2020-10-08 - To Laugh At The Sky

Crack-BOOM! Lightning tears across the Gray Harbor sky, thunder tearing after it. The clouds are dark and roiling with energy, and there's a stiff wind with an edge of cold that says clearly: summer is over, and winter is...well, you know the drill. The lightning dances and strikes along the tree line in the distance, and the rain hasn't yet arrived. It's a dry thunderstorm, all sound and fury. As such, the Park isn't very busy at all, which is perhaps how Alexander likes it. He's standing out by the carousel, head tilted back, eyes wide as he watches the storm, the lightning flashing in his gaze. He's grinning to himself, the expression bright and open as it rarely is.

Last winter was not a good time for Finch. There was that nearly freezing to death in that strange landscape of a Dream, with things clawing at her every time she tried to use her gifts to protect Ignacio. There was also him getting run down by a bus. Generally, it sucked. She just finished some tree trimming work in the park and has been packing up her gear into one of Out on a Limb's trucks when she spots Alexander. With a frown, she heads his way, in coveralls and boots and her goggles on her head. Not quite the same effect as when her hair was pink or green or blue, but still clearly Finch.

"Clayton, didn't I already have to patch you up once because of that carousel?" she asks, arching a brow at the man and folding her arms across her chest.

Alexander turns as he hears footsteps approaching, although another crack of thunder is so close it's deafening, and the lightning is near blinding. He has to blink several times before he recognizes her and smiles. "Celaeno. Hello. Don't you usually wait until the storm is over before you start cleaning up the trees. Metal cranes and lightning do not mix." A look towards the carousel. "You did. But fully six times out of ten, it doesn't eat any one." A teasing glance back. "Want to ride it and see if we're lucky?"

Finch grins at Alexander with a wild burst of sudden pride. "Not Celaeno anymore. I'm officially Finch de la Vega now. My dad let me take his name." She looks towards the lightning a moment or three. "Usually, but this is Gray Harbor. Blink and the weather changes. Besides, I can handle electricity." Also courtesy of her father.

At the suggestion they ride the carousel she blinks at him. "Are you serious? Roen will kill us both for that. Admittedly I'm tempted, even if only to go to the other side to see my friend. Clever Girl came to help me in a dream recently."

Alexander stares at her, face blank. Perfectly blank, as if something else in his mind takes up so much need for brain power that things like being human are no longer supported, leaving only a plastic flesh mask hanging off of bones. Then he blinks, and the moment passes. "Finch de la Vega." The faintest of smiles. "I take it that you and Javier are getting along, then. I'm glad." That seems sincere, despite the creepy non-person face just a heartbeat ago. He tilts his head to one side, and smiles. "I don't generally worry about August killing me, Miss de la Vega. But I wouldn't recommend crossing here. Not when you can do it from other places." A pause. "Clever Girl?"

Finch is positively beaming as they talk about Ruiz. Probably not the usual expression someone wears who isn't sleeping with him. The crinkling at the corners of her dark eyes are very reminiscent of her father though. "It's been going way better than I ever expected. We have family dinners now and then even. I'm learning to make Mexican food, and about my heritage. Pretty damn cool."

She glances over at the carousel and nods at his query. "Veil Raptor. Utah Raptor I think, or like the velociraptors in Jurassic World, bigger than the actual ones. And her feathers are mirrored so she has some camouflage. I rescued her a couple times and we've kind of bonded. She's awesome. The name is a nod to Jurassic Park."

Alexander thinks about that, then nods, slowly. "I see. It's...that's good, I think. For both of you. Probably." There's a hint of skeptical worry there, for some reason. Hard to say if it's the whole 'cursed to kill all her male relatives' things for Finch, or the ...Ruizness of Ruiz that has him that way. But he steps a little closer to her so that he can see her face better in the stormy gloom. "You really care about him."

There's a couple of blinks. "Ah. I...hmm. Interesting. Easton said he had a dinosaur while he was over there. I guess you do, too. I don't know if I'd trust anything from Over There at my back, but," he shrugs, "I don't bond with things well. Uh. How is Ignacio?"

"I do. I didn't think I would, I mean I didn't know him for the first twenty-five years of my life. But he's been there for me since I told him. And he's been there for Ignacio and Gran loves him. And well, he's living with my best friend, so it feels more like a real family than I've had ever." Finch looks a little sad at how bad that makes her former life sound, but it's true.

"She protected me from some were-wolverine basketball player things in high school. Well in a Dream of high school. It was some really bizarre stuff. Nicole and I were arguing whether you or Coach Kelly were the hotter teacher," she chuckles. "Iggy is doing really great. He's back to writing and I know that makes him happy. And he brought home another chicken, and a barn kitten."

Alexander smiles. "The family we make is sometimes more important than the one we're born with. It's good to have people you can count on." The wind gusts as the sky snarls and grumbles. He casts a quick look upward. Which then becomes a startled look back at her. "You had another one? What is with these dreams?" A beat of thought. "And Kelly is obviously more attractive. That's hardly in question. He's fifteen years younger, about ten times more fit, and has the 'bad boy with a heart of gold' thing going on. No contest." His shrug is philosophic. One eyebrow goes up. "Did he, uh, know it was a chicken this time?"

Finch chuckles. "Tell that to 17-year old girls. If you're under 60 and don't have a pot belly, you're the hot teacher to them. Also, we were cheerleaders." Which she actually was back then, in an effort to fit in. "Yeah, he knows it's a chicken, I was proud. He calls it Nugget." She follows his gaze to the stormy skies. "Sometimes it feels like They're angry, when it gets like this."

"I do meet both those criteria," Alexander says, sounding serious. "And that makes me instantly far more popular than I ever was in actual high school," he adds, voice dry. He can't help but laugh, softly, at the chicken's name. But there's a moment of startled confusion when she continues. "What? Really? I love the storm. It's beautiful and vital. Nothing like them at all. I was thinking about trying to direct the lightning. We're not entirely immune to it. It's dangerous, but imagine what it would feel like to have that run through you?"

"I feel them all, the lightning, the fire, the earth and all the growing things in it and treading it," Finch says quietly. "But the thunder, it feels like anger to me. Or warning. Last winter was bad. Really bad. I worry this one will be worse. Iggy nearly died. More than once. And the Dreams were terrible. So cold and painful and hopeless." She grimaces.

"Thunder is only a collapsing tunnel of air. A moment where everything pushed aside rushes back in on us." Alexander's hands come up and he claps once, sharply. "Nothing more angry than that. In fact, one claps when one is celebrating. Joyful. Thunder is just the sky failing to contain its great and powerful joy." He lowers his hands half way, looks at her over the top of them. "Winters are often bad. But it's not the sky's fault." The thunder crack-BOOMs again, and he laughs in response. "See? It agrees!"

Finch listens to his explanation with a fascinated expression on her face. "You know, I think you would have been a great teacher, Clayton. You are good at explaining science things. But not everything in this town obeys the rules of science, does it?" she points out with an arched brow and a pure de la Vega look in her eyes.

Alexander snorts. "I'm a terrible teacher. Kelly made me try it, after people thought I was this great fucking social studies teacher. By the end of the day, I was this," he makes a tiiiiiiny pinch, "close to simply filling every student in the class with mindless fury and letting them fight until there was only one survivor. Who would damned well sit in their fucking desk and be quiet when I was trying to talk." He stops to take a deep, calming breath. "But I didn't. I survived a whole week. I would prefer to go back to the classroom version where I get to stab vice principals."

He is entirely serious, based on his expression. "As for science? Who's to say. Maybe everything does, and we're just missing some of the underlying rules. It has its own logic for certain. It may even be psychomorphic to a degree - you might turn the storm into an angry, vengeful tool of the Shadows, if you feel that strongly about it." He casts an eye up at the clouds, and the wind swirls around them, cold and stiff.

Finch snorts. "That sounds more like a regular day in middle school. Twelve year olds are pretty much hormonally rendered insane, do you know that?" she asks. She does have a biology undergrad degree. She glances back up at the clouds at his musings. "A lot of people are afraid of thunder and lightning, and They seem to love fear. Maybe I'm wrong, but it just feels like it's in Their wheelhouse to me. But let it come. Fuck Them. I'm not afraid. I'll fight Them to my last breath."

"I didn't like middle school, either," Alexander replies, serenely. "Quite frankly, school was a waste until college. Then things got interesting. And there was a lot of sex. It was a nice change." He starts to walk counter-clockwise around the carousel, apparently just expecting her to come along. "And now I see the resemblance," he says, with amusement. "Not that I didn't before. You and Javier are both bossy."

Finch strolls along with Alexander and laughs at the comparison. "I am definitely my father's daughter in a few ways. Bossiness, temper, nosebleeds when we use that telepathy stuff..." She smiles warmly. "My mother tried to kill me when I was 13. Having a father who actually cares about me is something very special."

"That's not normal," Alexander says, with a frown. "The nosebleeds. Not normal. I don't know why it happens to the two of you, but I don't like it." A shake of his head, then a sigh. "Don't know how to fix it, though. I'd suggest try a doctor or something Over There, but the only one I know of explodes heads, and is the source of healing abilities. Maybe." The sky cracks and sparks again, and he suddenly pushes himself forward, executing a sudden, shaky, but successful cartwheel, his oversized flannel shirt flapping around him. "There! Now. You try."

Finch laughs brightly at his cartwheel. "Oh you're on, Clayton. I was a cheerleader for real, you know!" She waits for the next crack of lightning before she launches into a roundhouse, because it's been a minute since she did those things, and it's an easy tumbling move.

Alexander applauds the roundhouse, joined by cracks of thunder in a booming chorus that has weight to it. "Very good! And I was not a cheerleader. So you should be able to do better than me, at least. Right? Since it's 'on'." He flashes a grin, briefly visible in a flash of light, then runs forward a few steps and flings himself with a distressing lack of self-preservation for a forty year old man. He manages to pull off a decent handspring, although there's a grunt of effort, and if there were daylight, it'd reveal the shake in his arms as he pushes himself over. But he doesn't fall, which makes him laugh in pride.

Finch cheers Alexander on with clapping and cheers, like a good former cheerleader. Then she decides to try her own handspring and, welp, it doesn't go quite as planned. CRACKA-THOOM! Goes the thunder, and Finch lands on her ass in a most undignified sprawl. She lies back, laughing hysterically.

Alexander winces when she crashes down, but her laughter sparks his own and he moves to stand over her, looking down at her with dark, laughing eyes. "See. You insulted the thunder and it withdrew its blessing from you. Very sad. You should apologize." Then, with a clearing of his throat, "Are you okay? Nothing sprained or pulled?" He doesn't offer her a hand up, but his concern seems sincere. So does the amusement.

Finch sits up slowly. "I think the only thing hurt is my pride. I am way out of practice for that stuff. I climb trees now for my daily exercise routine. Whole different set of dexterity needs," she notes. She gets back to her feet, brushing off her backside, and glances up at the sky. "Sorry thunder! Didn't mean to insult you! Forgive me?" she yells to the clouds.

"Pride is like a rose bush. It requires regular and significant pruning in order to stay healthy and pleasant," Alexander says, cheerfully. He watches her climb to her feet, and shout up at the sky. His smile is delighted, and he, too, calls out to the clouds, "See! She's learned her lesson! Be merciful, oh sky!"

As if in answer, there's a crack of thunder...and then what appears to be a near-solid wall of cold rain. The storm is no longer dry. "Fuck!" The curse word is broken by laughter, and then sputtering from the water getting into him. He waves towards a shelter. "Run! Run!" He suits actions to words.

Finch gets half-drowned by the sudden deluge, but she's laughing like a loon as she runs after Alexander towards the shelter. Now she is very sodden, but thankfully the coveralls are somewhat waterproofed thanks to scotch-guarded fabric. She's able to shake the water off the garment, but her hair is a lost cause. "You ok?" she asks, catching her breath.

Alexander is not waterproof. His flannel hangs off his frame like a soaked towel, and he's pushing his hands through his hair, trying to wring out some of the water. But he's laughing, as well. "I'm fine. It takes a little more than rain to kill me." Then he leans out of the side of the shelter and shouts upwards, "NOT A CHALLENGE," before ducking back into safety. "Are you okay?"

Finch nods and climbs to sit on a picnic table, wringing out her own hair a bit. "I'm good actually. That felt good to do. I haven't just let go like that in a long time. Iggy's leg and stuff, I don't try to show off in front of him. Shit I need to get him fixed soon. I had a good plan even, but then healing changed and now I don't know what to do for him." She grimaces. She keeps him from needing pain meds, but that's all she's had the courage to attempt with his bad leg.

"Me neither," Alexander admits. "It's easy to drown in the bad. But sometimes it's important to play, too. Let go a little." He wipes his face and climbs up on the other side of the picnic table, sitting as well and studying her. "Sometimes people are hurt, and they have to live with the scars. But I guess you could try and get an appointment with The Doctor, if you really needed to. Or ask the Revisionist why she changed healing. If there was a purpose to it. I think it would be safer to help him learn to live with it. He's a good man, and I don't know that our abilities ever really fix anything. They just move the pain around."

Finch grimaces. "I just sent The Revisionist a letter like it was to friggen Santa, asking her to fix the memory changes she made about me. They were really bad. I hope she doesn't make them worse, but asking her to fix healing on top of that?" She looks over at him. "That sounds like pushing my luck right now." She shakes her head a little at Ignacio's plight. "He loved to race cars. He was a great driver, and now he...can't do that. And everything good in his life is just what's left over. I worry that is how he feels. It might not be, but I want him to have everything good he wants. Is that so bad?"

"No, don't ask her to fix healing," Alexander says, with a shake of his head. "I don't think she...makes those changes of her own volition. But maybe ask her about why the changes were made. I mean, apparently the various false memories were because she was watching soap operas or something." He grimaces. "This is why fiction is bad," he mutters. "I told her to try true crime instead." So, yeah, if Finch ends up as an actual serial killer, she now knows who to blame. He hums softly to himself, dripping all over the place, and watching the rain come down in windy torrents. "It's never bad to want the best for the people you love. But the things we experience change us. Sometimes it's better to embrace those changes and find happiness in them. Rather than reaching back to what used to be. Reminding him, you know, of how he used to be 'whole' - when he's still whole. It's just a different sort of wholeness. With pain. But without it, he'd have never met you."

Finch listens quietly, and her eyes go a little watery-bright for a moment before she nods. "That's good advice, Clayton. Thanks. I think I'm going to head home and snuggle with the man I love, and remind him he's perfect exactly as he is."

"Enjoy snuggles. Tell him 'hi' from me. Not while snuggling. That might be awkward. But an appropriate time." Alexander hops down off the table. "Don't die, Cel...de la Vega. Lemme know if I can help." And then he's strolling out into the rain, apparently not caring that the drops are coming down like tiny, cold hammers on his scalp.