2021-05-18 - Sorry About the Foundation

It's May! That means sometimes there's a break in the clouds! Sometimes. One of the things Itzhak did when renovating his garage was get August's help with installing raised landscaping beds; it's in one of these terraced beds he's working now, on his knees, sweating, shirt off like a proper specimen of rough trade. He's pulling weeds (which August taught him how to recognize) and tossing them to the gravel of the drive. The bay doors to the garage are open and there's Cajun fiddle music on the speakers.

It's May and people are doing outdoorsy work. This means that other people -- who are far less inclined towards the hands-on approach -- go to offer moral support, bring beers and sandwiches, and maybe even offer to move a few things if necessary. Ravn Abildgaard's idea of 'garden work' is pitiful and he'll be the first to admit it if asked: Where he's from, 'garden work' means 'tell the gardener to get started, dear, and do tell him to remember to trim the hedge maze'.

In good news he brought plenty sandwiches. And a sixpack because why not?

It's May and Itzhak is gardening while Ravn sips martinis beer and supervises! ...which is odd because shouldn't this be August's thing? Did he forget?

As it turns out, he didn't, he had something else to attend to first. That got him sidetracked. Never fear, though, he's arrived. Sort of.

There's a shift in the air, a ripple Itzhak knows all too well; one that Ravn can feel too. Something coming across the Veil. Something unstealthy, that must have tripped, because there's a muttered, "Fuck," followed by the unmistakable sound of a person flopping on the ground, then helpless giggling. They're around the corner of the garage, out of sight of both Ravn and Itzhak.

Maybe August forgot. Itzhak texted him, but didn't think anything much of it--they've all got shit to do.

"You know, traditionally, you should wear like a white t-shirt and 'accidentally' get it wet," Itzhak's saying, hassling Ravn and giving him the requisite ration of shit. And then he jerks his head up, eyes flaring wide. "...did you hear that?" The splat of someone hitting the ground makes him scramble hastily to his feet, hop out of the raised bed, and hurry with long strides around the corner.

"I don't own a white t-shirt and I couldn't fill it out according to the trope if I did," Ravn points out and very helpfully moves a few branches towards the discard pile. "But I can take pictures of yours for your fan club if you want."

Then he too freezes for a moment and looks -- only to also get up and match Itzhak's stride. In this town, a 'kerplup' in reality like that is inevitably bad news. At the very best, hope for bizarre. But, don't get your hopes up too high.

August is lying on the ground, staring up at the sky, expression dazed. His clothes are a mess, he's a little scratched up here and there, and his entire bearing is what one would call 'fuzzy'. He reacts slowly to hearing Itzhak and Ravn approach, lolling his head and regarding them for far longer than necessary. Eventually he blinks.

"Oh, hey, hey." He attempts to sort of roll-flip himself over, the kind of move he was maybe capable of 15 years ago, even drunk, but which now just results in him sprawled facing them rather than not. "Whatever," he says on a sigh, begins the slow process of sitting up. He's moving in that boneless, uncoordinated method which can mean only one thing.

"Hey. What's up. Sorry I'm late." He peers at the building. "This is your shop, right? It looks nothing like this Over There, did you know that?" Then he peers at Itzhak. "You don't have a shirt on." Next Ravn. "But you do." He looks between the two of them, eyebrows unsure of how to handle this.

"Roen, hey, hey hey hey." Itzhak kneels by August, getting an arm (a sweaty arm) around him to help him sit up--or something, maybe not, now that August is slithering around like a beached jellyfish. "Jesus Christ, you're drunk as hell. Yeah, I know that, of course I know that, you think I wouldn't know that?" Worry is sharpening his tone and his attitude. "Can you stand up?"

Ravn frowns; this is the first time in his nine or ten months in Gray Harbor he's seen August Roen as anything but the composed and almost sage-like 'den father' of this little community of supernaturally gifted people. He arrived in town too late to watch the man do a striptease show at his own stag night; he's still processing seeing Roen in a fancy red coat for karaoke night and that was several months ago. If you'd asked him five minutes ago, the idea that the garden shop owner might even be capable of getting wasted would probably have prompted a somewhat disbelieving look.

But here he is. Undeniably wasted.

Ravn hesitates, watching, unsure of how to deal with this situation. We're not at call an ambulance levels of drunk here. More at drunken confessions and shoulder slapping and needing someone to lean on, and really, this is the part of drunk where Ravn himself is usually the guy who left the party an hour ago on some weak excuse about needing to grade something or not feeling so great.

"Oh yes I am," August confirms, and boy does he sound proud. "You know, I have a high metabolism for alcohol, it's tough for me to really get this far gone. Dad says that's his fault, his side of the family are immune to booze. My pity parties are expensive. But let me tell you--Maker's Mark doesn't fuck around." He explains all of this as he hinders more than helps Itzhak's attempts at getting him up.

And then, asked if he can stand, he proceeds to try and get up without help. It takes a few attempts, during which he says, "Of course I can, I walked here." He looks up at Ravn. "Ran," he amends, voice low as if this is just between the two of them, "that duck-panther-thing didn't look friendly."

He clears his throat. "I guess you would know that. Well, now I know it, and so does Abildgaard." The high alcohol tolerance claim might not be the booze talking; he's able to pronounce Ravn's name without a hitch.

Itzhak looks at Ravn, eyebrows tilted all the way up, while August flops around. Those eyebrows say louder than words: what. the. everloving. fuck. He's quick to step in and sling an arm around August's chest and support him once he's kind of on the way to standing. "Think you're further gone than you think you are, buddy. There ya go. Whaddaya say we go inside and you can sit somewhere ain't the ground? You can tell Tante Itzil and Feter Ravshka all about it, huh?" This might be a project.

"I have so many questions," Ravn murmurs and fails entirely to volunteer his own self to lean on; he probably figures that unless he absolutely has to, dragging someone drunk around and yelling loudly about how their elbow is setting your recently broken ribs on fire is maybe not a great solution. His left arm is out of the sling thanks to Aidan Kinney but, maybe he's not quite ready for heavy hauls just yet. "Duck panther thing? Maker's Mark? How much coffee do I need to make, and should I fetch a bucket?"

August's mood shifts like the wind in front of a summer monsoon, sudden and instant. Bubbly humor gives way to something tired and unhappy. "What's there to tell. I'm fucking useless, thanks to Them." From slithering cnidarian to dead weight, just like that. Fortunately, he's also trying to support more of himself.

He shakes his head. "Let me tell you those motherfuckers," he starts to laugh, helpless and angry, "those motherfuckers really know how to stick it in and break it off." He speaking through clenched teeth by the end of that. The ground under Itzhak and Ravn's feet shifts a fraction. It's so slight, were it not for their Glimmer, they'd never know it had happened. But the movement Art tells them, something under their feet just cracked.

He stops moving, takes a steadying breath. "It's not a good idea, to have me near...things, like this." He peers at Ravn. "A bucket?" His expression clears. "Oh. Not...not for a while. It was sort of like, a platypus, I guess, if a platypus had a panther's body and these huge teeth." He holds his hands way too far apart. Maybe he means claws? Unclear.

Itzhak gets a look of dread on his face like that better not have been my slab. "Don't worry about it, it's fine," he lies, supporting August into the garage proper. There, he makes a valiant attempt to deposit him on the loveseat. Lemondrop is awake, sifting herself over her branches and through silk foliage. With a nod to Ravn and a meaningful hike of his eyebrows, Itzhak indicates to him that yes, he should cause one of the buckets in the corner to arrive. Out loud, he's saying, "What happened, huh? What's wrong? Your Song ain't come back, I guess?"

Oh good, a perfectly normal and mundane errand to run! Ravn goes for the bucket -- regretting only that he doesn't need to fetch it from, say, Hoquiam. He's still fairly inexperienced with the whole Glimmer business; experienced enough to know, sadly, just how much he doesn't know, and how much power some of these people pack. Having friends who can throw cars or blow up houses with their minds is great when they're on your side and in full control of their faculties. It dawns on the Dane that there are times when perhaps putting such power at the disposal of people who sometimes get drunk, high, or depressed can have -- unfortunate side effects.

Such as the ground shifting under his feet. He's from a country that isn't geologically active. The ground is not supposed to do that. It reminds him of Italy or Iceland, that tiny vibration of 'what the hell..?' the instant before the geysir or hot spring erupts.

Hopefully August's inevitable eruption will smell less like rotten eggs than the geothermal springs of Toscana.

"What the hell did you do to yourself," he murmurs, not really expecting an answer -- attempting, perhaps, to establish whether Roen is indeed drunk as a skunk, or something else and perhaps more sinister happened.

August sits heavily, making the sofa creak. "It's not fine, that split goes a few hundred feet down," he says, rubbing his eyes. "I'll fix it. In the morning." Now he frowns. "No, no my shine is just fine." As a demonstration he waves a hand, causing half the soft's upholstery to unravel. Another wave, and it reweaves itself. "See? Perfectly fine. It was never broken, turns out. Just me."

His attention shifts to Lemondrop in her terrarium. Expression softening, he says, "Maybe I should go. I don't want to...that's why I left the cabin. I didn't want to hurt any of them." He closes his eyes. "They ruined me, that's what happened. The one fucking thing I--" He stops, hiccups, starts laughing again. "You know, we worry a lot about shit like, what if they kill people we love. What if they maim us. We didn't figure they'd..."

His voice fades, like he can't really say it, or forgot what he was on about. He focuses on Ravn again. "All I did to myself was get drunk. Same way I used to deal with it after Bosnia. Drown my sorrows, go find somewhere convenient to sleep it off." Something about admitting that makes his jaw set.

"Okay," Itzhak says, determined to paper over the dread that's so obvious on his face. "You can fix it in the morning. Thanks, Abildgaard," for the bucket, which Itzhak strongly suspects is going to need to be used sooner rather than later. Then, kneeling in front of August, he grips him by the sides of the face, smearing dirt on him, in order to look into his eyes. It makes him squint, like looking into a bright light. "Gushka, you ain't makin' sense. Start at the beginning."

Drown my sorrows, go find somewhere convenient to sleep it off. Words that strike a chord in Ravn who is definitely drinking more whiskey than any doctor would advise, while telling himself that at least he's not adding coke and opiates like most folks. Or sleeping off the cheap fruit wine in bus stops like other folks he's travelled with. There's a lot to unpack there, but now is not the right time for introspection.

"Something happened," he tells Itzhak quietly. "I remember him and Kailey Holt mentioning something very briefly in passing at Sweet Retreats the other day -- kind of giving each other that 'not the time, not the place' look. Probably because Bennett was there."

August's eyes, normally brown and green and clear, are muddy and bloodshot, and full to the brim with exhaustion. Also a bit shiny with tears he's not shedding, thank you very much.

He can't hold Itzhak's gaze, stares down at the floor between them. "You don’t want to hear the story of my life, and anyway, I don’t want to tell it," he murmurs.

His eyes come up as Ravn speaks. "Kailey," he echoes. "Fuck, her drawing." His eyes close again, he shudders. "If I could kill every last one of Them, I fucking would." One of his hands is so tightly gripped into a fist there's blood coming from his palm, where his fingernails have dug in.

After a second, he says, "When I came back from Bosnia...after I got out of the hospital. There wasn't a lot I was going to be able to do. I was too fucked up for a job on the docks. And I'm not really good with math or--anything technical. I didn't have a lot of options. But...gardening, right? Plants. That was something I could do."

Could.

Itzhak glances at Ravn, one side of his upper lip hitched. The ADA is causing problems she has no idea about, just by being around. "Right," he says to August, tone leading. "Right, you can garden. You can garden so good you're a doctor of gardening."

Ravn folds one arm across his chest as he stands there watching, and taps a gloved finger on the other hand against his lower lip -- thinking and piecing bits of puzzle together in that fashion which is so very much him; if you can't do much else, at least use your damn head, Abildgaard. "Do you remember what you told me some time back? About a book, that de la Vega poured his power into? You said something back then -- that the Art or Song can be depleted, but it does not go away. Whatever happened to these two, it's not likely to be permanent."

Hope? Hope is good. So good that he and de Santos literally named their little operation for it.

"That's just it." August's voice hardens. "It's not the fucking Song. It's us. They broke us." Still like a summer monsoon, the heavy, damp smell of rain giving way to furious winds. A corner of the sofa unravels.

"We came out of there, out of that, puzzle world or whatever the fuck it was, and something--happened. I don't remember it. It's all a mess in my head. I remember...tobacco and, helping move one of the hospitals and, and whatever They did, They killed that part of me. Or took it away, or--" Numerous things in the garage rattle ominously.

August gets up way too quickly. Well, he tries too, except Itzhak is right in front of him, and he doesn't want to clock him in the head (or nose), so he gets unbalanced, falls back heavily onto the couch.

It's too much motion in too short a time frame. He blanches, grabs for the bucket he was totally not going to need any time soon. (Well, Itzhak is psychic, you know.)

"Broke us? Killed part..." Itzhak looks at Ravn, eyebrows all the way up in unhappy worry. "I'm fuckin' lost." Then August is lunging and he's unfazed by the lunge, at least--the bucket scoots forward on its own, neatly into August's grasp for maximum splash containment. He rubs August's back. "Abildgaard, get a cold washcloth, would ya?" Keep Ravn busy, that's his plan here.

Ravn is already on it. There's not a lot he knows that's useful right now, and certainly nothing he can do if it comes to a need to counter any random destructive lashes from the botanist. Fetching buckets and washcloths? This at least is a service he can provide, and which he is happy to provide. "Something happened over there which hurt them. Holt said she can't draw anymore -- the art block from Hell. I assumed it was a thing like de la Vega -- something that'll pass."

The bucket was an excellent call; all is contained. It takes August a second to accept the washcloth, and when he does, he's moving slow, almost dazed. "I can't--do anything with them anymore. All I do is kill them." His eyes are unfocused, fixed on some spot across the room. "If I use the Art on them at all--to move them, to make them grow, they just die. If I plant them, they die. If I water them, they die." He's crying now, rubs at his face in annoyance for that fact. "I killed an entire clearing. I almost killed half my own yard. Wiped out my entire greenhouse. Killed two of these...things that Hawthorne found..."

He sags, fury bleeding out of him. "Imagine if you tried to play a violin, except you couldn't read the music, and it made the most god awful sound, and disintegrated in your hands." He sniffs. "That's, what They did to me." He glances up at Ravn, eyes narrowing for a moment, shakes his head. "Maybe. I don't know. It's not...it's not that part of me. So I don't know if it works the same."

"What?" Itzhak whispers. He looks at Ravn again, as if not sure he heard right. "You're...killing plants?" As August goes on--yes, he heard right, and now Itzhak is the one who's going pale. Kailey can't draw. August can't garden. Itzhak swallows in a dry click of his throat. For a too-long moment he doesn't know what to say.

"...okay," is what he settles on. He takes a breath. "We're gonna figure it out. We are gonna fix it."

"That would be... quite terrible." Talk about a metaphor to punch a man in the vulnerables. Ravn nods, several shades paler than usual. He brings the washcloth (and the spare bucket) over and looks from one man to the other, sombre as if he'd just come from a funeral. "We'll figure it out, yes. You can't remove something that fundamental from someone just like that. I refuse to believe it -- mostly because if you could, then they would have done so often before. Imagine how easy suffering that would be to harvest -- take away whatever makes a man tick, watch him spiral into depression for the rest of his life. If they had that kind of permanent power ... none of us would be able to function at all."

August nods in response to Itzhak's 'okay', the numb and automatic reaction of a car accident victim who's turned on autopilot for the paramedics. Though he does want to believe it; after all, despite having a wall fall on him here he is, walking (well, not right now, but in general) and hearing in spite of injuries which killed and permanently disabled numerous others. He knows these kinds of things can be done. It's just hard to remember that when you're lying in a hospital bed, most of you in a cast or a brace, or sitting in your best friend's garage, throwing up after plowing through a bottle of Maker's Mark then taking a quick jaunt through the Veil because your meaning in life had been excised from you like an extraneous limb.

He snorts a laugh at Ravn's response. "Yeah. I can confirm, it fucking sucks." He swallows, though, tries to turn the rest of what Ravn says over in his mind, follow the logic.

If they could do that, none of us would function.

Something about that is trying to get August's attention, he just has no idea what. He's grieving too hard, too tired, too achey to focus. "Maybe. I don't know. All I know is I'm as useless as I was coming back from the war, just," he lays back on the couch, "twice as old. God, what do I tell Ellie. 'Sorry, it turns out I can't touch plants anymore.'" He covers his face with a hand. "Fuck."

The look Itzhak gives Ravn is half like he wants to explore this line of logic, and half like Ravn should really shut up starting now. On the one hand, jumping off such rhetorical cliffs is what gives them power over the Unshaped. On the other hand, August probably doesn't need to hear that right now.

Nevertheless, he says, kinda reluctantly, "It don't seem likely. If they did that, they'd just burn through the food supply." right? goes unsaid.

Then, "hey," sliding himself next to August and wrapping both long bare arms around him. This smudges them both up with dirt but does Itzhak care? He hugs August as tight as he dares without risking making him sick again. "You're gonna tell Ellie They fucked you up and we're gonna work on it. Yeah?"

Shutting up starting now, exploring avenues of logic recommencing later. There are two people with people skills in this room and Ravn is the third guy, the one without; he's definitely taking Itzhak's lead on this.

At least insofar as shutting up goes. He murmurs something about coffee and putting the kettle on, and edges towards doing so because sometimes, a man needs to cry and hug his best friend, and maybe a man doesn't need some other guy standing there, watching that. He might need coffee afterwards, though, and that at least is something the Dane can help provide.

Along with a lengthy series of mental promises to break the figurative kneecaps of whatever Veil creature caused this despair. There's throwing people from the frying pan and into the fire to harvest their power and their misery -- and then there's getting personal. This? This is not farming. This is time for an Orwellian animal rebellion.

August, at least, doesn't seem to mind the rhetorical cliffs. After all, it's a rhetorical cliff of, 'this is probably fixable', so as worried as he is that this is as permanent as the pins and rods holding him together, he'll take whatever hope he can get. You know, in the morning, when he has a hangover that will break all records and is talking about how he'll never touch bourbon again/for at least a week. Right now, he just agrees with a half-hearted nod. "Yeah. Gotta leave us functioning enough for another harvest." That's what he told Isi earlier, right? Before he'd gone back to the shop to get something and found most of his greenhouse dead. Before it had dawned on him what was really going on.

"Yeah. They fucked me up, and we're," he swallows, "gonna fix it." He's quiet a moment, studying the washcloth. Then, "I don't think I have it in me, to learn how to do something else. I had to work pretty hard to get through school. Sure maybe I could, but..." He sighs. "If I don't have this...I don't know who am I anymore."

He doesn't miss that silent exchange of looks; even through the haze of bourbon and despair, August is paying attention to his people. He gives Itzhak a look, the kindred to the Face: the 'don't be that way' eyes. "Thanks, Ravn."

And when Ravn sidles off, Itzhak gives him a whole new look, a where the fuck do you think you're going get BACK here look. It may be a thing that Itzhak is rattled, and rattled badly--his signals are going a liiiittle haywire. But August gives him a Look of his own, silently informing him he is Being A Way, and Itzhak sighs through his teeth.

"Sorry." And Itzhak never apologizes! "Just, just, this is fucked up and..." he grimaces, awfully. "It's fucked up. Listen, don't talk like that, you're always gonna be yourself. Always." And Itzhak will deck anybody who dares suggest otherwise. "You're drunk as fuck, you just gotta sleep it off some, neither me or Abildgaard can help ya there. You'll feel better once ya do." It's not a lie, it's just a really hopeful suggestion.

Coffee! Making! Be right back! Actually not even disappearing out of sight, just conveniently not standing there and not knowing whether to look away or not look away or whatever, and actually, is this what people are babbling on when they talk about fragile masculinity, and look, let's just focus on the goddamn coffee. Making coffee is Ravnspeak for look, I'm sorry and I really want to help and I'm about as useful as a ficus.

"Sleep is good," he agrees. "But I definitely get needing to get drunk out of your skull and work through things. Whatever happened, we'll bloody well fix it. That's what we do around here, we get back up and we fight back."

Am manly. Solve things by punching it in the teeth. We got this. Rar.

August watches Itzhak a time, clinging to that claim that he'll always be himself. The guy who in under a year grew a cluster of maple trees which should have taken decades to grow, to make a violin. The guy who got to write his wife a proposal in a book dedication. Not everyone gets to go these kinds of things. Maybe he'll have to do other things from now on--but he still did them.

Yet he's drunk, making it hard to accept that, and his stomach is likely to reject this nice meal of bourbon and self pity at least once more before he gets to pass out.

"No I won't," he says, scrubbing at his face. "I'll just be hungover and wish I was dead or twenty-five with a few used condoms for my efforts." A touch of his more typical grumpy levity.

He leans into Itzhak, eyes on Ravn. "Yeah. I need to--check with James and Diana. They were there. Might have had something taken from them too." Quieter, "Sorry about the foundation. I'll fix it in the morning."

Itzhak, half naked and sweaty and well-smudged in garden dirt, holds August with zero shame for any of these things. Or for the fact that, indeed, he's a man who needs to cradle his blasted-out-of-his-skull best bro while being those things.

Ravn has admired him for his freedom. Here's another way he's free: he doesn't have to worry about his masculinity in this situation. Or August's masculinity, for that matter. To them, it doesn't mean a barrier between them.

"That's right," he says, looking at Ravn while August does, with the result that both of them are looking at him while he tends to coffee. "We get up. We fight back. Just, sometimes you gotta get drunk off your ass first." He doesn't rock August, out of fear that it might cause another eruption, but he presses his forehead to the other man's shoulder (taking visual pressure off Ravn). "You're gonna be okay. I ain't gonna let you not be okay."

Ravn doesn't worry about his masculinity as such. To do so would imply that he cares a whole lot what others think of him -- which he doesn't. He's very much aware that this is a level of interaction with which he has very little personal experience or familiarity, coming from a background in which a handshake or a shoulder punch is the extent to which men touch each other, and strong emotion is expressed through swearing (or preferably, not at all). He does not disapprove of the intimacy of the other two men; it's just that with his particular combination of conservative upbringing and neuropathy, it's a language that he himself doesn't speak.

So he makes coffee, because that is a language he does speak.

"I don't know a James," he tells the coffee pot. "But Diana Wilkerson is the kind of woman who gets herself into trouble a lot. She's a paranormal investigator -- comes by HOPE now and then. Helped me look into some of the old paperwork for clues as to what happened to the place in order for it to be abandoned. If she's in trouble, I'll definitely be there to help her out right back."

August shuts his eyes, thus Ravn is no longer being stared at. He's easy to hold, like a guy who got used to being held a lot when things were bad. One of the good things to come out of Bosnia, really; he got over any of the 'real men don't touch anyone they're not banging' attitude the Army tried to instill in him super quick. He needed to, in order to get better. There was no two ways about it.

He hmphs; it's not quite a laugh, but almost. "I'll be sure to tell Them you didn't grant permission for me to not be okay. Should straighten them out."

Reluctantly, he opens his eyes again, if nothing else so Ravn knows August is speaking to him. "James is her...something." Boyfriend? Guy That Was Lost And Now Found-Friend? "He was Lost, I think. ...shit, I didn't even think to text her and ask if he was okay." He groans, the kind of sound which, were he not smashed beyond belief, would presage him rectifying the source of said groan. Not this time; he just leans into Itzhak. "Yeah, Diana's...she's curious. Sweet lady. But, never met a light socket she didn't not want to stick a fork in." Muttering, he adds, "Not that I know anyone like that."

"Fuckin' A I'll straighten Them out." Itzhak keeps petting August, smoothing his hair, rubbing his shoulder, putting his hands on him to reassure himself that he's here, that August didn't drunkenly wander off the path during his trip across the Veil. "Don't ever do that!" he adds, suddenly furious. "You coulda tripped and wound up in a Dream and we'd never know! You asshole!" Speaking of nobody August knows who would stick a fork in a light socket and then yell at August for doing it.

"Tempted to ask my lawyer to write up a formal cease and desist for the Them," Ravn murmurs wryly. "Has anyone actually tried it? Somebody should."

Banter is good. Deflection, not getting too emotional. The Abildgaard Manual doesn't come with chapter twenty-three, "Human Emotion and How To Deal". He agrees with Itzhak's sentiments, more or less. And he's not at all sorry that Itzhak is doing just fine expressing them, because somebody needs to be doing that, and the New Yorker is handling it just fine.

Coffee in three cups. Extra strong for August because that man needs to either caffeinate himself sober-er, or pass out. He turns around and walks back to the other other, holding a cup in each hand and letting the third float in the air between them because who gives a fig, it's not like Lemondrop is going to take a picture and call a newspaper about it. "We'll sort it out," he repeats. "Whatever happens, we push right back."

August winces over being castigated, though as he's traded drunk-and-beligerant for drunk-and-sad his response isn't the least bit combative or argumentative. "Yeah," he says, disappointed in himself all over again. "I shouldn't have. I just...I wasn't thinking about anything except being useless to Ellie, and all of you. Other Side and Them and Dreams didn't seem like a big deal." A few seconds of silence, then, "I'm sorry."

He watches Ravn approach with the three cups of coffee, smiles to see one floating. He can't call himself an advocate of smaller, casual uses of their power, yet nor does he feel it's to be avoided. He'd rather people know how to use it than not. "You're both being too good to me, you know. Shoulda just tossed me in a bathroom to sort it out."

Itzhak, the big marshmallow, goes from angry-Jewish-mother-style guilt to pile of mush in 2.6 seconds. There's no quicker way to disarm him than to refuse to fight. "No, no, hey, don't...don't, you're gonna make me cry. It's okay. It's okay, Guskha." When he looks up at Ravn and the floating cup, his mouth is pressed flat with the effort of not just bursting into distressed tears.

But he smiles, waveringly. "Thanks, pal. Man, you got a pair of problems on your hands, don't ya? What would we do without you to keep a level head and make coffee." The massive sense of his Song glides along to gently nudge the floating mug (the blue one with bright yellow Yiddish insults all over it) to the coffee table.

There isn't a lot Ravn can say to that. Can he relate to the feeling of being useless? Yes. Enough that he has spent a considerable part of his life making certain to have no ties and no one depending on him, and no one who'd really notice his absence. He has managed to effect some changes in recent months and figures that his sudden disappearance would in fact not go without notice -- but he's not quite yet at the point where he's comfortable with the idea that somebody who's not a cat might depend on him. What do you tell someone who's afraid they might be useless to their wife, their friends, and their community? You tell them that they're not, that it's a silly fear, that no one is. Only, given that that fear is your own secret silly fear as well, maybe it's better to just keep your mouth shut. Sometimes, even a skilled confidence man knows he can't pull off a line -- or maybe he knows it because he is a skilled confidence man.

Hence, all Ravn says is, "Well, that's something I can do."

It's okay, Itzhak says, and August trembles, jaw setting. It's not, though. "I didn't wanna ever go through this again. I got out of the hospital, all I could think was, what now. I'm dead weight to my family. Couldn't work on the docks anymore, could barely keep it together, not good enough with school for a scholarship." He's crying again, but quietly, now, emotionally exhausted, resigned. "God, 1995 was a shitty fucking year."

He's drawn out of that ugly moment by Ravn speaking. He surveys him a moment, says, "It's a lot. Doing that. It's like...with that guy, whose girl wouldn't let the faeries keep him. Not letting go..." His eyes close. "Sometimes that's what we need most. Just not having to do it alone."

"Shhhh, shh shh. That ain't your fault. None a that's your fault." Itzhak presses his lips to August's temple, fingers curled loosely in his hair. "You ain't there. You're here now. You're here with me'n Ravshka. We got you, bubbeleh. Gonna take a lot more than Them assholes to pry me away."

He looks up at Ravn, brow furrowed, mouth tilted. For a moment, all his expressive face beams out that he wants nothing more than to grab Ravn in a hug too. But Ravn can't handle that kind of thing, so this look will have to serve.

Itzhak takes a mug of coffee and wraps August's hands around it. "Here, you gotta drink some for me. Aight?" The big brother comforting the grieving little sister, and the uncle comforting the ill niece; it's not often he shows that he knows how to do those things, but here he is, doing them.

Ravn pulls up a chair, turns it around, and settles on it in front of the two other men, arms on the backrest, gloved fingers curled around his own coffee mug (the white one with Snoopy dancing on). This is the best he can do as far as group hugs are concerned; like a cat that wants to show its concern in a nonchalant, noncommittal and definitely concerned fashion he stays close and tries to look like it's just happenstance.

"There's a storm coming," he says quietly. "We keep getting told. What's the first thing you want to do in a war? Take out the enemy's best people. The storm is already here, we're just not seeing it yet. But if we are going down, we're sure as hell going down fighting. You're more than the power you have, Røn. They can take your guns, figuratively speaking, but they can't take you. Look at me -- no one brings me into these things because of my power, because I don't have any. It's who we are that matters, not whether we can zap someone with lightning or read their mind."

August accepts the mug, but he's some time in opening his eyes and straightening up enough to take a tentative sip. He makes a face, hesitates. It stays down, so he's chalking that one up as a victory for team Itzhak and Ravn, Coffee Pushers. Another cautious sip. He murmurs a quiet thank you to Itzhak, cradles the mug in his hands while surveying Ravn with bloodshot eyes. He's easily twenty years older in this moment.

"It's not...it's not that." He manages a weak, bitter smile. "I'd--God, I'd rather they take all of that than this." Okay, that's a lie. His throat works. "Well, maybe not--I'd want just enough to not forget." He looks directly at Ravn, meaning, 'like you'. "But the plants--I worked fucking hard for that. For years. And They just...took it away."

He's quiet a time, fingering the coffee mug, staring into it. Presently he takes another sip, nods. "But...yeah. There's something on its way. Something bad, and big. And you're right. I am still here." He sighs, heavy, rubs at his face. "Mostly. Thanks to you two. So."