2019-09-02 - Questionable Coping Methods

The windows at 13 Elm Street are lit up, at least the ones to the living room and kitchen. Alexander's in the kitchen; he's cutting vegetables into pieces and frowning at his cell phone, where presumably a recipe is set up. He looks freshly showered and shaved, his hair damp and pushed back. An impressive set of bruises crawls up one side of his face and down his neck to disappear under the collar of his Megadeth t-shirt, but there's no sign of the actual slash that he obtained. A green cheeked conure is pacing back and forth on top of his cage. And it's loud. Not from the bird, but Alexander has the sound system in the bedroom turned on and turned up, and the whole house is throbbing with loud music. Currently, it's Shinedown, Darkside. Alexander is singing along, as he wields the knife. I might be mental, but I've still got my cred...

The good news is that Easton now is sure which house belongs to Alexander. The bad news is that he likely can't be heard knocking on the front door. Easton's dressed in his usual dark jeans over scuffed up motorcycle boots, with a faded black plain tee shirt. He stands out on the stoop, his 'new' used Jeep parked out on the street. Not to be confused with his last red one, this is one is a British racing green. He has a bottle in a brown paper bag in his hand. After a moment, he tries the knob and peaks his head inside to call out "Clayton?"

It is, actually, unlocked - which is a terrible idea in general on Elm, but there's a part of Alexander that would actually look forward to one of the local hard-ups deciding to waltz in and demand something. His eyes spark when he looks up as the door opens, and his grip tightens on the knife. Then loosens, when Easton's head pokes in. The man gets a friendly, "Easton. Come in." The volume raised to get over the music. "Do you like vegetables?" The coffee table is littered with what is probably research materials, but it looks like he got bored, distracted, frustrated or some combination of the three. Or the bird got into the papers, because they're scattered untidily around the table.

Easton notices the knife, and the grip immediately. He looks down at it and up at Alexander and smiles. "You need a gun. If I was armed, you'd be fucked." He is grinning, clearly enjoying telling Alexander that he needs a gun that he knows he would object to. He does come in and sets down a bottle of whiskey on the kitchen counter. "Let's save the tequila for the captain, uhh.. De La la? Shit." Easton realizes he doesn't actually remember Ruiz's actual last name between his nicknames and Bennie's names for the man. "Javier." He finally manages to come across an actual one.

"I usually eat Keto, unless Bennie is cooking or we're doing takeout, so bring on the veggies."

He peaks into the other room and nods at the bird in greeting, "Luigi." He is sure to not shorten the birds name. As much as he'd like to.

Alexander holds up his hand. The empty hand. From the nearest electrical outlets, thin snakes of electricity snap and twist to gather around his fingers, the miniature storm reflecting in his near-black eyes, his expression blank. The lightning pulses with the beat of the music. "If I didn't know you, and you had a gun, you'd be dead, Easton." Then they disperse, leaving only the strange bitter scent of ozone behind. His eyes drop, the hardness of his expression replaced with bitterness and regret. "Not that it did a damned thing against my great great great grandfather." He drops his hand. "Sorry. I don't...I said I wasn't good company." He tries to offer a smile. "Whiskey is nice. I'll, uh, get us some glasses?" A twitch at the inaccurate name. "Captain Javier Ruiz de la Vega." A quick correction, before he puts down the knife and goes to get a couple of short glasses. Nothing fancy like actual tumblers; the two he finds don't even match. But they do hold alcohol.

"Holy shit" Easton stops and watches with curiosity as Alexander pulls electricity out of the wall and shapes it. He's never seen anything like this. He knows that Aidan can throw fireballs but no one has shown any ability with electricity that he knows of? At least not on this level. He shrugs at the threat and says, "Depends on if I stopped to ask questions." Easton's trust in guns is not swayed by the electricity, but he's also concerned about Alexander's response. "But fuck that. Sorry." He shakes his head and says, "Normally I would hug you. Because I'm glad you're okay, and I ... I'm still a bit confused about this not touching thing, so I'm not going to. And I'd do it with my mind, but I'm pretty sure you would just automatically mind slam me to the ground." His lips quirk up in a smile at the last part. He has no idea if that's a thing, but up until a minute ago he didn't know about the electricity either.

"Don't hug me," Alexander says. It's more regretful than upset or demanding. "I don't think I would automatically mind slam you. I just." Deep breath. "Since the morphine wore off, I've been getting...more nervy. Can't stop thinking about it. Been in a lot of fucked up situations, Easton, but having someone slit my throat and not even being able to figure out how to fight back...that's a new one. I want to," he thinks, "I want to hurt something. So, I'm chopping vegetables." Well, right NOW, he's pouring whiskey into two glasses. His own is small, more of a polite portion than anything, while Easton's is more substantial, and he pushes it towards the man. "But. I hear you're having your own issues."

Easton just nods at the command not to hug him. He knows it's the wrong thing to do, even if he's used to forcing hugs on men who would protest. Usually it was the right thing to do. But he knows better here. This isn't some macho bravado that he needs to push past, this is a wound that he would be jabbing with a knife. He nods and says, "That's understandable. That feeling of powerlessness in the face of something that wanted to kill you is hard, but fuck him, don't break under this shit." It's not the kindest tone.

"So put the knife down and punch me. Come on. Seriously, I get that. Let some of that out." He adds, "I mean maybe don't go for the leg, but you need to hit someone, I get that."

He picks up the glass, unless Alexander looks like he's about to take a swing, and takes a sip.

"Pretty sure the Dark Men are fucking with my head. They want to torture me. Letters I wrote to the families of dead Marines started showing up at my apartment." He takes another drink, a bigger gulp. "But fuck them too. I know the mistakes I made. I know who paid the price."

Alexander gives Easton a startled look, wide-eyed and wary. "I'm not going to hit you! Why would I - I don't want to hurt you. You're my friend." The music has switched to A New Way to Die, so at least that's cheery. He reaches for the glass he poured for himself, and downs it, like the thought of hitting Easton was enough to unsettle him. He pours another small portion. "I won't break. I just need to get over it, is all. Quickly, because something has to be done about Gohl."

He takes a deep breath, then turns his attention to Easton's next words. "God. That's fucked up. I'm sorry." He shakes his head. "Keep your head down. Try not to use your abilities, and hopefully it'll pass. It might not, though. It might...sometimes you get lost. Be careful?"

Easton seems confused by this, "Yea. So? You want to hit something. You want to hurt something. I get it. Fuck Geoff and I are talking about getting a good ol' fashioned fight club going." Because Easton and Geoff are the pinnacle of mental health in terms of coping with pent up frustration and anger. And it's very telling about Easton that he wants Alexander to either hug him or punch him. As if he can't understand how to relate without some physical interaction between them.

"You'll get through it. It might take time, but that's okay. It was super fucked up. Don't beat yourself up more about it."

He finishes off his glass and sets it down hard at the next part. "Hey! No sorries." It comes out a little meaner than he meant and besides it's a rule he already broke, "Shit. I just meant we talked about it. This is all hard and saying sorry just gets meaningless after a while. I will be careful though. And you too, if you want to find shit out about ghosts, we can work with Banks. I tried some.." A flicker of something crosses his face, something he pushes down with a hardened look, "It mostly went well."

"I don't think I'm supposed to hit people just because I want to hurt things, Easton." Alexander does sound a little uncertain about this. "I think that's supposed to be one of those things that I'm very specifically not supposed to do. In general." He gives Easton a long, sort of confused look, then turns back to the recipe and starts putting things into a large, somewhat battered pot. It's not that he's tuned out the conversation, though. He asks, "Does it actually help? All I've ever felt after a fight is sick. Is it a Marine thing?"

A quiet grimace. "It was super fucked up," he agrees, voice quiet. "And sorry. About the sorry." A pause. "That doesn't help, does it? Fuck. Sor--" His teeth click shut and he takes a moment to get himself out of what is likely otherwise to become a perpetual anxious spiral of apologies. He clears his throat. "Yeah. I want to work with ghosts." He hears that hesitation, even without looking at Easton, and it brings him around to stare at the other man. "What did you try? Why only 'mostly'?"

"Fuck 'supposed to'" Easton immediately challenges Alexander on that statement. Again, he wants to be caring, knowing that Alexander is in a raw spot right now but he finds himself falling back into his role as an officer all too easily. He had to guide men through the mental rigor required to be effective. "Sometimes getting that aggression out, in an all out fight even if it's with someone you like is the best damn feeling in the world. To collapse spent on a mat, maybe a little bloodied and bruised. It's.." He struggles for words and just goes with, "I miss it." And he knows Geoff does too.

By about the third sorry, Easton's grinning and shaking his head, "Don't worry about it."

Easton's smile falters though when asked about his work with Tom. "I was able to send thoughts and he could send them back, or even images. It worked fine." He gives a clinical run down if possible to make it easier. "And I could stop him from moving things, just turn that off if I tried." Which leaves the 'mostly'. "But, you mentioned that I should be able to feel his emotions or what he's feeling? I.. that got fucked up." The last part is quiet and before he continues he pours himself another drink.

"I didn't realize I could do that. I never sense that from people and when I tried with Tom, I just lost it. I fucking bawled my eyes out for like an hour."

He takes a drink and shrugs, not conjecturing on why or what happened or wanting to really talk much about those weird emotion things.

"I don't think I've ever hit someone when I wasn't angry at them," Alexander muses, thoughtfully. He considers Easton's words, frowning down at the now empty cutting board. Mental gears can almost be seen to be turning, and he raises a hand to rub at the bruises along the side of his face, pressing hard enough that it has to hurt. "I have a back yard. No mats. But there's grass." Just putting that out there, because it's not like Alexander has any better ideas to deal with his incipient panic attacks

Once that oblique offer is made, he attends back to the experimental issues. "Hmm. No, that would make sense. Sort of. The communication we can do with someone who's like us, it's usually pretty shallow. It's the outside of the mind, intentionally shared. When you start really reading someone, you go deeper, and since he's your ghost - there are probably a lot of memories and emotions that are pretty intense that, uh, make him up? Or are core to why he's with you. He sidles closer, and reaches a hand out to try and place it on Easton's shoulder. It's not a hug, but it's clear he's trying to support the guy who's more touchy feely than he is.

"I actually just joined up at the boxing gym, Kelly's? I need to get back in shape." Says Easton who is obviously quite fit, but he means more in the sense of getting back to fighting fit, versus fitness. "But yea, I'd highly recommend punching people. Or bags at the very least." He looks out the window and says, "I'm definitely game if you want to take a couple swings." He needs to work on his movement more than actually throwing punches anyway.

Easton takes a small sip of his drink, a more reasonable sized one than the gulps of before. He nods at the words and then looks down at the hand on his shoulder questioningly. "Yea, you're right, that's fuckin' weird." He grins and laughs at his own joke, even though he knows he probably shouldn't joke with Alexander about it, he really can't help himself.

Pat. Pat. Alexander tries out the 'sympathetic shoulder contact' thing a couple of times, then pulls back his hand eyes Easton, as if this might have had some easily determined and measured effect on him. He offers a brief smile, puzzled, but willing to go along with whatever Easton finds funny. "I guess it is." He drinks the swallow of whiskey that his glass contains, then says, "All right. So. You want me to try and hit you, while you try to get out of the way? I can do that." There's a flicker of a frown at the mention of Kelly's Gym, but he doesn't say anything about that, just heads to the back door, getting a key from the kitchen door to unlock it.

There's a small backyard out there, fenced in although the wood of the fence looks half rotten. It needs to be mowed, but someone's taken the trouble to plant small flowers in beds around the house, although it's difficult to tell what kind in the dark.

"Yea, I want you to punch me, I'll block or dodge if I can." Easton finishes off his second glass with a less measured gulp and heads after Alexander to the backyard. He looks around at the dark terrain, the uneven ground and various bits of plant life. Good, nothing like starting off with a challenge. He doesn't waste anytime in raising his hands into a traditional boxer stance, knuckles up around his eye sockets to provide some protection for his head. Yes, he probably should have taken the time to wrap Alexander's hands but that's not the point. The point is to get out a little aggression. To hit something. Or in his case, maybe to take a couple physical blows instead of the repeated mental hammering.

"Go for it."

Alexander steps out into the warm night air. He still looks a bit uncertain about all of this, but when Easton takes up a stance, Alexander follows suit. He doesn't ask 'are you sure about this' any more, but even in the dark, his hesitancy can be seen. His stance is - odd. It's clear he's never had any formal instruction, either in boxing or martial arts, although it's serviceable none the less. His initial punches are rather tentative and hesitant, though, like he's not quite sure of what he should be doing.

Stepping lightly, Easton tries to move his feet the way they should, the way they used to. The ground is dark and uneven and he obviously is limited with his left so he mostly finds a decent spot to plant it and pivot off of it. He is able to fully duck and move around some of the punches, others are easily absorbed with a shoulder. He growls, "You're not going to get any aggression out if you don't take a real swing. Believe me, I've been hit much, much harder than you can manage. It'll be fine." Yes, there's a slight bit of goading there, but he wants Alexander to get some of that energy out. And just maybe he wants to remember what it's like to take a real punch.

Alexander breathes out hard, frowning at the man in the dark. He doesn't bother protesting that he was trying his best, because even he can tell that he's not. "A real swing. Fine." He darts forward, then, and actually throws a decent punch with some of his weight behind it, although it's still not enough to get past Easton's guard and footwork. There's a grunt from the older man, a slight sound of frustration. "Maybe you should take a swing back. It's hard. If I don't see you as a threat."

Easton is enjoying the fact that he's moving better than he expected so much that he still deflects Alexander's punch. He says, "Better." at the actual punch but knows that this isn't necessarily helping yet. Granted it might take pissing off Alexander to actually get anywhere. He throws a punch of his own, but it's clumsy. The step into it has no power and it's far slower than he had hoped. Okay, maybe he needs to work on the punching just as much as the moving. "Alright." He tries not to sound disappointed in his lack luster punch.

Alexander flinches away from the punch, but there's a flicker of satisfaction there. Like the aggression from his friend flicks a mental switch for him. He moves in and throws a quick flurry of punches that actually have power behind them, his expression going blank in the dark. Easton's able to block them, but they're hard enough to suggest Alexander's getting over his hesitancy, and the last one would have been a nice, solid blow if it'd landed well. "Okay," Alexander says, and grins, briefly. "Okay. I understand this."

The flurry of punches has Easton moving quickly to deflect, raising shoulders and ducking his head to keep moving. In the dark it might be hard to see the smile creeping across his face. Yes, part of it is because Alexander is finally getting into it. But a good deal of it is that he hasn't fallen on his ass yet or twisted his leg. He even lets out a small laugh at Alexander's admission that he's starting to understand this. He says, "Good." He then stands up and drops this hands down and pats his chest. "Alright now just unload. Full on haymaker." Normally he'd offer his face for this but he suspects that might cause Alexander to back out.

Alexander just stares at him for a moment when Easton drops his guard. His fists just sort of hovering there in place like he's forgotten what to do with them. He grits his teeth, and moves forward, throwing a punch right at the man's chest. It is, honestly, not that great a punch, but hey, at least he's able to make himself do it? He bounces back immediately, looking worried. "Sorry. That was lousy. I just...I do feel a little better?"

Easton makes encouraging motions at Alexander when he hesitates. "Come on." And when he actually throws the punch Easton grunts but doesn't move much. He nods and says, "Not too bad. I think you did better when I was hitting you. You might want to think about sparring or some bag work. Honestly, it can really help to just punch the shit out of something sometimes." Ah, sound words of wisdom from someone who's drinking far too much and keeping all emotions firmly on lockdown.

"You don't have to apologize for lousy punches either." Easton's tone is light, a rueful smile on his lips at the continual apologizing. "I do too. So thanks."

Alexander drops his hands. "You didn't actually hit me," Alexander points out. There's a hint of teasing in his voice. "You could have tried harder. Then I would have felt better about trying to hit you." A pause. "You're good, though. At blocking and dodging." He runs a hand through his hair; they didn't really exert themselves too much, but it's muggy and warm out, and a fine sheen of sweat has popped up on Alexander's forehead, which he wipes away. "I think, uh, bag work? That might be fun. But this was...nice, actually. Thank you." He grins, then. "Guess I know who to call when I need to punch the shit out of something?"

"You blocked well." Easton is happy to compliment him, even if he sounds a bit more surprised than he meant to. "I wouldn't want to actually hit you without gloves on. I mean Geoff? I'll pummel the shit out of bare knuckle, but he'd do the same, so it's fine." He grins and says, "I didn't actually expect to move that well. Especially on rough ground, that.. that means a lot to me." He's not immune to compliments! Honestly. Even if he normally scowls or plays them off. "Absolutely. Just make sure you let me know that's why you're calling. I'm up for this anytime." He likewise has a sweat glistening on his forehead that he wipes off as he heads inside, his gate just a touch more stiff than when he came in, but he's still moving okay on it.

"Yeah. This isn't the easiest terrain, and we're in the dark. It has to be hard to compensate for the leg, but it looked pretty smooth to me," Alexander says, thoughtfully. He follows Easton inside, and pauses to lock the door after them. Luigi gives a suspicious whistle towards the two of them - they are clearly conspiring against him. Alexander clucks reassuringly at the bird, although it couldn't possibly be heard over the music ('Adrenaline'). He doesn't seem to mind the surprise in the compliment, but says, "I'll keep that in mind. And maybe even try to get some other practice in. I guess it can't hurt. The Kellys' place isn't far." Although some of that same reluctance flares up as he mentions the name.

"I was pretty psyched not to end up on my ass actually." Easton knew it was a possibility given his limited mobility right now. The bird's look is completely ignored, Easton doesn't even remember there's a bird in here. He apparently is so focused on needing a drink that he misses Alexander's scowling about the Kelly gym. Nope, he just plods right along with, "Yea, one of the Kelly's is going to help me get get back into moving around again. I'm pretty psyched." Completely oblivious to any hesitation or distaste that Alexander has shown both times the gym and the Kelly's have come up tonight.

"Joey, probably? He's the twin that does most of the gym work, I think." Alexander, perhaps reacting to Easton's being psyched, is careful to keep his voice neutral now - not that Easton seems like he's noticing. There's a flickering look of thought, of calculation. He adds, slowly, "Maybe I'll join you, one day? To try some of that, uh, bag work, at least? Might be interesting. I hear he's a good instructor." He follows Easton back to the bottle, but doesn't pour another glass for himself. He leans against the kitchen counter, crosses his arms over his chest, and watches the other man.

"Yea, I think so." Easton agrees as to which twin it was. He considers making a crack about 'Joseph' but realizes that likely Alexander has already dug into this and verified the man's legal name is in fact Joey. So he just leans against the counter and takes a sip of whiskey. "You should. I think having an outlet for some of that pent up anger is a good idea. Plus it's always good to learn how to keep your head after taking a punch. Though you seem to do just fine." If he notices the look that Alexander is giving him, watching him, he doesn't seem to care. He just takes another drink of whiskey and asks, "Sorry, you were cooking something? Or at least attacking vegetables with a knife?"

"I usually just listen to very loud music, and try to forget about it." A pause. "It's not a very effective strategy, if I'm honest. So, maybe that would be a better one. And I'm used to taking punches." Then Alexander stares blankly at Easton for a moment, before his eyes widen. "Oh! Shit!" He spins around to the stove. "Tell me I didn't turn the stove on..." And it appears he has not! Yay, no fires or burnt food for the moment, so he turns on the heat, adds the spices and the chopped garlic. "And yeah. I thought I'd try this? It's, uh, ratatouille, or something. It seemed pretty simple, and involved a lot of chopping, which suited my mood. The Captain taught me how to make, uh, eggplant lasagna, and that was good? This is only slightly different, and you don't have to layer things."