2019-11-23 - As Jewish As Heartburn

It's well past dusk when a phone call comes in on Itzhak's cell instead of the garage's service line from a blocked number. Whether he answers it or lets it go to voicemail, the message is the same. "Got a tin can that needs recycling. Be there in ten." Before the line goes dead.

It is in fact eleven minutes before a vehicle pulls up out in the bay, a single honk on the horn to alert the mechanic to roll up the door.

Itzhak growls something in Yiddish at his phone. He recognizes the voice. Voices are how he recognizes people, better than faces. When HONK HONK happens out front, he whaps the bay door switch and waves Cris in, glowering.

A very shiny new Escalade is quickly brought into the bay, champagne with silver trim, custom wheels and leather interior. It's a sweet ride. It's an expensive ride. And one that will be worth more as a sum of parts rather than a whole. Cris clicks off the engine and pops the driver's side door, swinging one booted foot out before he slides out of the SUV. He's dressed in dark blue jeans and a black ribbed sweater with a zipper front, driving gloves and a grey beanie, looking every part the sort of douche who would drive such a vehicle. "S'up." He asks simply before tossing the key fob in Itzhak's direction.

Itzhak hits the switch again to close the bay door and swallow up the ill-fated Escalade. "The fuck did you get that thing?" he says, irritated and impressed despite himself. He snatches the keys out of the air, whips them around once to smack into his palm. "Nevah mind. I don't wanna know." Already toting up how much he can move each part for, Itzhak glances at Cristobal, sidelong.

Cristobal looks up and to the side for a second with one eye crinkling at the corner as Itzhak asks his initial question then immediately takes it back. "Yeeeeah, better you don't know. Plausible deniability, buddy." He starts plucking at the fingertips of the skin tight gloves, loosening their fit around his knuckles before he can slip them free entirely. "Careful." He says cheekily, "Don't scratch the paint." Even though they both know it'll end up ten different colors in the end.

Itzhak hates doing this. He hates it and that fact is obvious in every taut line of his six-foot-and-change height. Stalking around the Escalade, he kicks one of the gleaming black tires. "Fuckin' thing ain't lost her cherry yet." Grudgingly, "This's a good score."

"Well if you want, we can Christen the back seat, I got time." But apparently the offer is flippant as Cristobal tucks his gloves in his back pocket and is moving towards the little customer area. "It better be fucking worth me driving two hours of back roads with it." Catching a little air, he flops down into one of the chairs, slinging a long leg over the upholstered arm and draping his torso over the other. An arm crooks over his head in a 'draw me like one of your french girls' repose. He gives a mighty yawn that draws off with a, "Shiiit."

"Yyyyeah it'll be worth it," Itzhak mutters--then, rewinding what Cris said, snaps a sharp glance over at him. "Did you seriously just ask to fuck me in the back seat?" he says, tone escalating on aggravated surprise. "Was the camgirl thing not enough for ya?"

"Please. If I were seriously going to ask you to rut on that fine imported leather, I would have done something like..." Cris thinks on it a second, "Started with a compliment. A real one. Probably something about your hands or your soulful eyes. Made my voice all quiet into that velvet rumble. Slowly backed you up against the fender. Pressed my knee in between your thigh, slid my hand low on your back to tease just inside your waistband....and then asked to fuck you."

He pulls the knit beanie off his head, scrubbing his fingers through his hair to masterfully rearrange it without the aid of a mirror. "And ElijahCoxx626 is a camguy thank you very much. To which you actually bare an uncanny resemblance so that was actually an earnest come-on. But! August has since made me see the error of my way."

Itzhak stands there and stares at Cris in mounting disbelief as he goes on. He also starts turning red. A long beat of silence passes after Cristobal is done. No, make that two beats. Two very. Long. Beats. Until Itzhak reanimates and says, "Please," in a finely honed tone of Yiddish disgust. "My eyes. For fuck's sake." Haha, he's still red as he stomps over to the huge terrarium (currently covered in a thick blanket, so what it actually is may be difficult to tell) and pluck a couple of nitrile gloves from the box of them.

As he wedges his big knuckly hands into the gloves one by one, he snorts and shakes his head. "Well, Elijah got a good Jewish name, so good for him."

"And that's Coxx with two x's." Cris raises his hand with the requisite number of fingers, giving them a little wiggle. "I thought it was clever. Three x's would have been too obvious." He serpentines his spine slightly to get into a more comfortable position in the chair, making himself right at home. "Piscinas-verdes marrones como tierra húmeda y cubierta de musgo después de la lluvia. Madre tierra dando la bienvenida a su suave abrazo. I'll give you it sounds much better in Spanish. Brown-green pools of wet, mossy soil after the rain. Like Mother Earth welcoming me into her soft embrace."

Itzhak pops open the passenger door, half-climbs in with a screwdriver between his teeth, one long leg still hanging out. He begins dismantling the stereo with absentminded ease. "Jeez, this is fancy," he mutters to himself--then leans out and squints at Cris.

"I'll say this much for ya, I ain't ever been compared to an earth mother before." At least he sounds more amused than annoyed now? "Hey, kick over that empty cardboard box, willya?"

"First time for everything." Cris mutters sleepily, his eyes half-lidded but still shining with vague amusement. At the request for the box, his gaze shifts sidelong to the mentioned container as he seems to weigh the negatives of moving against the charitable nature of dropping his foot to the ground and giving it a shove. In the end, he just rolls himself out of the chair and languidly droops to pick it up and tote it over the old fashioned way. "Your hands though. Those were meant for prayer."

"Thanks." Itzhak flicks his fingers at the box to indicate Cris ought to set it down. He pulls the flatscreen free from the console and lays it tenderly in the box. Ka-ching. "Okay, wait, what, prayer?" He squints at Cris, then goes back to sticking his screwdriver and his gloved hands into the console. "Should I ask? Or are you just gonna tell me."

Cris sets the box on the ground as silently instructed, taking a half step back but lingering now to watch Itzhak work. "Long fingers. Well kept nails." They have to be, given the violin, but that's a detail Cris doesn't know yet. "Lined with sinewy, strong tendons." He suspiciously takes another step backwards. "You know the kind." Steeeeep back. "That make you cry 'Oh Dios Mio!'" And then he play flinches, as if expecting that screwdriver to be flung at him.

"Yeah, well, you play a string instrument, you gotta take care of your nails," Itzhak mutters. He's still waiting to hear the part about 'prayer' as the hands Cris is so admiring tug this and disconnect that and turn screws in rapid little twists. Then oh Dios mio! and Itzhak goes beet red, glaring at him. Nothing playful about this glare. He means it. Then he snorts, rolling his eyes. "Guess I walked right into that one. Look, you should know something." He ducks back in to ease out electronic components, set them in the box. "I can't fuckin' tell the difference if you're screwin' around or if you're seriously comin' onto me, okay? I'm autistic. I don't fuckin' know these things. So if there's a hint you're tryin' to drop here, do us both a favor and just say it."

Cristobal actually has the audacity to look cowed by that, his hands getting shoved deep into his pockets and his gaze averting as a hardness comes to his jaw line. He looks as if he wants to say something, testing the words first on his tongue and rolling them around in the depths. What he's left with just doesn't taste right, so instead he opts for, "I'm an asshole, not a monster." Which does little to clarify anything really as he steps away, zeroing in on the coffee maker.

Itzhak sticks his head out of the car, scowling, watching Cris step away. He's pretty sure he said something wrong again. "I don't know what the hell you mean by that," he calls after him, lip curled.

"It means yes, in my fucked up way I'm hitting on you because I find you attractive. Presented under the guise of kidding around so neither of us has to take it seriously. Providing a convenient 'out' for both of us, if you will, so no actual feelings will be hurt at the inevitable denial." Cristobal gets takes on the air of a professor, picking his english words carefully so he can convey his thoughts properly. He's even gesturing with his coffee cup like he's presenting an argument to a classroom. "If I were to be accused of having actual feelings."

Itzhak observes all this, eyebrows squinched together. He listens, too, as intent as if he really was a student and Cristobal was presenting him with a lecture. "...Okay. Right, yeah. That thing," he says, at the conclusion, one eyebrow quirking up when Cris defends himself against the idea of having feelings. "I know that thing. It's fine, just," he rolls one wrist in a circle, mouth twisting. "I don't mind bein' flirted with, just don't get mad at me when I don't do it back. Because that's a thing too, that I've had a lot of lately."

Whew, Itzhak was not kidding around about 'just saying it'. He just lays it out there, boom boom boom.

"See, now we're communicating." Cristobal takes a sugar packet and flicks it with the nail on his middle finger before ripping off the top. "We've come to an understanding. I'm well aware you aren't interested, so my over the top flirtations look like just an exaggerated flamboyance on my part. You have no guilt in ignoring them and I am saved the embarrassment of being shot down because seriously, who would actually expect that shit to work." He sits down a little more carefully now, if only because he has a cup of hot coffee. He's totally leaning back into his lazy drape.

Itzhak grunts. He gets out and strips the gloves off. "Yeah, well, for what it's worth you're real goddamn hot and under different circumstances I'd totally drill you in the bathroom of a gay bar." Now he heads for the coffee, too. Coffee makes all awkward conversations better! "You probably know that shit works just fine."

"At least in the bathrooms of gay bars." Cristobal says lightly, his head pillowed back on an arm and his coffee resting on the meat of one thigh. "You'd drill me, would you? Good to know I'm not the only Vers boy in this town." His eyes close, but the conversation continues. "It was probably that punch you threw at karaoke to finally make Javier jump your bones, hmm? He does love a good spirit."

"Don't knock the gay bar bathroom, it's a time-honored tradition," Itzhak says dryly, pouring coffee, and snorts in real amusement when Cris calls him vers. "I don't believe in just doin' one thing or the other. Why wouldn't I do everything? S'ridiculous."

Oh no. Then...then he shoves the carafe back on the heater a little too rough, rattling the coffee maker, his shoulders going tight. "Are you gonna sit in my shop and talk about de la Vega to me?" he snaps.

Cris cracks one eye back open, "I thought we already were talking about de la Vega as one of your 'circumstances'. Jesus fucking Christ." Though even at the taking the lord's son's name in vain, he cross himself and kisses his thumbnail. "I might not be trying to curl your toes anymore but I at least was trying to be friends with you, Itzhak."

Itzhak mutters in Yiddish. "Gembeh." He runs one long-fingered, inked hand through his black curls. Then he saunters over to join Cristobal, flumping in one of the other armchairs and propping a boot on the battered coffee table. He eyes him with uncertain aggression.

"There's barely any queer guys in this fuckin' town. We gotta stick together," is what he says, after a few moments during which his clear, complexly-striated hazel eyes studied Cris like a bug in a jar. "So nu, we can be friends. How'd you know. About me and him."

Cris makes a little smug 'hmm' sound as Itzhak says they can be friends, giving a smile like he's all too pleased with himself as he wiggles down in his chair to settle back in, instead of needing to be poised to spring away. "I was trying to find you, you know. After you popped me in the mouth. Even employed one of the grifters who tipped me off about your garage." And that they might be employed by the same man, but he leaves that part out. "You don't think it was a coincidence I brought Sutton's bike in here, do you? Buuuuut, between making that plan and its execution, they had their tiff. She walked out. She's the one that told me about him and you. Could've happened a little bit sooner for my liking, but. Whaddyagonnado."

"Coincidence, maybe not, but maybe I flattered myself that you wanted the best wrench in town." Itzhak isn't even kidding. He really does think he's better than Jack or Zoe, from the utmost seriousness he says that with. Like an asshole. He delicately slurps the hot coffee. Then he sighs, slouching low, rubbing his forehead with two fingers and suddenly looking quite tired. "I didn't wanna cause him no trouble," he murmurs. His eyes flick back to Cris, a vulnerability in their clear depths. "You sleepin' with her?"

It could be so offensive, that question, with just a hint of inflection here and there in the Yiddish fashion. But Itzhak doesn't do that. He asked with all sincerity.

"The only one in danger of causing him trouble, is the man himself. He'll either learn or he won't. You don't protect a tesoros because it is weak. You protect a tesoros because it is precious." Cris lulls his head to the side so he can meet that gaze with his own sharp blue one. As to the question of Sutton, "No. I am not." And for all the bullshit that Cruz can slather on, the words seem to come with a straight forward truth. "Don't get me wrong, I'd bounce that ass like a red rubber ball, but I know better than to stick my dick in a blender. And that situation, my new friend, is a kitchen accident waiting to happen."

Itzhak presses the pads of forefingers and thumb against his eyes. "Christ, I can't argue with that." He huffs a startled laugh at the line about the bouncing the ass and the rubber ball, but glances at him more seriously about the dick in the blender. "No kidding, right? Man, I feel bad, though. I didn't..." Itzhak trails off, a pensive expression surfacing on his mobile face.

"Didn't what?" Cris tilts his head slightly, chasing after Itzhak's gaze should it stray. "Mean to fuck up their relationship? You didn't. From what I understand they had an open relationship. That requires communication. Balance. And when one side shifts...the whole house of cards collapses. That's why I got out from underneath it before it all caved in. Back to bar bathrooms for me." He finally sips his coffee, waffling between wanting sleep and wanting to be awake for the conversation. Conversation apparently won.

"No, I know I didn't," Itzhak says, but he doesn't look so much like he knows it. More like he's trying to talk himself into knowing it. "I ain't the monogamous type either, but...just..." His voice closes up a touch, and he shakes his curly dark head. "Fergeddit. You look like you need a nap, buddy boy."

"Tesoros, my friend. Tesoros." Cris shifts again, this time to add his second leg to the hitch of the first. It seems that nap is going to happen right here and now, taking full advantage of that whole 'customer' lounge thing. "Not monogamous, but won't fuck me either. Now that I take offense to." But if that smirk on his features is any indication, the bullshit is back but to clarify for Itzhak's comprehension he politely adds. "Kidding."

Itzhak rolls his eyes. "I don't know if you're calling him that or calling me that or what." A little unfortunately, Cris' smirk doesn't telegraph to him that the bullshit is back in flow, and Itzhak says, quiet, "I ain't here to fuck nobody on command." He's looking down at his coffee, but the flourish of menace in his voice is unmistakable. ...Then Cris says 'kidding' and Itzhak sighs through his teeth. "Right. You were messin' with me. Okay. Nevah mind." He rakes a hand through his curls. "You can sack out," he tells him.

"I'm saying if you fuck something more than once, you give it the respect it's due. Whether that's one person or three. That's all." Cris slings his arm over his eyes, obscuring half of his expression from being readable. "If you fuck on command that makes you a prostitute, and I've never paid for it in my life. I was right about you, the first time we met. You have the fire of the devil in your belly. And before you puff up again, that's what drew me to you. So it's not a bad thing. Just maybe something we have in common."

Itzhak makes a long, Jewish sound through his magnificent nose, turning red again. Sure, he'll puff up and snarl and storm, but compliment his fire and he goes all bashful. "Ehhhhhh," is what that sounds like. "I, uh. I guess I ain't used to that drawing people so much as driving 'em off," he admits, wry.

"Are you kidding? To a Latino that's like a flame to a moth. Fire is passion. It's heart." And to demonstrate, Cris is upsetting his lazy cat curl enough to pull down the collar of his sweater so it exposes a portion of the tattoo on his pectoral. A traditional Catholic Sacred Heart, in all its burning and arrow pierced glory.

Itzhak cranes over, stretching his long damn neck, eager to see. "Aww, sweet!" he says, genuinely interested. "I always thought that looked Jewish, you know? All pierced with arrows and everything. Seems Jewish. Plus, what's more Jewish than heartburn?" And he flashes Cris a lopsided half-grin. "...I guess now that you mention it, he does like that about me." He doesn't bother clarifying who 'he' is; he figures he doesn't need to.

Cris lifts his head slightly to look down at his own ink, considering the Jewish angle. "Maybe if it had a shroud over it? Aren't y'all usually draping everything?" His eyes flick over Itzhak's grin, mirroring it with one of his own before his head flops down and he releases the fabric so it snaps away from the tattoo. "Mmm. Told you. So keep burning bright, little candle. It'd be a shame to hide that light."