“Ugh, no. I don’t suit hats at all, Jude, I promise. It sort of makes me look like my head’s very… square. Just a slope. No curvature to it at all. Bonk,” If Rosa was known for anything, it wasn’t her subtlety. The second they’d poked their way into a rather cramped room, Rosa’s nose was wrinkling, a small eugh escaping her as she glanced around. The atmosphere reminded her a bit of what she’d imagined the tunnel to the Other World in Coraline had looked like before the movie had come out, left to worry over her own imagination. It’d subconsciously caused her to shuffle closer and closer to Jude, seeking out the safest comfort in that moment. Jude had always made her feel safe in a way that’d always leave her convinced she’d never felt a solace like it in anyone else for the rest of her life, “I don’t know what a Sea Angel is… isn’t that just a mermaid?” she asked, the slug part gone ignored, favouring to stay in a fantasy world. At his next suggestion, she attempted to feign seriousness - lips pressed into an unimpressed line and brows pinched together, school teacher disapproval. There was still a twitch to the corners, though, needlessly entertained by Jude’s deadpan humour, “Cor. Cor, Jude,” she repeated, gaudy and purposely horrendous British accent tacked on, “You’re the most British man alive,” Voice back to normal, before the accent was back, “Cor, bloody hell. No toxic sludge in sight, mate,” If she was being annoying, it went right over her head - she’d thought herself rather entertaining, but still, finally and for the rest of their conversation, slipped back to original tongue, “You’re not very good at this guessing thing. I can give you -,” Waiting for Jude to cross over the bed to the window, the sudden lump stirring caused Rosa to cut herself off with a high-pitched and unexpected shriek. Though she’d settle, she was still mildly on edge, and the random appearance of a human being disrupting their moment had her hands flying in the air, solo cup in her hand slipping out of her grip and splattering dark, red wine across the wall behind her, “Fucking - God, oh my god,” If Jude was startled, he didn’t show it. Rosa didn’t even have time to feel silly about it, eyes still wide and hand clutched over her heart, before Jude was nudging the window open, tea pot crashing to the ground below them. Scurrying forward and trying her best to feel less creeped out by the forlorn student slowly hiding themselves under the cover again, a hysterical bout of laughter bubbled out of Rosa as she reached to clutch at Jude’s hand and drag herself after him onto the slanted roof. Jude had always had an inexplicable quality to him that’d assured Rosa no matter what, he’d always keep her on her toes, “Christ, Judas. I missed you,” The sudden confession was so honest, she didn’t have time to feel embarrassed over that either.
After settling onto the roof, Rosa leaned back and used her elbows to nudge the window back down. The last thing she wanted was for whatever stranger was inside the room they’d just left to hear in on their conversation, but she was weary to turn away from the drop below them, “Not an anklet, though - I’ve never actually properly seen your ankles, I don’t think,” Reaching over to where Jude was hunkered beside her, she lifted up his pant leg just barely an inch, nodding in faux approval when she wrapped a hand completely around the area. It made her blush, clutching at him like that, but it’d been done against her better judgment, swept up in the moment for the joke, “Very sturdy. You’re right, handsome ankles. I’ll keep that in mind for next time,” she promised, dropping her hold so that she could fold a hand in front of her. The other reached into the pocket of her overalls, the one that sat right in the middle of her chest, a special place for what she’d had for Jude. Despite the instances where she’d definitely embarrassed herself within the few minutes of them reuniting, this was when she’d finally started to blush, somewhat abashed with the sentiment behind it. It felt a bit too late now, though. Tugging it forward, she held out the business card towards Jude, clearing her throat before talking, “I got this job at an art gallery that’s opening up downtown in September, and. They were looking for local artists and stuff,” In the corner of the gallery’s business card was the personal number of her manager, with a message indicating that she thought he was Very talented - very interested in meeting. with her personal number underneath, “I showed them that painting you did at my place. When you came over and, like, tried to help me out, do you remember that day? You’re just really talented. Maybe I shouldn’t have - I mean, I know some people wouldn’t like that and would feel, like, violated maybe, but. You don’t have to call her. I think you should, though. I think… I don’t know. You’re just really talented,” At some point, Rosa had grown so overwhelmed with her confession her hands had started to shake. She didn’t have a chance to notice it until she inhaled sharply, speaking so fast and without taking a breath it’d left her almost lightheaded. It felt like she had to spew it out all at once, though, to save herself from chickening out, pretending she’d never gushed on and on about her friend who was the best artist she ever knew, “The second one isn’t, like, a physical thing, it’s just - Do you remember when you told me you don’t remember your middle name? And I said I’d make it my mission to give you a new one, or something?” Working up nerve to continue again included taking a long enough pause for Rosa to reach across Jude, snatching up the bottle of whiskey he’d snatched up from downstairs and taking a hearty swig from it, immediately placing it back into his palm afterwards, “I was thinking - I mean, I know he’s my favourite artist, but you seemed really fond of Van Gogh too, so. I thought Vincent might be cute. Jude Vincent Hayward doesn’t sound all that bad either, right? I just thought… I don’t know. I’m fond of him, I’m fond of you, it sounded nice. What do you think? Too much? Not enough? Doesn’t have the pizzazz you were looking for?”
“Nah. Fuck mermaids. Probably smell of... salmon. Gonna fuckin’... sashimi them. Bastards,” Jude got out with a vague gesticulation, some limp thing his arm couldn’t quite commit to. At her impression of him, he narrowed his eyes to a squint, molars clenched to keep his mouth in a vice -- not that it was necessary, anyway, an inanimate thing, some malnourished prisoner no longer able to push up in his cell by the elbows. It wasn’t something he thought on but if he did, he’d realise he hadn’t properly smiled since Provincetown. That probably didn’t even count, anyway, chemical additives considered. Again, though, it wasn’t like he thought about it. Lately, it wasn’t like he thought much about anything. There was an empty train tunnel in his head, wind howled through. Rats scuttling along the rungs. A drip from the top brick he couldn’t be bothered to plug. “Bloody hell’s fuckin’... Harry Potter propaganda, Rosalind. Ron... fucked it for the rest of us, the scrawny ginger cunt.” Jude barely reacted as he always did, when she screamed. There could’ve been a fire blazing full throttle on the stove in the next room and Jude would probably still sit there idly smoking, ashing onto the carpet, eyes on a television only screening white noise. Staring through it, rather than at it. Staring at something else on the other side, something that held a lead weight in his chest rather than a name. Even her confession didn’t rile anything visible from him, not on the surface. I missed you. Dating Saskia, he’d come to see admissions like these as a cat dropping a dead bird in it’s owner’s lap, something with good intentions that was never well received. He’d never react the same but it still made him pause, remembering. He wasn’t sure what to do with it, words like an ornament he could only mutely stare at, something to appraise on a mantel and never interact with.
Unconventional in the lax of his grip, his hand slid from her fingers to briefly sit a thumb on her wrist. Intentions unclear to him. Testing for a pulse, perhaps -- seeking comfort in the thump of hers, the reminder that someone like her was alive. It slipped in barely a second, eyes cast down the roof’s slant where the teapot descended. He wasn’t particularly conscious of taking a seat, not even of the slates jutting his ass like the under-bite of an orc with jagged incisors. Instead, the moon took precedent: silver slicking the dew on the lawn, the gutter trembling with earlier rainfall, the crown of Rosa’s head. It illuminated all the edges of her, really. He thought maybe he’d like to paint it. “Fuckin’ hell, Rosalind. Just... treating me like man meat, weighed at the butchers,” he commented with no conviction when she raised his pant leg, pausing in a one fingered itch at the scruff on his jaw to watch her. “You about to take control? Make me, uh... cancan?” Eyes glinting with something unreadable, the compliment went by like water off a duck’s back, short pull of whiskey washing down the itch on his tongue -- it wanted to do something, the longer he spent with her, some internal wrestle that might’ve made him grimace if noticed on somebody else. He almost felt guilty for it, at times, the places his brain went, stumbling so fast down the gutter he’d reached the sewer in seconds. Brow subtly furrowed in a bid to zone in, Jude took a moment to reach out and accept the card, unsure at first what it was he was looking at. From the way Rosa blathered, anyone would think she was attempting to sell a reluctant buyer on a steep six bedroom, not explain a sweet gesture. It made something inside him gently pang, staring at the Biro scrawl, extent to which she believed in him a bit overwhelming. He wasn’t typically a person of many words but he usually at least had something. Do you remember that day? He held onto the question like a glass marble, grasped gently in a fist so it wouldn’t roll or break. A thumb carefully skimmed the letters, moving at snail pace. He’d known a feeling like this, once, when Joyce brought him in from the hallways of his building -- he’d been roaming to avoid going inside, slapping a pack of cigarettes against an open palm. The bruise around his eye was an unhappy accident, drunken elbow gone awry, but he didn’t realise how much it hurt until she called him in and sat him down, tending with a rag that dripped on his t-shirt. Being cared for. It was an extraterrestrial feeling. It was a feeling that, for as long as Jude could remember, had green skin and webbed feet, nothing he found familiar. He thought maybe it was nice, this feeling. He thought he could get used to it, if he knew how to trust it’d stay.
“Vincent,” he repeated low, still touching the card like he had to assure it was real. Subconsciously wetting his lips, his eyes lifted to find her, silhouette still glowing like the moon had to highlight just how special she was. “Yeah, I...” trailed off, soft breath leaving his mouth -- amused, sure, but for the most part, thoroughly, irrevocably fond. Do you remember that day? It was still clutched in his fist, he realised -- the marble, the way she’d said it. He couldn’t put it down. “I, uh...” Studying her rather intently, he barely moved a muscle. He wanted to stay in this moment, for a while. If he stirred too much, he might forget the dream. “I remember all... the days, when they’re... with you.” He might’ve winced at the sentimentality in that, if it weren’t for her putting far more on the table -- even so, his eyes averted, resting on her knee. “Has a ring to it, I think. Vincent. Vinny, if I’m feeling... Italian. If I eat, uh... a particularly... well done meatball.” Skirting past like he hadn’t said it. Typical coping mechanism. Regret was there, though, as soon as he did -- part of him didn’t want to shy from it, the magnitude of whatever this was, was sick of heading the other direction when he saw a good thing coming. So, he didn’t. He looked it -- her -- right in the face, to the point that it probably felt like the prelude to a kiss, the part where the music swelled before the final crescendo. His eyes drifted all over, taking in everything. Acknowledging every freckle. “Thought about you, when I was away. Dunno if...” Faint twitch breathing life to his mouth at the corners, he just kept staring. He couldn’t remember a time where he’d wanted to kiss someone this badly in his life. “Dunno if I, uh... thought about much else, to be honest.” Jude paused a moment. “You, uh... You can let go of the whiskey, if you want. Don’t... give a shit about it, and...” faded at the realisation one of his hands had cropped up, dungaree strap held in the loop of thumb and finger. “Fuckin’ hell, Rosa.” It almost felt like a joke, how pressed he was for words, when, of everything, she was wearing dungarees. She could probably wear a potato sack and still elicit the same. “Think, uh... Think you should probably... have your hands free,” came before stalling a second, skim almost humming with it. “Bit shit being kissed, otherwise.”
