2020-07-02 - Slow Dancing In A Burning Room

Lies need to be told, on occasion. If Cris has any trouble shoveling Dante a load of shit, he reasons it away by being for the Brit's own good, keeping him away from the apartment for the time being. Right now the Mexican is sitting on the porch of his second floor garage apartment, smoking a cigarette in a pair of plaid sleep pants and a bandaged up chest.

The rumble of Itzhak's Stingray can be heard before the Corvette pulls into sight, slithering along Elm. He parks in front, gets out, flashing mirrored aviator shades up at Cris. Nothing touched him yesterday during the disastrous funeral; he's in perfect health. "'Ey," he calls up at Cris. "I got somethin' for ya."

Yeah yeah, he's leaving that one wide open.

"Please tell me it's about eight inches and will change my religion." Well. He did leave that one wide open, and Cris is nothing of not an opportunist. Yelling down, however, causes more discomfort than yelling is worth, so he leaves it at that and lets the Schnozz make a proper house call and come to him.

Itzhak snorts. "Didn't bring nothin' to circumcise you, sorry to disappoint." He pops the Stingray's trunk, pulls out a big black suitcase. Maybe. What is that?

By the time he's swaggered his untouchable-pro-tank way up the stairs and either lets himself in or Cris lets him in, it's probably obvious that what he's got is a hard case for a guitar.

Touche.

By the time Itzhak rounds up on his porch, Cris is giving him ten shades of stink eye for what he carries. "Chico, that better be a machine gun in that case or you can turn your ass right around and sashay the fuck away." He takes one more angry puff off his cigarette before he flicks it away in irritation.

Angry Mexicans don't scare Itzhak. Hell, he lives with one. So it is that Cris gets a smirk as Itzhak sets the case down, flips the latches, and opens 'er up.

Nope, it isn't a machine gun. It's a guitar. A classical, with a soft top in a pretty sunburst that's cherry at its center and fades to black at the edges. The guitar's used, pretty obviously, its top dinged up a little, its fretboard worn. But it's beautifully cleaned and polished, and the strings are new.

"Hadda tweak her truss rod, restring her, degunk her," Itzhak says, not looking at Cris. He's looking at the guitar. "She cleaned up pretty, though."

Cris gets up from the plastic chair, a hand suspiciously on the railing to help the action. Not that he needs the help standing, nope. Not at all. Disregard that wrinkle around his eyes in a wince too. If Itzhak is used to surly Mexicans it should come as no surprise that Cris is lifting his bare foot kick the lid back closed over the guitar. "Fuck off."

Itzhak, absolutely taking advantage of Cris's injured state, shoves his huge boot on the lip of the lid, holding the case open when Cris tries to kick it shut. Like none of that is happening, he goes on, totally casual. "Got some time on ya hands, keep you busy for a while. Brought you some sheet music, too, you know how to read music? Teach you if you don't."

Let's face it, Cris doesn't have the best core strength right now, so he abandons the attempt at closing the cover back over the - let's face it, beautiful - guitar and squares up his stance. "The only thing I have time for is kicking your ass off my porch, and even that's running a little thin." His hands go up to Itzhak's shoulders to give the taller man a hard shove. Well. It should have been hard. Or was that just a mosquito trying to poke at the man's shoulders.

Itzhak, standing there on one leg with one boot propping open the guitar case, just dips under Cris's hands, yielding like water. Except water doesn't smirk like that. "Whatsamatta, Cruz? It's like you don't got the strength." He sets a hand on Cris's collarbone and shoves him back towards the chair.

Physically vulnerable. Someone being nice to him and evoking emotions with a thoughtful gift. Add in a crack about his mama and it'd be the perfect trifecta for setting Cris on edge. He sported some nice little bruises from the last time Itzhak shoved him away, but this time as he takes a shuffling step backwards until the back of his knees pop against the chair, the only thing wounded is his pride. You know what? That'll round it out nicely to three. Forget his mama. His fist curls up so fast he didn't even have time to think about why it's going to swing to Itzhak's jaw.

Cris's knuckles land on Itzhak's jaw and he doesn't even bother blocking. That's how much of an asshole he's being right now. He doesn't block physically, at least.

Instead, there's a silent flourish of music. Cris hits Itzhak, snapping his head to the side...and not doing any damage at all.

He looks back at him, and slowly, aggravatingly raises his eyebrows. "You done?"

Cristobal sneers, the expression like a wave that starts at one corner of his mouth and undulates to the other, leaving his lip curled slightly but lopsided over one canine as his hand falls away, ineffectual. Time to resort to another tactic, "You'll know when I'm done when I shoot my load on your face." Oh, he's going to regret this. So hard. Because he's dropping one shoulder and flat out bumrushing Itzhak, looking to drive him bodily back through the open door into the apartment.

Itzhak catches a shoulder in the gut and growls, half playful, half pissed off, as Cris drives him back into the apartment. It doesn't take the wind out of him like it should; Cris hits something like a metaphysical brick wall, like Itzhak weighs about three times what he actually does. The tall skinny jerk isn't playing fair. And yet he lets it happen, lets Cris plow him (phrasing) across the apartment to slam him up against the kitchen counter.

"Fuck!" The curse gets grunted out of him when he takes the counter to the small of the back. "Jesus, you're a prick, Cruz!"

The drive was accompanied by a feral growl, and even if it doesn't knock the wind out of Itzhak it sure takes it out of Cristobal. He's left panting with his shoulder still pressed square into Itzhak's chest, keeping the man there against the counter, stuck between a rock and a hard place. His chest is on fire, and he can't further retaliate against the kind gesture until he can collect himself again. That doesn't mean he's done fighting, not by a long shot, his muscle only part of his arsenal. So when one misfires, you switch weapons. "I got your prick right here, Rosy." And his hand goes between them, jostling his own junk in demonstration.

Itzhak's breathing is steady, even. He doesn't even react to Cris grabbing himself, and he...oh no. Oh no, he's not going to...yep, he gathers him up in his arms, straightening, pulling him up and wrapping him in a hug.

"I told ya," he says, tone irritated and fond. "I wanna play with you."

"Fuck." Cris hisses through clenched teeth as he's gathered up in a hug, his body going rigid and tense when those lanky arms wrap him and tug him up straight. He twists a little, trying to get loose, but for some reasons decides it's better to stay still. "That hurts." And why does it sound more like a warning than anything else?

Oh, Itzhak is pretty sure he knows why. And he heeds the warning, too, but without haste. Without fear. Without even fluster...mostly. His arms loosen, and he grips Cris gently by the arms, looking into his face. He studies what he finds there.

Then.

"Ya like Bruce Springsteen?" Up go the eyebrows, invitingly. Like, hey, who doesn't like The Boss!

It's there, etched in every micro expression of his face. From the way his eyes have dilated to the way his nostrils subtly flare. And he's clenching his jaw against it. Against the knot forming low in his stomach, and the ache that's blooming like the red that's starting to flower on his bandages like poppies on a snow covered field. Eyes tick around Itzhak's face like they can't choose a place to land or as if his gaze is skittering away from being locked to Itzhak's. His head dips forward, close enough to the man's collar that his breath breezes warmly against skin. "Claro." Sure, he says. Just. Give him a second here.

Like the poppies that grew out of the dead, at Thatchery's funeral. Itzhak's gray eyes tick down to the color seeping through the whiteness of bandages. "You tore your stitches, ya schmuck. You got nobody but yourself to blame." He takes Cris's arm and steers him to the couch. "Sit ya dumb ass down."

Cris makes a little jerking motion of his arm, like he means to rip it away from Itzhak's grip but it's not hard enough or with enough intent to succeed beyond telegraphing his displeasure at being manhandled over to the couch. "Dunno. I think I could blame a lot of my current predicament on you." Case in point, he has to rearrange himself with a hand down the front of his pants so that when he slinks down onto the couch he's not making an entirely lewd display in his plaid pajama bottoms.

"Not goin' after me over a guitar, you can't." Itzhak's eyes draw down to where Cris is rearranging himself. The eyebrows go up. Then he's going to bring the guitar in, from the balcony. He doesn't force the instrument on Cris, though; rather he sets the case down, like he'd done in the first place.

"You don't gotta do anything." He gestures at the case, shrugs. "S'up to you. She's yours. I'll get outta ya hair."

Cris' eyes go to the case on the coffee table, roving over it. His fingers seem to itch on his knees, like he wants to reach out for it but can't quite bring himself to touch it. To reopen the case and look at the beautiful pattern on the wood or the way fret shows wear but careful restoration. The hardened edges of his expression soften, "Cuando te vi por primera vez, una nota cantaba dulce y largamente y supe que nunca podrķa volver a dibujar ese sonido."

Then pale blue eyes flick up to Itzhak. "Like fuck you will. Sit your dumb ass down."

Itzhak turns an ear towards the music of Spanish. He doesn't understand all of it, but he can tell it's poetry. Cris tells him to sit down and he looks at him with a curious and merciless expression. Then, like, what the hell, he does, slinging his lanky form on the couch.

"You never said if you can read music." Slouched in a graceful parabola, he makes a little tossing gesture, very Jewish.

"You don't even know if I can pick my way through Mary Had A Little Lamb. Far as you know, all I can do is tune the damn thing." Cris' gaze goes sidelong to Itzhak but doesn't linger, instead back to the case as if it's both his long lost love and his mortal enemy rolled into one. "Rudimentary." There comes the actual answer, "I know the FACE shit and whatever." Gets mumbled and then Cris is reaching out for the case and like ripping off a bandaid, flips the lid open in a decisive motion. "Why'd you do this. And don't give me some shit about you want to play with me. You could play with anyone."

A thin, crooked little smile from Itzhak, now. "You forget, I heard you play. I know you can."

Only a moment, he'd heard him, through the door, when he showed up unannounced that time. But it was enough, more than enough, for Itzhak. Music fuels his heart and his power, forms the framework of his soul. He could figure out an awful lot from those few chords strummed on the other side of a door.

He looks back at the guitar, when Cris opens the case again, all hasty like that. Sadly enough, the guitar hasn't gotten less pretty in the last ten minutes; there it is, all cherry-black and shining. "I could play with anyone, sure. I got a whole band. That ain't what I said. I said I wanna play with you."

"That was the stereo." Lies are easy, the same as insults when Itzhak emphasis the 'you'. "Funny. Never took you for a fool." Cris responds blandly, but some how makes the comment sound self deprecating, especially now that Itzhak has honed in on the bricks he uses to build his walls. They used to be so carefully laid, but tonight the mortar doesn't seem to be mixed quite right and the structural integrity is failing. Blame it on the Zombies. Had he gone to the hospital, the doctors would have told him not to lift anything heavier than a dinner plate until his stitches came out. And bum rushing Itzhak took quite a bit more effort than that. So it's with a grunt that he lifts the cherry beauty out of the case and settles it onto his lap. He doesn't search for a pick, merely using the edge of his thumb to strum, but his fingers are having trouble settling onto a chord and the notes just sound...off.

Itzhak snorts. "It ain't obvious by now I'm a fool, a schmuck, and a schmendrick?" But he has figured out Cris's special language of shoving people away. That's obvious, at least for now. He might not have quite such devastating perception tomorrow, or ever again. Autism keeps him from it, usually, but today the damn thing has shown him the way in, let him dissect Cris like a song.

And despite the clumsiness, despite the fumbled chord.... Cris strums and Itzhak just absolutely beams at him. It transforms his hard-worn face entirely.

"Maybe. But you're our fool." Cris mumbles, mostly because he's concentrating on sliding the pads of his fingers along the fret, trying to get a better feel for it. Baby blues check Itzhak's face to see if he heard that sour note. Of course he did. It was practically peeling the paint of the walls. "You're doing a thing with your face right now and I don't know if I should be scared or not. You want me to play this thing, or are you going to take a giant bite out of me?" Cris runs the tip of his tongue down one of his pearly whites, then sucks at the back of his teeth. Then he tries again, pressing fingertips that haven't developed a callous yet down on new strings that haven't quite settled into their strain yet.

It's rough going, but the song he chose has a slower tempo so he can find the notes without too much of a gap between them. His heritage shows when the the heel of his palm strikes the body of the guitar on occasion like a base drum beat. And then? His voice rumbles out the first bars, "It's not a silly little moment. It's not the storm before the calm. This is the deep and dyin' breath of this love we've been workin' on..."

Of course Itzhak did. What, you think he can hear an off chord and not notice it? More to the point, however, he doesn't care. "To play a wrong note is insignificant," he says, like it's facts. He quiets, letting Cris get the feel of the guitar, watching him avidly with those gray-green-amber hazels of his.

As Cris finds a song, somewhere in all that, Itzhak leans in, growing suddenly intent. He doesn't know this one.

There is a snarled curl of his lip as Itzhak pulls up that distant quote, seemingly ages ago when he set his beloved guitar in that man's lap. But it's not enough to stop Cristobal from playing through an acoustic version of the song, even if he can't make this one sound as mournful as the electric whammy bar can, he still adds a finger vibrato. "Can't seem to hold you like I want to. So I can feel you in my arms. Nobody's gonna come and save you. We pulled too many false alarms." A tightening in his jaw, not because he didn't hit a note, but something else certainly struck a chord somewhere. "We're goin' down. And you can see it too. We're goin' down. And you know that we're doomed. My dear, we're slow dancing in a burnin' room..."

The tempo's slow, the song sweet grief. Itzhak, falling into it, keeps time, fingers against his long lean thigh. One-two-three-four, he joins in on the chorus, singing soft, we're slow dancing in a burning room...

because, yeah, of course he can pick it up halfway through the song. Of course he can.

Cris is finding it harder to concentrate on the music when Itzhak starts singing too, his fingers slipping up here and there until finally he just closes his eyes and stops looking at the placement. Stops checking to make sure his fingers are plucking at the right strings, relying on muscle memory and just feeling. Even his voice finds a little more bravery in the dark, so that when he starts telling the anonymous listener to go cry about it, it sounds spit back at a mirror image. Finally the last note vibrates out, and Cris lays his palm over the strings to silence them.

He doesn't know the rest of the words, but Itzhak can sing the chorus, and get it uncannily right. Even when he doesn't guess accurately at the next note, when the song changes them up, he just shifts to harmonize.

Like an utter bastard.

He's grinning at Cris, although Cris might still have his eyes closed. "S'what I'm talkin' about." Itzhak thwaps him light on the bicep with the backs of his long fingers.

Eyes unshutter when he's thwapped on the shoulder, looking at Itzhak with utter intensity for a moment with the anticipation of some action making his frame tense. But then Cris just swings down the base of the guitar to the top of his bare foot, giving it a spin in the ring of his fingers around the neck. Itzhak is a musical savant, and Cris is a show boat. It is known. "Yeah. Just don't expect that to ever happen in public. Ever. You wanna play with me, it'll be behind closed doors like we're being queer in the 40's."

"Ehhhhh," Itzhak says, //not exactly/ agreeing to that. "Sometime we'll get ya guy to play piano, too."

The intensity of the glance Cris gave him hasn't gone unnoticed, but Itzhak just grins back at him, with such pleasure that you'd think Cris said something different altogether. "You done good, Cruz."

Cris looks down at the bell of the guitar, giving it one more look like he would a lover before he's stretching to lay it back down gingerly in the case. "Now there is a man with zero performance anxiety." Okay, that's not exactly true, but compared to Cristobal's vehemence that his playing will never see the light of day, it still counts. But then again, he'd swore he'd never play again for someone period, but Itzhak managed to ease that door open. "Thank you. For this."

Itzhak laughs, easily. "No kidding, right? I thought I was a showoff." He's pleased. He's so pleased. It worked. Cris played. At the thanks, he looks at him, still smiling like that. One big calloused hand thumps Cris on the back, gentle. "Read that music." Then he gets up, to go about whatever it is Rosencrantzes do when they're not fighting Cruzes over guitars.

"Yeah, yeah." Cris mutters after the back slap and the bid to study over the sheet music Itzhak is leaving behind with the case. As the other man stands to see himself out, the latino stays sitting, scrubbing at a face full of scruff with both hands as if trying to clear his head from a sudden haze he's been lifted out of. "Later, Rosy."