Participants:
| Scene Title | Stoned Walls |
|---|---|
| Synopsis | Sable's reward for helping Delia move the last of her things is some of Logan's beer. |
| Date | April 1, 2011 |
Eltingville Blocks — The Brick House
"What? Oh heck no! That Keith Richards book was totally there the last time I worked there…" Delia's voice carries through the house as she leads her moving buddy inside. Though worn and cracked on the outside the inside is completely renovated with freshly painted walls and brand new carpet. Antique furniture is carefully placed in just the right spots to allow the maximum in awestruck looks. "Watch out for the carpet, the guy I live with doesn't like them getting all mucky." Not that it's been raining outside.
The sound of the young woman's voice draws two dogs down the stairs, one smaller german sheppard mix and a half wolf. "Sable, this is Rhett and Cheza… Cheza is the big one, Rhett is the baby one." Not quite a baby, but the shep is smaller than the other. The redhead's box is dropped into the middle of the living room floor and she returns to the foyer to remove her Docs and place them carefully to the side. "I think he's got beer in the fridge, just dump the box anywhere and let's go look."
"Yeah, uh huh? Lies, lies, lies, doll," Sable huffs, navigating her way around an absolutely lovely table that she nearly hipchecks, "gotta respect th' Stones, though, y' know? Fuckin' dissolve yer body, soul 'n' septum in th' lifestyle." She bends her knees to get the box about a foot from the floor, then drops it. Thump.
Hands dust against hands. Dogs are perused. She meets each of their eyes, waiting Rhett out, but dipping after a moment with Cheza. She respects home defenders. Especially half wolf ones. She's a guest, she'll act it and keep herself bite-free.
"Don't mind if I do…" she says, with a smile, sidling into the kitchen and easing open the fridge, leaning back to get a full view. "Ah, there's th' thing…" she says, plucking a long necked bottle. Turning it in her hand, she squints at the name. "Deli- delirium tremens?" Her dark head pops up over the door of the fridge. "Wha's this, some sorta queer beer?"
Delia's eyes widen and her mouth goes a little dry at the the questioning of the beer's manhood, or the manhood of the person who bought it. "Aahhh… uhm… No? It uhm… It's uhm…" Whatever defense she might have had in mind has completely escaped her for the time being and she simply gives a helpless shrug. "Maybe? He likes fancy things." The furniture in the house is enough to vouch for that statement.
"Want to share one to see what it's like before we drink all the rest?" She doesn't seem bothered by the notion of draining the fridge dry, she's done it before. Not here, mind, by the last place she lived. It'll go on the list of what she owes.
Reaching into the cupboard, she scavenges two thick stemmed glasses with globes especially made for beer drinking. Those were her contribution to the house, the right sort of glass for the right sort of beverage. But only two of each. "Why would you want to dissolve your sept— ooooohhhh… you mean with drugs, right?"
"Yah hon," Sable says, grinning wide as she tugs a lighter out of her pocket and uses it to pop the bottle cap off, "thass what I mean by lifestyle." She gives the beer glasses a sidelong look, rather suspicious. "Fancy? No fuckin' lie." Mistakenly, Sable sees the glasses as in keeping with the fruufiness of the place. Then again, she thinks Ferrero Rocher is the height of elegance. She is not the best judge.
Still, when in fancy pants Rome… Sable takes the glasses and pours a measure of liquid into each, alternating until the levels are just about equal. She sets the bottle aside, and then lifts the glass in a toast. "T' booze. Rots yer gut, not yer nose."
Taking her glass, Delia tips it slightly and clinks it against Sables in a toast. "To booze and finally being legal enough to drink it." In more ways that just the obvious. A tentative sip is taken from the glass and the redhead draws it away, looking at the pale liquid. "It's uhm.. what you said.. I think. But then again, I've only ever tasted Bass. This is fruitier, I think I like it better." A.K.A. it's probably a girlbeer and possibly bought as a gift for her. Given Logan's generosity already, this is a very possible solution to the puzzle of the 'queer beer'.
She picks up the bottle and stares at the little collection of pink elephants on its face and pours a little more into her glass. "I bet he bought it as a present for me, so we're really drinking my beer." The two dogs are still in the living room, sniffing around the boxes that were brought in earlier.
Sable thinks maybe she's had a beer sort of like this before. Maybe in the rather foggy, druggy days of Boston when her current indulgent keeper tried to educate her, if only to explain what was wrong about elitism. College girls. The memory alone makes the beer a complex experience. She thinks she likes it. She's not sure. She drinks more.
"So this ain't snatchin'?" Sable says, wrinkled nose belied by the smile crinkles around her eyes, "tastes better when it's stolen, gal. Take it from me." She leans against the kitchen counter, the lip of it setting between the rises of two vertebrae. "And that makes you what, honey? Th' big two oh?" so very old, "aw, but a slip of a girl like you will stay fresh as a daisy f'r all time. Even when yer old and white-haired, hon, y'll be as pretty as a pressed flower. Y'all c'n count on it."
"Twenty one," Delia corrects with a smile and a raise of her glass before it's tipped back for another few gulps. "I turned twenty one on the eighth." A day that literally changed the course of her life. "I turned twenty one, I almost died, and I had my first legal drink with an illegal ID." Another gulp or two and her glass is almost drained. "I'm pretty sure I met someone that can tell the future too, told me that I was going to die. Sooooo, I came here."
A shrug. Another pour into her glass to drain the rest of the bottle. "You know… this tastes sort of like cherries." She moves to the fridge again to retried another bottle and passes it to Sable before moving toward the counter with her glass. Though counters are made for cooking and not for sitting, this one gets the honor of becoming a rest for the redhead's rear. Her long, thin legs dangle down and swing in lazy circles as she contemplates the amber liquid in her glass. "Sweet cherries laced with the bitter guilt of stealing. I should probably head to the church over there for confession tomorrow… what is it St. Claire's?"
"Shit," Sable says, with a laugh, "twenny one, 'course, what th' hell, 'm I drunk already?" A joke, of course, but being something of a ham, she takes the bottle to eye the alcohol content and - 8.5 percent? - "well hell, that's somethin' f'r a brew…" Sable is forced to admit, still considering the bottle for a moment before setting it down and taking another drink from her glass. Her gulps are quite large, and - considering how small she is - she may be someone who drinks with a purpose.
As Sable pops the top off the next bottle, she gives Delia's dangling legs the most respectful of aesthetic appreciations, her own attention respectfully brief, diverted to the refilling of her own glass, and the topping off of her friend's. "Church? Don't you dare, not t' them papists. Honey," she hops onto the stool beside Delia, turning and leaning in conspiratorial fashion, "y'all got sins, you jus' confess 'em t' me. All them priests is perverts anyhow."
Sins a plenty. Delia takes another long drink from her glass and shrugs one shoulder. "Well," she begins, keeping her tone down tot he same conspiratorial level as her cohort. "I uhm… I'm drinking beer that's probably stolen… living with two men… and a teenage girl. I gave up sexy times for Lent though and I'm doing pretty well on that front. I've only slipped a couple of times, if kissing counts." She's not sure if it does but she feels fairly guilty about it already. "Once was in a dream though, I think that counts for me, does it?"
She falls silent, her eyes roam to the fingers cupping the globe of her beer glass and she studies them for a long while. "My dad isn't happy with me for being here, I'm not allowed to contact him or.. the people back home.. I couldn't tell him anything over the phone because I think someone might be listening but I don't know for sure because I can't understand the dream."
Sable does a good impression of looking shocked, horrified and totally fascinated, transmogrified for a moment into a church gossip. "You ain't," is said in emphatic stage whisper, "you know what happens t' whores in hell, gal?" Sable makes a gruesome face, then shakes it off like a dog shedding water. A smile rises to her lips. "Y'all c'n get game in dreams, hon? That is too cool." The yellow eyed girl gives a pretty genuine cackle. "I'm pretty happy, hon, with th' hand fate dealt me, bein' - as I am - gifted with th' greatest musical talent 'f th' millennium. But if I could take th' game t' dream?" She gives a low whistle. "Somethin' I could see offerin' a soul up for, if 't was in th' devil's power."
But the topic has turned serious, and so Sable gets serious, still leaning in, but now with more genuine concern and comradery. "That true? 'cause, like- I know some folks back home 's well, 'n'- like- I hadn't heard nothin'. Or is that th' trouble? That we ain't nothin', 'r 't least not enough?"
The heavy sound of footsteps coming down the stairs announces a third presence in the house, one that steers toward the kitchen when it snatches the women's voices out of the air. Aleksandr Kozlow is a naturally curious individual, but the voice that doesn't belong to Delia also doesn't belong to one of the two others who live under this roof with them.
He thinks he heard it over a radio once. He comes around the corner, dressed in a pair of dark jeans and a button-up shirt worn over what might be a wifebeater. Blue eyes confirm what his ears suspected, and a cagey looks crosses his features as he stalks into the kitchen, gaze hooking on Sable.
Wisely, he does not immediately open his mouth.
As the ginger man rounds the corner, he's greeted with the bright smile of Delia and a raise of her beer glass. "Gudye vanya coomnata!" It's the only Russian that she's been able to pick up, her accent is attrocious, and it's quite possible that Sasha doesn't actually recognize it as his native language. She's been trying though.
"This is my friend Sable, she's been helping me move the rest of my things in." A motion toward the yellow eyed woman on the stool and another smile directed toward her before she flits her gaze to Sasha again. "We're neighbors, isn't that fantastic? We're drinking beer to celebrate." The fact he seems a little nervous isn't lost on the young woman as she takes another sip from her glass. "Sable this is… uhm…" Never properly introduced, she doesn't actually know what her housemate likes to be called. "Big red."
"Like th' chewin' gum?" Sable says, skeptically, looking from Delia to Sasha and giving the newcomer a look more worth of an interloper than a resident. This affect fades slowly from her face, though, replaced by polite recognition. Not as effusive with menfolk. "Y'all a visitor or-" she glances to Delia, "this here one 'f yer scandalous-type roommate fellas?" A tilted smirk tossed laterally at Sasha. "Ain't th' teen girl, is it?"
Sasha's brows shoot up at Delia's greeting, and he starts to open his mouth to answer her question — Where is the bathroom, Delia? Really? — then thinks better of it, pressing his lips together as he pops open the fridge with one hand and grips the edge of the counter with the other.
He locates a carton of eggs on the topmost shelf and takes it out, letting the fridge door ease itself shut. Fingers hook under the carton's lip and pop it open, but rather than go rummaging through the cabinets for a skillet he can use to cook it on the stovetop, he takes down a squat glass from the cupboard above his head.
The part about chewing gum has him a little confused, and it shows on his face, forehead rumpled and blue eyes squinted at Sable in overt suspicion.
"N-no, he lives here… u-upstairs." Delia stammers nervously, turning a bright shade of crimson when her greeting isn't exactly returned except with a stare. She hangs her head and slumps her shoulders like a submissive dog under the scrutiny and opts to take another drink of beer instead of continuing with introductions. "uhm.. So yeah…" What were they talking about again?
"I heard an internet rumor that there's going to be a sequel to Mean Heat, have you ever read that book?" Completely off topic and something a little safer, if present company is as enthralled by bodice rippers as the jittery young woman playing hostess. "It's about a girl that's moving out west and meets this guy… well there's really no plot to it. He sees her, decides she shouldn't be all alone in the wild wild west… stuff happens… her shirt gets ripped off. You know. But yeah, I think the sequel is going to be where they move to Mexico."
Delia's move is strategically brilliant. The awkward, mutually suspicious, cagey silence that exists just between Sasha and Sable is a real social nightmare, but Miss Ryan's has acumen enough to know that the best way to encourage bonding is by creating a common cause.
At the very least, Sable is forced to retreat into what she assumes is solidarity with Sasha in a mutual depreciation of romance rags. Sable addresses Delia, but at the same time she's offering Sasha the olive branch of a look that says 'women, amirite?', "I bet y'all enjoy that kinda thing, got whassisname on th' cover- th' fella with the chest? Bless their hearts, but what's gotta be goin' through yer head y' write somethin' like that f'r a livin'?"
"Money," Sasha offers simply, punctuating his answer with the sharp crack of the egg's shell as he taps it against the rim of the glass. He peels the shell away with his nails, careful not to let any of it dribble inside with the egg's contents, then flicks it away into the trash.
He's not sure what Mean Heat is, but Delia paints an interesting mental image. Leaning a hip into the counter, he picks up his glass, raises it in a salute to the women, and drinks.
"Oh yes…" Delia breathes in almost a whisper when Sable describes the cover of pretty much every romance novel on and off the shelves. "You know the one I'm talking about! The one with Jessie and Dusty! It's the first one I bought that didn't have a dark haired guy on the front… he's blond. But Jessie has red hair so it's like half my criteria for a good book, right?" Feeling a little more comfortable now that the topic has changed to her guilty pleasure, the younger woman drains her glass and slips off the counter.
She turns just in time to see Sasha gulping down the raw egg and an expression of horror paints itself over her features. "Aaah!! Wha- w— what are you doing? You could get sick doing that!! Salmonella! I don't even know how to say that in Russian but I bet it's hard and with more consonents than necessary!!" She might be a little drunk by the amount of babble.
Has the topic turned? Has it really? It feels more… steered. And Sable is the passenger seat, desperately trying to get her seatbelt on as Delia accelerates into details like hair color. Matching hair color. Which means?
Sable's no dreamwalker, and she'll tred no further into what she fears is Delia's phantasy. Beer is gulped in syncopation with the egg, and held longer, glug glug.
And then Delia's freaking out because a man just wants his calories. Atlas diet. And while Sable would love to further (in her mind) her bond with Sasha by remaining firmly on the side of raw egg drinking and ignorance of the bodice ripper genre, she is small, has a fair bit on not much food, and - as a result - does this instead.
"Russian? Holy shit but don't it take all kinds. Howzit like bein' so far from th', like, mother country 'n' all that? Wishin'-" oh no, here it comes, "y'all were back in the USSR?"
Sasha's glass clinks against the counter, and he wipes his mouth with the back of his hand instead of his sleeve. His clothes are supposed to make him look presentable, and the illusion will be less realistic if there's yolk and white drying on the cuff of his shirt.
He recognizes that reference, at least, and gives Sable a canine-like tilt of his head as he attempts to determine whether this is just a joke, or a joke being made at his expense. Unable to decide, he shifts his focus back to Delia and places the now empty glass in the sink. "They are safe to eat," he tells her, "when they do not float."
Not that he checked or anything. He gives a little sniff. "Does Logan know you are drinking his alcohol?"
The redhead's blue eyes sliiiide toward the empty bottles and her mouth opens to draw in a short breath of air. "Well. No?" She starts, raising a single hold on a minute finger in the air as her mind races for an excuse or explanation. "I— uhm.. I figured it was for me, see? It tastes like cherries and men like Logan don't really like cherries… right? Plus!! He's a really nice guy and generous with everything. Like… uhm… the eggs. Very generous with eggs. It probably carries over to the beer." A quick glance flits from the bottles and back up to Sasha and Delia's mouth goes dry and the audible swallow that follows seems somewhat painful.
Tucking her hands into the pockets of her jeans, she hangs her head again and shrugs one shoulder. "I'll uhm.. I'll pay him back if it's a big deal. I got a job, I think, or uhm.. I could just…" Except she gave that up for Lent. "I'll just break it to him gently."
"Oh, he's got a problem with you showin' a little hospitality t' someone helpin' a gal move her things, he is cordially invited t' fuck 'imself," is Sable's opinion, "don't you go head over fuckin' teakettle jus' t' keep some fancified prick happy. Y'all fret too much. Don't she fret too much?" This last is directed towards Sasha. Only he started this, as Sable suddenly recalls, and she regains her glower, previous truce forgotten.
"Know what you need, gal?" the dark haired woman decides, reaching into her coat pocket and extracting a well rolled ziplock back, "somethin'll do you kind." Flick. Hand rolled cigarette suspended in plastic. "Whaddya say, dreamer?" A glance over at Sasha. "Y'all c'n partake too, comrade."
Sasha pulls up a chair at the kitchen table, legs squeaking shrill against the floor. He understands very little of what Sable is saying, but what she's saying isn't particularly important to him either — he's more interested in what she's holding. A hand dips into the left back pocket of his jeans, and he fishes out a matchbox, which he then tosses underhand at Sable as he sinks down into the seat of the chair. An arm dangles over its back. He stretches out his legs.
Delia's jaw hangs open for the span of a few breaths as she eyes the cigarette in the baggie before she furrows her eyebrows and cocks her head back a little warily. A swift glance in Sasha's direction is really only done to make certain he's on board and not going to tell on her. Which still may happen but…
"Iiiiii— " The drawn out vowel is precursor to a deep breath inward before she shrugs her shoulder again and gives a firm nod. "Okay, why not. I'm already practically disowned, there's not much more my dad can do to me, right?" Aside from calling the authorities, which might hurt him more than her at this juncture. "Besides… all the cool people smoke." Maybe not hand rolled cigarettes in plastic bags but she's short on inhaling options.
Were it only a pipe, the peace the tossed matchbox signifies would have a easier referent. In any case, Sable smiles her gratitude too Sasha; her appreciation too. Matches in boxes feel a little ritzy to her, she digs that. She gives the box a little shake, hearing the merry sound of the sticks within, then pulls the bag open, finagles the joint out and offers it to Delia.
"Girl, you're already so fuckin' out there, I jus' gotta see what yer like stoned," Sable states, frankly, pushing open the matchbox, ready to give Delia the first puff.
"Cool people," Sasha repeats, his voice a little deadpan, and lifts his hips off the chair in a slow, languid arch of his back. He's getting comfortable, or at least as comfortable as he can be, given the large size of his frame and the comparatively small size of the chair.
He scrubs his knuckles against the sleeve of his shirt for lack of anything better to do, then turns up the cuffs one at a time. He wears no watch on either wrist, but maybe there's a tattoo on the inside of the right — a brief shimmer of black ink on paler skin. Then it's gone again. "Who are these cool people?"
Three fingers are used to hold the joint, two on top and a thumb underneath. She does not look cool as she glances nervously from the match to the small cigarette down to Sable and the over to Sasha. Ever helpful, she bends at the waist to get nearer the match, her free hand going up to pull the long tangle of curls away from her face. "Who? Uhm.. Sable… Sable is cool. Uhm… everyone else smokes cigarettes, not the same but— " Her voice drops off as her eyes cross to focus on the little thing between her fingers and too close to her lips.
Straightening again, she pulls it away and holds it out for Sable, her expression more a grimace of uncertainty than outright rejection. "You first, I don't want to do it wrong." Like blowing instead of sucking.
No better disguise than foreignness. Now that Sasha is 'Russian', he might as well be any and all Russians and, as such, is not specific Russian, much less a Russian whom she heard only a little of over the crackle of a walkie-talkie. Sable, thus, chuckles appreciatively, as Sasha wonders who these hip cats and hep kitties might be. But Delia's got it right. Or almost.
"Cool's what follows me 'round," Sable says, taking the jay and clasping it between her lips and striking the match against the side of the box. A tiny nova of green-rimmed flame bursts into life, then dwindles to a more modest flicker. Applying it to the cigarette's end, she puffs, once-twice. Holds. Passes. Speaks through smoke, smokily. "'s what bein' a trendsetter's all 'bout."
"None of this around my Tania," is all Sasha has to say on the subject of what is cool and what isn't. "She is very sick. Her lungs—" He makes a vague gesture with his hand and stands again. Sable can apparently have the box of matches, because he isn't asking for it back through either his words or his body language; instead, he dips his head in a you keep it sort of gesture as he pushes the chair back in again.
"If you are ever very sick," he adds, and he directs this at the smaller of the two women, "you find me here. In St. Petersburg and Ryazan, they say I am the man with the gentle hands. A good doctor."
Wrestling with her conscience on whether to take the joint or not, she gives a wary glance to the curls of pungent smoke curling from its end. Something about the smell stirs her memory and her eyebrows furrow a little bit as she grips it lightly between her fingers and gives another good sniff. "That's what that smell was.. It was this!" Giving a wide eyed stare to Sable, she reaches her hand out to pass it on to the tall man without actually taking a drag.
And it drops to the new linoleum.
"Oh… nnnnoooooooo…" It's a good impression of Darth Vader when Padme's funeral procession is going on, the redheaded young woman actually doing a swan dive for the doobie. It all sort of seems to happen in slow motion for her. The joint lands on the floor, Delia scoops it up and juggles it between her two hands while trying not to get burnt too badly, and a tiny fleck of a brown stain marks the pristine kitchen floor.
"He's going to kill me!!"
"Jesus. I'll send some good vibes her way, arright? Transmit some love in her direction, astral-like," is apparently a genuine display of concern and well wishing, however Age of Aquarian. She lifts the matches, shakes them again - "Much obliged!" - and pockets them in her cargo pants.
'Man with gentle hands' is maybe an ESL thing to say, or so Sable was about to rather uncouthly suggest - but the drama of the joint prevents.
Sable has taken a hit, and however high her resistance, she still feels a certain something creeping in her brain. The Descent of the Doobie takes place in slow motion for her as well, and Delia's heroic dive leaves her staring and speechless. It doesn't get much better, either, when she begins to play hot potato with herself. Flabbergasted is about right.
A confused glance up at Sasha. "Ashtray anywhere?" she inquires.
Sasha scrunches his shoulders up into a shrug. If there's an ashtray around, he hasn't looked for it — when he does smoke, he makes an effort to do it outside, away from his sister and away from the furniture, its upholstery like a sponge. "I will see," he offers, stepping away from the table with a glance flicked down at the stain on the linoleum.
He doubts that Logan will notice it, or if the Englishman does, then that he'll care. Doubts, too, that telling Delia this will make her any less upset given her current state, and opts to disappear elsewhere into the house in search of what it is Sable's asking after.
The joint is dropped into the sink, which is luckily not full of dishes or even water. Breathing a long sigh of relief, Delia turns her hands up to examine her palms for injury. The speed at which she tossed the little joint around aided in lessening any burns that she might have incurred, as it stands, there's barely anything at all. A small blister will probably form here or there but nothing too magnanimous.
Her eyes flick to the little spot again and she rubs at it with her socked toe. It doesn't go away. "Well hell…" she utters, picking the joint out of the sink (properly this time) and taking a small drag. Small snorts and a series of coughs are a sharp contrast to Sable's smooth method. Delia is definitely not the cool one here, the follower instead of the setter. "Do you think— " she muses as she watches Sasha disappear and then keeps watching where he's been. "Uhm… He's— uhm…" There's a long pause while the redhead completes the thought in her head. "You know what's rude? I tried hard to learn something in Russian and he didn't even say hello back."
Sable pats Delia on the back lightly. "Cough, cough, hon, makes it work better," she says, smiling with a touch of doting. Delia's peculiarity lends itself to a more maternal side of Sable's nature. But still in a bad influence kind of way. "Aw, don' pay him no mind," she says, shaking a hand, dismissive, "he's jus' one 'f them taciturn motherfuckers. Y'all c'n get 'way with seemin' deep 'n' thoughtful jus' keepin' yer trap mostly shut, you get th' right look goin'."
She taps the side of her nose. "But y'all ju's keep tryin'. Even a stone wall c'n be felled by 'nough birds peckin'."