2019-08-28 - Throwing Rocks Through God's Windows

So, if you asked him, Alexander would not say that he had a good sense of Itzhak's daily routine. And he definitely wouldn't say that he deliberately has made the effort to mark when the man leaves, when he returns, and when he's most likely to be at his shop or when he's elsewhere. That would be weird and a little creepy, and definitely Alexander would not say that he did that at all.

Which doesn't change the fact that he does do that, and has taken to doing it with Stephanie and her kids as well, despite having happily ignored their existence for the years he's been in this house before now. Such is the price to pay for friendships (or being the host of friends) with Alexanders. Either way, it means that he gives Itzhak JUST enough time to get home from work and probably shower or something, maybe take a drink of water and think 'oh good, I'm free', before he makes his way back around to his entrance, and raps on the door. Three short knocks, a pause, and three more.

He's dressed as he's usually dressed, although fresh out of a shower himself, with his dark hair flopping down over his forehead, still a little damp. He's got a small paper bag in one hand.

Itzhak religiously showers after work. That's something Alexander will have learned. He hates being dirty, which one might think makes a career as a mechanic an odd choice. Dude is full of odd choices though, just one more data point in a big staticky field of them.

He's barely out of the shower, humid and sticky, when Alexander knocks. Itzhak's learning; he narrows his eyes, considering whether that might be trouble, or a friend. Either way, probably he wants to have pants on. He hops on one leg then the other to pull on loose, light pants, on the way to the door.

"...Hey," he says, opening the door and finding it's Alexander. He can't help but smile in his lopsided way at him. And then realize he has no shirt on and Alexander gets an eyeful of his nipple piercings (bars with balls on the ends). Itzhak looks down at himself. "Uh. Look, I warned you about texting me first. Come on in."

Alexander smiles back. "Hey." He thrusts the paper bag awkwardly at the mechanic. "Are you well? Brought you something." He glances down at Itzhak's chest, staring with the frank and open regard with which he does most things. The piercings are given a thoughtful study before he slouches his way in. "Didn't that hurt?" he asks, once he's inside, and can prowl around the man's living space instead of just outside of it.

"Thanks," Itzhak says, startled, but grabs the bag nonetheless. "...Fuckin' yeah it hurt. It hurt real bad." Inevitably he reddens as Alexander stares at his chest. The bag provides him an excellent excuse to look away and investigate it. "'m fine, how's by you?"

He hasn't got any more furniture since the last time Alexander was in here, and in fact this probably isn't his furniture at all but came with the place. As a result, there's not much of a feel for his personality here, no decor or points of interest beyond Iris's terrarium (which admittedly is a pretty good point of interest) and his music stand and fiddle case. No posters or Funko-Pops or much of anything in particular.

Inside the bag are grapes! The white frost on them suggests that they are frozen grapes. Alexander notices him investigating the bag and says, "They're good. When it's hot. At least, I think so. I don't know if you'll like them." He looks away from the question, going to stand by Iris' terrarium and hum at her briefly. "A friend of mine is dead. And I'm going to a seance to try and summon her murderer tonight. But other than that, I'm pretty good." It's said rather tonelessly.

There's a moment of silence, before he says, "If it hurt real bad, then why did you do it?"

Itzhak's perpetual half-scowl lightens up at the sight of frozen grapes. "Yeah, I made these for me and my sister all the time. Well, 'made', yannow, it's not much of a making." He promptly stuffs a couple in his mouth, sauntering over to help Alexander admire Iris. "Why? Hah. I'm not sure you wanna have that conversation with me."

The skink is hiding under some silk foliage. She tilts her head. Blue tongue goes flicker. One amber reptilian eye winks up at Alexander, with that blank stare not dissimilar to his own. Iris's interests include fancy dog food, basking, digging, and imitating a potato.

She doesn't care that people are dead. Itzhak cares, though, and he pulls a face. "Shit. Man, I'm sorry. So, not so good, huh? You probably don't want to talk to that guy."

"Which is why I can do it," Alexander replies, with a quick flash of amusement. He raises his head and gives Itzhak a startled sort of look. "Why? If you're a masochist, there's nothing wrong with being a masochist. Not inherently. Likewise, if you just chase pain for the endorphins. I understand it's a common additional incentive for heavy tattooing. Or is it just because pierced nipples are supposed to be more sensitive and easily stimulated during sex? I don't know that I would consider that enough to get mine pierced, but I'm sure it's nice." Opinion given, he turns his attention back to Iris.

A smile at the flickering tongue. "You are beautiful," he tells her, very solemnly.

"I'm okay, Itzhak," he says, "I am. It hurts, but it's a thing that's happened. And yes. I very much want to talk to that guy." One of his hands curls into a fist, almost unnoticed by Alexander; but ghosts, alas, cannot be punched. So talking it is. "Anyway. What have you been up to?" His gaze moves from Iris to Itzhak, although with the same flat interest.

"All those reasons," Itzhak says, trying ever so hard to pretend like he's not blushing (which, it's now visible, goes down to his chest). Suuuuper casual conversation with the weirdo he has a crush on about his nipples. "Probably wouldn't call myself a masochist though, except it's kind of true? The evidence is hard to argue with. I got another reason too. Gone through a lot of stuff that hurt like fuck and wasn't no good. Hurting myself on purpose is kinda like saying fuck you to that stuff. I can hurt for a good cause for a change. And, yannow, it makes me pretty. That's a big reason too."

He offers Alexander the open bag, eyebrows tilting upwards in the way that gives him a wistful air. "You wanna talk about the dead guy stuff?" What he's been up to, he doesn't answer.

Alexander considers the additional information, then nods. Filed for further thought, clearly. "That makes sense to me. A method of taking control." The offered bag gets a careful study, like he didn't JUST give the guy the bag in the first place, and then he reaches in and takes a frozen grape. He bites it in half with a single, neat motion, chews, swallows, then pops the second half in his mouth like popcorn. "Not really," he says, after a moment. "I don't know what to say. I might afterwards, though." He studies Itzhak's face and its blush. "I was talking to another friend, and realized that there was something I meant to tell you, but hadn't. Did August tell you about the side-effects our experiment had?"

Oh no, do we have to talk about the psychic three-way? Itzhak proves he can, in fact, get redder. He yanks open a drawer in the battered dresser Iris rests on, fishes out a shirt, and shoves it over his head. Bag still in hand. He's not flirting. He's NOT. I know for a fact he's not so stop acting like this!

The shirt gives him some distance from Alexander's too-sharp appraisal of his chest, his piercings, and his motivations...emotionally, anyway. It says on it, 'I can play violin. What's your superpower?' "Yeah, after, you want? I'll be around. Make you dinner, if you can eat after that. ...Uh, side effects? You mean besides...no he didn't tell me. What side effects?"

"I can't promise - there's a chance it'll try to kill us all. Or succeed. But if I can, then yes. That would be nice." A flicker of a smile to Itzhak. "If you don't mind? I don't want to intrude." That's why he showed up without texting, and follows the man's progress to his dresser with unblinking intensity. The smile widens as he reads the shirt. "Careful. In this town, people might actually answer you." And speaking of... "We sort of broke the medicine cabinets in Bayside Apartments. Maybe other places, too. That's the only one I know of, though. Aspirin bottles everywhere." A pause. "It's quite a reach in distance, from my place to there. But you and I...we could probably reach. But we weren't trying. And the cabinets went crazy several days after the experiment. Still seems linked."

Itzhak clearly didn't think there'd be immediate danger, but really he should have. Bex's sister was murdered by a ghost. "You want I should go with you?" he says, crunching through another grape. "Protect you? I always wanted to kick a ghost's ass." He's sort of kidding--about the ghost ass, anyway. But also sort of not. "Listen, I offered. You don't gotta be afraid of saying yes."

He props an elbow on the dresser, and up go the eyebrows, surprised now. "You're joking me. All the way out there? Are you sure it was us?"

Alexander gives Itzhak a brief but brilliant smile. "You're very kind. I hope you know that." But he shakes his head. "But it's not my party, so I probably shouldn't be changing the invite list at the last second. It'll be okay, I think. And if it's not," he huffs out a breath, "then it's not. You're not the only one having the urge to murder something already dead."

He turns, starts to pace at the last question. "Insufficient data. But based on what I know so far? If it wasn't us, then it was someone spying on us who deliberately set up the whole thing for some reason, which seems needlessly convoluted. Thorne heard part of our conversation - before any of us had started projecting or linking. And then the medicine cabinets, which is just too much of a coincidence to be lightly dismissed. So. For the moment, yes. Operational hypothesis is that it was us. We need to be careful about any further experiments. Imagine if we'd been playing with knives."

"Well, don't fuckin' die," Itzhak says, sounding annoyed, to cover up kind of wanting to melt from Alexander's smile, "and I won't have to. But if you die, I gotta hunt the mamzer down and dunk 'im in Hell with my own two hands. So stay alive, that'd be convenient for me."

He listens with interest, though, to the rest, eyes following Alexander as he begins to pace. "Okay, that'd be a big damn coincidence, I have to admit. So, how do we test it? We mess with something else that's not knives, right? We could set up something harmless, but obvious. Like, I dunno. Like a plastic cup full of sand or something like that. We could set one up over there, and one over here, and do the same thing as we did."

And that turns the smile into an outright laugh. "I don't want to inconvenience you, Itzhak, so I'll do my best," Alexander says, oh so solemnly, but with his eyes alight with humor. The pacing continues, a restless, confined motion. "I don't know that we want to test it, Itzhak. I mean, not that specifically. I don't actually like scaring the shit out of people, or causing people trouble." A pause. "Or the horrible nightmares that try to kill me when we light ourselves up too much." He breathes out. "But. I'm not saying we don't experiment further. But we have to be careful, and I'd like us to go out of town. Into the woods somewhere. Where we don't fuck up anything more alive than a squirrel, you know?"

Then he stops, throws his hands up. "But I'm being selfish. I came by to see how you were doing, not natter about this stuff."

Itzhak breaks into a smile himself. He made Alexander laugh. Today is a good day. Yesterday was excellent too. He's on a roll. "I don't get to see you laugh enough," he says, quiet, "but I guess you got good reasons not to." Like he's a ray of sunshine. "...You wanna go out in the forest and screw around? With our powers?" He has to tag that on hastily. "Sure, that sounds like fun. I dunno about you, but this is all kinda new to me. I'm still working it out."

There go the eyebrows, as Alexander stops. "Uh, well, I mean, things could be worse? You know I'm seeing Izzy. That's going pretty good, can't complain." Which is Yiddish for 'oh my God she's amazing', actually, and he smiles again, a little bashfully, as he says it. "Hey, I like talking with you about this stuff. You're smart as hell, and you know a lot more than I do, but you aren't scared to say what you don't know. And you don't talk down to me, like you probably got every right to. I like that."

"Until recently, I just don't think I had a lot to laugh about," Alexander admits, with a shrug. It's not self-pitying, or at least not obviously so - he's just making an observation. Pacing resumes. "There's more now. Friends. People who see the same things I do. Luigi. Interesting mysteries that reveal more about all of," he waves vaguely, "this." His voice speeds up, rather than rises in volume, as he gets enthusiastic, his motions jerky, verging on manic. "As much as the things that are happening are fucking awful? They're also exciting. I feel like I was stumbling in the dark my whole damned, haunted life, and in the last few months I have seen more and learned more about the Veil and what we can do, and those goddamned Shadows than I ever knew before. Which means there's stuff to know! It's not just - God looking down and saying 'hey, I'm going to fuck up THIS kid's life for the chuckles' and tossing me into hellscapes on a whim. I will absolutely trade occasionally having to crack a doppleganger's skull open if I can get some answers."

Then he comes to a stop again, the manic light dying out of his face, replaced by something sheepish. "Sorry. I get. Sorry." A shake of his head. "I'm glad. She seems...tremendously happy, of late. So if it's mutual, then that's even better. You both deserve happiness." Irritation flickers as Itzhak goes on. "Stop that. I don't have a right to talk down to you, Itzhak. You're smart. You do things with your abilities I didn't even know were possible. You could probably take a car apart faster than I could start one up. You act like you're broken, but you're one of the most put-together people I know, right now." There's a long, thoughtful pause. "Admittedly, that may be damning you with faint praise. But it's meant as a compliment. I just know very messed up people."

This manic turn of Alexander's mood doesn't seem to scare Itzhak off at all. No, rather, he's into it! He pushes off from the dresser, his hazel green-brown-gray eyes going wide. "Oh man. I know! Exactly! A lotta shit is fuckin' terrible but that's just life. A lotta regular life is terrible too. It don't have to be weird to be fucked up--but when it's weird, we can do something about it!" He brings his hands up, gesticulating, one clenching the bag of grapes. "God is a real son of a bitch, you know? If He had a house, people would break His windows. Same with this. It's messed up, and it's awful, and it's gorgeous. It's a gift like being born a Jew is a gift, but that's still a gift and we got every right to use it!"

He laughs. "Don't apologize! You're amazing like that. Get like that, I can take it." Then Alexander is complimenting him and he grins at him a little helplessly. "Ahhh," he says, and waves a hand in mock dismissal. "Gonna get me all verklempt talkin' like that about me. It's true, we're all messed the hell up. But so what? Life's messy."

"God is a real son of a bitch. That, I can agree with you on," Alexander says, and even gives a shocked sort of laugh at the idea of people breaking God's windows, eyes widening with a mix of delight and consternation. "There's a fun idea. Maybe He's Over There, too, and one day we can find his pearly gates and just...break 'em the fuck open. Ask some pointed questions." A grin that's as fierce as it is playful - as if he doesn't expect to ever get the chance, but if he did, well - pointed questions.

"Life's messy. Yes. That's it exactly. I want it to be unmessy, but it won't be - people are going to die, we're going to get hurt, and no one's ever going to quite be what I want them to be - including me. But that's...that's just life, right? Better roll with it, because it doesn't give a shit about what we want." He finds a space to lean, and cross his arms over his chest, smiling at Itzhak. "And sometimes good things come out of the bad. My door got broken, but you fixed it, and that made me want to meet you. So. That worked out."

"That's somethin' we say, about the windows. God's worst to us, yannow, because He figures He made us so we can take it. That's what the rabbis say anyway." Itzhak rolls his eyes. Clearly he is not in total agreement with rabbinic wisdom on this one. Then he grins again, he's just grinning up the place with Alexander excited and fierce. "We're all gonna die. But you and me, tateleh, we get to do fantastic stuff before we go. Your door? How'd that make you wanna meet me?"

"So He made a toy that wouldn't break until He was done with it," Alexander says, with a grimace. "Sounds about right." There's a deep well of bitterness there, touched on for a moment in his face, before he skitters away and resumes pacing. "Anyway. Morituri te salutant and all of that. We're all gonna die, but some of us are going to make it look damn good going out." A quick wink to Itzhak before he contemplates the question. "Few reasons, I guess. Most straightforward: You fixed it, so I owed you. And it was hard to think of a neighbor of mine who would voluntarily come into my house, fix something that was broken, and then just...leave. Without poking around. Didn't know you were an out-of-towner at the time. Unexpected action - it made you interesting." He looks away. "And I wanted to see if you'd seen what was inside. Isolde said you didn't, but," a shrug, "I wanted to see."

Itzhak pretends to be staggered, laughing, at that wink. Playing it off, although it made him blush brilliantly. "He winked at me, my heart can't take it." He flops on the saggy old couch. "Yeah, well, I mean, not for nothin' but I had no idea who you were. Not that that woulda stopped me. Izzy came over and asked. And I'm not gonna poke around some guy's house, come on. I wouldn't like it if someone poked around MY house, yannow? I figure if you got secret treasure like some of them idiots in town think, you deserve it."

He pauses, thoughtful. "She covered the walls with sheets, before she let me in. I asked, but I wasn't gonna look behind them. She went to a lot of trouble to do that, she didn't do it for no reason."

"Your heart is strong, Itzhak," Alexander says, more amused than chiding. "I don't think I can stop it with a wink." When Itzhak flops, Alexander's roving path changes to bring himself closer to the couch. He doesn't try to sit, but just sort of does flybys as he walks. "You have a better sense of privacy than some people," he adds, voice dry. "And...secret treasure? Really?" A bark of a laugh. "I wish. That's more Isabella's territory than mine, I'd bet." The thoughtful pause wipes the smile off his face. "Yeah. She's a good person. A good friend. She's the only reason I didn't show up at the Captain's house with a baseball bat," he admits. "I was a bit angry. But it's...my research. It's not pretty. But it's," his eyes narrow, "do you play the violin when your head is just moving too fast, and there's too much crap in there to concentrate on, but if you don't deal with some of it somehow then it's just going to explode? If so, then that's what it's like."

"Or maps to secret treasure, or some stupid shit, I wasn't listening." Itzhak waves the idea away. He watches Alexander prowl back and forth like he's at a tennis match. "Listen, people all my life try to get up my ass. Sometimes literally. It's nobody's goddamn business what you put on your walls. Why should I care? If those schmendricks in town bothered to get to know you for five minutes they'd know you aren't...any...of that stuff they say." He trails off, gaze going unfocused--then comes back. "I play the violin like that, yeah. I feel like that a lot. Violin can be pretty frustrating, but one thing it does is say things I don't know how to say."

"It would be fun to have a map to secret treasure," Alexander muses, looking pleased with the idea. "A nice mystery, with treasure at the end. I could enjoy that. We could get a crew together. Be like old-ass versions of whatsit, the Goonies?" He chuckles to himself. "That works for me." A wave of his hand. "It's not that I care...no, actually, I do care. I do. But - yeah," a smile, "it's like that. Although for me it's more like, there are cases or crimes that I can't stop thinking about, or puzzles that are just too big. So it all goes on the walls," he gestures. "So I can look at it outside myself, whether it's a fifty year old suicide, or the shit with William Gohl, or who's getting paid to look the other way on certain things. It just. I looks crazy. I know it looks crazy." He grimaces. "And I don't even know why I'm talking about it. Sorry. I like your violin playing. It's a better thing."

Itzhak studies Alexander for a long few moments, just looking at him. He leans forward, elbows on his knees, big hands loosely draped together.

"Look," he says, quite serious. "Maybe it looks crazy. Who fucking cares. Not me. Not Izzy. Not anybody who matters. Everybody's crazy. People call you that name I won't repeat, they're the ones pretending everything's okay, and to me, that's the real craziness around here. Not you. Not the guy with a brain runs too hot and does too much for him to keep up with, and brother, I know what that feels like. Shit, I LIKE that about you. Personally I wouldn't have you any other way. Violin looks cooler, I'll give you that, but it ain't different in the end. All this," he swipes a hand at himself, "the ink, the piercings, the fact that I ain't above going out and picking a fight with some poor asshole just to get it out of my system, it's all exactly the same thing. It's all about trying to say stuff I can't say with words."

Alexander stares at Itzhak. Maybe he can dish it out but not take it; that long study makes him stop and fidget nervously in place. The mechanic's words, for a moment, seem to be spoken in a language Alexander doesn't even understand. His return look is blank and uncomprehending. Then he breathes out one long breath, and gives a shaky sort of laugh. "I guess. I guess." His fingers worry together, picking at each other for a moment before he smiles, and says, "Thanks. I mean it. I do. I just...thanks." He turns, abruptly, and stares at Iris' terrarium. "So, a few days ago, I learned that ghosts can use your powers to do things. So that's a new thing."

"If there's one thing I get, it's that," Itzhak says softly. "So. Ya welcome." He smiles back, one sided.

Alexander spills that tea though and Itzhak freezes up.

"...That's the first thing I heard all day that scared the living shit out of me, congratulations." He stands up, tosses the wadded-up bag into the trash--three pointer--and comes over to Alexander. "That's new. That's bad."

Alexander thrusts his arms towards the sky. "Victory!" Then lowers them, laughing. "Well. I'm glad someone feels the same way I do about that." He sighs. "Don't know, yet, if it's just the person they're haunting whose powers they can use? Or anyone. But me and another friend are going to test some things. See if we can block one from doing it, see if they can use other people's...things like that. Just be careful, if you decide to go ghosthunting."

Itzhak scruffs a hand through his hair and pulls in a nervous breath. "Jeez. Yeah. Okay that's balls-retractingly terrifying. I'll be careful." What else can he say to that? Care. It's going to be taken.

Now they're close again, and now it's really way too tempting to put his arm around the guy. On the other hand, Alexander is now literally going to go off and summon up a murderous dybbuk. So why not?

But first, he asks.

"Hey." He glances at him. "You wanna hug? For luck, with the whole seance thing?"

Alexander blinks a couple of times. "You want to hug me?" That's one of those things that he clearly struggles with understanding. He closes his eyes for a moment, takes an internal measure, then offers a slightly shy sort of smile. "Um. Sure. I think that'd be okay? And luck is good." Then, because he's committed to this thing, he makes the first move, just kinda sidling up close and throwing his arms around Itzhak, unless the other man dodges or pulls away. "Thank you. For the luck."

"'Course I do," Itzhak says, a little gruff to cover up that he's genuinely touched. "C'mere." He laughs in a single breath when Alexander just kind of flings his arms around him, and wraps him up in his long arms. Indulging himself, for the briefest moment, hugging this unique man who has agreed to be his friend. Maybe they can't have anything else, but it's okay. Why would Itzhak want to go without his fascinating presence?

"Sure thing." He lets him go, figuring less is more. "Call me after, so I know you're okay?"

Oh no, he sounds like his mother.

"Really?" Alexander chuckles as he disengages, giving Itzhak a deeply amused look. Then his eyebrows go up. "All right. I'll call you, or at least text. But if you tell me to eat my veggies, then we're going to have to have some sort of intervention." He steps away. "Don't die." And then he's slouching his way out into the humid summer air, again, without another word.

Okay, that's a lie. He mutters something soft and complimentary to the skink when he passes by her again.

"Hey, if you eat anything it's fine by me." Itzhak lifts a couple fingers in farewell. "Yeah, you don't die neither, or I'm gonna give you such an earful."