2019-10-17 - You Gotta Fight For Your Right to Be Angry

It's early evening, close to shop closing but not quite there. No customers are about, though, and August shooed everyone off home already. There's not much left to do, and he wanted some time around the property by himself. The lights are all still on, and his black Outback is still parked out front.

He's walking among his outdoor collection, trying to get a feel for what he should rotate. What's feeling pekid, what's feeling robust. Who needs to be rotated back into the big greenhouses. The vine and Japanese maples are in their fall dress, brilliant red and yellow and orange. There's tables of cabbage, ready for ornamental use. And Halloween is just under 2 weeks out, so the first batch of pumpkins is piled up on a series of pallets, white and orange, small and large. (There's also a small selection of sugar pie pumpkins, should anyone be so bold.)

He's in a plain, dark red hoodie, black waffle knit Henley, denim jeans, and his work boots. He pauses among the irises, cut back to simple green fans. They're ready to be planted right before the hard freeze, pictures the only suggestion of their summer glory.

No rumble of muscle car this time. In fact, no car sounds at all, but Itzhak is there, coming around the side of the shop to the outdoor area. He's moving stiffly, not his usual rolling saunter. He's got on an actual peacoat, some big fuzzy woolen black piece of work that could be as old as New York. "Hey," he says, jerking his chin up, and picks his way over, hands in his pockets.

August half-turns, blinks in surprise. He's so used to the car announcing Itzhak that he's caught off guard by him simply appearing. "Hey." He eyes Itzhak, looking him over. "You okay?" For once, he forces himself to not reach out and get the answer for himself. It takes some real effort; his hand flexes, and he busies it toying with an iris, inspecting the cuts on the fronds.

Noting the pea coat, he adds, "Sure hope you have a proper scarf and cap, you're gonna need it. The wind off the ocean can get brutal in December."

"Sure I do. I'm from New York. Yeah, 'm okay." Itzhak is obviously not that okay, but this is an answer with the flavor of 'so don't ask.' He looks August over in turn. "You okay?" Then his eyebrows tilt up, going unhappy. "Look, I kinda owe you an apology for avoiding you for a week."

August huffs a soft laugh, leaves off harassing his irises to move closer to Itzhak. "Okay," he says, with a subheading of, 'not asking now, might harass you later'. Except then Itzhak gives him a more interesting topic to focus on.

Which is not if he's okay, since that's not how August works. Sure, he's felt Them circling, whispering, is well aware he's probably going to get hauled off for his excessive healing these last couple of weeks. Now that he knows what it is, he finds it much easier to cope with.

He shrugs a shoulder. "I'll be fine." Then he arches an eyebrow. "Thanks. But, I figured you had your reasons." An invitation to offer them, maybe.

Itzhak shrugs back, but with one shoulder only. He can make that look like that's just his unique style of tough-guy nonverbal communication, but it's really because his ribs really hurt on the other side. "That's real pretty," he says absently, studying one of the Japanese maples. Then he grunts. "It's stupid. I didn't want people caring about me. Sounds ridiculous, but, well, I don't got words."

August follow's Itzhak's look to the maples. He moves over to them. "Yeah--I don't plant them around the cabin since they're not native, but I like having them here. They're gorgeous." He runs a hand down the trunk of a tall sapling.

"It sounds ridiculous, but," a shrug of his own, "it's really not." Except how it is. He grunts. "I just mean, I know what that feels like. Everyone's wanting to comfort you, or pity you, or both, and they all want to help. And you'd really rather go somewhere so you can be pissed off and marinade in having a right to be pissed off about the shit you're going through, without someone trying to help you fix it." He's looking at the collection of pumpkins as he says all that. He doesn't focus on Itzhak until he's done. "Anyways. It's okay. We lived. No one got killed by worm monsters or my subconscious." He smiles, faint and wry.

"Yeah. Exactly. Exactly, you get it. Izeleh wanted to, so I let her, but...she's the only one." Itzhak clomps closer, hunched moodily. "Everybody cares so fucking much that I broke my violin and buried her with Gohl. I can't hardly stand it. Why do they care so much?" His voice quivers, not sure if it wants to break or escalate or what. He rubs his nose, sniffs, and glances dolefully at August. "See. I told you it was stupid. It's just like when..."

There he stops himself, his mouth turning down and his eyes widening in horrified realization. "Christ. It's just like when my dad died." He scowls, huddling deeper in the peacoat. "Ugh, hanging around you makes me realize these things, it's the worst."

"A little bit of it's selfish, maybe," August says, voice distant. He's not actually thinking about how people are acting after he broke the violin, except tangentially. "They need you to not be hurting. They need to fix 'it', whatever that is. And if they care enough, maybe that fixes it." His mouth flattens. "Not how things work, of course. Caring helps, but it's not a cureall. It doesn't remake your violin, doesn't..." Doesn't bring people back from the dead. It doesn't lift tons of concrete off their crushed, lifeless bodies.

"All they're doing is helping numb the pain. And they know that. And you know that. And having the pain eased, it helps, but sometimes, you want to feel it. All of it. So you have a right to be angry." He glances at Itzhak, up at the maple leaves. "If people are caring about you, numbing some of the pain, well you have no right to be pissed. Right? That's how society feels." He sighs. "But that's not how injuries--bad ones, deep ones, especially the ones that come from shitty choices we made--really work."

He flinches at the last bit. "Sorry." (He's not sorry about making Itzhak realize things, but he is sorry about Itzhak's dad. Okay maybe he's a little bit sorry about causing the realization, but not much.)

"Well, I sure can relate to wantin' to fix stuff," Itzhak mutters. He eyes the pots and tables like he's trying to decide which one to kick. But Gohl isn't in him anymore, only an ache where his violin used to be, and ironically, that's what puts the Gohlish despair on him. The fucker got to him after all. "Yeah. Like I'm ungrateful or something. But fuck that, Roen. I NEED to--to--" in his pockets, his hands clench. "To be pissed the hell off. And I am, lemme tell ya."

Which probably explains the way he's moving.

"Yeah I can relate to it too," August says, smile grim and bitter. He nods in agreement. "Fuck that. You've got every right to be. But like the fixing, you don't have a right to direct the anger on things and people that don't want it. As long as you're not going that," he shrugs, "look, I won't say it doesn't bother me, to see you hurting, or for you to be avoiding me. But I know why you are. And I don't blame you. And anyways, that's my problem, that it bugs me--not yours. My thing to deal with, in the end, and get over. Or not, and bitch at you about it, and then you can bitch at me about that."

All of which is more than he has the energy for. "Unfortunately we're light on dive bars full of shitty pushy skinheads for you to beat up."

Itzhak half-laughs in a single jerk of his chest. "S'okay. Joey Kelly's as good as twenty shitty skinheads." He stands there looking at August, his expression wary and unhappy. "I don't wanna be bitched out, if it's all the same to you. That's why I'm apologizing and not the de Santos style apology where I just yell at him until he gets the idea." The tug of his mouth is ironic and self-loathing.

August grunts, coughs a soft laugh. "He would be, wouldn't he. Well hey, long as your fists are going to a good cause." He leaves off the maples, shoves his hands in his pockets. "I kind of don't have the energy to bitch you out, or deal with your counter-bitching, so." He tilts his head. "You wanna take a walk about it? Drink about it? It's fine if you wanna be mad, I don't have a problem with listening to you being mad or...whatever else you want to do." He considers Itzhak again, taking in how he's moving. He can't help it, the offer comes out. "You want me to heal it?"

"Been doin' a lotta drinking," Itzhak has to admit. "Even for my 'flirting with functional alcoholism' standards. So let's take a walk. After ya close up." He pulls a face. "You been doing as much healing as I been doing drinking. They're gonna come around for the toll sooner rather than later."

"Is that a no?" August asks, coy. He doesn't just go and heal Itzhak, though, because it's true; They're lurking, ready to pounce, and he knows it. Any more healing and They'll snatch him in the middle of his work day. He's on borrowed time.

Instead, he turns to head back in, do a quick sweep for anyone lurking. Then he starts closing windows and doors, locking them, double-checking cabinet locks, etc. Thoma did most of it on her way out, thankfully. August comes out of the office with a couple of local craft root beers, offers one to Itzhak. His work bag is hoisted over his shoulder. "We can walk the greenbelt, if you want. There's a game trail."

"Uh." Itzhak follows August to the office door, loiters there unconvincingly. He takes the root beer and pops the top off with a key. "Look, it's a, it's up to you but I worry because I know They are gonna slurp you up like spaghetti." Taking a swig, he looks pleasantly surprised. "That's good. Yeah, greenbelt, that sounds fine."

August gives Itzhak a long, searching look. He ducks his head, smiles a little, thinks better of saying what's on his mind. His answer comes in the form of Itzhak's injuries healing, slowly at first in a trickle, then in a rush. August licks his lips when it's done, shakes his head and pops the cap of the root beer off on the counter. He takes a big drink, lets out a slow breath. He points the bottle at Itzhak. "They'll choke on me. So they're welcome to come get some." He jerks his head towards the front door, locks it and arms the alarm on their way out. He stops by his car to lock up his bag in the hatch, then starts heading around back, where the trees cluster around the small offshoot of the Wikash River.

Itzhak shivers, just a little at first, but it escalates into a full-blown shudder as his ribs reseal themselves and the contusions fade away. His eyes drop closed and his lips part. Then he takes a deep breath, like he has carefully not been doing. "Jesus, Roen. Is it just me or are you strong as hell lately?" He flicks August an admiring look. "That's why I like you, pal." As he follows him through the crisp afternoon, he goes on. "I just, yannow, I can't do the math on it. If I let Joey Kelly beat the hell out of me, then you want to heal me, but you pay more for healing me than I do for limping around after being an idiot," he shrugs, easily this time, flips a hand over. "You know what I mean?"

August looks down at his hand, stretches his fingers. "Yeah, I think I'm...changing," he says. Which makes him uneasy; it feels like he has less control, which in his opinion isn't good under any circumstances. Not with the kinds of things they can do.

He leads Itzhak to the spot where Itzhak first opened a door and they all saw the two strange Veil deer. Not the first time August had seen something like those, it turns out. Through those trees is a small game trail which leads to one tracking a stream, fat with autumn rain. The oaks and maples are ten times as brilliant out here in their natural habitat; clumps of aspen add patches of bold yellow to the dark black-green of fir and cedar.

August pulls a face, pauses to look out over the meadow beyond the stream. "I make my own choices. I don't have to heal you." This isn't actually true, but it'll take more than root beer to drag that admission out of him. Eleanor or some very strong liquor will be required for that. "If I ever decide getting beat to shit by Them isn't worth it, well, I won't heal you, and you can wander around with the fruits of your anger-reduction labors." He gives Itzhak a sidelong smile. "Until then? It's not on you that I decide to take what they dish out."

Itzhak hooks an arm around August's big shoulders and hugs him like that. Same height, easy hugs! He even leans over to bonk him gently with his head like an affectionate cat. "You're a treasure, buddy. You gotta look out for yourself along with lookin' out for all of us morons too. Don't think I don't notice." He lets him go, looks up at the brilliant canopy with a faint smile. "Gotta go upstate in New York to get this. Here it's just everywhere."

He walks alongside August when possible, hangs back and lets him break trail when it's not. August is the woodsman here, not him. "How ya dreaming?" he asks, a question that would be confusing in any other town. "Okay in there?"

August returns the hug, messes with Itzhak's hair in the same way he would pet said cat. "Eh, that's what I've got you for, to yell at me when I overdo it, right?" He chases that with a toothy smile, looks overhead at the trees and nods. "Never felt a need to live anywhere else, honestly. Not when all of this is right here."

The undegrowth on the green belt is heavy, with only animals and the occasional person intent on fishing in a small pool formed by the stream's path to shape it. Yet August has no trouble navigating the paths made by the deer. "It's been alright." He seems to pause, think it over. "No more of those kind from when I was feverish, though. Just the usual stuff." Sarajevo, less frequently of late. The aspen, its moods unpredictable, it's anger and grief and hope and youthful exuberence raw and searing.

And the Warden, in the tower...

A little shrug. "The usual," he repeats.

"Sure, I yell at you, not that it does any good." The tousling gets a real smile from Itzhak, despite his kvetching. He rakes his fingers through his curls to re-order them (which doesn't work).

He's slower and more careful along the trail, caught more often by overly friendly blackberry brambles. "This stuff, I swear," he mutters, picking the leggy branch off his coat and tossing it back where it came from. "Got a mind of its own." He glances up to watch August considering the question, much more intently than he'd like to let on. He knows him well enough by now to know he'll dissemble if anything is actually wrong.

But the answer he accepts. "Yeah? 'kay." Itzhak drinks root beer, follows along. "Izeleh and me had dreams about There. We got pulled over, put in prison. Broke out of course," he adds, modestly. "But I dreamed about someone else trapped there. So did she. So...we wanna go back."

August makes a low sound, pauses now and then to help Itzhak out of the brambles. "I had the one you were in," a glance sidelong at Itzhak a moment, in a manner of shared memories, back at their path, "and another. In a sort of tower, that was being shelled. Isabella was in it." He swallows. As bad as the one with the aspen had been, in some ways the one in the tower was worse. The idea of a prison break, then, is heartening. He drawls, "Of course," has some root beer.

But he frowns at the idea of going back. "Can we do that?" he asks, not so much because he thinks Itzhak knows how, but to put it out there. "Go back to those places, like we'd cross Over There?" Now he gives Itzhak a longer look, to see what he thinks of this. He's effectively August's Veil Expert.

Itzhak glances back, and that glance says a lot. It says he remembers throwing aside all other considerations to run to August over a rickety bridge. (And Alexander helped.) That he'd stood naked facing west, the direction he could feel August's presence tugging like a lodestone. That he'd cradled August in his arms when he found him and sang a Hebrew song of healing over him, to the spectre of the tree they had jointly sacrificed to Gohl. Ruiz and Alexander had wanted to heal it. Itzhak hadn't. He'd wanted to kill it again for what it did to August. Is he glad he healed it? Yeah, he is. But he remembers kneeling at the roots of the thing, holding August in his lap, looking up at it and only being able to see how diseased it was.

Yep. Says a lot.

He clears his throat. "More shelling, huh. See, that's why," he waves, as much as he can hemmed in with green like this, "I hate to think of ya...aaah fergeddit. You know my opinion." And Itzhak will be happy to reiterate said opinion at length! But not right now. "She's Alexander's girl, right?"

You know, the one he had a literal meltdown over because he perceives her as perfect.

The question of whether he can find that place again piques the hell out of his interest. "Iiiii dunno!" He ducks low-hanging branches, gets aspen leaves in his hair. "It's like...jeez. It's like if every Dream is a marble, then Over There is Lake Superior filled with marbles and Jello. I don't know, but, that person, they reached out to us. Even Pwill was there in my dream. Maybe he knows the way. Did I ever tell you about Pwill?"

Healing it had forced away the Blight, allowed a new tree to grow in its place and start over. Only a tiny sucker none of them could see as they left, now a sapling clawing its way skyward. Would this one make it to full size without becoming diseased? Only time would tell.

August nods, confirming who Isabella is, grunts about the shelling. It's a thing that's going on inside him all the time; he can't be surprised it shows up in one of these places they're drawn into. Itzhak's Opinion gets a smile, though. "I don't mind you giving it. Reminds me to think about it, at least. Make sure I should be doing it."

August frowns, thinking over the name. He shakes his head, pauses to check a madrone's bark for signs of cankers in an old habit. "Pwill. No, don't think so, no." Madrone declared canker free, August resumes walking. He pulls an aspen leaf from Itzhak's hair, toys with it, tries to pretend he doesn't want the down low on 'Pwill', except he does.

Itzhak's hazel eyes turn up to watch August pluck the leaf free. "Fought with him the first time I went over. But he's not a bad guy, just a reprobate tryin' to get by. Kinda like someone we both know." He hitches his eyebrows at him wryly. "Anyway, he was in that prison, too. He's a, what do you call 'em. With the goat legs and the horns. Also he's really, really hot. Got all this big fluff of black hair with a white streak, one brown eye and one green eye. Anyway, he came to my dream to tell me this, this person, is still a prisoner. Also to tell me I'm not as smart as I think I am," he adds, totally not still kinda stinging about that one. "So maybe he knows a way, or maybe he'll cross over himself. I'm sure the two of you would get on like a house on fire."

August arches an eyebrow at this description of Pwill, and it only gets higher as Itzhak goes on. "A satyr, and a bad boy? Well," he grins, flashing his teeth, "no wonder you're into him. He sounds like a real handful." His tone turns dry. "I'm sure he and I would get along swell."

Studying the aspen leaf, August says, "So he's moved between Over There and...one of these...places. Worlds." He thinks about that, rubs his neck. "Well if he has, stands to reason there's a way to do it. After all, They take us to them. If They have a way, well--there's a way." He makes a low sound. "Can't imagine we can expect Them to explain how. But maybe Pwill can let you in on some secrets. Which," he has a bit more root beer, "sounds like we need to head over and see if we can't find him."

"I'm not into him!" Itzhak promptly denies and equally as promptly blushes. He wrinkles his nose. "I'm red. I can feel it. Look, he's hot and maybe I saw him naked one time and lemme tell you all those Greek cups ain't exaggerating. That doesn't mean I'm into him." Listen to how not into him Itzhak is! Just like he's not into every other hot bad boy in town. He drinks root beer to give himself a second to cool down. "He might be just kinda able to do it in a way we can't emulate, but we absolutely gotta go Over and try to find him. Or his partner in crime, Jaqin, but I'd rather deal with Pwill. She's a shapeshifter, but not like, a druid. Like a mini-Them." He shivers, remembering how naively he'd fought her. And he'd do it again, but at least he'd know how much he was risking.

"Yeah you're very much not into him, I can tell." August nods, firm and resolute, because he's totally agreeing. He makes a show of eyeing Itzhak's face, wrinkles his nose. "Just a little red." He even manages to not laugh when he says that, though he can't help a smile.

He sobers at the mention of this other person. "Mini-Them?" Well he doesn't like the sound of that. Not one not. "Definitely would rather talk to a satyr." And not just for the opportunity to watch Itzhak totally not be into him.

"God, shut up," Itzhak mutters, scrubbing at his unshaven face like he can wipe the blush off. He considers. "He liked Izeleh too," he says, and breaks into an unexpectedly sunny smile. That lasts only half a beat before he's fading back into moodiness. "Mini-Them. Micro-mini-Them, nowhere near as powerful but from the same family tree. The Orochim, which sounds Hebrew but ain't. They have a name and they take actual forms, so they're way less strong than the Nothing."

Still, the prospect of a jaunt across the border is a good one. Itzhak thinks about it, tapping on the bottle to make it tink against his nail. In time to whatever song is running through his head. Is anything not an instrument to this guy? "I sorta feel like we should wait until whatever happens to you, happens. I have literally no idea if that would help, but right now you seem extra delicious. Loaded up, you know?"

"Well, then he has good taste," August says, like he's allowing this satyr might not be complete bad news. The Orochim have him frowning again. "So, sort of the concept of, because they have names and faces, they've given up unreachability." He thinks that over after he's said it. "I guess that makes sense. We can't tak the fight to Them, not really, so at the end of the day the best we can hope to do is keep ourselves in one piece, hold our ground. On the other hand, that limits with They can do without us, or people like us."

He hmphs, annoyed that he's the hold up. Itzhak might have found a way to get him to heal less: being a liability to others. "Yeah, probably. It should be soon. Guess I'm sleeping in shoes and sweats for a few days." He finishes off his root beer.