2020-04-20 - Bullet time

Victoria Grey was always a damn good shot. She used to say, back when she was on the right side of the law, that the range was where she found her peace, her moment of zen, where it wasn’t a life or death situation requiring judgement calls and paperwork. It was just skill, focus, and technique. It’s therefore not surprising to find her at the range in Gray Harbor so soon after her arrival. She’s wearing jeans, tactical boots, and a faded heather gray tee with smurfs on it. That last bit was worn to work at Two if By Sea earlier in deference to having dubbed Easton “Three Apples”.

She has eye and ear protection on per the range rules as she fires rounds into a paper target from a .45 ACP. It’s one of the guns she has a legal license to carry, but likely not remotely her favorite weapon.

The place is hardly busy tonight, with most residents of this oft-sleepy town having better things to do than put holes in a paper target at nine in the evening. There's a murmur of voices out by the booth at the front that handles payment and loaning of weapons and ammunition, though. Chit-chat and then laughter, and have a nice night, captain, suggesting that the guy working the desk today is at least passingly familiar with the cop making his way back out.

At least, he was making his way out, until he spotted the lone markswoman in the far lane with the ACP. He scratches at his beard with a thumb, glances over his shoulder, then turns to prowl in closer. The older man's dressed in his usual unremarkable ensemble of dark tee shirt, faded jeans, leather jacket and ball cap. He's carrying, but probably isn't here to shoot tonight. Or wasn't, as of a minute or two ago. "Mira lo que el gato arrastró," he murmurs, the corners of his eyes creasing slightly in amusement as he draws close.

Vic doesn’t so much as flinch at the familiar voice. She finishes unloading the magazine at the target before lowering the gun and slipping the earphones down around her neck. Up close he can see she’s using a Glock G21: not sexy to look at, but extremely reliable. “The cat didn’t like the taste of me, De la Vega. It decided to find something to chew on that doesn’t fight back.” She pops the magazine out and sets it and the weapon on the counter before slapping her palm against the button to recall the target. With a whirr the paper silhouette races back towards them.

He chuckles low at that, still ambling in on his slow approach, hands pushed into the pockets of his jacket. His eyes shift to her target, and he studies her placement for a few moments before murmuring, "Not too bad." He'll give credit where it's due, but he'll also point out that, "You've gotten a little rusty." He draws to a halt nearby, and since he snagged himself a pair of goggles and earplugs on the way over, he tugs them on while he talks. "You're flinching a little. When you squeeze the trigger."

"Yeah well, I haven't slept in two days, so sue me," Vic snarks back. Ah yes, one of the lovely symptoms of cocaine abuse, being awake forever. She pulls off the paper target, which has a nice grouping in the head and another in center mass. She crumples it up and tosses it in a nearby trash can where there are a dozen more just like it. She's been here for a bit tonight. "Are you going to stand here critiquing me, or are you shooting cabron?" she asks, hooking a new target up and sending it back down the range. She reloads her Glock's magazine with slow deliberation, not even looking at it, as she stares at him with those flinty blue eyes of hers.

He doesn't rise to the bait, however enticingly dangled in front of him. But then, he's always been a curious contradiction of a man; at once plagued with a vicious and terrible temper, and yet often steadfast and unyielding as rock in the face of attempts to unhinge him. A chuckle, warm and rough-sounding, at the little jabs she tosses his way, and he rubs at his nose with an inked knuckle before reaching for his own holstered weapon. A well-worn P220, its clip checked and then snapped back in with a turn of his wrist. He's always favoured Sigs over Glocks; the fit is better for a hand the size of his, for the one. "All right," he concedes, meeting her gaze easily throughout. He's spent the last few decades handling guns in one form or another; loading his service pistol is something he can do with his eyes closed.

"Conscience keeping you awake at night?" he murmurs, as to her not sleeping, while stepping into the next lane over and lining up his shot after a roll of his shoulders.

"Oh Javier, you know I don't have a conscience," Vic retorts, slapping the reloaded magazine into the pistol and giving him a lazy smirk with a roll of her head. "Sleep and I have never been friends," she quips. "So what's it like being a uniform again? I didn't think you'd ever go back to patrol. Didn't seem to suit you. Never thought you'd survive undercover either though, so what do I know?"

She adjusts her ear coverings and safety glasses, waiting for him to be ready to shoot as well.

The pistol's hoisted in his right hand and braced with the left, and once he's tapped the button to roll a target into place, he thumbs off the safety and fires. Three rounds, quick on each others' heels, and he takes the recoil almost like it isn't there at all. When the smoke clears, he lowers the weapon to check his placement, tip of his tongue dragged across his lower lip slowly. Then a flick of his eyes the brunette's way. "Go back to patrol," he repeats, like he's trying to figure out if she's fucking with him. "Eres muy gracioso."

His head is tipped left and then right, to stretch out the muscle that runs along his shoulders. Then he drops another round into the chamber and lines up his next shot.

"You might have shiny Captain's bars, viejo, but you're not a detective any more. You should have been a detective lieutenant by now, shouldn't you?" Vic prods, looking for those sore spots to annoy. She then takes her shots, and empties the magazine in three shot bursts, without any flinching this time whatsoever, and all the holes in the forehead and heart of the target.

She knows him well enough, probably, to spot the moment her words get through that little chink in his armour. The way his jaw twitches, that little curl of his lip and flash of the tips of his canines; they're a touch longer, sharper than most. Then the crack of his gun's report. Once, twice, three times, and she knows. She knows he can do better than this. He's got the people skills of a fencepost, but the man's a gifted marksman. Which can only mean one thing.

She's throwing him off his game.

He makes a rough, agitated noise in his throat, and racks the slide once more in preparation for his final burst. "Mi corazón ya no estaba en eso, cariño," he murmurs, eyes on his target, breath steady like he's trying to shake off whatever's disrupted his focus.

"Come on, Javi, we both know you don't have a heart. Just like we both know I don't have a conscience. Clearly neither of us was going to be able to stick to detective work." She pops out the spent magazine and recalls her target as he continues his shooting. She waits until he's ready to fire again before she grins like the cat who ate the canary at him.

"So how long has Monaghan had you in his pocket?"

And there she goes again, calling him Javi. Even though she knows it pisses him off. Perhaps especially because she knows it pisses him off. His last few shots are rattled off one-handed, bang, bang, bang like a metronome. Clip spent, he safeties and ejects the empty cartridge with the heel of his palm, eyes remaining on the target with three perfect puncture wounds in its throat.

No comment on his lack of heart, or their suitability for the line of work that nearly put both of them in the ground. He shoves his sidearm into its holster under his jacket, and starts to rip his eye and ear protection off when Vic pipes up with that last little non sequitur. And it stops him cold. Dark eyes cut to blue, his breath audible as it leaves him in short, aggravated sounding huffs through his nose. Then he takes a step in closer, and another. Until he's just breaching her personal space. Until she can smell the gunpowder on him, and the rain, and the cigarette he smoked on his way over. "A la mierda el infierno," he snarls, low, inches from her ear. "You accuse me of shit like that again, I'll break your fucking fingers."

Vic's lips curl into a feral grin at the threat. "What, you didn't think my boss would share that little detail with me?" As he gets closer, she leans in rather than away, like two alpha predators circling. There is that tiny spark of crazy in her eyes. It wasn't there when he first knew her. It came later, before she threw him to the wolves.

"You try to break my fingers, I'll shove my boot so far up your ass you'll be chewing the laces," she hisses back under her breath.

"Me gustaría verte intentarlo," he practically purrs in response, elongating each syllable, dragging out those r's until they're practically suggestive. His cheeks dimple, and the corners of his smoke-dark eyes crease with the slow, decadent smile that follows; not once does he look away from her blues. Alpha predators, indeed. "Pero.. creo que prefieres voltear la cola cuando la mierda golpea al ventilador, yeah?" It's almost a challenge. Almost, but not quite. The smile lingers, ends in a savage little wink, and then he eases back slowly, and turns to prowl off from whence he came.

" No giro la cola. Simplemente no creo en cargar peso muerto." Vic sneers back at him. There is something though, some tiny split second when he talked about her turning tail that made her eyes narrow slightly. "Watch your back, Javier. Because I'll be watching it too."

Not a word more from the cop. His gear's tossed into a bin on his way out, and his bulky shape quickly melts into the dark once he steps out the door.