2019-10-09 - Blue and Yellow

August is spending the evening out in the living room while Eleanor attempts to get some actual, restful sleep. He's keep one ear trained for the sound of her voice, while the rest of his attention's focused on the task at hand: he's making a small wreath, or crown. The base of thin aspen branches with their bright autumn-yellow leaves is done, and now he's carefully winding in the laurels. They'd never been able to afford fancy winter decorations when he was young, so he and his sisters had done a lot of wreath making.

A handful of antler tips and grouse feathers sit to one side, as well as a single, gilded oak leaf. That'll come later; for now, he's carefully winding the laurel around the backing wire and between the aspen. A pair of garment bags hang over the back of the couch, one considerably newer than the other.

Knock knock on the door. "Hey," Itzhak's voice calls through, as quiet as he can while still making himself heard. "I can feel you in there, Roen. Open up."

When the door's opened, he's standing leaning on the doorjamb. His face is a mess, huge purple bruises on his jaw climbing up his cheekbone.

August glances up, pleasantly surprised at first. But then he hears Itzhak's voice, and before he even opens the door he knows what he'll be seeing.

He's looking downright domestic, in a slim fit, black sweater and dark blue, ribbed cardigan with his jeans and black, heavy socks. He arches an eyebrow, gestures for Itzhak to come in. "Did you go get drunk and start a bar brawl without me? I'm insulted."

"Sorta?" Itzhak smirks, which looks like it hurts. He comes in. Not only does his face look like someone used it as a speedbag, he's soaked to the skin. No jacket, merely a long-sleeved henley in between him and the rainy October night. There's a weird tension in him, not that he's ever not tense, but it's definitely ratcheted up a notch or three. "Don't you look adorable," he says, raising his eyebrows at August.

August sighs dramatically. "This is what happens when you get old--everyone assumes you're done raising hell." Of course, maybe he is, but he's nowhere near ready to admit it. Not yet.

He preens in response to the comment, gestures at the couch. Some of his levity fades as he takes in that tension, the way Itzhak has no jacket on despite the cold. "Want anything? Coffee, toddy, hot cider?"

His wreath-in-progress is spread out on the coffee table, half done.

"I wouldn't say no to a toddy." Itzhak looks down at himself, his shirt and jeans clinging to him. He's dripping on the tile. "Uh. I don't wanna get Ellie's carpet soggy."

The water obeys him, dropping out of his clothes. Sploosh! It collects in a puddle. Itzhak opens the door again and shoos it out. "Get outta heah." The puddle slinks away down the porch steps. Itzhak's hair is still wet, but he ignores it.

"Toddy it is." August adds to his whole domesticity vibe by puttering around in the kitchen, getting the going. He pauses to watch the water get shooed out the door, shakes his head. "You need to teach me how to do that. I can lift a couple hundred pounds, but something that subtle, s'a bit of a stretch."

A couple minutes later he comes out with two mugs, offers one to Itzhak while he sips from the other. "Want me to ah," he raises his chin at Itzhak's head, "take care of that? If you've got a cold coming on I can get rid of it too."

"Neat trick, huh?" Itzhak unlaces his boots, steps out of them, leaves them in the entryway. He flops on the couch and winces, hand going to his side. When August comes out to offer him a mug, he takes it and wraps his cold hands around it. The water's gone but he's still chilled. "Uh, could ya?" he says, humbly, and bats his eyelashes. "If it won't bother you too much?"

"Pretty sure it's not just a trick," August says on a wry smile. He settles himself on the other end of the couch, had a sip of his own toddy. His attention shifts to the wreath his making, specifically the feathers. It's just a place to stare while he looks with a different sense, feels along those stands of energy that make up Itzhak for the ones that aren't flowing quite right, have been damaged and tangled, put out of order.

He overshoots a little. Well, maybe his power is changing. But every last mild complaint Itzhak could possibly have is gone, just like that. August blinks, rubs at his eyes, sips from the toddy to wash down the lingering spectre of nausea from the injuries. "I sure hope you gave as good as you got," he murmurs, giving Itzhak a sidelong glance.

Itzhak sips carefully at the hot drink, wincing. He follows August's attention to the wreath and the feathers, looking at it curiously. Then--whoo! THEN August hits him with healing and Itzhak gasps, eyes popping wide. The bruises fade, the swelling goes down. He had maybe a little crack in one rib, under further contusions on his torso, but he's left as fit as his fiddle when August is through with him.

"JeeZUS, Roen," he says, and then promptly blushes red. "You didn't have to do me that hard." He shoots him an amused if embarrassed glance. "Yeah, well, I tried. Slightly got my ass kicked. Holy shit, that feels better." He sags against the couch back with a limp flexibility he hasn't had since the flu knocked him over. "Thanks, pal."

August surveys Itzhak, clearly taking him in again. "Yeah." He looks down at his free hand, turns it this way and that. Frowns, flexes his long, work-hardened fingers. "Kind of been feeling like something's changing. Not sure what it is, though." He looks down into his toddy, has another drink.

Voice low, he says, "Ellie got dragged Over There."

Itzhak feels his jaw and cheek and eye socket with careful fingertips, prodding at his healed flesh. "Nice."

Should he tell him who kicked his ass? Prrrrobably not.

He looks over, eyebrows up. "She okay?"

"Yeah." You wouldn't know it by the look on August's face and the way he's fingering his mug, though. "She was banged up but it healed okay." And then he spent a couple minutes working real hard on not dry heaving, plus an hour on not having a panic attack, refusing to leave her side. But who's counting?

Oh, right--he is. "She was over there alone." Now he laughs, rueful, resigned. "Came back talking about, selkies and Dream...walkers? Or something, had this glowing rock..." He sighs, shakes his head. All three of his experiences if this sort have been nightmares. He clings to how Itzhak and now Eleanor have described it, but in the back of his mind, he smells concrete, sees the blighted tree, hears that ungodly voice.

"Dream...runners?" Itzhak suggests. He sets the mug down so he can lean over and rub August's back. That look on his friend's face; he knows it well by now. "Selkies, those are the gals with the cloaks, right? Turn into seals?"

The torch he's been carrying to convince everyone of the Veil's beauty has been moderated by time and more experience. He just listens, observes August's distress. "Hey, you know, I owe you a hug." He scoots over so he can wrap his arms around him.

"Runners--yeah." August sighs at the back rubbing, wincing and leaning into it. His spine's cranky today, and since Eleanor's still dealing with her fever August doesn't want to turn up the heat like he would at home.

He makes a low sound, sets the mug down on the coffee table so he can return the hug. "Thanks," he says, momentarily exhausted by everything. "I'm a little annoyed that you guys got seal women and giant seafood and unicorns and so far I have been turned inside out. That's just...rude."

"I see no lies." Itzhak settles back, keeps rubbing August's back since he seemed to like it. "You get a zombie tree with an attitude problem, I get a unicorn. Ain't fair. I wish..." he trails off, then picks back up, quiet. "No reason why I can't, I guess. Sometime if you want I'll take you across the border and you can see some of the things I see Over There. Maybe even a unicorn. But not until you're better."

Himself, he's better. All the way better. August regrew his lost muscle mass, banished his fatigue, and practically polished him to a high gleam.

August mmmms at the rubbing, takes up a grouse feather and toys with it. "I'd like that," he says, eventually. "You can show me some things. Maybe if They're not the ones picking where we go, it's not always...you know. The ugly shit." He squints, wondering to what extent the fever plays into that.

"Ellie's rock--it's kind of like that hank of hair you got. You know? The energy in it," he rubs two fingers together, makes a face, "it's different somehow. Doesn't resonate the same." He laughs, soft and quiet. "Alexander told me I should smash it."

"Did he? Why? I mean, he's pretty smart. If he thinks there's a good reason, maybe you oughta think about it." Itzhak picks up the mug, because there's fine hot toddy to imbibe while he rubs August's back in a platonically gay fashion. "He's educated, yannow?"

"He didn't say specifically." August gives Itzhak a critical look. "Educated, eh? If he told you to burn your unicorn hair bow, I'm pretty sure the response would be 'Alexander, go fuck yourself'." He makes another of those appreciative sounds, trades the grouse feather for this toddy and takes a sip. "She was too excited about it. I couldn't deal with telling her it might be dangerous. Once she's feeling better, we can take it back."

Itzhak attempts, unconvincingly, to look innocent. "Well, but...c'mon, it's unicorn hair. I met a unicorn, he didn't." THEREFORE HE IS CORRECT. "Where'd the rock come from? Does it matter? ...taking it back is a pretty good idea though. I'm not gonna take back my bow, but she gave me her hair. It was a gift. That makes a difference, right?"

Yeah, he's way too attached to that hair. Realizing he's protesting something nobody is telling him to do, he clears his throat. "Uh, yeah, so, anyway. What's this ya making here?"

August bobs his eyebrows at Itzhak in a knowing fashion; it's the kind of singular expression which stands in for whole monologues about how right he is. Still, he says, "It might matter. Not sure if someone gave it to her, or, what." He shrugs. It's not like the fever isn't making it hard for Eleanor to order her thoughts and thus succinctly explain what happened over there.

He spares Itzhak further scrutiny in that topic, gestures down at the wreath. "For Gohl. Figured it might look odd, everyone else putting something in there if I didn't, even though..." Even though the tree would be right there. He makes a face, continues, "So. 'Crowned with lilies and with laurel'." He fingers a laurel leaf, smells the heady, sharp scent on his fingers. "Was gonna ask Alexander if he wanted me to put together some arrangements. Wouldn't be fancy, but." But neither would anything Gohl could have expected back then, either.

Itzhak slides August an amused sideways look. 'Yeah yeah' is what that look says. August is always right. Itzhak will still rub his back while Ellie is out of commission.

He looks at the wreath, too. "For your sacrifice? Yeah, I can see that." Leaning down, he smells the laurel leaf. "Arrangements? Like, flowers? Feh. S'too good for him." Itzhak mutters that last into his mug. "Guess we're not really doing it for him, on the other hand. Doing it for us. Hya's parents. Bex's little sister. Everyone else who died or lost somebody. That's practically everybody in this town."

"Exactly." August's expression tightens when Itzhak hits a sensitive spot. "It's for all of them, and for us. If we have to give up something important to us, some part of ourselves that we're going to miss, well, I think we earn the right to mourn that. Lets us mourn him by proxy, in a way, so he can get a move on." He doesn't say, but is plainly thinking, 'so we don't have to actually mourn that bastard'.

He glances down at the aspen leaves, so yellow against the green of the laurel. And maybe, just maybe, their sacrifices won't haunt them afterwards. Maybe they'll rest in peace too.

He murmurs, "Sure is," around a drink of toddy. "Why we ought to do it right, I figure."

Itzhak will say it. "Nah fuck him, he doesn't get mourned. I hope when he's lying dead in the ground, he bakes bagels and can't eat 'em." Truly a terrible Yiddish curse. "...that okay?" he adds, a little concerned when August winces. "Got all that metal right under there." The pads of his fingers press delicately.

August coughs a soft laugh. "Brutal," he says, giving Itzhak a sidelong smile. He mmmms, nods. "Yeah, it's fine. As much as it's nice to not have the heat making the scars itch, the cold and damp making the bones ache is kind of a rough trade off, you know?"

He reaches down to toy with an antler tip. Thinking of Bennie and Easton, and Alexander stuck at his cabin, August says, "This had better work."

"Yeah, I bet it's rough." Itzhak rubs there, his clever hand gentle. "I think it'll work. Okay, I hope it'll work, but...I dunno, it feels right. Feels like the right procedure, you know?"

He's quiet while he drinks the hot tea and liquor, and rubs August's back, and watches August toy with the things he's working on.

"Guess you figured it out," he says softly after that time. "But I want you to know. I'm sacrificing my violin."

August doesn't say anything at first. Then he sets down the antler tip, takes up a grouse feather. "Yeah," he says finally. Glances sidelong at him. "When you were in Seattle, you thought about renting a violin. I figured that could only mean you'd broken it, because of Gohl, or..." Or.

He sighs, straightens up and half turns to face him. "I know that violin means a lot to you. Which," his eyes narrow, "is the point, if course. Just the same. I'm sorry. And if there's anything I can do, please tell me. I know those things don't come cheap, and I know anything else you get, it won't be the same." He hesitates, raises his eyebrows to see if Itzhak maybe needs a hug.

"I'm gonna miss her." Itzhak stares at the nascent wreath. "You know what the worst part is? The worst part is I know I'm gonna cry in front of everybody." Voice clogging up, he turns to August to request that hug himself, mashes his face against August's shoulder the way he does.

August slides an arm around Itzhak, holds him tight like he's requested in the past. "That's okay. Really, it is. I like to think the stuff we're giving up will appreciate it, you know? You're saying goodbye, letting it know you're not going to forget, not giving it up because you wanted to. That you'll always remember it. Love it, really." He sighs. "Doesn't make it easier, but...maybe it makes it better, in the long run. Purer." Like the tattoos over his scars, reclaiming a horrible thing that couldn't be undone, just survived.

Itzhak sniffles a little, but sighs in relief. Tight hugs calm him in a way almost nothing else can. He nods, head bobbing against August's shoulder. "Just hurts right now. Hurts like hell. I keep thinking it shouldn't, maybe, it's just a thing, I always care too much about things. But I do. It's stupid and I do." He scrubs at one eye (he can do that now that August healed his face).

August shakes his head. "It's not stupid," he insists, voice low and rough. "Caring about things isn't stupid unless it's at the expense of people and animals. Things represent a lot to us." He thinks of the flags that were all some family members had of their loved ones, of the letters and photos his sisters hard sent him overseas, of the gifts, small though they were, that he'd gotten in the hospital, of the aspen, of the violin. "They teach us. Guide us. Get us through hard times. Sure, they're not as important as our family and loved ones, but that's doesn't make them disposable."

How many times had he sat under that tree and just listened to it, wondering where its grove was? How much music had Itzhak made on that violin with people he'd loved?

He thinks of the blighted aspen. "It'll hurt for a while. I guess that's how we know it's right."