2019-10-26 - Healing Without Consent

As Itzhak leaves the gym with his blackened eyes and newly un-broken nose, probably abrasions and bruises beyond counting.. he has a shadow. Well. Not so much a shadow as a redhead surreptitiously trying to follow him. She slips along, maybe twenty feet behind him, looking for all the world like just one more spectator headed home after the fighting is done. One closer inspection, her hands seem to be moving, making smooth gestures here and there as if she were perhaps having a conversation with herself and gesturing during it. The result, is that Itzhak feels warmth and soothing energy climbing along his face and body. Knitting the nose, taking away the swollen puffiness around his eyes, reducing bruising and causing abrasions to scab over. Kass, meanwhile, grips the strap of her messenger bag with both hands and continues shuffling along.

Itzhak is in the process of hauling his sorry tuchis up Elm Street when he feels it. The healing. He stiffens up, snarls a curse in Yiddish and whips around, scanning for who did that to him. You'd think Kass threw a beer bottle at him instead of healed up some of the damage Poe did to his face. His hazel eyes, furious, lock on Kass. Busted. "The fuck you DOIN?" he growls at her, and comes at her like she's about to be the next target of his fists.

Kass looks up suddenly as Itzhak comes stomping towards her, her eyes widening. "I-.. I'm walking h-home? I-I live in the, uh, trailer park? L-lot 43. Is something wrong?" She looks him over, blinks, adds, "You look alot better than you did at the fight. Did you get an icepack or something?" She's trying to hide her 'good deed' under youthful innocence.

"Don't you fuckin' lie to me!" Itzhak rolls up on Kass, tense and angry. He is a tall rough-looking dude who just got his face beat in. That could be pretty scary. "I heard you singing! I didn't ask you for none of that shit!"

Kass blinks at him, sending him a confused look. "I'm sorry... I don't s-sing. I have a terrible singing voice.. " She cringes back from him, huddling closer to the messenger bag at her hip. "I w-wanted to s-see the fights.. I know the Kelly twins.. from a long time ago.." Kass peeks up at him, "I just tried to h-help.."

Itzhak glares. But the cringing and the name of Kelly make him shut his less-black-now eyes and sigh. He winds both hands into his curly black hair and tugs, hard. "You grew up with the Kellys and you're dumb enough to waste healing on the likes of me? Joey is gonna be very disappointed." Hah, probably he won't, Joey is always doing dangerous shit like that. Itzhak lets go of his hair and tosses one hand at Kass in an irritable gesture of 'what the hell, anyway'. "Don't, okay? You ask."

Kass shakes her head quickly, "No! No they don't know that I.. Jaime knows I fix things.. I haven't actually talked to Joey yet. I haven't seen them in.. ten years? Since I was a kid." She ducks her head anyways and gives a slow nowd and a murmured, "I just wanted to help.. I'm sorry. I just want to.. to fix things. Not break them. I don't want to break things anymore." Her eyes turn up towards his and she looks at his face, "I've been.. away. Um, imprisoned. Trapped. I just got released.. a few weeks ago? I think? Its hard to tell.."

The words give Itzhak pause. He frowns at her. "Trapped. Over There?" The stress he puts on 'there' makes it obvious he means something other than the usual world. Now he looks Kass over more carefully, eyes narrow. "What happened?"

"No. Well, maybe? I don't know.. its hard to remember. They took me to the Bad Place and I got left there. Forgotten. For ten years. Then they let me go, and I don't know why or what I'm doing back here or what I'm supposed to be doing. I just know that I don't like breaking things anymore, I just want to fix them. I fixed Jaime's truck. And I'm fixing my trailer. And I kinda fixed you..." Kass rambles easily, hands moving around as she mentions first this thing then that. Finally she looks up at him, darts a glance around, then murmurs, "Don't go to the asylum. Don't ever let them take you. You lose... yourself. It doesn't fix people, it just breaks them more."

The asylum. "Yeah. That's the bad place all right." Itzhak frowns, his face now non-painful enough that he can do that. "I know other people who were there." His eyes drift off Kass while he thinks, then snap back to her. "You didn't break me worse, at least. I know people like you. You could hurt me worse than any guy in the ring."

Kass looks relieved that Itzhak knows of the place, a smile appearing tentatively on her face as she nods, "There were others. Many others. Some never left, some never will. Some have gone back and forth." She licks her lips and offers, "I don't break people anymore. Not.. I mean. There were Dreams. But they weren't people. I just.. fix stuff now." She lifts a hand towards his face, pausing before looking at him, "Can I? I can make it go away.. so it doesn't hurt.." Mindful now of his demand.

Itzhak shakes his head. "Nah. I don't throw myself at these things just so I can get healed. ...Thanks, though." Finally, grudgingly, he thanks her. "I'm going home," he says, jerking a thumb thataway up Elm. "'m Rosencrantz. Kelly knows me. You want me to talk to him first?"

Shaking her head, Kass murmurs, "I'll do it. I just.. don't want to see the pity or.. fear." She lifts a shrug then looks back up t him, "Thanks though. I'm Kass." She glances around beffore jerking her thumb towards Huckleberry, "I'm that way. It was.. good meeting you, Rosencrantz. I'll let you know if I come across Gildenstern." She flashes a brief grin then turns and heads off.