2019-08-03 - Revenge of the Door

It could be said that the day in the Clayton household starts early - certainly, Isolde is gone quite early, since she walks to her job at the lavender farm, and that's not a short trip. Alexander? Well, he doesn't sleep much on the best of nights, which these lately have not been. He's caught some naps in his office chair, and pestered Ruiz at regular intervals to check that he still knows his name, careful to do so from a distance so as not to startle the man into a strong reaction. He does this as a matter of course, like it's just a thing you have to watch out for sleeping people, that if you wake them up too quickly, they might try to kill you.

At any rate, once Isolde has slipped out, Alexander relocates to the living room, and has the birdcage uncovered and is playing with Luigi, using the gentlest touch of his mind to keep the bird from giving its usual morning greetings so as not to wake Ruiz too early. Instead, he's working through some tricks with the conure, feeding it little treats in exchange for picking up the right one of an assortment of toys. "Yellow ring," he tells the bird, quietly but firm. The conure walks among the toys, and flips up the yellow ring, coming to drop it in his palm. Treat given! Alexander looks tired, as usual, but is clearly enjoying himself.

Some time later, once Alexander is well ensconced in the task of entertaining his bird, there's a rustling of movement from the direction of the bedroom, as of someone rousing. Rustle, rustle, thump of feet hitting the floor, and a moment spent seated on the edge of the bed, scrubbing the sleep out of his eyes. It's a minute or two before he emerges, and only once he's shoved his feet into boots and snagged his jacket from wherever he'd ditched it the night before. Sure enough, he's sporting a bit of bruising around the orbit of his left eye, dark hair askew, nose a frightful mess. He looks, in a word, like shit.

"I don't suppose you've got a spare toothbrush?" is what he asks after watching Alexander engaged in his little ritual with the tricks and toys for a minute or so, bulky figure shadowing the entryway between hall and living room.

It's almost certain that the sounds of someone waking up and getting off the small bed are enough to alert Alexander to Ruiz's waking. And indeed, the man gets a quick, sidelong glance as he appears in the doorway, but Alexander continues to walk the bird through another trick or two until Ruiz speaks. He points a finger gun at the bird, and says, "Bang, Luigi." The conure obediently falls over on its back, feet sticking straight up. Alexander grins, scoops him up in one hand and tickles his feathers as he relocates him to the cage. A treat is given before the cage door is closed, and Alexander turns back to Ruiz. "You look terrible. Are you certain you don't want me to work on that black eye a bit, or something?" To answer the question that was ACTUALLY asked, though, he goes to the hall closet and roots around a bit, before pulling out a small travel bag of toiletries, including one of those tiny travel toothbrushes. He offers this with a grimace. "It's what I've got. Sorry. You want coffee?"

For some reason, the bird's theatrics seem to amuse the cop. He watches for another minute or two, and even chuckles when Luigi falls over 'dead' of a gunshot wound. He grunts something at the assertion that he looks 'terrible'. As to whether Alexander can help, there's no immediate reply forthcoming. He simply watches him with that dark, carefully assessing gaze before stepping forward to accept the little travel toothbrush. "You've got nothing to apologise for." The thank you is implied in his eyes, with the steady look he gives the younger man. Then he steps past, and shoulders his way into the bathroom, digging something out of his pants pocket as he goes. "El café suena maravilloso. Por favor." Rattle, rattle, whooosh. The sound of the faucet being switched on obliterates whatever else he's doing for a few moments, before it's switched off again, and the sound of teeth being scrubbed with a brush commences.

"I don't think you've had my coffee yet," Alexander says, his tone wry. It covers both the nothing to apologize for, and the commentary on the coffee. He watches Ruiz, studied and studying in turn, and waits until the door is closed on the cop before he turns and sets the coffee maker to working. There's what looks like a brand new French press on the counter near the more conventional coffee maker, but Alexander just gives it a helpless sort of look, and then goes back to good old regular joe. Two mugs are found - one with a University of Oregon logo is clearly used a lot, while the other has an Addington High seal on it, and has few coffee stains. He sets them on the counter, and the bottle of painkillers next to the high school mug. The bird, clearly recognizing that the ban on music is off, starts whistling, and Alexander absently whistles back while he roams around the narrow kitchen, opening the fridge door as if breakfast material has magically materialized.

It hasn't. By the time Ruiz emerges, Alexander is staring at the remains of the household bread loaf, clearly trying to decide if plain toast constitutes an acceptable breakfast substitute or a murder attempt.

Ruiz, fortunately, doesn't quite catch the crack about the coffee, as he's presently rather focused on banishing his morning breath. Not to mention running on fumes at this point, what with getting a combined total of about four hours sleep last night. Alexander, of course, can't be batting much better. He spits, rinses, and splashes water on his face a few times, quiet for a while as trickles of it seep along his inked skin and through his beard. After a time, a couple of sharp sniffs, face briefly scrubbed with the sleeve of his shirt, and he pads back out in time to find the other man staring at a loaf of bread.

"Estás tratando de decidir si te va a reanimar y asesinar?" he queries carefully, ambling in a bit closer. Five feet or so, just outside Alexander's personal space. After the deliberation seems to yield no fruit, he adds in a low murmur, "I'll get you a knife." And slips past to do just that. Pending the results of some rummaging about in the man's kitchen.

There's a short, surprised laugh at Ruiz's words. "No mold, yet, so let's go with reanimation. Murder seems rude, incluso si te ves medio muerto." His own shift between English and Spanish isn't seamless, and the Spanish itself is clumsy, careful, with a beginner's oddities in grammar and intonation. His accent mimics Ruiz's own without seeming to be deliberate about it, as if he's just somehow tapping into the other man's understanding of the language with its own regional idiosyncrasies. He's watching him as best he can out of the corners of his eyes; he's Alexander, so it's not really all that subtle, nor does he successfully hide the concern on his face.

As Ruiz steps forward, he points to the silverware drawer, that's stuffed with various cultery, careful to keep enough distance between them that he doesn't accidentally brush against the cop in the narrow area. He, himself, grabs some margarine from the fridge, and prepares a pan with some bread to go into the oven. This is not a household with much in the way of cooking materials, including a toaster. A hesitation, before he adds, "If you wanted to call in, catch some rest, the house should be quiet most of the day." Luigi twitters from his cage. "Mostly quiet," Alexander allows. Once he's given the knife, he adds butter to bread, pops it in the oven on broil, and then goes to pour them both a cup of coffee.

It's true enough, the man does not often make jokes. But occasionally one slips out. He exchanges a look with Alexander at the Spanish that's offered; in a manner closely approximating his own coastal dialect, no less. A huff, and then his back is put to the other man as he fetches the knife and helps procure cups for the coffee. Unlike Alexander, he seems well acquainted with the workings of a kitchen. Probably cooks, too, given his idle snooping in cupboards and judgemental glances for some of the foodstuffs present (or not).

"Not worried I'll go on another destructive rampage about your property?" he queries lightly as he settles into a chair with his usual space-eating sprawl. He watches Alexander make the coffee, then offers at length, "I would appreciate your help." With what, may be unclear. He doesn't specify.

Alexander moves aside when Ruiz starts to move around the kitchen, seeming content to watch him rather than jockey for control of the space. It's an assessing look, but not defensive - another piece of information painstakingly added to the rather meager pile of facts that Alexander has acquired about the good Captain. He just smiles at the Look; it's clear that if nothing else, Alexander is really enjoying Ruiz's Spanish interjections no longer being a frustrating mystery. When Ruiz goes to find a chair, Alexander returns to the point of order in the kitchen space, pours two mugs, and brings one to Ruiz.

It's while he's getting the toast, which has now browned and is coated with melted fake butter, that Ruiz's light question draws a short, sharp breath, a tightening of his features. "I am. A little. But there's not really anything else for you to find, Captain. If you wanted my most embarrassing household accessories, you found them." There's still anger there, and hurt, but he's tamping it down. He finds two plates, splits the toast, and puts one plate before Ruiz, before grabbing his own mug and plate and bringing it to sit across from the cop. "Okay." Just that. "The door?"

The words are a while in coming, but once he offers them, they're quiet and seem sincere: "I'm not going to fuck with your shit, Clayton." Technically, he never made that promise the first time around. Dark eyes continue to track Alexander as he fetches toast and drops it onto plates. And remain on him even as his own plate is set down. A sip of the coffee, tentative, after a few seconds spent studying it. Then, "Door? What door?" He's even less sure about this toast, but takes a sniff, then a bite. Crumbly bits pepper his beard and lap, the latter dusted off in advance of a second bite. He must be hungry.

Alexander doesn't express trust in the words given. He watches Ruiz with dark eyes, and clearly marks them, but just as clearly hasn't decided whether they can be trusted. He eats, for his part, mechanically. Tearing the toast in to smaller pieces and just putting it his mouth to be chewed, swallowed, and forgotten. "Sorry, I don't have much in the way of breakfast food. Or, uh, food. I should do a better job about that," he admits. There's a twitch of his lips at the question in turn. "The door that you walked into." A gesture at the man's wounds. "That is what you told me. That it was a door." It's very, very bland. "I'd think it'd be a rather memorable experience, Captain." He reaches for his coffee, takes a sip, before smiling just a little. "Care to revise your statement?"

Trust isn't given, but then trust hasn't precisely been earned. Alexander knows this, and Ruiz knows this; it's how men like them have learned to operate. And as if he's aware of the repercussions of his transgression, the cop shifts his gaze away after a few moments of studying the younger man, and seems to grow briefly introspective. More crunching follows; he attacks the toast whole, rather than partitioning it up like Alexander does. "Stop apologising," he grunts. His eyes tick up again, then back down as he leans in for a sip of coffee. "No. No es asunto tuyo." The mug is set back down. "You offered to help.. mend the damage." He's uncharacteristically awkward about it. As if speaking those words out loud acknowledges something he isn't sure he should be acknowledging.

"From my perspective, I'd sort of claimed the right to break your nose for myself. But now, if I do it, I'm just an imitator. Takes all the fun out of it. So, it's sort of my business," Alexander says evenly, although there's a spark of humor in the darkness of his eyes. The directive to stop apologizing is ignored, but he puts down the piece of toast he was working on, and says, more seriously, "I think that if a part of you didn't want to talk about it with someone, then you wouldn't have used literally the worst excuse in the book for an injury. You could have said that a suspect threw a punch during an arrest and it wouldn't have even raised a yellow flag. I'd even have accepted a bar fight, because you're a guy who has a lot of anger, and I'd bet it wouldn't have been your first." He looks down at his plate. "I'm just saying."

Then he moves the plate to one side, and nods. He starts drawing something on the tabletop with his index fingers - it's geometric and intricate. "I don't have to touch you. To try and help. Like I said, it won't make anything disappear, but it'll make it heal faster. Like a few days in one day. It shouldn't raise too much suspicion, if anyone's watching." He assumes someone will be watching, from his tone. "But hopefully it'll relieve some of the pressure and pain." There's a sense of gathering power, if Ruiz can feel it, as Alexander's eyes rise and fix on the nose and eyes. He's whispering something to himself, and there's a rush of warmth that settles into the skin, muscle, and all the swollen and torn tissues.

That actually gets the surly Mexican to laugh. His face is suffused with a sudden warmth that creases the corners of his eyes and sketches a dimple somewhere under all that scruffy beard. "Is that so. Well, you're welcome to try." Alexander's got a slight age advantage over the middle-aged cop, but Ruiz has viciousness on his side; the bloodlust sits not far at all from the surface of the man. "And maybe a door is code for, not interested in fucking talking about it." A brow arches slightly as if to say, had you considered that?

Alexander's little ritual with the fingertip design on the tabletop is observed curiously as he bites into his toast. More crumbs litter his lap and beard, and he gets most but not all when he flicks them away. Then that curious sensation of warmth rushing in, and he squeezes his eyes shut for a moment like he's going to sneeze. A beat, two, before it passes, and he starts to breathe normally again. "That was.." He touches experimentally at his nose and cheek. "Unexpected."

Alexander blinks. He just stares at Ruiz, not quite open-mouthed, at the sudden warmth. It teases from him one of those bright, rare grins, a sunny and uncomplicated expression that removes a decade of age and several traumas from his face. But only for a moment, before it subsides into something still amused, but more complicated. "Well. One day, maybe. We'll see."

An exasperated noise at the door comment. "You're frustrating, Captain. But," his eyebrows go up, "if you're not, you're not. But if you find you are, you know where I live."

His gaze drops when Ruiz reacts to the healing. He seems to stop breathing when the man hesitates on his judgment, only to resume with a sigh when it's...neutral but not an immediate rejection of the power, or of him. "Yeah. I'm not very good. There are people in town who could make it like new."

They're alike, really, in more ways than not. Which may indeed be part of the friction. Alexander's smile is watched, nay, enjoyed for as long as it lasts; the captain is still smiling as he goes to finish off his coffee and disappear what remains of his toast. "Mm." His tongue slides across his lower lip, mug checked to make sure it really is all gone. "Ya veremos," he seems to agree. Followed by a blank look, like he has no idea whatsoever what might be frustrating about him. Surely nobody's ever found him to be so, before.

"You know," he murmurs as he pushes to his feet, collecting his plate and cup. "If you were anyone else, I'd swear the.." He struggles for the right words in English, and eventually settles on Spanish instead: "Ser duro contigo mismo." The faucet's turned on as he puts his back to Alexander and sets about washing and rinsing his dishes. "I'd swear it was an act. But I think you really mean it." It's a minute before he speaks again, faucet switched off and dishes dried with whatever towel he can find. "Creo que es desafortunado."

Alexander snorts with amusement at the blank look. He doesn't get up when Ruiz does - the kitchen's really only big enough for one adult at a time unless they're more friendly than perhaps the two men are, and he seems content to let the older man have the run of it, only going to put his own things away once Ruiz has finished. He just watches while the dishes are washed and dried, his expression puzzled at the action. Like it's not something he expected to see, and another mental file is added to the growing collection.

The cop's words are considered, long and carefully. Then he says, quietly, "Do you remember the actors? The ones that were feeding people to the dark? The last one that I wanted you to find?" He takes a breath, lets it out. "They attacked us and we killed them. I laid my hands on a woman and fried her from the inside out. And then I went home and had a couple of weeks of the best sleep I've had in decades. I'm the great-great-great grandson of one of America's most prolific serial killers, and even before I knew that, I knew I had," a pause, reconsider, "I am capable of some very unpleasant things. I try to be good. Because if I'm not hard on myself, I think I could be very, deeply bad." It's all recited in the most toneless of voices, and his expression is blank. "So it might be unfortunate, but someone's gotta watch me. And pretty much I'm the only one I've got to do that."

Ruiz doesn't move to reclaim his seat immediately. Instead, he takes up a lean nearby, though not quite near enough to be obnoxiously in the way. Hands slid into his pants pockets, he watches Alexander bustle about, and gives a slight nod when the actors are mentioned. Of course he remembers.

And then, when the other man is done speaking, a silence settles between them. Not an uncomfortable silence. Not a cautious one, of a man uncertain what to say on the basis of too much information revealed. On the contrary, it's probably about as close as they get to a companionable silence. Then, "I don't think you're the only one capable of.." What was that word? "Unpleasant things." He watches Alexander steadily with that. "And you are right, and wrong. Someone does have to watch you." He isn't smiling, but isn't particularly tense, either. "Someone already is."

Alexander accepts that. There's a tiny nod. It may even relieve him a little, judging for the slight shift in the set of his often slumped shoulders although his expression remains blank and shuttered, the closest he gets to being able to hide his feelings. He washes and dries without looking up, and definitely without looking at Ruiz. It's not until that's done and he's washed and dried his hands afterwards that he's able to look at Ruiz. Then, he says, dryly, "There. Uncomfortable personal revelations is the cost of staying at Casa Clayton. Sorry. Your turn, next time." And then, because he literally cannot leave any interesting unanswered mystery alone, he adds, "Or now, if you wanna change your mind about who broke your nose. Just saying." A hopeful lift of his eyebrows.

The acceptance gains a soft grunt in understanding, and then a rustle of movement as the captain pushes off the wall he'd been holding up, and steps briefly out of sight to fetch his jacket and gun from the bedroom. He's in the process of shrugging into it as he returns, inked arms disappearing under battered leather. "Gracias. For the.." He hesitates. "Para todo." Then finishes tugging on his jacket, and shoves the weapon into the waistband of his pants, mostly concealed beneath the jacket. "Nice try," accompanies a slight smile, and then he steps past and heads for the door. "I am going to get some air. I'll see you later." The first statement is somewhat contradicted by the fact that it's a pack of smokes that comes out of his jacket, and one tucked between his lips as he's about to shoulder his way out.

"De nada," Alexander says, breaking out one of the few Spanish phrases he probably knew before his head broke open in unexpected ways. "Don't die, Captain." He doesn't try to press any further for the moment - although the frenetic obsession of his research room does not suggest that he is a man who abandons a mystery very easily. He leans his elbows on the kitchen counter and watches Ruiz leave, his gaze dropping to the gun for a moment. As always, there's the faintest hint of distaste at the sight of the weapon, but he says nothing, never being a man for the niceties of goodbyes. Luigi cannot be said to be the same, and calls out shrilly as Ruiz opens the door. It's either 'good riddance' or 'when you come back, bring treats'. The conure is not a complicated creature.