2020-03-08 - Reflections

Dancing had sounded like such a good idea when Sparrow and Alfie were looking to get out of the house on Sunday night, but it didn't hold well in practice. An hour or so at Firefly Club, and they both wanted to get out of there. It's a little weird when the only place to dance in town is where AJ works. And Sparrow just wasn't feeling the whole half-hearted vibe of the place. It's like everyone in town is just... down lately, and she's certainly been among them. Having a weirdly angry Bax living with them hasn't helped. Much as she loves him, it's been a struggle, fighting off her own downswing while trying to help her BFF through his own trials. Mostly, she's just tired, though the booze does help with that a little bit, making that exhaustion seem like a comfortably fuzzy mindset to sink into rather than a heavy weight dragging her down.

The blonde's smiling when the uber lets them out at the Waffle Shoppe just outside town for some late night eats. She'd blend in here a little bit better if it were a few hours later, after the bars all let out, but at this in-between time, the short skirt and shimmery make-up seem a bit out of place. She's in shades of black and blue, a pretty pastel dusting her eyes, glossing her lips so faintly that she looks like she might be frozen or dead. Her black tee shirt depicts Grumpy Bear and pairs well with the short black skater skirt, the black Docs and their pastel laces, the cornflower blue socks with their darker blue raindrops. It's all a little more punk than she usually musters, a throwback to her high school days which, really, weren't all that long ago. Slipping into the booth with her coat tucked in between her hip and the wall, she leaves enough room for Alfie to join her on that side, if he wants, letting him choose between physical contact or eye contact. "I feel like I haven't eaten all day," might be an exaggeration.

Alfie never really got lost in just the two of them on the dance floor. Inquiring spirits, familiar faces, the Firefly Club just isn't somewhere that he lets loose now that he has employment there. It's a place in which passing the veil of the entry puts another mask on him. It makes a fake out of him. 'Genuine', interested in the workplace gossip, entirely unbroken in this place that the light doesn't reach. An act. But at least many of their drinks end up comped. \
\ The human tapestry isn't drunk, as he walks with Sparrow into the Waffle House - but he isn't sober either. A couple of drinks have softened him up and unwound the tension that he puts into his jaw in more aware hours. Without that extra line of definition and the hint of masculinity that arrives with it, he's more approachable. Prettier, even, if that were at all thought possible in the past. Graceful, in the distance worn on his face once the mask of professional casual conduct is gone. He sits next to Sparrow, sharing that side of the booth. \
\ He's in jeans too long for him, folded up at the ankles and flashing the bright reds of his hitop sneakers. The graphic t-shirt that he'd worn on the floor is covered in oversized plaid in place of a jacket. Spring may be here, but the skinny boy has a low tolerance for chill. His smartphone bulges one tight pocket of his pants, his ID fits more comfortably on the otherside with a few bills. He catches and releases his bottom lip on repeat beneath his teeth as he settles in to reading the menu, pale blue eyes pulled from section to section. "I feel the kind of hungry that churns the stomach, but- ...no less picky," he admits.

Sparrow doesn't bother with her own menu when Alfie chooses to settle in next to her, tipping her head to his shoulder to maybe look at his. Or just be close. It's really hard to tell if she's looking things over at all, but one might safely err on the side of probably not given now she nuzzles in against his neck now and then, plainly distracted by his presence. "I'm not picky," precedes a nip at his neck, like she could settle for the sort of nibbling that might not offer any sort of sustenance... nevermind how hungry she just claimed to be. When the server comes around to ask for their drinks, she asks for a, "Mountain Dew, thanks!" with a bright smile offered up to the guy taking their orders. Once they're left alone again to figure out what they want to actually eat, she muses, "We'll have to... I dunno. Head out to the city or something next time we wanna go dancing." Which quickly turns into, "Maybe get a roooooom. Visit a few museums or something," and a quiet mutter of, "Fuck, I wanna get outta here," to refer to Gray Harbor as a whole. Nevermind that she'd been gone the whole first weekend of February, that she came back from the conference in Tempe and crashed hard into this depression she hasn't been able to quite shake.

Alfie spent a holiday with his parents. Then a half-holiday that he returned from early. He hasn't been to see them since - and hasn't been out of his cycle of home-school-work. This is the exception. Maybe the tip of a larger exception that will reassert his place into reality, outside the motions of living. He's taken to calling travelogues philosophy books - saying that exterior life reflects what's within, and that Gray Harbor must say a lot about them. More moments of stated introspection from a shattered mind that has had a few more months to grow in the world outside the hospital. He lifts his chin and bares his neck to her, a little hiss of air between his teeth from an unintentional intake of breath as she nibbles AC chilled skin with warm lips. He orders iced tea but smells like black cherry - a sugar laden scent that's as much on his breath as it is on him. A minor spill, but it gives the impression of too much hard candy and sensitive tongues.

"We could visit Seattle," he suggests. "Could see it as I know it. Maybe even have a place to stay while we're there," he follows up. "If people remember me..." A tilt of his head. "But if I remember them, they should remember me," he jokes, lightly, at his own expense. He bumps shoulders with her. He stays casual and lightly inebriated despite the talk of bailing, at least for awhile. He doesn't put any weight into trying to seem especially serious. He knows that she knows that she is.

Sparrow doesn't mind that too-sweet tang filling her lungs when she breathes Alfie in, even if the sweetness doesn't quite reach her tongue, skin instead a little salty from the dancefloor, from what minor exertion they'd worked up before fleeing back into the chilly night. For her part, the plum-and-opium which had seemed so potent when they'd set out into the evening has mellowed so that only the smoky notes of vetiver and a hint of honey remains beneath the sweat and bitter beer that have taken up the hours since. "You're memorable," she asserts, knowing full well her own bias. And how she remembers each iteration of him a little bit differently, one with a little more possessive intensity than the last. Her arm snakes around his as she straightens a bit, as she tells him, "But yeah. I'd like that. A lot. Seeing the city the way you saw it. How you see it now. How the present informs the past. What you choose to share and how you share it and what other weirdness I can sneak in while you're not looking. Like. I bet I can find food there you haven't tried, secrets you never found." Maybe. There's a hint of uncertainty in her tone, fully aware of how much of a challenge that might be.

Alfie doesn't bump shoulders again. Rather, he leans in against Sparrow as she wraps her arm around his - around the fragile seeming limb that, like the rest of him, has gotten through life in one piece. Less like a stone, unyielding in density - and more like a mirror, shattered and contained within the frame. The mirror can bend, now, it can twist, but it remains more or less whole. He relishes the contact and the inherent affection behind it. "Well, as long as you remember me," he says with warm ease - softly, words only for her ears, regardless of how chaste they are. He nods in further confirmation of plans to revisit the first place he visited on the road to being the him that's here today; the voice capable of expressing his true feelings to Sparrow, and the body so willing to steal the warmth from hers as they share a booth.

"If anyone could manage that, it'd be you," he decides with certainty where she may waiver. He takes a first sip of his iced tea from the edge of the glass, rather than from the straw, letting ice bump up against his lip and the taste of sugar sweet to layer over that of the black cherry.

"I remember several yous," Sparrow croons back at a similar volume, her eyes half-lidding to suggest that not all of those memories are half so chaste as the conversation they're having. But there are drinks being delivered and a server offering to take their orders. Whether he's ready or not, she is, no need to peek at the menu. "Sausage and cheese omelette, extra cheese, with a short stack on the side instead of homefries please." This probably isn't her first time placing this order or something like it. How often does she end up here for breakfast when she doesn't feel like being stuck at home anymore? For the moment, even in the time it takes for Alfie to let the waiter know what he wants, she ignores her drink, choosing instead to cling loosely to the inked limb to which she's laid claim, waiting for the menu to be surrendered and iced tea to be set down so that she can weave her fingers in with his. "Think I need to help Bax get out of his own head before we can go, though." As if she might otherwise drop everything and dash off to the city right now, nevermind the week of school ahead of them. "We've been talking about psychedelic therapy maybe. Not that I'm the least bit qualified, but who else is he gonna go to about this, right? I can at least administer the dosage and trip-sit, I figure. Keep an eye on him. Control the environment. Just wish he'd get some sleep first."

"You remember more me's than I do," Alfie accuses warmly. He waits until after Sparrow has placed her order to try placing his own - with a kind of meek smile that projects that he's less self-assured in what he has chosen than his company. But it's charming, in a cute kind of way. "Grilled cheese - salsa on the side?" It's not breakfast. But it's not a staple restricted to any kind of day, really, so it suits the late evening that precedes the earliest morning with a kind of neutral ease. "And fries. Cheesy fries." It's a lactose kind of evening. At least he didn't go with a milkshake or ice cream as well. "There's a tattoo artist I think you'll jive with," he decides after. "And a uh..." He pauses, thinking, brow furrowing and nose scrunching. "I'm not sure what he did, actually. Just that it wasn't legit. Fun guy. Nice suit. Walking disaster. You'll like him."

Fingers interwoven. The slight damp of condensation on an ice filled glass transferred into resting between them. "I hope that works," he offers, as to the treatment plan. If there's any disappointment for the wait in the meantime, it doesn't reach his face - settled by inebriation into that distracted prettiness. Starlight replaced by flourescent bulbs that flood his face with light and fail to find imperfection. The marks on his body are purposeful. Tattoos, piercings, thoughts made manifest.

"I watch you more than you do," Sparrow counters effortlessly, certain he might see all the hims she sees if only he spent as much time looking at him as she does. Her eyes go wide at the late addition of cheese fries, a quiet, "Yes," sounding unduly impressed, as if this were the best idea ever and she's not sure why she didn't consider adding it as a side to her omelette and pancakes. Her thumb plays restlessly at his knuckles, running over those bones like some part of her brain might be counting out a meter, playing music that only she can hear. Not that she's paying it any mind, all of her active focus here. And on whatever other stray thoughts actually snag and stick around for a minute. Like her worry about Bax. All she answers is a quiet, "Me too," that lingers for a few silent seconds while she studies Alfie, caught half between swiftly dissolving planning and the very present lines of his profile, the latter readily winning out if the resurgence of her smile is any indication. She tells him, "I've been saving up. If you want to get inked with me. If you think this is the guy. There are a couple of people local, too, but I'm inclined to trust you. If Mr. Walking Disaster is your go to, I'm good with it. My seventeen marked down somewhere." Beat. "Not that I have any idea where yet." But it'll be her first, the only marks on her skin fading evidence of recklessness where cuts and scrapes have resolved into faint scars.

"This is probably true. My mind may wander, but not usually to anywhere with a good view of myself," Alfie concedes with a hint of a smile. A short exhalation of breath through his nostrils express amusement to her response to his order of cheese fries. "It's okay. I'm a sharing type." As if there'd have been any concern previous, with borrowing food from his plate. It's a night where the time only comes to mind in the silent moments. Alfie glances at a clock on the wall in those few silent seconds, purposelessly - as if merely trying to suss out his place in time. He's bad at keeping track, even at work - interrupted mid-task to be told that his shift ended an hour ago. Or called in the middle of the evening and asked why he hasn't shown up yet.

His eyes glint. "Walking disaster isn't a tattoo artist. Just trouble." He differentiates the man in the suit from the aforementioned tattoo artist, clarifying before he answers on her plan. "But I'd really like that. To get inked with you. Sounds kind of ...ceremonial. Important."

Sparrow, by contrast, knows precisely when she is at any given time, with perhaps a half-hour margin of error at best. With notable exceptions. Psychedelics always skew temporal connection in ways that fuck her up for a couple of days after, requiring a bit of hypervigilance on the first Monday and Tuesday after an indulgent weekend. Even a bit of booze doesn't send her too far off-course. Not that she's at all concerned with the time now, knowing what sort of cushion she's got before she needs to get to bed in order to get up bright and early for class in the morning. For now, for the next few hours, she's wholly his, clocks ignored.

When the distinction she'd missed is pointed out, she snorts a laugh, lets out a quiet little, "Oh," as she realizes where she went wrong, the 'and' misapplied to profession not person. "I like trouble," sounds more like she could like trouble, like it might depend on the kind of trouble, like she could possibly name several different assortments of trouble she could really get into. In case he was looking for guidelines. To build upon his existing understanding of her type of trouble. But they're talking more significant things now, and she smiles all wide and warm as she tilts in against him, fingers squeezing his as nose presses to his cheek. "Yes." Exactly that. "I dunno that matching makes a whole lot of sense here given that mine's all about you, but. I dunno." Her eyes half-lid as she purrs playfully, "Kinda want my first time to be with you."

Alfie once attended an entire lecture before he realized he was in the wrong room. It is the counterbalance to his powers of perception - the way he gets lost inside his own head, tripping over memories that never were in place of time lost.

"Fun trouble," Alfie assures her. A pause. "Usually fun trouble," he self-corrects. A walking disaster isn't exactly stable or consistent. His fingers squeeze her own in return and he finds even more of a smile, briefly flashing across his lips. There's a sparrow on his neck where others have a swallow. Accidental? Fate? He knew her better by less conceptual names before he went away. He returned with that, clinging to every breath inhaled and word spoken. A tattoo that would be obscured by a collar. His cheek is warm against her nose. He dips his head into hers, gently. Another sharp exhale - first times and tattoos colliding for Alfie, memories of either occasion likely not all that far from one another. But he's onto warmth once more, at the thought. "I wouldn't hope for it any other way."

Sparrow might like to peek in and see how those thoughts crash together, to feel those firsts through another lens, but that's hardly a Waffle Shoppe sort of experiment, requiring either glimmer or psychedlics or maybe in depth conversations and a lot less clothes. She hums happily against his cheek for wherever her own thoughts are, teeth catching on his jaw as she withdraws. She saw the food incoming, tray bearing a quartet of plates making its way over. One for grilled cheese, another for fries, a third for eggs and a fourth for pancakes. It's quite the assortment, and Sparrow eyes it greedily as she lifts Alfie's hand to her lips to press a kiss to his knuckles before letting go so that they can tuck in.

She starts with her omelette, a few hungry bites into the oozy gooey goodness before she finds words again, wondering, "Did I show you the design yet?" Chances are, she hasn't, given how many times it's changed since the idea took hold. "Thinking dusky colors flowing down into Thor's Well. Just the rocks, right? The circle? With all these pastel colors rising up like star dust. Little glimmers shaping the number seventeen. In roman numerals." Beat. "I think." If she plans on offering any corrections or alternatives, it won't be now seeing as she digs right back into her eggs.

Air through teeth - a surprised hiss inward as Alfie sucks air when Sparrow's teeth catch his jaw. He's blushing a little when he realizes that the waiter has arrived and doesn't quite meet eye contact with them. He offers his thanks all the same. And he finds another fleeting smile, projecting a flash of warmth when she kisses his knuckles. A glimpse at her lips. Drifting thoughts. Eventually he winds up with his attention on the food as well. He dips grilled cheese in salsa and starts in from the corner of where they were halved. He shakes his head as he chews and looks sidelong when asked about the design.

The mention of Thors Well draws up memory - strong and whole, colorful despite the lack of light surrounding them. Sitting not quite like they are now - reversed, maybe, him on the other side, both of them facing the well. "Places like that, breathing us in and letting us out," he muses, distantly, after swallowing his culture clash of food and fixing. "I like it." He hasn't formed what his answer will be, in the flesh - the design he'll have to form before they go in together.

Sparrow offers no apology for that blush her teeth and timing bring to Alfie's cheeks. In truth, there might be some small degree of pride there, as much for the company as the color, to judge by the angle of her smile. She still has some omelette in her mouth when she first reaches for his fries, stabbing a small, cheese-covered cluster with her fork and working her mouth around all of it. Mostly. A little bit of the cheese sauce doesn't make it and requires a swipe of her tongue over her lips to clean them. "Me too," comes belatedly, after she's swallowed. "First permanent thing I can remember wanting, and I like the way it's taking shape." Her fork gets a wobble as she admits, "Though I really wanna get the artist's input first. Before I get my heart set on anything. And figure out where it goes. Like." A pensive frown flickers across her features as she looks over at the inked prettiness at her side. "It feels both low and high at once. If I'm thinking chakra? I want it near my root. Foundation and drive. Home and hope. But if I do think about it as hope and aspiration, as the star it represents, then it feels like it should be higher, maybe nearer my heart. Either way?" Her brow furrows, and she asks, "Is it important to you that you see them? How do you decide what goes where?"

A consideration of lips that catches an attempt to snag cheese sauce. But Alfie has already mostly moved on to food. To filling himself despite his earlier stated pickiness this evening. "Cheesy fries makes me think of waking up with most of my clothes still on, outside my own bed. Not really comfort food, but... that feeling of warm jeans, stiff at the ankles from the rain that's dried there. Collapsing and not caring where," he admits, like that's all a pleasant thing - and without a preamble that might have helped this absent thought fit better into the conversation.

He glimpses down at his shirt like he's inspecting his torso of tattoos.

"Some is where it is, to be a label. Things I want other people to know or consider about me. I want that to be seen. Other stuff, past and future. Things that are important to me that belong nowhere but were they are. And the doors-" He takes a fork and shovels a load of cheesy fry into his own mouth. "I don't know. I think they decided where they'd go."

Sparrow wonders, to help herself frame that metaphor a bit better, "Do you think of my bed as yours?" Which gets a quick addendum of, "When we're not loaning it to Bax," which they have been the past week or three. Okay, some temporal messes are harder to track than others, and her own depression does make for some sluggish record-keeping. "And where does grilled cheese take you?" The salsa, she assumes, is just a staple, for how often she's seen him add it to things.

When Alfie looks down at his chest as if able to picture all that ink, her attention follows, so much of what's there committed to imperfect memory, many of the details crisp and correct, others still blurry, not yet perfected. His answer has her focus straying to arms still covered in plaid, up to where ink peeks out past his collar. To that sparrow. She can't help the dopey smile for that, no matter the timing. She'll take it, that mark thought of her where everyone can see it. Her smile dims at the mention of the doors, as her gaze slips toward his before falling back to her food, to pancakes in need of syrup. She drenches them as she asks, "What's the sleeve say. All the black and the flowers. I mean. I could take my guess, since that seems like maybe that's important. Other people's perception, but. I wanna know what you meant."

Alfie shrugs. "I think of any bed we share as ours." He says it plainly, matter of fact, like it was a simple truth that he'd never needed to speak aloud. Beds, not as a material possession, but belonging to them when they share it.

As for grilled cheese? "The hospital, kind of." He doesn't need to think on it. This has crossed his mind before. "They were soft, there. Not microwaved, but definitely kept in the fridge, wrapped, prepared." He prods the unbitten half of his grilled cheese. It's crisp. Flakes of buttered and fried bread flake onto his delicate fingertip. "A good grilled cheese sandwich assures me that I'm out. And that this isn't all in my head," he answers. A more practical concept than the cheesy fries - food as a tool or litmus test. A flash of a smile. Sheepish.

He looks over and catches the smile - dopey, and some of that meekness fades away, replaced by the warmth of sensed affection. "Two parts," he says as to the sleeve. "A label. To let people know I'm elsewhere, even when I'm here, no matter where I am. But to me, it's a map. I don't know if that makes sense. It only sometimes makes sense to me."

Sparrow breathes a quiet sound in answer to his thought on their shared beds. His and hers. Theirs. It's a nice thought, one she's possibly never given much consideration on her own, not until now. And it does help her understand a bit better what he means about the cheesy fries. So, too, does she get what he says about grilled cheese, enough so that when he looks up to flash that small smile, he might catch a glimmer of resolve in her brown eyes, a certainty that she can make some damned fine grilled cheese, some background process in her brain now dedicated to planning. But the rest of her is still here, in this moment, all shared warmth and tattoo talk. And smiles, hers brighter for the warmth it earns. "Yeah," she answers. "I think it does. I mean. You're not always there, but. Somewhere. And there--" The place the bold ink represents. "--is somewhere you can always get back to, wherever you go, so. Different messages, but sorta the same." None of it sounds like a question, like she's seeking any assurance that her understanding is correct before she digs into her syrup-sopped pancakes.

More grilled cheese and salsa. Iced tea washes it down. Alfie is here, in the waffle house - slightly inebriated, eating food meant for a hangover - but here nonetheless. He nods at Sparrow's assessment of that dual-purpose sleeve as he swallows. The map is of a sinking place - sand and waves that bodies might lay back in, washed over like a saltwater baptism or warmed by the sun-soaked sand forming soft grit against bare skin. "I don't feel lost right now," he admits. A breath of air amid the churning chaos for a fractured mind leading a whole and normal schedule.

"Good." Soft and simple. Sparrow says nothing more for a long stretch, all too happily enjoying her food. And some of his. And a little bit of that caffeine she really shouldn't be having at this hour even if the booze was making her sleepy. By the time she comes up for breath, her omelette is gone, what little remains of her pancakes is soggy enough to almost be inedible, and a serious dent has been taken out of the cheesy fries. Someone really might have neglected to eat today. Which might have contributed to the swift burn-out on the whole idea of dancing. And drinking. She slouches back when she's had her fill and sinks slightly to the side until their shoulders are touching again. Even if that might make Alfie's continued picking a little bit more difficult. "I don't feel lost either," comes quietly, like it's something of a revelation to her as well. "First time in weeks that I haven't felt at least a little off course." For all that it sounds like she might set into some proper rambling, she doesn't. A couple quiet seconds tick past before a smile bubbles up. "I, uhm." No, that's not how she wants to start this. With a curious cant of her head, she looks at Alfie and asks, seemingly out of absolutely nowhere, "Do you believe in God?"

Alfie never really quite manages to finish any of the meals he gets here. There's a quarter of a grilled cheese and some odd cheesy fries left over from the both of them. And he's no longer really picking, just drinking direct from the edge of his glass until they're leaning on one another again - at which point he's happy to let his food get cold, undisturbed by insect in the air conditioned room. "First time in weeks that I feel awake," he answers, mutually enjoying such a simple moment and the potential energy of their shared evening ahead. But there's a hard question ahead. The God question.

"Before..." He points at his head. The doorway - the empathic, unexplainable by science as of yet abilities he wasn't able to turn off when he woke up. "I got stuck on step one of the big bang. The particles, dancing around until they collide to make up everything. What made them? If they've always been there, how many past collisions has there been? And how can the laws of entropy account for an 'always was, uncreated'. I didn't believe in anything, but there was also something off about what I knew." He breathes. Grunts, non-commitally, transitioning into the 'after'. "I think there's room in the vast for things that can create and unmake. Cold and cruel like the rest of the universe in its immoral neutrality. Energy that feeds on energy." He tilts his head. "Thinks strong enough to be worshpped. But, not a religious almighty that anyone has written a book about." His beliefs rest in that inbetween, that shifting nature of the self, open but transitory.

Sparrow plucks up that last half-of-a-half of grilled cheese while Alfie speaks, familiar enough with his appetite to feel comfortable stealing his leftovers to nom on while she listens to him tackle that heavy question. She watches him with a wide-eyed earnestness which might be mistaken for distracted nomming if it didn't persist after the last bite is gone, fingers wiped on napkin, full focus back on him. She's quiet enough in the wake of his explanation that the waiter spots an opportunity to come by, to ask if they need any boxes or if they want any dessert. She declines on both, but asks for refills, seeing as the place hasn't quite filled up enough with the second-shift emptying out to need a quicker turn-over of tables. Before the server gets very far, she catches and corrects, "Water for me, thanks. Sorry." She's had enough caffeine.

"One of the guys I've been seeing's Catholic," comes eventually once they're alone again, though the furrow of her brow suggests she's not entirely sure if that's where she should start. "The, uh. Saints I was painting." If he caught them over the couple days she was working on them, one of her, one of a golden-skinned, blue-eyed man with a Sacred Heart tattooed on his chest. "Told me they were blasphemy," she mutters, but she dismisses the rest of that line of thought with a shake of her head. "We did this, I dunno. Ritual? I forget what he called it. With these little charms and tacks and a hammer and blood. A prayer and a sacrifice. Intention and effort. Like any magic, right? Except the prayer part. The idea that there's some almighty up there who's got some sorta say over how it all turns out." She gives her head a wobble. "I dunno. Feels like maybe it worked."

Alfie nods and confirms the order of a second drink. He lifts his leg up, on the side opposite Sparrow, foot planted on the seat with them as he leans in against her. He turns his head enough to watch Sparrow sidelong as she speaks. Attentive and open - though his nose scrunches at the reference of blasphemy, something he doesn't voice. Neither does his jaw set back into tension - the distance, the 'sinking into his own flesh' remains. "What was it supposed to do? To have worked?" he asks. He might have more to say, but he stops there for now - like the rest might rely on the answer to those very questions. There is a side of him that enjoys journalism, that plays the part of an investigator, but this isn't that - this is a little more concerned, and a little less curious.

"Fix my head," Sparrow supplies with dry humor, with a wry little smile that says she knows exactly how that sounds. But it's a lead in to a longer answer, a summary which she promptly expounds upon. "It's been a shit month. Bad downswing." Not that the obvious needed any articulation. "And I'm just kinda sick of it. I wanna be back to feeling like me. Not that that's not me, just." She pulls a face, nose scrunching, sour. Quietly, she asserts, "It isn't." Depressed Sparrow is just not the Real Sparrow as far as Sparrow is concerned. "I asked for this cycle to end, for my brain chemistry to get its shit together so I can start feeling like myself again. And, I mean." She shrugs, her shoulder rubbing against his. Brows go high as she ventures, "Maybe God's answer was putting you here with me. Giving us more time," laying down a challenge to see how he fields it.

There's something like a wince. It's subtle. It follows Sparrow's mention of the purpose of the ritual - to fix her head. The statement carries too much baggage in Alfie not to pass through him, weightless. He listens, all the same - listens with real sympathy to what Sparrow meant to correct. And after, he glances out to make sure there's no one aside from Sparrow in earshot. "The hand that unmade me was a cold one. A magnifying glass held over a line of ants. A child tinkering with the insides of my mind like a remote control or a watch. If there is just one God, they are not my friend." It's a complex expression that he wears with this admission of 'if just one all-powerful' exists. Like fear in the possibility in his eyes contrasted by the delicacy of lifted brows that indicate that he doesn't want these fears to change the peace that Sparrow has found in belief. A complicated place to be, fearing the very thing that gives someone you love their strength. "I'm... happy, if what you've found helps you. And for the moments I'm collecting with you. But I'm much more likely to worship at the altar of one 'Philomena Jones', than anything out 'there'. It's a much more rewarding faith, for me."

Sparrow's hand is very much not cold when it circles back around Alfie's arm, laying claim to the top half of that skinny limb with fingers wrapping tight just below his shoulder as she snuggles up in defiance of that theoretical entity which undid him. When he allows that bit of happiness turned her way, her brow furrows deeply, eyebrows drawn down, but all of that softens for what follows, for the prospect of her own altar with this one single supplicant. She can't help but smile at that thought. She probably could resist the quiet tease of, "If you ever want to set up an actual altar," but she doesn't. Nor does she point out the ways in which he kinda sorta already does: the bar food left in the minifridge after every shift; the books left beside their shared bed to leave some piece of him with her when he's not there; the small affections and insignificant tokens exchanged one days not like this one, with far less overlap in availability. All little forms of worship of which she is very much aware.

Instead, she settles back into seriousness with a shake of her head, with an expelled breath. "I don't know that I believe," she clarifies. "Not in God, anyway. I get that he does. Like whoa. But for me? It's the ritual. The intention." With a roll of her eyes, she concedes, "Not that intention has a whole lot of impact on brain chemistry." When her attention resettles on him, there's a bit more weight in her gaze as she tacks on quietly, "Sorry. I just heard what I said, and. I realize how shit it sounds." With a squeeze to his arm and another hard furrow of her forehead, she repeats, "Sorry," and leaves it there for now.

A small, easier smile - less concerned, still slightly inebriated. On board for that kind of altar. And the thought lets him be more light hearted on the subject, even sticking out his tongue. The gesture would look out of place on his usually more distant expression. But here, with the ease of his current chemical state, perfect. He eases back into serious along with her. And as much as the 'live free' Alfie might dislike part of himself for it, there's a slight slackening of his shoulders at the admission that she doesn't know what she believes yet. That the complication of their differences on the subject isn't so glaring, yet, as manageable as it may be to live around it regardless. There's no wince at intention and impact. Maybe he's built up a bit of a defense since the surprise of his earlier unconscious response. Maybe it just doesn't hit him the same way. He shrugs, shoulder to shoulder. "I always brain chemistry was the one with an impact on intention, anyway," he says, softer, but with a tone of good humor. Water under the bridge. No harm done. The good buzz is still a good buzz.

"I meant the not feeling like me stuff," Sparrow mutters in clarification as her head dips to his shoulder, kiss delivered there, like the act of bowing that little bit makes the gesture more reverent, more reptentant. "I'm just tired." She writes it all off as exhaustion, sweeping the whole problem right under that big old rug like it's nothing. "Lately. Not, like, right now. I'm not tired right now. Right now, I'm thinking I should prolly get us a ride home and lock us in your room for a few days." Her eyes roll as she concedes, to herself more than him or anyone else, "Hours. A few hours." Cuz she's got early classes. Like the weirdo morning person that she is. This unfortunately requires a little bit of separation so that she can get her phone from her pocket and pull up the appropriate app, a look cast to Alfie to get confirmation before she actually signals needing a ride.

Another shrug. Alfie opens his mouth. Closes it. He opens it again. "A quote, from a poet. Something I think about, sometimes. Maybe more than sometimes," he says, as to what he meant to say, but didn't - and he doesn't go on to say it, either. Instead he answers the more immediate concern of spending their ensuing days - or, rather, hours. He gives her a solid, singular nod. He's ready.

Sparrow taps the button which will summon them a driver. In approximately ten minutes. It gives them time to finish up here, including a bit of necessary hydration for overcaffeinated chem major and paying the bill. In the intervening minutes, once coats are on, while they're waiting for the car, she works her way back around to the abandoned conversation to ask, "Are you gonna tell me that quote?" with earnest curiosity. "You know how much I like when you recite poetry at me." That low-lidded look might hint at a particular memory, even if the soft smile tells of another. Really, he hasn't gone wrong at all with his recitations so far.

Alfie has his arms wrapped around himself at the midsection as they wait for the car. He'll be cold until summer. It is his natural state. He blinks when Sparrow brings up the quote. That is, until he recalls what she means and what he left unsaid. A meek smile, and a tilt of his head as he concedes that, yes, he will - even if he hadn't originally meant to. That he'd thought to mention it, and then thought twice. "The furies are at home, in the mirror; it is their address. Even the clearest water, if deep enough can drown," he begins. The next stanza, "Never think to approach them. Your face approaching ever so friendly is the white flag they ignore. There is no truce..." He rocks, gently, heel to toe - stanza three, "-with the furies. A mirror's temperature is always zero. It is ice in the veins. Its camera is an X Ray. It is a chalice..." Still rocking, stanza four. "-held out to you in silent communion, where gaspingly you partake of a shifting identity never your own."

It's not quite the same sort of poem, this one. It's not Neruda. It's not anything that Sparrow can readily identify. But it does hold her attention rapt, the rest of the world still clinging to winter fading into the background as she focuses fully upon Alfie. Her posture shifts as she listens, possibly without her noticing, the way she draws up a little bit straighter, how her chin ticks upward as if she might challenge her furies against the poet's advice. Hers is not a white-flag face. Whatever her thoughts on the piece, she has no words when he gets to the end, the loquacious creature struck silent. After a few seconds, she shakes free of her stillness and steps a little closer so that she can wrap her star-covered arms around him, sharing her warmth while borrowing his, that thin jacket not quite enough to fend off the cold alone. After a kiss to the side of his head, just in front of his ear, she lingers right there, head pressed to his, keeping close and quiet while they wait, dwelling on the poem, certain she'll shake all these chilly thoughts once they're home and warm and tangled up again without so many layers between them.