2019-11-08 - Some People Should Definitely Smoke Weed More Often

A while later, after a long, hot shower and some puttering around inside the bathroom involving the faucet running for a suspiciously long time, the tap's finally cranked off and the door shoved open. Ruiz is dressed, tee shirt sitting a bit rumpled against his still-damp frame, while he runs a towel through his hair. His phone pinged a few times while he was in there, and he meanders over to the table to check it. If Alexander's taken the opportunity to poke around the room, he'd have found a small arsenal of firearms in addition to the unexplained damage in here: two handguns and a rifle. Make that three handguns, if one includes his service pistol, lying on the nightstand separate from its magazine. Also a med kit, and evidence of women's clothing and other accoutrements. Someone who appears to spend a fair amount of time here.

Alexander does, indeed, poke around. He tried not to, at first. Tried to be on good behavior, maybe, but as the long shower continued, he looks up from his book. Puts it aside. Prowls about. The guns are, perhaps, not unexpected, although his nose wrinkles when he finds them with that instinctive disdain in which he holds firearms. The med kit is inspected for completeness, and the women's clothing is avoided entirely once he comes across it. As are any of Ruiz's clothes that he happens across, and the phone is given a curious look, but he doesn't touch it. After his inspection is finished, Alexander ends up in the bed, pillows propped up and himself sitting on it. He's not a barbarian; shoes have been removed, and he's back to reading his book. When Ruiz comes out, his head comes up and his eyes track the man silently to his phone. Once he's had a chance to check his messages, Alexander asks, "Feeling any better?"

The guns are arranged in a neat, orderly fashion on the 'kitchen' table. None of them are loaded; the rifle's the only one in some state of disassembly, with various parts catalogued and lined up tidily beside it. The med kit is actually fully stocked, though that's certainly not his handiwork.

He flips through his messages with a fingertip, picks up the phone to reply to one of them, then sets it down again in order to finish drying off his hair with quick, hard scrubs of the towel. "A little," he concedes after a long pause, and tosses the towel over the back of one of the chairs. A glance goes to Alexander and his book, and then he goes rifling about in the pockets of his jacket hanging by the door, for a pack of cigarettes. "Thought you'd be asleep by now. You don't mind if I smoke..?" Out on the patio, he indicates with a tip of his chin. Which, unfortunately, is about 10 feet from the bed.

Alexander smiles. "I'm glad." And he shrugs to the comment about sleeping. "I told you that I don't, mostly. Naps here and there, throughout the night. Usually until I fall into REM sleep, and then wake back up shortly thereafter." He looks back down at the book. "It's good for getting things done. Books read. Research. Hanging out on internet chat rooms. And no, I don't mind. I like the smell of tobacco, although I never took up the habit myself. Don't like it in my lungs. Nose is fine." A pause. "I once talked with the Sumpter boy about weed. That, I've smoked, although not in a long time. There are strains and varieties and all sorts of interesting categories for the stuff, these days."

Oh good. He's feeling chatty.

Ruiz hesitates a moment, already having tapped a smoke out of the carton, though another thought seems to occur to him as he watches Alexander. "I've got a few joints. Nothing too potent. If you want one." The offer's made cautiously, though with sincerity; pot's legal, of course he uses it.

Alexander thinks about it, his head tipping back to the ceiling for a moment, like the answer to Ruiz's question might be there. Then, after a moment, he nods. He looks back to Ruiz, and smiles. "Sure. I'm not driving anywhere tonight, so I suppose I could indulge." He grins, a moment of good humor bursting into life. "If you don't mind." A glance to the patio. "Out there. I could join you." He's already rolling off the bed, his feet hitting the carpet as he moves to stand up.

The cop waits patiently for Alexander to decide, then shoves the pack of cigarettes away once the answer comes. He circles away from the table, and over to the nightstand by the bed, tugging open the bottom drawer and rifling about in there for a minute with the sound of rustling plastic. Two hand-rolled joints are withdrawn, the bag re-wrapped and tucked away again, and the drawer shut. "You're going to want to take it easy on this." It's held out between two fingers, and given a wiggle. "If it's been a while."

"Warning noted," Alexander says, looking amused at it. He takes the joint delicately, careful not to let their fingers touch. He lifts it to his nose and sniffs, tentatively. "Does it have an odd name? Like Crush Mango Happy Paradise, or...something like that?" His grip is delicate, and he considers the joint as if it were a piece of evidence at a crime scene. "Odd. Last time I had something like this, it was sold by a junior in the chemistry program who had a friend who had a friend who grew it." He chuckles.

"No fucking clue." On the name. The thing's relinquished, and Alexander's almost hesitant hold on the thing noted with some amusement in return. He pauses to snag a hoodie from a pile of clean clothes, and tug it on before nudging the patio door wider, and ducking out. "Like I said. It's nothing terribly potent." He sniffs at it, as if to make sure he's remembering right. "It's pretty balanced between THC and CBD, I think there's a pinch of terpenes in it, mostly for relaxation." There's a couple more crappy folding chairs out on the patio, and he drops into one, and nudges the other out with his foot. The rain hasn't really let up, but at least there's enough overhang from the roof of the motel for them not to get soaked.

Alexander doesn't pull his jacket back on before he slips out into the porch. He doesn't seem to mind the chill outside, though, even in his thin t-shirt. He stands at just the edge of the eaves, careful to hold the joint out of the way of any wayward splash of rain fall. He stares out into the dark and rain like something out there fascinates him. And then the moment passes, and he slumps back to his chair and settles in the chair that Ruiz nudges out. His movements are still restless, despite the hour and a fatigue on his features, no matter what he might say about not sleeping. "Six months from now, you're going to be very sick of rain," he tells Ruiz, with a grin. Then brandishes the joint in an awkward, playful gesture.

The restlessness and the fatigue are both noted, with a slight knitting of the captain's brows. Then he ducks his gaze away, and cups the joint with his free hand while he lights it. Once it ignites, he flips the lighter around and passes it across to Alexander. Careful of course, just as the other man had been, not to let their fingers touch. "I'm already sick of it," he replies with a chuckle, and pauses to pull a hit of smoke into his mouth, and hold it there for a moment before letting it filter into his lungs.

Then, after an exhale, "Look. I'm.. having a difficult time forgiving you. For what happened at your house. I'm having a difficult time because I think part of you still wants that." Javier, dead, that is. "And I don't know what to do with that." He watches the joint between his fingers, rather than Alexander.

Alexander takes the lighter, and flicks it a couple of times before it catches. He stares into the flame, holding it up so that the rain is framed behind it, before he lights his own joint and flicks it off again. Taking a quick, shallow toke of the joint to ensure that the smoldering end doesn't die. And then he has turn his head away and cough several times - apparently he wasn't lying about it having been many years, and even the mellow smoke is something of an irritant. He takes a quick gasp of air, and slumps back in his chair, blinking rapidly. "Right. Remembering why I didn't do this anymore."

There's a flick of his eyes towards Ruiz at those words, and his total attention follows. There's no response, except the hiss of the rain, for quite a while. Until he says, voice low but harsh thanks to the smoke, "I don't want you dead, Javier. Not," a pause, "not anymore than I want anyone else dead. And less than many. " He doesn't look away. "There's a part of me that always wonders...if I can. Kill someone. Specifically, I mean. Logistically, not whether I can make myself. I know I can kill. But it's not because I want to hurt people, exactly. I don't. It's just thoughts." A shrug. "But I understand if you can't forgive me. Deliberately provoking someone into a suicide attempt is pretty much the definition of 'unforgivable'. Especially when that person is supposed to be a friend. I don't forgive myself for it."

The first portion of his truth bomb dropped, Ruiz moves on to the second, after a restless quiet that follows in the wake of Alexander's own reply. The rain hisses against the asphalt and plinks against the gutter, and the scent of chlorophyll and wood smoke mingles with the more acrid smoke from the weed. He smiles, slight, at the other man's awkwardness with inhaling, but leaves him to sort it out on his own.

The amusement's long gone by the time he gets to the part about not wanting him dead, though, and his dark eyes still refuse to meet Alexander's as he tells him, quietly, "I think you wanted me out of the way. Or still do, in some way, partly because of Rosencrantz." He's thinking, maybe, about that conversation they had. Are you going to fuck him? "What I can't figure out is why you'd consider me an obstacle to having what you want." He exhales more smoke from his nose, and settles more comfortably into his chair. Not that comfort is in any way synonymous with these folding monstrosities.

Alexander blinks. And then he blinks again. And then he takes a toke, again short and shallow but more careful. He holds this one more properly until he can let it out in a slow stream of smoke that goes out into the rain and is dispersed in a moment. He's listening, but then he laughs. There's not a lot of humor in it, more disbelief. "What? No." Another weird laugh comes out of him. "That...no, Javier. Good heavens." He shakes his head. "If it were going to kill someone over...that, it wouldn't be you. You were first." He frowns. "But I was jealous." He takes another toke. "But not. I don't want Itzhak, sexually. Or romantically. Or you." And now's when he looks aside, and his voice goes down, a little ashamed. "I just don't want you both to want each other more than either of you wants to spend time with me. You're my friends. I don't have a lot of them, really."

"That doesn't make any fucking sense," answers the slouched Mexican in a low rumble of a murmur. "First off, we're not dating. Second, I happen to know for a fact that you've got other friends who have.." He waves his joint. "Girlfriends. Boyfriends. So that's bullshit." But at least he isn't holding on to it any longer, where it had been sitting inside him and festering and multiplying his grief and rage. Now it's out in the open, though he doesn't seem all that inclined to just let go of it yet. "I don't have a lot of friends, either. I'm not really sure.. how to do friendship. Fucking is easy." He flicks some ash from the joint, then brings it to his lips again.

"I never said it did make sense," Alexander says, with an exasperated shrug. "It's irrational. I know that. I'm a crazy person. I am irrational, by definition." He grumbles that last bit, and slinks down. "And yes. I have friends who have lovers. But." A pause. "I do not have friends who became lovers. Where they were friends with me first, both of them, and then they got into each other. That feels different. And maybe it's because I know Itzhak has a crush on me, and maybe I'm worried that if he didn't he wouldn't want to be my friend anymore, because I don't have a lot to offer as a friend, especially when you both have other people who can do all the things that you need friends for. So." He hasn't looked back at Ruiz, just staring at his joint instead. "I am irrationally afraid that two of my friends will meet each other's needs well enough that they will have no reason to put up with me. You can laugh about it if you want. I know it's stupid."

He sighs. "But aside from the influence turning that anxiety into anger a couple of times, that's not why I wanted to kill you, Javier." He frowns. "Honestly? In that moment, I was just angry that you were ordering me out of my house, where I felt safe, and making me be a burden on a person I didn't know well and be in a place where I didn't feel safe. I figured that if you were dead, then I could just stay in my space, and be safe." He grimaces. "And I wanted to know if I could kill you. It seemed like an interesting experiment at the time." It's all stated flat and toneless; it certainly doesn't make any of it sound better than wanting him dead in a jealous fit.

After a moment, he adds, "Friendship is hard. It hurts all the time. Fucking is certainly more fun."

Ruiz snorts softly, watching Alexander while he looks like he's trying to sink into his chair. "Don't put words in my mouth. I didn't call you crazy. Or irrational." He pauses. "Actually, yes, you can be irrational sometimes. But I've never called you crazy." He takes another toke off his joint, eases back in his chair and closes his eyes for a moment as he tumbles the smoke in his mouth. Once he's exhaled, he speaks low, soft, "And I'm not much in the mood to laugh about anything, if it's all the same to you."

When the explanation's given as to Alexander's reasoning for what he did, the cop's expression doesn't really change. Is he convinced? Probably not entirely. And it's not like any of that makes things better. He rubs at his nose with his knuckles, and sniffs sharply. Not tears, could be allergies though, paired with the reddened eyes. "You've been different, too, you know. Since Isabella."

"I know you haven't," Alexander says. He takes in another mouthful of smoke. Slower this time, holding it for a while before exhaling. Another cough or two, but clearly his lungs are becoming resigned to the abuse, and some of the nervous energy is slipping out of him, his tense muscles relaxing bit by bit. "And that's one of the reasons I like you, Javier. Not calling me crazy. Not the lack of laughter."

He dares a look back at Ruiz as he sniffs sharply. He studies the man for a long moment. "Have I? How so?"

The combination of the tequila earlier and the joint he's smoking now, finally seems to have settled Javier's nerves. Which have seemed a little more frayed than usual tonight. There's still an undercurrent of jitteriness to him, and his pupils are blown far wider than they ought to be considering there's a little hanging lantern affixed to the overhang, that illuminates the patio area fairly well. "You have," he confirms, ashing the joint, watching Alexander with those dark, intent eyes that are having a tiny bit of trouble focusing properly tonight. "You've been more.." He waves his hand. "distant."

Alexander thinks about it. Well, he's thinking about something, anyway. He's only about halfway through his joint, and he continues to slowly toke on it as he watches Ruiz with that flat stare he gets when his internal wheels are spinning. By the way his mouth turns down at the corners, he doesn't like the direction of the spin. "Probably," he admits, after a while. "I'm sorry. There have been a lot of things that have gotten inside my head. Makes it harder to remind myself to spend time with friends. It's not really Isabella, though. But a lot of things. I should do better at it." He takes another toke, lets the smoke trickle out his nose, then offers Ruiz the rest of his joint. "I'm going to use the bathroom."

He's up and ambling away towards the bathroom soon after that, letting the door close behind him. Then quietly turning on the faucet to cover the sound of him carefully checking for evidence of his suspicions. Admittedly, he's buzzed, so it's maybe not AS quiet as it could be.

Ruiz could prod a little to find out what's going through Alexander's mind. The urge is there, but maybe the weed's mellowed him out to the point of indifference. "You don't owe me an explanation, Alexander," he points out as the other man goes to stand, and proclaims that he's going to use the bathroom. Suspicion's a flicker in the back of his mind, but the weed smothers that fairly well, too. "Si. Take your time." He, meanwhile, settles in to enjoy the joint and the rain, mind wandering while Alexander runs the faucet and does whatever the fuck he's doing in there.

What is Alexander doing? Alexander is doing what he does best: snooping. He checks all the usual places one might hide illicit drugs in the bathroom, although he's buzzed enough that he misses whatever might be the BEST places. Still, what he does manage to find is twitchy enough - the pills are obvious enough. And the faint grittiness of a smear of powder that he's fairly sure he can identify, even if drug crimes tend to be, in his own words, 'boring'.

It's less boring right now. He wanders out of the bathroom, then has to stop, go back, cut the faucet off, and return to the patio, lowering himself into the chair again and staring out at the rain, his brow furrowed. Thinking is harder than it usually is. One of the reasons he doesn't enjoy being high. But he rewinds the past in his head, remembers what Ruiz is saying, and says, "I don't. I gave it anyway. Because I appreciate you being willing to tell me things. Even if they're things you don't like." He slumps down in his chair and sticks his socked feet out beyond the eaves, letting the cold rain soak into the fabric. "It's weird. How all of us have coping mechanisms. Especially," he reaches up and taps himself a bit woozily on his own temple, "those of us who read things. And I don't think I've ever met anyone so far with a good one."

Does he wonder what the hell's going on in there? Maybe Alexander ate some bad pizza, and is going for a refund on it. Maybe he fell asleep. Maybe Ruiz should fall asleep, too. His eyes are closed by the time the other man returns, and he does look more mellow than he has since Alexander showed up on his proverbial doorstep. Mellow, and a shade younger, without that hard look on his face that he usually wears. "I don't know what you're talking about," he murmurs, "but if you say so." His lashes lift, dark eyes fixing on Alexander when he mentions coping mechanisms. "Mmhm. Tell me what yours are."

Alexander gives the man a sidelong look, and seeing the softer features, he smiles just a little. And if it's a worried sort of smile? Well, Ruiz's eyes are closed, so that's fine. At least, until the dark eyes open and look in his direction, catching the tail end of it. Alexander grimaces. "You've seen my research room," he mutters, his eyes skittering away to stare at the rain again, instead. "Mysteries. Answering unanswered questions, even when no one really wants there to be an answer to them. Even when I want to leave something alone, I usually can't until I have some sort of resolution for myself. I'm not a cop. I don't have to arrest someone, or have the same standard of evidence you do. It's enough to know what happened. But I have to have an answer." He huffs out a breath. "Trying to find people who will tell me what to do and then doing whatever they say because it's less anxiety-provoking than making moral decisions for myself." He scrubs at his face. "Although I guess isolating myself for over a decade was sort of both a coping mechanism, and trying to cure myself of that other coping mechanism. If you don't let yourself get attached to anyone, then you don't end up," he stops there for a moment, before continuing more slowly, "you don't end up in the wrong sort of relationship."

Another of those sidelong looks. "What about yours, Javier?"

Well, speaking of truth bombs. Javier is a fairly captive audience while Alexander unpacks all of that; he remains in his near-boneless slouch in that $15 chair of his, his frame really too sturdy for it by all accounts. It's almost comical, really. His head is tipped back against the glass of the patio door, and turned slightly so he can gaze at the other man with those dark, hooded eyes, and follow the movement of his mouth as he enunciates his words. As if it might help his sluggish brain follow along.

"Mm," he rumbles after a time, when the question's turned around on him. "Like I said. Fucking. With no strings attached. No names, no breakfast the next morning, no promises." The joint's brought to his lips again, smoke pulled in and then sifted back out through his nose. "Trying to find people who will do what I tell them to do, because it's less anxiety-provoking than not knowing what the fuck people want from me." He tries to smile at that, but it comes out a little melancholy. "I know all. About. The wrong sorts of relationships." He punctuates those pauses with his joint, about six inches away from Alexander's face. There isn't much room out here, truth be told, especially if they don't want to get rained on.

Alexander's eyes cross a little at the joint being thrust at his face, trying to focus on it juuuust to make sure he doesn't end up with a smoldering ember on his nose or something. "Mm," he says, in what seems to be an unconscious imitation of Ruiz's own rumble. His eyes go half-lidded, a little foggy as they refocus on Ruiz's face rather than the glowing end of the joint. His lips quirk upwards a little. "See," he says to the desire for control, "I knew there was a reason I liked you." His gaze drifts back towards the bathroom, his brow furrows. He belatedly remembers to pull his feet in from the cold rain, the fabric squishing and dripping onto the concrete, although he doesn't really seem to notice. "The wrong sorts of relationships can mess you up," he murmurs, glancing back to Ruiz, "or just give you the greatest opportunity to fuck yourself up by the numbers, if that's what you're into."

At this point, the rain doesn't seem to bother Ruiz overmuch. He hasn't bothered putting on socks or shoes, and appears to give no shits that his feet are getting wet. Alexander's reply gains a low, warm chuckle, and he exhales some smoke away from the other man and watches a car loaded up with suitcases pull into the lot. Some out-of-towners who probably drove in from Seattle, and have no idea what they're getting into with this town. "Worth it, sometimes," he opines quietly on the last, his mind wandering for a moment. Then, "You want to head back inside?"

Alexander's grin is brilliant at the sound of Ruiz's low chuckle, like he just won a prize of some sort. "Sometimes." He does seem to mind the wet and cold, at least where sodden socks stuck to his feet are concerned, because he bends down to take them off, and rolls them neatly together, before rising. "Probably should." He pauses as he stands there, swaying just a little. Abruptly, he says, "It's odd. Wanting to laugh at things that aren't funny. And I'm warm from the top of my skull to...well, my ankles. My feet are cold. But I can feel the little gritty bits in the concrete under them, and that's a bit odd as well. You can polish concrete. But it's still porous. Stains tend to soak in and are hard to get out." A pause. "My mother was a nurse, you know. In the groups I'd join," he means cults, "I'd usually get assigned to the infirmary or whatever we had that was like that, because I'd read all her books and could patch people up pretty well."

The brilliant grin is studied, basked in, and even induces a slight curve at the corners of Ruiz's mouth. Just momentarily, before it's frittered away again. He watches Alexander tug his wet socks off, and wiggles his own toes against the gritty concrete as he stands. His joint's all but gone, and he stubs out the last of it on the edge of the little plastic table sitting out here. "What made you think of that?" he wonders, nudging the patio door open wider, dark eyes catching on Alexander's as he shoulders his way back inside.

Direct questions are always Alexander's bane, especially when he's intoxicated and has even less of a filter than usual. He slinks inside and sways his way to the bathroom for a moment, finding an out of the way place to hang the socks to dry. It also reminds him of the question, and so his answer as he comes out to settle on the bed is, "It means I can identify more medications than you'd think. And we used to detox people. Who agreed to it. Um. Sometimes they were very high when they agreed, but they did agree. Um. Still might have been technically illegal when they stopped agreeing. Sorry." He rolls onto his back, stares at the ceiling. "I can usually tell when someone's using, Javier. Even if I try not to for a while." A pause, and then in no less a casual tone, "I think I see a dog in the water stains in these ceiling tiles. Do you see the dog?"

Ruiz tugs the sliding door shut after them, which immediately blocks the sound of the rain hissing against concrete. He meanders his way back to the table, where roughly a third of a bottle of Patron still sits, and pours himself a glass. And pauses, when Alexander starts talking about detoxing people. People who agreed, and then disagreed. Hand on the glass, he looks over, and finds Alexander staring at the ceiling. And it's a long, long while before he prowls on over, and comes to a halt about a foot away from the edge of the bed to cast his gaze up to that water stain.

"I see a bear in a cave of stalagmites," he proffers quietly, sipping his drink as his mind churns.

"That's very pointy," Alexander muses. He slips to one side of the bed when Ruiz approaches, leaving room for the other man to sit if he wants. His eyes remain on the ceiling, although it's not hard to tell that he's paying more attention to Ruiz than he probably wants to be known. He's just complete shit at hiding it. "I can sort of see it, though. Or maybe it's an ogre eating a distressingly realistic gummi bear." He smiles and rambles on. "Do you know that you can make a fairly decent footprint cast if you have enough gummi bears to melt down into a hot candy slurry? And it's flexible once it cools, too, so you can just peel it off. I read that. In a mystery. I haven't had a chance to try it, myself, because the specific confluence of events hasn't really happened, but I think it'd be much more colorful and convenient than plaster."

"What, the stalagmites?" Ruiz looks over at Alexander, tips the glass to his mouth. He watches him watch the ceiling in that distracted way, like he's thinking about something else. And makes a noise in his throat that's largely unidentifiable as a word, before dropping down on the edge of the mattress with a soft creak of the springs in protest. "Well, of course they're pointy. That's their job." He casts his gaze back up at the water stain, sips again. "Sure, but then you've got a sticky mess to clean up. And why would you want a footprint cast done, anyway, unless you know.. you've had a baby or something?" His mental filter isn't working as well as usual, clearly.

"This is true," Alexander says, after thinking about it way too long. "They wouldn't be very good stalagmites if they weren't pointy. They'd be fired. Replaced by...stalagmites?" Something is probably wrong with that logic, his expression suggests, but it's not worth worrying about. Instead, he laughs, low but with less hesitation than usual. "No. That's wrong. That's--babies aren't criminals, Javier. Not usually. I think. I think I meant shoeprint casts. Which do contain feet." He throws the man a quick grin. "And if you pour it right, it should solidify into a single mass. Just peel." He mimicks the motion with an intoxicated flourish. "It could revolutionize law enforcement. You should look into it."

"I think you mean stalactites," Ruiz murmurs, with an air of being right. Even though he totally isn't. Because stalagmites don't have jobs, and if they did- well, there's just no logic to be found down that rabbit hole. "You don't think there's ever been a baby who was a criminal?" He looks over at Alexander, and waggles his eyebrows salaciously. Which totally doesn't fit the conversation at hand. "Mm." His brows furrow then as he think on that pretty hard for a moment. "Maybe I'll tell the Chief. I should call him right now." He starts patting himself down for his phone.

"No, I think it's stalagmites," Alexander says, stubbornly, although that's also entirely wrong. "Nobody hires stalactites for anything, these days." Then he stops, and frowns at the ceiling. "Wait. Which ones point up, and which ones point down?" A finger is waggled. "No. No babies have been criminals. They haven't the stomach for it. That's why they burp all the time." And when Ruiz starts patting himself down for a phone, Alexander reaches out with a lazy hand to bat at his hands. "No. Stoppit. He's a jerk. He doesn't deserve to hear about your fantastic idea."

"It's stalactites, don't fucking argue with me." Ruiz tries to frown, but loses it and starts laughing instead. Which causes the drink in his hand to slosh around. Which makes him laugh more. "Uh," he proffers during a pause in the hilarity, "I think they all point up. Unless they're flaccid." Which starts him laughing again, because penis jokes are funny, amirite? "No, you stoppit. He's going to love this idea. Or he'll hate it and fire me and I can leave this shitty town." He bats at Alexander's batting at his hands, which kind of ends up being a pretty pathetic slapfight.

Alexander just falls silent to watch Ruiz laugh, lifting his head up enough to stare at the man. He does cluck his tongue as the drink sloshes. "If you spill that drink, then I'm taking the couch. I don't want to sleep in a tequila bed." Then he snickers at the juvenile joke with clear enjoyment. "They need cave Viagra. Cave porn? What is pornography to a cave? Mineshafts? That might be horror. Or a fleshlight." He shakes his head, trying to stop his hyperactive brain from jumping down that particular rabbit hole. Instead, he cheerfully indulges in the lamest slapfight ever. "You wouldn't leave," he says, cheerfully. "You know it. I know it. You'd probably become an exceptionally ill-tempered private investigator." A frown. "Which means you'd be competition. Nope, definitely can't talk to the Chief until you're as sober as...as...a--who the hell is sober around here, these days? I mean. Really."

"Oh, please. As if Sutton hasn't spilled tequila five hundred times in it already," mumbles the captain around a noisy slurp of his drink. He drains his glass, then shakes it a few times to get the last few drops out before thunking it down on the nightstand. Beside his service pistol, which is mercifully unloaded. "The fuck is a fleshlight pornographic?" He slings his legs onto the bed and flops down, one heavily inked arm draped over his eyes. "I would not." Become a private investigator, ill-tempered or not. "I'd become the world's oldest fucking pitcher and move to the Maldives."

"But you said the linens were clean," Alexander declares, like a man making a persuasive final argument at a trial. "So don't make them unclean. And before you argue - no, the mattress doesn't count. Don't ever think about hotel mattresses. Don't ever look at hotel mattresses. And especially, especially..." he falls silent, distracted by the fall of Ruiz's body on the bed. It seems like might have forgotten whatever it was he was going to say, but then, like he never paused, he picks up, "especially don't ever read a hotel mattress. Some things? Cannot. Unsee." He gives a dramatic shudder before his eyes close for a moment.

"Mmm, okay. Baseball. That makes sense. But you have to give me a couple of free tickets every once in a while. And a vacation in the Maldiviwhatsits. What are the Maldives? Mountains? Islands? Caves? Are you going to move to a bunch of caves, Javier?" He frowns. "I don't want you to live in a cave."

Javier grunts. "Clean-ish," he amends, voice a bit muffled by the meaty arm still thrown over his face. As for hotel mattresses, "You can just stop talking about that, right fucking now. Or I'll never be able to sleep here again." The weed occupies his mental space rather pleasantly, along with the liquor, and it's like an incessant buzzing has been switched off. No emotional bleed from other people, no awkward boundaries to respect. Just this formless, fuzzy pleasantness that can only ever really be attained with mind-altering substances. "How the fuck should I know?" he mumbles, scratching at his belly with his free hand. "They sound nice, though. Sure, you can have tickets. To come visit my cave." He makes a sound like a chortle. Then another. Then pretty soon he's laughing again.

"Clean...ish." Alexander snorts. "Ish. For the 'ish', I should tell you what I've seen in hotel mattresses," he grumbles. But has enough mercy, or maybe just enough self-preservation that he doesn't elaborate. Although his grimace suggests that he does, indeed, have some unpleasant memories in that regard. He does start to make a sound of helpless amusement deep in his throat. "You're gonna go there but you don't know where it is? Fine, fine. I'll get a map." He doesn't move. Just listens to the sound of Ruiz's laughter with a half-smile playing over his features.

"Don't." His arm slings off his face, and he jabs a finger menacingly at Alexander. Very menacingly. Which is to say, not really at all. "You dare. Or I'll make you ride bitch until the end of your days, Clayton." He pauses. Then thinks to clarify, "In my car. In the back seat." In the cage reserved for criminals, he means. He watches the other man, and quarter-smiles at his half-smile. And then, because he has neither tequila nor a joint to occupy his hands and stave off sobriety, he flops his head back against his arms and lets his lashes drift low. Like he's going to doze off to sleep.

Alexander makes a noise that, were his voice not a baritone, would probably be best described as a giggle. "Police brutality." A pause. "One day I'm gonna drive that thing," he says, as if confiding a secret. He turns his head to look at Ruiz. Blinks a couple of times, then makes a soft sound. "Sleep well." And then he just closes his own eyes. He doesn't sleep, at least not immediately, but he seems content to let the other man drift off in the hazy pleasantness of the high.