2019-10-30 - Gourd-geous. Simply Smashing, Pumpkin

Sparrow has been promise gourds. Well, gourd. Singular. Sure, she told Grant to bring a second for himself, but that won't be her gourd, will it? The kitchen has been set up to receive them, a disposable plastic table cloth spread across the kitchen table with a couple of bowls, scoops, pencils, knives and various tools ready to go. These gourds aren't making it out of here whole and unaltered. The redheaded rocker is wearing a white tee shirt with a faded logo that might've been a Care Bear a few decades ago but is now the ghost thereof, the garment at least second-hand. It's paired with jean shorts despite the autumn chill outside, this summery attire suiting her bright mood a bit better. When Grant arrives, there's already music playing, with K.Flay singing about Good News. Definitely a bop.

Grant arrives on Oak and rings the doorbell and has a cardboard box with 4 moderate sized pumpkins. His foot tap tap taos on the door and he props it against the frame calling out, "Heeeey Sparrow? Can you get the door? I um, I don't do that... thing.... people do." The one to just open them. "Box. Heavy."

Looking very proud of himself he greets, with a grin, "I wanted to make sure the wait did not disappoint." There are four. Four of them. he said one and now one is many. "The grow shop didn't have a ton and I thought yeah grab myself one and then I remembered out text and thought AJ might like one and I didn't want to leave your brother out because he's adorable and scary as hell with knives."

"Hands?" Sparrow calls back on her way toward the door. "You don't do hands?" When she opens it, she looks shocked as her gaze dips to his hands--as they hold up said very heavy box--then up to his eyes. She just shakes her head disapprovingly, clearly having bit mislead. Despite that expression, she promises, "You could never disappoint," as she lets him on by, pointing toward the back where a table waits prepped for carving. Door closed behind him, she follows, explaining, "AJ's at work, I think. And... no idea where my knife-wielding twin is. But I do appreciate you considering the other people in my life. So thoughtful." She quicksteps to catch up with him so she can brush a hand to his back and kiss his shoulder on her way past. "So. Ground rules for tonight? You wanna talk about your bad dream or keep it entirely off limits?"

Grant says in agreement holding the box with both. "I don't have hands!" Still there is the siapproving look btu more is never bad unless you are trying to catch a lawn dart.

"Well they might be having a bad day and so long as the power doesn't go out and rats don't lunge at me? Yeeeah. Yeah we can talk about it." He sets the box on teh kitchen chair instead of the work space and murmurs, "Is Corey gonna try to turn one of these into a lamp on us? cause that's sort of the purpose of the Jack o Lantern already UNLESS... we add lampshades to kinda go with your house."

"No rotting lamps," Sparrow says of pumpkinifying 7 Oak's collection of weird light sources. "These beauties are going outside." With the box set down, she starts pawing at the pumpkins, pushing them around to get an idea of their size and shape, figuring out which one she might wanna work with. While she does peruses and plans, she asks, "So. No seahorses and headspouts this time? Did you, uh. Wake up at home and all? You need somewhere safe to sleep?"

Grant spreads out the newspaper and pulls a pumpkin out of the box after she picks hers and sets it down. Artists with knives. Beware world! From behind his ear tucked against the appliance there he pulls a small golf pencil and gives her a lazy grin, "As you wish." Now is where he looks at his pumpkin and murmurs, "What will you be, gourd ward?" Biting his lip those dark brown eyes look up to her and one squints looking back down with a sobered look and a small shake of his head. He leans forward palms to teh table. "We were stuck in this glass room where everything was so whie we didn't realize there was this giant ostrich egg deal in the middle of the room, or cabinets. No door. And theroom started going gold.. and orange and closer to red and it was getting warmer and warmer."

Sparrow sinks into a chair in front of her pumpkin, the widest of the lot, all squat and round. She plucks up a wax pencil to start sketching, paper towel on hand just in case she needs to rework her design. When Grant looks up, she looks over, brow arched curiously even as her smile sinks toward a sympathetic frown. Her pencil-holding hand reaches over, covering one of his, even if it means getting black smudges on one of her knuckles. Gold and orange and red all sound good to her, optimism glinting in her brown eyes. Until the mention of temperature. With a squeeze of his hand, she asks, "Did you get out?"

Grant shakes his ehad slowly, pink strands swaying. "Nah. There was this egg there though like... 8" 10" tall? Started to crack so I tried to reach out to it and it... sort of latched onto me?" His lower eyeslids pull up curious looking to Sparrow, "You know how someitmes you really want to know what someone's thinking and then you sort of know? it's a lil like that but like... you know. Like I got that ESPN thing." Pressing his lips together he flips the pumpkin on his back and arches an eyebrow, "It's why mom left I guess. but it freaks people out and I wanted to ya know help this baby into the world. IT was really cool." And he looks to her with that disappointment at how very not it was. "Not. Cute."

Sparrow looks like she might start sketching again, pencil poised upon pumpkin, but... she doesn't. It just hovers there while she watches Grant, while she listens. She breathes a quiet laugh when he admits to reaching out toward the hatching egg, a warm smile turned his way. Yeah, that sounds like the Bax she knows. "Empathy, yeah. You've always been good at that, gorgeous." There's no reason for her to speak so quietly, but something about the taletelling makes her wanna keep her commentary secondary, soft. Frowning for the last two words, her nose crinkles. "Fucking terrible. Turning your good stuff against you like that."

the compliment flies home and that is certainly something he's not going to turn down. Awww who has huge pumpkins and preens like a spraypainted peacock? Dis guy! "Kinda like empathy but sometimes I jsut... I dunno I connect with people. I dunno if it's cause the city ihas like isotopes in it and we get affected by them like... I dunno the Fantastic Four or something. Maybe we're born with it or maybe it's Mayballene with cosmic rays. Who ... who really knows."

Taking a deep breath he sketches and starts working on the pumpkin. He doens't know what it's going to be yet. His tone drifts away thoughtful, curious and a little bit worried. "The thing I spoke with hissed and had like... dripping fangs. If Venom inhabited some six legged ichor leaking no-eyed rat from an egg that tried to consume every happy memory I ever known? thiiiis would have been that." His eyes squint shut and there is a moment of stillness and a sniff before he nods. Yeah it was... no I didn't wake up in my bed. I woke up on the floor with my sheets tangled around the burn mark." He squints looking to her with clumbed eyelashes but otherwise keeping levity in this, "I really much prefered riding the seahorsie. They were super cool."

Now is not the time for lewd jokes, Sparrow Jones. It's not difficult to see the suggestion of connecting written across her features, with lascivious little grin, that suggestive arch of one brow. But she's nice and keeps that dirty little thought to herself, instead telling him, "AJ had an experience with a seal this summer," in a not at all sexy way, how her eyes go all wide and spooky like that, the grin that was there a moment ago now gone. It's not something she elaborates on. Not now.

Now, she focuses on her pumpkin, letting the wax pencil drag over its curves and ridges to form some horrifyingly toothy shapes spaced like eyes. There's a ... brief hesitation for the mention of fangs, but it's only momentary. These are many-toothed maws. Fangs tend to come in pairs, right? Her pencil does still at the memory consumption, though, as she looks up with furrowed brow, with a very real, if reserved, fear in her eyes. She doesn't rise with him when he returns to seahorses, instead lingering on, "Burn mark?" and, "Did it take anything?"

Grant is trying to rally. The one thing he's not good with is masking his feelings. Part of what's good in him is how much he can hope and feela nd the downside is how very openly he wears hsi feelings. His dad can be disappointed but the truth is Grant would make a shit lawyer. He's spooked and his teeth tap together. Reaching down he pulls up one leg of his cargo pants to show a spiral bruise that looks healed, just discoloured. Really more of an ink spatter if someone was writing the black and it faded to purple like sharpie does. "Kinda got a piece of me but Kass mostly patched it up." He pauses and murmurs absently, "She should get a pumpkin." He'll likely leave it on her porch and she'll possibly trip over it and consider it having been laying in wait to get her... but it's the thought that counts right?!

Is that a downside? Sparrow would whole-heartedly disagree, being of a similar ilk. She tips to the side to get a look at the discoloration lingering on Grant's skin, her hold on her pencil growing worryingly tight. "Kass?" she wonders. That's the easy part, getting some identity attached to an unfamiliar name. The rest of this is way harder. And way harder to articulate. Flexing her fingers to get some motion back in them, she returns her focus to her pumpkin art, the teeth increasingly jagged and sharp, an expression of her own prickly feelings.

Grant nods slightly and looks up to Sparrow. OH good she's still there. Excellent. he's not hallucinating sober right now. Taking a deep breath he says, "Kinda... like me really. Red orange hair like someone set the sun on fire. I think you'd like it." Ignore the fact the sun is fire. Apparently add more of it. Words are sometimes hard, and that might be why he paints. "She draws. Got stuck over There for... a while. Nice, though. I gave her my chalk. She didn't have any." Whole thoughts become mosaic as he spits out what he can grasp and offer up in tithe to his muse.

With some shame he confesses, "It was a bad week. Halloween isn't entirely going as I hoped." Taking a deep breath he leans over and presses a kiss to the top her her head, "Sometimes days do that I guess."

"Over there," Sparrow echoes. It's not quite a question. More an acknowledgement of something she doesn't understand, something she's not sure she wants to understand. Not right now. Not while she's fighting back irrational anger at... what? Weird dreams? What can she even do with that? Stab a pumpkin, that's what. With her sketch done, it's time to empty this sucker out, and so she drives a knife in a few inches from the stem at an angle to start sawing off a lid so she can scoop out its guts. "Bad weeks happen, Bax. Just cuz they're happening more lately and getting weirder than I know how to deal with doesn't mean that there aren't still wonderful things that make it worth getting through the bullshit." She pauses half-way through the circle to look at him--no sawing while not watching--then look toward the basement door, then back down and back to carving. "It's why we art, right? Part of it? To get make the world brighter when it tries to be otherwise."

Grant stands there nervous. All of his wires don't always connect and it doesn't stop the signal from wanting to get out. An eye flinches slightly but he stands there quietly trying to wrap his hands around the sides he can reach. in spite of that there's a smile to her and that feeling he rallies to. "Well," he drawls, "That's exactly why we do it. because we're not the only ones and what if someone can't 'art'? Gotta help them out."

His hand leaves his pumpkin and rests on her shoulder. She's trying to be there for him. He doesn't know what to do. She doesn't' know what to do, but the standing still and trying? It seems to read. "Loved the party by the way. I'm really glad you invited me. Your other friends are pretty dope."

Sparrow breathes a quiet, "Yeah," for the arting for others. "Should show you what I've got in the basement." Her head tips to his hand, red hair trapped briefly between cheek and knuckles. "I'm glad you made it. Never been proposed to before--" Did he actually propose? Psh. Details. "--and definitely not by anyone who actually deserves a whole-hearted yes, so." She blows a kiss as she starts to wiggle the pumpkin's lid off. "Though, gotta say, that ring came home way worse for wear. Coulda been some kinda glitter-critter. It's dead now. Had to clean and kill it. You understand. But it definitely lived well for one night." With the lid popped free, she starts scooping with a big metal spoon, scraping the innards from the gourd.

Grant grins pretty damn proud of that standing up a bit straighter, "Well thank you Dream-Wife." The pumpkin knife twirls in his fingers. He's not the drummer, she is, but habits one finds. Today is less stabby stabby and more scrapey scrapey approach to his pumpkin. "Ooooh is it a cool creepy murder cellar or secrets of a civilization hidden from the cruel banal reality of the world?" The eyebrow goes up but he chissels away making sure he doesn't fuck up hand or gourd. "Also, ya know, the easiest solution to that is just replacement rings. I mean if someone cares the gifts keep a-comin right? I think I can handle an anniversary ring pop."

"I might hold you to that," Sparrow teases in regards to anniversary ring pops, but goodness knows she probably isn't gonna remember. When did they pop into Pleasantville? Shrug. "And I'm preeeeetty sure there's no such thing as cool murder cellars. Murder cellars are, by their very nature, inherently uncool. Since they're where people get murdered." She bends forward as she tips her pumpkin toward her, tilting it this way and that to make sure it's all good and clean inside. Once satisfied, she plunks back into her seat and takes up her own carving knife to get to work on some teefs. "Did I tell you about the first time dreams went weird for me? It wasn't all that long ago. Like. My dreams have always been more vivid here, when I'm home? But they were always just mine. Until the darkness swallowed Alfie and--" Her voice catches, and she redirects. "Did I tell you about that?"

Grant has no real concept of time on a good day. The odds are great they will just show up and that time will be the designate time for sugary jewels. He pauses and has to give her that one and offers questionably, "Well one can kill time in one. But... yeah people hurt are a total bummer. " Stillness follows and he stares at his pumpkin and looms back to her, head tilting and voice quiet, wondering; concerned and curious, "Well I know Alfie's more or less walking around and still going to work or whatever so... that's a good sign but, no." The knife gets folded back against his arm and set down on the table as his arms loosely fold. "Naw ya didn't though. You want to tell me or show me?" It's a curious phrasing but Bax always has had his own way of sampling the world and interfacing with it. Whatever it is his attention is hers.

"Are you a time murderer, Grant Baxter?" Sparrow asks with feigned accusation, like this would be some sort of horrific revelation. But they're onto heavier things again, aren't they? She keeps on carving out teeth one minute sliver at a time, giving them depth and definition, leaving the angry eyes full of rows of razor-sharp chompers, even as she answers. "I think it's a tell then show sorta thing." Does she get what he was offering? Maybe not. "Was, uh. Few weeks ago? Month or so now? Had this dream where I was ... working on something. Sitting in the bathtub with my pillow and blankets all comfy like, just sketching, except nothing was going right and I couldn't figure out what it was. Then Alfie wandered in, and I kept sketching while we walked, but he pulled up one of my earbuds and listened to what I was listening to and..."

She stops her carving, looking up at Grant. "The floor just opened up and swallowed him. I banged on it until I woke up and rushed to his room to find he wasn't there. I dunno--I dunno why but I was sure the floor really swallowed him, and I couldn't figured out where he'd gone. And I didn't know what to do. Monica and Corey sat with me for a while, but--" She glances toward the basement door again. "It was a couple hours later that I found him in the basement. In the darkness. Didn't know how he'd gotten there. Except, ya know, we did. Cuz he remembers falling through the floor into darkness." Looking back to her pumpkin, then, she tells him, "I'm making it not dark. Making it ours. Sacred and strange."

Grant listens and gets to the part about bathtub camping, "Shit that's romantic as fuck, I'm a have to try that if our bathtub'll ever get clean clean." Thought for later. Bax? Bax, focus man. There we go. Then there's the story of portals and his eyebrow arches high, "Woah trands sub-space subway tiles... okay that's... freaky but I will let you know, while scary...always? Sometimes space is a fluid construct. My suggestion is keep your phone on so you can track its location. Also buy a metal detector." Sound advice. Taking a deep breath he takes a moment to process that and looks to her and murmurs, "Scary losing control. Seeing things happen to others. Not being able to... DO. "

Brown eyes watch her for a moment, a long one, absorbing the colour and emotion of her. "I'd freak out too. I um... I talked to my dad and he doesn't... see the world like we do. He told me sometimes, ya know, we can't control the situation but we have to trust ourselves. Or change the situation and... he says that but I'll be honest I'm not great at it but it like... it gives my thoughts something to focus on when things get really damn scary like rats exploding in ink and eating all the colour and light, or when I lose the ability to speak and everything comes apart. But... if things come apart they have to have a way of going back together. Maybe we need to find a way to make a hole. Chase. Follow. I dunno but... " His brow furrows and a half smile forms, "I believe you. I mean I fell through the sidewalk a few times. Sometimes the world goes black and white and I have the most amazing company to confront the unknown with and the scary can be kinda cool."

He pauses and shifts in his seat, "He okay? AJ all like trippin balls after? he tell you what happened to him?"

"You didn't see my bathtub and instantly wanna just fill it with pillows and jump in with some marshmallows and wine?" Sparrow's bedroom is huge, and her bathroom is proportionate. Grant's surely seen it by now, having borrowed her shower at least once in recent memory. A shower that is separate from the bathtub which is big enough to easily fit two comfortably and has controls for temperature, jets and some other more esoteric functions. It's amazing. Someone won the bathtub lottery. "Any time you wanna..." Dream-husbands get open invitations to bathtub camping, clearly.

She holds up a finger at his comment about phones and tells him, "He was sleeping. His phone was charging next to his bed. Empty bed. By the time I went looking." Which is to say that the damned thing was not the help it could've been if it had actually been on his person when he poofed. But that bit about helplessness? "Yeah," all quiet and grave. That's exactly it. The worst of it. The impotence in the face of something hurting those you love. As he philosophizes about terror and how to navigate it, she seems to really listen, eventually reaching out to squeeze his nearest arm. Nodding, "Yeah. He doesn't sleep much. More now that it's been a while, but he'd go days right after it happened. Nothing but sugar and caffeine and fear." She skips over the details about what happened, but there's a sense that she knows. "Maybe when we're done here, I'll show you what I'm working on. Or maybe you can wait until I'm done. Still finishing up some of it. Big piece. Two whole walls." With a smile, she adds, "Mostly yellow."

Grant slowly grins at the invitation with a slow nod. Hells yeah he's taking her up on that offer! He pauses and blinks. A finger goes up, knife left on the table as he suggests in his I am wise because I have this idea I have untested voice(tm) "When he's asleep tape his phone to his body." Okay it's a temporary solution. Still he pauses and promises gently something he's really good at, "It's alright to be afraid. I used to wake up like that as a kid, and I ,"

Her hand rests on his arm and a smile flickers on like power to an old motel sign that there's vacancy again and someplace to go. "One night it was real bad and I didn't know if I'd sleep again. And like he was still in school and had to work the next day but he sat up all night with me watching Monsters Inc til I went to sleep again like, sometimes we can be afraid but standing still is what we gotta learn how not to do. Don't make us weak it makes us human and humans can be insanely cool." Leaning over he rests lips against the side of her hair and just enjoys the moment and the smell of her shampoo. "Like you and... this is you not standing still and I'm really like flattered you shared that with me."

Pausing his eyes look up at teh ceiling and a faint, impish grins form, "I can think of a number of things to do maybe. When we're done here. But first? Yellows. Yis. Like the sun coming up."

Sparrow tips into that kiss to the side of her head, eyes closing for the duration. The room smells like pumpkin guts, but this close? She smells like apples and flowers grounded in musk, softened by smoke. "And how many of them involve my bathtub?" she wonders of that number of things that might be running through Grant's head, angling a sly, low-lidded look his way. She grins wide, and some of that contentment lingers even when the conversation circles back to less fun things. "Like the sun coming up. Cuz fuck the devouring darkness." Nevermind that her jack-o-lantern in the making looks hungry as fuck, those toothy eyes rather terrifying. "I just wish I knew how to ward against it, ya know? Like. That's what the art's for. To tell it to fuck off. That we don't want any. That and the rainbows." All the colors she painted on the porch posts out front after the Pleasantville experience. "And like--" She gestures with her knife, but just a little, nowhere in range of stabbing anything. "What's this whole play along bullshit? Why do we want to do that? Why, if I am being shoved into something against my will, should I just go along with it? That's exactly when we should be fighting! ...Right?"

Grant just holds the grin and says cryptically dangling that carrot, "Liiiike the first seven." And this is why artist mentalists are more fun. He considers and points to the pumpkin, "From my experience? The world on both sides of the paper is messed up because it's the same sheet of paper, even if you turn it over. What I've found works... best?" At all!? "Is try to find the good. Mr. Rogers says when you're afraid find the helpers. Be the helpers. As for fighting back? Eeeh some folks say liiiiiiike," His voice drifts off, "there's shadows, the dark? Wants us to be afraid, soooo but like not? Kinda starve em and maybe then you stop becoming a tasty snack. Sometime, I'll be honest? I'm just too fucking stoned to remember to be afraid and it's kinda neat."

Is that high arch of Sparrow's dark brows that clearly denotes curiosity for those first seven or for how many more there are after that? Who knows. It doesn't matter. They'll surely find a good one somewhere on the list and then run off-script as usual. They can throw a metaphorical dart after the carving's done. She leans back while she listens, gauging some final touches on her terrifying jack-o-lantern of too-many-teeth, still working as she answers. "Hufflepuffliest," comes on a sigh, not actually disapproving despite the feigned resignation. "I'd rather kick 'em in the teeth than stave 'em. But I get your point. I can be a helper." She's probably really good at it, too, if memory serves. There's just that reflexive urge to buck an oppressive system that she's gonna have a hard time ignoring. "Whatcha think?" The mouth is too wide, too full, crowded with rows of uneven teeth, that same jagged, razor-mawed mess shown in what should be eyes: the Corinthian in gourd form, without his sunglasses. He'll look even more horrifying with a candle in him and the lights out.

Grant croons, "Iiiii think kill em with creativity. " He snickers at the Huffelpuffiest and his nose wrinkles, "I dunno. Preeeetty certain I'm a Griffyndor. Been a while since I took the test though." He flips his pumpkin around and it's Rainbow Brite silhouette on a bike with Twink in the basket like ET. He smiles. There, that makes him happy. It's not really terribly Halloween themed but it isn't not either. "I think," He itches the top of his nose with the back of his wrist, "she'll do a great job of warding the weird off your way. I think it's what they used to do with them. Scare off thedarkness being a thing of light. Some guy into all of that tried to explain it to me once but, eeeeeeh he was really good looking and I was entirely way to distracted. Sorry not sorry. But I think ya got a winner there."

"Gryffledor," Sparrow corrects, nevermind if it's incorrect. She's certain all that goodness inside him has gotta get some representation somewhere, even if she's more than willing to welcome him into her own house. When Bax turns his pumpkin around, her expression goes all soft and dopey. "She's perfect," is practically squeed as pumpkin-covered hands come up to cover her mouth, half-hiding her smile. That gesture is then followed my a swipe of her arm over her pumpkin-smudged face even as her hips shimmy in a giddy little dance. "I love how sleek you made Starlite," she croons of the two-wheeled steed. A snort of laughter follows for the comment about the guy trying to educate him on warding against awfulness, a nod marking her agreement on that sorta distraction. Of her own pumpkin, she croons, "He's gonna eat all the bad dreams. Nyarnyarnyar!" And then creeps up on Bax and nyarnyarnyars at his neck, murmuring, "And maybe some of the good ones, too," against his damp skin. With a nudge to his hips, she urges, "Bathtub thoughts first. Then we can clean up." Or she'll come down and find it all already cleaned. "Do we need any supplies?"

Grant grins and accepts the change, "If you tell me I'm some sort of Gryffypuff, I'll trust you." The nomnomnom gets a laugh and a totally in despair" Oh nooooes!" And while the peril might not be genuine the grin absolutely is. "Well then we'll ahve to find new ones if they eat them all. Rainbow is good like that." Looking around he grins and says to needing supplies, "Yeeees. Yes we do." And into the kitchen quick he raids the cupboard for a few things not excluding food colouring, rainbow sprinkles (the dino ones), and the whipped cream and cinnamon? He winks at her and says "Totally better than a pumpkin spice latte. Trust me."