2020-02-02 - North vs South

Itzhak shoves out of the Twofer's doors, sliding into his coat and fitting a cigarette to his lips at the same time. He lights up ten or so feet away from the entrance, huddled into his coat, and tugs his phone out to swipe a text. The answer he gets--ping!--makes him sigh heavily, his aggravated energy dissipating suddenly.

It's the pilot - the astronaut - who emerges moments later. He hasn't put his cap back on, so cheeks and ears are almost immediately pinked by the cold. No sign of that new bike. He probably walked up from the Harbor, or from his apartment.

Face wreathed in the visible warmth of breath, he comes ranging up at Itz's side, brows drawn down. Not angry, though. Only a kind of sad puzzlement.

Itzhak swipes texts and gets answers a few times in a row, with the speed of ready to get mad all over again. Then he huffs another sigh, this one accompanied by a hitch of a smirk. Joe pulls up alongside and he glances at him sidelong, and offers him a cigarette, shaking one out from the pack. No nasty old-man cigarettes for him, these are Marlboros.

They will suffice, apparently. There's a jerk of his chin for that, and he takes one, fishes out his own Zippo to light up. He should know better....but then, what's the better to know, considering.

He's got the cherry cupped in his palm to keep the night wind from putting it out, smoking off the back of it....a habit ingrained after more than one bitter Russian winter. No comment, as yet, but a mute question in the blue eyes.

Predictably, the slouch-shouldered, bulky shape of the police captain does indeed make its way out of the Twofer a few minutes after Joe. Hands jammed into his jacket's pockets, the man moves like an animal on the hunt. And right over there, he's spotted his quarry; the pair of lean, tall men are angled toward at a furtive prowl.

Itzhak stands there and smokes, broody as an old Hollywood star watching a silkscreened ocean in some movie about the war. Then he sucks in cold air between his teeth and says, briskly, "I got no fuckin' excuse. I'm just an asshole who makes stupid decisions." ...Which is almost for damn sure not anywhere near the whole truth. Ruiz pushing his way out of the Twofer catches Itzhak's attention, eyes going right to him. Oh that prowl; Itzhak watches, intent.

"Jesus, not like you not in good company here, brother," Joe retorts, brows lifting. "I dunno what that was about, Rosencrantz. But clearly, that was somethin'. You wanna talk about it, we can. You wanna tell me to fuck off, I can do that, too."

He shrugs those shoulders, then gives a little jerk of his head, as if to summon Ruiz into the pow-wow.

Itzhak looks over, and de la Vega's only too happy to lock eyes with him, gaze hot, like the other man is something he wants to kill and eat. Slowly. He? Is in a mood tonight.

Once he's near enough, a hand's extracted from his jacket pocket and turned palm up, slight waggle of two fingertips to indicate he wants that smoke. Joe's mostly ignored, for the nonce.

Itzhak narrows his eyes at Ruiz, but the flush creeping up his neck narcs him out. He's the first to drop his gaze, ostensibly to shake a cigarette out and offer it over, which is an action that obviously requires a lot of focus and he can't possibly look at either man while he's doing it.

He shrugs, irritated and uncomfortable, when Joe says that was somethin'. "Look. Just. You. You're better than me." Almost inaudible, he mutters it, and turns red all over. "Them pictures of you when you were 25. You know what I was doing when I was 25? Gettin' out of prison."

"At what?" Joe retorts, trying to keep the edge out of his tone and failing. "Landing a plane? Sure I am. Just like you're better'n me at playing a symphony or fixing a car or keeping this big lug happy." A roll of his eyes at Ruiz. "Only reason I never did time was 'cause I never got caught, Itzhak."

He blows smoke from his nostrils, like an impatient dragon. Drogon is so done with your bullshit, Daenerys. "I'm not sure what you think this competition is about, in your head."

Oh, god. Not this again. That's roughly the look on Ruiz's face as he claims the cigarette from Itzhak, lights it, and takes his first drag right as the word competition comes up. He really has absolutely nothing to say, though he does give Joe a slightly dirty look when the blond glances over. A drag, an exhale away from the pair, silence.

Itzhak glances at Ruiz, hangdog, when Joe says he's good at keeping him happy. "I dunno if I'm makin' him very happy right now," he mutters, and exhales smoke. That last sentence from Joe, though? That ignites something in Itzhak that had been banking low. He turns on Joe with a snarl. "Sure you don't know, what's a guy like you know about what a guy like me thinks when I look at you? You don't have to know! You just do whatever the fuck you want with your sailboat and your writing books about your fucking CAREER AS AN ASTRONAUT--" that's really sticking in Itzhak's craw, seems, "--and I'm a mechanic without even a garage that works!"

Then he shoves him. Not hard, not enough to knock Joe down, but not exactly a love tap either.

He always has done whatever he pleased, and devil take the consequences. Whatever the golden boy wants, whatever he chooses, and only ashes in his wake, more often than not.

Then Itz shoves him, and Joe goes stumbling back. It shouldn't knock him down, save for the layers of ice and snow.....so he ends up windmilling and only going down on one knee, a genuflection hard enough to make him wince and get up stiffly. "I'm sorry about your garage." The rest he can't apologize for. He's not sorry. He'll never be sorry for it, not for a heartbeat. Because the truth is, he'd've done worse than he did to get there, to chase that impossible dream. Would do it again and more, to have it back - to restore the chance that some day the name Cavanaugh is irrevocably linked with 'Artemis' the way names like Armstrong and Schirra and Lowell are forever tied to 'Apollo'.

He's lost the cigarette in the slip, but makes no attempt to cadge another. Just looks between them mutely.

Nothing from de la Vega; his face is all stony nothing as Itzhak gets in Joe's space and gives him that shove. This isn't his business, and he looks half tempted to leave them to it; a glance over his shoulder as someone leaves the bar, then back to his cigarette before it's touched to his lips. A step back, but nothing more. For now.

Itzhak snaps out a hand to grab Joe, steadying him. The momentum might well be enough to pull him down too...except it doesn't. Except his boots stay rooted to the icy asphalt. He looks a little alarmed, muttering, "Shit." Oh yeah. Joe's not that old, but he sure is full of old injuries and hardware. "Shit, Cavanaugh, sorry."

He looks at Ruiz, standing there stone-faced, and an expression of total misery crosses his own long face. Dropping his cigarette, he hides his eyes in his hand. "I didn't wanna bother you with it," he mumbles, "but I'm sure doin' a fuckass job of handling it."

Poor Ruiz. His burden to bear, these two, orbiter and satellite.

Joe lets Itz steady him without protest, no brushing off that helping hand. "Nothing to be sorry about," he says, tiredly. "It is what it is. I'd gotten spoiled by...moving on like I did. I thought I'd left all that behind. I shoulda said...." Now there's guilt, contrition....and he takes a careful step back, two, nearly slips again, but keeps his balance, just barely. Withdrawing. "My turn to be sorry."

Two more drags off his gifted smoke, and Ruiz is done with it. Done with this, whatever this push and pull is between these two men, and very little of it's to do with him. "Guess that worked out pretty well for you," he tells Itzhak flatly. Then what's left of his smoke is tossed to the ground, obliterated under the heel of his boot. "Leave you to it, muchachos," he murmurs, shoving the hand into his pocket and prowling off. He didn't drive tonight; he'd planned on getting drunk. But that hasn't happened, and he seems rather in the mood for a hike. So a hike it is.

To Itzhak, everything here is about Ruiz, circling him like an orbiter indeed. He actually grunts, wrapping an arm around his belly as if Ruiz had just slugged him instead of said those words in that tone. "...I fuckin' deserved that," he whispers, eyes closed.

Which is when there's a gentle hand at his back. Joe touching him, wordless, looking into the musician's face. A few pats, soliciting attention. He doesn't dare hug Itz, that'd probably get him put into a wall like a cartoon character. "No," he says, simply.

Itzhak might look like he could really use a hug, but it might be a risk like hugging a porcupine. His back is tight under the thick coat. "I...yeah, I did. I did. Worst part is, that's exactly what They want." He bites his lip, hard, staring after Ruiz. "That's why They did it. So They could watch me spinnin', generate a bunch of messed up feelings for Them. Worked like a charm." He glances at Joe, bleakly. "I'm sorry, man. It ain't about you. It's about me being a fuckin' buffet."

A risk he'll take - trying to get an arm around Itz's shoulders, long enough to give him a sidelong squeeze. Totally hetero bro hug, except that they're as queer as a whole wallet full of three dollar bills.

"Well, don't let 'em make it worse," he says, pragmatically. "Go after your boy there, kiss an' make up."

Like he doesn't want to be right in the middle of that makeup sex.

Itzhak permits it, though, and even pats Joe's back, as awkwardly as if he really was hetero. "Yeah," he says, shy suddenly. "Yeah, I oughta. Thanks. I'll see ya, okay?" Then he strides off after Ruiz, long legs eating up the ground, boots as steady in treacherous slush as if the asphalt was bone-dry.