2020-03-19 - Everyone Drinks for Their Own Reasons

Now that Katherine and Isolde have gone, and Easton's withdrawn to smoke, Joe's lapsed into a rueful silence. Looking like he'd like to light up himself, but thinking the better of it. He shakes his head, ruefully. His exes, such as they are, are thousands of miles away.....or, in that more recent case, no longer exes. Witness the bruise on his throat.

Roxy watches Easton depart for his smoke with a small frown. "He should not be so angry. He is in a better place than he was with his ex. He should be grateful. Being angry gives the other one power." She waits for her refill, which is sadly not coming yet because the bartender just walked out to smoke. She has a far away look in her eyes.

Joe makes a little moue, turns a hand, as if too lazy even to shrug. "Here's the thing - men are taught that anger's one of the few emotions that men are permitted to feel. So when a guy's angry, that's not always what he really is. Also....if they got under your skin enough to matter to begin with, they stay there long enough to do you hurt later." He's got that matter of fact tone again.

"Yes, I suppose they do," Roxy murmurs in a tone that speaks volumes. She props her chin in one hand and pokes at her tater tots listlessly. "You seem in better spirits. Things going well I am guessing?" she asks quietly.

"Yeah," he says, gently. There's a funny softness in his eyes, expression going inward turned. "It's a.....a relief, honestly. This was an...." Joe gropes for words, as he reaches for his drink, takes a sip. "An obsession of long standing." Call it what it is. "Many, many years. It was like I was holding my breath for ages and now I can let it out."

"I'm happy for you." She's not. And with the buzz from the booze Roxy's really bad at faking it right now. She looks disappointed, even a little pissy. Not her normal jovial cheeriness. Is this what really lurks beneath the cheerful, cherubic dancer's disguise?

Coming back in from his smoke break Easton looks a bit more settled, if not calm. He unbuttons another button on his shirt and pushes the sleeves up higher and settles back in behind the bar. Looking at Roxy, gauging her level of wastedness and then at their glasses, "Another round?" He asks of both of them before finishing off his own beer and pouring another. Technically he isn't drinking alone, even if he should be working and not drinking.

"Yes, another please," Roxy murmurs to Easton with a weak smile. "You are feeling better, I hope?" she offers him.

Joe's got that faintly sardonic look in his eyes, as he gazes at the dancer. "Honey," he advises, "Don't try to bullshit a bullshitter. Especially not one who had to lie for twentyfive years for the sake of his career. It doesn't wash. But you don't have to. You're a grown woman, you can get drunk if you want to."

Easton gets an upnod. A flick of a look at his beer. "Round with you, publican?" In other words, if East can't have whiskey, Joe can at least throw a little money in the kitty for his sake.

"Another it is." He pours another Long Island for Roxy and shrugs, "I am feeling... yea." He gives a weird shrug as he soda guns in the splash of coke that stops the drink from being pure liquor and ammends, "A little better. A little worse. I'll make it."

"Absolutely. And if you want to talk, pretty sure being a bartender means I'm qualified to listen and give you shitty life advice that no one should by any means follow if it helps." He pours a beer for Joseph and gives him a bit of once over as if seeing him for the first time in some way. "A round with me sounds great Joe." He lifts his beer to the other two and smiles, "Slainte."

Roxy grimaces at Joe. "I am sorry. I want to be happy for you I just... I am unhappy for me. I thought maybe..." She shakes her head. "It doesn't matter." She accepts her second long island iced tea, wrapping her hands around the glass as she stares into the depths of the innocuous looking booze bomb. Easton's offer of listening has her frowning. "Have you ever felt completely alone?" she asks.

Another little tile on the facade dropping off. More than one - maybe a few, really. He tips his head a fraction to Easton, smile rueful, lifts his glass. "To your very good health," he intones, before taking a hearty swallow, adam's apple bobbing.

Then he slides that blue gaze back to her. It isn't pity there, but it is a kind of sympathy. "What'd you think?" He suspects, already, but....he won't assume. Might be they can hash it out, depending on what she says.

"To friends apparently." Easton answers easily with a smile and drinks. He doesn't feel the need to elaborate on that quite yet. He looks at Roxy and then back at Joe as he seems to take the first crack at the question. He shrugs and says, "Absolutely. Like ... utterly." He takes a gulp of his beer and holds back on his advice just yet.

Roxy takes another large gulp of her tea, as if the more she drinks, the less likely she is to admit things. Sadly for her, that is exactly the opposite of how getting drunk works. "I don't think I've ever not been alone. Not with my family, not with the dance company. I am alone in the middle of even a large crowd."

Joe's question has her holding a mouthful of booze for a long moment, wide-eyed, cheeks puffed out like a goddamned chipmunk, looking at him, before she swallows it down. "You and I, we shared some...things." The Asylum. "And I think we were close there once, and when I saw you here and we talked about getting back into dating, well for you, getting into it at all for me, and I thought maybe you'd come looking for me and we would," she waves her hands around absently.

She thought they would....."I have," he says, quietly. "And yes, sometimes it was, oddly enough, when I was in the midst of people. More so, honestly. When you're cheek by jowl with a whole shipful of folks, but to none of them can you speak honestly, in none of them can you confide....." Joe purses his lips, shakes his head. "I felt more alone there than I did when I was on a sailboat with no other human beings for hundreds of miles."

He pauses, takes another deliberate sip, "De la Vega aside, I'm far too old for you," he says, simply. "Even if flattered you'd think like that about me."

Easton looks at Roxy with sympathetic interest as she tells a little more about her background and then about her shared history with Joseph, or at least a very abbreviated version. Easton expects Joe to answer with something far more specific than his age, but doesn't expect Ruiz to come up by name. He raises his eyebrows and looks at Joe surprised to have gotten this news for the second time in the same night. He wants to ask a bunch of questions but feels now like he's intruding on their conversation so he starts to get really busy cleaning up, dumping out his long forgotten tots and the remnants of Isolde's fries. He's nearby, but not actively a part of the conversation

"Apparently everyone is too old for me," Roxy says with a sharp look. "De la Vega said the same damned thing, But here I am, a grown woman, and I HAVE NEVER EVEN BEEN KISSED!" she shouts. Drew Barrymore would be proud.

"Did I say that out loud? I did didn't I?" She clunks her forehead down on the bartop. "Fuck my life," she whines to the sticky surface. "I mean not kissed outside of the context of a choreographed dance routine, which, there was absolutely no romance involved as all the male ballet dancers in our company were gay." She shakes her head and takes another swig off her drink. " I have seen more in my short years than most people have in a lifetime. Men my age are idiots who cannot possibly understand what I have been through. So here I am, caught between being too young, and too mature for anyone. So I am alone, because everyone treats me like I am made of glass, and should not be touched."

Joe shoots Easton a wry look at that. As if he suspects what he's thinking. He's taken his phone from his pocket, is idly texting with it, fingers deft.

But at the mention of de la Vega, there's real surprise in his face. "Did you expect him to? Honey, you're pickin' men who are old enough to be your father. And you can get men who are older'n you and have enough experience to not be mere puppies without veering into guys in their forties and fifties. Hell, if you really do want older....you could get it."

Still keeping up with whatever conversation on his phone....and something there has him turning pink, and then picking it up and taking a picture of himself. As if to prove a point.

"Oh shit." Easton offers at the unforced confession of just how chaste she is. He quickly covers that with, "That's not a big deal. You don't need an old man like Gunny or Joe here. You need a wingman or woman." He comes back to the conversation and gets nervous that Joe is casting an eye about for younger men to point her at. He gives a shake of his head, "Sorry, I'm on lock. But I would be happy to help you in the noble endeavor of getting .. uh kissed." He manages to not say what he normally would there.

"Hell, Bennie and a girls night out could probably fix that up real quick."

"So you say, but it has not happened. I don't even have real friends. I hate going back to my apartment because it is so empty. But I will go because I am supposed to bring people joy, not complain about having none of my own. Children should be seen and not heard, that is what my mother said." Roxy slides off the stool in wobbly fashion, leaving Easton a decent tip for his service as she gathers up her things. She shakes her head at the tender. "I don't want to just kiss some stranger. That doesn't feel right. Please forget I said anything. It was the drink talking. I am hoping I forget it myself." She heads for the door, calling for an Uber with the app.

"I count myself your friend. I like your company. But I can't be your lover," Joe's voice is gentle. "And you might want a room-mate. Hell, more girl friends, too. And no, you're drinkin' and part of what you get with that, when you do it out in public, is the right to talk. If you're not happy, you can say. We're not a set of mean parents. Find a guy closer to your own age you can actually be friends with....."

But he trails off, and looks to Easton, wryly.

Calling out after Roxy, "Hey at least leave your number, you can meet Bennie?" He is about to add something about not for kissing, but it's Bennie so maybe for kissing? She's ridiculously affectionate, and a very good kisser in his opinion.

She's out the door before Easton can even realize that not everyone is looking for a casual hookup. What? It was a very genuine if misplaced offer. He looks to Joe and throws his hands up a little bit, "Eh. Apparently not what she was looking for." He then chuckles a bit and says, "But damn if that isn't bad luck her making passes at both Gunny AND you. Or maybe just daddy issues." Something about saying that out loud causes him to wince a little. Maybe it's the new found knowledge that Ruiz has a kid nearly his age. Maybe it's .. something else. "Anyway. I was texting Gunny out on my break, didn't realize you two.. knew each other." Oh he's great at talking about gay relationships. Absolute aces.

And then she's gone, and Joe says, in that rusty drawl, "Yeah, that's definitely daddy issues. She's shiny new on that scene, she's been through a lot, and she was kinna raised in a profession that really expects young women to suit themselves to the whims of older men." Still sympathy, but there's an edge behind it.

But then the conversation shifts to Ruiz, and there's that almost impish gleam in the blue eyes. "If you mean in the biblical sense, that's a very recent revival. If you mean in the older, yeah. I was Navy, he and I were stationed or deployed in the same places, a few times. And he saved my life when I had to eject over Afghanistan. It's a long history, much of it sordid." And he is ashamed of exactly none of it, by the way he takes a leisurely sip from his drink. "You knew him from the Corps?"

Easton gives a open handed 'what are you gonna do' gesture to the diagnosis. She's hardly the first young pretty girl chasing older men in his bar. Though it's interesting to hear how specific her background shaped her towards that. "Fair enough."

Laughing softly, "I guess I do. He mentioned something like that." He raises his eyebrows as he gets more of the story. "Really? Shit. A pilot and a leatherneck Gunnery Sergeant that's... un-fuckin-likely." He laughs some more and says, "I bet alot of it involves punching and drinking." He says with a knowing that sounds an awful lot like first hand knowledge of such things. "No sir." He answers, and tries not to roll his eyes at himself for slipping into that still. "Met him here ... uhh when all the Addingtons started gettin murdered." Fuck, was the meeting at the towers the first time he met Ruiz? Easton shakes his head and says, "He was seein' my girlfriends partner for a bit. He's been ... a damn good friend, despite me constantly being an asshole, and really what more can you ask?"

"You're bein' polite. The word for that isn't 'unlikely', it's 'illegal'," His gaze is very sharp indeed, but there is still neither shame nor contrition there. And then there's that positively incandescent grin. "That is exactly how that story begins, matter of fact. Nineteen year old Marine, twenty three year old aviator, enough rum to float a battleship, a few loose teeth and bloody noses, match made in Hell."

He cocks an eye at Easton. "Now, if you didn't meet him in the Corps....how do you know?" A grunt at that. "Murders, huh? And no, one can't ask more."

"I don't know that anyone's accused me of being polite in a long time." Easton looks vaguely affronted by such a charge but does nod at the illegal part. "Law wasn't part of it by the time I was in and rum's for sailors. Cheap beer, mma style fights among very lonely, very horny marines." He doesn't comment on any more recent adventures, just yet.

"Yea. We've had our fair share of shitty veil experiences too." He shrugs and says, "Gray Harbor, right?" because what else is there to say about the ridiculousness he's endured with not only Ruiz but all of these people he didn't know a year ago.

Joe chuckles at that, softly. "That's right," he says, giving the bartender a more thorough looking-over. Nothing lascivious about it, but gauging his age. "Times have sure changed." He nods.

Pulls a face at the mention of the Veil. "I got my own cherry popped on that front pretty recently, and it was no damn fun, yeah. I can only begin to imagine what it's like for those who've been here more than a few months. Like livin' in a war zone, I guess."

Easton gives him a look and a shrug, "Some. Still don't think anyone broadcasting details while wearing the uniform." He is sure that he had it easier in that it wasn't strictly forbidden, but it was hardly openly accepted either. He smirks at the 'cherry popped' comment and says, "Did you get caught up in that last round with Gunny?" he clarifies, "De la vega? I know Itz had it rough. But Gunny just came in here and we were assholes at each other. I got off lightly I hear."

"I bet not. I didn't exactly bust out the closet the moment they made it legal," he says, wryly. "I was still in, at the time. Sorta." Almost done with that drink - he takes another sip. "I did. They had Their hands on him, They were drivin'. He found me out on the edge of the woods, started kinna chasin' me further in with rifle fire. Winged me a little but scared me so damned bad I tore a hole in the curtain an' ran through. Itzhak had to come get me."

"No, I don't imagine many did. Least of all the long haulers." If Joe was still in when it was legal, he had been in a while. He coughs, when Joe explains just what went down. He lets out a soft, "oh fuck" during the story and then shakes his head, "Well that's gotta make 'im feel like shit. You all good now?" Funny thing about this town, you can bounce back from those things faster than normal, maybe faster than you should.

He considers something for a while before admitting, "We both got possessed, Gunny and I and others, by the murder ghost of a long dead psychopath named Gohl. I beat the shit out of Bennie." He just let's that hang in the air, his face long and neutral and looking very tired at that admission.

"They really know how to fuck with us."

He finishes off his beer and sets down the empty glass, breathing out long and slow looking at it.

"Yeah, we better." Presumably, if they've hooked up again. "I got healed up, he's okay. Saw some crazy shit on the Other Side, which I am told is par for the course."

But the mention of possession has him going still. "Motherfuck, how does that work? I take it bell, book, and candle won't cure those problems, when they happen? Yeah, They do. I was in Their hands for more'n half a year. The Asylum." Tone neutral, as he says it, face gone mask-like, in its stillness.

"That is true." Easton answers in regards to seeing things on the other side. He's only been there on purpose a handful of times but it's never a dull moment that's for sure.

"Fuck if I know." Easton is no more knowledgeable now then he was then. He shakes his head and says, "It wasn't full possesion, it was more influence?" Which makes it so much worse what he did under that influence. He is broken out of his maudlin glass turning when talk of the Asylum comes up. His face goes still and he takes a beat or two before saying. "Well shit. Unfortunately, my uncle was uh... I don't know, a doctor there? A shrink? A remorseless psychopath who tortured people? Maybe?" He really isn't sure. Sadly. But he doesn't assume the best of Dear Uncle Monty. "I'm sorry. I know it doesn't mean much, but if I knew what he was doing I would have stopped him.."

Joe blows out a breath at that, shakes his head. "Damn," he says. "Yeah. Leanin' on you, bringin' out the worst of you? They love that, don't They? Do you know much about it? It seems to employ real people, interact with and touch on this world. I mean, hell, my family sent me there thinkin' it was a legit cure....I've met a doctor from there before. Some woman....can't remember her name, at the moment..."

"Yup. Fucknuts, the lot of them." Easton shakes his head in annoyance at the things that are trying to torment him and doing a fairly decent job at it. And no he's not inlcuding Katherine in that mix. Yet. He grimaces and says, "Only a little. I was there once... maybe twice?" He's not sure where he met his uncle the first time. And the second he doesn't remember even going, just that they intended to and then came back. "Haylee? Something? She worked with my uncle." He shakes his head and says, "Anyway Joe, I'm gonna close up. Sorry to cut this short but I .. should close up."

Before he gets to really drinking, is the part he leaves off the end of that.