2020-08-06 - Oceania had always been at war with Eastasia.

A wiry man with a bit of scruff and hair that's starting to look a bit shaggy is standing outside the diner, squinting up at the sign. His weight is shifted toward one leg, his thumbs hooked into the straps of his backpack. "Weird."

Blake then pushes his way into the diner and heads to the booth he used to occupy some months ago on a more regular basis. He sits with his backpack up on the seat, between him and the wall. Then he grabs the paper placemat, his eyes pouring over the details as if looking for something.

Alison had been standing behind the bar for some time, polishing freshly cleaned glasses with a cloth. The redhead looks preoccupied with something or other, but her reverie is broken upon Blake's entrance to the diner. Her eyes follow him as he finds his booth, then her feet do as well, wandering on over there, still polishing that glass.

"Hey, what's up." It's more of a statement than a genuine sounding question.

Blake is still bent over the placemat intently when Alison arrives table-side. He doesn't immediately respond to the redhead, but then then he lowers the placemat and looks up, straightening a little. "Hi. I just want some breakfast stuff..." He suddenly looks down back at the menu, realizing he should have done that already. His lips press together. "Eggs. Scrambled. With cheese?" He says as he looks up at her again, "Crispy bacon and a little fruit if you have it? Please?"

Alison gives Blake a nod, looking up towards the ceiling and mouthing a few words to herself. "Sure. Anything to drink?" She gestures towards the man with the glass in her hand. "I'm going to assume that you'd like a small bowl of fruit and not, like, one tiny strawberry."

Blake chews a little on the inside of his lip and releases it when Alison looks upward. "Juice. OJ." He looks at the man she indicates afterwards. His expression couldn't be said to be open and friendly, but it isn't unfriendly either. It's kind of like someone who has to look somewhat into the son, squinting slightly, gaze dipping back down to the paper placemat between topics. "Oh, yeah. I'm not into tiny strawberries," he says in all seriousness.

The revolving door of the Black Bear Diner revolves again; a couple heads out, arguing over the name of the place, Babe, I swear to God it's called the Grizzly Den, I'm not making this shit up, and a Mexican holds the door for them before shouldering his way in. He kind of looks legit if you ignore all the prison ink scrawled up both arms, and the tattered hoodie with its sleeves pushed up to his elbows, and the dodgers ballcap. Snug black jeans are shoved haphazardly into scuffed looking boots that don't help his credibility any, and odds are good he's carrying under the layers of clothing.

Tugging down the brim of his ballcap, he glances over this evening's clientele and heads on up to the front counter to find himself a menu.

Honestly, pick an hour on the clock, and you'll find a hungry locksmith that needs diner food. This hour of need happens to belong to Gray Harbor's own born and bred, self-branded one. Blue and gray emblazoned work van pulling into the lot, Leon swings the wheel and backs himself neatly into one of the further parking spots nearer the road. Always helped to be visible for name recognition.

Opening the door, the big man steps out of his little NV200... And stops. His brows furrow, whole face seeming to scrunch in confusion as he peers up at the... Black bear? Did Gina rebrand? It was such a side-grade it seemed totally off, but... I mean, this was Gina we're talking about, so all bets were off.

Deciding the name of the place wasn't really paramount in whether it served food or not, Leon pushes his way inside, giving a brief look around. Yup, everything was basically the same. Weird.

He heads for a counter seat, lifting a chin toward Alison in greeting and grabbing himself a menu. He knew she'd get to him when she cared. That's just how the Grizzly... was? He looks just as confused looking down at the bear-shaped menu.

"Alright." Without a further word, Alison steps away back towards the bar, punching in Blake's order on the register before handing it back to the kitchen. The couple arguing about the name of the diner gives her the briefest moments of pause, and then she shrugs, getting back to what she was doing, finishing approximately when the cop sits down.

"Well, if it isn't Itzhak's boytoy." She can't get this out without a smirk creeping into her neutral, maybe bored? expression. Alison presses the glass that was occupying her hands until just recently to the orange juice dispenser, fills it, drops it off at Blake's table with nary a further word, then returns to the bar. "What can I get you tonight?"

Leon's entrance gets a faint wave, an acknowledgement of his presence if nothing else. Three people showing up at the same time means that someone's bound to be waiting a little while, and lucky enough for Leon, it's him!

Sitting alone in a booth? These things are by design. Blue eyes flick up when Blake hears the couple and then land on the hispanic man, a look of attempted discernment on his face as he tracks the man to the counter. When the guy looks his way, Blake drops his eyes, but to be fast enough for someone to not notice, gotta be able to anticipate it. Blake, isn't. He finally rests the placemat down.

Thankfully Leon passes between them, and he makes for a poor window. Blake blinks upwards without lifting his head and then reaches into his backpack to pull out a black composition book.

The cop, meanwhile, has snagged himself a menu and is perusing it with all the relish of someone who lives in a podunk town, and has visited this podunk diner eight million times, and knows exactly what's on each page of that goddamned menu. And yet goes through the ritual of opening it, and looking through it anyway. All so he can toss it aside and mumble, "...coffee, please," when Alison comes to take his order. It's distracted, see, on account of Blake doing whatever the fuck he's doing over there. So it takes him a minute to catch onto,

"Itzhak's boytoy?" He turns and squints up at the redhead. Then barks a laugh, warm and smoke-roughened. "No soy su puto juguete de niño." Still watching her, he shakes his head a couple of times, then flicks his eyes back to Blake being all sketchy, and furrows his brows slightly.

There's an amused snort from the big locksmith down the way a few seats, Leon thinking the denial was at least made in a comical fashion. He was in the same boat of eatery reputation as Ruiz, though Leon was a man that usually found habits comforting. If Alison every gets to him, it's, "Agua- I mean... Water..." instead. Sometimes that weirdness was hard to sift through and turn off.

But of course, he was the one waiting, and he's a big patient guy.his own menu is closed and sat aside, though he continues to stare at the cover in ever increasing contemplation. He briefly checks his smart watch. Nope, still no calls, then pulls out his phone to check something. Yup, changed on Google too. What the heck, Gina?

Alison fetches a coffee cup from under the countertop and sets about pouring it full, sliding it over to the cop. "Mm. Doesn't quite seem like it's the other way around.." She shrugs, before moving on down the line to Leon, grabbing a glass and filling it up all the same from a nearby iced jug, "Whatever works for you works for me, don't bother correcting yourself on my behalf." as she slides it over.

There's a ding from the passthrough from the kitchen, drawing the redhead's attention over. A moment later, she calls back to the cook. "No, a small bowl of fruit. Not one small piece. Yes, I asked!"

Blake pulls a pen out of his back pocket and opens the composition book, starting to write, head propped against his knuckles as he leans. When he hears the spanish, he looks up toward Ruiz again and frowns when he meets Ruiz's gaze. He sets his pen down and gets up to walk over to the Mexican man. "Hey," he says, and waits till he gets Ruiz's attention, but even if he doesn't, after an awkward pause, "Why are you looking at me?"

The snort from the locksmith gains a bit of a narrowed-eyed look from de la Vega. A little down-up tick of his eyes, like he recognises the guy. "Gyre, right? Leon Gyre?" The coffee's set in front of him, and he reaches for the handle, turns it with an inked finger until it can be grasped and lifted to his mouth for a slurp. "You've got to be fucking kidding me," he mutters at Alison's retreating back.

Then the sketchy dude is approaching him, and he looks over, looks away. Does a bit of a double-take. "What?" Like he didn't hear the question.

"Best locksmith in town." Only locksmith in town. That was the joke. Either way it was a confirmation. He was trying to be charming. He knew that very seldom worked on men with de la Vega's reputation, but it was pretty much Leon's shtick. He offers an noncommittal shrug to Alison, then a nod, probably ordered some huge cal-content burger and continued to look at the menu. Then he asks the burning question in the waitress's direction.

"Why the name change?"

The mishap with the fruit is quickly remedied by the kitchen, and Blake's ordered food is soon on its way over to his booth, or at least where he was sitting until a moment ago. The redhead shrugs at the brewing tension between Blake and Ruiz and returns to her post behind the counter.

Alison furrows her brow slightly at Leon, then gives a brief little shake of the head. "What name change? It's still Alison."

Blake glances between Alison and Ruiz slightly after their little interplay. Ruiz's reaction though gets his attention back. "Why are you looking at me?" His head cocks to the side a little a touch. He looks back over his shoulder to glance at Leon, in the direction of the kitchen, and then finally back to Ruiz, lifting his chin briefly. Blake is none the wiser about any fruit mishaps. What he doesn't know can't hurt him.

"The fuck is this some kind of episode of the Twilight Zone?" Ruiz demands, looking from Alison to Leon, then back to Blake when the younger man repeats his question to the cop. Which is summarily parroted back to him: "Why am I looking at you." A beat. "Because you were fucking looking at me, and pretending like you weren't. Besides, I know you. You bummed a smoke off me once, I think." Slurp, as he drains his coffee to half, and squints slightly like he's trying to remember the guy's name.

Deep, suffering sigh. Leon's whole posture slouches, head falling to rest his chin theatrically on his chest. He figures that Alison had absolutely nailed him in the mile wide opening he'd left for that one. When he recovers from the faux mental anguish, he lifts his face again with an amused grin, "Nice," he compliments her, "No, I meant the diner. Gina get bored or something? Too many jokes about people meeting their grizzly ends?"

He was trying to remain oblivious to the paranoid exchange between the other two, noticing the look from Blake and only returning a helpless shrug. The Twilight Zone crack gets another amused snort as Leon lays into his water as well. "This is Gray Harbor. Close enough."

The returned pun about people meeting their grizzly ends passes over Alison's head in a manner not unlike the traffic on the interstate passing by Gray Harbor's exit. Fwoosh. "Bored, probably. She usually ends up redecorating some of the bears, but.. the diner's name hasn't changed either. At least not since I've been working here?" Before Leon can clarify, Alison's heading back to the kitchen passthrough, asking the guy working the grill about how long the place has been called the Black Bear Diner. 'Forever!' is the easily overheard answer, and it's met with a shrug in Leon's direction.

Blake's eyes go a little vacant as he reaches back into his memory, somewhere foggy. "I don't think so..." He doesn't sound sure. "I thought I knew you from somewhere else. I just-" He reaches up to rub his forehead a little, "Things are foggy. Yeah I don't know what's going on man. Things are fucking weird. Sorry." He shakes his head and sighs, then looks back at his table and pivots off to return to his seat. Foooood.

God. This fucking town. Ruiz finishes off his coffee, and digs a crumpled bill out of his wallet to pay for it. There's a flash of his weapon as he does so, before he tugs the hem of his hoodie back into place. "Las cosas son raras, tienes razón," he mutters as he pushes to his feet. "Jasper," he finally supplies, remembering the weird guy's name. A glance as Blake turns to mosey off. Then a nod for Leon. "See you around." The precinct, probably. Since they occasionally contract the guy out. Alison gets a hitch of his chin in farewell before he's headed out.

Leon's eyes narrow briefly as he watches Alison trade words with the cook, and though his mind seeks, he seems to float past Alison like wind off a mountain. The cook's mind, however gives up the goods. Leon's brow immediately shoots up, and his eyes start glancing around the place, searching. Now he was convinced something weird was going on. First, though he's polite enough to Ruiz's retreat.

"Esta es nuestra ciudad? I mean... Fuck..." His Spanish is clearly pretty bad, what with never having actually learned it, only a psychic leech of the words. Again, those searching eyes as he tries to sort out his own internal languages. Sometimes, it was more burden than helpful. "Yeah, I'll see you around."

"Evening." to the departing de la Vega. With nary a moment to consider the change of scenery, she feels that all too familiar tickle crawl across her brain. The source of it's all too easy to discern - it's the locksmith. Daggers shoot from her eyes towards him - she tries to rebuke him in a more discrete manner, given that it's a public place, but to no avail.

Well, there's the less discrete manner. "You play with matches often, dude? How about getting that burger to go instead?"

"Huh? I think we had coffee together? Last time we ran into each other," quite literally. Blake stops and looks back to Ruiz, "It's Blake." Then he blinks, mouth still open slightly, a beat rolls by and he turns again, taking a slow deep breath as he heads back to his seat. He picks up his fork and skewers a few eggs to stack up the scrambledness, and then sinks into solitude.

Ruiz pauses on his way out the door. Cuts a long look toward the locksmith, like he's seeing him in a slightly new light. Then the guy who claims they had coffee together. And maybe they did, now that he mentions it. Blake. He doesn't answer that. Just carries right on out the door and into the rain. Because of course it's fucking raining, like it always is.

Leon puts his palms and brows up briefly toward Alison, not trying to earn her ire... Then... His brows lower into a more seriously concerned face. He lowers her arms back down to the bar and leans om his elbows. There's serious thought given to something as he stares at Alison.

"Hold up. Before you go firebrand on me... Can we... Talk?" He holds a hand up and taps his temple.

"Like... Honestly."

Alison rolls her eyes, then makes the call before Leon has the chance. (Fire's not my thing. I hope you're not going to give that a try next. I kind of need this job.)

Leon smirks, sipping his water. Hydrating was important, afterall. Now they were talking, he lets his eyes wander, looking over the other patrons, curious how many believed the same as the cook.

(Yeah, me neither. More my wife's.) Brief mental image of Maggi. Less of a send, more a surface thought, a byproduct of the conversation. (I wasn't trying anything weird. I wanted to know if you were lying.)

Alison wanders off herself, running various errands behind the bar, since it quickly becomes apparent that they're not going to need to maintain eye contact for this little conversation. (Why would I lie about the name of the restaurant changing? That's a weird thing to lie about. I probably wouldn't put it past Gina to do as a joke, but I haven't seen her around much lately anyways.)

(Oh yeah, the pasta psychology lady. Funny, I was pretty sure that she was gay. Weird tension between her and..) Drawing a blank for a moment, until she returns an image of Abitha in turn. (Woman who runs the video game store? I'm shit when it comes to names.)

(Oh, she's only half gay.) Leon can be felt to find this concept amusing, like he would absolutely take this home to taunt Maggi with. There's an equivalent of a mental shrug about the game shop owner and tension, like that was Maggi's business and he trusted her implicitly.

(That's the reason, is I thought it was a joke, but... This diner was the Grizzly Bear Diner. Today, it's the Black Bear Diner.) And Leon, currently allowing this connection was sure to show he was an open book. He wasn't lying. (I didn't read you. You resisted. Your cook believes it though. So if I'm not lying, and he's not lying, presuming you're not lying either... What is going on here?)

(One of those Wednesday-Friday types. Got it.) The redhead gets herself a glass of soda, since the rush, such as it is, seems to have died down. Three people counts as a rush if they all walk in at the same time.

(I might be shit with names, but I'm pretty sure that I'd remember if the name of the place that I work changed. Especially if it used to be the Grizzly Bear Diner, pretty sure that was the name of a gay bar back home in Seattle. It wasn't subtle though, I felt you bouncing off me, but Rick back there doesn't have the shine in the first place. Seems like you're remembering wrong.) Alison puts her drink down to give Leon a considering look, then pulls her phone out from the rear pocket of her jeans. She thumbs around for a moment, then continues. (Yelp and all that all show the right name, I don't see any edits made..)

(Wednesday-Friday?) Leon seems confused, then seems to get it, like some sort of time-share, he was assuming. Again, amusement. (Yeah, neither did I.) he thinks about the edits, or lack thereof, (And it's weird as hell. On second thought, I think I will take the burger to go.) Because maybe distance might get him out of whatever bubble of strangeness this was. It was a nice thought, even if it ultimately ended up being untrue.

It wasn't too much longer before the burger was ready, Alison putting it in to go packaging with considerably less hostility than was initially shown after the unexpected mental glimmer show. Out loud, rather than inside the locksmith's head, "Wouldn't be the first weird thing around here, probably won't be the last. Pretty sure that it hasn't changed, though."