2020-02-11 - Asshole Contest

The calm quiet winter's night on the windswept beach is interrupted by the thump of the sound system from the Two if by Sea. The Deuce is long closed, but there are a few lights on and plenty of loud tunes playing over the sound system. It's not the limp sounds of the Top 40 that the clientele prefer, but instead the soaring guitars of what is now considered classic rock. And inside a lone figure sways to the music at the bar. A drink raised in one hand, a cigarette burning aways indoor in the other Easton jams out. By now he's already forgotten that he texted Ruiz and told him that he was drinking in a manner that he meant not to. Drinking alone is not allowed. Drinking at work is not allowed. But what was meant to be a beer while he cleaned up turned suddenly into a half bottle of Maker's Mark and the sound system turned up to it's near max and Easton screaming along to Welcome to the Jungle. Funny how that works.

Funny how that works, indeed. It's a shame Easton's got at least one friend who tends to follow through on threats, because the fucker shows up just like he said he would. The 'tender's not hard to spot, and neither is Ruiz, all one hundred ninety odd pounds of him shadowing the doorway for a minute before he prowls on in. He's speckled with snow about the shoulders of his jacket and in his dark hair, that starts to melt once he warms up. "The fuck is this about?" he demands as he takes a lean against the bar, dark gaze steady on the other man.

"De. La. Fucking! Veeeega!" Easton calls out with an enthusiasm of a Woo! Girl when Ruiz darkens his doorway, or at least when he stops yelling long enough to realize that he's not alone. Easton points at him with a hand holding a glass of whiskey and laughs, "This? This is drinking. In a bar. It's not that hard." He moves with a fluid swaying step to go behind the bad and ask, "Patron? Or are you switching it up Gunny?" He has the bottle out and is ready to pour but waits for the word. It's obvious that he didn't text Ruiz at the beginning of this bender, but somewhere near the middle.

He doesn't laugh, doesn't so much as smile at the greeting. Just that dark, steady gaze that ticks over his fellow ex-Marine like he's trying to assess his level of drunkenness. After a minute, he shrugs out of his coat, shucks it across the back of a barstool. Ink for days, all the way up to the backs of his knuckles on his right hand. He should be refusing. He should be hauling Easton out by the scruff of his neck and depositing him in an uber, but instead, "Yeah. Patron's good." The stool is eased onto slowly, and there's something.. off about him. The man exudes a predatory air as a matter of course, but this? Is different.

There's drinking and then there's drunk, and Easton is most assuredly drunk. He tries to parse the look from Ruiz and it seems to fall somewhere in the range of disapproving versus predator and he just ignores it, at least for now. He pours the drink and then raising his own glass and toasts, "To the United States Fucking Marine Corps." with as much gravitas that he can muster, which is not much. He tries to clink the glasses but he's not very steady and that glass is quite full.

"Oorah," is Javier's contribution to the toast, glasses clinked together, and an impressive quantity of tequila downed. Then a thump as his drink is set back down on the bar, and his elbow wiped across his mouth. "You ever miss it?" He hitches his chin, and there's still no real hint of anything in his eyes, or on his lips. Just nothing at all, like a slate wiped clean. "The Marines. You ever wish we could go back to that?"

"Oorah!" Easton echoes with all the emphasis of an active duty Marine. He downs the rest of his whiskey, which is nearly a full glass. When the question about the Marines comes up he peers at Ruiz and asks, "What?" He looks confused for a moment before getting angry. "What the fuck do you think? I'm a one legged cripple who can't do shit." He pours himself another drink and says, "Yes. Of fucking course I miss it. But who needs a gimpy fuckin' officer who can't cut it?" He takes a sip but doesn't down the entire glass. "You? What about you Gunny?"

Oddly enough, there's no answering anger in the man. Just that blank, glazed-eyed stare. It probably doesn't take a genius to see that he's not himself, but given how drunk Easton is? It's a tossup. "You ever wish it was you, instead of him?" He knocks back another sip of his drink, doesn't take his eyes off the younger man across the bar. "Ate the IED, so Tom could live." There's a sliver of something in his voice, but it's nothing like his usual bite; cold, remote. Like the answer means nothing, either way.

That blank stare is not quite right. That's not the ferocious predator that he knows. And that question is below the belt. That's not a question you ask. Easton looks at Ruiz closely, "What the fuck Gunny?" He stares at him, as if trying to divine what is different. Is this a Dream? He looks around for melting walls or signs of a warzone invading this reality. But he doesn't see anything. SO he comes back to looking at Ruiz with an intensity in his cool gray eyes that is only slightly dulled by the alcohol.

"No. I'm fuckin' glad Tom's dead and I get to live out the rest of my days like a fat stupid son of a bitch while his wife cries herself to sleep and his son doesn't know his dad. Thanks for asking asshole."

There's not as much heat as there might otherwise be. Instead there's slight confusion, which he tries to mask but is too drunk to manage it.

The guy doesn't look away as Easton does that quick check to make sure he's not losing his mind. Is he? Losing his mind? De la Vega just watches him with that maddening, vacant stare, thumb tracing a slow circle around the rim of his glass. "You ever fuck his wife?" Maybe he's just trying to provoke a reaction in the other man, though it doesn't seem his style. The last of his tequila's tossed back. "Or you prefer men, when you're screwing around behind your girlfriend's back?"

Easton gives Ruiz a look of incredulousness at the next question. He doesn't deign to answer it, not the least of which because he doesn't want to admit to it. But thankfully he doesn't have long to wait before more is thrown at him. He nods his head as if considering this and replies, "Oh! Is that what we're fucking doing? Just saying every asshole thing that pops in our heads? Super!" Easton puts the cigarette in his lips and tops off his glass with whiskey but doesn't do the same for Ruiz. "What about you? You really gonna be Itzhak's little bitch while he goes around fucking other people? That seems unlike you." Ruiz has an excuse to be an asshole, Easton ... well, he's drunk? It's not much of one but then he rarely needs a lot of motivation to be a dick.

"Are you really going to talk about preferring men when you have a boyfriend who's throwing gay extravanganzas in my bar? That you're apparently attending?" The word boyfriend there sounds like a perjorative somehow coming from his drunken mouth.

<FS3> Ruiz rolls Melee (8 7 6 6 4 3 2 2) vs Easton's Melee-2 (8 8 7 6 4 2 1)
<FS3> DRAW! (Rolled by: Ruiz)

<FS3> Ruiz rolls Melee (6 6 5 5 3 3 1 1) vs Easton's Melee-2 (7 6 5 4 4 2 1)
<FS3> DRAW! (Rolled by: Ruiz)