2019-10-09 - Kiss With A Fist

It's been raining almost nonstop for the past two days, in true PNW fashion. Sheets and sheets of it fall from a sky the colour of smudged charcoal, hissing and crackling in the changing foliage; green to orange to brown, fallen by the wayside in limp, wet heaps.

There's a decent-sized basketball court wedged between the high school and the park, technically the jurisdiction of the former though generally considered fair game when class isn't in session. The rhythmic pounding of a ball against asphalt can be heard occasionally, interspersed with the scuffle of boots and shudder of something solid hitting the backboard. Or even more occasionally, swishing through the net. Then the ball's caught and tucked under one arm while the idiot shooting hoops in the rain pauses for a drag off his smoke. It's probably not helping his game, but it calms his nerves just a hair. And that seems to be enough.

One idiot is shooting hoops in the rain. Another idiot is walking in the rain. Said idiot, still recovering from the flu that hit him extra hard, is inviting a relapse what with being out here and soaked to the skin in a chilly October dusk. He's been walking for a while and it just hasn't been enough.

Several people would yell at him, but lucky for him, all those people are busy being sick themselves or tending to those who are.

Itzhak pauses next to the basketball court, under a big spreading oak whose leaves are brilliant red and gold. He wipes his face of water, squints over at the single figure on the court. Is that...? Nah. Can't be. On the other hand, who else is stupid and self-destructive enough to be out here like this?

Midway through a second hungry drag off his cigarette, de la Vega spots the other man loitering near the fenced-off entryway to the court. His features are half in shadow, though the cut of his frame is fairly unmistakeable: bulky, bristling with aggression that rarely finds sufficient outlet. He's dressed in a dark tee shirt and darker, worn jeans shoved into motorcycle boots wholly unsuited to a game of hoops. All of it's soaked, of course, and if he didn't eschew his jacket on a night like this, well he wouldn't be Javier Ruiz de la fucking Vega, self-destructive idiot extraordinaire.

After watching Itzhak for long enough to make it clear that he's spotted him, and has no intention of doing something polite and personable like, oh, saying hello, the cop turns away slowly. He exhales smoke through his nose and lips, then tucks the cigarette between his teeth and makes another run at the hoop. Doesn't net it, but it's close.

This small town stuff. You can't even take a very long and very ill-advised walk in the rain without running into some asshole you know. Itzhak, not in a hurry to make Ruiz acknowledge him (fuck you too, de la Vega), shakes his own cigarette out of a pack, lights up. He watches him miss the shot, blows out a plume of warm smoke that dissipates swiftly in the cool air. Doesn't make any secret out of the fact that he's watching. And judging.

The missed shot's banked off the backboard and careens into the fence with a rattle of chain links before being caught up, and dribbled away a few feet again. One handed, while he avails himself of another drag off his smoke. Then slides it between his teeth, catches the ball in both hands and wings it at the net again. It looks for a minute like it won't make it, skirts the rim, then goes in. He squints at it through the film of rain that's dampening his lashes and streaming through his short, bristly beard and funneling under his tee. Then glances over his shoulder at Itzhak.

"You know, I was shit at this in high school. And I'm shit at it now. Pero que puedes hacer?" He's in no hurry to chase the ball down. He drags off his smoke again, then turns to amble closer to the taller, lankier man. "Feeling better?" There's something unfriendly about the way he asks that.

"So why you doin' it?" Itzhak asks, perfectly reasonably. He wipes the tip of his big, crooked nose free of the water that wants to drip off it. He drifts closer, like smoke himself. No big deal. Practically an accident.

He's not wearing a jacket, either, just a long sleeved shirt that's now stuck to his thin torso. The flu took some weight off him, and he didn't have it to spare.

Ruiz's question makes him cock his eyebrows up at him, tilted in that funny way of his. "Yeah. Great." He flicks the ash from his cigarette. "You didn't get sick, huh?"

Maybe that's because of the gouge in Ruiz where his Song used to be. That's Itzhak's working theory, anyway.

Itzhak might almost be able to scent it on him; the ash and the ruin, like the aftermath of a blaze that's left the structure weakened but intact. Barely.

"Of course I got fucking sick." He watches Rosencrantz approach, flicker of something sliding through his shoulders; it's not obvious what. He thumbs some ash from his cigarette, and observes without any attempt to hide it whatsoever, the change in the other man's appearance. He doesn't answer the other question posed to him. Instead he watches and casually waits, dark eyes trained on Itzhak's as he steps closer, squinted up slightly to keep the rain out. "Did you like the book?" It's accompanied by a smile, though one would be hard-pressed to call it pleasant.

Itzhak's nostrils flare like he can scent it. Ash and char and smoldering embers, not doused, only burnt out for lack of fuel...for now. Warning bells ring in his head, long-established instinct for danger.

Good. Danger it is. He takes another casual step closer.

"Been meaning to ask you. Why did you come see me." His tone isn't pleasant either. Nothing is soft in him, not right now.

Ruiz doesn't move. Not a muscle. Just the slow blink of his eyes, cigarette burning away between his inked fingers until a column of ash tumbles off, and peppers the asphalt. In the distance, sirens; an ambulance careening through the rainsoaked streets in the direction of the trailer park.

"I asked you a question first." He moves finally, cigarette touched to his mouth, held there for a few seconds, smoke tumbled from his nose and parted lips a moment later. He might be middle aged and past his prime, but de la Vega's faster than he looks. In his mind, he's calculating how quickly he could have his hand around Itzhak's throat. No gun on him today, but his fists work just fine.

Itzhak's lip curls into a sneer. He shifts, reconfiguring his balance, long lean muscles tensing. Hit him, urges something in him. How he'd like to bust up Ruiz's handsome face for him, pay him back for the hassle and humiliation. All Itzhak, that urge. Gohl fans the flames, but that's all him, baby. "I'm not in the mood for your cop bullshit, de la Vega."

Maybe it's the sneer, or maybe it's that something in Itzhak's eyes that feeds his own restless agitation. He tamps it down a little better, but then he's had another decade of life and a whole lot more training to blame for that. People and institutions who have expected him to fall into line, and harnessed the rage into something more acceptable. Until, of course, something like a serial killing ghost comes along and turns it all to shit. Breaks the walls down, frays his self-control.

"And I'm not in the mood for your empty swagger. So shit already or get off the pot." He watches the other man's profile in the mostly-dark. Tips his chin up a fraction to account for the difference in height. Depending on how close Itzhak gets, he's possibly about to have the next lungful of smoke exhaled in his face.

Itzhak's life has downright rewarded him for letting these impulses run wild. His knuckle tattoos are clear enough, souvenirs of a time when he relied on a short fuse not only to survive, but to rise in the ranks of a place nobody should ever need to survive. 'STAY DOWN.'

The orange sodium streetlight lines half his face against the dark, gleams off one hazel eye as he steps closer. "Empty, he says." His voice is low and taut. "You don't got the rest of your gang here to hold me back. In fact," he glances around, making a little show of it, "looks like s'just you. And me."

He draws off his cigarette like he's got all the time in the world. This time it's Ruiz who gets smoke exhaled in his face.

There's a hitch in Ruiz's breathing, slight, when Itzhak broaches his personal space. A crackle at the very edges of his power as it's summoned, sputters and dies, a faint trace of ozone that bleeds from his pores in the wake of that nothing. And it agitates him, too, that even his mind betrays him now. Right along with the raw hunger in his far darker eyes.

He waits, and watches Itzhak draw closer. Smiles a little when he points out what he does or doesn't have. And he knows. He knows what the other man wants, and he doesn't need his claws in his mind to know it.

The smoke exhaled in his face presages a surge of movement that's remarkably quick, for a guy pushing fifty. One moment he's dragging off his smoke, then flicking the spent butt to the ground and obliterating it with the heel of his boot. Then the next, he's right the fuck up in Itzhak's face, fingers tangled in his shirt, twisted and knotted around his knuckles as he makes to shove him all the way back. Back against the chainlink fence that borders the court with a noisy clatter, his face thrust up an inch from the other man's.

"You think you're such a fucking tough guy, huh? Ven aquí y dame mierda como si estuvieras buscando una pelea." He smells like nicotine, of course, and oranges and cordite.

"Hrnf!" Itzhak grunts as he's grabbed and slammed against the chain link. Ruiz can move him easy.

Crash against the fence! A snarling twist of a smirk on his face, he grabs Ruiz's forearms. "You're fast, old man, give ya that." His boots scrabble for leverage against the slick asphalt. He meets Ruiz's eyes. "No weapons," he tells him, almost against his lips. Almost kissing. Then he shoves back hard with all his weight. Those long thin arms of his are strong.

He'd said they wouldn't do this until Gohl was in the ground. Gohl himself decided otherwise.

Old man? That amuses him, and drags a bark of laughter from the Mexican. Not that Itzhak's wrong. "I don't need a fucking weapon to make you my bitch." His voice is deceptively warm, rough edges sanded away by time and too many cigarettes. "That's what you want, isn't it?" He's shoved back easily, boots skidding against the wet ground, and the whole of him coiled like a wolf about to lunge, snarling, teeth and claws.

And then he does. All not-quite-200-pounds of him barreling back in, one hand goes for Itzhak's shirt again, to haul him into the fist that cracks him in the jaw. He hits like a freight train, which shouldn't be too surprising.

"Yeah. Maybe I do want that." Itzhak prowls a step or two sideways, swaying gently, like a cobra. He's no longer looking at Ruiz's eyes. Instead he's gone unfocused, looking through the other man, so as to take in as much information as possible. "But I don't roll over for nobody. You're gonna have to take it from me."

Ruiz comes at him. Itzhak tries to block and doesn't make it. Ruiz is fast and fights like a runaway semi. His head is snapped to the side with the blow. Blood flies from his split lip. Itzhak swears and comes back at him, 'DOWN' launching for Ruiz's face.

The fist that's aimed at his face is not so much batted away, as allowed to scrape past by a hair. Literally; Itzhak's knuckles probably skim the older man's rough, wet beard when he turns his face to the side. And follows up with a vicious elbow aimed at his ribs. If it lands, it'll bruise. Probably won't break anything, but it'd make breathing miserable for a day or two. If it doesn't, it'll give Itzhak his less protected side for a counterattack.

"Ahora estás hablando mi idioma, querido," comes out somewhere between a snarl and a rough, warm purr.

It's absurd. It's ridiculous. It's more than a little crazy...but Itzhak turns red when he catches that 'querido.' He grins at Ruiz viciously, the blood on his teeth garish in the orange streetlight. The rain has plastered his thick black curls to his scalp, his shirt to his chest and belly.

When Ruiz's fist lands, Itzhak yelps. Seems his entire ribcage jumped away from that one. "Fuck!" Then he goes for the opening Ruiz leaves him without hesitation, both fists for the old one-two. Thud! Thud! So satisfying. Pain, fury, adrenaline, braiding into one.

At some point, this has ceased to be about some thin veneer of insult taken and reckoned for, and become only about injury. Only about breaking each other, blood and fists and fury and testosterone, and de la Vega is hungry for it. For this. But he commits himself too much to that elbow, and is punished for it with two fists that slice in one after the next: STAY DOWN. He's driven back, a little stumble, hand clutching at his side with a hiss of pain. That might have broken something. "You're going to have to try harder than that," is snarled as he plows back in again, making to grab at the other man's shirt for leverage and try to slam him up against the fence again.

He bodies in close and hard, aiming to pin Itzhak between himself and the cold, wet chain links. "You want to know why I came to see you?" His face, unless Itzhak's pushed him away, is shoved right in and angled up a fraction so he can lock his dark eyes with the younger man's lighter hazels.

Itzhak may have a little height and reach on Ruiz, but he does not have the weight. He twists to avoid him, but nope--Ruiz grabs his shirt again and moves him. Itzhak stumbles backwards, struggling to keep his feet, winding slammed up against the chain link again. It rattles loud, shaking off the rain.

He's grinning like a lunatic, bloody teeth bared, his heart hammering so hard under his sternum that Ruiz can feel it. Oh yes. The hunger. Yes indeed. Like for like. Fire for water. Predator for prey. He could push him away again, should in the language of the struggle, but he stays, once again permitting Ruiz to hold him where he wants him.

"I wanna know. Fuckin' tell me." Itzhak's big hands grip Ruiz's shoulders.

The cop's breath comes in harsh, short bursts, the air chill enough for it to mist ever so faintly on each exhale, then disperse into the driving rain. His fingers twist in Itzhak's shirt, knuckles digging against sternum, his bulky frame jammed in hard. Itzhak can feel his heart racing away, too, like a thoroughbred out of the gate. His dark hair is plastered to his skull, and his eyes are closer to a charcoal grey than truly black.

"I came to take it from you." He pants a couple more times, smiles slow, it makes his eyes all slanted and mean looking. "You showed me that Dream. And I've barely thought about anything else, since. I've tried to go back, and I can't. I've tried to forget it, and it doesn't want to be forgotten. WHY THE FUCK DID YOU DO THIS?" It's bellowed, a rough bark that goes off like a gunshot; his hazy-warm voice doesn't lend itself to this volume of sound. "So I went there to take it from you. And-" There was more, but it's frittered away with the sound of his breath meeting the chill air, and his face literally an inch from the other man's.

Honest fear makes Itzhak shudder hard in Ruiz's grip. Could he get away if he had to? He doesn't know. His hands go tight, white knuckled on those burly shoulders, arms shaking with the want to push him away. Yet his eyes, pupils wide with dark and pain, stay on Ruiz's, as he breathes fast through his clenched teeth.

"There's Them. Right?" Itzhak's tense as a high-voltage wire, poised to unleash all his strength, mashed between Ruiz and the fence. "Them. The Nothing." He's panting. "The ones who made Billy Gohl. They eat us. When we're scared, when we're sad, They eat that. When we got the Song, They like that best. You got it, and they must loooove you. Same for me. Well, what's the opposite of Them?" Itzhak lifts his eyebrows, a little, straining against Ruiz's hold. "Us, asshole. If we got something to hold onto, we can fight Them. That's why I did it. That's why I showed you. Because you fucking needed it, dickhead, because we fucking need you."

Then he yanks him in to kiss him.

A funny thing happens, somewhere along the line. Itzhak's talking about the Dark Men, which truthfully seems to be news to de la Vega, by the way he's lapping it all up with a look on his face like what fresh hell is this, anyway?

But a funny thing happens in the midst of that little explanation of rationale. There's a surge of something in the older man, like an electrical circuit being closed. Like something that had been without power, suddenly coming back online again. The tattoos snaking up both arms are alive with it, just for a fraction of a heartbeat; and then just the hiss of the rain against the asphalt, and the harsh sound of his breathing, and the way his fingers grip harder when he feels his quarry straining to get free.

Then the kiss, which catches him completely off guard. Enough so that he nearly jerks away entirely at first. Then seems to change his mind and use the hand not occupied with holding Itzhak in place, to grasp at his jaw roughly. The kiss is returned, though it isn't sweet or delicate or even nice. He bites, if given half the opportunity, and jousts for control of it with his tongue. Because he calls the fucking shots.

Itzhak snarls a low sound of ferocious pleasure as Ruiz lights up. Yes! The surge of his power plucks all the strings of Itzhak's violin soul. He shoves his tongue in Ruiz's mouth and kisses him and and bites back. Hard. He's just as willing to fight him here, too. Itzhak tastes like the iron of blood, cigarette smoke and coffee and cold Pacific Northwest rain.

A handful of seconds. That's all he gives him before he's breaking the kiss and shoving Ruiz away.

The kiss that's exchanged is more an extension of their fighting, a different sort of fist to the face, than anything that could be termed affection. Raw, unrefined want, yes, and plenty of it. But there's certainly no love lost between the two of them.

Ruiz is shoved back without putting up a fight, the slap of Itzhak's hands against his shoulders driving him away by perhaps a foot, all slouch-shouldered and now bleeding a little from his mouth. Despite it all, he's got one of those dimpled grins lighting up his face. Though it's ripped away quickly when he winds up and cold cocks the other man right across the jaw with a vicious hook.

Then he pants a couple of times into the relentless rain, and starts backing away slowly unless stopped.

That hook rocks Itzhak's face to the side. He grabs handfuls of chain link to keep from being knocked down entirely...and just hangs there, panting, bleeding, his wet curls in his eyes. He's a wreck.

A wreck that can't stop grinning, and might have a hard-on.

"Fuck you," he rasps, and spits blood between their feet. "You got one hard fuckin' head, de la Vega."

"Maybe next time," retorts the surly Mexican, hackles still up like he half expects Itzhak to come after him. His gaze dips low, dragging down the lankier man's body intentionally slow, and lingering for far longer than manners would dictate he spend staring in the direction of said hard-on. Then his eyes tick back up again, and crease at the corners with amusement. "Si crees que puedes seguir así." By which he could mean any number of things. None of them fit for polite conversation.

Mid-step, he pivots with more grace than he has any right to, and prowls off to fetch the ball that had rolled away while digging his pack of smokes out of his pocket to light up again.

Itzhak sniffs, wipes his mouth. Ruiz wants to look him over, and he lets him look his fill. When he turns away, Itzhak slowly peels himself off the fence. His hands are the first thing he checks, turning them over, flexing his fingers, pressing into the backs of the metacarpals. Nothing broken. He can play his violin tonight. ...Maybe tomorrow. He watches Ruiz walk off, eyes dropping to the other man's ass.

"If what. Didn't catch that." Itzhak reaches for his own smokes, and stifles a hiss of pain. His ribs, now that the adrenaline is ebbing, hurt quite a fucking lot. "Jesus you hit like a Mack truck."

"Yes, well, you weren't exactly pulling punches yourself." Not that it sounds like a complaint, oddly enough. Could even be a tetch of admiration in his voice, much as he's disinclined to let on to the fact that he might like anything about Itzhak.

His cigarette flares to life, and is dragged off of before he shoves his lighter away and scoops up the ball. It's tossed lightly, caught on the tips of his fingers, then slung back across to his other hand while he turns back to face Itzhak across the twenty or so feet that separate them now.

"I said, if you think you can keep it up." His accent's not as strong as it probably once was; he seems to make a concerted effort to smooth it over, and talk like an American. But it flares up occasionally, that dirty little Tijuana street rat in him. "You need a ride somewhere?" He doesn't know why he asks, but the words are out before he can take them back.

Itzhak, cigarette clamped in his teeth, pulls up his shirt to reveal the purpling marks of Ruiz's knuckles on his ribs. "Fuck's sake." But his tone is grudgingly complimentary. He glances up at him, smirking, and shoves his sodden shirt back down. If he gets in a car with Ruiz at this moment, the situation might get further out of control. And he wants to let it.

"'m good." He flicks ash. "You going to the funeral?" Billy's funeral, of course. The funeral of the year in Gray Harbor.

Oh, it almost certainly will. But it's turned down, and Ruiz barely misses a beat. He shoves the cigarette between his lips, one-hands the ball at the net. And misses, though by not very much. "Suit yourself," he murmurs as he scoops up the ball on its return bounce. Itzhak may or may not have spotted the Charger on his way by. It sticks out like a sore thumb around here. And, "Si. Of course I'm going." As if he wouldn't. "Thought up what you're going to sacrifice?" If they're not careful, they might have an honest to god normal conversation.

Itzhak winces, sucks in a drag of smoke. Which hurts all on its own. He's gonna pay for this little joyride tomorrow.

"Yeah." He stands there, silent, quiet for a beat or two, watching Ruiz unsuccessfully take another shot. "Gonna give him my violin."

Ruiz is about to wing it at the net again, but pauses when the other man speaks. He glances at him over his shoulder, and the expression on his face is.. complicated.

"Mm," is all he manages to come up with. And that, after a solid minute of silence. He's remembering, perhaps, what he felt when he touched the instrument. Back at the shop, that day he brought the Charger in. He's remembering what the violin told him about her life. The hands she'd been passed between, the people she's sung for.

Rather than toss the ball at the net again, he keeps it tucked under his arm, and prowls back over slowly while dragging off his smoke. The rain's let up a little, but he's still thoroughly soaked. "I want to hear you play first." The Dream, the book. They're even. Right? This means Javier would owe him something. If he agrees to it.

"The more it hurts, the better chance it has to work, right? S'what she said." Itzhak's voice shivers with an edge of bitterness. "Fucking Gohl. May he remember every moment of joy in his life, while burning in Hell." He's quiet again, but it's obvious he's angry again, furious, like he'd been when he first walked up to the court.

Glancing over when Ruiz speaks, he's blank at first, then the audio processing kicks in and he realizes what he's said. "You want to hear me play?" Now he's the one given pause. "Sure, man. I'll play for you."

The cop's quiet again for a moment. Wary, and not seeming sure how to take that. They were just pounding the shit out of each other not ten minutes ago, after all. He simply nods, tries to smile, but it comes out more like a baring of teeth. As it tends to with him. He doesn't turn away, doesn't move closer. Just watches, silent.

"You know you're the second person I told?" Itzhak murmurs, half to himself. "Told Alexander a little while ago. Trying to keep it from getting around. Don't wanna cope with people knowing and looking at me like they know." He refocuses on Ruiz. "Safe to tell you. You won't give me that look." But Ruiz is certainly giving him some kind of look, and Itzhak frowns, not able to interpret the expression. His jaw is purpling, too, spreading up his cheekbone.

"It's not that big a deal to play," he says, hazarding a guess. "I play every day. Just what I do with myself."

"If you think I'm going to go around telling people, then you don't-" He doesn't bother finishing that sentence. Because no, Itzhak doesn't know him at all. Because they barely talk. "All right." It's not a big deal to play. "Fine." He's not going to suggest a day and time, because that sounds a little too much like a date. So he lurks there, and smokes, and rainwater drips from his nose and chin as he tries to keep his cigarette from being put out.

Irritated, Itzhak says, "I don't think you're gonna spread it around. Didn't I just say that?" ...Sort of? He kind of implied it maybe. Gingerly he touches his jaw. His hands are okay, but tucking his violin under his chin might be a problem.

"Come by the garage tomorrow," he says, abrupt. "I'll play for you." If Ruiz won't suggest it, he will.

"Fine," Ruiz offers again, agitated too. A little less visibly, but it's in the slight narrowing of his eyes and tic of muscle along his jaw. He's going to be sore, too, tomorrow, says the wince as he starts moving again. "Te veré mañana, entonces." Head down, he shoves the other man's shoulder on his way out of the basketball court and doesn't look back.

"Yeah. Mañana." Itzhak grunts, gently swaying backwards when Ruiz shoves him. He stands there, smoking, watching him go, thinking. Always thinking. Then he winces and starts his own long walk back.