2019-06-28 - A Quarrel of Sparrows

Finch came back to work the day after August and Ignacio came to visit, but she's been out on the Out on a Limb truck and hasn't been by the shop, so Ig hasn't seen her. She's off today, and is up on the roof of Mallard House, hammering some boards over a hole from the storm. There was a tarp over it prior, but she's only now getting around to fixing it proper. She's in an olive jumpsuit, short-sleeved, with hiking boots and a rainbow striped, long-sleeved tee. Her goggles suddenly make sense, as she's wearing them in lieu of safety glasses. The sound of hammering is audible on approach. There's no ladder anywhere though, so how the hell did she get out there?

Not at all the way Iggs would get up there for damn sure. But there he is, a Spaniard armed with an aluminum pan covered in foil standing in the drive of that creepy ass cursed fucking house. It's amazing the courage or lack of concern one can find in a xanex and a hash brownie. Ignacio calls up from the drive to the TAK-TAK-TAK-TAK on the roof. "Hey.... HEY!!!" One eyebrow goes up and he looks a little amused. "I take it your'e feeling better?"

Finch stops hammering to look down and blink in surprise at Ignacio. There are roofing nails in her mouth. She plucks them out and calls, "Hey 'Nacio, what are you doing here?" The nails get tucked into a pocket as she begins shimmying over to a gable of the house. She swings down from it onto a little balcony beneath, then uses a nearby tree to skitter the rest of the way to the ground. She pushes the goggles up on top of her head. "Wasn't expecting to see you," she points out, wiping a forearm across her sweaty brow.

Ignacio stands in the drive holding the pan and lifts it up as if that at all answers anything. "Well I didn't know... how you were doin so I made a thing for me an' my brother and he was goin out so I thought you Miss Mags and your Nana might...want some." He pauses and explains, "Empinadas. I didn't want em to go bad and the fridge is full of stuff." He absolutely isn't doing this to be nice though!

Sure he isn't. Finch tromps over, slinging the hammer through a belt loop on her jumpsuit and gives him a slight quirk of a grin. "That's nice of you Iggy, can I call you Iggy?" she asks. She jerks a thumb towards the stairs up to the porch, which are still in brutally bad shape after the tree fell on them. "Come on in and eat with me and Mags? Gran is out of town for a few days visiting her sister," in the looney bin, "so we're on our own."

Ignacio watches the pick-haired dynamo holstering that hammer like a gunslinger and says in retun, "If you promise not to jump off the roof you can call me whatever you want." He looks at the porch and sighs. "Tu pobre, condenado porche." Sad little thing He almost tries to take the walk to the porch in one strive but with the way the weather's been wrecking havon on his leg. He carefully tackles them one by one and just prays to God above he doesn't fall through and get stuck because that's up there with his luck. That said he tries the door to let himself in instead of waiting like an idiot.

"Take your time," Finch advises, noting the leg. She ponders if she could fix that for him, but with how freaked out he was last time over the whole healing thing, she decides it's for him to ask, rather than for her to offer. "How did you hurt your leg?" She opens the front door for him.

Ignacio hands over the plate and looks around playing it cool with a shake of his head, "It's ... really stupid." He chews on the side of his cheek and shakes his head. Looking back to her both eyebrows arch curiously, "How'd you look like you got hit with a shotgun the other night?" He asks, or maybe the question is also the answer.

"That depends," Finch replies, leading him down the hall to the kitchen, and pulling out a chair at the table. She sticks two fingers in her mouth to whistle, and Mags comes skittering in from another doorway. She reaches a hand down for the rat, in a darling little sunhat today, and sets her on the back of a chair to observe. "Do you want the truth or will it freak you out?"

Ignacio murmurs a that's what I thought. He sets the pan down and eases into the chair flexing his knee. "Friends of mine and I were fuckin around spring break. There was an... accident. I had this really bad dream and I woke up in the hospital. looking like humpty dumpty." He really loves to gloss over things. He cofides, "The only real time I ever seem anything happen like... the other night, but," He shrugs looking to her, "For what it' worth I mean I'm glad you're ok. The old man sounded worried and then we aw ya and shit."

Finch looks sympathetic about the injury. "I was waiting at the bus stop on Elm street in front of the pawn shop when that storm hit. The water was like a river in the road, like whitewater rafting shit, not a pleasant lazy inner tube sort. And then the lamp posts got knocked over, one right on top of the shelter I was in. Hurt another guy under it, and we got swept down the storm grate by the water, along with a couple other people nearby."

The wee rat wriggles her nose and jumps onto the table to trod over to Ignacio's side of it, sitting up on her haunches to smile at him cheerfully. "Got banged up in the fall, but what really did the damage were..." Finch looks grossed out. "I swear to God they were like, slimes made of shit. They hit like a baseball bat swinging for the fences. Near death by living poo emojis. Story of my damn life."

Ignacio lets his eyes drift to teh overdressed, but always ladylike rat. He holds a finger for her and rubs her head. Mags, not...Finch. Looking up he asks, "Am I allowed to make a joke about that being a super shitty situation ooooor si that going to get me slapped in an 'unfun' way?" The underlying context being: Wow! He watches her curiously and offers "Good thing you didn't get an infection?" Wow. That's a lot of a lot. That half smile that doesn't reach all teh way across his face warms to Mags, "You still look fabulous. Nice to see they didn't eat you like a snack. Super rude am I right?" Okay, weird shit is real. Awesome. He sighs and asks, "Sooo... how'd you learn to do.. that?"

Finch laughs at the joke question, which is an answer in itself. "Yeah I sat in the shower as hot as I could stand it for like 2 hours after I managed to get home. I don't even remember how I did that. I remember climbing a ladder out of the sewer and the rest was a blur."

Mags seems delighted by the head rub, then she moves to sniff at the plate. Finch gets up and grabs two plates and glasses from a cupboard, and a little saucer for a teacup for the rat to eat off of. She sets them down along with some silverware fished out of a drawer. "We have uh, milk, tea, water, and Coke. What's your poison?" She opens the fridge.

Ignacio responds without missing a beat, "Cuba Libre." He pauses and offers, "Tea's fine." It's going to be fun pulling the bullshit, from the truth, from the alll too unfortunately commonplace with him. He watches Mags sniff at the tray and scoops her up in one hand to let her crawl up on a shoulder instead. "Eeeh I don't think you wanna eat people food. Then you'll look like the ones we got back home. Ain't a flatterin." He pokes his nose at her nose as she sniffs at him. Boop! "Yeah, you're pretty cool." He looks to Finch and continues with some hesitation really thinking about that story in teh back of his ehad. "You see any red balloons oooooor a clown because there might be a reason real estate is so fuckin affordable."

"If I see a goddamned clown in the sewers, I'm fucking moving to Idaho," Finch says with a snort. She pulls out a pitcher of iced tea from the fridge and brings it over to fill both glasses. It's sweetened. She slumps back into her chair. "Weird shit happens in this town. I guess I'm used to it. My family has a whole horrible history even. We're allegedly cursed. Can't say I can deny it either." She grabs a banana from a hanging basket, peels it, and cuts part of it up into small pieces, putting them on the saucer for the rat. Miss Mags perches happily on Ignacio's shoulder and watches the conversation, then looks to Iggy as if to ask permission to go eat her fruity treat.

Ignacio picks up a bit of hte banana and hands it to Mags. There's that bemused grin, all BS and glib comments aside, charmed by this rat. "This is wild. My pops would have a stroke if he saw this lemme tell ya." He pasues and Ignacio looks up with those dark eyes taking in the littl ebits of the house panning left and right through the room and back to her. "Creepy house aside you're serious? That... sounds like it sucks." He blinks at her and asks, "well... look there's no nice way of askin so what happened? Note:" His finger goes up as an adendum, "Fuck off and eat your empinada is a viable answer."

"Maybe I'll tell you someday," Finch responds. She's not ready to scare off a new friend so soon after coming back to Gray Harbor. Especially not one who brings her food. She dishes out an empanada for him and one for herself and sets in to eating it heartily. "Shit this is good," she notes between mouthfuls of pastry-bound yummy.

Ignacio nods finding that fiar. "A truth for a truth." Nothing's really free, but it can be fair. At the comppliment he shrugs, "Used to ahve my own restaurant back in Queens." He takes a bite and pauses squinting one eye. "Well... it was dad's. I worked it with em since I was like 14. Taught me everythin I know about runnin a kitchen." The dimpled half grin warms in a way it's actually apparent the other side jsut is not going to comply with him, but it hits his tired eyes no less. "Maaaan, dinner at home was somethin else tween me an' him lemme tell ya."

"Damn, don't let Granny Dove know or she might hire you to be our cook or something. She'd pay you in biscuits and jam or room and board or something," Finch laughs. She seems to relax when he doesn't press her for her story. Miss Mags happily takes banana bits from his fingers, holding them in her tiny pink hands to devour with happy squeaks now and then.

Ignacio chuckles and shakes his head, "I've had weirder offers." He gives Mags' head another rub for being good and damn adorable. "Yeah your abuela seems pretty damn cool, but yeah I mean say he word. If you get the stuff I'll cook it. I actually enjoy doin it jsut... not with my pops while he's got his head up his ass." Looking around he asks taking another bite, "She's out a bit huh? Eh. I'm here. You need a hand after lunch I ain't in a hurry."