2020-06-22 - Everyday People

It's a warm night....but not so bad down by the water. Not with the night wind off the Harbor. Cool there. The fitful breeze makes the dwindling flames of the fire in the little firepit flicker, sending shadows dancing over the beach.

Javier's warned him what might be out there. What hazards might be lurking. Lock your doors. Carry a gun. He has, he does. But even prudence frays, sometimes, and he's too restless to stay indoors or aboard. So he's sitting by the fire, beer bottle held loosely in hand, long legs stretched out before him. The firelight's kind, restoring some of his lost youth, catching in the blue eyes. His expression is somber in repose, thoughtful.

It would have been very kind of the weather to clear up before Thatchery was gunned down. Ah well, that's life in the small but crime-ridden town. So, what, is Itzhak not going to go out in it? Not on ya life. Gun-wielding thugs can come get some.

He steps on the beach, sand and pebbles crunching under his boots. The fire has his attention. A little thread of violin music touches Joe's mind, sings in his ear--Itzhak checking out who is over there.

He's bright again, that fading gone. For a moment, the impression returned to Itz is the quick turn of a crested head, eyes like blue sparks glinting, the ripple of fire-edged dark feathers.

Then it's just the sailor lazing by the fire - it's down to little flickering flames, not great reaching ones. He lifts a hand in greeting, but doesn't call out to the fiddler. Itz will come or not, as the mood takes him.

Itzhak grins, lopsided, to himself. Yeah, Joe is un-faded. Good. He can't help but enjoy that.

Joe's also wise to not expect him to come if called. He's been in a hell of a mood lately, ready to lash out, ready to pick fights and throw insults. When he's happy, Itzhak is a ray of fuggin' sunshine. When he's unhappy, he's, well, like this. Dude doesn't know the meaning of the word 'moderation'.

But he chooses to come over anyway. He swaggers his way over, lighting up a cigarette. The night wind carries off the smoke. "'ey, Yossil," he offers, standing above him, six feet plus of problems ready to happen. "How's by ya."

Or problems that already have. But then, isn't that Joe? Six feet of entitlement, of a peacock's certainty that he's to be admired, that he's there for adulation? A smile for Itzhak, though, genuine enough. "I'm all right," he says, though there's a kind of tiredness to him. "What about you?" he wonders.

He's in t-shirt and jeans, a blue work-shirt over the t-shirt. Presumably to hide the pistol he's got riding at the back of his hip.

In comparison, Itzhak is never armed--or to put it another way, the weapons he has aren't the kind that can be taken off. Except for that set of brass knuckles he always carries, that is.

He wobbles a hand, making smoke float up in little zigzags for a moment. "Ehhhh." The universal Jewish answer to anything. Folding his long limbs, he joins Joe, leaning shoulder to shoulder with him. "Glad your Song is back."

Which contact he doesn't flinch away from, but settles into companionably. "Yeah," he says, quietly. "Hard won, but worth it. Turns out what I needed was a return trip to the Asylum." His tone is flatly neutral, as he says that....and he's looking out at the fire, rather than at Itz. His turn to avoid eye contact, so the musician gets that Greek profile, limned in firelight.

The cherry of the cigarette crackles softly as Itzhak draws off it. "Yeah, I already freaked out at Roen and de la Vega about leaving me out of that," he says, in a curiously light and bitter tone, aimed at himself. "So ya don't gotta worry I'm gonna be mad at you, been there done that."

He settles his hard, thin shoulder against Joe's. All wire, the guy is. No eye contact, no worries--he glances sidelong to observe Joe's face, orange light flickering over those noble features, then at the fire again. "Yeah? What happened in there?"

There's a sound from him, somewhere between grunt and sigh. Almost doggish. "It....we went to find Megan Keene. We did. Doctor Marshall, what was left of him was there. Alice was there, that girl. I.....there's this thing there called the Doctor. It's not Marshall. It was.....we couldn't touch it. It could kill with a thought..."

Itz can feel the tension winding up, filling him like water in a vessel, though his posture doesn't change. "I tried to hit it with lightning, and it turned it back on me. Happily I only hit lightly, or I'd'a killed myself. De la Vega tried to shoot it and it was like....nothing."

Wordlessly, Itzhak wraps an arm around Joe's shoulders, as tension tightens in the other man. He doesn't look at him. Just keeps smoking and gazing into the fire, long arm tucked around him.

After Joe's finished talking, he grunts, too, and taps off the ash into the flames. "Something we ain't seen before. Shouldn't be a surprise, there's a whole universe out there we ain't seen before."

Joe yields. Of course he does. He always does, even in these contexts. Leaning in in earnest, letting his breath out in a longer sigh. "Yeah," he says, quietly. "These things....they're like old gods. Powers and survivals of who knows what. Man, I gotta tell ya, it does a number on any theology I ever encountered....." Joe smiles, but it's mirthless, weary.

Then he shivers, once, for all that there's no chill to be found. Bows his head a little, and edges a hair closer. Huddled against the dark.

"Old gods," Itzhak murmurs, mouth turning down as if he dislikes the taste of the words. "Ahhh that's just fuckin' great." Joe leans in and he gathers him up some, hand gripping Joe's bicep, tucking him against his side. "You got out alive. Yeah? You and everyone else who went in. That's not nothing. That's a lot."

The water hisses as waves come in, sighs as they go out; the fire murmurs and pops. It's a gorgeous summer evening to talk about old gods of unknowable power.

"We did," Joe allows. Then he's tucked up against Itz's side, like a chick against his mother's flank, and turns his face to unashamedly burrow in, nuzzling against the musician's throat. His breath is warm, there. For once there's nothing of eroticism to it - just a naked seeking of comfort.

"We even got Megan out. Alice died. There was a lot there I didn't understand," he murmurs. "Have you talked to Javier about it?"

No eroticism from his end either; Itzhak, older brother, uncle, and warrior unicorn, lifts his chin to allow Joe to nestle in. This is protection, comfort given when it's asked. I will be your shield. He smells like cigarette smoke and coffee and some odd undefinable note of fire--from an acetylene torch, that, sharp and chemical where the bonfire is woodsmoke. He smells like some of that, too, now, and the sea's night wind. And he just smells like himself, the unique scent of a particular person.

He huffs. "Nah. Hard to talk to him about stuff like that. Still working on it. Megan, that's the one who got ya Song all messed up, right?"

Almost like space, the seared scent of matter exposed to god knows what in vacuum, to the unveiled sun. He remembers it, viscerally.

His own scent is warm and clean. Plain soap, sea water, some subtle cologne, and the sharpness of burnt frankincense. A commiserating snort. "Jesus, it's like pulling fucking teeth, isn't it? It's not like he's not got good English. Hell, he's got better English than most Americans. Yeah. I made that bargain with her, and it dimmed my light. But going there....it brought it back."

A beat, and then he says, with an odder note in his voice, "With that Doctor there, I can't go back." He sounds almost....regretful.

"If only pullin' teeth was so easy," Itzhak mutters. Just a little fondly exasperated shit-talking in the Yiddish way. He rests that enormous beak in Joe's dark blonde curls, sighs. "Can't? No you sure can't, why would you want to? ....do you want to? You want to, don't you." If Joe is regretful, he's resigned. He flicks the butt of the cigarette into the fire. "Why do you wanna go back there?"

Another huff of laughter, as they sit there cuddled up like two pups in a basket. He's silent for a little, mulling his reply. There's that halting quality when it finally does come. "Because it was....almost restful? Like.....I didn't have to be anyone or anything there. They hurt me or they healed me and I almost didn't exist. I could just.....let go and what happened wasn't up to me. It wasn't suicide like when I actually tried to kill myself. It just....all passed through."

Another beat, and he says, "I don't have that option, now. I have to live or choose not to live."

Restful. Itzhak turns it over in his mind. "Yeah. They just used you. You didn't have to do nothin', not make any decisons. Just...get used. Like--"

like how you like to get used in bed is the next phrase about to fall out of his mouth. It doesn't make it. He flushes red, clears his throat. "Yeah. I can see how you kinda liked that. ...do you wanna live?" Like always, his tone is curious, rather than gentle. He's not asking this to affect Joe in any way, necessarily. He's just asking.

It needs no exertion of Glimmer, no touch of mind to mind, to know how that sentence was going to end. The quality of the silence between them changes a bit at that little ellipsis. Not like Joe can't feel the warmth flood up his throat, cuddled in as he is. "Exactly like that," he replies, tone dry. "Yes. That is part of it. Wanting it. It was pain, and I do like pain, even devoid of sex or affection."

"I do, now. I do. But things are very easy when you really have no choice."

Yeah that doesn't let Itzhak turn any less red. He can be ridiculous like this: dominant and ferocious, but turns colors when having a halfway normal conversation. "Uh. Well. Good." He stumbles past not talking about Joe's liking for pain, awkward, his long sinewy throat warm with his flush. "'Cause," he goes on, a little more seriously, "I think you got a lot to live for. But. Yeah. I know what you mean. Having no choice, it ain't easy, not for me, but I knew what I had to do. I knew who I was."

Don't make it weird, Cavanaugh.

Too late. It's weird.

Oh, Joe doesn't do it overtly. Doesn't try to squirm in, cop a feel, steal a kiss. Even absent, Javier's will exerts itself. But Itzhak can feel it, the way their consciousness of each others' closeness has changed. Even holding perfectly, innocently still, Joe can be a shit about it.

"I do have a lot to live for. But once you've tried suicide, tried it for real, you can never really, truly shut that door again. It's always a real possibility."

The awkwardness. Oh good Lord, the awkwardness. Something about the way Itzhak holds himself has shifted to what it might have been like when he was a teenager. Like he'd told Joe, like a baby flamingo, all legs and beak. Joe wants to be a shit about it? Joe succeeds. He's still got that arm around him, though, hasn't moved. Only his holding Joe now vibes less protective and more clumsily trying not to let on that he's thinking things he shouldn't be thinking.

"Never, uh, never tried it. Not like you did. More doing crazy shit because I didn't give a fuck, you know?" Itzhak smiles a little, humorlessly, his big lanky frame easing for a second before he remembers he's being awkward. "You never woulda found Javier again if it'd worked."

Itz doesn't have to see the smile to feel it. God, he's an ass, this one. Now he dares nuzzle in just a hair more, sighs contentedly. Yeah, they're both thinking about exactly that. A game of silent brinkmanship, each against his own memories.

"Yeah. Self-destructive, but not calculated suicide, not like that. Yeah. I did it the stupid way, but I was outta my head. If I'd been smarter, I'd'a been dead for real, pills or a bullet. Probably the former, I had enough. I didn't think to take them or they couldn't've revived me," Joe's tone is clinical.

......and now he's got a hand on Itz's knee. Just idle.

"Self-destructive. That's what they'll put on my gravestone." Itzhak almost says more, but then Joe's resting a hand on his knee. His palm is warm against the cool wind, his fingers long and elegant like Itzhak's own. Yeah, Javier de la Vega definitely has a type, when it comes to men. Talk of the self-directed violence he and Joe (and Ruiz) have in their pasts scatters out of his mind. He's left sitting there without a word to say.

"You got great hands for violin." That wasn't anything Itzhak meant to say in particular. It just popped out. "Any kinda instrument, really."

"I feel like that'd fit all three of us," Joe agrees, voice low. Poor Itzhak. Joe relents - at least enough to not really take things further. Savoring that stillness, though. That consciousness, between them.

Then he lifts his hand, shows off the ink. That gesture alone would blow any hope of passing out of the water, sure as a depth charge. Rare indeed is the truly straight man who can display that easy confidence in his own beauty. "Yeah? Can't play a lick, not on anything. Not even piano."

Itzhak takes Joe's hand, thumb against the back of the metacarpals, fingers on the palm, to hold him still so he can get a better look. Ostensibly. He turns Joe's hand, first one way, then the other, making firelight play off the shimmer of fresh ink. Ocean-blue bathed in orange light.

Not that Itzhak is exactly subtle about his preferences, but no straight man touches another man like this.

"Don't gotta," he says, a little absently. "You were busy doing astronaut stuff. You just got great hands for it. That's all."

The tables turned on him, but then....surely that's what he was after. Good work, a traditional font, traditional shading, old school. All his tattoos are in that style, for some kind of unity in the assortment.

Joe's gone still under that touch, though, patient. Waiting. Just like that first night on the Surprise, and that first little contact that betrayed him, just as surely.

"Mmmmhm," he murmurs, lids drooping. "I like music. Men in our family didn't. It's too bad."

Tables turned indeed, despite Itzhak acting like he doesn't know what he's doing, handling Joe's body like he's got a right to it. He makes a face, glances at Joe with brow furrowed. "Men in ya--that don't make no sense. How can men not like music?" But despite his kvetching, his clever rough fingers are firm on Joe's hand. He's not done with it yet. He'll let Joe have it back when he's ready and not a moment before.

That look, those eyes half-veiled. "I mean, we don't learn to play. We don't do anything with it, though a few of us can sing," he breathes. "It's weird, we are Irish, and usually those of Irish descent are pretty fuckin' passionate about music. I guess a lot of it was passing in the Protestant South back when....tryin' to pretend we weren't a bunch of Papist, drunken bastards."

He doesn't try to yank his hand back. Not even gently. That little gesture he'll give Itz, without hesitation.

Itzhak snorts at 'Papist, drunken bastards', amused. "That still don't make sense. Men not doing music isn't a thing." Yeah, easy for him to say, he of the personal freedom and flamboyant queerhood. He has no idea what it's like to be in a family like Joe's, no matter what they do or do not do.

His thumb rubs across Joe's knuckles. Up one bony hill, then down, then up. "Looks great," he murmurs. But not letting go yet.

There's the faintest tightening of his jaw....and a shiver, again. Not fear, this time. Trying for a smile. "No lessons. We're all supposed to be a bunch of hardasses who go into the military or law or politics or maybe medicine. Not musicians. Things are getting better but....my dad's dad was a fucking tyrant. It takes a long time to get things to loosen up."

"Sounds terrible," Itzhak mutters, wrinkling his impressive schnozz. "And stupid. Lots of hardass military guys and doctors or whatevah play an instrument. It's not like it's gay." Well, not to him, at least.

That shiver, that tightening...Itzhak is rewarded. That's right. Joe knows who's in control here. He smiles himself, arrogant as the prince he isn't. No scion of American royalty he, just a tough kid from a rough neighborhood.

Who plays violin. Well, all cliches can't be perfect.

He's a patient soul, this one. No attempt to withdraw his hand. Perhaps just greedy for contact - no one lives with him. He doesn't date. Oh, there are nights when Javier stays over, and presumably Cris does, now and again, but....

A shrug, felt as well as seen. "Plenty," he agrees. "None of us have really gunned for it, not in my generation, that I know of. I've got a brother in law who plays guitar. You'd like him, I bet. I do. He's a neat guy."

"Yeah? Is he hot?" Itzhak pulls it off like he really wants to know, then breaks down snickering. Finally he lets Joe's hand go, for Joe to do with it as he will, and brushes his own hand lightly across the other man's dark gold hair. He really did come over here out of nowhere and demand a lot of physical contact and get up in Joe's business, this Great Dane of a man.

Which occurs to him, and he hesitates, fingers pausing. "You, uh, did you wanna be alone?"

Sure. Now he asks.

"Yeah. His name is Stellan, he's half Cherokee - even speaks the language. Got long black hair, and he's chill as hell. Gives no fucks at all - he helps my sister Helen run the farm, and he rehabilitates wounded birds and is a master falconer. I get the feelin' he's always tempted to roll his eyes at the whole century and a half of Cavanaughs in the military. Helen's the only one of my siblings who didn't serve some way or 'nother," Joe's voice is fond.

That hair's grown out from the short clip he was sporting when he got to Gray Harbor, showing its curl in earnest, touched with brass by the summer sun. He's relaxed, though....and the question makes him jolt with laughter. "Li'l late for that, innit, Longshanks? Nah, I like your compn'y."

"Ehhh I'm tryin' to be sensitive here!" Itzhak protests, laughing. "Longshanks, feh. Don't compare me to Aragorn, I like that way too much." He shifts to settle into Joe, warmly. And yes his shanks are rather long. He goes back to petting through the gold waves that are going curly at the ends. "Good. I like yours too."

It took him long enough, with the way he was searingly jealous of Joe in the beginning. And not to say that jealousy doesn't still bubble up in him like acid. But he genuinely does like his company, always has, and now there's more room in his aggravated heart to let that shine through.

"Sounds hot as hell," he says, about Stellan. "Falconry, that's real interesting."

Now he laughs aloud - not that silent wheeze, but that full-throated chortle. "Man, it works, though, don't it? I'm Legolas, since I'm the tall blond archer. Javier's Gimli, then. The Three Friends." At ease, in his lazy way. But then, he's the most relaxed of the three, isn't he? Anger, if it's there at all, buried deep below, like oil under stone......and that anger, when it does show, cold more often than not.

He bunts his head under the petting like a dog, unashamed. "He's neat. I like them. Helen....she's the most low-key of the five of us. Yeah. Animals love him, love the both of them."

"Gimli's a beautiful warrior poet and Aragorn's a scruffy af guy who picks fights with Ringwraiths. And Legolas is a redneck woods elf so it totally works." Itzhak sighs, shaking his head a little like now he's got this to deal with too. He's not serious, though, just throwing some fond shade.

The bunting gets him to use his nails on Joe's scalp. There's some nail to use, on his right hand; filed down to basically nothing on his left, but his right has a little for purposes of strumming and picking, and also scratching. "Your family sounds neat. The girls, anyway. The guys, eh, I could do without."

He's chuckling, still, at the idea. "It does, doesn't it. Because fuck if you don't pick fights with Ringwraiths," Joe says. He'll think about the Dark Men like that. "Least you're not tryin'a tell me I'm Galadriel. Redneck wood elf it is."

Itz can feel him relax under those touches, go ever more loose-jointed and boneless. "Enh, it's my dad and my eldest brother Paul that are hung up on shit. My second oldest brother Sam is a sub officer and is the quietest man I've ever met. Man charges by the word, but he's funny as hell. You'd like him. My two sisters , Helen and Alice, are great, though."

Itzhak's sigh is a little more genuine this time. He picks fights with Ringwraiths and he's well aware, away from the heat of the moment, that it's a bad idea. Too bad the heat of the moment is when he always sees a Ringwraith and then promptly attempts to fight it.

Joe's family is a much more interesting topic. "Love to meet 'em sometime," he says, smiling faintly, gazing with hooded eyes into the fire.

"You will," he says. "Some day. Tell me about yours? If it isn't painful." Gray Harbor is what it is, and it seems none of the transplants arrive unwounded or unscarred.

The heat of the moment it is. Their mutual excuse for so many follies. Though.....the heat of the moment may be what led them to Javier, it hasn't been what kept them, has it?

Itzhak's eyebrows go up, unseen by Joe. "I will, huh? Well. Look forward to it then."

His family. He draws a breath in, smoke and sea. "My ma, my little sister Naomi, and her kid Miriam. Naomi's an astronomer. Got a PhD and everything, she's brilliant. Ma was a teacher, she's retired now. Miriam's six years old. I got a lotta cousins and second cousins and third cousins, Jews all over the five boroughs. Pop...he died when we were young. They told us he was driving drunk, not just drunk but crazy drunk. I was mad. Real fuckin' mad. For a long time. Still am."

It is painful, that's clear, but he doesn't balk at it. This is a wound he knows well, worn for decades.

"I like Naomi already," Joe retorts, warmly. "I mean, I might be a li'l biased by her profession, but..." Tone amused at himself. "And so does your mother's previous. I'm real sorry to hear about your dad. That's fuckin' hard - not just grief but anger to carry. Blame. I would be, too."

His tone has gone quieter, more somber. "I had a couple buddies die drunk drivin'. It makes it worse when it was....preventable."

"She'd be thrilled as hell to meet you," Itzhak has to admit, with a rough little chuckle. "Pretty sure she knows who you are. She knows all the astronauts and stuff." His humor doesn't last long. "He was always gentle," he says, quiet, raspy. "He was in Vietnam. Army. It always bothered him. You could tell. But he was always gentle. Never raised a hand or his voice, even when I richly fuckin' deserved it. He was a sweet, kind man. Never even knew he drank. Them telling us he died blind drunk? For a while I was convinced it was a mistake, or fake, something, you know? Not my pop. Couldn't be him."

"Then I'll have to meet her," he says. "I 'member how it was when I got to meet the guys I'd looked up to when I was a kid. I had to work real hard not to squeal like a piglet when I met Buzz Aldrin. Saved it for later."

Then he's nudging up against Itz again, insistently. "I'm sorry," he says, softly. "Hurt him, huh, even if he didn't come back with a Purple Heart? My dad, he won't talk about 'Nam. Not a word, but he went. He had three brothers, one of 'em died there. Ironically, Afghanistan's one of the few things Paul and I c'n talk about."

"He never talked about it. I looked up his service record, turns out he was decorated. He never would show me his medals or say a damn word. He told me one thing, which was it wasn't fit for me to hear about, not until I was older." Itzhak shifts to turn towards Joe instead of the fire, grips him tighter, bends his head. "So we never did. He died when I was fifteen. I'm so fucking mad at him, Joe."

Now it's his turn to gather the fiddler to him, hitch him close. It might be too warm, with the fire, the night, their proximity, but....no. Not when you're trying to wall out that final chill, shield one another from a cold that's more than metaphysical.

"I bet," Joe says, gently, planting a kiss on those black curls. No platitudes. No attempts at mitigating things. Some angers you have to carry all your life, even though they burn your hand like a coal.

This one is a core anger for Itzhak, one he lovingly crafted a Dyson sphere of resentment around. He puts both arms around Joe, muscles taut. "It was a long time ago," he mumbles, almost lost to the sound of the sea, "and I'm not over it. Don't guess I'll ever be over it. Just one of those things you gotta lug around through life like one of these giant cedars."

Arms around one another. Drowning men seeking something to keep themselves afloat, wrestlers grappled in competition, sometime lovers embracing. "Some wounds don't heal," he says. "If you're lucky, they go numb enough you c'n keep on, but that ain't the same as healin'. Sometimes you just grow strong enough around the hurt you compensate for."

Itzhak's hand gathers up a fistful of Joe's overshirt, so that the fabric creaks. "Not strong enough," he mumbles, rocking back and forth a little. His shoulders jerk under Joe's arms. "Never been strong enough. Why can't I be strong enough?"

The fire murmurs in the warm night, the tide sighs up the sands, and Itzhak Rosencrantz asks why can't he be strong enough. Not really a question. Rather a cry of pain.

And thereby knocks knuckles against the Glock in its holster, the reason he bothers with that work shirt at all. They may all be powers in their own right, but a little mundane weaponry can't hurt, surely. "You're strong enough. You do it. You do just fine," he says, shifting so now he's the one cradling Itzhak, bearing his weight, like he's struggling to carry a wounded man. But it's not awkward. One long hand finds the musician's back, strokes the line of his spine. Five minutes ago it'd've been too sensual, too intimate a contact....but not now.

Swallowing rapidly, Itzhak shakes his head. "Naomi got cancer. Breast cancer. Inflammatory, the kind you don't want. I tried to protect her my whole life, I did a shit job of it, I'm still doing a shit job of it, I sold myself into debt so she could get treatment and that's why I'm out here." The story comes out in a rush. Itzhak rocks harder while he tells it.

Then, when it's done, he slows. He swallows again. "Javier knows," he says, soft, not turning his head, not quite daring to look Joe in the eye.

There's a moment of unpleasant flashback - cradling his wounded backseater, both of them tucked into the dusty corner of a ruined house in the hills of Afghanistan. But his hand doesn't still, as if Itzhak were an animal that needed gentling, a colt quivering and ready to bolt, under his palm.

Gently, gently, he says, under his breath, "......Monaghan."

It isn't a question.

"May all the troubles I have in my heart go to his head." Itzhak whispers the curse, bitter, intense. He is rather coltlike, trembling a touch, long legs folded up but tense as wires. And of course, there's the nose. Really it is no wonder that a unicorn is his emblem, who he is under the skin.

"That's what he does." He turns his head, now, to press his cheek to Joe's. Bristly. "He gets people working for him. Some are into it. A lot are guys like me. Someone in New York picked me out, and I think...I'm pretty sure it's because of my Song. Monaghan doesn't have it, he don't know what it is, but that guy did. Some kinda go-between." The shudder that seizes him now is pure loathing. "One of these days I'm gonna get my hands on that mamzer."

Joe's own rasps with stubble. It's less obvious on him, reduced to a mere glitter when the light hits it, blond hair on fair skin. Fingertips trace lightly over the bones of his spine, like a string of beads. Breath slow, calm, as his heartbeat - a pool to sink fire in, let it extinguish.

"I don't doubt you're right," he says, softly. "He's got a scout, doesn't he? Someone who does know....someone who brought you here." And thereby engineered his own misfortune. Monaghan may have Javier and Itzhak under his thumb, but war is coming....and surely, even his bright-eyed headhunter didn't foresee that pairing.

"Brought me here, told me what to do, hung the damn garage around my neck. I hate it." Itzhak hesitates. "No, I...I used to hate it. I hate what I gotta do with it. But I love it now. I worked so hard on it, now it's mine. Mine." Territorial fury spikes in the kythe. The defender of safe places, the protector of the small says mine.

He may submit to Javier and love him for it, but this is a beast who will always fight the bit, waiting for that moment of inattention that will inevitably come.

Joe's calm, also inevitably, calms him. There's nobody to fight here, except for his own demons. Itzhak presses close and sinks into those deep, cool waters, fractal tendrils iterating themselves to slide in. He sighs, the terrible tension in him loosening.

While Joe will impatiently shove his head into the bridle, kneel for the lash. "Is he helping you rebuild it? Funding it? And if he doesn't shine, doesn't sing....does he know about Them?"

His anger's so different from theirs, that slow, cold, tectonic grind...until the quake hits. But at the moment, he's only the cool shadow under the oaks, the mineral scent of spring water. His hand finds Itzhak's temple, and his fingers massage there, trying to ease the tension.

"No. He puts in the original investment. After that, he only cares he gets paid. More specifically, Joey Kelly cares that he gets paid." Itzhak huffs, almost a laugh. "Don't think Monaghan knows about Them. But I can promise you They know about him. He does their work for 'em. Like ...like Bates. Raising meat."

When Joe rubs his temple, he lets out a juddering sigh of pleasure. The pressure, the sense of cool water and shadowing oaks; he bends to it, willingly, coming to shelter as if he'd been run too hard in the heat. Fractal sharpness transforms into a velvety muzzle dipping into water and drinking deep.

God, Bates. It's not quite a jolt, that memory. But a change of angle. How did that man have his face? A reflection of all his weakness, his unshakable conviction of his own infectious guilt. But the sharper, harder, keener cold of a creature whose true element is space. There's a part of Joe that misses inhabiting the being he was on the Patusan.

He sighs, softly, refocusses on that image. It's a place, or a memory of one. Sandy black soil, the faint tang of the water, a healer's spring, moss on the stones - all of it a welcome sanctuary from the still heat of a Georgia summer.

And Itzhak. Who was he in that world? A xenobiologist who created a monster, who made love to monsters, locking one in his own chest under his heart like dire treasure from a fairy tale. It's a Dream that posed a lot of troubling questions, none of which have answers.

This Itzhak, who is no scientist but who could have been, if the trajectory of his life was different, sniffles hard and rubs the end of his nose. He leans back, but in the connection, a black unicorn folds its legs, sinking to the black soil. Beautiful, unlikely, it rests in the cool and the scent of water and moss.

He regards Joe. That long face of his, indisputably Jewish, is made for melancholy looks like this one.

"You oughta be sensible," he says, "and get away from me and him."

In that shared space, it's only shadow, with the barest dapple of sunlight through the oak leaves. Live oaks, that spread out their arms like a mother welcoming her children.

But in the merely physical world, the look Joe gives Itzhak is utterly dry. Somber, and he's got that long face. At the back of it, though, is a glint of sharp humor, and that in turn, is an overlay of his own particular madness. He doesn't have to say it, aloud or mind to mind. Sensible men don't do what he did. Sensible men don't hurl themselves off the pitching decks of ships or ride rockets beyond the thin veil of atmosphere. And they certainly don't risk dazzling careers for the darker pleasures of seducing teenage Marines.

Itzhak's eyes travel over Joe's face. His mouth twists into a smirk. "Yeah. I know, right? Me neither."

He's trouble. No less than Ruiz, he's trouble and grief and bad luck like the old blues men down South sang about. A man born under a bad sign. He should have mercy and sense and get out of town, leave Ruiz, leave everybody behind, vanish into the Veil. He should. But he won't.

He should. They should. They could all three pick up sticks and leave. But....Javier has a child here. Itz his shop, his work, even if his girls have wised up and gone. Joe...Joe has his ties.

And isn't he trouble? Isn't he poison, behind that clean-cut, all-American exterior. They know, and he's grateful for it, that knowledge. That there are eyes who see him as he is. Infectious madness, indeed, and a hell of a place to make a stand.

For that's what it'll come down to, in the end.

Oh yes. As he'd once told Cruz, Itzhak can smell his own. Trouble. Poison. Messed up. People who crave what he craves. Like the song says, some of them want to use him, and some of them want to be used by him. He's down, either way. Come get some.

At the moment, though, he slides a hand around to the nape of Joe's neck and grips him there. Silent understanding is rare for him, yet he's picking up what Joe is laying down. The mental connection, even low-key, helps.

"Now ya know," he says, eyebrows quirking. "Look, I get it if you, yannow. Don't wanna be around me. I know I ain't him."

They both know nothing could pry Joe from Ruiz, but Itzhak is assigning himself a different story.

It's affection, taken as such. Even if it tweaks those nerves. Itz can feel that fractional moment of reaction, the way his head bows. Yes, there. Like that.

"No," he says. "This place. I'm in this. My hands are not clean, Itzhak. I'm not such a hypocrite that I'll recoil in horror. No, I haven't lived the lives that you have, that he has. I won't pretend I'm a hardass, not like that, it'd be bullshit. I'm not asking you to tell me things you don't want to. But I'm here. I'm involved. You're my friend..."

Joe trails off, sighs. "I....when Javier told me, I reminded him that I was a criminal from the first moment I laid hands on him. Yes, I know it was a law that was only in force in that specific situation, but.....I did it. Because I wanted to. And more than once. Again and again, every chance I ever got. I don't have any excuse. No one drove me to it, not a loved one, not a debt...."

"You coulda tanked his career," Itzhak says softly, almost as soft as the popping of the low fire. "If you got caught, who was gonna get thrown out? The golden boy pilot or the Mexican ground-pounder with the accent?" This is not an accusation. It's a statement of rhetoric, Talmudic in its way. If two men break the law to screw each other...

"I woulda done the same." He grips a little harder, long fingers pressing, his eyes on Joe's face. "Hundred percent, if that happened to me, I'da done the same. I could never have given him up, you understand me?"

"I know," he says. "He wouldn't've gotten away clean. Once he could've claimed rape. Multiple meetings, an affair, no. I ruined his marriage....or went a long way to doing it."

The blue eyes are level, unwavering. Oh, there's guilt there, sadness.....but behind it all, that iron will. What he wants, he gets, and the cost be damned. "I understand completely. I never could. I'd never ask it, of you or of him." A shiver, for that tightened grip. His mind may be entirely serious, but that part of him that operates by the gut, and lower yet, has sat up to take notice. "And I don't intend to give either of you up. Not for this Monaghan, not for anyone else."

For that, Joe gets Itzhak's nails sinking into his neck. Part reward, and yes, part chastisement. "Don't," he says, still soft. "He ruined his marriage all on his own."

Is this because Itzhak thinks Joe shouldn't take on that burden, or because he thinks Joe is claiming he was a more powerful force on Ruiz than maybe he was?

Yes.

Yet when Joe says he doesn't plan to give either of them up, Itzhak sighs, eyes closing. "Good man," he murmurs. "We'll get through this."

Playing the first few notes, tuning up on the overture, even if they both know they won't be making it through the full symphony tonight. There's an open shudder from the blond. Not meant to be theatrical, but....one of those moments where it breaks through more than he might like.

"Not all on his own," he insists, but softly, without heat.

"We will. I refuse to run. I refuse to let go. Fuck them all. Whoever brought you here.....he's in for a fucking shock."

Just the maestro plucking a few strings, making sure the instrument is still responsive, in tune. No big deal. Itzhak smiles at the answer he gets, and the response. It's a smile that says a lot of things, a mix of savagery and tenderness and the refusal to take the advice of his own knuckle ink and stay down. He bumps his forehead gently against Joe's, nails in his neck.

"Very, very good." His grip eases up, the pads of his fingers moving to smooth the dents he's made. "That's what I like to hear, Yossil."

Sitting back, he unwinds from him. "Gonna take the walk I came out here for." There's mischief in those hazel eyes. Itzhak knows what he did.

A little scoffing laugh, for that. Joe started it, he did....and now he's gotten what he deserved. Itzhak has his number, after all. Flushed and bright-eyed, but he doesn't refuse to let the musician untangle from him. "A'right," he says, smoothing his hands down his shirt front, like a bird settling its feathers.

"You have a good night, Itzhak."

No request that the fiddler carry a kiss from him to Javier. It might not end there.

Itzhak stands, dusts sand off his jeans. He looks down at Joe, smirking outright at him. "Yeah. You too, huh?" Not anything as louche as a wink, but Itzhak hooks a thumb in his hip pocket, fingers splayed. Then he upnods, eyebrows quirking, and saunters off, digging in that pocket for his cigarettes.