2019-08-05 - A Discussion of Outcomes

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Itzhak got himself those 20 minutes of very serious alone time. After, he felt, well, weird. This is weird. It's weird, right? It's weird.

And he can't stop thinking about it. His power, August's, and Alexander's in concert.

He distracts himself with doing stuff, makes himself wait until the proper hour of awkward texts to DM August. By that time he's sprawled in bed, wearing boxer briefs (and those only because now he more or less lives with a woman he's not sleeping with and her two little kids), covers rumpled aside as it's too damn hot.

(TXT to August) Itzhak : okay
(TXT to August) Itzhak : so
(TXT to August) Itzhak : that was different

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It was weird, but August has no complaints. Well, one: that he's not at a point with things with Eleanor where he can simply show up at her door all hot and bothered to see how interested she is in an evening of getting no sleep. So he has to make due. Otherwise, he finds it an interesting new twist on things.

It's cooler in the forest than in town, enough that he's under the thin, summer comforter he uses, water and book to hand, when his phone buzzes. He glances at it, laughs, sets his book aside.

(TXT to Itzhak) August : very
(TXT to Itzhak) August : I expected to come in there and find you two already naked

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Itzhak groan-laughs.

(TXT to August) Itzhak : I wish so hard
(TXT to August) Itzhak : and that's not all that was hard
(TXT to August) Itzhak : real talk, i feel like you both saw me naked and raring to go now

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Itzhak spends a couple minutes typing, then deleting, then just stops. He can't figure out how to say what he wants to say.

---

August laughs under his breath. "More than just," he murmurs as he types.

(TXT to Itzhak) August : ah to be young again
(TXT to Itzhak) August : if we're being honest, absent various concerns that was a likely outcome

August pauses a second, maybe watching those dots that never lead to anything. Then:

(TXT to Itzhak) August : we probably need to figure out another way to do this without that. not sure who to attempt that with, though

...because with Eleanor the inevitable will happen, of that he's certain. So it'll just be a very different proof of concept. Not that he doesn't want to try that, now.

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(TXT to August) Itzhak : Yeah yeah it was. He's so gd gorgeous and that mind of his. He feels like a puzzle I could spend forever solving.
(TXT to August) Itzhak : but. you're right. probably right.
(TXT to August) Itzhak : What worries me is how good it felt and how much I was into it

---

like a puzzle I could spend forever solving

August thinks on that as the other texts come in, grunts as Itzhak echoes his own thoughts.

(TXT to Itzhak) August : I was thinking the same
(TXT to Itzhak) August : could be too easy to make an unhealthy habit
(TXT to Itzhak) August : a replacement for everything else. bad idea there.

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(TXT to August) Itzhak : On the other hand, if he's touch phobic? well we don't need to touch!

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(TXT to Itzhak) August : good point actually. I guess it's something you have to keep an eye on. like the rest really.

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(TXT to August) Itzhak : What do you think of him?

Of course Itzhak can't resist getting August's opinion on his crush.

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"Mmmm how long have you been waiting to ask me that," August murmurs, taking a drink of water. He thinks over his response.

(TXT to Itzhak) August : I like him. he's got shit going on but he owns it, is trying to handle it without putting it on other people. wants to fight the ugly shit. pretty cute. sure he's probably a hot mess, or at least thinks he is, but it's not like either of us isn't, so that doesn't feel like a dealbreaker.
(TXT to Itzhak) August : if those dots are you claiming you're not a hot mess don't even try
(TXT to Itzhak) August : just delete it

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Itzhak scoffs under his breath. "Why the hell would I claim that."

(TXT to August) Itzhak : why the hell would I claim that. do I look like a guy who has his life together to you

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(TXT to Itzhak) August : eh, look, you have a place of business, you're seeing people, hell you know magic. that's not the worst off you could be.

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(TXT to August) Itzhak : none of that doesn't make me a hot mess

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Itzhak may be feeling the hot messiness of his life particularly keenly right now.

(TXT to August) Itzhak : dying to know who Alexander is seeing. in town they call him crazy clayton. he's not exactly loved. so who is he?
(TXT to August) Itzhak : or she

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(TXT to Itzhak) August : I didn't say that makes you not a hot mess
(TXT to Itzhak) August : I just mean you can have your life vaguely together and still be one
(TXT to Itzhak) August : as a guy who somehow owns a business yet can't drive near a hospital I feel I can speak on this with authority
(TXT to Itzhak) August : you know like a ball of stuff loosely rolling together downhill

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(TXT to August) Itzhak : are you saying I'm a katamari of kind of having my shit together

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August pauses, considers the likelihood that this analogy operates on many levels. He laughs at Itzhak's response.

(TXT to Itzhak) August : I knew there was good word for it. my ps2 died six years ago
(TXT to Itzhak) August : sure you can do better but who can't. I sure could stand to.

He starts to add something else, stops, deletes it, sends that. No, Ellie's problem with forests isn't something to share.

He thinks of his issue with the city and Eleanor's with the woods. Well. Another bridge to burn when he gets to it.

---

Itzhak pulls a face, reading. "Maybe I can actually use my words," he mutters, "that'd sure be helpful wouldn't it?"

It would, and yet.

(TXT to August) Itzhak : did it bother you? you seemed unbothered

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August frowns. "Bother me," he says.

(TXT to Itzhak) August : with alexander? no. unless mean bothered in the other way. I was very 'bothered' but not bothered.

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(TXT to August) Itzhak : because it wasn't like just hooking up with some random guy
(TXT to August) Itzhak : you guys could see inside me

Itzhak worries his lower lip, scowling.

---

August tilts his head, trying to suss this out.

(TXT to Itzhak) August : if you mean, was the closeness a problem, no, but I feel like that ship has sailed to some extent.

He pauses a moment before he sends that. No, this feels right. The night on the beach pretty much marked a kind of turning point. He clicks send.

---

Itzhak lets the phone lie on his chest. Staring up, he notices the ceiling's stain has changed a little. There's a leak. He'll have to chase it down before autumn.

"What're we doin', Itzil?" he sighs.

(TXT to August) Itzhak : Five people have asked me if we're going out by this point

That doesn't say what he wants to say either, but it's something?

---

"Ah," August says, voice low. He leans against the headboard, thinks over his wording.

(TXT to Itzhak) August : that's because the idea of guys being close without fucking at a minimum is anathema
(TXT to Itzhak) August : but besides that

He stops a moment to consider wording again, nods.

(TXT to Itzhak) August : I spent well over a decade hiding in the woods not because I didn't want to be around people
(TXT to Itzhak) August : but because all I can hear in a city is bad stuff
(TXT to Itzhak) August : it got pretty lonely. and it really killed my issues with being emotionally close with people without sleeping with them

(TXT to Itzhak) August : so did what happened in bosn

He stops, deletes that one. No...no need to talk about that specifically. Maybe it's implied. You don't sit under a building trying to will people into not dying and not lose some of your hangups about emotional intimacy.

(TXT to Itzhak) August : so my point is it's pretty easy for me to be comfortable with people without being with them. it's just how I am now.

---

Itzhak hates himself right now, as he stares irritated at the phone. August gives him all this honesty and all he can do is feel how his brain is a brick wall.

He tries typing, deletes, tries again, deletes.

. . .Itzhak is typing. . .

. . .Itzhak is typing. . .

He stops and lets his arm droop to the bed.

---

August laughs a little helplessly, sets down his phone. Rather than try to type up something else, he sits there a time, wondering. What's the furthest he's tried to talk to someone?

The hallway, really. But Alexander had been the one joining them, so it hadn't been him, per se.

Well, what's the worst that can happen? No one hears him?

<FS3> August rolls Mental: Success (7 4 4 3 3 2 2 2)

He settles himself, sitting cross-legged in bed, closes his eyes. It's different this time; Itzhak's not right there for him to reach out to. He has to find him, after a fashion, except he knows how to drive to that house.

Down the dirt road to the forest service road, to the main road, into town...past the shop, turn right...then left...

He's following down the dark roads in his mind, moon bright overhead. It's warmer here in the city. There's Alexander's house. And there's the one Itzhak lives in.

And there's Itzhak.

<<Are you going to send that or what.>> There's a little strain in the attempt. He's not used to doing things this way.

---

Itzhak's eyes pop open. Oh THAT'S new!

Groping tentatively after the connection, he eases into it, like an old-fashioned modem handshaking with the phone line.

<<...no...I ain't.>>

How is August doing this? He lets the surprise and wonder breathe down the kythe.

---

August's uncertainty filters back. He's not entirely sure. Something worth discussing with Alexander. How far can they reach?

<<Well you can just tell me. Or think at me. If you want.>> A wry note makes his thoughts come across like an annoying jay in a tree, encouraging Itzhak to not say what he means if he doesn't want to. <<In the mean time I can revel in the fact that I can do this to annoy you.>>

He's definitely teasing now. Mostly.

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The physical sensation of Itzhak is a vital man in his prime. A cut on his hand from an engine throbs faintly. On a fractal extrusion of thought, he's working out how he can play around the cut. (A phantom sensation of holding his bow, comparing it to where the slash of pain sits.) Another branch of his mind is playing 'In The Hall Of The Mountain King' on a frantic repeat. His insomnia is somewhat explained.

<<You're gonna get me in trouble.>> The kythe firms up. Echoing through it is the way he's sprawled out, long limbs everywhere, one hand resting on the phone and tapping out the beat to the unwanted song in his head. As selfconscious as he is about himself emotionally, physically all body shyness has been burned out of him, and he doesn't seem to mind that this information comes across to August. <<Thinkin' dirty thoughts at you.>>

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There's a sense of where August is, but less of him. Unlike Itzhak, he's quite body shy. Too many scars, too many people not really able to deal with them. (The spinal scar has been itching like a bastard all week.)

The cabin is a warm, close shape around him; beyond that, the geese and ducks and goats and chickens asleep in their safe spaces. The great big aspen out front. The garden, heavy with the late summer vegetables, and--damn it, a rabbit.

And beyond that, the forest. Pine, spruce, fir. Stretching on, and on, clear north to Olympic.

<<Sorry, I'm only accepting dirty thoughts from a certain red head.>>

---

Itzhak would scratch it for him, or lotion it for him or whatever's needed--the thought isn't in words, only a push of imagination on how it might feel from his end. Funny enough, it's not an awkward thought.

Probably August would prefer Ellie to do it, though.

<<Can I show ya?>> Itzhak asks. He's staring at the ceiling, tup-tup-taptaptap-tuptuping on the back of his phone. (dun-dun-dun-dunDUNdun, dunDUNdun, dunDUNdun, dundundundunDUNdundundunDUN) <<My stupid goddamn autistic brain won't let me tell you with words.>>

---

August would prefer it be Ellie, it's true, but would settle for Itzhak in a pinch. A slightly odd visual for a moment, because it seems like Itzhak is seeing a back with a long, white line directly down the spine, except he's also setting...an elk skull?

It's there and gone in a second. August might not even realize he's thinking of it, because his mind has wandered. Every Christmas his youngest sister (the name 'Zelda' comes to Itzhak, and a tallish, chubby woman with wild, black curls) gets him a container of Ultrabalm. God it helps so much. She's an RN, though, she'd know. (Another, short, sharp memory: a much younger version of the same woman visiting someone in the hospital--)

He seems to realize that one, steps on it. <<Yeah. Show away.>>

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A view from Itzhak's height (the nose is even impressive when you have to look along it) in a hospital room. A petite young woman lies in the bed, IVs hung on the stand. The memory is smeary, overlaid a dozen times. Does she have red hair, or brown? Or does she not have hair at all?

Itzhak bundles up this memory and shoves it under the proverbial rug. Stupid random associations.

<<'Kay. Stand by.>>

He doesn't have to think about what he wants to communicate, because it's all that's on his mind, at least in the conscious area. Rather he has to work out how to open a window to the skirling mess.

No sooner does he think of the analogy than he's going ahead with it. A memory of Manhattan sometime in the early 90s, shoving open a window on a hot summer day, a woman's voice in Yiddish behind him, idly scolding him for something on a long list of complaints...

That moment when he was struggling to conceal his arousal in the three-way kythe, and then Alexander's mind--a power like cutting glass stars, but warm now, curious, the brilliant edges of those stars want to see him--caressed his and August's. Caressed them like an enormous serpent sliding between their legs, wrapping around their waists, ready to pull them down with him, drown them, knowing they'd be happy to go...

How hungry Itzhak had been for it. For Alexander, for August too. Yes and Come here already and it's been so long.

And how he wasn't feeling the greatest about that reaction. He was so vulnerable. So needy. So lonely.

He can't be like that, or he's going to make awful problems that his psychic strength won't get them out of.

---

August sighs; in the link it's sympathetic and even a hint of old commiseration and regret for what had been necessary. (A younger him, twelve or more years ago, running off to join the Forest Service even though he knew it was cutting himself off. But he couldn't listen to tanks and rifles and mortar fire as he crossed the street, as he lay in bed, as he tried to focus on work. He had to get out.)

No surprise, though, to learn that Itzhak feels this way--that he wants, needs, very badly, something more than just a nice solid fuck or two. A deeper connection, an open one. And, well, now that he has a whole different way to go about it...

<<Vulnerable isn't an issue. Needy, that's another thing.>> A sense of August resettling himself, probably stretching out on his bed. <<And you're working on it, forming bonds. With us,>> (FinchIgnacioAugust, more a visual of them than any names), <<and others.>> (IsoldeAlexander.)

<<So if that's not enough then something is holding you back from what you actually want, and making you want this in its place. When what we really want can't happen, we'll take what we think we can get.>> Another thing he saw a lot of, in the VA, in group counseling. Bad coping mechanisms.

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God knows Itzhak has plenty of those. He didn't earn those tattoos on his knuckles for being Rainbow frikkin' Bright (the thought comes through). It's rapidly followed by associations that he strips the visuals from. Blood in his mouth, muscles burning, heart hammering with fear and fury, years on years, until parts of his emotional life were so scarred they no longer worked at all. It's comforting that August knows exactly what that feels like.

<<I guess I feel pretty awkward about it. That's what I was trying to write out, wouldn't come. You've got somebody. You and me spent a while hanging out when you didn't, and we still didn't jump into bed.>> He's actually proud of that--look, Ma, he made a friend, a real one. <<So, pretty goddamn embarrassing to go all hot and bothered for you. And him. But also you.>>

---

August's reaction is just a low and thoughtful hum, like the droning of bees in summer flowers. <<We work with what we've got,>> is the first thing he thinks when it comes to the various craters inside of themselves. He inadvertently thinks of the crocuses and orange jessamines; they're sitting in a greenhouse, multiplying. Growing in defiance, or maybe as some kind of promise.

That shifts, now it's that huge, single aspen in the clearing out front of the cabin. There's an array of hummingbird feeders hanging from it, mostly colorful things made of recycled glass. It's night, so there's nothing at them right now, but it's not hard to imagine how busy they are during the day. <<For what it's worth, I wouldn't have. I got that out of my system in college.>> Mild amusement there; ah what a trip down memory lane this is. <<And once you've had one or two really good relationships--even if they have to end--the tumbling into bed doesn't amount to much anymore. It's nice, for what it is, but it's not a foundation for something significant. That has to come from somewhere else.>> A mild ripple of...not regret, per se. It's bittersweet, knowing that these times he remembers fondly also marked an end of another facet of his life. So it went.

<<Also, after you've spent a month getting to know someone, the first time you have sex with them tends to be mindblowing.>> He's frank about that, entirely unembarrassed to reveal his methods.

Another resettling. Now the scar on his shoulder is itchy. Summer can't end soon enough. <<Anyways. I get why you feel awkward, but if part of that's because you're worried about what I'll think, don't. You're going through some shit,>> a small ripple of 'I know I don't know the half of it', <<it's reasonable to need people in a time like that. Anyways, it's also flattering.>>