2019-07-24 - Itzhak's Veil-cation

It's been a hell of a day at sea. August had one of the saws kickback while he was up in a tree. Jendy fell, but thankfully it was a small drop and she just got some bruises. Cy had a near miss with one of the bucket arms. Thoma and Ully had a hell of a time dealing with a complete clusterfuck on the delivery earlier in the morning.

August is this close to closing early because what Minerva said earlier about feeling like something bad was going to happen seems to be coming true, repeatedly, and he'd like to not have said happening occur during business hours. Then he gets a call from Itzhak which doesn't make a whole lot of sense, so he does close early, and tells him to come to the shop. (Because he's babbling, and if something weird is going on, well, August wants to be on relatively familiar ground.)

Finch and Iggy were curled up together in her bed, mostly undressed, napping, when Granny Dove arrived home early and walked in to see them like that. Mortification was had by all. Then they went into work. Finch was on the crew with a bucket truck that just said NOPE and seized up on their first call. So she had to climb the tree. And the branch she was perched on snapped. Fortunately she didn’t fall very far, but she has some scrapes and bruises.

Also, she broke one of the lenses of her goggles in the fall and has to find someone to repair them because plastic is definitely not a natural fiber. Sigh. She trudges into the shop looking cranky as all hell. “Boss,” she mutters.

The growl of Itzhak's overtuned muscle car (is it because he's got a gift for the physical realm that he doesn't bother with a daily driver? who knows) rumbles outside within way too short a time period for him to have been driving in anything resembling a responsible manner. He bolts out and--he looks like he's been in a fight. Dried blood on his face, jeans torn over his bloodied knees, his curly hair gone wild and his expression too.

Instead of heading inside immediately, he reels back against the side of his car like he's dizzy.

August looks up from making dire faces at his tablet. "Hey." He peers at Finch's scrapes and goggles, raises an eyebrow. "Need a hand?"

The sound of Itzhak's car draws his attention. He sets the tablet down, gets up from his desk and starts towards the shop proper. In a low voice, he warns Finch, "Look he sounded kind of out of it, okay?"

“Nothing serious,” Finch mumbles. “So unless you can fix plexiglass lenses, no need,” she notes to Roen. She peers out the window at the sound of the car. “He doesn’t look so good either,” she notes. She tosses her goggles onto a counter.

Itzhak shoves himself away from the car, cussing in sharp, clear arcs of Yiddish. His gait is a half-drunken swagger as he makes it up the driveway to the shop. Any customers might be alarmed, especially as he bursts in and says, clear and loud, "You guys are not gonna believe this shit!" His too-wide eyes land on Roen and Finch.

August promptly takes up the goggles, narrows his eyes at Finch. "You've never tried that? It's not the same as healing, but it's not that different either." He turns them over in his hands, watching Itzhak on the approach. Thank God they did, in fact, close early. "I already can't," he says, and offers the goggles back to Finch. They're good as new. "What happened? Looks like you got in a fight."

Finch shakes her head in confusion. “I always thought it was just things that were, you know, natural. Not man-made stuff like plastic,” she says. Well, that’s interesting. She takes back the repaired goggles and puts them on atop her head once more. The sight of Itzhak has her moving to him immediately and offering him a shoulder to lean on. “Itzy, you ok?”

"I'm fan-flippin'-tastic," Itzhak announces, arm going around Finch's shoulders despite their frankly comical height difference. Up close, he smells like he's been rolling around in August's herb garden. In fact, there's crushed plant life in his hair and his clothes are covered in grass stains. "Guys. Guys, guys." He sways in place. "I'm fine," he adds, suddenly, realizing how all this looks. "Seriously, I'm fine. Just, wow. I went somewhere."

"Same," August admits, "until I was stuck under a building for a while." He bobs his eyebrows at her, watches Itzhak act very weird. "Went somewhere," August echoes. "Like...a bar?" Yet when he senses around Itzhak, there's no hint of alcohol or drunkenness. He doesn't seem high, either.

Finch arches a brow and helps him over to the counter. At the mention he went somewhere, she quips, “The pot dispensary?” because he seems high as a kite.

Itzhak doesn't do much to dissuade them of the 'really, really high' theory. At their suggestions, he laughs, and he laughs hard, tossing his head back. He doesn't seem to actually need Finch's support, but apparently he's enjoying it, since he lets her continue. "Way better! I--Jesus, I keep expecting I'm gonna forget, or something, because that's what's supposed to happen, right? You come back from the other side and you can't remember? I remember! Where's de Santos? His broken ass better be here!"

August tilts his head at Itzhak. He'd be concerned, except the usual signs of something being off are mysteriously absent. So he stretches out a bit with his mind, sensing around Itzhak carefully, looking for anything other than this odd, giddy elation. "You don't mean other side, like...dead, do you?" He doesn't look--or feel--anywhere near injured enough to have been dead.

“Or do you mean other side of, you know, here. The Dream?” Finch asks, looking incredibly worried, because that is NOT someplace he should be happy to have gone. She moves out from under his arm once she's sure the counter can support him.

Ignacio normally never lets his chill break, but today? His expression looks sour and he is soaked to the bone and carrying his duffel in hand. Death to Smoochy mode is activated. His uneven gait brings him silently into the place and he manages not to slam the door open but treating the place delicately. He drops the duffel on teh tile.

''SPLORCH!''

He just stares at the gathered as if daring someone to say something. Sensing Itzhak was in the middle of pontificating he pauses and looks at him curiously, "You holdin?" Was he part of the previous conversation? Nnnno? Coincidence??!

"Issat what it's called?" Itzhak says to Finch, swaying like he's standing on the deck of a ship. He isn't falling down, he's just, doing that, but with balance. It's as weird to watch as it is to explain. "I dunno! There! Across the border! It happened on accident and yeah I got in a fight." Of course he did. Why would he cross to another world and not get into a fight? "There's people over there, guys. People! The song's everywhere! Oh my God, I can't hardly figure out how to tell you."

He just grins madly at Ignacio's question, reaches out, and brushes his hand along his shoulder as if dusting Ig off. Water splashes out of Ignacio's clothes, puddling on the floor, leaving a dry spot where Itzhak's hand brushed him. Somehow he made the water fall out of the fabric.

August's eyes widen at whatever he senses. "Something's changed." He licks his lips, moves closer to Itzhak. "Okay if I," he gestures at his hand, meaning to ask if it's okay if he touches him for a better read.

His approach stops midstep when Ignacio comes in. "Hey." August winces at the evidence of being caught in rain, sprinklers, or both. That becomes amazement when Itzhak just...pushes the water onto the floor, out of Ignacio's clothes. "...what the hell."

Finch’s eyes move to Ignacio and she’s about to ask him if he’s all right, when Itzhak admits to crossing to the Dream and then totally drycleans Iggy’s clothes. “What the fuck, did you just do that?” She looks back to Rosencrantz open-mouthed.

Ignacio looks at his shoulder and one eyebrow goes up; being pissed on hold. Looking back to the grinning Mechanic he squints those brown eyes. "Yeah the fuck, bro,. You missed a spit. You're as bad as my sister when she vacuums." His eyes roll up tiredly and he shakes his head. BS done he parrots, "You make that happen? More importantly can you do this to mow the lawn?" Curiosity wars with concern.

Instead of snipping back at Ig, Itzhak hooks an arm around his neck. Then all the water falls out of Iggy's clothes, leaving them perfectly dry. His hair's still wet, though. "Asshole," Itzhak says, almost fondly, "yeah I could do it to mow the lawn, but why? I'd just run the lawnmower." The puddle of water scoots away from everyone's feet, forming dry spots where people are standing.

He lets Ig go and looks at all three of them, his expression transcendent. "I ain't ever been able to do things with so much detail. Someone taught me, on the other side."

August examines Ignacio's clothes, goes so far as to finger a sleeve, rather than prod at Itzhak again. "Yeah--anyways, you or I," he looks up at Ignacio, "or Finch, could do that. Just, tell the grass to break itself at the right spot."

He glances at Finch, then Itzhak. "Last night, at Minerva's, someone--the girl from that night on the beach, the one who fainted?" Sorry Lyric, that's how he knows you now. "She was saying she'd been to somewhere called the Veil. Minerva said that's where things like that creature on the beach came from. That's how it got away from us--it...jumped there, I guess." Now he looks at Finch again. "Is 'Dream' another name for the Veil?"

Finch is looking somewhat horrified the more Itzhak talks. “Someone...taught you? W-Who? Why? What did they get out of it?” Because all she knows of things from over there is they are BAD.

Ignacio listens quietly and frowns. "Why?" There is silence from him as he's wobbled and hesitantly he pats Itzhak's back and he adds, "Uhhh Julia said there's people that work for ''them'', man. Why are these people in the Space Across giving you things? What are they gaining?"

Itzhak isn't sobered in the least by Finch and Ignacio's concern. "I traded her. She needed help, we struck a deal." He does, however, notice, at least, and looks between them, eyebrows up. "Youse guys think--no, no," he waves his hands 'ix-nay', "she needed help because of Them. They hurt her. Not Them direct, but muscle they hired." Now, finally, it sinks in that they might have good reason not to believe him, and those eyebrows go tilted up. "...I can prove it." And he digs in a pocket of his jeans.

The thing he brings out is a braid of hair. And such hair! It's glossy, almost glowing, vibrant orange and reds like a sunset-streaky sky. This isn't dyed hair or plastic. It's the real deal, in impossible colors. Itzhak holds it out on his roughened palm. "This is from her. She's...well, she's a unicorn."

August feels, at each moment, like he can't get more amazed, and then Itzhak does or says something else. Now he's holding a braid of--well, he's not wrong, it's not synthetic. Not by a long shot. "Damn," he says, voice low. He doesn't need to touch it to feel that it's hair, actual hair from an actual...something. (Unicorn, Itzhak said, but August's brain is having trouble accepting that it's a word Itzhak had used with total seriousness.) The light coming off it, not much different than bioluminescence to his senses, is real enough, too.

He shakes his head, waves a hand. "Wait, okay, who's Them." He looks between Ignacio, Finch, and Itzhak.

Ignacio holds up a finger and stuffs his hands in his. woah dry pockets... "Nice." he murmurs. Pushing himself to a sit on the desk he pulls out his notebook and flips. "I...can... answer that actually." He can? Looking up to Finch he offers, "Correct me if I miss anythin' you know about, but," He flips a few pages, "Theeee Dark Men are like boogiemen but really aren't men at all." Looking up he offers, "I vote call them boogiebeings to stop pushing the patriarchy into new and exciting worlds that are unbalanced enough ya know?" Looking down he flips through his crib notes. "Soooo like these things are more like nightmare elementals or like the Dementors from Harry Potter, yeah? And they feed directly off things like fear and sadness and misery and burned hot pockets that are still frozen in the middle.

Super helpful cooking tip, Iggs.
Also true.

"But these big nasty things can't actually... I dunno. They're super fuckin scary game over level shit, but heeeere's the fucked up part. There's people, sometimes like us even, who are like... working for them and feeding them. Kinda like well this shit is inevitable so if I get on their good side they'll maybe not eat my soul." He pauses and considers, "Like Death Eaters man. They might be helping out Voldemort so they don't get destroyed. Some of em are like true believers but I can't... it's a slow process and I'm looking for places to dig safely but" He looks up, "Beware the Trojan Horse."

Finch nods towards Ignacio. “What he said.” She seems impressed at what he knows, because it’s a lot more than she does, and she’s lived here all her life. She squints at the lock of hair. “A unicorn? Really?” She looks at August as if looking for guidance from Dad. “Itzhak, that sounds incredible. Maybe too incredible? Every story I’ve heard about over there has been bad. No nice unicorns teaching people to use their Glimmer stuff more for no return.”

Itzhak rubs his thumb over the glossy braid while Ignacio talks about the Dark Men. He's listening, just in his odd way where he doesn't look at the person talking. "I was thinkin' of Them like the Nothing, from the Neverending Story. She called 'em the Unshaped Ones. Yeah, that all lines up with what she told me."

His gaze jerks up when Ig and Finch both express their doubts. Those eyebrows hit maximum elevation. "It weren't for no return!" Itzhak goes tense all over in the familiar way. "They cut her horn off! I helped her get it back--Christ, I sound like an idiot." He covers his eyes with one big hand. The glinting braid dangles from his other hand, at this side. For a minute, he just stands there and breathes hard, shoulders quivering.

Like he's trying not to cry? That can't possibly be a thing. This is Itzhak the Eternally Grouchy. His tender emotions are reserved exclusively for cars and reptiles, who safely cannot ever return them.

He sniffs, rubs his face, and looks at the other three, one after the other. "Okay. I can't make you believe me. I guess I haven't given you that much reason to trust me on this kinda thing, either." An awful abyss of vulnerability changes his face almost entirely. Without his habitual scowl, he looks ten years younger. "Just, look, it's another world over there. Not everywhere here is a slum or a war zone, right? Mostly it's pretty okay. Same over there. They're people just like us. Not the Nothing people, the regular people."

August watches each of them in turn as they explain, frowning about 'Them', these 'Dark Men' or 'Unshaped Ones' or...whatever. "The Nothing," he says, because at least this is a movie he's seen, a book he's read. His skepticism starts to fade.

Just in time for Itzhak to react like that. He grimaces. "Okay, look, it's not that I don't believe you," he gives Finch and Ignacio a Really Significant Look which telegraphs that this had better apply to them too, starting right now, "it's that I am in unfamiliar territory and I'm trying to sort it out." He indicates the braid. "That's real, for sure. It's not synthetic, it's definitely...glowing." Glowing unicorn hair! Is this his life now?

"I know it's been a hell of a fucking day for everyone but let's try to not jump to conclusions." Another glance at Ignacio and Finch, back to Itzhak. "Can I," August gestures at Itzhak's hand, "have a closer look at you. I gotta warn you, it might feel a little weird."

Ignacio, the ever guarded looks to August and says, "I'm not exactly one to trust anyone with anything either for their own safety or mine." He looks to Itzhak, expression softening with a wince as they mention the Unicorn had pieces hacked off of her. Tooooo close to home evident in teh effect of this the guys have seen and Finch has witnessed first hand.

Taking a deep breath with a sigh a hand comes up and the notebook is put way. "All I know is we're like a desert tray and the more obvious we are, the more they can smell it so... make sure it's worth the price of admission, man. It's unfortunate but you're our friend and we dunno ...these other people. And that's a world we don't belong in. You know what the human body does to outside organisms? I don't want to wind up in the shadow world's colon and I don't want to have to go pull your ass out just because you're constipating their shit. One is enough."

Finch looks troubled, and like she doesn't know what to say, or does and doesn't want to. She presses her lips together in a tight line and sets a hand on Itzhak's arm. It's all she can do, but it is plain she's scared that whatever he encountered over there may have deceived him, or changed him. She lets August do his thing as she finds a spot to sit.

Itzhak's lip curls back from his teeth, as he glowers at Ignacio. Oh yeah, that's prelude to punching. But when Finch lays her hand on his arm, Itzhak's fraying composure completely unravels. He turns around hastily, cramming his face into the crook of his elbow so nobody can watch him break into a heaving sob.

Whatever happened to him over there changed him, all right. Jailbird, street fighter, crotchety mechanical genius--none of that seems to matter for the moment. Something reached past all of his considerable and elaborate defenses to unlock his heart.

"S-Sorry," he mumbles, apologizing for nothing really. For being himself.

August rolls his eyes at Ignacio. "Fewer analogies involving the colon and anything in it, please." He tenses, feeling Itzhak's reaction and preparing to get in the way. He doesn't need to, though, and lets his guard down when Finch defuses the situation with a touch.

He sighs, draws closer to Itzhak. "You don't have anything to be sorry for. We're all living crazier lives than we ever expected to. That's definitely not your fault, or anyone else's. Don't apologize for shit that's happened to you, especially the things you can't control." He holds out his hand, waiting to see if Itzhak's willing to take it. "Can I have a look at you?"

Ignacio squints at Itzhak making the face and really just braces for impact. But it doesn't come. The eyeroll isn't missed and he counters smoothly with, "Yeah well don't kill the fucking messenger, 'a'ight. You may not like the news but I didn't create the situation and I'm sure as shit not going to stand around and watch more people get hurt, or... worse/" And now Itzhak broke. Today is officially a classic shit day. Taking a deep breath he adds quieter, but as the voice of reason while August works on talking him down. "Sorry man, but I'm not standing here and no sayin something cause you made a new friend and watch someone else get stuck over there." He turns, murmuring to Finch and shoulders past to head to the back to go punch in.

Finch remains seated where she is at, there to bolster August if he needs it. As Ignacio brushes past her, she reaches to touch his arm for a moment, looking apologetic.

Itzhak gets himself back together, digging out his hanky and mopping off his face. "'Kay," he mutters, as a general sort of declaration. His eyes trail after Ignacio, but he doesn't say anything. Holding his hand out to August, he looks him in the eye, a silent challenge and acceptance.

On a sigh, August says, "Asking you to use an analogy not involving shit isn't killing the messenger, de Santos. There's two sources of information that don't one hundred percent agree, it's just something to work through."

He nods at Itzhak. "Okay. Like I said--this might feel weird." He glances at Finch, says, "Not sure if you've tried this before, but it's useful." An invitation for her to 'watch' what's going on, in effect.

He takes Itzhak's wrist, looks at a point somewhere on the floor between them. His nose wrinkles at the injuries, but they're mild. A sensation steals over Itzhak, a gentle pressure running along a series of points or nodes in that same place his power comes from.

Ignacio catches Finch's hand and gives it a squeeze but otherwise stays in the break room for now. The punch machine from 1973 gently goes KATAK! in that way that it jars windows. There's the sound of the glass coffee pot (Also from 1973 if you ask him) and then runnin water. Coffee. Today requires coffee. Then the sound of exploding glass and angry Spanish.

Today now requires more coffee.

Finch is watching August carefully and curiously until the crash comes from the break room. “Ah shit,” she mutters. “Today is just one giant ball of ass.” She gets up and heads back to help Iggy clean up, because she knows that sound all too well.

Itzhak shivers a shiver that seems to start at his knees and work alllll the way up. "Jesus, you didn't say you were gonna feel me up, Roen," he says, with a little of his usual acid. CRASH from the break room and he winces. "I sure been a yutz," he murmurs confidentially to August.

Within, he's lit up. He had strength before, but now--now something's been unlocked in him. Now what was once a far-off mutter of the ocean roars and seethes in complex everflowing tides. It's the damn Pineapple Express in there.

August's attention focuses on Itzhak for a second. He gives him a dry look. "If I feel you up, powers and all, you're not gonna be coherent enough to give me lip about it." He turns at the crash, but Finch is on the job. His eyes go unfocused again, he squits. "You're different somehow. Kind of hard to explain..." He bites his lip, keeps checking around. "Not sure if I'd call it stronger, specifically, just...more here. Definitely more defined than the last time I checked." Because of course he's done that. Nosy bastard.

The sensation spreads to a more general feeling as he looks for other things that might be off. The injuries heal as a side effect of him doing this. He might not even know he's done it. Lastly, the gentlest emotional tap, like he's checking to see how Itzhak responds, the way a doctor might test for a reflex action. "Everything okay in there?" he calls over his shoulder.

Ignacio doesn't answer. Finch walks back and there's water everywhere and glass all in the sink. The saving grace is he's scratched and there's no real damage done except for that Itzhak just dried him off and now there's brown coffee water down his shirt and into his beltline and his boxers. He greets Finch with a frustrated but silent stare that is borderline shame and still leaning in exhaustion and humiliation. "It's going into my socks." He sighs picking the hunks of glass carefully out to refit them back together like a puzzle. The breakroom has betrayed him.

Finch hands Ignacio a roll of paper towels and then grins at him. “Gonna try something. Roen showed me earlier, let’s see if I can do it.” She moves to the sink where all the shards of coffee pot are, and she closes her eyes, moving her fingers over the sink like she is pulling a puppet’s strings. The shards of glass gather themselves back up into the form of a coffee pot, and then just fuse as if they were never broken. She lets out a breath and blinks. “It worked?”

Itzhak is just a little bruised and scraped up, which, since he said he's been fighting, isn't a surprise. Physically he's as fit as his fiddle. Emotionally he's turbulent, but that isn't really a surprise either as he burst into tears in front of the whole famn damily. It's his glimmer, his song, that's changed. That throttle has been cranked wide open. Pure potential energy reposes in Itzhak's core, ready for launch.

"Uh, maybe I fucked up youse guys's day enough already, huh?" he says, mouth and eyebrows quirked unhappily. "Maybe I should just." He jerks a thumb over his shoulder. "Make like a tree."

"Just takes practice," August says in response to Finch's surprise. "You should give it a shot too." He means Ignacio, seems to assume that'll be obvious. In his usual, understated, repetative way, he concludes, "You're definitely different," under his breath.

He pulls back from Itzhak, considers him for a time. "You have not fucked up anyone's day." A quick lift of his eyebrows, then he moves to lean against the edge of the checkout counter. "I wouldn't mind hearing about it. As much as you want to talk about, when you want to talk about it. But that doesn't need to be right now. If you think you need time to get it sorted in your head, that's okay." His mouth flattens, suggesting it might not be a bad idea to let Finch and Ignacio chill out as well, before telling the tale of saving a unicorn from poachers, or, whatever it was that happened.

Ignacio watches and tilts his head watching this both intrigued and afraid of it. Curiosity is a great way to get the guy down off a ledge. He hesitates and looks at the broken off handle in his hand and tentatively holds it out and reattaches it himself trying to mimic her without calamity. HUH! There's a flicker of a smile on the good side o his face that warms after a minute. "Now all we have to do is not short out the coffee maker... and not let anyone get led down some rabbit hole and get stuck." He peels his shirt off, not to be flashy, but not to be soaked yesterday afternoon's coffee. He pauses and uses one arm to give her a half hug. "Good job. Just remember crumbs attract ants. we can get a new old ass coffee maker. Can't get a new you." Caution. Who'd think he'd be the one spouting it?

Finch takes the shirt from him and rubs it under the water in the sink with some dish soap to hopefully get the coffee out. “Maybe Itzhak can dry it for you?” she offers, as if extending an olive branch between the New Yorkers.

Itzhak hears August's unspoken suggestion loud and clear. "Yeah. Yeah, good idea." He tips his head, catching the singing of Ignacio and Finch mending things. Then sighs explosively and rubs his hand through his hair, making it stand up even wilder. "Okay. I'll see you guys later."

He heads out. He's forgotten about the water on the floor: it makes way for him, but as his car starts up with a rumble, it splashes in the usual messy, uncontrolled way. Splitch.

"Yeah," August says, gives Itzhak a pat on the shoulder as he goes. "Be careful, things have been weird today." He can't think of another way to word the ongoing string of accidents, decides there's not a need to. Itzhak will put it together soon enough. Hopefully not in a painful way.

He moves to join Finch and Ignacio in the back office, makes a face at what he finds. "I know telling you to not get busy in here is a great way to talk you into doing it, but if I touch a single object in here and see you two fucking, I swear to God."

Ignacio yells from the back office "MADRE DI DOS! Ain't why my shirt's off the coffee exploded I swear!" And more exacerbated Spanish follows. He suints a vision to Finch that's equally offended and inspired. "NOW I'm tempted to spite em but something tells me with the way the last twenty-four hours has gone that's not only a great way to have a desk collapse but also find bees in the wall and no." He looks at the door. "Why you always gotta be like that t'me Roen? I am tryin to be helpful here!"

Finch gives Roen the brow arch of doom. “Why would you even say that?” she asks him, squinting and nose wrinkling. It may be a test to see how much he’s figured out on his own.

Deadpan, August says to Finch, "You're kidding, right? You healed him, by putting your hands, all over him the other day." His expression speaks volumes. Chapter 1: I do not feel people up to heal them. Chapter 2: Especially not people I'm not sleeping with. Chapter 3: Also, Itzhak pointed it out, and now Captain Obvious is on to you and can't unsee it.

He sighs, shakes his head at Ignacio. "You are being helpful, but he's in a pretty vulnerable place right now." He stops short of saying 'literally anyone can see that'. "So the last thing he needs, is people questioning what he went through while he's still trying to put it together in his own head. After that, we can start hashing out what's real, what's not. Until then all it does is make things harder on all of us." He eyes the no-longer-shattered coffee pot, nods. "Good work."

Ignacio is calm. He's always calm. Calm and casual don't say much. He looks to Finch and murmurs, "Because let's always worry about Itzy-E and to hell with the the shit that's scaring the hell outta everyone else. Good plan. Let's go with that one." He takes the shirt back with a "Thanks. "I'm ... gonna go grab coffee from Espresso-Yo. Text me if you want somethin. I need a walk."

He walks out and stops giving Roen a long look. "First off, perception ain't fact. And two? It's no one's fuckin business." Yeah, stress from walking to work wet not abated. He walks over to fish out his things from his bag. Looking up to Roen he looks around without an answer and shrugs. "I'm not askin you to even like me, boss. I just don't wanna see anyone else die or...worse. Some of us are full up on that shit so, if you don't mind, I'm a go get coffee and filters and would appreciate if I can borrow the truck."

Finch snorts. “Well I guess it was obvious then,” she mutters. She gives Ignacio a side-long glance. “For what it’s worth, we haven’t even really talked about it, so if you could make it none of your business til we figure out what is going on with us, that’d be great, boss.” Clearly she too, is feeling vulnerable lately.

August sighs heavily, folds his arms. "This is not a zero sum game, Ignacio. It's possible to talk about the things you guys have found out that're on your mind and concerning you, and the shit he went through, without minimizing or belittling either one." He starts to continue in this vein, stops. He sighs and runs a hand over his face. "This has nothing to do with liking you or not, so I don't get where you're coming from on that one. And you're right--it's not anyone's business. I'm just saying, not here. What you get up to on your own time's not my problem, but what you get up to here? That is." He raises an eyebrow to emphasize the distinction.

Of the truck he says, "Yeah," pulls out a set of keys and offers them over. He looks askance at Finch. "Not a problem," he assures her. With a wry smile, he adds, "I'm not gonna tell Thoma, if that's what you're worried about. The whole town'd know in an hour. Cy'll figure it out on his own. Ully probably will too."

Ignacio mimics August's body language, the stance, almost the look. His response, "I have no idea what that phrase means." Alright he has to admit that. His jaw sets and he watches. "I'm not minimizing his experience. I'm scared as hell for 'im. I've known him for eleven years. Sorta have a vested interest in eleven more." When Roen keeps going on about all the shit that is literally undiscussed and no one's business he reaches over and grabs the keys off the desk. "Maaaan this is why you're a fantastic landscaper. You just love to keep diggin that hole don't ya. So if someone wants to get punched tell them to feel free to stick their nose where it don't belong. I'll be happy to oblige so they're not disappointed." He rolls the keys into his hand with an hasta and moves to depart unless stopped or ultimately provoked.

August rolls his eyes as Ignacio departs. "Thank Christ I'm not twenty anymore," he mutters under his breath, and sets about closing the shop up properly.