2019-08-17 - Donuts & Dreams

And so he is. A couple of minutes later, Jens is knocking on Oak 7 with his forehead, softly. Bonk. Bonk. Bonk. He's in a pair of pajama bottoms that have been cut at capri length and a WE NEVER GO OUT OF STYLE t-shirt that he somehow pulls off despite the v-cut. No shoes. Just feet. Dirty hippie. His fingers are paint-stained and he does look a little sleep deprived, but that's not particularly rare.

The Sparrow that answers that bonkbonkbonk is likewise barefoot and still in what might qualify as pajamas, yellow Funshine Bear boxers with that same Six of Swords tank she was wearing the other day, plainly a favorite. Her brown-eyed attention slips from top to toe then back up again, smile suggesting... amusement? Approval? "So prompt." Mostly the latter. Further in, music plays at a low volume, some floaty pop nonsense not nearly loud enough to wake up the rest of the household who are probably soundly sleeping. Except maybe Corey who's got that job baking stuff now, but that's his own masochism to wrangle. Turning tail, she starts toward the kitchen, asking, "How do you take your coffee, gorgeous?"

Mr Little Jeans - Forgetter

"Donuts can get a guy outta bed real quick," he tells her with a sleepy snort. How does he take his coffee? "However the fuck I can get it, usually," Jens admits, wandering into the house and swinging the door closed behind him. "Right now, I think a good shock of bitter might be what I need. So skip the sugar. Maybe some milk, tho--no, creamer? If you have it." He rubs his fingers with his thumbs together as he follows her.

The place is big, and it seems bigger still for the general absence of useful furniture through most of the rooms one might glimpse on the way back to the kitchen. There, at least, a table with some chairs sits near a set of doors leading out onto the deck. A little bit of normalcy in a house which otherwise seems unsettled. And unsettling? Was that a white duck with an adjustable lamp in place of a head..? Sparrow certainly doesn't go out of her way to draw any attention to Howard as they move past. "I'll keep that in mind," she chirps cheerfully as if making mental notes for future Jens-attracting tactics. The donuts are on the table, a dozen cake donuts in a variety of glazes with a variety of toppings, a colorful assortment without any guide to indicate which donut is which flavor. She works without word, pouring a fresh cup with, yes, creamer because Corey's kitchen has everything. Rather than fetch her own, she lingers when she delivers the coffee, taking in the color caught on his hands. "What's gotcha sleepless?"

He sits down and takes a donut, biting into it with relish. Some sort of cream filling. He smiles with his mouth full, chewing quietly for a moment. He doesn't seem put off by the weird stuff in the house. Let's be honest, the things that surprise Jens are very, very different, and a little more out there than a duck with a lamp for a head. He takes the coffee and goes, "Hrm?" at her question. Attention span of a fucking hamster. "Oh. Dreams. Painting. Same thing as always, really. I have nights and then I ahve nights, you know?"

Sparrow shakes her head lightly, lazy smile unwavering. No, she really doesn't know. "My nights with added emphasis are generally self-made," sounds vaguely apologetic, thin evidence of self-awareness of her own privilege, how nice it is to be mentally well. Relatively speaking. It looks for a moment like she might add more, but she turns instead, moving to fetch her own coffee, topped off from its half-empty state and doctored with both cream and sugar. If he's paying attention in that half-awake state, he might catch the color she's taken on in the past few days, how the sun's darkened her shoulder, her cheeks, her left arm more than her right. "What kinda dreams?"

Jens pays attention; it's just rare that he'll comment. His comments usually come in the form of art, and if he's painting for himself, he rarely shows it. Such is the life. He sips his coffee, and when she asks about the kind of dreams, he licks his lips and leans back in his seat, kind of deflating a little bit. "Gray Harbor kind of dreams." Even if she's mentally stable, Gray Harbor has a way about it, after all. "I texted Dr. Glass and we're gonna have a session later today. I'd rather process it with her before I talk about it. It's... muddled." He makes a gesture near his temple. "Hard to explain so soon after it." He shrugs. "I started painting it, though, might help."

Sparrow's eyes widen as if she doesn't quite get what Jens means about the dreams, eyebrows rising slightly in muted curiosity. It might even be earnest interest, but the way her smile dims, that glint of familiarity in her eyes tells well enough that she's not entirely ignorant about what that description might mean. When she comes back to the table, she hooks a chair with her foot and drags it close to where Jens has settled, near enough that one of her knees ends up nearly between his when she sits. "Alright." Quiet, earnest. Like she could be content to conclude the whole conversation right there and just sit in relative silence. As if silence were something she could manage for more than a few seconds. "Well. My dreams have been pretty filthy for the past couple of days," she lies casually, grinning contentedly as she sips her coffee.

Jens typically doesn't mind talking about art, but he tends to limit it to the stuff he works on for school, or commissions. His private stuff, well. Yeah. When she scoots close, he leans his elbow on the table and takes a sip of that bitter coffee, shuddering minutely at the bitter jolt of caffeine. He grins at her. "Oh yeah?" He tips his chin up at her, smiling. "How filthy we talkin'?"

Sparrow wants to push. She really, really does. But she understands respect and restraint and can play at being patient every now and then. Like now. Like when Jens leans forward and inspires her smile to grow wider, all while she keeps her own comfortable recline, so very happy to let him come to her. A little, "Mm," confirms her false claim, one she stands by with complete confidence. With eyes going wide with feigned worry, she answers, "Like I might be worried you'd lose all respect for me filthy." Only a hint of a grin creeps in as she adds off-handedly, "But you were there."

Behind her, from speakers somewhere on the counter, a dreamy feminine voice sings, "We'll see creation come undone. These bones that bound us will be gone. We'll stir our spirits till we're one, then soft as shadows we'll become," over some lazy, loungy electronica.

Porter Robinson - Sea Of Voices (Galimatias Remix)

Jens's eyes shift at the lyrics from the music, but he swings them back at her and sips his coffee with a raised brow. "I don't think so." He smiles a bit. "I separate respect and filth pretty well. and if I was theeeeere, I mean--" He gives a little hand-shrug, lips pressing together adorably. "--isn't it fair I know what kind of expectations your dreams are cooking up on my behalf? Am I getting a bad wrap? Am I too good to be true? Am I some freaky tentacle alien?" He moves his hands up and down, like a scale. "Tsk."

Sparrow's gaze lifts toward the ceiling as Jens works through the possibilities, giving away so very little of what may or may not have actually been running through her head. She doesn't so much as bat a lash at the suggestion of alien anatomy, just sipping her coffee like all of this was entirely normal. "There were a lot of you," she admits, for some definition of the word admission, returning her attention to him only after that first part is spoken. "Been crowding my head." That, at least, might be honest, but it comes with a shallow shake of her head that feigns disapproval, as if he's to blame for that burden. "Only two of you had tentacles. At least three had forked tongues." With a furrow of her forehead, "And one had forked, uh. Other stuff. And one just sat by watching it all." Sip.

Jens squints at her and then tilts his head left, and then right, and then he squints at her some more, and then he says, "You're full of shit, but I like it anyway. You got a pencil and some paper?" He makes a write-y gesture.

"Not... entirely," Sparrow counters with a wide, delighted smile, eyes happily half-lidded. Setting her coffee down, she gets up and wanders off toward another room, disappearing from view even as she calls back, "It's all some sort of honest." A few shuffling sounds can be heard from the other side of a wall, eventually resulting in a reemerging Sparrow with a spiralbound notebook and a pack of mechanical pencils. Somebody's school supplies. All of it untouched. Offering it over, she says, "Better stuff upstairs, if you want." And she's wholly sincere in that, nothing to suggest it's a ploy to get him up to her room. Unlike her mostly made-up half-demonic sex dreams.

"Sketch first, reenacment later," Jens says, rtaking it that way anyway just to tease her. He gives her a sleepy wink and then hikes his feet up on the table, stretching his legs out and putting the notebook on them at a angle she can't see as he starts to draw, keeping one eye on her, shooing her if she tries to peek. "So how did your weekend away go?"

Sparrow makes no attempt to peek. Except once, when she reaches over to get a donut and has entirely plausible cover, nope, wasn't peeking at all. See? Donut. Pink-coated with green icing, some sort of strawberry-lime maybe. "Midweek," comes with her mouth still full, a correction to acknowledge the question before she actually swallows her food and communicates like a respectable adult. "Committed some minor acts of piracy in the most nautical sense of the word. Had a weird experience with a seal. Fucking killed at go-carts. Rode a corndog. Ate more cheese than I think you're supposed to on a factory tour. Watched the stars over Thor's Well. Hung out with a pterodactyl." She pauses there, but it's clear she's not done her list, her unfocused gaze indicating thought, flipping through the highlights of what was obviously a very extraordinary couple of days. "Visited the Enchanted Forest. Took a tour through One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest." With a shrug, she adds, "And ate too much junk food," before taking another bite of her donut.

"Midweek, right. My days are all fuckin' screwy." He makes that same gesture near his temple as before. He looks up from his sketch as she talks, lifting his brow at a few claims. The pterodactyl gets a sharp laugh. "Damn. That's... yeah. Crazy couple days." He's taking his time with his drawing. It looks involved. "Man, I haven't gone go-carting in ages. I used to run Runa down..." He makes a vroom-vroom noise. "Just follow her around until she started screaming, 'Maaarius get this crazy jerk off meeeee' and then Marius would slam into me." He grins.

Sparrow's strawberry iced smile softens at that laughter, at how well-received her odd adventure seems to be. It seems a little more personal, pleased. An inward thing rather than outward, even if her eyes don't leave Jens while he sketches. Should he look up, he might catch her smile growing again, an accidental mask that hides something a little more earnest. Not that her laughter isn't sincere, her delight in his story entirely genuine. "Respect for the relentlessness." She lifts her half-eaten donut in toast but doesn't bite. "I wanna say it was war out there and I took no prisoners... buuuuuuut mostly, I just lapped some kids before crashing." And, really, she sounds plenty pleased with that. "Alfie won me this big derpy unicorn at the arcade. I've named him Frank."

The morning's playlist continues, just as dreamy and low-key as it has been. The lyrics are often difficult to make out, but some stick out, a pretty voice singing, "Let it seep through your sockets and ears, into your precious ruptured skull. Let it seep. Let it keep you from us. Patiently heal you. Patiently unreel you..." If one weren't paying any attention to the words, it would all seem pleasant and drifty enough, just right for a lazy morning.

Purity Ring - Lofticries

"So what you're saying," Jens says with a laugh, "is that you took advantage of some kids and got your comeuppance in the end like all Scooby-Doo villains." He reaches over, and smudges her nose with his colorful fingertips. "Well, look at that, under the mas, it's that hot drummer chick with the short-shorts and filthy dreams." He grins, going back to sketching. This thing is gonna be detailed. He clicky-clicks on the mechanical pencil for more lead.

Sparrow's chin lifts with some degree of pride as her ineffective villainy is acknowledged. It lifts further when he reaches out, at once elongating her neck in what might be invitation and drawing her nose a little higher in what might be defense. She tries to take advantage, to steal a peek at the complex sketch, that little tilt toward him only making the nose-smudging all the easier. Unsuccessful, she swipes the back of her wrist across her nose, that gesture only hiding her blush exceedingly briefly. "I'm not entirely against meddling. If you wanted to meddle." Not her usual confident delivery. In an attempt to swiftly redirect from whatever all that is, she lifts a foot to kick lightly at his hip as she asks, "How much longer I gotta wait?"

"I might have to take it with me and finish it at home," Jens says, looking down at it. "Hrrrrm." He eyes her, looks back at the sketch. "You can see a piece. Is a piece enough?" He eyes her some more, almost as if gauging if she's the sort who can deal with just a piece or if it's better to deny her entirely until he can give her the full thing. His upper lip gets sucked in and he underbites it a little, thinking.

Sparrow clucks disapprovingly at the suggestion that she won't get to see any of it at all today, plainly not pleased with that option. It might help if she then backed it up with jumping on the opportunity to see at least a little bit, but she eyes Jens instead, not half as wary as delightedly calculating. "Sounds like a trap," is a stalling tactic. She's not worried about that. A little wobble of her head nearly mirrors the scales he was weighing with his hands earlier. When she decides, "I can nibble," there's a certainty to it, solid. But she doesn't lean in. No, he'll have time to pick the piece she gets to see.

Jens smiles, pleased. "All right." He rips another page off the notebook from the back, and folds it up so it's a little three-sided frame that covers most of the drawing he's done so far, except for the center. He lines it up just perfect, and then he turns it for her to see. It's a drawing, that's for sure. It's a little manga-ish, but that's because he's playing to trope, and it's very clear: manga-Sparrow in the center, head tilted back, hand in her hair tossing it wildly, her cheeks flushed, eyes lidded, and a forked tongue coming out from one of the covered bits of the drawing, licking up her stretched out neck.

Sparrow abandons her half-eaten donut, setting it next to her half-drunk coffee, and sucks the frosting from her fingers--a pragmatic thing, to be sure--while she waits for that three-sided frame to take shape and find its place. Once invited to look, she leans in, staring for longer than necessary to understand what's going on, brown-eyed attention darting from this detail to that. Some detail holds her focus longer than the rest, soft smile sharpening, skewing to the left. With a little nod, she declares, "I can work with that," as she looks up past the notebook to the artist on the other side.

Jens grins. "Cool." he rips the actual page the drawing is on out of the notebook and then stands up, finishing his coffee. "I gotta run. It's my turn to do the groceries and then I have my appointment with the doc." He takes a step over and leans down to press a smoochie kiss to Sparrow's forehead. "Later, babe. Thanks for the coffee, and the donut, and the inspiration." He ambles off, smile audible in his voice.