2025-01-02 - New Sleuthing To Do

Trace had come home VERY late after the fireworks on New Year's Eve, having gone to help with the post-celebration grilling so that Saint wouldn't sear the brats. Then he'd crashed out and gotten up, cooked some food, and gone out and was gone for much of the afternoon on the first. By the time he'd come home in the evening, he'd just managed to miss everyone, not quite crossing paths.

It's finally the morning of the 2nd and he's managed to get up and shower and make himself human before he wanders out to the kitchen in a pair of jeans and a plain white t-shirt to make some coffee and breakfast.

It might go unnoticed, but at the back of his neck, running from just below his hairline a few inches down his spine is a new tattoo.

Fin had also enjoyed the Post Firework/WTFery grill out on the roof with the others. While enjoying deliciously cooked brats instead of blackened and burnt ones that Saint might have made had it not been for Trace, she occasionally shot Trace furtive looks. She was DYING to ask a million questions, but didn't want to put him on the spot in front of the whole group.

The first was a blur sleeping late to recover, a mid-day shift, and an after shift outing before coming home to collapse into bed for more recovery.

Now, it is the second and Fin, who tends to only get 6-7 hours of sleep a night, is well rested and up. Sitting at the table where she has a glass of water and a bowl of cereal, Fin looks up as Trace comes out, looking fresh and at least mostly human, if not fully. She is dressed in a red short and t-shirt set for pajamas with a fluffy black robe on that has been left unbelted. She must be cold because there are socks on her feet. She hates socks. Her glow appears to be a constant symptom of her magic, though it is brighter at times and more dim at others.

Dark eyes slowly follow his path as he nears until she finishes her bite of cereal. "Morning, Trace." She doesn't ask. She is still dying to, but, she doesn't ask... vocally that is. Her eyes as they set on him expectantly are asking very loudly.

Trace needs some coffee to be fully human, and he begins working on that it the kitchen. He glances over toward Fin to see her sitting at the table and pauses a moment. "You're.. positively glowing this morning," he says in a tone that is both a compliment and a question all at the same time. He just studies her for several moments and then asks "Is that.. new? You weren't glowing yesterday were you? Wait.. I didn't see you yesterday. It's.. all very blurry." Finally he realizes that she is staring questions into his soul and a grin slowly spreads across his face, and then a laugh. "Go ahead. You know you wanna.."

One hand holds her spoon, hovering over her cereal. The other extends out, Fin inspecting it with a tilt of her head, and in a very 'Wicked' manner, says, "I am." It almost sounds like a question, but also a statement at the same time. She nods though as her hand comes back down, resting on her lap. "Yeah, it was there ish when I woke up yesterday. I thought I was just imagining things at first. it was very faint, but didn't look like Apartment Light in the mirror, you know?" Shrugging, she digs her spoon into the bowl. "Then it slowly became a little more... there... throughout the day.

But when he gives her permission, she beams a smile possibly bigger than any others she has given and drops her spoon in the bowl with a bit of a splash and a clank. "Okay, so... First... Who started it?" She hadn't seen the very beginning, only when it was actually happening. "How was it? Does this mean... Like, what does it mean? Did you guys talk? Are... AHHHh! All the questions are percolating in my brain like your coffee and all wanting out all at once! Fill me in! Tell me everything!" But, then she considers that for a moment and amends in a much quieter voice, "maybe not everything. It's been a couple days.. Like, I don't .. Anyway... pleeeeeeeease!"

"Huh," Trace says, "It's pretty. You look like you're kind of in that perpetual sunset or twilight time or whatever they call it. Perfectly highlighted. Did that.. happen because of everything that happened on New Years? I've been seeing a lot of people looking different since then. Like.. it changed everybody a little bit."

He reaches for a mug and gets it down and fishes some cream out of the fridge then leans against the counter to wait for the coffee to percolate.

Once the questions start, he can't help laughing again. So many questions so fast. But he does start to answer them. "I started it. I.. admittedly.. probably shouldn't have.. but it was an impulse. And there were a lot of things I didn't know.. but.." he pauses and says, "Okay.. sorry. Starting at the beginning.. after you guys left, he said we needed to talk and to bring over lunch and we'd talk."

"So yesterday I brought over lunch and we did talk. And it was.. pretty intense. Definitely a rollercoaster of emotions. And he tried real hard to push me away again, and it almost worked, like, for good. I was ready to walk away." He fiddles a little with the mug in his hands.

Shrugging, Fin says, "your guess is as good as mine, but I think so, yeah. I've noticed that I seem to be able to play with light a little bit?" Her head tilts, she isn't quite sure how it all works yet. "And people seem to be changing, like you said, in ways that reflect what they can do here." Her eyes look him up and down for a moment. "You seem the same."

But that is not the most pressing thing at the moment. As he responds, she comments.

"Good for you! I'm proud of you!" Then he goes back to the beginning and she takes a bite of cereal, chewing while he captivates her with the tea. She nods a little, then, when he pauses, she leans in, waiting for him to start again. "But you didn't." Since it 'almost' worked. "And instead you... ended up kissing again? Or...."

"I got this," Trace says, and turns around so that his back is to her, tugging the back of his t-shirt down a bit so the whole of his tattoo on the back of his neck can be seen. "I didn't even notice it yesterday. Then I turned a little in the mirror this morning and I saw it." He rubs one hand over it lightly. "Completely healed. Like I've had it for a while."

Then he turns back and says, "So.. yeah, it was real clear that he was upset, but I thought he was mad at me. And he said there was nothing there. So I was like, okay.. even though I could tell he wasn't entirely being honest. But what can you do? You keep chasing a guy who says no and you've crossed over from persistent and determined to figure things out to.. crazy stalker territory. So I headed for the door and he realized I was actually leaving and he.. cracked. All the pressure he's been under broke and he apologized. And he finally called me by my name. And it.. shouldn't be a big deal. But it was, to me. That wall being taken down."

He slides his hands into his pockets and blows out a breath, "Then there was a long conversation about why -- why the lies, why the pushing, why the walls, why the hot and cold, and a lot of confessions on both sides." His smile quirks a little crookedly, "And then yes, there was definitely more kissing. Not as much kissing as I would have liked, but definitely more. But he had a shift, and we had some things we needed to do.. but.. yeah. Things are still complicated.. but we're going to figure it out."

Fin looks as he turns and pulls his t-shirt down. "Seriously? That is gorgeous!" Though her affect being what it is also can be considered gorgeous by some. It certainly improves her no-makeup look she is currently sporting.

Listening to him, she frowns and her brow wrinkles slightly with what she hears. "Nothing there? Bullocks." Sighing, she nods though, understanding that yeah, if someone says no, what are you supposed to do? No means no. But, she begins to brighten (literally) when he says Enzo cracked. She even gasps a little. "Like... Your NAME name? He called you Trace instead of Accardi?"

She is still intently focused as he goes through the 'whys', but gasps again with a bright smile when he says there was more kissing. "Of course there's still stuff to figure out, but this is a great first step! Oh! I'm so excited for you!" She gets up, abandoning her cereal in order to practically hop over to him to give him a hug around his neck.

When she pulls back again, she asks, "so... what were the whys?"

"Thanks," Trace chuckles. "I like it. I mean, I have no idea what it's supposed to mean, but I'm not complaining. I've always thought about getting a tattoo and now I have one that I didn't have to sit for and didn't hurt so.. win win as far as I'm concerned."

"Yeah," he nods. "He called me Trace, and when I turned around he looked.. panicked.. shaken. And when he apologized, I knew there wasn't nothing. There was definitely something."

He grins when she comes over and he wraps his arms around her to give her a tight hug and practically lifts her up off the floor before setting her down again. "So, he's had a crush on me since we were kids. He showed me a drawing of me that he'd done in the courtroom. But I was too shy to approach him. And when he was going to, my brother kind of got in the way."

He then explains. "His dad's second wife found the drawings, and made some assumptions about him, and used them against him. His father is.. very set on his one and only son carrying on the whole family legacy thing. And he threatened Enzo. I didn't ask the specifics, but.. Enzo's father is not a good guy, Fin. So as much as I hate it, we're keeping this, us, quiet. Just in case he has people in the park watching. Which is.. part of why I feel bad about New Year's Eve. I didn't know."

"Of course there was something!" Fin says. "It was obvious to others before either of you could see it or accept it or whatever."

She gasps again, her hand going over her mouth as her eyes open wide in surprise. S few backward steps take her back to her chair and she sits in it hard, like she might have fallen if she didn't sit down right now. "Since the same time you got a crush on him!" The words are a bit muffled from behind her hand before she moves it to press to her cheek instead. "Ohmygod. I cannot even. That is the most adorable meet cute ever!"

Until he continues. Then her exuberance dims significantly. "Oh my gawd. Now I want to cry and hug him. How can parents..." She shakes her head, her eyes blinking rapidly as if she absolutely could cry at any moment. She nods in understanding. "I promise not to go shouting it from the rooftop. Curse his father! Curse him with a million discomforts until he realizes he should let people be who they freaking are!"

"So.. he was trying to make me hate him. Because if I hated him, then he'd know there was no chance. It'd be easier to stay away," Trace says. "But I'm a lot stubborn and perhaps a little masochistic and I didn't go away. And I didn't hate him. And all of this was a lot of me trying to understand him, and him trying to put distance between us because he didn't trust himself."

"So, I know why he's here now. His father's still interested in these islands. He wants to know what's going on here. I don't know what he intends to do with that information once he finds out. So far as I know, he lost the bid before the park was even built. So I'm not sure what he could do. But he's getting increasingly impatient and demanding and I guess he called up Enzo yesterday morning and was asking why he didn't just go jump in the lake himself and take a look. It's unhinged. But I think Enzo is scared of him, and I think he may have good reason to be. We're going to talk more about that, about the whole mission from his father, but that.. was a whole conversation for another day."

With the coffee finally ready, he pours some in his mug and then splashes some cream in it before putting that back in the fridge. "So .. our new mission.. is to try to figure out what's going on with the magic in the park.. where it comes from, everything we can. And figure out what it is that Alejandro Castillo wants to try and do about it."

Fin nods some more. "Mmhmm. Jason Alvarez syndrome. Told ya."

"I am so glad you got all your courage bottled up so that it went off like a firework on New Year's Eve and you kissed him, and that you guys talked and, maybe a little bit that I was right." A grin curls her lips as she tries to look smugly innocent. But more is spoken of Enzo's father and she sighs, then nods some more.

Once given the new mission for the Snoopy Sleuths (Snoopy and the LRHG), she nods again, then adds to the list, "and get Enzo to a point where he can confidently tell his father to fuck off." One more nod, a firm one. "Got it." Her hand lifts, fingertips pressing to her chest. "Am I allowed to know all this or is this on the DL? Like... should I pretend to know nothing about his father being an evil prick?"

Trace chuckles a little as he brings his mug over and sits down at the table with her, wrapping his hands around it and enjoying the warmth. "Yeah, me too."

There's a slow nod. "I hope that we can get to that point, where we can get Enzo out of that situation, where he's ready to do that. I think it might take some time. But at least now we're figuring it out together. And my own family is still a bit of an issue. If they knew, they'd try to use it to their advantage somehow. And while I'm fine telling them to fuck off, I don't think the added pressure would help the situation."

As for whether she's allowed to know all this? He tips his head one way then the other and says, "Know why Enzo is here, sure. If we're going to help figure things out and a figure out what his dad is up to, yeah. Maybe not the real personal bits... which are between you and me bestie business."

"I imagine. This all makes me so glad my parents were like, boring suburbanites who sometimes put a little too much pressure on us but overall let us figure out who we were ourselves." Nodding, she says, "it can't be easy, for either of you. Having the families that you do, with the baggage that they weigh you down with." Nodding, Fin picks up the spoon and takes another bite, but pulls a face and speaks before she swallows. The word comes out pained and mumbly. "Mushy." She puts her spoon down and pushes the bowl away a little. Thankfully she had already eaten most of it. "I am angry on both of your behalfs. Behalves? You know what I mean."

Nodding, she makes a cross over her heart with her finger and says, "got it. Why he's here is okay cuz we're helping. Personal stuff on bestie lockdown." Nod.

"So has investigative work already started? Anything found yet?"

"It can be a lot," Trace says. "But I think I have it a lot easier. At least I have my sister who is on my side. And I've done a lot to make myself independent from them. Enzo's on his own. Can't imagine that's easy."

He lifts his mug and takes a sip from his coffee, wincing a little at how hot it is and then lowers the mug to let it cool a little longer.

There's a grin at the cross over her heart. "Well, and you know, you can know that we're together. I told him I'd be telling a couple of my closest friends." He then sighs and says, "Most of what I'm trying to do right now is figure out what happened the other night. Going to go out on a boat when I can and start trying to figure out where the edge of the magic is. See if we can outline it on a map."

Fin nods and her lips quirk to the side. "Yeah. You've kind of been just living without completely alienating them. Even if they don't like your choices." And Enzo, yeah... "Can I give him a hug and not tell him why? Maybe that's too obvious. Yeah, I'll refrain," she says, answering her own question.

"Oh good! I can hug him for that. Out of pure happiness." She nods, relieved she can give him a hug for some reason. "If he even lets me hug him," she says with a soft laugh.

"How are you going to be able to tell?" All the blue is gone, right? It went away with shiny sparkles? "Go out and try to see how far you go before the magic doesn't work?"

Trace smiles and says, "There you go."

"Yeah, pretty much. I'm going to go out in a boat with someone and I'm going to talk to them through telepathy until it breaks and I can't do it anymore, then plot that spot on a map. Then keep doing that at different points until I can plot an outline," he says. "I don't know if the edge of magic corresponds to the edge of the blue light but we have Angelo's video of it and I'm asking people to tell me where they were when they saw it to see if I can make some correlations between locations."

Fin nods as he describes what he is going to be doing. "That makes sense. That's a lot of ground, or water, to cover. The blue dome thing," she sweeps her arm in the air over her head. "Seemed to go out pretty far." She reaches for her glass of water and takes a sip. "I don't know for sure what I can do to help, but I definitely want to help. I can sit on a boat and mind talk with you if you want. I mean, you mind talk, I just talk talk." She chuckles lightly. "We all know I can handle that part well enough. Talking."

Trace grins and says, "Yeah it's a lot of water to cover. I am going to put a post out on the employee forum to see if anyone else wants to help and do some experimenting for me and give me some data points to add to the map so I don't have to try to do it all myself." When she offers to do the mind talking thing with him he looks relieved "Yeah? Awesome. You can talk to me back via mind-talking too. When I open up the connection it's two-way. We can do some testing. See how many dots we can plot. Take a picnic with us on the boat. Or at least some hot chocolate to keep warm."

GASP!

Fin raises both hands in the air as if she is about to start singing Hallelujah. "Piiicniiiic!! Yes! I am down!" By her reaction, he could have talked her into just about anything with the promise of a picnic.

She makes a 'tsk' sound and shakes her head. "You need to telepathically speak with me more often then. Think of all the gossip we could telewhisper!"

"Man, when you asked me on the mountain why I'd slid into the ditch," Trace laughs. "I so badly wanted my telepathy to work right then. Both, to tell you ixnay on the itchday, but also.. to admit that I was watching Enzo." He takes a sip of his coffee and finally finds it cool enough to not scald his mouth. "Okay, picnic it is, then, and we'll see how far we can go in an afternoon. That'll give us an idea of how long it might take to do the whole thing, or at least how many data points we'll need to try and do it."

As Trace admits he wished he could have used telepathy, and why, when they went skiing, Fin begins to laugh, covering her mouth with her hand. "Oh, that would have been amazing!" She giggles a little more and gives a shrug. "I mean, who wouldn't watch him?"

"Sounds like a plan. And if the dome was like symmetrical and..." Fin had a decent education and went to college, but she is an artist, a photographer. Math isn't her strong suit. However, as she is speaking, a thought pops into her mind that makes her light up brightly (again, literally) as she looks to Trace. "If it was symmetrical and we figure out it's like actually a circle we can figure out where the center is. Maybe the center is the source or... something. You know what I mean!"

"Right?" Trace says. "I feel like my distraction was justified... if maybe just a little embarrassing." He laughs then and shakes his head, taking another sip of his coffee. "I did admit that to him during our confession session."

"Yeah, kind of like the epicenter of an earthquake," Trace says as he gestures a little bit and draws a circle on the tape with one fingertip, tapping in the center of it. "I figure at the very least if we know where the edges are, we know the area in which to look."

"It's okay. Someday I will meet someone that makes me all weak in the knees and fall ass over tea kettle and you can laugh at me instead." Fin smiles at Trace as she sighs wistfully. She's a dreamer, this one. "Oh? What was his reaction?"

"You know... I think when I was trying to be sneaky with him and ended up having a date to the ball that I was not expecting instead." There is a small pause as her lips slowly curl into a smirk. "I bet that son of a gun was being sneaky with me instead and saw it as an opportunity to easily spy on you." She nods slowly with an 'mmmhmm'.

"Maybe it's an ancient meteorite that struck earth and is just now releasing it's magical powers. Or maybe the islands have always been magical. Maybe there were some indigenous people who used to live here that knew the islands secrets." She gasps again. "Maybe it wasn't a meteorite but like, an alien ship! From like, another universe that is all magic! And it crashed here and its magic is leaking out all around us!"

Trace grins and says, "Someday you will meet someone that makes you all weak in the knees and I will cheer you on from the sidelines and distract them so they don't know you tumbled down a hill because you were looking at their butt." He offers her a fist-bump.

"Or he was trying to figure out if I'd be jealous," Trace says. "He did make some comments early on about my 'pretty roommate' I think to see if he could get me riled up about it. But all I told him was that he better be nice to you and not be mean to you because you were my friend." He chuckles.

"Ancient Alllliiieeeeens," Trace says with a long drawn out sound and a grin before he takes another sip from his coffee. He's starting to seem much more alert and awake now that the caffeine has truly settled in. "Maybe. I mean, who knows, right? Could be anything and I'm not ruling out anything yet."

Fin gives Trace a look, aghast. "In my defense," she begins, "I did not know that was why you fell. One moment you were skiing just fine and I was talking to Enzo and the next I saw you fall! I called his attention to that by yelling your name because I was worried!. I thought you might be a pretzel down there in the snow. A broken pretzel with your limbs all askance. I did not call his attention to the fact you were staring at him and not paying attention to where you were going on purpose!" Was he even referring to that, accusing her of that when he mentioned it?

"Well.. I am pretty," she says and tilts her face upward all angelic like, lightly smoothing her not-yet-brushed hair. "He has been nice to me though. I was kind of surprised. He is confusing sometimes." She laughs lightly and says, "I certainly don't have to tell you that. But at first, he seemed so like, rigid. I thought he was going to annoy the hell out of me." But he hasn't. "You have good taste... Good, if complicated, taste."

"??Take me to your leader...//" Fin says in her most creepy, alien-like voice she can imagine. "Yeah no. Could be anything. Could be that phenomenon where, shit, I saw it on some tv show. Like, mutual hallucinations? I forget what caused it, but a group of people all had the same hallucinations that seemed to manifest into actual physical symptoms. But that was like five people... this would be a crazy big mutual hallucination."

Trace just laughs and says, "I know! I know you weren't. I'm just kidding, Fin!" He holds up both hands in supplication. "I am deeply appreciative of your concern for my pretzel-like state. Or lack thereof."

"You are beautiful," Trace tells her. "In any light. Even with morning bed head. And were I not very, very gay, I would likely swoon over you, myself. I might anyway. Just in a platonic sort of way." He even lifts the back of his hand to his forehead and slide-slumps down in his chair a bit. Swooning. Then he straightens up a bit and says, "You should have seen him sing La Vida Loca at karaoke. There was dancing. There was hip shaking. He is .. a man of many facets. And I don't know. Maybe I like them complicated."

Trace seems a little fascinated by this whole mutual hallucination concept but then frowns and says, "Yeah I don't know. That seems like a BIG hallucination. I feel like that would take a massive magic mushroom. Like, maybe the size of the lake."

"You better be! Because I care about your ass! Well, like, all of you. You know, in the, your wellness way." Fin starts then kind of gets lost in her own words. She makes it out of the statement though at least. Eventually.

He swoons and she giggles, first covering her mouth with her hand then waving that hand in the air. "Stop... stop..." Still laughing, she asks, "are you sure you don't have a slightly less gay twin hiding somewhere? No? Okay. I'll keep looking." But then he is talking about karaoke. "No... there wasn't! I missed that?" Fin puts on the biggest pout.

"Yeah, I vaguely remember like, they were a coven of baby witches or something and did a something that either poisoned them or gave them all a bacteria or... nothing probably that would cause all this."

Trace waggles his eyebrows just a little, probably not helping her make her way through that statement, but he laughs and says, "I knew what you meant," when she eventually gets there.

"I mean, I have two straight older brothers, and a bi younger sister, but the brothers are both married. And you definitely don't want anything to do with Leo. He's a fuck-up. And you deserve better." He nods and says, "There was. It was quite the performance, too. And then I had to go on after him." He laughs. "I wanted to weep. I was scared shitless BEFORE he got up there and did that performance."

"Please tell me that this whole park isn't a fever dream caused by a really bad case of mono."

Fin reaches over and pushes his shoulder a little. "You are mean." But she laughs after.

"Okay, your sister seems cool from what you've said. Married brothers, nah. Won't do that." Then he calls Leo a fuck-up. "Thank you for thinking I deserve better than a fuck-up. My track record isn't that great though so like, if I bring someone home to meet my roomie bestie, I expect you to point out he's a fuck-up, if he's a fuck-up." Shaking her head, she murmurs some sounds that indicate a negative. "MnNn. Nope. Hell no. I'd go to the restroom and make them call someone else first then apologize for missing the call and go later."

"Oh god, I hope not. I had that when I was younger. It was Hor-i-ble! Horrible."

"Camilla's great," Trace says with a grin. "You definitely deserve way, way better than a fuckup. And I hereby promise that should I witness any fuck-uppery in anyone that you bring back to this apartment, that I will call it out post-haste." He offers a pinky in pinky-swear.

"I.. just did it. I got up there, and I did it, and it was awful, and I might do it again.." Trace admits. "I haven't actually been up on a stage in a long time and I dunno, I wanted to do something that scared me. I just didn't expect Enzo to be there when I did it."

"Yep. I got it in highschool. Sucked."

Fin locks her pinky with his and says, "it is now sealed forever."

"You are so brave. I could never. I was thinking though about singing this weekend. There is one scheduled, right? I won't sound good, but, it's about fun, right?" She sings around the apartment. Trace knows her voice. He also knows that it isn't what one would call 'good' but it also won't make anyone's ears bleed. Probably.

She rises from her seat, carrying her bowl to the kitchen to clean. "I need to get showered and ready for my shift, as much as I would much rather chat with you all day." She washes the bowl swiftly then dries her hands before walking up behind Trace and giving him a little squeeze. "Again, I am so happy you guys are figuring things out. We'll talk more later?"

"You should totally do it," Trace says. "It's harrowing. But fun." He then finishes off his cup of coffee and says, "I need to run down to the marina and see about boat rentals and whatever I can get that is fast enough to not make this take forever but that doesn't cost a fortune." He gives her arm a little squeeze while it's around him and says, "Thanks, Fin. And yeah, we'll talk soon. Have a good shift."