On Not Looking Like A Fruitcake

Who: Isaac and Lullaby
When: late afternoon
Where: Front St.

Lullaby was out walking to The Spot. She could have gone to a different store, but she liked the spot, and it got her outside for a little while. So she was walking up Front, lost in her own little world. Front was less busy than Third, and so it was making her feel weirdly safer. Which was utterly stupid, but that was how she felt. She was trying to make herself do things and behave normally, thus the walk. That and an all consuming need for Ben and Jerry's, but that was nothing new. Her leg kind of hurt, but the bandages were hidden by her skirt. She would much rather walk it off or whatever than hide in her room.

Isaac was out walking too, because he could think better when he walked. He tended to get things done more efficiently. Which was weird, but there it was. Currently he was swapping phone calls with David and the other guys in the band, trying to get something solid worked out. He never called Thom until everything was settled, that was just what he did. He was the organizer. "Nah, man, I don't think we'll have to play anywhere past midn--" His roaming eyes caught sight of a familiar short-haired girl. Oh! Someone else to ask! "Lullaby!" Isaac shouted, unmindful of Tyler's ear on the other side. Der. "Oh sorry dude, lemme call you back, okay?" He hung up and started to jog across the street in her direction.

Lullaby of course missed the shout, and kept right on walking. Though she did catch sight of him jogging towards her and then stopped. She smiled at him and waved, only then thinking to herself Oh crap, I'm still kinda injued, what do I tell him? She really needed to think this stuff through before she ran into people. It would be massively helpful. But hey! Isaac! He was cool, she liked him.

And she happened to have her purse with her. That was full of necklaces and other jewelry that had a weird cross section of religious symbols. She was aware people were going to start thinking she was fucking nuts...but she'd rather that than see people hurt. So it was a trade off. She just had to decide where she could slip it into the conversation. "Hello." she said when she knew he was close enough that he would hear her.

He felt relieved that he didn't have to tap her on the shoulder or anything to get her attention. Isaac flashed her a bright grin before his eyes ticked down and took in how her hands looked. What with the splints and everything. "What happened?" he asked, looked back up at her with some concern. She'd been a really sweet girl, and he hated to see anybody he liked in pain or anything.

I was attacked by a monster! And found out I wasn't crazy from my best friend's dead dad, and then uncle! Yeah, that's not totally batshit screaming white coats worthy insane! "I um, I just bent them back." she said. "How are you? I haven't seen you in a while!" Here, have a religious symbol! No, I can't do that now....

"I'm pretty good," he told her with a smile. "Sorry to hear, though," he added, gesturing to her fingers. That must make stuff hard on her, that really sucked. ... Maybe a party would cheer her up! Or something! "I'm glad I saw you, what are you doing Sunday night?" Isaac grinned a little.

Lullaby shrugged, smiling, then she lit up. "Nothing! Why are you playing? You said you'd tell me if you were!" she reminded him, as if he may have forgot. It totally took focus off of her, too, and she didn't want to lie. She was a bad liar. Abysmally bad, actually, so the less she had to do it the better.

"Yeah, we are totally rocking people's faces off," he declared with a bright smile. "Sunday night, at David Blair's party. I dunno if you know him, he's in my grade, but he's a cool guy with a big backyard. Wants to celebrate the end of summer and stuff. It starts at seven, think you can make it?" He bit his lip and gave her his best puppy-eyes.

Puppy eyes were a pretty good call with Lulu. She nodded, then smiled. It would be later, but she would be with people. And she'd call for a ride home, or have someone walk her. She hoped Joshua would be able to go, but she wasn't sure. So...she'd wing it. But it did sound like a good idea, and she wanted to go. "I think so!" she said, signing with her good hand. She was starting to remember not to try to sign with her bad one. That was getting old fast. "I'd like to! Where's his house?"

Isaac looked uber-pleased with that one. "I can give you his address," he said. Since he knew that much for sure. He started digging around in his pocket and came up with an old reciept for something and a small Sharpie. Lifting his leg a bit to write on, Isaac scribbled it down. With a second's thought, he also added his own phone number to it. "You can call me if you can't find it. I'd offer to give you a ride, but I gotta be there early with the band. And bring people, if you want." He offered her a grin.

She took the number, and smiled, pausing to take her phone out and she put Isaac's number into it. "Thank you." she said. "Did you want my number? Um. Just in case?" she asked. Plase don't think that's weird. She was still trying to figure out how to go about giving him a necklace and not seeming insane.

"Yeah, sure!" he said, flipping his own phone open again. He put it in as she gave it to him and nodded. "Got it," he said as he tucked it back into his pocket. Isaac tucked his hand in with it and smiled at her some more. She was completely cute. "Sure you'll ... feel up to it?" he asked, arching an eyebrow.

"Oh, yeah. Oh and don't forget if you try to talk to me, text me. I can't hear very well on the phone, so I'd suck if you tried to talk-talk to me." Lulu clarified for him. "But yeah, I'm fine, really." she said. Then dug in her little cute purse. There was a whole mess of necklaces in there, with every different religious symbol she could find. Hell, she'd bought a book just on that and brought it with her around town to buy up everything she could find. She finally settled on one that didn't in any way shape or form look like a religious symbol. Then she tugged it out and held it out for him. "For you." she said simply, because she couldn't come up with a good enough lie.

Isaac was nodding his understanding when he was presented with ... a necklace. He blinked and looked utterly surprised. "For me?" he echoed, looking at her face and then back to the pendant. He reached out to take it, looking at it in his palm. Then, more blinking at her. He smiled a little. "What'd I do to deserve this?"

"You're a nice person and I like giving things to friends?" Lullaby suggested, hoping she didn't look like too much of a fruitcake. "I um...I like giving presents. I do all the time." And by 'all the time' she meant 'just started now'. But he didn't know that. And it wasn't like she'd never been prone to present giving. It just usually wasn't so random and possibly insane.

Isaac, who definitely didn't know any better, just smiled really big. He liked it, it was cool lookin'. And he of course also had no idea what it was or what it was for, but he rarely argued with presents. "Well thanks," he said warmly. He put it on, fastening the clasp behind his neck and letting it settle in on his upper chest. "I really appreciate it, Lullaby, that's sweet."

She smiled at him brightly, just beaming now. Oh thank goodness. He hadn't decided she was insane, or if he had, he was at least humoring her. And she didn't care, so long as he wore it. "It's good luck, and looks good on you, you should wear it a lot." she said. Lulu was an easy girl to please, and she looked very pleased.

She was looking pleased at someone who was also easy to please, and enjoyed pleasing people. So it was all good all around. He patted his pockets. "I wish I had something awesome to give you back ... besides gum," he said sheepishly, pulling a pack out of his pocket.

Lullaby laughed. "Oh don't be silly. Random presents don't require anything back. Just wear it and I'll be happy." she said, bouncing just a touch on the balls of her feet. That reminded her of the gashes on her thigh, but she ignored them. She was just ecstatic that that had actually worked.

Well this was ... weird, but really nice. There was nothing wrong with being quirky, in Isaac's opinion. "Okay," he said with a smile. Where was he supposed to go from there? "How've you been?" That was as good a start as any, really.

"Oh, alright." Lullaby said, wrinkling her nose cutely. "I mean, the sprained fingers are crappy, but other than that everything's okay. Sort of. "I'm in that half weird stage where I'm almost excited school's starting soon, even though I know like, a week in I'm going to remember why I like being on summer break so much." she added. "How's everything going with your band? I mean, obviously well cuz you guys are playing places, but everything's cool? Will you be playing original songs?"

Isaac laughed a bit. He knew how that went, well enough. "Everything's good, yeah," he said about the band. "We might have a girl that we're slowly convincing to sing for us sometimes, but nothing's solid yet. And yeah, Thom -- one of the guys -- hates doing covers unless people are really begging for them. So it's our stuff." Speaking of, his phone started to go off in his pocket, buzzing against his hand. He ignored it for the moment.

Lullaby didn't hear it, so she didn't notice at all. "Oh that's really awesome, so do you write songs then?" she asked. She didn't think she could write anything if her life depeneded on it. But then again, musically, she was missing a hell of a lot of range. So what might sound okay to her might be absolutely terrible and boring to everyone else who got the full range.

"I help," he said with a chuckle. "I'm not good at doing whole songs on my own, that's more Thom's area, but ... I get the basslines down and some harmony, and he mostly does the rest. Lyrics, though, I totally suck at. So sort of." He grinned a little.

She laughed, then started walking. "Want to walk with me?" she asked. "I was going to get ice cream. It's a need. If I don't get it, I might die." she added. Her mood was much better than it had been in a while though. "And hey, collaborations are good. Then you can both say you wrote them."

"Yeah, totally," he said to the walking thing. And then started doing it. Ice cream sounded like awesomeness to him. "We definitely don't want you to die, so ice cream it is," he agreed with a grin. "Yeah, it's kinda fun to brag about sometimes, even though I can't take credit for most of it. And Thom won't brag about anything, so somebody has to pick up his slack."

Lullaby was watching him as best she could, and she was fairly good at that, so she could follow. "Don't trivialize your contribution! Songs aren't songs without all parts, right?" she asked. Then she laughed. "So says the girl who can't hear half of it. I'm sure I'm not the most credible source, but I stand by my logic."

Isaac laughed, trying to remember to turn his face to her as much as possible. "Well your logic makes me feel better, credible source or not, so I'll stand by it too," he told her, looking pleased. He was good at what he did, most of the time, but he wasn't nearly so confident as he put off to people.

"Hey, at least you know the part you play I can hear!" she added brightly, smiling at him and knocking her hand against his upper arm. "Bass is good. I can hear it and as far as I can tell that's what carries a song anyways." she said. Well, in her world.

"Depends on the song, but thank you," he told her with a smile. "I'm glad you can hear it, at least. I'll try not to screw up too much on Sunday night for you."

Lullaby laughed. "I'm sure you won't!" she said. "And if it's original songs anyways, even if you did, I would probably think that's the way it was supposed to be. So you're covered either way. There's no way you can mess up."

"Excellent," he declared, laughing again. "I'm liking this plan more and more." And oh look! They were at the store. He pushed the door open for her and let her through, then followed along behind.

Lullaby thanked him and didn't hear the high pitched 'someone's walked into the store' beep that went off when they entered. It was a massively small store, mostly rows and rows of alcohol, though Lullaby just went to the freezer to eye the selection of Ben and Jerry's. Eventually she picked out Phish Food, because she was a geek and liked the little chocolate fishies in it. Let it never be said that she wasn't easy to amuse. Taking that out, she looked over at Isaac again. "Want anything?" she asked.

He nodded, reaching around her to snag up a small tub of Karamel Sutra. Because, yeah, awesome. Flashing her a grin, he -- carefully, because of her fingers -- took the ice cream from her and started heading to the front of the store. A bottle of Captain Morgan's caught his eye, but he didn't linger or anything. There'd be more booze than he could handle Sunday. He got into line, totally intending to buy her ice cream.

Lullaby laughed, and followed after him, trying to reach around to grab her ice cream with her good hand. "I asked if you wanted anything!" she protested. But not that terribly hard. She was smiling at him.

Isaac looked at her and grinned. "I know, and I decided I wanted to buy your stuff," he countered, moving her little tub out of reach. "Maybe it's a shameless bribe to get you to come on Sunday."

Lullaby was inherently a little thing. Tiny was a good description, so yeah, he could definitely play Keep Away indefinitely with her. She giggled, then stood back and crossed her arms, careful of her hand. "Well! I suppose." she finally conceded.

Well that hadn't been much of a fight, had it? He, being himself, couldn't help but just bask in that smile she had on her face. Which was pointed at him. It was always such a high. He paid for their ice cream and made for the door again, plastic bag in hand. He did the gentleman-door routine again, smiling at her on her way out.

She smiled back, and stepped out, waving to the store owner before they left. Then she turned and waited for him. "We both have ice cream, and we lack spoons." she pointed out. "What are we going to do?!" Lullaby really played up the signing, as if this were a terrible crisis.

He twisted his lips to one side and looked thoughtful. "This is a problem," he agreed, glancing up and down the street like it somehow held the answers. "Well ... I have a house with spoons contained within it," he stated, looking at her with an arched eyebrow.

"You do? Well! That fixes that then." Lullaby said happily. She'd always been a friendly sort of person, and new friends were a good thing in her book. So hanging out with Isaac was good. "I don't know where you live, so lead on, mister." she said and signed.

Isaac, not understanding a single thing in sign language, had his hazel eyes on her face. He nodded and tilted his head in the direction they were to be headed. "I can't keep you long," he said, looking around to her as he spoke again. "I gotta make some more phone calls. But I will totally provide you with spoonage and scoff some ice cream with you. To save your life, of course."

"Very valient of you." Lulu said with a little laugh. "And it's okay, I don't want to get in the way of greatness or anything. I'd hate to think everything fell apart because you were too busy eating ice cream with me. That'd just be silly."

"It might be worth it, but I think Thom would probably kill me," he said with a chuckle. "He's anal about having plans laid out. So if it were just me, I'd completely slack off with you." Isaac tossed her a grin.

"Can't slack off. You have to get all famous so I can say I knew you way back when, and this one time, you totally bought me ice cream." Lullaby said firmly. "That and I can point out on your album covers and go 'see! I gave him that necklace!' Because in my internal montage of your rising to fame, you're still wearing it."

"I said I would, didn't I? And you said this necklace was good luck, so I'm sure it will contribute to my rise to utter rockstarhood." He swung the bag a little, on the other side of his body, as he turned them down his street. Almost there. He hoped his mom wasn't hanging around in the kitchen or anything. She'd start asking embarrassing questions.

Lullaby, who's best friend in the world was a guy, didn't actually think of anything like that. She sort of thought of guys and girls as the same, you could randomly hang out and it didn't require questions of an embarrassing variety. Which probably made her a tad naive, but that was Lulu for you. "Well, it better. Otherwise I'm going to be very sad. So it'll just have to work."

"It just has no other choice," he answered in agreement, nodding. Soon enough they were at the St. James house, and he was opening that door for her. He scooted around her to poke his head into the kitchen. It was blissfully deserted. Isaac started to dig out spoons.

Lullaby was looking around. "Wow, you guys have a really huge house." she said. She'd always thought the houses on this street were awesome, she'd just never been inside one. "Oh hey, you guys can just sit in your back yard and have like, the perfect view of the fireworks on the fourth, can't you?" she asked. Yeah, this street was high up overlooking the lake, and was like, the most upscale place in town, pretty much. She hadn't known that they were all well off n stuff. She supposed it was because neither of the St. James kids really acted like it.

Isaac glanced up from handing her the spoon and nodded to her question. He gestured for her to have a seat at the kitchen table. They were really well off, it just wasn't something he ever really thought about. It didn't much cross into his mind. "It's pretty big, I guess," he said amiably, glancing around some more.

Lullaby walked over to sit down at the table with him, and kind of half struggled with getting the top off of her ice cream. Which she wound up holding between her knees and then taking the top off with her good hand. "Tadaa." she said, putting it back on the table. "See? I'm multitalented."