Re: [Second City: Cat & Jack]
Jack couldn't remember having proximal enjoyment of somebody's wedded bliss for the better part of a decade muddied with the bitter dawn of reality of post-nuptial life. The under-city was divorced from what lay overhead, a metropolis choked with people some as bloody miserable and what lay out like a ribbon in the decay of what had once been the primary artery of living, was beauty simple in its complexity. There would be a story behind the girl who stood with her face blooming like a flower and there would be one about the man. But he didn't bloody care, it was like a thirst forgotten because it had been left so long. It was one part of the whole mad, glorious celebration and he hadn't felt the same way since he'd parked himself behind a desk in breezeblock in London.
He wasn't in pursuit of poetry. He watched her face for any flicker of familiarity, Neruda no doubt neck and neck with tortuous Russian writers for the closet romantic. Cat's poker face would have been better than any he'd seen around a college gaming table anyway, it was bright and clear and the sentiment was lost in packaging. But Jack didn't feel like dwelling. Mulling over who the hell Cat was now was as pointless as asking questions about a past practically bloody drenched in blood. It was for later, when the party wasn't unspooling around them, rattling to the pulse-beat of drums and the ooze of music in and out.
He hadn't been impulsive in years, and he hadn't been impulsive without significant lubrication in god knows how long. There was no bloody intent , romantic or otherwise save to savor, to suck the marrow out of a moment and to slide beneath the surface of this mass of celebration. What bloomed under glass blotted up requisite caution only, enough to forget the surface, to forget the sticky application of dust to the soles of his feet.
As the crowd bilged apart, swollen only to burst on the tables. Oh, he'd follow but he paused as a little boy swung in front of him, drunk on music and dancing and on the desire to cram in and eat, shut out by the mass of bodies. It was the space of minutes to elbow in as bloody-minded as ever and to part the Red Sea of sticky, warm people. When Jack sank down beside her it was eventual, and he held out rescued glass to her.
"A very little of what looks awfully large," he said honestly, and the sprawl was warm lethargy after dancing until the drums stopped beating. "It feels a little like a different world down here. Is it?"