2020-03-07 - Lessons in Lead

Roxy has blocked out her afternoon for shooting lessons in the woods with Ruiz. It would have been morning, but she is recovering from the Bar-lympics at Two if By Sea, where she got incredibly drunk thanks to her team not being so great at beer pong, but helped raise money for a Veterans charity. She'd never had a hangover before. She has now.

She's wearing jeans and a sweater, her Christmas gifts from Joey picked out by Nicole, and a new leather motorcycle jacket with boots. Not her usual vintage but, now that she has some legitimate income, she's been branching out in her clothing styles. Also, she just wanted comfy and easy today while her head is still pounding out the song of regret over drinking copious amounts of disgusting cheap beer for the benefit of others.

The dancer has a pair of dark sunglasses on, and her cuts and bruises from Baba Yaga and her rock storm have mostly faded and healed. She has a little gun case with her, which has her recently purchased pistol in it, a CZ 75B 9mm. Smart purchase, since it has less recoil than most, better ergonomics for smaller hands, and excellent accuracy. She also brought earplugs, safety glasses, and a box of ammo.

When they reach the spot Ruiz has chosen, she gets out of the truck. She's been mostly quiet on the drive because, duh, hangover. "Thank you for this. You are feeling better I hope? You seemed to...not be yourself the other night." In Baba Yaga's Dream.

Javier, of course, needs no excuse for quiet. He's not talkative on the drive over, but that's as per usual for the man. His own attire today leans toward casual, as it pretty much always does when he's off duty and not attending something requiring he look presentable. A ratty old black tee shirt and dark jeans, bomber jacket thrown over top, comfortable if scuffed hiking boots for traction on the trails out here. A ball cap's brim is tugged low over his eyes, and he adjusts it absently before reaching for the gun case in the back seat. Contents checked quickly, he collects the sidearm from the glovebox as well, and climbs out after Roxy.

"De nada, he murmurs to her thanks. A glance over as he slams his door, and starts trudging out to the trail. "I'm.. better. Yeah." He doesn't seem inclined to talk about that. "How's the new business?"

"That is good to hear, Javier. I was worried, after seeing you at Baba Yaga's hut. Is Itzhak all right?" she asks. She saw part of the fight, but she was busy outsmarting the old Ogress as she knows her from Finnish Lore.

His question has her smiling, though even that much makes her wince. She is never drinking again. Right. "It has been going well! We have many new students, and new teachers I called in from elsewhere. Joseph has been handling the accounting for me. Joseph Kelly, not Cavanaugh. I guess I need to distinguish now, as the latter also seems to know you." She tucks her hair back behind her ears as she follows him along the trail, picking her way with that almost supernatural dancer's grace of hers.

Off they go, and at least the weather's mostly holding up this afternoon. No snow, though a smattering of rain occasionally that's not enough to do more than mist their hair and eyelashes. He glances up at the question about Itzhak, flickers a smile that seems summoned by the mere mention of the man's name. "Yeah. He's doing fine. Staying over for a few days while he recovers. Reminds me I've got to make sure his girlfriends know where to find him, if he hasn't already."

It's a few minutes to the spot he usually practices. A small clearing in the woods, where he's already set up a few bottles strung from tree limbs. Well off the trail where someone's likely to be hit. "We served together in Afghanistan and Iraq," he supplies quietly, to mention of Cavanaugh. "Friend of yours?"

Roxy blinks at Ruiz's words and looks utterly perplexed. Oh dear sweet summer child. "Girlfriends? Plural? And, you as well I am guessing, by that smile?" That seems to amuse her. The lanky Jewish mechanic seems to have his hands very, very full, but she's also blushing at the thought of it. She seems grateful the talk turns to Joe.

"Yes, dear friend. I knew him in that place. The Asylum. I still remember very little, neither does he but, I remember him being brought in, in very bad shape. I would sneak into his room at night, and read to him, like I did to the little children when they arrived. As he got better, we became friends. I do not know how long I knew him there, at least a few months? Before I woke up in a bus station in Portland."

The cop, meanwhile, is busy finding a spot to lay out his gun case and start getting set up. Jacket off and slung across a fallen tree, he hunts down some ammunition for his own handgun; a Sig Sauer P220 holstered at his ribs. The one he pulled out of his truck's glovebox. Whatever's in the case is left alone for the time being. "Girlfriends plural," he repeats, glancing over at the younger woman curiously. It's clearly not a big deal to him, but judging by her blush, he's probably just said something incredibly scandalous to her. He also, notably, neither confirms nor denies his own status as the guy's boyfriend.

A chuckle as he gazes at her a few moments, then pops the empty magazine and goes to load in a new one. It's fairly clear he knows his way around the weapon; could probably do this with his eyes closed. "Eres encantadora cuando te sonrojas," he murmurs. Then, "I knew he spent some time there, yeah. I'd love to burn that shithole to the ground." He miiiiight be a tetch angry.

Roxy arches a brow at him, blushing even harder when he speaks Spanish at him, and counters with, "Y eres un hombre encantador cuando quieres ser." Uh oh, she understands Spanish all of a sudden? Ah yes, that Mental glimmer about her is bright, while the other flavors less so. "Sadly, no one in this town seems to find me either beautiful or charming at this time. I cannot blame them. No man wants to date a woman half the town has seen naked." She works at loading her own pistol, as the salesperson showed her. The double column magazine holds 16+1 in the chamber. Perhaps she figures, if she can't shoot with quality, quantity will do the trick.

"It was a very bad place. That much I know for sure. Joseph and I were different. We came there as adults, me barely, him later in his life. There were many little ones. I think I tried to help them. I think."

It's fairly clear by the briefly stunned look on his face, that he wasn't expecting to be understood. Not a man who's easily flustered, he spends a beat or two merely contemplating this new information, before finishing slapping in the new magazine. His nose is scratched at with his forearm, and then he holds his hand out for Roxy's weapon with a questioning eyebrow. He'd like to have a look at it. "Are you for fucking real?" He nearly laughs at that. "For the record, I've dated not one, but two strippers. So that's bullshit. I don't judge a woman for what she wants to do with her own fucking body." He seems quite adamant about that.

Roxy hands over the sleek Czech made weapon. Well-made, reliable, even a favorite of competition shooters. She has internet in her new apartment, clearly, and did some research before purchasing. "Well, I must be doing something wrong. I have not been so much as asked on a date since I came to this place. Is it my personality? My hair? What?"

She and Joseph agreed to be each others' cheerleaders to get into the dating pool, but she doesn't know the first thing about how to do so.

He's probably passingly familiar with the make, by the way he looks it over. Checks the grip, feels the heft of it in his bigger hand before passing it back over to her grip-first. "Should be a pretty good choice for you. The recoil's pretty smooth on those, and the double mag should come in handy. Do you know your gun safety and handling, or do we need to go over some basics?"

As for Roxy's dateability, "Look." He regards her evenly, and perhaps a bit too directly, pinning her in place with his gaze like an insect to flypaper. "You're hot. And far, far too young for me, or I'd show you how wrong you are." Once she relinquishes him of her gun, he pulls away, and casts a glance 'downrange' toward the targets that are set up.

Roxy takes back the pistol carefully. "The gentleman at the shop who sold it to me went over basic gun safety. But I would not mind a refresher. He spoke too fast," she notes. He was probably nervous around her, having seen her at the club in her last job.

His comment about her age garners a snort. "Age is a number, Javier. Boys my age still act like boys. I dislike that behavior. But you are probably right about being too old for me." Emphasis on the old, with a smirk at the cop. "If I am going to date anyone, it will be someone who isn't after me because I am hot. They will be sorely disappointed if they think my being a stripper means I am experienced. I am not."

A soft snort, at age only being a number. He doesn't, however, comment on that. Instead, "That's not what I said." The years have been kind to him in some ways; less so, in others. Crow's feet aplenty, injuries from his time as a Marine, though he does keep himself in better than average shape for a man approaching fifty. "I think you're mistaken about men, if you think there aren't a whole legion of them who would want you for that reason alone," he opines quietly, watching her a moment more before unholstering his own sidearm.

"Rule number one. Only point your gun at something you intend to shoot." The grip of his P220 is one-handed, and he demonstrates by keeping it trained on the ground.

Roxy shakes her head. "You remember those boys that followed me to the murder hotel that night. They are all like that around my age. They just want sex from me. As if I would do that with someone I do not know well. I've gone twenty-two years without it. I can wait a little longer."

She mimics his arm position, her pistol pointed at the ground. "There was someone I did think I would like to date, but he has a girlfriend. He seems to think it is not serious, but I have seen how she looks at him. It is very serious. I will not mess that up for him. She is a good person."

He starts to argue her choice of the word all, opens his mouth to do so, then stops short. "No," he agrees after a moment, "you're right." His weapon is safetied, and he turns it around to indicate the magazine. "Unload it when you're not using it, keep it safetied if you're not firing it, and keep your finger off the fucking trigger until you're ready to shoot. Muzzle safety is paramount. And does this guy have a name?" The one she wanted to date, that is. His tone is vaguely paternalistic. Protective.

Roxy listens, pushing her sunglasses up on top of her head, now that they're in the woods proper and the sun isn't trying to stab her eyes out. Bright eyes narrow as she commits the lessons to memory. She checks to make sure the safety is on, keeps her finger away from the trigger, and nods at the words about keeping it unloaded.

"Joseph. Kelly, not Cavanaugh. Though Cavanaugh is very handsome and dear to me, like you, he sees me as a child. But regardless, I think Joseph Kelly sees me as a little sister, and dance partner, and nothing more. But that is all right. He is a good friend."

A breath is blown out his nose, the first sign of actual agitation in the man. "I don't see you as a child, Roxanne, don't put words in my fucking mouth." His gun is held loosely at his side, a brief squint skyward as the rain starts up again and starts peppering them with a fine misting that's barely heard in the foliage. "And Kelly?" he repeats, jaw going a bit tight. God knows why, he seems friendly enough with the man. After a little while, he carries on with reciting gun safety to her. Making sure the barrel's clear, using the right ammunition. And then he unloads the clip from his weapon and sets it aside, before beginning the process of field stripping the thing, and naming each part as he goes along with its function.

Roxy is a good student, smart and quick to learn. And her nimbleness from dancing seems to translate well to working with her hands. She unloads her clip and works step by step with his instruction to field strip the pistol.

"He has been very kind to me, Javier, and he has never once been ungentlemanly towards me. This is a man who has to put his hands in awkward places to do ballet lifts with me, and he has never once tried anything. But it does not matter, because he is not interested." She defends Joey's honor, amusingly enough, the honor of a thug.

He himself is not what one would consider a graceful looking person. But he's clearly good with his hands, and works with remarkable speed and precision. Which is as it should be, perhaps, for a cop who used to be a Marine sniper. "He's.. a complicated man," is murmured low, dark eyes ticking up to Roxy's arresting blue-greens. "And you don't need to defend him to me." Then, wordlessly, the weapon is put back together again. "You want to try a little shooting?" he queries.

Roxy puts her pistol back together under his watchful eye, reversing the process of dismantling it with careful precision. "I know he is complicated. So are you. So is most everyone in Gray Harbor, myself included," she says quietly, with a small frown.

She nods at the offer to shoot. "I brought earplugs, they are needed, correct?" Especially with a headache like she has now.

"If we're playing by the rules," which they are, "then yes." He's aware, perhaps, of her hungover state, and gives her a pointed look before digging out his own ear protection. He'd probably forego it, if he were alone. But he's trying to teach her good habits, so in they go. "You're going to start with your non-dominant hand.. may I?" He steps in close, but doesn't presume to touch her until she's given him permission.

Earplugs get put in and her sunglasses tucked into her coat pocket, replaced with safety glasses. Her coat is shrugged off, since she has a sweater on and it's enough for the moment. At his request, she gives him a nod and a clear, "yes." He has permission to touch her. "I am right-handed," she notes, a little louder than normal, because of the ear protection.

His hand is felt on her upper back, once she's given permission. Showing her how to place her feet, square her hips and relax her shoulders; the latter, with a brief touch of fingertips to the trapezius muscle at the top. Then he pulls away to demonstrate with his own gun, how to hold it in her left hand and brace it properly with the right. "Make sure you don't cross your thumbs," he points out, showing her the weave of his fingers.

"With that gun, your dominant thumb can put pressure on the slide stop at the rear and the non-dominant thumb can bang into the front of the slide stop during the recoil, which'll prevent the shell from ejecting." He panomimes this, and then shows her how to adjust her grip on the thing to compensate. "Got it?"

Roxy lets herself be positioned. It's not an unfamiliar thing to her, having been a dancer. Many a choreographer has had to move her body to the right position for a dance move, so she could learn how the right position felt, and get back to it on her own. Feet are placed, hips squared. The relaxing of her shoulders takes a bit more. She is tense. She has been tense for months, trying to piece her life back together into something livable. It is getting better every day, though, so eventually, her back and shoulders unclench. Although she is slender, there is great strength beneath that form. From childhood, her lean muscles have been trained, and her body has been pushed to do things that many would find impossible. That delicate white doe is a powerful thing beneath the gentle exterior.

She copies his manner of holding the gun, bracing carefully, minding her thumbs at his warning. As he adjusts it, her muscle memory goes to work at cementing the feel of the gun in her grip, where each part of it lies specifically against palm and fingers. "Got it," she confirms.

"Now watch," he instructs, unholstering his own weapon and bracing it in both hands like he'd shown her. Safety off, he sights downrange until he finds his target, a bottle dangling from a mid-distance tree, light glinting off clouded glass. He squints briefly, adjusts his aim, and fires. Then swivels, and fires again on its nearest neighbour, then again at a more distant mark. All in fairly rapid succession, shoulders relaxed, dark eyes keen as a hunting hawk's throughout.

The first bottle is clipped, and set to swinging wildly where it hangs. The second is sheared in half, and the third utterly obliterated with a dull crack that echoes through the trees.

Roxy watches Ruiz fire and the results are looked at after. She is more memorizing how he moves and reacts to the gun so she can have some idea of what to expect. "Shoot, adjust, shoot, adjust, shoot. Understood." She steps up and braces the gun carefully, flips off the safety, and chooses a target from the hanging bottles. Her blue-green eyes narrow, then she pulls the trigger, blasting the bottle she was aiming at into a zillion shards. The recoil clearly throws her off though, or the adjustment, as she merely dings the next bottle, and same for the third but still. Three shots, three hits. Beginner's luck? Or the reflexes of a ballet dancer?

He looks pleased, either way, and actually dimples her a grin before safetying his gun and ejecting the half-spent magazine into his hand. "I think that's enough for today," he decides, shoving the thing away and going to collect the gun case and box of ammunition. "Buy you a coffee on the way back?"

Roxy seems amazed that she actually hit anything, let alone everything. She safeties the pistol and as Javier does, ejects the magazine. "I did that? I did it!" she exclaims, carefully keeping the weapon pointed at the ground, even unloaded. She beams at the older man with a bright smile, in spite of her headache. She pulls the earplugs out and safety glasses off and puts her things away with a giddy expression. "Yes, a coffee would be nice. It is chilly here still." Chilly? It's fucking cold, unless you're from Finland apparently.