2019-12-14 - Daddy's Little Girl

(TXT to Ruiz) Finch : Hey Javier, would you like to drop by the house for a bit this evening? Thought we could play more 20 questions over hot cocoa and I could introduce you to the rest of the immediate family (don't panic, none of them are human).

(TXT to Finch) Ruiz : (after a few minutes) This evening? Sure. You have any cats?

(TXT to Ruiz) Finch : Cats? No. Are you allergic to any other critters?

(TXT to Finch) Ruiz : No. Just cats. Like me to bring anything? Do you like tacos?

(TXT to Ruiz) Finch : Is there a human out there who doesn't like tacos? If so, why haven't they been banished to like, Antarctica or something by now?

(TXT to Finch) Ruiz : I'm pretty sure Antarcticans like tacos too.

(TXT to Finch) Ruiz : Is that a thing? Antarcticans?

(TXT to Ruiz) Finch : Nope. No one is born in Antarctica. People go there to do research and stuff but there are no indigenous people on that continent. I am totally giving that to Iggy for a clue on the next trivia night.

(TXT to Finch) Ruiz : Huh. I did not know that. Anyway, what time do you want me to stop by? I'm off in an hour or so. Is, uh, Iggy going to be around?

(TXT to Ruiz) Finch : Not unless you want me to call him. He's at his brother's place tonight getting some writing done. Gran is at her weekly stitch and bitch with the other town ladies, sewing things.

(TXT to Finch) Ruiz : No, no need. Just us sounds great.

(TXT to Ruiz) Finch : Great then whenever you get off work and feel like dropping by.

(TXT to Finch) Ruiz : All right. Send me your address when you have a minute.

(TXT to Ruiz) Finch : (Address on Bayside and a photo of the exterior of the once-beautiful mansion)

A truck pulls up into the drive, skittering gravel under its tires, wipers going full force with the quantity of rain being dumped on them. It's closer to sleet by now, with the chill that's settled into the air as evening's descended. The ignition's killed and a familiar, bulky shape climbs out, shoulders hiked up to his ears as he huddles into his jacket and slams the door with an elbow. A grocery bag's handle is looped over his forearm as he trudges toward the front door, and raps on it three times with the side of his fist.

Finch opens the door and greets Ruiz with a smile. "Hey Javier. Thanks for coming by." The tiny woman is wearing very worn jeans, a big old slouchy cable knit sweater in a cream color, and work boots on her feet. Her only other accessory is the little white and grey rat sitting on her shoulder, wearing a tiny little yellow rain slicker and matching hat as a nod to the relentless rain. "This is the grand high majestrix of the Mallard House Menagerie, Miss Magdalena Heinroth, named for the German Ornithologist. Her outfits are courtesy of my Gran." She grins at that, dark eyes crinkling at the edges, much like his do.

The adorable little rodent wriggles a pink noise in the air, snuffling at Ruiz's scent, which she also smelled in the house after Thanksgiving. She makes a welcome squeak and nestles under Finch's hair. "You want to meet the rest before or after tacos?" she asks. Her stomach rumbles, indicating which she'd prefer.

Javier? It feels unexpectedly strange having his daughter call him Javier, though he doesn't say a word about it. Just a little twinge in his jaw, and he forces himself to smile slightly. "You look very nice." Is he allowed to say that? Then he notices the rat, and the desire to reach out and touch its mind is.. almost irresistible. He's distracted for the longest time by the tiny creature and its tiny clothing, and in spite of himself, his smile turns warmer and more sincere. There's even dimples.

"Hmm?" He wasn't listening. He squints at the girl as he's rained on, and shivers, a fine stream of it running along his cheek and into his beard.

Finch chuckles. Miss Mags has that effect on people. "Come on in, you're gonna get soaked through out there." She steps back to let him inside and Mags peeks out at him through the curtain of her hair. She closes the door behind him, shutting out the damp and chill. The fireplace in the living room off the entry is lit, and that's helping keep the livable area warm. A lot of the house is closed off, because of damage, and to limit the number of rooms they have to heat in the cold months.

The place is run down, but it was clearly beautiful in the past. The grand marble staircase in the foyer has cracks in it, but it's still sturdy and stable, even if it needs a good polishing. The kitchen is bright and warm at least as she leads him down a hall to it. It's a mishmash of very old and sort of old tastes. The kitchen table and chairs are clearly from the 1950s, standing in stark contrast to Victorian cabinetry and a 21st century refrigerator.

There's a distant rumble of thunder as the clouds crash together, and a fork of lightning slices through the wet, frigid air. The flash is peripherally visible, but brief. It's enough though to have the cop ducking inside, shoulder first, and letting Finch shove the door shut after him.

He casts his eyes over the old house's interior, picking out the incongruent stylistic choices and mid-century modern decor. Since his boots are wet, he kicks those off at the door and slides out of his jacket before following the girl; his gaze roves back to the rat as they traverse the hall and into the kitchen. "So you live here with your grandmother?" He slides the bag of groceries onto the counter, and briefly swipes at some dampness on his face.

Finch nods and she opens the fridge, pulling out a couple of bottled beers. She doesn't drink much, or often, but getting to know your long-lost, long-hidden from you, father? She could stand to take the edge off a little. "Me and Gran and Mags, and Ignacio most of the time. He helps out a lot around the house, does most of the cooking." She smiles and twists the cap off each beer, setting one on each side of the old dinette set, all chrome and laminate top and robin's egg blue and white leather backs and seats.

"The rest live outside," she notes, sipping the beer. "Due to a hilarious mishap when trying to buy me a songbird, Ignacio accidently bought a baby chicken. Her name is Canary, and I've since added some sisters for her, the Golden Corral Girls, Dorothy, Blanch, and Rose. They have a coop near the garage and a nice little run we built." She pulls aside a frilly white lace curtain over a window and gestures towards the impressive poultry condo outside.

"Then there are the bushes. They helped me out in a couple crises so I brought them back home with me. Gertrude, Puff, and Albus." She points them out in turn, not far from the house. A snowbrush, a smoke bush, and an elderberry, all looking ridiculously healthy.

"Good," grunts Javier, pausing a moment as he pulls items out of the bag. "He should be fucking cooking for you. Does he.. does he treat you well?" He doesn't seem to register the fact that he dropped an f-bomb on her until well after the fact. Then he winces, and resumes unloading groceries. Looks like he plans on feeding an army with that.

Then she's listing off the other animals in residence, and he can't help but chuckle at the story about the songbird that wasn't. "You must eat a lot of eggs. It sounds lovely." The thought of it brings back a memory, and he starts to speak, stops. Then tries again. "In Veracruz, we lived in a hacienda near the docks. We kept chickens and a goat. For milk." He pauses. "The goat, not the chickens." Surveying the food in front of him, he sniffs some rainwater out of his nose and goes in search of a knife to cut the vegetables. "So you can do what Roen does. Si?"

Finch blinks a few times at his interest in how Iggy treats her. "Are you kidding? He treats me like I am the reason the sun rises and sets. I have to STOP him from overdoing it most of the time." She smiles one of those smiles of someone who is in love. She looks up and meets his eyes. "That boy would die for me, or Gran, or even little Mags here. He's a wiseass and a dumbass at the same time, but he's a good soul with an enormous heart."

She listens to the words about the hacienda and looks wistful. "That sounds really nice too. And it's like warm there all year isn't it? I can't even imagine. Here I don't think my toes ever quite thaw out or stop feeling damp." She chuckles a little and looks at the groceries. "Need me to help with anything? I warn you, I can burn water and hot pockets are my sole area of cooking expertise."

At the other question she nods again. "Yeah. I can do what August does. At least the one aspect. He's able to do some of everything. I'm a glass cannon, so to speak. Just the one flavor of Glimmer so far. The healing, fire, plants stuff. How about you?"

He looks up at the incredulity in her tone of voice, dark eyes meeting dark for a moment or two. And there's.. something in his that isn't articulated. Pride? A sharp swell of it, in this girl who's his and yet not. Who's done right for herself without his help. And yet, she shares his temperament. Hasn't he given her that much?

He tunes back in again somewhere around need help with anything? and chuckles low. "Why don't you shred the cheese and wash and chop the cabbage. Think you can manage that?" It's not meant as a taunt, but a genuine question. As to his abilities, "I can do what Ignacio can do. But more." He had a little taste of the other man's gift, that day in his office. Perhaps it was enough to assess the relative strength of his power. A pan is found for the meat, slathered in a little oil, and he dumps it in with a low sizzle.

"That much I can do. Even learned some prep skills at a cooking class Ig took me to." Finch gets out the stainless cheese grater and she goes to work on shredding. "You do know they make this stuff already shredded in bags right?" she teases him with a quirk of a grin. That one is pure Wren right there, her mother.

"So you have the mind thing? Huh. I wonder if I'll develop any of that. Great Aunt Starling has it too, scary amounts of it." Like terrifying. Like all of them realizing she was in that loony bin by choice and could make the guards and docs and administrators simply think she was released and walk out any time she wants to.

Ruiz digs around until he finds a wooden spoon, then uses it to break up the meat in the pan. Once it's browned, it's turned down and a sprinkling of spices added to the mix. Another flickered glance to the rat, and he can't help smiling again at the sight of it peeking out from the girl's hair. "That's cheating," he grumbles about the pre-shredded cheese, and resumes chopping vegetables. Red onion, sliced thinly. Wine vinegar set aside until the last few minutes of cooking. "It's not all it's cracked up to be," he adds. It's probably safe to say he doesn't want her developing his abilities.

"I can throw fireballs or snap someone's leg like a toothpick. Pretty sure being able to yell at Iggy's brain across town wouldn't be so bad compared to that," she points out. Finch shreds the cheese into a ceramic bowl. Of note, very little in the kitchen is plastic... it's all ceramic glass, metal. The cookware is old but it's very high quality. This family had money once.

She picks up her beer for a swig and sets it down. "It's why I don't drink much or often. When you can kill someone just by thinking about it? You don't want to be out of your right mind, you know?" She glances over at him, watching him cook with a smile. This is nice. This feels like home and family, something she's been missing for a long long time.

"Do you cook a lot?" she asks.

Another beer is procured from the fridge, the cap popped off with his thumb, and he takes a slug of it before resuming his work with the knife. He seems to know his way quite well around food preparation; this clearly isn't something he's wading into to try to show off for her with. "Has Roen been teaching you how to control it?" Because if anyone knows control, it's that man. To her last question, a flickered smile that creases the corners of his eyes, and, "Si. When I can. I've been staying at the Sea View until I have a house. Which makes that hard." Not to mention murder motel.

"The murder motel? Jesus!" Finch exclaims. She pauses, finishing with the cheese and setting the bowl aside, putting the grater into the sink. "We have a couple guest rooms, if you want to crash here instead. I mean I know that might be all kinds of awkward, but you're family. And you shouldn't be paying money to stay in that crazy death magnet of a motel." She starts working on the cabbage. "I mean til you find a house and all that." Awkward commencing.

"Roen and I help each other really. I've been strong at it since I was 13 years old. So, I've been able to teach the boss a few tricks too," she says with a chuckle. Mags skitters out onto Finch's shoulder, sniffing longingly towards the cheese.

"That's the one," he murmurs, a little ruefully. A flick of his eyes to observe Finch's handiwork with the cheese, and then he returns to dicing up the chillies with a very sharp knife. Should he be wearing gloves? Probably. But he isn't. "I don't need any handouts," is offered even more quietly, dark eyes narrowing a fraction, shoulders tense. What he means is, I would do anything to get out of that dump, but of course it isn't what he says. Because this is his kid, and damned if he's going to look bad in front of her. "Have you?" he asks, of her and Roen. That makes him smile slightly. Like, that's my girl.

Finch snorts. "It's not a fucking hand out, old man. This isn't exactly the Ritz-Carlton. Plus you can pitch in like half what you're paying for that motel room if you feel like you have to. I do miss cable tv." She winks at him with a warm smile, the cabbage being sliced up efficiently. She's done a lot of lab work in the Ornithology program, so her knife skills are decent.

Oddly enough, her response makes him laugh. A warm, sudden sound that comes right from his belly and has him putting the knife down so he doesn't stab himself with it while he chortles. "Did you just fucking call me old man?" Then he laughs some more, only quieting for a moment to take a swig of his beer and stir the cooking meat. "Could use someone to help you fix up this place a little, too," he points out. "Cable tv? Done." Does that mean he's thinking about accepting her offer? The way he's watching her right now, he might just be.

Finch laughs right along with it. "I'd have said it in Spanish if I knew how. Iggy only taught me a little bit so far and it was mostly curse words," she admits. She looks around. "Yeah, I'm trying to get things fixed up as I can but right now a lot of it is me being able to work on the grounds with a little Glimmer nudge here and there. I did get Gran's old land yacht fixed up thanks to Itzhak being a mechanic wizard, so I'm not hoofing it anymore."

She glances over at him as she cabbage goes into another bowl. "Really though, you're welcome. Gran even asked about it after Thanksgiving dinner. I think," she ponders, "I think she wants to know what her daughter was like back then. From what I understand, she and Wren had a falling out and stopped really talking." And apparently became a party girl for a while, and wound up knocked up.

"Viejo," murmurs the cop, chuckling a little more on the heels of it. His accent's not the same as Iggy's; Tijuana, rather than Toledo. His consonants are a little more rounded off, transitions softer, speech a touch faster when he switches to Spanish. "O trabajos viejos y tontos, también." The meat's removed from the stove, heat switched off, and he retrieves the package of tortillas and wraps them in a cloth and piles them onto a plate to be warmed up in the microwave. "I'd be happy to tell her what I know. But we really only.." Well, he's not going to talk about how they fucked. Because that's all kinds of awkward. He clears his throat, and starts ferrying food to the table.

"Are you serious? About crashing here." He doesn't meet her gaze, because he doesn't dare.

Finch isn't shy about looking him in the eye at least. She gets that boldness from him, clearly. "Yeah, totally serious. It'd give us more of a chance to get to know one another, until you have your own place. Plus, two cooks making me food? That sounds like a pretty great situation for me," she laughs. Hey, the microwave she can do. She puts the plate of tortillas in for the requisite time.

"I'll give it some thought," he replies, looking up at Finch finally with a little twinge of his mouth in what's probably meant to be a smile. "You want to double-check with your gran, and Ignacio first?" Just in case the guy throws a shitfit over the idea. Plates are slid onto the table next. Cutlery, and his beer swigged from as he goes to liberate the tortillas from the microwave.

Finch snorts. "Gran brought it up once already, and Ignacio will be happy if I'm happy. Plus I think he'll enjoy someone he can speak Spanish to that actually understands what the fuck he's saying," she laughs. "Really, you don't have to worry about Iggy. He's been super supportive about all of this." She puts out paper napkins as well.

There's a grunt from the man, and, "Not worried about him. Just don't want to drop any nasty surprises." He unfolds the cloth from the warm tortillas, and brings them over to the table with the rest of the fillings. Then gestures to a chair. "Sit. Eat." And drops into one himself with a soft creak of the thing. His beer's set aside, and he goes about assembling a taco while he waits for Finch to join him. "I, uh. I feel like I should mention something to you. Because you're going to find out about it, sooner or later." Uh oh.

Finch slides into one of the chairs, which are comfortable despite their age. Dove has done her best to keep things up, but the leather seats don't have so much as a crack in them, which indicates Finch has likely glimmered them to their original state of perfect. She sips her beer as she begins assembling herself some tacos. "Smells great, thanks for this."

A brow arches up, and she gives him a slightly concerned look, but nods. "Go on, lay it on me."

Thankfully, Ruiz has something to keep his hands busy while he broaches this incredibly awkward piece of conversation. She might not see him swallow, or notice the ripple of tension that slides through him, but his heart's thumping away like a jackhammer as he tries to put the words together for what he's about to say. "Rosencrantz and I are seeing each other. I hope that's all right." He still refuses to look up at her.

Finch stops midway through sprinkling the cheese she so carefully shredded onto her taco. Her expression is classic cartoony "Wut!?" but her she doesn't say that. Blink. Blink. Blink. Processing.... please wait one moment .... all circuits are busy.

Then she bursts out a laugh. "Oh my fucking GOD, that is why he was batshit squirrely when I showed him the photo of you and my mom!" She's laughing so hard tears are forming in her eyes. "He totally lost his ever-loving shit and ran out of the room like I'd set his hair on fire!" This is likely not the reaction he was expecting.

It takes her several minutes to calm down, gulping air and guffawing with such a release of tension it's palpable. "Oh God, that's too funny. But seriously. Good for both of you. Itzy is one of my best friends and he is one of the best people I know, even if some of the situations he gets put in are shit." She continues building her taco creation.

"Just know that if either of you badly hurt the other, I'll kill both you shitheads. Got it?" she asks, giving him a LOOK, but following it up with a warm smile as she dabs at her eyes with her sweater sleeve.

Whatever Ruiz was expecting in response to his little bomb drop? That was not it. He jerks his head up, and simply stares at the girl across from him for several long, stupefied seconds. This is news to him, about a photograph of him and Wren, and Itzhak running out of there like his hair was on fire. Sounds like something he'd do, though. "Uh," is about the most he can get out for a solid minute. He looks back at his taco, decides to take a bite of it, and chews and swallows before attempting to speak again.

"Be on my best behaviour." Yep, that's all he's got. He sneaks another glance up at her, as if to confirm she hasn't gone for a sharp knife, then resumes devouring his food like he hasn't eaten in a month.

Finch still giggles now and then. "God so much makes sense now," she mumbles. Things she didn't quite grok until that bomb dropped. Finally she calms down enough to set a hand on his wrist lightly. "Really though. I'm ok with that. As long as both of you are ok with it and as long as I never, and I mean NEVER, have to hear the details. Because that might just make my brain explode." She bites into her taco and makes a happy sound of omgsogoood.

So long as both of them are ok with it? Given the way he looks at Itzhak, the surly Mexican is much, much more than ok with it. "Deal," he mumbles. Because he's probably about as motivated never to give her those kinds of details as she is to receive them. If not moreso. "I'll give the offer of a room some thought. I'm not sure where construction's at, so let me check on that first. Yeah?" He finishes off his first taco, and sets about making another.

Finch nods as she polishes off one taco and starts making another. At least she doesn't EAT like a bird, named for one or no. "Sounds good. And I'm really glad we did this." Her smile is warm and genuine. This has been a good day.