2020-05-03 - Movin' Out

A chilly Spring night, and August is lying in bed, not quite ready to sleep. His fourth night in town, and tomorrow he'll go back to the cabin, because he can't quite make it a week. Not yet. He'll get there eventually.

He smiles to himself, thinking of dinner the other night with de la Vega and Itzhak. So many questions that evening had raised for him. He doesn't want to wake Eleanor, though, so instead of picking up his phone, he reaches out, mind wandering the city in search of Itzhak. Is he on Elm? Just down the road from August's own cabin? Elsewhere?

As it turns out, Itzhak is home at 15 Elm, in his tiny mother-in-law partial basement. His mental presence is busy, fractals churning like gears, massive clockwork constructs working on ten problems at once in the way he has. Wearing only soft flannel pants, he's sprawled on the comfortable old couch with his mandolin in his arms, strumming something bluegrassy. He's staring at the ceiling, the sense of his body its usual lean muscularity, mostly at rest.

Emotionally, he's not nearly so restful, his gears chewing over personal problems as well as practical ones. There's quite a lot going on in that curly head of his. Something feels a little different, too, some burgeoning change in his shine.

His mind, tasting August's, goes blip! and he blinks.

<<Hey,>> he sends on a bright stroke of mandolin chords.

<<Hey.>> August's mindscape bears subtle changes to it here and there. The aspens in the caldera are full and green, leaves trembling in the wind. But there's a few furrows dug out in the forest, scars like something took chunks out of the landscape. An echo of old pain, smoothed away by healers, the memory of it still lingering. Injuries healed by magic can fool the body, but not the mind.

He pauses, lingering over the change looming in Itzhak's Song. He's of a mind to pack at that, but not yet. First...

<<Nice having dinner with you two.>> A flicker of a memory; Ruiz's voice asking, 'So, have you two ever fucked?' and Itzhak choking on his beer. Oh yes, August would frame that if he could.

Itzhak laughs out loud, face going red. <<He's such an asshole.>> His fingers don't pause on the mandolin, picking the paired strings and strumming at the same time while he grins at the low, stained ceiling of his little apartment. <<To be fair, EVERYBODY thinks we fucked.>>

His violin is more like a mandolin, tonight, bright and chipper as he noses about in August's mindscape. The notes are plucked rather than bowed. <<Yeah, that was real nice. That elk is fuckin' delicious.>> Music alights near the scars as dainty as butterflies, fanning its wings, tasting the damage. <<You doin' okay there?>>

<<They do. But I honestly figured he'd have asked you that by now. Seems like the sort of thing which would be pillow talk for you two.>> August muses over his own miscalculation there. Had de la Vega held off asking Itzhak that one privately to gauge their reactions? Or was he just trying to tease Itzhak, having sussed it out for himself long ago?

<<It's good eating. I have some left, might make a chili with it.>> Or maybe he'll trade working on de la Vega's trees for a decent pot. He'll have to think that over.

Images flash in the sky in response to the question: August, in a truly over the top, gothic suit of red and black, among numerous others similarly fancied up; a stage, with an androgynous figure, arms raised and addressing a crowd, a sneer on their face; August, standing at a podium with a microphone, utterly furious, a hateful question ringing in his ears; a young woman shrinking away from August in absolute terror; August coming to on the floor of Eleanor's house, bleeding and battered, shards of silver scattered around him.

The images fade. <<Yeah. They were just being shittier than usual.>>

<<Nah, I told him he's the only man I slept with in this town. He was messing with me. Gettin' revenge.>> Revenge for what, Itzhak doesn't specify, but his music takes on a distinctly smug note. That fades into some concern as August shows him what happened. <<Jesus,>> he mutters, notes turning atonal. In response, he shows August himself embattled in the midst of a riot, set in a city that seems carved from mother-of-pearl. He's fighting to protect the people he's with, and he fails: a monstrous machine snatches a Veil man away while Itzhak can do nothing.

That left a gouge in him. He's been ignoring it, papering it over with sex and music and the parties Easton's been throwing. Plenty of music, drugs, and booze to be had there. Itzhak's coping methods aren't the sort approved of by therapists.

<<Schmucks,>> his violin hisses. <<Fuck Them.>>

There's a ripple in the trees and the river, like a suppressed laugh. <<Not for lack of trying.>> Some teasing of August's own.

The good humor fades as August watches the riot form, ends on a soft sigh as the man is yanked away before Itzhak can do anything. A sensation like a hug, or at least a firm grip on Itzhak's shoulder. Not of 'it's not your fault', but of sympathy. Sure, perhaps the man wasn't real. And maybe the one August killed wasn't either. Yet they came out of these Dreams half-dead and filled with memories. How did that not make them real?

<<Fuck 'Em,> he agrees easily. No judgment for the coping mechanisms, since August's haven't always been too good either. Now there's some better things, to wash away these uglier ones: new ink (figs, one halved and one full, with fig leaves, over the lower shoulder scar); a new car (it's still a black Outback, but a New black Outback, quite shiny with Newness); one of Eleanor's long-fingered hands with a ring of leaves and branches in white gold, bearing a rough, uncut green gemstone.

The last one he explains. <<My maternal grandmother's eyes were green. Turns out Grandpa di Moise was a romantic.>> The furrows don't seem so stark and deep as August remembers those same hands cleaning him up after that Dream. <<I got to ask this time.>>

Itzhak's fractals seethe and mutter, settling only reluctantly as August offers up good things. Those, he's happy to soak in; the new ink (<<hah, them figs are gay as fuck, Roen,>>), the handsome new car, and best of all, the ancestor's ring given to Ellie in the Jewish tradition.

<<That ring is freakin' gorgeous,>> he sings quietly. There's the sense of him lofting the ring, exploding it in three-dimensions so he can feel the grooved branches and the delicate leaves, taste the flavor of the emerald, hear the harmony of it as a whole. <<Ahhh, I'm so goddamn happy for you. I hope you're ready for how much I'm gonna cry at your wedding.>>

August is quite proud of the figs; its plain by how he lingers over the finished image of them. <<Of course they are. Wait until I get something on one of my arms.>> There's another brief image of a tattoo, this one of a phoenix over a long, ragged scar across someone's back. <<Ellie got hers too.>>

He goes over the ring with Itzhak; he hadn't had any real time to examine it before he gave it to Eleanor, and of course, now it's hers. <<How much you're going to cry, it'll be a miracle if I can get the vows out.>> He's looking forward to that, hopes it won't rain on them. <<There's some nice farms in Oregon, we visited a couple.>> One of them, clearly what August has his eye on, has a gorgeous, ancient orchard of pomegranates and persimmons. It's not overly fancy or ornate, but there's lovely walkway through the orchard and a small clearing at the center where a ceremony can be held.

That shifts, then, to another house: de la Vega's. <<So. You sure showed up there all cozy and familiar.>>

The pomegranates resonate with Itzhak. He has a whole sleeve full of them for a reason. (A few reasons actually.) There's a brief memory of him explaining it to Ruiz, pulling Ruiz's hand to the split fruit, the jeweled seeds bared. The Seven Species of Israel... pomegranates are sacred, and so is my ass.

Itzhak's face heats, remembering, but he's smiling. Just in time for August to spring that on him. And isn't it like this every single time August wants some answer out of him? He snorts, blush going vivid. <<Nu, and so? I AM sleeping with him.>>

It won't work. It never works. He can't help but say something by which August will know something is up--but at this point, he kinda enjoys that very fact. That August cares enough to tease answers out of him makes him feel...well, it makes him feel loved. This dance is something he's wound up cherishing. Ain't that a hell of a thing?

August smiles to think of the pomegranates, the Seven Species; he'd thought about something pomegranate related himself, but ultimately the complex botony of the fig's syconium made more sense.

... he almost chokes at Itzhak saying that to Ruiz. The aspens in the volcano caldera shiver with his laughter. <<Only you would use that line as dirty talk I swear.>>

He waits for the reaction, weighs it. In some ways August prefers the teasing as well; that Itzhak trusts him enough to answer is good for him as well. <<Funny, I recall banging a lot of people over the years, but only being on 'show up randomly at the house and toss my stuff around' with a few.>>

<<Yeah, yeah.>> Itzhak's music trembles in laughing response. He stops playing, winds his arms around the mandolin. Its wood is warmed from his skin. And he doesn't say anything else for a moment, for a few moments, but the kythe fills steadily with joy, absurd and bouncing as baby goats.

His violin is a whisper when at last he answers. <<He asked me to move in with him.>> The music turns into a flourish, Vivaldi's Summer of the Four Seasons. Dramatic, sweeping, and a bitch and a half to play, it's Ruiz's favorite. <<I said yes. I couldn't say nothin' else. I--I don't know why I said no to Isolde and yes to him? But I said yes.>>

August basks in the music a spell, enjoying it for the answer it is. Itzhak also tells him, but he didn't need to, not really; the song alone was explanation enough.

Mention of Isolde turns August thoughtful. He considers that while Summer drifts between the trees, dances over the river. <<Could be a few reasons. Maybe you trust him with...certain parts of yourself.>> The parts Itzhak hates, the parts that are scarred over by things done and said a long time ago that he can't take back. <<And to give you the space you need, when you need it, without being hurt by that.>> Because God knows Itzhak does, the same way August can't always be in the city. Even now, the memories are encroaching.

<<And maybe you just needed more time, to be ready for that.>> Another thing neither of them is a stranger to. <<And hey--now we're neighbors.>>

That makes sense to Itzhak; he closes his eyes, concentrating solely on the music swelling over August's forest. That Ruiz can be trusted with the parts of himself that he can't bear to let anyone else touch? That Ruiz knows intimately what it's like to do violence to the self, scar the soul into numbness to survive? And yet he still has kindness in him, patience with Itzhak's struggles, and love as ferocious as the burning wolf that he is in the kythe...

Itzhak abruptly lifts his hand to scrub the traitorous tear from his eye, silently cursing at himself. He's so goddamn weepy.

<<I told him I want a workshop.>> The benefit of telepathy is that he can still communicate perfectly clearly while his throat is clogged with tears. <<So I still have a place I can just go and be autistic as fuck in peace. That's why we're piling up all that material in his backyard. So. Yeah. Now we're neighbors. How about that, huh?>>

It means leaving the family he'd tried so hard not to get too involved with, and failed, Stephanie and her kids. But even that won't stop him. Ruiz asked, and Itzhak is going.

The river's omnipresent roar shifts with new understanding. August had been trying to sort out what Ruiz would need a workshop for, been puzzling over what hobby he had (aside from guns) which would need one. This made more sense. And was a great idea; it gave Itzhak some space of his own, for when he needed it.

He doesn't need to be there to know there's tears. So what, tears aren't all that bad. <<My aunt told me something once, about that. 'The right ones come in.' She said they don't think of people like us, who've been through the things we have, as having impenetrable barriers. There's still cracks, and they find them, and waltz on in. They don't know how anyone else can't see them.>> Her voice is almost audible there in the trees; a husky contralto, matter-of-fact and no-nonsense. Dead over twenty years, but August can still hear her clearly. <<They don't ignore the parts of ourselves that we hate, but they don't pity them either. They accept them as just part of who we are. That's how they know the way in; they're seeing all of us, not just the nice stuff.>>

He's quiet a bit, the landscape still carrying Vivaldi's music. Then, <<It's not like you can't keep an eye on them. Or Alexander can.>>

A tree shifts with amusement. <<Maybe I can talk you into helping with the animals.>>

That too makes sense to Itzhak, so much sense that he laughs a little, tearfully, in recognition. The way he and de la Vega are evenly matched, street fighters both, brawlers who live by their eagerness to rumble--and somehow Ruiz just walks through all his defenses like they don't exist.

Love is slowing you down. A line from The Last Unicorn floats to the top of Itzhak's consciousness. I will catch you at last, if you love much more.

<<I wish I coulda met her.>> Itzhak's hands find the mandolin again, strumming out Summer. <<I can hear her in you sometimes. She seems like she was a fantastic lady.>> So many people he wishes he could have met, people who shaped those he loves. August's aunt. Ruiz's son. Cruz's daughter. Joseph's fiancee. Many among those he did meet, like Ignacio's old girlfriend, like Itzhak's own ex-boyfriend's mother, did not linger. So much loss to make them who they are.

He swallows, eyes still closed, fingers landing just where they need to be on the instrument. <<I'll keep an eye on 'em. Haven't told 'em yet, it'll be hard on the kids.>> Which is exactly why he tried not to get attached to Philly and Hunter. He knew sooner or later, and probably sooner, he wouldn't be living in their basement. Well, he got attached anyway, and now this is his life. Serves him right. (But does he mind? Does he really, actually mind? Maybe not so much.) <<Sure, you can talk me into helping with ya animals. Even Mei Mei knows what side her bread's buttered on.>> Silent laughter in the kythe. Mei Mei and Itzhak have never got along.

It's the highest compliment, at least as far as August sees it, to be told there's something of Rose in his way. <<She was. You'd have liked her. But she'd have teased you relentlessly.>> An image of her passes between them, August's last clear sight of her before he headed off to boot: curly, black brown hair liberally threaded with white and silver and braided as always, a okay flannel of red and black, old, worn denim jeans, scarred work boots. She'd driven out to see him off. She's a spare, severe-looking woman, the sort you expect to live in a turn of the century cabin with her partner, who taught her nephew how to shoot and hunt. There's more than a passing likeness to Ilana, but Rose (Rosa, really; she was named for her mother, and Rosa Paradiso had been Italian-born) has deeper-set eyes, a sharper face. A glimpse of August's maternal grandfather, perhaps.

August senses that bit of The Last Unicorn. It's the truth, of course; love is a risk. You can't outrun death and pain if you love.

And yet...

Rose's voice--it has to be hers--comes in response. "Someone I loved once gave me a box full of darkness. It took me years to understand that this, too, was a gift."

He lets that spin out between them, an observation from one woman passed down by another. Then, <<It's better they knew you than to not know you. They need a positive influence from a guy in their lives.>> A gentle reassurance that it might not be the worst thing ever, that he became friendly with them. Maybe not the best, but not the worst.

<<Mei Mei respects no one but Erica. And sometimes Eleanor.//>> In fact August was starting to wonder if she just hated men. Well, no one could blame her on that account.

Itzhak slows way down, the better to investigate the image of Rose, to run gentle mental tendrils over her severe face. Here is someone August loved, and so Itzhak loves her too, through the influences she's left in her nephew. <<Your family's pretty fuckin' amazing,>> he murmurs. <<You been lucky to have 'em.>>

And, of course, Rose is gay as hell. That makes Itzhak smile, too. It's the magic of queer folk to pop up anywhere, insistent as peppermint.

<<I'll win her over,>> he promises about Mei Mei, laughing again. <<No bird can resist the siren lure of mealworms.>>

But of course she was. Really, why else would Ben Roen--straight, blue collar man, but not a bad father--send his son to the mountains with his aunt and her partner in the summer, and not the Boy Scouts? Because he knew she'd teach him to shoot and how to survive being queer in a world that wouldn't accept it, and how to meet that intolerant world on his own terms.

A soft, sad sigh that's not the wind or the river, but August himself. <<They are.>> The sadness from a probably unsurprising source: doubt. Has he been worth it? Has done as much for them as they have for him? Because God knows there's been a lot, and sometimes he wonders if he hasn't been a drain on their love and energy. The sheer amount of both they poured into him after Bosnia is mind-boggling, more than anyone could ever possibly repay, or pay forward.

He laughs, though, about Mei Mei. <<Bribes. I should have thought of that. A few fat leopard slugs and she'll be doing whatever you want.>>