Re: [misha & jude: the capital]
[There was a gulf between Then and Now. Then, Jude had pretty idea that Oliver's cleaving to Misha had meant fledgling wings, a reawakening of what had long been stuffed under blankets, quelled with sleep-aids until Jude had half-forgotten what it had felt like to have been left behind, Oliver's flight to art school stretching original bond to breaking point. But Oliver had come back, the smell of paint fumes and turpentine and an air of desperation and Misha's entrance prompted the first change of script since. Now? The bond was old elastic band, grotesquely twisted past utility and Jude didn't like thinking long on whether it could spring back. It couldn't tie them tight as a pack of cards again, that much he knew. Then, Jude had seen Misha as catalyst, expediting agent for the slow night-bloom of a brother who'd coiled in on himself when the world he'd run away into had gotten too big. Now? Misha was Misha and Jude was Jude and there was a gulf there, too. Jude was nigh certain he had no certainty about Misha at all.
But the city had enough similarities in it to smooth over fault-lines and even if it no longer sank under skin and purred there warmly (oh, when had he acquired small-town habits? When had Jude's habits become so well-handled, the embedding in of boy and tastes and preferences until he knew what went on his own walls and what was his and him alone instead of playact?) it was still grand game. The people were a pleasure and the possibility of uncertainty was exciting and Misha was company and that was grand.]
Me too. [Steps over cataloged artwork and 'me too' held soft stamp of originality as hallmark in Jude's throat, the creasing of his face along smile-lines. He admired the looking over at the fiddle but Misha mentioned piano and Jude had strong feelings for his own instrument that had been held in cupped hands like a flame through boyhood and out the other side.]
Are you? For you? I didn't know you played, sunshine. Not piano. [It was steady stream of curiosity instead of patter and Jude missed ivory keys clean-white and the rolling sound of music poured out into a room big enough to hold it. It had been suppressed wistfulness, crammed into locked box but they'd opened so many over the last year that this one was peeping out through the bars.] Can we see it, eventually? The bar.
[But there were a few boxes that still locked tight. He'd tried, some of them he'd lost the knack of the key for, and Misha knew that better than anyone, p'raps better than Oliver himself. There was the gulf again: Jude wasn't certain precisely if Oliver had ever asked.]
I have consummately excellent timing, sunshine. Did the rest of yours go a little better?