2020-05-08 - Firepit Feels

Lilith had been walking the beach when sunset came and she wasn't ready to go back in. Therefore, she finds the best firepit placement that's unoccupied (which isn't hard at the moment) and once she's there, she stands with her hands on her hips looking at the burnt down logs. She concentrates, tilts her head, decides how long she wants things to burn and is careful not to flash bomb what's left of the driftwood.

Soon she has a bonfire with post up log and bench area at one of the best and most convenient places on the beach to settle in with. It's in view from the back patio of TIBS in that kind of passerby inviting way, indicating she doesn't want to be off and too secluded come dark. Besides, who knows who she might run into. Byron's been working a lot with the casino grand opening coming and she's admittedly kind of jonesing for some form of social interaction that isn't work. Sitting in the bar alone seemed depressing, so fire it is.

Anyway, Lilith likes starting fires and watching them. They make her feel better. So does the joint she produces once she's seated to watch the thing.

August is one of those annoying native PNWers who, as soon as the temperature is over 55, does his nighttime beach strolls in shorts. It's rude as hell to everyone who finds temps under 60 to be unbearably cold. He's in dark gray cargos that don't quite conceal the edges of a black tattoo peaking out just above his left knee, a dark purple, slub tee, black hoodie, and deck shoes. Nothing beats a night-time stroll with a bottle of beer on a comfortable spring night while he waits for Eleanor to finish out her shift at Espresso Yourself.

The light from the bonfire draws him that direction. He'd visited UCSD for a couple of weeks one summer, part of a course on botany in tidal zones; the beach parties at night were a fond memory. Grad students getting rowdy after dark to the sound of the waves and uncertain light of a few ill-assembled fires. The smell of pot is just another match to those fond recollections of a guy who was about thirty pounds heavier and a lot wilder. "Hey," he says as he gets within earshot.

There's nothing like the shimmer of fire on water to recall Joe to his own younger days, too. Raised in a port city, stationed all around the globe, including gentler climes like Hawaii and Florida and California - thoughtless pagan youth.

So there's an odd light in the blue eyes, when he comes walking down from the dock. On something already, by the way he doesn't seem to quite focus. Only jeans and a dark t-shirt and worn boots, tread soft as he comes meandering up, as sure of his welcome as a cat.

In the time the bonfire has been going, Lilith has already given the stank-eye to a guy who looked like he was named 'Peyton'. It was a stankface so extreme, he wandered off once he made the comment of smelling a 'good time with a pretty lady' in the air. He even made finger guns before leaving and getting the point. Naturally, the woman is already starting to think it's a bad idea to hang out here like this because there's no telling what you'll actually catch. It's a little like fishing. But with people. And she's remembering she doesn't actually like most people that much as an afterthought.

But she has her fire and she has her joint, and that is a familiar deep voice approaching with greeting. Turning with twist where she's seated, she looks at August with a sudden flash of smile, taking a hard hit from the joint to hold before putting it out to pass to him with return greeting. Exhaling through a plume of smoke while holding the spliff with invitation, she pipes up, "What's up, Mister Tattoo Model?" Mmhmm, that's a ribbing. Totally complimentary, though, despite her signature deadpan dryness lacing the humored and specific kind of 'hello'.

Seated with cropped and distressed denim jeans, black and white Roxy low sneakers, there's a black cable knit hooded cardigan wrapped around the rest of her. Her hood is partially pulled up to catch and hang on her up-bound bun of hair, and though she's largely without makeup, there's smoked eyeline left on from the day that makes her blue eyes not only standout in the firelight, but emphasizes the fact that her pot haze is nicely in starter effect. Her lashes are a bit heavy as she squints over Joseph's approaching way, wondering of August while she makes the pass off, "You know that one?"

August eyes the joint. Oh how he would love to, but he has a fair bit left to do tonight (go home with Ellie and make dinner, some house chores, try to get the rest of the summer ordering done). He holds up a hand and declines with a shake of his head and a smile. "Afraid I have to stick to," and he holds up his beer: Arrogant Bastard lager. That smile broadens at Lilith's greeting. "Hey now, most people don't get to see all of the tattoos."

His gaze shifts towards Joe when Lilith indicates him. "Yeah. Cavanaugh." His smile turns rueful. "Pretty sure he's already got a little something going on himself." He gives Joe an up-nod. "Hey you. How's things?"

Indeed, the boneless quality is there, that feline ease, as he settles down on a log around the firepit as if sure of his welcome. No glasses, this evening - the firelight catches in the blue eyes unimpeded. They're already a little glassy. "Hey, Roen," he drawls, with that sleepy smile; the Savannah accent stretching syllables like taffy.

Then he turns that thoughtful look on Lilith. "Evenin'," he says. "I know I've seen you aroun', but I don't think we've been introduced. I'm Joe Cavanaugh." She gets the brunt of that dreamy smile. No angling for the joint. She may be smoking alone, this evenng.

Lilith holds the joint out to the newest arrival a little bit to be polite anyway, but seeing him not so much angling toward it, opts to smile and put the spliff up for another slow, drawn out and lung heavy hit of the pungent pot smoke to blow out in a haze stolen by the evening sea breeze. "Right, right, now that you're in the light, I have seen you around. Just one of those small town things where you go circles around people, but there's too much going on to actually meet or know some of them, no matter how many times you circle about." Also very much a Gray Harbor thing given what chaos people can be pulled into together, but that's neither here nor there.

"I'm Lilith Winslow. Own the pawn shop in town if you ever need anything-- I like to keep neat stuff, not junk." While making proper introduction to Joseph, the brunette pats on her log with gesture for August to at least get lounging with his beer if he's not going to smoke with her. Suddenly, inspired by something (probably weed), she makes inquiry of August, "August, how long were you with Ellie before you asked her to marry? How'd you know it was right to do that?"

August moves to join Lilith at the invite, settling on the log and taking a drink. He nods at Joe to join them, tells Lilith, "Cavanaugh here is a former Navy man," as if this should explain numerous things about him regardless of how much or how little Lilith knows about the military in general or the Navy in particular.

He spends a second weighing her question. The fire reflects in his eyes; the green in them comes and goes in uneven light like this, like a piece of labradorite being turned. "Mmmmm, well. After a particularly, ah," he rubs an eye, "bad Dream, with the things she said to me about what happened in it, I figured I'd be the dumbest man on the planet to not at least bring up the idea of something longer term with her. Where is a guy like me going to find a woman like that?" He laughs, like he still can't believe he even has. "I guess that was about six months in." Another sip from his beer. "But I didn't work up to really thinking about The Question until a couple months later. And then she wound up proposing to me instead." He grins now, because of course, that's life in Gray Harbor: you work yourself up to a momentous occasion, and the rug gets yanked out from under you.

Gently, Joe waves the joint away with a languid flick of a long hand. "Exactly," he agrees. "Matter of fact, I think we both live in Bayside?" An upward lilt at the end makes it a question. "A pleasure to meet you, Miss Winslow. I'll have to drop by and look. Matter of fact, dependin' on what you have in terms of firearms, might have to make that soon."

The question makes him smile, wistfully. Then he's adding, "I am. More'n twentyfive years in, got out about.....nearly four years ago, or so." The anchor tattoo is still clear on his forearm....as are the scars that stretch from each elbow to wrist.

While tamping ashes with forefinger from the smoke and playing with it afterwards in roll between her thumb with pinch, Lilith stares at the fire and listens attentively. There is a flick of eyes away to size Joseph up more fully after the Navy explanation from August. Her eyes take a moment to catch on the scarring with the tattoo, but she's tactful about it, just a passing noting to perhaps think about. But largely, her mental place seems to be for the cute story given on Roen and Ellie's path to betrothal, so to speak, "This place does have one thing going for it, I guess. It really knows how to throw you through the mud and see who's going to play tug and catch over and over."

After a pause of time for herself, Lilith takes one more drag before wetting her fingers and pinching the glowing tip of the joint, stashing it into a cardigan pocket for finishing later, "But yes, I live in Bayside. Technically, the Penthouse is Byron's place and I used to just play sleepover, but... now I'm officially the moved-in lady of the place. I still keep my loft apartment over the shop, though. And I love guns, I have quite a few, so stop on through, we'll see if I can thrill you."

August mmmms at Joe, reminded of the odd circumstances of the previous gun shop owner's rather horrible death. Some sort of private joke makes chuckle. He sobers a bit, adds, "I might do the same. I need a glass to break for the wedding, and I feel like that's something I should get in the not-so-usual way. If you've got that kind of thing around." Old glassware, he means. He'll know the right one when he sees it, or so he thinks.

His attention shifts back to the fire. "Yeah, it sure does." He shakes his head. "Hell, I don't know that I'd have ever found anyone I could make it work with anywhere but here, or maybe in Portland. Where it's like here, I mean." He rubs his fingers together. "Where the Other Side's close. Anyone but someone like us," a glance from Joe to Lilith in that shared understanding of what it means to have Glimmer, "I'd never be able to explain any of what happened to me in Sarajevo, or growing up. And if you have a big hole in your life like that which you can't really tell someone, they can get resentful." He sighs. "And who can blame 'em."

"Like a war zone," Joe agrees, quietly. Content now to sit a little hunched over, elbows on knees, hands dangling between them. No cigarette, no joint, no offer of something to share. He's brought no libation for the fire. Only that dreamy, distracted air, like an oracle in the smoke, face hieratic in its still severity. "Less time for aimless play, the deeper layers get exposed more quickly." He flicks a look at her, and then smiles, slow. "We shall see."

He nods at August. "I wonder if.....that's why almost nothing stuck with me, until I got here." That vain, orbiting, nearly fruitless pursuit over ocean and sea, of that Marine. "Though I never knew what it was, growin' up. If that's why I was different and it wasn't just....personality." Joe scuffs a boot toe in the sand, leaves an arc, crosses it with another.

"I had issues that stuck even after I left here. They just changed and my perception was... mm." Lilith doesn't say any more than that, though there's a lot she could say about how she got to the breaking point of running away from Gray Harbor and the way the damages and urges hung around to screw up her attempts at normal life. Plus she spent a lot of time living near the Bermuda Triangle, which probably didn't let things stay properly dormant, powerful as she is, "Miami worked for a while, though, I guess. It's funny, though, in a dark way..."

Settling back on her hands she continues, crossing her legs out at the ankles, "Everything gets scary and terrible and dangerous and cursed for me, the longer I am back. But I'm becoming so accustomed to letting myself have good things too for the first real time in my life... it's like some screwed up tradeoff. I guess you need a bunch of shadow to truly see what's light in life."

"A war zone," August murmurs in agreement. He's thinking of another place and time when he says that. Far uglier and more hellish than Gray Harbor, yet in some ways better. As Lilith has said, here he's been tricked into having things he loves. At least back then he knew he was in a place he didn't want to be, and if he survived, he could leave. Leaving isn't an option anymore, not really.

So he nods, and says, "When I was in boot, I had trouble remembering a lot of what happened when I was a kid, in Portland. It wasn't until Sarajevo that I could remember some of it. And then when I was out in the field, it'd get all fuzzy again. I thought..." He gets that look, one Lilith no doubt knows: he'd thought it was done. Over. Gone. He was free.

He shakes his head. "And then I drove through here on my way to the park one day, and that was it." He shrugs, asides to Joe, "There's no doubt people who can make it work even with that shit when their partners don't have it. Just," he meets Joe's eyes, then Lilith's, and lets the rest go unsaid: no one seated at this fire.

Now, Joe's heaving himself up with an awkward lurch. The damage - he's healed but it's not gone, and the drugs may banish pain but even they can't conquer weakness. God knows they don't help coordination. No one seated at the fire, indeed.

He moves like he's being spurred, goaded somewhere. Farewells muttered, nothing at all clear....and Joe's limping down the beach with that uneven swing. Not heading for the route back to the docks, not now. Of all the times for whatever's wrong with him to act up....

Lilith indeed knows that look, there were times she thought she was perfectly normal, but something small always happened to let her know she wasn't free, not really. But mostly, at least, she didn't actively think about it, "Lots of us end up here over again, you know. But it's maybe... well, the best way some of us know how to live. Sometimes we need the siren song, maybe. I don't know. I think I'm a little stoned, despite tolerance."

Then she follows the departing Joseph with her eyes before pulling out her phone, apparently prompted by something they're talking about to send off a few texts while they're fresh in mind, "He okay? Had something real screwy happen lately?"

(TXT to Byron) Lilith : I need you to know something.

(TXT to Byron) Lilith : Sometimes I get rattled. I get scared or mad, worried or insecure.

(TXT to Byron) Lilith : When you see me like that, I also need you to remember I'm happier than I've ever been in my life, thanks to you.

(TXT to Byron) Lilith : I love you far more than anyone should be allowed to love.

"Pretty sure you're right, stoned or not," August says. He toys with the beer bottle, mostly empty now. "I think with this power we have, we wind up living our lives as best we can. It's just how it is for us."

He watches Joe get up, blinking in surprise. "Night, Joe," he says, eyes tracking him until he's out of the firelight. He keeps staring at the spot where the other man went out if sight for a time, shifts to consider Lilith.

"He ran into..." He stops, suddenly aware that this is a long story he's about to launch into, and maybe he can shorten it. "Were you around when that whole business with the theater troupe went down? The ones sacrificing people to Them?"

(TXT to Lilith) Byron : I know that you do, Lil. I've never loved anyone in the same way that I love you. Are you alright? Is everything okay?

"Maybe so. Everyone has their general predisposed lots in life. Rise above, blahblah. I just like getting by and playing reprieve and sweet spots in the meantime. It's enough for me. Also, I got to kill a whole dragon, once. That was amazing." Lilith tells August with a slant of a smile after setting her phone down on a leg once she's got some things popped off with messaging. It's soon lighting up and drawing her eyes downward for a moment to smile slightly at what shows on the screen. Then she looks back the way that Joseph went to with a new curiosity when the theatre troupe is mentioned.

"Yeah, I was. One of them approached Geoff initially. Then they wanted to have us all gang up on Alexander for... but one got away when we killed them." After a bat of her lashes and a little slow to catch on, she wonders, "That one's back?"

(TXT to Byron) Lilith : I'm okay. I promise. I've just been thinking down on the beach. Sunset came and I decided fire would be nice.

(TXT to Byron) Lilith : Caught a little company. That's nice too. You home yet?

(TXT to Lilith) Byron : A walk on the beach sounds nice. Anyway, I'll be done here in half an hour. Meet you for dinner.

August grins at Lilith. "Yeah, sometimes it does have its perks." He's thinking of a few here and there: sharing a mindspace with people he cares about; a better understanding of themselves in these constructs; the chance to prove to one another that they're more than what the world and society want them to be. In the ugliness, beauty. "All light casts shadow if it touches anything real," he says, voice low. "I guess that's just how things are for us." He looks askance at Lilith, smiles at the texting. "I wouldn't be with Eleanor if not for this. So. It is what it is."

He's relieved to not need to get her too much more up to speed. "Yeah. She did something to Joe, kinda messed him up a bit. De la Vega ran into her too, he said she seemed...saturated Amped up, like we can do to people," his eyebrows go up to emphasize he means the shaping gift, "only, not as temporary as ours tends to be." He makes a face. "She claims she can give people back their memories of the Asylum. Of course, maybe she's just making up random shit." He shrugs half-heartedly about that; he's not strong enough in the mind Art to know accurately weigh such claims.

"Byron... is the best thing that ever happened to me. I was lucky this town shoved us together again like it did. Probably less lucky in other ways, but still. Like we agree, it's that screwy karmic balance for people like us, maybe." The woman slants up a little grin after this, though it's not without a touch of ruefulness.

"... do people want their memories of that place back?" Lilith wonders of August a little hesitantly, seeming to weigh if it's something she'd like if she were missing them. After popping off a last text, she pockets her phone back into her cardigan and shifts a bit in the firelight to look at man and company with a vaguely pensive expression, "... did the Vivisectionist work there, do you know? Also what's the name of the one pissing about with people, the theater women?"

(TXT to Byron) Lilith : I'll be home waiting. Mwah.

August raises his beer to Lilith in a toast that's as ringing as her grin. "Here's to cosmic fuckery. At least we've got love," he says, takes a decent swig.

"It's...kind of a complicated thing. So, I wasn't a patient there. But I went with a few people to tour it." He pulls a face. "Except none of us who went can remember it unless we try really hard. And if we do, remembering something from there seems to corrupt our other memories. That's how Joe," he tips his head where the man wandered off to, "put it. So, we're pretty sure we went there, and Isabella managed to remember something after she tried really hard."

He sighs, realizing he's a little off track. "I think some people think they want to. But whatever she did--her name's Megan, Megan Keene--it messed up Joe in more than a few ways. And who knows if whatever she did actually gave him back his memories. For all we know she just gave him random garbage memories of her own making."

"Sounds like a garbage excuse to plant garbage, considering they thrive off of making chaos or what have you." Lilith says with a bit of a grumble before pushing up into a stretch of a slow stand, "Be careful. I had a real nasty Dream lately and felt Dark fingers all through it. Not that we can do anything to prevent it, just... mm."

"Anyway, thanks for hanging out. I'm going to go dress for or see to dinner before Byron gets home. I'll see you later, give Ellie my regards."