2019-11-17 - City of Roses

Portland! The place is full of hipsters in bizarre outfits with bizarrer beards, people riding bikes that are welded-together monstrosities (Itzhak actually yelled at someone going by, "YA CHAIN IS GONNA DROP OFF LIKE THAT!"), street buskers trying to out-grandstand each other, and breweries. So. Many. Breweries. As many breweries as the average Portlandian has facial piercings.

Today a break in the rain has people out and about. A girl in green hair and neck tattoos tried to offer Izthak and Isolde a flyer on the benefits of veganism. Somewhere there's a guy riding a unicycle while playing a flaming bagpipe (Itzhak was entranced by that, working out how he built it). Portland is weird with a capital W. Itzhak kind of feels like he crossed the border into the Veil again, but he didn't. Shit really is just this weird here.

Itzhak is picking breweries based on how much he likes their logos or names, so this one is called Ecliptic and it has a space theme. All their brews are named after astronomical phenomenon. The places here offer flights of six or so samples, and he's busy trying them all at a table with Isolde.

Isolde is pretty proud of herself so far on this trip. She hasn't had any meltdowns, or gotten Lost, though her sleep seems a little more fitful it helps that she isn't sleeping alone. She also hasn't tried venturing back to the homefront. Although she is positive that they passed it at least once so far.

"This place is so busy! Is Seattle like this?" Isolde wondered idly. She wasn't sure if she liked it. Well, it was Portland so no - she didn't like it - but the busy-ness of it all in general. Though there's not a lack of vendors or things to watch. She's definitely accumulated a few new pieces of jewelry that she may or may not ever wear but they look neat!

"The Aurora Borealis. How did they get it this teal color??" Isolde asks as she looks at one of the samples. Studying it skeptically before braving a sip.

In prowls a tallish guy in a black leather jacket and jeans and ball cap, hands jammed into the jacket's pockets, expression one of being taken briefly off guard by the girl who slides by and checks him out. Which is, naturally, returned in a lingering fashion before he casts a glance about for the friends he's meeting here.

Thankfully, that huge nose is hard to miss. A flicker of something in his mien; warm, fond. Then it's shoved away again, and he ambles on over.

"Nah, Seattle ain't like this, not what I saw of it. It's busy but not crazy." Itzhak is trying to hide that his stomach is twisted up like a pretzel. He is so anxious and he's just blustering his way through like nobody notices. It helps, in a weird way, that Isolde needs him. He can be strong for her, protect her, be her shield. Any of that for himself, not his best skill. He's spent a lifetime being bad at doing anything good for himself.

Like any of his kind, he's keeping a weather eye on the door while he drinks and talks with Isolde, teasing her, trying to get her to smile. He looks over to find Ruiz making his way over, and flashes half a nervous grin at him. "Hey!" He waves him to a chair. They've ordered some of the 'elevated bar food' that all the places here do: sweet potato fries (a PNW staple), chicken wings with mango habanero salsa. "Uh, you guys know each other." Haha, he knows how they know each other. Awkwaaaard.

Isolde has resolved herself to definitely be an adult about things. It helps they are hanging out in a public place and that she has more or less done her best to compartmentalize any negative feelings that she may be harboring for the situation. Which, there weren't many. Mostly just the...jealousy. BUT there was no thinking about that right now. Instead she was mildly fascinated about how this beer tasted less like beer and more like a blueberry. "Weird." She murmured, though lifted her gaze to look at Ruiz when he arrived. There was a beat of hesitation - like she had no idea how the fuck to address him. "Hey." There we go. That works. "Thanks for the cigarette the other day."

She summons up an easy enough smile and then looks back to Itzhak. "Know is a pretty strong word. He didn't know my real name until he became friends with Alexander." And even then he didn't know it was HER until she had summoned him to the house to help Alexander. She motioned to one of the empty seats. "How's Portland so far?"

"Hola." Ruiz's greeting is just as equaniminous, dark eyes alighting upon Isolde, paired with a sudden and rather devastating smile. He must save those for special occasions.

After a moment's consideration, he slides in next to Itzhak, settling with a brush of contact, though no attempt to greet the man with any public displays of affection; that ball is left firmly in the other man's court. "Portland's Portland, he replies with a chuckle, sliding off his hat and rifling inked fingers through his hair. "De nada," he adds, for the cigarette, and reaches for a yam fry.

"I like the decor," he admits, tacit approval of Itzhak's choice in venue. "Wouldn't mind a place or two like this back home." Whenever Gray Harbour became home.

Itzhak thwaps Ruiz very light on the shoulder with the backs of his fingers, the same kind of thing perfectly hetero dudes would do to a friend. "How's by ya." He looks around at the place. "You heard they wanna put a casino in back home?" Home, there's that word again. Oh God, now he has to do something. This was his idea. The burden is on him to do something.

He buys himself a moment with a swig out of one of the small glasses. Then he blinks, licking his lips. "That tastes like a sour peach ring. Weird. But, good? I think?" He has another sip to help himself decide, then sets it down and looks between Isolde and Ruiz and...has a moment of 'wow. Look what I get to do.' that makes his tense face relax and his eyebrows drift up. He can't hide these things!

"It's great to have ya both here," he says, smiling in that lopsided way.

Smart move de la Vega, because both men can tell she is watching them like a hawk might watch their prey. Isolde doesn't seem to be quite conscious of this until Itzhak speaks up about the casino. It's weird. Seeing the grumpy Captain smiling. Chuckling. Isolde isn't sure how she feels about it.

She swallows hard - covering it up with another drink from her 'Aurora Borealis'. "You gonna play at if it they do?" Isolde asked, curious. And then stifles a giggle as some kind of image crosses over her mind. "This one tastes like a Blueberry something. Not a poptart. But a something." Isolde nudged the cup that had very little left in it. Do. Not. Be. The. Madson. Isolde silently reminds herself.

"About as close to space as we'll ever get hm?" Isolde looked around at the decor again. Her smile is a little more genuine at Itzhak's followup comment. It's clear she has an enormous amount of feelings for the man. "It'll be fun." It's definitely said more trying to convince herself.

Then she finally looked at Ruiz again. "...So. It feels like everyone who knows you calls you by like 6 different things. What would you like me to call you?"

Has he heard about the casino? De la Vega's slight smile says that, yes, he has some idea. And by some idea, probably a lot. "I heard," is all he offers on the subject, smile lingering at the thwap to his big shoulder, then sliding away as he reaches for one of the glasses. A sip, and he does a funny thing with his eyebrows. "Hm." Hard to say if that's praise or excoriation.

"Javier's fine." His reply comes after a long pause, gaze flicking between the two of them, gears in his head turning. "And Itzhak speaks very highly of you." Just that, though there may be an implication there that isn't verbalised.

Itzhak's kvelling, looking at Isolde with fond pride. Look at all those complex sentences! Then, whoops, he turns bright red and rubs his fingertips through his black curls, all of his embarrassed self-conscious tells firing off like flares. "Uh, I do," he says to Isolde like he's confessing something. "And uh, I know I haven't told you so much about de la Vega--" okay, he's sleeping with the man, but he's still calling him by his last name? "so I just, thought you guys could get to know each other a little better." There. That's something.

"Javier." Isolde repeats. Though instead of an Americanized lit, it's got a French one. "Then you can call me Isolde." Not Izzy. Not any other nicknames one might derive. Just, Isolde. At least it's her real name though yeah? That's something. She's really trying to relax. This shouldn't even be a thing. It's not like she's against anything, it's just. Isolde finishes off her drink. "What did yours taste like?" She asks Ruiz, curiously - noting his reaction to the drink. There's a tinge of red on her cheeks, though it's a little difficult to make out with all the freckles that cover her face and the red hair to boot.

"I'm glad. Hearing that." She thinks? It sounds like a good thing. There's a brief little look that crosses her features. Like she's got something she wants to say, and then tugs at her hair a little instead. "Uhm. What do you wanna know?" Because she's not about to go spilling her life story to her boyfriend(?) ...they exchanged the L word. They had to be at least that kind of official right? Anyway. She wasn't going to start spilling everything to Itzhak's newest side piece. Who really had that tall, dark, and smoldering thing down and probably knew- oh god. Isolde could feel her cheeks getting redder at the thoughts whirrling around her mind. So she grabbed some of the sweet potato fries to distract herself.

Yes, well, you know. Just meeting your boyfriend's piece of ass on the side. As one does. "Isolde." He even tries not to add any extra syllables; and her pronunciation of his name seems to meet with his approval, considering the enunciation is vaguely French.

He watches her for what might be an uncomfortably long moment before tipping his glass toward his mouth and downing another healthy swallow. "Ginger. I think." The glass is set on the table, and a weathered thumb chases the rim. He's trying not to smile at the look on her face but it's a challenge.

"How'd you two meet?" he settles on after a while, dark eyes flicking to Itzhak to watch him, too, start doing his best impression of a tomato, before looking back to the redhead.

Itzhak shoots a mildly panicked side glance at Isolde. Don't blush! You'll make him do it worse! Aaaaand it happens. Resigned, he rubs the proud bridge of his enormous nose. He is red from hairline to collar, and as they both know, probably down his chest as well. "Uh. Murray House." Itzhak makes a face, shakes his head to indicate he won't talk about that further. "But then it turned out we were neighbors and it also turned out Izeleh is really cute. So I asked her out. ...And Alexander. At the same time." Because apparently he feels the need to stomp on the accelerator no matter what he's doing.

Isolde seems satisfied with his pronunciation of her name too. Allowing the briefest of smiles to flit over her features. If she's uncomfortable by the staring, she doesn't show it. In fact, Isolde watches him right back. They've done this dance before too. Though it was a vastly different sort of tension that Isolde was grappling with now.

"Ginger is gross. Unless it's Ginger Ale." The comment is so blunt. So sincere. She leans her arms on the table for a moment. Thinking about Ruiz's question on how she and Itzhak met. And then...Isolde laughs. It's a real laugh too. Short, startled even, but real. "But we didn't really. Meet at the Murray house. We just saw each other."

"We met because of you." She points to Ruiz briefly before looking over the three remaining cups. "You broke Alexander's door. Itzhak helped me fix it." Then she nods again. "And then he asked us both out. And. It was cute." She flashes Itzhak a smile.

The Murray house comment gains a speculative look, like Ruiz is filling that one away in his mental Rolodex. It's not remarked upon, however.

As it comes to light that Itzhak asked the both of them out simultaneously, he slides the lanky mechanic a look like, you sly dog and this time he's definitely smiling. Not quite dimples territory, but crow's feet galore. Then his glass is tipped toward Isolde to indicate her, and he murmurs, "I'm sorry about that, by the way." He is, by the looks of him. "And the other time, too." He probably means the one that ended in Alexander trying to get him to eat his own gun. He falters a moment, then sips. "It's better than it sounds." The drink.

"I, yeah, shit, I forgot about that!" Itzhak gives up, covers his face and laughs and laughs. The way both Ruiz and Isolde are looking at him, he can't take it. He surfaces rumpled and grinning shyly. "Yeah. I showed Izeleh how to fix a door knocked off its damn hinges." He still doesn't know what's in that room that Isolde wanted to hide. He's never asked.

Ice water is required; he takes a long drink of something that isn't beer. "What can I say, you're both adorable," he tells Isolde with that crooked grin.

The next natural thing to say is how Ruiz and he met, and he doesn't know how the hell to do that.

"Can't blame him. Alexander is cute." Isolde mused, there's a bit of a smirk when she sees the look Ruiz gives Itzhak and then picked up a more caramel colored cup. "It's okay. The door is fixed and Alexander is okay. " And you're okay. Isolde doesn't speak the words, but they're implied. Somewhat. Ruiz was Alexander's friend and therefore, Isolde had to worry for his safety and well being at least a little bit. She eyes the drink he has, sets down the one she picked up, and holds out her hand. "I don't believe you." And she also clearly expects him to give her cup so she can sip and see what this Ginger-beer-concoction tastes like.

Nope. Isolde doesn't seem to care about how he and Ruiz met. Okay. She super cares. On some level. But she's not asking yet.

Not asked, not offered; the man seems fiercely private, though that could likely change with enough alcohol in his system.

Then the challenge is made, and Ruiz spends another moment or two studying the woman across from him. Like he's trying to sort out something about the pretty redhead. Finally, a chuckle, and he passes the glass across. It's held from the bottom, knuckles inked, nails short, fingers heavily callused. "Ver por ti mismo," he offers, warmth still at the corners of his eyes, and in that low, smoky murmur.

Itzhak is mid-swallow when Isolde demands the glass and Ruiz offers it over. He has to gulp hastily so he doesn't choke out of surprise and pure, unadulterated fluster. The looks he shoots Ruiz is pretty damn appreciative. Does Itzhak dare think things might be going okay? MAYBE. With the amount of anxiety and beer in him, his instinct is to start talking and never stop, but he clamps down on it so he can watch, with the weird intensity he and Isolde and Alexander all share, Isolde take the glass from Ruiz. He watches like that is more important than absolutely anything else going on.

Isolde has absolutely zero issues seeing why Itzhak likes the guy on a surface level. He's fucking hot. And, with another glance between the two men, she can feel her face going hot again. When Isolde's emotions are running high - no matter what they are - there is this intense desire, consciously or subconsciously, for her to share these feelings. Thanks Glimmer. And, well, both men may get a very, very fleeting glimpse of the way her mental storm was churning.

As she mumbles something unintelligible in French as she takes the cup.Probably a thank you. There's the vaguest image. For only a second, of Itzhak and Ruiz in what could only be described as a scene right out of some kind of steamy romance novel. A flicker of passion, confusion, curiosity, jealousy, desire. All this whirlwind of emotion and this image in the blink of an eye. If it happened to slip through their mental defenses.

Isolde is too busy busying herself with a sip of this stuff to realize what she's done. What transpired in those few seconds. But damn if she wasn't still blushing bright red. There's a grimace as she swallowed the ginger-flavored beer. Sliding the cup back. "...Pas terrible, pas bon."

The French is out, apparently. Which tends to happen when her emotions are running high. Or she just wants to like, hide under a rock. Both of which are happening right now.

Things certainly seem to be going okay. Which is a miracle in itself, given the proclivity of both men toward foot in mouth disease. Ruiz is patient with the glass, holding it out like that until Isolde's ready to take it, dark eyes steady on her brighter blues. His fingers curl away when she relinquishes the thing from him, and pause mid-motion at that image that flickers across his senses. His brows twitch slightly with the intensity of it, like someone had grabbed him and shoved his face underwater for a few seconds.

He surfaces with an audible hiss of breath, a raspy exhale, and his thumb and forefinger brushed against one another to disperse the condensation that had accumulated on them. "Mais parfois, vous devez l'essayer avant de le savoir." His sentence structure's clunky, and his accent predictably sounds more Mexican than French. But most of the words are, in fact, correct. The glass is accepted back, and Itzhak's given a wink before he downs what remains of it.

Itzhak lets out a breath he'd been holding and not realizing it. For once, for this moment, luck is with him. Like the song says, Lady Luck is a fickle wench, and she might find some other fella to favor any second now, but for right now? She's smiling on him.

He catches it too, that sending of Isolde's sweeping past him like a kite on the loose. He lifts his head, looking up although there's nothing to see. 'Up' is just where he feels things happen in the kythe. "Great, now I can't understand either of ya," he says anyway, sassing the other two at once, and bows his head to ask Isolde quietly, "You doin' okay? You wanna head back?"

Isolde stares at Ruiz for a long moment, considering his words. And maybe a little bit surprised he clobbered together that sentence. Or bothered to at least. She's still staring when Itzhak speaks to her. She startles a bit and her throat clears, "Je vais bien je viens..." She realizes she's still talking French and looks a little sheepish. "I'm fine, I'm just..." Isolde drew in a breath and smiled again. "There's just a lot." She doesn't elaborate. Does she really need to? "I think I'm going to just step outside." Starting to stand up. Looking to Javier. "You're okay." For now. That was...probably a good thing?

A lot. The look on Ruiz's face suggests he gets that often. He is a lot. For better or for worse. Isolde's careful study is returned measure for measure, not even the slightest indication that the older man intends to back down from it. He waits for her to glance away, and by the time she looks back, he's studying his empty glass. His mind seems to be elsewhere, though the comment aimed his way drags his focus back. "Gracias." He taps the glass away with the tips of his fingers. "It was nice to see you again." He starts to stand, with the assumption that Itzhak will want to walk her back.

"Come with ya," Itzhak says to Isolde, standing up along with her. She goes out, and he looks after her with such an earnest expression of anxiety, it's painful. He lingers, though, to look at Ruiz, eyebrows up. As he maneuvers past him, he brushes the edges of their hands together, and murmurs low to him, "Thanks."

Isolde almost looks like she wants to tell Itzhak to just stay. But she holds her tongue. Instead - she looks to Ruiz again. "it was nice to see you too." Her voice is soft, but it sounds sincere at least. Then she's heading out, not really waiting for Itzhak. Though, she will wait outside, a few steps off from the entrance, watching one of the buskers performing.

There's an odd look on Ruiz's face as he watches Isolde depart, and then Itzhak a moment after. "De nada," is offered low to the lanky violinist. The touch to his hand gains an indistinct noise in his throat, dark eyes to hazel for a beat, before he drags his gaze away and resettles in the booth. Portland's a pretty welcoming city, to people like them. But there's apparently still a knee-jerk inclination toward caution in him. He signals for the waitress then, intent on trying whatever's on tap.