2019-10-17 - The Good, The Bad, the Arguably

A set of chimes tied to the glassdoor's uppermost frame announce the arrival of just about everyone in this quirky, yet relatively compact shop. Three arrangement of aisles out in its center shelf a few hundred selections of comic books covered in wrapping, see-through papering. The more expensive, oldest issues are surrounded instead in plain, old butcher wrapping and hidden beneath the most usually visited sections, requiring one to approach a young adult behind the counter whose physicalities denote an unhealthy lifestyle and diet, as well as a predisposition to perspiration on his face if the bad case of acne and pockmarks is anything to go by.

Regardless, standing beside an equally sized poster of Darth Vader was Nasir. He seemed to be eyeing it with a critical eye, as if trying to spot inconsistencies, and looked to be wearing an old, olive-colored jacket meant to have buttons on the front but so old he must've just about pulled them all off in many chances of ennui and apathy. It tied over a dark, grey shirt below it and saw itself somewhat tied together by a woolen, green scarf on a more olive side of green around his neck. Wool gloves without fingertips, black sneakers and tight, shredded jeans, he looked like a bum that had somehow gotten lost in the shop, currently playing with an unlit cigarette between the fingers of his right hand, juggling it around.

It had been a long morning for Nasir; long despite it being a free day. The mundanity of everyday life was something he came to miss, he realized- the humbling of one's time to reliable work, distracting and accountable, lingered on his mind now, when he realized how little he truly had to do when not busy. And even then, Vader failed him. The buttons on his chest panel were just entirely wrong, which made him frown something fierce.

Sniff. Gabriel Quintanilla makes his way through the door of the comic shop, looking very much like a cutthroat trout out of water or being killed by development of a casino or whatever it is that is going on with that case. He dabs at his nose, like he is trying to keep back some sort of sickness.

He is in just jeans a Gray Harbor Police Department Softball Team t-shirt (he was not a great left fielder), as he takes in the place, eyes running all around this place. He is lost. And yet the clerk at the counter does not seem the friendliest. So that leaves Nasir. "Hey. You know about comics?" he asks the Vader-watcher.

Indeed, that quirky, gangly tall and curly-haired Nasir in the corner looked a nerd just about as anybody else, so when his attention was called he made for an eccentric and overly dramatic turn of his head, while lifting the cigarette from his hand and tucking it over his ear and within his fall of hair. His lips pursed, puckered together beneath a subtle bite of his upper row of teeth, and he shuffled on over to Gabriel while looking begrudgingly to his right; to the man on the counter, the scorned view announcing his soon-to-be response on the path to reaching Quintanilla.

"Fuck man, I'm pretty sure I'm the only one who knows about comics in this place," he announced rather loudly, yet the unit of a man behind the counter only but continued to tip-tap at a keyboard on the three-screened rig he had set up, focused on something else entirely. Nasir noticed, frowned and looked back at Gabriel again dejectedly. "Yeah. Came here to buy for your kids or some shit? Nephews or something amigo?"

"You're going to call me 'amigo'?" asks Gabriel, raising his eyebrows at the man looking at him. "Like, we're going to do this conversation in Spanish? Or you're just going to call the swarthy guy 'amigo'?" That issue of cultural appropriation resolved, he moves onto the issue before them.

"Yeah. Something like that. My nieces have a birthday coming up, and they like comic books, and --" He waves at the wall. He is a bit lost. Greeting aside, Nasir sized up the problem well enough.

Thorough Gabriel's whole cultural upheaval he could only smile; a mirthful, toothy smile that snickered all the way to the declaration of his niece problem. It all amused him much, so much so it shaded his nose somewhat red with blush and revealed some freckles hidden in the tan on his face. "That's just fucking rich," he shook his head, bringing his right palm up to tap and clean whatever messy mush he expected between his fingers before holding it out to Gabriel formally. "I don't speak Spanish paisa, but I did know a couple of fellows who spoke it. Anyway,"

If greetings made successfully indeed in the department of hands, Nasir turned and eyed the aisles studiously for Gabriel, his head somewhat tilted; "Very rare to have a niece who cares for comic books, mostly it's all Barbies and shit on TV, she must be awesome. It's a dying art and all. Anyway, let's start with some basics, think she's read herself Supergirl yet?"

Gabriel takes the hand and shakes firmly, despite the cold. It's just a cold, right? "Yeah. Well. I've got some good nieces. All liberated and modern and that stuff." He waves his hand towards the stacks. "Well, I know she likes the show on the C-W. Not sure if she's read the comics, though. Any good thoughts on entry there?"

Nasir shapes his lips into a circled opening of surprise, and has them lingering on that shape for quite a while thinking, right after shaking Gabriel's hand. He taps his chin next, looking still at the shelves, and like a dwarf struck by a mood his whole body actuates him off preternaturally as if engines had popped off his feet, leading him to a more obscure corner of the selection, assuming Gabriel's following, since he'd be talking all along the way. "Alright so forget about TV man, TV's for suckers- Captain Marvel's a lot cooler in comics, but here I'm thinking, does she like to paint? Like, is she good with artistry in general? Because I know this one comic, the painter's just; she's amazing man, her depictions are insanely pretty."

Nasir shuffled and worked through several issues, finally pulling out a magazine covered in a see-through sheen of paper. Amulet: Book One - Stonekeeper, by Kazu Kibuishi. He held it out towards Gabriel, waving it somewhat for him to take, as if luring a fish to bait; "I'm Nasir, by the way- Nasir Ibn Khairan. You've got the bearings of a cop or a criminal, did I get it right?" a smirk, for he must've been teasing, right?

Gabriel looks down at his Gray Harbor Police Department t-shirt and then looks up at Nasir. "Detective Gabe Quintanilla," he replies, in greeting. "Good to meet you, Nasir." The 'how did you guess I was a cop?' question is merely implied. But even without the shirt, it would be pretty obvious. He just has that look.

Gabe then takes the comic, looking down at this. "I mean, I think she just likes superheroes, really. But. What is this? Has it got superheroes and stuff?"

He did look somewhat perplexed at the shirt, just as Gabriel himself did. Was he supposed to assume him a cop from the shirt? The wonder lingered in the air some for him, but he didn't think much on it- he instead kept that entertained, fleeting smirk and continuously bobbed his head up and down. "Shit man, Detective, awesome; cool, Detective-guy, out here detecting some comics for his niece. Good shit," Nasir clasped his hands together, stroking the gloved palms almost as if solicitously; as if planning something, but it's all made in playful tinge.

At his question, he untangles his hands and makes for an obvious motion of it towards the book. "Well, not all heroes wear capes and not all villains have turtlenecks. There are heroes, yes- it's a female lead, and she's very brave. But she doesn't start that way. It's a comic about growth, a quest, and responsibility. Who knows, she may just like it?"

"Well, I am not the Great Detective." That, of course, is Batman. Gabe knows at least that much. And his eyes drift from the comic in front of him and over to the Marvel four-colors on the wall. So straight forward! Some easy Avengers is likely what he had in mind. His eyes go back to the comic in front of him.

"You think she'll like it?" Dubious. "What is it you do, Nasir? I mean, other than comic book concierge."

Gabriel may have been thinking about Batman but Nasir's head was imagining Detective Columbo. He even struck a pose, there; an aloof look, thinking stare and squinty-eyed leaning of his eyes just like the man himself, but something told him that the Detective here wasn't going to detect that reference based on how he eyeballed the Marvel feed on the wall.

"I think she'll like it. And I think she'll like the Marvel comics too man-- it's up to you, you know? I guess Marvel's better if you want her to fit in with the other kids. I'd go with Amulet though, personally," Nasir's shoulders rose, shrugging lightly. "I'm on TERA. Eighteen years, Middle East. But it's not enough, so I'm also looking for work-- you know, whatever slips, right? Mostly in anything engineering related. Anyway, comic book concierge is something I wish I could do, but our dubious friend over by the counter's apparently the best choice in town."

"Look luck with that," says Gabriel to Nasir, when he speaks of looking for engineering work. "I mean, there are plenty of gigs in Gray Harbor, but the professional ones are harder to come by." He then seems to decide to then just trust the guy, reaching out to take the plastic-wrapped comic. "All right. I'll get this and something a little more traditional. You know. Just in case it's too esoteric."

Nasir's hand clapped in excitement, seemingly cheerful to be heeded indeed. His feet even buckled together, and he looked almost earnest to go to the cashier and go help Gabriel pay for it, too! Indeed, such was his level of sponsorship for the issue itself. That aside, he glanced around momentarily to look for such more traditional magazines, pursing his lips. "Yeah, it's been hard. Especially because it feels like the town runs on connections, you know? Merit, being good; being legitimately good at your shit just doesn't cut it. You've got to know the right people, and I just got back so... I've been working with the Huckleberry redneck brigade in odd jobs, here and there, to pay the bills. It works just fine, but it's not what I want forever, you know what I mean?"

As Nasir's explanation ran casually, he walked the aisles for Gabriel still, fishing through Supergirl to Captain Marvel; to the new She-Thor, the later for which he settled, bringing up the first issue since the man-Thor was emasculated into dropping the hammer and handing it over to his main squeeze, Jane; "How about this? Thor's a woman in this one, pretty cool," he waved and presented it to Gabriel, showing the cover, and indeed the amazonian, blond woman depicted on its front with a hammer.

Gabriel looks like a Detective in a Comic Book Shop, which is to say not in his element much at all. He has a single issue of a comic in his hand, and is chatting with Nasir as they work their way over towards the Marvel wall and Nasir is selling him a new issue of She-Thor.

"Yeah. It makes sense. And I hear you about the connections. Between the Addingtons and all the rest, it's a very wired in Town." He doesn't have any solutions, mind you. Just empathy. He then looks down at the book in his hands, frowning. "So this is, like, after the movies?"

Nasir, in turn, appears like he's exactly where he belongs. An eccentric-looking and dressed man with a curly-haired head and a beard groomed out thorough the extent of his jaw. Something about his exchanges with Gabriel had gotten him chirpy to a degree, and he looked to be fumbling the end of his scarf with a hand and its thumb while talking to the man in question.

He tilted his head, recollecting in the backdrop of his thoughts accurately for an answer; answer he came up with soon after snapping his thumb and index together as if a flint wheel; "Ah, yes. No, this isn't-- this isn't the canon dude. The movie, right? Thor gets dumped by this chick. But in the comics they're still banging, I think? Anyway, it's not canon in the Marvel Universe, the books are their own thing."

The weather is getting colder, it's that time of year again and even so, nothing keeps Lyric bottled up at home! Hands in her jeans pockets, she's snubbed her hoodie and left it at home hanging in her closet. Plenty enough time for that later in the season.

Pushing open the door of the comic store, one she'd walked to from Elm where she lived, she lets it close by itself while she checks out the things. All the things. Mostly just waiting for someone who works here to notice her and ask her what she wants, because all these comic books are obviously not it!

"Uh. What?" The differences between canon and spinoffs and all the rest that Nasir is attempting to explain to him apparently go right on over Gabe's head. It's just how it goes. He purses his lips and looks at the book in his hands. "So if she's been watching the movies, this doesn't have anything to do with that?" More puzzlement.

Then the door chimes and Lyric comes in, and she is likely the hottest girl this comic book shop has ever seen. "I'd ask if I could help you," says the detective to the DJ. "But I am just as lost as you. And that guy." He gestures to the distracted and unhelpful clerk that is oblivious behind his monitors. "Is no help either. So I'd recommend my white knight Nasir here." A gesture to the person he is conversing with.

Gabriel would come to know the depth and passion of Nasir for comic books simply on that singular fact that no chimes, nor beauty could take him away from the topic- indeed, he had no idea Lyric had walked inside, for his mind was elsewhere; for his focus was Asgard, and this explanation he was now just giving to the flank of Gabe's head as he turned, speaking to Lyric. "It's not like that entirely. See, Jane's in the movies too, you know? But there was some Hollywood dumb shit, the girl who played the Black Swann was like; "Okay, fuck this I'm out," and, yeah, out she went-- so now they've got this other chick in that's not in the comics, so you know, it's just business stuff. But the comics stayed true to course, and you've got the whole feminism stuff, and everything's great, she-Thor's awesome."

Nasir dug through some more comics as he spoke, letting his attention be split fifty and fifty there between Issues and the hypothetical image of a niece - Gabriel's niece - deserving only the best quality comics available in the mind of the seasoned reader that was him, until he caught his name being spoken. He turned, eyeing Gabriel with furrowed brows before spotting Lyric, the sight making his brows rise, far from recognizing this new version of her. "Got a niece in need of comics, too?" he wondered, simply.

Glancing over to the employee, Lyric laughs a little. "Oh well, I don't really need any comic books or anything. I just heard about a thing.." Though she doesn't exactly elaborate on that, she just listens to the explanation that sounds more complicated than explanatory to her at least. A quick shake of her head to dispel the confusion and she hooks her thumbs in the back pockets of her jeans.

"I guess I have to have a brother or a sister with kids to have a niece and I got none of that." There's a goofy sort of smile that accompanies the words though. But something the other guy says, she looks at the guy with the niece before it registers. "Nasir?" Peering at him. He looks a little more like himself than she would, likely, and she studies him, his face, his eyes, Then.. poor him.

LAUNCH!

"You left! You left! When did you come back?"

There is a look of utter bafflement on Gabe's face when Nasir does his best to explain the ins and outs of the former Marvel Cinematic Universe to him. "Uh. So. This is different from the movies," sums up Gabe. Because he catches murderers for a living, but this is rough.

Then Lyric is rushing his newfound acquaintance, and Gabe just stands aside so what can happen can happen. Whatever it is.

Nasir made for a subtle grimace, his vision going up to the ceiling momentarily in thinking of Gabriel's rather crude butchering of his explanation, and his lips twitched; his jawline turned some to tilt his head and he engaged the man on the notion, if only for the brief sojourn of stability allowed to him before Lyric's unexpected plunge; "Better than the mo--..."

And off she went. And here, in this instance, his height worked against him, for the necessary momentum she'd need in a jump to reach and latch to his neck made for the kind of weight that'd make any man stagger back, and stagger he would. A dozen Issues of Marvel and DC all plummeted like a failed cavalcade of dominoes to the ground - and nothing of value was lost - as he choked in bewilderment, his feet taking them five steps away from Gabriel while his right arm panicked around her, holding her in instinctual place while his other swung back, behind him, struggling to hold onto anything, finally pressing fully into Vader's pin-up, the only thing capable of holding him in place. "What the fuck?!" he asked breathlessly, loud enough so the whole store could hear his confusion.

His gaze moved down from its shock on the ceiling to Gabriel, and there; there, on those two orbs of Amber, a request for help. Here's hoping he didn't have bigger fishes to fry.

Lyric, the human wrecking ball! She doesn't mind or even seem to notice at the mass destruction she leaves in her wake. Then again, she's not 12 anymore either. Nope! All grown up now. Surprise! Amused by his confusion at first, she doesn't release him. Yet. "You forgot about me?" Lip wobble. "It's me, Lyric Bates." Finally releasing him to slide to her feet, if he lets her go. "You don't remember me?" There's a look to Gabriel, identical to the other, but with light blue eyes instead. A request for help. Why? Who knows.

"So!" says Gabriel, noping out of this interaction as quickly as he can. He instead grabs the She-Thor book and heads for the counter, where the presence of a customer right before him causes the clerk to stir from his slumber. He takes out his credit card to pay. "Thanks for the help picking the comics, Nasir! Good luck with the work stuff!" And they can sort out whatever this is.

Betrayal, that's how it felt. That's what he felt when that Detective moved away, and staggered off from the pair, leaving Nasir to deal with what he still hadn't put together just yet. "I'm filing a complaint!" he called out from their made distance, and his arm did indeed loosen off of Lyric once he even realized he had decided to catch her on the jump, letting her frame slide down and off so feet could touch ground and he could look down - down at her face - with furrowed, ponderous brows - each as bushy as brows could possibly get - to better exude his feeling of loss. "Lyric?"

He sat on that for a while, but not because he didn't remember; not because he didn't know of the existence of a Lyric, there just wasn't any of the Lyric he remembered on this face before him. His nostrils flared some, and he inhaled the air as if in search of a particular scent, unfound; "But, where are the oil stains? And your aviator cap, and the goggles? No fucking way you're Lyric-- there's no; there's no toolbelt. Besides, you said you'd be an Astronaut by now, and we're not on the Moon, so you're definitively fucking with me. Who are you?" his skepticism wasn't a joke; his words held no tinge of playfulness to them. He very, very clearly didn't believe her.

It never occurred to Lyric that he wouldn't believe her and she takes a step back to study him for several moments. "Why would I lie?" The question is left there for him to answer before she piles more on. "Where did you go? Why did you leave? I kept watching for you, for a really long time after you left, but then I got caught sneaking out by the Fosters. Fosters, foster parents. "And they nailed my window shut." That doesn't seem to bother her though, what does is him not knowing who she is! Or not believing it anyway.

"Aren't you my neighbor?" Now she's doubting herself. "Didn't you used to be?"

The shock in his face only grew the deeper she explained, fosters, he knew that term; he knew of foster parents, and the different households. He knew, and yonder, before her, a look of realization. His brows couldn't sink any deeper then, and he brought his craggy, invasive hands to take a hold of her face. He'd pull at her cheeks, at the bags beneath her eyes; he'd tug at her forehead and ears. He'd shake her head around, like a piggy bank, as if to ensure there were no coins inside of her and that she wasn't, in fact, a fake. Finally, he did a dental check-up on her teeth by tugging at her chin, spreading lips to get a look at them and realize she had shed her baby teeth and no longer had that comical diastema in place.

"Holy shit," and he let go, almost as if her visage had burnt his hands; and he took a step back, as if the closeness was about to throw him a good fifteen years into the past. "You're like-- you're fucking grown now. You're an adult, man; you're an adult, you're an adult. Adult. You're adulting. What the fuck is going on in this town, is it that nothing good can ever last?"

Lyric remains pliant, bodily at least, as he explores her face, her features, her hed and teeth and anything else up there that it takes to convince him. Her eyes are the same though, that same ice blue but with less wariness and more resignation than when she was younger. Perhaps a bit of the inquisitiveness is left there. Or a lot of it. Questions, she was always full of them!

Once he had his fill, she peers into his eyes, craggy eyebrows or not, and finds her friend. The same one she'd lost all those years ago. "You were gone forever, it feels like. Have you been back so long?" A smile comes easy, and she turns a complete circle for him. "My tool belt got too small for me when I grew up and the next parents weren't so inclined for mechanics. Their cars were sent to a garage. No one wanted to hire a girl and the day I turned 18 Foster care kicked me out so I had to find work fast. But I'm good now! I'm a DJ." A little bemused by that still.

Sweat began budding at the edges of his forehead, and a strain - a very physical strain - took a hold of his neck, like an unseen clamp was now testing the grit of his windpipe and begging him to inhale, so it could even constrict further, as exhaling was a pleasure he didn't deserve just yet. Indeed, he grew very stiff after drawing that last intake of air, eyeing her with an almost traumatism that made his eyes focus on her own- the eyes, the one thing that almost fifteen years of being apart wouldn't change. Nasir finally reacted, his exhaling of air a hard, gruff cough while covering his mouth with those fingerless, woolen gloves, the same you'd find on the homeless.

He shook his head, eventually, and motioned to the outside with a frantically pointing hand. "Let's go outside; out to the street, or the front, or whatever. I'm not talking about this with Grease McLargehuge over there," on the path out, Nasir worked the cigarette off his ear and planned through a pocket in his jacket to fetch an engraved, silvered zippo, old and scuffed from top to bottom. He struggled with its flint wheel once they reached the cold outdoors and worked a steady flame to light the rolled-up stick now set between his lips, one from which he took one long, necessary drag that'd spill as grey mist out his nostrils, a necessary intake to better tackle the issue at hand.

"Alright, alright, so. Let's start from the beginning kid, they kicked you out when you were eighteen, now you're playing music- good shit. But what else? That's it? What did you do after, well, you know?"

His reaction worries her though, that very physical reaction, and when Lyric would step closer and try to offer reassurances, she hesitates instead. Certainly she had changed, change was inevitable from when one was a little kid to adulthood, the years? Had they been kind to her? That's not something she ever thinks about, really. Appearance was nothing to her, truly. But she squints those light blue eyes, the concern in them immediate and real.

"Outside is good, we can get some air, you look.. green around the gills." A light smile playing over her lips as she follows him, watching as he lights the cigarette with that lighter. "Kid," she laughs. "But I'm not anymore." Not that she was as tall as him though. Nowhere close. "After you left?" She lowers her eyes and looks at the ground, her boot scuffing a pebble off the sidewalk towards the edge of the curb. What can she say? "I cried. And I cried. I missed you. I kept trying to find you but they told me you'd gone." Her thumbs find the back pockets of her jeans again. "I just did what I wss s'posed to do. Followed the rules. I learned to play the guitar." She looks back at him, just watching him a moment. "Why did you go?"

A hundred years of guilt clawed like metal hooks to his face, the result of their hard raking mirth lines on the edge of his grimacing lips and eyes. He looked tormented, at her question; more than tormented, it brought a dark hold to his visage whole, and he looked to the left; to the side, off and down the road, where he could better trail the vehicles that spilled the excess of water on the sewage lines, off into the curb. Another drag, another release of grey smoke, his body whole shuddered heavily under a cold feeling. He had missed her, he realized- but missing was something he couldn't allow himself. Not before, not in the army, not now.

Green around the gills, he smiled. It was putting it mildly. He shook his head lightly, his left palm reaching up after to hook a thumb into the neck of his shirt and pull it down, freeing some of his pronounced collarbone from the pressure that was still afoot. "You did just like you should've done, and I did too, Lyric; I left because I didn't feel anything here. I had no home, not really-- I felt like I had something to fucking prove, you know? Like I had to go and make a change. Like I had to go, and never come back. But in the end, I did; in the end, I'm here, and I'm back, and..." his words hung, there; his words and eyes both, as he turned back to look at her again. For whatever reason, his feet found a need to walk all the sudden, and he too scuffled a pebble out of the way as he wandered away, mutely expecting her to follow;

"I'm sorry, I should've told you. You were a good kid, helped me a lot. Wouldn't have done half of the things I did without your help, and all that."

Guilt hadn't been in her thoughts at all, not making him feel it, not feeling it herself. Just telling him the truth of what she had done when she realized he had left. It never occurred to Lyric to lie or buffer the truth any with softer words. Maybe she learned that from him so long ago too.

When he walks, she follows, just like old times, it was a habit she'd never even thought about it and here she is falling back into it. A tag-along. "You kinda did. You had really good parents. You even knew who your dad was." Even still she manages to sound wistful when she says it out loud. "Do you know what I learned. Everyone comes back. I don't know why, but when people leave, they always return. It's the town. It can be really scary. Not the normal kind, but the kind you find in your nightmares."

And in turn, he simply expected her to follow. It was their Calvin and Hobbes-- only with inverted heights. He tilted left, and sometimes right, as if about to fall; as if under the effects of some kind of pharmaceutical, but that wasn't the case. Seeing them again, here, in town; seeing their face so transmuted and different from the child that once was, that was the drug. That was the narcotic running through his system and making him feel more light-headed than he should. "I don't know how to explain it to you but, it's usually the parents the ones who make you feel like you belong the least. And they didn't understand my woes, not then, and most certainly not now."

The wistfulness makes him turn, looking over his shoulder and down at her. In a way, he himself had grown; in a much more meaningful way, they had preserved the same height difference in the way he had to look down, to see her face. Some things, apparently, never did change after all. "I know what you mean. Is that why you came to the comic bookstore, where you looking for me, Lyl? I don't-- know what to tell you, or what to say. I don't know how to make it up to you, either. I just kind of am... meandering around, wandering. Walking, and trying to make sense of the town myself, as it is. I'm not the man I used to be; I'm not the figure I was once, for you. I'm out of answers."

While he seemed more under the influence of something, Lyric had more excitement, but maybe a little misplaced or misguided. Things would never quite be the same again, but that didn't stop her from trying to forge a new way. It never even runs through her mind that they can't pick up some sort of pieces and make a new puzzle or a picture out of it. "I always thought it was the brothers and sisters in a home that made you feel like you didn't belong. Especially someone's real kid. The foster kid was always the outsider." She'd managed it well enough, there wasn't a ton of bitterness in her eyes or her demeanor. "What's wrong now? What was wrong then? Why didn't you come talk to me? I would have listened."

With a shake of her head, Lyric smiles warmly. "I didn't come because you were there. I didn't even know you were back. I went to ask about a game night they were having that I read about. I didn't know what it was. Now I don't care. I saw you and forgot all about it. You don't gotta make anything up to me. You had to go. I had to stay." Reaching for his hand, if he allows her to, she smiles again. "Then let me be the friend you always needed here."

The only thing Nasir could have in store for her was one stretched, hard and grim chuckle at his expense, one that had him shake his head as a sudden brisk release of rain began to pour down. He wasn't wearing his supah hot-spot shit jacket at the time so there was no hood for his hair that quickly came to glisten with a sheen of humidity. His walking grew to a faster pace and he even splashed and made a mess of some puddles on the way to the corner of the sidewalk, where her hand finally reached out and seized his own. He was just on the verge of crossing the street, in direction of an off-road of dirt and woodland, but she stopped him.

And he was silent, at her request, his chin rising slightly to tilt his head up, letting a hundred little spills of water grace his face one drop at a time, failing to even make him squint, begging that they'd hit his eyes and soon enough, his wish came true and he squinted humidly. His other hand rose, wiping at his eyes with his knuckles almost as if crying, but he sniffled it all off and hardened his visage, gaining stoicism to tackle the issue at hand yet again. The issue at hand, that which echoed in his head, that he couldn't give a face to.

Eventually, Nasir turned. It was difficult to feel his palm as craggy as it truly was while beneath the glove but his fingers remained no less hard and 'awrinkled' with hardship as they wound around her wrist, seizing her much smaller appendage. "You probably would've convinced me out of it. Just like Marion. Talked me out of every nonsense invention, and this one the most stupid of them all-- I underestimated my friends then and had to pay dearly for it. You don't have to ask to be my friend, Lyl- do you not remember why Gepetto made Pinocchio?" as he explained, a certain burden rose off his chest; a certain weight uplifted its pain from his shoulders, and the question- the question was wistful from the hapless inventor, who smiled a first tender, foreboding smile.

"So that he may always have a friend."

His stride is longer than hers so Lyric does have a little bit of trouble in keeping up, even catching up. When she captures his gloved hand finally, she stops, tilting her head back despite the rain. She can't look away even as the rain splashes down on his face, in his eyes, and he lifts his free hand to wipe it away. Everything inside her encourages her next step. Closer, she wraps her free arm around him and puts her cheek on his chest, letting go of his hand only to hold him instead. "What happened?" Her voice is a whisper, barely audible over the sound of the rain falling. "What happened when you left? To make you leave?"

Then better yet, there's the next question. "What happened to make you come back?" She doesn't let go, holding on even if he kind of tries to disengage. Only if he forces her off will she, despite any other foot traffic and vehicles, she holds on.

He was out of breath by the time she embraced him, her tug entirely at fault, her head; her lean-in a hammer that smashed his navel and rid him of every inch of air pressure in his lungs. His clothing was good at hiding it, yes; it even made him appear bulkier around the arms and on the already broad stretch of his shoulders, but being hugged; being pulled into, he couldn't possibly keep secret just about how incredibly skinny he was around his midriff, entirely undernourished. She'd not just feel his heartbeat, but too the inching ribcage that pressed into his skin, now pushed into her cheekbones.

For a long while, only silence sat with them. Silence and the sound of cars sprinting through at seventy miles the hour, releasing constant flourishes of water around them. His head tilted downwards slowly, letting his chin rest against her crown of hair with a little peck to boot, his arms seeing to twist around her and embrace her, thusly. "A lot of stupid, immature bullshit I'd rather not think about. Weakness, is what made me leave," he finally whispered, his words first filtered through her ample seabed of hair before reaching her ears, beneath the plopping rain; "And I don't know why I'm back. I'm still looking for answers myself. I met a girl who's helping me with that; a girl called Kelsey. She knows about the Glimmer-- I'm hoping I can get Minerva and her in the same room one day, come to understand the madness."

Lyric can feel the difference in him. Not that there'd been tons of hugs when he was younger, but he at least filled out his clothes before. When her hands can meet around his waist, she knows something is wrong. He was bony and it alarms her. "Are you.. are you sick?" Now it's her time to have rain drops in her eyes and she blinks them away and buries her face against his chest. "People can help you if you're sick." There's no urge to let go of him.

"You are back because you need to be back. It was time. You came back because everyone who glimmers does. I have it too. I don't know Kelsey but I know Minerva. What kind of glimmering do you have? What is it you can do? You need to find someone like you and talk to them."

There weren't that many hugs when younger. If anything, he was a stalwart inventor, and a strict instructor, at home in the junk of his workshop where they both once dwelled, where time for embracing and such emotional displays of friendship and kindness meant little to nothing, with even less time to see them through. Even hugging her there, then, felt alien to him- as if he hugged a complete stranger, and in a way, she was; in a way, she wasn't. And he chose the latter, succumbing to the hug as feeble-bodied as lacking some McDonalds in him could make him.

His breathing soon became shallow, and he led her to the side; to the right, beneath a canvas roof to shield them from the rain. "You got yourself all drenched," he quickly scolded her, manifesting a white rag out of his back pocket to wipe her face; her forehead and eyes, clearing it all of the wetness with a frowned look and derisive expression. It hadn't been the first time he cleaned her face, he realized- she was just a lot littler then. "It doesn't matter why I'm back, what matters is that I am. I don't believe in destiny, or Jesus; I don't believe in any of that premonition shit. My fate is my own, and only we can save ourselves," his words held no small degree of conviction, in them passing a message he himself had been crafting for quite some time. Since the moment he arrived into town, in fact.

"You should come over to my trailer sometime-- let's exchange phones, invite Marion over. We should all just meet and talk, you know? Especially now that you're not a kid, you get to stay in the room and listen for once," as he explained, his was a much more jolly expression and demeanor, baring a toothy smile while awaiting her phone to manifest.

Soon, it was; soon, numbers were exchanged and farewell embraces were given, each going about their way. Even parting, he felt a strange emptiness without his Hobbes, but that's normal for a Calvin.