2019-11-28 - In & Out

The plan has been a long time in the making. Easton needs to be able to move freely into the veil and out before he can even consider going after the asylum. Yes he has a key which he's pretty sure will get him there, but he doesn't know shit about navigating that place or how to get back reliably and that means he's not about to go jumping on over any time soon. Especially since he's probably taking people with him, and he won't put them at risk by not knowing what the hell he's doing. And he only knows one person that can open doors, go and come back, and that's Itzhak.

There are multiple texts to set it up, promises of whatever booze he wants to drink when they get back or before they go depending on Itzhak's preference.

And finally the night arrives. The bar closes early in the off season, except for rare occasions like the Wednesday before Thanksgiving when everyone floods the bars in order to avoid their families that they have come back to town to visit for some reason. And so Easton's asked Itzhak to meet him around closing time, making sure that he has staff on hand that can close up and won't ask any questions about any weirdness. It's funny how many people in this town just accept that either weird stuff happens or can explain it all away, either way that works just fine for Easton.

He's dressed in a black dress shirt (as always when tending bar) and jeans, still finishing up pouring the last round for customers and chatting with them loudly, though he keeps glancing at the door, anxious for the real night to start.

Itzhak shows up precisely at closing time, on the dot. 'Fashionably late' is not a thing with this guy. The little hand strikes the hour and Itzhak is rolling through the door on his unique, funny half-saunter. He's wearing well-used workboots, even more well-used jeans worn to the softness of suede, and a scarf and big woolen peacoat. Neatly he maneuvers around the last few people, and tables and chairs, and swans right up to the bar to upnod at Easton. "Hey."

"Rosencratz!" Easton's voice booms through the bar in greeting. It's become quite common place for friends to come drink after the place shuts down, so much so that other staff have come to expect it. They do the normal close and leave what they don't feel like doing to Easton.

"Do you need a drink before we start?" It should be noted that Easton isn't drinking. So in some ways he looks better, a little more bright eyed, no softness about his movements. On the other hand, he's still recovering from the Dream of the other night so his beard is shaved down to stubble to hide where it was singed off. He has bruises on his throat and bandages around his chest that can't be seen. But he's not drinking, so it maybe balances out.

One of the regulars tries to answer that question for another beer and Easton turns to him and says, "Noope. Not tonight Bill. We're closed. Go home." The older man grumbles but doesn't complain too much as technically those are the hours, even if Easton sometimes let's people stay and drink with him afterwards.

"Marshall, how's by ya." Itzhak offers over a dap on prison-inked bony knuckles. "Nah, no drink to start out with. I gotta be sharp. So do you." He leans his elbows on the bar and quirks his eyebrows at Easton meaningfully. "After, that's the time to get smashed."

Tossing a rag aside, Easton reaches over the bar to dap knuckles. He nods at the comment about the drinks, "Sounds good. After it is." He looks around and for once is able to keep his voice constrained to something more like a conversational tone, a whisper for him, "Did you need a piece? I'm not going over there unarmed and I don't think you should either." He reaches under the bar to pull out a handgun and a shoulder holster. Again the one or two staff members who are left, don't think much about Easton slipping on a shoulder holster and putting a Colt M45A into it. He doesn't pull out another gun yet but waits for Itzhak's response.

Itzhak's clear gray-hazel eyes drop to the gun. "I dunno how to use one, to be real honest with ya," he murmurs. "Probably shoot myself instead, or worse, you. Nah. I got my methods." A sly half-grin tugs his mouth. "I'll show ya."

This doesn't seem to stop Easton from pulling out another smaller gun, but instead of offering it to Itzhak he nods and says "Suit yourself." He slips the small gun into his jeans at the small of his back and says, "Alright. No since Gohl went and fucked shit up, I can't sense the doors across the town like I used to, but there's usually one uhm in my office?" Easton doesn't like to think about why that is. But Itzhak can certainly feel that there is a door nearby.

Itzhak observes Easton loading himself for bear, eyebrows drifting higher. Those things do a lot of talking. Right now they're saying, 'right, I forgot you're a Marine'. "I can hear one out on the beach," he says, straightening up--dude is tall and lanky. "It's singing to me to come open it. Gets a bug in my ear and doesn't let up when that happens. C'mon." He steps back, turns towards the back doors out to the decks.

A small smile creeps over Easton's face when he notices the look from Itzhak, he gives a small shrug as his only comment on the guns. He smirks and says, "You hear them." He stops for a second and let's himself think about how he knows where to find them. It's not audible or visual, it's like he has a compass needle. He shakes his head and says, "I guess I'm just a follow my gut kinda guy." He steps out from behind the bar and opens the big doors out to the deck. "You mind if I try and open it?" He awkwardly makes his way down the stairs and out onto the cold beach.

"I hear 'em." Itzhak confirms, swaggering along after Easton. "People talk about the shine, but I hear a song." He taps one ear. He's letting Easton set the pace, following him without impatience. "Sure you can try to open it. You got me for backup. You got anything you, you know, do? To make stuff happen?" When he reaches the pebbly sand, it crunches quietly under his boots, but doesn't give too far. It holds him up. Just for him. The physical world adores him.

"Yea, the shine thing. I didn't understand what they heck people were talking about. I just get this feeling in my gut, like when you know someone's about to start shit? Or someone's bad news? It's like that. When I first came here I thought I'd cracked and thought that everyone was out to kill me." He shakes his head and says, "Honestly I was relieved when I figured out what it was." He stops and looks at a specific area, and then back at Itzhak and raises his eyebrows. "I don't .. know what you are saying." He has no idea what Itzhak means by doing something to make stuff happen. "Like when I move things? Or start a light?"

Easton shakes his head and reaches out a hand, closing his eyes to focus on finding the exact point and trying to open it.

Itzhak pulls a face. "I wish I had better words for this. Yeah, I mean... like, okay, I sing. Or I play my fiddle. Or something, you know? It just helps. Like things listen to me better if I do." He stands there, tall and lean (and wearing a big bulky peacoat), hands in his pockets, watching. "No shit," he says, kind of impressed, "you had that feeling all the time here and thought people were gonna kill you? Man, that's rough."

If that's how Easton perceives the shine, Itzhak must feel to him dangerous indeed. He is strong, strong. An ocean of power rests in his lanky frame.

Whatever Easton does--the border between the worlds fades under his hand. Thin to begin with, the tension of unreality resists him only gently, and then it gives way altogether. The door opens for him, seductive and luring. What lies beyond me? Come see.

On the other side is a cold, rocky beach just like the one they stood on. The Two If By Sea has become a driftwood structure, elaborate in its ramshackle way; it's lashed together by dried ropes of seaweed, shells hung from it, weird shapes carved into it like graffiti. Whoever built it abandoned it long ago, however; no fires, no lights, no trash.

Way more obvious than that is the huge creature that lies dead on the sand in front of the two men. As big as a whale, it's not a whale; it's some kind of serpentine, scaled sea creature. Draconic, almost. It seems dead, the part of its body still in the water moving gently with the waves.

Seagulls and crows cluster over it, screaming, feeding, ripping shreds of flesh and scale. Then, horribly, the creature stirs, just a little, just enough to make it clear it's still alive.

"No, no I get it. Words are fuckin' hard." Easton often finds himself stuttering and trying to describe all of this wackiness that is his life. He tries to think about what he does to focus his power, and it's all about forcing his will on the world around him. There's no gracious asking like Itzhak, he's all brute force and will. He laughs and says, "Yea. I mean it kept me alive overseas, sometimes you just knew someone was up to shit. And I thought I just couldn't turn that off."

And like Isabella or Lilith or any of the other overwhelming glimmer users, he does feel it. It puts him a little on edge, but not as much as when he first came.

With his eyes closed he can finally feel it, the place where his hand fits in and can open it up. He opens his eyes as the door opens and he can step through. He breathes out slowly as he starts to take in the surroundings. He takes a few steps but then stops short and looks back, making sure Itzhak is still with him and seeing this. His eyes are nearly circles as he looks around trying to take it all in and process it. He lets out a "Hooly shiit." in a tone that sounds awed.

Itzhak is with him. He stepped through immediately on Easton's heels (or, heel). Taking a moment, he looks around, getting his bearings, hands still in his pockets. Then he grimaces at the giant sea serpent-like thing. "Nebakh, the poor bastard."

The scavenger birds have too many eyes. Like, way too many eyes. Not just three-eyed crows here, but six-eyed crows, twelve-eyed crows, bearing round obsidian hemispheres everywhere: on their heads, under their wings, on their wings, on their breasts.

As the men watch, it becomes clear not all of the birds are eating from the still-living beast. Some of them, indistinguishable from those who are feeding, are...putting back shreds of flesh, sewing little gashes together like weaverbirds.

Some of these birds are feasting. Some of them are trying to heal the feast.

Easton is reassured at least that he's not alone in this brave new world. He misunderstands the yiddish and asks, "Is that what it is? A Ne-back?" What? It could be a thing.

He takes a few steps closer to see more of what is going on and starts to make out exactly what's so unsettling about the birds. Both the ones eating and the ones mending. His lip snarls in confusion and disgust at the scene as it plays out. He looks back at Itzhak and says, "I didn't realize it was like this. I mean.." He shakes his head and looks back at him now with a bit more of a smile. It's bizarre yes, but something about it is also so fantastic that it almost doesn't matter.

"Are all animals different here? Are there people?" He hadn't even thought that there would be living things here. He expected ghosts or maybe things from horror stories. But not fantastic beasts.

Itzhak stifles a startled laugh when Easton asks him that. "No, uh, that's something we say in Yiddish when someone's havin' a hard time." He crunches closer, too, unwilling to let Easton get further than an arm's-length or two away. "Sometimes," he says, quietly, watching the tide of tearing and healing wash over the creature. "Animals can be real different. Yeah, there's people. There's people just like us, schmoes tryin' to get along. There's bad people. There's good people. But the good and the bad, it's...more." Itzhak hesitates over the word, not sure if it's the one he wants. "Everything is more. More terrible. More beautiful. More everything."

The laugh gets a side look from Easton, a glare though he's smiling too. "Look, I can barely fuckin' speak English." He is in no rush to get away from Itzhak either. He stays close and says "Things I could have asked before coming here." He laughs a bit at himself for only now realizing how little he actually knows about this place. He shakes his head a little and says, "Okay." trying to figure out what that means about people being more. He has some guesses, but isn't sure. He starts to move away from the beast and up towards the driftwood shack. Over his shoulder he asks, "Do we attract attention if we glimmer here? Like if I make a light am I gonna get a face full of many-eyed crows trying to eat my face? Or have some crazy ass member of their team show up to escort me to get royally fucked?"

"We attract their attention just by crossin' the border." Itzhak says that with callous certainty. "They can smell us. Like sharks smellin' blood in the water. People who got the Song, they eat us. They eat our emotions, when we're scared, when we're angry or sad. That's food to them. The stronger the Song, the better we taste."

So he must be utterly delicious. "That said," he adds, glancing over at Easton, but not following him yet, "probably you won't get a faceful of crows? They might do something weird, though."

The sea creature's huge eye slides open, nictating membrane pulling aside to reveal an eye like striated agate. Itzhak flinches, stepping back, but then stops. "Shit, Marshall, I can't leave her like this," he says, unhappily. So he has been affected by the grisly scene, despite his prison-honed neutral expression.

"Also, good to know." Easton laughs, again realizing just how out of his depth he is on this littler adventure. He nods at the next part and says, "Yea. I know." He's quiet for a moment and then admits, "I thought I had that all figured out. I had Bennie and she's the just brightest ball of goodness." Itzhak didn't ask. Easton's not drunk. But it's obvious something about this is weighing enough on him to get him to just wax on about it. "I was so damn sure she was going to pull me up, keep me free from what they had planned." He shakes his head and says, "And then Gohl. And more. And now I'm pretty sure I was their plan to drag her down."

He realizes he's walked ahead a bit farther than he meant to, and also said way more than he meant to. "Shit. Yea." He agrees that they can't leave the giant sea monster dragon on the beach. Not that Easton feels anything for it, he could easily walk on by, but Itzhak obviously cares and so Easton cares. "We can't move it right? I mean not directly." And from the looks of it it weighs far beyond anything he's budged before. He looks up at the birds and then back down at the beast. "And I can't heal /shit./"

Itzhak looks over at Easton, frowning first--then his eyebrows zoop back up his forehead. Easton's not drunk but it's all coming right out. "Hey. Hey, that don't--that's not your fault. Okay? It just isn't. They fuck with us all. I don't even know as they have plans so much as when they find a stick, they beat you with it. Like a fuckin' pinata, get all the candy out." His tone dips into bitterness. "Uh...is that why Bennie was staying at Alexander's house?" he hazards, warily. "Gohl?" By which he means, something Gohl made Easton do.

He glances back at the serpent thing, mouth twisting. "I can't heal neither. But...hell. We could try lifting the sand."

Easton shakes his head at Itzhak and says, "Yea, sorry, just.." He needs a drink is what. The irony of not drinking making him chatty isn't lost on him. He needs a drink to stop thinking about this, but that's not why he's here. His focus is crap, he mentally berates himself for getting caught up in that personal morose reflection when he's in a hostile unknown land. "And some of it is. For the record." He glances sideways at Itzhak and says "Alexander's? I never asked where. It was.. it was fuckin' terrible." Why is he having this conversation without a glass of booze or a whole bottle in his hand? He sighs and says, "Sorry didn't mean to just dump that on you."

The idea of lifting the sand gets a thoughtful look. "Do we need to lift or can we just make it roll? Like a million little marbles underneath it?" He closes his eyes and reaches out, not to move anything just to feel them. They feel rough and jagged when it really gets down to it, tiny fragments of broken shells and jagged sand particles. His eyes still closed, he asks with a smile, "You really sing to move shit?"

Itzhak colors red. "I...probably shouldn'ta said that." He nudges Easton with a shoulder. "Nah, it's okay, man. You wanna talk about it? We can talk about it. But, back home." Home, on the other side of the border. Then he smiles at him a little. "Roll the sand. That's a great idea. Yeah. I really sing to move shit. You wanna see?"

His eyes open at the shoulder bump. He laughs and agrees "Yea, back home." A bit embarrassed that he even brought it up now, but oh well, a little late.

You wanna see?

"No, I need to see this."

"Well, don't just stand there. Give me a hand." Itzhak eyes the size of the creature. It's big. Like. Really big. Fairly slender for its size, but there's so much of it. "I'm not gonna make you sing, though," he adds, with a glint of mischief.

As they watch, the beast lets its eye close again, in an attitude of deathly exhaustion. Itzhak swallows, and nods. "Okay. Let's do this."

One hand comes out of his coat pocket. He begins to snap, laying down a beat. And then, just like he'd said, he lifts his voice and sings.

"Cracklin' Rosie, get on board / We're gonna ride till there ain't no more to go / Takin' it slow / Lord don't you know / Have made me a time with a poor man's lady..."

He's singing Neil Diamond, standing on this rocky beach. And the beach answers him. The sands rises under the sea creature. All the birds burst away in panicked flight. Rippling, the sands shift under the beast, rolling it back towards the water. The sea serpent's eyes open again once it hits the cold ocean, looking around itself in weary fear.

Easton smirks as Itzhak asks him to lend a hand. At the quip about not asking him to sing he replies, "It's in enough pain already."

He waits, wanting to see what Itzhak does to use his abilities. He can feel it as soon as the song starts, the unfurling of the pent up energy that resonates with something in him. He is almost too distracted to help but then things start shifting and he closes his eyes to catch up. First feeling out the lay out the objects, understanding them, categorizing them into shapes and sizes even across their vast numbers. And then commanding them. Forcing his will out turn the sand from a solid mass into a flowing river, finding more water to make it easier for the sand to wash out towards the sea. The feeling of his reach mixing in with the song pressing it along causes a smile to crease his lips, his head tucks down and there's actually slight reddening of his cheeks. HOLY SHIT! Someone made Easton Marshall blush, even if it was completely accidental! That's possibly a first in his adult life folks.

He opens his eyes as he feels the weight removed from the sand, buoyed by the waves.

Itzhak's power winds itself up with Easton's, his song--his Song--effortlessly lifting the other man's along with it. Itzhak's voice hiccups as his strength surges into Easton's, but he recovers, sings it out. He's got a good voice, rough and tuneful, bang-on key.

"Cracklin' Rosie make me smile / Girl if it lasts for an hour, it's all right / We got all night / To set the world right / Find us a dream that don't ask no questions, yeah!..."

His power really is music, for him. Easton can feel him, weirdly close, intimate. Oh no; Itzhak realizes Easton's blushing and then he promptly does it too. Ugh, stupid capillaries!

Their strength combined lifts the sea creature like a river running high. The sand rolls beneath it, guiding it back to the sea. Waking up, the creature struggles in the shallows, beginning to thrash. It catches water in its broad clawed flippers, not sure what's happening, not sure how it wound up back in the water--but its instincts kick in and it squirms and humps for deeper water, splashing terrifically. The gulls overhead scream. The crows have landed on the driftwood shack and they're all staring with their dozens and dozens of eyes.

The sea serpent raises its head on its long neck and looks back at the two men on the beach. It stares at them for a moment, and then it sinks below the surface.

Easton's power is rough force, with a cadence of it's own, a drill step more than a beat though.

The intimacy of using his power with someone like this does catch him off guard though. It's way more of a connection than he expected, hence the actual blushing. The fact that Itzhak's turns bright red though helps dispel some of the awkwardness of it somehow. He looks over and chuckles, giving the other man a shrug of 'huh, that was unexpected'.

The splashing of the water by the great beast fascinates Easton, seeing the amount of force that it applies. It's his first time seeing a mythical like creature here in the veil, now transformed from what he assumed was a dead or dying thing into a powerful living creature. He stares at it, especially as it seems to look right at them, and only stops once it sinks below. He shakes his head and looks back at Itzhak and says, "Okay. I think that's probably good for my first trip in? Let's get out here before something tries to eat my eyes out or something terrible. I'd like to leave on a high note if that's cool with you?"

He turns back and tries to reach out and sense where they should go. He's hoping Itzhak knows but it'd be good to know if he can just feel it.

"Cracklin' Rose, you're a store bought woman / But you make me sing like a guitar hummin' / So hang on to me girl / Our song keeps runnin' on!

Play it now
Play it now, my baby..."

Itzhak sings through the chorus, raising his voice loud and clear and challenging. Then he lets the song drop, grinning crookedly at Easton. "I dunno if she'll make it. There's probably as many things waitin' to chew on her in the water as out. I just...had to do something. Thanks, pal." He thwaps him lightly on the shoulder. "Yeah. Back across the border."

The door is easy to find; it feels like there's a thread running from it to Easton's frontal lobe. Tug tug.

Easton shrugs and says, "Yea, but at least now it's got a shot." He declines to give her a female pronoun for some reason, but he's not really sure why.

Heading for the door, Easton's comforted at least that he knows the way back. That was one of his biggest concerns was that he would get over here and be inextricably lost or turned around. Yes, there is still plenty of things that he needs to know or wants to ask, but it was a solid first outing. And it is certainly not the last time.

This time he doesn't need to close his eyes, Easton reaches out and finds the place that his powers fit, like a handshake almost and pushes the door open. He steps in and 'holds it' for Itzhak to follow.

Itzhak's eyes are on where the creature vanished beneath the water. "Yeah," he murmurs. Then he takes a breath and follows Easton, back to their own version of reality. It doesn't necessarily make any more sense than this side, but at least there's booze there that won't give them hallucinations.