Sasha prefers to open (carry) wrote in repose, @ 2016-05-02 06:47:00 |
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Entry tags: | *log, oliver king, sasha james |
Theater: Oliver and Sasha
Who: Oliver and Sasha
What: They don't hate each other.
Where: The Senator
When: Uh, sometime-ish? Recently.
Warnings: Nope.
Sasha preferred the theater during the day. It was slower, quieter, and gave her time to work on annoying paperwork that she had not considered she’d ever have to do. Tax codes and insurance packages. Direct deposit and even scholarship accounts. Yes, the theater had been bought to work into her con, but now she was responsible for other people and that was entirely a new adventure. Perhaps she went a little overboard. It was important for her to have a decent place for the kids of the town to go and hang out, and the employees she had (read: almost all teens from high school) were well compensated for the work that they did.
The lobby of The Senator still held that classic charm with draped curtains and walls lined with movie posters in light boxes to highlight the vintage history of the building, but the physical theater was designed with all the kitsch and color that Sasha loved. There were very few good things from her childhood, but sneaking into the drive-in was one of them. It was a given that she’d steal her snacks back then, but now she owned the joint. It was a long way from where she’d come from, but she’d built a place to remind her of that very fact.
As it was currently, Sasha was seated at one of the tiny tables back against the wall next to the concession stand. There was a pink milkshake and an order of gravy fries over to her side as she idly flipped through some paperwork to make heads or tails of the obnoxious legalese. The opening lines of The War of the Worlds was playing on the screen, ‘In the First World War, and for the first time in the history of man, nations combined to fight against nations using the crude weapons of those days. The Second World War involved every continent on the globe, and men turned to science for new devices of warfare, which reached an unparalleled peak in their capacity for destruction. And now, fought with the terrible weapons of super-science, menacing all mankind and every creature on the Earth comes the War of the Worlds.’
She would have gone upstairs, due to the teenagers that had taken over the front row of cars, but she kind of wanted to watch the movie, too. It was, in its way, a sort of research.
Oliver, of minimal interest in anything that was not of his own design, had no business showing up at the theater without being in tow of his Gemini half, Jude. It was a well-known fact who owned the movieplex now, and Oliver probably had even less of a reason to show up because of that, yet he showed up all the same. The Senator was a resurrection project, and Oliver could appreciate that from an artist's standpoint because he figured it took some kind of imagination to oversee a cultural reawakening. He didn't know much about film, the only depictions that really caught his interest long enough to watch even a third of the way through were animated. With kid movies like that, he was fonder of the older stuff. Sleeping Beauty had some really interesting background choices. And maybe in that way, with a slight favoring toward the vintage on this particular day, he could find some common ground with Sasha. He saw the advertisement for War of the Worlds, and he only knew of it as some old alien movie, not any Tom Cruise tragedy.
But vintage or not, he wasn't here to watch any movie. He'd come to the Senator on his brother's behalf, both in investigation of the current infatuation and because it seemed eyerollingly important to Jude that Oliver "play nice." So play nice he would. Which, as far as Oliver understood the term, meant pestering someone with his presence and over the shoulder what-are-you-doings. It seemed to work on Jude anyway.
Once within the lobby of the Senator, Oliver realized that he no idea which direction to go to find Sasha. He chose to develop a strong and unfounded suspicion that she was here, as it beat the alternative of having walked to the theater for nothing. So he set out to find her, searching for an office door or some kind of treehouse ladder that might point him in the right direction.
As it turned out, it was only the concession stand he had to find. And upon seeing here seated at one of the small tables nearby. He wandered through colorful cars on his way there, unexpectedly transfixed by the scheme up until the moment that he took a seat across from Sasha. Then his attention was on her(and her fries).
"Hi."
Sasha saw the figure approaching out of the corner of her eye, but she hadn't paid it any mind. Her mind was elsewhere, drowning in the legal aspects of actually owning a business and how to appropriately care for the employees she had hired. The greeting shook her out of her reverie involving finding some loophole that got her out of exorbitant tax rates with a massive refund. The last time she had seen the face of the man that had sat down across from her? At a party where her dress had been ruined by a rogue glass of champagne. She was decidedly less dressed up today in brown leather leggings, a white tank top, and her usual red patchwork hoodie.
A smile, wary behind palm green eyes, "Hey, Oliver."
Jude and Sasha were friends. Good friends. Friends that if there even was a level of infatuation (she was 99% positive there wasn't... well, after painting? 98%.) they didn't let it complicate their very perfect and casual friendship. But, Oliver? Oliver and Sasha were not friends in any way, shape, or form. However, Oliver was Jude's life, and that importance shifted over to Sasha. If Oliver was upset, that would upset Jude, and thinking about Jude being less than perfectly sunshine smiles and warm verbosity killed Sasha inside. ...Because they were friends. Let's not read into this too much.
So Sasha had been primed and prepped for certain interactions, and this was one of them, where she'd been told that Oliver's affections (or lack thereof) could be swayed by day of the week. She'd never been around on the right day, it seemed. His arrival was kismet and the rather short Jersey girl was determined to make the most of it. If he didn't like her by the end of the day, hopefully he'd at least not hate her and Oliver not hating her was an accomplishment all on its own.
"Have some," she said with a push of the plate of fries swimming in mushroom gravy towards Oliver, "While they're still hot." Her fingers tucked wild espresso curls behind her ears and the dreadfully boring Internal Revenue Code was forgotten about. "Can I get you anything? Milkshake? Soda? Popcorn? Fries without gravy?" The smile she offered was genuine, "I can get you a menu. Whatever you want. On the house." Bribery. It was the simplest way to butter people up.
Oliver didn't hate Sasha, he didn't think he did. He didn't actively hate anyone, but he had his notorious moods that often lent to impressions otherwise. Oliver didn't like Sasha because he didn't like her, but he thought that was different from disliking her. Oliver didn't actively dislike anyone except for himself on occasion, which made for complicated inner peace when one was a bit of a self-acknowledged egomaniac. But, such was life, and just like a feral cat lured closer by a tin of tuna, Oliver looked over the woman's gravy fries with suspicion and craving. For a moment, he seemed unwilling to smile back, as his attention hopped from her to the plate of food and then back to her. But then it seemed kind of silly to be a brat when he'd already walked all the way here. A bit counter-productive. So he dug up a smirk and pushed curiously at the tip of one fry, sticking proudly out of the gravy-topped mountain of its brethren But Oliver didn't really want fries, and the only incentive to even eat them was because they belonged to her, so he refrained.
Instead, he fiddled with the cuffs of his shirt sleeve, something very blue and very wrinkled. It was a button-up and had probably been really nice once, but Oliver had a tendency to take even less care of his things than he took of himself. This made for a lot of wrinkles and paint stains. He didn't even own a pair of jeans anymore that weren't speckled with some shade of oils. Oliver didn't see it as much of a problem, seeing as how Jude did all of the laundry and most of Jude's sweaters all had holes in them anyway, so its not like his brother would have room to lecture.
"Popcorn, yeah. You have one of those machines or is it like microwave stuff?" Oliver leaned back and tried to crane a glimpse beyond the counter of the concession stand, so that he might see. Even the 'microwave stuff' was a luxury for Oliver, he of the falling down house and fickle electricity.
Sasha tended to think everyone hated her. It was sad in her lonely and angry brain to be thoroughly convinced she wasn't wanted around by anyone. Byproduct of growing up as she did. She wasn't lucky enough to get put in a foster home, or even one of the state-run group homes. No, she was tossed into the Russian mob's orphanage while she was still learning how to crawl. There were no happy memories of her childhood, just reminders at every turn that she was nothing more than a bother. Even the men that came in to 'adopt' a young girl or boy didn't give her a second glance. She would have been humiliated had she got thrown into the brothel when the Russians wanted to put her in there. In that insecurity she fought to be a proper soldier and proved she could make more money pulling a trigger instead of pulling tricks. It didn't help her think people wanted her around, but it gave her an actual place in life which was more than she'd ever had before.
There was a time when she couldn't even pay the rent, and now she owned the whole damn building she was living in. Why wasn't that enough to make Cat proud of her? In the few months she'd been living in Repose, Sasha had managed to wiggle her way out of relying on her sister for money and housing into being independent. Yet Cat still didn't want her around. She was still a bother. And to the one person whose approval she craved more than anything in the world. Was it any wonder she'd pulled away from Cat? Or Eddie? Hell, the only person she felt she could be honest with was Jude, and even he only tended to get half the story. Of course, Sasha had a terrible habit of pushing people away when she felt they were getting too close, and no one ever fought to stay.
So, her thinking that Oliver hated her was only due to circumstance and not based on their actual conversations. Sasha actually thought he was pretty amusing, even when he was telling her she wasn't able to properly appreciate Nosferatu. He was probably right about that. She ate one of the fries that poked off the plate before giving him a smirk paired with a chuckle under her breath, "Oh god, if I served microwave popcorn, I'd be laughed out of the Theater Owners' Union." Sasha didn't think that union was a thing, but it could have been. It sounded like something that would have happened back home in Mob-land.
"Besides, the microwave stuff is so expensive compared to the popper." A quick drink of her cherry milkshake to wash down her fry, and Sasha was up from the table to walk over to the counter of the concession stand. Much like magicians had a code to never discuss how a trick is done, theater owners never discussed just how cheap popcorn was or how much the markup was. It may or may not be close to 1300%. A quick discussion with Tyler, the guy behind the counter, and popcorn was handed over with no hesitation.
Sasha placed the bowl of popcorn down in front of Oliver, along with a side cup of clarified butter so he could pour it over to his own taste. "So, apart from catching a movie, what are you up to today? Work? I hear you've been over at Sonrisa for a while now. How's that?" Her smile was easy and hopeful as she sat back down in the seat across from him, and tidied up the tax papers into a pile to push aside, giving Oliver her full attention. It wasn't difficult to tell that his shirt used to be very nice, but wrinkles and paint were expected and the shade of blue was actually very complimentary on him.
"Sonrisa's cool, but it was just part time, you know? Sam's back from the hospital now, so I dunno if she's gonna need all the help still."
Oliver also operated under the assumption that most people hated him, but that was usually because they did. Or they used to, at least. He was sort of making an effort these days after much prodding and coaxing from his brother. Making an effort meant limiting his insults to minor, discretionary comments under his breath. It meant going for long walks instead of opting into the Machiavellian plotting of all his enemies' demises. To Oliver, it seemed like the people who had avidly hated him were his brothers, those that had known him best. It said a lot, and he wasn't going to salve his insecurities with reassurance to the contrary. It seemed best, for preparation and handlings sake, to plan for the worst. Things could only get better from worst. It was a pleasant surprise when someone seemed to dislike him even a little less than his imagination demanded. Like now, with the offering of gravy fries and popcorn when all he'd really expected were narrow eyes demanding contrition.
With Sasha up from the table and playing hostess, Oliver took it upon himself to do the most Oliver-thing that he could, and spied on her paperwork. Unfortunately, tax forms were even more mysterious than basic bank statements, and so the stolen glance really offered nothing for him. Paperwork was definitely Jude territory, and Oliver preferred for it to stay that way even if it meant floundering around in his eventual, solitary adulthood, destitute. Oliver figured that being destitute was only a secondary evil to having to pay bills.
The popcorn presentation was nice, and Oliver lifted the cup of clarified butter to sniff at it experimentally. He set it aside, uncertain about its potential, and ate a handful of dry popcorn instead. "So are you and my brother dating or whatever?" His brown eyes were keen with Sherlock Holmes narrowing, as if to perceive minor clues while he licked salt off of his fingers.
Her head tilted to the side and she considered the words. "I don't know about that. Having a baby around takes a lot of work. A hell of a lot more than actually having the baby. I'm sure she'd be happy to have the help if you're willing to offer it." She was trying, and her voice was a little less harsh than usual. Oliver was being treated with a certain amount of care. She was no stranger to making excuses for why people might not want her around, and she didn't want Oliver to do the same.
Sasha had taken a sip of her milkshake when the question about Jude took her completely by surprise. She coughed, sugary pink ice-cream invading her sinuses instead of being spit out across the table. "Oh god," muttered miserably and she pinched the bridge of her nose and tilted her head back to try and relieve the horrid foreign crampy twinges. "No," she made her protest to the idea of dating anyone, and had to get back up from the table to grab some napkins before pastel pink came dripping down out of her nose.
She flopped back down in her seat with little fanfare or grace, "Jude and I are friends. That's it." Sasha almost sounded like she was trying to convince herself. After all, she denied those warm fuzzy feelings when Jude was around to herself, so why would she ever admit to anything like that aloud? And, of all people, to Jude's brother? If she hadn't been preoccupied with wiping her nose and the inevitable sniffling to deal with wayward milkshake, Sasha may have been able to make it sound like a conclusive truth. Not that she was lying, but if he was actually listening to tone instead of words, Sasha maybe would have liked there to be something more than their brand of friendship. But that was opening a whole can of worms that did not need to be dealt with at present.
Sasha eyed him cautiously for a moment, pale green meeting deep brown, "Did you ask Jude? Isn't that what he said?" Not fishing for information. Not fishing. Not. Fishing.
The No was immediate and resounding. It probably would have been convincing to anyone other than Oliver,, who was all too aware of his tendency to be the gullible twit and therefore overcompensated on good days(or bad, depending on where one was standing). "Yeah, Jude makes a lot of friends." Point blank and no weight to the words, just helium light honesty like maybe he meant his brother fucked a lot of people or maybe Jude had a lot of friendship bracelets. Maybe both, and Oliver smiled friendly-enough over another mouthful of popcorn.
"I didn't ask Jude," Oliver admitted mid-chew. "I don't know if he'd tell me the truth anyway, not the whole of it. He'd say something perfectly Jude and ambiguous about how much he liked you. And he does." Another buttered bite. "But I mean, you like him too. He's very likeable. He makes friends all over, everywhere we go. Which is good, because I don't make any." Except for maybe Gwen, he thought. "So, you know, I was just asking."
"Besides," a lazy stirring of popcorn with his finger. "He'll probably be a better friend if you aren't dating." Which was an Oliver-speak suggestion that she not look forward to such a thing if it wasn't on the table yet. He didn't speculate about his brother's proclivities or dating habits, but, as stated, he knew Jude to be friendly and well-liked.
"And I don't hate you or whatever, just so you know." Brush with honesty, hold breath.
Sasha knew how Jude was. She wasn't blind. Hell, she pushed and teased him about all his other friends. But hearing Oliver say it? Kind of made it a little too painfully real. Not that she showed any surprise, or even if the comment ruffled her feathers. She just nodded knowingly with a small smile. As for not asking Jude? Well, she supposed that made sense. And she laughed under her breath at the description of what the answer would have been, because she could actually imagine it going down just that way. Besides, of course Jude liked her. He liked everyone. She couldn't think of a single person he disliked, except for the guy that tried to take him to see Lady Gaga.
The movie was ignored, all of her attention given over to Oliver. And she listened. And words were rolled over in her mind. It was kind of sweet, you know, the warning and all. Sasha was too terrified of commitment to worry about it. Friends were all she and Jude would be. After all, she didn't want to date Jude. Neither one of them would do well with a leash on. But (and she recognizes how ridiculous it was), she wanted Jude to want to be with her. No one said the girl wasn't selfishness personified. "You know, I don't have a whole lot of friends either. Jude is pretty much it. I'm not going to do anything to hurt him." Because if she dated him? She'd hurt him. That's what always happened. And really, that's what she sort of figured Oliver was here about. She knew how much Jude and Oliver cared for one another.
The confession that he didn't hate her? Surprising. She blinked a few times, the instinct to start some sort of argument stamped down, and instead she went with her own small truths, "Well, thanks. I don't hate you either. I mean, I know we don't talk a lot, but I thought the conversations we've had were fun. I was actually going to try and show 'Loving Vincent' when it comes out, and you were the first person I thought of." She wasn't all that good with the friend thing, but she sometimes tried. It seemed like something Oliver would be able to enjoy aesthetically, along with the work that had been put into it. Sasha knew how many frames went into a film and these people were oil painting every single frame to animate it. The amount of patience it required? Admirable, but completely unfathomable by Sasha's little Jersey brain.
Oliver was here for the absolvement of his curiosity and dissolution of the semi-matte belief that people usually pretended to be one way when they weren't that way at all. Maybe it was something about growing up in a house of trick mirrors and origami lies. He'd wanted to hurt her, he'd wanted to roll her into dust. As much as he wanted it, he didn't, and that made for a lot of mishmash confusion confliction. The problem with Sasha was that he believed her. "So we're good," because she didn't hate him, and because she didn't hate Jude. Such a thing wasn't surprising to Oliver, as he knew that everyone who had the capacity to love anyone, loved Jude.
Meeting his brother was to love him, even though Oliver suspected that most would deny that level of admiration. People got so hung up about the concept of love, but Oliver thought that it could be simple, and it could be beautiful. When she said that she wanted to do a showing of 'Loving Vincent,' Oliver perked up. There was only one Vincent of relevance to him, and he suspected that Sasha knew as much. "That would be cool." And in case he sounded flippant, Oliver gave her his most sincere attempt at a friendly smile. "Really." In all of Oliver's upbringing, there hadn't been much time allotted toward the digestion of cinema. He knew the most basics of basics, although he was learning more upon his Repose adventure into freedom and adulthood.
He assessed her from across burnt kernels, and Oliver didn't know how much truth to give her. On most days, he didn't know what the truth even was. He didn't know enough about Sasha to want to keep her from being hurt, which wasn't to say that he thought that Jude could hurt anyone. But Oliver had a generally understanding of attraction, as fucked up as his own crushes were. That was a dark kind of place that nobody wanted to go.
Not even minute-made friends, Oliver knew. So he stood. "Thanks for the popcorn," he told her with bright eyes and a genuine dimple to the smile. He even touched Sasha's shoulder as he passed, like goodbye.