2020-07-30 - Mourning & Masturbation

There are better things to do in a motel room than read through local obituaries. Sparrow and Jens may have even gotten up to a few of those things, like watching back-to-back episodes of Pawn Stars late into the night, but it's the funeral perusing that matters the next morning. A late, lazy start assures the selection of danishes and bagels left at the continental breakfast is slim, the coffee slightly burnt, but it's free and easy and sweet, and that's good enough for her.

The day is bright and humid, yesterday's storm leaving everything unpleasantly wet in the returning heat, but the black boots Sparrow wears with her at-least-it's-black funeral attire (consisting of a short wrap skirt and a tee shirt with the Auryn on the front) do a fine job keeping her feet dry as they walk among the graves toward the mourners in the distance.

Jens didn't really bring a suit, but after a short sprint to a local store, he's ... well... maybe decent-ish for a funeral? He's in black jeans, sneakers, a white short-sleeve button-up and a skinny black tie. His hair is tied back and the shirt is tucked in.

The funeral isn't a huge one. Maybe twenty people currently in the middle of the eulogy. No one is seated. It looks like some old biddy died. Up front, a guy in his fifties with what seems like his wife, and a couple of kids. Next to the group, a little further apart, a guy in his late twenties, good-lookin' with gelled hair, looks very sad. So sad. Extremely sad. The pastor is going on about Edith's contributions to the community, which include being very dilligent about everyone's gardens and how she liked to make sure everyone's yards were beautiful. That's code for 'busy fucking body in league or in charge of the HOA'.

Jens slides his arm over Sparrow's shoulders. "Oh boy."

"Pickings were slim," Sparrow murmurs to Jens as she sinks in against his side, head tipping briefly to his shoulder, possibly in apology. From the outside, it looks fairly convincingly like a grieving girl pursuing comfort. That's the easy part about crashing a random funeral: awkwardness mimics the discomfort of dealing with death fairly well. The hard part is blending in despite casual attire and, in her case, purple hair. Maybe they could be mistaken for the new couple at the end of the cul de sac. Or distant cousins nobody's seen since they were kids. Or... well. Who knows. For the moment, it doesn't much matter. Nobody interrupts the eulogy to question them, even if they do attract an odd look here or there from a few of the older attendees. It probably doesn't help that Sparrow leans very close to Jens to whisper as quietly as she can, "What are you mourning?"

"Some really old nosy granny, apparently," Jens murmurs under his breath with a gentle snort. He turns his head away from some quick gazing eyes, pressing his nose against Sparrow's temple. He takes a breath against her hair and then says, "I'm mourning the fact I can't pull out my sketchbook and draw some of these people. I think that one guy over there is fondling himself during the eulogy." He nods a little, against her cheek, for her to glance.

Sparrow quietly clucks her tongue in reply to the first portion of his answer. "I'm sure her passion for grass was sincere," is punctuated with a shallow frown that evaporates all too easily when his nose nudges at her head. This is weirdly nice, her appreciation marked with a light squeeze at his side as she scans the mourners, maybe wondering which person he'd pick to draw first. Is that note an answer to her unvoiced question? She stifles her surprise remarkably well, curiosity masked by a slight incline of her head which draws dark lashes over her eyes making it a teensy bit more difficult to tell where she's looking. And, oh, she looks. And manages to suppress a profound desire to giggle when she catches the not-as-subtle-as-he-thinks movement within the stranger's black slacks. At first, all she offers is a sedate, "Huh," but a couple seconds later, she wonders, "Boredom, addiction or fetish?"

Jens tilts his head side-to-side a little bit, wobbling his pony tail, and then he glances at the guy again, then looks aroundt he rest of the funeral. "Well. I'm betting the hot dude up front was the old lady's Cabana boy, with the way her probably-son is staring daggers. Which means ol'..." He checks her name real quick. "... Winnifred. Okay, which means ol' Winnie liked her honey young." He licks his lips, then closes with: "And Touchy McFeeley is in his mid-thirties. How much you wanna be he's an ex-Cabana boy?"

The more little details Jens draws attention to, the harder it is for Sparrow to maintain a gloomily neutral expression. Brows knit with vague, potentially feigned concern as she tilts in against him a little more to mask the way her focus follows his, how they're both scoping out the odd dynamics of the gathered guests. "Celebrating her memory with one last, uh. Mess? That's gonna be messy." She probably could resist making a face, but she doesn't, nose crinkling as her attention moves on. "One painting. Winner picks the theme, if not the details." With a shallow shake of her head, she votes, "I say bored grandson or something. Black sheep. Doesn't wanna be here, but gonna enjoy himself if he's stuck."

Jens considers the image, sliding behind Sparrow and wrapping his arms around her to set his chin on her head. He keeps a --mostly-- somber expression as he speaks, keeping his voice low. "Not grandson, I don't think, too old. Her grankids are teenagers, look," he says, pointing with a finger from the height of her navel. "Not her kid, either, too young. Maaaaaybe a nephew, but." He tips his head, chin rolling on her head. "I'm going tos tick to my former deduction of 'former stud'."

Sparrow leans back a little, hands settling loosely on his forearms while they quietly reminisce about... Edith? Winifred? Whoever. The dead biddy and her potential piece. Or nephew. A little flutter of her fingers against his arm marks concession to his point about age, a mutter of, "Family," clarifying her position. Adopting a pensive frown, she wonders, "How're we gonna figure out who's right?" Cuz this can't just be an intellectual exercise, right? He said you wanna bet, and she does, yes.

"I mean," Jens says, not having ever learned not to use the colloquial meaning of phrases like that with her because she will totally run with the literalism, "we could..." He clears his throat and then says, "we could both be right." Y i k e s.

The sound escapes Sparrow before the part of her brain that regulates Good Behavior can catch up with the part going all OMGWTFNO at the new possibility presented. She's quick to cover that sputter of laughter up, at least, with a hand lifted to hide half her face, eyes clenched tightly closed, while her other arm holds more securely to one of the limbs wrapped about her waist. There's even a sniffle and a slight turn away to sell her grief. With a wobbly nod against Jens' shoulder, she concedes with a quiet, "You win. I don't wanna know," muttered into her hand.

Jens tries not to bust out laughing, too. "Uh huh." He bites his own tongue a little--a little hard--to hold it together, and tips his chin in, putting his forehead against the top of Sparrow's head. "It can be a draw if you want."

Sparrow shakes her head beneath his as she swipes at her face with the back of her arm like she's trying to clean-up after a random burst of tears. "Nah," precedes a (maybe slightly melodramatic) steadying breath as her hand falls back into place. "I'd like him to be a regular old pervert, thank you very much." The suspected son steps up to say his part, going on about how she was the last of a generation, trying to emphasize his mother's more restrained qualities, painting a picture at odds with the presence of Mr. Hand-in-Pocket over there. "Though, I, uhm. Kinda wanna stick around to see if Grumpy tries to kill Gropey." But they're attracting more looks the longer they stay, the more they whisper back and forth. Waiting for the fireworks might not be the best idea.

Jens smiles and shrugs. "Okay." Then she says she wants to stick around to see if Grumpy beats up Gropey and he snorts, putting his hand over his mouth and then pretending it's a sob. "Yeah, no," he murmurs, "let's get out of here before Grumpy and Gropey join forces and kick our mutual asses." He slides his arm around her shoulders and leads her back the way they came, pretending to be super sad.

With another sniffle, Sparrow straightens and angles her gaze toward the ground, so very melancholy as she lets Jens guide her away from the gathering. Her arm snakes behind him, hand curling about his hip as they trudge off. Someone will very probably go on a rant about how they should have done the full service at the funeral home to avoid strangers ruining the funeral, but these two won't be here for that. Or for the pointed rebuttal that, no, the funeral was already properly awful all on its own. They'll be well-beyond the blast radius by that point. As they get farther out, she tips a kiss against his shoulder and grumbles, "Shoulda brought a picnic." Nevermind the wet grass. It's a proper romantic notion.

Jens considers the notion of a picnic and does, after a moment, note the wet grass. He says, after a moment, "You know, next time we can just grab one of those plastic sheets so even if it's all wet we can do a picnic anyway." He nods a bit, lifting his hand to put it against her head and slide his fingers in between her hair.

"Next time?" With the voices of funeral-goers fading into indistinct murmurs, Sparrow lets her mournful mask slip, angling an impish smile up at Jens. Briefly. It proves difficult to maintain any modicum of devilishness when her eyes roll back at the fingers pushing into her purple hair. "I mean," she begins airily. "I don't mind getting wet."

"Buh-leeeeeeave me, if there is one thing I know about you," Jens says with a sudden laugh, his other hand swinging back behind him to smack her butt lightly, "it is that you do not mind getting wet." He preens at her with a laugh.

Sparrow yelps in surprise as her hand swings behind him to ward off any potential attempts to try that again. With wide-eyed indignation, she mutters, "Well, I mean, you've seen my bathtub," though there's not a lick of innocence, either sincere or imagined, in that that thought. Suspecting she might be safe, she leans in closer, wrapping her farther arm around his belly, even if it makes walking a little awkward for the moment.