2019-09-05 - On Depravity

Knock knock. Outside Sparrow's door, Jens is in a pair of flip-flops, salmon-colored boardshorts, and a lemon-yellow t-shirt that says "YEET." in upper-case black Arial.

7 Oak Avenue is quiet today. One of the upsides of classes starting up again: most of the residents are off studying or commuting. Sparrow's got the place all to herself. Slowly, they've been collecting furniture besides weird lamps, and it's starting to look like a proper home, but there are still unpacked boxes at the back of the landing upstairs, space that could be used as a good little lounge area instead occupied with the remains of the moving process.

There's no immediate answer when Jens knocks, but soft footfalls might be heard just before the door opens and a very, very redheaded Sparrow peeks out. That's definitely new. And old. Today, she's in a ribbed, fitted white tank top, purple bra straps peeking out on either side, and rainbow tie-dyed cut-off shorts. It's much the same with her room as she steps aside to let him in: white walls in the massive space--really, this is ridiculous--with a brightly colored quilt neatly spread across her bed. She's actually made her bed. Second-hand nightstands, a mini-fridge in one corner with stickers on its door and a small microwave on top of it. Art supplies shoved up against one wall, half of 'em in a cardboard box. All messes neatly contained.

And then there's the canvas, 30"x40", sitting against the far wall, back turned out, whatever's on the front mostly hidden except for the dark edges which promise there's something on the other side. "Hey. How'd things go yesterday?"

Jens lets out a small whistle as he steps into the room and looks around. "I'm not sure if your room is really fucking enormous, or if you're just tiny and everything looks proportionately bigger," he says, glancing over at her and flashing her a wink. He reaches out and presses his palm to her stomach gently for a moment, then lets his hand fall. "It went." He shrugs. "This room is enormous. How hard did you con them?"

Sparrow closes the door behind Jens, grinning wide as he takes in the scale of her suite. It's a suite. Two walk-in closets, bathroom with a separate shower and bathtub. And such a fancy bathtub at that! Her expression softens at the contact, smile going a little weird without her realizing for a second, just before sinking toward a faint frown at the two-word summation. Blessedly, she's easily redirected, that pleased grin coming right back as she leads him deeper into the vast expanse of her bedroom. "I let them pick," she answers honestly. "Let them pretend they were being nice. So laidback. So chill. Aren't they just the coolest?" Beat. "You should see the bathtub." Though it sounds like it might be an invitation, her head tilts toward the canvas leaning against the wall. "But that's why you're here. Yours if you want it."

Jens barks out a laugh. "You got lucky. If it had been me I wouldda snagged this place so fast your head would spin." The space. THE SPACE. Of course, by this time, jens would already have it teeming with canvases and paitnings and it would, essentially, just be a tiny room, for all that could be used of it. He grins at her mention of the bathtub but he, too, is easily redirected. He peeks over at the canvas, and then ambles over to it. "'If you want it', she says," he smirks over his shoulder at her. "Is it work safe? Can I take it to the office and hang it over my corporate desk?"

Sparrow seems a minimalist, maybe a bit of a neat freak, for how she's got everything shoved against walls or hidden in closets, what little stuff there is. Or maybe she's just in this room infrequently enough to have not collected enough clutter. Whatever the case, the emptiness is definitely noticeable. She shoves her hands into her pockets as Jens makes for the painting, turning thattaway without following. Just watching. Maybe a little nervous. With a crinkle of her nose and an uneven, apologetic frown, she confirms, "Yep. No tits or dicks or anything," punctuating it with a helpless shrug.

When he turns the canvas around, what's on the other side is certainly colorful, bright hues against a dark backdrop of moss-heavy trees, sunlight streaming through the branches to catch details in midair.

"That's not a bad thing," Jens tells her with a roll of his eyes at her nervousness and apologetic frown. He lifts the canvas and turns it over, leaning it back against the wall and taking a few steps back. He takes the painting in almost in sections, or at least, he seems to change the way he looks at it every few seconds. Eventually, he just reaches out to slide his hand up to the back of her neck and pull her over so he can kiss her forehead. "It's gorgeous."

Sparrow's shoulders are all bunched up in a long-held shrug, arms straight while her hands keep to their pockets, by the time Jens reaches over, that tension undoubtedly felt in her neck, in her initial--and entirely unintentional--resistance to that tug. Her eyes close, for a moment, and linger low even as she relaxes some, slinging one arm around his waist as she needlessly asks, "Yeah?" Then goes on to babble, "It's... not what I thought it was gonna be. But the two different kinds of intimacy kinda conflated in my head and I couldn't get them apart, so." Was that weird? It sounded weird. Her blush says she thought that sounded weird.

Jens doesn't seem to think it sounded weird. He just drapes his arm over her shoulders and around her neck, looking at the painting some more as he keeps her close. He lifts his hand up to her head and slides his fingers in her hair with a smile. "Yeah. I like it a lot. I don't know where the fuck I'm going to put it," because he also lost the room lottery, "but I'm definitely keeping it."

A tiny little sound escapes Sparrow as she tilts toward his fingers, eyes happily lidding, her smile easy. "Opposite your bed," she poses all casual-like as one hand comes up to shape an L as if she were picturing it right now. Nevermind that her eyes are closed. "Right there staring at you every morning. All creepy-like." Peeking over at Jens, she adds, "I probably didn't enchant it to let me scrye on you whenever you're wanking." Just in case he was worried anout that.

"because if you want to watch me wanking all you have to do is ask?" Jens lifts a brow at her with a laugh and then shakes her gently, letting her go as he steps over to the painting. He crouches to get a closer look, but he doesn't touch it. He has too much respect for these things to treat it otherwise. "I'll make some room, I think. Probably not over the door, though. Hrm." He's considering. "I'll find a spot. Not a lot of space in my room. I wasn't as lucky as you." He sticks his tongue out at her.

Sparrow gives a little brow-waggle at that open invitation, her lazily crooked grin implying there will be a request made soon. She wobbles ever so slightly when she's released, like some aftershock of that shaking, and lifts a hand to push through her hair--totally not at all retracing the path his fingers took or anything. "Not luck, gorgeous." As if she knew the guys would both decline. Right. She moves to drop down on the edge of her bed, giving Jens some space to inspect the painting all he wants now that it's officially his, and glances upward. "Don't forget all the ceiling real estate." Almost certainly joking, right? "I'll try to be more considerate in future works. Or make a gallery for you here. Walls full of you. In case my cute ass isn't reason enough to drop in."

"Hah." jens smirks, glancing over at her, then back at the painting. The problem with giving art to artists is that they don't just glance at it and say 'oh, that's beautiful'. They sit down and analyze the shit out of it. He's not vocalizing anything, though. He's tracing colors, brush strokes, etc. After a few more minutes, he stands up again and wanders over to the bed, dropping down to sit next to her. "You guys gonna try out for the Deuce's open mic night? Become the HOUSE BAND?" He grins.

There's some relief in that study, really. After pouring so much of herself into that silly painting, Sparrow finds some little glimmer of solace at the thought that Jens might see some of it, some of her. She might even be smiling when he first turns around, a soft and private thing that grows brighter when she realizes he's heading over. "Maybe," sounds entirely unconvincing. Not an optimistic sorta thing. She shifts in her seat, drawing one leg up onto the bed to face Jens directly. "Gotta be able to present an original song, and we're still shaky with covers. Not sure we've even found our sound yet. I mean, shit, we've played together once? But." There are gears turning. It's not all awful. "There are things we agree on, things we're good at. And we maybe have a name that fits." Beat. "Not sure how the bar will like it." Moving on. "And I know Jaime's got some songs of his own, if we can maybe borrow one just for the audition? But not sure how the guys'll feel about it as we've pretty much agreed to keep shit low-key. No big dreams. Just fun, ya know?"

"I don't think being the house band for a bar in Gray Harbor is particularly 'big dream' material, babe," Jens tells her with a snort. "Besides, you'd have Astrid and Ash there to watch your backs, and Easton is short, but he's a nice guy." As if these things were hard to come by together. "But hey. Your band, your fun." He drops back onto the bed and stretches his arms up and out, letting out a long yawn. "I need to get more sleep, damn."

Sparrow rolls her eyes and counters, "Steady gig," with a bit of gravity. "I just gotta talk to the guys." As if that was the summation of all of her previous babbling. As he sprawls backward, she leans in, a more purposeful descent which brings her up against his side, propped on one arm to maintain just a bit of distance, enough to keep her eyes on his. "You do," she agrees. Then, without qualification or sales pitch, invites him to, "Stay."

"Comodification of artistry via capitalist means," Jens says, a little solemn lament in his tone. "Alas, a number put upon our very souls on the canvas, in the notes, on the page." He glances at her and sticks his tongue out. "Can't. I got shit to do, dreams to decipher, commissions to finish. This one dude wanted himself as a goat. I'm ... like, okay, I can draw him as a goat but he wants a sexy goat?" He shrugs. "Furries." No judgment, just frustration.

"There's a reason I'm not an art major," Sparrow quips dryly in response, dark brows lifted in challenge. For all of two seconds before she properly sinks in against him to enjoy a little closeness before he goes. "Like Baphomet," she suggests... only to correct. "No, not like Baphomet. I don't think I've ever seen a sexy depiction of Baphomet. Even if he's the representation of all our unsavory inclinations in most decks." Tarot. "Are we supposed to feel grody about our urges or accept them for the ugly fuckers they are?" Might be rhetorical. Hard to tell.

"Fuck if I know. But no, this guy wants to be a sexy goat, not Baphomet." Jens puts a hand on her head and threads his fingers through it. "And by 'sexy', I mean, like, full nude, erect penis, sex with actual goats. look," he says, "Do you have any idea how much porn pays in the sector?" He justifies, but with a laugh.

Sparrow presses in a little closer when his fingers push through her hair, one hand creeping to his hip to hold firm there. "Whatever pays the bills, baby. I ain't judging." She starts to move her head, like she wants to look up, then decides against it, reflex quelled. "Ran into Rink the other day." Same graduating class as both of them, quiet guy, potentially unmemorable for it. "Art major, too, now. Also selling porn to pay the bills. You got classes together?"

Jens furrows his brow, trying to recall. "That the blond kid?" Jens has always been a little attention-handicapped. He thinks. "I don't know. We might this semester, even if we didn't before. You know art majors. Take whatever classes we can fucking get our hands on that meshes with our schedule." He snorts. "He doin' all right?"

"Mhm. Cute in a kinda clean-cut sorta way. If you're into that." Hard to tell if Sparrow is, no particular distaste in her tone. No particular interest either. "Seems so, yeah," comes for the question about his well-being. "Though now I'm wondering if I am. My schedule this semester is ridiculous. Two labs which eat up huge chunks of three days. Too many morning classes. Not enough kickboxing. Though!" A bright point! "I'm thinking about applying all this knowledge they're shoving into my skull by building a basement laboratory--" Spoken all spooky-like. "--and trying to deconstruct and recreate this really nice psilocybin analog that's all, like... shiny melty visuals and superlazy cuddling. Really fun."

"That sounds like some Frankenstein or Hyde shit waiting to happen," Jens tells Sparrow with a laugh. "If it's the latter, though, that's really scary. I can't imagine a depraved version of you running around." He grins at her and then rolls a little, licking her cheek.

Sparrow's mouth is already open to issue objection when tongue meets cheek. What comes out is a little squawk and giggle. Turning her head, she bumps her nose against his as if to issue challenge. Take that! "First? I am pretty sure that not only can you, but you probably already have. And second? What's to say I am not already my most depraved version of myself and just wickedly good at keeping it hidden, hmm?"

"I considered it. But. You're too nice," Jens says with a smile, coiling her hair behind her ear softly. "Hyde's deparvity manifested physically because he was rotten inside; you're not." He leans over again and presses a kiss to her forehead. "Though I weep for your victims if you do become a Hyde-Sparrow."

Sparrow's fingers tighten where they hold as his fingers work through her hair, an imperfect echo of that gesture, an indication of anticipation. Her nose crinkles as she's called 'nice' even if she used that very same word to imply some rather mild depravity just last night. He might catch the urge to object written on her face, even when he presses in close, her forehead furrowed slightly beneath his lips. But it's really hard to argue with his logic. Instead, she ventures, "Maybe I'll let her out in art. Maybe. If you ask nice."

"Maybe I don't want depravity. Not real depravity." Jens reaches down and presses his hand to her stomach, slipping fingers under her shirt just to stroke her skin gently around her belly button. "The scary things that live in my head, you know? The Pickman. The ghouls. Those are depraved. I like you like you are. Kinky, sure. Enticing, yeah. Dirty? Great. Depraved..?" He smiles a bit. "I dunno. Maybe we're just using the word differently. But if you let it out in art, I promise to look."

Sparrow exhales a happy breath, felt in the subtle relaxation of muscles beneath his fingers, heard in a soft sigh. Contentment. She croons a quiet, "Faaair," while he's still speaking, when he references their last conversation. The words which follow earn a bit of scrutiny, her eyes on his, looking for... something. But then she rolls her eyes and admits, "You're not the first person to say that. That I get my words wrong." Hyperbole, thy name is Philomena. "Just dream big. Even the bad ones. But I've got shit followthrough, so." The world's probably safe for the moment.

Jens snorts a little. "Use werdz bettah, Philly-O," he teases with a laugh, sitting up suddenly and then leaning over to press his mouth to her stomach, raspberrying her there, hands on her hips to keep her (relatively) still. When he's done, heleans back and stands. "Walk me to the door? If I stay here I'm not gonna get anything done."

Sparrow falls back with a short-lived pout when Jens sits up, curiosity quickly caught when he leans back in. A half-giggled yelp accompanies her sudden squirming as one hand presses to the side of his head to shove him away. She even seems relieved when she succeeds, catching her breath after that sudden burst of ticklishness. "Not sure if you deserve such hospitality after that!" Nevermind her bright smile or how she reluctantly pushes to her feet. She snags his arm in hers, all faux formal, and starts to guide him across the vast distance between her bed and the exit. "Gonna be too busy to make it tonight? I got a song picked out..."

"Probably," he tells her with genuine regret. "If I can swing by, I promise to. Drop me the address and I'll see if I canw rap everything up in time?" He makes his way through the house with her.

Sparrow leans into Jens just a little, subtle comfort, and offers, "Maybe a private show later. Surely not half as entertaining without a crowd to camp it up for, but." She shrugs. Whatcha gonna do. When they get to the door, she turns toward him and pushes up to her toes to claim a kiss, soft and slow and lingering, if he lets it be. "I'll send you the address when we're there. Just in case." And, later, she'll send the painting over. Cuz right now? She's not much thinking about that.

Jens laughs and shakes his head, pressing back into the kiss and then nosing her a little. "Okay. I'll see you later. Private show sounds good. Different encore, anyway," he points out with a laugh, before he heads... down the street about twenty feet.