Soundless Glass

“Then what are you doing here?” the blonde mused, unable to control herself from asking just what was in her mind. “Like… no offense but if you’re not having fun, are you here for the drinks? Or self-torture?” 

The blank stare the woman got in return was probably a bit unnecessary, because they were in the middle of the street so technically Bobbie could’ve been on his way to do whatever. Which technically was true because he wasn’t going to any of these parties, but there were so many people around you sort of ended up being in the middle of the groups anyway. “I’m on my way to the grocery store. But it seems to be an obstacle course to even get there.”

“Bro, the party ain’t even about the 90s anymore for most people,” Tommy said with a laugh as he glanced in the direction of the apparently grumpy old grandpa man. “It’s about the booze and the chicks. All you gotta do is throw on some neon clothes and call it a blast and you’re set for the night. Need a party wingman? I can do that for ya.”

Bobbie couldn’t help but frown at the guy’s words. In a way he did understand why younger people were so excited about this whole thing, but at the same time he really didn’t. Most of these people probably were born in the 90′s so they sort of only experienced their childhood in it, while Bobbie was a young adult getting to the years of an actual adult. Heck, probably these people partying about 90′s is the same age Bobbie was in the 90′s. He couldn’t help but grimace a bit at his own thoughts, but then he realised what this guy next to him said and the frown made a return as he looked at the other. “I think I’m all fine without a wingman. What makes you think I’d need a date anyway? I could just as well be married and get offended by such offer.”

“Neither is this lame party,” Baby hadn’t even really meant to say it - wasn’t even sure she had said it at first - but looking up at the man over the bright screen of her cellphone, she just raised a single eyebrow. Pigtails swishing against her cheeks as she shook her head toward him. “And yet, you’re, like, the only loser in Silver Lake who isn’t hanging out here tonight. Maybe you and your total lack of a social life are actually on to something.”

Bobbie didn’t even realise at first that the girl was talking to him, but when she called him a loser, his gaze turned slowly to her and then he just stared at her. Was this her way of trying to insult a stranger? She definitely wasn’t doing a good job with that. But if she’d be talking to someone else she might have succeeded in that. Bobbie had way too thick skin for something like this to affect him in any way. “One day someone is going to cut off that sharp tongue of yours.”

Orla was outside catching her breathe (whilst smoking a cigarette, the irony), she’s silently judging everyone elses costume as they walk past, her head cocking to the side every so often as she peers at people — not sure if she likes their costume or finds it tragic. Flick, she flicks her cigarette ash away from her as a voice speaks, causing her head to snap sideways. “You sound bitter. What did the nineties do to you?” 

Bobbie glanced at the woman near him, but let his attention return back to the costumes and how horribly accurate some of them were. “Existed?” he replied, leaving his response more as a question than anything else. There were many horrible things in multiple different decades, but Bobbie was quite sure the 90′s had the worst fashion out of the ones he had experienced. Okay, the 80′s had some extremely weird stuff too, but then again, which decade doesn’t..

Dressed in a costume that was too tight with hair that was too curly, too high, and stiff as a board thanks to copious amounts of hairspray that left the cyclist to be a hazard near an open flame meant that she was miserable. How Fran Drescher spent season after season on the set of The Nanny in this getup would remain a mystery. Still, the comment from the male did warrant a questionable expression from Victoria. “Really?” Alright, she’ll bite. “The 90′s corporate chic just your everyday wear then?” She gestured to the man’s own attire just as the strap of her purse fell from her shoulder and down to settle in the nook of her elbow. “What decade was cool then?” 

Bobbie’s brows raised when he heard someone talking, but then frowned as he heard what she said. He glanced down to his clothes -- a white t-shirt and dark gray jeans -- and looked at her. “As far as I know this isn’t the way any corporate person has ever wore at work.” The frown slowly faded away and he shrugged at her following question. “None of them, really. Each and everyone one of them had shit in them.”

Things had got kind of boring at Five By and the party at Globos hadn’t started up yet. To kill the time, and possibly refuel, Billie had grabbed Macky and marched into the 7-eleven a few blocks down. She didn’t expect to run into anyone, but certainly the shop was almost overrun with more people from the party dressed in 90s gear than she could count. “Oh for sure, but it beats the eighties, doesn’t it?” she said to the guy next to her, even though she’d barely gotten a look at who it was. “Oh, hey. Coffee guy. How’s life?” She felt a bit sheepish talking to him in her full shiny Leeloo getup, but there it was.

Bobbie’s first thought was that this girl wasn’t even old enough to know about the actual things from the 80′s, but he didn’t say it aloud.  It’d be sort of rude to say such. As he looked at the girl -- who clearly recognised him -- Bobbie had really no clue who this person was. Most likely it was the wig. “All fine”, he replied to the question and as he looked at her he realised something. “I’ve seen that movie”, he commented, pointing at her outfit. He had no memory what the movie was called, but he was sure he had seen it. Not that many movies had characters looking like that.

“You’re not a fan?” Ophelia asked, walking around the guy in her Cher costume that anyone wouldn’t find ‘appropriate’ for a mom. Screw them, she wanted to be sexy and match with her bestie. “Are you telling me you don’t like at least a few songs from that time? Like…. I want it that way by the Backstreet Boys was great.”

Bobbie frowned a bit at the returning comment -- he wasn’t expecting someone to talk to him, especially not someone in yellow plaid. “Not a fan of them”, he admitted, but he didn’t really even remember what songs they had. The name sounded familiar but that was all, really. “Not a fan of many things. Popular culture isn’t really my thing.”

Bobbie was not a person to go to any kind of parties, but he was a man who had to go and do grocery shopping. Sure, he could’ve done that earlier that day and not in the evening when the shop is about to close, but his day rhythm was wonky anyway. But now that he was out and about at this late hour there were a lot of people in costumes and 90′s themed clothes. Which only made the beanstalk of a man shake his head. “The 90′s never was a cool thing”, he muttered under his breath, not even realising there was someone standing right next to him.

Ivy looked up and then back at him. It didn’t really seem the safest way out but right now it was the only way and she needed to get out of here, it felt like all the walls were closing in on them - which of course they weren’t but the anxiety was beginning to fester.

“Only if you’re sure..” she started and placed her hands on his shoulder and one foot in his palm hoisting herself up and grabbing onto the window ledge managing to wriggle out onto the small platform outside the window and shimmy across. “Okay.. It looks like I can scale down this pipe.. it looks sturdy and I’m hardly heavy..” she called back to him, seeing his hands on the window ledge. 

Taking initiative she looped her arms around the pipe and began sliding down slowly, like a backward rock climb. ‘You can do this’ she mumbled to herself constantly until finally her feet were on the ground. 

When Bobbie was also stood beside her she smiled at him “Thank you so much.. How can I ever repay you?”

Maybe this chosen route wasn’t the safest, but right now it seemed like the only way out. Good that Bobbie was such a beanstalk he’d be getting out of the window rather easily as well. He helphed the girl up, made sure she got out safely and then followed suit.

The way down from the window wasn’t really that much for Bobbie -- clearly some use of that height of his -- and once he was standing back on ground, he glanced up to the window and hummed a bit. This wasn’t how he expected his evening to go, but now there definitely was one more weird story to tell.

“Yeah, you know, Instagram,” she said, looking at him not unlike he belonged to some kind of alien species. Maybe he did, it felt too early to rule that possibility out. “I guess you’re right, and like I know it doesn’t matter. But it’s way more fun to have something that’s like, special. You know that.” Of course she didn’t know that he knew that, but she suspected he did. He was definitely something of an original himself, so she could only assume he related to her sentiment. Emilia jokingly pouted when he told her not to expect any monsters or gnomes. Apparently her house was the most mythical after all. “Okay that makes sense,” she said, pursing her lips as she glanced around the room, hoping to spot something that would lend itself well to being the inside of a gnome. Unsurprisingly, her gnome supplies weren’t quite on point. “You think I could use like… god I don’t even know. Maybe I can just make a tiny little one and it won’t be too bad.  A gnome gnome, if you will. He can hide in my plants.”

“Oh, that.” He knew of Instagram, he just didn’t use it and hadn’t even bothered to really find out how it worked and what there was. He just knew it was some kind of app or site or something that people put pictures in. One gallery owner had spoke to him about it and how Bobbie should consider starting to post his creations there as well. Of course Bobbie didn’t really consider doing that because he was no photographer and definitely didn’t know shit about how to even use those damn apps. He wasn’t on the good side of technology that was for sure. “Everyone of us is special in their own way”, he commented, knowing it wasn’t really what Emilia meant. But it was an important thing to say, at least in Bobbie’s eyes.

As Emilia went to find something to fill her garden gnome with, Bobbie didn’t say anything, just let her go and rumage through things. But once she was back he looked slightly amused. “You got any newspapers or magazines or something? Just crumble few pages and use that as the insides. Then you can make different sized gnomes.”

she gave him a small, sad smile because really inside she was terrified.  She hated being stuck anywhere, and if she had Katie with her she probably would have felt a little saner, but she decided to go alone and now she regretted that choice. Nothing good happened at the gym. 

She went to speak but he was already jiggling the window, so she stood behind him. holding her arms out incase something happened.  Although she doubted if he fell down she’d do anything to be able to help him. 

“Oh wow.. You’re actually. It’s opening..” she laughed. “Does it feel like theres anything out there to climb onto? Fire escape of something?”

Bobbie felt somewhat victorious for getting the window open and being smart enough to use the metal bar he bought as a lever. Although he didn’t get the window as open as he wanted to, he’d have to use a bit more force to do that. Which might cause the window glass to break, but probably at this point it didn’t really matter. It was a blackout after all.

“It’s not like I hate IKEA ‘cause you can totally make it look cool. It’s just kinda boring when everyone on Insta has the exact same bedroom,” she gave a light shrug, figuring he would understand the issue with that. Emilia wanted at least the illusion of having a house with some uniqueness to it, even if a lot of the pieces were produced by the thousands. “And I’m telling you now, If I ever actually come over to your house, there better be gnomes and monsters or I’m gonna be seriously disappointed,” she half-joked because if anyone could potentially deliver on that, it was certainly him. And maybe she wanted to see some monsters. Was there any way to pass that up if it was on the table? In her opinion, absolutely not. “You think I could make like, a wine cork garden gnome?” she asked, dipping into another room for a second and returning with a big bag full of corks, ”I mean, I’m not sure how well he’d hold up when it rains but guess it’s a good thing we’re in LA.”

A frown appeared on Bobbie’s face. “Insta?” he repeated, clearly not having a clue what that acutally might even be. “Whatever that is, you should never care about what others have if you’re happy about what you have. If you start comparing you’re just shooting yourself in the leg.” He looked at the furniture again. “But if you feel like they’re too similar, splash some paint on them and make them your own.” In Bobbie’s books paint was always a good solution to many things. Although not in his work  because he rather had the colors in the glass itself and not painted on it, but he had artist friends who could turn trash into something amazing just by painting the things. “Then you might be disappointed.” There definitely were no gnomes or monsters in his house, it was a small and rather cozy house with no one else but Bobbie living in it. Bobbie looked at the cork bag, thought about he idea and then nodded. “I can’t see why not. But you might want to use something as a base or else you’d have to use a lot of the corks on the inside too. Unless you’ll try to make it hollow, but that might not be easy.”

Hollis raised his brow at the question and found he wasn’t bothered by it. He was just surprised Bobbie wanted to know more. So he didn’t hesitate, rolling up the pant leg of his jeans, “Just below the knee. I already know for Halloween I’m going to go as a pirate. I feel like that’s an obligatory decision I have to make at least once in my life now.” Now that they were asking questions, Hollis mused for a moment before parting his lips, asking curiously “So, I know you said you went to school for glass blowing, and now you’re here… what’s the middle part of that path look like? Or is that a story for anther day?”

He hummed in response to Bobbie’s parents, “I won’t bombard you with more information about mine. Woodsy-crafty folk. That about sums them up.” He was more interested in Bobbie’s gaze, holding it, soaking up ever bit of information and taking it straight to heart. He nodded, a look of involuntary determination in his eyes, “I will.” Another nod, “Alright. I will.“ his face softened then, 

“Thank you.”

Bobbie’s watched extremely observantly at Hollis leg now that he lift his pant leg up. The leg looked like one of those so called ‘basic’ prothestics which was really no surprise, but Bobbie still had to ask one more thing about it. “Ever considered getting one of those that look like a metal spatula? They seem really bouncy.” Bobbie looked up from the leg and raised his brow a bit at the question. “A lot happened between. I’m 46 after all. But I think that’s a story for another day. You already know more than many others do and I can’t show you all my cards at once. Where’s the fun in that?” He chuckled a bit, clearly not going to tell more about his life right now. Bobbie had a feeling he’d be talking with Hollis a lot more in the future so there would be time to tell him all kind of stories.

“You’re welcome”, Bobbie replied to Hollis’ thank you. “Just remember that being an artist is a never ending learning curve. You will never be the master of one media because there is always something you do not already know. So stay humble to your skills, no matter what the world might throw at you.” Bobbie surely was humble about his own skills, at least on some level, because he could’ve been sunshining in the fame of his art instead of being a faceless artist. But he definitely appreciated his own solitude way more than being known by the press or some art collectors. They’d never let him work at peace if they’d know who he was.

Well trained, Ramses was not leaving without Bobbie in tow, poking Bobbie’s nose this time with his snout.

TIME FOR UP HUMAN. ORDERS ARE ORDERS.

Still, he was more than pleased to be pet.

THAT’S THE SPOT – NO! YOU’RE DISTRACTING ME. UP! UP!

The great dane stared at Bobbie while he stretched, turning in a circle happily when the man finally rose. When they enertered the kitchen, it was just in time for Ralph to pour some coffee. Outside, Alf the puppy stopped at the glass door to look at the stranger.

WHO ARE YOU? Then zoomed around the back yard again before returning to look at Bobbie. I WANT TO SMELL YOU.

Ralph couldn’t help the small smile tugging at his lips, “Good morning.” again reminded of just how much of a nice sight Bobbie was to wake up to. He moved around the kitchen island, “Not very. Anyway I’m a morning person; I didn’t want to wake you.” He hesitated before handing Bobbie the mug so that his lips could graze the man’s jaw, “Did you sleep well?” Domestic. This all felt very domestic didn’t it? And Ralph wasn’t going to complain.

Bobbie noticed the other dog running around on the yard and you could see his smile turning into a bit bigger one at the sight of the happy puppy. He was about to ask why he was outside and not inside with them but his thought process was pulled to another direction when a coffee cup was offered in his direction. “Thanks”, he said glancing at Ralph, pretty much counting on the fact Ralph remembered how to make the coffee the way Bobbie liked -- after all, it was the same way Ralph liked his own.

“I’m sort of a morning person too. But then time to time I’m a night owl just staying up all night long because why not. I don’t have any certain hours when I have to be somewhere doing something, so it doesn’t really matter when I’m up and when I’m sleeping.” There definitely were good sides on being your own employer, especially when you were the only employee who actually had to do stuff in your ‘company’. You could only yell at yourself for screwing up things. Of course Bobbie had people who helped him to send stuff and answer some emails and handle the art show situations, but still he was the boss and these people had work only when Bobbie needed their help. So basically it really was just Bobbie and that’s all.

“Yeah, I did. Did you?” he took a sip from his coffee, giving Ralph a small grin because the coffee definitely was exactly the way it should be. “Also -- what’re you cooking? What’s for breakfast?”

Ivy was quite shocked at the abruptness of the man. “I mean.. I’d rather not be locked in a gym during a blackout when god knows will be going through peoples minds and I want to make sure that my home is safe..” she replied, she wasn’t being rude, in fact she was just a terrified 22 year old who was claustrophobic and being locked somewhere wasn’t exactly ideal.  “If you don’t want to help me you don’t have too. I can figure something else myself” whilst Ivy would always be polite to anyone she crossed paths with, she would never want to inconvenience anyone. 

When he suggested going to the studio she nodded and lead the way up the stairs with the light from her cellphone. “Well…Here we are.. Lets see if we can get out somehow..”

Maybe Bobbie was too much of a free spirit who didn’t truly care about materia. To him they were just things and none of the things he had weren’t something he could just reacquire. And if he couldn’t get those things again, well, it just meant it was time to let that thing go. But Bobbie also knew not a lot of people were like him with that topic, so in a way he did get the girl’s worry about her own home even though Bobbie was quite sure her home was safe and there was nothing to worry about. “You asked my help so I am going to help.” Even if the way he chose his words were a bit blunt, there was some kind of kindness in his words. He just wasn’t really a people-person so often his words came out harsh even if he meant well.

Ralph liked Bobbie’s smile. Though to be fair there was little he didn’t like about the man. He liked how Bobbie purred responses. He liked how their bodies were pulled together. He liked the teases.

…And the sex. 

Ralph was only a man, after all. And Bobbie was attractive – in brains and body and everything else.

If Ralph hadn’t been so curious about Bobbie as a person they wouldn’t be here right now. In fact, Bobbie was the first person who Ralph invited to stay the night in his home. In his bed. That meant something. And in the morning, Ralph found he didn’t mind Bobbie’s presence.

He couldn’t stop himself from allowing his fingertips to gently trace over Bobbie’s cheekbone, brush hair off of the sleeping man’s forehead, using his other hand to run over his own face.

What secrets are you keeping from me, you beautiful man?

Ralph was careful not to wake him, feeling rough from last night but regretting none of it as he made his way to the kitchen, checking his body for any signs of Bobbie being there in the hallway mirror. Alf the puppy zoomed around the backyard and through the house, while Ramses followed by his side. Coffee first, hoping the smell of breakfast would rouse Bobbie eventually. But just in case…

“Why don’t you go get him?” he asked the black great dane, who dutifully trotted off into the home to retrieve Bobbie leaving Ralph to cook.

Ralph hadn’t invited people to stay at his home and Bobbie certainly hadn’t really stayed the night at anyone’s place in a really long time. If he was invited to someone’s place he didn’t spend the night, that was for sure. But Ralph had asked him to stay and Bobbie was going to keep his word about staying -- because he wanted to stay.

The morning came and Bobbie showed no signs of waking up any time soon. He definitely was a guy who appreciated his night’s sleep and he hadn’t really slept much and he blamed Ralph for that. But the man’s bed was definitely comfortable to sleep on so once Bobbie had fallen asleep he wasn’t planning on getting up any time soon.

Until he woke up to a dog snout poking his arm. One eye opened slowly, looking at the dog and when the animal all patiently just waited there Bobbie couldn’t help but chuckle. “You were sent here to wake me up weren’t you?” he asked knowing the dog wouldn’t really answer to him. Bobbie reached out to the dog, scratched his head a bit and then stretched his limbs. “You can go and tell Ralph I’m up”, he said, but seemed like his word wasn’t either heard or cared about because it seemed like Ramses was just going to wait there for Bobbie to actually get up. “Okay, okay..” A small chuckle followed his words and he sat up, starting the search of his underwear. Their clothes were pretty much scattered a bit here and there, but Bobbie did manage to find his boxers. He pulled them on, petted the dog and the duo headed downstairs.