2019-08-05 - Drinking Alone Together

After a long night of answering questions, not really sleeping and then a long day of trying to explain the unexplainable to the staff and visiting people at the hospital Easton is ready for a drink. Okay fine, so he's been drinking throughout the day, so he's ready for another drink. He is out on the balcony smoking, texting Bennie and Sutton to see if they want to join him in his drinking. He already has a beer in hand, one he snagged from the fridge at TwibS earlier that is mostly warm by now.

Bennie still feels like a guest at Easton's apartment through no fault of his own, living out of the plastic trash bag she brought her clothes over in. That doesn't mean, however, that she's hesitant about using the key that he gave her to open the door. She sort of drifts in without a proper greeting, going to change out of her diner clothes. Having been entirely mindful of the footprint she leaves in the apartment, now she just leaves belongings in her wake. A shoe there, her apron there. Eventually she drags a bottle of tequila out onto the balcony, where she sinks against the railing of his balcony in one of her flowery nightshirt mumu creations. "Hi."

It would be fair to say that Sutton looks not herself when she shows up at the apartment, sometime in the last week having both cut her hair off to the shoulder, and also gone blonde. Straw blonde with honey-colored highlights. Her eyeliner is black and striking, makeup light and neutral, lipstick something pale rather than her usual crimson or fuchsia. She knocks on the door, pushes it open, then shoves it closed behind her, but doesn't lock it. She takes two steps away, then turns around to flip the lock, which she barely ever does at 503. She carries with her the last third of that bottle of Patron from the other night, and a bottle of Spanish red wine. Also her own wine glass, which is just a novelty mug. Feeling fancy, no doubt. "Hey."

It's funny how much Easton expected to bristle at having Bennie living there. He was all grumpy and blustering and really for naught. As much as he likes his space, it turns out he's rather fine with having it invaded at all times, but only by her. When Bennie joins him out on the balcony his gaze redirects from out at the ocean to her and it takes him a moment to say anything, as if his eyes are having trouble focusing and he can't quite see who it is. Finally, he forces a something resembling a smile and gives a "Hey" Both they sure are a chatty bunch tonight. Wonder why that is.

Sutton's entrance does apparently catch his eye though and he turns to call, "Out here." Even though it's not a large enough place that she wouldn't see them out on the balcony. Easton finishes off the rest of the beer with a grimace and sets the empty on the ground against the wall.

The chorus of 'heys' from the three of them causes a small fleeting smile to form on Bennie's lips, but it flickers away as her eyes go out to the Bay. She'll never get used to this view, she wasn't born into a life that should have this view. "You...we...need some patio furniture." It's said somberly, like she's suggesting they pick out some adjoining funeral plots. "Hey, what's that movie where the chick dyes her hair to look like another woman and take her place?" She forgot a glass. She'll drink from the bottle.

Sutton makes her way through the apartment and out to the balcony. She's wearing a short pair of shorts, and an old Seattle PD shirt (not hers, obvs) that's a little big on her. She smiles to Easton and Bennie. "Thanks for the invite, loves." And then she moves to sit down on the floor of the floor of the balcony. She's definitely not picky about it. The Patron is set aside and she uncorks an already open and loosened cork from the bottle, splashing her mug half-full of wine. It's a decent bottle, in the $40 range. Not spectacular, but certainly worthy of drinking. "That's practically a movie genre." Wine bottle goes between them. "You guys need some patio furniture." Is there an echo in here? #coupled

"We do." Easton agrees, and tries his best to be supportive of her saying 'we' in terms of the apartment, but he's generally drained of enthusiasm right now. He might actually think adjoining funeral plots were a reasonable topic of discussion at this point. He looks at Bennie totally mystified by not only the question but the reason for it. Yes, he can tell that Sutton's hair is 'different' and yet his male brain fails to be able to categorize exactly how or the appropriate words for it, so he wisely stays silent.

"We do." Easton actually smiles for a brief moment as he echoes himself. He would drag out furniture from inside but all he has is the counter stools really. He needs more furniture in general. That's what happens when you bin all the furniture from your parents in the apartment and start over without any idea what you are doing.

He looks at the bottles and decides to at least get some glasses. He leaves the women-folk to discuss the hair-color-place-taking genre of films, not to be confused with the small-town-man-versus-busy-city-boyfriend genre of films and heads inside. He comes back with two glasses of ice, and a can of seltzer. His kitchen is stocked weirdly healthy in the bits that aren't filled with booze, so his mixers are rather slim. But a little seltzer helps the patron to feel more like a drink and less like an escape button.

Bennie's thumb nail scratches the curve of her bottom lip, a bit of a smile forming through the fog as Easton repeats himself. This is what he gets for having her and Sutton together in the same place. Partner shenanigans, even if it's lacking the typical vim and vigor in lieu of yesterday's events. "Easton's place doesn't need a woman's touch. It needs a woman's slap upside the head." Not that Bennie has offered much in that way save her most recent suggestion. "Thanks babe." She offers by way of him coming back with glasses and seltzer, and she settles on the floor of the balcony as well, back pressed against the decorative bars of the railing. "How's Dela la?"

Sutton has some insight into adjoining funeral plots if that's a thing that comes up in conversation. She lifts her mug and takes a healthy swig of her wine. Wine is meant to be sipped and enjoyed, but she's on the outlaw train tonight, she is. She wants to smash the escape button, but she's trying to take it slow one half-glass at a time. Personal growth. "My furniture only matches because I literally bought a floor model living room and made them deliver and place it for me."

At the question regarding the status of de la Vega, Sutton grins. Dela la. Hee hee. "Not dead, but he looks like half of a mummy from all the bandages. He's going to be a nightmare by tomorrow afternoon, or whenever they take his pain pump and he's awake enough to realize he can't leave the hospital for a while." It's hard to tell from her tone if she's worried or amused by that. She looks to Bennie. There's a long pause before she asks, no. Before she opens her mouth to ask a question that doesn't escape. Probably to do with the various and sundry woo-woo from the ghostly gun battle. Guess who's epically new to the glimmer? Sutton closes her mouth. Hm.

Missing Bennie's statement about his place needing a woman's slap upside the head Easton misses also the opportunity to quip he needs that as well. He instead just hands Bennie the glass, giving a small nod at her thanks and then pours tequila in each and then leans against the railing. Gone is the loud brash joking that usually pours out of his mouth and instead a somber gloom like Spring's weather hangs about him like a thick miasma. Bennie's question about the Captain (yes, he's just the Captain forever now) cause Easton's eyebrows to raise as he turns to Sutton.

"Not dead is good." Easton listens as Sutton describes the misery that Ruiz has to look forward. He looks at Bennie and then back to Sutton. He also looks like he's about to says something but instead just takes a big gulp.

Bennie arranges her nightgown around her knees, unashamed to be dressed so casually in mixed company if they're just staying in for a night of binge drinking. She nods congenially to Sutton's assessment of Ruiz' condition, "Sorry I couldn't stick around the hospital, but I had to hit my shift at the diner, been calling out too much lately or getting them covered." She splashes tequila - going for the fancier Patron than the random bottle she brought out - and splashing the seltzer in it with a three parts alcohol to one fizzy water ratio. "Crazy night, huh." She just responds vaguely to all the guppying going on. She knows those faces.

“No apologies necessary, Benz.” Sutton does on the fly nicknames when she’s half in the bottle. “I was in my headspace locking it down. Woulda been shit company.” For reasons. Only some of them are about Ruiz nearly dropping dead after she explicitly said do not.

“Yeah. What even was that?” Sutton’s been around for a few not-normal things, but she glossed over almost all of them. Until very, very recently. She looks at Easton. “That happen a lot at your bar?” She usually drinks at the other one.

Easton seems content to just drink while the two chat. But he does give Bennie a look that is supposed to be meaningful but is probably inscrutable at the moment. He finally sets down his glass to pull out a pack of cigarettes. He lights up and take a puff before offering the lit cigarette towards Bennie, who doesn't smoke her own cigarettes so much as 'borrow' his and offers the pack to Sutton. He turns his head to trail out smoke over his shoulder.

"No. First time there." Easton is light on details about the Dream. He looks between the two women before giving at least a little explanation. "That was us slipping into a Dream. A twisted version of reality where anything is possible and it's meant to fuck with you." He breaks his streak of speaking no more than 4 words at a time to deliver that little nugget of wisdom before taking his cigarette back from Bennie and taking another deep pull. He asks curiously, "You know you 'stand out' right?"

These are very important details. Things that Easton normally delivers with a practiced briefing voice that is meant to inform and educate people about their circumstances and how to best navigate the uncertain waters. But tonight he just sounds very tired.

Now it's Bennie's turn to fall silent, grateful for the cigarette that Easton hands her for the excuse to let him do the introduction of Sutton to the harsh reality of their existence because she's busy filling her lungs with smoke. It's a dangerous slope between bumming cigarettes on the occasion and turning it into a habit, but one she's willing to tread at the moment. At least she reaches out to be helpful and refill Sutton's glass with a splash of wine. It's just happenstance she starts humming, "Diamonds" by Rhianna.

Sutton, ever the optimist, reaches over to take a smoke from the pack, fishing it out with fingers dextrous enough to indicate she hasn't had nearly enough to drink. "Cheers, love." Hanging around with Carver has Britished her up a bit more recently, the the accent only appears on words like love, mum, dad, and a few sundry others when she's drinking or in the company of full on Englishmen (or women).

"Oh." Right. That's actually the first and most succinct description of a Dream Sutton's ever likely to get. "Right." She takes that on board with a gulp of wine. When Easton asks about standing out, Sutton's brows go up. "I..." She doesn't quite seem to know what he means, but she says, "In the last couple of... well really since maybe Monday, a couple of times before, I've been having some weird—" she doesn't seem to know how to put it. Auras? Visual disturbances? "Some shit has changed." She looks from Easton to Bennie. She seems to take this all quite well, likely due to Easton's no nonsense delivery, tired or no. That and she's been friends with Carver for a few months, and this basically helps explain that.

Her gaze lingers on Bennie. "Do you, erm, believe in ghosts at all?" Awkward question is awkward, so she asks it mostly of her cup, and the wine in it. Right before she sips again. "Thanks, love," is murmured to the other blonde as she does a compassionate wine refill.

Happy to have the smoke back in his hand Easton doesn't show anymore signs of sharing. He keeps puffing away at it. He tries to give Sutton his best sympathetic looks, understanding that coming to grips with the reality of what they're living in is difficult and confusing. He nods and says, "I'm not a local." he releases a puff of smoke and ammends, "Or an expert." Because apparently those also exist. Or at least people who seem extremely well versed in some of the finer bits. "But people stand out differently to other people. For me it's a gut sense. I kept thinkin' I was about to get shot or stabbed when I first came to town. So many people pinging my nerves." It's hard to describe how it works for him, it's not a visual or auditory sense.

At the question about ghosts, a coughing laugh escapes his lips. It sounds so much like how he asked that question not that long ago. He says very firmly, "Yes. They exist." There's really no room for argument in his mind anymore. "I'm ha.." He trails off and tries to start, "My .." He ends up at the much less personal, "There's one in my apartment." He can't bring himself to talk about Tom right now. And then a horrible thought strikes him. He suddenly looks deathly pale and his eyes look to Bennie. "..fuck." His breath starts to come a little quicker but he forces himself to keep it together and shake that thought out of his head. "Sorry.. what were you saying?"

Bennie's eyebrows push together towards her nose, causing a little 'x' to form on the bridge of it. She can't quite interpret what that look is all about, but it makes her uncomfortable enough to squirm. "Speaking of, I should go..check on our roommate." Not that she's ever done such a thing before, nor is she likely to randomly see Tom again, but it seems a handy reason to excuse herself. But damn right she's taking her drink with her.

Sutton reaches into her pocket. "Yeah, me either." Local, that is. She fishes out a lighter that isn't hers, and uses it to light the cigarette that isn't hers either. She takes a moment to suck in a long drag, tipping her head back to breathe out away from Bennie and Easton both. "Funny, mine has one too." A ghost, she means, which is probably obvious from context.

"That sounds rough, always looking around you wondering where the knife is coming from." She takes a sip of her wine. Her gaze turns to Bennie again as the woman moves to leave. She knows she's probably missing something in the context, but doesn't ask. She watches the woman for a long while as she goes. "Nothing. Just..." Sutton smokes quietly for a moment, sipping her wine before she says, "Everyone survived the bar, so that's something good." A little silver lining. "Sorry, love, sleeping on hospital furniture is poor life choice. I'm all jacked up." More wine is sipped. She ashes over the balcony.

"Ok" Easton agrees to Bennie's reason for leaving but can't quite keep the confusion off his face or stop his brow from furrowing at the reason. He starts to say something else but apparently thinks better of it and then looks down off the balcony to the ground below. He looks to Sutton and confesses, quite out of the blue, "I'm going to fuck this up." He considers that for a moment and adds, "I've already started fucking this up."

"You get used to it." It was a near constant state of living during his active duty deployment, but still point taken. "Yea. The casualty rate could have been much higher." His tone is factual and cold at that statement as if he's trying very hard not to make it an emotional one. At her comment about the hospital bed he says, "Well if you don't feel like sleeping upstairs with your ghost, you can always crash in the spare bedroom here." Yes, he fully intends to keep an eye on Sutton to make sure she's not freaking out and that she's dealing with all of this okay, plus he has no plans to stop drinking anytime soon.

He pours more tequila in the cup, not bothering to top off the seltzer now.

"Do you mean your relationship?" Sutton assumes, as he's just watched Bennie leave the balcony. "If you'll allow me to offer an opinion?" That's a gentle little question, and it's followed up by a quietly stated, "Don't give it up before it's over. You can fuck up a thousand times and unfuck it right quick. Take it from a train wreck." She means herself, obviously. She pauses, "Or good chocolate, flowers, hot sex, and pie." She has no idea what's gone down between Easton and Bennie. Her advice could be more fire on the pile of flammables.

"I'm adjusting quickly. You live through the horror of losing someone you love to death, really the rest is just shit you have to get through." The ghost down in her apartment seems to be haunting her quite thoroughly. At least he didn't follow her here. "That's a lovely offer, thanks. I might take you up on it, but after the fit I threw... probably he'll leave me to it for a while. If he doesn't." She raises her mug. "If he doesn't." She doesn't finish the sentence, because she'll cross that bridge, etc. Plus she may get too drunk to navigate the elevator buttons.

"I should cut back on drinking." She says this to her wine right before she finishes it.

Easton nods at her confirming what he was worried about fucking up. He then looks at her and does a hand motion that seems to invite the opinion. He narrows his eyes as if seeing her differently when she offers the advice. Sure they've been all casual sex jokes and booze up to this point so it's not like they've covered much actual ground in getting to know one another. "I can apologize with the best of 'em. I just hate that I can feel myself fuckin' it up and not do anything about it." Him taking a drink after that statement is the perfection of irony.

"Here here." He agrees about losing someone you love. He then narrows his eyes again and asks, "Is that your ghost?" He then winces, realizing that's probably and asshole question. "I mean. That's how it worked for me. I lost someone. And it's his ghost or.. shit. I don't know. My memories parading around in the shape of his ghost? Maybe?" He sighs and stubs out the cigarette in the crystal ashtray left out on the porch for this purpose. He adds, "Bennie just met 'im." He wants to say more about Tom. To try to express how fucked up it is to see him and how much he hates it and wants it and all those complicated things. But he doesn't. He's not that drunk.

"Same." Easton agrees and yet still finishes off his tequila.

Sutton thinks on that for a moment, and glances between what's left of the Patrón and the wine. She drags the wine over and splashes about half a mug more into her cup, then corks it with finality. A mug and a half total is good for the evening. She makes this deal silently with herself. When she looks over at Easton, she says, "Yes, it is." She adjusts the mug in her hands, turning it a little. "My twin brother."

"If it's just memories shaped like a person, it's pretty damn real. So I'm not sure if it really makes a difference." Sutton pulls her knees up and rests her mug between her thighs and her belly. She knows. She knows how fucked up it is. It's the answer to a prayer and a curse at the same time, which feels ungrateful and awful. She's not drunk enough to say it out loud either. "I watched him die, so it was a super special treat to watch Javi — Javier bleeding out." She sighs out breath.

"Anyway. Bennie's pretty great as a partner. I don't know what she's like as a girlfriend, but I wish you lots of cuddles, happy times, and, of course, pie." She grins a bit at that. Pie is important, y'see.

Pouring more of the tequila still into his glass Easton's now forgoing both ice and seltzer and just drinking tequila. That's probably a good idea. "Oh. Fuck." Easton grimaces without looking up when she reveals who her ghost is. He doesn't quite say he's sorry though. It's something that's becoming almost a belief system for him in some ways now.

"It does." He states that it matters with a firmness of someone who has thought about it, a lot. He says it quietly though, he doesn't really want to talk about why it matters, or how he thought it worked, or what he thought it meant. Thankfully she shares so he doesn't have to fill any silences. "Yea, I imagine that was a treat. You did well, he's gonna be fine."

"Bennie? Is fucking amazing. Just..." He shakes his head and is about to continue but then can't help say, "Are you trying to hint that I should be getting some pie delivered or is that just your solution to relationships in general?"

"That's why they pay me the big bucks." Sutton didn't fuck it up and didn't lose her cool entirely, despite the shooting gallery she found herself in. "I didn't spill my drink in anybody's chest cavity." Hey, hey. Win win! Wait, nobody in Gray Harbor knows that story. Moving right along, Sutton tips back her mug and slams that wine. Should be fun when she tries to get up as all of it hits her at once. "Yeah, he'll be fine. If his heart was gonna quit, it definitely would have resigned by now." Whatever that means. "Powered by tequila."

"Pie is amazing. Sugar. Carbs. Deliciousness. It improves all conversations, all hangovers, all hunger pangs, all munchies." Sutton smiles. "Chocolate pie, extra whipped cream. That's your solution." She looks down into her mug, which seems to be empty again. Funny how that keeps happening. "I'm gonna go crank call his room. I'll be back if my haunting is huffy tonight. I'm gonna tell him to shut his damn mouth, but who knows if he'll listen." She moves to rise, holding onto the balcony rail. Mmm. Yeah, mostly steady. Hey! Steady. It's just her foot's kind of asleep.

"You get paid shit." It's one of the reasons Benny has six jobs. But it's mostly just fun to banter. He's approaching that peak drunkness where he gets loud and rowdy and loses a lot of boundaries. In other words, it's best he go find Bennie. He nods solemnly to Sutton and says, "Spare rooms yours if you need it." Granted it might also have a ghost, but at least he can't talk half the time. He picks up empties and heads inside the apartment as well.

"Where is that gorgeous blond girl with the wonky tooth from earlier tonight?" as he makes his way towards the bedroom.

"Good thing I like mostly cheap stuff." Sutton grins with agreement. "You're right, though. You're totally right." How often do you hear that one, Easton? Sutton's an easygoing guest. And his guest room might have a ghost as her guest room does, but his guest room guest doesn't know all the dirty little secrets she has. Tom might actually be refreshing. "Thanks, love. Say goodnight to your hot blonde."

With that, Sutton takes herself to the door, leaving behind her wine & tequila. The mug goes with her, though. "Night, lovelies!"