2019-09-11 - Speaking a Mutual Language
Ruiz follows after Alexander storms out of a planning meeting. Angry Alexander is angry, blows are exchanged, some sort of bonding ritual probably takes place.
IC Date: 2019-09-11
OOC Date: 2019-06-22
Location: Elm Street
Related Scenes: 2019-09-11 - Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness 2019-09-11 - Plums and Tequila 2019-09-12 - Texts at Midnight
Plot: None
Scene Number: 1544
Alexander doesn't have particularly long legs, but he does have a pretty good head of steam, so he makes good time getting out of the pawn shop, and stepping into the rainy street. He grimaces up at the sky, rain falling into his forehead. Then makes a low, angry sound, and kicks the side of the building. Then starts to slouch his way down the street towards his home.
Ruiz doesn't make much effort to disguise his approach. He's a bull in a china shop at the best of times, and he has nothing to gain by sneaking up on the twitchy man. "Clayton," he calls after him once he reaches the street outside the pawn shop. His hands are shoved into his pants pockets, and his stride is lengthened as he spots the other man hoofing it home. "Quieres parar?"
"Do I look like I want to stop?" Alexander growls, head ducked down as he hears Ruiz's voice. But he does, anyway, turning to face the cop. "What is it? What do you want?" The rain is starting to flatten his hair to his skin, and his hands are flexing into fists, relaxing, flexing again. Still, the fury seems unfocused, without a real target at the moment.
The captain's a decently tall fellow, falling at just a hair under six feet. Though he doesn't seem to be putting his height to full use in chasing down his quarry tonight; his approach is prowlish and almost languid, as if he's certain Alexander won't continue to run. As if he's that sure of himself. "I want to know what's going on. With you and Isabella. Or.. with you. Lo que sea. Dígame usted." His dark eyes squint up slightly as the rain hits him, also plastering his dark curls against his scalp, and highlighting the brutish angles of his face.
Alexander stares at Ruiz, blankly. "What." His hands flutter, sudden exasperation. "Do you even have to ask? This entire situation is fucked right up, and people could die. More people could die. Because we didn't bury the damned bones when we had the chance." He rubs at his bandaged chest, grimaces, turns away. "They asked me, you know. In the beginning. Before people started to die. Before we knew what the fuck was going on. They said they'd brought bones out of the Veil, actual bones, and that the bones wanted to be buried. They wanted to burn them, instead. I said let's do an autopsy. Let's learn what we can. If I'd just said bury the fuckers, then none of this would be happening and people wouldn't be talking about having to murder, or kidnap, or cut off their damned fingers!"
Does he? Does he even have to ask? Ruiz gazes somewhat blankly at the other man, letting him talk through his frustration. Letting him unpack it. Some of this is relatively new information; he wasn't around for the bones to have been discovered, though it's highly likely he'd have advocated for burying them at the time. Knowing him. "Are you blaming yourself for all of this, then?" he queries, drawing a step closer. Still outside of Alexander's personal space, though encroaching upon it steadily. "Is that what's pissing you off so fucking much? That you think this is your fault?"
"No!" Alexander practically shouts it, and he makes an inarticulate noise of frustration. "I'm just angry! I hate this! I hate sharing blood with this sonofabitch, I hate that every fucking THING over there can just look at me and know that I should be...locked away. For a fucking vacation. I hate all these people and their needs and their problems and their feelings inside my head, and I hate that someone else is going to be taking point on this, and I can't even argue with it, because she's got more reason to be there and she's stronger than me. I can feel it just looking at her." He snarls and paces in a tight little pattern on the sidewalk, boots splashing through the rain. "And I probably just fucked whatever it is that Isabella sees in me, too. Because I'm bad. Even Gohl could see it."
Ruiz just stands there, stony faced, letting all of Alexander's anger wash off him like the rain against the asphalt. His nostrils flare a little when Alexander gets to the bit about the feelings inside his head. The needs and the problems and the anger and the pain and the feelings. Maybe it's why he is the way he is. Hardened and rough-edged, quick to deflect emotion and slow to show it. A protective mechanism. "You should know better, where Isabella's concerned. You know how she feels about you." Because the captain's felt it too. He can't not.
He takes yet another step closer, slow, until he's within range to touch the other man. Though he doesn't. "Bad?" His mouth twitches with a wry smile. "Eres un hombre mejor que yo, por mucho. Entonces, si eres malo, qué me hace eso? Dime."
"You're not bad," Alexander says, sounding shocked Ruiz might even say it. He starts, and stares blankly at the man. "You protect people. You're...cranky, and violent, and high-handed, and sometimes kind of a bully. But you're not bad. You try."
Only once that's been dealt with does he circle back around to Isabella, running his hands through his hair. "She's going to get herself killed. Or someone else is going to get her killed. Maybe I am going to get her killed. Maybe I'm going to kill her. I don't know. She shouldn't even be here! She should be out of this shitty town, finishing her thesis and going to interesting places and doing the things she loves! And I can't, I can't protect her at all." His voice suddenly drops down to a near whisper, guilt twisting his features. "And I'm angry at her. I'm angry. She burnt the bones. She didn't ask anyone, or think it through, she just did it, and it hurt so much, and if she hadn't, we could have buried them."
Ruiz furrows his brows slightly when Alexander starts listing off his less than admirable attributes. Then scowls a little as he kind of keeps going. And going. His glance away from the man is accompanied by an audible sigh, dark eyes returning once Alexander's switched topics and started ranting to him about Isabella instead. "She's an adult," he points out, "and can make those decisions for herself. Though I understand, and empathise with the desire to protect her." Deeply so, if the emotion rolling off him is any indication.
As for the bones, "I didn't know that." A muscle in his jaw twitches. "I'd be angry about that, too."
"But I can't protect her," Alexander says, his voice breaking a little. "I can't protect anyone. I never could. I always just make it worse, in the end." His hand comes up to rub at his chest, again, hard enough that it's almost like he's using the pain to punish himself. "It wasn't her fault. She didn't know. I shouldn't be angry. Not at her. If I hadn't driven her away, she'd probably have spoken to me about it before doing it. And then her mother was killed. By my...whatever Gohl is to me. And so many people are being drawn into this who don't have any stake in it - Itzhak, August. Good people, and they might get hurt." The fury is draining out of him, quickly, as it tends to, but it leaves his arms dangling like a puppet's after the strings have been severed, a bleak and broken expression on his face.
Ruiz observes this only briefly before reaching for Alexander's wrist, and attempting to give it a hard tug. Ostensibly, to stop him from hurting himself. "Stop fucking pinning all of this on you. It's not helping anything. It's selfish. So fucking stop it." His lip curls slightly, his mien blunt-edged and somehow more vicious looking with the rain plastering his hair to his skull. "And you find me someone who claims not to have a stake in this, in this shitty little town, and I'll call them a liar. This is on all of us. I didn't burn those fucking bones, and I'm willing to do what it takes to see this done. Are you?" He gives the man's arm another hard jerk. "Or are you going to sit here and feel sorry for yourself. Huh? Tell me."
<FS3> Alexander rolls Composure (7 4 4 1) vs Hey, Ow! (a NPC)'s 4 (8 8 7 6 3 1)
<FS3> Crushing Victory for Hey, Ow!.
<FS3> Alexander rolls Melee (7 5 4 4 3 3) vs Ruiz's Melee (7 7 4 3 3 3 2 1)
<FS3> Marginal Victory for Ruiz.
Alexander's eyes fly open when Ruiz grabs his wrist. He's already on a ragged edge, emotionally, and the hard tug and jerk just reaches down and flicks a switch somewhere inside of him. All the anger that had been drained away comes roaring back. He doesn't try to answer the question - maybe he doesn't even have a good answer for it - but his left hand comes up in a fist and he drives it at Ruiz's head in a quick but clumsy sort of attempt at a strike. "Let go of me!"
<FS3> Ruiz rolls Melee (8 7 5 5 5 4 3 1) vs Alexander's Melee (7 7 5 5 2 1)
<FS3> DRAW!
<FS3> Ruiz rolls Melee (8 7 6 6 5 3 3 2) vs Alexander's Melee (7 7 6 3 3 1)
<FS3> Marginal Victory for Ruiz.
The attempt at a strike, being clumsy, doesn't quite land. Not solidly, anyway. Ruiz turns his head at the last moment, and it grazes his cheek with a scrape of knuckles through coarse, close-cropped beard. He takes advantage of the fact that Alexander's committed to the blow to land a vicious little haymaker to his gut. At least he had to let go of the man, per his 'request', in order to do so. "Is that all you've got, Clayton? Come on. Venga. Pégame."
<FS3> Alexander rolls Melee (5 5 5 4 2 1) vs Ruiz's Melee (8 7 7 6 5 4 3 2)
<FS3> Crushing Victory for Ruiz.
Alexander takes the punch in the gut and staggers backwards, bent over and wheezing. "You...hurt me." His eyes wide for a moment. Then just blank and furious. He launches himself forward with a sudden snarl, trying to bodily crash into the older man and knock him into the ground. But he's lost what form and control he has in the sudden burst of fury, and it's telegraphed and easy to dodge or counter.
<FS3> Ruiz rolls Melee (7 6 5 5 2 2 1 1) vs Alexander's Melee (7 7 7 6 4 4)
<FS3> Victory for Alexander.
Far, far too easy. Alexander is no slouch as a fighter, but Ruiz makes up in viciousness what he lacks in youth. The charge is met with his arms around the other man, like he's going to hug him. If hugs come with a knee shoved forcefully into the gut. "Lo necesitabas. Es el idioma que hablas." It's hissed once the pair are bodied up to each other, whether or not his knee connects.
<FS3> Alexander rolls Melee (6 5 4 4 3 3) vs Ruiz's Melee (8 7 6 6 4 3 2 1)
<FS3> Crushing Victory for Ruiz.
The knee connects, and Alexander's whole body jerks with the force of it, the breath driven out of him with a grunt. It provokes an immediate response, although with his arms pinned, it really only leaves his head, so he slams his head forward to try and smash his forehead into Ruiz's nose. "I speak all languages!" And then he struggles, futilely, against the grip that the other man has on him, but his fury is already starting to fade out of him again, and it hurts having his burned chest pressed in a bear hug with the cop.
With his hands fisted in Alexander's jacket, and nowhere else to go, it's not like Ruiz has a hope in hell of avoiding the imminent crash of Alexander's head against his. So what does he do? He takes it like a man. CRACK as their skulls meet. Like a pair of bighorn sheep with clattering horns and mating rights in the balance. Except not so much with the mating rights. Or the horns. "You crazy fucker," observes the cop with a bark of laughter that sounds half pained. Because that hurt. But probably nowhere near as much as it hurt Alexander. Doesn't he know by now that the captain is hard to fucking kill? "What the fuck are you trying to do, Clayton? Tell me what you're trying to do. Tell me what you want." His grip, at least, loosens on the younger man. Though he doesn't release him entirely, lest he start swinging again.
Alexander sees stars. A headbutt was not the best tactical maneuver, here, but there was a sort of vicious satisfaction in the pain - not Ruiz's pain, but his own. But he sort of sags in the cop's grip, leaning heavily against him, his eyes dark and dazed. "I don't know." It's quiet, and if they weren't so close it might not be heard at all. "I just want people to be okay, Javier. I don't know how to do that. I don't know how to stop people from getting hurt." He frowns at him. "How do I stop that?" Another pause. "You have a very hard head." It's a bit indignant.
It's raining still. A steady hiss against the pavement, and it soaks into hair and sluices along skin in narrow rivulets looking for the path of least resistance. Ruiz's sigh is probably entirely lost in the sound of it. His arms, after a long while, draw more gently around Alexander; one and then the other, almost like a hug. An actual hug. He speaks after an even longer while, amidst the steady rasp of his breathing, and a sharp sniff to clear a trickle of water from his nose. "I don't know either. How to do that. You figure it out, and you let me know, though." A beat, and a sound that might be a chortle. "I just know where to take the blow. You'd be surprised how many times someone's tried to crack my nose like that." And succeeded on at least some of them, given how it's obviously been broken on multiple occasions.
Alexander moves tentatively to return the almost-hug with an embrace of his own. He gives a soft laugh of his own, that weird little broken noise he makes, and says, "I've considered several potential methods, but we don't have enough basements or enough rope. And feeding people becomes awkward rather quickly. Also, felony kidnapping in a good cause is still kidnapping." He takes a deep breath, lets it out, and then plants his feet more firmly to gently start to disentangle himself. "Sorry. For swinging at you. I shouldn't have. I was an ass. To you, and to Isabella." A grimace, there. "I'll need to apologize. I just felt," a long pause, "angry. And helpless. I hate it."
Ruiz is well aware that Alexander isn't a hugger. Or a toucher in any sense of the word. And pushy though he may be, he isn't going to push this. Once he's sure Alexander isn't going to wind up and hit him again, he releases him without hesitation. "You don't need to apologise. Not to me. Stop it." Personal space restored, he pats down his pockets for his pack of cigarettes, and lights one up with a hand cupped over it. Turned away from Alexander, notably. "I can take your anger. I can't speak for Isabella, of course. That's between you and her."
"Yes. Clearly," Alexander says, and now there's a bit of rueful self-mockery there as he reaches up to rub at his forehead. "Okay. No apology. But thank you. For bothering. And for not just kicking my ass up one side of the street and down the other." He looks down, not appearing to be bothered by the rain that runs in rivulets down his hair or his face. "You're wrong, though. What you said. I'm not a better man than you are. You're good. I don't know why you think you're not. I owe you a drink, too. I have tequila. And a towel." He peeks at Ruiz from under his wet bangs. "If you want."
Ruiz shakes out his lighter once he's got the cherry going, and slots it back into his pocket. He drags off the already-damp cigarette, and squints up at the younger man through dark, soaked lashes. "Not wrong," he asserts lowly, turning to exhale smoke away from Alexander. "You don't know me as well as you think you do." There's a pause at the offer. The if you want, as if to provide him with an out. And because the captain's just that sort of ass, he flashes a quick smile full of canines and meanness. "Do you? Want?" The tequila probably goes without saying, as far as he's concerned.
"Because you won't tell me about yourself," Alexander points out, with a touch of exasperation, and as always, that hungry undertone of curiosity unsated, the sharp hunger that they both share, gnawing at them, even if they express it in different ways. He tries to shove his hands in his pockets, but at this point, the jeans are wet and are not cooperating. So he just gestures a bit sharply, instead. "Yes. Of course. I wouldn't have offered if I didn't want." He switches to his own halting Spanish to mutter, "Eres una persona dificil. Me alegra que estes aqui."
"You had your chance. When we were linked. You severed it. You." He doesn't sound angry, merely pointing out that.. actually, he does seem a little sore about that. Maybe just a little. Grumbling around his smoke, he glances at his watch and murmurs, "I've got to give Erin a ride home. I'll stop by after. You'd better not be lying about the tequila." He pulls back a step, then another, dark eyes on Alexander's. And a chortle at his last, halting words in Spanish. "De vuelta a ti." Then he pivots and prowls off, phone coming out of his pocket as he fires off a text message.
"I'm s--" Alexander's teeth click shut on the instinctive apology. He kicks at a puddle. "Maybe I shouldn't have. But you didn't have to say that it was a mistake," he grumbles in turn. A curt nod to the rest of the response. "You know where I live." And then he turns and starts to walk back to his home; not as briskly as he might otherwise, thanks to two strong blows to the stomach, but well enough.
Tags: