2019-12-05 - Illegal Is Always Faster

3AM on December 5th. Though the internet will tell you 5 December is 'the Day of the Ninja, a day to honor and celebrate the sneaky and stealthy masked warriors in black garb from ancient Japan,' it's really more well known as Krampusnacht, the night before the Feat of St. Nicholas. It's cold and cloudless, and most of Bayside Apartments is sleeping.

H. Everly Sutton is a couple glasses of wine down the hatch, has a pocket full of crispy bacon, and is currently working on the lock to number 400. It's been a long time since she's done this, and she doesn't usually do it after a wine o'clock. "... fucking tumblers. Should have washed off the bacon grease first." Yes, she's muttering to herself oh-so-quietly. In her mind, quietly.

The truth is that Easton doesn't sleep for shit most nights. Some times he will try and force the issue with booze or sleeping pills or before his latest relationship wildly inappropriate one night stands. But tonight, he's just accepted his fate and is playing some first person shooter online. He is in the midst of cussing out some kid that can be no more than twelve for camping the spawn point when something clicks. It takes him a second to realize what it is and he exits the game, much to the amusement of the child taunting him and slides the headset off.

He quietly rises, retrieves a good friend of his from under the kitchen counter and slides onto the other side of the door. He's dresses only in a pair of boxer shorts, olive green and tiny. His prostethic foot makes a clicking on the floors when he walks, which sounds far louder to him now than it ever does in the daytime.

More to the point, Sutton is neither stealthy like a ninja, nor possessed of a supernatural boogeyman power of creepering. She's good at this when there's a roof ledge. She's excellent at this in her family home, in her own space. Breaking into this apartment seemed like the right and proper course of action when she was texting her partner and getting more and more pissed off by the ping! of her phone.

She drops one of the slim metal tools in hand, so she's pissed off about that while Easton's on the other side of the door unassing his dressing down from some pre-teen punk yelling about n00bs through a headset — nothing like getting gibbed on entry to tank your night. There's another soft click and the nob turns. The door swings open just a couple of inches, then pauses when she catches it. She gets to her feet, leaning into it as she pushes the door open. It's smooth action. Give Byron that. He keeps his building in pretty good repair. Her fingers curl around the door and she slips inside. Too late realizing the tv is on and the console's out. She's about halfway through the door when she notices it.

There is no dramatic click of a hammer on the Glock M19 that Easton raises at the back of Sutton's head as she enters the apartment. He can't see her face standing behind her, though it's lit by the glow of the TV. For a moment the blond hair has him questioning if it's Bennie but she's too short and it seems unlikely that Bennie would break in in the middle of the night, at least not this quietly.

"Can I fucking help you?"

Easton's voice is regular volume for him, which is near shouting for others.

Well this is typical Sutton, isn't it. She's all the way in with a hand on the door when Easton speaks. She takes a short breath, only one hand visible. The blonde replies perhaps three beats later than most people would, or that could be the wine. "Keep it down, Easy. I think you've helped enough."

She turns to face him then, glancing over him briefly. Gun for a few beats, then down, gaze on the prosthetic. She looks at that for several beats. Her gaze flicks back up, and her hands come up, both visible and empty, at about shoulder level. "For one week. Thought I might take Gunner for a walk while you dig yourself a hole." She wasn't at all thinking about throwing his prosthetic over the balcony.

Once Easton actually sees who it is the gun is immediately dropped and safetied. He growls, "What the fuck Sutts?" The voice now drops back down to a near whisper, at least for him. He then catches her looking at his leg and his head tilts. She has often talked about kicking that leg out from underneath him. And there's no hiding which leg it is from her now, even with how much she's had to drink.

"You broke into my apartment." He starts that statement with a dubious, let me get this straight tone, "To walk my dog." He shakes his head and says, "The rest of Bennie's stuff in boxes in the bedroom. If you came for that, I would have just dropped it off?"

It doesn't even cross his mind that this is some sort of screwed up prank. It really should.

Yeah, he's not wearing pants, so it's not like she can get away with it now. Sutton smiles slightly at his WTF moment, then drops her hands to her hips. She's wearing running gear, which may seem odd for 3am, but apparently both of them stay up late sometimes. "You're a bonehead." Says the bonehead who just got busted on a mission of mischief.

And because he's Easton and she's Sutton, she outright says, "I didn't come here for Bennie's stuff, you pillock." There's not much venom in her words, though she's clearly irritated, but that might just be at getting caught. Or that other thing. She gestures with one hand toward his biceps. "You're build for carrying things, so you should be the one doing that." She looks at the retired soldier for a couple of beats. "What? I don't sleep much."

The fact that Sutton is awake is hardly surprising. He and Bennie just accepted that their hours were bizarre and never questioned it, so the same probably goes for Sutton. The comment about him being a bonehead is met with a nod and an appraising twist of his lips as if considering it. "I'd a gone with fuckwad or dipshit, but I'll accept it."

He laughs a bit when she outright tells him that's not why she's here. But he doesn't seem all that intent on getting down to the bottom of her motives. "Yea well I don't know where she's staying and I'm in no hurry to get her stuff out." He shakes his head at her not sleeping much and he just nods and accepts it at that.

"Do you want a drink or do you need to punch me in the mouth first?"

"Well, that's a relief." Sutton reaches up to drag her hands through her lob, flicking the curling ends up off her neck and then letting it drop again, slightly more bacon scented than before. Her hands are still in motion when she steps forward, says, "Yeah, I'd like a drink." Not that she needs one at this point. And of course it comes with a friendly good to see you. Which, for Sutton, tonight, is, in fact, a knuckle sammich. It's going to hurt them both whether it lands where she aims it or his reflexes save him, because she's bare knuckles and her knuckles are bony little fuckers. Her intention? Right to the kisser! Just the one punch.

She has some semblance of self control. Some.

Easton doesn't attempt to block the blow or even attempt to dodge. His head bobs back as she makes solid contact with his mouth. He groans in pain but stands his ground and asks, "Am I waiting for more? Or can I get you a beer?" His own beer is sitting on the new coffee table sweating. Calling it a coffee table is generous. It's the box for a larger dog crate for Gunner, that is currently taking the place of the 'sploded one.

Easton looks at her warily as if waiting to see if she's going to get another one in. Once it looks like he's free to go, he moves to the fridge and goes to find something for Sutton to drink.

Sutton grunts when the punch connects, and it's clear it stings. The blonde doesn't leap on Easton or post up like she's looking for a throw down at Bayside. She gives her hand a few shakes and says, "Fuck. Your cranium is like a goddamn rock."

At the offer of a beer, she nods. "Yeah, a beer and some ice in a ziplock, unless you don't have one." Is she judging his apparent instant turn into bachelor living? Maybe. Maybe a little. Not that she has sandwich baggies in her place either. Her gaze wanders the living room, back to the 'coffee table' situation. "The fuck happened to your furniture?"

Running his tongue over his teeth Easton checks to make sure they're all there and accounted for. He walks to the fridge and pulls out a beer. He thinks about the bags and instead grabs some ice with a paper towel and carries them over to his assailant. He shakes his head and says, "Shit, I think you hit harder than Gunny." Because it's really not worth pretending like she won't know the score here.

Looking over at the box that takes the place of a coffee table he shrugs and says, "I fucked your ex-boyfriend." Which is technically the reason for it. But in his mind it's much funnier to pretend that was the reason the coffee table exploded. He at least doesn't sound proud about that fact though. He hands her the beer and the paper towel full of ice. "And then Bennie exploded the old one on the way out." He does at least connect the dots for her in case she needs it.

"Smaller hands, less surface to spread the impact. I pop you in the right spot, you have a cramp that won't go away. Used to do that to my brother all the time." Sutton obviously knows, but that doesn't stop her giving Easton a bit of a look when he brings it up, in a roundabout way. "Yeah. Well. That's interesting. One, high traffic area, so I hope you used a condom." She takes a seat on the couch. "Two, we never broke up."

"He's really bad at listening, but he's excellent at setting shit on fire." Sutton reaches for the beer, and the towel as they're offered. She parks her hand in her lap with the ice on it, then drinks with her left hand. "I didn't know Bennie was —" Hm. "Good for her. You're lucky it was just your table." She pauses, index and thumb loosely linked around the neck of the bottle. "I punched you because you made her cry." She takes a pull of the beer, makes a face, but swallows it anyway.

Easton smile at the explanation about why her punch hurts so badly, fades to a more serious face when she asks after their safe sex practices and then to an open mouth look of 'does not compute' when she brings up that they never broke up. "What?" He tries to think back to make sure that he didn't do that knowingly. He shakes his head and says, "No. Noo. No." As if he's going to convince her, with that very compelling and elucidating argument.

"FUCK"

The word is bellowed and actually wakes the dog in the other room if the barking is any indication. Easton looks at her and sighs, "I didn't know. He said it was over. I didn't.. I am so goddamn sorry." Her breaking into this apartment? Fine. Her punching him in the face? Sure. Her telling him that they weren't actually broken up? Yea, no, that's enough to throw E off. He pulls the beer to him and finishes it off.

"What the shit? He said he loved you. He was broken up about it. He.." Easton makes a growling noise of frustration. It's not the first time he's seen parallels between Ruiz and himself, but this one feels like a really twisted dark mirror. He spikes the empty bottle in the trash and goes for another. While some might not recognize it, there's some self restraint in that he's sticking to beer.

"And damn, I feel like one for making Bennie cry is light, not really sure I want to ask what I get for sleeping with your non-ex."

The blonde takes another draw from the bottle. She tips it, considering the contents, then has another sip. Eventually, the taste will stop being so offensive. Beer's like that. Takes a few to start enjoying it. Kind of like sex with rich guys. "Easy, babe." Sutton swaps the bottle to her other hand, abandoning the ice. She gives his leg a swat. "Breathe, ok. You're an asshole for making your girl cry because her fight or flight is stuck on flight, even when you're trying to have orgasms. You have to deal with that, ok. That's why you're a fuckstick."

"Javi's practically using his dick for a handshake these days, and that's on him. We have... had? Whatever. It was open, to a degree, though my one fucking rule was don't fuck people in my building anymore. Erin moved out, so it doesn't count. But goddamn." She tips back into the cushions, tipping back the bottle. Maybe a couple of gulps will help. Bleh. Beer. "I really thought I would find you passed out with an empty fifth laid out in your own sick." She swirls her bottle. "Good for you." Bad for her plan for his prosthetic.

Easton does close his hanging open mouth when she slaps his leg. It helps him to focus enough to indeed take a breath. He nods and says, "I know I hurt Bennie. I just didn't think.. Fuck." He shakes his head and takes a sip of beer. The comment about Ruiz's handshake makes him chuckle ruefully and says, "He is very friendly for an old crotchety man." Is it too soon to joke about this? Easton has no such sense.

"Oh, well I'm still drying out from Vegas. Hubby, Thorne and I took a little boys jaunt. I need to let my liver recover." He quirks his head and says, "Still not seeing the plan. Just trashing my place when I'm blacked out drunk?" He roams back to the original question of why she's there in the first place, trying another guess.

Sutton glances up from draining the last of the beer in the bottle. That beer has been pacified. She thumps it down on the sad, sad box-for-a-coffee-table. "He doesn't like to speak, and he knows how to fuck. We didn't do a lot of talking." She picks up the ice, scoots it back into the towel, and slides it atop her knuckles. Gotta keep the swelling down if she's gonna be saving lives tomorrow. "If I told you what I was planning to do, you could defend against it."

"I'm going out for drinks with your ex and if she wants to rain down fiery vengeance, my man," Sutton glances over. "I'm afraid you're fucked. So I hope you enjoyed Vegas." A grin follows that.

"That is very true." Easton may not be shit faced but he's certainly been drinking. He is drunk enough that he adds, "I wouldn't need the talking either." This beer is at least sipped at a somewhat reasonable pace, almost enjoyed.

He smiles a little bit at the talk of not being able to defend against it and that he's screwed. He looks at her for a few beats longer than usual and asks, "Is she okay? I mean really." It's not the actual question he wants to ask but he's not drunk enough for that kind of talk. Even with Sutton.

The smile fades around the edges, but she mms at his assertion about talking. "Yeah, not usually. But he has a lot of messy secrets and makes a lot of bad decisions. I just wanted to know what I needed to keep us both from getting fired and thrown in jail." What the fuck. She crosses her arms, ice left to melt in her lap. Her knuckles are going to be bruised. There's a couple of small cuts that are going to need cleaning, but that's what you get when you pop someone in the mouth. "I don't know. I don't think she's okay. But I won't know until I get her drunk and we find out where the vengeance lands. She's a better person than I am."

Easton winces a little when she describes Ruiz and tries to force out the thoughts of how similar they are. And if that's why he pursued him and what that means. Those are far deeper thoughts than he can handle just now. He also has no idea what would get them both fired and thrown in jail, besides maybe a big ol' knockdown drag out fight but that doesn't seem to be what she's saying. He nods and says, "Is it too much to hope that vengeance means she's not done with me?" It's one of the many questions he wants to ask but hasn't.

"You're a fucking piece of work, you know that?" Sutton sits up fishing for the ice again. "There are a lot of things... a lot of things a woman can get over. You broke her trust with her body, you know, and there were mitigating fucked up supernatural-bullshit circumstances." The blonde doesn't look at him. She wraps the clinking cubes and turns her hand over to press it and some of her blood into the towel. It's melting slowly, that ice. "She feels like she failed because you moved on before she could fix herself. She thinks she's broken and was getting therapy to fix it. She didn't ask me for vengeance yet, this was me doing me." Sutton dashes that hope, but follows it up with, "I don't know. Maybe she's not done. She seems pretty done. Free advice, soldier. Sorry and words don't go very far when you show her other things with your body."

She goes quiet for a while. Maybe she's done. "Work on not being drunk off your ass if you try to find her and ask that, figure out how to say you're sorry for fucking a mutual friend. You should have fucked a stranger." She shakes her head. "I know how persuasive his hands are. He talked me into it the first time too." Not that it took much, combined with a gallon of tequila. She rises. Something occurs to her. She sits back down. She doesn't ask it yet.

Easton looks over at her and gives her a hapless half shrug. Yes, he knows he doesn't get to ask that. He fully understands that he is not the aggrieved party in this situation. He shakes his head and says, "I know. I get it. There is fuckall I can do to make any of that better." At least as far as he can see. But then he hears a little bit of her side of the story and his face breaks.

"She didn't fail..dammit." He closes his eyes and his head drops a little. "She's not broken. I didn'.." He looks at Sutton with genuine fear in his voice and asks, "Did I fuckin break her?" He tries to process her free advice and nods dumbly at it. But he's too stuck on hearing her side of it.

He is mid-sip on the beer when she tells him to work on not being drunk. But he does stop drinking to listen again. He sighs at the part about a mutal friend, "I tried a stranger.. didn't take." Oops, he never mentioned that to Bennie. Good defense there Marshall. Moron. He then laughs and says, "I jumped him. There was no persuading." He adds, again, against all better judgement of everyone else ever, "Though I can understand about the hands." Why are you still talking?

Sutton shakes her head. "You tried more than once." She reaches up to rub her hand over her face. He tried more than once. It wasn't some spur of the moment, passion filled fuck up. The dominoes that fall in Sutton's mind and she just presses her face into her hand. "Bloody hell, Easy." You know it's bad when she pops off with that particular British phrase. "I would advise you to never ever tell her that. Then again, if it was me and you didn't, though, and I found out, I would break your arm."

He knows Bennie better in terms of how she reacts to fuckups, so he has to judgment call on that one. Suddenly, she just starts to laugh. "You..." She falls helplessly back into the couch. "You fucked up son. I don't know if you can unfuck this one, but she will survive you. I'll do everything I can to be sure of that. She trusted you and you didn't trust her back... to get past that haunting." Is she starting to project now? Is there a subtext? It's a tangled web here in Bayside. She tosses the ice towel onto the box-table. She pauses again, and then the conversation takes a left turn.

"Did you get rid of your ghost?"

Easton gives another shrug of, well it's true when she hears about the aborted attempt. He looks wary when she advises him not to say anything, "I don't like not telling her things. At least things that concern us." There are plenty of things he doesn't want to talk about but keeping things from her about their relationship, that's not something he can do. It's a weird compulsive hiding, compulsive honesty dichotomy that doesn't always have a consistent logic, sometimes because alcohol.

The laughing and declaration of what is already known gets a reluctant smile from Easton, "Thanks. I appreciate that." And in truth he kind of does. And he knows that Bennie will survive, she's weathered far worse. He just never wanted to be the one to put her through it. Again. He is about to say something but then a sharp turn occurs and he blows air out at the suddenness of it. The weight of it.

get rid of your ghost

"Yea."

Like it was a rash or a some thing weighing him down. It was a semi-permanent reminder of the man he lost, the only one he ever considered family and now it's gone. He looks at her and tries to formulate a thought on how to communicate even a fraction of any of that. The conflict on his face is evident as he tries to come up with some words around all of it. He knows that she understands some of it, probably better than most.

"I miss him."

Sutton probably has more to say, but she was only buzzed when she showed up, not drunk enough to ask any more detailed questions about anything personal. Really, at this point, ghosts seem like a safer topic, which is to say a slightly less populated minefield. "Yeah." She says that after a long few beats of looking a Easton's foot. In the direction of Easton's foot, anyway. Is she really seeing it? Maybe not.

"Yeah." She tips her chin down and strands of her hair slip across her cheek, hiding her eyes. Hands in her lap, she flexes her right hand, watching a little blood some sluggishly to the surface of her knuckles. There's another brief pause, and then she asks, "Have you thought about taking him back?"

Drinking the beer again in earnest Easton doesn't notice the starting at his foot, either the real or fake one. He mistakes any cast down looks as her thinking about her dead brother.

Have you thought about taking him back?

"Taking him back? I didn't break up with him." He thinks about it for a second and realizes it kind of is like he broke up with him. "I mean, I thought we had to do something to put Gohl away for good. I didn't even know if it would work." He sighs and says, "I need a cigarette." He doesn't wait for her either say she's coming or answer in anyway, he stands up, a little unsteadily and makes his way out to the balcony, grabbing only a fleece by the glass doors to slip on before standing, mostly outside to smoke.

"Sometimes I'm not even sure it did work."

It's almost like he needed the cigarette or the fresh cold air or both to make that admission.

"I mean..." Sutton straightens. "Mine brother — " She pauses, then clears her throat. "I know you didn't break up with him." She brushes her palms down her thighs. "My brother's tethered to an object. If I have it on me, he can appear to me. If I don't, he can appear to anyone who can see him in the house or apartment where I leave it." She rises from the couch, crossing the room after Easton. She doesn't step out onto the balcony, but she leans against the wall nearby the door, arms loosely crossed.

"I've been thinking about — I almost buried the tether at his grave in Seattle. I wasn't quite ready to do it. I don't know, would he rest in peace or would be just be stuck there haunting the cemetery forever, trying to talk to a bunch of people who can't see him?"

The cigarette is smoked with a determined, intense pulling, the smoke held and he considers what she says. He barks out a laugh mixed with smoke and says, "Well then I guess I fucking guessed wrong. I picked the shirt, not his dog tags." He was originally planning to do both but couldn't do it. The tags were meant to go to Tom's son. Easton just hadn't gotten around to it. And then he says, "Which makes sense. We never cared about those. Those were for the ones left behind."

The talk of her brother resting in peace causes him to quirk an eyebrow. "Oh Sutts." His voice suddenly clear and back to sounding like himself. "That's not.. I don't think it works like that. Banks' ghost wasn't him, he's dead." He tries to think of why he was so sure, hoping to comfort her even a little, "There was shit I tried to get him to tell me. Important shit. And he couldn't. And Tom would have, there's no way he wouldn't. It was... " He stops and loses whatever spark of normality he had, withdrawing back into the cigarette and the cold air.

"I was there when Tom died. We both got blown the fuck up but he was still alive and I got to him and he was telling me something. It was important. It was literally his last words..." Why is there not more booze in his hand? "And I couldn't hear shit from the explosion, my hearing was just gone." He takes a drag and finds his normal voice again to cap that with, "So if it was Tom? That ghost. He would have told me what the fuck was so goddamn important he had to babble about instead of just shutting up and not dying. Stupid fuck."

Sutton stares at Easton for a long time after he says that thing about the ghost not being him. Her hazel-eyed gaze turns to his hand, the cigarette in it, the cherry as it flames red with each inhalation, each hit of nicotine. She blinks, long lashes dark against her cheeks when her eyes remain closed for a beat. "Oh." Oh is all she says about that, as all those tiny realizations patter across her idea of what is, and her perspective shifts again. A dozen conversations skitter through her brain and she reaches up to brush her fingers across her forehead briefly, hiding her eyes. Strands of her hair slip across her face again when she tips her chin down.

Her voice is a little thin when she says, "That must suck. Never having got the end of that sentence." Her jaw tenses, fingers still rubbing across her forehead, like maybe she's afraid if she stops...

Her shoulders tense by degrees. "I'm..." She presses her lips together, her hand drops. "I." She enunciates carefully. "Need to go." She looks like she wants to smash something, but it's not obvious. It's the tension, the set of her jaw, the jump of a muscle there. Some people might miss it.

It's clear from the stare. Shit. What an asshole he is. She didn't know and that's not just something you drop on someone in the middle of the goddamn night like it's your preferred breakfast cereal (rice krispies with honey, if you were wondering). He can see the look of shock running across her face even in the dim lighting. So she punched him in the mouth and he just proverbially punched her in the gut. Good job Marshall. He tries to think of things to say, words that might help in this situation.

"Sutton. I don't know that. And maybe it's different for different ghosts?"

He can feel himself flailing verbally, trying to backpeddle from the thing he was so sure of, and still is very much sure of with Tom. Something he's had to cling to in order to not lose his mind after sacrificing him. Because he can barely deal with the physical manifestation of his memories being gone. If he thought there was even a chance that it was actually his friend, his other half that he sacrificed? He doesn't let himself go there. He mentally shuts that door and turns back to face her.

"Do you.. are you sure? You could stay."

Oh fuck, no, he does not mean it like that. Though he has said those exact words, in that exact way to mean the other thing.

(Solid choice, but Sutton's a Cap'n Crunch girl all the way. Plain, not that peanut butter bullshit.)

If he had touched her when he made the offer to stay, she probably would have thought he was going for the matched set of fucked up decisions and worse people to sleep with when it comes to Bennie's work life. He's offered her a place to stay before. Still, she cuts a look at the marine just to check his face. You can usually tell that intention from a man's eyes, assuming his hand isn't already somewhere it shouldn't be. "I made Gunner some bacon." She pulls a baggie out of her pocket and holds it out to Easton. It has two strips of crispy thick-cut bacon.

"I'm gonna go walk this off." And hope she doesn't run across a particular Charger parked anywhere on her hike, because if she does, it's gonna get a makeover.

"I don't know, but I'm gonna find out." Sounds like she knows who to go talk to about the ghost thing. "Green tea, high fiber, fruits, veg, whole grains. Good for liver support." That's a weird piece of information to give before she pushes off the wall and starts for the door.

The look on his face is mostly guilt and concern, Easton is not even considering anything of the sort. Though if pressed he would admit it has at least crossed his mind before all of this. But not now. Or again.

He accepts the bacon and says, "I'm sure he'll love it."

He just nods at the part about walking it off and finding out. But then she's spouting off diet advice and he "uhhhs" and looks at her very confused but then it sinks in. Oh. She's telling him how to not cause his body to shut down with all the drinking. So the answer isn't protein bars and greasy takeout? Huh.

"And Sutton? ... I'm sorry. About all of it."

Sutton nods, and throws up a hand by way of acknowledging Easton's words. She makes her way to the door, all the way across to the door, and stands there for a couple of beats with her hand on the knob. Her nails tick against it, and she glances over her shoulder. She flicks a glance down over his body and right back up. Whatever thoughts accompany that look aren't shared, but she looks him right in the eye when she says, "Me too, love." She pulls open the door. Lips parted, she seems like she's going to say something else.

She hesitates, then slips out, pulling the door shut behind her.