Sasha prefers to open (carry) wrote in repose, @ 2016-08-15 14:55:00 |
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Entry tags: | *log, jude coleman, sasha james |
Log: Sasha and Jude
Who: Sasha and Jude
What: Having a little fight :(
Where: The theater
When: Backdated. A day or two before the bonfire? -Ish? The night before this happens.
Warnings/Rating: Language.
If Sasha was a religious woman, she'd thank whatever god there was for nights off. And for really long, complicated Russian words. Those were the best. She wasn't a religious woman, though, and so she got to selfishly revel in her hedonistic joy that there was no omnipotent being standing between her and doing any number of obnoxiously loud activities that left her legs trembling with every step. But that was a nap and several glasses of water ago. Now the adventure had moved downstairs, and involved them wearing some sort of clothing. A shame, because clothing was still entirely optional.
The theater was finally closed for the night, but Sasha and Jude were not taking in some Tarantino. No, they were in the dark storage space that remained locked up for the most part. Metal shelves were labyrinthine through the room, winding in odd angles, and covered floor to ceiling in reel canisters. The lighting was poor, exposing the spooky aura that filled the theater before the remodel, only a few overhead fixtures that dangled precariously with exposed teardrop filament bulbs.
"THE MASK OF FU MANCHU?!" She snapped one of the reels off of the shelf and clutched it possessively to her chest. "Ohhhh, Jude, I don't even know what it is about but we're going to watch it." Because Sasha was expecting some sort of kung-fu. She was going to be sorely disappointed. "I really need to do inventory. Some kind of list. Organize it. Alphabetize. It's a mess back here." Idle thought that was tainted with too much responsibility. She was never going to do it. That's what she had employees for.
"So what do you think Daniel would like? Probably not kung-fu. Something funny? A comedy of errors?" She was padding barefoot further down the aisle, chill of the room clinging to exposed skin from her tank top and sleep shorts. "Do you know how long it took for him to finally admit that I'm witty? I'm losing my touch."
The air down here was decidedly more chilly than upstairs, but smelled like dust and mold and damp rather than sweat, which was, Jude supposed, all for the better given elapsed hours and circumstance. He was bare-foot beneath jeans that were only half-buttoned fly and slung loose on hips, and he’d shrugged back into a shirt that was damply plastered to bare skin, the collar askew under flattened curls. And all manner of pleasant interludes conducted and concluded, Sasha-after was infinitely safer than Sasha-before.
He padded after her, due courtier in lady’s grace and watched her wilt over some poor movie he’d never heard of. “Does clutching it to your breast make it better or more yours than leaving it on the nice shelf where you can come collect it when you need to play it?” But mess it was, no doubt, chaos packed in beneath the seats and Jude, master of all hectic nonsense winced a little on the inside because so much lost beneath the mayhem.
“Something wistfully romantic, I think.” Jude trailed fingers along the rows and rows of film, “He’s a hold-out and you like it.”
"Hey now. If you're going to bring logic in here, I'm going to have to ask you to leave." A tease of a pout as she wrapped her arms tighter around the reel case, but backtracked a few steps so she could put it back with the rest of the reels. "I'm going to forget about it in like ten minutes now that I put it down," she explained rather simply, knowing full well that something shinier was going to pop out soon enough.
Wistfully romantic. Two words Sasha knew nothing about when it came to movies. The girl was a mess, up one side and down the other, and she rather preferred movies where people were more of a mess than she was. Romance movies weren't messy. It was boy meets girl, boy loses girl, boy gets girl back again. Every. Single. Time. It was boring and entirely unrealistic. Pulp Fiction. Now that was reality. Pumpkin and Honey Bunny. Relationship goals.
"Hmph," the dissent came from the back of her throat. It wasn't that Jude was wrong, it was that Sasha was less than thrilled that he was right. Jude could read her like a book, and it wasn't fair at all. The first guy she had gone absolutely crazy for (literally) Sasha had to use every trick in the book to get him to even acknowledge her. He had been more obsessed with a certain billionaire to pay any attention to Sasha. So prying affection out of someone was fulfilling in a very twisted way that had little to do with the actual situation. "It's annoying," said in that exasperated way Sasha often did when the meaning was the opposite. If it really bothered her, she wouldn't be in this storage room looking for movies for the man, would she?
"A Midsummer Night's Dream." Sasha read the title and immediately threw a finger into the air, "Nope, better as a play, right?" She might not have known what it was about, but she knew it was Shakespeare and Jude had explained that to her in a prior conversation. A hop and a skip forward into the dark, and the rogue finger in the air landed on a reel nearby, "Here. This one." Of course, Sasha, short as she was, couldn't read what she'd found without getting up closer, "Trouble in Paradise." She laughed, "That sounds like a wistful romance. My vote is for that one."
And here now, the difference in the dark between playmates (because Jude considered them that way, the play running the scales but all the same, by virtue of the people involved, play) because Jude believed in romance, thank you. Feet-sweeping, heart-stopping and all the other romances from humdrum to whole-hearted and quiet. Mess added dimension and complication, minor chords in a composition but it didn’t make the song any less of what it was to begin with. “And you’ll still leave with something in your arms,” Jude remarked, as he looked at the reel left where it was, “And you know, sunshine, if you get around to cataloging, you’ll be able to find it spit-spot.”
Ah, but Daniel’s flattery meant all the more for being grudging, held out as reward for prolonged tricks and twists; Sasha wasn’t alone, Jude reasoned that there were at least a couple of suspects who’d danced that particular two-step with Daniel before. But Sasha and affection were like sandpaper over fur, rubbed the wrong way and sharp to boot. “It’s predictable,” with a smile to take the sting out of the word, because Daniel’s particular brand of sharp ill-humor was, all the same. “But it is, alas, Daniel.”
And Shakespeare was meant for a stage instead of celluloid, something moving and meaningful about flesh and blood instead of fascimile and Jude pressed hands to ears and gave her look of outrage. “Heathen child, you mean better a play than a movie. He’s not meant for reading, he’s meant for speaking.” He hooked one finger into the back of her shorts and pulled her back before she brought the reels over with her.
“You know,” conversational and over her shoulder as he pulled the latest perusal down for her delectation, “This would be much easier if you or I knew what a single one of these was.”
Playmate would be an acceptable term for whatever they were, and wouldn't immediately make Sasha have a heart attack. Romance was scary, and she couldn't understand how Jude could so easily slip into the idea (Not with her. In general. Whatever form it took). That was part of why she didn't like to admit just how much she liked Jude. There were a plethora of other reasons, from petty to major, but the biggest was mostly that she didn't want to lose him. If she cared about him, he'd leave. Everyone did. "Yeah, yeah. I'll get to it. Sooner rather than later. I'm sure there was some sort of method to the madness back here at one point."
The pull of elastic at her waist stopped her in her tracks, at the same time his words sunk in, "Did you just call me a child? I'm older than you!" Sasha slid back with the tug of her shorts, not putting up much of a fight, as she avoided the real point of the Shakespeare argument. She knew he was right. Jude often was. So instead it was twisted into mock-offense at being called a child. Just how the game was played, and she'd apologize for it if Sasha ever apologized. It didn’t help her petulant behavior that he was absolutely adorable, even in his pretend outrage.
"Oh, first you want it catalogued, and now you want to have a basic knowledge of the movies back here? What do you think? I own the place or something?" Sasha smirked and leaned into Jude as he pulled the reel down for her, "I know the important things. This is nitrate film. Super flammable. It burns even underwater." Sasha popped the tin with a thump of her middle finger, "It requires special licenses for storage and transportation. That's how dangerous it is. The whole room is fireproof. Nitrate film has been known to auto-ignite because someone in Madagascar sneezed the wrong way." She wasn't exactly joking, but she wasn't intimidated by the imminent danger that lurked in the tins either. Her fingers inched back just inside the waist of his jeans and she curled her nails up along delicate skin, a tease of tickle as she whispered over her shoulder, "Don't drop it." Half-amused. Seriously, Jude. Her hand slid out of his pants. Don't drop it.
"So, yes, having seen the movies might help, sure, but it's exciting to choose something we can all experience for the first time together." And she meant that. "Or we can pick something out and go preview it for Daniel's delicate senses. Though, I can't really promise I will behave sitting next to you in the theater all by ourselves." Sasha grinned and brushed over the threat of round something or other (she'd forgotten the number, but they'd add another notch to the bedpost at least) in favor of trying to do something remotely responsible. "So, romantic like what? Stuff like It Happened One Night? Or Casablanca? The classics of classics? I know we have those back here, it's just a matter of finding them."
Jude was prone to disappearances. Jobs end, and friendships break and the only constancy was yours truly and best-beloved brother, but Jude was temporarily rooted and emotion wasn’t reason to run for the hills. Jude was fond of Sasha, occasionally exasperated but she was twinned in affection with her sister, long-standing pleasure in company (albeit distinctly different). He grinned satisfied amusement at outrage played large among dusty stacks, and Sasha had five years in age, but youth wore her with pretty ribbons. Jude hadn’t been young in years.
He obediently held cannister still, even if it was death-trap encased in metal, and Sasha’s nails scraped over the skin of his hip in devil-may-care dare, and that personified trouble over there, bragadosio about daring and danger but shimmying up close to it and making friends. “You’re not encouraging steadiness of hand just now,” Jude’s voice was low, agreeable but the point was clear.
“Casablanca’s along the right lines,” Jude tried to picture the gloomy interior of Daniel’s apartment, shuttered in like its owner, “But less ...modern. Older, gentleman as gentleman.” But he’d in mind notional serious conversation and the clothes were staying put just now. Jude held flame-prone film in hand as he ignited casual conversation. “Keep looking. So are you going to tell me why you’re tight as tension with your sister just now, or are you keeping counsel?”
Less modern? Than Casablanca? That movie was ancient. He could not be referring to release date. "You mean like The Age of Innocence or Pride and Prejudice?" Thank you, Ashley the box office cashier, for having a weakness for period movies. Sasha hadn't seen them, but Ashley was putting a list together for her of what to show to sync up with some of the upcoming college lit courses as well as some of the ones that were her favorites. Sasha thought they sounded absurdly girly. Give her Django Unchained any day of the week. But this was for Daniel, and as Jude knew him better, Sasha was trying to narrow the vast list down to maybe five.
Everything was fine. Sasha could have kept on pretending for as long as it took. Everything would have been fine, if Jude hadn't brought it up. But he did, turning conversation to Cat, and where Sasha had been all languid warmth and coziness moments before, ice cold wall was snapped up in place. The difference was night and day, a sudden removal of flippant mask to show the harsh burn of repressed rage, "Do you mean after you decided to go to her after what I told you in what I believed to be confidence?" Her steps carried her away from him and down the aisle, barely paying attention to the movies now. The tone was teetering on cocked gun, aimed and ready to shoot. "I got lectured that I had to make my own choices. Never fucking mind that I did. It was a lose/lose scenario for me. I'm sick of losing. So, you know, thanks for fucking meddling."
Sasha's temper was often explosive, screaming and breaking things for all of five minutes, and then she was done. This was a different sort of anger that was turned upon him. This was the kind of anger that she wasn't sure Jude could talk his way out of this time. "Don't expect me to tell you anything else important ever again. You lost that trust." There was no lightness or humor, and even the tough girl act was dropped. This was exposed wound, opened raw and fresh, and any sort of affection for Jude was erased from her features. She had been betrayed and that wasn't anything she took lightly. Eddie and Cat would be cut out of her life if Sasha thought for a moment they had betrayed her. Jude did not rank as high as they did, even with as much as she liked him. Yes, she'd told Jude he and Oliver needed to stay in town, but the only reason Sasha was currently still in town was because she promised Eddie she wouldn't leave.
She would rather have left town than have to continue this conversation. Caring about people never worked out.
Jude hadn’t precisely been languid previously, but the curvature of his spine still held the looseness of relaxation. He put the cannister on the nearest shelf, and leaned hips back into the structure. The chill of the air down here was now settling along bare skin but hello, anger, nice to see you making an appearance. This was truth and Jude peddled truth-as-lies too often to not know the difference between the kind of anger that threw a few glasses or crockery at a wall and the kind of anger that blistered and bubbled under surface.
“I thought you were in need of counsel in the know. And you and Cat,” he shrugged expansively, the two in friction and yet so similar, “I don’t know why you place so much burden on the space between you. You didn’t want to pick because it would hurt her, because you thought it would. D’you honestly think she’d walk away no matter which-way you picked?” Because it was obvious, all and sundry (present company possibly excepted) that Cat attached to people and to places with loyalty that went bone-deep. Hello, the bar-staff.
“You’re set on not trusting people, trouble, to the point you don’t believe they’ve trust in you from the look of it outside-in. And you’re up in arms every time the two of you fall out. What d’you think’s going to happen, burn it down and salt the earth?” And praps home-truths weren’t welcome in here, the cold closed in and this the belly of Sasha’s own sanctuary, but the fractious focus of sibling ire was wearing.
“I’m sorry you feel that way.” Confidences made and confidences broken and Jude looked sorry, genuinely but not an apology for doing it. Sasha tore things in two before others could get there. “You can pitch the flammable film my way, but I didn’t do it to spite you. I did it to nudge it along. You’re not losing to your sister. You’re not losing to anybody. If you can’t let go the grip, sunshine, you won’t know if it’ll stay put on its own without you.” The film, Daniel, was abandoned for taking on water, a good idea slightly tattered in amidst the stacks.
"I trusted you. Look how that turned out." Truth was a funny thing. What was cold fact to Jude, was absolute nonsense to Sasha. Everything he said had missed every single point of what she'd been telling him over and over again. It was frustrating to think that the past year of their friendship had fallen on deaf ears. Nobody ever listened to her. Nobody understood her. She didn't belong in this town. And she was so goddamn sick of being wrong. She was always wrong, wrong, WRONG, and no one ever let her forget it. This time she did the right thing, and everyone was coming after her with pitchforks.
But that was because everyone loved Cat, and the only person that gave a shit about Sasha was Eddie. Not even Jude, it seemed, or he wouldn't have gone to her sister.
Jude spoke, and Sasha crossed arms over her chest. She heard him, but she wasn't actually listening because he didn't know the whole story and therefore did not have anything useful to bring to the conversation. "I'm not talking to you about this anymore." Now that was cold hard truth. Her doors were shut, locked, dead-bolted, nailed closed, alarm set, and fatally electric. Anything further would be more useful said to the wall.
I'm sorry you feel that way. That was the most passive aggressive bullshit ever. Sasha bristled, fingernails digging small crescent moons into her palms from clenching her fists so tight. She understood just how little that actually meant, and if Jude looked genuinely sorry, Sasha did not care one iota. Not after that. "Just leave, Jude. Maybe you can, jeepers I don't know, go tell Cat about this, too." Mocking, dismissive, and so so bitter.
Bitter was the word, all things being equal. Sasha glared him down and trust twisted in on itself was knife in between ribs but she waited for it, arms spread open and wasn’t that problem at heart, honest truly? Jude’s voice held patience like a cup, overbrimming. He’d never learned how to fill up with anger as Sasha stood with marshalled arguments like battalions behind watchtower defenses. “Yes, you trusted me. And occasionally, now and again, I’ll double-back on it if I think you’re making yourself miserable, or heartsick or running a risk you needn’t, Sasha my love..” Entirely reasonable, y’Honor, if you weighted argument in its favor, and Jude did.
Jude understood pitch-perfect and all-in, because anger from behind carapace of righteous indignation was familiar beast. The right thing was difficult to pin down, a matter of perception rather than absolutism. It was like belief, it rolled over like syrup on the tongue for some but not all. “Best interests at heart, cross-heart promise. You’re picking a fight with me, and doubtless there’s an interpretation of events on both side of sisterly argument. But I don’t understand. You love her beyond reason, she loves you madly, what are you afraid of?”
Because fear was blind motivator, and Jude looked comfortable, as comfortable does when half-naked and chilly with your ass parked against the stacks. He was calm, resolute eye in virtual storm, thank you, and he kept face still at Sasha’s last crack.
“What’s there to tell?” Spread hands.
He was supposed to leave. That's what people did. Why wouldn't he just go? And him being so calm was desperately unnerving. If he cared, he'd be angry. He'd fight. He'd yell. He'd do something. Instead he just stayed still, like nothing she said mattered, and wasn't that the most infuriating part? Sasha cared about him so much, and he made her feel like she was nothing.
"If you had my best interests at heart, you would have bothered to think for one fucking second. What did you expect to happen, Jude? Everything was going to turn out for the best when you tell Cat shit she has no fucking need to know? When I was venting because I was upset about something I would get over in a day or two? Cat and I were fine until you meddled in shit you know nothing about. Now we're not talking, and we won't for a while. Because of you. And even worse is that I'm gonna have to be the one to grovel and apologize even though I didn't do one fucking thing wrong this time. I'm not afraid. I said I was not talking to you about this anymore." Point blank. If she had other people, maybe she'd talk to them about it. As it was, she simply wasn't going to talk to anyone about anything anymore.
Maybe it was the 'my love' bit that suckered punched her. It was just a term of endearment. A cutesy nickname. It didn't mean the entire gamut of definition. She understood that. But it also served as a reminder that he was one of the few people that sort of liked her, and as she had informed a few people, he was the only friend she had. But did he forget? He was supposed to call her 'trouble'. Because that is what she was.
"So you can help me find a movie for your friend," Because clearly Daniel wasn't one of hers, "Or you can get the fuck out, because this conversation is not continuing."
Funny things, interpretations. They stretched like elastic, and Jude stood stock-still because Sasha had designs on tearing it to pieces and walking out was fundamental answer expected. He knew, oh of course he knew, that she’d rail something chronic because Sasha’s insecurities were worn outside-in, all the sharp pointy parts nestled kiss-close to collarbones. Jude dug heels in and took purchase on uncomfortable shelf because walking out was tantamount to betrayal and not caring? Not guilty. Jude’s smile was sad and humor had banished itself from present circumstances. Jude stood because the world when it tossed itself around you and made exit, stage-left was terrifying when you were small and very sure the sky might fall.
Interpretations. Sasha yelled and the emptiness of the place beneath the theater, redolent with shadow and cobweb and the silent stack of movie reel after movie reel piled high stood sentinel. Jude blinked not a trice through the diatribe that put handcuffs round wrists and cement blocks to feet and tossed him firmly over the side. But he was tired. Forgive a man his failings, Jude was elastic stretched thin to threaded point and Oliver was heart and whole and always and self-preservation (self expanded by definition to include heart-soul attachment) broke eggshell of discontentment.
“Who said anything about groveling? Or apologizing? How about just rocking along and living side by side awhile, instead of seeing things that aren’t there? You’re both trying so hard to be strong enough to be one another’s sister.” But reason wasn’t given house-room, Sasha set on being broken-hearted over unintended betrayal. Exhaustion squeezed him dry, and he hadn’t any blood left to give.
He peeled back from rest-stop, and he came close enough that reaching out would have been easy as presents at Christmas, but Sasha was dangerous-sharp and Jude liked his fingers attached, thanks.
“Don’t worry, sunshine.” Tired smile, all mouth and no eyes and if he was a con short of convincing, the walls wouldn’t tell a soul tonight, “He won’t come, anyway. If you’re planning on coming down from the rafters any time soon, look me up, alright? Til then,” and he slid into the recess of the door and outward, sans shoes and shirt, obviously, but Jude had done that walk more than once and nobody minded, early hours.
The worst part was that if Sasha stopped to think, to bother to look from anyone else's point of view, she'd know he never meant to hurt her. Somewhere deep down she knew that. That was why he had come over in the first place. If she had been that angry with him to cut and run, he wouldn't have been invited here. And maybe he had valid points, but she wasn't going to listen to them. Not when her anger bubbled over and blinded her to anything and everything else apart from her own version of the truth.
She waited for him to turn away before the tears welled up in her eyes. It was sheer force of will that kept them from rolling down her cheeks until the door shut behind him and she was left alone.
Alone.
This was better. This was always better. And Jude? Jude was safer. Wasn't that the most important thing?
Sasha slumped down to the floor and cried until she couldn't cry any longer. Then, like she always did, she picked herself up off of the cold floor, dusted herself off, and made a decision.
She needed to get out of this town.