2019-08-18 - We Need A Whiteboard

The visit to the psychiatrist was...interesting. Julia was legit terrified, and after the session, she seems both quiet and frustrated. When she's frustrated, her best way to deal is to cook, and so the guys are invited over for a late meal. Her mother and grandmother are already in bed, and so they have the rest of the house to themselves. However, the most comfortable spot is the kitchen, which has its own table where the guys can sit and Julia can converse with them while cooking.

Ignacio showed up prepared: coffee and sugar cookies in a bag. The shit he thinks of. He does, however offer a hug and start poking at the kitchen for mugs and those things inevitably he just knows to look for. "Deberķas comer algo." DOes he look shaken? Uh yeah, without a doubt that was a hard personal trip to walk. "Normalls I'd say it's okay buuuut it ain't. Not yet so at the least? You know it's not you. That's.... that's something you can walk away with. Shallow comfort I know."

Itzhak brought over shortbread cookies, dipped in chocolate. He didn't make them, they came from the Jewish bakery. (A Jewish bakery, three thousand miles from New York and a thousand miles from Los Angeles!) When he sees Iggy hug Julia, he clearly thinks this is a good idea and offers her a hug too. "You want I should set the table or something?" he says, to contribute.

Julia lets out a low breath. She's willing to accept hugs, and cookies. Though she does smile weakly, "If you check the cookie jar, there's Cuban sugar cookies abuelita made." But the smile doesn't last as she leans against the counter. "Thank you both for coming with me. I wish I could have remembered something more useful. It's just more confusing."

Ignacio snags the cookie jar and makes himself at home as the Sous part deus. The confections he made and brought from teh pile of nervous habits that have been steering him in baking form lately, Abuelita's cookies and whatever Itzhak hanve brought all go onto one plate. he's nervous plating now. "Eh, don't mention it. Really. I mean you're my people. No way I wasn't goin." He pauses and looks to teh stairs keeping his voice quiet and asking her curious, "It okay to talk here? They ain't gonna care?"

Itzhak wraps up Julia in those long damn arms of his and even sways her a little, even murmurs something comforting in Yiddish under his breath. "Hey. S'okay. I mean...you know what I mean." Sure, everybody knows what he means. "None a that is your fault." When he lets her go, he leans against the counter too, hipshot, arms loosely folded. He nods in Iggy's direction. "You wanna talk about it?"

"I know those dark places, those had to be on the other side." Julia says, leaning against Itzhak as she braces against the counter. "But the rest of it seemed normal, you know? In as much as an asylum can be normal. And if it was, then wouldn't it have been on this side of things? And if so, why can't we find it?"

Ignacio watches, defensive, and having a lot of mixed feelings on this though that could be picking up Julia's emotional state by proxy or having it hammer down on his own or both one might not be able to define for certain. "Like a hospital with a hole. Some... shifting creature waiting to be fed or some gap they're volunteering spelunkers for?" Closing his eyes he murmurs something in Spanish about Ed Harris. No dounbt there is a bilingual Abyss reference there. One finger though nudges the plate forward for her. Eyebrow goes up. Eeeeeeeat.

"Prison seems pretty normal after a while. You were just a kid, you didn't know." Itzhak blinks, though, when Julia leans on him. They're no longer hugging, but there she is. He doesn't know what to do, so, he just kind of lets it happen. "It...mighta been an asylum or it might not. Things are real weird over there, and if it was deeper than just across the border? They're real, real weird. Yeah," he says to Iggy, "my guess is somethin' was feeding." Without realizing, you know, Julia might not feel great about that.

"Well, my parents thought they were commiting me." Julia insists, adding, "Mom and abuelita are in their rooms, and probably asleep." But she's nodding. "Remember when I told you that there are people who try to align with them and offer them others to feed on? That's the racket I think was going on there."

Ignacio processes that and rubs his hand on teh side of his head. His fingers are kinda itching to dig around for the bbottle of pills that are jus tnot in his pocket. Instead he grabs a cookie taking nervous energy out on that. The puzzle of it all does give him something to pull at too listening to the ideas. "Maybe the doctor wasn't fucking aware. I mean... what? Ponzi schemes work like that a lot. GO out, try to do good. BRing back the money. Fail to see what the efforts are really funding soooo... but I mean we have a name and that too is soemthng to go off of."

"The whole thing could have been a construct." Julia admits reluctantly, then shakes her head. "No, it all had to be on the other side. Otherwise the asylum itself could be traced and most people can barely remember it."

Itzhak eyes Iggy, picking up on his fidgets. But he doesn't start anything. "Yeah, exactly," he says instead, supporting his point. "Most of the medical types there seemed to at least care, right? Either they didn't know what was going on, or they thought, I dunno, that it was helping you guys somehow. People can talk themselves into all kinds of stupid shit. The hard cases are the ones who were the real meals I bet. Maybe the Nothing wants more of those, but it ain't sustainable on this side." He winces, shrugs, and mirrors Ignacio by raking his fingers through his black curly hair. "I kinda hate randomly guessing about it, feels bad."

Ignacio looks to Itzhak slightly distressed. The Spaniard shakes his head slowly glancing up to teh ceiling to think and not focus on the nose still thundering in teh back of his head. "Well, bonita, I think we should chase the lead of the doctor we can ID. If they're decent? Well maybe he'll honour the ancient compact of the sacred HIPAA and give you something more you can use?"

"I'm pretty sure he's dead." Julia's hands ball into fists of frustration. "Maybe I ought to let it go, except I think a friend of mine is still trapped in there. And without her, I wouldn't have survived it."

Itzhak sniffs, thinking. He hitches the eyebrows of 'you okay?' at Iggy, in return for the distress. He doesn't know about the pills. Shrugging again, this one slower and more elaborate, he says, "So try to find him. If he's dead, that's still information, right?"

Ignacio presses his palms flat to teh counter and drums his thumb on it. One or both can imagine very vividly why if notes have been kept. "I'm gonna look. Alive or not there's information to be had there. Family, paystubs, pictures, something. Surviving family or even see if someone cans till talk to him because after the week I've been having?" He shrugs, "I'm not certain it's not possible and my levl of surprise at this point is pretty low to nada."

"I don't see how any of it saves Alice." Julia insists. "I know some of us can speak to spirits, though...can either of you do that? It's not in my bag of tricks."

Itzhak puts his arm around Julia's shoulders, telling her seriously, "The doctor might have a wife. He might have kids or someone who can tell ya more. I can't talk to ghosts, but you and me? We can open the border. We can see what's on the other side. Maybe there ain't no answers. I'd hate to tell you that there are, but this ain't a dead end, right? There's more." He looks over at Ignacio, eyebrows worried.

"We're all pretty cynical by now." Julia admits, grinning wryly at the two men. "Alice's twin sister lives in town. She's working on this too, for obvious reasons. I told her about seeing Alice when she lured me back through to the other side. But I don't know how much we can work together. I don't know what more we can do aside from open the door, get her, and get out."

Ignacio is keeping his focus on the edge of the counter, the plate of cookies, anything but occasionally returning to Julia and Itzhak on the other side of the counter. His hand might rub a raw spot on teh back of his neck at this rate. "Doing... something is better than doing nothing." His head shakes leveling with Julia, "I got no real fancy shit up my sleeves aside from knowing when a great time to panic and throw up might be. Googling the shit out of something works pretty well. And if we cna even get a city of sorts that was even a front might be a lil bit of a road trip to see waht leads we do some up with ... or we know how not to invet a lightbulb."

"He's a pro with Google, this guy," Itzhak says. "Look, maybe we can't do anything else, maybe we can, but far as I'm concerned, we pull that off, we're fuckin' winners, you know what I'm sayin'?" He keeps watching Iggy with ever-increasing concern. "Man, you need to go home or something?"

Julia's attention is on Ignacio, as she eyes him worriedly. "Yeah. You alright, Nacho?" There's a half step toward him.

Ignacio shakes his head and...3...2...1.. "Eeeeh, nah I'm fine." Predictible. His expression stays thoughtful, "Just a long fuckin day. Haven't had an aspirin in a minute." shaking his head he promises them, "I'm good. Still in teh game. wooo." His expression still looks a bit haunted, but the determination remains. Looking to Julia with more honest feeling he may have ment to he follows with, "We need to get Alice out. We start there. Alice ain't teh end of this. Not for either of you but not for the others they might hurt either. That... that ain't alright."

The look Itzhak gives Ignacio is flat and speaks volumes. You don't fool me. "Yeah huh. Yannow, there's other people we could probably find and pull out of there, too." Does Julia know about Rico? He doesn't know, so he leaves it there. Iggy knows what he means.

"Mentiroso." Julia's tone is chiding, but she doesn't press...for now. It's really just delaying the inevitable. "No," she agrees, "It's not. But right now," she looks around, "We can't do much. I can get you both Violet's contact information, if you want." She looks between the two men. "You mean, other prisoners? On the other side? I only remember the girls who were with me." Which doesn't mean there aren't others. Safe to say her memory is unreliable when it comes to the asylum. "I feel like we need a whiteboard. To lay out our goals. We still need a way to track the asylum, and I think Vivian and her car might be the key. At least two of us have means to open doors. The trick is figuring out how to get to Alice, and how to bring her back safely."

Ignacio looks back to Itzhak with a tired, dead stare that reads, I know. "Perdi a alguien tambien." His brow furrows curious though clarifies, "Not the same situation but... over there. And yeah I like a priority list." It's a strange time to become an optimist when generally he plays the role of the cheery cynic. "Like any puzzle we gotta like look at it in pieces. Soooo it's decided then. We talk to Violet. We chase down this guy's loose ends and try to get a better where and you doorbusters? Figure out how to walk between the walls."

Is Itzhak an optimist, or is he just eager to rumble with the other side? Is there a substantial difference? He's always been hungry for a fight. Now here's a hell of a fight on offer. "We got a lot to learn," he says to Julia, "and I can't wait."

"One more thing...Violet's boyfriend is kind of an asshole. Try not to lose your tempers around him." Julia, from her tone, is being diplomatic. There is intense dislike there. With a smile, she looks up at Itzhak, reaches out, and brushes the slope of his nose with her finger. "You got some place we can go where we can start working on what we can do? We need lots of space, maybe some stuff to throw around. A warehouse, or a gym, or something?" Ignacio is included in this question.

Ignacio seems to light up at this word there's an asshole. Oh! OH challenge the guy! That easy, lop-sided grin comes back in that way he might eventuallys tart something Iggy or Raf are gonna have to finish. But, oooooh gossip. "Who Vi seein? Tell me he's got initials for a name. I wanna meet this guy." Oh, sure in teh swathe of things not sitting easy with him this is what he latches onto. Everyone's got a hobby, and Iggy's is giving the people around him little grey hairs apparently.

Itzhak goes a little crosseyed as Julia touches his nose, and rubs the bridge of his magnificent schnozz rapidly as if she itched him good. "Look, I can't make any promises about not losing my temper with an asshole." Oh boy, between the two of them, Iggy and Itzhak are going to get the state police called on them. "But I got some ideas about where we can work some of this stuff out. Like my garage."

"Doctor Alex Reyes. I'm serious, Iggy. Violet's kinda fragile, she says she's tough but she cries at the drop of a hat. And if Alex even thinks you're responsible, he gets pretty nasty. Tread carefully." There's a smile up at Itzhak. Time to make him blush. "Alright, it's a date." And then she's sending them home with ziplock bags full of Cuban sugar cookies with their unique hint of lime to go with the sweetness.

Ignacio giving Julia a frank look he asks wyebrows going up, "C'mon if I didn't put that super rude racist as shit lady in the deep fryer and call it a day I think we're good. Sides, I'm an angel. Ask mi mama, hmm? Sides, he honestly sounds like my kinda people." He watches the exchange and jsut chuckles silently to himself biting his cookie, "Tu en problemas, amigo." Not the bad kind of trouble, but definiately in for some mayhem.

Itzhak gets a little red across that nose. He hmphs, scowling at Julia, without much heat. "Yeah yeah. Text me." Then he whaps Iggy light on the shoulder in a silent 'shaddap'.