2019-11-10 - Needed to Ask

After a night that bled into an early morning meeting with Alexander, Easton finally has managed to rouse himself from bed at the crack of 9 in the evening. It's not unusual for Bennie and Easton to have all sorts of strange hours between her eleventy jobs and his late nights. But now that he's showered and done his best to eat some real food, having to instead suffice on just the plain brown rice left over from this week's meal prep, Easton is seated out on the balcony with a beer on the side table and a cigarette in his hand. Getting some rest helps him look less like a zombie, but there are still dark circles under his eyes from that screwed up sleep schedule. He's wrapped in an large hoodie, with a pair of loose fleece sweatpants on to keep him warm in the damp, chilly fall air.

When Bennie says she's picking up a shift, that can either be at the diner or the FD, so it's a crap shoot as to what uniform she's coming home in. Tonight, it looks like she was out saving lives instead of feeding them, because she's in her dark blue utilitarian pants and collared shirt, with a GHFD fleece lined windbreaker still on her shoulders as she comes to open the patio door and lean against the jamb so she can undo her shoes. It used to be that she'd immediately spring into his arms and cover him with kisses and embraces until he had no choice but to smile, but those tendencies have been reined in since the Occurrence. "Hey sugar, you doing okay?"

The lack of Bennie jumping in his lap and enthusiastically and thoroughly invading his space is something Easton tries not to dwell on. It's clearly noticed, the contrast couldn't be clearer but there's not much he can do about that. He looks up at her and takes one last drag off the cigarette before stubbing it out and standing to come inside. "No." His voice is quiet, at least for him, "Not really." He heads towards the kitchen, beer in hand. "I saw Judd in the Dream. Or something wearing his face." He waits until he can face her to say this, but doesn't hedge about it, just rips off the bandaid. He knows it's going to hurt.

Bennie hobbles back from the door on a half unlaced boot to get out of his way so he can pass, then starts hopping on one foot to one of the counter chairs to finish the rest. She's frowning sympathetically as he says no, eyes lifting as he turns to face her and express the rest. He leg thumps back down so both feet dangle lifeless from her seat, one booted, one not. "But I wasn't there. It wasn't...I didn't...It wasn't my Dream, Easton. I haven't gotten lost recently. Why was Judd in your Dream?"

Easton shrugs and says, "It wasn't him. Not like .. it's not like Tom. I mean, I think?" Easton sighs as he picks through takeout bags, actual food that is hot and edible and doesn't taste like cardboard bits. "Bennie. He was ... something wanted to fuck with me. To punish me for what I did to you." He doesn't bring up the subject often, wanting to let her control how much they talk about it. But it can't really be avoided if he wants to get to the next bit. "I don't think you ever told me. What happened to Judd?" She told him she didn't know, or they weren't sure, but now he's questioning that. He's questioning a lot of things.

Bennie turns her head slightly away from Easton, like she'd rather flee that have that conversation, but with Judd in the mix it's not like she can avoid the conversation and find out what happened in Easton's dream. "They...we were never told. Not really." She clears her throat and pulls up her foot again to wiggle out of her other boot, tossing them near each other to the wall instead of just leaving them in the middle of the floor. "Just that he was killed in the line of duty, doing something classified. Though the dates don't line up with the report? I dunno. I just remember being frustrated with it being a month before we could have him back in the states for a funeral."

Easton watches her pull away, knows the subject is still rough and raw and he wouldn't bring it up lightly. He frowns and says, "No call from his commanding officer explaining it?" A call Easton had to make more than once unfortunately, though technically not required it's the least a CO can do. He shakes his head and says, "Okay. Would you be pissed if I looked around? Maybe tried to find some guys from his company to ask about it?" Alexander already offered to dig into it, but Easton wants to make sure he has her blessing first. No point in doing it if it's just going to hurt her more.

Bennie scrunches up her socked toes and then stretches them out while she chews on the inner pad of her cheek, her face screws up and she looks at Easton from the top of her eyes with her face slightly canted down. "Sweets..." She stretches one leg out and slips a hip off the chair so she slides the rest of the way down. "Okay. How about this. I...will say yes. You can dig into whatever you want. But first..." She picks her way into the kitchen, hesitant almost as she reaches out a hand to waist and curves around his side. "You're going to have to tell me what's got you so rattled."

Easton unpacks containers of Thai and gets out silverware as she debates the offer. He leans into her as she sidles up to him, wanting so much to get back to the days of her readily invading his space with abandon. But that's going to have to wait. Because he has a feeling this next part isn't going to go so smoothly. "That's a good deal. Unfortunately, what's got me so rattled was some of what Dream time Judd had to say." He stops unboxing food and turns to her, "Babe. Are you taking anything? Since what happened? Did I.. are you.. Can you please tell me? I won't judge, I promise. I have taken everything under the sun. I'm just worried..." He trails off and doesn't add the specific worry to that sentence. She's been clear that so many people were afraid they would break her and she hated that, but Easton can't help but worry that he did just that.

Bennie pulls back slightly from the loose embrace, only so that she can look Easton in the eye. "I mean, there was the coke but that was totally a one time thing because I thought it would help me get through the night. But then I ended up on the bathroom floor of the bus station, fighting off the feeling of needing to flee Gray Harbor. August burned it out of my system. So much so he left me without even the slightest craving for more like I was afraid there'd be. And you already know about the Adderall, that's no secret any more. But I mean.." She's just babbling away like normal, but then stops herself as the question catches up to her. "Wait. What exactly are you asking..?"

The story about what happened after the hotel room causes Easton's eyebrows to raise. He didn't know for certain it was coke in her system, but that sounds about right. One of the first hard drugs he did, he knows it pretty damn well. He adds, "Guess I owe Auggie a drink." When she asks what this is all about he looks at her, as if trying to decide if she's very good at bluffing or if he should just drop all this now. But he knows he can't just drop it.

"Judd. In the dream, he said you started taking something after what happened. After I hurt you." He feels the need to clarify. To own the fact that it's just 'an incidence' or 'what happened' to make it a euphamism lets him off the hook too much. "And that you had a stash somewhere. Babe, I am the last person to lecture about abusing pain killers or whatever. I just need to know if you are doing something else. And then we can at least talk about it. That's it." It really wasn't that long ago that he was madly chasing oxy or percs anywhere, and he's not about to pretend otherwise.

"And Alexander, if you want to get technical. He...voodoo mind melded me and calmed me down mentally then August took care of the physical. Fun right?" Bennie turns her head away, sweeping hair behind her ear in a nervous gesture as she recounts the evening. With a sigh she makes sure to find eye contact again before she continues. "Look, I'm sorry you had to go through that, I really am, but babe there's nothing. I swear. If you don't believe me, I'll take a piss test. You can toss the apartment. I'll give you the keys to the storage unit. Or you can just trust me. I won't go near so much as a melatonin if it can be helped. Not after..." Her mom.

"I do. Want to get technical. But only because I'm so glad there were people to help you." Easton lets a small smile creep across his face at the thought that they do have some seriously great people in their lives. Aidan broke his leg for him, and then healed it. Alexander and August helped Bennie come down from a cocaine binge and bolt plan. Those are solid friends right there. Easton seems confused when she's apologizing to him, but then he gets what she's saying. "No, it's fine. I just ... I needed to ask." He looks her in the eyes, watches her deny it with the right amount of vehemence and everything. "Okay." He nods and says, "If you want me to trust you, then okay." And if she's lying? He will deal with that then.

"Now. Are you gong to pretend like you aren't going to eat half my order of pad thai still, or should I just get plates and split this up now?"

Bennie lifts her hand to his face, fingernail tracing on that tiny slice of skin between his beard and the curve of his bottom lip. "I promise." She repeats and then hesitantly presses a kiss to his lips. "Better get a plate." Her smile lacks the normal luster she offers most of the world, but perhaps that makes it more genuine. It's born out of something genuine instead of a mask she wears over the truth. Daring to be playful, she gives him a quick swat to his hip. "So that was it? Some Veil Monster wearing my brother's face told you I was tweaking out? That's what's gotten you so upset and suddenly wanting to find out what happened to Judd?"

Watching her as she traces his lips and then leans in for a kiss Easton tries to force himself to believe her. If that's what she says, then okay. He does in fact get out some plates to start splitting up food and after the hip slap he offers a playful hip check of his own, bouncing her out of the way as he moves through to get setup for actually eating. He shrugs at the question, "Yea, something like that. But there was something about what he was doing, filling out a report as a PFC. It was so specific. And so not quite right. And then he wanted to play russian roulette, I won and he lost." Okay that is not exactly what happened but Easton has a terrible suspicion that Judd blew his own brains out on purpose because of something to do with that incident report and he'd rather not broach that topic just yet.

Bennie gets bounced away with a little chirp of laughter and she goes to jump up on the counter instead of taking a proper seat in one of the chairs. With a little wiggle, she shoulders out of her GHFD jacket and drapes it over a knee. She's not back to 'carefree swinging of legs' yet, but sitting up on the counter might be a little nod to cheerful ray of sunshine she used to be. And then, at the mention of 'Russian Roulette', her breath seems to get stuck in her lungs, so much so she coughs and sputters to try and right it. "Jesus. Easton. What if you had...oh God. You wouldn't have....you don't....that's not something you come back from. What happens over there...." She's reaching out for him, trying to snag his arm or his sleeve or something and when she gets a hold of it, she'll try to reel him in with similar grabs about his person.

Dishing out food onto plates, Easton grins as he watches her bounce up on the counter and shimmy out of her jacket. It's not exactly a return to form, but it's good progress on the way there and it helps soothe some of his guilt and anger. He gets a little nervous when she sputters, worried that he's already tipped his hand about his suspicions about Judd. Oh, right, himself. "No. Nononono. I cheated." He is quick to admit, "I could feel where the bullet was, it was just a matter of keeping track of it with my head. I wasn't about to go out like that." He lets himself get reeled in though, and steals a kiss in the process. "I ain't going anywhere."

The kiss goes just as long of a way to reassure her as his words do, Bennie nodding numbly to the explanation as if she's still floored by the mere concept that he not only played such a game but was able to rig it. She ends up just fisting twin hands into his shirt and leaning her forehead down to his chest. "If he thought I could beat his ass when we were children, I'll show him what I can do now if I ever get a hold of Not Him." She gives a little exhale and a nervous bit of laugh before she leans back and lifts a hand to his cheek. "How'd you get so clever? Now feed me before I gnaw off your other leg."

Easton looks at her as she threatens to beat her dead brother up on his behalf and he manages not to say that she'd break down in tears and hug the crap out of him. Not that he'd blame her. He does say, "And partially what fucked me up is I was sure I heard Tom." He ignores the comment about being clever, it's only clever because it worked and it's not like he wants to try that particular trick again anytime soon. "Not over there, but here, when I was back." He shakes his head and says, "I wasn't prepped for how much that hurt." He finally takes a seat, fresh bottle of beer in hand and says, "But enough about that, I want to eat and then pull every bit of your clothes off with my teeth."