2020-08-09 - Impromptu Sleep Over

It's not terribly late but it's creeping up on ten p.m. when a familiar Jeep comes bouncing up the drive to Ruiz' cabin, headlights sweeping across a window before Bennie parks it off to the side near the tree line and climbs out of the driver's side. There is an excited deep WOOF! as Gunner, now a full grown bull mastiff, hops out after her. He's well trained enough not to need a leash, but he still wanders from her side up ahead to sniff around at all the new, exciting smells. She makes a kissy noise for him when she gets to the door and there waits for Itzhak to catch up. She's moving slow, but undoubtedly he's moving slower.

So on the doorstep is Bennie Oakes in her handmade nightgown out of an old mumu with ribbons for straps and lace added on the hem, in her house slippers and clutching a pillow whose case seems to be an old grey t-shirt and a very large dog panting with his tongue out.

Itzhak is moving slow. Very slow. Real slow, limping and wincing after Bennie. He looks miserable. And he blinks at Bennie when she parks herself on the doorstep. "...what, you wanna come in?" He'd assumed she was just going to dump him at home. Eventually he makes it to the door. Keys, he needs his keys, his Song is sprained; he fumbles for them in a pocket, leaning his forehead against the doorjamb. And then addresses the task of getting the correct key in the correct lock.

Someone's home, all right. And someone who is well aware that he has a visitor, before that knock on the door ever lands. The sound of the Jeep in the driveway isn't one he's accustomed to hearing, and there's the brief sensation of that hot, savage mindwolf slinking at the very edges of Bennie's consciousness before it blows away like smoke off water.

Then the door's tugged open, and she might catch a glint of light off the dark object in his hand. Kind of gun-shaped, if we're being honest. "Bennie," he greets her a little gruffly, dark eyes lingering on her face for a beat, skimming over the nightgown, then cutting away to the mastiff roaming around at her heels. He himself is dressed in a ratty old tee shirt and a pair of sweatpants he must have tugged on to appear decent at the last possible minute.

Then, "Itzhak? Baby?" The gun's shoved onto a shelf near the door and out of the way, and he goes to sling an arm around the mechanic. "The hell happened?"

"I can't go home. It's...empty there." Murmured quietly, Bennie hugs the pillow to her chest, wrapped in one of Easton's old t-shirts though the smell of him has long worn off. Facing the two bedroom cabin, alone, seemed just too overwhelming right now. As the door swings open, Gunner gives an excited little grumble, like he's talking to Ruiz, his butt wagging excitedly but his owner is less than her cheery self.

As the light spills over Itzhak and Bennie from within, they look like Jack and Jill after failing to fetch a pail of water, if said hill spilled into a rocky chasm and Jack certainly took the brunt of it like he broke Jill's fall. Deep muscle bruising for them both is her professional opinion. But at least the black inky veins have faded away? "We're having a post-Dream sleep over." She tries to sound enthusiastic about it, really, but it just comes out plaintive.

The weird Dark Side veins have faded, leaving bruising in their place. Itzhak is bruised everywhere, starting from his eyelids on down. He looks like he was held down while a tank ran over him, forwards and back. He grunts. "Well don't let your slobber machine bother my lizard."

When Ruiz slings his arm around him he groans from deep in his sore gut, but, "Am I happy to see you, baby," he mumbles, getting an arm around Ruiz in turn. "I'm okay. Everything fuckin' hurts and not in the good way," a touch of near-hysterical laughter there, "but I'm okay. They took us and slapped us around a while. Also not in the good way."

There's no questioning why she can't go home right now. He knows perfectly well. And once he's got an arm slung around the taller, rather battered man he calls his boyfriend, Javier starts easing him back inside. "Come on," he murmurs to the blonde, hitching his chin toward the couch. "Have a seat. I'll grab you some blankets and a pillow. You can stay the night. You need something to eat?" Once they're all inside, the door's kicked shut after them, and the security system re-engaged. There's plenty of house for the dog to explore, but, "He'll have to stay out back if he can't behave," warns the cop with a glance toward Iris's terrarium. Then Itzhak's hefted onto the couch, and his fingers rifled through overlong curls before he pads barefoot into the kitchen.

Bennie doesn't seem concerned with the fact that Ruiz answered the door with a gun, nor the fact that he has a security system that gets switched back on the moment the door's closed. "He won't be a problem." Afterall, it's Easton's dog, and being raised by a marine Gunner has discipline in spades. "Gunner, guard." Bennie instructs, and after the large hound noses her hem he circles back to the front door and lays down in front of it with his head resting on his massive paws. Pensively, Bennie looks around the guys' inner domain, chewing at the corner of her lip before venturing. "Got any alcohol?"

Iris, the lizard in question who lives in a planted vivarium, tilts her head this way and that, her ruffled blue tongue flickering out. She must smell Gunner, because she slowly creeps under her favorite log hide. "Good girl," Itzhak mutters. "Are you sure that's a dog, Oakes? I think he might maybe be a bear someone shaved and passed him off as a dog." He's miserable and in pain, so of course, he's running his yap, and of course, he's kvetching about whatever wanders through his severely shortened attention span.

He eases down on the couch with Ruiz's help, though he's gritting his teeth and hissing. Still fast enough to grab the older man's hand, though, and press a kiss to the inked knuckles. He murmurs against the rough knuckles, eyebrows tilted up, looking at Ruiz. "Naishka--" his Yiddish nickname for Ignacio de Santos, "got taken too. Finch took him home. She'll take care of him but he's a mess. I dunno what happened to him in there, but I..." he pauses, lets Ruiz go so he can get stuff done. "I Sang back the dark. It traded, me for it. That's why I'm messed up. It beat me up from the inside out."

Given the givens lately, the better question is likely why he doesn't have a perimeter defense system set up, and a habit of shooting anyone on sight who isn't himself or Rosencrantz. Sure as hell enough people with him on their hit list by this point.

The dog is watched idly for a moment or two as he prowls off for the kitchen, and he pauses with his hand on the fridge door. Lost in some thought or another, no doubt reminded of Easton. Then the moment's gone, and he hauls the thing open and snags a few bottles of beer. Some Mexican brand that he picks up by the case from Seattle; Tecate. He's thinking, too, about what Itzhak said as he passes them around on his return. "I'll message her, make sure he's all right. See if she needs anything." He drops in next to the other man and is already digging out his phone. "And why the fuck did you do that, tu maldito tonto?" Eyes narrowed slightly, he shoves Itzhak a little with his shoulder.

The house, really, is nothing remarkable. A little messy at the moment, owing to Ruiz working too much and sleeping too little. There's a horseshoe hanging on the wall opposite the couch that looks like a gift, and the furniture consists of a leather couch, easy to clean the blood off of, an assortment of chairs that don't match, a bookcase stuffed with volumes of poetry and non-fiction, and an impressive collection of weaponry locked away in a case under the stairs. Itzhak's things, of course, are a little more on the glamorous side.

And Bennie, being Bennie, says nothing of her part in things, looking like the watered down version of Itzhak with purple and blue bruising coloring beneath her skin like watercolors spilled on a clean canvas. "He might just be. Rumor has it, he came over from the Other Side when he was a puppy." Great. So, it's a Veil Hound? Possibly. Maybe. Could be not?

She takes the beer with a little smile of gratitude, using her teeth to crack off the bottle cap like a true Trailer Trash Barbie. "Thanks. G'night, boys." And with that, she's wandering towards the bathroom based purely on feminine instinct. "Gunner, bed." With a stretch, the pony sized mastiff gets to his feet and plods after the blonde obediently, even if he gives that lizard cage a little side-eye as he goes.

Itzhak laughs again, breathless, because it hurts to breathe. "Possibly because I'm a fuckin' idiot." He drops his head on Ruiz's broad shoulder. Then Bennie says goodnight and...Itzhak squints after her. "That's. That's not the couch." He doesn't know about the bathtub thing. Is he in for a surprise! Curling up a little, just a little, he oonches to press himself against Ruiz and wheezes a sound that's part sob and part giggle. "I mighta messed up," he whispers. "I dunno. I hope not. They put Naishka in a, like a chrysalis. I had to get him out."