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| Scene Title | It's Just a Jump to the Left… |
|---|---|
| Synopsis | Sable pays Holly a call, states her intentions, and experiences the mysterious power of the Time Warp! |
| Date | April 19, 2010 |
Holly's House
Yet another disasterously snowy and cold afternoon in New York City; the drifts are helplessly deep along the unplowed areas - even the snow plow drivers being afraid to leave home. There's not a whole lot else to do today and thusly Holly remembers her chance encounter with that strange yellow-eyed girl on her last journey out and soon arranges to hang out. Of course, she neglected to mention before that she is probably a bit reckless and had been journeying all the way out from freaking Forest Hills, approximately a million miles on foot through this slippery mess. Not much else to do, with near-everything closed. Regardless, she puts the offer out there to hang out, maybe watch a couple movies in her semi-igloo.
Holly is answered with a fierce affirmative, coupled with a few superlative expletives - at least she can be sure it's not a wrong number. After wrapping herself up to brave the arctic wastes, Sable makes the long journey, a printed mapquest route kept in a big ziplock bag to prevent it from getting wet and running. Getting lost would /not/ be ideal. They wouldn't find her body until first thaw, roughly 10,000 years later. At least she'd be perfectly preserved, determined scowl still etched onto her cryogenically frozen brow.
But no fatal mishaps transpire, and noon is not so long past when Holly hears her bell ring. Outside is the yellow-eyed girl, plump with padding and flushed with exertion, that strange mix of much too hot in some places and much too cold in others that results from snowy expeditions.
A cacophony of feet can be heard from the small two-story family house out in Queens, as Holly rushes to open the door for no-doubt half frozen guest. She slow before the door though, and then carefully undoes the chain lock and peeks out through the crack. "Hey, you made it! I was almost going to send out the Saint Bernards with the little kegs on"
Only the topmost part of Sable's grin is visible over her scarf, "Any chance you've still got one of those little kegs? I'll pass on the dogs, but I wouldn't mind the booze," she scuffs her feet, clearing the snow from her boots a bit, but she pushes them off and leaves them in the hallway, padding into Holly's apartment in white athletic socks. "Where should I put all this?" she says, gesturing along herself, meaning all her winter survival gear.
Peers at the tunneling outfit, and hums, "If it's wet I have a dryer and all that here. Else we can just hang it on the coat rack and stuff." She grins, "I dunno how old it is but I think my mom left some bottles in her old stash before the bomb.."
"Crack 'em out, let's see for ourselves," Sable says, tugging off her hat, a knitted one this time, a concession to the cold. She unzips her big down jacket and tosses it up onto the coat rack, then unwinds her scarf from around her neck and tosses that up as well. She's wearing a black tanktop, just a bit stick with sweat, and her hair is an absolute mess. Her cargo pants are soaked up to the knees, and it is these that she considers with quirked lips. "Y'have some sweatpants I can borrow? These'll drive me crazy."
"Sure, I'll go find something you can borrow while that all dries off. Feel free to head upstairs, the liquor cabinet's up above the stove." With that she zooms off across the house, heading to dig through her things. It's a big place for a young girl in the city, her family's place before the bomb in Manhattan drove them away that's been reclaimed since. The halls are still lined with photos.
It's been a while since Sable was in a house proper. In fact, it's been longer than she can even remember. This world, a world of family and property taxes, is so thoroughly not her own. She takes her time as she scales the steps, letting her hand run along the banister. When she finds the kitchen, she has to get up on tip-toes just to pull the cabinet open and, unable to read the labels properly, she finally accepts the limitations of her height and grabs a chair to stand on. She peruses the bottles, a hand at her chin, a finger tapping.
There's a variety of bottles in varying states, from near-full to the last dredges at the bottle. Mostly harder liquor that's been able to survive up in the cupboard all these years, with a little dust formed on the shelves.
After some time shuffling through her things Holly makes a return, carrying a warm set of her old sweats with her High School logo on and grinning, "I figure you're a little smaller so these should fit."
Sable plucks a dusty bottle of Jack Daniels from its spot, blowing on it and sending up a small flurry of detritus. She waves her hand in front of her face, and steps down from the chair, turning to Holly and grinning appreciatively. "Will whiskey do?" She sets the bottle on the counter and reaches out to take the sweats, turning them over in her hands. "Yeah… awesome. Thanks. Um… bathroom? So I can change without, y'know, breakin' any rules of common propriety." She grins.
A goofy grin as she spots the chosen bottle, nodding agreeably at that, "Although I think I'll pour a Coke in mine. Here, I'll get some cups out and all that, just head on down the hall there." She trades over the fresh clothing for the bottle, and sets into the kitchen herself to get things ready.
Sable doesn't take long to change, and when she returns her legs are safely and dryly covered by Holly's high school sweats. They fit pretty well, all in all. Sable has the wet pants wadded up under one arm. "You said there was a dryer?" she says, "'course, I arrive and suddenly start demandin' shit. I blame it on my bad breeding."
Holly chuckles lightly at that, having poored a glass of whiskey and one with coke as well on the counter. She offers to take the clothes on down, extending her arms, "Here, I'll run down and get the dryer going, you're a guest here." She gestures towards the living room, with a modest old TV and a respectable DVD shelf full of TV shows, genre films and musicals, among others.
"You're a peach," Sable beams, handing off her soaked pants. She sidles over to the counter and takes up the straight whiskey, taking a quick whiff of it before sipping. She nods, feeling the burn. "Yeah, that ain't sweet tea, that's for sure." She moves into the living room, poking around, finding novelty in odd things..
The rumbling of the old dryer can soon be heard spinning up, a little on the louder side. Holly rejoins soon after, picking up her drink on the way through the kitchen to sit on the couch. She sips a little, and then nods, "So. How long have you been here in the city?"
Sable settles down next to Holly, maybe half a foot of space left between them, her legs curling up under her. "Jesus… lemme think… Almost a year now, I think. Spent a long time making my way up from Atlanta. Spent most of my time before her in Boston. There are worse places to play music… 'course there are better." She takes a drink before catching Holly's eyes, her smile lopsided, "How about you, hon? What's it like doing what you do? Bein' pretty and tellin' it like it is for an adoring internet?" She looked Holly up!
"Well uhh, I dunno. I think I just got lucky really. I was always kinda interested in all that stuff though, I was a wee bit of a nerd doing school paper stuff and all that before." She raises a brow at the mention of Boston, "After the bomb here my mom wanted to get far away so we ended up there for a few years, left this place locked up and had the neighbours that stayed keep an eye out."
"Smart," Sable says, tapping the side of her nose, "If I were a burglar, and I'm not, but if I /were/, I'd love to tip over a fine place like this." She takes another sip, before holding the glass in both hands, thumbs pressing against the rim until it blanches the flesh, just a little fidget, "Lucky, huh? Think you could make /me/ famous?"
"Well we had some good neighbours here. They looked out for the place. Didn't really leave much stuff, anyway." She sips some more at her own drink, wiggling her toes in her socks idly as she relaxes. "Hmm, maybe I could do an interview with you or something, link to some music or whatever if you can get something recorded. I get a lot of traffic."
"You'd do that for me?" Sable says, her tone making it unclear if she is /seriously/ pursuing the offer, or using it as a grounds for conversation while drinking. She scoots up closer to Holly, 'til their legs are almost touching. "Is this an offer with a time limit? Does it have any strings? I don't need a lawyer in here with me, do I?" She's clearly teasing, at least at the end there.
"It really wouldn't be a huge deal to do, I have an old camera and stuff. Can't guarantee it'll bring anything besides a few views on YouTube but it's something anyway." She finishes sipping at her Jack and Coke and sets the glass aside for now. "Of course it's all for nothing if this ice age wipes us all out."
"Yeah, somethin' is most seriously fishy about all this. Here I was thinkin' we had to deal with global warming or whatever," Sable says, downing the remainder of her drink with a quick flick of the wrist, then setting the empty glass next to Holly's, "'course, if it really comes down to it, I'm sticking with you, hon," she winks, "I've seen how you handle yourself in the snow. A sly fuckin' combatant!"
Another pleasant grin from the brunette, and she peers out the window at all that snow, before nodding, "We'll take New York by storm. We could probably fortify off a borough or two and recruit some good troops to defend it. Or build them out of snow." She looks over at her DVD shelf, pondering, "Wanna watch anything? I tend to collect movies like my house collects dust."
Sable's eyes narrow a little, considering the question of a film much more seriously than is perhaps strictly necessary. Her gaze rests on Holly, and when she speaks, her tone is pensive, "Maybe in just a sec. I… I figure maybe I wanna work somethin' out with you. For the sake of honesty, respect, and all the rest of it."
A brow is raised, and Holly turns her gaze back to the yellow-eyed woman. She blinks a few times, "Isn't that a bit serious for movie watching? Something on your mind?" She keeps her eyes towards Sable, looking just a wee bit concerned.
Sable gives a small shrug, "It's really no big deal. 't least it doesn't have to be. Hard to tell with some folks, y'know?" She wiggles her nose a little, "So here's the deal… I've got this hope, see, this sorta… half-way intention, if you get my meaning, about gettin' intimate with you. Nothing necessarily serious, I've got no thoughts of the long term or nothing'." the confession comes matter-of-factly, without shame and without desperation, "Sure, I just met you, but hey," she grins, "Desire ain't too picky about duration, y'know? But yeah, that's somethin' I'd like. But I dunno where you stand on it, and I don't /expect/ nothin', but I figured you should know. I dig if that's not the way you do things, and please, tell me if I should put it out of my mind, but… there it is."
Holly for her part keeps quiet for a good uncomfortable while, looking thoughtful as she listens. Her cheeks acquire the red tinge of warmth like before, this time not brought on at all by the cold. She coughs once, then seems hesitant as she says, "That might be uhm, nice. I kinda had the feeling, you know. I guess it is kinda obvious when you're calling me pretty and cute and stuff." She gives a little grin at that, "I like your company and all and I think you're cute too." She then looks away a moment, "Another drink?"
Sable is visibly thrilled, and she lifts her hand to run a finger just under Holly's chin. "No rush, hon," she says, "You tell me when the moment feels right." She gets to her feet, reaching over to pick up both their glasses, "I got these. How strong do you like yours?" She pads over to the kitchen, voice raised so that her words can carry. "And to answer your question, the one y' asked before I had to get all… whatever. I don' often watch movies, so anythin's about as new and exciting as anythin' else so…" she peeks her head around the corner, smiling at Holly, fingers twisting off the cap of the whiskey bottle, "Show me your favorite movie. That way I'll get to learn a little bit about you, too."
The brunette turns her gaze over to the shelves loaded perhaps too heavily with movies. She taps her chin thoughtfully, and hums, "This'll be hard. Picking any one movie over all the others is like picking which finger I want to keep." A grin spreads on her face as she continues to gaze over her collection though, and hmms, "Rocky Horror? Always fun."
Sable returns with a cup in each hand, leaning down to set Holly's whiskey and coke on the coffee table before taking back her spot on the couch, crossing her legs, ankle to knee, balancing her drink on her thigh. "Oh man, that's the, like, musical by… uh…" she closes her eyes, rifling through her eclectically organized memory banks, "Richard O'Brian? I think? I've heard the soundtrack but I've never actually /seen/ it."
An absolutely flabbergasted look crosses her face as she hears these words. How could this be? She gets up and runs over to the shelf, fetching the DVD case with the distinctive cover of a /sweet/ transvestite sitting across a giant red mouth with big blood lettering of the title, popping it open and without a word turning on her cheapo little movie player. She shoves the disk in quite eagerly and punches the on button before zooming back to the couch. "Well then. It's time for you to watch it! I think you'll totally dig it." Her legs cross as she reaches over for her drink, and takes a quick sip
Sable runs a hand through her hair, drawing her bangs fully out of her eyes (not that they need that much help). As the film begins and the painted red lips begin bloom into view, singing about midnight double feature picture shows (I wanna go), Sable's smile slants. She casts a look at Holly. "I've heard this song… dunno… about a half dozen times, mebbe. I imagined a lot of things to go along with it - it's just somethin' I do. Music videos of the mind, y'know? But this," she points her finger as gleaming white teeth bite a lower lip, "Ain't what I pictured." Her eyes return to the screen, "It's perfect, though."
The longer haired girl shuffles back in her seat, getting nice and comfy and propping her feet up on the coffee table. She listens of course, nodding along and grinning, "Well, I'll have to run you through a whole bunch of these things then. I've got a lot of musicals. Still hoping that they go ahead with making a movie of Spring Awakening though, assuming the Snowpocalypse allows another spring to happen."
"Whassat?" Sable asks, tilting her head. She's asking about 'Spring Awakening', though she doesn't make it any clearer than just the plain interrogative. Her body of knowledge is far from consistent. "Dunno about musicals in general. More a rock opera gal. Tommy, Quadrophenia, y'know? Quadrophenia's the fuckin' best. I'd die happy if I wrote somethin' half as good."
A nod agreeably, and she grins, "Well, this is sort of a weird thing. It's an musical adaptation of an old novel - kinda like Les Miserable in that aspect - but it's done with more of a rock style. It's based on a really controversial german book, even today. Won a whole bunch of Tonys and even a Grammy. Duncan Sheik wrote the music and it's kinda intersting to have the mix of an eighteen-hundreds setting and fairly modern alt-rock songs." She stops, and takes a breath, before grinning, "Can you tell I'm a theater nerd much?"
As Brad and Janet appear on the scene, their comic love duet macabrely framed by preparations for a child's funeral, Sable manages to split her attention between this gem of alternative musical theater, and the young woman beside her. No mean feat. When forced, though, she tends to choose Holly. "I think it's fuckin' adorable," she states, grinning back, "That's a beautiful thing, I reckon. Geekin' out over somethin'… it shows you're not too cool to really like something, and not too stuck up to turn yer, like, enthusiasm into, like, snobbery. It's…" she searches for the word, "Honest."
Holly's tongue pokes out, and she takes the opportunity to sip at her drink a bit more, eyes flicking back and forth from her guest and the television fairly frequently. She smiles, "No, it's mostly that I'm just a nerd. A pretty nerd I guess, but still a nerd." She turns towards the TV for a bit and declares along with the song, "DAMNIT, JANET!"
"Okay, sure," Sable admits, "Mebbe I'm seeing you through rose tinted specs. But it /sounds/ good when I say it that way." Without excuse or explanation (she doesn't feel she needs either) Sable scoots over 'til she's right next to Holly, and slips an arm behind her. It's not done on the sly; Sable even glances at Holly to make sure this isn't a bridge too far.
There's a brief moment of tension, and then Holly settles back into the arm draped over her. It's quiet for a moment, as the song comes to an end and progresses into the next scene after the wedding. She takes a careful sip again, and sets her half-empty cup back on the table.
Sable makes no further advances, paying attention to the narrator character as he paints foreboding pictures of what's to come. As Nixon's resignation speech plays on the car radio, she steals a glance at Holly. "Does that mean you've acted?" she says, in a virtual non sequitur, "Like… can you sing and stuff? Have you been in any, like, musicals?" The way she asks, with a certain tentativeness, indicates she's nervous about whether this is a stupid question, maybe something akin to asking a football fan if they've ever, personally, made it to the playoffs.
Holly nods lightly, and grins, "Well I don't know if I'm all that good as a singer but I've done quite a bit in high school and all that. I've never really tried performing since then, except for the stuff for the internet but that's really more journalist stuff." She smiles pleasantly, and gives a little wink, "I'd like to think I'm pretty enough but I just haven't had the opportunity. Especially after I had to move out of NYC for a bit after the bomb and all."
"I speak only for myself," Sable says, touching the bottom edge of her glass to her chest in a self-reflexive gesture, "But if you were on stage, I'd buy a ticket for each and every night." A dark castle rises into view on the screen, and 'There's a Light' begins to play, a soulful song despite or even because of its peculiar framing. Sable's expression grows sly. "…show it off to me," she says, nodding at the screen, "Sing along. Show me what you've got."
The girl's cheeks redden a moment, and she shakes her head, "Oh I couldn't. I'm way out of practice beyond when I'm singing in the shower. It's been a long time." She bites at her lip nervously, and then coughs in clearing her throat, joining in for a few awkward lines alongside Janet, looking ahead at the TV in shyness. She's not bad, though terribly out of practice as she says. Her voice holds potential, but it's very unpolished and wavers on occasion.
Sable still beams at the brief recital, and her hand settles on Holly's upper arm, giving the young woman a little shake. "Comon'," she urges, "You're just gettin' warmed up. Here… I'll take the harmony. I think I got it…" She whets her whistle with her drink, then picks up on Brad's line, albeit an octave higher. "There's a light/A light…"
Her gaze slowly turns back towards the other girl, and she beams a little awakwardly as she rejoins the song just in time. "In the darkness of everybody's life~" She grins and drops back out of the song to comment, "You know it's kind of nice to be watching with someone else who knows the songs, it's been a long time."
"What, dontcha have a bevy of girl friends to go hither and yon with?" Sable says, her tone more than a little teasing. "Hard to believe such a /nice/ girl doesn't have some respectable friends from, like, college or somethin' to gad about with. Wouldn't they sing along with you?"
A laugh, and she shrugs, "I kinda lost track of a lot of my theater friends when we moved out to Boston. Did most of my college there, too so it's kinda a mess. I should hook up with some of them though soon I guess, mostp robably don't know I'm back in town."
"You should let 'em know," Sable says, "I swear I'll make myself scarce if needs be. I mean, much as I'd /love/ to have you all t' myself, I can't go ahead and let myself be /too/ selfish, can I?" She tips her head over, bumping it lightly against Holly's, another oh-so-incidental touch to test the waters.
Holly laughs softly at that again, smiling, "Well, they can wait anyhow. You were here first after all." She peers over at a window, "Not like any of them are crazy enough to tunnel through all that snow, anyway." She reaches her own arm up at last, and leans in, "I'm enjoying this y'know?"
"Ah, see, I'll /always/ be crazy enough," Sable says, "I make a point of it." As Holly draws closer, Sable lets her fingers brush against the other woman's arm. A tilt of the head, and her cheek is brushing against Holly's hair. It's not shocking, not even bold, but it is definitely something.
A something she might be tempted to follow up with something else… but then, out of nowhere… it's the TIME WARP!
A really big grin slips across the girl's face, and she soon rises up to her feet, declaring, "It's just a jump to the left!" And proceeding to join in with the dance quite enthusiastically. She's clearly got it all memorized, as many do.
Sable hauls herself to her feet, nearly causing some of her whiskey to splash over the rim of her class. Taking this as an early warning sign, she sets it down before taking her place beside Holly and following the instructions so kindly given by the criminologist and the Transylvanians. This is the first time she's /seen/ the Time Warp in action, but she's a quick study. After just one full run through, she's time warping with impressive fidelity. She bursts out laughing as she swivels her hips, being driven insaa-aa-a-a-a-aane!
The laughter is joined quickly by Holly's, unable to resist the sheer excitement of doing the Time Warp (Again). Hands on the hips, bending her knees in time, even the pelvic thrust are displayed with familiarity, although she wobbles a bit when her giggling only increases, making coordination a little tougher.
When the song (and dance) finally come to an end, Sable slips an arm around Holly and tips them /both/ back onto the couch, still laughing. She keeps her arm scooped about Holly's waist, an ideal position to let Holly lean into her… if she'd like. Sable kicks up her socked feet, propping them next to her glass and crossing her ankles. The movie is off to a hell of a good beginning, that's for sure.
Left a little red in the cheeks from the sudden excited dancing, Holly takes to the gesture nicely, leaning over and giving a slight yawn. She beams, "That was fun." Her own feet prop up beside Sable's, and she nestles her head into a shoulder.
Sable gives Holly a gentle squeeze, visibly settling in. "You ain't lyin'," she agrees. She turns her head, eyes still on the screen, and sets a single kiss on the top of Holly's head.