narrative. Who: Oliver What: An after-party thing I took too long to do but w/e dont judge me. Where: Home. When: The morning after the train. Notes: Oliver stole things from people on the train. If you want to have been a victim of this, feel free.
The haul was a festooned painter's palette of minerals and metals and at least one pair of shoelaces. Oliver, self-appointed leader of all half pint thieves, was too opportunistic to spend his night chugging free champagne or fucking the otherwise lonely. Which was only a little ironic, because in the end? The principle was all the same, somebody was getting screwed. With the lights out, it was a whole lot less dangerous to do what you wanted to do. That held true in dark trains or dark clubs or dark beds, and it was especially true when what you wanted to do was scout out cufflinks from company that was otherwise unsuspecting.
He didn't stick around after the lights came on, and he didn't look for his brother. Jude, he knew, wouldn't approve of what he'd spent the night doing. And so it was a quiet return to their home in the woods. Jude did his best to turn the crumbling structure into a home, and Oliver's naturally broken-in appreciation for the visual meant he tapdanced around the hollow living room with irenic smiles and arms flung wide as infinity, just like his smile, any time that Jude succumbed to Oliver's demands for proper carpets or drapes. But in the end, Oliver wondered if they both knew that their digs was something more of a clubhouse than actual living space. It was good for plotting and laughter, late night pizza and stargazing through the holes in the roof, but how long could something like that last? Not long enough, Oliver worried.
Oh, Oliver knew that Jude didn't think that Oliver worried about anything. Which was a fair enough generalization, because Oliver didn't worry about any of the more base elements in the situation he'd found himself in. The situation of living. He was rarely occupied with food or sleep until that was all he was occupied with, he didn't think about money as much as he thought about things. Oliver thought that Jude worried tediously over everything, but he reluctantly recognized that they both were likely still alive because of it. But part of Oliver knew that Jude found him trivial, illogical, difficult. It'd never worried Oliver before because before, that was the time that Oliver had been the golden boy, and before, the two of them were all that the other had.
But Repose made everything different. There were people here. Varied people with stupidly varied stories that Oliver knew Jude found interesting, like his books... or even worse, Jude sympathized with for a simpler reason. Oliver had seen the end of things once, and he didn't want to see an end again. He loved Jude very much. He didn't want to disappoint him or worry him, and Oliver told himself that was why he walked home alone. It was why he emptied his pockets up in his room. He was no longer the gleeful boy of fairytale felonies, laughing like Christmas morning after a score. On this morning, in his bedroom, he was quiet like movies ended, and he and he emptied his pockets onto the sallow peach of his bedspread. He didn't make a killing, and he also didn't get killed… so, by Oliver's estimations, the night was a success. A success, he demanded it to be one, even if the only feeling that he felt when he climbed into bed was guilt digging deeper roots.
Jude should be proud, Oliver hadn't gotten caught. But Jude wouldn't know, and Oliver quietly tucked the items into his pillowcase, vowing to sleep on his secrets for just a little bit longer. Sleep, that was what he wanted most right now, and he curled up tighter with stolen things and a too many clothes on.