2021-02-15 - Furry Brats and the Pants Requirement

It's a clear February morning at Espresso Yourself, and people have begun to crawl back out of the woodwork after the shootout. There's been a push for neighborhood accountability and support for local businesses and the other sorts of usual post-horror rebound in which everyone pays lip service to banding together. But it's been a nice bump in the coffee shop's throughput, so no complaints.

August is relaxing in a corner with one of his hilariously huge cappuccinos, reading an old, battered book. He's not dressed for outdoors work today, so the shop's requirements may be light (or, more likely, Cy kicked him out): blue, black, and green plaid flannel over a gray waffle Henley, jeans, and black, suede boots. He's a picture of the 'Casual PNW Man in a Coffee Shop' archetype.

Ravn Abildgaard of course isn't. He couldn't achieve Casual PNW Man if you paid him. The best he can hope for, maybe, is Casual Seattle Art Director. He wanders in, black ensemble as you'd expect, hands deep in the pockets of his wind breaker, and makes for the counter where the usual argument ensues. By now it's almost a given that neither he nor Della the Day Manager remember why they argue -- they just do. And just like any other day, the argument ends with a hazelnut roast for the Dane, because Della is not caving and just letting him have a regular black.

You'd almost think they enjoy it.

Glancing about for somewhere to sit, Ravn eventually spots August and drifts that way over. He looks stiff still; the way someone will when they had a bullet through the chest two weeks ago, magical healing or no. "Hey. Feel like company? You know, for once without anyone being held hostage, shot at, or otherwise subjected to violence?"

August glances up when he hears a familiar Danish accent, watches Ravn and Della go at it hammer and tongs with a small, wry smile. He tips his chin up, then tilts his head at one of the table's empty chairs. "Absolutely. And, just this once, I guess." He bobs his eyebrows, tone bland. Between Eleanor and the admittedly less-catastrophic nature of his own injury, he's looking relatively healthy.

The book is a very old and very used edition of 'Wise Child', complete with 70s-esque woodcut style are on the front. Definitely something from the 'last chance' bin at Likely Stories.

"Sorry about the petunias." Does Ravn actually feel guilty over flower-cide? Probably not, but it seems like the polite thing to say. "How is -- you know, I can't even keep track of who ended up in hospital and who didn't. Rosencrantz and Grey both were way too close to punching out. Everyone else seems to have cuts and scrapes and not life-threatening injuries. I have it from a close source that Reyes was pretty close to punching out too, and not for lack of trying on other people's behalf, either."

August waves concerns about the petunias aside, has a sip of his coffee. "Plenty more where those came from. Not like they're a rare or endangered species. Anyways, you made good use of them."

He sighs, glances away at mention of Itzhak skating far too close to the line. "Yeah," he murmurs, toying with his mug. "It was dicey." He makes a face about something or other related to that, shifts in his seat. A new topic is no doubt imminent.

"No, ah, sign of those shark-cats since we shipped 'em off, I hope?"

Ravn settles and toys a little with the tea spoon -- why did he get a tea spoon for hazelnut roast? Maybe Della's just tired of seeing him steal all the sugar packets whenever his hands seem idle. "I haven't seen or heard anything. I meant to ask about yours, actually. They're the -- normal ones? Dahlia's are -- bitey. The way she described them, as if they sometimes forget that there are things cats can't do. But they're not -- little assholes, the way those three were."

"I'm not sure I can call them...normal. Or, maybe they are, and I'm imagining it because of the others." August winces a little, because 'bitey' sounds like the worst thing to be dealing with, after 'total jerks'. "Latte, sometimes she gets hold of stuff I swear she should have no way to get. Not a lot? But," the time she'd grabbed a can of cat food out of the cupboard which she had no access to, and the time she'd produced a tape measure from the utility drawer which had a child proof latch, "sometimes. Xylem and Phloem, the staff are making them a catio, and they're kind of inundated with attention, so maybe they're just not trying." Because who needs to be anything other than a cat when treats and love come your way 24/7/365?

He thinks about Latte. "She doesn't repeat stuff much, though. Like, if one of us tells her 'that's not what a good kitty does', she stops." He raises an eyebrow. "Which has to be the first time in recorded history that's ever worked."

"Kitty Pryde is like that, except the other way around. I tell her to not do something, she will look at me with those big green eyes and then -- do it again. And after that, she will not do it a third time. But I need to know who's boss." Ravn smiles wryly. "Aidan assures me that she's just a cat. There's nothing not cat in her head. But I am telling you, on some level, she knows about the Black Stray, and the power that it had. And that it was her, in a way."

He shakes his head. "I suppose all is well that ends well. I walked past their house earlier in the week. It really does look like it did in the dream, though they've started to clean it up a little. The dog had come out, too."

August considers that. "She might not be that cat, but what she endured brought that one into being. Which," he opens his hands--carefully, because coffee--shrugs helplessly, "is par for the course around here. If the Other Side's psychomorphic for us, why not for animals too?"

He lets out a breath he hadn't realized he was holding, nods. "Good. And...well, I'm sorry it put them off cats, but at least we didn't lose them." Yet, he means, because of course there are some psychological scars there, particularly which the father and daughter won't understand. No doubt they'll be in therapy at some point. Even Mrs. Jankowski could use some, given how she can't talk about what actually happened. 'A bunch of half-dressed weirdos showed up and asked the cats to stop being jerks and go home' treads perilously close to psych hold territory.

"Of course, now I'm wondering if there's a lot of real angry deer-things out there, with my name on their antlers..."

Ravn cants his head. "I have this feeling that -- maybe it won't apply to natural things. You hunt deer. Deer expect to be hunted, they're prey animals. But we don't let cats lead natural lives. I remember hearing the Black Stray complain about us interfering with their breeding, controlling them. We can't not interfere, but it's still unnatural. It must seem hella unfair to them -- we literally cut their genitalia off. I may not be Don Lothario but I'd sure as hell have a grudge against anyone coming after me like that, too. It took a month before Kitty forgave me for that vet visit."

August makes a low sound, sips from his coffee. "Yeah--and, maybe that's really it. How much of their nature we're interfering with, and how often. Hunting a deer isn't doing that. Logging, though," and oh, how that sawmill is an ugly, twisted place, "or forcing them to inhabit a spot where they're not wild and not kept, by abandoning them, that could be the sticking point." His mouth flattens. "Carelessness, basically."

He shrugs that aside. "I read a book once where an author took that to its logical conclusion. That in the future cats had spread far and wide, and wiped out numerous other species. All because a geneticist introduced a gene to make them be chameleons, so they could move around semi-invisible." He shakes his head. "I wish we didn't have to, but it's a problem people long dead made for us a few thousand years ago."

"If we ever figure out how to travel in time, we need to go back to Morocco, thousands of years ago, and throw a rock at the guy who first thought to throw a fish to a desert cat?" Ravn smiles lopsidedly. "You're probably right. And of course we can't stop interfering with the cats. But we can maybe -- not be dicks about it? If I managed to piece all of this together right, it all started with a certain little somebody giving birth on some woman's best towels. Maybe close the damn bathroom door, neuter your cat?"

"We'd also have to go find everyone storing grain and tell them to stop letingt the cats hang around eating the mice." August's expression suggests he thinks this will go over quite well and won't get them decried as foreign invaders there to weaken the community by letting rodents have all the food or run out of town as devils. Not at all.

He nods, sets the book aside. "Right. Get the shelter financially supported, encourage people not be idiots about animals." Like, say, expecting a stray to not get knocked up if not fixed. "Really, though, all of that goes back to giving a fuck about things and people not you. Selfishness is to blame for a lot of grief in this world."

"You're not wrong. And I have been thinking about that a little -- the shelter. Other places like it. Have you spoken to de Santos lately? I know he works for you, but I don't know if you've discussed his idea for a kind of community centre. We've talked about it -- came up after I started to look at some of Clayton's data. The murder ratio among the boardwalk homeless is through the roof, and no one notices because -- well, they're just homeless people. Crazies." Ravn taps his fingers against his coffee cup. "We're talking about doing something -- a sort of help people help themselves concept. Help writing resumes, help studying, legal help. But also creating jobs to put on resumes -- and volunteering at shelters could definitely be on that list. It's all about pushing back against the despair. The amount of people who get pulled here only to be Veil fodder -- we can do something about that, if we get to it."

August mmms, settles back in his chair. "I've got plenty of work available that can help in that regard. It's physical labor, so not everyone can do it, but that can also help a lot for folks who need something active." He huffs a rueful, voiceless laugh. "God knows it helped me, back when I needed it most. And," he gets a thoughtful look, "maybe when Thorne needs to get things rolling for the Masque this year."

On a not-entirely-teasing smile, he says, "Think Kelly'd be up for his gym pulling double duty as a community center?" After all, he was Coach Kelly, all around well-loved guy and more than capable of dealing with people who'd had it rough. "Or were we thinking of somewhere else."

"Coach Kelly is the Kelly I know, and that is the hill I will die on." The Dane smiles slightly; he'd have to be deaf and blind to not have done some math by now. "I actually did consider it. Thinking I'll talk to Seth -- we hang out a lot, he'll know whether there's any chance of... Well, we don't want a certain demographic playing against us on this. Need to exercise a little diplomacy, know how to not complicate their stuff so they don't complicate ours. Might even be mutually beneficial if we angle it right."

He pauses and then adds, "That's... maybe not the most ethically correct way to think about it, but that's my take. Team Humanity. I don't care what people do as long as they stand with us against the Them."

"Nothing ethicaly *in*correct about prioritizing," August says, bobbing his eyebrows. "Sure, I wouldn't mind seeing his," Monaghan's, "ass behind bars, but that's not a long term solution to the issues we have. Community efforts are, not 'tough on crime' and whatever bullshit they're spinning lately."

He settles back in his chair. "I think of him a little like Them, really. He's a farmer; there's a demand for a some kind of invasive weed and he's meeting it. And a guy like that doesn't have an operation if there's no need. So you can't stop him by getting rid of him--farm's still there. Need's still there. All you've got is a new farmer." He taps the table. "And you can't just mow the field and call it solved. Need's still there. Roots are still there. And if it's a strong invasive, it just might come back worse and bigger." Who can blame him for comparing Monaghan and Them to kudzu or Himilaya blackberry farmers, though?

"You have to deal with the need. And people don't taste so good to Them if they're not hurting. People don't need what he's offering if they're doing okay. Nothing unethical about that sort of solution."

"Everything I've heard about Felix Monaghan tells me he's an asshole." Ravn sips his coffee. "His cousin Seth isn't. I like him. And I guess that on some level, I can relate to him. I've never been in as deep as he is, but I've done things I shouldn't and gotten bailed out by daddy's money, too. He's a good guy, when he's not doing his cousin's work. And as you say -- take Felix out, somebody else will run that racket. We saw what happened when someone tried to replace him. Might be better to just leave things as they are -- he doesn't seem to mind Kelly being the good bloke that he is, either. There's probably no such thing as a benevolent mobster boss but on some level I'm reminded of the Sicilian mafia, back in the day. Criminals? Yes. But also, often, the village's only defence against even worse people. If I can balance it so that we've got the local gang backing us up against Cthulhu, or at least not working for Cthulhu? Good."

August mmmms, nods around a sip of coffee. "Seth seems like an okay guy." Since August hates Felix Monaghan, this is high praise indeed. "And, well, I don't think we can write off anyone by blood relations alone, this town's not big enough for that. Half of it belongs to one of two families, both, ah." he makes a face, hitches a shoulder, "you know. Embroiled in the weird." Or crazy, as people like Alexander have so often been branded.

He gestures at Ravn. "Enemy of my enemy, and all that. Maybe not friends, but, maybe we can also work against Them, instead of making shit easier for Them."

"That's my thinking. It seems that the one thing I do pretty well around here is be the guy in the middle." Ravn nods, and leans forward a little. "I have been piecing together most of the Baxter and Addington story, from talking to the people involved. I seem to know people in most... what would you say, factions? I'm no healer or fighter, but this is something I can do. Get people talking. De Santos got turned into this grand community figure by the Revisionist. Why not take advantage?"

"Now that's a long story, from the sound of it," August says. He grimaces. "And an on-going one. But, I've got to wonder, if," he glances about, lowering his voice, "Marge hasn't 'retired', after a fashion. We've not heard a peep from her in a while. Maybe she's finally handing the reigns over to Hyacinth and the other kids." He stops acting like a gossiping hen, clears his throat. "And we need to figure out how to...encode this stuff. Set it down somehow, so we can remember. Art, maybe, or comic books. Something like that."

"She has, sort of," Ravn confirms. Keeping his voice down as well he explains, "Hyacinth spent Christmas with me, in Denmark. That was part of the reason why. The old woman, Margaret, is grooming her to be the next Addington in charge. Hyacinth is about as impressed with her forebears as you'd expect from anyone sane. She desperately wanted an excuse to not have to do the Christmas representing of the family next to -- well, Margaret. There's no love lost there."

August mmmms, low and sympathetic. "Well if putting a couple of continents between herself and Marge wasn't message enough about how she feels, then Marge is as oblivious as she is mean." He sips from his coffee. "But, I don't think she's actually oblivious. Just patient. Eventually Hyacinth will give in and agree because she doesn't want someone moronic taking on the mantle. That's even worse than her having to do it." He sounds amused, if morbidly so. "But, that might be in the town's best interest. She isn't going to run around grinding up bones because They told her to."

"Unless she has no choice," Ravn says quietly. "But she's not going to do it because it is the easy solution, at least. I don't think she knows what the deal is, either -- at least not the specifics. Just that the family's power hinges on keeping something on the other side happy -- and that that sometimes requires more than dead Baxters being tossed into woodchippers, metaphorically speaking. I have not..."

The folklorist pauses and looks into his hazelnut roast for a moment. Then he looks back up. "I have not asked Hyacinth any in-depth questions about these things. The sacrifices, the massacre, the deaths. She's lost more family in one year than I have had in a lifetime. I listen when she talks about it, but I don't pry. She's a human being, even if she will try very hard to convince you otherwise. Her grief is real."

"Oh, I'm sure she doesn't know much yet. Margaret's an uncanny sort. She won't tell Hyacinth a damned thing until she's sure she's bought in and drank the Kool-Aid." August sighs about that; more for Hyacinth's own sake than anything else. A no-win situation with family is bad enough, and with this kind--the sort wrapped up in magical bargains with eldritch, horrific powers, the danger is magnified a hundred-fold.

He watches Ravn a long handful of seconds, shrewd. "No," he agrees, finally. "I wouldn't ask either. It's more than any one person should need to carry. And when she wants to tell us, she will." He sips from his coffee. "So. That old woman in the park hit you with her cards yet?"

Ravn takes a moment to sip his coffee too before nodding in the affirmative. "Yes. And eerily accurate at that. More over, I've sat and watch her hit other people, and from what I observed, she's disturbingly accurate every time. I used to pull scams like that on tourists, Røn. She's not a cold reader. Whether she's genuinely psychic or she's Veil touched I can't tell you. But if she's a fraud, she's the best damn fraud I've had the pleasure of staring at."

He toys with the cup, trailing a gloved fingertip along its rim. "She compared me to a phoenix. Just, not in that grand, rise up in fire and reclaim the world kind fashion you'd expect from a boardwalk reader telling you what you want to hear. Described me more like a seagull in an oil patch, having all the fire but drowning in this shit."

August's grimace suggests he was worried that was going to be Ravn's assessment. Not just your average new age grift, but someone doing...something...beyond the norm. Yet the reading Ravn describes, that gets a frown out of him. "Really." He shifts in his seat, sips from his coffee. "So she was doing that with everyone? Telling them stuff that made them uncomfortable?" He sounds hesitant, like he's not sure what to think of something.

Jingle goes the door's bell and Itzhak's pushing his way in. A couple of teenage girls are going out at the same time, so he stops the door with his boot and waits for them, hands jammed in the pockets of his peacoat. One of the girls whispers to the other ("isn't he that guy...?") as they slip out around him. Itzhak lets the door shut, visibly suppressing an eye roll. He heads to the counter to order a huge bowl of cappuccino, and loiters waiting for it like a pro loiterer, upnodding to August and Ravn.

He looks tired. He's looked tired since he took two bullets to the chest.

Ravn looks up and raises a lazy handwave at the New Yorker. "Pull up a chair. You look as great as I feel."

Then he glances back at August and nods, then shakes his head. "Kind of. Sort of. She wasn't just baiting people, if that's what you mean. The reading she gave me, and the ones I overheard -- yes, they were uncomfortable things. In the way that the truth is uncomfortable. I don't want to hear that I am someone who has everything but who's squandering it all to wallow in my own mire of anxiety and self pity. Not the sort of thing you want to print on your stationery. But that doesn't mean it's not true, and it doesn't mean I shouldn't consider making some of those choices she also brought up. It's one of those crossroads in life where you need to take a good hard look at yourself."

He glances back to Itzhak. "We're talking about the fortune teller, the old lady in the park."

August glances at the jingle, double-takes at Itzhak's condition. His eyes narrow, plainly checking for something he can fix and coming up short. So it's a good thing Ravn is going on about crossroads at life and the fortune teller airing peoples' dirty laundry, as it saves Itzhak from an immediate interrogation.

He looks back at Ravn, licks his lips. "Ah...gotcha. Maybe that's why..." He gets a distant looks, winces, shakes his head. "Anyways. We should keep an eye on her. She could be up to something."

A sidelong glance at Itzhak, to see his reaction to mention of the fortune teller.

Itzhak gets his cappuccino (he gets whatever he wants in the way of coffee here, the charmer) and swags on over, the brimming milk foam perfectly steady despite his rolling gait. He sets it on the table and slings himself into a chair and hoists his eyebrows; weary but still going. The way August looks at him, he pretends to ignore. "Bubbe Yaga," he says, about the fortune-teller. "I paid her with a song." Of course he did. That's Itzhak's currency in trade. "She pulled out three cards with the sticks on 'em. What's that called? I can't remember."

"It's Gray Harbor," Ravn murmurs in a tone you could sand down a kitchen cupboard with. "Of course she's up to something. Just not a given that it's something malicious. Yet. Did she give you a couple of uncomfortable truths as well?"

Beat.

Blink.

"What?"

August makes an 'eh' sort of noise at Ravn, a wordless agreement that yes, of course, the weird old woman has to be up to something given where they are. He almost but not quite glares at Itzhak, ratcheting the warning look up a notch ('an explanation will be forthcoming, big guy, one way or another'), but Ravn's reaction to the name Itzhak supplies interrupts his intended answer.

"What, like, the one from the fairy tales? The old woman who's kind of..." He waves a hand, trying to sum up memories older than Itzhak or Ravn, "Definitely dangerous, maybe not malicious, either way don't fuck with her?" He pauses, adds, "At least, that's how Gramma Paradiso described her. Not evil, but not someone whose time you should waste. Could probably cure the curse your stupid husband picked up. Might require something important in exchange."

After a second, he admits, "I kind of expected she'd say something like that to me, and I think she wanted to. Only, her cards weren't cooperating, I guess? She drew three times, finally told me to go home and be happy." His expression telegraphs to even the most oblivious of people that 'be happy' is the tamest possible version of what he was told.

"What, what?" Itzhak squints at Ravn, which is a great excuse to continue to pretend not to see the advent of The Face from August. He cradles the coffee cup, more like a coffee bowl, in one huge hand and takes a drink of way-too-hot coffee. It doesn't seem to bother him. "One time she gave me a rock. This time, eh, think she told me to slow my roll." August's reading makes him laugh low and rough. "Couldn't find nothin' bad to say about you, huh?"

"Are you telling me we're dealing with fucking Baba Yaga? Or at least with the Veil's copy of fucking Baba Yaga?" Ravn's tone is incredulous. On some level this is terrifying. On another, it explains so much. "Witch out of Slavic folklore, lives in a cottage on chicken feet, flies around the country in a giant mortar and pestle, takes in orphans, sometimes eats them, sometimes help them get the Czar's daughter, that Baba Yaga?"

"If it is her then I'd be real careful calling her a copy," August says, eyebrows going up. He's only sort of kidding, by his tone. In fact he's really not kidding at all, but he has to laugh a little, because they're having a very serious conversation about Baba Yaga showing up and giving people tarot readings.

"Slow your roll, eh?" He laughs, sharp and rueful. "Hell maybe it is her, that's her style, isn't it?" Another shrug. "I think she wanted to," he admits. "Pulled one card, said some things. Then she pulled another, looked annoyed, and another. She shuffled those back in, did three more. Didn't like those. Three more." He rubs the back of his neck. "She, ah, gave the deck a talking to. Then shoved it back in the box, gave me a quick two sentence rundown, and told me to get lost." His mouth quirks in a smile both helpless and confused. "Maybe someone was fucking with her same way she was fucking with all of you."

Itzhak's outright snickering by the time August is done with the description of his reading. "You're just too wonderful, Roen, she couldn't figure you out. Mine was, uh, a king, that's the same one Sparrow had for me. And a knight, and then running away except upside down. All, what's it called. Staffs or something. She said I was the only one who was like that, lucky me." He casts Ravn a look that's not unsympathetic, but also just kinda resigned. "Yeah, that's her, I think." He rubs at his chest, wincing.

"It's not her power I'm worried about," Ravn murmurs and stares at his coffee like he expects to find an answer in there. "Let's say she's the real deal. Or that the Veil created her based on the real deal, whatever the case is. Baba Yaga is not a malicious entity -- she is an agent of change. Which fits the pattern of what she's doing here, telling people to deal with issues. The point is, she appears early in a story, and she heralds that shit is about to go down big time. How shit gets handled depends on how the protagonist deals with the challenges she presents. She's a trickster figure. She's there to teach you about yourself, help you help yourself. Or laugh while you go down in flames because you were too dumb to get it. Either way -- shit is about to go down big time."

He glances at Itzhak. "I don't read the actual tarot. Never got around to learning. But every reading I saw her do of somebody over two sessions were disturbingly accurate as far as I can tell. I don't want to brag here, but I'm good at being a fraud. She's not a fraud."

August rolls his eyes drammatically at Itzhak. "Mmmm. She had, for me..." He takes out a small field journal, flips to a page towards the back on which he's made some rough sketches, 3 rectangles each. In two of the sketches one card, the same in both, is fairly detailed, though since it's a plant this isn't a surprise: a regal carnation. Among the others are a seagull flying away from a series of cups, out to the ocean; a trio of bees at work in their hive; a trio of seals at play in the ocean; a fierce falcon king; a butterfly emerging from its cocoon; the moon on the ocean. "I drew them so I wouldn't forget. Figured I could show Gina, see what she thought."

He watches Itzhak rubbing his chest out of the corner of his eye. Oh yes, this is just on hold, it's not forgotten. He licks his lips at Ravn's summation, shakes his head. "Well, I'd say that's always the case around here, but..." But the crates, by the ocean. The approach of spring. A restless feeling, like he needs to be ready. Ready for what?

Just ready.

What Ravn says about teach you about yourself and laugh while you go down in flames causes slow-dawning comprehension in Itzhak. He stares at the little leaf pattern in the foam on his coffee like it could tell him a better future. An agent of change. The wind that shakes the barley. He clears his throat. "So, uh...what'd she tell you, Abildgaard?"

The folklorist glances at Itzhak. "She compared me to a phoenix. All fire and flame and power, but trapped in the mud, wallowing in it, getting nowhere. Told me to get off my ass and start looking myself in the face. Make some decisions. Stop sitting on your hands, stop waffling around not wanting to be who you are, and start acting. Or, you know, waste the rest of your life having all the resources and all the privilege and doing shit all with it but feel sorry for myself."

"It's always raining manure in Gray Harbor but Baba Yaga is the big guns. Think we may need to pay very careful attention to those readings, far more than we have so far." Ravn sips his coffee and fails to lose his frown. Then he beams brightly, and a little forcedly. "So I got asked on a date. And I am going. And I am terrified. Take that, Baba Yaga."

August coughs, rubs his mouth. "Well. One of the things she told me to do was fuck my wife and get drunk with my friends, so." He gives Ravn and Itzhak each a broad smile. "Expect more drunken craziness at karaoke."

He sobers, scratches his beard. A slow, thoughtful smile greets this admission from Ravn. "So. Who is it." He stops, thinking. "Gina?"

Itzhak's gaze flicks to Ravn. He listens to him silently, hands laced around the bowl of coffee, holding still like if he holds still enough he'll be able to hear him the clearest. He winces, actually flushing a little at how accurate and brutal that reading was. Too much even for a man like Itzhak, whose personal creed is 'too much is never enough'. "She told me to quit being such a fuckin' hero before I get myself killed," he murmurs, and one hand creeps to his chest again, pressing. "Called me a natural leader, said...said not to be such a natural leader I just run people over. And that I'm gonna get myself killed." But he can't help but smile at August, crooked and affectionate. "Well, she's right. Get drunk, fuck your woman, live ya best life."

Then he snorts a startled laugh when August asks if it's Gina Ravn is going on a date with and has to set the coffee down so he can laugh helplessly with his hand over his face.

Ravn stares blankly at August. "Gina Castro and I don't even like each other. Though I suppose you're not the first to draw that conclusion." There was this dead woman who drew it too. Messily. Everybody present remembers. He's also the half of the date-to-be equation that suggested not talking about this until it was either a thing or not a thing. Fuck you, anxieties, he needs to talk about this, at least a little.

Baba Yaga, holy shit. Making choices. Hope I'm making the right choices.

He makes a wry little face. "Look, it's ... just dinner. Might not be anything more than dinner, depends on how it goes. I was -- any other time I'd probably have managed to bail instead but in the light of that reading and the thinking it had me doing, combined with the fact that Hyacinth Addington isn't exactly the type to beat about the bush when she wants something..."

He trails off. Flails a little. "It's really not a big thing. At least not yet. And given how the public thinks she's married to somebody else, it kind of needs to stay on the down low too."

Backing up a moment. Hello, Ravn, this is your subconscious. I'm the one of us who's actually paying attention.

"Baba Yaga says you're going to get yourself killed? I'd take that very seriously, Rosencrantz." He frowns again, genuinely worried. "You do do that. Throw yourself in front of bullets. Maybe slow down a little?"

August lets Ravn field that one, if only because he knows Itzhak knows how he feels about this particular topic. Also, it's maybe (definitely) a tiny (lot) bit hypocritical of him to say anything like it, considering his own behavior. He settles for flicking a 'what he said' sort of look at Itzhak though.

But when it comes to Gina, he arches an eyebrow at Ravn. It's time to be a gossipy hen, for at least twenty seconds. "You only go on dates with people you get along with? I can't tell you how many dates I went on in college that started with arguments over something we'd both decided were the hill to die on, and ended with us banging and arguing over breakfast." He has a bit of coffee like it's high tea.

He leaves off the teasing, though, tilts his head. After a bit he nods, not the least bit fazed the name Ravn has said is 'Hyacinth Addington'. "No, she's not. She's the kind of woman who'll inform you what she wants, and expect to be informed in kind. If you're direct with her, I think you'll get on fine."

Itzhak shrugs with eyebrows and shoulders both. Yeah, he does that. He's got fresh pink scars on his chest that say he does that, that he brought a set of brass knuckles to a gunfight and did exactly that, flinging himself in front of bullets. "Youse guys both got shot following de la Vega into that madhouse so I don't wanna hear it." Sorry fellas, your hypocrisy shall not be borne today!

He laughs again, just a huff. "No kidding, de la Vega and me did not start screwing because we got along. But hey, I like Hya. I like her a lot. She's gorgeous, she's got incredible style, and she's an amazing craftsman. Craftswoman. Whatever, she's amazing at it. Honestly, she seems like your type, buddy."

"I don't usually go on dates, period," Ravn murmurs drily. "And I'm not sure that I have a type, either. But the direct approach suits me very fine. I don't speak Girl."

He smiles lightly, thinking in that ten-things-at-once way that his mind works. Mulling on portents of Slavic folklore while contemplating his own future choices while agreeing that Rosencrantz gets hurt too often while recalling recent events. If he's sometimes accused of skipping from one topic to another rather fast it's not that he's got a short attention span; it's that his attention span is focused on at least five things at a time, in the manner of overthinkers everywhere. "At least Turner has his eye on somebody else. You know. In spite of the livery jacket and the leather pants."

August holds up an index finger. "I was shot before I followed de la Vega's people." He says it like he's correcting Itzhak on the finer points of chess or something equally mundane, and not if it was a good idea to follow a cop and his SWAT team into a shootout with criminals. "And, you don't get to talk like I didn't used to jump out of planes for the US Army and don't know my way around a firefight." He sniffs, indignant.

"No one speaks Girl," he assures Ravn. A pause at the mention of Turner, and a glance at Itzhak. "The local kid, you mean? He nursing a crush, you think?"

"Yeah, but you're old now," Itzhak informs August, with that lopsided half-grin that's nothing but trouble. He bonks the leg of August's chair with the toe of his boot. Picking up his coffee again, he slurps the thick foam. "Mm. Yeah, that local kid, who I guess never met anybody in his life aside from his grandma and his cat. He's going through a Phase. You know the one, the phase when you look up and suddenly realize you're surrounded by smoking hot guys and you can't decide which dick to jump on first."

"I was shot before I followed de la Vega's people too," Ravn deliberately copies August's index finger gesture -- and then makes a face. "And again afterwards. Because following a cop and his SWAT team into a shootout with criminals somehow seemed like a great idea at the time."

He chuckles at Itzhak's description though. "That's not all wrong. He told me I'm a pretty man yesterday. I appreciate the compliment but I was not sorry that he went on to talk about how he's maybe, maybe sort of kind of, possibly seeing some other guy. And I really hope that the next whacked undersea adventure sees fit to give me a shirt."

"Old," August echoes, rolling his eyes drammatically. "Please." He only half means it, because with how long the cold damp of winter has lingers, he feels it in all that titanium in his bones. He is old, or at least, not longer young. "Besides, I seem to recall someone at this table is another year closer to forty." He bobs his eyebrows at Itzhak. "Soon I get to sing you a special song at karaoke. I can't wait."

A sympathetic sigh for Turner going through a phase, which also (thankfully) doesn't turn into a laugh (but it's a near thing). "Yeah, I remember getting out of the military and thinking 'goddamn I've got 4 of my best years to make up for, let's get started.'" And empathy in his expression, because, yes, clothes in a Dream would be nice.

"Sometimes the way They like to make sure we remember we like to have normal dreams where we're naked bugs the shit out of me," he murmurs.

"Ugh," Itzhak says in not-so-mock disgust, behind the rim of the coffee bowl mug thing. "Rub it in, why don't you." He laughs, quiet and rough. "Right? I got outta prison and I was like, every guy who crosses my path is in trouble." And he laughs again at Ravn. "Well, he ain't wrong. You looked great in that dream. So did I. So did de la Vega. But at least we had clothes. Even though I kinda took mine off."

"You enjoy the attention, I don't." Ravn shrugs lightly. "I don't like people looking at me. It's literally why I left teaching and only tutor online. Couldn't stand having a classroom of students staring at me. But if the two of you want to tell me all about your wild adventures tripping up half of North America after escaping confinement in army and prison respectively? I'm listening. I enjoy a good story as much as the next boring guy over."

"Mmmm, I can understand not wanting people staring," August allows. "But," he has a bit more muffin, "if you think I'm giving up the deets on that sort of thing without a proper meal and a drink in me, you've got another think coming. I'm not a cheap gossip, I have expectations."

He gives Itzhak a dry look for doffing his clothes in a Dream. "Why intentionally take them off, they're perfectly happy to do it for you."