ArchivedLogs:Reflections

Reflections
Dramatis Personae Jackson, Parley
In Absentia	2013-04-29 '
Location <NYC> 303 {Holland} - Village Lofts - East Village
This apartment is cheerful, in its way -- bright and airy, its floor plan open and a plethora of windows providing it with an abundance of light. The tiny entrance hall opens into a living room, small, though its sparse furniture and lack of clutter give it a more open feel. The decor is subdued and minimalist; black and white is the dominant theme, with occasional splashes of deep crimson to offset the monochrome, though of late bright coloured sealife has made its way into being painted on the wall. The couch and armchair are upholstered in black corduroy, the low wide coffee table central is black wood and glass-topped, and a few large pillowy beanbags provide additional seating by the large windows that dominate the back wall. Towards the back, a couple of doors lead off into bedrooms and bathroom, and to the right, the kitchen's tile is separated from the living room's dark hardwood floors by black countertops. Above the bedroom to one side, there is higher space; a ladder climbs up to a lofted area looking down on the living room. Standing in front of the partition between living and cooking area is a large fish tank: one lone Betta, blood-red, swims regally among several species of black and silver fish. A hallway beyond the kitchen leads further into the apartment. Another bathroom stands just into the hall and the farthest door leads to the apartment's final bedroom, the door usually kept shut to hold in the acrid fumes of turpentine and paints from within. Shh. Hang on. Knok-knock... It's like counting down the seconds between lighting and thunder. Knock? Maybe this is a bad time for knocking. There's an answer to the knock immediately, in the scrabble-click of dog nails against wood, the thumpthumpthump of a tail against the wall. Panting. Snuffling. Hopefully these things are not Jax. Jax does open the door eventually, though! He's dressed -- work or class, perhaps, there's paint splattered on his brightbright pants, perhaps they were once black jeans but they have long since been largely replaced by patches in a rainbowy mishmash of disparate fabrics. His t-shirt is green, Dr. Seuss drawins printed on it along with 'I am the Lorax, I speak for the trees.' The smile on his face is small, polite, it's a layer of patient reservation draped carefully over a vivid-bright backdrop of more hyperactive cheerful (tired stressed but) happy feelings and thoughts that his mind bounces ferret-like through with little attention span for any. "Evenin', Parley." "Mr. Hol-." Parley had been looking up the length of the hall, but when the door opens his eyes snap to Jackson's, alert and fixed. "Mr. Jackson. ...-san." The last just drops out, his head ducking, eyes moving away again to peeer into the Holland apartmentstead as though it had strange and frightful marvels, "Do you have a moment?" "I got a few moments." Something in Jackson relaxes, a tick, at this name correction, and he steps back to pull the door open wider. "D'you want to come in?" It's half an invitation but it also seems actually /questioning/ rather than a formality; Jax is studying Parley's face with a faint note of concern that he pushes back. "I mean you don't look real --" << comfortable, >> surfaces, before it clenches down into something a little wryer. "Sorry." "Mmnh. I'm very rarely real --." Sentence is ended with the same intonation Jackson had left it. Parley runs his hands absently down the front of his shirt, smoothing it out. He's dressed from (or possibly for) work, a charcoal sports coat, a pale gray-blue turtleneck, slacks, black shoes. "Um." He glances into the apartment again, head still dropped down, "I - maybe. I need..." He sucks in softly through his teeth, a quiet hiss of dislike. "I'm hoping you could /tell/ me if you have any art that you're selling." He arms draw up, cross against his chest, hands crammed under either armpit. "He," - though it's not really 'he', he's saying, it's a million little things, a posture, a calculated expression, newspapers strewn across the floor, so briefly a tight sterile cell, all referring to his roommate with no name, but a sharp individual /existence/ all their own - "...I would like to surprise him. He admires your work." He's not looking up. Just staring fixedly forward, wired like a guitar string. Jackson's eyebrows hike up as Parley talks. He leans against the door, absently holding back Obie with one ankle as the beagle tries to make a run for the newcomer outside. "You're -- here for my art." He doesn't laugh but something inside him does, a brief almost exhilirated flutter that sighs (amused? relieved?) without actually sighing. "Parley --" He rubs his knuckles against his temple for a moment. "You're standing there like I'm about to hit you." He draws in a breath, and whatever is on his mind is fuzzy-obscured behind flitting thoughts of art, art recently finished, art still being worked on, art tucked away safely at his school. "I'm sorry," he says, and for all Parley is staring ahead at the floor instead of him /he/ is looking at Parley rather steadily. "Last time you come down here. I was cruel. I don't know you and I got no call to presume --" His head shakes slightly. There is more on his mind, hovering somewhere beneath the quick turnover of this and that painting, but he doesn't say it. His hand tightens on the doorknob. "I'm sorry if it looks that way," Parley twists his brows together slightly, his head ducking further but this time it could be just to run his hand down the back of his neck. There's a long silence that follows, the strange flutter of a mind's... art, yes, might be the genuine word for it... sprinkled with colors washing down chutes and mental waterways from illusionist to empath, handled delicately and with a trace of awkwardness on receiving. What looks at first like an inefficient scrubbing of his nape, involving hand held still and head shifting back and forth beneath it eventually suggests possibly a negating shake of the head. "--no, I have been. Mh. Uncooperatonal." He raises up his chin back to typical elevation, "You know. This is twice now that you've saved my life. And I don't think I've ever even thanked you for it. Douzo." It's a word that has no perfect English equivalent - 'and so' it feels somewhat like. And 'here, then'. It explains itself soon enough. His raised chin has aligned his spine upright and straight, so that when he folds a bow at the waist, arms straight at his sides, he makes a near perfect right angle. "Domo -- arigato gozaimasu. Jackson-san." The translation is there of course, a message of gratitude. But likely as not -- quietly said, murmured downward, not needed. There might be a slight anxious feeling of 'crapcrapcrapcrap' underlining it; communicating as he cannot: he does not at ALL know how to do what he's trying to do. "Ah --" This is almost a protest, almost a don't-need-thanks, but then it isn't. It's just quiet, and Jackson tips his head very slightly. "OK," is his first answer to this, a little uncertain, but next, still quiet (but less tentative), "Thank you," almost overlapping with << you're welcome? >> It's clear enough from his jumbled feelings that he's not really entirely sure how to /accept/ this gratitude any more than Parley is sure how to give it: being thanked for saving lives has not /happened/ a whole lot. "Are you um. Oh. Right. Art. Did you -- do you know what he -- likes?" Parley stands, rigidly and just kind of - FORWARD MARCHES into the apartment, skirting carefully around Jax's personal space, hands tucked behind his back and overlapped above his tailbone, "...He doesn't really know how to 'like'." His back is turned to the room as he meanders to coast along one side of the room, looking at the walls. Or things ON the walls. "If it has a story - probably. Or anything personalized would--. Mn. He doesn't have many things intended just for him." "Yeah, I can see how that would be -- mmm." Now Jax's thoughts are just skewing /pensive/, contemplative, the institutionalized dispassion of cages and the hectic clutter of reintegrating to world combined with the constant-shift of identity all summing out to: not much Just For Him. He scrubs his hand through his hair, considering a blank patch of wall for a moment. A rectangle stretches itself onto the wall as he nudges the door closed and wanders in after Parley. A frame-like rectangle, colours swirling in the center. People. One person. One constantly shifting person. "-- What's he like?" Jackson wants to know, quiet and almost a little guilty, << (so many now) (want to know them all) (don't half as well as I should) >> "To you?" It's a complicated question, isn't it. Parley's first instinct is to answer through mental touch; it can be felt building as a subtle air pressure outside Jackson's mind, brewing thick with thunder-strength and lighting-shocks of sharp wit... but hidden. Like the deep depths of a pond invisible beneath the perfect reflective surface of-- "--Sorry." It is all in the span of an apologetic second, before Parley polite-quick rolls it back, away, "He is..." His hand rests over the face of the shifting person against the wall, covering it. "Always there. Always honest. He isn't /copying/ when he -- nor caricaturizing . He doesn't show anything that's not first shown him first, whether it's right or wrong. He's a --." He forms a small, private smile, aimed at the wall. "He's a mirror." "Sorry?" There's a reflexive tightening of Jackson's mind at the touch but even with this instinctive withdrawing his brow furrows, for a moment, uncomprehending before understanding comes. His head dips, apologetic as well: "I don't -- /mind/, sorry, I just -- startle easy. Just gotta -- know first." His fingers curl through his hair again. The image on the wall steadies, stabilizes, as Parley's hand rests against it. It's steadied not into any one of the people it had been before but a person-silhouette, etched in glass. "Mmm." He's still just thinking. Colours flicker in the background, and eventually his head dips in acknowledgment. "Aright," he says, curling his arms against his chest and rocking back on his heels. "I -- it'll take some thought. I want it to be --" << (him) >> << (home) >> "-- right." Parley nods, two very small movements at Jax's caution, his back offering very little helpful /elaboration/ on it save that the slope of his shoulders are unstiff, unchallenging. He makes no attempt to reconnect again mentally even then, the nature of his mutation doing, in fact, the opposite by default - the sense of anyone even /in/ the house much less near enough for contact waning, conceding to Jax's own presence in a soft surrender of territory. "Take your time. And... nnh, do whatever /you/ --," his head tips to the side, looking at the silhouette, "-- would like him to have." He looks carefully over his shoulder, his eyes only /after/ this motion lifting to Jackson's, "Put a little bit of yourself in it? What you would also want? He'd be able to tell. I'm sure of it. And it would mean more to him." He looks back up at the frame a final time, lowering his hand away. "Thank you Mist--Hol. Nngh." He steps away from the wall, "I suppose thank you alone will have to stand." "Just Jax," Jackson says with a small curl of smile, his head dipping. The smile remains, a softly inward-focused warmth accompanying it with the admission: "I put a little'a myself in all my work. Or a lot." His fingers scuff through his hair again, and he nods. The frame-rectangle on the wall blanks, shifting to -- not a painting but just a reflection, Jax and Parley both echoed in the large square of illusion-glass on the wall. And then it fades altogether. "'kay. I'll have it -- mmm. I work in oil, it ain't a quick -- I'll let you know. Y'want to see it as it's -- through stages -- or just when it's done?" "Mngh," /uncomfortable/ sound. Parley runs his knuckles slowly along the underside of his chin, "You know" He tries to sound just kind of brisk and light about this? "How I was raised, referring to someone by their first name was considered a sign of -- well, familiarity. Or. /Presumption/. Derision." He's sliding his gaze along the ceiling point where it meets the wall, tracing an arrow straight line slowly across the upper portion of the room while his head remains still and unrotating. "Funnily enough, s'how I was raised, too," Jackson says absently, "though presumption kinda, mm, inherently requires /presuming/." His arms stay loose-crossed against his chest, fingers squeezing down against his bicep. "-- What should I call you?" "Presuming familiarity?" Parley suggests, the very slightest lift at the side of his mouth. Wryly. It fades to a blank stare directed at Jackson. "I...-- I. Don't think that I've ever --." He blinks and it seems the more thinking, the harder it is to answer. So clearly, the easiest solution leads to the slight tension in his brows loosening, and he shrugs, glancing at a window, "I don't really care anymore. I'm not fond of hearing my original name called on. Parley is apt." "Presuming --" Jackson echoes this with a quiet exhalation. "Right. Parley. S'what you've chosen now." It's worded as a statement though there's a quietly questioning note, more in mind than in tone. His fingers squeeze tighter against his bicep, and then release. "OK. I'll get t'work on that painting soon." Was that a /dismissal/? Parley peers from the corner of his eyes, watching Jackson's fingers squeeze tighter, then release, his net trailing for whatever small glimpses of cause might be behind it. "I meant presumptive of /me/. You are my... ffh, I suppose it's not actually over dramatic to say you are our savior. While I am..." Hm. Where is he going with this. He pats a hand against his hip, frowning blankly, looking slightly more tired, eyelids lowering, "Well. Me." Oh ho, is this a visit of restless energy, or is Parley just up for a sudden stiff saunter around the apartment? His trajectory sort of loosely is towards the door, glancing over his shoulder to inquire, suddenly on a flush of curiosity, "If you were raised that way as well -- what was it that made you change?" It might be less a dismissal and more just an uncertainty of what more to say; at least in Jax's mind there is nothing anxious for Parley to /leave/, even if there is nothing anxious for him to stay, either. Just a vague knot of something that is not /uncomfortable/ so much as aimless-uncertain; Jax's head turns to track Parley's motions with his one eye and for once his own energy is tightly contained, no bounce or fidget or pace although longer days means he has an /abundance/ of restless building up inside him. Perhaps waiting to explode. But he's quiet and still right now, just watching Parley and twitching a thin (and /actually/ discomfited) smile at the mention of being their saviour. The discomfort here passes, subdues back into thought. "You're you," he agrees, but this with a twitch of a shrug. "Though what that means --" Uncertainty, again. A frame appears on the wall again, its inside blank-white. Jax contemplates the wall for a moment. His lips twitch again, a little crooked. "I -- didn't want t'be presumptive," he admits, and it's kind of wry. "I was raised with so much formality drilled in, y'know? Sir and ma'am and stand when an elder enters the room and stand when a lady's sittin' and always use the right respectful title to --" His head shakes. "But I didn't want to -- it's a habit I still got, a lot of times, but after meetin' so many folks who've chosen new names and new identities for all kindsa reasons I don't -- m'hesitant to call people somethin' cuz /I/ think it's polite 'stead of cuz /they're/ comfortable being called it." "And if they're uncomfortable /not/ using formalities?" Parley tosses this back as though it were a frisbee Jackson had thrown to him, his steps lighter while pushing up onto his toes, turning around to meander aimlessly backwards to watch the illusionist's face. "You asked," Jackson says mildly, "what made /me/ stop that pattern. The people who want me to call them somethin' proper, I do. S'easier for me. I feel all kindsa strange /not/ callin' folks sir or --" He shrugs a shoulder. "But you asked why /I/ don't." "I asked to make a comparison," Parley answers with a flicker of smile, though it fades sooner than it can properly take, "Why does it bother you that I address you formally?" "If you're uncomfortable addressin' folks how they want," Jackson shrugs one shoulder, turning his gaze to consider Parley thoughtfully a moment, "then address them how you want. Ain't nobody always gonna be comfortable in life. Everything's a compromise." His arms uncross, recross. He leans against the back of the couch, crossing them against the corduroy, instead. "It --" There's something that dances here across the surface of his mind; it's not /much/, something cool and bright and a calm even voice crackling through intercom speakers, << "/Again/, Mr. Holland," >> and it fades into just a shrug, a shake of his head. "-- just ain't who I am." This last earns - not a chill, but a strange easing. Parley lets out a breath through his nose, and stops aimlessly orbiting. Instead falls into a quiet walk forward, back towards Jackson, shoulders loose and unchallenging. "Jackson-san." His hands raise, not touching but with palms hovering just near enough to the illusionist's abdomen to feel his body heat, looking into Jackson's eyes. His own are dark, deep. Calm but -- arrested. And he says softly, "-- I don't-." Silence. He licks his upper lip. The name earns an acknowledging dip of Jackson's head; it's small but inside there's something -- warmer, something easing here, too, accepting this with a slight smile. He turns, when Parley approaches, facing the other man. This time of year the body heat he carries is significant, a stockpile of energy that radiates warm even from a distance. Not that there is distance for long, the shift of Jax's posture to look towards Parley bringing him closer still, abdomen resting up against Parley's fingertips. He drops his own hand, slow enough to be easily withdrawn from, fingers resting lightly against the back of Parley's hand if the other man's stay. In his mind there is -- soft, still, a default warmth tempered by pensiveness, by quiet curiosity. His one eye meets Parley's. "You don't --?" Parley doesn't pull away; he eases, by stages. His fingers are first tense, not resistant but stiff and unconforming to the natural organic slope of Jackson's abdominal wall. The overlaping of hands, the radiant warmth of body heat melts them somewhat. "--I don't actually know what I'm doing in any of this. … you do know that, don't you?" Jackson's laugh is soft, a little shaky-startled but no less genuine for it, muscles shifting beneath Parley's fingers with the quiet sound. "Oh -- oh, gosh," he says, his gaze lowering and a hint of colour touching his cheeks. "-- Do any of us?" Touch is, in its own way, a very visceral communication, one that functions beyond words. The compression, tactile interaction of shared surface space in a way transcends even empathy, where skin exists beyond human communicative centers. Parley's fingers curl around Jackson's waist and -- kind of lightly /shakes/ him by this point. "-- But when I am around you. I'm trying to follow /your lead/." This elicits another laugh, less startled, more just -- soft-tired. Jackson's fingers spread, slightly, coming to rest in a light but steady weight against the back of Parley's hand. "Oh -- oh." It's a touch breathless, here, and Jax's other hand lifts to press his hand against his cheek. "And /I'm/ just kind of -- /flailing/ and hopin' that it's in the right direction," he admits with a slight scrunch of nose, "it's -- I mean, I -- s'funny, you know, people shooting at us, dragons spitting acid clouds, I got that down. I'll lead my team /there/ an' not miss a beat. But here when it's quiet --" His head shakes. "Ain't always so simple to find the right footing. Maybe --" His posture is relaxing, now, and it leads to a shift of weight, more easily fitting into the hand that Parley shakes him with. "Maybe it's gotta be a compromise there too. Do what /you/ want to do -- what you think is -- is --" << (best) >> << (good) >> << (right) >>. "-- an' sometimes there'll be missteps but -- maybe y'get enough solid people around in life and together they kindasorta keep each other more or /less/ on track." "Do what I want-..." Parley's face has drifted blank, kneading slightly on the material of Jackson's clothes in a definitive sign that he is, in the least, considering, if not rapidly /comprehensively/. His eventual nod sees his head lowering and then remaining there. Looking at -- Jackson's /shirt/ front. My. He is a walking font of colorful distractions. "... solid people." Repeating words slowly. Lining them up like colorful bits of glass in a window, eyes sliding not upward but to the side, towards the door. "-- you're probably right." He says, carefully. In what way? He seems to be turning it over still, slowly. "Maybe," Jackson says, and his smile is a little crooked. He watches Parley, as Parley looks away. "I mean, I ain't real sure of nothin'. I'm just kinda hoping to stay on track." For a moment he is quiet, and his bright-colourful jumble of mental scape is packed as ever, a constant whitenoise (/bright/noise) of too-intense shades; here, though, it resolves into more definitive thoughts as /he/ reflects. On his kids and his students and his team, on the people they've pulled out and the people still left behind. His breathing is slower, deeper, and his thoughts shift back to Parley. "-- What /do/ you want?" "I--... am not sure I remember how to want." Parley gives Jackson's flank a mild little 'pat', letting his hands slip loose and standing for a moment, head turned to look at the frame on the wall. "I -- want to see your progress as you work on it." Pause. He adds, sounding a moment mildly mystified, voice quieter, "I wouldn't mind seeing him smile. Not the reflection he's wearing. He picks up their --" He draws a lazy encompassing gesture around his head, "--personality. It's dominant. But his is there, underneath. He just forgets." He nods, acclimating to this idea gradually, "So. That is something I would want, probably. For him to be able to remember sometimes." Jackson is listening to this, quiet, thoughtful, part of him inwardly cataloguing this as To Be Remembered while he is painting but part of him just inwardly cataloguing it as Parley. Filed away somewhere under Cares About << (roommate) (friend) (mirror-person) >> with a colour to this thought that is somehow amused and not in a mocking way, although the source of amusement isn't quite clear. "Can be hard," he muses, shifting back to rest his elbows against the couch. "Spend too long wearing not-your-face --" He shrugs, and the frame slowly fills, with nothing more than smoke curling in odd-coloured wisps up from the bottom to eventually cloud the whole thing. "Expect it makes it just that much easier, though. Have someone around who knows /him/. But if I can help make a reminder --" His arms fold against the corduroy again. The smoke in the frame is clearing, slightly; not much but thinning in the center to just leave a dark pair of almond eyes steadily watching. "Yes." Parley slips his wallet from the inside of his coat, "A reminder. That would be perfect. Something that he can keep." Not said, but slipped through his words, he isn't straining out the gut-deep practical consideration behind it, undramatic, realistic: 'In case.' "Do you prefer cash or check?" "Something that he can keep," Jax agrees, and the accepted << in case >> is felt in his words, too, with the similar simple practicality of someone who has long gotten used to building in such contingencies into his own life. "Oh -- mmm -- check's better," has a kind of vague-surprised-distraction to it that evidently had forgotten that this is /business/ here. Not an unpleasant one either because it comes with a quiet background buzz of cataloguing which overdue bill will take highest priority (rent and utilities already been paid thank God; food costs slotted higher than Spencer's tuition, Spencer's tuition higher than the twins', poor Xavier's continually shafted because they'll be more /lenient/ with him; his phone needs to stay on for work and maybe eventually he can get his internet turned back on?) and above this a quick mental arithmetic of custom oil painting before he remembers to quote Parley a price. The frame on the wall fades. "-- D'you like citrus?" his next question is kind of absent, clarifies a moment later: "I got cookies." "Mmh?" Parley is writing in his checkbook, eyes lowered. With his work clothes and his glasses, he looks as though he'd spent his whole life brought up in the wilds of an office land. He tears out the check and folds it in half, setting it on the edge of the the table. His eyes /gleam/ when he glances up, tucking the checkbook into an inner pocket, "I love everything." This earns a quick smile. Brief but warm, and the way Jax pushes up away from the couch is oddly both wired and /relaxed/, easing back /in/ to his usual bounce of excess /energy/. "Good," he says with a laugh, flitting away towards the kitchen, "cuz I always got more'n I know what to do with." Maybe he means cookies. Maybe he means /everything/. Parley will probably be /foisted/ with some to take back to the roommates, too. While Everything (cookies and whatever comes /otherwise/, he'll not say NO) is packaged, Parley will lurk around the peripherals as usual, making generally apologetic sounds and words of thanks in between bouts of otherwise distracted silence, aiding in whatever manner he can. Until he has the GOODs. Then he's make a mild semi-fold of the waist - more a shoulders-and-head nod, absently at the door, and take his quiet leave. The check, when it's looked at, will be for $300 made out to Jackson Holland. The memo reads: First Payment. With a weird little scribble of a - frame? Four sides of a rectangle with some nebulous blobby shape in the middle. Maybe it's a mirror.