2025-02-01 - I'm Not Calling You a Liar

[TXT to Rook] James: fucking metallic

[TXT to James] Rook: THANK YOU

[TXT to James] Rook: Wait.

[TXT to James] Rook: 1) Metallic Orange

[TXT to James] Rook: or 2) Metallic Burnt Pumpkin

[TXT to Rook] James: 2

[TXT to Rook] James: Artistic license.

[TXT to James] Rook: OKAY. 'THANK YOU' still stands. Mostly.

[TXT to Rook] James: Burnt orange is ok.

[TXT to James] Rook: Do not force me to put 'Door hinge' into a song.

[TXT to Rook] James: Only if you enjoy it.

[TXT to Rook] James: Not about that life.

[TXT to James] Rook: Your life is now all about 3am text messages that are just my latest attempt.

[TXT to Rook] James: Bring it on.

[TXT to James] Rook: I'm thinking I'm thinking.

[TXT to Rook] James: Dangerous.

[TXT to James] Rook:

'And if I gonna break, let it be like the dawn,
A shimmer, a shatter, then flicker- I'm gone.
Like metallic burnt orange on the edge of a blade,
Cutting clean through the night 'fore the colors can fade.'

[TXT to James] Rook: Ugh. There were french aristocrats less tortured than that.

[TXT to James] Rook: And yes, a notable aspect of dawn, 'being gone.' Fuuuuuuuck me.

[TXT to Rook] James: Hey.

[TXT to James] Rook: New rule, no single 'Hey's after a 'Fuuuuuuck me.' I'm still getting over a breakup. And you're my favorite at Nora's.

James reaches over and tap taps her phone against the nightstand where she's flopped across her bed. Like that'll knock some sense into Rook from here. "Don't... fucking. Make me video... fuck." The very real and present urge to throw her phone arises when 'call' escapes her entirely.

[TXT to Rook] James: First. I don't fuck that fast. Two. Sorry sad eyes.

[TXT to Rook] James: C. I said Hey.

[TXT to James] Rook: All I can think of is 'Hey yourself.' but that comes dangerously close to breaking my own rule I just made. In spirit, if not in letter.

[TXT to Rook] James: Where are you?

Rook cranes his head up from his bed, the open notebook that's draped over his neck and chin sliding down to casually chop him right in the adam's apple as he does so. "That feels like a loaded question, but now I don't know if it's loaded because I'm over thinking it, or loaded because I'm not thinking at all because I can't get the phrase METALLIC BURNT PUMPKIN out of my brain!"

The last part, shouted, summons a thump from the wall. And a curious look from four red eyes in a cage that sits atop his desk.

And a clatter from the kitchen. That last one should be looked at sooner rather than later.

[TXT to James] Rook: ...Home?

"Eh. Fuckit."

James slides off her bed and digs around for her boots, shoving her feet in to zip up, and then she's pushing out the door into the hall, the living room beyond, and she pauses, phone shoved into her back pocket, before she grabs a box of portioned, frozen cookie dough balls from the freezer. There's seven containers of various kinds now, and she chooses one at random, letting fate decide.

When she's not breaking the brains of artistic songwriter types, she's tucking glass containers of cookie dough under her arm, glancing at her phone, and sending things like:

[TXT to Rook] James: Where is home?

What she fails to do is get a coat, a scarf, or a thicker sweater. A cropped one will have to do. The camisole under it provides little in the way of warmth, though it does hit coverage. Black under burnt orange. The burnt orange sweater color is fully proof of her favorite color, one she doesn't even consider before she grabs her keys and heads out into the hall.

[TXT to James] Rook: Fox Run 102

"Well, I don't know what I've just set in motion." Rook admits to the pairs of eyes before he squints, then mutters a quick "Oh, sorry, ladies!" and reaches out to flip a little switch attached to a cable that goes somewhere behind his headboard. Rows of hanging bulbs, all dangling from pinned up lines like oversized fairy-lights that hang above his desk in two lines flicker on into a dull orange glow that sends soft, if long, shadows across the room. The red eyes gain the form of one black and one white rat behind them. Common rats, hanging out in their cage and slowly bustling back down into their bedding as if to say 'About damn time, sir.'

"Oh shit. Pants."

He rolls out of bed.

What comes back is ... bouncing dots. And then a minute later:

[TXT to Rook] James: 5.

What follows is eight minutes of nothing before there's a knock on the door. Tap tap tap-tap tap.

Rook has pants on by the time she arrives. Rook has also undone a leaning tower of pots and pans that was Boots' latest attempt at art, given Stripes a "Dude, really?" at the new bite marks in an old guitar case, and at least rearranged the blankets and such that are draped over an old couch to make it look somewhat comfortable despite the slightly chewed corner. (Boots.)

When he opens the door, he's in an oversized grey shirt that states:

'SLEEPING IS NOT A CRIME-
-IT'S THE WAY I DO IT THAT CAUSES PROBLEMS'

on the front in bold letters, and a comfortable, if very old looking pair of dark plaid sweatpants-slash-PJ pants. His hair is fucked. He didn't even bother trying to make it not be. Also... he doesn't have any paint on his face. Which is the first time that's been a stateable fact in any of the times James has seen him. This is just Rook.

James stands there with a glass container of frozen balls under her arm, looking at something down the hall. When she turns back, her gaze goes from Rook's face, a quick bounce up to his hair, then down to his shirt, which she takes a moment to read. She holds up the container and shoves it toward him in the space between them, two of her dark-painted nails now chipped.

Rook's look goes from James' face, to her appropriately colored sweater, then back to her face.

Then in that pause, she's got plenty of time while he takes the container offered out to note the common room behind it. The fridge is covered in magnetised doodles, notes and ticket stubs, a few of them cryptic enough to be in-jokes. There's also a handwritten meal plan on it, which is absolutely guaranteed to have never, ever been followed. There's a decorative tub filled with hot sauce sachets, none of which can be obtained by places on the islands. At least three different notebooks are open across the counter. There's a box over near the couch filled with random things: guitar picks, at least eight decks of still-sealed playing cards, five spools of colored wire, and one single work glove.

There's a scratching post in the corner that shows zero signs of scratches, but plenty of grey fur.

There's also a small, battered table with mismatched chairs, both of which are currently occupied by possums attempting to pretend they're asleep.

Rook looks at the container, opens it up for a peek, and then simply has to tilt his head to the side when he looks, once more, at James. "Hi? Come in?"

It totally counts as an invitation, especially when he steps back from the door to go place the balls down on the counter.

Always keep your hands free when a woman on an unclear mission knocks on your door. "Hi." She steps in when the offer's made, and reaches back to shut the door behind her with a click. Her hand slips free of the door and she walks in behind Rook, attention sliding over the main area of the suite, to the fridge, all the stuff stuck to it. It's much more organically decorated than her own place, very maximalist with the fridge space.

Her attention slides right past the opossums and then back. She studies them for a minute and then turns back to facing Rook. She slides one hand up her opposite arm, curls her fingers around her arm just above her elbow, and waits for him to put that down. She moves over to follow him into that space. She doesn't really know the difference between playing dead, sleeping, and whatever else opossums do. The benefit of her boots is Rook can hear her coming. So even if he's not looking at her, she's obviously right beside him or behind him.

The big giveaway that the possums are pretending to do anything is that their eyes follow James as she moves across the room. Which is what gives away her position even moreso than the sound of her feet. Especially when, as he takes the lid off again to give the delivery a double-check, he glances over to Stripes, whose eyes are focused on a point directly off to one side and slightly behind him.

He can't look at Boots. Boots is directly behind her, doing the same thing to her as she's doing to Rook.

"Hi." Says the one person who lives here who can actually say it, a bright tone in his voice as a finger checks just how frozen the dough balls are.

Then he turns, and it suddenly occurs to him how he's not wearing anything on his feet, and she's just that little bit taller than him. Also the right behind him thing. He knew it, but knowing something and being confronted with something are two very different things. "You're uh... hi."

James telegraphs the move so Rook has plenty of time to avoid her hands, move away, tell her to get out. If he doesn't, very chilly hands (she got a little turned around outside on her way here) cup his cheeks. She's looking right into his eyes, because they're the same height, at least without the boots. With the boots on he has to look very slightly up at her.

To his credit, while there's a squeak when cold hands touch his cheeks, it's from over on the chair and not from Rook's lips. Those just part slightly, and his eyes glance from her chin upwards to settle on her stare.

He swallows. His hands move to his sides to hold the counter with slightly whitening knuckles.

"This is definitely breaking that rule I set, somehow, and honestly I didn't think I'd get this far just from a couple of messages and now I don't know what to do with the success." He talks a lot when he's nervous, apparently. Or it's been a while. "But in the interests of being open and transparent, I'm going to grab your ass in like-" he thinks for a moment. "Five seconds? Less than two if you just nod at me right now."

Her cold fingers splay just enough that her thumbs are against his cheeks, palms against the hinges of his jaw, and her left ring finger and her pink are just against the sides of his throat. The touch is light, but firm enough to keep Rook's attention once given. She takes a slow breath, and lets it out, her pulse steady and even. Her gaze unwavering when she says, "Focus."

"Don't give up... before you start." Her words are very carefully said, a hitch in the sentence is just a thing that happens when she's thinking hard about making a point. "The song. The world will..." Her lashes twitch as she resists a frustrated sound. "Fuck you." A soft sigh follows. Almost there. "So don't fuck yourself first."

At least fifteen seconds pass, proving Rook a liar. Not that that really needed proving.

Then there's a slight twitch at the corner of his mouth that she can feel in the pad of her palm and the web of her thumb. Then another. Then the lopsided grin breaks out and his eyes lighten even as lines form around the corners. His grip relaxes on the counter. In fact, his entire posture relaxes, timed well with the slow exhale that breaks into a short little laugh that hitches right at the back of his throat.

Then his head shakes. Not in a 'no', nor enough to dislodge her hands. Just a little pressure, either side, as he says "God. You sound just like someone I used to know."

While she's this close, James reaches up and slides her fingers into Rook's hair. Her fingernails skim his scalp briefly to comb through the strands there, and she tries twice to see if it'll settle when some combing, but it absolutely doesn't. She shakes her head slightly, a smile curling her lips. The hair's a lost cause she gives up on. One of her hands slips down to rest against the base of Rook's throat, her fingertips resting against his pulse point.

She doesn't say anything until at least ten seconds go by. And it's clear from the drop of her lashes that she's concentrating on something else. Yes, she's counting, and checking his heart rate. She hasn't backed up yet. She slides a foot a half step closer. "Which rule?"

Don't blame Rook. She didn't nod. I mean, blame him for a lot of things, sure, but perhaps not this one. When her fingers move up, he swallows. When her fingers move back down, he swallows, shifting that pulse point underneath her press.

"The one about the thing with the thing and the hey." He says, smile having faltered the second nails skimmed his scalp. That entire sentence came out veryfast. Except the 'Hey.' That had zazz on it.

Then, after she's allowed to count a little more, he very simply says: "Can you just nod and save us both?"

James' smile revives, just starting to fade while she's thinking. She lets go of Rook, both hands dropping to her sides, then slipping around back behind her where she laces her fingers. She shakes her head and says, "I was going to," she begins, and drags her teeth over her lower lip. Not too hard, she has a piercing that'll catch if she does it hard, and says, "Kiss you and ask if it makes you feel sad or—" Tingly. Tingly. Tingly. What comes out is, "Sparkly." Her eyelids drop slightly, annoyed at that word substitution, and that it keeps coming out when she's talking to Rook.

"I wanted to know how full of shit you are." Still stood close. Personal bubble does not exist.

Rook can apparently think a lot clearer when there aren't hands on his unpainted face, because the second she moves them away, he visibly relaxes once more, and the smile catches at the corners of his mouth. It takes him a second, but there's definitely an overly-put-upon sigh of disappointment when she shakes her head, and by the time she's trying to double down on catching him out, he's using those hands on the counter to pull himself upwards until he's sitting atop it, feet dangling.

He may be right, he may be wrong, but the words pushing buttons drift through his mind in a voice that isn't his own, and while there's no giveaway on his face, he tells that voice, in no uncertain circumstances, to shut the fuck up as soon as he watches her eyelids drop.

And ignores her. Ignores the bait, and ignore the easy opening for him to be self-depreciating. Instead, he tucks his middle finger until it's pointing down, casually splays the rest of his fingers, and lifts his entire palm up and away by his shoulder with a little wiggle of the hand. He says aloud, with no confusion or question in his tone: "Tingly."

His hand says <<Sparkly>>.

James takes a breath through her nose. Tingly.

"Ok."

The word is soft but also a little sharp. She glances down and smiles again. She isn't looking at him when she says, "I almost didn't recognize you." She shifts one foot slightly. "Without your, um." She tucks her tongue between her lips, curled against the upper briefly. "Armor on." Though her speech is a little stilted at times, like the thoughts have got caught in a little log jam, sometimes the thought shakes loose before she's compelled to choose a new one to follow.

"I see you." She maybe means at work, at the rollercoaster. James takes a step back, her hands still behind her back. Every time she has trouble finding a word, her fingers blanch briefly, but it doesn't show in the set of her shoulders or the line of her body. Just her hands, which only the possums can see.

Whatever she meant, she doesn't look at him when she says that, and the aggressive energy has dropped several degrees now that her hands are off his skin and he's come back with something that feels... much more in control of himself. And at a higher vantage.

"I know right?" Rook agrees. He can be unrecognizable without his armor on. It's a good thing she gave him enough of a pause to get it back. The grin's the giveaway. Always is. "I usually don't recognize me either. It's weird. But habits can be."

When she takes her step back as Rook ponders the 'I see you', there's a hiss from her left boot. Boots had JUST managed to get a two-pawed grip on the zipper of her boot and now she's moved and fucked everything up for him.

And Rook's pondering leads nowhere. Nowhere verbal, at least. Instead, it's his turn to nod, and at least his ass is getting real felt up by the countertop right now. "You were so close, buddy." He says down to the critter by her boots, letting the eye contact she broke seem more natural that it was by looking down at Boots. And technically Her boots, too. "And thank you for stopping those grabbing motions in peripheral. It's rude to the guests, and very distracting."

Like a kindergarten teacher.

The hiss completely shatters the illusion of self possession James had going there. There's a sharp gasp that's cut off somewhere before it makes it into any other kind of sound. She carefully lifts a leg up and over and backs off a couple of steps from both Rook and the opossum. It was ok when they were pretending to sleep. It was even okay when she wasn't aware one of them was right behind her. It throws her entirely off her game when there's an unexpected hiss from basically under her.

She very nearly backs into the kitchen wall.

To be clear here, for a creature that has limited muscles in its face to affect expression, Boots looks absolutely mortified at the notion of startling someone. Well, someone he wasn't intending to. There's a split second of some similarity to a human being making a palms-down calming gesture, then it's almost like he realizes that might be weirder, and with a plap plap plap of his paws and the soft sound of his bare tail dragging over the wood-styled floor, he retreats to his chair.

Where Stripes sloooooowly stretches over. And slaps in him the head.

Rook just watches, near-wincing when she almost hits the wall, but recovers himself when she stops short and there's no start of a perpetual scream coming from her. Or chain of accusatory curses. They're more fun, but harder to explain to next door. If it was a scream, at least he could walk outside tomorrow morning in a red painted apron with a garbage bag.

"Aaaaaand we good?" He asks once her feet are under her and a possum isn't, giving a questioning thumbs-up.

There's a cough of a laugh, and James covers her mouth with one hand. Tension bubbles out in a laugh and she takes a second to breath, choking it off with a half-mortified, half-breathy laughing, "I almost pissed myself."

James Missouri is not used to opossums in the house, let alone familiar ones quite a bit smarter than the actual animals. She hasn't yet really learned what familiars are, and then she says, "Fuck. I should have done the kiss thing." Her hands rest above her knees, still slightly bent over and watching the opossums resettle over there.

Both of the Possums heads lift up over the arms of their respective chairs. Both of them, in unison, look directly at James.

Rook just nods, tips his head to the side, and then snaps his fingers, jabbing his thumb directly over his shoulder to indicate the two of them in the impossible case she missed the movement while looking directly at them.

And both of them, with perfect clarity, give a look that can only be described as Duh.

"Don't be too hard on yourself. Common regret in a lotta people's lives, that."

There's enough satisfaction in his voice to make it uncertain if he's talking about people in general, or people who just should have done the kiss thing with him in specific.

Something in the back of her brain is telling her these aren't normal possums, but James hasn't really been around them up close, so that's a problem for a later date. She looks from them to Rook and straightens. She tugs on her sweater though it's a knit and doesn't need straightening. "It's ok." She brushes a hand across her cheek and says, "I can't orgasm with pets watching." Of all the things she doesn't have trouble saying, that's one of them.

She rolls her shoulders slightly, and the ghost of a smile returns. Sass is still there, just kinda buried.

Rook's immediate response is a sharp "Don't."

But it's not to her. His head's whipped around to where Boots is about to pull off a facsimile of cracking his knuckles, the wanna make that a bet? all but audible. The creature freezes. Then slooowly lowers down to the cushion.

"Huh." Rook says after a second. "There's loads of ribbon down in those chairs. I was sure it'd be the blindfold act this t-" Wait. Nope. His head shakes, hair flopping around as he does it, and then without pause or a second for even a hint of punctuation to slide between the two actions, one arm goes out as he leans a little on one hip to open up a space in front of the counter beside him. "Hey." That is definitely to James. Considering what she just said it might be breaking the 'Hey' rule, but as he follows it up with "Come here." in a tone that brooks no other read that 'Either we are hugging this awkward pause out for a full reset, or I'm getting turned down so we both feel like jackasses and that counts as a reset.'

He can say a lot with a little, this guy. He can also say nothing with a lot, but he saves that for the diner.

James follows Rook's gaze to the opossums. This night got a little strange, and her green eyes track this, even if she doesn't fully understand it. She reaches up to tuck a few strands of hair behind her ear, unsure of what's happening exactly. Her attention snaps back to Rook and the 'hey'. She's only a couple strides away, but she waits for him to follow it up, focused on Rook's face.

Her hand pauses mid-motion beside her ear, and there's a beat before she moves over toward him. Those boots are heavy enough that it might be ill advised for an opossum to tread too close under them again. She stops beside, one hand on the counter's edge, fingertips just barely resting there. "Your rules are not—" She lifts an arm to gesture. "Specific enough." This evening is a little strange, but it's a strange place, and weirder has happened. There's nothing in their interactions that would stop James accepting the offer of a hug, except perhaps an opossum sitting on the counter beside Rook. The oddly emotive boys will take a little work. She's new here.

Rook's hug is immediate once James is in reach beside the counter. It is not half-assed. An arm's over her shoulder, fingers wrapping around her upper arm until the side of her face is against his shirt, tucked in against his own shoulder and his collarbone. His cheek falls against the top of her head, pressing down against her hair, and his legs shifts over until he can feel the base of her ribs against his thigh. It has to be said, the dude uses a good laundry detergent. It all might look pulled from a charity bin, but those clothes are soft.

"My rules are fine." He says against the top of her head. They're not. They are confusing. But that's not the point right now. "The big one is Stripes. The Boot thief is Boots. They're the reason you take bags out behind the diner and they vanish before you can trash them. They're not animals, they're... they're from here." Like that helps. "And they kinda bond to people. Having them this close to me is a constant vibe check. Like right now they're curious about me saying the word 'Vibe' in a low tone to you while we hug, and I'm pretending not to have noticed."

When her arms slide around his Rook, James goes up on tiptoe, rocking up into the toes of her chunky-soled boots. It leaves her in a position of precarious balance, lower body pressed against the cabinetry under the counter. She smells like blackberries and something sweet. One arm's hooked over his shoulder, her hand coming to rest on the opposite side. The other slips around his chest, and her palm against his back. Her skin's no longer ice cold from her walk over here from Silver Brook.

Once his arms lock around her, her face against his soft shirt, she takes a breath. "They're confusing," she says softly of the rules, breathing in the scent of detergent and clean skin. She falls silent while he explains Boots and Stripes, insofar as Boots and Stripes can be explained. And even though it's new, and even though it's a tiny bit mental, she nods, cheek rubbing against his shirt. "Okay." That, at least, is clear. Spirits from here in opossum shapes. Fine, good. Her eyes have drifted closed, but she only becomes aware of that when they pop open again and she squints. She may be up half the night thinking about why spirits or whatever from here look like goofy opossums that were fucking with her boot, but right now? Right now her breath is warm against Rook's collarbone and her nervous system is chilling the fuck out.

She turns her face into the side of his neck and probably leaves a smudge of smokey brown eyeshadow on his clean shirt. It's about fifteen seconds into the hug that she asks, "Your favorite?" At the diner, of course. Smug? Yeah a little.

Honestly, that's the best anyone's ever taken that explanation their first month or so in. Now, granted, the one other example he has from that is someone on their ferry between islands on their first day having Boots stowaway in his bag, but, still.

Rook shakes slightly, his chest shifting as he holds in a small laugh at the memory, and roughly about the same time time she asks her question, his other hand loops around to rest against roughly where one might say the side of her head joins the front. He'd call it prime real estate for fingers to sink into her hair and return the brief bout of fingernail dragging along scalp she ambushed him with earlier. "Damn right. You don't tell me to clean my papers up. You refill when I'm half empty, which puts you on the path to sainthood, and you give me fucking orange to work with."

Last one probably doesn't actually count, but it makes her memorable.

"You should," James says, "Be more careful." She lets her eyes fall closed again, which is far easier with his body shaking with laughter he doesn't quite let out. She makes a soft sound in the back her of throat. "What you ask for." One of her hands slides down his back, over his spine, and then she opens her eyes again, lazy and slow, lashes heavy. "That's a preview of me." There's the warm coffee refills, the timely feedings, and of course indulging creativity and never being too fussed about a messy table. And there's the prickle of unease with incongruous rhymes happen. Orange. Of all words.

"9 minutes." She says. "Best cookies."

"Is that a recipe or are you still counting how long I've clearly been lying?" Rook asks after a long, if comfortable, pause. It's deflection. Of course it is. His armor's good, but there's only so chill you can be when a 'You should be more careful what you ask for.' has that level of concentration put into it, reason be damned.

Of course, he's asking that while still scratching her head and holding her pretty tight in that hug, so maybe it's only a partial deflection. Some of it might just be revenge.

"Yes," James says, a smile ghosting her lips again. She's easier to control in this position, with the nails in her long hair and her face tucked close. When her knees relax, she slides a little lower, only just supported by the lean against the counter and his arm around her. She doesn't mention the cookies again. He'll figure it out.

"It's ok." She says, after some time. He doesn't have to see her face when she continues, soft-spoken but very clearly audible. "I like you both..." Ways. "Faces."

"You know, I think I'll take being a liar over a jackass any day." Rook says, all the conviction in the world folded and tucked into the small space of a quiet sentence as it's pressed down against her hair, finger-scratches slowing into something more of a comfort habit than one powered by revenge and a need to level whatever field they were on.

Then, after some more time, a pause long enough to accept the compliment with a subtle squeeze in his arm, he says: "It wasn't a correction, by the way. Or guessing what you were trying to say. It was an answer. I'd feel tingly, not sad."

James’ eyes open just a touch, her gaze focusing on something tacked to the wall with a pushpin. She’s looking, not really seeing it. She’s thinking about what Rook just said, also relaxed into the embrace. She may have been craving contact more than she realized and this here’s a heady balm.

“Good.” Her hand slides up his back. She presses splayed fingers along his spine just over the start of his lower ribs. “Sad boys are my kryptonite.”

Rook's just glad for contact that doesn't come at him in pairs at 2am, headbutt him in the gut trying to get comfortable, and jab cold paws into the small of his back when the other one stretches. So honestly, this is all he could ever ask for.

"Alas." He says, adjusting slightly to allow her hand to press without having an awkward fold in his shirt beneath her palm. "That's a completely different face. I don't think you'd like that one. I definitely don't."

Sometimes her long dark hair takes on a life of its own, but has never been mistaken for a pair of hissing, toothy mawed opossums. James breathes out a slow breath and gives Rook a squeeze, at least as well as she can in this position, which is a little crooked. "Let's not then. Better to like who." She stops there, odd syntax a small price to pay to be done with a sentence a little bit early.

Her head tips, cheek dragging across rook's shoulder and she asks, "You holding me so they can—" She squints a little. "Do something slinky. Sneaky. Behind me?"

Opossums have a lot of teeth! It's not their fault! That's like judging a book by it's cover, if the cover said 'We are possibly feral creatures who adore shenanigans.'

...Okay she has a point.

"Boys." It's a little bassy. He's probably putting it on because he's got a head against his chest and it's fun, but there's at least a tiny hint that he's actually serious about the warning tone, even if what immediately follows it has more than a hint of humor. "Treat her like you would security."

There's immediately a clatter from the other side of the room. It sounds like they're dragging that filled box somewhere out of sight. Rook sighs.

"No, no, the cool kind of security."

Part of her wants to turn around and James starts to shift just a little bit, but she's pretty well off balance and Rook's arms hold her pretty close yet. "Security." Her hands slip a little lower and she's about to say something else when the clattering happens and now she wants to turn around even more. Her boots thump agains the lower cabinets when she situates her feet to stand a bit straighter. "What's in the...?" He knows what she means. The cool kind of security.

"Rook."

The sound behind them stops just as he clarifies, and as James' question lingers in the air, there's the tell-tale sound of a can of spraypaint rolling across wooden floor. Roll. Roll. Clink. Roll. Roll. Clink.

"Sometimes-" He starts, easing up on the hold now that she's moving. No restriction in this apartment, thank you. "-walls get paint on them without the people who own those walls being told in advance." His chest puffs, big inhale, long sigh. "And sometimes one of those paint colors is custom made. Very distinctive. And sometimes someone has the only can on an entire island that matches said paint, one-to-one."

If she breaks and turns, Stripes is holding a can. Probably coincidence. Shoving it under the gap between his chair and the floor is also unrelated.

James turns full around to look at the beasts one arm still hooked around Rook's waist. She looks over at Stripes and a can that disappears under the couch. She leans back against the counter and eyeballs the opossum spirit... familiar ball of fuzz. The slant of her posture is not wary so much as—ok, maybe it's a little wary. She looks from the opossums and back to Rook. "Familiars like their people?"

"... Murals," she says dryly.

"If they liked me, they'd stop leaving lego in my shoes." Rook says. He doesn't turn to look. Again, it's a perpetual vibe check from the two creatures, and all he's getting is 'We are innocent of any perceived crimes.' And if he doesn't look, he doesn't have to argue. "If you meant are they like me?"

He pauses for a moment.

His face ever-so-slightly drops.

"That's too much introspection without being hand-fed dough balls. You can't come here and just drop that on me." Apparently, he's more worried about that than someone walking into his apartment and immediately holding his face. Or he's just going to worry about that at 2am when he's trying to get to sleep. Which is how it should be done.

Topic change! Or a lifeline. Whichever. "You don't like murals?"

James sees that look on his face change, but only just out of the corner of her eye. She turns her full attention back to Rook, rather than the familiars skulking about the place. She reaches up to touch his face again, though this time she gives his chin a little chuck with her knuckle. "If you want frozen balls in your mouth," she says, enunciating that last word very clearly. "I won't stop." She presses her hand to his sternum, just over his heart. "You."

That leading question about murals has her brows going up a little, but then she says, "Paint me?" She tap-taps her thumb against his chest. "Room. Mine." Another tap-tap of her thumb and she drags her hand down his chest and rephrases, "My room."

Rook shifts to glance over his shoulder towards the container. It's still there. It's still unopened. At least, he's pretty sure. There's part of a head and a bunch of hair semi-blocking his view.

Then he listens, head tipping aside to watch the movement of her hand as best he can. He can feel it, sure, but this makes it feel like he's really paying attention. And he waits. Waits until she's done. Wait's until she's spoken, rephrased and clarified before he gives enough space that he feels like his answer isn't intruding. "Ok."

Well, that was easy. His hand pats the outside of hers, then moves away so it can stay in her eye-line while giving her room to move her fingers around for her reply. "Are we talking like, pictures?" His thumb sticks out. "Or just new colors?" Index joins it, splayed in the air. "Or a little of both. A real question of Murality." Middle.

James might have trouble holding on to words, but Rook just makes 'em up.

Somebody who wasn't in a hurry might have baked the balls into cookies before coming over here, but James was in a hurry when she left her place, having a point to make and a rather dramatic fashion of making it. She thus brought him potential cookies, the container beginning to fog up a little now that the cold balls are in a container that's begun to warm to the apartment's air.

James considers those options and then she reaches over to touch her fingertip to Rook's index finger.

And then she taps his thigh, and reaches over with her other hand to tap tap the container of dough. "Trust the process." Or maybe half-finished things are the point.

Rook folds his index finger when it's tap, then nods. "Okay, but I gotta limit the burnt orange. It doesn't look great in giant amounts, you ask me. Also-" His hand reaches across, and tugs lightly on the sleeve of her sweater. "You'd disappear."

Then there's more tapping. Directive tapping. His eyes roll. "Yeah, yeah, I know. But someone interrupted my process to come here and make a point."

A beat.

"You got things to be doing, or you wanna help make some cookies?"

"Gold," James says. "Mostly..." She glances around, and then reaches up a hand to wiggle her nails, which are painted a glossy black, and have been for like two and a half weeks, hence the chipping. She lifts her shoulder in a shrug when he tugs her sweater, her burn orange sweater. "Autumn."

She looks over at the cookies, and then flicks a glance back when he dare accuse her of interrupting the process. She narrows her eyes at him.

But that only lasts about as long as it takes to reach over and pop the lid off the cookie container. "Yes." She gestures to the oven, most likely asking for a pan, then pats her pockets till one of them crinkles and she pulls out a pre-cut, folded up parchment paper that can go for maybe two to three batches before it's too charred to go again. She unfolds it, looks over at Rook, smashed it up to crinkle it, and then smoothes it flat on the counter. "Metallic."

Rook slides down from the counter now they've broken apart under the weight of a task to be done. Under the direction of pointed gestures, cupboards open and close to retrieve a metal baking sheet, a rack, and a small timer he trusts more than the one built into the oven that forever blinks 00:00.

It's also only a little thing, but like it's the most normal thing in the world, when the first thing's pulled out, he grabs a red highlighter from a cup on the shelf, and writes on the cupboard doors after they've closed.

More than he needed to, actually. Two of the doors had the wrong things in them, but when everything's on the counter, a bunch of cupboards are now labelled with quick scrawls of 'COOKWARE' 'DISHES' 'CLEANING STUFF'.

"Hokay. Done. What next?"

Somewhere during that he grabbed two more highlighters, and well away from her newly claimed prep area, he's casually juggling them. It ain't fancy, or impressive, but it is very casual.

James smoothes the crinkled parchment onto the cookie sheet where it lays more or less flat. She doesn't look up at what's happening until Rook's writing on the cabinets. She glances up, slides the lid of the bakeware off, pauses mid-motion and glances up again to watch him write. And a second later realizes why and her lips part. No words come out.

She's looking at the blocky lettering and glances down quickly to slide the glass container over between them. Instead of telling him how far apart to put them, she taps the parchment paper with two fingers, about 5cm apart.

Her attention shifts from not making eye contact to watching the hilighters spin in his hands.

Rook noticed the look. To say he noticed the parting lips would be placing a little too much attention on where his focus falls at any given time, so he won't be saying that. What he does instead is catch the pens one by one, bundle them up in a hand so they can be discarded off to the side, then reaches to drop two of the dough shapes roughly where she pointed with a soft whomp.

He totally got distracted by juggling, so the actual landing zone is a little off from where she pointed, but it's good enough for when you're not getting paid.

A beat passes.

"Why did that feel so satisfying?"

Slightly off is fine, hella off is also fine. If the cookies stick together, they'll taste just as delicious. "Potato chips?" Seems like a weird question at this juncture, but it's the one that comes out of James' mouth. She adds a few more balls to the tray until it's more or less evenly spaced. Instead of saying the oven temperature they need, she puts up three fingers, then five, then a closed fist.

Baking with James is like a game of charades and fill in the blanks with a sweet reward at the end. "You like instructions?

Rook's hand comes up to point at a cupboard that serves as a dry goods larder. It has to be off any surface the boys could gain purchase on to reach it, and that also explains the little latch positioned in just the right spot to be a nightmare for creatures of their size to reach. Then, after a moment, he realizes she asked after potato chips while making cookies, and an eyebrow twitches.

BUT! It is not questioned. Aloud. Mainly because he's getting a guide on what to set the oven to. He checks the contents first. Good. Nothing in there. To 350 it goes.

Then, crouched in front of the oven door, he looks up. "I love instructions, sweetheart. It's no fun just doing what I want when I'm allowed to."

James nudges Rook with her booted foot, gently, when he says that last thing. But she's not looking at him, instead digging into the cabinet indicated to see what kind of chippies are on offer up there. She's looking for something plain, salted, definitely not a vinegar situation. Her hands parse through the contents of his dry good cupboard efficiently and she comes down with a bag.

She loudly crinkles it open to take a chip and taste it. "Counter pressure makes it—" Crunch. She chews and swallows. "Satisfying."

Rook steps around her once she's got her bag, using the distraction of eating a chip to pop the lid from a pen and scrawl the door with 'DRY FOODS'.

Then there's a pause. A look over to where the boys are, in fact, mostly just napping, both of them on the same chair and bundled up into a singular ball of fur, tails tucked in.

The pen hovers. Rook's not sure if they can read. He lets the idea go, and the pen goes back into an entirely seperate cup than the one it came from. Most of the cups laying around have pens, brushes, or just random crap in them. "I trust you."

Apparently he does. That was said easily. "Well. Y'know what I mean. I might have some kinda sprinkles around here, somewhere." More rummage.

"First mistake," James returns, snappy on the timing of that one. She bites a second crispy chip in half, then folds over the bag to let it sit on the counter till the cookies are sorted. "Pre heat," she says, nodding to the timer counting down from four more minutes. She taps the pan. "Nine minutes."

"Rest ten. Eat." Which means cookies won't be in service for a good twenty-some minutes from now, by all reasonable maths. She almost moves away from the counter, then folds the chip bag a little tighter and tucks it up in the cabinet for now. She goes to have a look at the stuff stuck to the fridge, and sundry decor, taking in the minutiae of the place.

Taking in the minutiae of the places is a lot more revealing than a quick glance as you walk through the door, so the room very quickly becomes far less 'general.' Rook's apartment isn't just lived in. It's used. Every surface, every object, speaks to a use. A restless kind of artistry that suggests someone could pick up anything left laying around and make something happen. Small magnetic bars on the fridge resolve themselves into a poetry set, the only potential phrase in the scattered bundle being 'spin me reckless.' While a few of the scribbled notes stuck there have old polaroids stuck up behind them, the most visible showing a group of people in wild, carnival-style facepaint. They're all laughter and smiles, a Ferris wheel blurred in the background.

What looked to be a fallen cylinder cushion or something down by the couch is actually a disassembled violin case, half of it missing, with the instrument inside missing a string. Boots and Stripes' table by their chairs has a scatter of cards across it, more guitar picks, an abandoned harmonica, and what's probably an old, broken pair of finger-cymbals. There's an old cane propped up against the wall near the external sliding door, and what at first were a bunch of colored plastic plates that looked like he couldn't be bothered to clean off the main coffee table after eating actually turns out to be a set for spinning.

Rook fills the time while she looks by surreptitiously reaching up to make sure the cabinet with the chips returned is closed-closed.

James slides her hands behind her back again, fingers lacing behind her. She leans in to get a closer look. Still, she reaches out now and then to touch something, but stops short of picking things up. A fingertip skims across a line of poetry on something stuck to the fridge. She goes slow when she gets to text, and reads it slow, then goes back, and tips back a little to look at the whole rather than individual words.

When she gets to the face paint on the laughing groups in those photos, she smiles, studying each one for a moment. Her fingers pass over one particular photo, but she doesn't touch it. She makes a note of it and says, "Beautiful." She doesn't look over at Rook right away, but after a moment there, and then straightens and finds herself in front of one of the posters on the wall studying it. She looks over now, again, and its with the knowledge of a tiny piece of who he used to be. Before he came here, which means some of who he is still.

She looks from the stuff on the walls to the opossums, and then turns her gaze back to the poster.

There's the soft sound of a plastic arcade token being placed on the counter after James returns to looking at the poster. Rook had been rolling it over his fingers while she perused, leaving the room filled with nothing but the sound of the soft clicking from the timer as it ticked away.

Then his arm appears beside her, finger pointing not to the poster, but to one of the old photos. "So that..." he starts, tapping a kid no older than 20 in a loose cotton undershirt and suspender-supported slacks, sitting on a homemade bench out of recovered wood. "Is the honorable Boots the 1st. My man Stripes is uuuuuh-"

He browses for a second, fingers running over a few, some notes being pulled back to check out a few more group shots, and then finally he finds what he's looking for underneath a note that just says 'Daredevils, dreamers, fearless, free?' "-Aha! Right there."

The inspiration for 'Stripes' is a guy that, judging by the very baby-faced rook next to him, easily cleared 6'8. He looks like he might have cleared three feet in shoulder width alone.

Then there's the photo she noted with a single word. That gets plucked off the fridge entirely. It's a candid snap, a heavily inked woman in a trailer, wearing gear clearly intended for performance. A mesh and leather bodysuit with corset lacing and stretch panels, partially covered over by a cropped leather shrug absolutely covered in black and deep violet feathers, which are at odds with, but also work with her deep punk and purple medium length hair. She's laughing, but it's definitely the kind of laugh that comes after a terrible joke.

"And that-" He says, holding it up, then reaching down along the edge of the fridge to slide out another poster, the same size as the one the wall (showing 'The Moonlit Marionette', a contortionist and wire act where one 'puppeted' the other) and covers the one pinned up with this newly retrieved one. "-Is Bree."

Bold, ornate lettering declares
'The Spellbinding Feats of The Rook & The Raven'
'A Daring Dance of Flight and Shadow'

In it, art of a costumed Rook in the foreground is half covered in shadow, one hand raised in a flourish with a shower of cards flying from it. As they spread out, they morph into a flock of ravens, from which a person now clearly matching Bree from the photo appears, suspended upside-down with silks stretching to mimic wings.

DRDRLRLDLRDLRDLRDLRDLRLDRLDLDLRLDRLDLRLDRLRING

The timer goes off, the poster whips back down beside the fridge, and Rook claps his hands, already over by the oven. "Oh fuck yeah, Cookie time."

James looks over, having missed the coin rolling, only when Rook comes to join her and she looks from the notes to Boots and Stripes. A little smile as she looks and blinks, looks from OG Stripes back to Stripes on the couch and hmms.

It's not till he plucks one of the photos with the most foxing. The one of the feather and leatherclad girl with the colorful hair. The combination of poster and photo paint a pictured, and there are questions she has about it, but the alarm is obnoxious enough to turn their attention collectively to the cookies. "How long?"

He can take the question as he likes, but she's asking something specific. She wanders away from the pictures and posters, because if he's not going to talk about it, a guest in his home certainly isn't going to push. Not anymore, not tonight.

"Nine minutes." Rook says, turning to look over his shoulder with an easy smile as he no-look takes hold of the tray to slide it into the oven. "Rest ten."

The corner of his lips quirk for a split second, then the top of his foot lifts to close the door without having to reach down, letting him move to where cabinet and counter forms a corner for him to lean in after setting the timer appropriately, catching her expression and returning to... well, there's acceptance in the smile. "Then eat."

He gives that as long as it needs, then opens up the fridge to pull out a soda can, reaching his hand in to touch a second as the first is offered to her in question.

James watches him do that slide of the tray in and her brows go up slightly. He did remember her instructions correctly, which are simple and the same for most batches she makes, save the crunchy cookies and those fucking waffle bastards. She hms and nods slightly, just a faint tip down of her chin.

She nods again, this time a clear assent to the soda, no matter what the flavor. She reaches up to trace a fingertip across the lower edge of her lip, across the deep grey-brown color lip she's wearing. Her hand drops and she makes her way over to reach for the offered can.

It's vanilla zero sugar cola. Rook is either a saint or a monster. The can's handed over, and he pulls out one for himself, opening it with a crack and a hiss. Boots looks up. Nope. Not a challenge. Back to sleep.

He shifts a little to the left, then slides back up atop a counter, the back of his shoulders just catching the bottom of a cabinet, and his head tips forward to avoid butting it. His legs dangle and swing slightly, and he lets the can hang in both hands between his thighs. "So. That's the gist of my story. Your turn."

Then the corner of his lips quirk again, and this time acceptance in his smile is replaced with authenticity. "And don't worry. It takes as long as it takes."

His head tips to the timer.

"We got plenty of time."

James turns the can to read it, considers this flavor. You can tell she's never had it before because she immediately wiggles a nail under it and tries to pop the tab up. A fishhh crack later and hers is open too. She takes a sip, pauses, and considers the bouquet on her tongue.

Her face doesn't say what she thinks about it, but she's a little slow to swallow the first swig.

"I..." She puts down the can. "Well, there's—" She takes a long breath and pulls out her phone. Code keyed in, boop, boop, boop, boop, and she flips open the apps and pulls out the photo app, flipping through for a little while, she turns it to show Rook a photo of herself with lighter makeup, a sweet smile, dressed in scrubs and wearing a name badge on a lanyard with a few cute little pins on her badge buddy that reads NURSE ED. She's laughing at something, and her hair's in twin dutch braids.

She flips to another photo, and this one's a mangled vehicle on a dark, rainy street, shadows pressing in on three sides, like this was clearly a photo taken by headlights, not with a flash. It looks like some kind of modern art, a twisted sculpture, save the splintered glass all over wet pavement. The image is shown to Rook for maybe seven seconds. There's no blood visible, no carnage, just a carriage of metal bent in ways that say somebody definitely got hurt here.

There may be more, but she clicks off her phone. Maybe that's all she's ready to share today. She moves past Rook silently to reach up for the cabinets, the labeled dishes, to look for a clear glass, one to round the cookies with when they come out. Just because they're homemade doesn't mean they can't look perfectly round.

Bakers cheat to get those edges.

So does James.

Of course Rook keeps his glasses in the same cabinet as his dishes. He doesn't have that many cabinets. Well, he does, but one of them has fragiles in it he doesn't keep out, and the other got filled with percussion instruments at some point and he never moved them.

Most of what he does when she shows off her story is nod. There's a hiss of air through his teeth at the second photo, and immediate understanding. Although, there's not sympathy. That wasn't a display for sympathy, and you don't get what you don't ask for. So, instead, he sighs. "We've got like, 16 minutes, and you choose now to be incredibly efficient? Jesus."

He slides down from the counter when she's got a glass, opens up the fridge again, then leave it open for her to peruse. "And I saw your face. Grab something. I won't have you being brave in the face of seasoned colas."

"Rude." James says, standing there with a full zero sugar vanilla can of whatever that was. She leaves the glass on the counter beside the oven, waiting on some cookies to fiddle with. "Caffeine?" She thumbs up. "Can hack it." That is unless Rook physically takes the can from her, she's going to drink it. It's a challenge now.

"ER Nurse," she says, splaying the fingers of one hand to give him a bow with a little flourish. Some skills die hard, even if the career flatlines. She glances over at the oven timer, turns to face the apartment, and looks for somewhere to sit that isn't occupied by furry marsupials.

"Tell me... about Bree."

"Not rude, you needed someone to notice your clever workaround, and I'm nothing if not the occasional service top." Rook clicks his tongue, smirking a little to himself as reaches into the fridge. Options get set out across the counter. Water. Orange juice. What looks like a sports drink, a can of normal cola, a half full carton of iced coffee, and a bottle of root beer for a little variety. A lineup. No pressure, just choices.

Then he leans back against the counter, arms loosely folded, eyes flicking to the oven timer before settling on her.

And finally, he talks.

"Bree? She's beautiful. She's smart. She's the one who convinced me our half-formed scribbles in the back of a book could be an actual act."

And so Rook tells her, while the smell of baking cookies fills his apartment, the tale of the Rook and the Raven, from start to end. A tale of two tricksters, one bound to the earth, one lost to the sky. A story about growing wings, and a fool who wouldn't fly.

And not once during this, not that she'd know, could James ever call him a liar.