingers catching between hers as her lips fine soft skin to press against. "I mean, I could let you to the dragging. I think that boa is still around," he teases. And he looks out as she does, to where the sea meets the night sky and the well that should threaten to swallow them if they were to race directly out to meet it. In the car, Sparrow drummed to music. But here, the shore is the percussion section of an orchestral band, slamming waves down into the void between rocks in time with a moon-conductor's lunar pull.

"I don't think I ever want it to go away," he decides. "I think the people that feel this pull are the ones that compromise with loves that don't - who settle down and dream about the sea, because they couldn't have both their love and their dream." He kicks his feet slowly, lightly - like they were still fence sitting teens on a night out they never had. Unspoken, that this lack of compromise is so much better.

"Maybe it's the settling that defines the dream," Sparrow counters. She sits with her legs folded, one knee pretty much resting in Alfie's lap for their proximity, tangled fingers settled against her thigh. "Don't know what you really want until you give it up sorta thing?" She peeks a look up his way past dark lashes to see how that's received, but she's already moving on. "It doesn't have to be about love. Could be something else. Growing up. Fitting in. Falling into line. Pick a major. Get a job. Do the things." Her free hand joins the one already twined with his, compounding the contact as she gives a light squeeze, as her brown-eyed gaze turns toward the deepening darkness again. "How do we maintain this?"

"That makes sense," Alfie admits - not knowing it until you give it up. "Or until you lose it." A parallel realization knit into his brow, unspoken, not as applicable to the conversation they're having. He turns his gaze to meet Sparrow's - his blue eyes framed in those dark lashes. He squeezes her hand in reply to both of hers around his. A nod to coincide with the extension of subjects to which the thought might be applied, and how particularly apt they might be to their own lives. How do we maintain this? He doesn't shrug - doesn't dismiss the heavy thought for fear of dwelling too deeply. "A little bit at a time, between the responsibilities of promises we have to fulfill - careful not to make anymore. And then? We dissolve into the wind and see where it takes us."

Sparrow's nose scrunches at that thought, at freedoms stolen, restless itches scratched between broad stretches of obligation and responsibility, but the thought which follows earns a warm laugh, quieter than she can usually manage. "That's a weird thought," sounds approving. "Discorporating. Do you think we'd still be able to feel the wind or smell the sea or--" She flicks a look toward his lips, grinning a bit. "Taste each other." Rather than wonder after what her dissolved self might be able to do, she leans in to steal what was meant to be a quick taste. The kiss lingers instead, her fingers tight around his throughout, like their held hands were an anchor keeping them whole and embodied. Sugar, salt, sea. She withdraws with a sigh, satisfied, and wonders, "How do we avoid making more promises? Should I have made Corey sign the lease? Do I go month to month on my phone? Everything short term, portable, forgettable. Ready to shed it all at a moment's notice?"

A kiss stolen is a kiss given, as it stretches on, Alfie leaning in against Sparrow's own forward motion, crushing together in ways sand does not. A little more dopey in the moment that they part, each of their lips a little more wet for the lusting affection. "I expect we can come back together whenever we want or need, or having needful wants," he assumes through a smile, spoken softly underneath the thunderous crash of the well. "Well, my side is a little easier. No one is expecting anything of me, these days. Just keep up appearances," he confesses without even the slightest bit of sadness. And a little bit of irony, given what his parents and their circles must think of the Alfie that arrived from Seattle - maybe just a little better than the one that they'd sent away. But he shakes his head at the promises voiced, and instead details, "More the promises you make to the people you care about. What's debt that can't find you but a shyster with a divining rod?"

Sparrow's hand slides up from his, over wrist and forearm to hook just above his elbow, another anchor to keep them closer still now that the kiss has concluded. "Come back tangled?" she wonders of their rematerialization, letting her mind drift to the points where they might mingle. Her smile dims a bit as she corrects, "I expect things of you," rather plainly, even if she's not certain one windborn soul can tether another like that. She doesn't detail out what those expectations might be, leaving that thread out there for him to tug at or ignore at his leisure. "Like how I promised--" A gasp accompanies a sudden spray of water as the waves crash hard against the rock they're sitting on before retreating back to where the rest of the tide plays, leaving the pair inconsistently wet. Hands untangle to push through hair as she laughs, as she studies the water to gauge the likelihood of that happening again any time soon. "Like it's daring us closer..."

"Tangled. United. Whole," Alfie replies, sliding from one synonym to the next and to the next once more. "Able to feel as the other does," says the empath who contented the seal. He's self-aware enough to look aside when he says it, as if checking the horizon for clouds as they get closer to the stretch of time where the way to spot clouds will be to point out where the stars have been eaten from the sky. When Sparrow mentions expectations, he'd drawn back from the gravity of the cosmos and to her eyes. The knit in his brow a clear question in the waning light. "You do?" he asks. And his curiosity keeps as they move on into the realm of Sparrow's promises only to be interrupted by the fury - or daring salty ejaculate - of the sea. He leans forward and spits salt water from his mouth as strands of his hair hang down and forward rather than back, and he smiles as he straightens back up, his plaid and jean combo dotted with droplets in places and soaked in others. "Or threatening us to back off." He nods, concedes, "Same thing."

Sparrow only laughs louder for the suggestion that the ocean might be warning them off, delighted at the thought that they might've earned such attention just sitting here. Silly humans talking their silly human things while nature's right here being so serious. "I say we hold our ground," she declares defiantly, refusing to be taunted either into retailiation or retreat. "I say we smoke up and watch the stars and imagine our ephemeral entangling as not-ephemerally as we can." It's almost as if she's talking to the ocean, daring it to try to scare them off again, to interrupt whatever comes next. When the waves continue to crash against the rocks farther out, leaving them alone for the moment, she turns a smug look toward Alfie, so very pleased with herself... and just softens a little, caught up in his half-wet cuteness. "I expect honesty. It's what you've given me so far. And I want more. I expect a poem in payment for services not yet received." Beat. "I expect you to know what I mean when I go--" Pbft! The raspberry is rather succinct.

Alfie reflects salt flecked laughter back on Sparrow. Defiance over the 'totally dangerous, I swear I am guys' oceanic tourist destination they are perched so close to. He gives a confident nod in agreement with her declaration of defiance against Poseidon's distant Norse thunder-cousin. And he's already reaching for the pipe beside him, carefully checking the already packed bowl for damp before he breathes a sight of relief. The lighter he digs out of his jean pocket, as he sets the pipe on his thigh? A little less likely, but no deterrent to its function. He offers the lighter over, and by extension, the pipe. The first hit, for Sparrow. "Lemon Haze," he remarks. Just as promised. And he holds the lighter just so, still and silent for the expression of expectations that gradually seem not so weighty. Except one note. Honesty. "That sounds doable," he remarks, a little bit more distantly, but still smiling at the raspberry. A beat. "What do you believe in?" he asks, pre-toke. "Like, in terms of not-normal stuff."

Sparrow takes the lighter first, then the pipe, a moment spent examining the latter, learning where she should hold it before bringing it to her lips. Lighting it, she inhales, holding for a moment while she watches Alfie, while he asks that question. She holds the smoke in for just a second as she passes both pipe and lighter back, letting it spill from her lips when her attention returns to the water. "A lot," sounds uncertain, a pin to hold the question in place while she considers the vastness of the scope and how to find her own answer in there. Bringing her feet up onto the ledge, she leans forward onto her bent knees. "I've been reading tarot for a few years. It's not like in the movies. No big dramatic revelations. But it always seems on point. Too much to be coincidence, ya know?" She glances back to see if he does know, but then her eyes are forward again. She draws a deep breath and sinks a little further forward. "I think there are a lot of things we don't see at the very edges of our awareness. I think it's not impossible to pull at them."

Citrus. Just as Orange Crush is aromatically orange, Lemon Haze holds to its own namesake. It brings a flavor to the air that is not at all native to this particular stretch of shore, known to it only by the seasoning of barbequed salmon and tropical coolers. It's a scented smoke signal calling out to some distant somewhere else. Alfie takes the pipe and lighter as they're handed back. A lot. He nods a little to himself, some small step toward being more honest - even if that honesty doesn't quite arrive, tonight. He keeps his feet dangling down as Sparrow brings hers up. "I think it'd be neat to see you read," he admits. No 'you should read me' or 'can you please?'. No such pressure at all. "I agree," he admits. Contrary to his hard-nosed scientific perspectives in their teenage years. "I mean, I still think the big bang theory is the most updated version of how we might have came to be. But sometimes I think about where the particles came from, that started the big bang. Or how they could always have been, if we experience an inevitable decay of energy." Some 'things' have troubled a once resolute mind.

"Physics," Sparrow proposes, off-handed and amused. A second attempt at directing Alfie toward a major. This time with a impish smile angled back his way. This time, her attention lingers on him, happily studying his features in the gloom to which their eyes have naturally adjusted given its gradual descent. "I read something somewhere... Fiction..." She lets that drift for a second as if she were trying to place the source, but she doesn't get very far, refocusing on the conversation instead. "A world where creation is always beginning now and everything expands out from this moment. Your past backfills because this is always the start. The world couldn't have been created without a creator and there was no creator until something was created, and so every moment is that initial spark of creation." With a soft snort, she concedes preemptively, "Which doesn't really get into the physics of it, except that entropy might be where we get to the edges, to the distant reaches of experience that we don't need, right? Where it all just starts to get a little unreliable because who's bothering to fill all that in?"

"Too much sitting still. All the fun terminal velocity experiments have been done. No more throwing meat from the top of a building," Alfie retorts, as if he'd considered the major previously and had come to this very conclusion as a detriment. But he smirks as he notices her study of his regard - watching him as he answers. And he plays the attendee, next, arching one brow, elevating it higher than the other as Sparrow reflects on things read. "Pantheism," he says at the end, applying a name to a wider definition. "In the sense that reality is creation - and its continued act. But in a divine way. Something surprisingly close to the deist views of some of the founding fathers." He sets the pipe to his lips and ignites what's left in the bowl for a long draw. He holds it. Nods. Releases. Voice rougher than before, "Not the rest though. The rest I haven't heard. But I like that. What book?"

"Invisible Sun," Sparrow offers of the book. Big nerd alert. It's an RPG. And probably something she got hold of second-hand or pirated given the price for the hard copy. She drops her nearer knee back onto Alfie's legs and half-turns toward him, the movement incomplete, dropping a hand beside her hip to be closer again, to better face him again. "It didn't get into the entropy bit. Not that I recall. Just filling in pieces myself. But the setting says that this world we're in right now isn't real. It's the Shadow, a dull and nonsensical place, hidden from the Actuality and thus able to hide those who might need an escape from what is for a time." With a bounce of her leg where it lays against him, she wonders, "What do you believe? Any gods you like more than others?" That might not be a serious question, the way she grins.

It's something Alfie has never heard of. But he takes the name, something to investigate afterward - to track down out of curiosity. He taps ash out of the bowl of the pipe onto hard, wet rock beside him, to be pulled back out to sea as the ocean takes its wind back - the surface of the water cooling faster than the sun-heated land, its densely packed and expanding molecules looking for somewhere to run. He sets the pipe down next to him. It'll need a refill before they'll get any more use out of it. He leans back on his palm opposite Sparrow, and turns his head in her direction. "A place of escape that breeds escapists," he says, to that shelter from the Actuality. But he drifts on to her own questions from there. And starts with the latter. "I like Odin," says the amateur poet with the tattoo of Munnin on his wrist and hand. "There's something said of a god born from soul - neither good nor bad. Natural. Like the world." A breath. Consideration of that first question. "I believe in psychics. Or something like that - people connected to others in strange forgotten ways. Or to the world."

Sparrow laughs, easy and brief, at the wordplay, at the reference to their ephemeral selves slipping the anchors of obligation and drifting restless and happy through a shallow imitation of reality. At the mention of Odin, she closes her right eye, too long to be a wink unless she's being super-weird about it. "A poet god for the poet." She approves. The way he describes psychics, how he speaks of connections, that has her straightening again, finishing her turn to sit cross-legged facing Alfie, her hands in her lap as she studies him. Her gaze flits up and down, moving about his person as if looking for something. She can't see all that much ink beneath his flannel. Maybe she's searching through memory, as much time as she's spent studying them? When her eyes find hers again, she tells him, "Think something. Anything. Think it loud enough that I can hear." Grinning, she clarifies, "Without actually saying anything. Obviously."

"It's hard not to feel Odin in the trees or in the sea, in the places you can't see the roads or houses or wires. Tending to the old places," Alfie admits. Grinning at Sparrow as she plays at having one eye, despite the potentially weighty nature of his other admission. "Where every blackbird might as well be a raven. Did you know that crows have regional dialects?" he asks, his slight high allowing him to fall into the trap of tangential thoughts. Her request brings him back. And he looks wary, at first, then nods. If there's anyone he's willing to stand at the verge with, the end of entropy, and plunge to see if nothing's really there, it's Sparrow - it's just fitting that it's at Thor's Well. He scrunches his nose as he concentrates, and he looks Sparrow hard in the eyes as he keeps his lips tightly shut. He inhales, drawing the sea air into his nose, cold. And exhales it hot. A pink ocean spray of Glimmer erupts from his breath, drifting without gravity and forming rounded droplets that strike across the bridge of Sparrow's nose and soak into the moisture of her eyes. 'I lied,' Alfie's voice mutters, inside Sparrow's head. 'And I'm sorry.'

Sparrow might wonder, "Do you speak local crow?" while she inspects Alfie, but it's as tangential as the trivia itself, a side thread allowed to float off on its own while she reads him, while she looks for her angle, her in. She's too busy watching his response to her instruction to worry about the thoughts that got away, too busy smiling at that nose-scrunch, at the hard purse of his lips. Her eyes stay mostly on his, but bounce about once or twice to catch details, to admire the whole. And then it works. He does it. And the humor drains from her features. It works. She blinks a few times as if to clear the pink mist from her eyes, as if to figure out the detail she's missing. With a shake of her head, "I don't--" No, be more direct. "Lied about what?" Defiantly, with an expectant widening of her eyes, "And no apologies. Not with me."

Speaking crow, a tangential thought left by the wayside as he concentrates. Maybe he'll do a callback and reference/answer later. As he watches the humor drain from her face, the confidence drains out of his. His nose un-scrunches and his gaze diverts down into the space between them. Like he's expecting fear or accusations of trickery out of Sparrow. Which isn't to think less of her in particular, but not to expect good in a domain that Odin might deem moralistically compromised. He looks back up at Sparrow when she demands no apologies, and he plays at a weak smile. Cautious. "About the seal. You asked me about it and I lied. Honesty is something that you expect of me, and while not bringing it up might not have been lying in the strictest sense," he rambles. "What I said when you asked me about the seal was definitely a lie. And maybe I don't get to be sorry about it, but you deserve to know."

"Oh." Is this something Sparrow should laugh about? Maybe it's the lemon haze, the way understanding arrives on a chuckle. Easy. Smile returned. With a shake of her head as she slouches forward enough to set elbows to knees, she corrects, "You're allowed to be sorry," in a rather apologetic tone herself. "Sounds shitty when you say it like that. Like I'm denying you some sliver of human experience. Be sorry. It's alright. You're alright. We're alright. We're good." Her smile's genuine, if a little crooked. The waves crash beside her, sending up a spray of mist that arches behind her, overhead, glimmering in the moonlight. She doesn't notice, too focused on Alfie. "Why did you lie? What happened? Was it..." Blink. "This? The... this?" So articulate.

Laughter, at any rate, gives Alfie a bit less tension amidst his organs. No longer threatening to draw his lungs up into his teeth upon deflation. He nods along, a little too much, at Sparrow's assurance that they're good. That this isn't a breach of note to the expectations that she's voiced. He's facing her when that spray of mist arches up, framing her in those droplets of water that seem to hang just momentarily at the apex of their trajectory - a detail on the periphery. "Because I spent four years in a psychiatric hospital and telling you that I sent a seal some contentment so it could be just a little happier for awhile sounds-" Another apex, the trajectory of his words. This one caught painfully, like an aforementioned lung in teeth. He shrugs, as if the hydraulic pressure of the gesture will set it loose. And maybe it manages, because he finishes the sentence, if a little shakily, "Crazy."

Sparrow wears her empathy differently. Where Alfie reflects, she complements. His tension is answered with ease, his doubt with assurance. As his words rise to that one shaky adjective, her smile widens with effortless acceptance. "Sure, but. It would've been a totally reasonable answer in that context. Like, the one where I suggested we go ask the seal if he was happy to meet you?" Her left eyebrow arches a little higher than the right in challenge, the crazy surely initiated on this side of the rock, if willingness to converse with seals is the standard by which they're measuring. Drawing in a deep breath of the night air, all saltwater and wet ash, she tilts her head back to gaze skyward, grinning at the stars as she declares, "At least we both know I'm psychic now," so pleased with her own lie.

Alfie chuckles, just a little, though there might be damp from his eyes not drawn out by the cold air on his face. "Yet only one of these kinds of crazy gets you admitted for a long term stay at a hotel where some can take a plastic knife away from a full grown adult," he says, in what was likely meant to be a quip but runs a little long, expelling excess nerves with his words. He lets out a deep breath. No longer needing to hold it for a plunge into uncertainty. And he stares at Sparrow as she stares skyward, inspecting her before and after her own confession as he furrows his brows. He may be lacking in having met others of the type - subjected only to the sorts that could deny his claims, veiled from the Glimmer, and those who could corroborate but were also patients, incapable of a great character reference for leaving. "We do?" he asks. "You are?"

Sparrow keeps her eyes skyward as she issues a confident, "Mhm," to those little questions from Alfie. Her hands fall to the wet stone behind her as she leans back, making that star-gazing even easier. It sounds like the end of the conversation from her side, like she'd be happy to just sink into soaking in all the shimmering overhead now that they both know which of them is psychic. Except... there's that little shiver of something in the air around her. It's not the waves, no spray of water. More like a dying neon light briefly breathing its last before sputtering out again, a flicker of unrealized potential. And then she makes a face and brings her attention back down to earth, down to the beautiful man watching her... and the light switches on, a flicker of brilliance connecting. Glimmer. 'You don't seem crazy to me.' The little knit between her brows speaks to how uncertain she is as to whether or not it actually worked. There's a decent chance she's never even tried this before.

Alfie keeps watching as if waiting for Sparrow to do something in return that will prove her claim. Open to it. Wanting that additional range of connection. He starts to squint, narrowing his dark lashes around eyes of robin's egg blue. The voice has him shoot back and to the side, leaning rather than jumping dangerously from the perch. Shock. He blinks. And he smiles harder than he has in some time. Laughter takes priority in the rush of emotion and vindication that comes with finding another to witness and reflect his ability - and because laughing is easier than sobbing about all the difficult times that preceded it. "Were you, when we were kids?" he goes on to ask, excitedly - not waiting for an answer before he's asking more. "How did you find out? Did you have to fight to control it? Or was it something some people have to - like - grow?" This may not be the last of the string of questions. But rather, just the first batch.

Worry flashes in Sparrow's eyes as Alfie moves. Did she do something wrong? When laughter follows, she relaxes by degrees, a little at first, continuing her study until she's sure he's alright. The questions help with the convincing, her head shaking in answer to the first. Her right hand rises from the rock, all her weight braced on her left, and she holds it up, palm out in a playfully, lazily defensive posture, asking him to hold up a bit, to breathe, give her time to answer. "I figured it out two years ago. And it wasn't this. That?" Another shake of her head, salt-frizzed hair shifting with the motion. "Not what I'm good at. Just an inkling. I don't know what it's like for anyone else. But I do know that, mm... I've been able to... I dunno. Get better? At thing things. And people things. Not--" She taps her head. "I can kinda see the, uh... way things are going? And give a nudge? It's hard to explain. I've never tried to explain it before. None of this sounds right." But there's an easy part left unanswered. "I fixed something I'd fucked up. A tear. Gone. Without even thinking about it. I can do that with bodies too. Just..." She makes a weird sorta kinda sucking sound as she gestures, trying to imitate a wound magically closing and not realy managing.

Alfie is halfway through putting the first syllable of his next question to voice when she puts her palm up. He stops, sets his hand on the back of his head, and scratches. "Sorry," he says. "Or-" No, wait - he can be that. "Yeah, sorry." Then, he keeps his mouth shut and listens to what Sparrow has in the way of answer. And if what she says prompts a whole many more questions, he sets them aside to ask later. Just kind of squints and nods at the ability she describes, different from his own focus - but close to the fringe end of him, the untested qualities. "I guess that'd be a little dangerous to show off," he admits. "But it's boon on a road trip, all the same," he decides. Without one bit of the skepticism that old-Alfie might have mustered, before his own crash course in the strain. "It's hard to explain things that no one else has written down," he admits. "And even if we can do some of the same things - it doesn't sound that it's exactly the same." A magic that has a natural bent, like it fits snug into the biology of the world rather than visiting from a special plane of existence.

"Who's to say no one's written it down?" Sparrow asks earnestly, though the lift of her shoulders suggests she probably isn't aware of any such references. "Not that I have. Or would." She falls quiet for a moment, Alfie's excitement answered with her own reservation, attention turned to the water constantly crashing and receding to her left. "I didn't even say anything to Corey the first time," she admits quiet. "I only told him when he told me about his weird shit. And even then." Her gaze drops to the rockier space directly next to her, obscured in shadows, water intermittently reflecting moonlight as it moves. "There's this... space inside your head, right? Where you can kinda leave things to plausible deniability. Without outside confirmation. Maybe maybe not. Cultivate just enough self-doubt that you don't think about all the ways you could maybe become a supervillain if it were all really real. So." She shrugs and glances back to Alfie. "I dunno. When did you figure it out?"

"Not that I've read," Alfie self-corrects after Sparrow's addition, dispelling any unthought of notion that he might have read everything in existence outside of Invisible Sun. And not showing any intent to write any of it down, himself. "Corey too?" he asks, like that's a bomb drop that she just zoomed past. But he manages to listen all the same, even with his eyebrows lifted and remaining just so. "That's my 'maybe I'm actually proper crazy and I shouldn't talk about or acknowledge any of this directly in case it gets me sent back' compartment," he relates. As to how he figured it out? It takes him a few seconds to formulate an answer. Or, at least, an initial answer. "I guess once I could turn it off?" he starts. "At least, that's when I figured that it couldn't be anything I was diagnosed." He tilts his head, out toward the water without looking at it. Just setting Sparrow to a diagonal skew within his vision. Another angle from which to see her, or a corner in which to hide. "As for the first time I remember experiencing it? Was coming out of the missing two weeks with someone's fear snaking its way down my throat, choking me. Then anger. I couldn't not feel what everyone else felt. Couldn't not see it, taste it, or hear it."

Sparrow doesn't revisit the 'Corey too.' She's already said it, and she's not entangling her twin further in this discussion. While Alfie dwells on her question, she wallows in the answer he's already given, his parallel brainspace, so similar and yet vastly different. The certainty of normalcy versus the evidence of insanity. When he speaks again, her gaze refocuses, evidence of drifting thoughts, turning inward, her eyes a little wider as if that might help anchor her here and now. Even when he looks away, catches her at that odd angle, she watches, studying, so still and quiet now. Silent for several seconds after he relates his story, nothing but the waves to answer. Then, "I would feed you other things. Better things." No list of what they will be, just that simple, affectionate declaration, a promise of less terrifying emotions should he open himself up again.

Neither does Alfie press on the subject of Corey. He's asked - and he may yet ask again, but not now. There's a skip to his heartbeat preceding an increase in rate at that answer. A dry swallow. Considerations that he might have thought of, but didn't go through with. "I haven't, by the way," he assures her, first off. "Haven't made you feel anything that wasn't yours, peeked at what you were feeling, or tricked your eyes in any way. It wouldn't have been right, with the ways I feel about you, without your go ahead," he explains, further. Holding her gaze, even if his regard is somewhat wonky and askew - hair once hanging forward, now forming swept bangs framing the right side of his face - a trick of gravity, and his earlier dealing with the spray up from the water. "I don't want to you to worry that anything that's happened has been anything but genuine." He straightens his regard. "Though, how I feel when I'm with you? I don't think I'd care if you seeded that." Counterpoint to his own concerns.

The thought doesn't seem to have occurred to Sparrow; there's a very good chance she wasn't even aware some of those things were possible. Her curiosity doesn't catch until he says 'the ways I feel about you,' brow arching as lips part to ask a question that doesn't yet come. She holds a moment, listens, waits. "I'm not worried." That seems more important, emphasizing that. "I know what I feel. And I haven't fucked with... anything. Promise." Again, her mouth opens, but this time, her tongue comes out when words don't, licking the seasalt from lips which had been so sweet earlier in the day. "I want to know how you feel about me. I want to feel it. If you can do that." Beat. "Can you do that?"

Alfie nods at Sparrow's own promise, a dip of his chin, despite claims that he wouldn't have cared if she had - if she'd tilted things to run a particular course. He gets distracted, following instead the way her tongue laps across her lips before she makes that request. "I can do that," he admits, a nervous but sly smile skewing up a little further in one direction. He takes a deep breath, and forces his attention up from Sparrow's lips to her eyes. "If that's what you really want. No going back." But it's already happening. To him, it blossoms in a radiant pulse of pinks over his chest, with lesser blues and reds flashing across his hear. To him, the beat begins over Sparrow's chest as well. Competing scents of lychee, apple, black currant, and spice. A literal tingly feeling with a nervous internal shifting. Fear outlines the color, keeping it safe, but also flickering at odd intervals with the fear of baring one's self. She might feel all of this. Or she might not. Either way, it arrives with clarity. Love. Vulnerability and safety - submission and protection. Lust. Fear. Desire and trust.

It's hard to know what Sparrow feels at all. The only evidence that she feels anything is the eerie stillness she maintains as she watches Alfie, her smile entirely gone. Her brows draw together slightly, but that could be any number of things from curiosity to concern. The flood of emotions is well past before she moves, before she does anything all, beginning with a shallow nod, repeated. Glancing down at the scant stretch of stone between them, only a few inches, she wonders, "And can you feel what I'm feeling?" so very quietly that it might get lost in the beautiful chaos they've chosen as their backdrop for all these revelations.

Exhale. Wavering a bit. A nervous expenditure of an ill-understood mysticism. He lets his shared emotion taper off, fade away so that it won't corrupt his own sample from what Sparrow feels. He nods. He can do that, as well - and thusly prepares to. He keeps his gaze on her even as she diverts her gaze and he focuses, stares, as if he means to see some seem or thread that he can pull at so that he might feel the brunt of her own felt emotions. He sets his hand on hers at the penultimate moment before he opens himself up to it, as if an unspoken assurance of 'no matter' what before the dive is made. He opens.

The contact catches Sparrow off-guard, leaving the first burst of emotion raw: surprise, unsteadiness, a desire to withdraw quickly corrected. A glimpse of vulnerability which dims swiftly. Uncertainty wavers on the surface, a thin film that's been building as they talk so openly about something she's been avoiding, something she knows she shouldn't joke about right now. Below that, it's all soft and warm, a squishy layer of comfort and gratitude and admiration. Desire seems a complex thread that goes beyond lust, the baser notes so thin at the moment, pale in comparison to everything else she's feeling right now. Lower, there's certainty, surety, a solid confidence where her love is rooted, strong and steady. Dark lashes lift as she peers past at Alfie, watching to see if it's working, the hand beneath his flexing, fingers bent, arched, tense. "I could just tell you." Is that a question? She doesn't wait for an answer before just going through with it. "I love you, Alfie. I love you, and I want you, and I like you being around."

Accelerant. Stacking feelings on top of his own, taking what he can sense and feeling it. It intensifies things. Obsesses them and makes his cheeks flush and gives his gaze a watery, unfocused cast that settles on Sparrow and through her. Mouth dry. And yet he holds onto it - love and desire squared along with that nervous excitement that comes before the plunge. He sniffs and shivers when she says it, his hand tightens its grasp over hers and he laughs that overwhelmed laugh of overabundant emotions of all types. "I know," he says, in reference to his feeling it. "And I thought I knew when you quoted Neruda. And I know it's why I quoted it back." A deep breath, stilling emotional confluence. Putting aside gibbering for something else - hopefully meaningful. "I love you like the ocean loves the shore. Recklessly. Relentlessly. And with the kind of abandon that shapes things anew."

Sparrow can't help the smile at his laughter, so easily drawn from her thoughts into his joy. "I know," she echoes after he references the sonnet they'd shared, in part, with purpose. Her own mirth bubbles up as he lists out how he loves her, brows arching high in challenge. "The ocean takes from the shore," she points out. "Takes it piece by piece and makes it its own." What was it he'd said earlier? "Tangled. United. Whole." Softer, sharper, entirely flirtatious, she still calls him, "Thief," for all that she sounds glad about it. Resting her weight on her claimed hand, she leans in, close, and with only a glance to the rocky drop beside him, claims a slow, hungry kiss, her mouth every bit the salt-rose eschewed in that poem.

I know. I know. Alfie's nervous, joyous laughter settles down into a chuckle - though his heart never quite stops its reckless pace. "I take only what I'd give you," he says, as to the accusation of his thievery. He keeps his eyes partly open as she leans in, watching her face in that up close point of view - the kiss to seal their confessions, here, in the presence of a deep well all their own, deep enough to have contained the truths they'd admitted to themselves but hadn't shared with one another. Their Glimmer, their love - a moment that might always associate one with the other, when reflected upon. The moment before their lips touch, he adds, "Everything." And draws that hungry kiss back toward him before he meets it in kind. A crush of hungry softness, damp with salt but pliable to her catches, issuing pleasant sighs before he returns the favor. His damp hair, still out of its usual backward sweep, brushing against her own brow and cheekbone.

It would be so easy to just maintain that forward momentum, for Sparrow to lean into Alfie until he was splayed flat, pinned, hers. But this really isn't the place for that. Sure, they found a good ledge for sitting, but the rock is still slippery, the ground hard and sharp and unforgiving below. Someone would end up cracked open, and that's just not how she wants to demonstrate her make-bodies-better magic. Her teeth catch his lip for a gentle nip before she pulls back, tells him, "Get up," without explanation. It's a short walk back to safety, picking across the stones toward the grass and sand, toward the relative safety of even ground. The privacy's questionable, but sometimes you gotta risk it.

The night had grown colder by the time their bodyheat was spent, when they both sprawled nearly naked on their backs to stare up at the stars overhead, the only witnesses to what might be a misdeamor besides the ocean and Odin and the unseen keeper of the well. Snuggling helped for a short while, as they caught their breath and enjoyed the aquatic orchestration, that constant crash of waves not too far off, but eventually the desire for warmth outweighed their contentment in the moment. It wasn't a far walk back to the car or a long drive to the nearest motel.

Sparrow sleeps in, spent from the long day behind them, in no rush to get anywhere in particular though she's surely got more on the agenda given their continued southbound trajectory last night. They take the morning slow, lazy, all languid affection and long showers, stretching right up until the very edge of their check-out time. Then they're on the road again, for a long drive this time. It'll be a lot of driving today, she warns, but she hardly sounds apologetic about it. Radio on, windows down and fingers tangled across the seats, this seems, for a little while, like the best part of the roadtrip.

Alfie doesn't chase an explanation. He stands as Sparrow prompts him, still wearing the rush of her emotions, tangled into his own - colors indistinguishable from one another where their feelings are flush. Only brighter for the dense concentration of containing it within himself. He toes away from pipe and camera heedless, to be considered and collected later on the way through the chilled afterglow and on the way into the car. A crow caws into the absent night and another answers, relative to the blackbirds that once served Odin's purpose. The drive to the hotel is punctuated by the weight of Alfie's head against Sparrow's shoulder. And he sleeps long into the morning with Sparrow, stretching out under her affections and paying her back in kind before they're once more on the road.

Under the shade of the car's roof from the sun overhead, Alfie is outstretched like a timeworn king in his throne. One wrist propped up on the window, hand dangling outside. The other, holding Sparrow's while his feet are returned to their perch on the dash. Spreading himself out so makes him low and small within the chair - but also gives said chair a larger than life air of majesty, a royal chariot making ground opposite to Helios' route across the sky.

Sparrow serenades her king. Not necessarily well or pointedly, but certainly enthusiastically, loudly, her good mood soaking into every half-shouted syllable on their way south. She doesn't mention the sea lion caves they drive past, leaving that for their second pass, for their jaunt down to Cali in some unspecified future, a maybe later. Now, she's too happy to play queen and jester and charioteer to the might-be-god beside her. And she's got a destination in mind.

A t-rex greets them when she pulls the car into the Prehistoric Gardens parking lot. A little gift shop with a neon OPEN sign in one window stands against a backdrop of trees, a gateway to a weird forest experience. With dinosaurs if the nearly twenty-foot-tall greeter outside is any indication. "I got you dinosaurs," she tells Alfie as if the whole place were his now. It should, at the very least, be surveyed.

Alfie basks in the shade and serenade, stretching to the tension point that his limbs might fly off if he tried any further - languid in shorts and a tanktop as they move in from the shore and into the evergreens. The caverns of the sea lions left waiting for a future passage as the still life of dinosaur caricatures loom through foliage unknown to the ancient date that they tread here - or rather, those among the depicted that actually tread these lands and the dated approximation of what skins might have lain over the bones. It's an enchanting fixture of a past misunderstanding, exciting to children, a drag to teens, and filled with cutesy and decrepit nostalgia for any who make it out of their teen years far enough to miss the years before it.

"Just wanted I wanted. How did you know?" he quips back through an amused smile, as the neon signs claim more urbane settings that the forests can muster - civilization merely a mask on these older lands. He unbuckles and wiggles back in his seat until his feet land on the floor of the vehicle, ready to emerge and to stand. "Favorite dino?" he asks, unprompted.

Sparrow taps her temple as she winks at Alfie, claiming psychic powers she might actually have even if they don't actually apply here. With a quickly claimed kiss and no thought whatsoever given to the question of preference, she declares, "The little hissy spitty ones," very not at all specifically. Once she's exited the vehicle, once they're on their way, she changes her mind, figuring maybe, "Or velociraptors. Clever girl." The smile she turns his way makes all too obvious that she finds an affinity with that sentiment. "I can open doors, too." There's even a cheesy brow-waggle to go with it. But then her eyes go wide, and she adds, "Or the stegasaurus for the full-body mohawk."

By the time their visit to the prehistoric forest was done, she'd settled on pterodactyls mostly because the resident flyer was most photogenic among the whole lot, easy to pose with, so very friendly! As much as a statue can be, anyway. The trip dipped south into California from there, from the Oregon Coast Highway onto the Redwood Highway, with a brief pitstop at a restroom with a giant fly on its roof once they'd crossed the northern border again. It should've been smooth sailing from there, a straight shot north through Grants Pass and onward toward more strangeness, but signs for another attraction caught the driver's attention: Great Cats World Park. Utterly uncertain of what it might be, she looked to Alfie, proposing, "Detour?"

"I've been afraid of those since I saw that 3D Jurassic Park," Alfie admits, where hissy-spitty ones are concerned. And he snorts at the reference about clever girls stolen from the very same film - or whatever release of it. "I think that one suits you best," he says of the last choice. The full body mohawk dino. "That one seems the most you. You'd just need a drum kit to slam your tail on," he decides. And makes subsequent 'SHOOSH SHOOSH SHOOSH' noises, miming said stegosaurus as best he can without a tail of his own. It's the kind of butt waggling while making dinosaur sounds that could only be attempted by someone comfortable that they've got a few miles on any familiar faces they wouldn't trust to see it.

That kind of abandon survived the entire visit - recklessly enjoying the dinosaur park without any concern toward his reputation as a mature adult and any aspersions otherwise. On their way, from there - more relaxed reclining. Simply enjoying the company and the road. He doesn't notice the sign until Sparrow points it out. But he nods and repeats, "Detour."

Detour! Sparrow follows the signs for Great Cats World Park, just a mile or so off the main highway, and pulls in to find it pretty busy for a midweek midafternoon, hopefully a testament to its detour-worthiness. It's hard to know what to expect from the parking lot with wooden fences obscuring anything beyond the gift shop--there's always a gift shop--but the sign promises 'Predators in Action.' Rather than just rushing in, she sits for a moment in the parking lot, in the relative quiet of the car before they step back out into the world again. After a moment, she angles a look toward Alfie, smile growing as her attention turns more direct. "I don't think I've said thank you yet. I mean, I know I said this was for you, but that was only half-true." Surely, there's more to the thought than that, but she just shrugs, flashes a wider smile and leaves it at that. There's a whole world of predators on the other side of that fence for them to meet, after all.

Alfie sides with opportunity rather easily - making no argument about visiting these cats, if only to determine why they are so great. He pulls his feet back and off the dash as they settle in at the parking lot, and reaches for the handle before he recognizes that Sparrow isn't doing the same. He pauses there, with the latch caught on the inside of the knuckles of both his index and middle fingers, and turns to regard Sparrow without releasing or pulling it - simply freezing the process. A gentle tilt of his head is his first reply to her thanks before he pays her back a warm and only slightly crooked smile. He leans, stretching in from his hold on the door, pressing soft lips against her cheek for a chaste yet affectionate kiss before the door opens. "Better something for us both than something for me alone," he notes. And with a wink, adds, "It helps to know you're getting your rocks off too." And he's up and out of the car, closing the door behind him.