2020-02-05 - What We Choose to Show

For all that Sparrow wants to poke and prod at Cristobal's comparison to Elias, she proves pretty damned easily distracted once they're on their way, debating all the places where that ticket might be traded in. She wasn't kidding when she tells him she's got a list, going through classrooms and coffee shops, comic shops and nightclubs. There's talk of dancing, more lamentation for her layers, but in the end, she urges, "Lemme play for you," instead, that idea catching more securely than all the idle daydreaming. She wants this. There might even be a 'please' in there somewhere, even if only implied in tone.

She offers directions toward 7 Oak Avenue, a rather big house in one of the nicer parts of town. It wouldn't be unreasonable to wonder if she still lives with her parents. She almost certainly doesn't live alone to judge by the lights still visible through a few windows. Outside, there are two cars in the drive, one of them her red Kia with its wide assortment of touristy bumper stickers, the other a bit less obnoxious. The porch posts are all painted line rainbows from top to bottom, the middle of each a vibrant sunshiny yellow in defiance of the dark night. Inside, the space is open, but there's no obvious movement from other occupants. Not that she doesn't pause just inside to listen, but wherever everyone's settled, she can't hear them. Which probably means it's safe. The layout is open, the decor sparse and patchwork, most notably featuring some odd lamps like a bust of what might have once been Jesus painted in neon colors with a large clock around his neck like he's gotta be on time for the rave.

With a quiet, "C'mon," she leads Cris toward the back of the house, from which he might glimpse the large backyard or the exquisite kitchen on their way to the basement.

Contrary to popular belief, Cris can take a hint, including the notion that he should be quiet as they move through the eclectically decorated expansive house - as far as he's concerned - towards the back of the house. "This live-in of yours isn't gonna come down here with a shotgun, is he? Because I'm warning you, I have no trouble clocking a gilipollas pointing a weapon at me, boyfriend or no." He puts a hand on the small of her back, as if protective against that very thought as they steer towards the stairway. His boots fall a bit heavily on the treads as they descend, giving a snort as he sees the mural when it comes fully into view. "As Dante would say: cheeky."

Sparrow has to stifle a laugh which might give them away, the shake of her head offering the 'no' that doesn't find its way to her lips. "Not AJ's style," she promises. "More likely to watch." Hard to tell if she's being honest with that, given that she looks back with a little waggle of her brows, wholly cheesy. She might not have been giving any thought to the mural when she suggested playing for him because when she looks back at that review of the work, her expression's gone a bit weird. Smiling still, yeah, but a little off. "It is, yeah," she agrees. "Biggest thing I've ever done on my own, and it still doesn't feel finished, but I needed the color." There was more there, the thought incomplete, cut off as she asks instead, "Want a drink? Got beer, water, coke down here," while she slips off her jacket.

Sparrow doesn't managed to get far away from him, the moment they stepped down into the basement Cris' hands seem to be on her. Her hair, her neck, her hip when she takes off her jacket. Everywhere he can touch like he's making up for lost time of being so restrained in public, although his fingers seem chaste for now. "You painted that?" He's impressed by the tone of his voice, his face angling to kiss her neck from behind as she offers refreshment. "Whatever." She could get him bilge water for all he cares right now, and he'd drink it with his usual smug smile.

Sparrow gives only the most passing thought to where she's going to set her jacet while she's caught in Cris' grip, none of the folding chairs or amps quiet close enough to do her much good. Rather than just drop it, though, she keeps it clutched in one hand while the other finds its way back to his body, curling around the outside of his thigh while she lets herself be held up. Drinks can wait. "Yeah." Head tipping toward his, trying to catch his expression out of the corner of her eye, she wonders, "Whatta you think?" as casually as she can manage, too much emotion tangled up in that inquiry to really sell nonchalance convincingly.

"What I think...is that you get more fucking fascinating by the second." Cris says as he nuzzles from that kiss up her jaw line and behind the shell of her ear, his next words tickling the lobe as his breath passes in almost a whisper. "It's brilliant. The colors, the fucking composition, the play on a classic image. Like an inside joke you let very few people in on." His fingers tickle up the arm that's gripping back at him, affectionate instead of carnal in intent.

Sparrow can't help but laugh at that phrasing, decidedly pleased, a distraction from all the nonsense kicking about in her head while the focus is on the mural. Not that she's looking at it, eyes closing as his affection travels decidedly out of sight. Another breath that might pass as laughter answers the praise, the assessment, even as her body answers the flutter of breath behind her ear with a faint tensing of her shoulder, a slight lean into him. "Joke's not the right word, but. Yeah." Fingers squeeze where they hold while she runs through a few different follow-ups, more thoughtful in this moment than she can usually manage. "Kinda a reference to Dark City. At a friend's suggestion. An allusion to the way Gray Harbor is. Sunshiny surface, but." Another attempt to glance back, and she wonders, "Can I ask you a question?" without waiting for answer. "Why'd you come get that reading when you've got your own means?"

Cristobal rumbles some sort of agreement about joke being the wrong word, done into her hair as he buries his nose in the bright locks as he continues to look at the mural, turning their combined bodies a little so he can get the full scope of it, ending his focus on the door where it rises up behind the drum set. He's quiet as he stares at it, but at her question the man behind her tenses. A squeeze to her shoulders and he's stepping away, under the guise of going in search of one of those beers. "Confirmation. It's one thing to throw the bones, and look for answers, but it's just as easy to bend the reading into something you want. Doing it in tandem with your Tarot, it was harder to just see what I what I desired." He finds the mini-fridge and pops it open, grabbing out two cans basically at random.

Fingers tighten again on his thigh as he orients them toward the door, as Sparrow's body draws up a little straighter, a little tenser, the unease not difficult to discern. Doesn't matter that she painted it there her own damned self; something about it still unsettles her. Cris moving away steals her attention, brown-eyed gaze following him for a few seconds before she makes for her kit, tossing her jacket on a chair along the way. The drum set looks like it's seen a good bit of use, not at all new. She's had it for years and has played it hard, parts replaced piecemeal, as needed. The bass drum has a spattering of stickers, including a small rainbow at the bottom, off-center, next to a My Little Pony Pinky Pie, both unobtrusive, and a very large pink circle with red lettering nearer the middle reading FEAR IS A LIAR.

A black-and-gold folding tray table sits within easy reach of the folding chair she flops into as he grabs those beers, both of them from Destihl Brewery's Wild Sour series, one Synchopathic, the other Here Gose Nothing. "I get it." She gives her bass a thump before scooting forward a bit, closer, getting a feel for her positioning. "It's really easy to do the same with the cards, but." She twirls one of her drumsticks idly as she looks his way again, the gesture seemingly more habit than showing off. "I think that's kinda important too sometimes, isn't it? Why's it bad to lean into what you want?"

Just as randomly as they are chosen from the fridge, one of the beers is set down on her little tray without paying much attention to the label. He ends up cracking open and sipping from Synchopathic without really appreciating any of it's flavor as it pours down his gullet. Microbrews seem to be lost on him. "But I need to find out why I'm not getting what I truly want. The Cups said that enough. I'm thinking with the wrong part of my anatomy." He goes to take up the chair she slung her jacket on, making sure it hangs on the back of the chair before he settles on the edge of the seat, knees sprawled wide with the beer dangling down between with a loose web of fingers.

"That what they said?" Sparrow counters with a crooked little and one arched brow, a bit of challenge in that look. Of course, she might have a bias about how well he's thinking, what with keeping her company and all. The stick flips again in her fingers as she resituates it, not intending to play just yet, given how she sinks back in her seat while she studies Cris. "Are we at a place yet where I can ask what it is you want or..?" She doesn't look like she'll be troubled by a no, but the curiosity's definitely sincere, more interest in that inquiry now than she'd shown at the time of the reading.

Cris looks down to his beer can, turning it between his long fingers before lifting one to flick a bit of condensation in her general direction, whether or not it can travel that far. "You mean the follow your heart, act with your gut, bit? You realize both of those things live in my pants, right? I'd rather fuck and be selfish than think." As to whether or not they're at a place that he should be answering the question as to what he wants, that gets a poke of his tongue into his cheek. A glance to her from the tops of his eyes that looks a little plaintive. "I wasn't visited on Deus de los Muertos." It's a half answer, but at least she gets a bit of one.

Sparrow's nose scrunches above an easy smile at the bit of water-flinging, even if the droplets fall short of catching her. The words which follow have her brows edging quickly upward in a way that makes plain her disagreement with at least some part of that logic, but she doesn't interrupt, giving that question a chance to be answered first. It might mean something, incomplete as it seems, given the distant sympathy which crosses her features. She knows what he means... even if it just conjures up more questions. "Don't know a lot about that," seems an invitation for explanation, an offer should he care to share more. "But I do know about where the heart and the gut are. Not just anatomically.

This has her shifting in her seat, turning until a corner of the chair is poking out past her thighs, knees parted a little wider than before, with her posture comfortably upright. "Heart's here," earns a tap to her sternum, right between her breasts, ignoring the correct position of that organ. "And it is very different from here." She taps the drumstick to the fly of her jean shorts. "Which is your gut." Up again. "Compassion, both outward and inward." Then down. "Drives. Both emotional and physical. From food to fucking and everything else. So. If I were acting with compassion right now? Listening to my heart? I might tell you that there's nothing especially selfish about pursuing what feels good. Thinking's how we trap ourselves, so." Her shoulders lift and hold in a long shrug, ending that thought in a weird place.

"Thinking is how we fix things, instead of just fucking ourselves into oblivion." Cris grumbles as he takes a sip of his beer, nose wrinkling slightly as if he just realized the sour notes to it, or perhaps this conversation is what's causing his discomfort. "Day of the Dead you build and ofrenda or an altar. You put pictures of your dead on it, and then offerings like the food they liked to eat or the things they took joy in, in life. And then, for that one night only, they are allowed to rise from the afterlife and visit you. There are stories... from Gray Harbor. From this year. Where people who don't even believe got visited." And he didn't.

Sparrow sits still as she listens, expression sinking toward something more pensive, something that may well transmit that there's a whole lot of thinking going on in her own head despite whatever nonsense she just spewed. Her gaze dips somewhere in the iddle of what he's saying, and her sticks are drawn together and set neatly back where she found them. Abandoning any intention of playing for Cris any time soon--and the beer he'd set down for her--she gets to her feet and draws closer, fingers reaching for his hair. If she's permitted that much contact, she goes right for more, stepping in closer until she's properly invading his personal space, creeping in between his knees. "First?" So gently spoken, so quiet. "You can fuck me into oblivion any time you'd like." Because this was the right time for that kinda irrevence, Phil. "And second?" She's a little slower to follow-up this point, to offer, "I might know some people who can help if you wanted to reach out."

Cris sets the beer behind him on the seat as she approaches, his hands on her hips as she threads fingers into his hair, uncaring that she invades and welcoming the oblivion comment by pressing a kiss to her stomach. "You know people with a direct line to Heaven, do you? Because God's ignoring my call, or at least texting back with 'new phone who dis' for as much as my prayers have made had any effect. So my question for the stones and your cards both was: Do I stay in Gray Harbor, or do I spend the next eight months searching for another place where the veil is thin. Everything pointed to staying."

Sparrow's short, darkly polished nails drag back along his scalp, stilling for just a second to press more firmly and encourage more contact at that kiss. Then it's back to the languid petting, to watching him with an off-center smile which doesn't wholly fit the tone of the conversation. It only grows wider when she snorts a laugh for how he explains his relationship with God, and it stays just that broad when she tells him, "I'm glad you stayed. Selfishly. Greedily. Way rather be stuck with you than your tupperware." Brows pitch upward as she goes on, "But no. I mean, maybe. I don't generally ask after people's relationship with God, but. I do know people who keep the company of ghosts, nuts as that sounds, and. Well. Your boyfriend's boyfriend legit owns an occult bookstore. With reason. He knows some stuff."

Cristobal gives Sparrow a disbelieving look about Elias. "That soft bellied..." He's about to say some disparaging remark about Elias, but he bites it back and merely shakes his head in the negative. "She's not a ghost, Sparrow. She went peacefully, surrounded by people who loved her. There's no unfinished business for her here. She's safely in the Lord's embrace. October thirty first is my only chance to see her. But she clearly doesn't want to see me. Because who I am. Who I've become, since losing her."

Breaking that weight of that confession with a little swat to her rump, he abruptly changes the conversation. "Weren't you going to play for me?"

Sparrow doesn't look like she's about to apologize for bring Elias up, her chin lifting ever so slightly in a manner that may well read as warning. All that toughness fades as soon as the correction comes. Clearly, this isn't her area of expertise. Not even close. Wanna talk chakra and tarot and which gemstones do what? Sure. She's good for that. But the distinction that Cris draws is new to her. Her fingers curl a bit more firmly against the back of his head, like she might want to pull him in for more comfort, but those disparaging words he turns toward himself stops her short.

That smatck is well-timed, and she knows it, sure it was intentional, the way it cuts off any answer, denying her the chance to issue her own correction. Her little yelp of surprise is followed by a stern look that may well promise to come back to that. Later. "I was, but someone got all broody at me, and I am a sucker for a good moody smolder, so." His fault, clearly. Bowing forward to claim what's meant to be a quick kiss, she asks, "Want me to tell you why I did all this? Even things up a bit?" An offer to balance the scales, his to refuse or accept.

"Why you brought me into your secret den of murals and drums? Pretty sure it's so you and your housemates can sacrifice me at some point in the evening to the Rock 'n' Roll gods, probably in some sexy ritual that involves a lot of bass line and a light show. Maybe a fog machine." Cris quips as he draws her down into his lap, settling her insignificant weight onto one knee. "Tell me. Because this seems like a pretty intimate place to bring me."

Sparrow might've had a mind to shout out her story over a killer drum beat, but this is better. Maybe not for storytelling, given how readily she leans into him and nuzzles her nose into his cheek, teeth catching on his jaw. Sure, she can't talk like that, but that doesn't mean this isn't objectively better. She holds, fairly lightly, for a couple seconds before relenting and correcting, "First? My housemates don't know shit about rock-n-roll gods. Except maybe AJ whose extensive knowledge of indie bands--or, at least, their tee shirts--is undeniably attractive. But he's working, so. No sacrificial rituals." Is she pouting? Maybe just a little. "Second? I totally spaced on, uh. The space. Just wanted to get you alone and make noise for you." It might even sound salacious if it weren't so damned earnest.

"Third?" Her weight seems a little less insignificant on the exhale, as she slouches a little, her weight sinking against his shoulder while her gaze traces along the painted walls. "I dreamt, while back, that AJ fell through the floor." She points, indicating the ceiling here. "Into darkness. Felt like my fault. Sorta. I dunno. It's hard to describe. How it all happened. How the darkness just swallowed him up and took him. And he was literally gone. Like. Gone. I looked. And when I finally found him? Hours later?" She points over toward one of the darker corners of the otherwise well-lit basement. "The rest of the story is his. But it was my space tainted by that. So I reclaimed it. Made it mine. Bright. Yellow like a sacred wind."

There is a grunt from Cristobal, finding some reason to be angry about her story because of course he does. The entirety of his ire is focused on that painted door, and the things that lie behind it even if it's all just metaphorical. He gathers her up with a ring of his arms, tucking her head beneath his chin tight to his shoulder. "Fuck them for doing that to you. But I'm very proud of you, Little Bird, for taking back the power. Reclaiming your space. And thank you for sharing that me, thought I'm wholly undeserving. You realize that right? Ask anyone else and they'd tell you I'd sooner piss on the mural and fuck your best friend on your drum seat then tell you about my daughter."

A hand curls around Cristobal's side as he draws her in, as she presses her face to his neck. Whatever anger is still bristling at the back of Sparrow's brain? This certainly makes it a little less loud. She squeezes a little closer at the gratitude, though it's promptly followed with a shake of her head beneath his when he describes himself as undeserving. "No," spoken right under his own words. And faltering at that final detail. Just a little hitch. Enough time for her to acknowledge that information and the flood of complicated feelings which come with it before she picks right up with that objection. "I don't know who you think you are, but I know what you choose to show me. And that's what I have to judge you by. So if you want me to think you some undeserving asshole, you gotta start showing me that, cuz. Otherwise? I'mma keep seeing what I see." She peeks up a little at that, pulling back enough to try and get a look at him. "I can tell you what that is. If you want." Unlike Dante, Cris gets a choice about whether or not she thrusts her opinion at him.

"What if what I show you is just enough to keep you in my bed?" Cristobal poses, with no hint of humor in his voice. "I can't be too rough with you, I can't be too mean to you. I have to make touching personal confessions to pray on your pity for personal gain. I'm the man who threw bones across from you, nada mas." With a little lift of the arm around her back, he goes to set her back on her feet. "I'd kill you soon as fuck you if someone paid me enough. That's who I am. What you see is what I want you to see, because you happen to be good at the latter." He pats her on the rump again, but some how this one seems a little more condescending than any of the previous affectionate pats. "Shit, if you had cried telling me that story about MJ or whatever the fuck his name is, I would've bounced right then." He's standing to prevent any more inclinations about gathering her up for a cuddle, the lines of his face turning hard. "This was fun, but the fun ran out, Little Bird."

Sparrow probably isn't supposed to shrug at that first (probably rhetorical) question, but she does. Black brows angle upward unevenly as he goes on, as she straightens, making it all the easier to get her too her feet. It's not until that ass-pat that her eyes roll, but she gets her own condescension fairly well under her control immediately thereafter. Hands shove into her pockets as she takes a step back to give Cris space, to give herself a little more room to study him. "I'm really not sure if I'm supposed to be applauding here," comes dryly, the edge not quite sharp enough to cut. A punch pulled.

She draws a deep breath as she turns away, putting a couple more steps between them, though it hardly looks like fleeing. No. She's doing that awful thinking thing before she answers. "Yeah, alright," is more for herself, a decision made. When she looks back to Cris, assuming he hasn't taken this chance to just fuck off, she tells him, "We're gonna take this in order." That little nod? With the sternly arched brows? It looks like she might be telling him to sit down. Not that she waits. "First? I am so not that girl. You wanna fuck, we can fuck. We coulda been fucking already. No sob stories needed. I like you. I wouldn't mind more, and you've certainly been giving me the more signals, but you wanna keep it to bending me over shit?" She shrugs like she just does not get how complicated this is. "Sure. I'm into it. Easy. But, second? Which might technically be third. Whatever." She pulls a face, frustrated with the pace at which her own brain is going, and refocuses. "What people choose to show us is all we ever get of 'em. You're not some special sorta asshole for that. Sorry."

The tip of her head might mark the going-back point, but she stops counting. "The whole cold-hearted assassin thing is definitely more fucked up than hot? But that doesn't keep me from wanting to know how much enough is. Like. How far gone do you wanna tell me your humanity is? I mean. I get it. That you want me to equate my worth to whatever that is, but. Fuck you, man. No." Way too casual and calm. Confused, sure. Irritated. But her voice hasn't raised the least little bit. Just those eyebrows. And her shoulders. "I'm really, really good at letting people go. Walking the fuck away. And if that's what you want?" Alright. Fine. She can't quite keep the heartache and disappointment from flickering across her features there, but it's followed by an exasperation that a girl her age really shouldn't demonstrate in a situation like this. "Sucks, but." If there's any more left, she lets it all out in a silent shrug.

There is a difference between leaving and backing down, and right now to step back up the stairs feels like the latter at the things she starts spouting back, no matter how true they may be. Cris takes a step towards her, and while he may not have much height on her, he still has some and the brick wall of muscle that keeps him alive in the ring. So when he steps, he looms, like he might just crush her with his presence or at least has the mind to. "First of all, your numbering sucks. Next, you're giving me too much credit on the assassin thing." He's attempting to back her up, but whether or not she moves those little combat boots of hers backwards is another matter. If she doesn't, he'll just end up bending in to her, as if he can surround her and consume her where she stands. "Finally, do I want you to walk away? No. But you sure as fuck should." The last is said with a hand coming around to her back, flattening against the small of it and shoving her back up against him with a brutal flex of muscle.

Sparrow's slack-shouldered posture hardly shifts when Cris steps in. Her hands keep to her pockets and her feet remain right where they are. It's just her head that tilts up, chin lifted, brows arched expectantly. Except. Well. She wasn't expecting that. She doesn't catch her laugh before it escapes, a bright bark she quickly bites back. And she doesn't try to stifle the smile which lingers after. She does, however, relent, sufficiently disarmed by that opening volley that she surrenders some ground, half-steps taken at his urging. Until she can't. Until that hand tugs her close, belly-first.

A hand which had pulled from her pocket on reflex, ready to brace, settles lightly, tentatively against his side as her expression soften, as she tells him honestly, "I might. Prolly not now cuz this is kinda alright, but." A furrow forms between her dark brows as her gaze dips, straying down to his shoulders, chest, to where her soft curs meet his hard lines. "I'm not staying where my judgment is questioned. I will fight, if you need me to fight, if it's for you. But if you're making me fight for me?" She looks up again, making sure he gets it. Maybe apologizing just a little.

"I think you're too smart for me, College Girl. Cuz I have no idea what any of that means." Not that any of that matters right now, because he's leaning down to crush his mouth against hers which tends to belay explanation. It would be easy to crush her feelings and leave, it's what he should do in any case, and there is definitely that hint that he's done it before. Over and over. Because it's safer that way, for everyone involved. But there's that damn Two of Cups again, rearing it's ugly head, because something about her diatribe was not at all what he was expecting. And that's just fucking fascinating. So even if they both get burned by it, he's kissing her with fire to see if she withdraws from the flame or is pulled into it.

There are things Sparrows walk away from. She's said as much. Laid it out as clear as she could. But this? Yeah. This isn't on that list. It's pretty clear she's not going anywhere given how quick she is to push up into the kiss, pressing to her toes to return that passion. Her hand takes firmer possession of his side, balling around the fabric of his shirt to pull as if she could bring him any closer, while the other pulls from its pocket to settle low on his hip, fingers just barely grazing his ass when she makes unnecessary demands on that side, too. Later, she might run through the conversation again and wonder if she made the right choice, but now? With his lips against hers, their bodies pressed so close? She doesn't even have to think about it. Her shoulders sink with relief, worry just melting away. This is what she wants.