2019-12-16 - I've Got Another Confession To Make
Itzhak is really, really bad at crime.
IC Date: 2019-12-16
OOC Date: 2019-08-26
Location: Park/Police & Fire Department
Related Scenes: 2019-11-29 - What's In the Box!??
Plot: None
Scene Number: 3273
It's late. It's drizzly. It's cold. Itzhak Rosencrantz has shown up on the doorstep of the GHPD, shivering. He knocks on the glass door until someone comes to see what the hell he wants.
"I wanna talk to Captain de la Vega. Please. My name's Rosencrantz."
He didn't call. He didn't text. He just showed up here, damp and miserable and freezing his narrow butt off.
The uniformed cop doing front desk duty tonight seems less than pleased to have to answer the door in the middle of her dinner. Because ass o'clock is the perfect time to be eating thai takeout, thank you very much. "Rosencrantz?" She looks him up and down, like she's wondering what the fuck de la Vega would want with the likes of him. "Just a minute."
It's five minutes before the door's shoved open again. Wider, this time. "C'mon in. I'll buzz you up." And she does, once he's inside. BZZZZZT goes the heavy door at the back that opens onto a stairwell leading up and down. "Second floor. Third door on the left." Then she drops back into her chair and stabs her chopsticks into the box of noodles.
"Thanks." Itzhak averts his eyes from the too-sharp observation of the uniformed cop. He knows he vibes suspicious all over. Even if she missed his knuckle tatts, he knows he reads like someone a lot more accustomed to coming through these doors in handcuffs.
So he looks down, submissive, shoulders huddled inwards, hands tucked under his arms. His stomach knots when she pushes the door open again, more than half expecting to be told de la Vega isn't taking visitors. But she lets him in and buzzes him up.
Second floor, third door on the left. Itzhak's conscious that he's trying to vanish, become two-dimensional and slip through a crack in reality, in order to avoid where he is and what he did today and why he's here.
He knocks. Murmurs, "Hey."
To be fair, the captain himself reads like someone more accustomed to coming through those doors in handcuffs.
Second floor. Third door on the left. A couple of officers headed out on patrol pass him by, and greet him with a somewhat curt, "Evening." The door's ajar, and if pushed open, Itzhak will find Ruiz slouched in his chair behind a somewhat cluttered desk. He's in uniform today: black shirt with the GHPD crest on his shoulder, tucked into black pants. Full duty rig, and some very shiny captain's pins on his collar. Must have been another day filled with PR, and now he's catching up on paperwork. Scribble, scribble, scribble.
"Hi. What can I do for-" His eyes tick up. Oh. "You." He'd have to be blind not to know something's up. His pen is tossed atop the pile of paperwork, and he pushes to his feet, goes to shut the door behind Itzhak. "What's wrong?"
Itzhak hasn't had a chance to see Ruiz in full uniform, and that's a little distracting; he blinks, looking at him. Captain's pins on black. Inked fingers in a high-ranking cop's uniform. Hoo damn. His eyebrows are going up. Then he swallows and looks away. "Uh. Shit." He presses the pads of forefinger and thumb against his eyes, abruptly fighting tears. Ruiz is so close, but Itzhak resists leaning into him or reaching for him. He stands there just inside the door, one arm still wrapped around himself.
The door clicks shut, muffling the sound of voices out in the hall. It's like a little box in here; one small window behind his desk that looks out onto the gated lot where the patrol cars are parked. Coffee machine that looks busted, filing cabinet (locked) and a laptop sitting open on his desk beside a stack of paperwork in the process of being completed. There's a chair opposite his desk, but it looks uncomfortable.
Ruiz nearly touches the other man, that tall drink of water that's somehow wound up in his office and why the fuck is he here. He nearly touches his shoulder, but pulls his hand back at the last second, and clears his throat, and checks the time on his watch. Half an hour still, until his shift's up. He sinks down onto the edge of his desk, holstered gun bumping it as he settles. His radio goes off, and he switches it all the way down, and tugs the earpiece out so it dangles at his shoulder. And then again, "What's wrong?" Concern inches into his voice.
I won't put you away unless you do something stupid. You won't do anything stupid. Will you?
This is a stupid thing. He can't tell him. What was he thinking?
"Uh. Look, nevermind. I shouldn'ta come here. Sorry." Itzhak's shivering pretty good. He can feel he's on the road to a meltdown. "Sorry. Sorry, just...I'll go."
"Sit the fuck down." It's not a request. That's his cop voice he's using; one third cold command, two-thirds I will fucking handcuff you to the chair if you don't comply in the next two point five seconds. It works pretty well on civilians who aren't quite convinced who's in charge yet. Will it work on Itzhak? Javier seems to think so. He tips his chin up to meet the other man's gaze, and waits.
That tone sends a spike of ice up Itzhak's spine. Oh yes, it works; he sits. Immediately. With the speed of someone who's been conditioned to obey that voice. Not that it means he wants to stay there, and he turns a look on Ruiz. That look isn't from Ruiz's lover. No, this is some canny ex-con with nasty tricks up his sleeve, an animal who knows warrens where the law fears to tread.
It lasts less than a heartbeat, a second sliced up into fractions. Then sanity resurfaces in his hazel eyes.
"Don't, Javier," he whispers, pleading. "Please."
Don't. Don't what? Don't talk to him like this? Don't look at him like this? Don't think about the loaded weapon holstered to his hip, and whether he could reach for it in time, if things came to that? Whether he would. Not whether he could, but whether he would. It's a new variable in the equation, and his tongue slides across his lips slowly as he contemplates it. Contemplates the man seated across from him, and his whispered plea.
He swallows finally, breathes out an exhale that's shakier than it sounds. "Necesito saber." His eyes slide away from Itzhak. "Necesitas hablar conmigo."
Itzhak swallows, too, his eyebrows tipping up in silent appeal. Those clear gray hazels of his search Ruiz's face, flicking back and forth. Now he looks like himself, or at least, like the man he's fighting so hard to be: a man whose lovers can be proud of him, whose family can rely on him.
He licks his dry lips. "You know my record. I was a thief. I was a good fuckin' thief too. Was the not-getting-caught part I was bad at. Kinda important.
"You know I did time. What you maybe don't know is how I got along in there. I went in when I was nineteen." Itzhak raises his eyebrows meaningfully. "A guy like me, not even twenty, may as well have 'QUEER' tattooed on my ass."
The appeal is not missed. The look on Itzhak's face, the way his eyebrows slant up like that, and if Javier weren't wearing the armour of his uniform, like a wall that sits between them, he might cave at that look alone. But he doesn't. His dark eyes slide away from those brighter hazels, and he examines the backs of his hands briefly. The ink on his knuckles could be mistaken for the sort acquired in prison. Certainly wasn't no high-class establishment, that much is obvious.
Then he draws his arms across his midsection, and tucks his hands under his armpits, bulky shoulders pulling his uniform taut. He didn't know. He suspected, but he didn't know. And the thought of it makes his blood boil, in a manner wholly unexpected. His nostrils flare with an agitated exhale, eyes ticking back up again. "Go on."
"I fought. A lot." Itzhak rubs over his knuckles. STAY DOWN. "Good thing I went in pretty scrappy, right? Then one day, the Song...it just kinda turned on. Wasn't in for but six months or so when it happened. Fight started in the yard. Turned into a riot. I came out untouched." Now his hand clenches over his left chest. "I wasn't gonna be no one's bitch. So I experimented. Couple nasty accidents happened. Crazy. And funny thing. I could get my hands on contraband no matter what. Someone wanted it? I could get it."
Javier listens quietly, though the taut, unhappy look doesn't quite abate. His radio crackles a couple of times, softer. Ignored. He listens, and he gazes steadily at the other man as he waits for him to finish spinning his story. No interruptions.
Itzhak goes on, soft, falling into the hypnotic rhythm of his own memory. "I could steal, I could deliver. And I could hide. What I did to Billy Gohl, I figured out in prison. Didn't hardly need anything. I could hide a porno mag in a Dixie cup. So long as it goes in, it don't matter. I can hide anything. I shoved Gohl in my fiddle case. That's why they needed me. One of the 'Three'.
"Anyway. I got to be a big shot in there. Rosencrantz, the guy who can hook you up." He spreads his left hand DOWN. "You know these were my cellie's idea? He was an old-timer. Heh. He took one look at me and told me I needed to make up my mind if I was gonna throw in with the homos or not. 'Cause there ain't no room in there for a guy like me. You probably know that. Well, I couldn't afford to throw in with the homos, so, I didn't. Figured I'd find my own way that didn't depend on blowing some jailhouse queen. After a while, it wasn't the old guys who would fuck with me, it was the new guys tryin' to make their mark. So my cellie, decent guy, told me he had this idea one day and it'd help keep 'em off me. It worked, too. Fresh fish would get in, take a look at me, and think they'd go pick on someone else."
Itzhak's rambling, and he knows it. He shuts his eyes. "I forgot all about it when I got out. Ain't that weird? Weird almost as being able to do it in the first place? How could I forget somethin' like that? Well, someone in there didn't forget. Someone in there knew about the Song."
Oddly enough, Javier doesn't seem to mind the rambling. He might not admit to it if pressed, but he likes the sound of Itzhak's voice. That rolling, spiky, disjointed New York in his accent. Even if thinking about his lover.. his boyfriend being in jail makes him unaccountably angry. A glance to that fist, then back up to the other man's face. Two feet away. Less, maybe. His splayed leg nearly touches Itzhak's, but he won't let it. Not while he's in uniform.
Go on, says the look in his eyes, even if he doesn't say a word.
Itzhak's big knuckly hands both clench into fists. "I'm so fuckin' scared right now," he says, almost laughing, eyes overbright. "I got out of the business. I cleaned up my act. I didn't wanna be that person no more. Even when I couldn't get a job, or I was so fucked up from surviving on the inside that I didn't know why I shouldn't fight the world, even when all I had was fiddlin' sometimes for a few bucks, I didn't wanna be that person no more. But whoever knew I had the Song didn't forget me. And I'm pretty sure they gave me up. Because early this year, my sister got cancer, and suddenly--" his knuckles go white, the ink stretched ghostly. Rage infuses his voice, going harsh with hatred. "Suddenly I had this motherfucker telling me she wasn't gonna want for nothin', that I could take care of her no problem at all. I just had to do one little thing.
"And I agreed." Itzhak looks at Ruiz, finally, eyes wide and wet and loathing. "Can you believe that stupid shit? I agreed. I survived for her and the thought of--she's just over thirty years old."
Silence still from the police captain. The fucking police captain, who's sitting here listening to this with that look on his face. Which isn't any look at all. It's like a slate wiped clean; blank professionalism. He speaks finally, voice a little rough and husky, "You agreed." He looks tired. Very, very fucking tired.
"What little thing?"
A story no amount of strong-arming would have got out of Itzhak comes spilling out of him on the basis of what they've shared between them. And yes, he's terrified, eyes too wide, face too tight. The man glows with the power of his shine. He stuffed a murderous ghost into his violin case. He sacrificed the violin that lived in that case to put that ghost down. He's made friends with unlikely people and taken an unlikely lover. He protected Ruiz when Ruiz was struck by the awful thing that lived in the book of Air and Darkness...and all that power means so little in the everyday world.
And he's afraid to his bones.
But he's still that same man, whose fighting spirit and defiance shines like the Hanukkah candles he'd lit, and so he lifts his chin, jaw clenched. He's sick with fear, green in the hollows of his face, but he goes on.
"Come out here. Do what I'm told."
The terror in Itzhak's eyes.. not everyone could see it for what it is, and not back down. But Javier, at times, is not too dissimilar from Roen. They're cut from a similar cloth, at their foundation, and there's a part of this man that is unshakeable too. I see you says his steady gaze. I know you. And something else, too, that he keeps sequestered deeper down. Inconvenient, fragile yet not.
"Yo veo." He swallows. "Entiendo." Some people pass by in the hall, laughing. A sharp rap on the door and a call of go the fuck home, cap!
He ignores it. He only has eyes for the lanky, frightened man sitting in the chair next to him. His breath stutters in, then out again as he tries to keep it steady. "What did you do?"
And Itzhak would be lying if he said that that steadiness was not something he admired about his irascible, surly lover. Even adored about him. Now it might put him away again, but he can't adore Ruiz any less for it. That's how he is. That's how Itzhak likes him.
That's how it's going to have to be, and Itzhak can talk himself, a little, into considering himself lucky as is. His mental fractals are in a maelstrom, but...he'd had Ruiz for a time. It's not fine, but it'll have to do.
The knock startles him badly; he whips his head towards the door, teeth bared. Then he savagely jabs a middle finger at it, shaking, and turns back, folding his arms tight.
Even now, he can't bring himself to say it bluntly, and he resorts to fancier words. He has to shut his eyes. "Biohazard disposal."
Then he digs the nails of his right hand into his left forearm, hard enough to draw blood....but the pain calms him, enough so he can say, eyes still closed, blood under his nails, "You do what you gotta do."
Every muscle in his body, every fibre of his being wants to push off his desk and go to the man huddled in that uncomfortable fucking chair, and put his arms around him. Pull him in close and stroke his hair and just hold him for a little while. He looks so lost, Itzhak. So unmoored.
But he doesn't move. Because he can't. The uniform means that he has to keep this distance between them, even if it kills him. And then biohazard disposal and he almost stops breathing. A slow, measured breath is taken in, and then released. And he does push off the edge of his desk, and looks for a moment like he might go in and haul Itzhak up by the collar. But he does no such thing. Instead, he prowls around his desk like the predatory thing he is, and then twists and sweeps his arm across it, scattering the neat pile of paperwork everywhere. Across his chair, across the floor, into the wall with a ferocious snarl. Then his booted foot is swung hard at the chair, toppling it end over end and into the filing cabinet with a loud BANG that someone's sure to have heard.
Then he covers his face in his hands, back turned to Itzhak, and stands there rigidly for a long, long while. No words.
Itzhak stays still with that preylike stillness, frozen on the chair. He does, however, tip his head, and one eyebrow, like, 'I know, right?'. He can say so much with such little gestures, imbuing them with the intensity of his self-loathing. Nothing ironic about it.
"It was only the one time. But that was enough. I gotta get out." He stands, wavering, knees not interested in holding him upright and he has to hang on the back of the chair. His forearm has bloody runnels clawed in the skin. Another new scar in the future. Itzhak limps unsteadily for the office door.
The captain doesn't move for the longest time. He can feel Itzhak sitting there, frozen, as easily as he can feel the blood sliding through his veins, pumped by his hammering heart. He can feel the self-loathing, and the despondency, and the hopelessness and the resolve. And he could try to bark another command at him, make him sit the fuck down. Use his hands to ensure it happens, if need be. But instead, a rough-voiced plea: "Don't go." He scrubs his palm against his eyes, but with his back turned it's impossible to see that those are tears he's wiping away.
Itzhak, back turned to Ruiz, stops, hand on the doorknob. He sniffles hard, once. Ruiz's plead stopped him just as effectively as his cop voice. More so, as it didn't result in Itzhak reverting to old bad habits.
Long tall frame tight as an overwound E string, Itzhak doesn't go. But nor can he move. His head is up, carried high. Sometimes that is all he has left. The knob rattles faintly; his grip on it shakes.
He looks at Ruiz over his shoulder with one streaked-hazel eye, that magnificent nose in perfect profile. His expression is impossible to decipher, but Ruiz doesn't need to decipher it; the taste of Itzhak's screaming fractal mindscape cloaks him like wasps without a hive.
The silence from de la Vega is deafening. The refusal to look at Itzhak for the longest time, might be damning. But only of his own emotional state; when he finally turns and meets the other man's gaze, his eyes are red and he hastily scrubs away a tear track from his cheek before clearing his throat. And then, since he was technically off duty eight minutes ago, he unbuckles his gun rig and drops it onto his desk. His radio follows, and he rights his chair, ignores the scattered paperwork as he prowls over to where Itzhak's still standing.
"No te vayas." Softer, his voice scratchy and smoke-roughened at this pitch. Once he's close enough, he tries to touch the other man's cheek, then slide his fingers around the back of his head and into his warm, dark curls. "Por favor no te vayas." And then tries to pull him into a hard embrace, if he allows. "Te necesito."
Itzhak sucks in a startled breath through his nose, eyes widening, chest rising, his hand dropping from the doorknob. Ruiz is weeping. Weeping, disarming, coming to him, taking him in his arms and it is that first gentle touch to his cheek that breaks Itzhak's control. He goes willingly with terrible need, grabbing Ruiz tight, bending his head to push his face into his lover's (boyfriend's) neck. A hoarse awful choked sob jerks free of him.
"I'm sorry--" his voice is so ragged the words are barely understandable. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry--" the sure sign of a meltdown, when Itzhak starts apologizing and can't stop.
The hug is fierce, and hard, and utterly unyielding. If Itzhak wants to escape it, he's going to have to fight his way out. One hand remains at the back of his head and sifted into his hair, while the other wraps around the man's midsection, fingers knotted in his jacket as he drags him in close. His body trembles slightly against the lankier man's, breath sucked in noisily, then shuddered out again with a noise that comes dangerously close to a sob.
He doesn't tell him to stop. Doesn't tell him it'll be all right, or anything else that people say in these situations, whether they're true or not. Fair or not. He just holds him, and breathes, and gradually his grip relaxes enough to stroke through his hair and along his rough cheek. Slow and fond, fingertips and knuckles and fingertips again.
Itzhak clings hard, doesn't let go. Rocking, throttled sobs locked in his throat, he crams himself against Ruiz from shoulder to hip to thigh and doesn't let go.
Sorry and I'm sorry and I'm so sorry and he's gasping into Ruiz's neck, shaking. It goes on for long minutes, on and on. His lover's careful fingers in his hair, stroking his face, slowly, slowly calm him until he's merely panting, his rocking slowed itself to the rhythm with which Javier strokes him.
When he lifts his head, he presses his cheek to Ruiz's, his breathing harsh.
"Never again," he whispers, husky. "Not ever. Not ever."
Ruiz holds on tight, fingers pressed to his lover's skull hard enough to whiten his knuckles. Another shuddering sigh in the midst of all the I'm sorrys, and the cheek press is met in kind, beard rough and coarse against the other man's five o'clock shadow. The cop smells like cigarettes and cordite and break room donuts, and doesn't release Itzhak for a good, long time. Finally though, he pulls back, dark eyes glossy with restrained emotion.
"Tell me what you need from me. And I'll do it." That look on his face? He's dead serious. Itzhak could probably tell him to go put two bullets in someone's head, and he'd go fetch his gun and ask no questions.
He's already flushed from crying, but Itzhak blooms red all the way down his neck when Ruiz says that, looks at him like that. He blinks, swallows, and sniffs wetly, and shakes his head a little. Himself, he smells like the chemical-laden saline of terrified tears.
"Nothin'. Nothin', just...take me home?" There go the eyebrows, popping up, entreating. Eyes searching his lover's face, Itzhak whispers, "If. You still wanna. Be with me."
What he'd done was bad enough, but that is what made it all worse. He's convinced Ruiz will be done with him after that confession--the shape of his mental presence is clear enough. (Thousands of wasps, stinging, biting.)
There's a box of tissues on the cop's desk, and he hesitates a moment like he's going to kiss this faltering, broken apart man in his arms. But instead releases him with a brief rub of his hands over Itzhak's upper arms, and goes to fetch it. The box of tissues, that is. Two, three tugged out and handed over, and then he does finally move in close to kiss him. Relatively chaste; no tongue, but plenty of feeling. You're mine says his mouth, and the determined look in his eyes. "Clean yourself up. We can grab food on the way." His gaze flickers over the other man's profile for a moment, and then he eases away to fetch his gun rig and radio, and scoop up the papers he'd scattered all over his office. They're heaped atop his desk, and his jacket tugged on. GRAY HARBOR POLICE across the back of it.
Itzhak whimpers, a tiny thin glass thread of a sound on the edge of being audible at all. His mouth against Ruiz's is trembly and salty and so, so soft, edged round with bristles. How badly he needed that kiss; bad enough to cry out, however quiet, when he got it. The biting fractal wasps dissipate somewhat, allowing him to perceive other things than them again. Which is that look in Ruiz's eyes, that possessive, determined look. That Gordian knot that serves Itzhak as a heart does something under his ribcage. Something irreversible.
Too much; he has to look away before too long. Taking the tissues, he turns away a little so he can mop himself up; he really is a mess. "Okay," he says, voice cracking. "Okay."
There's no hesitance, no uncertainty in that kiss. Mine. Mine, incontrovertibly mine. Once his jacket's on, he pulls his arm around the other man's waist and kisses him again. Harder, mine, nearly a growl as he pulls away. Not to stifle that relieved whimper, but on the contrary, to make space for it. You can fall apart, and I'll still be here. "Come on," he murmurs, switching the lights off, shoving the door open, and maybe Itzhak won't notice the reddened eyes and slight tremor in his hands that's nothing to do with emotion and everything to do with his system desperately needing a hit of coke. They each have their demons. He watches the other man's eyes for as long as he'll let him, then shoulders his way out with a crunch of his jacket and jostling of gear.
Itzhak sways into that second, harder kiss with another muffled whimper. Yours. Yes. Yours is in the way he grips the front of Ruiz's jacket, the way his mouth molds to his. Tipping his head down, he holds eye contact, sensing Ruiz wants it, until he has to squint and look away.
It gives him plenty of opportunity to notice, though. The reddened eyes, the tremor in his lover's hands. He's noticed other things over the last several weeks, too, but he never brought it up. He doesn't bring it up now (not now, especially not now, while they're in this office). He only walks out by Ruiz's side. The rustle and crunch and jingle of gear is weirdly soothing as they step out into the hallway. That's the sound of a man who means business. And for once? That man is his man.
The place is nearly empty at this time of night. Smattering of officers huddled around the proverbial water cooler, each of them hoping not to get tapped for a call right before they're out of service. All of them bid the captain farewell as he passes, laughter trailing after him, a reminder of beers at the Pourhouse this Friday from a perky blonde who eyes Itzhak like she knows. Didn't she see him there, once, when they went out back for a smoke?
"What do you want, burgers or thai?" His car's parked at the end of the lot, that black, bulldog-nosed beast. It chirps as he thumbs the fob, and gestures Itzhak to the passenger side door. Might be the first time he's ridden in one of these things when he wasn't in the back seat.
One of Itzhak's big calloused hands strokes the Charger's dash when he gets in. He may not have ridden in front of the cage in it before, but he knows the car's engine and thus is inevitably fond of it. Besides. It makes him think of Ruiz, stocky and powerful and taking nobody's shit.
"God, what I want is a fuckin' cigarette," he mutters, leaning his forehead against the window. "Even better, a joint and a couple glasses a whiskey." His breath fogs the glass briefly as he sighs. "But, that said, Thai."
Does he dare reach for Ruiz's hand, riding in his cruiser? ...No. He doesn't quite dare.
The thing comes to life with a throaty growl once the doors are shut and both occupants are belted in. It's undeniable that de la Vega shares a whole hell of a lot in common with his car; the beast under that hood wants to do unspeakable things, and requires a steady hand. And occasionally, an open road and a set of balls. Ruiz leans back for a moment to dig out his pack of cigarettes, and toss them across to Itzhak. "Roll the window down," comes out in his cop voice, like he can't quite help himself while in uniform. Then a flicker of his eyes to the other man's, a glimmer of contrition as he puts the thing into gear and backs out.
"Anyone else know about what happened?" What happened. Disposing of bodies has now become what happened. "Who called it in?"
Itzhak gratefully claps the pack to his lap and rolls down the window--vrrrrrrrr. It's absolutely fucking freezing out there but he lights up a cigarette with trembling hands and takes a hard deep drag. Sweet, life-giving nicotine; he sighs out smoke, eyes closing against the cold wet wind. Ruiz doesn't even get a look for the Cop Voice.
"I can't narc, krasavets," he murmurs. "I can't. I can tell you, but I can't tell Captain de la Vega."
The engine thrums with warm, throaty promise as the car's gunned out of the lot and takes off down the road with a little pop that nudges them back in their seats. It's pretty clear she could give the Stingray a run for her money, though the handling's completely different. Oodles of torque, but the thing's heavy. Four thousand pounds in curb weight, steel rims and a roll cage that could survive a nuclear holocaust.
The cop is silent for a long while. Silent as they blow through intersection after intersection, frigid air whipping through that open window and he's trying not to make it obvious that he's shivering, but it kind of is. Eventually, once he's stopped to pick up food and is back on the road again, "Please tell me." A little more raw and unguarded this time. He asks his lover, rather than demanding information from a perp he's about to throw into an interrogation room and intimidate the shit out of.
That interrogation room must have been complete hell on Itzhak, too. It's really no wonder he wound up getting caught. He may be a mechanical genius and adrenaline junkie, but so little else about him is well suited to a life of crime. Then again, it's been several years since he tried to put his past behind him. (Only to have it come roaring to overtake him.)
He smoked two cigarettes in a row, which he never does, and finally he rolls up the damn window. Slouching down in the passenger seat, he rubs his eyes. It takes a lot to exhaust him, but a lot has happened. The tone Javier asks him in makes him glance over, eyebrows unhappy.
"Wasn't him." Itzhak doesn't clarify who him is. He figures he doesn't need to. "I just...needed you to know why I did it at all." Now he could really use a third cigarette, but he settles for rubbing his fingertips together compulsively. "Joey Kelly said that, uh." Swallow. "That he interrupted a couple guys doin' ...I dunno what they were doing. Something pretty fucking bad. Bad enough for him to, well." He's pressing his eyes shut again. "Use a toaster as a knuckle duster, apparently."
He doesn't need to clarify. The intonation in his voice when he says him, explains it all, really. There's a grunt from the cop in acknowledgement, hackles coming down a fraction. The car's not made for city driving, and thrums its engine like an agitated beast every time they power out of an intersection.
Pretty soon though, they're pulling up outside Itzhak's place. He lets the engine idle, a tick as it drops down to four cylinders rather than chewing through fuel on all eight. And once Itzhak explains the who and the why.. a few pieces of the puzzle start to fit together. "Fuck," he whispers, leaning his head back in his seat, scrubbing his hands over his face. "Fucking Kelly. I'm going to fuck him up for getting you involved in this." He shoves his seatbelt off and kills the ignition, dark eyes cutting across to Itzhak before he climbs out.
"Let me talk to him." Before they step out of the relative privacy of the cruiser, Itzhak lowers his hand to look at Ruiz. He's got big dark circles around his eyes. "Please. Please?" Itzhak hardly ever apologizes or says please (outside of bed, anyway). He's doing a lot of both today. "I gotta tell him, anyway. Tell him I ain't doing that again, not for him, not for anyone. Not for my own mother would I do it. He--" that nameless 'he' again, "wants to tell me to do it, he's gonna have to fuckin' shoot me, because I will not." His voice drops to a craggy snarl.
Ruiz is halfway out of the car when Itzhak draws him back with that please. His head ducked to the rain that's started up, he drags his tongue along his lower lip where it meets his beard, then drops back into his seat heavily. Like he can ignore that tone in the man's voice. Like he'd even try. His dark eyes cut back to Itzhak, slate grey in the wan, sickly light that makes it to the interior of his car. "Can't stop you talking to him. But we're going to have a word, too." His upper lip flickers slightly when he says that. Like a wolf thinking of sinking teeth into its rival's throat. He swallows, looks away again at his keys in his hand. "He's not ever going to do this to you again." He seems awfully damned sure of that.
"No. He ain't." Itzhak leans towards Ruiz, eyes going intense. "I'm gonna tell him not to is why. And he's gonna listen to me. Because he may be a fuckin' thug, but he's got rules. He's got honor in his fucked up way. He'll listen to me."
Silence from the cop. His jaw is tight, the lines of his profile hard and brutish and bisected by that thrice-broken nose and fuck if he doesn't look like he wants to do things to Joey Kelly right now that'll have him winding up needing to be disposed of, too. Protectiveness, bleeding from every inch of his wound-up frame. But he doesn't say a word; just stares at Itzhak with that little curl to his lip as he processes (or not) the words the other man is saying.
Slow, careful, Itzhak slides a hand up Ruiz's arm. Up his arm, to his shoulder, to the back of his head, rubbing fingertips into his scalp. He stares back, unblinking, unwavering. Historically, they don't look at each other like that unless they're about to throw hands, but tonight? No. Tonight, Itzhak's stupid crippled heart swells to see that look of protective fury on his lover. It hurts. Stretching a scar always does.
His lover. His boyfriend.
Daring now what he didn't earlier, he leans in a little further, nuzzles Ruiz's nose delicately with his. "Feed me and take me to bed," he murmurs. "I need it. I need you."
A flinch at the touch. Not because he doesn't want it, but because he's such a bundle of nerves right now, and every one of them is screaming hurt him. Hurt the person who did Itzhak wrong. His breathing's audible, a soft, stuttering rasp that's nearly lost to the drumming of rain against the windows. The tension in his shoulders uncoils slowly, then slithers back through him again at the nose nuzzle, and he almost jerks his head away. But the words that come next, steady him.
Feed me. He inches back, returns the contact with a tentative brush of his nose. Take me to bed. Then his mouth ghosted over Itzhak's. I need you. And he eases in the rest of the way, and kisses him on the heels of a sigh.
"Vamos entonces," he murmurs, closes his eyes and swallows thickly. Then shifts away from Itzhak once more in order to climb out.
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