2019-07-16 - Everett: Not Hallucination

Having made the journey from the boardwalk all the way down to the beach, Everett gathers a few stones on his way down. Flat stones, just larger than a silver dollar. The perfect kind for skipping into the ocean. But he stops shy, walking not around, but up the bench seat of one picnic table, over the table's surface and down the other side before he sits down.
Feet flat on the seat, rear on the table, he looks down at the stones in his right hand and then transfers them to his left. And back, pouring them, like dry sand, from hand to hand, feeling their weight, listening to their sound over the crashing waves, over the seagulls crying out against his interruption in their daily routine. All of which he pays little mind, head down, stoic expression on his visage.

It's late. Not the 'past dinnertime' kind of late, but genuinely... late. Midnight? A bit before, or a bit past? Lex doesn't wear a watch... and frankly, anyone willing to walk to beach at night in Gray Harbor probably doesn't care what time it is. Walk the beach... or sit on the tables?
The silver-haired woman either ventured down the boardwalk and down the sands some time ago, or she found another way down here that didn't involve crossing paths with that table. Whatever the case, Lex is heading that direction now.
While it would be hard to miss pretty much anyone walking the shoreline at this time of night, the silver sheen of the tattooist's hair flashes almost like a beacon, catching the faint light from the Boardwalk as the humid wind sweeps invisible fingers through the lengths. The rest of her is less... eye-catching, as far as the hour is concerned. Black cargo pants, black stomper boots, and a black wifebeater tank with the word 'NOPE.' written in white block letters across the chest.
It could be argued that a giant sitting on a picnic table would be equally hard to miss, but with her eyes on the water, Lex manages to get rather close to the stranger before the clink-clink-clink of the stones in his hands triggers a glance upward. A 'brow is arched at the mere presence of another, and arched a bit higher as she surveys what little of his appearance she can make out in the distance.
"Look," she's speaking loudly enough to be heard. "I'm so not in the fucking mood. If you're going to try and kill me, please just cut the preamble? I got it. You're a fucking giant, on a fucking beach, in the middle of the fucking night. I'm seriously questioning your creativity right now."

Stones are passed between his large paws a few more times before he stops. Abruptly. And the eerie silence that is the lack of stones colliding against stones begins to grow, drowned out by the sounds of the beach. His head lifts, slowly, then turns in her direction the laziness of his movements doing nothing to alleviate her concern over her safety.
While her hair has been bound, his has not and his freak flag is at the mercy of the beach wind; especially when it whips sideways and obscures his face. His split ends wave in the air like tentacle fingers waving hello -- or goodbye.
As most do, the large man turns his head up, then shakes his head, turning his head into the breeze momentarily. All the better to get his hair under control, if only long enough to give the speaker a look-over, noting her equally black clothing. Stones collide while he spills them into his left hand, save one.
His posture straightens, suddenly, his arm pulls back, his gaze returns forward. Like a trebuchet, he flings the pebble into the air and watches it sail into the darkness. Not at all how one uses a skipping stone. Following the sailing stone, he watches it until he hits the water.
Take that, water.
Stones kiss in his hands again before he holds out a hand, his right, palm up. And a single skipping stone there in his palm, offering it towards her while he looks in her direction, his apathetic countenance otherwise unmoved.

That stone should've been thrown at her. Perhaps transformed into a fireball, and lit the water beside her like hot oil. But it hits the water, eventually, just like a normal storm. And then he's looking toward her, a hand actually extended. If this is one of the Town's Attempts as Fuckery... well, it's either upped its' game or needs some serious inspiration. Whatever the case, He's There. There's no just... walking past, even if she may regret stopping. If that's the case, she'd regret showing him her back, too. Right?
"You talk?" She decides to continue talking to the presumed hallucination, lacking any of the hesitance that an intelligent person might employ when talking to one of Everett's... well, Everett.
The tattooed woman comes close enough to look down at the flat stones piled in his overlarge hand, and after an audibly huffed breath, a tattooed hand is raised to take the one closest to the top. "I dunno how to skip rocks. I used to cheat and make it look like they did... but the actual skipping? Fucking impossible." Might as well chat with the probably-deadly figment.

He continues to hold his position. Until she moves forward and takes the stone from him and then her question is answered. While he snatches his hand closed and pulls his mitt back to his core where he once more transfers his now smaller collection to his left hand, his right shoulder answers her by being uplifted, held, and then dropped.
After the shrug, he runs his right hand over his black denim jeans, leaving traces of sand grit on his thigh. Then his hand raises and he combs his fingers through the hair on that side of his head, trying to tame the hair for all the good it does him. Then, and only then, he brings his hand into the twisted, tangled mess that is his hair by the side of his head and pulls.
Music. Sudden, heavy, even as low as he's set it. Bass. Drums. Someone giving their Death Growl while they sing along to the instruments. Poison, it's noise pollution and the earbud he's pulled from his ear tangles from the collar of his leather jacket. The same hand he pulled the earbud out with, the same he offered her the rock with, he holds out again. While he widens the space between his knees, his black boots scraping on the bench, "C'mere." It's all he says.

Head phones. All right. Disembodied ice hands, buildings with windows for eyes, and flying furniture. That all -- somehow -- seems to fit right in here. Just another episode to play through to try to survive. But head phones? That one's new. Perhaps things are getting creative.
Whatever the case, Lex doesn't seem to have anything better to do with her time. Jade-colored eyes are dropped toward the death metal ear bud as it's pulled free, and then flicker back to Everett's features as the man finally speaks.
The extended hand is given a long look, her expression openly dubious, before her eyes flicker once more to the man's features. Maybe if it were the middle of the day. Or if there were someone else around to verify that this stranger wasn't the week's newest apparition? Unfortunately, there's neither. And Lex, as she so clearly stated before, doesn't have the patience for preamble.
An audible breath is drawn inward, a slightly narrow-eyed look tipped directly toward Everett's actual features, and then the hand that isn't holding the stone is raised and placed atop his own. Stepping willingly into the looming figure's shadow, all whilst giving him that mildly irritated glare. He hasn't won himself the Real (TM) token yet.

And now would be when he turns into an apparition and sucks out her soul.
Or at least that certainly seems how it seems like what she's expecting. The seeming gingerness of her surrender has the right corner of his mouth upturning slightly. Not a grin, the brooding don't grin. But he's amused, nevertheless.
And he honors that caution when curling his fingers to give hers, her fingernails something to hold when he pulls her slowly in with her advance and then lifts the hand over her head and turns it around, indicating he wants her to turn.
It's then that he shifts forward, sliding on the picnic table, and opening his legs further. Letting her hand go, while his other hand dumps his collection on the table, both hands, for a moment, hold her hips while he positions them both. So that he can better loom over her left shoulder, and slide his hands from her hips to the hand holding his last offering.
Both hands manipulate her one. Large hands, not unfamiliar with work, rough, even calloused on the pads. Ink on his right knuckles profess 1310 in an Old English font. "Like this," his voice is deep, but not a basso profondo. It's the only words he says, while having her hook her fore-finger and hold the stone between thumb and the curled other fingers.

Ear buds and... dancing? Having already surrendered herself to whatever this may prove to be, Lex doesn't resist as his larger hand goes from drawing her closer to an actual twirl. It's that twirl that snaps whatever unfortunate band was holding her hair in a tail, and the man at her back would find himself layered in a sudden curtain of windswept silver. Considering the mess the wind has already made of his hair, surely it shouldn't come as much of a surprise?
"Mmm..." is a half-hummed and half-groaned assessment of the tattoos that she's given and up-close-and-personal view of as he positions her hand around the stone. In fact, she may be paying a little more attention to the ink than his efforts at helping her skip rocks.
"If I'm supposed to recognize those, you missed your mark," she informs, just in case he really is a particularly interactive hallucination. And then she's letting her attention shift to his fingers on her own, 'brows furrowing a bit as she tries to relax her hand enough to allow the reshaping of her fingers around the rock. Where his hands are calloused, hers are smooth. Tattooed, weighed down by a few rings, but otherwise smooth.
"Yeah, so I got the hold... and then comes the part where I drop the fucking thing." Just so he knows how this is supposed to go.

Taking shelter against the weather, Everett leans closer against her cheek, a brief glance before getting nearer. The comment on his hand only causes him to turn his hand and hide the ink, without further comment. And with her hand in his, he practices the back and forth motion, bending her wrist gently and slow as though he were bending the wing of a little bird with hollow bones.
"Let go," he says, "here. Fast is better." The quantity of words he uses continues to rise the further he knows her. Or the closer she is. Then he removes a hand, to brush her hair from his face, and then his own.
With that small, simple act, his demeanor changes. An exhale, heavily put upon, exacerbated. He lets he go, to her own devices, taking his hands back while he leans back, away from her. Using his hands to prop himself up, his face falls.
Then is gaze, down to the rocks he left on the table top. He picks up two and starts to fumble them in his left hand, as though twirling, but not as coordinated. Voicing final approval throatedly, "Mmhmm."

Moment by moment, Lex seems to be realizing -- accepting? -- that the surreal scene is... real. The too-careful movement of her wrist, the turn of his hand as those tattoos are mentioned, and finally, the way he's letting himself slouch back on the picnic table. Hand now perfectly-positioned to toss that stone, the artist is forgetting the task entirely to turn and face the not-hallucinated-Everett.
She's still standing between his knees, though however close that actually brings her depends largely on his choice of positioning on the table. Whatever the case, he's already been hit full-force by the scent of something coconut-esque in her hair, and without her hair all but sweeping his face, it's easier to pick out the subtler scents of marijuana and good old-fashioned cigarette smoke.
A moment is spent studying him, and then the rock he gave her is set upon the table beside his, and her own inked fingers are reaching in an effort to take his own tattooed hand.

Leaning back, putting that space between them along with his behavioral change. Some would take that as a sign.
But not her.
When she turns around, his gaze is down at his hand, watching while he rolls the two skipping stones in his left hand. His head dips lower, chin touching chest when he catches the movement of her rotation out of the top of his eyes. But all the same, with the distance, and the background music of both ocean overpowering death metal, at bent knees he bounces -- one and then the other -- his knees off her side. Gently, slowly. With more care then one might give a large, muscle-bound man. Perhaps enough just to make her sway lazily.
The second movement, her raising her hand causes his sober expression to lift, and the clicking of rocks together to cease when he stops moving the rocks around in his left hand. His square jaw lifts, green eyes peering at the offered limb for a second before following it up.
Sitting up again, he lifts the hand she asks for, and runs it through his long hair again, in a useless effort to tame it. Then his hand comes back down, strokes his thigh where he had before, to clean it, to wipe it off, and then gingerly puts his hand on hers. His brows lift, to ask the question he doesn't give voice to.

While most who work with their hands sport the callouses or marks to prove it, the ever-present gloves and delicate manipulation of needle or gun have kept Lex's fingertips soft. Her nails have been painted black, and if only to keep the aforementioned gloves intact, kept at a reasonable length. No talons or claws, as might might expected to go along with the rest of her... look. Archetype? Ah, assumptions.
Her thumb slides across the gang marks, and the way her brows knit slightly suggests that she studying more than just the pattern. The texture of the skin. Any scarring left by the present tattoos. "Do you want them covered?" She asks after a moment, her voice quiet, but her tone kept casual Like she were offering to 'fix' a botched cupid tattoo. "Seems we get as much cover work as original nowadays..." Her tone is a bit wry, and as she offers a lifeline into a safe conversation, should he take it, green eyes meet green. Her own are light -- almost unnaturally so -- and set in sharp contrast by the black liner that has long-since been tattooed in place.

The question is given thought. Long, serious thought. Not enough to hear gears turning, not enough to smell the smoke, but enough to see a slit of pink poke between his lips. His tongue tip barely parts his lips, announced by another sudden, and muted cry from the dangling earbud, without reaction from him even though he presumably still sports the other ear plugged. It isn't so long, a few seconds before he's ready to make a reply. Of sorts.
His knees stop gently bouncing, swaying against her sides. Instead, one, then the other press. Holding her lightly between his knees. A man this size could surely use more force to hold her if he wanted to trap her. A kitten could. But he gives enough pressure to hold, while doing so to give any reasonable person confidence to think they could push their way free without much force; without much trouble. If they were so inclined.
The shoulder attached to the hand in hers raises and falls with a quick shrug. "Sooner or later," he says, eyes hooding when his brows return down, his eyes looking down to either his hand or hers, "everything comes off." With a slow blink, he looks up back into her gaze while, once again, trying to tame his hair back.

She doesn't seem inclined. As well as she's managed to feign focus on his tattoos, it would've been near-impossible not to notice the knees that had bounced beside, and against, her. And when that 'grip' becomes more deliberate, albeit still careful, jade eyes are flickering from his knuckles to one of the denim clad thighs that now straddle her. It's not exactly the position one would expect to find themselves during a first meeting with a non-hallucination... but it's not like she didn't move there willingly. And she's not moving away.
"Mm... things fade, but I don't think they ever really go away," she offers, eyes flickering back to his hand. His knuckles are held between both of her hands now, her hands holding either side of his own, as if discouraging him to pull away. He could. Of course he could. "You just find somethin' better to put on top. And sometimes, if that somethin' better is good enough, nobody else can even tell there's somethin' underneath." We're talking about tattoos, right? Tattoos and tattoo cover-ups.
His continued effort at controlling his hair has her smirking a bit... and considering the wind is having it's way with her own mane, that smirk is justified. "You're new around here, mm?" She doesn't wait for the affirmative. "There's always wind. I can show you some knots to keep it at your neck, at least... or there's braiding. Otherwise, this is pretty much what you got."