2019-08-03 - Comfort Food

Rebecca has been back in town for a little bit, having gone back to California for her sister’s funeral. Her boss was kind enough to have all her things moved to a different apartment, and got her a new couch, so she wouldn’t have to live in the space her sister was murdered. It helps a lot, but she is still a little off. She texted Itzhak to see if he’d luck to grab lunch, since she’s between tasks for Chef Vydal and could use an oasis of ‘not work’ in the middle of things.

The blonde is sitting in a booth, perusing the menu. She didn’t grow up fancy and rich, that is a post-college thing for her, and some days you just want greasy comfort food. She’s dressed for work, however, in a white blouse with sleeves gathered and tied above the elbow, and a pink and grey checked sleeveless mini dress over it. She has ballet flats on her feet, her heels in her bag so she doesn’t have to walk in them “off-duty”.

Dingdingding! The bell on the door jingles as Izthak rolls in on that funny kinda-saunter stride of his. He shoots the uninterested waitress an upnod and a flick of his hand at Bex, then comes over and slides in the opposite side of the booth. All legs and tattoos, he is. "Hey there, Beckeleh. How's ya doin'?" There go the eyebrows, tilting up, as he looks at her with some worry. "You look great by the way," he adds, noting the outfit.

Rebecca looks up from the menu, and that’s when the dark circles under her eyes can just barely be detected beneath carefully done makeup. “Not great, but better than I was,” she replies, giving the man a small smile that doesn’t seem to reach her pale eyes. She is clearly not getting the proper amount of sleep. “How have you been?” she asks quietly.

Itzhak flips both hands over in an 'eeehhhhhh'. "Doin' fine. Lotta stuff happening at once." Now is...probably not the right time to broach the subject of how he glimmers and what he can do with it. "It's good to see ya. How was your trip?"

He accepts coffee from the waitress, who comes over to inflict it on them, with a muttered thanks. Apparently he doesn't subscribe to masculinity notions about coffee because he creams the heck out of it.

Rebecca sniffs at the coffee, then adds a ton of cream and sugar to it. She’s a Starbucks kind of girl, living in a Waffle House kind of world. “It was...” how does she put this? She squints at him. “Do you want the truth? Or should I just say ‘fine’ and consider it just a conversational question not needing a real response?”

Itzhak stirs the coffee. (Not much sugar in his, just a ton of cream.) He studies the swirling. Takes the spoon out, tinks it a couple times on the edge to shake off any drops. Then he looks up at Bex, leans forward over the table, slides a hand across so it's in reach but doesn't grab her. "I want what you want to tell me. If that's 'fine', that's okay. We'll say fine. If you want to tell me the truth, I'd love to hear it."

Rebecca meets his hand halfway and gives his a squeeze and a grateful expression. She’s exhausted over trying to be ‘okay’ for everyone else. “It was the worst week of my life. On top of my own grief, my family’s was intense. My parents blame me for moving here, as if I had any idea what was going on with our family in this town. If they’d just told me to begin with...” she sighs. “My brother was helpful though. He did some research for me. Turns out, my family was from here, and has quite a history with the town. Heard of the Baxters?”

Itzhak quirks a lopsided little smile and squeezes Bex's hand back. "Uh," he says, surprised some. "Yeah, actually, I heard of them. One of the old families here right?" His brow furrows. "Listen, your parents are wrong. If they'd just told you..." Abruptly he shuts himself up. "Sorry. But they're wrong. It wasn't your fault."

“No, it wasn’t, and I won’t let them make me think it was.” Rebecca releases the hand when the waitress comes back for their order. She orders a bacon burger and fries. Because fuck dieting at a time like this. When she leaves, she resumes the conversation. “The thing that killed my sister. It’s Billy the Ghoul. William Gohl. Somehow that and the Addison family are all connected in some weird history mishmash there is no available information about.” She frowns.

Itzhak tells the waitress to make it a double, and asks her for a shake too. "You seem like you could use it," he says to Bex, about the shake. "Ya too thin, that's what my ma would say. " He slumps back in the booth, kind of stuffing himself into the corner. "Yeah, uh, listen, I met a guy who's working on that. Alexander Clayton, you know him?"

“Sure, I’ll have a shake.” Rebecca watches the woman move away and looks back to Itzhak. She shakes her head at the mention of Alexander. “Not familiar with him but, according to my landlord, the Baxter family tried to, and possibly succeeded in, getting Gohl’s bones exhumed decades ago for some reason. I think my boss and I found them.” She looks up at him with a worried expression and whispers, “over there.”

"That tracks with what Alexander told me, yeah." Itzhak doesn't look happy about it; his habitual scowl, missing often lately, is settling in place. "At least, the finding part. Dunno about the exhuming part, but seems likely as any damn thing else."

His personal crusade to convince everybody that 'over there' can be wonderful seems rather bloodless in the face of Bex's grief. Itzhak rubs at a shiny crack in the table, at a loss for what to say.

“One of the people we were over there with, Violet I think her name was? She said things can’t be brought back across. But Vyv carried that box back into the library with us, no problem. We thought we were rescuing the remains of some poor innocent soul who was trapped and died over there. Turns out, it was manipulating us to set him free over here in some manner. And people are dying.” Rebecca’s fingers tighten around her coffee mug. She does feel responsible in part. But it was a mistake made of ignorance.

"I can bring things across," Itzhak ventures. "I've done it. Ain't impossible, not in the least. I...can do a lot with 'over there', it turns out?" He shrugs, eyes widening and mouth tugging downwards in a complicated 'who knows?' "God saw fit to slap me with this, uh, this gift, I guess. So I think probably I can help."

“I don’t know much about it. I only recently learned I have some of that ability myself. I always thought I was just good at reading people, body language and the like. But I think it was actually some sort of, of empathy?” Rebecca looks unsure of herself. She has no idea she is doing the things she does. Instinctively armoring herself, reading emotions, hiding herself, reading the emotions attached to objects. Even keeping an orchid alive in her apartment for many years. "I suppose I may need training."

Itzhak laughs, wry. "I think we all need training, but hell, that's life. Ain't nobody gives us a tutorial, we just gotta mash buttons until the right thing happens." He props an elbow on the table, head resting against the heel of his hand, looking at Bex in that soulfully curious way of his. This is what you get once you're past all his carefully maintained crusty exterior. "We could try it out. You know, together. Shit's happening whether we got training or not."

“I would like that. I know I may look like some prim and proper rich girl, but I want to destroy the thing that killed my sister. I want it to suffer like it made her suffer. And I want it to regret it’s existence.” Rebecca’s face goes hard and cold. Vengeance seems to be powering her through her grief. Knowing it’s a monster to fight against, it gives her something to live for.

Itzhak shifts to look Bex right in the eye, for just a moment. He never does this, ever! But he's doing it right now, his complex-hazel eyes on her blues, everything about him gone intense and focused. "If you told me you didn't want to destroy it and make it suffer, I'd call you a liar." His voice is a fierce whisper. "We'll put the thing down. Promise ya."

“Thank you, Itzhak. Having you as a friend, a true friend, means so much to me.” Rebecca reaches for his hand again for another squeeze. “I spend most of my time wearing this costume. I don’t get to be myself. You help me remember myself.”

Covering Bex's hand with both of his, Itzhak squeezes her. STAY DOWN across his knuckles silently back up his promise. "Yeah you do," he says, cocking an eyebrow at her, "I worry. All that self-restraint can't be good for ya."

“No worse for me than it is for a method actor. I consider it acting and life is my stage. It’s exhilarating really, like a mobile chess game played against society as a whole,” Rebecca explains quietly. The shakes are delivered and she takes a sip of hers, making a face of pure bliss. “Oh carbs and sugar, how I miss you.”

Itzhak has to consider that, eyebrows surprised again. "You know what? I never thought of it like that. I just see you can't tell people you play video games." He catches the straw for the shake in his mouth. "Mmmmf. So, you played Super Meat Boy Forever yet?"

Rebecca chuckles softly and stirs her shake with the straw. “Haven’t gotten to that one yet. And I think it’s just seen, in the circles I run with, as something epically frivolous, and brings up connotations of ADHD kids, or adults living in their parents’ basement eating Funyons.”

"That's absolutely fair," Itzhak says, getting a certain gleam in his eye, "it's frivolous as hell and it's just gratuitously mean. But--!" And thereby ensues a discussion about 2d platformers and what makes them frivolous or not.