2020-05-07 - Te Extrañe

It's cold. It's rainy. It's Gray Harbor. Most of the cops and emergency personnel heading in and out of the building don't even bother complaining; these two facts are as much a part of the town as the earth under their feet and the ridiculous suicide rate. Alexander has enough reluctant informants in the police department that he can get a good idea of when Ruiz is on shift, and when he's just on call, and thus less likely to be found. Tonight is one of the former nights, so when Ruiz's time is up, he'll find Alexander leaning against his Charger, no umbrella, head tipped back to let the rain fall on his open face. Alexander looks...well. A lot like Alexander. Underslept, a bit unkempt, but not unusually broken or bruised, for once. His oversized army jacket is wrapped tight around him, his hands buried in its pockets.

Thump, thump, thump, pause. About twenty feet away, if Alexander happens to look over, is the police captain himself. Standing there in the rain and the remnants of his gear, eyes narrowed a fraction as he studies the man who's propping up his cruiser. His tonguetip skims his upper teeth slowly, then withdraws, and he prowls a few steps closer. "Alexander," comes out in his usual gruff, sandpapery murmur.

Alexander looks down when he hears the sound of approaching footsteps, then in their direction. He has to take a moment to brush the soaked hair off to the sides and wipe the cold rain off his face. But once he's finished with that, he offers Ruiz one of those fractional smiles, the kind that seem like they're easily spooked and ready to run back into the underbrush of his psyche at the slightest opportunity. "Captain. Javier. Hello." He scuffs the toe of one workboot on the wet pavement. "I thought. Since we haven't talked. I would bring you coffee. But it was raining, and if you were late, then the coffee would get watered down and unpleasant. So I thought I'd wait. And see if you wanted to get coffee, instead." It's rapid and toneless, like he's eager to justify his presence. His eyes aren't as defensive as his voice - they stare openly, assessing Ruiz.

alay-HAN-der is how he says it, a bastardisation of the English, given that in his language, the 'x' is pronounced quite differently. His keys are held loose in one hand for a few moments, then shoved back into his pocket, and a sniff to clear the rainwater out of his nose. "We haven't." Talked, he means, in a while. It seems for a moment like he might smile, but his face seems to have other ideas. Instead, he checks his watch. "Yeah, I've got a little while. You want to..?" He hitches his chin at the hole in the wall joint across the street that's been shut down once or twice due to health violations in the last six months. At least it's quiet.

Alexander pushes himself off the car, and slouches over closer to Ruiz, hands still stuffed in his pockets, shoulders hunched a little under the rain. He follows the point of Ruiz's chin, and his hesitant smile grows wider. "You know they found rats in the refrigerator there." A pause. "Sure. Sounds fun." He moves in that direction, and just starts talking like it's a given that Ruiz will come along and keep up. "How have you been?"

"That was two months ago," points out de la Vega, with a wry twist of his mouth that reads more resigned than amused. A touch of genuine warmth though at the corners of his eyes, when Alexander smiles at him like that. Once he's popped the door of his car and offloaded his gear securely, "I've been.. I've been good, actually." He jams his hands into the pockets of his jacket as he follows along; it reads GRAY HARBOR POLICE across the back, marking him as property of the GHPD in no particularly uncertain terms. "I'd been meaning to ask you how Isabella was doing, after.." After what, he doesn't specify, but does avoid the other man's gaze at that.

"After whatever you did to her while you were under Peregrine...Dr. Wagner's influence, that she won't tell me about?" It's blunt, and dry, but not angry. There's no /smile/ there, but also no bristle; mostly just a bit of resignation. "She's fine. Recovered, as far as I can tell. She would probably like to talk to you. I doubt she blames you." Alexander's gaze is, at least, easy to avoid; he's constantly looking back over his shoulder, scanning the passersby and the shadows of the rainy night with the twitchy vigilance of paranoia. When they get to the door of the dive, he opens it, scans the interior suspiciously, then holds it open for Ruiz. "I'm glad to hear that you've been well. How's Itzhak?" There's the smile again, just a little teasing edge to it, and more in his dark eyes.

They're two peas in a pod, these men. Both paranoid, both possessed of a vigilance forged from the cold, hard reality of their lives. "I've been meaning to reach out to her, but I.." The door's caught, and Alexander given a gruff sound of thanks as he ducks inside, hands not yet retreating from his jacket pockets as he visually hunts for an out-of-the-way table. "I've not been sure what to say." One over there, by the window, and he angles for it without another word. Of Itzhak, he doesn't yet elucidate, though the look in the other man's eyes is noted with some amusement.

"I don't know exactly what happened. But 'I'm sorry' is usually a pretty good place to start, whatever did." Alexander seems content to let Ruiz choose the table, although he does take the coveted seat with the good view of both the front and the kitchen doors. He drips onto the floor from the hem of his jacket, his dark hair plastered flat to his head, like it's painted onto his skull. "She can't dislike you too much. She very specifically doesn't want me to hurt you over it." It's deadpan.

The cop slouches into the chair opposite, settling in with a crunch of his jacket and a noise in his throat that sounds entirely exhausted. Going by the slightly bloodshot eyes and slump of his shoulders, it's probably been a long day. Or week. Or month, or year. "It's a long story," he murmurs, pinching the bridge of his nose. Then dropping his hand as a waitress arrives to take their order. "Black coffee, and a croissant," is offered gruffly, and he waits for Alexander to chime in before mentioning, "Maybe she just wants to claim the honours." Of hurting him, probably.

"You've been working too much," Alexander observes, his eyes narrowing slightly. Whatever fussing he might be moved to try and do is cut short by the arrival of the waitress. He glances back towards the kitchen, as if he can see the state of it, from here. "Black coffee," he echoes. "Corned beef hash." When she's gone, he turns back to Ruiz, and says, "I'm not asking you to tell me. And you might be right. Isabella is fierce." He says it with a peculiar sort of pride - not /possessive/, exactly, but definitely with a sort of partisan attitude about it. Like he's tremendously pleased she's on his side. "But you're feeling better after all of that? It's hard. To have someone change you."

His mouth slants into a wry expression that doesn't quite qualify as a smile, lashes lowered, thumbnail worrying at a ding in the table's surface. "Chief's been away for a week. Guess who got all his fucking paperwork." His dark eyes flick back up to Alexander, then rove away as the waitress returns with their coffee, to the tune of a soft gracias. "He's back tomorrow, so I plan on taking a couple of days off." Sip. "I'm fine." It might almost be true. Except for that nagging little feeling that he's really not. Except for the memories that are permanently gone, and the ones that reside in their place. "Did he ever, uh. Get to you. Like that?"

Alexander huffs out a disgruntled breath. "He shouldn't. Dump everything on you that he does. You do have your own job, and you don't need two. Or three, I guess, considering all of the /other/ stuff." He falls silent again when the waitress returns, mumbles out a thanks that's given a sidelong look of disdain. He reaches for his coffee, pulls it close to warm his hands. "But it's good to take some time off." A brief smile, then. "Fine is never fine." The question, though? It makes him hunch his shoulders, for all he gives a quick shake of his head. "No. He covered me in snakes. And we talked. It was pleasant. Except for the snakes. I believe his opinion is that I will destroy everything I love without any help. He's probably not wrong."

"I knew what I was signing up for, coming here," murmurs the captain around another drink of his coffee. "And picking up the Chief's slack is part of the job, unfortunately." Especially when the Chief's on the take, and has his fingers in pies he shouldn't. Ruiz looks briefly circumspect about something, but Alexander speaks again, and the furrow between his brows smoothes away. He glances up at the younger man's face, then down at his hands around his coffee cup. Then away, toward the window. "Pleasant, except for the snakes." He huffs a sudden laugh. "Solo tú, Alexander." His cup is turned a fraction, but not sipped from again, yet. "Tell me what makes you say that."

It's Alexander's turn to give a brief laugh. "Did you really, Captain? You'd be about the first one." And there's a brief showing of his real smile, bright and unhidden, like a spear of sunlight through storm clouds. And as brief. It's gone in the next moment. "I've had worse than snakes. I thought he was going to kill me. He talked instead. I wasn't going to argue." A couple of blinks at the directive, then his eyes drop to his coffee. There's a thin film of...something over the top. He drinks it anyway, without seeming to notice. "I am what I am, Javier." A brief pause. "Do you know the people at the Pourhouse tried to kill me, not long ago? People I went to high school with. They said they were just going to take me to the asylum where I belonged, but I've seen murder in people's eyes enough to know it."

"With the state of the police department," he clarifies after a moment, when it occurs to him what Alexander may have surmised there. The smile is watched, taken in almost hungrily. Like a thing he doesn't see nearly enough of in the other man. Has he missed him? Maybe a little. Maybe more than a little; it's hard to say, by his gruff disposition. A sniff, and a bite's taken out of his croissant, flaky bits dusted off his beard with inked up knuckles. "I knew something about that," he confesses, chews and then swallows. "I'm sorry that happened to you." Which he means sincerely enough.

"It's fine. It's just one of those things." Alexander watches him with an unblinking sort of intensity, his eyes narrowing a fraction at the sniff. One hand slides away from the cup to start beating a rapid tattoo against the tabletop. He doesn't even seem to notice. Or that his corned beef hash has arrived, and is getting...less lukewarm than it was when it was served. "But what about you? What's been going on? You said you're good. What's good? I like to hear about good."

One of those things. The impulse is in him to call bullshit on that. It's right there at the tip of his tongue, but Javier says nothing of the sort. Simply watches Alexander's fingertips drumming on the tabletop, and then the corned beef hash that.. well, let's just say he probably wouldn't chance it. "Huh?" as the question disrupts the inward progression of his thoughts. He blows a breath out his nose, takes a sip of his coffee. "No strange deaths lately." Which probably means, just the garden variety ones instead. "Asked Rosencrantz to move in with me." All casual-like, that. And in practically the same breath, "You know a girl named Megan Keene, right?"

Unfair. Unfair to hit Alexander with news that makes him grin, that makes something pleased and probably just a little smartass come to his lips - and then immediately follow it with something that hits him in the stomach and crumples him in the chair. His eyes immediately go to the doors, his fingernails scraping anxiously on the table. "She's not here. I don't think she's here? I haven't seen her, today, so she's not here. Is she here?" Then he realizes he's fallen into anxious babble, and takes a breath. Then another. Slow and deep and calming. "Yes. She's who I got you to help me with, long ago. Her mother was in Heaven's Gate. She was one of the actors. Now I think she is with Alice. She was following me around, for a bit. She made a deal with some out of towner named Joseph. Took his...his abilities, let him remember the Asylum."

He's patient, Javier, with the sudden panic that seems to take his friend. Starts to reach for the other man's hand, then thinks better of it, and takes a sip of his coffee instead. "She's not here," he murmurs, voice low, as if he half expects to be wrong on that front. "But she's in town. She-" And then Alexander says that last bit, and it's like something's clicked into place for him. "Fuck." It's soft, barely more than a breath. Then, "Fuck." That's louder. Loud enough that a couple of people pause their conversations to glance over at him. Crazy Mexican pig is clearly written across one older man's face. "She came to talk to me. Today, on my smoke break. Offered me a similar deal."

Alexander catches that look in Ruiz's direction, and there's a flash of fury, as sharp as a drawn blade, on his face. He glares back at the couple, and static electricity hisses and pops just at the edge of hearing. That is all that happens, though, and he sort of slumps in place afterwards, rubbing wearily at his face. "Did you--no, you didn't. I can see you. You still stand out. You haven't blurred yourself. That's good...I think. I think that's good." A pause.

It's possible Ruiz doesn't even spot that dirty look aimed his way. Though it's equally possible he just doesn't care. Whatever implications Alexander's words have had in his mind, they seem to have disrupted his usual steadfast, gritty calm. "I refused," he clarifies, voice nearly a growl. "She offered, and I refused. And then she got into my fucking head and made threats, and.." He blows a breath out his nose again, already digging his wallet out of his pocket to pay for their food. "I've got to go find Cavanaugh." Seems the pair know one another.

"Did she want you to help her destroy the Asylum?" Alexander asks, quietly. There's no mistaking the capital letter for anything else. "And. Yes. They--" He falls silent as Ruiz is pulling out his wallet. His eyes flick from the wallet, to the man's face, listening carefully. "You're acquainted?" A longer pause. "He had bruises. He said it wasn't her." It's hard to say why he bothers to point that out; his voice is carefully toneless. He just watches Ruiz with something a little like sadness, and a lot like resignation. "I'm glad you said no. And that you're checking on him. But you should be careful. If you made her angry."

He shakes his head as he tugs a couple of crumpled bills out, and tosses them atop the table. A long slug of his coffee to finish it off, empty cup set back down again, next to the money. "Nope." That's to his first question. He meets the other man's eyes for a moment when the bruises are mentioned, then his gaze shifts away, something like a twinge in his expression. Subtle, but Alexander's unlikely to miss it, the way he's watching him. "They weren't." Her. He's already digging his phone out to text the man. "We had a disagreement. I.. this is none of your fucking business." He starts to his feet.

Alexander recoils a little at the response as Ruiz gains his feet. He looks down at the table. "No. No, it isn't. I'm sorry." A glance at the phone, and a sidelong slant of his mouth that isn't a smile at all. "Have a good night, Captain." He doesn't move from his seat, but rather slumps down further into it, and picks up his coffee again. "Don't die," he says, without looking at him.

Ruiz starts to say something, then seems to decide against it. Instead, he watches Alexander for a very long moment before offering quietly, "Fue bueno verte de nuevo. Te extrañe." And then, working his jaw slightly, he turns to prowl off abruptly without so much as a goodbye.

"Yo también te extrañé.," Alexander returns, barely audible, to the man's back. Then he sighs, runs a hand through his still wet hair, and gives the cold hash the look of a man who has paid for this monstrosity, and therefore feels honor bound to attempt to eat the monstrosity.