2019-07-03 - Man About a Plant

August probably thinks Lilith wants her orchids, but no. She called to give very explicit instructions about having them stay right in a greenhouse for the time being until further notice. And she's requested a housecall for tree service. Potted tree service, kind of. Singular houseplant service. Who has the general shamelessness to request a housecall about a dead plant today? This gal.

So, when August arrives, she takes him not outside to look at problem trees, but inside her loft after a trounce through the aisles of the shop to the back staircase that leads to her loft. Last time he saw her, she was fine. Maybe a little strange about things, but social and fine and she looked a perfectly pretty state of alive. Today, she's... something. Physically, she's put on a little makeup to hide it with high-waisted and laced summery swing shorts in red and a black lace-trimmed tank with sandals. But she's clearly been through a wringer of some effect. There's just less of her from the inside, like something sapped a piece of her very vitality. Her knee also is bandaged with a large padded bandaid to hide stitches.

"Thanks for coming..." The brunette woman says to August, kind of subdued through all her casual air, gesturing to the plant where it is by the bay of windows and bar. And it's dead as hell. Way deader than it should be even after straight neglect after a short X amount of time would allow for. Or at least appearances to the novice plant person says that. See, Lilith hasn't really looked at it. She's assumed she killed it and splashed water on it here and there because she didn't have the heart to actually throw it out. Why is she calling about this? "I had some things come up and... this happened. I should have just tossed it, maybe, but I thought -you- could ah." A pause, "I want that one. Not a new one."

August, though, might know that it's not actually dead. Sometimes life is hidden at the stem and roots. And maybe she should be able to see that, but... clearly she's not looking like she should.

It's not the first time August has been asked to work on a plant which isn't a tree. And though he's not, strictly speaking, in the general gardening business, he's the one that sold Lilith this plant. Also he has to know how she killed it in such short order. Unless there's something weird going on with her (and he's not one to assume but, well...) then this is a new record. And if there is something weird going on with her it's a little sad.

He's in a concert t-shirt today, a black, Black Sabbath shirt, rather than the flannels of the last few months. Otherwise his attire is much the same--jeans, workboots, etc. He arrives in one of the smaller work trucks, as Big Betty is still getting tuned up and repaired.

"Sure thing," he says. "Don't feel too bad--you're not the first person to kill a houseplant they just bought. Happens a lot more than you might expect." There's no judgment in his tone, nor in his face when he sees what's left of the orange jessamine. He studies it a bit. "Well," he says. "This is pretty impressive." There's more than a little wry humor in his voice. He kneels down to have a proper look at it, peering here and there. He runs a hand along the main stalk, traces a line from there down one of the thicker branches to a specific twig. "Missed a spot," he says. And without so much as a by-your-leave, he breaks off a small clump of leaves which seem less brown than the rest. There's even a little green in them still, and the stem is rubbery. This part is clinging to life. Or, it is now.

"Mmnhnm, I like to set the curve. Should have went to college and pissed everyone off with that." Lilith murmurs to August passively with her lips twisting briefly to one side before she up and sniffs at the poor plant with general memory of one thing or another the way her eyes go while she trails behind the man on his way to have a look. Then she stops looking and watching with a hint of something like embarrassment, turning to wander into the adjacent kitchen area of the loft by the plant and bar to yank open the fridge, "Do you want a beer or anything? Got Stella Artois and some Heine--" Lilith blinks a couple of times and though she isn't looking right at the man, she immediately looks back after a moment.

She stares a beat, ticks her head, decides she's having Heineken to pull out, then looks straight at what he's holding with a squint from her place at the fridge. Then she starts to laugh, of all things. It's kind of pitiful sounding halfway into it, though it starts humored and turns into a downright huff, "It's not dead? Oh, you tooth and nail fighting little shit. That's familiar." Yeah. She's cussing at the plant like it's tricked her. That or she knows a bit what it's like to look and feel a little dead and how to power through because there's a sudden affinity in the tone of her voice too.

Absently, August says, "I'm good, but thanks." He's turning the small piece this way and that, running a finger over the leaves. It might be Lilith's imagination, but there's a fair bit less brown now and a good deal more green. Less dead, more 'neglected'. Each time he moves the plant or touches it, there's a sense he's coaxing it along, tugging here and there on the dregs of life energy it had and shaping them back into something which can survive. A lot of minute adjustments layered on top of one another to reform what was once there, not unlike a an artist working with a pencil, sketching something from nothing but raw implements, graphite and paper.

"Yeah they fight like hell. Even the sensitive ones. Takes a lot to really kill them off entirely. You can usually find a little bit left to work with," he looks directly at her, hazel eyes sharp with curiosity, "long as you know what to look for." He raises the twig. It definitely looks greener now. The leaves have some of their shape back. "I can propogate this. Soak it in rooting hormone and water for a few days to get it going, once it's got a system it can go into a pot. Can even propogate more off that, soon as it can stand to give up a twig or two. If, you know, this has a chance to," he gestures at the remains of the mother shrub, clears his throat, "...reoccur." Another glance at her, inviting explanation or commentary.

Lilith knocks the fridge to close with lifting knock of knee once August says he's good, but it's not her good knee, of course, why would it be this week? After a little hiss wince, she snaps the cap right off the top of the bottle instead of getting a bottle opener with a somewhat violent sounding pop of the cap. It comes off with indent top-middle snap of pressure break like old habit. The lip chips though, and she eyes the bottle speculatively after rubbing at her bottom lip with general discomfort of catching the sharp edge, checking it for other stress cracks a bit dubiously before she carries it out of the kitchen and goes back at August with the plant.

Puffing out air that blows her cheeks, she looks at the cutting and the results of greenery from that subtle internal tugging at the strings of life that remain, then she looks at August. There's some thick considering after his words and she doesn't miss that glance after the suggestion for spares. "Sometimes..." she starts and pauses again, weight shifting between hips in stance, another pull from the bottle taken, "Things come into and through the shop. Things that people shouldn't have at all." If there was more explanation other than that vague prelude hint for someone of certain experience living in Gray Harbor to catch onto... it's on hold.

Lilith reaches a hand when the cutting is lifted, downward to gingerly touch at the very edge of one of the leaves. She looks at the life clinging through deadly hardship, the depths of her blue eyes a little distant. Then she turns that somewhat altered survey onto August himself, perhaps beyond the visual, "August. I think we can stop dancing around a little. Yes?"

He probably gets that question. But maybe he doesn't. Either way she wants to confirm and weigh his response to that before she says much else.

August eyes Lilith as she has her issue with the beer bottle. He's curious about it, though he doesn't seem to sense what actually happens. Then she gets closer, and his body laungauge becomes noticeably wary. She did kill a houseplant in nothing flat, and by no mundane method he can discern. And he knows, just like he knew he could convince what little was left in the orange jessamine to pull together into this one twig, that abilities like his (theirs?) are two sided. Creation and destruction are two sides of one coin. He's never used it like that on another person, but that doesn't mean other people like him (them...) can't.

"Things they shouldn't have," he repeats, and his gaze falls to the rest of the shrub. He could, if he wanted, maybe get another twig to come back, but this one's plenty. He can have a new plant in a week, less if he wants to push it. He doesn't, though, because this is dangerous territory he's treading in now. He can count on one hand the number of people he's ever been frank with about what he can do.

Those people are, however, right here in this town. So what's one more? "I'm not much of a dancer," he admits, settling back against the window sill and folding his arms. The twig sits along his arm, now looking like it came off a perfectly healthy plant. "And I know what I do isn't...subtle, to people who can notice. Just around here, haven't needed to be so subtle. People from this town, they don't balk at weird so much." Like him not needing to use earplugs when he uses a chainsaw, or how easy it is for him to cut down--or heal--a tree.

Lilith pulls her hand back from the cutting and turns after August props his lean against the sill to respond, but not before watching him instead of the plant cutting a little longer. She tugs a bar stool from under the bar with dragging and puts it right across from the potted plant and company instead of bothering to go toward the sofa. Her feet prop on the rungs and she lets the bottle hang from hands between her bare legs, which have some cuts other than the big padded bandaid over the knee, forearms at lax rest against her thighs.

Then she looks at the visually dead-not dead plant and its withered state where it isn't thriving in August's grasp with separation from prior destruction while speaking, a bit slow and deliberate, "Sometimes, I react to things inappropriately. I don't mean to. I'm not even aware it happens until I see the results, sometimes. Sometimes the things that come through this place can make what's unwitting much worse." She sighs a little and tilts her head, lashes cutting with vague narrowing before her smile twitches up some, "I'd never stopped to really -look- at what makes a plant before, you know. It's kind of like people. And if I'm afraid of breaking a plant... you can imagine what I'm afraid of doing to a person."

After a tiny 'heh' of noise, she drains most of the beer and leaves the bottom slosh, looking back at August directly with her brows knit, "I'm too bold for my own good sometimes. But boldness... isn't bravery. Fear is dangerous. Especially for me. It was my stepping stone. I was proud to start facing it, you know?" She pauses, "I guess that's why I want this one back."

August watches Lilith as she gets the bartstool, still wary. As she speaks he contemplates her, the orange jessamine's remains, and a random spot on the floor by turns, digesting it all with a closed off, somewhat solemn expression. He's quiet a spell once she stops, finally looks at her directly and nods.

"I have some experience with that kind of thing. The lashing out, I mean. After..." He realizes he doesn't want to get into it. "After some bad shit happened to me, I had a lot of that going on. I was lucky, I didn't react like that." Not that he'd known that until right now, when she mentioned this problem of hers. "I think my anger and my pain made it harder for me to use..." He unfolds his arms, gestures with the twig, "whatever this is. So it was just little things. And I got lucky again in that there was the VA, and counselors, so it never got out of control."

He sighs, looks her over. "But I guess you didn't." He scratches at his beard. "Good enough place as any to start. You gotta look it in the eye, name it, and figure out a way to come to terms with it. And with plants, you have obvious results. What you do's reversible, maybe." He holds up the twig, considers it. "I understand, wanting the same one back." He's stopped encouraging it, so it's stopped at its present state of 'cutting from a healthy donor'. His shifts his gaze from the twig to her. "You can't do that part, though? The..." He searches for a word. "...making? Just the breaking?"

Lilith considers August while he's speaking and she nods a little bit, "I left for a decade. I never talked about it before this 'round living here. I couldn't hurt anyone that way, I thought. But..." But she did hurt people. She hurt the hell out of herself, at that, at length. Now she's back. And oh, the things she can do now, the things she's been forced to do, the things she does and doesn't know she's doing, the things she knows are just out of reach and right in hand, "Running is no longer an option." She looks at the twig that August is holding and her lips slant a touch, eyeing that branch of surviving life, "I should. But I know now that out means moving through."

After that little interlude of counter-reflection, Lilith seems like she really has to stop and think about how to explain to August. And while she's speaking, what she does is beautiful. Almost effortless, in fact, which indicates when it comes to things? If plants belong to August, the less sensitive inanimate are hers. Her tone of voice is reflective calm and she holds the beer bottle out. There's noises. There's cracks running. It should be shattering apart. But her level of fine tuning and control in this facet while focusing is solid. She works the physics just enough to keep the structure intact. There's a tink. She shakes the bottle and a whole chunk of green glass from the curved, empty hollow beneath the bottle neck comes off to leave a controlled quadrangular hole. When the woman has that chunk in hand, she pitches it in skid across the kitchen floor and away.

"I've mended a person from the inside out maybe three times. Twice as panic response. Only one of those times was witting and it wasn't mortal, which helped, but honestly... it was the moment that gave me control that singular, beautiful time. I had to do it because I cared too much for things to be any other way. I can see the tiny machines that break down and feel the upset balance and kick them into motion. But... when you can see that to not only use, but exploit, you also know what kind of accidents of biology we really are at the cellular level. Touch the wrong machine when your hand is too heavy? Maybe the system fails."

When she's finishes speaking, there's less need for slow control. She culminates and the glass warps with a sudden shift before it's knit right back into a whole beer bottle. That missing chunk? It's still on the kitchen floor. After a shrug, she drinks the tailings from it, "I know how things are made. I know how plants are made. I know how people are made. But most importantly, I know how I am made. It makes conflicts inside about what rights I have to the living."

August thinks over everything Lilith says, watches her break and then mend the bottle. Presently he makes a low sound, nods. "So it's the...biological, that's the issue for you. The structured stuff--inanimate, fixed, that's not a problem." He looks out across the room. "Animals were never a problem. Plants are the easiest but," he shrugs, "I'm a botanist, that's not a stretch. I know them both ways."

He sighs, looks at the cutting in his hand. "Working on people's another matter. I can do it, intentionally, but it's..." It's not that it's hard, per se. Fundamentally it's the same process, which means it's quite easy. Except... "I've got problems with doing it." Like many things he's been saying, that comes across as a shorthand for a whole lot of details almost no one is privy to.

He continues, "Well the good news is, the stuff that's not living is maybe the better place to start. You know the mechanics, the hows of the...fundamental energies. The building blocks. To be honest for me that felt like the hardest damn thing to sort out, I learned it second." But then he'd learned top-town, at the hands of a harsh teacher. "I'd say you're headed in the right direction. You just need to work on your unconscious use, the way you use it in reaction. Teach yourself to be as much defensive as," he taps the bucket housing the dead shrub with one foot, "offensive. I don't mean to sound trite, God knows it's not easy." He holds up the twig. "But this is as good a place to start as any. Learn how to feel that it's there, even when almost nothing is." He pauses, nods at the orange jessamine's remains. "Can you sense what's in there right now? There's a little left still."

"Mhm. Just because you have a map and the keys, doesn't necessarily mean you should be driving." Lilith knows about 'problems' with people from the noise that comes out of her throat in understanding, "And I was always a tinkerer that loved to pull things apart, even before, just for the sake of seeing how they worked." Then suddenly she blossoms a smile at August and for just a heartbeat the life in full is back on her before waning away like it just can't keep up due to some core fatigue. He's said something there toward the end of what he's saying, clearly, that charms her, even though it's far from charming conversation.

The inquiry after pause, though, has her tilting her head to look at the plant as a whole anew and she takes a moment to visually encompass the withered state. Then, after rising, she wets her lips, puts the bottle on the bar and gets out of her sandals absently while continuing to look at the plant, "... yes. It's still moving. Just... behind all the dead still matter and the new patterns it makes." Then she ambles into the kitchen for a beer re-up, "What do you see when you look at them?"

August's wariness has gradually dialed back to mild caution. He has a better read (or so he feels) of Lilith's situation now. Or, as good a one as he can have, considering. He pulls a face. "Maybe not so much that for me as, an aversion." He doesn't expand on that, though. He turns to her question instead.

"I see plants. It's not really seeing, for me. Maybe that's the rest, though." Ah yes, the rest. Well, they can get into that later, maybe. "It's more a feeling. Like, feeling the train going by on the tracks. I don't need to see it, even hear it to know it's there--I can feel it in my bones, that tremor, from all that weight rolling over the rails. Same thing. Sort of." He looks down at the shrub, but he's not really looking at it. "You run your hand over something and you can't always see the crack, but it catches on your skin. So you follow that, until you find the fissure. And you follow that, and you find the river that broke that rock open. And you follow that, and you find the lake it's pouring out of. And once you've mapped all of that, you can decide what to do. Maybe you shift a stream. Maybe you dredge a canal, make a culvert. Maybe you just clean up the water, pull out a dam that was holding it up. Stir things up."

As he speaks, one more twig starts to green up. The whole time he's been poking and prodding, carefully gathering up what was left and rearranging it into one more spot. Slowly, though; slow enough that perhaps Lilith can catch it happening in more detail. He leans down, snaps off that twig with a gentle tap of the same process L:ilith used to break the bottle. "Maybe you don't do a thing. Just look at it and understand how a crack in a bit of rock leads back to the lake." He holds this new twig out to her.

"You're pretty when you're doing that." Lilith tells August after getting into the fridge and spinning to crack into the new beer bottle with the counter edge pop trick this time. Briefly, she has an irrational fear of being dragged into somewhere, a Ghostbuster-style crossing of the streams if they're both exerting will at the same time, despite how much of a blip a bottle cap dent is. Pretty also maybe isn't a compliment that August gets much, but she doesn't seem to care. There's a beat where she's watching him just as much as the process with the plant.

Considering the walkthrough he gives as to his own terms of perception when it comes to plant life, she lifts a drag of her free hand through her hair, navigating the kitchen floor to reach out for the plant with fingers unlacing through the carding through her brunette strands when he's through to take it. And she's avoided that glass bottle piece twice through some miracle in her bare feet in the kitchen. Maybe Bad Things are waning! Later will prove otherwise, but that's neither here nor there for now. She's getting a little bit of reprieve with him around like some kind of lucky charm botany leprechaun.

"I like that. Does that sense and feeling extend to creatures and people? Or do you perception shift?" It's kind of an odd question, but she seems markedly curious about the way he perceives in alternate, especially after giving -him- the same extended study she gave the newly burgeoning second cutting.

August arches an eyebrow, his features landing somewhere between amused and consternated. "...thanks." He eyes the piece of glass on the floor. Then frowns at it. Then grunts, shakes his head. "Mind that piece of glass," he says. He casts a glare at it, as if to chastise it for just sitting there rather than doing literally anything else.

"It's similar for animals, but not quite the same. They've got more of a consciousness, and that effects how they feel to me. And people, well, they're on," he shrugs, "some whole other level. There's a lot less elasticity in how things are constructed for animals and people. It's messier, but intentionally. Plants are a lot more resilient to having things shifted. They don't react nearly as bad." He nods at her. "Like you were saying. Complex system that feels like even a little push the way might make it fall apart. But, just like there's a difference between," he looks out over the room, makes a face, "bike and a car, there's also basic things they share. That's where you start. Then you just look at what's different, what's more, and sort it." He gestures at the second twig she's now holding. "Keep that one. Put it in some water. When this one," he means the one he still has, "is ready, I'll bring it by, check with you on that."

Lilith drinks long while listening, puts down the bottle for a spell, then does the thing she should do after August's warning about the glass still on the floor. She was so previously occupied by other things, she forgot she set herself a trap in the name of revealing moment flair. And she's weirdly careful when she pinches it up to bare-toe flip the trash can lid from bottom lever to pitch it in, like it's going to bite her, working her bottom lip between her teeth.

That done, she takes the cutting to put in a mason jar she fills from the filtered fridge door, because guilt, okay, tap water is not going to kill a plant, "Interesting. I sense people, I guess, and generally need to touch focus instead of sight focus unless they're bad off or very sick. Currents. Ebbs. Tides. Balance. A little like your rock and water analogy while I work to narrow down to the right tiny machines. And I have to color code all the things I see while they're moving. I eventually have to close my eyes to really do anything. We're chaos. It's distracting. And it's fucking intimate."

What she doesn't say is how easy it is to tear into that chaos with the chaos of her own without ever really stopping to sense any of the intricacies. She probably doesn't have to, though-- breaking things is ALWAYS easier than putting them back together again.

The woman pauses here and puts the jar of water with cutting in it for presentation on the bar to tack on with... something weighted in the last bit. She clearly feels a certain way about the intimacy involved, but the way she feels isn't entirely clear, maybe even to herself. She makes a little ta-da gesture at the newly homed cutting with hands to indicate she has Phase One of August's planning into effect and is agreeing to the terms, then reclaims her beer, "Thanks."

August watches Lilith's handling of the glass with mild interest. He can't help but wonder if there's some sort of story here, some kind of reason she's this careful with a simple chunk of a glass bottle.

He makes a face at the mention of people being very sick or injured. "Oh yeah--the wounds I can feel from a ways off." He still can't help but think of it as hearing them, even if all this time later he knows it's closer to feeling them. "People themselves are there, but they're all part of the rest when it's outside--plants and animals, I mean, just different frequencies, kind of. Inside, it's easier. But injuries...those I can pick up loud and clear."

He watches her place the twig, resists the urge to nudge it along more. That's for her to do, this time. "I can bring by some rooting hormone, helps get the roots established faster." He pushes off the sill, gestures with the other cutting. "I'll get this one going. I can bring it by or, you can come by--whatever you're more comfortable with."

"Sounds good. We'll see how it plays out in regards to your place or mine. I'm not the best person to be around these last few days. I read that we create fear, that's the only reason it's real and the fear of setting everything on fire there is irrational, but current for the moment. Hence the housecall. I... have had a time of it lately. Just not much to do about it except... power through." Lilith says to August with a little knit of her brows on mention, leaning on the counter with her beer, eyes on the marble surface instead of company now. After taking a time with her lashes lowered, she shrugs and eyes the cutting right in front of her jarred in water instead, then pushes up straight.

She goes to gesture toward the doorway, slanting a bit of a smile despite herself, "C'mon. I'll walk you out if you're ready to escape. Maybe you'll get to see me fall down the stairs. I'd apologize for the weird questions, but it's not my style to be sorry when I'm just not at all. You're in a way where I could actually ask them. Mostly, you're going to have to accept that I get strange or learn to send a sucker assistant."

The second she's out of her kitchen, pipes under the sink burst and start flooding with spray and leak from the cabinet with pressure current. She spins around in a burst of paranoia like she's ready to fight something with the sound of it, then she realizes exactly what she's heard and sees the water at rolling creep on the floor. Normal people might hop to. Lilith just makes a little 'oh' noise and stares at the whole of this new development. Then she clarifies quickly for August, like her need to show she's NOT a wrecking ball is first and foremost, "That wasn't me."

August narrows his eyes at the notion of her setting it all on fire. "Well, it's possible I could stop you, but just the same--I don't mind bringing it by, if you'd rather not test yourself, until you've had more time to work on things." He moves to follow her, cutting in hand.

The pipes bursting brings him up short. He feels it in multiple ways: Lilith's jolt, the pipes giving way, the water getting all over. He thinks of her dead shrub, the chunk of glass that was begging to be stepped on, the various injuries she's sporting (which he has been studiously ignoring this whole time but they're starting to chip away at his mood), looks askance at her. "Mmmmhmmm," he says, in an 'except for how this is all happening around you, eh?' sort of way. He sets a hand on the counter, eyes unfocusing a bit. "Well that's a fucking mess," he murmurs under his breath. As he told her, though, this is the easier part: put things back where they belong, a bit at a time. The water stops flowing, the sound of groaning pipes abates. He squints, makes a low sound, focuses on her again. "Should be okay, but--I'm not a plumber. Maybe call one, have them check it out."

"Bet you got it fine. I could fix a broken sink before I went growing leg and tit. The hard way. I refuse to pay a plumber on principle given how many fights I used to have with the sink in the trailer growing up." Lilith closes her eyes for a long moment and just lets August be the natural snap to action there, hand making a raking grab and squeeze through her hair. It might be good that he's distracted taking care of the pipes because she'd honestly just probably melt into collapse if he goes pointing out the frustration tears that start to smart and smudge her mascara in that moment with brief leaking of escape. Then she's swallowing down thickly, dropping her hand from her hair to shake both hands out at her side, and it might as well be a nice rattle into composure.

The woman snaps to action herself now, before she gets caught in that moment (which may be too damn late), following after August with that marked delay to have a look at what he's done. She hits the wet kitchen floor a little too fast and hard, skids, catches herself on the counter edge, then holds fast there with little bobble before telling August, "... I should really just get into plants. I doubt they show up with bad contagious mojo at work. I touched something for appraisal I shouldn't have, I think." Oh, she KNOWS. But she's trying to pass it off like something weird and unlucky came through and went back out or that she doesn't know the actual source. 'cause Pawn Shop in spooky town, right? Could be a number of haunted objects kicking around, "Better than a ghost. Maybe." The last part is dry and bitterly resigned.

August snorts, shrugs in a 'have it your way' manner. "You're placing an awful lot of faith in a botanist to fix your pipes sight unseen." But of course, they both know it's not that simple. He has the grace to not comment on nor otherwise react to her partial breakdown. He keeps his eyes averted, politely waiting--until she just about slips and falls. But she catches herself before he can intervene, and he sighs with relief. Healing broken bones and spending the rest of the day nauseated: not on the agenda.

He sighs at her explanation. "So it...cursed you?" He winces. "Gotta say, never had a plant come through that tried to break everything and me." A pause, then, "Yet." He gives her a rueful smile. "Hopefully this doesn't break my lucky streak, yeah?" He peers at her. "Did you get rid of it? Whatever did this?"

"Maybe. I'm still going to double check your work when I feel like I'm not apt to get electrocuted, standing barefoot in water when the light fixture drops to dangle." Lilith tells August as she eyes the lighting speculatively and picks her way back to the other side of the bar to stand on a dry rug, plainly telling the lighting, "Yeah, screw you and that. Don't get ideas." Then she huff laughs with self-deprecation at her pissy and helpless paranoia which involves talking to fixtures now, apparently, the sound turning into another humored noise from the throat afterwards that indicates she -might- be a little cracked up after taking days of these kinds of things through chronic soul-sapped fatigue. "Mm. And there I was at the shop, digging at you about talking to plants to be cute."

After an enormous sigh, though, she goes across the loft to slide open utility closet where there's washer and dryer and a basket of folded towels so she can get at a few of them for the pre-mop toss-and-soak method of half-assery. Eventually, she explains, head shaking some, "I know a guy that likes weird things, wanted walk around papers with it." It's not a lie, even if the actual arrangement as of now is more detailed than that. But she knows kind of what he might be getting at and she's been plenty separated from the item and it hasn't been under the roof the whole time, nor has she, "But I think the principle is that I touched a hot stove and got burnt. I'm carrying the mark. Maybe I have to hit full saturation punishment before it piddles out."

August eyes the lighting when she does. The whole loft now seems like one disaster waiting to happen. The windows, are they secure? Is there a weak spot on the floor? Is that a gas range? The possibilities are endless. Does she need to sleep outside in a lean-to, or will a bear come down out of the mountains specifically after her? As such, he can't fault her for sounding a little unsteady. He spent a few years that way in the late 90s. No judgment to be had, just his own sort of quiet sympathy.

"So," he says, scratching his beard, "I'm getting the feeling like if someone ever shows me something weird and strainge, I should just not touch it." He nods. "Understood." He winces again in yet more sympathy. "Well, here's hoping it fades soon, and, quietly."

"Basically. Just pretend everything is the damn One Ring. It's my new Modus Operandi after all this." Lilith sighs again. If she keeps huffing air like that instead of just slowing down and breathing, she looks a little apt to just drop, and any natural social facade that came with her already admittedly somewhat forward nature is absent. Because she has resigned to just being cursed now in August's company, he's seen it, it's out there, we're wallowing now a little bit.

The dry and drab resignation, though, reins back as she finishes throwing towels and leans with the small of her back on the dry side of the bar where it separates from the kitchen to look at August with her eyes a little bigger and ridiculous hue of blue given the sober mien of her expression. Her voice pitches lowers and her breath comes a little more delicate in pauses to weight her words, "You might know without... knowing that's what the wrong is... when it comes. It comes before you'll ever even set eyes on a thing like that. It's in the air first. Trust your gut."

August studies Lilith a bit, nods and ducks his head. "Well I've spent most of my life doing that, so. I'll keep it in mind if anyone shows up with...anything that feels off." He nods at the door. "I can see myself out, in case you want to, ah," he eyes the watery floor, "not take more risks."

Lilith looks at the door leading in and out of the apartment to the stairs that lean down to office and shop below. The woman doesn't budge from her posting and she moves her dark head into tiny drift of shake. The words come with a rueful, easier smile of her own now, "I'll stay right here until I get brave about moving again. I have company to hang with." Her eyes take a slant back with turn of head to look over her shoulder at the cutting in the mason jar before she looks at August again with trace gratitude, more natural dry tack-on forthcoming, "Thanks. Besides, if I go tumbling down the stairs in a graceless moment, I'll be too embarrassed to phone you over and call you pretty."

"Gotcha," August says, bobbing his eyebrows. "Well, if you do need some help, you can call the shop. Finch or Ignacio, they're who to ask for, if I'm not there." He gives her a look like there's a reason he's saying those names, and not the other four. "Be careful. Try not to ah, grab anymore hot stoves." A final wry smile, and then he heads out the door and down the stairs. He pauses there, shakes his head, and looks down at the cutting. "Alright, big guy, let's get you sorted." He tucks it in his pocket, climbs back into the truck, and heads to his next appointment.