2019-10-11 - Requiem For A Fiddle

A run-down three-bay garage neighbored by towering cedars on one side and the rest of the industrial park on the other, a dirt parking lot currently somewhat more mud than dirt, a flaking logo of a raven with a salmon in its belly: that's Steelhead Service Center. The lights are on, making the bay door windows glow in the cool night. At least it's not cold and pouring rain for now. Within, Heartbreaker, Itzhak's Stingray, rests in one of the bays. He's fussing over her, wiping away imaginary dirt from her glossy, sparkly surfaces.

The other big feature is the giant terrarium built into an entire corner of the garage. Filled with branches and silk plants and big platforms covered in artificial grass, it's home to a frankly gigantic snake.

The Charger can probably be heard before it's spotted. Those eight cylinders want nothing more than to be going full throttle down a straightaway, and the sound they make when kept on such a tight leash is one of restrained aggression. A low growl as it swings off the road and up to one of the bay doors, sliding under cover with a sliver of ambient light off its sleek black frame. Bulldog-like, in comparison to Heartbreaker; they are different shades of poetry, those two.

The driver's side door is popped open once the ignition's cut, and a familiar off duty cop climbs out. Black tee shirt and cargo pants, motorcycle boots, and a ratty old ball cap that he refuses to part with. He shoves his keys into his pocket, and skims his eyes over the terrarium briefly before they come to rest on Itzhak. "Ella es hermosa," he offers, taking a step closer.

Itzhak knows the Charger's growl well by now. He learns things by ear. When Ruiz shows up, he's finishing polishing Heartbreaker's hood with a soft cloth. "Which one? They're both beautiful, guess it don't matter." He glances up at him, wary as always. "This is Heartbreaker. That there in the tank is Lemondrop. Both my babies." Itzhak straightens up, tucks the cloth in a back pocket.

The snake is fifteen feet long if she's an inch, bright white with brilliant yellow scales in stripes and drips along her length. She is curled up on a platform at the moment.

"I was talking about the car. The snake is muy encantador, as well. Reticulated python?" He hesitates, locks eyes with the creature for a moment. And maybe something passes between them, or maybe it doesn't. Then he ambles in closer to where Itzhak's working. Close enough to be able to place his hand on the Stingray's hood, fingers trailing in what's almost a caress as he keeps moving. There's a brief surge of his power, like electricity arcing and shorting out in the fraction of a blink of an eye. The bitter tang of ozone follows in the wake of his touch.

Lemondrop's tongue comes out. Flickyflicky. She moves her broad head from side to side, then resettles. "Yeah, retic," Itzhak says, folding his arms, eyes following Ruiz. "Python reticulatus."

The car is as deeply imbued with Itzhak as his violin. His hands in the engine, on the wheel, his lead foot on the gas. Reckless races down New York streets, then a long cross-country drive. Then a lot of sedately rumbling through the suburbs of Gray Harbor, until her wheels touch the highway. That's when he opens the throttle and trees begin fleeing past like frightened rabbits. Other people have ridden in the passenger seat: Isolde, August Roen, a stunning blonde woman. (Seems Itzhak kissed both women while they were in the car. Not Roen, though.)

Itzhak rubs his tongue against the roof of his mouth, tasting ozone.

Ruiz stills with his hand resting on the car's hood, his fingers fanned out and clouded with residual bleed-off of his power. He shudders a breath as the memories flood through his mind, as clear and as crisp as if he'd experienced them himself. Then he pulls his arm back, and touches his knuckles to his nose. Not much blood, but a trace of it that's swiped away, followed by a sharp sniff as he backs away a couple of steps. And paces the other way, to continue checking it out.

"She's served you well." A quick smile, corners of his eyes creasing with it. Might be he saw the blonde. She's familiar, though he can't think from where, just now. Isolde, of course, he knows.

"She ain't done yet." Itzhak quirks half a smile, too, gazing fondly at his car. "Just under cover for the season." People admiring his car always puts him in a better mood. Temporarily, at least.

A little waiting area is tucked by the back wall, made of a few thrifted armchairs and coffee table on an equally thrifted rug. Itzhak runs everything else in his life on a Goodwill aesthetic. Only the car, reptiles, and musical instrument get the gold star treatment. Speaking of which, his violin case is open on the table. His music stand is over there, too, and a suitcase. The suitcase has a drum pedal bolted on and a tambourine resting on top. Itzhak goes to pick up his violin.

The Stingray's a stunner, no matter de la Vega's insistence that she'd not hold up against his 5.7 litre, 370 horsepower monstrosity of a muscle car. Though she might, at that. It remains to be seen. His gaze drags from the corvette, skims briefly across the snake in her terrarium, and then he digs for his pack of cigarettes enroute to one of those thrift store armchairs. "You mind if I smoke?" asks the cop who knows the bylaws perfectly well in this town.

"Go ahead." Itzhak tucks the violin under his chin. No bruises left from their little soiree last night; he looks fine. More than fine. He looks great, bright eyed, bushy tailed. The muscle mass he'd lost is back on him, and he's moving with his normal energy rather than dragging around. Only a healer could have done this for him.

He tests his tuning, running the bow over each string and making it hum. "Just tuned, but sometimes with the weather, it gets outta tune anyway. Sounds good." Then he looks at Ruiz, melancholy, eyebrows tilted. "Had this violin a long time. Was donated to me when I was a kid."

The chair's considered a moment before it's settled into. His frame sinks in with a near-boneless slouch, like he's put some focused effort into stripping away whatever vestiges of military man had remained, after his time in service to his country. A cigarette finds its way between his lips, and he watches Itzhak carefully as he lifts the violin, wedges it in between chin and shoulder.

Dark, rapt eyes trained on the man as he checks the instrument's tuning. They don't veer away when Itzhak looks over. They don't flinch at the melancholy in the other man. His attention is steady, intent. Too intent. "Roen fix you up?" he wants to know.

Itzhak admits it. "Yeah. He did too good a job. Sometimes it's like that, you notice? Not too often but sometimes the stars align and God Himself reaches down and touches you." He steps on the kick pedal, making it go THUMP! against the side of the big suitcase. The tambourine jumps, making a musical clatter. Itzhak fusses over the violin a minute more, trying to act like Ruiz isn't making him nervous. But he doesn't do a good job at that. It's obvious.

Ruiz, meanwhile, sprawls in that chair like he owns it, the shop, and half of this block while he's at it. Knees splayed apart, his cigarette is dragged from and then the heavily inked arm is left to drape against his knee while he exhales smoke slowly. Tiny flinch in his shoulders at the unexpected sound. It's subtle, but if Itzhak's watching him closely he might spot it. Combat PTSD is the gift that keeps on giving.

"Didn't think I'd hurt you enough to go running to dad." The words cut, and he knows it. A beat, two. And then his chin is hitched to the other man. "Play." It's not a request, a question or a suggestion.

The words cut, maybe deeper than intended. Itzhak's mouth twists and he shoots Ruiz a narrow look. That mouth of his is real, real close to saying something cutting back. But...he does want to play. If this is the last night he's spending with his violin, he doesn't want to waste it fighting with this asshole.

So he swings right into playing something lively and Cajun, working the pedal to create a satisfying 'thump! thump! thump!' in time. The tamb jumps along, chiming. Itzhak sinks into playing, a smirk surfacing on his face, eyes drifting half closed, eyebrows doing all his talking for him. Yeah, this is what he loves to do. [https://open.spotify.com/track/4DzulM7McOqTZ4OSmLJUmF?si=Ps4prGFYQXKs0YUF2JguAQ]

Maybe. Maybe he even regrets saying it, the moment after the words are out of his mouth. By then, of course, it's too late. Itzhak gives him that look, and there's a twinge of self-recrimination in his eyes, gone by the time he lets loose another stream of fragrant smoke from his lips and nose.

Instead, he watches raptly. Itzhak, more than his instruments. Those eyebrows, the smirk on his lips. The joy inhabiting that tall, lean frame that's been brought back to health. The captain's looking a few pounds lighter his own self, though by all accounts he needs to lighten up on the donuts anyway.

Itzhak pauses in playing, bow poised, to sing in French Cajun. He keeps stamping the pedal.

//"Les Mardi Gras s'en vient de tout partout
Tout le tour autour du moyeu
Ça passe eine fois par an
Demander la charité
Quand même si c'est eine patate
Eine patate et des grattons..."//

Then he's back to playing, sawing his bow back and forth across the strings, long fingers calloused at their tips hitting all the right notes. At least as far as Ruiz knows. It sounds good, anyway.

//"Les Mardi Gras sont d'sus un grand voyage
Tout le tour autour du moyeu
Ça passe eine fois par an
Demander la charité
Quand même si c'est eine poule maigre
Et trois ou'quatre cotons d'mai'..."//

He wraps up with a flourish of the bow, and he's grinning. Not the savage battle-mad grin of yesterday, or the nasty ones he's aimed at Ruiz. This expression is genuine. He hikes his eyebrows at Ruiz while grinning like that at him. "Not too shabby, yeah?"

"Not too shabby," Ruiz admits quietly when the tune is done. It takes him a minute to respond, like he's surfacing from deep water where everything seems slowed down and dream-like. His cigarette's been forgotten while he watched and listened.. but mostly watched. Those long fingers, and the way the man's whole body moves with each stroke of the bow. That smile, which is returned hesitantly, and creates soft crow's feet at the corners of his eyes. Like, once upon a time, maybe he used to actually smile a lot.

He clears his throat lightly, shifts his gaze away. "Do you know any classical pieces? Vivaldi, perhaps?" He pauses. "Vivaldi's baroque, actually, isn't he." The guy also looks like he's never opened a book in his life, much less knows the first thing about music and poetry, but hey.

"Oh hell yeah. I was classically trained before I jumped ship for folk music." Itzhak hums to himself, trying to remember the piece he wants. "Everybody knows Vivaldi." He bounces the bow off the strings a few times, thinking, then sweeps into 'Storm'. Dramatic dark-toned music, running it off with swift precise strokes of his bow. He gets a few measures in, hits an incorrect note. "...fucking it up...that just means I'm improvising! Musician joke." He didn't pause when he messed up, just hit the next note right and kept going. "Okay, yeah, I remember it now." And he plunges into 'Storm', biting his lip with how hard he's concentrating.

His smile broadens a fraction, almost as if he's forgotten himself. Forgotten he's supposed to be being surly. Hint of that dimple that tends to make an appearance on the left side, when he's really pleased about something. And it remains as he settles in to listen. He's mesmerised by it, cigarette completely forgotten; the music stirs something warm in him, and something dark. Something ferocious. A column of ash tumbles from his smoke onto the floor, ignored, as he focuses intently on Itzhak's face while he plays.

Itzhak is emoting a lot more on this one than on the Cajun tune, possibly because it's a bear to play. His wrist flutters with the blurring-fast bow strokes. He sways faster, huffing through his teeth, bending on the downbow. The last quarter or so, he really starts hitting the wrong notes, makes a face, and although he doesn't stop, he loops back to where he started messing it up. Then he plays it correctly with ferocious concentration, bow stabbing the air. Done! Itzhak actually whoops in real delight, something way more suited to Cajun music than Vivaldi, and whips his bow up in a victorious flourish. "YEAH! Best Vivaldi. Shit, that's tough." He looks at Ruiz, beaming. ...And, realizing Ruiz is watching him so intently, promptly blushes.

Ruiz's lurksome smile spreads into a full-blown grin as the man's playing crashes and careens its way to the climax of the song. His dark eyes are hungry, and he himself is very subtly shaken. As if the music twisted and changed something in him that can't be undone. "No puedo decidir," he murmurs, toying with the cigarette between his fingers, "si te gusta un ángel o un demonio." Then the grin fades, though he doesn't relinquish Itzhak from that vaguely unsettling stare. "Thank you," he offers up at length. There's something more, but he's uncharacteristically hesitant to offer it.

Itzhak rests for a minute, both bow and fiddle swinging from one hand so he can grab the water bottle on the table and drink. That'll cool his blush. ...Not really. It's a good thing he can't catch that much Spanish. He tips his head and his eyebrows, acknowledging. "Sure. Haven't played Vivaldi in, I dunno, at least a decade." He swigs the water, then gestures with the bottle. "What?"

De la Vega's quiet, his head dropped back against the armchair's patchwork cushioning; mussing up his hair slightly, making the jut of his adam's apple more prominent. His eyes slip mostly closed, like he's trying to imprint this memory in his mind. Wrap it up like a dark and secret thing, so he can remember it later. The quiet of the shop, that lovely car. The snake in her terrarium flicking her tongue at him, and the man playing his violin like a thing possessed. He blinks a little when he realises Itzhak's spoken to him, blows smoke out his nose, dark eyes refocusing on the other man's. "Doesn't matter."

Itzhak doesn't believe him, from the skeptical hitch of just one eyebrow. "Suit yaself." His eyes drift down Ruiz's bared throat. Then he looks away, drinks again. "What else you like? You like some Bach? Mozart? Brahms? I dunno if I can play any of 'em anymore, but man, if I could remember 'Storm', maybe!" He's excited, damn him. Playing like this, showing off for an audience, for Ruiz; he's enjoying himself. It revs his motor. "Any modern American guys? Copland maybe?"

He starts to reply. Opens his mouth like he's got something on the tip of his tongue, but then changes his mind, gives a soft little grunt instead. His brows furrow slightly, then smooth. "Mmhm." That's not an answer to the question of what he likes. But his mind's a million miles away. The rain's started up again outside, and drums the shop's roof, and the tin slats on the garage doors with a vengeance. "Copland's good," he murmurs, cigarette brought to his mouth for a moment as he watches Itzhak, then watches the window. Smoke curls about his bearded cheek and inked fingers.

"Copland's got some of that folk vibe." Itzhak sets his violin under his chin, plays off the very recognizable rollicking 'Hoedown' for a couple moments. The suitcase joins in, thump thump thump chime chime! "Ugh, it's missing a lot without the xylophone. Is that a xylophone?" He devotes a few brain cells to trying to remember. "Whatevah, it ain't strings, I don't care." Itzhak's only half joking. He goes quiet again, thinking, rifling through his repertoire in his head. Then, he sobers."I'm gonna play at the funeral tomorrow. Been working on it. Tell me what you think."

When he sets his bow to the strings again, he begins 'Ave Maria'. High and sweet, haunting and floating. Itzhak sways, eyes closing, eyebrows rising.

It's hard to get a reaction out of the man now. It's like he's drawn in on himself a little, thrown up something brittle and impenetrable around himself. Seems a little more melancholy though than his usual snarliness. His cigarette is finished off eventually, stubbed out and dropped into an empty glass he finds on the table next to him. Then he eases back in the chair and weaves his fingers together behind his head, dark eyes directed once more to Itzhak as he begins playing something new. Another of his favourites, judging by the flickered smile that doesn't quite take hold.

Somewhere into the third or fourth or fifth bar of Ave Maria, the sensation of an intrusion at the very edges of Itzhak's mind. The scent of it's familiar; that wolf that smells like fire and ozone, all savage claws and serrated fangs. It stalks in, burning. Searing a path through the other man's mind as Javier seeks to feel that music like the beat of his own heart.

Itzhak's bow skips. He hurries to compensate, as he lets the thousandfold origami of his mind unfurl. Hello there, handsome. Things are different while he's playing. Muscle memory, conscious action, so, so many hours of devoted practice; they all form the biggest fractal construct Ruiz has seen yet, turning and glittering. Itzhak lays out the music like a path he's following, up hills, down into valleys, swooping along bare winter roads. His fingers, toughened on the tips from the strings, have thousands of hours of memory in them. A violin has no frets, but Itzhak's fingers know exactly where to go. There's the echoes of instructors far down at the base of the thought-construct: wrist relaxed, pressure on the bow just so, strike at the fingerings, pounce on them, now let it linger, now let that note hang, let it haaaaang.

Brilliant, glittering, unfolding fractals, like fibonacci writ upon an infinite plain. The stalking beast is reflected in each of them, as if Itzhak's mind itself is simply a mirror for his own foibles and desires. It stalks the path that the violinist follows, trailing in his wake; the rage and the grief burn like a white-hot pyre. Ruiz, meanwhile, seems almost as in a trance. His eyes are slightly unfocused, lips parted a fraction as he lets the music soak into him. The knowledge of where he's been and how he got here and all of those intricate little synaptic pathways and how they tell his fingers what to do. And his own hand begins to move in tandem, subconsciously. Not the same; he couldn't play if he tried. But a close enough approximation. Wrist relaxed, strike, linger, draw it out.

Itzhak finds himself needing to breathe steady, as Ruiz's heat sears a path through him. The rage, the grief that maddened the predator bring up reflections of his own rages and griefs. And yet this white-hot (star, he's a star) flame reminds Itzhak also of something much different. A fractal arc throws itself out: Ruiz had given him a book. A very specific book. Itzhak had found an English translation, and it's this translation he thinks of, not the French. Inelegant, but gets the job done, much like the man himself.

"You must be very patient," replied the fox. "First you will sit down at a little distance from me--like that--in the grass. I shall look at you out of the corner of my eye, and you will say nothing. Words are the source of misunderstandings. But you will sit a little closer to me, every day..."

The arc is followed, hungered after, like a thing to be chased down and brought to ground. Intertwined with the predatory urge, though, is a genuine curiosity. A deep, unquenchable desire to understand Itzhak's mind. The wolf trots along, trailing great gouts of flame in its wake, then pausing. Red, gleaming eyes and razor-tipped teeth, and tiny fractals torn loose where it traverses the landscape on knife-like claws.

Closer, then. White-hot flame curls away into glittering fractals which disperse into a fine, multi-faceted iridescence. Then the beast settles on its haunches, and watches, and waits.

Javier's fingers continue their unconscious mirroring of Itzhak's playing. Pausing when he does, stilling when he stills. The slivers of his dark eyes track the other man carefully, watching his breathing become slow and steady. Cautious. Always cautious.

Understanding Itzhak's mind is a slippery, prickly struggle under those knife-edged claws. Like trying to climb a cactus, complete with tiny razory fractals sticking to one's feet, where they attempt to iterate themselves into bloom. He's claimed to be a genius. He wasn't, it seems, exaggerating.

He lets 'Ave Maria' close, making his strings sigh. Then he stands there, awkwardly, looking at the floor.

"Now you heard me play," he mutters, going all stilted and embarrassed.

At the close of the music, as his violin's strings shiver into restless silence, the mental link is broken. It's accompanied by the now-familiar sensation of Ruiz's mind ripping away, with a snarl and a sigh and the sudden, violent lack of him. One moment, the heat of his raging inferno; the next, simply the quiet of Itzhak's mind. Or what passes for it in his forever-churning way.

Ruiz's lashes lift, a fraction and then a fraction more. He watches Itzhak's face as the mechanic watches the floor, his breathing coming a little harsh and fast. Blood trickling from his nose, through his beard, swiped away with the sleeve of his tee shirt, and he spends a moment trying to regain his bearings. Reorienting himself to the fact that he's sitting here in Itzhak's shop, and it's raining outside, and it's late. And him playing that violin may be one of the most beautiful things he's witnessed in a long while.

"Si." It's offered low, with a touch of gravel. "En el jardín. Estoy.." There's a tic in his jaw, then a rustle of movement as he pushes out of the chair and to his feet.

Itzhak grunts when Ruiz tears away, a grunt not unlike he might sound when some other, more physical joining is taken out of him. His face quivers for a split second. Everything in his mind was reflecting Ruiz, and now, it's only him again. Throws him off balance. Nobody else shoves their way into him so rudely and so completely, as to leave him feeling empty when they're gone.

He glances up. 'Jardin'...that's garden, right? He's not sure what to make of that statement. Then, a little worried, cautious, "Ya bleeding." He sets his violin in the case and his bow on the stand.

Ruiz seems to need a minute to compose himself. His nose is swiped at a couple more times, but the bleeding seems superficial, and stops after perhaps a half a minute or so. "I'm fine," is his dismissive response to Itzhak's cautious observation. "Happens every time." To him. Not to most. His eyes are a little reddened too, capillaries burst, pupils blown wide. One might almost think he'd been hitting the blow a little too hard. And one wouldn't be entirely wrong.

His ball cap's rim is adjusted, heel of his palm scrubbed through his hat hair, then the thing's tugged back down to not-quite-obscure his eyes. He digs his car keys out of his pocket as he prowls past, and pauses a couple of feet away from the mechanic. Tension in his frame, but it's like a layer of fuck off has been sloughed off; he allows himself to watch the younger man, thoughtful. Then, quietly, "Te veo. Te conozco. Recuerdas eso."

"Ain't seen that happen to anyone else," Itzhak says, skeptically, but doesn't push it. Ruiz wants to bleed, fine, that's his problem.

His eyes track Ruiz as he walks past. Itzhak frowns, concentrating on the Spanish--then his expression changes, when he figures it out. He looks at him with something like startled wonder, eyes widening, big hands hanging easily at his sides. For once, the loudmouth is speechless.

Not for long. He recovers, swallowing. "Not real likely to forget."

In many ways. Many, many ways.

Whether he wants to, is another matter entirely. But it doesn't seem to alarm him, at any rate, or have any obvious solution. So he brushes it off along with the continued commentary; his irritation's brief, in the slight furrow that forms between his brows, the smoothed away a moment later.

He lingers a while. A beat and then two, like he has something else to say. Been on the precipice of that all night, though, and nothing's come of it yet. "See you tomorrow," is offered instead, at length. Clearly not what he'd been thinking about, but that's what he says. Then he eases away and prowls off for his car. Chirp of the security system and flash of lights as he taps a button on his key fob.

What is Ruiz going to sacrifice?

Itzhak almost asks. It's in his throat to ask. Excessive risk-taking is historically one of his worst vices, and this feels like a risk. A delicious risk, the kind that leaves him limping and grinning the morning after.

But...no. It's not like he won't find out tomorrow. Along with everybody else in town.

"See ya then," he mutters, watching Ruiz go.

He probably will. And they'll also probably proceed to scowl and snarl at one another, as they do. But whatever happened here, tonight, it's enough. Enough to chew on, enough to hold onto, or pretend not to have happened at all. The cop meets Itzhak's gaze for a heartbeat, then swings into his car and starts it up with a vociferous growl as the engine surges to life. The door slams and he backs it on out of the bay before swerving onto the street, the black beast quickly swallowed up by the inky dark and the slanting rain.

Itzhak folds his arms, his expression settling into a scowl. "What the fuck are you doin', man?" he grumbles at himself. Oh yeah. This is why he's trying not to do that stupid risk-taking thing anymore. 'Trying' being the right word.

He curses de la Vega roundly in Yiddish as he picks up his violin again. Last night together. Like all lovers he wants to make it last. Nobody else is there to hear, only Lemondrop, as he swings into an upbeat bluegrass tune.