2019-10-07 - Goodbye and Good Luck.

The quilt from the motel bed lays in a pastel heap in the corner, radiating it's 80s pattern soaked with unmentionable fluid from years gone by like a toxic substance placed hopefully far enough way to not cause further sickness or death. The bed sheets are at least washed with some regularity and deemed safe enough for Easton to be laying on, face down. Dressed only in a tank top that doesn't cover the bandages on his shoulder and back and a pair of tiny PT shorts that barely cover anything he looks quite dead. Picking his head up to once again stare at his phone and the fifty-third version of a text to Bennie that reads "im sorry. i miss you.", this variation being all lower cased, two periods, no emojis. And while version twenty three with a knife emoji and all caps made him laugh, in a horribly, horribly inappropriate manner this one just makes him sigh and delete it, none of them having actually been sent to Bennie.

The prickle at the back of his neck causes him to stop. The sensation is familiar and yet foreign at the same time as he realizes slowly that he's using his abilities. He's picking something up out of his bag. He carefully turns on to his side as it dawns on him why it feels so foreign. Because he didn't initiate those movements.

The ghost of Tom "Banks" Richmond is just there. Pulling something out of Easton's backpack with a rueful smile, forced to use glimmer, specifically Easton's glimmer, to interact with the physical world he always chooses to make it an extension of his ghostly form. So his hand closes around the small metal plates and holds them while he looks through the scant clothes that Easton threw in there for his week of sequestration. Neither Easton or Tom seem to think it strange that he's going through the stuff, a complete and utter lack of boundaries always permeated their relationship, even more so than the usual lack of privacy among fellow Marines. Finally finding what he's looking for, what Easton knows he's digging around to find, Tom stands up and holds the two objects in his hand.

In the one, a set of dog tags, belonging to one Thomas J. Richmond, deceased. The other, holds a plaid mens casual dress shirt, it is white with a maroon and navy windowpane plaid pattern. The objects are held between them, ostensibly in Tom's hands though Easton can feel the weight of them, the exact precise edges of them. It's his abilities afterall that are actually causing these two objects to float in the air.

Tom speaks first, trying first to use his voice which has decided today to not work it seems. This is a recurring theme for them but ever since Tom discovered he can make use of Easton's gifts it has been even less of a barrier to communication than when he relied on crude hand signals and flashing his bits at Easton. <<Really?>> The single word, or thought, encompasses the hurt accusation, and conveys that Tom knows what's coming and what it might mean.

"What the fuck do you want me to say?" Easton has been put through the ringer as of late. The whiskey bottle with a bendy straw on the floor is nearly empty, ironically one of the things that's helping him keep his temper down. Easton has never been an angry drunk. A likely to stick things where they don't belong drunk, sure, but usually just a louder more naked version of himself. And thus even when he feels that urge to just start screaming at Tom, to yank away the items in his 'hands' and maybe force the pain and anguish he felt in making that decision and sticking to it into the place where Banks' ghost mind should be, he instead just sits up and grabs a pack of cigarettes.

With his one foot on the floor and his stump hanging off the side of the bed Easton lights the cigarette and can't bring himself to look up at Tom right now. There are so many ways in which Easton is trying to do the right thing and feeling like he's being punished for it. He can feel that rush of anger wanting to be unleashed, something far beyond what he's ever had to deal with even at his worst. Keeping his temper in check has always been something he's excelled at and now he finds himself having to work twice as hard in the midst of being crushed by the weight of so much else.

<<You weren't going to say goodbye? You dumb fuck. You know I'm with you on this. I was just pissed you thought you were going to get away without telling me your stupid plan. >>

Tom sits down on the bed next to Easton, again not actually touching it so much as hovering about where sitting on it would put him. He throws an arm around Easton's shoulder as much as ghost can manage to do such things. And not for the first time looks hungrily at the cigarette in Easton's mouth when E takes a deep pull off it. And as Easton exhales he laughs, quietly, as he each ripple hurts his back and shoulder too much.

"You know I hate talking."

<< You love talking. You hate talking about anything real. >>

"Shut up. You're dead. Fucknut."

<< Yea, and I still know you better than anyone else. >>

The smile on Easton's face is weary, but relieved. It feels good to remember this, even if it's not really Tom now. It feels good to remember how well they understood one another and were 100% there for one another. Yes he had a whole squad of Marines that supported and yes, loved, one another but Tom was more. Tom was family. Tom was the first person that Easton ever actually considered actual family, as opposed to just the relatives he barely saw or knew, including his own parents. And Tom would of course understand where he was coming from and it's not like he would have shied away from a sacrifice himself. Of course he would understand.

Holding his cigarette to Tom's mouth despite the fact that he can't actually smoke it, a gesture they had done between them countless times in life, Easton exhales a plume of smoke.

"I miss you."