2020-02-03 - The Sparrow & the Bowerbird

Monday afternoons are a sorta liminal space, tucked somewhere between the first push past the weekend and the rest of the week. All the initial oomph one might've mustered is spent, and the world just kinda goes quiet. Like here, in the game shop off Spruce where there are a total of absolutely zero customers. Even the music playing in the background is low-key and down-tempo, just low enough to properly fade into the background. Mostly. Almost. The redheaded clerk behind the counter bobs her head to that steady tempo while she takes notes from a textbook, fully focused on the work at hand while she waits for her next appointment. Post-class attire has her in jeans and a white and black sweatshirt, her fairly muted make-up favoring shades of blue the only real pop of color to her person today. Aside from the hair. There's always the hair.

Into this quiet liminal space the door to the shop opens, and a tall beaky guy walks in. He's dressed for the cold in a big black woolen peacoat, a thick knit cap, and a handsomely knitted scarf with a violin on one tasseled end. His jeans are close fit to damn long legs, and he's wearing sleek black steel-toe workboots, the kind that lace tight to the ankle. A glossy red rectangular instrument case is slung over his shoulder.

Coming in, he lifts his eyebrows at Sparrow. "Ya Sparrow, right? I can recognize the hell out of you." Whoo that New York accent, could scour a pot with it. There's only one tall, beaky, Jewish New Yorker in town, and here he is.

Sparrow doesn't peek up from her note-taking right away, working on an odd little diagram which might not be too difficult to pick out as some sorta chemical structure. Once that's done, pencil still, she looks up with a wide smile, so very pleased with the customer coming though the shop door. "The Mandoleer," she croons. "You were fucking fantastic at Winterfest. Don't thin I got the chance to mention it." With a wobble of her head, she adds, "And the magical manifestation of beer wasn't bad either." Straightening to start cleaning up her homework, she asks, "How ya been?"

Itzhak snorts, surprised and amused, eyebrows popping up further. "Mandoleer? ...that works. Technically it's 'mandolinist', like violinist, or guitarist, but I like yours better. Thanks, man, appreciate it. Park's quite a character, ain't she?" This coming from quite a character his own self. "Ehh, ya know, I'm not dead," he says, as to how he is, shifting in place and hoisting the strap of his case further on his shoulder. "Hey, I heard you read Tarot cards. Trade you a song for a reading." Invitingly he displays to her the cherry-red case.

Sparrow scrunches her nose at the technically correct term for what it is Itzhak does, rather preferring her own word as well. Even if there's not any active leering to go with it at the moment. "She's something, yeah. Supernice. Bigger dreams than me." That last bit sounds like it might come with a qualifier, but she doesn't actually add it on as she ducks down to tuck her textbook in the backpack hidden behind the counter. And then linger there for several seconds at the not about tarot, fishing around for her deck. When she pops back up, she studies the mandoleer slash violinist like she's weighing that offer rather seriously. "Can I pick the tone?"

Itzhak cranes to see over the counter, watching Sparrow do things. He's so frikkin' tall, it's easy for him. "Whatcha studyin' there? Chemistry?" Leaning back to let Sparrow come up, he grins a little hitched quirk of a grin at her. Lopsided, one corner of his mouth only. "Sure you can. Whatever you wanna hear. If I don't know it I can make it up." He unslings his case, sets to unbuttoning his coat and slithering out of it. Underneath he's wearing an ancient black hoodie with faded, flaking letters reading 'GHPD'. He's rather thin, even with the hoodie bulking him out a little. He is just a tall skinny guy.

"Chemistry," Sparrow echoes in easy confirmation. She tilts forward a little as he withdraws, as if following. Or trying to get a closer look at her subject. But she sinks back to her normal seated posture, briefly, at that answer, satisfied. "I know what I want." Easy. Setting a hand-sewn drawstring bag on the counter, the fabric a rainbow-colored abstract pattern, she slips from her stool to pick up another and walk around the counter to set it down for Itzhak, an offering of a seat. "Do you know what you want?" might have a few layers to it, the way her grin mirrors his, just the left corner edging up. But she clarifies, appending, "Whatcha wanna ask?" after just the tiniest pause.

Itzhak didn't expect to be followed, examined more closely, and he blinks at Sparrow as she does just those things. "Uh, hi there," he says, cautiously, like he's not sure that's the correct thing to say in this situation. The offer of a seat, though, he accepts, settling his narrow butt on the stool and hooking a bootheel through a rung. The violin case he sets on the floor next to the stool. He unwinds his scarf, too, and skims the knit cap off. No hair dye for him, his curls are jet black, just the way God bestowed them upon him. There might be a thread or two of silver in there, but it'd take looking to spot.

"What do I...what do you..." Sparrow is flustering him. Itzhak raises his hands, huffing a soundless half-laugh. "Okay, uh, startin' over. Do I have to tell you? It's kinda private."

Sparrow's hair looks to be black past all the red, raven-dark roots just starting to show, in need of a touch up. A bit more obvious than the faint glimpses of silver in the New Yorker's curls. Which don't seem to be of particular interest to the young punk at the moment, bright eyes attentively studying his features while he works toward that answer. With a little shake of her head, she promises softly, "No," that she doesn't need to know. Circling back to her side of the counter, toward the stool she'd been occupying a moment ago, she explains, "It's just gonna be up to you to make sense of whatever I tell you. Which, I guess, is kinda how it goes anyway? Just gotta be a bit more forgiving of the girl without context, yeah?"

The deck she pulls from the rainbow bag has a rorschach pattern in pale blue upon the back, the edges just soft enough to suggest a decent bit of use. "I'mma shuffle--" Which, really, she's already doing, the dark shimmery blue upon her nails a pleasant contrast to the lighter backs of the card. "--then you're gonna cut. Kinda give 'em a bit of your energy. I'mma pull three cards to start, and we can do more if you have any questions." Setting the deck in front of Itzhak to cut, she asks, "You ready?"

Itzhak's tense, expressive face relaxes a little. "Hey, you're doin' me a favor, I ain't gonna complain." He leans forward, elbow on his knee, growing intent on watching Sparrow's hands. "Okay," he mutters. "Question." And he thinks about it, concentrating on it, falling into focus. He's really staring at her hands on the cards as she shuffles.

She sets the cards in front of him, and he cuts with his left hand. The faded blue ink on those knuckles reads 'DOWN' ('STAY' is on his right hand). "Yeah. 'm ready."

Sparrow's hands are lovely, really. Hardly marked and well-manicured. Whatever calluses the drumsticks cause, they're hidden in those motions, on the insides of her fingers, her palms. She wears what might be a thin hematite ring around her left index finger, one of the few pieces of jewelry visible at all. If one counts the silver chain glimpsed past her collar, the pendant at its apex beneath her shirt. She, too, considers his hands, that fading ink, when he cuts, a curious look flicked upward, but that could be about anything really. Like that readiness. "Alright."

Drawing the deck back, she tucks it comfortably in her left hand as her right flips over three cards from left to right: the Seven of Pentacles, depicting a black-beaked brown bird building a nest with blue and yellow growth; the Six of Swords, reversed, showing a family rowing toward (or away from) a city in the distance; and the King of Wands, a fiery lion facing forward, wearing a crown that doesn't quite touch his head. She studies the cards for a moment before making any attempt at reading them. "This is the past," comes with a tap near the bird. "The foundation, yeah? Which seems good here. Talks about how you've put out effort, long term. To build a foundation. And might even be seeing some of that pay off." With a scrunch of her forehead, she mutters, "Cept then we get to this one, and." Her lips, tinted bluish this afternoon, purse as she looks up, eyes on Itzhak rather than the reversed Six as she goes on. "It's about stalled progress. Something in your way. Now." She might be checking to see if that rings right before moving on to the third.

Itzhak's hands are huge, bearing a full complement of mechanic's scars along with that ink that seems more than a little like prison ink. He's got a string player's callouses on his left hand, toughened spots on the tips of his fingers, along with a lot of simpler manual labor callouses on the pads and palms. No jewelry on his hands, or around his neck. The tip of another tattoo, this one maybe a flower or something, peeks out on his left wrist.

Leaning over the cards, he gets interested and engaged. "Ain't that a bowerbird? Like on David Attenborough? Little guy always pickin' the perfect blue stuff for his showing off and arranging it? Sure sounds familiar." The upside-down rowboat, he considers, and his eyes flick up to Sparrow's face, investigating her expression just as she looks at him, too. "Okay. Maybe you could show me a card about what's in my way. But yeah, tell me about this guy." His fingertip hovers over the leonine King of Wands. "He looks like a badass."

Sparrow's eyes go wide at that question, brows pitching upward. Yeah, she has no idea. That soft, uncentered smile she's wearing along with her big-eyed I dunno certainly seems approving if not insightful, delighted with this unexpected insight into the imagery. The smile only grows a bit at the request for another card, a nod offered as her right hand settles against the deck, ready to pull another. "He is," she confirms of the king. "Potential realized. And? More than that? Facilitated. Someone who can help others manifest their own visions." Her hand slips from the deck to point between the bowerbird and the king in a shallow arc, around the inverted boat. "It's a good trajectory. Hard work realized and paid forward, by my read." Without any context.

But there's that tricky bit in the middle. The stuck point. She flips the Hierophant onto the Six of Swords, a hand with two fingers and thumb pointing up, ring finger and pink curled inward, set atop crossed keys, a pale-eyed bear staring forward, all upon a splash of lavender and pink. "Rules," she ventures with a searching mix of surety and uncertainty. "I mean." Again, her darkly lined eyes lift to seek out his. "There are two very obvious answers here, and you're gonna have to figure out which it is, if not both. Either some sorta authority or red tape, some law or structure that's in your way, or." Her shoulders lift high in a shrug held for a couple of seconds. "You don't have the knowledge you need to move forward. And, I mean. Whichever it is? There's a chance that you're looking the wrong way. Maybe intentionally. Maybe turned away from the direction you need to be facing to go forward. Cuz fuck the system, yeah?" She flashes a hint of a grin. "If I read these two together."

The suggestion that there's authority in his way strikes home with Itzhak; he pulls back, rubbing his mouth with the back of his hand, looking more than a little spooked. "Yeah. Maybe all of the above." His voice has gone raspy. Then he gets his phone out. "Mind if I...?" gesturing with the phone towards the cards.

It takes a second for Sparrow to catch the faint glint of pride in her eyes, in the curl of her smile, and reel it back in to a more muted, faintly professional expression. "Yeah, sure," comes with a nod toward the cards, her hands drawn back a bit to make sure they're out of the shot. She doesn't press for payment yet, allowing him a moment to digest, allowing herself a moment to just watch.

Itzhak takes the picture, camera directly over the cards so it's clear what they are and how they're laid out. He tucks his phone away, and just stares at the four cards. Yeah, he really does look spooked. "Well, shit, you're good at this," he mutters. "That's fuckin' scary, how accurate that stuff is. Shouldn't be no surprise in this town, I guess."

After a couple of moments, he whooshes out a sigh and sits back, scruffing his fingers through his black curls. "Wow. Thanks." At last he looks up at her, realizes she's watching him, and blushes red.

The compliment conjures color to Sparrow's cheeks, though it has a long way to go before it matches the color of her hair. She lets out something of a laugh, just one airy little 'heh' in answer to that gratitude. And maybe that blush. Her own cheeks darken a bit as she becomes aware of her own staring, her growing grin, and her attention dips back to the cards to start collecting them and tucking 'em back into their bag. "I kinda go back and forth on it a bit. Sometimes? I'll lean right into the mysticism and let there be magic in it. I mean. This town, right?" That gets a wry purse of her lips as she tugs the drawstring tight. The bag drops onto her backpack with a dull thud as she looks up. "But sometimes? I think it's just what's in our own heads, yeah? We find the meaning we need, draw attention to what we already know. And I dunno that there's anything spooky about that." Her nose scrunches above a crooked curl of her lips, a little glimpse of self-consciousness before she redirects. "But yeah. I'm glad it meant something. Hope it helps. But now?" Her smile goes all wide, nearly ear-to-ear. "I want some romance. A proper serenade. However that translates."

"Spooky seein' it told back to you from a deck of cards, maybe." Itzhak rubs his cheek selfconsciously, knowing he's blushing. "Goddamn capillaries," he mutters, ruefully amused. Sparrow's request does not help! "Romance, huh? Proper serenade?" Echoing her, he lifts his eyebrows saucily at her. "I brought the wrong instrument for that, but I'll see what I can do. Anything in particular ya like?"

Sparrow breathes a quiet, "Fair," for that first point, but she's more than happy to keep all the attention on the blushing violinist now. She nods twice as he repeats her words, lofted brows drawing her smile broad enough to part her painted lips. Briefly. Until she tsks at his consideration of his instrument. "Attention," is honest, direct, without the barest hint of hesitation. "Don't overthink it."

Itzhak tips his head and those eyebrows at the same time. "The lady says don't overthink it." So he grabs up his case, sets it on the counter, flips it open and gets out his violin. It's nothing special, or rather there's nothing special about it beyond being a violin, decently made. He tunes mostly by ear, swift and practiced, tightens and rosins his bow. Then, he sets his bow back down. Holding the violin like he'd hold his mandolin, he strums it gently, plucks a run of notes. His gaze is inward, faraway...and then he lifts his voice. That unique voice, gravelly yet well-controlled, on key, he offers to Sparrow, each word shaped and polished to a lustre and let go as he sings.

Think of me, think of me fondly
When we've said goodbye
Remember me, once in a while
Please promise me you'll try
When you find that once again you long
To take your heart back and be free
If you ever find a moment
Spare a thought for me

We never said our love was evergreen
Or as unchanging as the sea
But if you can still remember
Stop and think of me
Think of all the things
We've shared and seen
Don't think about the way
Things might have been

Sparrow's attention doesn't stray from Itzhak, taking in every motion, the way he holds the instrument, the way he applies the rosin, how he twists the knobs and changes his mind. That shift in his position has her straightening, curiosity caught. And so well rewarded with that singular voice, that familiar song performed in so unfamiliar a manner. Though she looks, a time or three, to his hands as they play, most of her focus is on that far-off look, on his expression as it shifts, on how he shapes the words. Whatever familiariaty she has with the work, she makes no attempt to sing along, interrupt or answer, remaining rapt and silent and so very, very pleased with where this day has taken her.

Itzhak's eyes half close as he plays. He doesn't need to look at his instrument; his fingers know exactly where to go, pressing here and plucking there. Long, graceful fingers, the fingers of a craftsman and a musician, work the violin in his arms. His voice thrums in his long throat with the emotion he's sinking into, singing.

Think of me, think of me waking
Silent and resigned
Imagine me trying too hard
To put you from my mind
Recall those days
Look back on all those times
Think of the things we'll never do
There will never be a day
When I won't think of you

Then, for the last stanza, instead of pushing into a crescendo, he backs his voice and his playing down to a heartfelt whisper.

Flowers fade, the fruits of summer fade
They have their season, so do we
But please promise me that sometimes
You will think of me

He lets the last note fade away, his head still bowed over his violin. Looking up at Sparrow, he smiles bashful and lopsided at her.

Sparrow breaks the quiet following the fading of that final note with a soft, silly sound, undeniably approving. "You're wonderful," is simply spoken, as if it were well-known fact, irrefutable, an acknowledgement of the truth. A couple potentially awkward seconds--spent just happily staring--follow before she says anything else, before curiosity creeps into otherwise charmed expression. "Where do you go? When you're singing something like that and get all lost in your head?"

Itzhak really gets red as Sparrow stares at him, all charmed and happy. He snorts a startled laugh, tries to wave away Sparrow's opinion with a Yiddish flick of his hand. "Wonderful, she says." He shrugs, grin still lopsided, playing a few absent runs of notes. "Can't explain. Inside the music. I can see it, I can feel it. I can practically taste it. Like a road, kinda, swooping around a mountain."

Sparrow delights in that laugh, nodding shamelessly as he echoes her praise in some attempt to banish it. Hard as it might be to explain where he goes, she seems to understand what he means. Sort of. In her own way. "Sounds a bit like tripping. When I can kinda inhabit the space between the sounds, all the, uh." Her hands draw together, first, and then apart, a bit curled as if rising to fill a dome. "The expansiveness." One hand drops to her leg as the other waves the thought away. "Can taste it too, sometimes. But not while I'm playing. I mean. It's hard to play something that needs time when I've left time behind, but. I'm babbling. Hi. That was nice. Thank you."

"You ever get so high you get time dilation? Playing is a real trip then. Strings vibrating to four-hundred-and-forty hertz." Itzhak laughs easier this time, when Sparrow says she's babbling. "Hi. Yeah, a little you're babbling, but you know what? That's okay by me." He grins at her, and bows a soloist's bow, violin tucked to his heart. "Hell, thank you. I think them cards helped."

"I mean," Sparrow starts, a minor interjection right after that initial question which implies some sort of 'yes.' She snorts a laugh at how he describes the sensation, nodding like she might have some related, if not identical, experience of her own. There's an easy, "Good," for the last, for how even they find themselves. She hadn't looked particularly down when he'd arrived, but there's no mistaking that her mood has still improved rather considerably all the same. "Trouble with LSD is that time becomes so subjective and inconsistent that you're just... not sharing it with anyone. And that's kinda what I'm there for, yeah? Sharing my count of time with everyone?" But her thoughts are shooting elsewhere. It's not hard to guess from the faint shift in her expression, forehead delicately furrowing. "Am I alright to ask you what might be an inappropriate question?"

"Yeah, as a drummer, losing time, I can see how that might not be so good!" Itzhak's grinning, relaxed now, the crow's-feet at the corners of his eyes crinkling. He's got a lot of lines on his face. It's a face that's lived, this face. "Uh, sure, as long as you're also all right if I tell ya to fuck off," he answers her, curious.

"Wouldn't be the first," Sparrow croons. "Won't be the last." Which is to say that, yes, she's one hundred percent comfortable with that answer. Which might make one wonder why she bothered asking permission in the first place, but hey. Manners. It takes a few seconds more for the question to actually show up, expression skewing studious as she weighs her phrasing, considers approach. Then, bluntly: "Are you and Javier exclusive?"

Itzhak watches the changes of microexpression across Sparrow's face, curiouser and curiouser. He can't interpret any of them, but he can tell something's going on in there. Idly, he sets his violin under his chin, picks up the bow, and starts playing. May as well, right, while she's busy? He plays the first few lines of the Pirates of the Caribbean movie theme, jaunty and lively--stops when she asks. And up go those eyebrows. Itzhak blinks, and then, yep, blushes again.

"Uhhh. It's complicated." He laughs to himself, shaking his head. "We are...ish? I guess the simple answer would be yes. Except, also, no. Ugh." Shrugging, he adds wryly, "You didn't think anything would be simple when it came to him, did ya?"

Between those brows and that blush, there's a pretty good chance Sparrow's just not gonna look away. Let's hope no actual customers wander in. Whatever unconscious rhythm keeping she'd started when he began playing, evidenced ever so slightly by the shallow flex of one thigh as an unseen foot taps out the downbeat... just stops when he does. Aburptly. Easily. Without thinking. Her brow knits a bit at the yes-and-no package, an honest shrug answering the thought which follows as she sinks forward, elbows planting to knees. "Can't say I really know him. Though maybe just barely well enough to understand how you get there. Both at once. Desire and denial. Interest and excuses." Her left brow lifts wryly with that little bit of her own experience shared. "But I know he had a line. And you were it. And I don't wanna poke at that line from the other side either. No matter how adorable you are when you blush."

Itzhak lets the violin and bow both swing from one big hand, listening to Sparrow while his blush gets ever more intense. By the time she's done, he's the fetching color of a tomato. "Sounds like him," he mutters, after her description of Ruiz's behavior, but he's smiling and it's kind of stupid and smitten. Her saying that he was Ruiz's line, though? Whew. He goes all awkward at that, glancing away, still smiling like an idiot. "Uh. Well. I mean. Wait. Hang on, hang on," he pats the air at her, "what are you asking me here? You should know something about me. I'm autistic. I don't get hints or nothin'. What's it you wanna know?"

Sparrow knows that smile. Sure, she's never seen it on this particular person before in this specific context, but it's still beautiful, the sorta thing you can't help but smile back at, heart all tingly and warm. She straightens at the bid to wait, not ill at ease, but appropriately attentive for that gesturing. She's waiting, listening, accepting that descriptor without so much as a blink. Until he explains what it means in this situation. She bows her head apologetically, her own blush resurfacing if not quite the same garden-bright variety as his. "I'm asking if it's alright to flirt with you--" As if she could stop? Flirtation may well be her most fluent language. "--and, if it is, when I should stop."

Itzhak's attention switches back to Sparrow, his hazel eyes warm. They're a clear hazel, those eyes, with strong streaks of green and brown pigment. Complicated, like he'd said about him and de la Vega. In some light they might be green, in some, almost gold. Mostly they're this grayish hazel. "Aww," he says, like Sparrow said something adorable. "Yeah. It's okay." The question of when to stop puzzles him a little. "Well, uh, when you're bored of me probably."

Sparrow obviously said something adorable. She can't help it. Look at how her nose scrunches so adorably when he makes that noise! Just adorable by nature. The big brown eyes help. Uncomplicated and bright, like a penny that's been in circulation for a while, shine muted but not gone. "Yeah," she agrees easily. "Prolly a good point to stop. Just gets tedious otherwise. But." Black brows pitch upward toward bright red bangs. "I ask cuz I don't wanna cross whatever lines you two have. I like what I like, but I don't like causing entirely avoidable strife in other people's lives, so." Finally, her attention breaks, gaze sweeping across the store as if just now remembering that it's hers to tend. Not that there's much tending to do. "I mean. Not that it matters right now? Pretty sure I just broke my flirt-brain by drawing direct attention to it. It's not usually this skittish."

Itzhak's eyebrows go up again, suddenly getting what she's laying down. Probably. Maybe. "Oh. Oh, okay, yeah--yeah that makes sense. I appreciate that. He does too, even if he'd be too grumpy to say so." He smiles at her, and this smile is for her. "I, uh, I'm terrible at flirting. On the inside I'm just a violin dork nobody looks at because he's too skinny and his nose is too frikkin' big." He does get the way she looks around at the store, and sets his violin in the case. "I oughta get out of your hair. Your candy-apple red hair."

"No." Sparrow disagrees with Itzhak's self-assessment directly, firmly. With certainty. Now? She's looking at him again, catching that smile... but answering it with a potentially inappropriately stern pitch of those dark eyebrows of hers. "On the outside? You are someone who has gone out of his way to bring joy into other people's lives, who brought me joy in particular in a way that matters to me, whose cheeks turn my favorite color in the whole rainbow--" By which point her expression is softening, brows sinking as the corner of her lips lifts. "--and who has that lanky sexy thing down pat. So." She lifts one shoulder. "Pretty sure some of that has to be on the inside, too." All that said, she pouts a bit and grumbles, "But yeah. Pretty sure my relief's gonna be here in a few, and I gotta get home. Seriously. Thank you for the song. I needed that." It looks, for a moment, like she might expound, but nope. Nothing else comes.

He's loosening his bow again and hanging it up in the case, but Itzhak's hands slow and he stops so he can listen to Sparrow sternly admonish him about his self-image. Irresistibly the blush comes back, particularly when she says the part about the lanky sexy thing. "...I thought you said ya flirt brain was on the fritz," he says, smirking. He settles the case-shaped blankie over his violin and closes up with *klick-klack!*s of the latches. "Seems to be doin' fine. Just needed a mechanic's touch, yeah?"

He shrugs into his coat, slings the case over his shoulder, and quirks an eyebrow at her. "Thanks for the reading. I needed that, too." Will she say something else...no, seems like she won't. Itzhak studies her a moment longer.

"Something like that," comes with a smirk of her own, just a touch dry as if that might mitigate the warmth below it or distract from the way she considers his hands, how she watches how his body moves as he pulls his coat back on. With the thanks, her eyes rise to find his again, a little nod answering that gratitude, acknowledging how nicely that balanced. She doesn't say anything more until that study draws on, one brow rising as she wonders, "Is this where I'm supposed to lean over the counter and kiss you, cuz. I didn't think we were there yet, but I'm pretty pro-kissing as a general rule, so..."

Smirk still playing around his mouth like a cat playing in catnip, Itzhak reaches over and smooths a misbehaving strand of that candy-apple-red hair into place. "We're not there yet. I'll see you around, huh?" He tips a finger at her in salute, and then he's rolling out the door on that funny, sauntering stride.

Sparrow keeps her eyes on his even as that finger edges in so close, making that delicate contact with that rogue lock. That longshot shot down, she can't help but grin. "I have no doubt." For a few seconds, she just watches. But then a hand goes up to follow the path his took and make sure everything's in place. Buuuut then it's all work again, getting ready for an entirely uneventful shift change. It can't all be staring at blushing mandoleers.