Logs:Split Ends

Split Ends
Dramatis Personae Alma, Jax, Ryan	2023-02-19 "He hasn't driven me up every single wall, just enough of them that I know the house is still standing."
Location <NYC> Detention Facility - Jax's Suite - S.H.I.E.L.D. HQ - Times Square
A bit larger than the other detainee's rooms, this one has been converted from a small corner lounge for the guest rooms. Tall windows with a southern exposure let in copious sunlight if the unnecessarily high-tech curtains are drawn. The sitting area is small but comfortable and the sleeping area beyond it is screened off with interior partitions. There's a bulky desk in one corner with a computer rigged up nicely for video calls and a kitchenette tucked into another. A video comm panel by the front door allows for quick communication with both in-person visitors just outside the door or the security staff down the hall. The room decorations have been proliferating wildly -- the bed is now home to a menagerie of stuffed animals, mostly all Very New except for one old much-loved Cheer Bear perched atop the pillow. Greenery spills over from pots by the window ledge and hanging baskets. Art in numerous people's varied styles has been hung on the walls, with numerous of Jax's own sketches -- portraits of friends mingling with anthro characters and surreal cityscapes, a large drawing of a stained glass window bearing an image of Apollo done in traditional church-window style -- tacked up on the desk. A number of stained-glass hangings refract colorful light in from the expensive windows. Carly Rae Jepsen is playing over Jax's speakers, lending a bright and cheery air to this bright and cheery... prison. Jax is warmly dressed despite it also being quite warm already in here this morning -- bright rainbow color-blocked sweatshirt over a thick blue and purple waffle-weave shirt, mismatched stripey thigh-high socks under his flannel lined jeans, a knit cap pulled low over his shaggy dark hair. At his desk he's tucked with both knees up to his chest in the chair, hand braced against the edge as he pushes the office chair back-and-forth-and-back-and-forth, looking grimly dissatisfied with the mostly-finished drawing of some sort of fantasy-armored elfling that is on his screen. The air around him is muddled-dark, his stylus a rapid-twirling blur between his fingers. Should he knock? Probably he should knock, but instead Ryan is just barging in, first pushing the door open in the same antsy-eager hurry he's been in the whole way up and then, only once it's opened, hanging back like he's worried that was Not The Right Move. He's not dressed to draw attention, today -- black skinny jeans tucked into silver-sheened boots, a soft green tee with a colorful chimaera logo rampant across the chest, similarly silvery jacket with more buckles and straps than it likely needs. There's a sturdy insulated tote bag over his wrist and he twists at the strap restlessly, eyes fixing on Jax though he doesn't say a word. Though she's also not trying to draw attention, and though she's In a building full of sharp black suits, Alma manages to stand out in her own sharp black suit. Her jacket is cut to flatter her slender curves and to conceal the rows of throwing knives sheathed along her vest, her crisp white dress shirt is cinched with a red continental tie, her trousers slim but not restrictive, her sleek black dress boots polished to a shine. She wears a red kippah embroidered with a bold black fist, carefully pinned to the fine twists of her hair. Only after a visual rapid sweep of the room and another of the hallway behind her does she allows herself to actually look at Jax. Her expression is hard to read, but her body language suggests she would very much like to push past Ryan into the room. Instead, she just leans against the doorway beside him, keeping the hallway in her visual field while providing a sturdy and steady presence. The stylus clatters out of Jax's fingers and down to the floor. He turns to the door, his eye wider and brighter, flickers of color pushing back against the murky aura around him. He starts to get up from his chair hastily -- thumps back down into it just as quickly. He's likely about to say something but claps his hand to his mouth rather than letting it out. The dark swirl around him is retreating when he moves his hand from his mouth, scrubs his knuckles against his eye. "You're kinda late, sugar." Even with the time taken to steady himself, keep his tone light, his words betray him easily enough to Ryan -- relief, bright joy, deep angry hurt all mingled in his emotions. "-- Alma, you still lookin' great like always. Pretty sure the nazis is all cleaned outta here an' I don't think nobody else is like to bother us so probably you can relax." Ryan slips further into the room -- probably more out of deference to not keeping Alma in the doorway than anything else, because he doesn't actually make it all the way to Jax. He sets his tote bag down on a table, though after seems at a loss for what to do with his hands, clasping them in front of himself and then shoving them into the pockets of his jacket. "Okay, but the fact y'all got overrun by Nazis in the first place is kind of concerning in the whole, safety thing, yeah?" This is likely not what he originally intended to say. "... we brought brunch," also might not be what he was aiming for. His shoulders are tightening, head bowing slightly before he manages, "I'm sorry." "There are," Alma speculates, "probably still Nazis here. Just smarter ones." But she's abandoning her slightly awkward post to follow Ryan in. "I was more worried those agents might give us trouble, what with their security on high alert." She walks a circuit of the room, not really bothering to make it look like she's just idly checking out Jax's decorations. "Did they hurt you?" She pointedly does not specify which "they". "I wish that weren't true but you prob'ly dead on on that count." Jax's shoulder hitches in a small shrug, not quite as nonchalant as he's probably aiming for with his light, "Oh, only my pride." His nose wrinkles up. "The Nazis wasn't half so competent as -- I mean, if you gonna have a terrorist militia you gotta train 'em up right, right?" Random Nazis, Jax is highly disappointed in your preparedness. "Heidlage did almost get Fury good, though. I really gotta curb my instincts when it come to Saving People cuz in a nazi-vs-cop battle --" His hands spread up in front of himself helplessly. Jax's levity isn't quite managing to hold on when he drops his hands to his knees, looking away from Alma's circuit of the room and back to Ryan. "I can't even say you got no idea what it's like bein' locked away like this 'cuz you sure do. Might be less hurtful if you didn't, I been losin' my..." There's a brief flutter in the light around them as he shakes his head. Frowns. "-- They didn't give you no trouble, did they? They're supposed to be chill 'bout my visitors now but everyone's -- got a little jumpy." "I know. I know, I just -- when I heard about -- I couldn't --" Ryan doesn't take these excuses to their conclusion, shaking his head as if to shake away the temptation to keep protesting. "I'm sorry. Sometimes I feel like I'm just watching myself make shitty fucking decisions that I know are shitty fucking decisions but does that stop me? And I'm sure I've been --" His brows pinch, the look he shoots Alma kind of guilty. "... even more of a goddamn nightmare than usual. Dump all my crazy on Alma's lap. Fuck." He drops down heavily into a seat at the table -- draped kind of angled into it, one leg hooked over an arm of the chair and his other bouncing restlessly on the ground. "You really jumped in to save the head of the World Police, this place is getting to you." Alma arches one eyebrow at Jax's claim of a wounded pride, but does not question it. "Yeah, they seemed pretty twitchy, but..." she says, frowning, her eyes sliding back to Ryan, "actually, maybe they were too scared to give us trouble. Or scared we would give them trouble." Her surprise melts into amazement, and then admiration when she meets his eyes. "There's a bright side to your bad reputation, too. Anyway, unlike the pigs and the blackbirds, I know what I signed up for." She doesn't sit down, but she does lean back against the edge of the table. "I'm not about to thank them for snapping you out of it, but I'm glad you did snap out of it." It's hard, maybe impossible, to untangle her gratitude and relief and worry from the myriad smaller complexities of her busy mind, but what she says next rings pure with love and rage, "This place has already done a number on you both." "Oh, he spent a long time cultivatin' that special," There's a quiet pride in Jax's voice, edging through despite the hurt. "Get big enough you're real hard to disappear, get bad enough an' -- well." Jax's cheeks flush after this, his head bowing. His leg is bouncing, too, not quite a mirror of Ryan's -- slower and more erratic, it sets his chair to rocking back and forth. "I mean, I probably woulda saved him anyway, I wouldn't want Lu..." Here his blush deepens, his eye a little wider. "-- anyway, I'm glad, too. I been on the verge of givin' myself a new stick-an-poke just to make sure I ain't died in here." He sounds very casual about this admission. Less casual and more earnest with the follow-up: "An' I'm glad, too. I mean, I kinda would prefered that whole leak didn't happen but if it's what it took to get you to talk to me again --" Once again his shoulder hitches. There's both a genuine concern and a genuine amusement undergirding his words when he asks -- Alma, not Ryan: "Gosh, how bad has it been, has he drived you up every wall? Thank gosh soon you'll be done with..." Though here he's stopping, brows scrunching in thought. "Wait, no, how is already February, ain't you done with school? How's the synagogue-hunt going, you find anywhere good yet?" Jax is casual about giving this admission and Ryan is casual about receiving it, only offering a confident... reassurance? "You ain't dead. Just stuck in this surreal-ass prison while people in Washington kick you around like a political football." His brows lift inquisitively at the aborted statement, at the blush, but Jax's question derails his curiosity. It may not have been directed to him but he's still first to answer, with a small frown. "Some of these fucking shuls don't know what they're passing up on." "I think a lot of them would still pass if they knew." Alma isn't actually as unfazed as she's trying to sound, but she's certainly not crushed or startled by her career prospects. "Some of them would pass harder if they knew." There's a lot roiling behind that wry defiance, but she's entirely sincere when she admits, "Honestly, I've been thankful for the extra time and headspace. He hasn't driven me up every single wall, just enough of them that I know the house is still standing. But, at least the house is still standing." "Still standing ain't nothin'. S'been... kinda a year." Only now, finally, Jax is levering himself up from his seat. "What's it you're looking for in a. Place. Position. I take it this means Anshei Shalom ain't been..." The quirk of his lips is wry. "In the market for a new cantor?" He crosses to the table, leaning down behind Ryan's chair for a one-armed hug from behind, fierce and hard, pressing a kiss to the top of the other man's head before he releases him and takes a seat of his own. He's peering into the tote bag, now, starting to unload the promised brunch. "... this food Alma-friendly?" Ryan's eyes close, through the hug; he leans back into it, head dropping back against Jax's shoulder and his hand lifting to just squeeze brief and strong against Jax's forearm. He says nothing, but in his small catch of breath there's a flash of love and grief that washes over the others, breathtaking in its intensity and mercifully brief. He is reluctantly easing himself into something like a proper sitting position, both feet on the floor, facing the table so he can help unpack the food. "Gonna sit here feasting and make a friend sit by and watch, who do you think I am." Ryan's scoff is probably (probably!) only mock-offended at the question about the food. Inside the tote there is kind of a feast, crispy tempeh cakes with a spicy remoulade, blackened tofu scramble, garlic-rosemary home fries, fluffy biscuits with mushroom gravy, coffee-chocolate chip muffins, thermoses of hot coffee and cold cranberry juice; the melamine plates and mugs that come with it are wildly colorful in a familiar way, some of Jax's own otherworldly plant life blossoming bright across the dishes. "... what's it take to start your own shul?" it's kind of an idle curiosity, here. "I mean, there's a lot of factors making it hard to find the right home, yeah?" Alma laughs, and there is real humor behind it, if awkwardness as well. "They're not looking, and I'm thankful to dodge that awkwardness as long as I can. It kind of feels like by the time I narrow it down to somewhere that would even consider hiring me and also has a budget for a cantor, I haven't got a whole lot of room left for what I actually want." Some of what was roiling deep in her starts surfacing -- weariness, alienation, and more anger. "I want a congregation that loves to sing, and asks questions, and values me for more than just my intersections. But even if I found this unicorn shul, I still wouldn't be looking forward to working for and with a lot of humans again. Ryan's spoiled me." She does finally sit, with a twitch of a smile at Ryan's Correctly (for now) Seated Posture. "Starting my own might be the only way to get there. The finer points depend on what you mean by 'shul', but..." She considers briefly, watching Ryan unpack the food. "Probably start with a lot of coffee dates and working lunches and Zoom calls with the kinds of people I want to build a shul with." There's a kind of yearning in these words that she's trying to tamp down, more or less succeeding with, "Probably still wind up with a lot of people who only want me for my intersections. I hope," she adds to Jax, "you weren't planning on waiting." "Ryan does set a real high bar," Jax admits, his tone exaggeratedly more grudging than he's feeling. He takes only a very small portion of each dish onto his plate, picking a chocolate chip out of the muffin as his first bite. "But I'm sure there's some space that's right out there for you -- even if you gotta make it yourself. Ain't like none of us strangers to building community, yeah?" He flushes at her last semi-question, gesturing around his comfortable cell. "I think the waiting part's kinda decided for me, y'know. SHIELD ain't about to give me a day pass to go get myself dunked." "Okay but consider, if we just blipped you out here to get yourself kashered and brought you right back, would they even say anything? At this point better for them to help cover up your delinquency, spare 'em more embarrassment. You really think they're gonna let it slip that you played hooky to go get some God and came back?" Ryan is already shifting in his seat again, fidgeting like sitting the way the chair was made for is causing him some discomfort. He tucks one leg beneath him, crooks the other up onto the seat, more at ease now in this sort of pretzel. "Dunno that I'll be much help with finding you the right kinds of Jews but you know if you need seed money to build a shul that Black -- lesbian -- anarchist -- mutants can be welcome you know I got you." Alma piles food somewhat haphazardly onto her plate. "Just Start Your Own Shul About It is a proud Jewish tradition. I'm not sure whether Rabbi Jacob would be insulted or relieved if I sniped you. Probably both." She snaps and points at Ryan's perhaps not altogether rhetorical question. "But yeah, they didn't make any fuss about your last field trip, and that was before Fury owed you his life." She pours herself some coffee and offers to do the same for the men with a slight arch of her brows. "Even if he is an ungrateful bastard with no common sense, they were on such thin ice publicity-wise with the leak business that it was probably a relief to get raided by Nazis, and I doubt he's eager to look incompetent all over again." She smiles just a little wider. "Probably not eager for Steve to punch him again, either, to say nothing of this bad boy." This comes with another flush of pleased admiration, the tilt of her head with this last indicating Ryan. Jax is considering, judging by the surprised and thoughtful expression that takes over for a moment. It ends in a wrinkle of his nose, a sheepish dip of his head. "Tempting, but I feel like I shouldn't be testing too far what they'll put up with from me, I push that envelope too hard an' it's gonna kinda explode my life. Ain't like Sinai's going nowhere, I'll still be -- have been --" His brow wrinkles. "Will have been there just as much ten years from now as tomorrow." He nods gratefully at the offer of coffee, and there's more regret undergirding his words than make it out into his tone when he adds, "'sides, my last day trip led to more catastrophe than I'd'a liked, I'd be tempting fate with a second." There's a moment's hesitation before he continues, softer though the roil of emotions in him -- anxiety, worry, hurt, but more than that a fierce and uncompromising love: "Is this gonna be problems for you, honey-honey? I like Steve a whole lot but I love you more'n I can --" His lips compress briefly. "I don't want to hurt you and I sure don't want to lose you. There'll be other men. You're my family." Ryan has been starting to load his own plate, but Jax's question stalls him, all thoughts of food or coffee temporarily forgotten. The wrinkle of his nose is a mirror of Jax's, though his tense posture and the restless bounce of his knee are not. "I --" His cheeks puff out; he blows out a hard breath as he lifts his hand to scuff it through his hair. "Fuck. You deserve the fucking world, man. A good relationship with a man who loves you, I -- wish. I could say it isn't gonna be Problems but it -- he -- with Steve, I just don't know. I'm trying, I swear I'm trying. I just don't know if that's going to be enough to stop the chaos in my goddamn brain from spilling over." "I can't say I blame you," Alma says, flashing Jax a sympathetic smile and darting a sharp glance at the (still unrepaired) surveillance camera. "Just know I'm down to help you figure out logistics if you change your mind. Or if you don't, for that matter. If I do have my own shul by then, it'll be one that welcomes converts, too." She salutes Ryan with her coffee. "Life is always gonna be Problems, friend, and yours are always gonna be crazier than average. But you're worth it, and whatever you want to try to figure out, you won't have to do it alone. Either of you."