[ drp* ] Friend Shaped (America & Taym)

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Starting lines

It's tentative and in the forms of texts at first. America seems, at first, second, and third glance, like a bright and open and friendly girl. But none of that's a thing to take for granted. She has habit of dropping people at the first sign on long term trouble, because given too much of a chance, she won't drop them later when it's necessary.

She's a friendly girl, but she has to see to herself first, understand?

So there's a sense of testing waters, of a wary defense for a little while, but there's also forward motion. After a week of facing him via text only, he's got an invitation, once again, to visit the space she calls her own.

It's early when he arrives and she's still in pajamas, gazing at a carton of eggs like a some sort of culinary Rubik's cube.  

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I'm not kitten around

It's been a comfortable stretch of quiet and then suddenly, out of nowhere, a song begins to play. America gazes at the ceiling in confusion, wondering if this is the newest of her Weird Sensory Shenanigans.  

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Grave Business

He's seen the album, just a little bit of it, but she's walking with him and Ivy after work, cutting through a small, pretty path by one of the towns numerous old graveyards and she's struck still and then pulling that old album out of her bag, quickly paging through it with the efficient ease of familiarity.

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[Rejam]

Startling lines

He averts his eyes from her partly because seeing her in her pajamas feels more taboo than seeing her naked had and partly because he already feels intrusive, in someone else's space. He moves all wary with his fingertips extended to touch this surface, that, for all the world a nervous cat roaming around a new space and not quite sure what to make of it.

He finds, after a moment, that he envies it, small and cramped as it is that he'd left Ivy outside to curl up in the shade. The tight quarters makes the fear of accidental physical contact a little sharper, but he swallows it.

After a pause he makes an expansive gesture at the eggs.

"I wasn't expecting breakfast or I'd have brought something," he says.

Kitten around

He fumbles with his phone a bit and then the song ends and there's a protracted silence and then his ears begin to burn red. He does not, however, look up from his phone. He's sitting on the floor with his back against the bed and he stoops over it protectively, instead.

"Shut up," he says, into the general silence.

Grave business

He obligingly halts a couple of steps later when he realizes that she's no longer accompanying him, and with easy acceptance he seizes the moment--as he seizes nearly every pause, ever--to reach for his cigarettes.

"Deja vu?" he asks pleasantly, patiently.  

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Starting Lines

"Well I'm expecting breakfast," she glances up at him with a grin. "But nothing fancy, mind. Just eggs n'toast. You want sunny side or scrambled?" Anything else would, in all honesty, end up one or the other anyway.  

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Kitten Around

Mouth popped open in shock, she has to compress it in a firm line to keep from giggling and then ruins it all when she asks, the pleased laughter clear in her voice, "What was that?"  

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Finding what she wanted, America pulls out a polaroid and carefully places the album back into her back. Gesturing for Taym to follow, she's obviously pleased and a little excited. "Something like it, lemme show you!"

And then she's climbing over the cemetery's iron wrought fence, thighs flashing briefly as it catches the hem of her dress, but otherwise it's a smooth, practiced sort of motion.

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[Rejam]

Startling Lines

"What?" he jokes, in the hopes that joking will make the situation somehow resolve itself. "No poached eggs? No omelets? No crepes? What kind of establishment are you running?" And then, because he can't help it: "The way you're looking at those things I'm afraid it's going to get violent."

Kitten around

"It was a game," he says defensively. "I forgot I had the volume up. At least it wasn't porn," he adds.

Grave

Taym is, himself, no stranger to hopping fences. He pauses to tie Ivy's leash to a post first--she immediately settles in for a nap, as she does--and then is up and over himself. It's one of the more attractive qualities he possesses, the ease with which he moves--maybe the best physical one he has--but he doesn't seem to be aware of it as he lands catlike a few feet behind her and jogs to catch up. His cigarette never even leaves his mouth.

"If someone steals my dog I'm holding you personally responsible," he says.  

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Starting Lines

"Those all mean scrambled in this kitchen," America admits, hips swaying as she makes her decision. And then she adds shamelessly, "And I promise I won't beat them too hard."  

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Kitten Around

America rolls onto her stomach and scooches until she can peer over his shoulder. "How do I know it's not a porno game? Like some peek-a-boob mahjong or something."  

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Grave

She'd forgotten about Ivy and she slows to shoot him an apologetic look. "Shouldn't take long, I saw it just about..." Her hand, it should be said, keeps straying toward his, like she wants to grab it and pull him along until she remembers he's a cringey sort. Hand's off.

It's a worn and broken statue, and it should be an angel or weeping virgin or something, right? In its hooded gown and solemn features, it seems like the virgin at first glance, but there's something in the missing pieces and wide eyes, something in the mouth and posture that suggest something different. Something more animal than Christianity would ever allow.

America hardly notices though, as she holds up the picture and matches it to reality, moving it just so until they complete each other. A broken section of shoulder filled in, an out of focus grove of trees in the back that were larger now, a little bit wilder with blooms peeking out in flashes of bright color.

"See?"

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[Rejam]

Grave

He makes it easier on her, shoving his hands into his pockets. Any time she's failed to contain herself he's jerked back like she'd burned him (ridiculous, really, given their brief history) and he's apparently in no hurry to subject himself to it again.

He gives the statue the side eye for a moment before turning his attention to the photo.

"Eagle eyes," he says. "I bet you never get lost. Unless you want to," he adds. And he knows a little bit--they'd talked; talked a lot more than he'd meant. "When you find all of them--I guess you've got a ways to go, but still--are you gonna be reveling in your victory or disappointed you won't have an excuse to hop cemetery fences any more?" And then, almost compulsively, he reaches up to touch his trembling fingertips just barely to the corner of the photo, all hesitant, like he's touching something taboo and forbidden and unable to resist anyway.

Kitten around

"What do you take me for?" he retorts. "If I wanna look at tits I'm not going to resort to a round of titillating mah-jong. I'm gonna google 'tits.' Or maybe just ask an obliging person for a photo. Speaking of which--"

It is not peek-a-boob mah-jong, or anything else risque for that matter, although--

"I guess there is a preponderance of buttholes," he concedes. Tiny, x-shaped, cartoon buttholes. He has apparently resigned himself to his fate, her scootching executed with enough speed that he hadn't had time to conceal the screen. No sense lying now. His voice goes defensive again. "It's just a stupid timekiller thing." And then: "Good god, can you imagine trying to get off to this music?"

Starting lines

"Omelets are easy," he protests. And then because he can't help himself and because she started it: "They are more than easy. They are over easy." Oh no. "Unless you're chicken."  

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Grave

A few weeks ago, the question would have made America have to pause, have to consider the disappointment she'd felt the first few she tried around town. They'd felt like enough of an empty to gesture to make the completion of them all feel like some incredible, heartbreaking waste of time. Worse, it'd felt foolish.

"Naw," she smiles when she answers him now. "I thought, at first, they were like...windows. But I think maybe they're really doors." They'd begun leading her to people and experiences, things to take back and revisit.  

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Kitten Around

"Some guys are into high scores," she offers consolingly, the mattress shaking against his back giving away her suppressed giggles. And then it pauses. And then a sudden scrambling even closer to peer at the phone as she coos, "Oh my god! Oh my god how are they so cute. Lookit those tiny ******** smug little pancake faces!"
 

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Starting Lines

"Well, yolks on you mister, 'cause you just offered to cook." A spatula is thrust at him with a smirk.

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