2020-11-13 - This Is Why The Boys Slug It Out Instead

There are little things that need doing around a bar that people seldom thing of, for instance like the fact that the wood for the fire pits don't automatically refill themselves overnight or by the hand of some mystical fairy. No, that's done by someone hauling from the neat stack tucked up against the building, and today that someone is Bennie. Dressed in faded frayed jean overalls and work boots, hair piled in a bun and held aloft by two twigs stolen from the kindling and a long sleeved yellow tee that looks damp from the drizzle, she carries the next armful up to the deck.

That someone could also have been Ravn Abildgaard but today it isn't. Not that he's going to let that stop him from sauntering onto the deck with an entirely atypical air of confidence, walking like a man who absolutely knows he's the alpha male (and only male) in the room. The Dane has been sporting a somewhat different attitude since this green cloud went up. He hasn't acted different -- just, something has changed, just enough to get him a few wolf whistles and the occasional speculative look from a few patrons. The man is good looking -- when he's not turning himself functionally invisible the way he usually does.

"Need a hand with that?" It's such an inconspicuous question. Perfectly normal. Nothing unusual here. Except, maybe, that these two people have been doing the quiet 'everything is totally normal and fine' dance around each other for weeks.

Maybe Bennie is one of those paranoid types when introduced to a supernatural high, because when Ravn lobs that offer over, Bennie gives him a fleeting smile that wobbles slightly nervously on her lips before it fades away. "Uh, yeah sure. I guess this could have waited. But I needed something to do. Idle hands, or however that saying goes." She unfurls her arms, dumping the whole lot into one of the pits before dropping to a knee to start arranging them. "I thought you were on a later shift." Not that she checked, nope. But then again, her mind is fuzzy so who knows which day she was actually checking.

"Came in early because I wanted to raid the fridge. Don't know what the hell is going on lately but I feel like I should be eating everything. And I ran myself out of cupcakes already. Then texted people I didn't mean to text, said things I probably shouldn't have said, and now I feel like just doing things with my hands until I can pass out in a corner." The Dane sighs lightly. "Something's going around. Alexander said a weed dispensary blew up. While he and Seth Monaghan were beating each other up in a boxing ring which I, incidentally, was also in at the time."

Bennie's laugh comes sudden and unexpected, especially to herself and she covers her mouth with dirty fingers to stifle it. "Mmhmm. Sounds familiar. Lot of that going around." Her gaze flicks up and down to the wood pile then, taking some pity on him when she hitches her head over for him to join. "You box?" Trying, and failing, to not look amused by that notion.

Ravn shakes his head and slumps down on one of the chairs where he manages a slouch that a) looks very comfortable and b) looks entirely atypical of his usual guarded self. "Hell no. That was kind of the point. I don't do anything of the kind. But here? With the dreams and all? I need to be able to get my own tail out of the fire, I can't rely on everyone else having time to come rescue me when the manure hits the fan. I asked Monaghan and Kelly for some pointers. Alexander joined in. I mean, I'm happy to take tips from all of them. I'm also the most embarrassing person on the planet to watch in a gym but you got to start somewhere."

"I bet you're scrappier than you look." Bennie concludes as she continues stacking the wood, apparently having some practice is the matter as she leaves gaps along the bottom for ventilation and propping them against each other like a teepee. "But it's not a bad notion. Easton seemed to rest a lot easier once he knew I could shoot. Even though actually shooting at something sort of defeats most of the things I stand for. But. Gray Harbor. Please tell me you dance around like one of those old timey boxers and think 'put 'em up' is how all fights start?"

"I think I'm more, try to turn myself invisible in the corner because these men are all built like Spanish bulls and they know how to use their fists." Ravn cracks a small smile at that; he knows exactly how impressive a figure he doesn't strike in a boxing ring. "I don't even wear gloves yet. We're still at try to convince myself to not just bolt out the door when someone swings at me."

He hitches a shoulder lightly. "But, now you know why I'll probably turn up with a blackened eye one of these days. Enough about me. How are you? Your life has been -- rather turned upside down lately. And I've been -- well, probably avoiding it all a bit, I admit it. Should have asked earlier."

"Well there are four F's when it comes to the biopsychosocial complexities of stress. Fight, flight, fear and, uhm." Bennie grimaces as she wipes her dirty hands off on the legs of her overalls. "Well. Fornication. Though arguably most stick the latter two in with the first two. In order to fight your impulses, you're going to have to conquer them. So in short: it's all in your head, friend." She presses her hands into the meat of her thigh and rolls back to stand, "You ever hear of the phrase 'getting used to a new normal'? Well, I'm getting used to an old normal."

"Old normal is good in this case, though. We have this saying in Danish -- don't go back to a fizzle. It's about fireworks and how something that didn't seem to light properly can suddenly blow up in your face. But this time it looks like it actually works? They say you can't revisit the past but you are and at least from where I am sitting, it seems to be a good thing." Ravn pauses. And then adds, "You know, you can say 'fucking' around me. I have heard the word before. I'm not a complete wilting rose, even if people seem to think so a lot."

"I'm not going to lie, Easton and I are definitely not a fizzle. In fact, even when things are bad between us, their pretty damn great. Problem is, I keep waiting for the other shoe to drop, y'know? Like, I'm afraid to be too happy because then it'll just hurt more when the rug is pulled out from underneath me. Everyone in this town is living in the moment, and I'm just...afraid to." And with that little confession Bennie huffs a lock of hair out of her face that's going a little frizzled with the weather. "And it's not that I can't say the F word around you, I just choose not to. That way the day I do swear, people will know I'm like, for serious." Her smile returns to near full bloom. "Now whaddya say we raid that walk in. I'm starving."

"I'm constantly starving since that place burned." Ravn nods and gets to his feet. "And going between extreme mood swings and losing all my filters and getting stupid emotional over nothing at the drop of a hat, and then minutes later I'm staring at something wondering how I never noticed how pretty it is, and ten minutes after that, I'm giggling madly about something that happened eight months ago and eating everything in sight. When this week is over? I'm going to hole up with ten bottles of wine until everyone's forgotten everything I said to them ever."

He pauses and looks back at the blonde. "I think that's how life here works. It's good while it is. But you also know it can end any moment. Reminds you to live while you can instead of just trudging along."

"Uh huh, get back to me when you're texting like a bajillion people at once, and then accidentally send them a bathroom pic in compromising attire. There, that should give you something to giggle about in eight months." Bennie pushes through the back door into the bar, heading for the tiny kitchen and the walk in that's little more than a glorified cold closet. The bar doesn't need much in the way of service area to make tots and other bar food. She walks in, fingers twiddling in anticipation as she peruses the metal shelving. "Let's see, what are we thinking. Salty or sweet. Salty or sweet."

"Salty and sweet. I tried to text Rosencrantz and ended up texting his boyfriend. I got promised brownies." Ravn sighs and follows in Bennie's wake. "Then Rosencrantz sent me pictures of himself in a very small dress and now I have total queer envy. Then de Santos sent me a picture very much intended for his fiancee. I'm just going to go become a hermit when all of this is over. So much easier."

He runs a hand through his hair, an act which doesn't exactly make him look any less like a lost puppy. "I'm glad things are working out for you guys, though. Everything was a bit weird there for a while. Everyone stepping on egg shells. Seems to be -- going back to normal now, except for the part where we're all stupid high, anyhow."

Bennie is going to select the industrial sized cardboard container of ice cream but she gets distracted by a plastic webbed bag full of oranges used for drink garnish. She gives a little excited squeal and selects one from the bunch, holding it up to her nose and just inhaling the delightful scent. "So let me get this right, you're getting a bunch of unsolicited dick pics? I dunno, doesn't sound so bad to me. I texted Dela la and all I got was a bunch of cuss words. Brownies sound like the better end of the deal." Bennie goes back to sniffing her fruit, eyes closing in absolute joy. "It smells like...Florida. Or what I think Florida would smell like. You know the eggshells were part on account of apparently the whole town knew I was crushing on you."

"No, fortunately no actual dick pics. Just Rosencrantz being, well, himself and making me wish I had half his guts. And de Santos -- I mean, that was cute. He was just flexing his muscles, using rodents for hand weights. That poor rat looked adorable in its little sun dress." Ravn shakes his head, chuckling (totally giggling) at the memory.

And then she has to say that. He blinks and turns around. "Huh. I guess I'm the only person in town who missed that memo, then."

Bennie gives him a good natured eye roll, "Don't worry, I was just getting used to the idea myself when everything..." She makes a little swirling motion with her orange before she starts to peel it, "I guess I was rusty at trying to flirt. Granted, before Easton, my last boyfriend was in high school and I was too busy to even consider dating between the disaster that was Jeremiah and E. So. Take that for what you will." Punctuated by lobbing a piece of orange peel in his direction. "But now you're off the hook."

Ravn shrugs lightly, in the kind of helpless fashion of someone who knows they missed everything. "It's -- probably not you? I never notice these things. I don't do it -- flirting, I mean. Relationships. All of that. You'd probably have to tattoo HELLO I AM INTERESTED on your forehead before I clocked it. And then I'd probably come up with a very pressing reason to be in Massachusetts tomorrow."

He catches the peel easily with that manual dexterity that is rather a point of professional pride for the man. "I'd like to... Keep the friendship, though. I mean, I enjoyed talking to you. Having friends is something I'm really not that good at either."

"Well I would hope you wouldn't ditch me just because once upon a blue moon I thought there could have maybe been something one day. Our text conversation pretty much cleared up any confusion on my part. What I thought a mutual attraction was all in my head." Because he caught the first bit of peel so deftly, he gets more lobbed in his direction. He's closer to the trash can, after all, with her still standing in the cooler. "Unless you really just love Massachusetts."

Peels get caught and sent onwards. "I didn't say I didn't find you attractive. It just doesn't... occur to me to do anything about it." Ravn looks a little sheepish and keeps his eyes on those dastardly peels. "When I find myself attracted to people I usually just -- ignore it until it goes away."

Bennie gives a little laugh that ends up in an accidental snort, "Congratulations, goal achieved." She looks as if she's about to take a bite of orange, but just ends up flashing him a goofy orange peeled smile.

Bennie gets a lopsided smile in return. "I'm sorry if I hurt you. I am very clueless in these things. Rosencrantz keeps ribbing me about it, telling me that people are throwing themselves at me. A lot of those people must be running headlong into walls because I don't see it happening. Vic's the same -- you must get propositioned all the time, Abildgaard. If I do, I don't notice. Some people are -- just not good at this. And that's without getting started on the whole touch disorder thing. I really didn't mean to hurt you. I've been kind of... worried that you might have felt I was just trying to take advantage of someone on the rebound, and then bailing when Easton showed up. I did consider it. Bailing, I mean."

"Mm." Bennie makes a little sound, spitting out the peel from her mouth because her moment of levity is over. She trundles out and upends her hand over the trash can, before wiping her palm on the butt of her pants. "I wouldn't say I threw myself at you. Maybe a gentle lob." She leans a hip against the stainless steel prep table, using her thumb nail to section off a piece of the citrus fruit, all her attention now on the task. "It wasn't about a rebound, if it was just about rebounds, I have a dozen numbers on my phone who could have helped me knock off the dust. It was about finding a kindred spirit that wasn't haunted by....the history of Easton and I. And how could you have bailed if you didn't even know."

"I didn't see any throwing." Ravn hitches a shoulder slightly. "And I did figure it out by the time people were giving me the side-eye and mumbling about whether I shagged Easton's woman. I thought about just getting out of here, not make it harder for either of us. But then I thought -- you know, that's not fair. You didn't do anything. I didn't do anything. And if we had done anything, it would have been at a time where the man was believed to be dead. So there's no reason either of us should feel guilty about something that did in fact never happen. I decided to stay and see what the man himself had to say about it. He promised to shoot me if I ever lay a hand on Maggi Gyre, but he believed what I told him."

Toasting the man with a slice of orange, Bennie says simply, "Good to know." Before taking a bite as gracefully as possible, which means squirting orange juice half across the kitchen. "Oh my goooooood, this is amazing. Want a piece? Wait, I thought you were hungry. You're totally not eating. Don't tell me that dredging up all this has made you lose your appetite? This is good! This is good talk! Important talk. Clearing the air. Getting on the same page. No hard feelings and all that."

"No, no hard feelings. I'm happy things worked out -- and you're getting settled back in the way things ought to have been all along. No one deserves to live their life alone unless they choose to." Ravn ponders and looks at the various food. Five minutes ago he was starving. Now he feels like food would probably come right back up. "I do like working here. It's probably the most enjoyable job I've had. It's very quiet here in the mornings but not so quiet I feel like I'm working a graveyard. My kind of quiet."

"You belong here." Bennie says simply as she wiggles up onto the table, letting her work booted feet dangle and swing. "You know, Easton wants to keep the bar? I still haven't figured out why. He fed me some bullhockey excuse about wanting to focus his attention on his stake in the Casino, but I'm not buying it. So as much as I like the life that surrounds us here, and being your boss wasn't the most awful thing, I'm still going to fight it. This was his dream, I was keeping it alive for him. But it's not mine. It never was."

"Why would he not want to keep the bar?" Ravn quirks a copper eyebrow. "And what are you going to do with yourself if you're not running this place?"

He eventually settles on an orange and begins to peel it in that hyper-careful fashion of someone who wants to peel the whole thing in one long peel (as opposed to actually eating it). "I'm not sure where I belong, to be honest. That's a big part of why I am the way I am, I suppose. But for now -- I enjoy it here. You're a paramedic -- you know how anxiety works, I'm sure? I can cope with the levels of interaction I have here. It's quiet enough that I don't feel overwhelmed, but not so quiet that I feel like I'm entirely alone."

"You've already figured it out. I'm an EMT. It's my friggin' calling! There are days I'd come off the rig and straight here, then close up for the night and head right on back for my next shift. I want those days to be over. I enjoy staying busy, I really do. But I'd rather it not be some...pity gift of a bar just because what I do doesn't seem enough for somebody." Bennie flaps her hand, dismissing the airing of her dirty laundry. "I'm sure working here allows you to take tiny, acceptable bites of interaction and still allows you to leave it all behind and head home for some quiet time and not have it follow you. Speaking of, did you find a place to winter?"

"Vic rented me her place for now, yes. She bought a house -- a horror of 1970s styles that she's rallying half the town to help repair. It's not luxury but it'll do until I can get back on the water." That peel is getting long and serpentine. "Are you sure it's about enough? Look, I -- don't know Easton very well at all. Our shifts collide pretty much never. But everyone tells me he's a kind of macho bloke. A man's man. I probably don't qualify as one of those but I do have the necessary biological setup -- and I do know that the whole taking care of your woman thing does apply, modern society or not. He got ripped away from this reality for six months. Maybe he just wants to make sure that if it happens again, you're financially safe?"

He pauses a moment in peeling. "Or maybe I don't know what I'm talking about but it's a guess at least. I know that if I were to some day -- connect with somebody. I'd feel responsible for them. Even if they had their own thing and didn't need me to. Because that's part of caring for somebody, you look out for them."

"Oh that's right. I knew that about Vic's trailer. Or at least I think I knew that and maybe just forgot it, but then again it's hard to remember what you forgot." Bennie seems to give Ravn's theory about Easton some serious consideration, which includes a wrinkling up of her nose as if she just smelled something unpleasant. "I guess I'm willing to accept that theory. But why not just keep the original clause. Something happens, I can step in. Right now I just don't want the burden, but maybe that goes for him too? Coming back so abruptly and trying just to jump back into life can't be easy. I dunno. I just wish sometimes I were a guy, this'd be a lot easier. We could just slug it out instead of talking. It seems to work with him and Dela la. Well, actually, I know why it works for him and Ruiz, but. I'm missing that necessary biological set up."

"Yes, well, so do I." Ravn hitches a shoulder lightly. "I've got the bits you're referring to, obviously. But I can't take a punch. Slug me one, I'll be curled up in a ball on the floor screaming. That touch thing of mine? Really bad for scrapping. That's why I need Kelly and the rest to show me ways to finish a fight before it starts. So slugging it out is not an option for me either, and believe me, I've met men enough who thinks that's the only way to solve anything."

"See! That right there? That's the real reason we never could have worked out. Because I am a toucher and you are a no touchie. Ha. I feel better now." Bennie swings her legs once together more forcefully, to give her the momentum to hop down off the counter. "Wait, I warned you about the new set of awkward that might arise out of my mis-texts, right? But I don't thiiiink Easton needs to defend his masculinity against you? I dunno. Just. Yeah, warned."

Ravn blinks. "Come again, what? I'm straight. Sorry if that disappoints anyone."

Bennie makes a pffft sound. "Not like that. But bringing you up literally in front of his friends - well not literally, it was in a mass text - was not my smoothest moves. Sorry in advance for any attempts at dick measuring contests that may occur. I'll just make him feel extra secure about our relationship. Should't be a problem."

"How about I let him win by default?" Ravn looks puzzled. "I'm not sure what you're suggesting here. Think the man's going to want to break my kneecaps for something that might have happened, maybe, someday, possibly, not very actually likely, if he had not come back? Seems a little odd to wait this long to do so, then."

"Ew, no. He knows I'd never forgive him for something like that. I'm just saying he might feel the need to act a little more macho around the bar, not in direct correlation to you." Bennie's hand makes that little flappy motion, "Never mind, I'm talking out of my poop shoot because I'm mystically high as balls. And this is why I should have just stuck to stacking wood and staying out of trouble. Which is what I'm going to go back to. Right. About...now."

"Everyone is. Look, can we just... You know. Be friends?" Ravn looks a little tired. Puppy-like even. "I don't even see Easton most days, it'll be fine. The testosterone levels here are through the roof most days anyway."

"Friends!" Bennie chirps happily back over her shoulder, and then she's gone to do some other task that does not include talking about things. Because talking sucks. And now she knows why the boys punch out their feelings.