2020-06-20 - Sparrow in Shining Armor

(TXT to Sparrow) Cristobal : I need a lift.

(TXT to Cristobal) Sparrow : When and where?

(TXT to Sparrow) Cristobal : Now. ::corrdinates::

(TXT to Cristobal) Sparrow : (...)

(TXT to Sparrow) Cristobal : Please, I'm hurt, babe.

(TXT to Cristobal) Sparrow : Alright. Yeah. Just... gimme a few to get things settled here and I'll be omw

(TXT to Cristobal) Sparrow : Almost there.

(TXT to Sparrow) Cristobal : Just look for the busted up Fairlane and the pissed off Mexican.

Cris at least had the presence of mind to get back in his car and pull it over to the side of the road, well onto the shoulder until the tow truck is to arrive. Despite the fact his baby is still running, he wasn't about to drive into town with a busted up back end and the side scraped to hell and raise eyebrows and unwanted questions. No, calling for a lift was a better option, to leave Rosencrantz' garage to tow his bruised beauty back to Gray Harbor. He's standing on the shoulder of the road, smoking his umpteenth cigarette as he sits on the twisted up guardrail, waiting for his Sparrow in shining armor to arrive.

Sparrow's Kia isn't particularly shiny, but it's seen a carwash within the last couple of months. It'll have to do. She slows as she nears the scene, edging over onto the shoulder to stop just a few feet shy of where Cris stands waiting. The what the fuck in her expression is turned, first, toward the busted up back end of the familiar vehicle before she looks to Cris as she puts her own car in park. The, "Hey," which accompanies her emergence from the red Kia possesses a lot more complexity than that single syllable should, a whole slew of unarticulated questions tangled up in that greeting.

Cris gets up a little bit stiffly from his perch, flicking the butt of the cigarette at his feet as he stands. "Hey." He answers a bit gruffly, but then again nearly getting run off the road tends to make one grumpy. His eyes flick up to hers then back to his Fairlane. "Bit of car trouble." It's the understatement of the year as he comes up to her and cuffs the back of her neck, kissing her forehead. "We should get out of here before the trouble comes back." Or the police, for that matter.

Sparrow's fingers alight gingerly on his stomach when he draws in close, gaze dipping down along his form to take inventory of the more obvious evidence of injury. And maybe a little bit of the not-so-obvious indicators. Lips part with new questions ready to leap out. Like about insurance and waiting for, well, the cops and making sure the tow truck gets here and all the practical things that her parents have drilled into her head in case of emergency. But she bites them all back, going with a quiet, "Yeah, alright," for now. She can press later. Or not. With a gesture toward the passenger's side, she asks, "Your place or mine or..?"

There's no obvious wounds on Cristobal, but he's suffering from a bit of whiplash, so he'll be sore from head to toe tomorrow as his muscles seize up from the trauma of being banged about in his car, and he has a bit of a seatbelt rash across his chest beneath his black tee. "My place." He mutters as he moves around and pops the door to drop weightily into her passenger side seat, grunting and removing the gun that's pressing into his back only to wedge it between his legs. Only after the car is already rolling in that direction does he talk again. "Sorry to put you out. Get you involved." Add headache to the list, judging by the way he rubs his forehead.

Sparrow gives the gun a glance as she starts the car, a faint purse of her lips marking yet another thing she doesn't say. The radio displays AUX, but there's nothing plugged in or synced up at the moment to feed it any music, and she doesn't bother fussing with it, letting the silence stretch between them as she pulls out onto the road again and starts circling back toward town. She doesn't look Cristobal's way until he speaks up again, angling a faintly stern look his direction. "I'm already involved in your life. You made that mistake months ago, so." The little shrug says there's simply nothing to be done about it now. "You wanna tell me what's going on or should I just make up my own stories?"

Cristobal braces his elbow on the door panel and bends his head to his fingers, eyes closing if only to avoid her gaze. "I'm sure your imagination can come up with something much more amusing than a bad case of road rage, Paji." The 'Pah-hee' rumbled quietly, like velvet covered gravel. "It was pointed. Directed. It wasn't random, is what I mean."

Sparrow might even be willing to extemporize right now to lighten the mood. Were it not for words which follow, the suggestion of intention behind the accident. That has her hands tensing on the steering wheel until the right breaks free and reaches over to offer some comfort. Which might be more comforting if she didn't reflexively flinch when the fingers brushing his leg brush up against his gun. This is definitely not the sort of trouble that her life tends toward. Or is it? Around here, it's always best to ask. "Is this, uh. Normal bad or weird bad?"

There is a flicker of his eyes opening as she touches from him and then draws away as if his leg were flame. There's a shake of his head, minute because it fucking hurts to move it in that direction - he must've had his head turned when he was hit - before his gaze goes out the window. "You don't think I actually guard tits all day every day, do you, babe?"

"I think I'm generally happier when I don't think too hard about why the hot guy who protects titties all day is doing well enough that he can pay his own rent and offer to shell out another few hundred for a room he's not gonna use every month just to make my life a little easier." Sparrow angles another look his way, but all the pointedness it's meant to possess is a bit too soft around the edges to really land. Not that it comes across at all in the pale reflection cast on the glass. A bit more gently, she goes on, "And I don't have to think about it now either. You wanna keep this and that separate? I won't press, Cris. You don't have to show me anything you don't wanna."

"You're safer that way." If Cris keeps things separate, it seems. Indeed, no further details about what happened or what he actually does for a real living aren't forthcoming. "You know speaking of, you never did tell me if you opened my birthday present to you." Speaking of dropping a few hundred, apparently.

"I trust you," sounds sincere, simple, like there are no qualifiers to go with it. Not that said trust puts Sparrow at ease, but she doesn't go tugging at that topic again once Cristobal moves past. "Nah," she lies without missing a beat. "Figured I'd save it for Christmas instead." The speed limit drops as they cross into town, drawing closer to Elm, the slower speed making the pause before she offers an actual answer seem that much longer. Eventually, she murmurs quietly, "I dunno what to do with them."

"I mean, I think the general idea is to dip them in paint and then smear that paint on something. I could be wrong though, I'm not the artistic type, but it seems a good place to start." Cris cracks half a grin, looking like a part sneer of born in discomfort. "I want a hot shower and a handful of vicodin washed down by something of the booze variety. Sleep until next Wednesday."

Sparrow rolls her eyes, but she's got a shallow grin of her own to go with it. "I mean, like." A huffed breath comes out where words should be, the explanation taking longer to shape than it should for something this simple. "They're nice. Real nice. Like. Professional nice. And that's cool with the drum sticks, cuz. I mean. I do get paid to do that now and then, and I know I'm fucking kicking it out there, but. I dunno. I'm just fucking around with paint. And those are not just-fucking-around brushes, so." She probably should throw a 'thank you' in there somewhere, but it doesn't surface yet. As she pulls up to his place, parking curbside out of habit, she agrees, "But yeah. Hot shower sounds nice." Had he meant to invite her? "And, uh. If you, uh." She turns the key, the engine falling quiet. "Want something that's gonna be a bit more effective than vicodin?"

Cristobal flicks a hand towards the driveway, "Do you mind pulling up closer, babe? Sort of an invalid here." He's chuckle sounds coarse in his throat like it's been dragged out of him against his will. "I'm all for you washing my back, but if you're talking about the healing powers of a roll in the hay, you're going to have to do all the work tonight and I'll still need that vicodin after."

Sparrow doesn't pull closer, but neither does she move to get out of the car. Instead, she turns slightly in her seat to look at Cris directly for the first time since picking him up by the side of the road. "Not sure if I'm annoyed or delighted that you didn't think your chemist girlfriend might've had a better chemical solution, but. No." Her lips purse with wry amusement for all of a second. "I can..." She lifts her right hand, wiggling her fingers a little. "Just... Fix it. If you want."

How many times has Cris looked at her with new eyes, because he's doing so again and it won't be the last time either. "I always knew you were a shiny penny, you mean you have the healing arts?" And look at him, not even cracking a joke and Sparrow becoming the next Heisenberg. Did it ever occur to him to ask before about her power? No. Because glimmer is far more frightening and unknown than the car chase he just participated in. "Normally I'd say I wouldn't have you risk it, but..." He has a gun wedged between his thighs, he can't afford to be injured.

Sparrow can't help the nose-scrunch when he says healing arts. Clearly, not her choice of words. She obviously prefers vague finger-waggling. Way clearer. "I mean I can fix you up." There aren't any magic words. No arcane gestures. Just a weird face like she's trying to solve some complicated calculus problem and a little lift of her hand. And the glimmer. Bright and warm and... actually working. Bruises recede, aches subside, and the only tension left behind when the moment passes is purely residual, psychological. The brain knows it should still be in pain, even if it isn't. Her brows pitch upward toward purple bangs, curious, unsure. One might guess she hasn't actually done this much.

"It's what my abuela..." Cris goes quiet though as she scrinches up her face like that and starts to concentrate, he can feel it, like a warmth that spreads through his body and along his spine, encouraging the soft tissue damage towards healing. It wasn't severe, he should feel good as new by morning and his chest already doesn't seem near as tight from the seatbelt. "Oh you sweet, sweet flower. I wish I could pluck you and carry you around in my pocket." He says with a happy sounding sigh. Leaning towards her, Cris runs his finger around her ear. "You know. I think I can manage maybe even skipping that shower now, if you like."

Uncertainty shifts toward optimism before a proper, if off-center, smile takes shape. Sparrow tilts toward his touch, looking more pleased with herself by the second. And who can blame her when that little bit of finger-wiggling earns her an offer like that. "I mean." As if she might decline. "Pretty sure we could fit a shower in somewhere." She presses a quick kiss to the heel of his hand... and then hesitates on the withdraw, mirth muting for a moment, that forehead-furrow returning. "You get that me not asking doesn't equate to me not caring, right? You need me, I'm here. For this. To talk. Distraction. Safe places. Escape. Whatever. I'm yours, alright?"

And Cris shifts his hand on her cheek up so his thumb can ease that furrow with a smooth of its rough pad. "I know." He says quietly. "And I think you're just being nice to me by the not asking. I see all the questions there, churning in that brilliant brain of yours." Cris ends the sweet petting by poking her right between the eyes. "C'mon. I'm going to let someone else take care of me for a change. I think I still have a little crick in my neck. May need some hot oil massaged into it. And if it gets everywhere else? Oops."

Someday, the curiosity might outweigh the self-preservation instinct telling Sparrow that this isn't something she should dig at, but today's not that day. Today, she makes a cute face when Cris pokes at her, tongue sticking out like he might've found some secret button. "You want I should call 'em?" she teases as she follows him out and up to his apartment. "I don't mind watching." As if she has any qualms about doing the hands-on work herself.