2019-11-04 - Good Service? At The Diner?

The diner's not too busy, being mid-morning and all. The breakfast rush is tapering, the staff has cleaned up, and it's too early for the lunch rush. The usual smells of coffee, the usual decor of the bears all over the place abounds (as if they'd disappear overnight!), and the usual faces around the diner can be seen to those who frequent the diner.

The short redhead new waitress who had been absent for a while is present behind counter, moving somewhat slower than normal, seemingly nursing one shoulder, but that doesn't stop her from doing the normal errands of wiping down counters and tables, bussing, serving coffee, and etc.

There's plenty of room at either a booth, for privacy, or the counter for quicker but somewhat more public service.

Itzhak saunters in, making the bell chime as he pushes open the door. He's tall, thin, has a nose like the beak of an eagle coming off his face, and he walks like panties and jaws oughta drop when he rolls in. It's a gorgeous fall day; he's wearing a long-sleeved shirt made of thick, soft material in a deep burgundy, tight, worn jeans, and he accessorized with knuckle tatts and steel-toed boots. 'STAY DOWN', say the tatts.

He slings his lanky self onto a stool at the counter and looks at Alison, eyebrows cocked up. "Coffee, yeah?"

Alison 's wiping the counter down at the moment Itzhak rings the bell, and she doesn't stop until he's seated. She flashes him a polite, artificial smile, one well practiced from years of waitressing. "Sure!" The girl kneels down for a moment, disappearing behind the counter, and then reappearing with a mug and a little holder of sugar packets. Sets those down, grabs a fresh pot off of the warmer, and pours a sensible amount of the lifegiving liquid into the mug, sliding it over to the man. A small metal pot of cream follows in short order, and then a menu from a bit further down the counter.

"How's the morning treating you so far?" she says, setting the pot back down on the warmer.

Itzhak blinks. Kinda squints at Alison like he has a hangover and she's a windowful of beaming sunlight. What's this? Cheerful service at the Griz? "I ain't seen you around. You new?" That accent of his is as New York as Mel Brooks and Bugs Bunny. He creams up the coffee good, doesn't bother with the sugar.

Alison 's polite smile turns into something of a genuine grin, her freckled cheeks rising. "Little bit!" Her eyes go to the man's knuckles and after a moment or so she puts the words together. Hmm. Kind of hard to read 'STAY DOWN' as anything but a threat, but he hasn't shown any reason for her to be alarmed as of yet. "I started about a month ago but then I had to take a couple weeks off." Her eyes dart to the tall stuffed bear-cum-coatrack near the door, meeting its lifeless gaze, then darts back to Itzhak. The smile's gone at that point, a more neutral expression on her face, though not unpolite.

He just emanates potential trouble, this one. Itzhak watches Alison read his knuckles, lets her do that while he drinks the coffee. That her smile drops off after she's done is no surprise to him. (Regardless of what her actual thoughts are.) "Flu, huh? Most everybody had it. Nasty." Drink. Then he mutters, wry, "It's so weird that I know everything that happens in this town. Lemme tell ya, it ain't like that in Manhattan. Where ya from?"

The waitress nods a little, "Yeeeeeah." She kinda draws out with a deep sigh. "It was pretty rough. I hear that it's been going around since the summer." She picks up another little sugar packet holder from under the counter and sets about making it pretty, or at least somewhat more organized, arranging the colored pieces of paper. "Oh, just Seattle. Not too different around here, just a lot smaller. And a bit weirder, depending on who you run into."

Her eyes dart to the bear once again, her fingers pausing her work, before giving her head a little shake, her red hair pulling over one of her shoulders, and getting back to her task.

Itzhak makes some kind of acknowledging, dubious sound through his nose. He looks at Alison looking at the bear. He turns around, following her line of sight, to...the bear. Looks back with a smirk. "That guy givin' ya trouble?" he asks, jerking his head towards the carving. "You want I should rough him up?"

Alison blushes fiercely in response, but doesn't say anything immediately. Her alabaster skin does nothing to hide her embarassment! "..only in my nightmares. I think I'm good." The plastic smile of rote creeps back onto her face as the urge to change the subject suddenly seems pretty pressing. "Anything else I can grab you from the menu? Nick just took some bearclaws out of the oven, though you don't look much like a cop, so maybe you'd prefer something else."

"Heh. Some of the cops in this town, you'd be surprised." Itzhak slides the menu back over to Alison. "Omelet, hash browns." He leans his elbows on the counter, one big tattooed hand loosely curled around the coffee cup. "You're from Seattle, ya say."

Alison nods and punches the order in. "I mean, true, from what I've seen working here, anyways. But knuckle tats tend to be pretty unusual for that sort. And they've usually got that kind of look about them, especially the hair, y'know?" As if reminded by her own words, she brushes her own hair out of her face a bit, settling it back down in the way it was before her attention was grabbed by memories.

"Yeah. I mean, ish? Grew up in Shoreline, lived in Cap Hill for a while. Same town for the most parts, just different speeds."

"There's at least one with," Itzhak holds up 'STAY', fingers spread, back of his hand towards Alison to demonstrate. His fingers are so dang long. "So watch out for that one." He hoists his eyebrows and sips the coffee. "I dunno nothin' about Seattle, only been there a few times. So what's your name?"

There's something weird about him--besides everything--that becomes more obvious the longer Alison is around him. He shines. He shines bright. Bright and strong. All the objects near him--the counter, the stools, the coffee cup, the silverware--seem to be holding their breath, waiting for him to tell them what to do.

A shrug's all she's got to offer in response to the additional information about the singular cop with knuckle tattoos. She's got her own opinions on cops in general, and the Seattle PD has a reputation that doesn't merit any further discussion, really, and she's at work, besides. No need to poke the be--dammit, Alison. C'mon. Her eyes linger a little on those fingers though.

There's a ding from the kitchen, and the redhead turns to retrieve the omelette as ordered, plus the hash browns. She puts them in front of Itzhak, adds some napkins and silverware beside the plates, and then a bottle of ketchup."Alison!" she pipes up in response to the question. "Or Ali. Whatever works."

Alison has a shine of her own, not as bright as Itzhak by a large margin. On top of that, her energy's more muted, subdued almost in a way, almost as if it's uncontrolled, unrefined, a metaphorical arm held behind her back due to sheer lack of knowledge regarding the subject. She can certainly sense his shimmer, but she has no idea of what it means, other than it's something that she's noticed a lot of in this town and did very rarely back in Seattle. But it's also the kind of really weird thing that makes you question your own sanity, or at least your eyes. How do you even approach something like that without getting drummed out of polite society? 'Hey, buddy, why are you so shiny?'

"How's by ya, Ali. 'm Itzhak." He pronounces his name something like 'it-sock'. The guy is watching her. Not her eyes, or even really her face, but his gaze is tracking her around as she works. Even the arrival of the food doesn't distract him for a moment, as he leans back to let her set the plate down. He's looking at her hands while she does. But then he drops his weirdo too-intense attention and turns to the important task of devouring everything Ali just put in front of him.

Alison turns her head at the pronounciation of his name. Its.. sock? It sock? Huh. Okay. "Nice to meet you!" She generally has to make something of an effort to burn someone's face to their name, but Itzhak is a pretty memorable name, at least for her. By the time she's done mentally playing with it as if it were a particularly stretchy string of cheese from a quality pizza, she's picked up a washcloth once more and is wiping down the counter. Not that it needs any more work at this point.

"I guess you're liking that well enough? I never quite know what to think of the omelettes here after I had this one snooty woman come in and hardly picked at it. I like them well enough! Nick usually gets it right.." Alison pauses for a moment, trying to remember.. "Missus Robbins, or something?" She shrugs. Off on a bit of a tangent anyways.

Itzhak has a seriously memorable face too, with that nose. Memorable voice, with that acerbic accent where everything somehow sounds like an insult. He pauses for breath halfway through to look at Alison, eyebrows up. "Don't let 'em get to ya. It's a fuckin' omelet. How bad can it possibly be?" There's that graciousness New Yorkers are renowned for. He goes back to eating. He's not a small dude, he needs to fuel all that height.

When he's done, he permits Ali to bus the plate. It's obvious when he's done because nothing remains. He picks up the coffee and he's looking at her again.

"You got it," he says, quietly. "Don't ya?"

Alison gives a little smirk at the statement about the omelet. "Well, you didn't ask if the eggs were free range, so that might be the difference."

She grabs the plate when he's done with it, offers a refill on the coffee and provides it if he says yes. Her gaze meets Itzhak's and she stares back at him. In this moment, she can't help but notice the shine around him. The gears in her head turn her head, and she puts a few of the little islands of confusion in her life over the past few years together into a neat little archipelago of possibility.

"..if you're talking about what I think you're talking about, I swear I didn't use it on you." she spits out in a hushed tone. Her cheeks go full on red, nearly matching her lipstick, the hairs on the back of her neck stand up straight as a rush of adrenaline courses through her veins, sensing that she's in for some Serious Shit.

Itzhak's expressive eyebrows pop right up. He glances around very casually, like he's checking to see if it's raining or something, and while he's at it he clocks every other person in the room. "Settle down," he murmurs into the mug, turning back to Ali. Damn him, he's smirking again. "I didn't say nothin' about using it on me."

Alison calms down.. a little bit. Okay, so he doesn't mean anything threatening by it, probably. Her voice stays low, sort of conspiratorial in tone, and leans close to him from her side of the counter. "The only time someone's asked me something like that before, this guy was being an asshole so I just kinda tried to.." She tilts her head, making a gesture of a sort. "And he got even madder." Alison breathes out reeeeal slow, then sucks in another breath. "He was kinda.. bright, like you, you know?" She chews on her lower lip lightly, second guessing what she's saying to this stranger. The diner's relatively empty, but.. jeez.

"Yeah. Like me. Like you. I don't see it. I hear it." Itzhak stays where he is, letting Alison lean close, but not leaning in himself. That would really look suspicious. Better to let it seems like she's flirting with him, maybe. "Listen, you gotta be careful with that. People die in this town." He's talking quietly, between sips of coffee, making every effort to seem like they're having any random conversation.

"..like me?" She kinda looks down at herself, then at her arms, as if she's not seeing it in the same way that Itzhak does. "I don't use it much, only when things are about to get out of hand.." This is not entirely truthful, but it's not an outright lie either. Alison closes her eyes again and lets out another long sigh, then standing back up straight. "You're not the first person who's mentioned that. Be right back."

Alison walks over to the stereo system and fumbles with the phone plugged into it. Another waitress questions her as she's swiping through it, and she answers her with the flash of a middle finger. A track from A Perfect Circle's Mer de Noms starts playing as she walks back to Itzhak. She's back to blushing again. "Um, anything else I can get you?" she asks in more of a normal volume.

Itzhak's treacherous capillaries take Alison's blush as a perfect excuse to start up their own. Itzhak curses and rubs his cheek. "Quit it, you're makin' me do it. People are gonna talk." He grins at her though, saucily, as he goes red for literally no reason whatsoever. At her question, he presents her with the coffee cup and a soulful look (which those eyebrows do exceptionally well). "Warm me up. Hey, this's a good album." Like they were not just talking about dying and seeing, or hearing, the way some people can shine.

Alison giggles a little bit, but it's more of a nervous titter than anything, given her emotional state. She grabs a coffee pot off of the warmer and tops Itzhak's mug off with a smile. And then overfills it, sending coffee dripping to the counter below it. "Fuck! Sorry." She grabs a rag and wipes it off the counter.

Itzhak now rears back from the dangers of spilling coffee. The liquid does something funny. It doesn't go near him, like there's a hydrophobic coating on the counter nearby him. Not a single drop hits him.

"Whoa, gettin' a little carried away there." He stands up. Oh yeah, he's tall af. "Lemme get outta ya hair, huh?" Itzhak pulls out his wallet, puts down a couple bills. "Keep the change." Then he quirks an eyebrow at her and saunters his narrow ass out of the diner.

Alison droops a bit at her fuckup. Well, it was inevitable, really. "Sorry! Thank you!" She kinda trails off a bit there. "Come again.." and rests her face on the counter. Fuck.