2019-08-31 - Not What it Looks Like

It's a comfortably breezy day at Mallard House. Finch dropped August and Itzhak a message inviting them over to work on the car, meet the Canary, and the promise of Iggy cooking. Gran is at her sewing circle making a lovely new dress for Miss Mags, who is on Finch's shoulder as she stands in between two very different bushes. Gertrude and Puff have both been animated over the course of many days, to walk back to the House and live there under her personal care. She's setting a quartet of Bewick's Wrens in the fluffy red-purple plumage of the smoke bush, (Puff). They smacked into the kitchen window while they were food prepping and she had to heal them. It's been happening for days and it's stopped being coincidence in her mind.

The little ornithologist is in shorts, combat boots, and a tank with a hoodie, and her hair is that bright fuscia pink again.

Ignacio made Gran almond cookies to go share with the folks at the stitch and bitch. He stopped calling them ladies learning there were four fellas that knit there and made a mental note not to become his father. He's trying. Also, ya know, she's letting him stay over for the weekend to help him stay busy helping them out trying to get a grip on this self-service attempt to stop self-sabotaging.

Also he picked up a pack of stickers and started to put dots on the windows.

"I swear your house is like a haunted Windex commercial."

The car is so close to done, under the hood. Itzhak still plots to get Finch to heal over the rust spots, hopes the paint will come back, too. After that, it's just a matter of polishing her to a gleam, attending to all the tiny details, get her painted with faded silver flames. Really it's his favorite part. He's in a good mood, a suspiciously good mood, when he swings his lanky ass up on the porch, bounding over three steps at a time. "'ey! Open up, it's the police!" he yells through the door, grinning like an idiot.

Finch calls out to Itzhak from around the corner of the house. "Over here! Just tending to a few little patients!" The wrens are still stunned, but she repaired the damage they did to themselves when they kamikazed into the window. She gives Ignacio a rueful smile. "If only. I don't think those stickers are going to help, Ig. I think this is something else." The dead birds with their hearts cut out on the doorstep. Maybe it wasn't those jerks from their walk afterall.

Ignacio can't resist playing up to Itzhak's shenannigans. He tucks in his guayabera shirt and pulls his best voice he can without sounding like the New Yorker he is. "Well, sir, my name is Doug. Doooo we have a problem here, hmmm?" And this is the point on Sprockets where Iggy gets slugged and hugged.

Not risking being caught like that by his brother or anyone else that shirt gets untucked pronto. He slaps a hug on Itzhak and waves for him to go find Finch. "I'm just grabbin the stuff for the grill. And to be fair since I put them up an hour ago we have been... 63 minutes accident free."

Itzhak, never one to disappoint, socks Ignacio fondly and then thwaps his back in a rough bro-hug. He ruffles his hair--not the hair!!--and bounds around the corner of the house to find Finch (and avoid retaliation). "Aww, ya got some petzelehs there." He bends over, craning to see what she's doing. "They run into your window or somethin? Hey, where's the new baby?" Meaning the canary, of course.

Finch snorts at Ignacio and gives Itzhak a warm smile. "Hey Itzy. How are you big guy?" She gives the tall man a hug. "You remember Gertrude and Puff?" she says, gesturing at....the bushes. The snowbrush and the smoke bush. "I decided to thank them for their service by letting them live in retirement here on the grounds. As for these little ones," She gestures at the birds, "they flew face first into the kitchen window. Been happening a lot. A lot, lately." Her grimace says it all. She doesn't think it's natural.

At the question about the new bird she grins. "Canary is actually in the garage at the moment." What? Why? That cage is beautiful for inside the house. "While we make her a run."

Ignacio finishes untucking his shirt, and gets slugged without rancor, and returns with a pan with veggies to grill and- ooh lamb! He points the tongs at Finch arching eyebrows ins mug triumph. "You laughed." He might go through a meat grinder and back just to make that happen... or try to cold turkey opioids. Same damn difference really.

That cage is even in prominent view of the picture window and everything. Who knows. "Good job on the birds, Pajarito."

Itzhak is SO HUGGY today, not that he ever turns down a hug from Fincheleh. He squeezes her all up. "You're doing the Lord's work." Then upnodding to the bushes, "Sup, Gertrude, Puff," waggling his eyebrows at them like he's flirting. Is this what he's like when he forgets to be pissed off at the world? Finch's apprehension he picks up on, but he just gives her a curious look. "...The garage?" Something isn't adding up about the canary. He just knows Ignacio had a hand in whatever it is. So he goes to poke his head in the garage.

In the garage on one of the counters, plugged into a little incubator, is an adorable baby chick who can't be more than two weeks old. She has a pink blankie and a bowl of starter feed, and one of water. Finch pops up around Itzhak's side and announces, "Meet Canary, my chicken. We're going to get her some sisters once the coop and run are built." There are materials for building both piled up nearby.

comes out to set things on the unlit grill wipes his hands on the towel he brought out. And gives Finch a smooch in passing. "Ya did good." He pauses walking over to the garage casually. "Itzhak hit me. You may need to defend my honour." He pauses and dds helpfully, "There's not a lot of it so it's not a huge undertaking."

Itzhak doesn't get it at first; he looks blankly at the chick, then at Finch. Then at Ignacio, scowling terrifically. "You're joking me. You got hera chicken?" Abruptly he cracks up, laughing into the back of his forearm, hanging on the doorframe.

"Don't I have the rest of your honor upstairs in my underwear drawer?" Finch quips to Ignacio, returning the kiss with a grin and giving him an impromptu hug as well. Despite the self-injuring birdies lately, she's in a great mood, and a large part of it is due to the Figgy half of Figgy and Inch.

At Itzhak's laughter she laughs along with him. "Isn't she adorable? We'll have fresh eggs once she gets to about 18 weeks old. I'm going to get a pair of eclectus parrots to live in that gorgeous birdcage Ig and the boss made."

Ignacio says quiet serious, "Si, bonita, esta ahi." Yes, pretty lady, it absolutely is. He's coping. Bad dreams, the shakes, nervous tension, too much noise, and a small meltdown that made him throw up aside? He's having a pretty decent end of week and enjoying every minute of it. Until...

He squints to Itzhak. Laughing.

His response? One middle finger cranked way up. And pointing to Finch and the second floor mouthing to him Her. underwear. drawer. Shields of rebuking smug are engaged! "Look, I'm not good at birds, but I can keep her happy. Which is more fucking important culo?" Sure there's some name calling but it's from a place of love...and spite..

"Is...it...because it's small?" Itzhak's laughing so hard he can barely talk. "And yellow?" Oh so much shit is going to be given free of charge to Iggy over this. "You went to so much trouble for the fershtunken cage!" He flips him off in turn, grinning wide. "You're lucky she likes you, cabron." And yeaaah he's got no doubt that Iggy means it about where his virtue is now stored. Anyway he hugs Finch one-armed around the shoulders and smooches her brilliant hair. "Canary is adorable."

"I know right? She's so fluffy! In a few weeks she'll be less cute for a little while. Pullets are kind of the awkward teenagers of the chicken world, but after that she'll be beautiful." Miss Mags comes out from under her hair, on her shoulder, and sniffs at Itzhak, before skittering to the other side to hop over to Ignacio. She may smell the snek. Finch gives Ignacio another kiss because she's in a really great mood.

Ignacio looks slightly rebuffed, however, does that ever last long. "Yeaaaaah well I'm not dating you and this is why." Now Miss Mags is climbing up his shoulder and she gets a little tchtchtchtch in a greeting. "Yeah okay you can come sit by... on me but not by the grill. Burnt hair is not how we flavor onions. And it's scary. And mamacita will put me on there next so for now... yeah aight." He sighs though still feeling the burn of regret from fucking it up but it's working out. "Good spot in the yard for a run too."

"Ehhh I don't blame you, I wouldn't date me either." Itzhak has accepted that, and that Miss Mags doesn't like him because he smells like very large reptile. (He never, ever talks to Finch about what he feeds Lemondrop.) "So you wanna try fixing a rust spot?" he asks Finch.

Finch snorts at the rat as she is abandoned. "Traitor," she huffs at Mags, who has become very attached to Ignacio. She grins at Itzhak's request though. "I can try, what can it hurt, right?"

Ignacio is hanging with his new besty. Apparently he and Miss Mags have a play date. "C'mon I think I got a green pepper you can have... or are those the ones that make you gassy and cranky?" He looks to Itzhak's offer to have Finch fix the car. He doesn't say it but he takes a step that-a-way...and another.

You know one more in case Firestarter vs. Christine becomes a Grindhouse double feature in the garage.

"Yeah!" Itzhak gets excited about the prospect. Well, of Finch healing rust spots, not Grindhouse. "C'mon, let's try it out. She's gotta have them fixed before the fall or all this work is gonna be ruined. I don't know what you need to do or anything? I sing to stuff. It listens."

Finch moves into the garage and she pulls a little wooden stool over to the front fender on the right. She sits and looks at the patch of rust. "I looked up photos in gran's albums of what it looked like when it was new. So I'm going to try and make it new again." She lifts her fingers, much the way she weaves bodies back together like tapestries, and concentrates. The rust seems to...un-oxidize, retreating in its path, and leaving unblemished metal behind. Even the holes patch over, like the metal itself grows back, like it's a living thing.

Ignacio carries little Mags over to where the grill is not on and fished out a little bit of onion for her to grab with tiny people hands and nibble on. God he spoils his girlfriend's kid so hard. He comes back to watch the rust retreat like bugs under a kitchen light. "... " What do you say to that? "Uhhhh, Inch?" ridiculous, the both of them, truly. "Yoooou sure you wanna be a bird authority and not get into doin body work?" Fuck that's impressive. The faint corner of the good side of his mouth twitches into a subdued grin, "Cause my body's got a lot of metal in it and if yooooou need to check it over for rust for practice I will volunteer.... for the betterment of your art and career." So selfless. The turd.

"Come on, baby," Itzhak whispers, flattening his palm on the hood of the Lincoln. He's talking to the car. Probably.

Metal grows back, exactly like a wound healing, except, metal. The edges grow towards each other until it's smooth and unbroken. Paint then floods in from those edges, filling the bare spot with itself in perfectly matching blue. Perfect because it's the original paint.

Itzhak makes a strangled sound of total glee. He can't even words, and instead frantically waves his other hand.

Finch lets out a breath as she finishes and blinks her eyes at what she managed to do. "Wow, I did that?" she asks. She looks amazed. And the various ideas of what this could mean for repairing Ignacio, removing the metal, regrowing all the bones and tendons and muscles he is missing, reattaching things properly, probably better than before his injury, begin to show up in her mind. It's like she's seeing the magical math. Soon. She'll have to get some anatomy books, surgical texts.

Ignacio totally intended that as a clever pick up line. The world over knows he did. He's not the one holding out hope for his damn leg but it doesn't stop him from warming a wry grin at her. A small nod as a finger scritches Miss Mags' head. "Ya did, baby. Just... " He looks to the window and there's a concern there and instead of ruining her wonder by telling her to be careful finishes the sentence, "Wear yourself out so you won't eat. I'll have lunch done in a moment here." Yeaaaaaaah... that's a conversation for later. He can't bring himself to bring down the moment; not when she's feeling good about herself.

"I don't understand why I can't do that." Itzhak rubs his hand over and over the 'healed' spot, searching for flaws. There are none. "I can tell stuff to move, I can tell machines to go, but I can't tell a rust spot to remember what it used to be like before it rusted. It should make sense that I can, right? But I can't." He makes a face, then shrugs. His brain is just fucked up, he figures. He can't do lots of stuff most people can.

And on the bright side, he can do stuff that almost nobody else can.

He grips Ignacio's shoulder, looking at him eyebrows-up. A silent checking-in if he's okay.

"I wonder if I can do this to fix up parts of the house," Finch murmurs. That would be a massive undertaking but maybe, a little bit at a time. If it didn't draw too much attention. Either from Them or the Tax assessor.

Ignacio is watching Finch, her curiosity, her expanding curiosity of possibility as the options come in like a deluge, and that's about when Itzhak might notice his eyes are just glazing right over. And every joy getting cautious counter as the static, the monsters, and the dead bird bodies pile up higher and and higher in a hail of screeching ka-caws for help when-

Ignacio gasps as if Itzhak snuck the fuck up on him. His body language stays casual as he pulls in the deep breath and holds it. All the world blinking to Itzhak with a quiet, "Hmm? Sorry I was picturing the house looking like it had a pulse again. Got lost in thought. Yeah. yeah I'm fine. We're good." Granted his knuckles are blanched where he grips the edge of the garage door frame. With an easy smile he asks, "Who's hungry?" He lifts Mags from his shoulder to put her in her little travel cage outside and set her where she can see but won't get spattered. With that urban cowboy swagger of a limp he heads to the grill talking to the Rat casually. "No, we don't love Canary more than you. Look you're just going to have to learn to share."

Just like nothing ever fucking happened.