2020-08-22 - Who Is Feeding the Rumor Mill?

The evening's warm, and the tourists are out in force, swarming the dockside shops and bars for a taste of Gray Harbour in the summertime. One of the townies, unbeknownst to most of those flocking past as the local (acting) Chief of Police, is hunkered down on the edge of the pier, smoking a cigarette and scrolling through the feed on his phone. He's in one of his usual faded tee shirts and loose-fitting cargo pants, tanned arms covered in tattoos on full display, and a pair of aviators slipped on to shield his eyes from the fading sun.

Vic's latest pastime, being as she still can't smoke, is to walk and drink around the docks and boardwalk. Normally she'd do it in a park, but her last stroll through Addington brought her face to face with the mutated diseased bear thing. No thank you. The blonde is pleasantly buzzed but still walking a straight line, mostly, as she slips through the tourists. She has on sweatpants and a faded Eagles tour dates tee from before she was born, and her hair is down and loose and annoying her by occasionally getting in her mouth. She has a loose windbreaker on, from the pocket of which she occasionally pulls out a flask and sips from it.

She almost trips over the (someone told her no-longer acting) Chief of Police when a pair of sober middle-aged folks don't swerve to avoid her. "Hey! Watch it! I'm walking here!" she barks. Her voice is back up to normal volume, so she seems mostly healed up. Mostly.

The definitely not recently promoted to full Chief jerks his head up, all brittle tension and ready to take someone down or reach for his gun when they nearly bowl him over. He's a paranoid son of a bitch lately, and can anyone blame him for it? But then he sees who it is.. and to be fair, it doesn't dial down his nerves much. With things being as they are with Joey, a memo's likely already gone out about de la Vega. About how he's persona non grata to everyone under Felix's umbrella. Hopefully not shoot on sight, but one never knows.

He remains silent, dark eyes steady on the blonde, cigarette touched to his mouth then pulled away with a steady stream of smoke.

Vic's eyes slowly focus on the lump she nearly tripped over, and recognition slowly settles in. "Javier," she says, sniffing and scrubbing a hand under her nose for a moment, glaring at the couple who have gone on their merry way. "Didn't see you there, sorry." She looks awkward, standing there, shuffling her feet a bit. She doesn't know why things have gone down as they have between Kelly and him, and she's clearly struggling between what she can, and cannot do with the cop.

"Your boys doing ok?" she asks. That's neutral at least, right?

It's hard to tell what's going on, of course, behind the aviators. But the crow's feet at the corners of his eyes are plentiful, and linger long after the wryly amused chuckle he makes in his throat. "My boys?" He maybe doesn't know which ones she's talking about. She might mean Itzhak and Joe. Or she might mean his men at the precinct. He opts to keep things vague, and grunts a soft reply in the affirmative, before dragging again off his cigarette. His phone's tucked away, after he's responded to a message. "Cavanaugh's back in town." Hint, hint.

"Yeah, yeah I had a beer with him on the Danish guy's boat." Vic gestures to where the Vagabond is berthed a few slips from the Surprise. "Abilgaard is working at the Twofer. Poor guy is getting a crash course in the weird shit in this town. Everyone is thinking he's some sort of celebrity chef. From Sweden. Bork bork bork." Yep, she's buzzed. "Saw those new scars on his face. Those weren't from you, I take it?" Her dark blue eyes move to those sunglasses, and there's an odd look in them. She's clearly trying to piece together the things that happened to get to this point.

The Danish guy. Isn't he- "Swedish?" Javier looks confused to hear that he isn't. He was pretty sure the guy was a chef. From Sweden. And makes a face when he's corrected, followed by another drag off his smoke. This fucking town.

"The fuck are you trying to say? No, those weren't from me. I didn't fucking beat the shit out of him like that." Something about that implication.. rankles him. Like there's a line there, however fuzzy and ill-defined, that he wouldn't cross. And to have it implied that he might.. "I only give him what he asks for." The aviators are slipped off, finally, so she can see his eyes. "I wouldn't fucking do that to him. It was.." He swallows. "Reyes's men."

"Nope, he's a folklorist from Denmark. And Cavanaugh and Rosencrantz sure as hell aren't Russian spies. I heard a couple people at the gym whispering about me being in Witness Protection. I don't know what the everloving fuck is going on, but someone is trying to turn truth on its ear and it's just logical enough to make people believe it's right." Vic frowns, pauses, then sits down next to the cop. Probably a bad look for both of them. If any of Kelly or Reyes people see them canoodling, it could get messy.

Ruiz's explanation has her hackles up and she mutters a few choice words under her breath. "They did that to Joe? Fuck. Is that why...?" why he broke up with her boss. That makes sense. He's protecting the people he loves. She's done worse for the same reason. She scrubs a hand down her face then pulls the flask out again, taking a swig, offering it over. "Whiskey, not tequila," she warns.

His brows crease slightly at the elucidation, then smooth again. Laughter at mention of his boyfriends being spies. He's heard murmurings of that, too, and simply shakes his head slowly, forearm draped against his thigh as he gazes out over the water. "Witness Protection," he repeats. "For what?" He chances a look askance to her, smoke-dark eyes alighting on blue for a heartbeat, then sliding away again. They really probably shouldn't be seen together like this, no.

The flask is accepted after some hesitation, when she mentions it's whiskey. Not his favourite thing, but he isn't feeling particularly picky at the moment. He also neither confirms nor denies what's going on with Joey, but she's free to draw her own conclusions. A man like de la Vega.. well, she knows him well enough to know two things. One: he's adept at playing the long game. The very, very long game. And two: he's a weapon, and he's very good at what he does. And what he does is kill.

"You doing all right?" he asks eventually, voice a low, rough rumble of sound.

Vic snorts at the question about Witness Protection. "The asshole tourist I shoved into a wall until he explained said, get this," she smirks and takes the flask back for another swig, "That I'm here, hiding from my ex-fiance, Mike, who is a," she snorts out a laugh and winces slightly, still uncomfortable with being able to sense the metal in her ribcage. "A serial killer. Mike. The uber straight-laced patrol cop who couldn't even handle me doing undercover work and having to do drugs and have sex. Mike. And oh yeah, my real name isn't Vic Grey."

She shakes her head at the pure absurdity of it all and as he knew Mike, him being anything but Captain America in his stringent good-guy-ness is hilarious. She sighs when he asks how she is. "I can feel it, inside me. The metal they put in to rebuild my ribs. My...gift or whatever the fuck they call it these days, I can feel it in there and it's freaking me the fuck out," she admits with a scowl.

"Also I still can't smoke, fucking doctors."

Of course he remembers Mike. The guy he used to go drinking with sometimes, before he got tapped for undercover work. Bit buttoned up for his liking, but seemed like a nice enough guy. If nice is your thing. Which, "I'm still not sure what you saw in him," he remarks around a haze of smoke as he exhales. Some ash is tapped from the end of his cigarette, and he keeps his eyes on the water when she starts talking about the metal 'they' put in her body. "Yeah," he murmurs finally, working his jaw a little. "Got a couple of pins in my back. Roen's got even more work done. So does Cavanaugh. It.." Whatever else he had to say, becomes an agitated sounding huff of breath.

"I'll let you know if I hear anything. About whoever hurt you and Roen." In the church, he means.

“I’m not sure you’re allowed to tell me. Kelly was mighty upset that you dumped him.” Vic looks askance at him, rubbing at her nose again. “But maybe you can ask Roen to pass the info to me. Nice, neutral third party.” She scratches idly at her upper arm where a nicotine patch is adhered, likely preventing her from murdering half the town.

“Mike was good. I think back then I wanted to be good too, make my dad proud. But life took a turn and, well, I hope he’s happy in New York.” She looks out at the water with a grimace. “I’m sorry Joe got hurt. Collateral Damage should have been our undercover unit name. You don’t think Reyes has any connection to our old pals, do you?”

"Not fucking likely," Javier murmurs, as to Reyes and their old cartel being somehow connected. He scrubs fingers through his hair, which looks recently cut and a little shorter than it had been. Then one last drag off his cigarette before it's tossed into the water. He says nothing of Joe being hurt. Nothing whatsoever. Vic likely has some idea of the horrific temper that sits under the surface of the man, though. The animal that hunts for vengeance, and doesn't stop until it's found. He starts to climb to his feet. "I've got to go. I'll see you around, yeah?"

“Not if I see you first,” Vic quips back, stealing fromJohn Wick chapter 2. “Tell Cavanaugh to get that damn sequel written.” She doesn’t get up herself, content to sit there a while longer and finish her whiskey.

"Tell him yourself, I'm not your fucking messenger boy," quips back the cop without turning around. Gravel crunches under his boots as he retreats up the pier, and blends in easily with the crowds.