Fries fries FRIES. Greasy, glorious fries, and other fried things! Darwin returns to Javi at the corner booth with his arms filled with various baskets of appetizers. His hair is wet, like he'd hopped in the shower prior, and his evening wear is, predictably, coats. But this time, his topmost jacket is brightly dashed with the colors of his high school, complete with that adorable dolphin mascot. "Love this frickin' place," he murmurs. "Everything's so cheap."
"So good, right?" Javi reaches immediately for one of those fries almost before Darwin's even set them down -- okay actually it is a little bit before -- and pops it into his mouth, settling back and letting out a little contented sigh. Now all is right with the world, at least for the moment. "Used to come here all the fucking time right when I got here 'cause I think I reminded the counter lady who used to work here of her kid or something and she gave me free pie." He grins, reaching for another fry and using it to gesture to his head, before he takes a bite out of it, too.
Darwin visibly clenches his fist where it rests against the table. "That's so fucking wholesome." Then he looks indignant. "Maybe if I shaved more people would give me free food." He rubs his jaw where just a little bit of scruff has grown, then plucks a fry. And a wing. And a hushpuppy. "Tell me about what you've been up to aside from cracking the Razi code--?"
Javi shrugs, his smile getting even wider in a //slightly// smug way as his hands stretch out to his sides. "Maybe," he concedes. "Try it and see. That's a good look for you, though." He gestures to his own face to indicate Darwin's scruff. "All like you're too busy living your life to waste time shaving." This time, the gesture with the half of the fry points toward Darwin for emphasis. He has to laugh at the end, though.
"Oh, you know," he continues. "Studying and shit. Tryna pick up some more jobs where I can but it's a little tough 'cause I gotta work around my class. But it'll be done soon." He finishes off the fry as he regards the other man, eyebrows raising. "You? Whatchu producing right now? You're gonna let me know when it is so I can come, right?"
Darwin preens a little, lifting his chin. "Life /is/ busy. Except when it's not. And then it's /really/ not, and you're staring at your laptop like... zoning out." Still, he looks quite pleased with the compliment.
"Oh! They're going on right now! Well, the Tam Lin ones. Miel's out there being the best extra ever. Every Saturday until the end of... August?" He looks a shade mortified for not remembering this piece of vital info. "August," he says a little firmer. Or the kids will just keep putting on plays in the park until the end of time. "The students swap in and out. It's a part of their grade. The one I'm writing is still pretty loose." He wobbles his hand. "Original stuff is difficult. It's not a tragedy though, that's for damn sure. I'm tired of tragedies. /That/ one will be in a theater, and I'll let you know way in advance," he promises.
"Oh!" Javi's eyes widen, before he laughs, a little self-directed. "Fucking duh, sorry. Been in my own world a little I guess with the class. I'll see about coming next week. But I'm //definitely// gonna go to yours when you finish it. Don't forget us when they take you to Broadway or whatever, yeah?" He puts on his best sadly pleading face -- which would probably have worked better if he'd been able to fully banish the grin. Since he isn't, it doesn't quite land, but he tried. "Told Sol he should come to one of 'em," he adds after a moment, as if it's an afterthought. Totally nonchalant. "But then I told him to Google it and he hates computers so who knows if he'll actually figure out when it is." The amusement is very fond, though.
Darwin waves his hand. "You've got plenty of time. The kids are doing great." There's obvious pride in his smile, as he settles back against the booth seat cushion. He laughs at Javi's pleading look, and flicks the stub of a broken fry in his direction. "They're the ones that'll be forgetting /me/. Can you remember any of your high school teachers? Their names?" He shrugs lightly. "That's alright, though. I want them to go out there and kick ass."
Darwin is halfway through demolishing a drumstick with when Javi adds that nonchalant note. "Oh my god, Javi!" he says, distraught. Not /entirely/ distraught, as there's frazzled humor in his voice. "He's going to come and make fucking spiders pop out of the props! You /know/ he'd do shit like that! ...Okay, okay, that's fine. He's bad at Google. He could barely send a picture with his phone..."
"I remember one, yeah." Javi's smile softens a little bit at that, and his gaze shifts away from Darwin, though this time not to a specific place in the air as if he's actually looking at something. It's absent, more staring off into space as his mind wanders than anything purposeful. "I mean," he clarifies, "I remember one in a good way. So there's definitely gonna be some that remember you like that. You got that energy."
His mouth twists a little bit at the end, a little wistful note creeping into his expression, before he shakes his head quickly like he's trying to clear it and refocuses. It's pretty easy to be distracted with the rest, and it makes him laugh again. "Nah," he counters, "he wouldn't do that. He might try and scare you but he wouldn't do nothing to like, ruin it for the kids."
Flustered as Darwin is (a common state, clearly), he catches that little wistful look, and scans the diner briefly. "Is... are..." He drops his voice to whisper, "Did your high school teacher die?" The topic of Solomon witholding his antics for the sake of the children is set aside for the moment.
"Huh?" Javi's mind had clearly already gone down a different track, and so it takes him a moment to shift it back again. "Oh! Nah." Oh, good, he got there. "She's around. I mean, probably. She wasn't that old and it was only like ten years ago." He reaches up to rub a hand over his forehead, glancing down at the table.
"Just had to get outta there," he eventually admits. "Like, I woulda gotten out sooner to be honest but there was kind of a bunch of shit with that that woulda made it tough to just bounce before I turned eighteen. Plus Nacho basically made me graduate, 'cause I was still scared of him back then 'cause I didn't really understand the ghosts yet, you know?" He shrugs. "I miss her sometimes but it's kinda tough for me to think about shit from back then, so I ain't really keep up with her. That's all."
Darwin sobers and straightens slowly, sympathy in his softened gaze. Whatever he strings together, it's enough to sharpen his attention. "Leaving is never as easy as those redditers think it is." He reaches, palm up, to tap his knuckles against Javi's. "No amount of reading that page in your open book would help me understand what it is to lose someone and then hear the echoes of their life. I'm glad you made it here, one way or another. That must've been terrifying." He pauses, then adds, brighter, "But I'm glad Nacho got you to graduate. Good job, Nacho."
Darwin's observation makes Javi laugh, and while it's a little wry there's certainly some genuine amusement in there, too. "Right?" He shakes his head, reaching for some more delicious fried things. Nothing better than grease to soothe some more inconvenient emotions. His expression settles again at the gesture from the other man, though, and his gaze lifts.
"See?" he continues, very convinced of the truth of it. "All Edward James Olmos giving 'em //ganas// and shit. Someone's gonna remember you like that, too. Prolly way more than one." He pops another fry into his mouth, giving himself another little shake to dislodge the mood. "But yeah. Good for him. Annoying-ass motherfucker." However, that is really //very// fond.
Darwin laughs, just as fond. "Yeah? I hope so. It's nice to know you're in my corner. You and Gar." He gives that comment two seconds of respectful space before resuming his attack on the drumstick. He eats it like a crazy person, biting the bone in /half/ and gnawing away. "Bet you ten bucks Solomon does /something/ to fuck with the play," he says while he chews. "Assuming he even manages to navigate there."
"Mm hmm. We got you." Javi can't help but be a //little// fascinated by Darwin's tearing into the chicken, but it's definitely awed, not horrified, and it doesn't stop him from replying. "You're on," he says after a moment's thought. "But it's gotta be something that fucks up the //play//, for real. Not just fucking with you on the side." There is a very important distinction there, it seems. He isn't going to say that Solomon would never fuck with Darwin. That would just be silly.
The last comment, though, has him laughing, too. "Swear to God, man, he's like a fucking old person with tech even though he can't be more than like forty. Barely figuring out emojis. Kinda adorable though, not gonna lie." His eyebrows raise, smile pulling wide again as he regards the other man. "Right?" //Right//, Darwin?
"Okay, deal," Darwin says with a firm nod, dropping the stripped bone to his plate. "This is probably gonna' be stacked against me because you've known him longer, but... I prefer pessimism so I can be pleasantly surprised."
Darwin shares in the humor, haha, old person, haha... adorable. Ha. Javi can witness, in real time, someone melting like wax under thermite, as Darwin sinks into his hands, fingers splayed, partially pushing into his hair. The anguish is obvious. What's less obvious is /why/. "I don't know what to do," he says in the softest, quietest voice.
Javi nods, too, and with that, the deal is struck. Easiest ten bucks he ever made -- or at least, he seems to think so. Who knows how it will come out! He reaches for another fry, but his hand stills in midair as he watches Darwin sink onto the table in front of him. His eyes widen in surprise bordering on shock, before a wince flickers across his face, as obvious as if he'd actually been struck by something physical. It's several seconds before he can even figure out what he should do, and even a few more after that before it's clear enough so that he can speak again.
"Hey," he says, and all the teasing is gone from his voice now. "I'm sorry, man. I was just playing, didn't mean to make you feel bad." He hesitates, before he reaches over, too, to nudge the back of one of his hands gently with a finger. "You don't gotta do nothing, I'll shut up about it."
Between the splay of his fingers, Darwin's eyes dart from his plate to the exit a few times, like it wouldn't be weird at all to just /run/ from his emotions and leave poor Javi with the bill. The gentle touch startles him out of the ridiculous idea. Perhaps it's how graciously Javi relents, that Darwin's thoughts spill more freely from his lips, not that they make much sense. "He... he..." His hands slide back to form fists against the table. Not concussively, just... settling there. "He makes me feel like a stupid teenager," he growls, but eases soon enough, softening at Javi's assurance. "Yeah. Yeah, okay," he says, the rush of heat to his face all too clear. "Oh! We were gonna'... trade notes? On ephemerals, maybe?" he asks.
The difficulty in having the sort of face that shows everything is that it's not just the pleasant expressions that are easily read. No, 'everything' means //everything//, and right now it's painfully clear how badly Javi feels about this exchange. In fact, it's so bad that he doesn't even consider jumping in to try and say something to mitigate that statement. Nor does he come to Solomon's defense. He doesn't even crack a smile at Darwin's blush. He lets it pass by so completely that it makes Darwin's somewhat abrupt segue look smooth in comparison.
"Right, yeah." This time, when he reaches for a fry it's really to have something to do with his hand. "So...spirits." Yes, this is all very normal. "How do you hunt a spirit?"
Darwin is so scattered that when he finally realizes the /state/ of Javi (it being quite clear on his face, of course), his immediate response is to smother his dumb fucking emotions and slide out of the booth. Then he slides right in next to Javi and loops an arm around his shoulder to squeeze him tight. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry for being weird as fuck. It's my baggage, not yours. Not like I gave you any warning. Maybe we can put a pin in the ghosts and spirits stuff and... I dunno', go play fetch at the park or something?" he asks, hopeful.
There's a //very// brief moment as Darwin gets up where Javi doesn't seem to be sure what's happening. He doesn't necessarily look like he thinks whatever it is is //bad//, but he's already off-balance, so maybe he doesn't think it's //good//, either. However, it's dispelled pretty quickly by the hug. It doesn't take him long to relax, and after another second he even leans into it, settling considerably and sliding an arm around Darwin's back to return it as his face softens again.
"Nah," he says, shaking his head. "You weren't. It's my bad, I say stupid shit sometimes. None of my business, like...at all." And though the suggestion does draw a laugh, it's nowhere near as amused as it is delighted. "Yeah," he agrees. "Let's do it. No more ghosts today."
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