2019-10-20 - Tough Guys Also Blush

She'd raher be outside, with the salty air scenting her nostrils, but it's just a touch too chilly for Julia to opt for sitting outside. Or at least, she thinks it is for Itzhak, because he's skinny as a rail. So she's sitting back at one of the more discreet tables, nursing a mojito and gazing out toward the water like she's daydreaming while she waits.

Itzhak saunters on in, cold air clinging to him as the door shuts. He's wearing a big black peacoat, which he sheds to hang up. When he spots Julia, he makes his way over and slings his long ass into the chair opposite her. Upnod. "Hey. How's by ya."

Julia looks at him with a bit of puzzlement, brows cinching together, though she manages a fitful smile. "Hey," she greets. "You look like you're feeling better. I'm okay. We haven't talked in a while, not since August's cabin. You okay?"

Itzhak's eyebrows tip up, in counterpoint. He wobbles a hand, makes the sound to go along with it, "Ehhhhh. Been tough. Buncha mishegoss." Then shrugs, like, hey, life is just one ending stream of mishegoss, what can ya do.

Her mouth quirks a little, and then she grins. "Anything I can help with? I found another one of us. Someone with abilities like yours and mine. He wants to help, too. I think if we keep finding people who feel the same way, we'll have something like a resistance on a weird, young adult fiction level."

"Yeah?" Itzhak glances real casual across the breadth of the Twofer, like he's casing the joint. And he is. Despite the fact that he personally fought goblins in this place and drank in it after attending a funeral for a ghost, it still feels so normal. And thus, it feels weird to talk about, you know, things. "Resistance, huh?" The word makes him quirk up one corner of his mouth. "What's this guy like?"

"Greg? He's sweet. Enthusiastic, a bit like a puppy, to be honest. He uses what he can do to some skating tricks that are pretty cool, and he was so relieved when I explained a few things about this town. He runs the dispensary in town. He's also been doing some experimenting with plants he found Over There."

"Skating tricks. Now that's fuckin' clever." Itzhak's genuinely impressed. "Dispensary, no less, I gotta get some of that." He slumps back in the chair and rubs his forehead. He might look better, but he also seems weary and sad. "What're you up to?"

"I've been trying to find Violet Whitehouse. I think she and her boyfriend ran off to Over There. I'm going to see if Alexander and I can get into her house and see if we can figure out exactly what's going on." She leans back in her seat, studying him with visible concern. Itzhak? What's wrong? The tone of her mental voice is sweet, bringing with it flavors of cinnamon and heat. She's been practicing, it would seem.

Itzhak blinks slow. There's a sense of his mind unfolding like a thousand-petaled lotus to welcome Julia in. He picks up a napkin to fidget with it. <<Roen sacrificed his tree. I sacrificed my violin. Not...really...over it.>> His mental voice is a violin, itself, singing.

Julia's eyes go round as saucers, and fill with empathy, it would be like someone taking a lighter to her grandmother's much beloved family cookbook, given to her by Julia's great grandmother. Something so intimately, personally connected to a person that it's like a portion of their soul has been cleaved away. "Oh." she says aloud, and the fact that they're in public doesn't prevent her from rising in her seat to step closer, lean in, and try to give him the biggest, tightest hug.

Itzhak's whole face does something alarming and embarrassing, crumpling as Julia hugs him. He ducks his head so she can't see him doing that as well and hugs her back, long wiry arms around her. <<Shit,>> comes his resonant, clear mental voice. <<Now you did it, now I'm gonna cry again.>>

She lets out a gentle laugh while she hugs him. <<Hey, I offered to bring soup by your place but you wanted to meet for drinks.>> She'll hug him for as long as he'll let her, or at least as long as she feels he needs her to. <<Sometimes it feels like everything involved in dealing with all of this is ultimately just cruel.>> The warm, cinnamon-tasting flavor of her mental voice briefly flashes of a sharper spice, a trace evidence of her anger at his loss. She pulls away just a little so she can look him in the eye. "What can I do to help?"

<<Yeah, I was hoping I'd hold it together in public.>> Itzhak laughs, too, shaky and tired. He squeezes Julia tight then lets her go, unwilling to be comforted for more than a moment. Then he scrubs his face with his big, tattooed hands. "Uh," he says, voice quavering, then clears his throat. "Nah, I mean, this is good. This helps. I, uh. I have a rental, but I ain't played it yet."

A mental note is made; the quest to find Itzhak's new soul mate (violin) is going to be EPIC. She returns to her seat, folding her hands neatly in front of her. "Your talent is always going to be with you." she tells him. "You're the magic. Remember that." Not to say the violin wasn't precious, but hopefully he'll understand what she's getting at. "You know I'll always try to help you, right? You and August were the first people I've ever done this," she taps her temple, "With."

Itzhak runs his fingers through his curly black hair. "Eh. She was a little magic," he says, with a melancholy half-smile. "Had her since I was a kid." He nods, looking down at the table, a touch shy. "I know you always will. Same to you, too. We got your back."

"You know, you're one of the toughest looking men I know." she tells him, her fingers curving around her glass. "And then sometimes you get this expression like you're a teenage boy scuffing his toe while planning to ask me to the prom. Which I never had either." she notes upon reflection, "And that's a damn shame because I'm pretty sure I'm hot enough to have been a prom queen."

Itzhak reddens up some, rubbing the bridge of that impressive nose. "It's terrible, ain't it?" he says, self-mocking. "People find out I'm just a huge dork inside, how's my reputation ever gonna recover?" He laughs quietly. "I didn't go to no prom. You're definitely hot enough to have been the queen, though. Really, you didn't have a guy in high school?"

Julia gives him an oddly sad smile. "I didn't go to high school." she reminds him gently. "Once I left the asylum, I got my GED not long afterwards. I dated some in San Francisco, but nothing ever stuck. It's a little awkward when your teenage years recollections aren't you know, typical. And making stuff up just seems like a bad beginning."

Itzhak winces, and really turns red, big hands curling in on themselves. "Dammit. I'm sorry, Julushka. You just did such a good job putting yourself back together, you know?" He winces harder. "I didn't mean...ah, fuckit, I'm an asshole. I mean, you made it out and you got yourself a life and a career. I should probably stop talking now."

Julia holds up a hand and waves it as if to say no worries. "It's okay. I mean, I know you would never mean anything cruel by it and you've got a lot of problems of your own that you're working through." She seems perfectly okay with letting it go. "I feel weirdly connected to you, maybe because we share a lot of the same things we can do and we're both creatives. Ignacio's more like a brother, even when he calls me Bonita. It's different with you, which is funny because Nacho is the one culturally understands me best."

Itzhak shakes his head urgently. "I wouldn't. I'd pop anybody givin' me a ration for going away, so why would I do it to anyone else? Still. Sorry." His shoulders hunch awkwardly, but he takes a deep breath and lets them drop. And his smile is a little more solid when Julia calls Ignacio 'Nacho'. "He and me grew up in the same neighborhood, yannow. He's like the real fuckin' annoying little brother I never wanted." But he says it so fondly, affectionately shit-talking Ignacio in the New York fashion. "He's good at understanding people. I'm not, to make the understatement of the year." Looking curiously at Julia somewhere around her shoulder, he raises his eyebrows. "I can't think of anybody else as strong as you and me, when it comes to Over There, and movin' stuff."

"We can't be the only ones. And when I say to you that sometimes I get a rush from being that powerful, that it's part of what makes me feel strong and keeps me from feeling overwhelmed or helpless, you get it." She hopes he gets it. "You're good at understanding people, if they're the right kind of people." It makes sense in her head. "If I ever kiss you because I've confused synergy and attraction, feel free to be all Julia, No. Because I could kinda see that happening. And it might make things awkward and I like how it feels when we work together." This also makes sense in her head.

"Oh yeah. I get it," Itzhak murmurs. "I'm the only one who can do some things I ever heard of. Can be a real head rush. It's how I got through prison." Then Julia says that about kissing him, and he goes brilliant scarlet. And sits there in extremely awkward silence. The part about how he can look like a bashful teenager is really coming through. "Uh. I. Got no idea what to say."

"Ohmygod, you're blushing." She seems thoroughly charmed by this, and she's decidedly cheerful when she offers advice. "That's either because Julia No would actually be Julia Yes and you're a bit embarrassed about it, or it actually would be Julia No and you don't want to hurt my feelings. Either one is okay. And you don't even have to tell me which it is if it makes you too uncomfortable. I'm not looking to wear your motorcycle jacket or anything. No drawing your initials in notebooks surrounded by little hearts. Just being real about the vibe I get when we've worked together. And also, teasing you a bit because it's fun."

"Aw jeez," Itzhak says, and covers his eyes, grinning a little helplessly, and then starts laughing equally helplessly when Julia details all the hearts she's not going to draw around his initials. "Ya cruel!" But he's laughing honestly, if in total embarrassment. "Okay, I, uh, yeah, I don't think I'm gonna say anything."

"Totally fair." Julia reassures him. "If you're good for it, I can introduce you to Greg. He wants to meet more people who can the types of things he does. Which reminds me, I had a thing I'd like to try. You know how we can push and pull things, but not people? I've been thinking about it the wrong way. What about pushing their clothes? Or their shoes? Have you thought of this already? Because if you haven't, we need to go to the lab." Translation: time to start experimenting.

"I'm good for it." Itzhak surfaces, takes a drink, tries to pretend like he isn't fire-engine red. "We'll meet up." Then he grins. "I thought of that, all right. I ain't got a chance to test it with clothes. Done it with a platform. Bet it'd work great if you grabbed all somebody's clothes and their shoes. Might be kinda painful for 'em? Not a lot of support. But hey, you gotta do what you gotta do."

"It might depend on how you visualize it." muses Julia thoughtfully. "Like...if you think of it just being a platform against their shoes and lifting, what's to keep them from falling over? But if you imagine it as more of an L ...their shoes and their back, it would be sturdier. If that can even work. We can get Greg in on this and see how it sorts out."