Elijah
She was back in town for all of three hours before she'd told Elijah I have a gallery opening.. The conversation had gone a little like this:
"Elijah,
what are you doing tonight?" while Jenn was wrapping her hair around a
clipless curler. Glove on one hand to keep from burning herself.
"Recovering," he'd said. From what, he didn't say.
"Want to recover at my gallery opening?"
"You have a gallery opening?"
"Yep." Big. Bright smile.
And it was settled, then. They were going- or rather, Jenn was going to her
gallery opening and Elijah was going to show up at some point and…
what? Something. Probably do what he usually does at these kinds of
functions, stand back wide-eyed and pleased and just take in the fact
that Jenna Laurent looked happy. Looked like she was in her
element and getting the kind of respect that she deserved. he liked it
when she had art shows. A text went out to those who would care:
Jenn's got art at (location), gallery's open tonight.
---
What he didn't know, was this: this really was Jenn's gallery opening.
There
were a few pieces that weren't hers, staples of the gallery that just
stayed there, but the rotating pieces that came in, the pieces that were
showcased were hers. All color and movement and the occasional
hints at something big and bright and so much larger than herself
(people and energy and a world full of cracks and diagrams of the
universe and an umbral reflection that Elijah had helped with because
she wanted to know what it was that he saw.) It was one of those
things- fantastical and beautiful and terrible (because the horror was
part of the wonder)- somehow she'd managed to get a depth in the sky, in
the space between the stars, that could make someone feel incredibly
small. Incredibly humbled and distraught at how insignificant they seem
in the comparison- how vital they seemed in picture.
Elijah
was just taking it all in. He hadn't seen a lot of these pieces. Some of
them had come off of the walls in the apartment (wondered where those
went), but others were of origins he couldn't quite place. He'd been
chatting with some bottled redhead over a glass of wine while looking
over the portrait of the apartment, had even managed to keep his mouth
shut over the fact that he lived there.
He was wearing a
suit. Or, well, most of a suit. Elijah had loosened his tie, vest
buttoned, but sleeves rolled up. Something gray and white and just
precise enough to be notable. Just disheveled enough to make it clear
that Elijah didn't really belong in a suit for terribly long. He had a
leather bracelet wrapped around his left wrist. Necklace still tied on
where he couldn't quite get it off (jesus, how hard did Jenn tie knots?)
"It's, like, more real than real," the redhead said, eyes traveling from the handsome young man back to the painting.
"Whole
different world expressed in metaphor and shaped by meaning. I think
this kind of the ultimate in symbolic communication," Elijah looked back
at the painting. Grin on his face. "I should let you get back to
enjoying before I start rambling." Raised his glass and tossed her a
wink. The redhead blushed, and Elijah meandered on his way. She gave him
a second glance as he left, couldn't help but watch him leave.
That grin stayed on his face.
Ian
Ian
got the text from Elijah when he finished final dress, and though he
could have ignored it - gone home and crashed on his couch with some
wine and takeout - he was actually curious to see Jenn's new work (what
he hadn't seen hanging on Elijah's walls.) Moreover, it was the last
evening he'd have free for a while, and he wasn't going to spend it
holed up alone in his apartment. So he made a quick stop to change into
something more appropriate before driving out to Santa Fe.
Elijah
didn't mention that Jenn was the featured artist, a fact that Ian
realized soon after walking in the door. He surveyed the space with a
wide sweep of his gaze, noting the color and the vibrancy of the pieces
that bore Jenn's unmistakable fingerprint. He wasn't wearing a suit
tonight, but he still looked nice in tight black jeans, boots and a blue
dress shirt. The cut of the shirt was ultra slim, with a high collar
and sleeves rolled below the elbow. A couple of leather bracelets
decorated both wrists.
He'd showered recently, of course. His
hair looked as though he'd spent a good half an hour on it (though he
hadn't really.) A few specks of glitter-dust still clung to the corners
of his eyelids, but it was only noticeable if you looked very close.
Ian
didn't approach Elijah immediately. Instead he wandered past the first
painting to catch his eye and stood there looking at it, hands tucked
slightly into his pockets with one boot turned out. He looked a bit like
what a model posing before a painting would look like. But
then, he often looked as though he'd been posed - even when he hadn't.
(It was probably why he'd been scouted in the first place.)
After
a while, Ian found Elijah. Or maybe Elijah found him. Point is, they
wandered into the same space, and Ian leaned over to say: "I have a
feeling Jenn's about to get more famous than me."
Elijah
They settled in front of the same painting, something with an iridescent hummingbird hovering over some gray, painful, banal
landscape. Trying to get nectar from the scrolls on a metal fence. It's
between a portrait of Persephone in pomegranate juice and what appeared
to be a photo of a woman with the horse head nebula painted on her
skin. (It wasn't a photo- Skyline, pencil and water color. 2013-2014) He just took in the hummingbird for a moment, a little smile on his face- that was joy, you see. Joy in someone else's success.
Ian leaned over and Elijah just laughed, "I've been good, I haven't squealed that's my room mate once."
He looked from Ian back to the paintings. brows rose, "I didn't know she did realism, though, or where she found the freaking time."
His eyes flickered to the corner that Jenn had found herself in,
talking to someone who seemed incredibly interested in, well, talking to
her, "she's on cloud nine right now."
Ian
"I can imagine."
Of
course he could. It was a sentiment that all artists shared - the
exultant high of finally having your work recognized. The first time Ian
saw himself on a billboard, he'd felt... surreal. Like he was looking
at some person who'd stolen his face but wasn't really him. It was a
different feeling - not bad, really, but not... what it felt like to
really be seen (because what people were seeing wasn't really him.) The
first time he'd felt a sliver of what Jenn was feeling now, it'd been
after his name was mentioned favorably in a review for his company's
first show. Funny how something so small could mean that much.
Ian
tilted his head as he stared at the hummingbird. His eyes sketched
slowly over the details of the painting, taking it in quietly. Finally
he glanced over at Jenn - embroiled as she was in conversation.
"Should we go bother her?"
He
didn't wait for an answer, tugging gently on the edge of Elijah's vest
to indicate that he should follow. Ian slipped through the milling crowd
with quiet steps and effortless grace, moving in at Jenn's back so she
wouldn't see them coming. As he came up behind her, he leaned in and
said: "Miss Laurent, can we have a moment of your time?"
Elijah
Ian didn't wait for an answer and Elijah only put up the tiniest of perfunctory, obligatory protest. Oh no, I'm being taken to talk to a friend, whatever shall I do?
It was then off and over to Jenn. He moved quietly, or at least
meandered into crowds, through people, before standing quiet with a
bright grin on his face.
Jenn, for her part, was engaging with
people. Jenn was always engaging, but she was a little too modest for
her own good. Laughed quietly, was an earnest sort of wide-eyed with all
of this even if she was trying to be demure and trying to pretend like
all of this didn't wasn't completely surreal. Trying to pretend like all
of this wasn't something she had wanted to happen worse than anything
since she was fourteen and playing with oil pastels or seven and
coloring on walls at Elijah's house because he said that his parents
wouldn't care. (pretended that this was the Sistine chapel, if only they
could have reached the ceiling…)
There is the dawning
realization when she hears the voice, places it, and the buyer she's
talking to can tell that she's infinitely more delighted to hear the
person behind her than she was to talk about contracts in Montana and
product lines that… really… she wasn't looking to represent. She wasn't a
graphic designer, didn't do logos. Her brows rose, delight crossed her
features- "excuse me, gentlemen, I have-"
"Pre-existing business arrangements she needs to attend to," Elijah offered. Even straightened his tie so he could maybe
look professional. Maybe. Couldn't quite succeed but Jenn was beaming
and more than content to take either man by the arm and turn around.
"Yes!"
she says, even offers an apologetic smile, "you understand, yes?"
Murmurs of affirmatives, and she put her hands on her cheeks. Jenn's
voice came out quiet, astounded, "ohhh my goodness, Ian, I didn't know
you'd show up."
Ian
"And miss out on seeing
your work? Of course I came." He dropped the act once they were far
enough from the buyers to not be overheard, settling into a more relaxed
pose as they came to a stop near the table where the wine glasses were
set out. He snatched one up in a casual gesture (a flute of champagne)
and offered it to Jenn as a gesture of congratulations.
"Some of these pieces are pretty impressive. I like the way you use color. It's very... you."
He paused a moment, his eyes landing on a piece, distantly, that
looked... just a little bit familiar. Like the umbra, as seen through
Elijah's eyes.
"Ah. That one especially." He
indicated the painting with a tip of his head, a knowing smile curling
at one side of his mouth. When he glanced at Elijah he raised an
eyebrow, silently asking the obvious question.
Elijah
Once
they were far enough out, there was some meandering. It was easy to get
through crowds, it was easy to get past people and find places where
you could be alone even when you were surrounded by people. Jenn walked
with her hands behind her back, clasped there while the little black
dress she'd borrowed from a friend swished as she moved. They swung by a
table with glasses. Jenn took what was offered to her, held carefully
like it was something delicate. Something to be cared for.
"Thank,"
she lifted the glass and took a sip, "I feel like there's a lot of
things that are vibrant in the world, and you just need to notice them.
She and Elijah walked, and he was, well, beaming wasn't even the word for it. he was proud, he was proud and he was happy
and he was a number of things and then there's the pointed reference to
the painting of an umbral landscape. Elijah's brows rose for a second,
half an upward nod for Ian. An affirmative, of sorts.
"Oh, that?" she looks, brows raised and cheeks flushed and there is this look
like a small child who is trying to cover her tracks, "yeah, Elijah and
I went really high talked metaphors and it just kinda came out?"
Ian
Ian
didn't go for the champagne. He went for a red wine instead. It ended
up being a merlot, a variety he was inevitably beginning to associate
with Kiara. But if the sense-memory caused his attention to drift for a
moment, he covered it well. There was a slow sip, and then a press of
his lips as he let the wine linger on his tongue. Elijah answered the
unspoken question with something like confirmation, while Jenn did her
best to play it off - to explain the whole thing away through drugs and
metaphors.
Which would have sounded like a perfectly reasonable explanation, had Ian not known better.
"I
suppose that's one way to tap into higher awareness," he replied in a
dry tone. Were they not in public, he likely would have interrogated her
further. But... this wasn't the place to have that kind of discussion.
"Have you sold any pieces yet?"
Elijah
[Manip+sub: I am totally not going to laugh at Jenn]
Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (1, 4, 5, 5, 7, 8, 8) ( success x 3 )
Elijah
[Jenn's crappy pre-upgrade manipulation+subterfuge: I am TOTALLY cool]
Dice: 3 d10 TN6 (6, 8, 8) ( success x 3 )
Elijah
"Well,
you know, some people use ayahuasca- there's a large history of using
psychotropic substances to reach a state of higher consciousness. Just,
you know, maybe... we're moving the ritual to a more modern context,"
she said. Conversational, totally playing off the fact that there was
something up with that painting, that there was a higher truth there
that Jenn wasn't owning up to since it wasn't quite the atmosphere for it.
"Oh! We actually did
sell that one though," she turns and surveys the crowd, points out a
man in a turtleneck with a disinterested look who was talking to some
platinum blonde, "he bought that, and we sold a couple more? The
entirety of the photographic portfolio with my tattoo work got purchased
by someone in Florida? And a couple more sold after that, but I don't
remember which ones-"
she stopped, turned to Elijah, "by the
way, we're gonna be missing, like, three things off the wall. The
gallery wants to keep it for now past the show."
Ian
Ian
glanced at the man in the turtleneck with an expression that looked...
well, a little judgmental. "Too bad you can't hold on to that one."
He
didn't say what he was thinking, which was that anyone who wore a
turtleneck in the summer (or really, at all) could not possibly have the
capacity to fully appreciate a painting like that.
"That's excellent news, though. I'd buy one myself if I could afford it."
There
was a time when he wouldn't have hesitated to buy a painting from an
up-and-coming artist that caught his eye, and maybe the memory stung a
little. But one had to pick their priorities in life, and he'd chosen
his.
"So, Elijah. How are things with you and Arionna?" The
question was a little teasing, a little gossipy - but there was an edge
of genuine interest buried beneath it.
Elijah
"There's one that's the whole layers of the universe
thing, which isn't for sale- it's… well, it's over that way-" she
gestured in one direction, "we worked for the better part of a month on
that one."
He would buy one himself if he could afford it, and
Jenn looked down. her cheeks were pink and she pulled the champagne to
her lips and took a sip. Not a trace of lipgloss or lipstick on the
glass. She'd done a good job on her makeup, "you do realize that you can say hey, Jenn, would you paint something for me? and I would do it, right?"
Then?
There was gossip, and suddenly Elijah was in the spotlight and Jenn
gave Elijah a pointed look and a bump with her hip. He ran a hand
through his hair, looked up and laughed, "surprisingly non-possessive?
From a physical standpoint things are fantastic, but I kind of get the
impression that I'm arm candy. Which I can deal with."
No, he couldn't. We digress. "She's gotten a lot better at being less spiky but she still doesn't play nicely with others so… uh… no idea how to work on that."
Ian
"I'd
never ask you to do that without compensating you, Jenn. An artist's
time is worth something." And a painting wasn't like giving someone a
free dance lesson. One took, at most, an hour. The other could take...
days. Weeks. Not to mention the cost of supplies.
Ian made a sound when Elijah related how things had been with Arionna. A little hmm.
The tone was vague enough that it was difficult to tell precisely what
he was thinking. "Arionna is responsible for her own behavior, for
better or worse. It isn't your job to change her."
It also
hadn't entirely been what he'd meant, when he asked the question. But
Elijah seemed disinclined to speak on his own feelings, so Ian didn't
press.
"I've seen the way she is with Grace. Who else doesn't she like?"
Elijah
"I
don't offer my time anymore to people who aren't worth it," she told
Ian. It's a little soft, but most things about Jenn are a little soft.
Not flirtatious, not sentimental, just… what it was. Jenn and Elijah had
a fair bit of things in common with one another, and one happened to be
that Ms. Laurent seemed quick to put people in the category of friend.
Maybe she was a little more choosy, but had since concluded that Ian?
Ian was worth her time.
"Kalen's not a fan, and the feeling is
mutual from what I can tell," he said, "Kiara's cool with her but you'd
think that the woman was personally responsible for the whole child
soldiers in Africa thing with the way Ari bristles. Kiara gives, like,
zero fucks so it's not like that's a big deal. It's just fucking exhausting because there's no give. She meets people, immediately writes them off, and it makes it incredibly isolating when you actually want to spend time with her and other people at the same time."
Exhales,
looks for something to drink, which was about when Jenn offers up her
champagne. He takes a sip before he hands it back, does a good job of
not draining the thing.
"Dude, both times she's met Jenn? She got super weird and then awkward and walked off."
"Oh,
come on, she wasn't that bad?" Yes, she was. Jenn just seemed to be
taking it easy on him. "It was just… uh…" she looked at Ian, "okay, it
was really kind of awkward."
Ian
There was
something about the disparate nature of the way Elijah talked about
Arionna versus the way that Arionna talked about Elijah that did not
quite sit with Ian. Something he probably wouldn't have cared about a
year, or even a few months ago. But it registered to him now. Not that
he blamed Elijah, really. It just struck him as... dissonant.
(Like the way Kalen had talked about Danny like he was something he was settling for.)
"What
the fuck problem does she have with Kiara?" he sounded a little annoyed
by that. Maybe a little more personally invested than he needed to be.
But apparently Arionna had left a trail of bad impressions, and Ian let
his annoyance slide in order to offer Jenn a sympathetic look. "I can
imagine."
Elijah
"It's an ideological thing,"
he said, "she feels like the current pagan movement is a rip off of
older religions and, as a result, she feels like it makes the gods
angry. I get it, that's how she frames her whole world. That's her life, her blood, it's what she'd give up basic fucking necessities for. I can see why she wouldn't budge on it, or where it would be hard for her to take that kind of leap. She's dedicated."
Admirable, that. But Elijah sighs, yes sighs, sighs like it bothers him. Sighs like it is something he thinks about, because it is something that he thinks about, "she's really insightful, fucking listens when she's invested and-and she's… once she's decided you're her people, she's with you for life- and I fucking admire
that about her, but… it just seems really lonely. She's got a dozen
good qualities I can name off the top of my head and she's determined
not to show it to anyone."
"In short, Elijah's having girlfriend problems," Jenn said.
And, for once, Elijah doesn't actually correct her on the term.
Ian
Did
it actually matter what Arionna thought of Kiara? Surely Kiara had
better things to worry about, and was perfectly capable of defending
herself if the need arose. And it wasn't as though any of this surprised
Ian. Kiara had told him herself, once, that she and Arionna did not get
on.
Ideological, Elijah said. Which... did make a sort of sense. It also made Ian roll his eyes a little.
"Everything borrows from what came before it. That's how evolution works."
Elijah's having girlfriend problems.
It
was notable that Elijah didn't correct Jenn when she used that word,
and Ian glanced at him for a moment, his focus shifting. Considering.
"Not everyone feels like they need friends to be happy. Maybe you're just different people."
Elijah
[Considering? Per+empathy? Whatcha thinkin', Ian?]
Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (2, 3, 6, 7, 10, 10, 10) ( success x 5 )
Ian
[Subterfuge - god damn]
Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (3, 4, 4, 6, 7, 8, 10) ( success x 5 ) [Doubling Tens]
Ian
[Hah!]
Elijah
"Of course we're different people," he said, "it's just a matter of becoming okay with the fact that you can be different people."
And maybe he wasn't okay with that, inhaled sharp and smiled bright.
"C'mon, you wanna go meet sweater guy? Jenn, I gotta see this guy, I feel like my hipster cred is being threatened."
Ian
[Aw. Empathy?]
Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (2, 2, 4, 7, 9, 10) ( success x 3 )
Elijah
He wants things to work. He wants his friends to like
her, he wants to be able to go out places and have her actually believe
that he gives a shit about her instead of just thinking that she's one
in a sea of hundreds. He wants a lot of things. Elijah realizes, though,
that wanting something doesn't make it happen. He believes that there
is something fundamentally different about the way that they approach
their relationships, approach people in general. He doesn't know how to
give ground without losing himself. Doesn't want to give too much away
because of the abundance of stupid things he's done in the past (or
people, or person- one with dark hair and a father in technocratic
custody.)
But the fit that they are different is part of the
appeal, the fact that she is introspective. The fact that she isn't
afraid to buckle down and be what she is and make assertions. She makes
him want to take leaps, to double down and own his decisions. He doesn't
want to lose himself in her adamant nature, doesn't want to yield on a
part of his worldview that is fundamental.
It's an issue of
respect with them, at the core of it. A respect the two can't seem to
agree on, at least as Elijah sees it. An issue of expectation and
boundaries. He doesn't know, but he wants things to work. Wants to have
something that he doesn't have to spend all his waking moments defending
to either party. Having anything with Arionna is going to be a lesson
in diplomacy.
Ian
Elijah's feelings were more
conflicted in that moment than he chose to express. Ian didn't miss this
fact, but he allowed Elijah to change the subject. Maybe they would
talk about it some day, maybe they wouldn't. For now, they were here to
enjoy Jenn's work. And that's what they were going to do.
"Alright. Let's go meet sweater guy."
