Re: Great Gatsby: Jude/Clem/Shane/Graham
Shane had been patient. Under the oily plumage of blue-black foliage sheared and edged with exacting symmetry, he'd sat, watching with a heavy squint as the scene with three players (the butler was but background) unfolded without drama, but heavy with tension, like two oranges in a burlap sack. The Murphy brother was a character slick, sly-mouthed, and dark with an energy that gathered around him as a thunderhead. Graham entered stage left as the silent protagonist, boots on the terrace as quiet as he was. And, of course, the damsel, Clementine, in fur, pink-nymph skin dulled white.—It played out in pantomime, charades performed in the careless throwaway of expressions and glances, though words went unheard. There was a glass of fucking water, a slip of smiles traded between Clementine and Graham and the continued intrusion of the Murphy brother from the periphery. Clementine disappeared inside. Freckled leaves in his face, Shane had waited.
He wasn't going to intervene unless really fucking necessary. He had firepower, yeah, and a set of half-cracked ribs that made his squatting in shrubbery painful. Shane wasn't at his best, but he could still put up a hell of a fight if Graham ran into trouble—at least enough to draw attention sideways and allow for an escape.—Neither of the men knew if the idiot brother was going to let Clementine go without a fight. So the plan was for Shane to use his own judgment, to emerge if he thought violence imminent.
When the trio vanished into the confines of the sprawling house, ivy pouring over the face of brick and mortar, he cut out of the bushes and across the immaculate lawn, over the terrace, and up to the gem-cut windows, crouching just under the lip and out of sight. He listened as best he could, but the voices tangled in the cotton of the walls. He heard garbled speech, before the click and crash of glass shattering, Kismine's youth torn asunder with the yellow-burned chateau.
Yeah, that was a fucking Fitzgerald reference.
He hadn't been going to go in, but fuck it, yeah? Shane reeled inside, scuffing the threshold, and tossing himself into the fray of the Jazz Age drama. Clementine was backing down the stairs, her brother close in a way that made her uncomfortable, with Graham blocked to the side. He didn't have time to regurgitate lines or any more fucking patience. He gave Jude Murphy only a cursory glance before his attention slipped to Graham and Clementine together. There was an aborted nod, a question in wordless communication with Graham: okay?
"Alright. Let's fucking go, yeah? Enough of the dramatic bullshit." He looked at Clementine and beckoned her come, because if Graham wouldn't, he would, and they could fucking go back home. Zombies were better than this shit.