2020-01-12 - Close Quarters

Grant is admittedly impressed with the real estate in that curious way people do, but two-fold since he does, for all purposes consider Vyv an artist of an edible sort in a rather universal context. More... on that later. Walking in his fingertips float on the surface without actually touching down. He murmurs, "It's like you invite chaos into your home with a look but don't touch policy." He points to the view actually. Observation and not a criticism. Dark eyes take in the chiaroscuro of contrasting lights and darks set against the natural designs that are still structure in their own sense.

Feet plant at width of his shoulders looking out the window for a long moment either admiring it or really really really wanting to cruise those waves in the dark out there. Fingers push the violet strands back from his face looking back to Vyv curious and itching behind his ear. "What... what you feel when you stand here and look at that." Fingers flick to the surf that rolls navy under the moon with sharp contrasts with the light cutting a dance on the reflection. Homes are personal, usually. Too often they aren't. he's holding out hope here.

Vyv is absolutely an artist of an edible sort. Well, at least working in edible media. The former remains to be seen, and in this town, there may be more things than usual interested in doing the seeing. "Arguably my usual policy with chaos, yes," he says, which might be mild humour, might be mild flirting, and is definitely an observation he's actually giving some proper thought beyond the instant reply.

He's a few steps behind his guest, closing the door and pausing briefly as he passes the kitchen to flick open the top of a small, subtly intricate wooden box, slide a fingertip through and flick it closed again, hand brushing his pocket as he continues along to end up standing just beside Grant and regarding the same view, or as closely as parallax allows. "Mildly annoyed I'm not one floor up." That's probably a joke, even if it's an entirely dry one.

A proper answer requires a few moments more consideration, which it gets, his head cocked a fraction as he watches the waves -- the way the light falls across them, the movement of solid and shadow, the way things move from the only semi-predictable chaos of the water to the tidier landscape of the beach and man-made construction through to the crisp lines and contrasts and controlled departures of his own decor. "Calm," he says, a quiet and thoughtful tone, "The balance between the power of the earth and ocean there, and the power of the human mind and hand in here; a lever of which I'm standing at the fulcrum. Fragile but perfect equilibrium. Everything as it ought to be." One corner of his mouth curves upward, though the effect is different than more commonly; softer in a way, like some kind of homeopathic preparation of happiness. "Layers of a universe." He glances away from it, then, a little further than sidelong toward the younger man. "You?"

Bax listens as the paragon of order talks about the invitation of Chaos in limited capacity into the matrix of this carefully balanced sanctuary. Maybe it's telling of where they stand from very opposite ends of a spectrum or several, but right now in balance. How can this not be message on a message really?

Eyes glance to the side, head tilts to regard Vyv now standing with him on the plinth of nature's war outside where the elements keep changing sides. He listens though, very curious because dammit people generally interest him, and Vyv? Wel, he's taken interesting around the corner. His eyebrow rises a bit at the answer, but rather than answer right away just takes in he small details; how he says it, how he stands, how long he holds his breath before he answers, and how he honestly regards the medium with the smallest bit of reverence that shows at surface level. Quite something for a man that thinks he's in particular, quite closed off.

"A new inspiration." He doesn't watch the outside though. It must be something in the warm months when the biting cold of the air doesn't threaten to rob one of their sense of shelter and certainty. The window closed and the sky alight in the darkness with the rolling ink below is still tremendous in scope and intensity. His eyes study the chef's face and a faint, easy grin forms admitting, "To be honest I see a lot of things. The absence of colour making what is chosen to be not pop but... explode in... " Shit how to put this!? His hands draw from his pockets and fold the space in front of him without words but intent and expression. One's first language is always easier to speak to, but with it carrying the round of charades that tells not just concept but feeling and commitment to its impact.

"I see it like a visual silence so the a whisper fills the space louder than a scream; that you drew what you wanted to from the pallet outside in with the sun and surf." Looking around and up at the clean crisp lines that stop at the portico, "A stillness to the movement has contrast. Maybe appreciated. Maybe its learning... I dunno but it's the outside being let to creep in or maybe the inside breaking out... but hung on that moment...so I dunno what happens next but... it makes me want to try to paint it in only that. Raw intensity, man." His head dips to the side turning to him taking in how neatly Vyv fits into the structure and how very much, like the tiles and the surf he does not, but they're here. With a fondness in his tone he concludes, "Whether it's contestation or compliment? Fuck if I know. I dunno that's for me to judge. But I appreciate it."

There's something to be said for people who genuinely pay attention to the answers when they ask questions. That they learn things, for one, but there's also something magnetic about that sense of... appropriately, presence. Not caught in two questions ago or waiting a turn to ask the next, but here and now. Few methods are better for getting a glimpse of what there might be to see.

And that may be what puts a flicker of tension through Vyv's shoulders when he glances over and sees just how closely he's observed -- a flicker that almost certainly wouldn't be caught by someone watching less closely, and less experienced in closely watching. If it weren't for the drinks, it might not show even now, but they're there and so is it. A sudden awareness of a door left slightly ajar. But he's asked a question, and it's one he's inclined to genuinely pay attention to the answer for. It's not an answer that he expects. Not in general, and not while the other artist's focus is still on him, not the sea or the sky or their more immediate surroundings.

"...do you," he says, not quite a question, head lightly cocked as he studies Grant in return. The tiny tension fades again as he listens to the rest -- watches the rest. He's mostly unfamiliar with ASL, but he's spent plenty of time among people who speak less literally with their hands, in one mode or another. A ghost of a nod meets the observation of the colour against its absence, the elaboration to visual silence and the effect of a whisper pushing it onward to a smile. Slight at the lips, but his eyes brighten like the moon through the window. They stay on the skater while he talks; the chef knows what's out there, but the way Bax looks it over, and perhaps some of those same small details, those tell different stories.

"Contrast and complement are..." and finally he does look away again, gaze sweeping over the decor around them, the whites and woods broken by the sudden small touches of vibrant colour, the clean lines and curves set off by the occasional highly irregular and organic shape, "integral. A lack of complement is simply a mess. A lack of contrast is dead. But together..." He faces Grant entirely as he studies him, this time, taking a step nearer, just into what qualifies as personal space. "If you paint it? I think I'd like to see that. What's in your mind."

A beat, and the tilt of his head goes a bit farther, gaze flicking that same direction, "But I'm being a terrible host. Did you want something to eat or drink?" Not that he moves at all away in anticipation of doing something about it, just regards him again.

Information is just not easy to pick up as some people take for granted, but he does get, what he considers, the information that matters. But Vyv's guard is faulty thanks to the Mai Tai's and the assault of pointed questions to pick the lock guarding the honest answers.

Brown eyes shift back to the light and dark through the window. They're making plans like acorns preparing to grow into a tree standing still or run off with squirrels on adventure. Who really knows? It resonates though and there's a shift of glimmer to the guy as he muses the many wondrous tiny details as if hoping to capture them all and unable to remember them each in their enormity of magnanimous detail.

When Vyv turns to him stepping into his personal space his attention snaps back to Vyv studying the intensity and that small 'want' that reaches out like a curious finger to tap on his glass in the most figurative of senses. He's given an offer; a trade really. Opposite sides of the coin, the glass, an ideology, the contrast, the working metaphor but present in this same space without actually meeting.

Until now.

With the request left offered open Grant turns his hands up to sign in that space and pauses looking a his hands, and breaks the space letting his fingers come to rest in gesture between two of Vyv's shirt buttons. He's choosing to try an be understood as he can when his eyes follow up from his fingers to Vyv's angular, chiseled face admitting, "I think... when I make it you're supposed to be there. It's weird and I don't know you that well to say, ''Hey, man, be part of my process?''" He'll leave the bar and go home with a guy, but having him present while he paints is the personal part.

Eyes flicker to the window and back to him with curious admission though it's not flattery as much as it could be, "I dunno, vicar," His finger reaches up to itch his temple looking at his fingers analyze the fabric they rest on as if it might be somehow telling, and it could be. To Vyv's face his attention returns hoping he doesn't sound as insane as it feel it maybe should but doesn't, "I feel like I can spend four days talking to you without it being daylight yet, and... I'm kinda pissed if we did the daylight will show up and bring the banality back, and I don't... want that right now." The request though to show him what's on his mine was not forgotten and the curl of a small smile forms, "Most people freak out when I do." And he could walk into Vyv's head and show him the dancing colours and the hallucinatory terrain inside, but this doesn't happen for all there's that shimmer that hangs in his magnetic field all charged up. "You want to be shown or part of it. because I'm insanely curious how either's going to affect how it turns out."

It could be; the fabric does have things to say, quietly. First the tie, which guards the placket and buttons, and needs to be pushed slightly aside; the goldenrod silk is sleek but the blue feathers that tumble down it are hand-painted, faintly stiffening the material. Then the shirt itself, cotton soft as high-end bedsheets between the simple mother-of-pearl buttons. The warmth of the body beneath transfers faintly through the cloth. And the wearer stays quite still, watching the owner of the fingers without moving away.

"Am I?" Does Vyv sound faintly pleased with the idea? Not surprised, nor dubious, and it's very definitely not committing in either direction as yet, but... yes. Faintly pleased, nonetheless. Being addressed as Vicar gets that little half-smile again, gaining another fraction at the remark about pre-daylight discussion. Maybe it doesn't sound entirely insane? "Well, I do have black-out curtains," he says, with a small gesture away from the main body of the apartment, "but no, not quite the same, is it. Now will keep insisting on turning into then." He doesn't actually tut at it for that, but it's not too hard to imagine. Even with the slight smile. Maybe especially. "But it isn't yet."

Most people freak out when I do. Whether or not the Glimmer-infused version of sharing what's in one's mind has occurred to Vyv, that ought to be a warning, surely. And perhaps it does register as one, but not exclusively. "Strong curiosity is a perilous quality," he remarks, quirking a brow, but it's wry enough that is likely isn't merely a comment on his companion. There's no movement of his hands yet, beyond one drifting toward his own pocket, but a tiny shift of weight has him infinitesimally closer, almost felt more as a tiny pressure back against the fingers than it's seen, and blue eyes search the brown ones for a breath, as though they might reveal a glimpse of this danger behind them. "I think, Colonel... 'part of' sounds rather intriguing."

If he's honest this is the most fun he's had sober in a long ass time. All manner of information travels from source by the motes. To much of the world Vyv's been called everything from hot with fury to cold and unyielding. So guarded and an unexpected source of rampant curiosity for the graffiti artist. Fingers bend, fingertips to the back of the tie contemplating the texture, the small painted details; the back of his fingers resting against the high weave cotton, the heat, the thunder imprisoned in meat and bone beyond. He's pulled a micron closer, but the lean into is pulled to keep him there.

The poetic mind leaving Bax to wonder if it's really some caged elemental force or construct. Other parts of his curiosity wondering verily what Vyv would look like stripped out of his body not in a macabre sense, but his mind liberated from form and thrown against the sky. Some of these curiosities trail and form from him poking at the edges of their discussion. There's a wry smile, delighted and charmed really as the chef toys with the metaphor and the nowness. "Nah, there's time."

"Hey," Both eyebrows shoot up with casual ease defending the profits of peril, "No risk no reward. Strong curiosity is the root of invention. How else do we test ourselves...what we think we try something we don't plan on?" There's a pause though and he squints in admission rather than suspicion, "I'll be honest I want more than anything right now to walk up in your skull and crawl around and see what colour the world is in there, but I think it'd almost be better if you showed me your way."

Sober would be overstating on Vyv's part, though so would drunk... and either way, this is decidedly more fun than he was expecting of the evening. Okay, that wasn't a particularly high bar, but all the same, it's been cleared by Olympic athlete at a school sports day distances. Already.

And of course the skater is defending the dividends of danger. There probably isn't a thing he can do on that board that wasn't won with blood at some point. The chef looks faintly dubious again nonetheless. "Root of invention, mm? I always heard necessity was the mother, and I'm fairly sure sheer bloody-mindedness is the father. I'm not sure what that makes inspiration -- champagne, candlelight, and Marvin Gaye?" Brows lifted, a faint smirk at his own invocation of cliche. But as long as it's merely rhetorical, he can live with himself. "Are we considering simple failure of an idea as sufficient peril?" He's no fan of failure, to be fair. But is it the fractured wrist of creativity?

The image of crawling around in his skull is both terrifying and intriguing; it's strangely easy to imagine a downright instinctive slamming shut of any potentially permeable portals, an instant protection of that most sovereign land. And at the same time, there's temptation in the way Vyv studies him. He's asked the same, after all, if not in quite the same terms. "Every colour I know," he replies, "though usually not all at once. Every scent and flavour. My way... mm." The focus flicks toward the kitchen, then back. "We show people all the time. Isn't that what art is? But do you want to be shown... or part of it?" It's an invitation, though without precise specification as to 'to what'. "Because I'm rather curious myself."

A beat, and the corner of his mouth curls slightly upward again. "And yes, I did hear what I just said about strong curiosity. But I'm not entirely averse to just a little bit of peril. And..." The hand that had drifted toward his pocket rises, the quarter sandwiched between the tips of his index and middle fingers extending beyond either and glinting in the light, and the cool metal edge of the coin finds the turn of the shorter man's jaw, just below his ear, and runs idly along that contour, then in to brush the bottom edge of his lower lip, "thus far I can't quite seem to figure out," it reverses, along the bottom edge of the jaw and down the veins at the side of the neck, into the groove where it meets the collarbone and over until the curve of the quarter settles into the dip at the base of the throat, lingering lightly, "...precisely where this ought to be inserted."

Grant can't not snicker at inspiration embracing the tropes of champagne and candles and R+B. The look reads seriously?! He doesn't even have to sign it for emphasis. Bemused he hesitates to answer and murmurs, "Possibly the greatest of all threats on a sliding scale. Sure. Yes." His fist nods in a signed agreement as well. IT counts, dammit. Now would Bax go cave exploring in someone's skull? Well the good money is on yes if no one's done it before so he can see what there is to see and to know.

The grin holds enjoying the proverbial walk on this mountain ridge of possibilities to explore or base jump off of head first. "That's what it was supposed to be last time I checked. Now it's pretty mass marketed. It's why I like to get hands-on with my medium." His eyebrow stays arched watching what Vyv does with his thoughts, his answers, and resisting the urge to peek in there. That's for the sleeping world and right now he's enjoying being very, very awake. "All. of. the above." There's something else he might say. There might be cleverness in it and some word game there to counter with but he lowers the verbal arms to surrender to honesty, "To be truthful? I just want to strip the walls off you and watch you create something new. I want... to make you want to make something new." It's a LOT to ask and really of all the things he could ask of a guy he picked up in a bar? It's somehow the most personal thing he can think of. Other things might be personalized, but not personal it's entirely different.

But there. he said it. His intents are out there lay in the open. It's when the quarter appears in Vyv's fingers that there's a delighted, throaty laugh. The contoured edge of the metal passing his lip pulls his eyes shut to just hang onto the tactile sensation of the exchange for posterity...or as long as his limited memory allows. His chin tips up and though he figured the previous discussion would come back around it doesn't mean he's not impressed with theme carrying through the evening's canvas.

Fingers now pull on that tie in answer to the question leaning in, lips to ear leaning into the quarter, and inside that space, "Well... if you paint for me later, I'd say wherever you like." And now? Fingers reach up to pluck the quarter from the chef's fingers; wrapping around coin and digits. "You can take me wherever. It's right in the Coin Operated Boy codex."

Look, something has to get necessity and bloody-mindedness in the mood to become parents! ...but no. Not seriously. Vyv is... having fun. Grant's grin is mirrored more subtly in the chef's eyes and that much slighter turn of his lips.

"Hands-on work does have much to recommend it." He'll just let the innuendo stand on its own, it doesn't need any help from tone or emphasis to do its job. And the odds of sticking to cleverness and word-games would probably be pretty high, if it weren't for that sudden breakout of straightforwardness on the skater's part. For all that some of the questions and answers have already risked lighter applications of that armour than others, the clarity and openness of this one leave Vyv silently charmed. The specific desire expressed probably doesn't hurt, either, even if it isn't the one that gets addressed first.

Any good artist knows the power of a good through-line, and the delight in Grant's laugh is almost as gratifying as the other details of the reaction, closed eyes and tilted chin committed to visual memory just as much as they're serving the tactile. He follows the pull on his tie, that little curl of a smile spreading slowly further at the reply; there's a slow, deep, silent breath evident more in the shift beneath the tie than anything else. He doesn't fight the claiming of the coin, and the fingertips, freed of their burden, slip upward. The index finger hooks into the collar around the shorter man's neck, drawing on it in a similar manner to the pressure on his own tie, though in this case, it's to kiss him.

Breaking the kiss, he pulls only an inch or so away, eyes closed. "Rum, citrus, sugar, butter, cloves, a herbal note," he murmurs, "Earth and fire." His eyes open. "Something in that." Something, presumably, new.

It gets only a breath of full consideration for now, left to percolate as the corner of his mouth eases upward, bringing an eyebrow along for the ride. "Wherever. Who could ever, ever ask for more?" The tiny smile grows a touch as he turns, finger still hooked into the collar, and leads the way toward a door. "Come along, then. I have some thoughts on where to start."