2019-12-28 - We Punch Our Feelings

Kelly's Gym is a great place to work out your issues, when hitting a heavy bag is preferable to knocking some unsuspecting innocent bystander's teeth out. Cristobal seems to be doing just that, working up a good sweat that has the pits and the line of his spine in his light grey tank turning dark with perspiration. At least he's taken the precaution of taping up his knuckles and ankles, otherwise at this rate they'd both be raw by now. He pauses in his onslaught against the inanimate object to hoist up his reusable water bottle, squirting the liquid into his open maw through the nozzle.

Itzhak rolls in, passing by Cris with a quick glance and a twitch of his eyebrows. He cruises on by to the lockers/showers in the back. When he comes back out he's in a soft, snug grey tank top of his own, soft light pants, and tugging on slim padded wraps around his hands. "Howsyadoin," he says offhandedly to Cris, focusing on velcroing down the straps around his narrow, sinewy wrists.

Whether or not it's just one of those polite questions that you're supposed to just answer 'good' too, Cristobal treats Itzhak to the full version of his current status. "Well, I stayed up all night reading and so I haven't slept for two days now. The things a person will do for a piece of tail, amiright?" He gives a bit of a mirthless chuckle filled with self deprecation. "What about you, Rosie, come to hit the bag to work out some of your own sexual frustration or are you tapped out in that department?" He indicates the bag with a tilt of his head in silent offer to hold it for his big nosed friend.

Itzhak squints up from his wrapping, grey hazel eyes landing on Cris. Maybe it was just a polite noise, something he'd learned people expect from him as a move in a social dance he's never understood, but he's not shocked to hear a real answer. "What's got ya not sleepin'?" He snorts, at that question, and blatantly doesn't answer. Instead he jerks his head to accept the offer of holding the bag, and sinks into the stance Joey Kelly is spending a long time grinding into him.

Cris moves around to the other side of the bag, holding it and leaning his weight against it to provide resistant force. "Screwed things up Dante. And for some fucked up reason, I'm feeling the need to redeem myself, so I started with reading one of his books he gave me." There is a shift of his shoulders in a shrug, trying to be dismissive. "This is why you should never dip your wick twice in the same oil."

Itzhak weaves in place, acquiring target, and--WHAP! His long left arm, covered in beautiful illustrative renditions of pomegranate branches and olive branches, lances out to pop the bag a good one. The bag shudders. But he only gets that far before he's boggling at Cris. "You were fucking Dante? The British guy's the writer?"

Cris gives a little grunt of encouragement at the first blow, but straightens up when it seemed to be a solo event. "Yuuuup. Guess it turns out I have a thing for buttoned up men in suits. Who knew? Maybe it's the accent. That's a thing, right? Not like we did much talking when we first met."

Itzhak grunts, gestures Cris back to holding the bag. "Didn't know. Yeah, he's hot as fuck. I rebuilt his engine for him. So, uhhh, what happened?" He steadies the bag with his right hand, then goes in with his left again. POP! Dude is left-handed, it seems.

Cris quickly leans back into the bag as Itzhak squares up for another shot, "If I went around bragging about every Tom, Dick, or Susie that I notched on my headboard, it would kinda limit the opportunity to add more, dontcha think? I mean, it wasn't that long ago that I was trying to add you to the list of conquests, so is it really that surprising you didn't know about it? It's not like he and I are holding hands and skipping through the snow flurries." But as to what happened? That darkens his features a little. "He found out what I really do for a living. And was less than understanding. Might have had something to do with me roughing him up a little."

Itzhak works the bag and works up a sweat, lip curled back in the sneer he always seems to get while using his fists. He's listening; it's easier for him to listen and think while doing something active, honestly. "That's why Isolde and Bex don't know," he mutters. "And why I feel like the world's..." huff, "biggest..." huff, "asshole because they don't." He spares a glance at Cris. "He like you roughin' him up?"

Itzhak's admission draws a sort of sympathetic wince from Cristobal, either that or Jewish Rocky is hitting the bag a little harder than he expected. With voice lowered, he asks, "You mean they don't know about del la Vega? But you guys are like, kind of a thing now, aren't you?" He snorts though about the question regarding Dante. "Not everyone takes assault as flirting. But no, he told me to get the fuck out and threatened to call the cops. Rightfully so. I mean, he let me back in eventually but...y'know I should just toss up my hands and find something new."

Itzhak laughs through his panting. "No, I mean--" whap! "they know about de la Vega," pop! "they don't know about...that other stuff." You know. That part where he and Cris are criminals beholden to Monaghan. That other stuff. He pauses, one long-fingered hand spread on the bag, and peers around it at Cris. Then he shakes his head in secondhand regret. "Ya roughed up ya guy and he didn't ask you to? You fucked up, boychik. Why'nt ya come to me or Kelly if you wanted to throw hands so bad?"

That's a bit more unsettling than the girls not knowing about de la Vega. Why? Because that means de la Vega knows what Itzhak does in that garage of his for Felix. The more de la Vega knows, the more Cris has to report that he knows. Cris' eyes turn away, but he stays holding the bag for Itzhak. "Did you know that my current assignment is keeping an eye on the Pee Dee, which includes what they do and do not know about our...dealings?" This apparently takes precedent over his own fucked up love life, and so Dante is shelved for the moment.

Itzhak looks at Cris, steadily, for a long moment. His forelock is kinda long, almost curls into his eyes. Then he goes back to his punching. "I know now." He wasn't at that meeting, was he? Why not? Monaghan moves in mysterious ways.

"So I don't really need to tell you that this is precisely the sort of thing that I'm supposed to report, right?" Even though, again, Cris just sort of did. "He's got something on you, doesn't he? Monaghan." Maybe he makes the connection that because Itzhak wasn't at that little meeting of the minds, that he's just a yes-man.

"You won't report it, though. Will ya." Itzhak doesn't stop slamming into that bag, harder now, his hazel eyes gone flinty. "Because I didn't say anything to you." His mouth tugs downwards, and he doesn't answer the question. Which is an answer in itself.

Cris considers this for a long time, his jaws working together in a slow grind of teeth set against each other. Finally he responds, "Didn't hear a damn thing. Now easy, Killer. You'll break something." Shit. Fuck. Damn. Cristobal's extending his proverbial neck here. Noose or ax, only time will tell.

Itzhak stops, abruptly, breathing hard. He stares at the bag. Then he looks Cris in the eye--and he never does that. He's always looking people in the shoulder or the chest or not at them at all. But now? Now his eyes lock on Cris's. The irises are clear gray, strongly streaked with green and brown pigment. Complicated as agate.

He steps around the bag and grips Cris's shoulder, wordless, his gaze unwavering.

You don't really notice how things like eye contact are lacking until it becomes so intense and focused. At first, Cristobal seems entirely unsure of that grip from Itzhak, tensing so much his trapezius muscles grow into taunt lines. So Cris does what he does best, and covers up any discomfort with a thick layer of machismo. "I don't know if you're about to punch me or hug me, but you're giving me a semi, man."

"I damn well better be givin' you a semi." Itzhak's mouth does something complex, part smirk, part wry twist. "Ain't you heard I'm a hot ticket? C'mon, spar with me." He lets him go, jerks his thumb at the ring, hiking his eyebrows invitingly.