2020-05-16 - Wetting Our Plants

There's a storm on the horizon, one that seethes at the edge of town like an angry drunk, with flashes of lightning already visible in its dark, cloudy banks. Until that thing appeared, it was a pretty pleasant spring day, and Alexander is out in his front yard, gardening. He still has several plants to put into the ground, so he's trying to keep a weather eye on the sky while his hands are smeared with topsoil, and the wind is tugging at his hair, blowing it into more than it's usual dishevelment.

Despite his haste and concern, he's humming under his breath, and doesn't have any serious bruises, breaks, or burns. Life is good?

Itzhak's big orange shop truck comes rumbling along Elm, parking in front of 15. Itzhak himself gets out, squinting at the horizon--the urgency of the storm, he can hear, even still so far off. It won't be far off for long. He turns, and there's Alexander, gardening! The sight makes him grin. Alexander, planting things, while a spring storm darkens the horizon. If he was an artist he'd paint a picture. "Lemme help," he calls to him, striding over.

Alexander is still a rather paranoid guy, and it's Elm and he's not well liked - sometimes people throw things from cars. So he looks up as soon as he hears the rumble of the truck approaching, following it with his eyes as it parks in front of 15. A smile, slight but warm, blooms on his features as Itzhak steps out, and he stands up as the man comes over. "Hey," he says, that flat stare fixed on him. "Sure, if you want. It's good to see you." He waves at a plant, and a hole. "What have you been up to?"

Itzhak doesn't touch Alexander, with a sense of having practiced not touching him for a long time. Instead he just kinda spreads his hands at him, grinning at him like that, like hey whaddaya know, it's you, and also it's me, fancy meeting you here! "Hey. Eh, you know, Rosencrantz stuff. I'm not gonna be your neighbor no more though. Gonna move outta Stephanie's place." He crouches, picks up the plant, sets to easing its roots apart and untangling them from the compression.

"Rosencrantz stuff," Alexander echoes, amusement warming his eyes. "So, musical, mechanical, dangerous and curiously beautiful? That's not bad." He goes back to one knee when Itzhak crouches, working on another part of the bed. The wind blows hard, chill and carrying the smell of the sea with it. "You're moving in with Javier," he agrees, in response to the information. He turns his head to stare at the mechanic. "It's a small cabin. Remember to go for walks before murder." Although that's deadpan and solemn, there's the quirk of a teasing smile on his lips.

Itzhak snorts laughing, turning red. "You do that on purpose, you jerk." Which comes out like on poipose, ya joik. Alexander reliably gets him to blush when he calls him beautiful. He glances up at him, mischief glinting in his eyes, then back down at the plant in his hands. It's not very recognizable yet, just a little sprig of green. He laughs again when Alexander suggests he should remember to cool down before attempting to murder Ruiz. "It's...I'm building a workshop. There's a lot of land, Roen runs a whole farm on his. Plenty of room for both of us not to murder each other."

"I do," Alexander says without hesitation, his smile growing wider when Itzhak turns red. "It's very entertaining, as well as being true." Although the tiny plant is hardly identifiable, the tag on its holder says that it's spinach. A couple of the others seem to be decorative cabbage, and there's another bed of various sorts of spring flowers. "A workshop. That sounds great." He studies Itzhak a moment or two longer, then smiles. "You seem to be happy about it. Javier seemed happy, too. That's good." A firm nod. "How did Stephanie and her kids take the news?"

Itzhak holds the plant cupped in his hands, gazing down at it. He sets it in the hole dug for it, settles the roots in, scoops in the loose soil, and at last pats the soil down. "Spend enough time with Roen, you pick these things up," he remarks, a little dryly, at his own expense. Shifting, one knee pressing the ground, he reaches for another. The wind tosses all those black curls of his, the humidity makes them frizzy, while he does. "I'm happy," he admits, finally, smile returning and his eyebrows tilting up in that yearning way. "Never thought a guy like me would wind up with a guy like him. He asked me, you know? Said he'd been waiting to ask." Only once the next plant is patted in place does he look up at Alexander, catching his gaze. He doesn't say anything. Just looks at him, practically bursting with unlikely joy.

Then he looks away, hitches his eyebrows ruefully. "I messed up, getting attached to those kids. I told myself I wasn't gonna, well it happened anyway. So now I got some kind of weird uncle slash older brother thing going on with 'em, and I...I mean I gotta keep it up. I can't leave 'em like that. I'll be around for 'em. Stephanie said she'd miss my violin."

Alexander laughs. "Yeah. When Gohl--uh, while I was staying at August's cabin, I spent a lot of time doing outdoor chores. It helped work the tension out, and swinging an axe at something made me feel a little bit better about not swinging an axe at someone, if that makes sense? But along the way, I picked up a few things. I thought, why not put them to use?" Itzhak's admission of his happiness makes Alexander's features warm further. "Good," he says, quietly. "You both deserve happiness, you know. Even if sometimes neither of you seem to believe it." He turns back to fill in around his plant, then grab another. The next burst of wind carries a couple of cold drops, but it seems like the deluge is still holding off.

"You didn't mess up," he says, after a moment. "It's hard to grow up on Elm, in a town where everyone tends to think that makes you 'headed for trouble'. It's good for them to have a man in their lives who gives a shit about them, and isn't just trying to recruit them for lookouts, or something. They really look up to you. I'm glad you're sticking with them."

Itzhak squints up at the black clouds rushing in, billowing overhead like stupendous mushrooms. Lightning flickers. "Just between you and me, I think Stephanie ain't gonna miss all the rest of the mishegoss that goes with me," he says wryly. "Can't blame her." He falls quiet, working while Alexander tells him what it's like to grow up in Gray Harbor, and on Elm in particular. "...yeah," he murmurs, just as there's a soft growl of thunder. "Yeah, you're right about all that. Never met their pop, and he better hope I don't meet him in a dark alley." Great role model here.

He plants half a row of pansies before he speaks again, abruptly, while the storm touches both men with its cold fingers, tugging their shirts and breathing into their hair. "Yeah well you're also right about that. Neither of us seem to believe it too much, do we?"

"You poke your nose into things, and things tend to explode. But I think you were a pretty good tenant despite that." Alexander glances over to 15, and stares at the house for a moment. "I'll check out whoever rents the room next. If they're not okay, they won't stay." It's less a prediction than a statement of intent, and as the cold wind worms itself under his jacket, he stands and brushes his knees off. "You want a hot cocoa? I could make us one. I promise that it's not cooking, so it turns out alright." A flicker-bright glimmer of a smile. "/Is/ everything okay, Itzhak?" he asks, even as he waves the man towards the door.

Itzhak follows Alexander's glance to the house next door. "Good. Yeah. Good." A certain low satisfaction rings in his tone. He pushes to his feet. "Aww, sure I want a hot cocoa." The menace clears from his expression like it never was. As he's heading in, he performs one of those Yiddish gestures, dirtied palms upturned and a tip of the head and the eyebrows. "Ignacio's still pretty beat up. Finch lost her shit on everybody and she suddenly can move stuff, too. Was in a pretty rough dream with de la Vega... Gray Harbor shit, man. So nah, not everything's okay."

Alexander leads the way inside, putting the empty plant trays to one side of the door for later disposal. He heads to the kitchen sink as Blue Bell comes to greet Itzhak, and Luigi makes a low whistle, then studies the mechanic warily. "With Ignacio laid up, I imagine Finch is pretty stressed out. And she's bossy. What did she lose her shit over?" He washes his hands, before stepping aside to let Itzhak do likewise if he wants, while he move to start heading up milk. "And a rough Dream? How so?" A flicker of worry there in his frowning glance.

"Hi, sweetheart," Itzhak says to Blue Bell, smiling, "I can't pet you yet, I'm filthy." He is very, very careful not to step on her wee toe beans with his gigantic steel-toe boots, scuffing along until he can reach the sink to wash up. Then he bends over to let her give him a sniff and request petting if she should so desire. "Uh," he says, and shakes his head. "She and Cavanaugh ran into each other. De la Vega didn't tell Cavanaugh he had a daughter or Finch that he's seeing another guy. Cue disaster. She thought he was cheating on me. So then they both yelled at me for not telling them and I was like, what, like it's ya business? Which neither of them liked, but whaddaya gonna do."

While he lets Blue Bell investigate his hand, he pulls a face, over the Dream. "I dunno why, but none of my shit was working. Didn't seem like anybody else's was either, except for Kelly's. So de la Vega and him pretty much did all the work. Took everything out of Javeleh--Javier," he corrects himself from the Yiddish pet name. "Really ran him down."

Blue Bell does desire. She lets out a rusty miaow when he bends over, and sniffs the offered fingers before headbutting Itzhak's hand and demanding pets. Alexander tends to the milk, checking it in between glances at Itzhak. "Is it serious? With this Cavanaugh? The guy from the South, who used to be in the Asylum, right?" There's a pause. "If it's not serious, it's none of his business. If it is, then Javier's habit of not giving up any personal information is kicking him in the balls again. When I realized Isabella and I...that it wasn't just some fun, we sat down and I told her things, so she'd know. So if she didn't want to be with me, she could choose. And she told me things, so that I could understand." He turns back to the oven. "Neither of them should yell at you, though. It's not your responsibility."

A long pause, before he says, "Are you okay? Not...just with the dream, but with the rest?"

Itzhak can't help smiling, giving the cat her tribute in the form of head rubs and behind-the-ear scratches. He glances up, bent over like that. "Yeah. Guy from the South. He and de la Vega carried on in the military. So of course now he's here and they both wanted to pick up where they left off. I said okay, because..." trailing off, he looks back down at the cat. "Because he was pining after him and I couldn't stand it," he murmurs. "Been jealous. Like, real fuckin' jealous. But I like Cavanaugh, even though he's an entitled princessy schmuck. Is it serious? I dunno. 'Serious', when you're two guys, ain't the same as when you're a guy and a girl. Me and de la Vega are serious. But them? I dunno."

There's a thoughtful grunt. Alexander notices the milk is starting to steam, so he brings out the cocoa mix and a whisk, stirring it together until the powdery chunks break up. He looks around when Itzhak trails off. "Have you talked with Javier about what you're feeling?" he asks. Then frowns at the last. "It isn't? Why not?" He looks back at the milk. "What I've felt for men has been about what I've felt for women. But I've only really felt strongly about two people, so I don't suppose I have sufficient evidence."

"Not about what ya feel, so much. It's about the practicalities. Sure, we can legally get married now, but for most of our lives we couldn't. Can't knock each other up--" Itzhak glances at the ceiling, holding one hand up, "please, God, don't let us knock each other up, this is Gray Harbor. Women, forgive me for sayin' so, they need and expect stuff guys don't necessarily. You can just kinda do whatever you want. So, yannow, him asking me to move in is..." now he's reddening again. "It's actually a pretty big deal."

"I'm relatively certain that however weird Gray Harbor is, it doesn't quite extend far enough to rewrite biology to that extent." Alexander frowns. "But if I'm wrong, I'll buy you dinner." He reaches for one of the cabinets and pulls down two mugs. The steaming, chocolated milk is poured neatly into the two mugs, and he waves at Itzhak to pick his poison while he does a quick rinse of the pot. "You're blushing," he points out, with amusement. "And you're dodging the question about whether you talked to him."

Itzhak straightens up, his smile gone crooked, his face gone red. He takes a mug, wrapping long fingers around it. "Oh you bet I talked to him. We had some pretty good fights, too. Yannow what, though? After he was sick," this is a euphemism for 'that time a powerful mentalist turned Ruiz evil', "I was like, really, Rosencrantz, this is what you're gonna get hung up on? So." He sips, careful not to dunk his enormous nose in the hot chocolate. "Gave him the green light."

"Good." Alexander wraps his hands around his mug and nods. "That you talked, I mean. It's hard to talk, sometimes." He glances past Itzhak, towards the bedroom, then his eyes coming back to the man quickly. "And you're okay with it? Or did you just say you were because the thought of him dying or being lost scared you and you didn't want to fight about?" Then he pauses, and rubs at his head with one hand. "Sorry. Not really my business. I worry." He looks down into his mug. "And the Dream? You guys healed up from that?"