2020-08-11 - Late Night At The Beach

Global warming, amirite? Twenty years ago, the Washington coast seldom saw temperatures above 80. Well tonight it's completely fucking sweltering, like a place significantly more south. The beach provides some relief, and Itzhak, who is known to show up at the beach in even the worst conditions, is out here playing his fiddle to the surf. Nighttime fiddle practice on the beach! It's something lively and bluegrass he's playing, of course, swaying along with his bow strokes, grinning to himself because that's his violin face.

It's been an adjustment to say the least. When you spend a year nearly inseparable from someone's side, the loss can be felt in unimaginable ways. An empty house on the tail end of injury is down right unbearable. And so, Bennie wanders.

Dressed in cropped jean shorts where the pockets dog ear out the bottom hem and a yellow bikini top, she's taken off her sandals, hooked onto one finger as she walks along the rocky sand on the very edge of the water, letting the warm surf lap against her ankles with the tide. Drawn by the melodic music, she heads in that direction until she's near, not interrupting the flow of music by calling out. She just stands where she may be in his peripheral, illuminated by the pale light of the moon and listens.

Itzhak catches someone in his peripheral vision and twists to see who it is. He doesn't miss a beat, still playing as he's turned around awkwardly at the waist. Seeing it's Bennie, he lightens up on the bow, lessening the volume of his playing substantially. "Hey, Oakes. Why ya lurking? Come on over, you ain't gonna bother me none."

Bennie kicks through the surf, kicking water off her bare toes playfully in his general direction. "I don't lurk! I was keeping a respectful distance not to interrupt your song. You looked so happy." She starts to wonder closer, not leaving the edge of the water which is the only thing managing to cool her down tonight on this sweltering night. "That was pretty, what was it?" She asks with a little almost bashful cant down of her head. It might have something to do with the bruises they share in common, the Dream they both endured.

"Ehhh I'm just messin' around. That was mostly one called Soldier's Joy. Except parts Orange Blossom Special. That's my favorite." Itzhak runs off a quick few bowstrokes, bright cheery notes. Even he's barefoot tonight, though still wearing his usual soft snug jeans--one might suspect him, at this point, of having a Thing about not wearing shorts. He lets the fiddle and bow drop from his shoulder, holding both carelessly in one big hand. At least he's moving a lot easier tonight, less like he got run over by a bus. The moonlight silvers his black curls like age will silver them in a few years. "You okay?" he asks, watching Bennie splash.

Bennie's free hand curls underneath her chin as she gives a delighted look at the few bars he bows out. "The world needs more of that." Happy music, it seems. "Oh, I'm fine. Just...couldn't sit at home, y'know? And I'm sure they're getting tired of me hovering around the bar pretending like I know what I'm doing. So, I thought I'd walk. How are you? Still feeling like you got tossed in the world's largest rock tumbler?"

Itzhak plucks a water bottle up from where he's wedged it into the sand. His violin case is lying on a blanket, but he's standing off it, long bare toes in the cool(ish) sand. He opens it one-handed with the air of having a lot of practice doing so and takes a swig. "Mostly better," he says, wiping a drop from his whiskers. "Now it just feels like I did a thousand sit ups." He quirks his eyebrows in a commiserating fashion. "Yeah, know how it is. Sometimes all you can fuckin' do is go for a walk."

"Mmhmm. Like I just came off a run." Hers were to a much lesser degree, but Bennie is no doubt still feeling the effects, mentally and physically. "Is that what you were doing? Taking a walk? Or do you make a habit of serenading the fishes every night?" The blonde's gaze travels out to the water, for a moment looking like a widow on her balcony, ever waiting for her sailor's ship to come back to shore. A brief moment of sadness, nothing more before she's looking back with pleasant smile plastered back on her features like she's used to painting it on when in mixed company.

"Not every night, God no, most nights it's too wet for the wood." Which is a confusing statement at first until Itzhak holds up the violin in demonstration. "If you ever wondered why you never see buskers, at least the smart ones, in the fog? 'cuz the damp gets in the wood and makes it swell." He sort of ran off on his own tangent there, but comes back around when Bennie's face shows that sadness--followed up with a smile. Itzhak hangs his bow from the last finger of his right hand and positions his violin like a guitar, to absently pluck it.

"You can be sad, yannow," he says. Offers, really. "There's a lotta shit to be sad about."

"Y'know, I'm sure there's a joke there about damp wood, but I think I've reached my quota for making you blush this month." Bennie responds and then bites the inner pad of her cheek, like she's holding back a bit of laughter, even in the face of being told it's okay to be sad. "What good would that do, Itzhak? I can either be consumed by it, or hold onto it for a brief moment and then let it go. I firmly believe you are what you put out into the atmosphere. If I exude sadness, then that's all I'll ever be surrounded by. No, I'm going to choose to be happy, even if it kills me."

"Believe me, damp wood does not make me blush, it makes me get weird about dehumidification." Is that a word? It is now! Itzhak starts running through some scales, also absently, just something to do with his hands. He shrugs with one mostly-bare shoulder, mouth tugging down wryly while he works over his fiddle. "Sounds fake, but okay. S'your funeral. Your sunshiney, perky funeral."

Bennie pitches one of her shoes at him, no force behind it at all, just looking to beam him one. "Itzhak Rosencrantz, I am not fake!" She gives a little indignant huff, which is sort of like a cute, furry river otter getting flustered. "I am pure flipping joy. Do you think that's what Easton would have wanted? Me to live my life curled up in a tear-streaked fetal position? I mean. To be fair, that was like, the first month..." But now it's nearly been three. "But I'm fine! Honest. Okay, so I'm a little sad, but who isn't? I can't bear to use my bathtub, but so what! So...so...suck on my perky you big...meanie head!"

Itzhak makes a strangled little sound of alarm and turns to shield his violin, unlikely as damaging it would be. Bennie's shoe baps harmlessly off his shoulder and he scowls at her, but his heart's not in it. "Look, my pop died when I was fifteen and I'm still not over it! There's nothing says you have to be over it. Anybody tells you you have to be over it is a fuckin' liar and I'll slug 'em." He reconsiders. "Unless it's you telling yourself. Then I'm just gonna make a face at you."

After a moment, he adds, quieter, "I miss him too."

Rose had been wandering in the evening light with her camera, but there's a point in the blue hour, even in the dead of summer, where you're better off ceding to the dying of the light rather than continuing to fight it. She'd been driving home, heard the fiddle, kept driving.. changed her mind a few blocks later, turned around, and parked.

The woman wanders towards the beach in the direction of Itzhak and Bennie -- she's about to say something in Itzhak's direction, when it becomes clear that there's an.. argument? Heated discussion? Shoe toss contest? at hand. "Ah, my apologies, private party, it seems."

"Yeah." Bennie says softly, traipsing closer to retrieve her shoe and apparently claim a corner of his blanket. "He had a real thing for you, you know. Geoff was his hetero-life mate, but I think he found something in you that was missing since Banks died. I never did thank you for that, for giving that to him. It meant a lot, seeing him finally content." She stretches out her long legs, dusting fine grains of sand off one of her knees. "He hated sleeping alone when I was away, and Gunner just wasn't gonna cut it."

As another voice joins theirs on the shore, Bennie lifts a hand high in the air, giving a finger waggle of greeting. "Not at all!" Look! Distraction! Change of topic! Saved by the Rose. "Itzy and I were just talking about days gone by. Man, now I'm really wishing we had beer."

Now that makes Itzhak blush and look away. Hearing that Easton had a real thing for him (even if he's not precisely sure what manner of thing, but given their super-mostly-platonic bro snuggles overnights, he can probably guess) plucks some chord in his chest like he's plucking at his violin. "Don't need to thank me," he mutters, going over all gruff like he's taking lessons from de la Vega in gruffness. "Was happy to do it. Did me good too. He was always there for me."

So when Rose comes near, he's practically glowing red in the moonlight. "Feh, if it was a private party I wouldn't be wearing nearly so many clothes," he says to her. "Uhh..." squint. "I remember you but I forgot your name. You asked Roen if he was on his third or fourth marriage."

Maybe it's the heat and maybe it's having a lot to think about; a sable clad corvid -- a Ravn in black, anyway -- wanders along the beach, mind a million miles away, hands in blazer pockets, his boots occasionally licked by the waves lapping against the seaweed, seashells and pebbles of the surf. How the man endures black jeans, boots and blazer in this sweltering summer night is up for debate; at least the turtleneck sweater has been traded in for a black t-shirt with no print. Who knows where he's been? Wherever he went, he's headed back towards the docks and, presumably, the boat he calls home at least temporarily -- at least in the flesh. His thoughts may be orbiting Jupiter from the expression on his face.

It's getting darker, but most unfairly, it's remaining hot. Hot enough that the fans in Aidan's trailer are not doing sufficiently good work, and thus the magician comes down along the beach, in rainbow flipflops and a pair of board shorts covered in palm trees and flamingos, a really huge rainbow-patterned towel flung over his shoulder. No shirt, but there's gauze wrapped around both forearms, with an odd hint of shine to it. He's carrying a small battery-powered lantern in his other hand, and after squinting into the dimming light for a moment to be sure of his identifications, he lifts that hand and lamp to wave a greeting to the assembled and assembling, calling a bright, "Hey!" and giving them a grin. The light reflects slightly off his teeth.

Rose had been turning back away, but Bennie's invitation/plea for a distraction proves reason enough to say. "Ah, well, hello, then. It's Rose." To both of them, just as well. "Oh!" The woman opens her camera bag which had been slung over her shoulder and extracts a can of apple cider, holding it out towards Bennie. "No beer, but an emergency cider, if you'd like?"

The approach of Aidan garners a smile and a wave, as well as a glance at the seemingly lost Ravn as steps on by, then back towards Aidan. "Hello. Nice towel."

"Aidaaaaaan." Benne calls as she stretches out onto her back, hands stretched out and making a gimme motion for her friend. "Come join the party. We were just about to hold hands and sing Kumbaya." Like him, she looks dressed for a swim, or at least a sweltering night on the shore, in a yellow bikini top and shorn off jean shorts. With the drifting in of other persons, Bennie has thankfully dropped the topic of whatever it is that has Itzhak looking like a vine ripened tomato. "You didn't bring any beer, didja?"

The sound of voices calls Ravn's thoughts back from exploring outer space as he wanders past, boots schlip-schlapping in the wet sand where the ocean kisses the shore. They sound familiar, and the foreigner looks up, raising a hand in a wave to anyone who happens to be looking in his general direction.

"Well, shit, I totally woulda brought beer if I thought a ton of people were gonna turn up." Itzhak clears his throat, trying to make his blush go away, without a ton of success. "Yeah, Rose, I knew that." He didn't know that. "Nice to see you again." Aidan and Ravn get upnods, not without the observation that, "Youse guys look like you're wardrobe evil twins." He's got his fiddle in his arms, strumming at it idly.

"Benniiiiiieee!" Aidan calls back brightly, picking up the pace to reach her; it makes the flipflops flap-flap-flap against his feet and the sand, until he reaches his destination and gives her a good sound hug, with a brief twirl if allowed. "I didn't, but maybe," he says, already lifting a hand to wave to the Dane, and then lifting his voice as well, "Ravn!" The vowel sounds there are extended too. "How's it going? And can we raid your boat's beer? I promise to help replace it."

Itzhak's remark has him glancing down at himself and then over at Ravn again, then making the light swing weirdly as he rubs at his jaw. "I think I'd need a goatee for that, yeah? Or he would. Which of us is the evil one?" The lantern hand lowers and the light settles, the towel instead getting a tug and a glance as he considers Rose's compliment to it. "Thanks. Huge towels are the best. Also, hi! I'm Aidan, nice to meet you."

Bennie pops up onto her feet to receive the hug from Aidan, giving a titter of laughter as she's twirled around unexpectedly but she kicks up her feet in true RomCom fashion. When she's settled back down on her feet, she's waving off the kind offer from Rose. "You know what, I got this guys. I mean, what's the point of having a bar if I can't raid the stores? Gimme like, fifteen, and I'll totally be back." She kisses her palm and blows a kiss to the collective, scooping to snag her sandals and trot off down the beach towards the Twofer. But she will not, in fact, be back tonight.

Ah, random beach encounter is friendly, Ravn decides. He wanders over, silhouetted against the sky and the sea, somehow managing to look suitably melancholic and dramatic against the backdrop of stars -- his inner moody teenager would have loved it, had they but been present and aware. "Didn't realise there was a party on at my doorstep," he murmurs good-naturedly. "My invite must have gotten lost in the mail." It's obvious to anyone who hasn't met him earlier that the blond guy is not a native speaker; that accent is still trying to figure out how to submit a job application to the BBC.

Aidan gets a grin and a nod. "Sure thing. I got a sixpack of Heineken, let me go pick it up while Itzhak decides which of us is the best as ever's been." The New Yorker gets a wink on that account; of all the people present, Ravn expects at least him to catch that particular reference. He turns and heads towards a small pier where various smaller yachts and boats lie moored. Steve Jobs Junior is apparently a yachting kind of guy.

"You better bring back ya fuckin' fiddle!" Itzhak hollers after Ravn. "Don't make me entertain these meshuggeners alone!" To Aidan, he makes a hilarious squinchy face and says, "You're both evil, obvs."

Rose shrugs, and tucks the can back away in her bag. "Suit yourself!" She peers around for a moment, finds a log, and takes a seat, crossing her jean and boot covered legs. To Ravn, "It was news to me. I've been down here for work plenty, first time I've heard the string section on the beach, though." Rose nods towards Itzhak, clarifying, as if that was really necessary. "I hope those aren't the fancy pieces. Even in summer, I'd be.. you know, I'm kind of noticing that this town is a bit lousy with musicians, no?"

"This is your invitation!" Aidan declares, light arcing across the sand as he makes a widely welcoming gesture with the arm holding the lamp, then gets around to thinking of actually setting the lantern down, which he does, on a reasonable-sized rock. It takes a moment of adjustment to make it sit firmly, during which one might diagnose the weird sheen of the bandages to in fact be caused by them having been wrapped in plastic wrap, as though his arms were leftover salad. It seems to be sticking to itself fairly well, at least.

Bennie escapes while he's doing this, and he gives her a brief 'aw' look as she trots off to get the drinks. "But--" he starts to point out, and then gives up. Well, she said she'd be back! "I guess at worst we replace the beer really fast," he decides, and gives Ravn a salute, considering spots to set down his towel. "Are you sure I'm evil?" he asks Itzhak, as he does. "How can you tell? I mean. No goatees, right?" Just scruff.

The foreign guy waves at the one person he's not seen before; Rose gets a bright smile -- the guy in black seems to be a friendly sort, if obviously one with a flair for dramatics. He speeds up his step a bit, heading out among the boats, eventually reaching a smaller sailboat which he steps onto the deck of. One might assume he's got some kind of right to be there; a right, perhaps, which involves fetching a sixpack.

Existential crisis time, Ravn thinks to himself as he heads below deck. Oh well. It's that kind of day anyhow, innit.

There's a sixpack of Dutch beer and a violin case. He opens the latter and looks at the dark, rich wood of the instrument. It's not tuned. It's beyond not tuned and way into 'hasn't been touched for a month, at least' territory. He closes the lid again and, resigning himself to the fact that he probably can't get away with pretending he didn't hear the New Yorker's yell, and tucks it under one arm.

A random thought flits past his mind; I really should buy food sometime, not just beer. He dismisses it and heads back up into the moonlight. The best cure for melancholia is other people, and other people are right back there, on the beach.

Itzhak, laughing, informs Aidan, "Them shorts are pure evil, man, whaddya talkin' about? Only a man with wickedness in mind could wear those shorts." There he goes, being a jerk again! He glances curiously at Rose. "Fancy--? Oh, you mean the instrument? Eh it's the only one I got. It'll be fine, the night ain't damp. Damp is real bad for 'em, swells the wood, sours the tone. The wood's real thin, yannow, it can stand a lot of pressure but environmental factors can warp it outta true pretty easy. A lot easier than, like, a guitar." Oops he's giving another lecture on violins.

Rose returns the smile from Ravn before he breaks eye contact to head off. "Evil's a subjective matter. Though there's something unusual about a turtleneck in this weather."

"Yes, I remember the lectures about moisture quite well! Not so much of an issue with the piano, but that didn't stop me from having to bear witness to repeated lectures from professors at UW about it. You'd think that one would know well enough at that age, but the way that my roommate left her cello lying around.." The woman shrugs, digging back into her bag and extracting the cider once more, popping the top and taking a sip from it. Her face screws up for a moment. Warm, not that she wasn't well aware of that by now.

Aidan looks down at the shorts in question, then back up at Itzhak. "Whaaaat? Nah, these are awesome shorts! C'mon, look! The flamingos have sunglasses!" He extends a leg to illustrate. They do. Whether this qualifies as a selling point may be more debatable. He studies them another moment, the way they cut off at just past the top of his knee, and then up from them to the violinist, eyes narrowing but not otherwise doing that great at 'suspicious', since he still looks, well, cheerful. "Wait, are you just trying to get me back into yesterday's shorts? 'cause those just get weird and clingy in the water, that's the kinda thing that leaves a man with wickedness in mind."

Rose, on the other hand, has definitely got a point, and he looks the way Ravn went considering. "I'm pretty sure he's not evil. But black turtleneck IS kinda classic villainwear, right?" He steps out of one flipflop and then the other, head slightly tilted as Rose speaks. "You're a musician too? Too bad pianos are kinda harder to carry around, you guys could do a trio."

The String Quartet of Grey Harbor Beach is still only shaping up to be a duo; as if one guy with a violin was not enough, here's the Danish guy wandering back with a sixpack of Dutch beer in one hand and a violin case and bow of his own tucked under one arm, its black velvet a match for his black blazer -- there's a definite theme going on there. At least he's not wearing a white sailors' cap and a a collar-up polo shirt to identify him as some Seattle yachter with delusions of sea captain-ness.

He strolls over to perch on a convenient log, tucking the case behind himself and attempting to distract everyone with the sixpack instead. "Help yourselves -- if I'd known there'd be a party on I'd have picked up a couple more but eh, what can you do. Hi, I'm Ravn, resident beach bum." The latter must directed at the one person present whom he doesn't know yet. "Any particular occasion, or is it just one of those nights where everyone gravitates to the beach?"

Itzhak goes 'oooof' at the thought of Rose's roommate. "Oy vey, the poor cello! Those things are too goddamn expensive to leave lying around. Yeah, I guess there's a lotta musicians in town, but there's a lotta kinds of weird people too. It's a weird town. You don't play cello, do ya?" he asks her hopefully.

Then he's laughing because Aidan is trying to pitch flamingos-with-sunglasses shorts to him, or perhaps versus the extremely tiny things Aidan was wearing yesterday. "I plead the fifth on them other shorts, but okay, yours are awesome. I want some just so my boyfriend will make that face at me." He looks up expectantly when Ravn reappears, and--YES! He has a violin case! Itzhak whoops, obviously thrilled. "Fuck yeah! Get 'er out and you can tune to me."

"I'm a photographer, despite my father's best efforts otherwise. By trade, anyways. My father's the pianist." Rose shrugs once more. "And, no, they don't exactly travel well."

Rose doesn't take a beer, having cracked into the cider she was toting around with her in Ravn's absence. "And they take up far too much room in a dorm room. It was almost difficult to not step on it, at times, but she hardly even bothered to put it in the case most days." She shakes her head, and takes a sip. "I could never quite get a handle on strings. All I ever heard from my instructor was, intonation, intonation, intonation.. if anything, I'll play the piano, but I'd prefer to be behind my camera."

Aidan's grin breaks free again at Itzhak's laughter. "If I see another pair I'll grab 'em for you," he promises, or possibly threatens depending on one's point of view, "...though, if you just wanna see what he does, you can borrow these some time if you want, they'll prolly fit good enough."

He looks pleased by Ravn's return as well, albeit possibly not quite to the mechanic's level of enthusiasm right now. "Thank you!" he exclaims, and does avail himself of the offer, even if he wasn't originally the seeker after beer. She seems to still be off seeking after beer, which is now that it's shown up here is both appropriate and ironic at the same time. "...I can't really play anything," he remarks as he opens the beer, "Or take good pictures, either. But listening's good. And I think we all just gravitated? It's just hot as balls in the trailer and swimming sounded good." In the continually deepening dark. Okay, he DID bring a light, but that's a lot less use once he hits the water, surely.

Ravn's cunning ploy to bring the violin and then proceed to ignore it entirely has been foiled, alas. He opens the case to reveal a classic violin the patina of which has rendered it a deep, rich shade of mahogany; it's a real instrument, not one of those pretty things with inlaid mother-of-pearl decorations or strange, flowery paint jobs that one could suspect a busker to own simply because they'd draw the eye more. The Dane eyes the strings critically before taking out a small piece of cloth and adding a few drops of some mysterious oily liquid or other to it, running it down the strings; that poor instrument has clearly not been cuddled the way it deserves for a bit.

"I haven't played in... a while," he murmurs apologetically and oils the bow too before drawing it testingly across the strings. Out of tune doesn't begin to cover it. Somewhere, a tom cat just woke up with a startled expression, convinced that the love of its life is singing nearby.

"I will never, ever talk smack about pianists, but that said? A piano does a lot of shit for you. A violin don't do a single thing." Itzhak claims a beer, cracking it open with a little flick of his thumb, that should not be able to accomplish spinning the cap off but totally does. He takes a couple swallows--one more--okay just one more and then he wedges the bottle into the sand next to his water bottle. "Yeah, we gravitate to the beach when the weather's like this. Wish we had a real beach with dunes and whatevah, but beggars, choosers, right?" He crowds over Ravn to see his violin. "Oh, ain't she pretty. She got a name?"

Aidan watches with interest as Ravn starts setting things up, taking a few idle drinks of the beer, and winces noticeably at the results of that first draw. His musical talent may currently consist of singing along to the radio or his phone at varying levels of passable, but he knows that is not the voice one aims to have the violin put forth. He eyes the water, then the bottle, and takes a step to settle on another big rock nearby, to wait and see how the tuning goes. "Violin always looked hard," he remarks, after a moment. "Not like, I dunno. Ukulele? That looks friendly, like it wants you to play it. Violins kinda look like they intend to make you earn it." Not, from the tone, that this is necessarily a bad thing. Just a thing.

"I, er, no," Ravn murmurs in response to the New Yorker's question about names; from his tone it's obvious that while the violin may not have a name now, his younger, possibly teenaged self clearly called it Lady Sorrow, She Who Weeps, Nightengale -- something, anything along those lines. Names he'd rather break an arm sideways than admit to, today. The Dane pauses in fussing over the strings a moment in order to peel his black kidskin gloves off; apparently there is at least one lady in his life with whom he does not wear protection.

Aidan's inquiry makes him look up, though. "I never thought of it like that. I started playing because my parents made me but then it became -- an escape, I guess? Sorry, can't go be all social and civilised now, mum, I'm busy practising like you told me, say hi to your tennis club, don't let the door hit you on the way out."

"You do gotta earn it." Itzhak, impressed with that perceptive remark, hitches his eyebrows at Aidan. "Any good sound you make on a violin is because you earned it. You tuned it, you hit the intonation, you control the bow, tons of stuff." To Ravn, he says, not picking up that the other man just doesn't want to answer, "Yeah, I never named mine either. She was just mine. Next one already has a name when I get her."

He's kind of only just now realized Ravn is wearing kidskin gloves on a night when the weather hasn't consented to much below 90, and those eyebrows really go up. "Maybe you're like me? You don't like touchin'?" Then he grins, a brilliant flash of a grin that he doesn't seem to do much. "Hah, right? Lemme alone, gotta practice!"

Aidan may have curiosity over that tone suggesting 'no' means 'I will happily rewrite history to avoid having to admit to this', whether he entirely catches that's what it means or not; certainly there's a touch of curiosity in the way he watches the glove-removal and the Dane's hands afterward, in case any evidence for why gloves in August beyond 'also turtleneck in August' is inclined to make itself known.

"I mean, yeah, that sounds like a pretty good excuse as that goes," he allows with a nod, taking another drink. He looks quietly pleased by the agreement with his thoughts on violins, and also fairly interested in the way Itzhak lays it out, some of those ways it has to be earned, and it has him nodding again, this time a bit more thoughtfully.

"I've got an acute sense of touch," the Dane murmurs, almost automatically. "Touching things without some kind of protective layer is a little much, sometimes. Give me an A, Itzhak?" The sounds of a violin being tuned are not musical; they start out terrible and gradually improve, though, much to the disappoint of any amorous felines lurking in the neighbourhood. It's a good thing there's beer; alcohol dulls the pain, right?

"When I was a kid I was like that. Hated touching anybody especially. Too intense, too personal." Itzhak flashes that grin at Aidan, pleased that he's listening. He's so happy he has a fellow violinist, and even if Ravn is maybe not so good, he's just happy to have someone else around. All these months he's borne the burden of violin playing alone! (Yeah except he loves showing off.) "You're next, magician man, we can't be the only ones in this talent show." With that he gives Ravn a nice open A, on a long perfectly steady stroke of his bow.

Poor thirsty kitties. The course of mew love never did run smooth. Aidan, on the other hand, is probably much happier with the improving tuning, and grins back at the pair of them, enjoying the beer in no hurry. The acute sense of touch explanation seems to make sense enough to him, or at least he doesn't leap in to press further. It's the talent show threat that gets him speaking again -- a laugh, first, and then, "I'm not gonna say I can't produce my props outta nowhere, but..." Another drink, glancing toward the sea, and the grin widens. "Once I finish this, I can make myself disappear! Just prolly not for more than maybe 30, 60 seconds at a time." A pause, considering, and he stands. "Actually, I might go practice that real quick while you're tuning up. It's still hot as hell out here and I'm still pretty sure I'm not actually evil. Be right back!" The other half of the beer gets set beside the lantern, and he goes running across the sand toward and then into the sea, heedless of how cold it's likely to be even now.

Well, heedless until he gets there. He only manages about ten seconds on that first go before coming up with a wordless exclamation of large temperature change, but surely as Ravn tunes up, he'll get better too.

Ravn at least has tuned a violin before, that much is evident. He has a decent ear for it -- at least it doesn't take him long to get his instrument to speak the same language. A few tentative strokes turn into a few easy chords. "It's Grey Harbor -- everyone has super powers and there's at least half a string quartet on the beach?" the Dane murmurs, amusement glittering in blue-grey eyes. "Reminds me I still need to ask you that question, Aidan -- what the hell does 'checking your Art' mean? August didn't exactly make me any wiser with that answer."

He nods at Itzhak with obvious gratitude at hearing the man's experience with touch, so similar to his own. "I know! People insisting you shake their hand or hold on to things, trying to think of something intelligent and polite to say while the only thought in your head is get it off me, get it off me, right?" He teases a few more chords out of the instrument under his chin and then, seemingly without much consideration, they turn into opening pieces of Brahm's violin concertos -- almost as his fingers do their own decision making.

Itzhak waves his bow at Aidan as the other guy goes charging off into the water, and goes "hah!" as Aidan makes remark about how cold it is. He turns his attention back to Ravn, then, "'Checking your Art'? That what Roen said? He meant sussing out what you can do with your," the bow gets waved at Ravn now, "you know, superpowers. We can all do it some. He's good at it. People talk about seeing a glimmer, right? Or a shine? I don't see it. I hear it. It's music to me. Roen calls it the Art. I call it the Song. Because I gotta be special I guess."

He holds off playing so he can avidly watch what Ravn does with the instrument. "Yeah, the touching? Man, yeah, exactly. I kinda grew out of it, or maybe prison beat it out of me, not sure. One of those things where it's like, am I actually not like that anymore, or am I just masking so hard I can't tell?" ...and then Ravn begins to play.

Freaking.

Brahm.

And he's playing it beautifully, too. Itzhak's face blooms into first complete shock...then anger. "Wait. Wait what the fuck is this? You said you were bad!"

Ravn freezes like a deer in headlights. Suddenly, silence.

Then he glares at his hands as if blaming them for their betrayal. Quietly, he murmurs, "I'm not -- I don't usually play for anyone."

The Dane lowers the bow and the instrument and looks at the sand. There's very obviously some issues there.

Itzhak could get a lot worse a lot suddenly, and he's in the process of ramping up--but that posture of utter defeat derails him. "Hey," he says, only a little grudgingly. "I didn't mean...I didn't mean nothin' by it. Just surprised the hell out of me, that's all." Walking-back is occurring, and if Ravn only knew how rare it is for him. "You talk like you're a second-year violinist, but that's no year two song. I'm sorry, okay?" And Itzhak's eyebrows tilt up, peaking in the center, like the point of a roof. It gives him a wistful, longing expression. "Lemme play with you."

He swings his own violin to his shoulder, tucking his chin on the rest. "Keep going. I'll take Violin 2."

Ravn looks at the other man a moment. Maybe he does pick up on something because he does seem to snap out of whatever self-inflicted trauma it is he's got going there, and returns the bow to the string.

He is good. At least as long as he keeps his gaze on the deep blue sea and the stars beyond, and thus abstracts his mind from the presence of an audience. The woman drinking cider, the man next to him teasing beautiful music out of his instrument in turn -- do they even exist?