2020-03-20 - Waiting Is The Hardest Part

August is eternally grateful for Alexander dialing him back a bit, because he knows right now he would be pacing up a storm otherwise. In fact the urge to do it remains, but he can set it aside, along with the usual nervousness, the feeling of impending disaster. Those things are all in a little box right now, and Alexander's enforced calm is sitting on the lid, swinging its legs, saying, Not today, panic attack.

So he's sitting in a chair, texting at Ruiz and generally being irritating because enforced calm is one thing, but a need to act out is another. He's got his phone. Woe betide everyone. He lets Eleanor know where he is, and then, sits there, staring at the wall, or his phone.

Finch is a hot mess. She looks like she just woke up from a deep sleep, which is accurate. She'd crashed out hard after Murray House and the huge expenditure of power she'd added to destroying the cursed building. Her eyes are red rimmed from panicked tears she refuses to acknowledge, and her father is probably lucky she was too trapped in her own head during the drive to the hospital to say much. She wants to scream. Every fiber of her being wants to throw her head back and shriek to the heavens, but instead she stares intently at nothing, jaw locked, teeth clenched, the coffee Ruiz brought for her held in one claw-gripped hand as they enter the waiting area.

She walks right over to August and rips the phone out of his hand, shoving it into her hoodie pocket along with Ruiz'. Do either of them REALLY want to fight her for it at the moment? Really?

Ruiz stalks in right behind Finch, coffee in hand, with a dark look for August that isn't quite concealed under the brim of his ball cap. "Roen," he greets in a low, rusty sounding rumble. Is he enjoying a bit of perverse schadenfreude, watching the other man get his phone taken away by a twenty year old girl? He sure as fuck is. "Where's de Santos?"

August watches Finch do that with a tired, bland expression. Oh he hadn't doubted if he had it out and not in his inner pocket that this was going to be his due. He might even be letting Finch do it so she can feel like she has control of one (1) situation.

"Well the apple doesn't fall that far from the tree," he says, sitting up with a wince. Hospital waiting room chairs are not designed for people with orthopaedic implants. "Still in surgery. Out...soon. I hope. They're optimistic so far." He knows they're just being told that because the reality is they don't know.

"He shouldn't be back there. Who knows what they can and can't do for him. We know damn well I can fix whatever is broken," Finch mutters. "If those doctors butcher him and he doesn't make it? This fucking hospital is coming down brick by brick," she vows in a chilly tone. Violence seems to simmer just beneath the surface as she paces back and forth across the floor.

Should Ruiz be concerned that his own child is making bloodthirsty threats about five feet away? Probably. Which is why, once he seems to realise what she's said, he narrows his eyes slightly at Finch and asks, "Did I just fucking hear what I think I heard?" Of course he did. It's a rhetorical question. "You're not going to do anything of the sort, jovencita. Sit down." A finger's jabbed at one of the waiting room chairs. "Also, I want my goddamn phone back."

August sighs, rubs at his eyes. "The last thing either of you needed was coffee," he mutters under his breath. He reaches out a hand to take one of Finch's, "Hey. He's gonna be okay. Soon as they've got him stable, you can go ahead and," he waves a hand, "improve things. But letting them do some of the heavier lifting? Maybe not the worst idea." He leans forward, looks up at her. "It's gonna be alright. If I didn't think they could help him I'd have done it myself already. Okay?"

He gives Ruiz a sidelong glance of 'good luck with that'.

Perhaps surprisingly, Finch does sit when her father tells her to. He is not getting his phone back yet though. Neither of them are. She needs some semblance of control over this situation. She grimaces and looks at August. "Sorry, still feeling...agitated." They did commit arson and house-murder just a few hours ago. Fuck you, Murray House. "We've just worked so hard on his pain management without the opiods. He was doing so well. You know they're going to pump him full of morphine and shit."

Ruiz also seems a little taken off guard when Finch does what he tells her. He hesitates a moment like he half expects her to change her mind and start swinging, then works his jaw thoughtfully when that doesn't happen.

"We can have a word with the hospital staff," he murmurs to her, settling into the chair on her other side to put the younger woman between himself and August. "See if there are alternatives they'd be willing to explore." Some dirt's dug out from under a fingernail while he waits, dark eyes flicked across like he's hoping to catch some glimpse of his phone from here.

August watches Finch set and then Ruiz sit next to her, suppresses a small smile. His phone is a welcome exchange for Finch having a sense of control over the utterly uncontrollable. He nods at Ruiz. "Like he says. You can discuss it with them. Find a solution that won't put him in danger." He leans forward, elbows on his knees. "This is the shittiest part. The not knowing." He rubs at his eyes. "At least once you know, no matter what the news is, you can make plans. Feels better, then." He pauses, adds, "At least, to me it does."

Finch grimaces and she pulls their phones back out, handing them to the two men. "Take them, before I accidentally see nude selfies or something." She shudders at the thought. "I'm just worried about him being in there without one of us. What if something bad tries to finish the job? This fucking town. My fucking curse. Was it the Harpy that hit him?" She drops her head into her hands and stifles the urge to scream.

Nude selfies? Ruiz gives her a distasteful look at that, and snatches his phone away the moment it's held out. "Any naked pictures on there won't be of me," he mutters, probably too quietly to be heard. Then proceeds to make sure his photos folder is in order. Because he said nothing about smutty pictures of other people, did he?

"Hey. Hey." The thing's switched off and shoved away once Finch's head drops into her hands, and he puts an arm around the slighter woman, drawing her against his solid shoulder. "Something comes for him here, now, it's going to fucking wish it hadn't," he murmurs low, voice damn near a snarl. "Me escuchas, pajarito?"

August accepts his phone, gives Finch a look. Well, in all fairness, she doesn't know Eleanor well enough to know that any nude selfies would be entirely accidental. (And Eleanor being who she is, every laptop that comes into her home has the camera covered with electrical tape, which has included August's. Not that he disagrees with this on principle.) And, well, he would send her a nude selfie, except she'd probably spontaneously combust. ...maybe he should think about it though...

And then he flicks a glance at Ruiz over Finch's back which telegraphs something very different. Something like 'I know at least one person who's sent you nude selfies, and I don't even need to see them to know they're there'.

"What he said," he says. "Anything comes around here looking for trouble is going to fucking find it."

Finch leans in against Ruiz, which feels incredibly odd, but incredibly comforting. She's not used to being hugged by family other than her Gran, and this is a really new experience for her. She tries not to get snot on his shoulder, because she's a good kid like that. "God I hate Gray Harbor. Hate it. What did any of us do to deserve this place?" she opines, wiping her hoodie sleeve across her eyes.

For what it's worth, the cop himself doesn't appear overly concerned about getting snot on his jacket. The thing's battered and well past its lifespan, to begin with; she'd probably be doing him a favour by ruining it.

He doesn't speak for a while; simply provides his bulky shoulder and furnace-like heat as he holds Finch tightly against him. Then he meets August's gaze for a few seconds, before ticking his eyes away. Surely he has no idea whatsoever who might have sent him dirty pictures.

After a couple of minutes, though, he begins to hum softly under his breath, while people bustle past them to and fro. Trying to catch the right key of the tune before he adds a few softly murmured words, "..arrorró mi niño, arrorró mi sol, arrorró pedazo de mi corazón. Arrorró mi niño, arrorró mi sol, duérmete mi niño, duérmete mi amor." Then a quick kiss to her forehead. "Duérmete mi niño, duérmete mi amor."

August's eyes narrow in an almost-smile. Who could it possibly be.

"Just how life is." His mouth flattens, and he admits, "Some places are worse than others. And some of us get it worse than others. But you've got us, and we'll get through this." He falls quiet as Ruiz hums and then sings, swiping out a few replies to texts on his phone.

Oh God. Her father is singing her a lullaby. Something her mother never did. Finch feels her heart clench, and her throat feels like there is a baseball jammed in it when she tries to swallow. Tears well in her eyes and trickle down her cheeks. This is what an actual parent does. Better late than never. Infinitely better. "Did they say how long before we'll hear anything?" she rasps at August.

He doesn't have much of a singing voice. Smoke-roughened and wavering off key occasionally, he trails off once Finch starts crying. Like maybe this is a hint that he ought to quit while he's ahead of the game. The cop blows a breath out his nose, digs his phone out again with his free hand, and scrolls through some messages absently while the pair talk. Not a chance he's letting go of his kid, though.

Itzhak strides into the room, fresh off the long drive north. His long expressive face is cramped; he's tight as a wound spring, his power seething and muttering within him like a restless sea. It wants off the leash, and Itzhak wants to let it. Helpless fury demands an answer for what happened to his oldest friend, the annoying little brother that he never wanted. When he walks in, the physical objects all around--chairs, tables, vending machine, fluorescent lights and linoleum and ceiling panels--seem to lean towards him, seem to hold their breath. What will he say to them? What will he bid them do?

But Itzhak drops to his knees in front of Finch, Ruiz, and August. He gets his long arms around all three of them in the world's angriest group hug.

August shakes his head at Finch. "It's like this, with accidents--they don't always know what they're going to find until they do a thorough check." He reaches out to take a hand and squeeze it. "Hang in there."

He glances up at Itzhak's arrival, smiles to see him despite the reason. He returns the hug, wrapping an arm arond Itzhak's back and resting a head on his shoulder for a second. He knows Alexander's calming effect isn't going to last forever, so every bit helps.

When Itzhak kneels down in front of her, Finch throws her arms around him and cries into his shoulder. She doesn't know any words to say at the moment. She isn't sure she could articulate them if she wanted to. She leaves that to August and Ruiz, the adults in this situation. Right now she feels like a child with no idea how to handle what is happening around her.

Itzhak's arrival is not missed by the surly cop doing his best impression of a Mexican-shaped rock at the moment. He can practically feel that wash of restless energy surging toward him, and lifts his eyes just as the mechanic swoops in for that embrace. An arm is slung around his other side, countering August's, and he gives him a solid (and very hetero) slap on the back. "Es bueno verte, cariño," he murmurs before releasing him.

Super hetero, just like Itzhak being on his knees with his arms around two grown men is super hetero. But he doesn't complain, and doesn't press further gay actions on Ruiz; instead he wraps his arms around Finch, holding her tight, rocking her, smoothing her hair back and cooing to her in Yiddish. "Shluf, meyn faygeleh, ir zent gut. Ir zent gut." He meets August's eyes over Finch's head, then Ruiz's, and they don't need to be psychic to know he's asking them how bad things are.

August straightens, giving Itzhak room to hug Finch. The silent look he gives the other man back is 'not good, but still alive'. Which is precisely Ignacio's style; beat to shit but clinging to his existence by his fingernails, too stubborn to give up on any terms not his own.

He rubs Finch's back. "Gonna go get everyone something to drink, okay? Be right back." Translation: 'I need to spend at least ten minutes outside this building before I lose my fucking mind'.

Finch clings to Itzhak and the air around her is charged. It feels like the marriage of the moments before a lightning strike and the first hint of An earthquake. Like if she lets go of control she may unleash all of her Glimmer into massive destruction.